Did you read what I said?

Of course a third party isn't a viable candidate *now*, and of course they're not going to win *this* election, but if they get 10% of the vote in the next election don't you think that would be news? How about 20%? 30%?

Every extra vote for a third party is an extra grain of sand on the scales in people's minds. A big enough pile and it starts to tip from "voting for a third party is taking away from the potential winner" to "voting for a third party might be the only way to get some real change".

How huge would the headlines be if a Libertarian candidate won a Senate seat?

You need to take a longer term view. Your vote serves to do more than simply help that candidate win that election. It also serves to increase (however slightly) the profile of that candidate, and by extension the party. Every vote that goes to a third party is one that helps further the belief that a third party candidate is viable.

"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now."

Guess we should have regularly checked with city hall...

And before someone else points it out, yes I meant "keeping society safe from criminals". First cup of coffee, yadda yadda.

Yes. I hold both these beliefs. The justice system is not about blame, it's about keeping criminals safe from society and (in my mind) rehabilitating them.

You would never blame a computer for a programmer's error, but you would try to fix the bugs, and if there was a dangerous bug you couldn't fix you wouldn't use that computer.

1/640 kb should be enough for anybody!

A quantum leap refers to a change that's so significant that it doesn't bear any resemblance to the previous state of affairs. That is, it went from state A to state Z without crossing the intervening (state) space.

Hence, quantum.

Interesting. I honestly thought there would be no legal problem with doing that...

Though it raises the question of how many levels of indirection are required before it becomes legal. What if I have no idea where to buy drugs, but I just point you to someone who knows where to go?

What if I just point you to the general area?

Seems like a cool idea, until you realise that having 4 characters in your party, all of whom need to eat, sleep, and shit at differing times, makes it really difficult to actually PLAY THE GAME. The last thing I want to do when levelling up before that boss fight is make 14 extra trips back to base so my guys can take a dump.

Why did The Sims stop being fun for you?