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November 2

New York presidential electors

Hello. The state of New York, joins the other states that punish faithless electors, with a special law. However, I can't understand one thing: presidential electors, (this year there will be 28), cast their pro-forma vote on a ballot, with the candidates' names already written on the same ballot, and so they don't have to do anything else; to cast their vote, they simply have to put it in a ballot box. But if so, since they cannot change their vote, what is the point of binding the presidential electors themselves? Unless the ballot changes: we shall see. Thank you. 93.150.80.20 (talk) 14:37, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That they don't have to do anything else does not imply they can't do anything else. They could scratch out the written names and write in other names before putting the ballot they were handed in the ballot box. Or they might come in prepared with an alternative ballot in hand and put that one in the ballot box. --Lambiam 19:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They could also refuse to sign. Because so many states are pre-printing the ballots, it is easier to wait until the last moment and refuse to sign than to try and trick the system with a different vote. So, the point of binding the electors is to make sure you have people who will not make a spectacle of the process at the last moment unless they agree to the punishment for doing do. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 12:31, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Font to ID

I'm trying my hand at learning vector drawing and I figured I would try cleaning up some WP images that need vectorization. Does anyone know what font is being used in the image here? The user that initially uploaded it is no longer active. Thanks! Matt Deres (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind. It's Impact. Matt Deres (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sweet sweet anachronism —Tamfang (talk) 01:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding notable topic choosing

What is a good notable topic? Everything has already been written about. NoBrainFound (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Given that determining notability is a major (and initial) part of the work of creating an article, it is unlikely that many people have spent time finding notable subjects and then not gone on to create the article.

Requested articles is a place where people have made suggestions; but in most cases they have done nothing to determine whether the subject is notable.

Your question takes me back to nearly twenty years ago, when I was a new editor, and desperately looking for a topic that I could write an article about to "make my mark" on Wikipedia. Since then I have learnt that creating articles is not the only way to improve Wikipedia. We have hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of seriously deficient articles that are crying out for keen editors to improve them (or in some cases, nominate them for deletion). For some strange reason, not many editors seem to want to spend their time in this way (and I don't much, either: I mostly spend my Wikipedia time on the help and reference desks, helping other editors). ColinFine (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments." Frontinus (c. 40–103 AD)

"In this field [physics], almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Philipp von Jolly, 1878. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:59, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, Frontinus' words are discussed here and translated very differently: "Having set aside siegeworks and siege engines, because their discovery was completed long ago (so I attend no further to any material from those arts)...". --Antiquary (talk) 08:48, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know the level at which you can contribute, but there are many notable topics on which we do not have an article. One example is pseudospin, a concept used in the description of the quantum state of two-level systems. One readable treatment can be found here; a different approach to introducing the concept can be seen here. It would probably be best to start with a relatively simple stub article. We already have an article on the Bloch sphere and a redirect from Bloch vector to that article. --Lambiam 08:41, 3 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are many chemical compounds that don't have an article. Even simple salts are missing. Take a table. Insert cations. (Quarternary ammonium cations are infinite). Take another table. Insert anions. (Carboxylic acid anions are infinite). Combine an anion with a cation. For every pair check if article exists. If yes take another pair. If an article doesn't exist look for literature. If literature exists write article. If literature doesn't exist search for some chemist who is willing to synthesize the salts and publish literature about it. Then take that literature and write an article about it. 176.4.186.61 (talk) 12:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]