• 1 Post
  • 124 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 17th, 2023
  • Cyborganism@lemmy.catoTechnology@lemmy.world•Arizona toddler rescued after getting trapped in a Tesla with a dead battery | The Model Y’s 12-volt battery, which powers things like the doors and windows, diedEnglish
    171·
    10 days ago

    My 1998 Honda Civic SE hatchback was all manual. Manual windows with the canks, manual door locks, manual steering (no power steering), no braking assist, no assist of ANY kind in fact, and a manual transmission. It was basically an engine, four wheels and a steering wheel.

    If EV manufacturers could make cars that are closer to my old Civic, with the only difference being the engine being swapped for an electric motor, I would switch in a heartbeat. For now I’ll stick with my 2010 Mazda 3, which I barely use except for the occasional trip to my family or friends who are out of the city or to do my groceries once a week. Until cars start using manual controls for essentials like door handles and locks, audio systems and temperature control, I want none of it.

    I’m already having trouble with touch screen tablets when I’m not driving, let alone when I need to focus on the damn road.

  • Cyborganism@lemmy.catoNot The Onion@lemmy.world•House Republicans Propose Renaming Oceans After Donald TrumpEnglish
    14·
    18 days ago

    The ballots, themselves, became an issue of contention. The visually confusing paper punch-card “butterfly ballot,” in which two columns of candidate names were separated by a middle column with marks to be punched through, was blamed for some Gore votes going to Pat Buchanan due to a misalignment of the names and marks.

    And then some of those marks failed to get properly punched through.

    “Some counties in Florida used a card-punch system for voting,” Busch says. “Voters would get a card with little perforated squares that lined up with names on the ballot. They would position a card puncher over the square belonging to the candidate they wanted and would push it through the square, creating a hole that would be read by a vote-counting machine. The little square that is supposed to be knocked out is called the ‘chad.’”

    At issue: Some holes were not completely punched out of the ballots. “A chad that was not punched out all the way—i.e. was still hanging by one, two or even three corners to the ballot—was called a ‘hanging chad.’” Busch says. “Election officials had to devise standards by which to count the ballots with hanging chads. Do you count it as a valid vote as long as there is some evidence that a voter tried to cast a vote? Do you only count it if three of the four corners are knocked out? Something in between? No consistent standard was developed, which was a key issue in Bush v. Gore.”

    Source: https://www.history.com/news/2000-election-bush-gore-votes-supreme-court

    I didn’t know about this hanging chads thing. Thanks for mentioning it. Now I understand what the fuss was all about back then.