In The Guardian Dambisa Moyo proposes a test to improve the quality of the electorate:

"...why not give all voters a test of their knowledge? This would ensure minimum standards that should lead to higher-quality decision-making by the electorate."

However:

"Of course, such a system would be truly democratic only if everybody had a fair chance of casting their vote. It is vital that those with fewer life opportunities have their say, and we cannot have a system that is skewed against the worst educated..."

So the idea is a test of minimum standards that in some way is not biased against the worst educated? Or that we could only impose such a system once education has improved to the point where is is no longer needed?

Maybe we just need a test to improve the quality of Guardian opinion pieces.

For the service of telling UPS that I'm not in today and so they can save a whole bunch of time and money by not failing to deliver a package they want to charge me $5? This is UPS My Choice.

Here's a different take on the timelapse I posted yesterday (Jupiter from Casini Ranch):

For this version each frame is built from the cumulative maximum pixel value for all the previous frames. So it's like a long exposure with nice star trails (and Jupiter, and at various points a couple of satellites and a plane).

Limantour beach in Point Reyes.

A short 4K UHD timelapse featuring Jupiter rising over the Russian River:

Shot from Casini Ranch near Duncan Mills, California. It's a shame it's not Saturn and Cassini Ranch.

Catfood Earth 3.43 updates the timezone database to 2018e. The big change is that North Korea is moving back to UTC +09 today (May 5, 2018). The time zones layer in Catfood Earth shows the current time in each zone at the top of your screen and color codes each country and region. You can also display a list of specific places (either an included list of major cities or your own custom locations).

Catfood Earth is dynamic desktop wallpaper for Windows that includes day and night time satellite imagery, the terminator between daytime and nighttime, global cloud cover, time zones, political borders, places, earthquakes, volcanoes and weather radar. You can choose which layers to display an how often the wallpaper updates.

Download Catfood Earth.

(Previously, Previously)

910 days ago I vented my frustration at Windows 10 notifications.

Well someone in Redmond must be listening. They 'fixed' it.

The problem was that dismissing a notification did not actually get rid of it. Clicking the little x in the corner just sent it to the Action Center where you could enjoy reading it and dismissing it again.

Like some kind of cargo cult Toyota, Microsoft asked the one why, and changed the little x to an arrow. Now it's more obvious that you're just shuffling the notification around the desktop. Ticket closed. But I still have to handle every fucking notification twice.

Which makes the announcement of the April 2018 Update especially ironic:

"With this update, available as a free download today, you get new experiences that help minimize distractions and make the most of every moment by saving you time. Our hope is that you’ll have more time to do what matters most to you whether that’s to create, play, work, or simply do what you love."

I'm guessing they're all on Macs?

Not only does it know when you're home but the Nest Learning Thermostat also knows when you're nearby. Here's how it works.

You crank up the heat to 70 and walk away. Nest then immediately returns to 62 degrees.

Thinking there must be something screwy with the algorithm you turn it back up to 70. Nest knows that it's in trouble so it displays a comforting message like 'Heat set until 10pm', waits for you to leave and then sets the temperature back to 62 degrees.

Giving up on the learning part you use the app to manually program it to keep the heat on. Nest now uses its WiFi connection to phone the gas company and disconnect your service.

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