Yes, Israel is so nice and friendly to Palestina
on
Gaza Debate Goes Virtual
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As long as I see 10 to 100 Palestinian casualties reported for every Israeli casualty, I will continue to view Israel as the aggressor and the one with the much larger share of the blame.
Sure, wall them in, take away their land by turning your settlers loose all over the place, freeze their bank accounts and turn off their electricity, bomb them with the latest US hardware, and then complain about how you 'just want to get on with your life' and whine about the occasional mortar while ignoring the damage your bombers and tanks do - just don't expect me to buy that.
Erm, no. Tried it, hated the way object orientation works, and used Matlab instead, which also has all of the features you list, but also a way, way more mature GUI (at least it did when I looked), as well as brilliant Java integration.
I can instantiate Java objects inside my matlab code with one command, and treat them as native - important because the production code must be in Java/C++ ultimately. I can even debug that Java code from eclipse while it runs in matlab, using JDWP.
That's so damn convenient that now that we're moving from Java to C++ in prod, I'll probably go on doing the same thing using SWIG wrappers for the C++ code (all C++ debuggers I've seen suck big time compared to debugging Java in Eclipse).
More than that, you can connect Eclipse to Matlab via JDWP, and debug your java code (set breakpoints in it, stop on exceptions etc) while calling it from matlab.
Not really sure what you mean (can't read R syntax all that well). There seems to be some kind of state persistence going on in your example, which I don't understand.
Generic functions returning functions would be
function out=f(n) out = @(x) whatever_expression(x, n); end
Why? It works just fine for me. You have structs (that also behave like a hash if you want them to), struct arrays, and arrays of arbitrary data types (cell arrays), etc. And the beautiful, simple closures with function handles.
When I last tried to learn R, now _that_ was an exercise in pain - there is a proliferation of types (is this a vector? or a list? or what?) and none of the facilities of grown-up languages (like implicit conversion) of dealing with them. Horrible, painful language, R is, and terribly documented too (compared to matlab that is). I spent a couple of weeks trying to use it to do stuff a couple years ago, and then just gave up and used matlab instead.
The point about breaking things down that you make is valid, but I think you've picked a bad example in your last paragraph - explaining algebra via geometry is not teaching by breaking things down, but teaching by analogy - which is sometimes a good idea, sometimes not.
The reason is that everybody's brains are wired differently, so what's intuitive to one person is merely confusing to another.
I was taught algebra the 'old way', purely as a way of manipulating symbols, and you know what - it works great as a way of thinking. All those geometric representations are to me artificial, confusing, and limited.
I know some people (some of whom are quite smart) need to insert some numbers into an equation and see how it works out, to understand the equation properly. To me, it's the other way around - the equation itself is what's simple, the numbers just get in the way of understanding it.
And before you ask, my job involves building systems that work with quite hairy real-world data (automated trading algorithms), so this primacy of abstract perception doesn't cripple me any for practical tasks.
Yes, it's the go-to answer. The true answer is 'if your child wants to investigate all the internet has to offer, you have NO reliable way of stopping them'. Period. Live with it.
> Rapists are punished because they ruined someone's life.
We're not talking about rapists, we're talking about 'sex offenders'. That includes urinating in the bushes, and statutory rape between consenting people, and I'm sure there's more. Yes, *some* 'sex offenders' have done grievously wrong things, but others haven't - which is why depriving every 'sex offender' of rights in such a way is wrong, wrong, wrong - any outrage over the actual rapists among them notwithstanding.
It's wrong in the same way that it's wrong to throw into the same 'pedophile' group people who actually molest children and those who have downloaded some free illegal porn (or even cartoons) off the web.
What do you mean, life lessons? I sure as hell don't log onto a game to experience a sterilized version of an already sterile middle-class lifestyle that I lead IRL, thank you very much.
Committing fraud already is a crime. However, entering random information into websites that want to know things about me that are none of their damn business is not fraud, it's Internet 101 - basics of safe behavior online.
Also, if violating MySpace TOS is a federal crime, then the girl's mother should get the same sentence as Lori.
I don't, but neither do I think it's a crime. And it certainly doesn't justify twisting laws in this ridiculous fashion just so she can be convicted of _something_.
Am I the only parent who notices that this child was left alone on the Internet, with admonitions to stop but delayed enforcement? And can you *prove* in a court of law that it was not the mother's failure to support her, as the child apparently viewed it, that actually caused the death? This child had tried to kill herself before, the article points out, an attempt that had nothing to do with the cyberbullying. No doubt that's why the local authorities didn't prosecute, since they said there was no way to actually say what exactly caused the suicide
What about this makes your head spin? Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Not enough difference. You don't like what someone writes to you on myspace, you don't read it. If you decide to kill yourself instead, tragic as that is it's not the writer's fault.
If you think morality is somehow an objective thing independent of the individual, where does it reside then? Religious people can fall back on God's will, as they do for so many other 'explanations', but where is an agnostic or atheist supposed to find that 'morality' you speak of as independent of the individual?
Peter Singer has a quite convincing argument that a reasonable dividing line for having rights is self-awareness. Thus a fetus, and in fact a freshly-born baby have a lower status on the 'human-animal scale' than a grown-up chimp. There are some reasonably simple tests for self-awareness (the red dot on the forehead test, for example), so this criterium is actually more or less measurable.
And it's also not surprising that we try to do what we can to stop them. Being a poor Somali doesn't justify armed robbery on the high seas, at least in my book. If their country sucks, the ethical ways of dealing with it are either trying to improve it or emigrating, not robbing other people.
And by the way, just putting half a dozen decently armed mercenaries on each potential target should resolve the issue, no?
Just because you define yourself as an adult, you don't get a monopoly on what that means, so I'll thank you to keep the smug attitude to yourself.
_Obviously_ the book only is enjoyable if one has some empathy for Novinha, but I just can't empathise with anyone who makes their own life hell because their emotions shut their brain down (same reason I hated His Dark Materials, and like most of Larry Niven's work), and that attitude of mine only grows with each passing year.
Clearly your definition of 'adult' is very similar to that of Card when he wrote this, and very different from mine. Good thing it's a big world that takes all sorts.
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As long as I see 10 to 100 Palestinian casualties reported for every Israeli casualty, I will continue to view Israel as the aggressor and the one with the much larger share of the blame.
Sure, wall them in, take away their land by turning your settlers loose all over the place, freeze their bank accounts and turn off their electricity, bomb them with the latest US hardware, and then complain about how you 'just want to get on with your life' and whine about the occasional mortar while ignoring the damage your bombers and tanks do - just don't expect me to buy that.
Erm, no. Tried it, hated the way object orientation works, and used Matlab instead, which also has all of the features you list, but also a way, way more mature GUI (at least it did when I looked), as well as brilliant Java integration.
I can instantiate Java objects inside my matlab code with one command, and treat them as native - important because the production code must be in Java/C++ ultimately. I can even debug that Java code from eclipse while it runs in matlab, using JDWP.
That's so damn convenient that now that we're moving from Java to C++ in prod, I'll probably go on doing the same thing using SWIG wrappers for the C++ code (all C++ debuggers I've seen suck big time compared to debugging Java in Eclipse).
More than that, you can connect Eclipse to Matlab via JDWP, and debug your java code (set breakpoints in it, stop on exceptions etc) while calling it from matlab.
Or even
a = @(x) whatever_expression(n,x);
Not really sure what you mean (can't read R syntax all that well). There seems to be some kind of state persistence going on in your example, which I don't understand.
Generic functions returning functions would be
function out=f(n)
out = @(x) whatever_expression(x, n);
end
but I have a feeling you mean something else?
Maybe that's because the commercial grade hardware of 2 years ago loses to this year's cheap hardware on all points except robustness?
There is indeed that tier of commercial-grade hardware that's a lot more expensive, but it's not speed that you pay for there, it's reliability.
Have you tried plotting in matlab?
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/index.html?/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/surface.html&http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/f16-6011.html
What do you mean, 'compared to matlab'? Function handles are first-class objects in matlab, can be returned by functions, assigned to vars etc.
eg
a=@(x) x.*x;
assigns to a a function that squares each element of the in-arg.
Why? It works just fine for me. You have structs (that also behave like a hash if you want them to), struct arrays, and arrays of arbitrary data types (cell arrays), etc. And the beautiful, simple closures with function handles.
When I last tried to learn R, now _that_ was an exercise in pain - there is a proliferation of types (is this a vector? or a list? or what?) and none of the facilities of grown-up languages (like implicit conversion) of dealing with them. Horrible, painful language, R is, and terribly documented too (compared to matlab that is). I spent a couple of weeks trying to use it to do stuff a couple years ago, and then just gave up and used matlab instead.
The point about breaking things down that you make is valid, but I think you've picked a bad example in your last paragraph - explaining algebra via geometry is not teaching by breaking things down, but teaching by analogy - which is sometimes a good idea, sometimes not.
The reason is that everybody's brains are wired differently, so what's intuitive to one person is merely confusing to another.
I was taught algebra the 'old way', purely as a way of manipulating symbols, and you know what - it works great as a way of thinking. All those geometric representations are to me artificial, confusing, and limited.
I know some people (some of whom are quite smart) need to insert some numbers into an equation and see how it works out, to understand the equation properly. To me, it's the other way around - the equation itself is what's simple, the numbers just get in the way of understanding it.
And before you ask, my job involves building systems that work with quite hairy real-world data (automated trading algorithms), so this primacy of abstract perception doesn't cripple me any for practical tasks.
Yes, it's the go-to answer. The true answer is 'if your child wants to investigate all the internet has to offer, you have NO reliable way of stopping them'. Period. Live with it.
> Rapists are punished because they ruined someone's life.
We're not talking about rapists, we're talking about 'sex offenders'. That includes urinating in the bushes, and statutory rape between consenting people, and I'm sure there's more. Yes, *some* 'sex offenders' have done grievously wrong things, but others haven't - which is why depriving every 'sex offender' of rights in such a way is wrong, wrong, wrong - any outrage over the actual rapists among them notwithstanding.
It's wrong in the same way that it's wrong to throw into the same 'pedophile' group people who actually molest children and those who have downloaded some free illegal porn (or even cartoons) off the web.
The civil war took care of those, I'm afraid...
DVDs get written and read with lasers, 'heat' is just a side effect. Lasers emit coherent photons, and light _is_ electroMAGNETIC waves, you silly!
Or was that a particularly strange joke on your part?
What do you mean, life lessons? I sure as hell don't log onto a game to experience a sterilized version of an already sterile middle-class lifestyle that I lead IRL, thank you very much.
Committing fraud already is a crime. However, entering random information into websites that want to know things about me that are none of their damn business is not fraud, it's Internet 101 - basics of safe behavior online.
Also, if violating MySpace TOS is a federal crime, then the girl's mother should get the same sentence as Lori.
Resumes belong in pdf in any case, for that very reason, as Word formatting can break for so many other reasons.
On the other hand, I'm staying with MSOffice till OO Powerpoint clone is actually working.
I don't, but neither do I think it's a crime. And it certainly doesn't justify twisting laws in this ridiculous fashion just so she can be convicted of _something_.
Who else?
Yes, it was her child and her responsibility.
Am I the only parent who notices that this child was left alone on the Internet, with admonitions to stop but delayed enforcement? And can you *prove* in a court of law that it was not the mother's failure to support her, as the child apparently viewed it, that actually caused the death? This child had tried to kill herself before, the article points out, an attempt that had nothing to do with the cyberbullying. No doubt that's why the local authorities didn't prosecute, since they said there was no way to actually say what exactly caused the suicide
What about this makes your head spin? Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Not enough difference. You don't like what someone writes to you on myspace, you don't read it. If you decide to kill yourself instead, tragic as that is it's not the writer's fault.
If you think morality is somehow an objective thing independent of the individual, where does it reside then? Religious people can fall back on God's will, as they do for so many other 'explanations', but where is an agnostic or atheist supposed to find that 'morality' you speak of as independent of the individual?
Peter Singer has a quite convincing argument that a reasonable dividing line for having rights is self-awareness. Thus a fetus, and in fact a freshly-born baby have a lower status on the 'human-animal scale' than a grown-up chimp. There are some reasonably simple tests for self-awareness (the red dot on the forehead test, for example), so this criterium is actually more or less measurable.
And it's also not surprising that we try to do what we can to stop them. Being a poor Somali doesn't justify armed robbery on the high seas, at least in my book. If their country sucks, the ethical ways of dealing with it are either trying to improve it or emigrating, not robbing other people. And by the way, just putting half a dozen decently armed mercenaries on each potential target should resolve the issue, no?
You had me right through the first 3, but what on earth does the 4th mean?
Just because you define yourself as an adult, you don't get a monopoly on what that means, so I'll thank you to keep the smug attitude to yourself.
_Obviously_ the book only is enjoyable if one has some empathy for Novinha, but I just can't empathise with anyone who makes their own life hell because their emotions shut their brain down (same reason I hated His Dark Materials, and like most of Larry Niven's work), and that attitude of mine only grows with each passing year.
Clearly your definition of 'adult' is very similar to that of Card when he wrote this, and very different from mine. Good thing it's a big world that takes all sorts.