#17 - Irish Voting, Dystopian Fashion & Non-consec Heads of Gov
+ Why I'm Not Scared of Shitty AI š¤
Back in London and back to good old āHelloā š
This city Iāve called home for just about a decade has grated on my nerves so much in the past few years that, in a peculiar twist, is now the place I look forward to staying in after Iāve been away for a long timeā¦
Iāll explain the contradiction: the many shortcomings of London allow me to spend most of my time in my man cave (or the gym šš»āāļø) and not feel the slightest bit of FOMO or yearning to go out, etc. Hence the perfect place to get deep work done. šØš»āš»
But one should still enjoy their āhome baseā, even if itās an expensive oversized grey piece of shit š For me (and some friends) that enjoyment clearly isnāt there anymore, so Iām working towards a big1 move. š¤«
Let me know if youāre also thinking of changing your home base or adding a new āhubā of living.
Moving on, hereās a piece of wisdom from Silicon Valleyās kingmaker, Paul Graham:2
Use the advantages of youth when you have them, and the advantages of age once you have those. The advantages of youth are energy, time, optimism, and freedom. The advantages of age are knowledge, efficiency, money, and power. With effort you can acquire some of the latter when young and keep some of the former when old.
The old also have the advantage of knowing which advantages they have. The young often have them without realizing it. The biggest is probably time.
š³ Random Rabbit Hole
The Complex Electoral System of Ireland
Ireland uses a system of proportional representation (PR) with each voter having a single transferable vote (STV).
ā If youāre not in the mood for reading, just jump to the video at the end š ā
Voters can choose to vote for as many, or as few candidates as they like, in order of their preference. A voterās first preference vote is most important and always counted.
A voterās second (and further preferences) may be counted if their preferred candidate is eliminated at the end of a counting round, or elected with a surplus. These are known as transfers.
In DƔil and European election constituencies, the number of seats can be 3, 4 or 5. It can be up to 7 for local elections.
DĆ”il Ćireann, meaning āAssembly of Irelandā, is the lower house of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature). It consists of 160 members, each known as a Teachta DĆ”la and abbreviated as a āTDā in English.
But how does it work?
Well first the ballot boxes are counted to determine the ātotal valid pollā, which is the total number of votes minus the number of spoilt papers.
Then the āquotaā is calculated on the basis of the total valid poll. The quota is the number that, if reached, guarantees the election of a candidate.
So for example, in a 4-seat constituency with a total valid poll of 25,000, the quota is: 25,000 divided by 5 (1 more than the number of seats), plus 1. So itās 5,001. This means if 4 people get 5,001 votes, itās impossible for a 5th as there are only 4,996 votes left.
Then comes the āsurplus distributionāā¦
But Iām sure youāre already bored of the maths so hereās a great video that explains it āŖ using š“ a š famous š” sweet š¢ chocolatey šµ snack š£
(Thanks to my mate Conal for the video)
š¤© Aesthetics
Dystopian Techwear
Since last year Iāve gotten quite into ātechwearā and the other day I was casually browsing my fave dystopian subgenre brands Guerilla-Group, Hamcus and Demobaza. The latterās display really caught my eye and thought you might like to scroll through it a bit too š
š¤ Tech Experiment
Why You Shouldnāt Trust a Shitty LLM
While we in Britain have had many prime ministers serving non-consecutive terms, the US has had only one such presidentā¦
Ok letās keep that there for a second.
Before continuing, I was interested to find out exactly how many prime ministers weāve had with non-consecutive terms.
I thought ChatGPT could save me some time.
Its first answer was 3.
3?! I can name six just off the top of my head. And it managed to miss out important figures such Churchill, Disraeli and Pitt the Younger. š¤¦š»āāļø
I kept telling it had missed this one and that one (4 times), and in the end gave me a new list of 8ā¦ so it managed to find just 1 extra by itself. š¤¦š»āāļø And still so wrong.
Seth Godin recently wrote about how heās completely supplanted Google Search with Perplexity and while Iād since done a few queries with both LLMs, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a decisive comparison.
Perplexity gave me a list of 7, but missed a few of ChatGPTās. Better but still shit.
But wait, I did another test which took the š© to another level! šØ
I asked this time who was the 1st British prime minister with non-consec termsā¦
ChatGPT said it was William Pitt the Younger.
In its first list of 3, and final list, it had William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland3 as the first entry.
I had told it about Pitt the Younger, who actually succeeded Portland and was thus the second entry.
So, even in its own woefully incomplete list, it canāt retrieve the first entryā¦
Perplexity said it was William Gladstone.
In its list, it had Gladstone as the second entry (after, amusingly, Pitt the Younger)
So this one canāt retrieve its own first entry either, butā¦
What the FUCK is this shit?!?! š
The longest in Major?! The shortest is Theresa May?! The hilarity there being that hopeless Liz Truss, who was PM for 49 days, is named above.
But then sheās the oldest at appointment?! You donāt need to even bother with figures to know how wrong that isā¦
So not only do I really dislike the extra snippets Perplexity generates which crowd the screen, they can be abysmally nonsensical.
In conclusion, as much as I admire Seth, Iām definitely not [completely] swapping out good old hyperlink exploring for āeasyā LLM puke anytime soon.
And if you dear reader, trust a random black-box as your sole source, you might end up believing this was why our great PM was called āPitt the Youngerā:
š History
The Only Non-consecutive US President
Right, where was I? Ah yes, while in Britain weāve had many prime ministers serving non-consecutive terms (reply/comment if youāre keen to know how many š), the US has had only one such president.
And that man was Grover Cleveland, who served as the 22nd (1885-1889) and 24th (1893-1897) president.
Cleveland was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War, and was one of two Democratic presidents, followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912, in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1869 and 1933 (until FDR).
The big question is, will Cleveland stay the only one, or will he soon be joined by The Donald? š
šŗ Random Internet Video
Hat tip to Recomendo for this interesting No Comment video on El Salvadorās transfer of 2000 gang member inmates to the mega prison in Tecoluca.
With capacity for 40,000 inmates, the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) is the largest prison in Latin America and one of the largest in the world by prisoner capacity.
š¶ Music
This super-famous track shuffled on as I was writing this issue and helped me continue when I didnāt feel like it. Not sure if itās the same for you, but it always hits me with a bit of melancholic catharsis. š
Funnily enough, I heard it the first time in the āYouāre Getting Oldā episode of South Park, in one of the more mature segments when Stan is growing up, his parents are separating and his new cynicism makes him see everything as literal š© lol. You can watch that bit here.
Before you goā¦
If you enjoyed todayās post, please could you SHARE it with ONE friend, family or colleague? ā¤ļø It would mean so much, THANKS!
Thanks for reading, and remember, always dance with the one that brung ya!
Prince š¦
I say ābigā but nothing in life seems so big to me anymore š¤·š»āāļø
Excerpted from the essay How to Do Great Work
This mf held a title for every degree of British nobility: Duke, Marquess (of Titchfield), Earl (of Portland), Viscount (Woodstock), and Baron (Cirencester).