ylph's recent activity
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Comment on Historic voter turnout powered US Democrats’ blue wave in ~society
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Comment on I want to talk about sailing! in ~hobbies
ylph Link ParentAbout the mooring, 60 foot boat is pretty large with a lot of momentum, and there are currents sometimes as well moving you around, in addition to the wind, and you can't approach the mooring ball...About the mooring, 60 foot boat is pretty large with a lot of momentum, and there are currents sometimes as well moving you around, in addition to the wind, and you can't approach the mooring ball too fast, since there is no engine reverse to slow you down, so you have to kind of calculate all that in your head and position the boat in the right starting place and get just the right push with the sails, hoping you will just kind of coast up to the ball and someone can grab it at the front with the hook. And not hit any other boats or rocks around :) And when you inevitably miss, you have to turn the boat completely around on sails, usually in a tight space too, get back in the starting position and try again ! Usually took like 4-5 tries, I think the first night it took over an hour to catch the mooring ball - out captain has never really done it himself before either, but fortunately he had the patience and never lost his cool (despite having just spent several hours in the brutally hot engine room trying to get the engine going, unsuccessfully, all covered in grease and sweat... - honestly we were all pretty impressed he kept his cool through all that !), just kept trying and he got better at it every day too :) The scouts were manning the hooks at the front trying to catch the ball line as we drifted by..
I guess a beginner would probably try to anchor somewhere safe and call for help/tug. We had some ground support that would deliver some spare parts in the evenings on a dinghy to try to fix the engine, but it took them a few days to find the right bad part, and find a replacement. They offered us a backup boat, but that one was a big step down from our current boat in comfort (a much older and smaller metal hull/deck boat), so the scouts voted unanimously to put up with the extra hassles, and in the end I think it taught the kids a good lesson about dealing with adversity and perseverance, and we still got plenty of sailing in during the days, and were able to moore successfully at each cove we planned to on those days, just with a bit more time, but also a bigger sense of accomplishment and adventure. We were still very excited when the engine roared back to life on the last day - it was needed to dock us back at the marina where our trip ended, as that was way too tight - even with the engine it required a pair of small tug boats pushing us around to make some of the turns in there.
I can't even imagine what it was like back in the day with the huge sail ships and no engines, maneuvering them in tighter spaces must have required some serious skills and experience.
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Comment on I want to talk about sailing! in ~hobbies
ylph Link ParentSounds like a lot of fun. I am shocked at the cost, here in Southern California it costs as much to rent a similar size boat for 1 day as you paid for the entire week. Do you need to speak Spanish...Sounds like a lot of fun. I am shocked at the cost, here in Southern California it costs as much to rent a similar size boat for 1 day as you paid for the entire week. Do you need to speak Spanish to get around Mallorca, dealing with the marineros/harbor staff etc, or can you get by with English ?
I might need to look into European sailing in the future :) The first time I have ever been on a boat at sea was actually in Malta, when I was in high school - long long time ago :)
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Comment on Historic voter turnout powered US Democrats’ blue wave in ~society
ylph (edited )Link ParentCalifornia has provisions for people who can not sign the envelope due to disability - it requires a witness signature, and the voter either making a mark, like an X, or using a signature stamp...California has provisions for people who can not sign the envelope due to disability - it requires a witness signature, and the voter either making a mark, like an X, or using a signature stamp (which they do have to register with their voter registration ahead of time - otherwise it might require curing, but again CA leaves lots of time for curing ballots even after election date - the curing deadline is Nov 25th right now) The signature stamp can also be used by a helper, if the voter is unable to do it themselves, as long as it's in the presence of the voter with their consent and witnessed and signed by the witness.
The curing also catches cases where your signature is just inconsistent - you get contacted and sign a statement form confirming you mailed in the ballot yourself, and the ballot then counts.
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Comment on Historic voter turnout powered US Democrats’ blue wave in ~society
ylph Link ParentCare enough I suppose rather than at all. In California for example everyone registered gets mailed a ballot. But for example in this midterm, my ballot had 4 long pages of choices - probably a...Care enough I suppose rather than at all. In California for example everyone registered gets mailed a ballot. But for example in this midterm, my ballot had 4 long pages of choices - probably a 100 selections I had to make in total. The voter guide brochure was 100s of pages, like 1/2 inch thick. I have voted in every election I was eligible to vote in in my life, but it took a couple of weeks for me to find the time and mind space to fill out the ballot - and it took me like 5 hours in total spread over several days, researching everything.
On top of that, in the weeks leading up to the election you receive literal pounds of election propaganda. Colorful flyers printed on thick paper with lots of emotional appeals in bold letters and imagery. Vote yes on X ! Vote no on X ! Vote Z, Candidate Y is evil incarnate who eats kittens for breakfast ! Vote Y, Candidate Z is evil incarnate who eats puppies for breakfast !
And I am pretty insulated from ads both in media and online, and almost never see any, but I can image people who aren't are under even a bigger barrage.
The net sum is that you need to put in significant mental and emotional effort into voting, while at the same time you are assaulted by so much negative messaging that makes you just want to hate everyone running. I can understand why many people just check out and dump all that shit in the garbage, or just keep procrastinating and delaying the voting until it's too late.
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Comment on Historic voter turnout powered US Democrats’ blue wave in ~society
ylph Link ParentYou can still vote in person. In my county looks like about ~12% still voted in person (although final count is not in yet). The in person vote skews more Republican here, probably a combination...You can still vote in person. In my county looks like about ~12% still voted in person (although final count is not in yet). The in person vote skews more Republican here, probably a combination of in person voters skewing older, plus the Republican messaging about mail in voting over the past few cycles.
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Comment on Historic voter turnout powered US Democrats’ blue wave in ~society
ylph (edited )Link ParentJust to add, in California you actually sign the outside of the envelope that the ballot is mailed in. The ballot itself is supposed to be anonymous. When the envelope reaches the elections...Just to add, in California you actually sign the outside of the envelope that the ballot is mailed in. The ballot itself is supposed to be anonymous. When the envelope reaches the elections office, the signature on the outside of the envelope is compared with the signature on file from the voter registration. The accepted ballots, still sealed in their envelopes are then sorted into piles by jurisdiction. Only then the envelopes are opened and separated from the ballots. The removed ballots, which do not contain any information identifying the voter, are then moved to the tabulation room where they are fed through the scanner to be counted, while the envelopes are saved and archived separately.
Since the number of valid envelopes is known before they enter the opening step, it ensures that anyone performing the envelope opening can not for example discard ballots based on votes, without being detected. They are also supposed to handle the envelopes always facing down when opening them, so that the opener does not see the signature of the voter. The opening is done in the open with observers, so in theory someone trying to sneak a peek at the voter information should also be caught. In some counties they even have a machine that does the opening and separates the ballots from the envelopes.
Envelopes that fail signature verification or get flagged for other reasons (like double voting) are not opened, and the voter is contacted to resolve the issue. Only once cured, they are fed back into the process to be opened in the same manner as above.
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Comment on I want to talk about sailing! in ~hobbies
ylph LinkI did a weeklong US Virgin Islands Sea Base adventure with my son's scout troop recently. It was pretty amazing. Sea Base is run by Scouting America, they provide a fully stocked sailboat with a...I did a weeklong US Virgin Islands Sea Base adventure with my son's scout troop recently. It was pretty amazing. Sea Base is run by Scouting America, they provide a fully stocked sailboat with a captain. It was 12 of us on a 60 foot ketch. All shore access is via swimming/snorkeling, and sleeping is mainly on the open deck, so it's more of a roughing it style adventure than luxury sailing. We sailed around Saint Thomas and Saint John, visited different remote beaches and snorkeling spots in the Virgin Islands National Park, even did some hiking. The kids learned basics of sailing and navigation and basically ran the boat under the captains supervision, while the adults relaxed and enjoyed the scenery :) Almost all of it was under wind power, and the engine on the boat broke in the middle of the week, so we spent 3 days purely on sails - mooring using just the sails was quite an adventure every evening, it's a lot more difficult without the engines :) Most of us took Bonine (Meclizine) and had no sea sickness problems, except for 2 scouts who tried to go without, and both spent the first day puking their guts out - the sea was quite rough that day ! Sea Base is definitely not cheap, but it's a great experience for the kids, once in a lifetime for most of them too.
It's a great lifestyle that I could totally imagine myself enjoying, if I could swing it :)
How big a boat did you charter ? Was it with a captain, or did you sail it yourself ?
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Comment on RIP Cybertruck. You were unloved, unwanted, and utterly absurd. in ~transport
ylph Link ParentThere are people who collect WWII Nazi paraphernalia - and rationally I accept that at least some of them don't do it for some nostalgic reasons or harbor any pro-Nazi sympathies, but the thought...There are people who collect WWII Nazi paraphernalia - and rationally I accept that at least some of them don't do it for some nostalgic reasons or harbor any pro-Nazi sympathies, but the thought always gave me a level of ick, I definitely wouldn't want that shit in my house. On the other hand, the VW Beetle, literally commissioned by Hitler, became an iconic hippie and counter-culture car with huge later collector following, which shows that it is in theory possible to overcome any level of stigma under the right circumstances, I suppose.
Hard to say what future people will think about the Cybertruck - I think there are a lot of people who lived through this period who will likely always have negative associations with the car, and will always view anyone keeping one as a collector with some disdain. But maybe at some point it will just be a quirky oddity from the 2020s.
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Comment on RIP Cybertruck. You were unloved, unwanted, and utterly absurd. in ~transport
ylph Link ParentI wouldn't say across the political spectrum - there was a fair bit of Musk hate from the right for a long time, as he was seen as the EV guy, and the right hated EVs. I think in 2019 he was still...I wouldn't say across the political spectrum - there was a fair bit of Musk hate from the right for a long time, as he was seen as the EV guy, and the right hated EVs. I think in 2019 he was still significantly more popular on the left than the right, although his biggest fans were not necessarily strongly politically aligned I think, and many had followed him to the right later. Musk really overtly turned towards the right in 2020, between COVID and his daughter coming out transgender, culminating with his purchase of Twitter.
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Comment on RIP Cybertruck. You were unloved, unwanted, and utterly absurd. in ~transport
ylph Link ParentI kind of liked it as a concept way back when it was first announced (although I was never a Tesla person or a Musk fan) However they look so ugly in person from almost every angle. Unfortunately...I kind of liked it as a concept way back when it was first announced (although I was never a Tesla person or a Musk fan)
However they look so ugly in person from almost every angle. Unfortunately I live in an area where they sold well, and so get to see them on the roads daily, and still I am struck just how bad they look on the road every single time. They somehow look both chunky and ungraceful in the worst way but yet also delicate and flimsy.. just total fail as a truck. The only thing I kind of like about them is the raw stainless steel finish, but here almost every single one is wrapped now as well, which somehow just makes them stand out more and look even uglier.
But hey, I drove the BMW i3 for 10 years, and consider it beautiful.. so I guess my opinions on car styling probably aren't quite in sync with the mainstream :)
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Comment on California Gov. Gavin Newsom commutes all 548 death sentences in ~society
ylph Link Parent10 years ago California voted on a proposition to abolish the death penalty, and lost. 53% voted to keep the death penalty, while 62% voted for Clinton for president in the same election....10 years ago California voted on a proposition to abolish the death penalty, and lost. 53% voted to keep the death penalty, while 62% voted for Clinton for president in the same election.
Republicans are constantly attacking Newsom and Democrats in general for being soft on crime in California. I live in a fairly liberal area here, but you should see my Nextdoor feed - anytime any crime happens locally, you get 10s of people chiming in how it's Newsoms and Democrats fault.
The death penalty was effectively on pause in California already for 20 years. There wasn't really a pressing need to commute sentences, as nobody was about to be executed any time soon. Newsom chose to do this after the election, because his term as governor is over. If he did it earlier, it would become an issue and distraction against Bacerra during the election.
I don't know Newsom's state of mind obviously - unfortunately death penalty is still popular both in California and the US as a whole with majority support, although slowly trending lower. Newsom is theoretically doing the moral thing going against the will of the majority here, and at some political cost if he hopes to run for president. I don't really think this will buy him much good will in the progressive wing of the Democratic party, which already hates him anyway. He probably hopes this will be forgotten by 2028 if he runs for president then, although I am sure Republicans will bring it up anyway.
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Comment on 2026 United States midterm elections megathread in ~society
ylph (edited )Link ParentThe last Dem senator Kansas had (McGill) was a FDR New Deal Democrat, voted in on the 1930 blue wave following the 1929 stock market crash and start of the Great Depression. His Republican...The last Dem senator Kansas had (McGill) was a FDR New Deal Democrat, voted in on the 1930 blue wave following the 1929 stock market crash and start of the Great Depression. His Republican opponent in 1932 was endorsed by the KKK - so he was already part of the party swapping process that has been well underway by then.
The party swap took place much later in the South, due to the history there, but Kansas was a Union state, never had slavery, etc.
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Comment on What single episode of a show would you recommend as a standalone? in ~tv
ylph Link ParentYes ! This is the girl ! Arguably one of the best things Lynch ever did. This episode is the peak of the best season of perhaps the best show in television history. It explains and lays out the...Yes ! This is the girl !
Arguably one of the best things Lynch ever did. This episode is the peak of the best season of perhaps the best show in television history. It explains and lays out the entire backstory of Twin Peaks in a way only Lynch could put into existence. It's not really a spoiler, you have to watch Twin Peaks start to end probably several times to really put it together and understand this episode. But it still works on its own as an absolute tour de force of surrealist cinema. Hard to envision a more fitting visual companion to the Penderecki Threnody too.
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Comment on Why do we find Tildes (and Lobsters) more interesting than the alternatives? in ~tech
ylph (edited )Link ParentLemmy, Piefed and Mastodon (and many other apps and platforms) all use the same underlying protocol (ActivityPub) and can to some extent interoperate (many Lemmy, Piefed and Mastodon instances...Lemmy, Piefed and Mastodon (and many other apps and platforms) all use the same underlying protocol (ActivityPub) and can to some extent interoperate (many Lemmy, Piefed and Mastodon instances federate with each other, so you can make a Mastodon post that will show up as a comment on a Lemmy or Piefed post for example). Piefed has some support for tags, while Lemmy basically ignores them. If you search tags in Piefed you will see a lot of Mastodon posts (via federation from Mastodon instances), where tagging is the common way to organize posts, like Twitter. But if you look at the communities, it will feel a lot like Reddit.
Most Piefed users came looking for an alternative to Lemmy, which in turn started as an alternative to Reddit, so most people use Piefed and Lemmy as a Reddit replacement. People looking for Twitter replacement usually go to Mastodon or other microblogging platforms in the Fediverse.
Tildes uses tags to organize posts as well, but it's not a microblogging platform either.
Lemmy and Piefed are also similar enough and the federation works well enough that you can almost treat it as a single Reddit-like link aggregator. No matter what front end you are using, you can access communities on either Lemmy or Piefed seamlessly and interact with posts and comments from both platforms (as long as your instance federates with theirs)
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Comment on Why do we find Tildes (and Lobsters) more interesting than the alternatives? in ~tech
ylph Link ParentLemmy and Piefed are both more Reddit-inspired link aggregators than microblogging sites like Mastodon or Twitter. You don't really follow users on those platforms, instead you join...Lemmy and Piefed are both more Reddit-inspired link aggregators than microblogging sites like Mastodon or Twitter. You don't really follow users on those platforms, instead you join communities/topics (like subreddits) where people post links (or media) and each post has a comment section where discussion takes place, similar to Reddit.
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Comment on Wikipedia's list of the best video games: how many have you played, and what's missing? in ~games
ylph Link ParentInterestingly, while the game was developed for use by a single class at a single school, the computer they used was owned by and located at the district (Minneapolis Public Schools) and shared by...a school (singular)
Interestingly, while the game was developed for use by a single class at a single school, the computer they used was owned by and located at the district (Minneapolis Public Schools) and shared by ~10 different high schools in the city. Each school could access it using a teletype, the HP 2100 it ran on was one of the first minicomputers that allowed time-sharing, and the game was written in HP time-shared BASIC which allowed up to 32 users to dial into the computer and run the game (or other BASIC programs) simultaneously. Reportedly students and teachers at several other district schools found out about the game and were playing it during the semester when it was loaded on the system.
Also, it wasn't technically a text adventure yet, more of a strategy/simulation game. These early text games in the 1960s and 1970s had very limited memory to work with, so the code had to be very concise. The early text games used simple math simulations and the player entered parameters to progress, and had to balance various conditions. There wasn't usually enough room for much text and any serious world building, for which the later adventure games became known for. I think Colossal Cave Adventure from 1975 is generally considered the first text adventure game (and gave the genre a name as well)
It's cool that Oregon Trail made this list, although it's likely due to the later ports of the game to 8-bit home systems that made it really popular and widely available.
Text games were very popular (relatively to the user base of course) in the era of mainframes and minicomputers - they just weren't covered by the media to make the criteria to appear on this list. I was a kid in the 70s, but my dad was a programmer, and when I would visit his office, he would usually load up Lunar Lander for me on their minicomputer (from paper tape) and I spent hours making new craters on the moon (especially once they got an actual terminal with a display, and I didn't have to waste paper on the teleprinter). Pretty much any office that worked with computers back then had games.
I recently played around with TSS-8 (the time sharing OS for the PDP-8) running on SIMH emulating a PDP-8 on my Linux machine. I OCR'd the original 1969 Lunar Lander FOCAL code and loaded it up in the TSS-8 FOCAL-8 interpreter, to show my teenage gamer son what computer games were like when I was a kid :)
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Comment on Share your favorite live music performance recordings in ~music
ylph LinkIronically, the music I usually like the most (various forms of electronic music) doesn't really lend itself to being performed live that well. However, I mix in other genres of music into my...Ironically, the music I usually like the most (various forms of electronic music) doesn't really lend itself to being performed live that well. However, I mix in other genres of music into my listening and the following are some of the recordings that have been in heavy rotation for me over the past few years:
Hania Rani, Arte Piano Day 2022 - I have all Hania's records, but for some reason this performance really hits home with me.
Khruangbin, Pitchfork Live 2018 - this was my introduction to Khruangbin, and I still listen to it frequently. The tone is really great too, especially the bass. It like triggers my taste buds somehow..
Aurora, Live at Rock en Seine 2025 - only got into Aurora recently, so haven't quite covered all her live recordings, but this one is a standout. She sounds great on her records of course, but it's amazing to see her pull it off live (with the help of some great backup singers for the layered harmonies)
I could list more, but curious about other peoples faves.
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Share your favorite live music performance recordings
As Youtube has become my primary method of discovering new music over time, I find myself listening mostly to live recordings of both old artists I have been a fan of for a long time, but also...
As Youtube has become my primary method of discovering new music over time, I find myself listening mostly to live recordings of both old artists I have been a fan of for a long time, but also especially new artists (both new and new to me)
I could go on and on about how I feel about modern studio recording, and music industry in general, but I think people mostly know all this, and live music has been a counter to some of these trends, as a place to find more authentic musical connection between artists and audiences.
I have discovered a few new artists through discussions here on Tildes before, so I thought I would ask people to recommend their favorite live music recordings. Most specifically I am looking for live performances that are both great themselves, and also well captured/recorded so that they can be listened to as a studio album would (there are a lot of live sets recorded by people holding cellphones, which usually have audio ranging from bad to terrible.) Also would love to see examples of complete sets/concerts rather than single songs. I love listening to "long form" music so to speak, and appreciate the journey that is often consciously crafted when artists put together their live sets.
And it doesn't have to be a critical or formal recommendation, doesn't have to be the best of that artist or genre or anything like that - I am more interested in the personal faves, anything that resonates with you specifically for whatever reason, that you can go back to over and over. Basically, recommend a live music recording you have personally listened to in its entirety at least 5 times. I am open to any genres or time periods (as long as the quality is decent enough to listen to for pleasure)
I'll include my own picks in a comment below. Thanks !
Edit: thank you all for the recommendations - looks like it is going to take me a few weeks to go through these :) Quite a variety of different genres too, and a lot of new to me artists, which is great.
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Comment on What is your "when I found out about 9/11" story? in ~talk
ylph (edited )LinkI left the PATH station at the ground floor of the WTC around 8:30am on 9/11 (less than 15 minutes before the first plane hit) - I had a 15-20 minute walk to my office at 125 Broad Street. When I...- Exemplary
I left the PATH station at the ground floor of the WTC around 8:30am on 9/11 (less than 15 minutes before the first plane hit) - I had a 15-20 minute walk to my office at 125 Broad Street. When I got to the office, people were talking about a plane that just hit one of the WTC towers. My office was almost on the 40th floor, with perfectly clear view of the WTC towers, but the first plane hit from the North, so we couldn't see the point of impact. Most people thought it was a small GA plane. Soon the column of smoke intensified, leading to the whole floor standing by the North side windows observing what was happening. There were papers floating in the air from there, which was quite eerie (the wind was blowing the column of smoke down in our direction). This is when the second plane flew into view from the left (passed about 1500 ft West of our building) with a roar, and smashed into the south tower with a massive fireball. It was an unbelievable sight. Almost everyone watching made a spontaneous decision to get out right away, and headed for the elevators. I was on one of the first elevators down, after that the elevators couldn't handle the rush, and most people headed for the stairs, some of my colleagues walked down the 40 floors to get out. It's probably an irrational response, but everyone felt uneasy about being on a high floor of a skyscraper at that moment. Of course then we're standing outside in a big crowd, and nobody was too sure what to do.
Needless to say, it was a very long day, and I witnessed some horrible things I don't like to think about anymore. I lived in NJ at the time, and only got home after dark that night. Ended up getting evacuated from lower Manhattan by a ferry, then had to go through decontamination shower tents setup in Hoboken, before getting a train back home..
When the first tower fell (which we had no idea is what happened at that moment or was even a possibility - we were in a lobby of a building, when suddenly the bright sunny day outside turned to pitch black in an instant, and we couldn't see the street outside anymore, just swirl of dust pelting the big glass facade of the lobby. It was absolutely apocalyptic, and people were legitimately convinced that a nuclear bomb went off at that moment, causing quite a bit of panic.. but I digress) - I ended up hiding from the dust in a basement of the building we were at with a person I just met at work a few days prior, for quite a few hours, we struck up a deep conversation. This person eventually ended up becoming my life partner, we had a kid together who is about to become an adult, and we still live together 25 years later, after moving through several states since.. so there is some personal silver lining in this terrible event for me.
Of course that was just my personal experience, and I was quite lucky in the end. Many people much less so, both on that day, and continuing to today, with the first responders suffering terrible health consequences. My heart breaks for those people.
Not sure if you're in California, but a big thing here are the propositions - there were 14 statewide this time, plus a few county and local town ones. Propositions if adopted get directly put into California constitution, yet they are often designed and written to be very confusing. And sometimes the opponents of one proposition enter other propositions that are designed to kill the original one with specific language, which are even more confusing. I am personally not a fan - I don't think voters make good legislators - I think the language of laws should be crafted through the normal legislative process. Since this year one of the proposition was a proposed asset tax on billionaires, the billionaires spent almost $400 million fighting it, significant chunk on advertising against it, and even scrambled to put 2 competing nullifying propositions on the ballot. So we got tons of paper ads on this issue - and a lot of it extremely manipulative and targeted to specific individual voter profiles at that.
We don't generally get much during presidential elections, as CA is usually considered a lock for Democrats in the electoral college so nobody spends much money here. I do live in an area that can be considered somewhat purple in context of CA politics though, and for some reason the battle of the state reps and even town mayor and city council seats and school boards was fierce this year in ads - I don't think I ever got so many mailings before. And at the city level the positions are non-partisan, which kind of confuses the issue - you would be hard pressed to tell who the Democrats and who the Republicans are from the mailers - both sides seem to be targeting the middle here with very similar language. You have to do your own research to figure out who is who - and there are dramatic differences between the candidates if you look into their background and track record, stuff you would hardly have any idea about if you just look at their official websites and mailers. Interestingly the results so far show the Democrats did a lot better than Republicans, even in the non-partisan local races, so at least the few people who do vote in midterms here do their research, and Republicans were really out of favor in this election, mirroring the rest of the country I suppose.