• 16 Posts
  • 428 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • For reference: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/10307

    ©False information in registering or voting; penalties Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.




  • We know that Twitter and Facebook interfered in the election by suppressing documents and information that would have hurt Joe Biden — think Hunter Biden’s laptop, the lack of scientific basis for COVID-19 restrictions and everything in between. It isn’t really a stretch to think that Republican speech was being suppressed in other ways across social media platforms.

    But there has been a profound change in social media since the last presidential election. Elon Musk, a strong proponent of free speech, took control of Twitter/X in 2022, and as for Facebook, the discovery of its cover-ups most certainly has put a much harsher spotlight on it this time around.

    What the fuck is this drivel?






  • The #1 pain point for pollsters is the prediction of the election demographics.

    Polls and statistics are such that a general simple random sample has too little power / weak error bounds (I’m talking like +/-10%, nearly useless).

    The easiest way to improve your error bounds is to make assumptions about the electorate makeup. IE: if you know the election will be 50% male and 50% female, you can poll 50 men and 50 women (rather than 100 random people, which might end up as 60 men and 40 women due to randomness).

    Lather rinse repeat for other groupings (Latino, Asians, black, 18Y olds, 55Y olds, Rural, Urban, etc. etc.) and you get the gist of how this all works.

    Alas: the male / female vote this year is completely worked because abortion is on the ballot. All pollsters know this. Their numbers are crap because the methodology is crap this year. It’s impossible to predict women turnout.






  • Puerto Rico has no electoral votes. But everyone born in Puerto Rico is a US Citizen.

    Meaning Puerto Ricans who are currently living stateside (ex: studying at a university and staying enough months of the year to qualify for residency) can vote.


    Similarly, a… Californian… who is living in Puerto Rico has no electoral votes. Because USA assigns votes by land.

    Every Puerto Rican is a USA citizen who has the right to vote. As long as they’re living in the correct area (ie: inside the 50 fully accepted states).






  • Oil futures were down. Not actual oil.

    An oil future in WTI makes you legally obligated to pickup the oil in West Texas or along its pipe network (most common pickup point is Arkansas IIRC).

    So let’s say you bought an oil future for $0 at $0 a barrel. And now 10,000 barrels of oil are waiting for pickup. And let’s say you are a New York speculator and not actually someone with storage.

    How do you get rid of the contract before you are penalized? Well, you sell it at -$10. But the guy who bought it for -$10 was also a New York speculator who thought the price couldn’t go any lower.

    By the end of the day, the speculators were selling the contract for -$40 a barrel, because the penalty for missing the pickup date is very heavy.

    Eventually, some trucker ‘Bought’ the contract at -$40 and made free money as the trucker just had to go there and pick up the oil.