Grandparent doesn't have a clue what chess is about. Anyone who thinks chess is just memorizing openings has never played it seriously. I spent about ten years playing in tournaments, getting up to a USCF expert rating, and never found it necessary to memorize much beyond a couple of move. Most games diverge from anything resembling any other recognizable game within the first 5 to 10 moves, after which the real fun starts. Strategy, tactics, positional play, endgames - this is a really wonderfully complicated game that most people can't handle, so they try to put it down as "memoization" (sic) or "a solved game". If you don't like it, that's fine, but you shouldn't try to comment on things you don't understand.

Remember, each game of chess means there's one less mistake to be made. :)

Getting a 10% commission on every book sold for that Kindle seems like a good deal for the bookseller. Note that they don't have to sell the book to the Kindle owner themselves.

Of course, the cynical response to this proposal would be "what independent bookstores?". Not many of them are left, so the few survivors might as well get what they can out of this.

It may have been "started by locals", but it quickly became a national cause. The anti-Morse campaign was funded by $500K of anonymous outside money by some organization that wasn't required to file campaign statements - sounds like the Koch brothers greasy fingerprints to me. If you live in Colorado Springs (as I do) you would find it obvious that the recall proponents were well-funded, since we got bombarded by negative anti-Morse ads. Morse lost by only about 350 votes (out of about 15000), so the Kochs actually spent over $1000 for each decisive vote. Since the turnout was so low, the activist loonies got a much larger share of influence - most of the Democratic side wasn't really engaged enough to bother voting in this off-year off-cycle election, hence the 20% turnout.

Fixed it for you.

Contrary to your misconceptions, this recall was about controlling the Colorado state Senate and threatening legislators, not just about gun rights. Also, the "grass roots" recall of Senate President John Morse drew only a 20% turnout, there were more petition signatures to put it on the ballot than votes to recall in the actual election, and about $100 spent by outside donors for every vote actually cast.

For my family, the biggest front-end problem is getting rejected for Medicaid. Once that's done (and it's required to get the tax credit), the rest should be simple, but the Medicaid application is blocking the road forward like a fallen tree at this point.

Or there's (c) - turn off your phone before you start painting or mowing or whatever.

Try the UC Berkeley administration in response to the student Free Speech movement in 1965. Backlash against this movement propelled Ronald Reagan to a political career, and half a century later, well, here we are.

Once per lifetime, or anytime a vegetarian requests it?

Back on topic, I had an allergic reaction to sodium thiopental during a surgery as a kid. I'm kind of happy (in a selfish way) that I won't be given it in the future.

IMO, capital punishment should be banned on grounds of practicality. It has large costs (including the anesthetic shortage) and few benefits (arguably it isn't even a deterrence, as it isn't reliably carried out).

Which, on looking deeper at the BLS info, represents only about a third of IT workers.

So they looked at the two lowest-paying job categories out of the 8 defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and drew conclusions about the education levels of other six. Hmmm, maybe that's not the best approach...

It never ends well.

Should I count the software in my car also? That would probably drive the percentage to near zero. I said 50% because I spend so much time using Firefox and cygwin, but on Windows. I generously allowed Microsoft 50% for their contribution to the ecosystem.

Yes, businesses can evade all the regulations via fraud. So what?

Are the Feds going to stop harassing banks that accept marijuana businesses as customers? Currently, medical dispensaries have to operate as cash-only businesses, which leaves them vulnerable to robberies.