The Death of the Mind

A developer came to me a week ago with a project they’d been working on for over a year. The proposition of what they offered and the importance of what it would mean to historical software at Internet Archive was so compelling that within 48 hours, we’d announced it to the world. The site is DISCMASTER.TEXTFILES.COM, and within its stacks lie multitudes of previously hidden software treasure, and a directed search engine that makes it a top-notch research tool. More than a fascinating site, though, it represents some philosophies regarding the Archive’s stacks that are worth exploring as well. The first thing that strikes a visitor to the site is either how strange, or…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://blog.archive.org/2022/10/24/the-rise-of-discmaster/

On October 21, the Alaska Supreme Court issued its opinion in Kohlhaas v state. The opinion is unanimous and is 57 pages. It explains why it had ruled on January 19, 2022, that the top-four initiative is constitutional. The oral argument had been on January 18, and the next day the court had said the initiative is constitutional and that it would explain later. Now it has issued its explanation.
The most interesting part of the decision is the Court’s criticism of the Maine Supreme Court’s 2017 decision that had held that ranked choice voting violates the Maine Constitution, as applied to state office. Maine still lacks ranked choice voting for state office, in general elections (but…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/10/22/alaska-supreme-court-explains-why-top-four-initiative-is-constitutional/

In 1938 a farmer grew pumpkins with realistic human faces. The pumpkins of John M. Czeski beat any Jack-O-Lantern I’ve seen. He created these fabulous pumpkin heads by placing an aluminum mold around a growing pumpkin. The pumpkin would  take the shape of the mold until it grew into a human-like face. — Read the rest

External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2022/10/23/in-1938-a-farmer-grew-pumpkins-with-realistic-human-faces.html

One of my favorite layers to route with pgRouting is the water layer. I am interested
in where water comes from, where it goes, where runoff happens,
and how urban development interacts with this powerful force
of nature. The OpenStreetMap water layer, however,
presents a challenge when routing with PostGIS and pgRouting: Polygons.
Why are polygons a challenge? A routing network using pgRouting is built
from lines (edges).
Now, to state the obvious: polygons are not lines.
Real world waterway networks are made up of both lines and polygons.
Rivers, streams, and drainage routes are predominately (but not exclusively!)
mapped using lines. These lines feed into and out of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. The following animation shows how much impact the water polygons
can have on a…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/5rb

North Carolina law says the State Board of Elections is composed of five members, all of whom must be a registered member of one of the two largest parties. The major party that holds the governorship gets three members, and the other large party gets two members. UPDATE: see this story.
For some time, independent voters and their allies have been trying to win a lawsuit that says it violates the U.S. Constitution that an independent can never be on the board. The first such lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed, and a new lawsuit was filed by Common Cause earlier this year. The State officials who are being sued filed a brief on October 14, arguing that the…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://ballot-access.org/2022/10/18/north-carolina-files-brief-in-lawsuit-over-composition-of-state-board-of-elections/

Recent polls suggest that the Democrats’ sidelining of economic issues to go all in on the Capitol riot hasn’t borne fruit. While voters are most concerned about inflation, they think the party’s main priority is January 6, which barely registers.
The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol on June 16, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) When the Democrats embarked on their January 6 media extravaganza earlier this year, there were two schools of thought.
If you read more Democratic-friendly press outlets, the series of sometimes-prime-time hearings were all part of a canny electoral strategy to fire up the party’s base, while also…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobin.com/2022/10/democrats-january-6-hearings-capitol-riot-polls-economy-inflation/

Biden’s Labor Department has proposed an employment rule that would
classify the drivers of Uber and Lyft as employees.

This would be a big step forward for employee’s rights, but it won’t
do anything about the injustice of Uber and Lyft to the passengers:
making them nonfree software (an app) and identify themselves
(enabling surveillance). This should be forbidden.

So I will continue to get into an Uber or Lyft car. I go out of my
way to get a real taxi that I can board anonymously and pay with cash.
Or I take a bus. Or I walk.

In some places, such as New York City, even taxis are part of a
surveillance machine. A cab driver there told me that all NYC taxis
are…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2022-jul-oct.html#16_October_2022_(Proposed_rule_to_classify_Uber_and_Lyft_drivers_as_employees)