[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

"Voter ID" refers to the fact that the voter must have an ID card. You can use any ID and some ID-like documents as well (such as a firearms license). In states where these laws are in place, voters who do not possess an ID card or passport book when they go to the polling station will not be allowed to vote. The part I highlight is that there are no acceptable ID cards for voting that can be easily obtained free of charge. Some states that have voter ID laws will allow people to obtain a "voter identity certificate" that can be used to vote, however, obtaining one usually requires a trip to the motor vehicle agency.

This is a voter suppression tactic. The goal is to make it more difficult for people whose political leanings you want to discriminate against to vote. In all cases in the US, these tactics are used against left-leaning voters or those who live in left-leaning areas. A common voter suppression scheme usually has these properties:

  1. You must register to vote. This involves filling out a form and submitting it to the local elections authority. In some states, you cannot submit the form electronically and must send it by post to the elections office.
  2. People who register to vote but don't vote will have their registrations cancelled and must register again. Voters who vote for right-leaning parties generally vote every single election so this will not affect them as much.
  3. Polling stations are open for one day during normal working hours (usually 09:00 to 18:00). The goal is to make it difficult for people who have to work during these hours to vote. Election day is always on a Tuesday and is not a public holiday.
  4. Postal voting is restricted. You must apply to receive a postal ballot and provide an excuse as to why you cannot vote in person. The elections office can reject your application if they do not like your excuse. Left-leaning voters generally prefer postal voting while right-leaning voters prefer to vote in person, thus the goal is to make postal voting harder.
  5. The number of polling stations are reduced in large cities because large cities generally vote for left-leaning politicians and parties.
  6. All election material is published in English only. Citizens who do not speak English and only speak another language typically are left-leaning and thus the goal is to make it more difficult for them to vote.
  7. You must bring an acceptable identity document to vote
    1. State-issued ID cards can be obtained from the motor vehicle agency. The motor vehicle agency offices are deliberately located far away from minority neighbourhoods and are only open during normal working hours. The queues are also very long, meaning it is an all-day affair to obtain an ID card. The purpose is to discriminate against the poor, who are less likely to be able to take a day off to go obtain one. There is also a fee to obtain an ID card.
    2. Passports and passport cards can be obtained by post but cost a lot to obtain if you haven't had one before (165 USD for passport book or 65 USD for passport card). Poor people tend to lean left and generally don't have a passport because they can't afford international travel.
    3. Military ID cards are acceptable. This voter group happens to lean right.
    4. The elderly are allowed to use expired documents. This voter group happens to lean right.
    5. Student ID cards issued by universities are not acceptable. This voter group happens to lean left.
    6. Firearms licenses are acceptable. This voter group happens to lean right.
  8. Electoral boundaries are drawn by the legislature to favour one political party.
  9. The election authority can invalidate ballots for trivial reasons (e.g. the square next to the candidate's name is not completely filled in, the voter use the wrong colour ink or used pencil, the voter forgot to write the date next to their signature on a postal ballot, a ballot punched by a machine did not fully punch through the paper, etc.)
  10. The ballot design is deliberately confusing.
  11. The legislature reserves the right to overturn election results if they believe fraud has occurred. This action cannot be challenged in the courts.
[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

I don't mind paying for high-quality journalism but not CNN.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I don't think Google "taking a page" out of the Apple playbook is quite the right analogy. It's more like both companies were reading the same book to begin with—tight control over a market means you can extract more value out of it without needing to worry about competition.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago

Another common W for Steam, but in all seriousness, arbitration clauses in consumer contracts need to be banned.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

"Add to cart"

"Check out"

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

And if you fail the V2, it'll just take your word on it and let you pass anyway.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

Hot take: Global geopolitics within the current rules as we understand it don't allow for countries to genuinely respect each other as equals. Might will always be right on the global stage regardless of whether it should be that way. So when it comes to picking a global hegemon, the United States is really not a terrible choice compared with the alternatives.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

The passport card is legally equivalent to a passport book within the United States. It's also conclusive proof of citizenship (rather than presumptive proof, like a birth certificate).

It's popular in the border regions because it's cheaper than a passport book and can be used to enter Canada or Mexico by car.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

There already exists a national ID card. It's called a passport card and costs $30 to apply for. You can apply by post but it's cumbersome because you need proof of citizenship, a passport photo, and it takes several weeks to receive.

It's called a "passport card" because it's also valid for international travel by land or sea within North America and the Caribbean.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago

.gov and .mil are controlled by the American government and they are reserved for use by American government websites and American military websites respectively.

[-] NateNate60@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

Keep in mind that this is not necessarily a good thing. China's economy is still mostly driven by Government spending and exports rather than consumer demands. The Chinese government would usually prefer the yuan to be weaker as this makes Chinese exports cheaper when denominated in foreign currencies and makes imports more expensive, discouraging domestic consumers from buying foreign goods.

The article does mention this as well, but the yuan's exchange rate isn't a great indicator of the Chinese economy as a whole because the central bank spends a great deal of time manipulating it.

125
submitted 2 weeks ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

At least 40 were killed after missiles struck a tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza Civil Defense officials said. The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas operatives.

(Washington Post gift article, no paywall)

254

"Giving people more viable alternatives to driving means more people will choose not to drive, so there will be fewer cars on the road, reducing traffic for drivers."

Concise, easy to understand, and accurate. I have used it at least a dozen times and it is remarkable how well it works.

Also—

"A bus is about twice as long as a car so it only needs to have four to six passengers on board to be more efficient than two cars."

36

This image is from Google Maps and depicts Maritime Square on Tsing Yi, the island where my grandmother lives. I chose it because I think it is the embodiment of the new millennium Hong Kong urban development.

The entire development is built by the MTR Corporation, a Government-owned publicly traded company that is primarily known for running the Hong Kong metro system of the same name.

The primary attraction of this development is the eponymous Maritime Square Mall, a large five-storey indoor shopping arcade. It is attached to Tsing Yi Station, a metro station on the overground Tung Chung Line and there is a small bus interchange on the ground floor.

The mall has shops including a grocery store, around a dozen restaurants, a Marks & Spencer, bakeries, clothing retailers, electronics stores, a few banks, and some miscellaneous other stores. Notably NOT in the building is a school, otherwise, you might even be able to spend your whole life without leaving it.

There are several towers extending out of the main mall complex which contain hundreds of units of (unaffordable) housing. I think there is a botanical garden on the roof, too. The entrance to these towers is inside the mall, where there's just a lift lobby where you'd expect a shop to be. The lift lobby is closed to the public; a keycard or code is required to enter.

I think it's a similar concept to a 15-minute city, but more like a 15-minute building.

57
submitted 5 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The Pentagon has provided Ukraine with thousands of Iranian-made weapons seized before they could reach Houthi militants in Yemen, U.S. officials said Tuesday. It’s the Biden administration’s latest infusion of emergency military support for Kyiv while a multibillion-dollar aid package remains stalled in the Republican-led House.

The weapons include 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, along with a half-million rounds of ammunition. They were seized from four “stateless vessels” between 2021 and 2023 and made available for transfer to Ukraine through a Justice Department civil forfeiture program targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.

Officials said Iran intended to supply the weapons to the Houthis, who have staged a months-long assault on commercial and military vessels transiting off the Arabian Peninsula. Central Command said the cache is enough to supply rifles to an entire Ukrainian brigade, which vary in size but typically include a few thousand soldiers.

87
submitted 5 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

The Pentagon has provided Ukraine with thousands of Iranian-made weapons seized before they could reach Houthi militants in Yemen, U.S. officials said Tuesday. It’s the Biden administration’s latest infusion of emergency military support for Kyiv while a multibillion-dollar aid package remains stalled in the Republican-led House.

The weapons include 5,000 Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, along with a half-million rounds of ammunition. They were seized from four “stateless vessels” between 2021 and 2023 and made available for transfer to Ukraine through a Justice Department civil forfeiture program targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.

Officials said Iran intended to supply the weapons to the Houthis, who have staged a months-long assault on commercial and military vessels transiting off the Arabian Peninsula. Central Command said the cache is enough to supply rifles to an entire Ukrainian brigade, which vary in size but typically include a few thousand soldiers.

23

Google eats 30% of in-app purchases so I'd like to donate directly if possible.

If there is a way to do this, perhaps add it to the community's sidebar?

63
submitted 6 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
133

and every fifth digit is just put in an odd place

345
submitted 7 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

tl;dr After local news aired the story, Tesla has paid the pie shop $2,000, the cost of ingredients for the cancelled order.

125
submitted 7 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
-26
submitted 7 months ago by NateNate60@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

The jump in distro versions, say, from Fedora 38 to Fedora 39, is not the same as the jump from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It's more like the jump from version 23H2 to 24H2.

Now, I'm sure even most Windows users among those reading will ask "wtf are 23H2 and 24H2"? The answer is that those version numbers are the Windows analogue to the "23.10" at the end of "Ubuntu 23.10". But the difference is that this distinction is invisible to Windows users.

Why?

Linux distros present these as "operating system upgrades", which makes it seem like you're moving from two different and incompatible operating systems. Windows calls them "feature updates". They're presented as a big deal in Linux, whereas on Windows, it's just an unusually large update.

This has the effect of making it seem like Linux is constantly breaking software and that you need to move to a completely different OS every six to nine months, which is completely false. While that might've been true in the past, it is increasingly true today that anything that will run on, say, Ubuntu 22.04 can also run without modification (except maybe for hardcoded version checks/repository names) on Ubuntu 23.10, and will still probably work on Ubuntu 24.04. It's not guaranteed, but neither is it on Windows, and the odds are very good either way.

I will end on the remark that for many distros, a version upgrade is implemented as nothing more than changing the repositories and then downloading the new versions of all the packages present and running a few scripts. The only relevant changes (from the user's perspective) is usually the implementation of new features and maybe a few changes to the UI. In other words, "feature update" describes it perfectly.

15

Still just plain rectangles with text.

view more: next ›

NateNate60

joined 11 months ago