German Politics Thread

[Richard W]

As someone with red-green colourblindness, I beg to differ with the suggestion that red and black is a good combination.

I use the red-black distinction in one font to show the spelling of words. For me, this has the good side-effect that the distinction is preserved in monochrome. What could do you suggest I use instead of red to show the difference in spelling?

[bradrn]

As someone with red-green colourblindness, I beg to differ with the suggestion that red and black is a good combination.

I use the red-black distinction in one font to show the spelling of words. For me, this has the good side-effect that the distinction is preserved in monochrome. What could do you suggest I use instead of red to show the difference in spelling?

Generally I find blue easier to see than red. If it must be red, then it has to be somewhat desaturated in order for me to distinguish it from black.

Alternately red coupled with an additional cue is fine: an example both positive and negative is given by the Science website (random example), whose links I used to find almost invisible, but which has recently added an underline making them much easier to distinguish. Of course wavy underlines are standard for spelling errors too.

[Richard W]

As someone with red-green colourblindness, I beg to differ with the suggestion that red and black is a good combination.

I use the red-black distinction in one font to show the spelling of words. For me, this has the good side-effect that the distinction is preserved in monochrome. What could do you suggest I use instead of red to show the difference in spelling?

Generally I find blue easier to see than red. If it must be red, then it has to be somewhat desaturated in order for me to distinguish it from black.

Hm. Nowadays, I have trouble telling dark blue from black, and it's got so bad that I had to disable Ubuntu's default colour-coding of the output of ls in the Gnome-terminal. Time for experimentation.

Alternately red coupled with an additional cue is fine: an example both positive and negative is given by the Science website (random example), whose links I used to find almost invisible, but which has recently added an underline making them much easier to distinguish. Of course wavy underlines are standard for spelling errors too.

These aren't errors. The spellings of Northern Thai /sɛːw/ and /swɛː/ in the approved proposal for encoding the Tai Tham script differ, but the renderings should be identical, with the 'w' below the 's'. This can make it difficult when using a spell checker that suggests alternatives for immediate application, and from English experience I know that even correcting English spelling after the application of a poor choice from suggested corrections can be difficult. (I use English spell-checkers as typo-detectors, and grammar-checkers as a warning of a garden path.) For that reason, I developed a colour-font to let me pick the right word when there is a pair of different spellings that normally render the same.

I have noticed windows use slightly different shapes for Khmer COENG DA and COENG TA, but I don't like that approach. Historically, it's arguable that COENG DA was replaced by COENG TA early in the 20th century. (I've yet to find out what actually happened in Pali and Sanskrit.)

[bradrn]

I use the red-black distinction in one font to show the spelling of words. For me, this has the good side-effect that the distinction is preserved in monochrome. What could do you suggest I use instead of red to show the difference in spelling?

Generally I find blue easier to see than red. If it must be red, then it has to be somewhat desaturated in order for me to distinguish it from black.

Hm. Nowadays, I have trouble telling dark blue from black, and it's got so bad that I had to disable Ubuntu's default colour-coding of the output of ls in the Gnome-terminal. Time for experimentation.

Dark blue in the terminal can definitely be tricky. Fortunately there are other shades of blue.

[Travis B.]

I use the red-black distinction in one font to show the spelling of words. For me, this has the good side-effect that the distinction is preserved in monochrome. What could do you suggest I use instead of red to show the difference in spelling?

Generally I find blue easier to see than red. If it must be red, then it has to be somewhat desaturated in order for me to distinguish it from black.

Hm. Nowadays, I have trouble telling dark blue from black, and it's got so bad that I had to disable Ubuntu's default colour-coding of the output of ls in the Gnome-terminal. Time for experimentation.

I have trouble reading dark blue text on a black background myself. And yeah, sometimes I have trouble with the color highlighting of ls.

[lëtzeshark]

Maybe partly because of Germany's MMP system at most levels, I notice very often that most political advertisements focus on party specifically (and this is often what I'd see on visits to Trier during election season), sometimes the lead candidate for whatever office it may be or the local candidate. I don't think it's particularly strange the name of the candidate is small (though I also do agree that the services of a good graphic designer may be warranted). Also in Luxembourg and in the Netherlands, I've noticed it's quite unusual for political advertising to focus on a single candidate unless they're the lead candidate/lijsttrekker.

[alice]

Generally I find blue easier to see than red. If it must be red, then it has to be somewhat desaturated in order for me to distinguish it from black.

Hm. Nowadays, I have trouble telling dark blue from black, and it's got so bad that I had to disable Ubuntu's default colour-coding of the output of ls in the Gnome-terminal. Time for experimentation.

I have trouble reading dark blue text on a black background myself. And yeah, sometimes I have trouble with the color highlighting of ls.

I always change it to yellow whenever I do a new install.

[WeepingElf]

Maybe partly because of Germany's MMP system at most levels, I notice very often that most political advertisements focus on party specifically (and this is often what I'd see on visits to Trier during election season), sometimes the lead candidate for whatever office it may be or the local candidate. I don't think it's particularly strange the name of the candidate is small (though I also do agree that the services of a good graphic designer may be warranted). Also in Luxembourg and in the Netherlands, I've noticed it's quite unusual for political advertising to focus on a single candidate unless they're the lead candidate/lijsttrekker.

Yes - German elections are about electing parties rather than individual politicians, though mayors are elected directly in many states.

[Travis B.]

Hm. Nowadays, I have trouble telling dark blue from black, and it's got so bad that I had to disable Ubuntu's default colour-coding of the output of ls in the Gnome-terminal. Time for experimentation.

I have trouble reading dark blue text on a black background myself. And yeah, sometimes I have trouble with the color highlighting of ls.

I always change it to yellow whenever I do a new install.

I find the display of directories as bold blue on my background of black is okay under xfce4-terminal at home, but I do recall using setups where I had a really hard time with ls's highlighting.

[Raphael]

Maybe partly because of Germany's MMP system at most levels, I notice very often that most political advertisements focus on party specifically (and this is often what I'd see on visits to Trier during election season), sometimes the lead candidate for whatever office it may be or the local candidate. I don't think it's particularly strange the name of the candidate is small (though I also do agree that the services of a good graphic designer may be warranted). Also in Luxembourg and in the Netherlands, I've noticed it's quite unusual for political advertising to focus on a single candidate unless they're the lead candidate/lijsttrekker.

Yes - German elections are about electing parties rather than individual politicians, though mayors are elected directly in many states.

Parties are often strongly identified with their nationwide or statewide or even local leaders, though. And, as you point out, many mayoral election, including the one at the start of this sub-discussion, are effectively miniature presidential system presidential elections.

[WeepingElf]

Maybe partly because of Germany's MMP system at most levels, I notice very often that most political advertisements focus on party specifically (and this is often what I'd see on visits to Trier during election season), sometimes the lead candidate for whatever office it may be or the local candidate. I don't think it's particularly strange the name of the candidate is small (though I also do agree that the services of a good graphic designer may be warranted). Also in Luxembourg and in the Netherlands, I've noticed it's quite unusual for political advertising to focus on a single candidate unless they're the lead candidate/lijsttrekker.

Yes - German elections are about electing parties rather than individual politicians, though mayors are elected directly in many states.

Parties are often strongly identified with their nationwide or statewide or even local leaders, though. And, as you point out, many mayoral election, including the one at the start of this sub-discussion, are effectively miniature presidential system presidential elections.

Indeed. But the Greens are the party that places least emphasis on personalities.

[Raphael]

Indeed. But the Greens are the party that places least emphasis on personalities.

Since I generally don't have anything against either the Greens or against you, personally, I'm trying very hard to resist the temptation to quote the Blackadder election episode here.

[malloc]

Horrible news out of Saxony-Anhalt as the AfD wins local elections. A dark day for Germany and indeed the world.

[Raphael]

Yeah, nothing to paint in rosy colors about that. All that's left to do is to stick to our values and hope that trends, even global ones, usually don't last forever. Sigh.

[malloc]

Do those imbeciles not see the consequences of far right politics in the US? What do they hope to gain?

[Raphael]

Do those imbeciles not see the consequences of far right politics in the US? What do they hope to gain?

Their own news sources tell them that everything is horrible here and great in the US.

Quoting a post of mine from a while ago:

Going into my "alien observing the humans of Planet Earth" mode:

"One thing you need to understand about human beings is that with many of them, if you tell them something they like to hear, their brains stop working."

[alice]

AIUI Saxony-Anhalt is pretty much the AfD's stronghold, and if they can't get a majority there then there's maybe a little less to worry about. But I'm happy to defer to people who know the situation better than I do.

[bradrn]

Random question prompted by this discussion: why is there a Saxony and a Saxony-Anhalt?

[Raphael]

Random question prompted by this discussion: why is there a Saxony and a Saxony-Anhalt?

It's about the difference between 1) Saxony as a cultural geographic term, which included much of what is now Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and maybe Lower Saxony, too, and 2) different specific historic political entities within that area, like the old Kingdom of Saxony, the Prussian Province of Saxony (I'd have to look up what that was before it became a Prussian Province), the Principality, later Duchy, of Anhalt, and various thingies that usually, but not always, had "Saxony" in their name and were later merged into the State of Thuringia. Today's "Saxony" is the former Kingdom of Saxony, while today's "Saxony-Anhalt" was a merger of what used to be the Prussian Province of Saxony and what used to be the Duchy of Anhalt.

[bradrn]

Random question prompted by this discussion: why is there a Saxony and a Saxony-Anhalt?

It's about the difference between 1) Saxony as a cultural geographic term, which included much of what is now Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and maybe Lower Saxony, too, and 2) different specific historic political entities within that area, like the old Kingdom of Saxony, the Prussian Province of Saxony (I'd have to look up what that was before it became a Prussian Province), the Principality, later Duchy, of Anhalt, and various thingies that usually, but not always, had "Saxony" in their name and were later merged into the State of Thuringia. Today's "Saxony" is the former Kingdom of Saxony, while today's "Saxony-Anhalt" was a merger of what used to be the Prussian Province of Saxony and what used to be the Duchy of Anhalt.

Thanks!