I disagree - I think that there can be good reasons to only change the bare minimum. If you have a mission-critical, *working* program, reliability and stability are more important than efficiency or elegance. So your nested-if's example looks silly, but at least it works:-)
If they're anything like my old high school, they would probably spend a lot more time trying to figure out who sent the letter than making any actual fixes.
I miss that one - it would monitor specific hardware prices and alert you when there was a price drop. I think Cnet bought and killed it. It looks like it's a blog or something now...
You're absolutely right that we are deeply in debt as a nation. I believe the Iraq war is the primary cause of that, though. Also, Bush has *not* been a fiscally conservative president.
Anyway, I'm not an advocate of welfare, but there are plenty of people who need help, mainly people with special needs. I'm thinking about developmentally disabled people, veterans with PTSD, people with debilitating medical problems. I.e. people who legitimately can't take care of themselves. I don't trust the private sector (non-profits) to consistently step in and help these people. Unfortunately, libertarians tend to leave them out of their calculations.
Leaving gender out of the issue, how many republicans do you think would vote for someone named Hillary Rodham Clinton? A name that rings with the sounds of two recent so called enemies (Dennis Rodman is one, you figure out the other).
Meanwhile, all that lost revenue in taxes affected many other people outside your immediate perception. I'm glad the tax cuts helped you personally, but plenty of people have been hurting under the tax breaks.
Max/MSP is a (2D) graphical language for sound synthesis. PureData (PD) is the FOSS equivalent. I find graphical programming can be tedious and often counter-intuitive, but it's worth a look.
Anyway, I disagree that software engineering tools are particularly bad. With a modern IDE, you can see all the class and instance methods of any public API class very easily (you even get some documentation in a tooltip). And a well-designed OO library should need fairly little documentation - most of the functions should be self-explanatory. Refactoring tools have become very powerful. And thorough testing should catch the most serious errors. Last but not least, languages themselves are higher level and easier to understand. Where's the bad?
The point is, the *audience* would not have known that Vader was Anakin if Lucas had written Ep 3 differently, which would have made for a more interesting experience for people watching it 1-6.
For example, in Russia a politician can go on state-run news program and openly blame Jews for everything. Want to see a steamy scene in a movie? No need to go to a theater. Just watch some of the flicks on TV. However, do not attempt to criticize the government!
The difference between the American censorship that you're referring to (no nudity on TV) and Russian/Chinese censorship is that American censorship is mostly confined to the airwaves (which is considered a public resource). Russian and Chinese censorship apply everywhere - to the private sector as well (including blogs and bumper stickers).
p.s. You should read 1984 again - it might sound familiar (Big Brother blaming various "enemies" for everything, explicit "prolefeed" to entertain and distract the masses, but no criticizing the government, of course).
My original statement was that safety should not be a luxury, and I stand by that. I admit that "safest possible technology" (a phrase I put in parens) was a bit of hyperbole, and I'm perfectly aware that real-life engineering costs may result in that being an unrealistic goal.
I also agree that passing a law forcing car companies to throw in every possible safety feature on every car immediately would put them all out of business. But we should definitely be moving towards the goal of as much safety as possible for as many people as possible.
But safety may not be inherently expensive. The seatbelt is a wonderful example of a low cost technology that dramatically increases safety. That's why I mentioned it specifically.
Practically speaking, economies of scale work towards lowering the cost of expensive technologies when they become standard. A safety feature that requires an on-board computer to do image processing could be made cheaper by mass-producing a chip dedicated to performing that specific algorithm, for example. If only a few thousand of these computers are made each year, for luxury models only, then it doesn't make economic sense to put them on a specialized chip and mass-produce them.
If it's still not economically feasible to put a particular technology in every car, then we should work on a way to make it feasible, so they don't remain luxuries permanently. That is, dedicate research money, public or private, to finding ways of reducing costs, or finding a lower-cost alternative. Maybe engineers can find a way to make a few cheap sensors perform as well as the on-board computer, or maybe it's possible to get higher quality tires without significantly increasing their cost.
If after all that, it's still not possible to put it in every car without making even the cheapest car prohibitively expensive, as you've said, then I would say we're off the hook, ethically speaking. But there's quite a bit we can do before that point.
(Although, in the bigger picture, if the technology is that effective, then fewer serious accidents means fewer lawsuits, less need for insurance, fewer disability cases, fewer medical expenses, and fewer highway cops. All of which means a healthier economy and more money in people's pockets to spend! So it may still make economic sense to include an expensive technology in every car.)
You're right - just like private planes are out of the reach of most people, since the technology required to make a plane safe is so expensive. The rest of us have to fly commercial or drive. But I'd rather not fly in my own private plane that I got cheap because the manufacturer cut some corners. More importantly, if I did buy a private plane, I would assume that certain safety standards were met by virtue of the fact that it's even on the market.
Luckily, the technology required to make cars safe is not prohibitively expensive - I'm talking about basics like seatbelts, and basic control systems to make sure the engine doesn't overheat and explode. As a society, we decide what constitutes "safe", and we mandate that.
The reality is pretty close to what I was saying - the laws are very strict when it comes to safety, and when a technology that significantly reduces car-related deaths is introduced, and it's economically feasible, Congress typically mandates that it become standard.
By the way, where I'm standing, the poor *do* walk, ride bikes, or more likely, take the bus.
Yes, of course life is inherently unfair. That's why ethical people take steps to alleviate the unfairness, as opposed to "getting over it". If people simply looked the other way every time something unfair happened, instead of seeking reform, we would still have children working 12 hour shifts in dangerous factories, our air and water would be toxic. And insider trading would be legal. The only real debate is where to draw the line, not whether to draw it in the first place.
As far as safety goes, I'll qualify my statement - the safest possible technology that's economically feasible. I was thinking seatbelts (I think most people would agree that seatbelts should not be a luxury), not something that only NASA knows how to do.
This situation is no more unethical than Mercedes or Volvo building a "safer" automobile that is only available to those wealthy enough to afford it...
If only wealthy people had access to safe cars, I would say that that is extremely unethical. Safety should not be a luxury.
(I know you said "safer", not "safe", but considering how much life is lost every year in car accidents, everyone should have access to the safest possible technology)
Actually it's a common bias. I was reading a book a few years ago and I noticed that the author always referred to men by their last names and to women, children, and non-Europeans by their first names.
I think Obama's different. People under 30 have more time and more idealism than older people - they should be the first ones in line to vote. The reason they don't is that they don't like the candidates. I think young people will get past their cynicism and actually get out and vote for this man.
I bought the book simply to support Nicholas Gurewitch - there was not much in there that I didn't already see before. But since his site doesn't have advertising, I was happy to support him directly (it's comparable to Radiohead's "pay what you like" model in that sense).
I do wish there were more "special features" in the book, but there are some interesting bits at the end where he includes comics that he has since taken out of the PBF canon, explaining why he made those decisions (for example, he eschews pop references in his comics, so those sort of comics are part of the "Lost Strips" series in the back of the book). Also, he has some of his extra-tasteless ones:-)
I like to think of PBF as the opposite of Penny Arcade, which is almost always topical, picking apart the latest headlines for laughs (not a bad thing, just different). PBF's humor will still be funny in fifty years, when people will have no clue what Penny Arcade (or South Park, or Family Guy for that matter) are talking about. It has that timeless element to it that makes me a fan.
And before I forget, congratulations to Nicholas Gurewitch on his success! It is well deserved.
I have no idea if I have to call HazMat for broken tubes. The government and lighting industry has done a very poor job of educating people about the proper safety procedures for these things. I have broken fluorescent tubes before, and just vacuumed up the mess. Apparently that's a big no-no. But no one told me that.
Anyway, my argument is identical for fluorescent tubes. The government can't afford to send HazMat after every broken full-length tube either...
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree - I think that there can be good reasons to only change the bare minimum. If you have a mission-critical, *working* program, reliability and stability are more important than efficiency or elegance. So your nested-if's example looks silly, but at least it works :-)
If they're anything like my old high school, they would probably spend a lot more time trying to figure out who sent the letter than making any actual fixes.
I miss that one - it would monitor specific hardware prices and alert you when there was a price drop. I think Cnet bought and killed it.
It looks like it's a blog or something now...
Why is this a sad case? Thyssen deserved much worse for what he did.
You're absolutely right that we are deeply in debt as a nation. I believe the Iraq war is the primary cause of that, though. Also, Bush has *not* been a fiscally conservative president. Anyway, I'm not an advocate of welfare, but there are plenty of people who need help, mainly people with special needs. I'm thinking about developmentally disabled people, veterans with PTSD, people with debilitating medical problems. I.e. people who legitimately can't take care of themselves. I don't trust the private sector (non-profits) to consistently step in and help these people. Unfortunately, libertarians tend to leave them out of their calculations.
Meanwhile, all that lost revenue in taxes affected many other people outside your immediate perception. I'm glad the tax cuts helped you personally, but plenty of people have been hurting under the tax breaks.
It looks like it's a way to make Ruby on Rails faster, using some technology that was designed for SmallTalk.
Max/MSP is a (2D) graphical language for sound synthesis. PureData (PD) is the FOSS equivalent. I find graphical programming can be tedious and often counter-intuitive, but it's worth a look.
Anyway, I disagree that software engineering tools are particularly bad. With a modern IDE, you can see all the class and instance methods of any public API class very easily (you even get some documentation in a tooltip). And a well-designed OO library should need fairly little documentation - most of the functions should be self-explanatory. Refactoring tools have become very powerful. And thorough testing should catch the most serious errors. Last but not least, languages themselves are higher level and easier to understand. Where's the bad?
The point is, the *audience* would not have known that Vader was Anakin if Lucas had written Ep 3 differently, which would have made for a more interesting experience for people watching it 1-6.
If the criticisms are not valid, then the Chinese government should have no problem debunking them. So there's still no excuse to censor.
I thought he was a member of Steve Ballmer's Chair Throwers cult.
Take some happy pills, like everybody else!
My original statement was that safety should not be a luxury, and I stand by that. I admit that "safest possible technology" (a phrase I put in parens) was a bit of hyperbole, and I'm perfectly aware that real-life engineering costs may result in that being an unrealistic goal.
I also agree that passing a law forcing car companies to throw in every possible safety feature on every car immediately would put them all out of business. But we should definitely be moving towards the goal of as much safety as possible for as many people as possible.
But safety may not be inherently expensive. The seatbelt is a wonderful example of a low cost technology that dramatically increases safety. That's why I mentioned it specifically.
Practically speaking, economies of scale work towards lowering the cost of expensive technologies when they become standard. A safety feature that requires an on-board computer to do image processing could be made cheaper by mass-producing a chip dedicated to performing that specific algorithm, for example. If only a few thousand of these computers are made each year, for luxury models only, then it doesn't make economic sense to put them on a specialized chip and mass-produce them.
If it's still not economically feasible to put a particular technology in every car, then we should work on a way to make it feasible, so they don't remain luxuries permanently. That is, dedicate research money, public or private, to finding ways of reducing costs, or finding a lower-cost alternative. Maybe engineers can find a way to make a few cheap sensors perform as well as the on-board computer, or maybe it's possible to get higher quality tires without significantly increasing their cost.
If after all that, it's still not possible to put it in every car without making even the cheapest car prohibitively expensive, as you've said, then I would say we're off the hook, ethically speaking. But there's quite a bit we can do before that point.
(Although, in the bigger picture, if the technology is that effective, then fewer serious accidents means fewer lawsuits, less need for insurance, fewer disability cases, fewer medical expenses, and fewer highway cops. All of which means a healthier economy and more money in people's pockets to spend! So it may still make economic sense to include an expensive technology in every car.)
You're right - just like private planes are out of the reach of most people, since the technology required to make a plane safe is so expensive. The rest of us have to fly commercial or drive. But I'd rather not fly in my own private plane that I got cheap because the manufacturer cut some corners. More importantly, if I did buy a private plane, I would assume that certain safety standards were met by virtue of the fact that it's even on the market.
Luckily, the technology required to make cars safe is not prohibitively expensive - I'm talking about basics like seatbelts, and basic control systems to make sure the engine doesn't overheat and explode. As a society, we decide what constitutes "safe", and we mandate that.
The reality is pretty close to what I was saying - the laws are very strict when it comes to safety, and when a technology that significantly reduces car-related deaths is introduced, and it's economically feasible, Congress typically mandates that it become standard.
By the way, where I'm standing, the poor *do* walk, ride bikes, or more likely, take the bus.
Yes, of course life is inherently unfair. That's why ethical people take steps to alleviate the unfairness, as opposed to "getting over it". If people simply looked the other way every time something unfair happened, instead of seeking reform, we would still have children working 12 hour shifts in dangerous factories, our air and water would be toxic. And insider trading would be legal. The only real debate is where to draw the line, not whether to draw it in the first place.
As far as safety goes, I'll qualify my statement - the safest possible technology that's economically feasible. I was thinking seatbelts (I think most people would agree that seatbelts should not be a luxury), not something that only NASA knows how to do.
Haha I was going to say that :-)
Actually it's a common bias. I was reading a book a few years ago and I noticed that the author always referred to men by their last names and to women, children, and non-Europeans by their first names.
It must suck to be an old black Seventh Day Adventist woman...
I think Obama's different. People under 30 have more time and more idealism than older people - they should be the first ones in line to vote. The reason they don't is that they don't like the candidates. I think young people will get past their cynicism and actually get out and vote for this man.
I bought the book simply to support Nicholas Gurewitch - there was not much in there that I didn't already see before. But since his site doesn't have advertising, I was happy to support him directly (it's comparable to Radiohead's "pay what you like" model in that sense).
:-)
I do wish there were more "special features" in the book, but there are some interesting bits at the end where he includes comics that he has since taken out of the PBF canon, explaining why he made those decisions (for example, he eschews pop references in his comics, so those sort of comics are part of the "Lost Strips" series in the back of the book). Also, he has some of his extra-tasteless ones
I like to think of PBF as the opposite of Penny Arcade, which is almost always topical, picking apart the latest headlines for laughs (not a bad thing, just different). PBF's humor will still be funny in fifty years, when people will have no clue what Penny Arcade (or South Park, or Family Guy for that matter) are talking about. It has that timeless element to it that makes me a fan.
And before I forget, congratulations to Nicholas Gurewitch on his success! It is well deserved.
FYI, some over-the-counter stuff: Vinpocetine, Phosphatidylserine, and of course Gingko. IANAD.
I have no idea if I have to call HazMat for broken tubes. The government and lighting industry has done a very poor job of educating people about the proper safety procedures for these things. I have broken fluorescent tubes before, and just vacuumed up the mess. Apparently that's a big no-no. But no one told me that. Anyway, my argument is identical for fluorescent tubes. The government can't afford to send HazMat after every broken full-length tube either...