Dude, looking over my comment that you are responding to, I fail to see any mention or attribution in regard to the war. So, WTF are you talking about? Apparently, you were looking for an excuse to blame the left but I do not follow your logic. Oh, forgive me. If you're coming from the right you are absolved from introducing logic into your reasoning.
It is a rare event in this world that a good person doing a good thing is recognised. Except for the odd right-wingers who will respond to this (as an anonymous coward, no doubt), everyone on this planet owes Mr. Gore a debt of gratitude. Even if you don't believe in the human-influence on global warming (something I accept), you must admit that it's pretty obvious that all the pollution and greenhouse gases that we humans cause to be put into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing. Anything that causes us NOT to soil our nest is to be applauded. Mr. Gore is part of the force of good and I applaud him. Worked on his 2000 campaign in Council Bluffs too. Damn shame that he lost to the current asshat Bush by a vote of 4 to 5.
This is a great idea for a book--hope the execution lives up to the idea.
Without having read the book, I will venture some obvious things:
* Profile your app before you optimize. Don't guess where you are slow: know.
* If you use Struts, don't do client-side validation. (Look at the mass of JavaScript that gets added to your page if you question this.)
* Use AJAX if you can. (Also an amazing speed boost).
* Use few images.
* Do AJAX validation without leaving the page.
This is no surprise. Having worked under the skank when she was at HP, I'm not surprised she's in league with the slime over at Fox. She was the worst imperial style CEO who--though HP had just inherited several new Gulfstream jets when they purchased Compaq, Carly went out and bought two brand new jets (one which was reserved for she and her husband alone) at the same time that several thousand contractors and employees were getting axed. She was a nightmare.
Okay, let's try this one more time.
Theists claim the existence of a being they call God who allegedly created the universe.
Atheists deny that such a being exists.
Now, on its face, who is making the larger claim?
In my book, the one who makes the larger, more complex claim is the one who has to prove something. The theist is obviously making a larger claim. If we follow your logic, then anybody claiming anything--the green cheese, spaghetti monster-type claim--must be accepted as fact unless a third party can disprove the claim.
My point is this: you are claiming something exists. You need to provide a proof or else we must conclude that your "claim" is specious.
I, on the other hand, do not make any claim whatsoever. Therefore, what am I to prove? If we accept your supposition that merely being first guarranteed rightness, then why don't we all believe that the Sun and planets revolve around the earth?
Hence, none of your posts have done anything to refute my original point which is that god's existence remains unproven. Another term for something with as much validity as God (the toothfairy, for example) is a myth. Hence, I do not see any argument provided by you that God exists. I do not see anything approaching an argument. I just find the semantic equivalent of "Nah-nah na-nah na".
I find it remarkable that you have avoided addressing any of my points. Finally, there is a great scientific idea called "Occam's Razor". This idea states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. While this does not provide any proof or even an argument, I find it amazing that people who appear to be interested in science are willing to dispense with the entire scientific method when it comes to belief in the supernatural.
For example, I know so many Christians who are more than willing to accept the outcome of the scientific method when it comes to verifying the efficacy of medcines they consume. However, when that same scientific method is applied to things such as Evolution or religion, suddenly they lose their taste for the evidence that the correctly-applied scientific method provides.
Also, in the past, the vast majority of the earth's population believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the Earth was flat, etc. Despite the vast majority of Earth's population that believed those things to be true, science was able to provide concrete evidence to the contrary and, eventually, all intelligent beings on this planet have accepted those two bits of information as being fact. The idea of the existence of God is just harder to disprove. Perhaps it's impossible and that will provide aid and comfort to believers for the next few millenia. Still, I just find it saddening that I have to engage in these-type discussions on Slashdot, where I had expected to find people who have given up believing in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunney and God. The evidence to support any of them remains at the same level of proof: none.
Dude, have you forgotten what the original point was? Whether or not there is a god. I say there is no proof. You, apparently, argue otherwise. My point is this: I, as an Atheist, do not need to prove a thing. I, as an Atheist (asserting that god is a myth), argue from the default position that there is no supernatural being call God. I draw your attention to the following: http://www.freethoughtdebater.com/FBurdenOfProof.htm "Atheism, Agnosticism, and Burden of Proof - P. Wesley Edwards (updated 2-Sept-2004)
"How can you be an atheist if you cannot disprove the existence of God?" This all-too-common question is often related to a misunderstanding of the concept of burden of proof, of how that concept relates to belief, and of how both of these ideas relate to the definitions of agnosticism and atheism.
Burden of Proof
You have probably heard the term "burden of proof" used in courtroom settings, often in the context of a criminal trial where the accused is innocent until proven guilty. What this means, of course, is that the accused's innocence is assumed to be true, unless someone can actually prove otherwise. In other words, the accused's innocence is the default position. As a result, it is absolutely not required for the accused to prove his innocence; he has only to show that, based on the prosecution's case, there is no good reason to believe in his guilt; that the arguments and evidence presented by the prosecution are either unreliable, or do not make his guilt any more likely than some alternative explanation. Simply put, the burden of proof is on the prosecution.
Importantly, when a jury returns a finding of "not guilty" they are not saying that they believe the suspect is innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. They may have a truckload of doubt about his innocence. Their finding means only that reasonable doubt exists as to the suspect's guilt. If there is such reasonable doubt and the burden is on the prosecution, then the jury is ethically and rationally required to acquit.
Why do we put the burden of proof on the prosecution? Because otherwise the prosecution's job would be much too easy. For example, imagine you had to prove your innocence against the charge that you have the supernatural ability to cause cancer in humans anywhere in the world, and that you actually use this ability for your own sadistic pleasure, which is behind all the world's cases of previously unexplained cancers. To make their case the prosecution puts you on the stand and asks, "Well then, if you aren't guilty, how do you explain all the cases of mysterious cancers?" Helplessly, you admit that you can't, to which the prosecution replies with an accusing finger, "Ah ha!" With your fear and frustration mounting you ask, "What makes you think it's me!?" The prosecution immediately points out that Analogyland is not a country like the US: here you are guilty until proven innocent, and so the prosecution does not have to explain or prove anything. On the contrary, it is you that has to do the explaining. Nonetheless, the prosecution is feeling a bit generous and they volunteer that they are charging you based on their own psychic powers, powers that give them direct knowledge of evil people like you. When you ask what evidence they have that such a psychic sense is even reliable, they angrily warn you that your attempts to confuse the court will not be tolerated. The prosecution then reminds you once again that the only party who must present evidence is you, and that if you cannot prove the prosecution wrong, you are guilty by default.
Needless to say, you would be doomed in such a situation. In fact, in any land where your guilt is the default assumption, you would be doomed to a guilty verdict whenever the charge against you was unprovable, and the list of unprovable charges is limited only by one's imagination (e.g., you are a witch who magically eliminates all evidence against her, or the reincarnation of Hitler pretending to be a good p
Okay, I will set aside my amazement. Let's back up here. If I said that life was created by the "BigSpaghettiMonster", then either of two things are correct: 1. It is up to ME to prove my assertion IS true. 2. It is up to OTHERS to prove my assertion IS NOT true.
Which, Mr. Trongey, do you believe is correct? 1 or 2?
Why is the burden on the believers?
Okay. If I claimed that the moon was made of green cheese, you would say: "Okay, you're asserting a fact--so you need to prove that the moon is made of green cheese." The same goes with someone who is asserting that there is a being called "God" who exists and who made the world. I, as an atheist, am NOT asserting any facts. It is you--the believer--who is asserting that god exists and so you are the one who needs to prove something.
Also, it's a well-known fact that it's impossible to prove a negative: I can't prove that something does not exist. To achieve that, I would have to analyze every thing in the universe and that's not possible. You are asserting a fact--that god exists--and so it is in your lap to prove that.
The attribution to "God" of these feelings is scientifically dubious. There is no God and so any effect that is experienced by these people is just the results of biochemical processes. To anyone who might attempt to question this, I ask: what is your proof that a god exists? And before you attempt to turn that around--the burden of proof does exist with persons who assert that god exists. I, as an atheist, do not need to prove anything. It is the believers in a god that need to do the proving.
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Nice Try.
I do update my slides frequently. Rewrite them from scratch? Not too frequently. As for your comment about using Adobe Acrobat--that shows me you didn't look at them. Many of the lectures contain animation that can only be done in Powerpoint. That's not possible in Acrobat, smartass. That ability to dynamically see code execute, see what variables are holding, etc. is one of the most popular aspects of those lectures. The http://freejavalectures.googlepages.com/ has a google page rank of 5/10. That means it's very popular. Have you given anything back to the community, sir?
"Shell out major bucks for Flex". My point precisely.
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Convert them? Do you know how many years of work it took to create those lectures? You're talking at least 2000 slides. Each one full of detail. What a total waste of time that would be. Besides, they currently can be opened using Open Office. I hate Microsoft but not enough to waste my time.
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Yes, these were written before anything like StarOffice or OpenOffice existed. However, if you were to actually VIEW the slides, you would see that Microsoft is the butt of recurring mockery and other jokes. So, despite having no alternative to Powerpoint in 1999, I had the opinion then that I do now.
I also note that you didn't point out how the fact that my lectures are about the topic of Java--which is itself a competitor that is killing MS.
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So what! MS releases a new version of their also ran crap Zune and the world yawns. What is their market share right now? 1%? This release will not cause their share to even wiggle.
I am fully capable of coding in C and C++. Java is not a panacea. And your point about sloppy programming being the problem is valid--but it's just much easier in C/C++ to shoot yourself in the foot than it is in Java. And as we know, mistakes and sloppiness are not always caused by stupidity--haste is often the cause. And in this go-go development environment, very few folks are not forced to code like the wind.
So, while your naked point is valid, in practical terms--considering these memory leak bug hunts--Java is a more efficient language to code in. Evidence of this fact can be found in the majority of shops around the world--which you know code in Java.
I said no such thing. I am merely commenting on the obvious limitations of the C and C++ languages. If you are a C/C++ programmer I hope you notice the dwindling number of jobs. Do you think those people who have chosen to focus on Java are misguided?
Well, seems like this is time to extol the joys of the C and C++ language, with their delightful scavenger hunt the whole team can play: Find the Memory Leaks!
Seriously--can you imagine a more embarrassing thing for the developers of Firefox? You guys were so sloppy that we're expanding the hunt for your mistakes to a world-wide level. Gosh, they must be proud of their work.
Do you remember that guy in 6th grade who farted in all-school assembly? I sure do. That has been a long time. You don't forget it when somebody--a person or an organization--does something really stupid.
We won't forget about Microsoft's security screw ups for decades.
Certainly you are entitled to your opinion. Also, there are some of his books I don't care for, such as "Stranger in a Strange Land." However, if you are going after the plausibility of his books then you really have taken on the entire field of SciFi, in which there are millions of things you can't believe.
As someone who has worked as a journalist and who also has a degree in journalism, I can say that any ordinary journalist could not be faulted for not understanding these issues. They are complex and most non-techny folks would not know what the hell they were discussing.
However, isn't this guy supposed to be a tech journalist? Doesn't that imply at least a basic understanding of how the source-code issues really work? I think this guy was just put into a field that he was not qualified for.
Robert Heinlein is one SciFi author that everybody at slashdot should love. He was into technology before there really was any. My favorite: "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress".
The best part of this change is that Paul Krugman's columns will now be available again. He's the guy who beat up on Bush the most. Very smart guy and pithy as hell. This is a great change.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, looking over my comment that you are responding to, I fail to see any mention or attribution in regard to the war. So, WTF are you talking about? Apparently, you were looking for an excuse to blame the left but I do not follow your logic. Oh, forgive me. If you're coming from the right you are absolved from introducing logic into your reasoning.
It is a rare event in this world that a good person doing a good thing is recognised. Except for the odd right-wingers who will respond to this (as an anonymous coward, no doubt), everyone on this planet owes Mr. Gore a debt of gratitude. Even if you don't believe in the human-influence on global warming (something I accept), you must admit that it's pretty obvious that all the pollution and greenhouse gases that we humans cause to be put into the atmosphere cannot be a good thing. Anything that causes us NOT to soil our nest is to be applauded. Mr. Gore is part of the force of good and I applaud him. Worked on his 2000 campaign in Council Bluffs too. Damn shame that he lost to the current asshat Bush by a vote of 4 to 5.
This is a great idea for a book--hope the execution lives up to the idea. Without having read the book, I will venture some obvious things: * Profile your app before you optimize. Don't guess where you are slow: know. * If you use Struts, don't do client-side validation. (Look at the mass of JavaScript that gets added to your page if you question this.) * Use AJAX if you can. (Also an amazing speed boost). * Use few images. * Do AJAX validation without leaving the page.
This is no surprise. Having worked under the skank when she was at HP, I'm not surprised she's in league with the slime over at Fox. She was the worst imperial style CEO who--though HP had just inherited several new Gulfstream jets when they purchased Compaq, Carly went out and bought two brand new jets (one which was reserved for she and her husband alone) at the same time that several thousand contractors and employees were getting axed. She was a nightmare.
Okay, let's try this one more time. Theists claim the existence of a being they call God who allegedly created the universe. Atheists deny that such a being exists. Now, on its face, who is making the larger claim? In my book, the one who makes the larger, more complex claim is the one who has to prove something. The theist is obviously making a larger claim. If we follow your logic, then anybody claiming anything--the green cheese, spaghetti monster-type claim--must be accepted as fact unless a third party can disprove the claim. My point is this: you are claiming something exists. You need to provide a proof or else we must conclude that your "claim" is specious. I, on the other hand, do not make any claim whatsoever. Therefore, what am I to prove? If we accept your supposition that merely being first guarranteed rightness, then why don't we all believe that the Sun and planets revolve around the earth? Hence, none of your posts have done anything to refute my original point which is that god's existence remains unproven. Another term for something with as much validity as God (the toothfairy, for example) is a myth. Hence, I do not see any argument provided by you that God exists. I do not see anything approaching an argument. I just find the semantic equivalent of "Nah-nah na-nah na". I find it remarkable that you have avoided addressing any of my points. Finally, there is a great scientific idea called "Occam's Razor". This idea states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. While this does not provide any proof or even an argument, I find it amazing that people who appear to be interested in science are willing to dispense with the entire scientific method when it comes to belief in the supernatural. For example, I know so many Christians who are more than willing to accept the outcome of the scientific method when it comes to verifying the efficacy of medcines they consume. However, when that same scientific method is applied to things such as Evolution or religion, suddenly they lose their taste for the evidence that the correctly-applied scientific method provides. Also, in the past, the vast majority of the earth's population believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the Earth was flat, etc. Despite the vast majority of Earth's population that believed those things to be true, science was able to provide concrete evidence to the contrary and, eventually, all intelligent beings on this planet have accepted those two bits of information as being fact. The idea of the existence of God is just harder to disprove. Perhaps it's impossible and that will provide aid and comfort to believers for the next few millenia. Still, I just find it saddening that I have to engage in these-type discussions on Slashdot, where I had expected to find people who have given up believing in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunney and God. The evidence to support any of them remains at the same level of proof: none.
Dude, have you forgotten what the original point was? Whether or not there is a god. I say there is no proof. You, apparently, argue otherwise. My point is this: I, as an Atheist, do not need to prove a thing. I, as an Atheist (asserting that god is a myth), argue from the default position that there is no supernatural being call God. I draw your attention to the following:
http://www.freethoughtdebater.com/FBurdenOfProof.htm
"Atheism, Agnosticism, and Burden of Proof - P. Wesley Edwards (updated 2-Sept-2004)
"How can you be an atheist if you cannot disprove the existence of God?" This all-too-common question is often related to a misunderstanding of the concept of burden of proof, of how that concept relates to belief, and of how both of these ideas relate to the definitions of agnosticism and atheism.
Burden of Proof
You have probably heard the term "burden of proof" used in courtroom settings, often in the context of a criminal trial where the accused is innocent until proven guilty. What this means, of course, is that the accused's innocence is assumed to be true, unless someone can actually prove otherwise. In other words, the accused's innocence is the default position. As a result, it is absolutely not required for the accused to prove his innocence; he has only to show that, based on the prosecution's case, there is no good reason to believe in his guilt; that the arguments and evidence presented by the prosecution are either unreliable, or do not make his guilt any more likely than some alternative explanation. Simply put, the burden of proof is on the prosecution.
Importantly, when a jury returns a finding of "not guilty" they are not saying that they believe the suspect is innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. They may have a truckload of doubt about his innocence. Their finding means only that reasonable doubt exists as to the suspect's guilt. If there is such reasonable doubt and the burden is on the prosecution, then the jury is ethically and rationally required to acquit.
Why do we put the burden of proof on the prosecution? Because otherwise the prosecution's job would be much too easy. For example, imagine you had to prove your innocence against the charge that you have the supernatural ability to cause cancer in humans anywhere in the world, and that you actually use this ability for your own sadistic pleasure, which is behind all the world's cases of previously unexplained cancers. To make their case the prosecution puts you on the stand and asks, "Well then, if you aren't guilty, how do you explain all the cases of mysterious cancers?" Helplessly, you admit that you can't, to which the prosecution replies with an accusing finger, "Ah ha!" With your fear and frustration mounting you ask, "What makes you think it's me!?" The prosecution immediately points out that Analogyland is not a country like the US: here you are guilty until proven innocent, and so the prosecution does not have to explain or prove anything. On the contrary, it is you that has to do the explaining. Nonetheless, the prosecution is feeling a bit generous and they volunteer that they are charging you based on their own psychic powers, powers that give them direct knowledge of evil people like you. When you ask what evidence they have that such a psychic sense is even reliable, they angrily warn you that your attempts to confuse the court will not be tolerated. The prosecution then reminds you once again that the only party who must present evidence is you, and that if you cannot prove the prosecution wrong, you are guilty by default.
Needless to say, you would be doomed in such a situation. In fact, in any land where your guilt is the default assumption, you would be doomed to a guilty verdict whenever the charge against you was unprovable, and the list of unprovable charges is limited only by one's imagination (e.g., you are a witch who magically eliminates all evidence against her, or the reincarnation of Hitler pretending to be a good p
Okay, I will set aside my amazement. Let's back up here.
If I said that life was created by the "BigSpaghettiMonster", then either of two things are correct:
1. It is up to ME to prove my assertion IS true.
2. It is up to OTHERS to prove my assertion IS NOT true.
Which, Mr. Trongey, do you believe is correct? 1 or 2?
Why is the burden on the believers? Okay. If I claimed that the moon was made of green cheese, you would say: "Okay, you're asserting a fact--so you need to prove that the moon is made of green cheese." The same goes with someone who is asserting that there is a being called "God" who exists and who made the world. I, as an atheist, am NOT asserting any facts. It is you--the believer--who is asserting that god exists and so you are the one who needs to prove something. Also, it's a well-known fact that it's impossible to prove a negative: I can't prove that something does not exist. To achieve that, I would have to analyze every thing in the universe and that's not possible. You are asserting a fact--that god exists--and so it is in your lap to prove that.
The attribution to "God" of these feelings is scientifically dubious. There is no God and so any effect that is experienced by these people is just the results of biochemical processes. To anyone who might attempt to question this, I ask: what is your proof that a god exists? And before you attempt to turn that around--the burden of proof does exist with persons who assert that god exists. I, as an atheist, do not need to prove anything. It is the believers in a god that need to do the proving.
Nice Try. I do update my slides frequently. Rewrite them from scratch? Not too frequently. As for your comment about using Adobe Acrobat--that shows me you didn't look at them. Many of the lectures contain animation that can only be done in Powerpoint. That's not possible in Acrobat, smartass. That ability to dynamically see code execute, see what variables are holding, etc. is one of the most popular aspects of those lectures. The http://freejavalectures.googlepages.com/ has a google page rank of 5/10. That means it's very popular. Have you given anything back to the community, sir?
"Shell out major bucks for Flex". My point precisely.
Convert them? Do you know how many years of work it took to create those lectures? You're talking at least 2000 slides. Each one full of detail. What a total waste of time that would be. Besides, they currently can be opened using Open Office. I hate Microsoft but not enough to waste my time.
Yes, these were written before anything like StarOffice or OpenOffice existed. However, if you were to actually VIEW the slides, you would see that Microsoft is the butt of recurring mockery and other jokes. So, despite having no alternative to Powerpoint in 1999, I had the opinion then that I do now. I also note that you didn't point out how the fact that my lectures are about the topic of Java--which is itself a competitor that is killing MS.
So what! MS releases a new version of their also ran crap Zune and the world yawns. What is their market share right now? 1%? This release will not cause their share to even wiggle.
Just like Flash, this Flex software is likely to cost a ton of money. So, it will have negligible effect on the market.
I am fully capable of coding in C and C++. Java is not a panacea. And your point about sloppy programming being the problem is valid--but it's just much easier in C/C++ to shoot yourself in the foot than it is in Java. And as we know, mistakes and sloppiness are not always caused by stupidity--haste is often the cause. And in this go-go development environment, very few folks are not forced to code like the wind.
So, while your naked point is valid, in practical terms--considering these memory leak bug hunts--Java is a more efficient language to code in. Evidence of this fact can be found in the majority of shops around the world--which you know code in Java.
I said no such thing. I am merely commenting on the obvious limitations of the C and C++ languages. If you are a C/C++ programmer I hope you notice the dwindling number of jobs. Do you think those people who have chosen to focus on Java are misguided?
Well, seems like this is time to extol the joys of the C and C++ language, with their delightful scavenger hunt the whole team can play: Find the Memory Leaks! Seriously--can you imagine a more embarrassing thing for the developers of Firefox? You guys were so sloppy that we're expanding the hunt for your mistakes to a world-wide level. Gosh, they must be proud of their work.
You make some good points. He should not have been a tech journalist unless he was willing to remediate his deficiencies.
Do you remember that guy in 6th grade who farted in all-school assembly? I sure do. That has been a long time. You don't forget it when somebody--a person or an organization--does something really stupid. We won't forget about Microsoft's security screw ups for decades.
Certainly you are entitled to your opinion. Also, there are some of his books I don't care for, such as "Stranger in a Strange Land." However, if you are going after the plausibility of his books then you really have taken on the entire field of SciFi, in which there are millions of things you can't believe.
As someone who has worked as a journalist and who also has a degree in journalism, I can say that any ordinary journalist could not be faulted for not understanding these issues. They are complex and most non-techny folks would not know what the hell they were discussing. However, isn't this guy supposed to be a tech journalist? Doesn't that imply at least a basic understanding of how the source-code issues really work? I think this guy was just put into a field that he was not qualified for.
Robert Heinlein is one SciFi author that everybody at slashdot should love. He was into technology before there really was any. My favorite: "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress".
Stick it, Right-wing assclown. The Republicans have screwed up this country enough.
The best part of this change is that Paul Krugman's columns will now be available again. He's the guy who beat up on Bush the most. Very smart guy and pithy as hell. This is a great change.