Yes, in my local store I found two cans of mushrooms by the same brand (one for slices and one for pieces) that looked almost identical except one said made in USA and one said made in China (in small print).
I've been amazed how much food comes from China in a typical small grocery store.
I still feel the big lesson learned since the 1970s is that macros are problematical.:-) It is not just what languages add, it is also what they leave out.
Most people using languages with macros like C/C++ most of the time are just assuming things about the codebase syntactically that might not be true.
Lisp macros are a bit different though, because they are usually just about whether an expression gets evaluated or not before being passed into a function.
Glad to hear macros are working out for you and you have found tools that make it easier.
The text may be misleading, but that is how people actually talk about this sometimes.
I think I just have not been clear about the key issue.
People have for decades fought any kind of funding for "cold fusion" on the argument that it violates established laws of physics. The people arguing most heavily for that are people getting lots of funding for "hot fusion", despite the conflict of interest. This has serious ethical complications.
Physicist David Goodstein wrote, in another context: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html "Peer review is usually quite a good way to identify valid science. Of course, a referee will occasionally fail to appreciate a truly visionary or revolutionary idea, but by and large, peer review works pretty well so long as scientific validity is the only issue at stake. However, it is not at all suited to arbitrate an intense competition for research funds or for editorial space in prestigious journals. There are many reasons for this, not the least being the fact that the referees have an obvious conflict of interest, since they are themselves competitors for the same resources."
For example, related to Cold Fusion, see: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/dr-george-miley-replicates-patterson.html#comment-341890693 "Third, theory that is institutionally immune to experimental falsification is the sine qua non of pseudoscience so it was the American Physical Society that was engaging in mass pseudoscience. Indeed, theory that is INSTITUTIONALLY immune to experimental falsification is theocracy."
If there is not funding for research, for the most part, it is not done. If things can't be published no matter how carefully and well done the research is, that is a disincentive for professional scientists to work in that field. That is what has been going on for decades with cold fusion. A few people have persisted anyway. But institutionally, cold fusion was never given a fair hearing.
What I'm talking about is the way that people are all essentially religious about some supposed physical law (like the second law of thermodynamics as an example, which basically is at the core of saying energy can not come from anything we do not make an exception about by calling it some kind of battery or reaction). People can cite such laws with the highest moral tone as to why something won't work because it does not fit into known approaches. Then time after time again something does not fit, and then suddenly it is OK because some new exception to the law is invented related to some new theory. But, do people learn much from that?
A true scientist is both intensely skeptical and yet also open to new ideas. Pathological 100% skepticism about anything new generally doesn't help anyone (except maybe those already getting grant funding). Scientists are not supposed to be theologians, but it seems many are (and poor ones at that, too). Also related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism#Religion_and_philosophy
You make a good point about layers, but in practice, macro abuse seems worse. Macros also make it hard to have good development tools (like Smalltalk has) because the syntax of the language can change so much through macros (at least for something like C).
#include #define System S s;s #define public #define static #define void int #define main(x) main() struct F{void println(char* s){std::cout s std::endl;}}; struct S{F out;};
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!"); }
That just seems like a very different thing than the fact that when I change a class it may affect how other classes behave -- even though, it's true, there is some abstract logical equivalence.
Interesting to get on mod up as interesting and one mod down as a troll.:-)
Anyway, for the software development community to move forward, we need to really wrestle with these deep design issues. Can't we eventually somehow move beyond "worse is better" as a community?
Especially now that computers have gotten so fast?
At what point do we prioritize the user (and/or the maintainer) experience?
"Neither fusion, nor cold fusion, has anything to do with thermodynamics."
Thanks for the reply. The point of the essay is that's only because thermodynamics was essentially revised to allow for energy produced as materials change their internal configurations (from nuclear or other processes).
Here is an example of the use of such terminology in relation to naysayers about cold fusion, whether accurate or not: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/02/andrea-rossi-italian-cold-fusion-plant/ "Jonathan Koomey, an energy consultant who has advised the EPA, said any extraordinary discovery requires extraordinary proof. He said the E-Cat must be verified by an independent study conducted by scientists who are allowed access to the machineâ(TM)s inner-workings.... Koomey explained that cold fusion defies the laws of thermodynamics. Energy requires an initial, consumable power source that erodes and breaks down -- it simply isn't self-sustaining."
I got it working; see my other comment here, but basically I did not have all the required modules installed. The download instructions could be a lot clearer on exactly what you should be installing. I think I ended up with just the UI and SDK the first time.
OK, I got it working. Basically, I (think I) must have installed just the runtime and UI parts. I assumed Eclipse would take care of dependencies. So, nothign ran. Then I tried again and installed more modules, but the turotial still did not work. Then I dleeted the tutorial project, and remade is as an example. And now it works.
Anyway, what gives? I guess the Eclipse people just assume people can figure out how to compile some new language in Eclipse? Or figure out how to use Xtext and somehow understand how Xtend related to it?
Or maybe something went wrong related to the install? I had to guess from about 20 packages which to install with various combinations of stuff with different versions.
So, still some obvious rough edges for anyone who wants to try it.
The problem with languages with macros is that unlike, say, Smalltalk, you generally never know when macros might apply when and so change the meaning of what you are looking at unless you understand the *entire* program...
Linux was designed badly from a big picture perspective, which is why I never wanted to use it in the first place over a decade ago, but I did anyway in the end for social reasons (things can be useful, even when you know what a mess they are designwise comapred to what they could have been). Linux's design prioritized raw machine processing efficiency over human efficiency -- to begin with, by having a monolithic kernel. That mindset flowed into other applications, but the example was set by the kernel. So software ran a little faster -- but only when it ran, and it often did not for one random breakage or other. And kernel maintainers have said they could care less how much suffering they cause other programmers by incompatible changes (which they probably would not have had so many without being monolithic as well as not message-passing-oriented). UNIX was already obsolete when it was cloned compared to QNX, NeXT, BEOS, and so on. And Smalltalk still had a better model in many ways from the very start decades ago (message passing, virtualization in terms of a VM). Even just Forth might have been a much better model than Linux for a kernel and a module system.
Anyway, I've been using computers for thirty years (since the KIM-1) so I'm agreeing with you. And I'm mostly using Macs these days -- even though I'd rather use some really cool virtualized thing based around message passing (maybe Squeak-ish someday).
Still, for many people it is still fun, so things keep going. And "worse is better" up to a point, especially when driven by social adoption and related job opportunities. Sad.
Still Ubuntu these days seems to have rounded off many of the sharp corners of GNU/Linux (at least 10.04).
My G1 (bought as a Android developer https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evojazz ) died after about six or seven months (would no longer charge or turn on), but I did not get it replaced under the warranty in time (too busy with other stuff). I also figured I'd probably be replacing it with something better eventually, anyway.
The built-in keyboard on the G1 had had problems with not recognizing some keys even before it died totally.
One problem with cell phones and warranties is that you don't know what happens to personal data on it in internal flash memory when you send it into be replaced.
The same thing is true for hard drives, of course.
So warranties on products you store information on can be problematical.
You might find this of interest, btw, to the extent that stuff like ADHD is a real thing and related to diet (food additives, lack of omega 3s, lack of vitamin D and iodine, lack of phytonutrients, too much sugar, and so on): http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/adhd-dr-fuhrmans-antiadhd-plan.html "Many families who have adopted my diet of nutritional excellence, combined with judicious use of nutritional supplements, report that they begin to see improvement in as little as three months. Keep in mind, this nutritional approach to ADHD does not magically make the problem disappear overnight; it could take six months to observe a significant change in behavior. The chief factor that indicates a successful outcome is the entire familyâ(TM)s willingness and desire to adopt a new healthy eating style for the benefit of all members. The child with the ADHD problem is never singled out as the only one required to eat healthy. In fact, I encourage the children to take responsibility in helping the parents to eat healthy, too. This prescription calls for nutritional excellence for the entire family. When families choose to work as a unit to improve the childâ(TM)s emotional environment and nutrition simultaneously, it is rare that psychostimulant medications are necessary."
I had an idea, posted to Andrea Rossi's Journal site related to LENR cold fusion, that the core of the Sun is iron/nickel (as suggested in the "Iron Sun Theory" which says the sun only has hydrogen at the surface, like the Earth has water and oxygen at the surface but if hard underneath) just like the core of the Earth has a lot of nickel and iron, and the nickel is constantly ejecting neutrons at the boundary from quantum tunneling effects, which in turn then fuse back with the nickel via the Rossi/Focardi effect to produce heat and copper and neutrons that produce other elements. Oil and methane may comes from that layer too, from escaping hydrogen interacting with other decay components like carbon and oxygen.
So perhaps the same is happening in that asteroid -- that it has a nickel core where cold fusion is happening at the boundary? Which suggests to me there may likely be hydrocarbons being emitted too from Lutetia, which should be easy to check?
Basically, in this conception, the universe may have formed as nickel and iron (essentially, from neutrons), not hydrogen, and what we see in the universe is mostly the decay of masses of neutron from quantum effects, not the fusion of hydrogen (even as hydrogen does fuse, especially at the hot surface of stars powered by nickel-hydrogen cold fusion).
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=821
Yes, in my local store I found two cans of mushrooms by the same brand (one for slices and one for pieces) that looked almost identical except one said made in USA and one said made in China (in small print).
I've been amazed how much food comes from China in a typical small grocery store.
Look into iodine, vitamin D, and eating lots of vegetables, fruits, and beans:
http://www.iodine4health.com/special/metals/metals.htm
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
See the Chomsky section about five minutes in to support your point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA
Always was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4Hv9pDicA (see Chomsky about five minutes in)
"They need to vote in some people that will turn all that nasty pollution into a liberal hoax."
LOL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
And: "Greenspan Destroys Deregulation in 16 Seconds " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAH-o7oEiyY
I still feel the big lesson learned since the 1970s is that macros are problematical. :-) It is not just what languages add, it is also what they leave out.
Most people using languages with macros like C/C++ most of the time are just assuming things about the codebase syntactically that might not be true.
Lisp macros are a bit different though, because they are usually just about whether an expression gets evaluated or not before being passed into a function.
Glad to hear macros are working out for you and you have found tools that make it easier.
The text may be misleading, but that is how people actually talk about this sometimes.
I think I just have not been clear about the key issue.
People have for decades fought any kind of funding for "cold fusion" on the argument that it violates established laws of physics. The people arguing most heavily for that are people getting lots of funding for "hot fusion", despite the conflict of interest. This has serious ethical complications.
Physicist David Goodstein wrote, in another context: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
"Peer review is usually quite a good way to identify valid science. Of course, a referee will occasionally fail to appreciate a truly visionary or revolutionary idea, but by and large, peer review works pretty well so long as scientific validity is the only issue at stake. However, it is not at all suited to arbitrate an intense competition for research funds or for editorial space in prestigious journals. There are many reasons for this, not the least being the fact that the referees have an obvious conflict of interest, since they are themselves competitors for the same resources."
For example, related to Cold Fusion, see:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/dr-george-miley-replicates-patterson.html#comment-341890693
"Third, theory that is institutionally immune to experimental falsification is the sine qua non of pseudoscience so it was the American Physical Society that was engaging in mass pseudoscience. Indeed, theory that is INSTITUTIONALLY immune to experimental falsification is theocracy."
If there is not funding for research, for the most part, it is not done. If things can't be published no matter how carefully and well done the research is, that is a disincentive for professional scientists to work in that field. That is what has been going on for decades with cold fusion. A few people have persisted anyway. But institutionally, cold fusion was never given a fair hearing.
What I'm talking about is the way that people are all essentially religious about some supposed physical law (like the second law of thermodynamics as an example, which basically is at the core of saying energy can not come from anything we do not make an exception about by calling it some kind of battery or reaction). People can cite such laws with the highest moral tone as to why something won't work because it does not fit into known approaches. Then time after time again something does not fit, and then suddenly it is OK because some new exception to the law is invented related to some new theory. But, do people learn much from that?
A true scientist is both intensely skeptical and yet also open to new ideas. Pathological 100% skepticism about anything new generally doesn't help anyone (except maybe those already getting grant funding). Scientists are not supposed to be theologians, but it seems many are (and poor ones at that, too). Also related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism#Religion_and_philosophy
You make a good point about layers, but in practice, macro abuse seems worse. Macros also make it hard to have good development tools (like Smalltalk has) because the syntax of the language can change so much through macros (at least for something like C).
An example just to show you what textual macros can do from: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/652788/what-is-the-worst-real-world-macros-pre-processor-abuse-youve-ever-come-across
#include
#define System S s;s
#define public
#define static
#define void int
#define main(x) main()
struct F{void println(char* s){std::cout s std::endl;}};
struct S{F out;};
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
That just seems like a very different thing than the fact that when I change a class it may affect how other classes behave -- even though, it's true, there is some abstract logical equivalence.
Interesting to get on mod up as interesting and one mod down as a troll. :-)
Anyway, for the software development community to move forward, we need to really wrestle with these deep design issues. Can't we eventually somehow move beyond "worse is better" as a community?
Especially now that computers have gotten so fast?
At what point do we prioritize the user (and/or the maintainer) experience?
"Neither fusion, nor cold fusion, has anything to do with thermodynamics."
Thanks for the reply. The point of the essay is that's only because thermodynamics was essentially revised to allow for energy produced as materials change their internal configurations (from nuclear or other processes).
Here is an example of the use of such terminology in relation to naysayers about cold fusion, whether accurate or not: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/02/andrea-rossi-italian-cold-fusion-plant/ ... Koomey explained that cold fusion defies the laws of thermodynamics. Energy requires an initial, consumable power source that erodes and breaks down -- it simply isn't self-sustaining."
"Jonathan Koomey, an energy consultant who has advised the EPA, said any extraordinary discovery requires extraordinary proof. He said the E-Cat must be verified by an independent study conducted by scientists who are allowed access to the machineâ(TM)s inner-workings.
From 2001: http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/browse_thread/thread/df4b4363d544f766/
"My question is: should software tools, protocols, and standards play a role in easing this required "due diligence" license management work (at least as far as copyright alone is
concerned)?"
Still not really answered...
This is not compiling for me starting with the "static":
class Test2 {
static main(String[] args) {
println("hello");
}
}
Too bad they don't provide a simple hello world example anywhere that is easy to find.
I got it working; see my other comment here, but basically I did not have all the required modules installed. The download instructions could be a lot clearer on exactly what you should be installing. I think I ended up with just the UI and SDK the first time.
OK, I got it working. Basically, I (think I) must have installed just the runtime and UI parts. I assumed Eclipse would take care of dependencies. So, nothign ran. Then I tried again and installed more modules, but the turotial still did not work. Then I dleeted the tutorial project, and remade is as an example. And now it works.
Thanks. Sadly, I can't find a file with a mwe2 extension in the Xtend tutorial project.
This kind of hints at generatign Xtext language artifacts?
http://www.eclipse.org/Xtext/documentation/2_1_0/035-domainmodel-java.php
Anyway, what gives? I guess the Eclipse people just assume people can figure out how to compile some new language in Eclipse? Or figure out how to use Xtext and somehow understand how Xtend related to it?
Or maybe something went wrong related to the install? I had to guess from about 20 packages which to install with various combinations of stuff with different versions.
So, still some obvious rough edges for anyone who wants to try it.
I got the tutorial project created, but I don't see an option to compile/run it as Xtend?
The problem with languages with macros is that unlike, say, Smalltalk, you generally never know when macros might apply when and so change the meaning of what you are looking at unless you understand the *entire* program...
Me too, for use with the Java ecosystem. They've taken some good ideas from Jython and Smalltalk. I wonder how smooth debugging is though?
See: http://www.changemakers.com/node/113512/comments
Have you thought about something voice activated, like Siri on an iPad?
Linux was designed badly from a big picture perspective, which is why I never wanted to use it in the first place over a decade ago, but I did anyway in the end for social reasons (things can be useful, even when you know what a mess they are designwise comapred to what they could have been). Linux's design prioritized raw machine processing efficiency over human efficiency -- to begin with, by having a monolithic kernel. That mindset flowed into other applications, but the example was set by the kernel. So software ran a little faster -- but only when it ran, and it often did not for one random breakage or other. And kernel maintainers have said they could care less how much suffering they cause other programmers by incompatible changes (which they probably would not have had so many without being monolithic as well as not message-passing-oriented). UNIX was already obsolete when it was cloned compared to QNX, NeXT, BEOS, and so on. And Smalltalk still had a better model in many ways from the very start decades ago (message passing, virtualization in terms of a VM). Even just Forth might have been a much better model than Linux for a kernel and a module system.
Anyway, I've been using computers for thirty years (since the KIM-1) so I'm agreeing with you. And I'm mostly using Macs these days -- even though I'd rather use some really cool virtualized thing based around message passing (maybe Squeak-ish someday).
Still, for many people it is still fun, so things keep going. And "worse is better" up to a point, especially when driven by social adoption and related job opportunities. Sad.
Still Ubuntu these days seems to have rounded off many of the sharp corners of GNU/Linux (at least 10.04).
My G1 (bought as a Android developer https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evojazz ) died after about six or seven months (would no longer charge or turn on), but I did not get it replaced under the warranty in time (too busy with other stuff). I also figured I'd probably be replacing it with something better eventually, anyway.
The built-in keyboard on the G1 had had problems with not recognizing some keys even before it died totally.
One problem with cell phones and warranties is that you don't know what happens to personal data on it in internal flash memory when you send it into be replaced.
The same thing is true for hard drives, of course.
So warranties on products you store information on can be problematical.
The main reason I thought about going to the trouble to replace it would have been to be able to give it away or repurpose it in the future.
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/006250.html
Sad to read that (even if it agrees).
You might find this of interest, btw, to the extent that stuff like ADHD is a real thing and related to diet (food additives, lack of omega 3s, lack of vitamin D and iodine, lack of phytonutrients, too much sugar, and so on): http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/adhd-dr-fuhrmans-antiadhd-plan.html
"Many families who have adopted my diet of nutritional excellence, combined with judicious use of nutritional supplements, report that they begin to see improvement in as little as three months. Keep in mind, this nutritional approach to ADHD does not magically make the problem disappear overnight; it could take six months to observe a significant change in behavior. The chief factor that indicates a successful outcome is the entire familyâ(TM)s willingness and desire to adopt a new healthy eating style for the benefit of all members. The child with the ADHD problem is never singled out as the only one required to eat healthy. In fact, I encourage the children to take responsibility in helping the parents to eat healthy, too. This prescription calls for nutritional excellence for the entire family. When families choose to work as a unit to improve the childâ(TM)s emotional environment and nutrition simultaneously, it is rare that psychostimulant medications are necessary."
More on that theme:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/mental-health-and-learning-disorders/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
And general on physical and mental health issues:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2478380&cid=37734208
All the best in making the most of the hand you've been dealt in life.
I had an idea, posted to Andrea Rossi's Journal site related to LENR cold fusion, that the core of the Sun is iron/nickel (as suggested in the "Iron Sun Theory" which says the sun only has hydrogen at the surface, like the Earth has water and oxygen at the surface but if hard underneath) just like the core of the Earth has a lot of nickel and iron, and the nickel is constantly ejecting neutrons at the boundary from quantum tunneling effects, which in turn then fuse back with the nickel via the Rossi/Focardi effect to produce heat and copper and neutrons that produce other elements. Oil and methane may comes from that layer too, from escaping hydrogen interacting with other decay components like carbon and oxygen.
So perhaps the same is happening in that asteroid -- that it has a nickel core where cold fusion is happening at the boundary? Which suggests to me there may likely be hydrocarbons being emitted too from Lutetia, which should be easy to check?
Basically, in this conception, the universe may have formed as nickel and iron (essentially, from neutrons), not hydrogen, and what we see in the universe is mostly the decay of masses of neutron from quantum effects, not the fusion of hydrogen (even as hydrogen does fuse, especially at the hot surface of stars powered by nickel-hydrogen cold fusion).