Actually, it's more like a big blob of wibbley wobbley, timey wimey.... stuff.

Yeah, I laughed at a WP article about someone convicted of vote buying. The end of the article had a quote from one of the vote sellers saying he just voted how he wanted anyway and pocketed the cash. Another "sold" his vote to both sides.

FYI, even the inside of the booth is not safe. At least in MD if you are "unable" to vote alone you can bring almost ANYONE into the booth with you by both signing an affidavit that they aren't your boss nor a candidate for office. And poll workers can't question it. Of course for a vote buyer to use this as confirmation is WAY more inefficient and ineffective as your church example and leaves a paper trail. Now on an individual basis, with an over-controlling spouse, say.....

This is also the reason why giving people "receipts" to "prove" their electronic vote was counted is moronic. (Show me your receipt for my favored candidate and get X$, not lose your job, etc.)

In the off chance that the popular vote is extremely close, votes in a "locked" state can help prevent a favored candidate from winning the EC but not the popular vote, which would prevent them from having a "mandate" with its associated political clout. So it is not 100% wasted.

You obviously haven't played BL. I don't even think there is an achievement for beating it without dying because I don't think they considered the possibility. Probably only slightly easier than beating nethack.

Heir to the Empire trilogy by Timothy Zahn. There is still an entire Empire filled with grey-uniform-wearing Generals with Start Destroyers at their disposal. Sometimes cutting off the head creates a whole mess. It wasn't all cheering on Coruscant the day DS2 got blowed up, despite what you see in the remastered films.

Wasn't Mara a redhead? YoSafBrig had some moves on her. Just say'n.

I'd hope at least for the Thrawn (a.k.a. Heir to the Empire) trilogy by Timothy Zahn. He was an already established writer, and the "pilot program" that showed Lucas it was OK to let other writers into his pristine universe. Of course then Lucas realized he could make boat loads of cash and let any dingbat write a new trilogy--to the point where now Star Wars usually gets an entire rack in the bookstore, just like all that Star Trek rubbish, leaving just one rack for the real Sci Fi.

I tell people I am the evil twin.

I preferred Sim City's [industrial] thingamajig.

But that's not how it ends! The Emperor strings the little imp up by his little boy toes for pointing out that he was not wearing any clothes! That teaches naughty little boys to point out the truth when the opposite has been "certified" and "accredited" by those selling you your new duds.

Enlightenment was ahead of its time. College roommate pointed me at it over twelve (!) years ago for my first Linux system build. Multiple, panning desktops, alpha blending, Eplits, oh my.

When I was forced from Mandrake 3 (?) to Mandrake 10.1 about five years ago it was such a downer: fighting to keep Gnome's grubby paws off the window manager that I loved. Nothing like four desktops with unique backgrounds that Gnome wanted to draw its faux background over top of; having to find a (pro-KDE) hate site to learn the obscure config setting to disable it. Looking to make a new box soon and will be putting Bodhi on the short list.

Only someone with a p-brane would think that was funny.

Also, Cryptonomicon suffered from "don't know how to end it, so it just stops in the last few pages" even more so than Snow Crash. He's getting better, but he still needs to learn how to write an ending. Anathem probably was his best effort at a decent ending. Reamde had that stupid cat.

His books are "story, as a string of awesome anecdotes." I mean, anyone who can go on for pages about how to eat Captain Crunch cereal......

Why not Tiger Woods for Hiro? "Hiro" was the first thing I though back in the day when Tiger was just becoming known.