Politics Thread!

[gravy]

A career awaits if ERNIE ever conks out, zip.

I won't hold my breath waiting.

If you think I'm random, you haven't read the works of this guy:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=39264

00=10=2

I can't imagine any notation in which 00 = 10

10 is apparently binary, so 10 = 2 makes perfect sense, but is there a notation in which 2 can be represented as "00" ?

Yeah

2 character zeros

[zip accident]

A career awaits if ERNIE ever conks out, zip.

I won't hold my breath waiting.

If you think I'm random, you haven't read the works of this guy:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=39264

00=10=2

I can't imagine any notation in which 00 = 10

10 is apparently binary, so 10 = 2 makes perfect sense, but is there a notation in which 2 can be represented as "00" ?

Yeah

2 character zeros

Yeah, maybe, but does that make "000" = 6?

Because he does that.

I could just be out of my depth on this one.

[Absolute_Zero]

Code: Select all

Nut  Bin  Dec
  0    0    0
  1    1    1
_00   10    2
_01   11    3
_10  100    4
_11  101    5
000  110    6
001  111    7
010 1000    8
011 1001    9
100 1010   10

He's neglected to count the necessary cr/lf that marks the encoding length in the bit-stream of base 'Nut'.

Congratulations, you've found a idiot on the internet.

('scuse the '_' characters that I needed to make the columns align properly... why?!?)

Meanwhile, in a politics thread speeding north...

[pogo]

Worth posting the local, i.e. Durham, result which is now in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21840009

Labour +24
Independent -1
Lib Dems -16
Tories -7

Durham was the only Labour-held council to face election this time (Labour won two others). The Lib Dems have been massacred, losing 64% of their seats, and have lost their position as the second biggest party to independents. I would think independents are mostly on the left (difficult to tell unless one's in your area). UKIP didn't get a single seat (they did field candidates).

The obvious point is this may be an indication of how the vote will go in other Labour-held areas, either locally or nationally; Labour strengthening its hold, the Lib Dems doing very badly. No move to the right at all.

But it's important not to read too much into this. When the general election rolls around people won't remember these council results. They matter a lot to the parties at the time, and it's ideal content for 24-hour news channels, but they will be soon forgotten. The only local elections that will matter in 2015 will be the ones held at the same time as the national election.

[zip accident]

Code: Select all

Nut  Bin  Dec
  0    0    0
  1    1    1
_00   10    2
_01   11    3
_10  100    4
_11  101    5
000  110    6
001  111    7
010 1000    8
011 1001    9
100 1010   10

He's neglected to count the necessary cr/lf that marks the encoding length in the bit-stream of base 'Nut'.

Still doesn't make any sense to me.

Congratulations, you've found a idiot on the internet.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, in a politics thread speeding north...

Just happy not to be the internets' biggest idiot.

Worth posting the local, i.e. Durham, result which is now in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21840009

Labour +24
Independent -1
Lib Dems -16
Tories -7.

In Bristol, however, the greens won some seats:

Labour 28 +7
Liberal Democrat 23 -10
Conservative 14 +/-0
Green Party 4 +2
Independent 1 +1

[pogo]

Again, Labour winning at the expense of the Lib Dems. Looking at the individual results there seem to be a mix: some Labour gains from the Lib Dems, some UKIP gains from the Tories, and some Labour gains from the Tories. Nowhere have UKIP gained at the expense of the Lib Dems as far as I can see which may be reassuring for them.

And the Green Party: 22 seats won nationally, up 5 and only 10 more than 'Residents Association'. Not exactly a breakthrough for them.

[Dio]

but then I only went to the booth once

That reminds me of when my mum went on the council, many years ago. A couple of days after she was elected, my dad picked up the phone. "Mr. Oldcorn?" "Yes?" "I was delighted to hear that your wife was elected to the council." "Well, we all were." "I myself voted for her fourteen times." <pause> "Well... what you've done is definitely illegal. But thank you very much." <Hangs up quickly>

[Absolute_Zero]

Code: Select all

Nut  Bin  Dec
  0    0    0
  1    1    1
_00   10    2
_01   11    3
_10  100    4
_11  101    5
000  110    6
001  111    7
010 1000    8
011 1001    9
100 1010   10

He's neglected to count the necessary cr/lf that marks the encoding length in the bit-stream of base 'Nut'.

Still doesn't make any sense to me.

It shouldn't make sense to anyone. His nutty, so-called compression, uses variable length codes sans any means to infer or mark the boundaries. e.g. you read '00' from a device: is that to represent 0, 0, (two tokens valued 0) or 00, (one token valued 2)? There are no proverbial commas in his scheme.

FWIW Huffman coding.

[Dio]

Actually the most interesting potential effects may be on the coalition. How far right can Cameron move and keep the Libdems on board? And will he be thinking this is a good thing, or bad?

[pogo]

He's already moved far to the right on immigration, the hot button issue for UKIP. The problem he has though is there's only so much he can do while we're in the EU because of free movement of people. So the screw's being tightened on the minority of immigrants from outside the EU. Immigration is down but that's mostly to do with the state of the economy. If we had a strong recovery then immigration would rise and there's little the government could do. Or should do.

It's all very sad, IMHO. Fact is immigration is good for this country. Not in vague multicultural ways but in solid economic ways. We had mass immigration when Poland joined the EU and it benefitted the economy. Students contribute billions (economically they do little but spend money on courses, accommodation, local services). Skilled workers from outside the EU come here because they are needed for specialist roles.

People aren't stupid, and if politicians explained to them how immigration benefits the UK they'd understand. A few out-and-out racists might still object but most people are more reasonable.

[merman]

Turnout is around 30% in most places.

UKIP gained a lot of seats here in Lincolnshire, an area where immigration is an issue. Just 683 out of 2000-odd people put the UKIP candidate onto the council in my area (Skegness South), on a turnout of 28%.

Labour did gain 300 seats, control of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and the two mayoral votes. So while the pundits say it is disappointing they did achieve something.

[pogo]

On the supposed success for the right in the council elections, following the debate over Europe it's clear the success is nothing of the sort. UKIP have been going on about how they should now be taken seriously, but what are their key policies?

Immigration. The problem with that is all mainstream parties are hard on immigration. Labour put in place a tough system, keeping us out of Schengen and making it difficult and expensive for people not in the EU to come here. We already e.g. got far fewer Chinese tourists than the rest of Europe (Chinese tourists recently became the top spending set of international tourists, so we're losing out on a lot of visitors and their spending). The Tories have tried to be tougher but it's pretty hard to do more than Labour.

The only way to really reduce immigration would be to get out of Europe, which is the other key UKIP policy. But there are two problems with that. First it's also a Tory policy, or at least they've also committed to holding a referendum. After the next election but that means UKIP won't be able to campaign against the Tories on it. And unlike immigration it's something which really puts voters off, especially when it degenerates into Tory infighting. And once again its the usual suspects (Tebbit, David Davis) that are pushing for an earlier referendum. The only party benefitting from this is Labour, not UKIP.

[merman]

On the supposed success for the right in the council elections, following the debate over Europe it's clear the success is nothing of the sort. UKIP have been going on about how they should now be taken seriously, but what are their key policies?

Immigration. The problem with that is all mainstream parties are hard on immigration. Labour put in place a tough system, keeping us out of Schengen and making it difficult and expensive for people not in the EU to come here. We already e.g. got far fewer Chinese tourists than the rest of Europe (Chinese tourists recently became the top spending set of international tourists, so we're losing out on a lot of visitors and their spending). The Tories have tried to be tougher but it's pretty hard to do more than Labour.

The only way to really reduce immigration would be to get out of Europe, which is the other key UKIP policy. But there are two problems with that. First it's also a Tory policy, or at least they've also committed to holding a referendum. After the next election but that means UKIP won't be able to campaign against the Tories on it. And unlike immigration it's something which really puts voters off, especially when it degenerates into Tory infighting. And once again its the usual suspects (Tebbit, David Davis) that are pushing for an earlier referendum. The only party benefitting from this is Labour, not UKIP.

The great big black hole in UKIP's spending plans should be something the other parties point out vociferously. And you can't just stop all immigration, as it provides the staff in many industries. You can't have cheap fruit & veg in supermarkets without the migrant workers, for example...

[Jimaroid]

Probably a good time to resurrect this thread, considering one of the most significant [victories | losses] for a government's foreign policy in general living memory last night.

Where do we even begin?

Cameron fucked by rebels. Miliband in a pathetic move to save his own leadership. Clegg... well, nobody knows what Clegg was doing, seemingly not even his own self.

Assad must be feeling a very happy lunatic this morning.

[Dio]

It's still less of a mess than Syria itself is.

After last time's debacle any attempt to move forward before the inspectors' report - next week, FFS, it's hardly waiting for Christmas - was doomed to failure and Cameron should have realised it. Now he's ended up in a position where even if the report directly fingers Assad then he has to look like an eejit to go back and undo it.

He should have kept his powder dry until next week and he'd have had a chance.