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From what I have been led to believe, there are enough electoral college votes that are not bound by a winner-take-all rule to prevent Trump from becoming president as it is.  Maybe I'm wrong on that, though, but I can still hope.

Yes, this is true. Very unlikely, but it's possible that the electoral college votes for Clinton. However, I'm not sure that one should hope for that. As much as I dislike Trump... if Clinton becomes president like this, there will be riots. And the current protests will pale in comparison.

[61,270,312]

I made a joke the other day about how the voting booths should have a test you have to take after you cast your ballot so only those voting with their brains would have a valid vote.

Like there's 100 questions for each candidate (each question has 10 variations on how it's asked) and their policies/beliefs/agenda.

The booth's test would select 20 random questions/variants from the pool.

The voter selects their answer to each question. The system doesn't tell them if they got it right or wrong and doesn't tell them if they pass or fail.

If you pass the test, your vote counts. Don't pass the test, your vote isn't counted.

Then we could see:

Total Votes for Trump: 61,270,312
Valid Votes for Trump: 17

The question is why so many people aren't informed or simply don't care about the candidates' agendas. One thing is probably education. Democracy doesn't work if people have no clue what they are voting for or against, it depends on citiŠºens that have at least a basic knowledge about how things work in their country and in the world. And that is difficult to achieve in times that become more and more complex. Being overwhelmed, people tend to look for simple answers, but there are none.

Another thing is the election campaign, and this is where the candidates and political parties are directly responsible. The more emotional a political campaign gets, the less likely people are to vote rationally. And I think we agree that this campaign was full of emotions - mostly negative.
It's also something inherent in two party systems or systems where the parties are divided into two big camps. My impression (judging from outside, so correct me if I'm wrong) was that during Obama's time in office, most Republicans were not interested in what is good for the people, they were mostly interested in "winning", opposing Obama just for the sake of opposing him. This attitude solves no problems and pushes the policies into the background, and for some Republicans who were against Trump, it might have backfired, because Trump is the next logical step on this way.

I, personally, do not feel comfortable labeling people "bad" (who I know to be good people) just because they voted for Trump.

There's just too many factors involved in backing a candidate for me to feel justified in making assumptions about a person's character based on which candidate they chose.

Especially when they only have 2 [real] candidates to choose from.

Maybe you disagree and, to you, there was a clear-cut "better" candidate so anybody who wouldn't back her is wrong.

I can accept that.

I just disagree

No, I actually agree with you. I would not call anybody "bad" for how they voted. But my main concern is that some people are too careless with their votes. I mean, come on, if someone votes for Trump he or she should at least partially agree with him. And for me it's easier to understand (rationally, not ethically) that someone votes for Trump because he or she actually agrees with him and thinks his plans are great. Like it or not, but there is a logic behind such a vote.
But there are clearly people who are not racist, bigoted, homophobic or sexist, people who don't care about his policy at all. People who voted for Trump just to shake up the establishment for example (generously ignoring that Trump has always been part of the establishment, but that's a different topic). And while the intentions may be good, this can be very dangerous if you do it just for the heck of it, not taking into account what this candidate stands for.
Add to that that I'm German and that we have some experience with what can happen if too many people vote with their guts instead of their brains(*), and you know the reason why I'm arguing so passionately against a "doesn't matter" or "nothing will change anyway" attitude. Because things can change radically, and voting is not just there to annoy the people. It can make a difference, for the better or for the worse.

(*) before somebody gets this wrong: no, Trump is not Hitler.

Yes!

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And I've never stated otherwise. My dear Sith Lord, I have a lot of respect for you, and until these last few posts this was a very interesting discussion. I don't want to be angry with anyone, but your "propaganda" post, and this last question really bother me. Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else? I've expressed my worries, I've tried to explain why I tend to hold people responsible for their vote, and I explained why I oppose certain attitudes. But could you please quote a passage where I indicated that everybody has to share my opinion?

The rest of what you wrote was more of the same that's been said many times in this thread and I am tired of having the anti-trump propaganda shoved in my face when I've made it abundantly clear I did/do not support the man or his policies.

Please stop?

So you really think that any of my posts "shoved propaganda in your face"? Wow. Well, that's your way of dealing with other people's opinions. Don't worry, I will stop explai bothering you with my propaganda now.

[is]

It's a little more complicated than that.

It is more complicated that that, and that's exactly why my post is ten times as long as the line you quoted. No, he's not going to nuke the planet. Great news. If you bothered to read what I have written instead of picking one flippant line, it should be absolutely clear that nukes are not my main concern. I explained how I feel about the election, how people are responsible for their vote and how you shouldn't underestimate the consequences of an election. I wrote about Trump, his campaign and what this election could mean for other countries and why it worries me. I talked about how easy it is to downplay policies if they don't seem to affect you. But if someone ignores pretty much everything I write and only picks the most convenient line, it's impossible to discuss. Sorry, but there's no point continuing like this, so I'm out.

If I have the choice between drones and nukes, I'll grudgingly take drones.

But let me try to explain why I have trouble understanding Trump voters:
Clinton's plans are pretty much more of the same compared to what Obama did. Some good, some bad. Clinton is the personified status quo, which is not a nice thing to say.
But then it's really hard for me to find anything about Trumps campaign that wasn't disgusting or frightening - insulting pretty much every minority was only the beginning, and it ended with him questioning the whole election unless he wins, which is quite simply a dictator's reasoning. I have yet to hear a single good explanation why this would be preferable, unless you're completely uninformed or you really believe that this attitude is an improvement over the status quo. And yes, if someone believes that, I'll oppose vehemently.

Now, I'm lucky. I'm white, male, straight, born in a wealthy country with a more or less liberal government. Jackpot! Nothing of this is my own achievement, but I could say that I don't care and that it won't be all bad, and it's all same and probably nothing will change in the long run. After all I'm not affected. Because, you know, luck. But this would only downplay a dangerous development (and it would make me an asshole by the way). What happens in the US has an effect on Europe. And we have our own racists, they are getting more and more powerful, and some are even worse than Trump will ever be. So the most dangerous thing you can do is underestimate the consequences. Maybe it won't get worse, maybe it will stop. But I wouldn't bet my money on it. And so, I'm deeply worried, and I have strong feelings against people who vote for someone like Trump just for the heck of it. Be it in the US, here in Germany, or anywhere else.

The thing is that Trump clearly said what he wants (though he never bothered to tell how he wants to do it). So if someone votes for Trump, it makes sense to assume that he or she is more or less okay with his positions (banning muslims, mexican wall, deporting 11 million people etc...). You can't vote just a little bit of Trump, and it has all been spelled out before the election. So nobody should be surprised when Trump actually tries to do make all this real. The most naive thing to do is "protest-vote" and silently hope that he will abandon his plans or that someone somehow will stop him. With a large majority in the Congress he has more power than most presidents before him. It's true that hate won't help here, but I can totally understand the fear.

[Problem]

Problem - The issue I see with your statement is that it relies on each voter voting intelligently, rather than emotionally, which just isn't realistic.
We are humans. Emotions will always play a part (until the robots take over and convert us to mindless worker drones).

That wasn't my point. Of course people don't always vote intelligently. But you make it sound like an excuse - my point is that this is NOT an excuse. You have the right to vote, you have a choice, and you are responsible for what you vote. If you don't inform yourself about the alternatives, or if you vote with your gut instead of your brains, there's no one else to blame but you. You can't blame it on the candidates' personality, you can't blame it on the "system" (though yes, I dislike two party systems myself). By voting, you state your preferences, and if you vote for a xenophobic policy, you can't back out and blame a candidate who offered an alternative.

Sorry that I have to disagree here. I understand where you're coming from, but you don't just vote for a candidate, you vote for his or her policy. If you vote, you make a choice between two (or more) policies, you prefer the things that one candidate said during the campaign over what the other candidate said. So if you voted for Trump, you support his attitude, his words and his plans at least a little more than Clinton's. You prefer banning muslims, abolishing LGBT rights and deporting immigrants over Clinton's more moderate program. Either that, or you haven't bothered to inform yourself about what the candidates and their vices were actually planning. That doesn't make anyone an idiot, and there's no reason to insult anyone because of how they voted. But you can't just hide behind the "lesser of two evils" argument when there are clear alternatives.

During his campaign, Trump appeared as a big asshole. To be honest I can't tell what Trump will actually do as a president and how it will change the USA in the long term. I can only judge him by what he has said - and if I try to take him at his word, he will fail miserably. Because even if you agree to his positions (which I don't) many of the things he promised are simply impossible. So it's possible that policy-wise, nothing big will happen. But his campaign has made the country more aggressive. I have never seen so much hate in an election campaign (at least not in a democratic country during my liftime - history has some examples, but I don't want to derail the topic). And this is where the real danger is. If you stir up so much hate against big parts of the population, you shouldn't be surprised that there are protests (and of course people have the right to protest). If Hillary had won the election, there would have been the same protests, but probably with more guns involved. At least Clinton and Obama accept the result of the election. Can you imaginge that Trump would have done this, after all he has said during his campaign? So I'm not so much worried about what Trump will do as president. I'm much more worried about what his campaign has done to the people - not just in the US, but worldwide.

About SJW: While there may be people who fall into this category, most of time I have seen the term used to devalue other people's opinions. To stop a debate. I see it mainly used by people who could be called SJWW (social justice warrior warrior, some people have that as a hobby). If someone stands up for women's rights and racial equality I don't f*cking care if this is done for self-satisfaction. Call this person a SJW, but it is still a hundred times better than standing up for the opposite of these values. It's a ridiculous term.

EXE or it didn't happen!
But seriously, this is awesome! Must have been a ton of work.

Not seeing what your first question is there for. I suppose you don't think writers won nobels for how they read their books.

Exactly, and that's why I don't think Dylan has won the prize for how he sings his songs, but for his writing.

I think it is a bad precedent which will further erode the worth of this category of nobel.

In my opinion it's quite the opposite. A songwriter winning in this category is first and foremost an acknowledgement that literature is a rich category that spans a wide spectrum of works. And it's not like this will happen again any time soon. The worst thing that could happen is what always happens - most people don't remember who has won the prize in 2015, 2014... and not even Bob Dylan will change that. Some people are getting mad, because for whatever reason they feel insulted by the decision... but again, this happens every year. Business as usual.

If people are focused on the writing itself, it doesn't make sense for them to be musicians.

So if you're writer, you're not allowed to perform your works, because it disqualifies you from being a real writer?

Yet there is also the (mentioned) added issue that a song is heard; you listen to the words being said. That robs a text already from the experience of the reader reading it in their mind.

If that's a problem, stage plays should be excluded as well, because they are supposed to be performed in a theatre. But still, they are considered literature.

The swedish academy should be repopulated with people of better taste

better taste = your taste?

Maybe there would have been better candidates, but that doesn't mean Dylan doesn't deserve it. Pretty much every year some people complain that whoever has won the prize doesn't deserve it and that others should have won instead. Why is it so hard for people to just accept that someone gets honoured for his or her work? Is this a question of having a "superior" taste or something? I don't really get it.

I'm going to try it out soon. But it's unlikely that I will use Escoria, since my own framework is pretty much feature-complete now (as in: everything to make a full adventure game), and I'm currently testing and debugging it with Dropped Monocle Games. So this may come a little too late for me, but of course I'm curious to see how they have implemented certain features.

If you use a term like this, you should probably look it up first. The European parliament is elected directly (unlike the politburo in a communist party), but it doesn't have much power (again: unlike a politburo, which usually had a lot of power in communist states). So you're just mixing things up that have nothing to do with each other. I understand it's popular to compare institutions one doesn't like with communists (or nazis). But that shows a lack of understanding what this actually is. We had communist states in Europe, one half of Germany was communist until 1989, and I can confirm that the EU is nothing like that. And it makes me angry if people use this term without having a clue what it actually means.
(And yes, it's no surprise that communists in Europe are mostly against the EU in its current form.)

Enough ranting. Of course all that doesn't mean your criticism of the EU is invalid - but it's simplified, because the parliament has a lot more rights than that, and with every new treaty its power has grown. Still a long way to go, because the whole process is overly complicated and not democratic enough. But no system is perfect, and everything can be improved. And as I said in my previous post, the EU actually guarantees its citizens many liberties that are not to be taken for granted. And don't forget that the member states all have their own constitutions, some more and some less democratic, and they are are much more independent in their laws and decisions than the states in the USA for example. That big goverment that takes away our rights, rules everything and kills our national independence - it doesn't exist. People who argue like that make the EU institutions much more powerful than they actually are. The EU is far from being a real government. We have an economic union, but we're still far away from having a political union.

The EU parliament seems to me to be little more that than a communist socialist politburo.

You're probably confusing it with the European commission. The European parliament is just that: a parliament, directly elected, but one that hasn't all the rights a parliament usually has in a democracy. It doesn't even have legislative initiative (the right to propose a new law). If the parliament played a more important role, the European election would actually mean something. But as it is now, most people don't see the point in voting, because in the end it doesn't affect the decisions that are made. That's the major flaw in how the EU is constructed, if you ask me. However, these structures have grown historically, and what is now the EU originally started as an economic community, not a political one. This makes it difficult to reform.

But if you're talking about oppression and a loss of personal liberty: The EU guarantees free movement of people, services etc. across its member states. As a EU citizen I can travel, study, work and do business freely in any other EU country, and by leaving the EU these liberties are lost. People tend to take these things for granted, as if the EU was only there to annoy people with regulations. If Great Britain still wants access to the common market, they will have to follow EU rules anyway. But at the same time they are about lose many of these rights. I fail to see in which way this results in more freedom. But sometimes you only realize what you had when you lose it. It's both funny and bitter how "What is the EU" trended on Google... the day after the referendum.

A future where lots of tiny separate nations compete is a future I'd like to live in.

A pretty good description of Europe's past, isn't it? Don't know if I should put this in spoiler tags, but... it didn't end well.

Yes, the EU has many flaws and it's not fully democratic. For example, the European parliament, the only real democratic institution of the EU, only has limited legislative power. But we Europeans can still be glad and thankful that we live in Europe's most peaceful era in centuries. The EU is a very good idea, and history tells us why nationalism is not the way to go. Instead of leaving the EU or breaking up, we should try to improve it and make it more democratic than it is now. It was never easy, and reforming this beast would be a huge task, but we would be absolutely crazy if we just gave up everything that has been achieved after WW2.

Fantastic stuff! Except for the resolution mismatch (which is something I never liked in any game ever) this game looks right up my alley. Some of these backgrounds look incredible. Great atmosphere!

That's a beautiful piece! The composition is fine and it definitely captures the mood you were going for. The mix is a little muddy, and the bass notes feel a little "boomy" in places. It might help to tone down the lower mids (and maybe some of the bass) of the piano to clean things up and get a more balanced sound. A "solo" piano sound is a complex beast can be more difficult to mix then one would expect. I also got the impression that the piano is panned a little too much to the right.
But that's just the sound. The composition itself is good and it will work very well in an adventure game.