I use MSVC++ 6.0 for the Windows port, but wish I didn't have to. If you need to use the Standard Template Library, you're only hope to compile . ..
Oh, lord. Is it that their STL implementation (Dinkum?) is broken, or the compiler's template implementation breaks a good STL implementation, or is it just incompatible with older versions? I can't think offhand of any MSVC 5 template problems that require you to write code that would break in a good implementation, but I'm far from an expert on templates.
I seem to recall reading that the ANSI STL differs enough from previous versions to be a problem -- or in other words, we're in a transitional period when the Standard (capital 'S') is non-standard (small 's'). So to speak.:) In an abstract way, I admire the committee for being willing to break people's code, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna enjoy "fixing" mine.
Damn, I use the STL a lot. I don't do anything arcane or clever with it, but I do use it.
Microsoft has a long way to go before their development tools are enterprise ready.
:)
Unfortunately, they don't often seem to be going in the right direction. I read an intervew with the guy in charge of that project. He's a total pod person. Nine out of ten of his answers mentioned either "innovation" or "all the great features of Windows". I mean, verbatim, "all the great features of Windows", that exact phrase, over and over. He also thought that portability was a waste of time, because most developers only have one computer on their desks anyway (maybe that's not precisely what he meant, but it looked like that was what he was getting at and I was too horrified by then to pay close attention). Like all things that Microsoft people say, it made me unspeakably depressed for several days after reading it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
They implemented namespace, AFAIK
on
GCC-2.95 in July
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· Score: 1
If that's a "transgression", uh, well, I don't quite know what to say.
Hopefully, within a few years, somebody will implement the f*cking standard, especially WRT templates.
We need an industry-wide organization to require vendors to prominently display the following information:
"Our Fucking Compiler is Broken in the Following Ways:
[arbitrary list of template features]
[more template features]
M... o... u... s... eee..."
Like, truth in advertising or something.
If I may go charging blindly off-topic, does anybody know offhand how badly broken MSVC 6 is with templates? v5 is a mess, but I'm hoping that with 6 they took a break from adding useless bells'n'whistles to the IDE (and removing useful ones from the help system), and put a couple of guys on fixing the compiler for a week or so. We don't have v6 at work because we don't use templates that much, and we're too busy to "take advantage of productivity features". I mean, "productivity" is great if you've got a lot of time on your hands, but we have to ship stuff so we just write code instead. We've already got our hands full avoiding the "productivity features" in v5. The last thing we need is more of them.
v5 seems to have a few quirks with resolving overloaded functions in derived classes, too. Or maybe it was my own error, mixing overloads and virtuals. Aarrgghh.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I personally think you're mistaken about what he meant, but dammit, it's good to see somebody raising language issues in a coherent and polite way. Somebody will probably moderate you down, but hey, that's why I keep my threshold at -1.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Am I the only one who was instantly filled with dread and anxiety on reading that, because it's a job ad? Aarrgghh. My brain is like, "okay, c/c++, no problem . . . Oh, no, I don't have any 3D graphics experience at all, let alone a year! I've never done assembly! I have no math background at all! God, I'm doomed! I'm gonna be unemployed! I'll starve!" My heart rate increases, I need a cigarette, etc. etc.
Just for the sake of clarity, I'm sitting at my desk at work here, I like my job, I'm good at it, and they want to keep me. I'm not looking for a job. Even if I were, I'm not all that interested in graphics, and the last thing I ever want to do is get mixed up in hardware and drivers and whatnot. But in spite of all that, I'm still weirding out here.
It's funny what turns up between one's ears.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
. . . his speech, . . . took place in a tent during a driving rainstorm.
I work a mile up the road from the new Sun thing in Burlington, and there was no "driving rainstorm" yesterday. It did rain, but lightly and intermittently.
I resent cheap shots like that.
:)
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
remember Ezra Pound, a great man who, motivated by envy and other personal issues made some statements he later came to regret during WWII.
It's true that he later came to regret a lot of the crap he spewed out, but IIRC there was some ugly nonsense in a lot of the pre-war Cantos as well. God knows he was a great poet, but he was a swine on a personal level for more than just those few years.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
They compete directly with Linux in a number of areas and have a lot to gain by using their leverage to apply ample amount of FUD to the Linux phenomenon.
Is Inferno really competing with Linux? Like for web servers and such?
Even if it is, I really think that a techy interview with Ken Thompson is hardly a great way to spread FUD to the masses. This is an intervew with a research scientist at Bell Labs. With no pictures! The IT suits are not reading this stuff. Christ, for all I know Thompson may have a Ph.D. or something.
Here's a quote from the article:
Multics was a virtual memory system with page faults, and it didn't differentiate between data and programs. You'd jump to a segment as it was faulted in, whether it was faulted in as data or instructions.
You really think the average MSCE is reading that stuff and getting all pumped up about Microsoft World Domination? It doesn't seem likely.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
It's just a damn operating system. Okay, it's a nice one, and I'm not fond of Windows either, but let's get some perspective here. You're not competing with Thompson.
Furthermore, re-implementing and refining something isn't quite on the same level as inventing it. Linux is to UNIX as Windows 95 is to Xerox PARC, more or less.
Think about it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I've heard many a shipmate read the newspaper, then throw it down in disgust and say "These are the people we're defending with our lives?" It's that sort of superior attitude that leads to police states, military coups, and restrictions on freedom.
I hear ya. I've never served, but I've been told that an politically neutral military is one of the few things standint between the U.S. and the political state Argentina is in. My Dad saw a lot of Latin America when he was in the Navy in the 1960's, and he came back with some very firm ideas about what roles the military should and should not play in society.
You may believe that you're smarter than everyone you see around you, but that doesn't make you a better person, nor does it make them any less so.
Uh, "me, too!" Right on.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Are you saying that in your worldview death does not occur? Evil is non-existent?
No, of course not. The point is that there are specific implementations of death and evil that we're not accustomed to. There are places where it's very hard for us to accept them happening beyond a certain scale, or in certain ways. We have expectations of the world, and they're very deeply ingrained. If I drop something, I expect it to fall down, not up. If I walk into a "nice" suburban school, I don't expect to walk into a hell of semi-automatic small-arms fire and exploding bombs (more on snipers in a moment). It's easy to say that one is a matter of natural law, and the other is a matter of learned behavior which is subject to change without notice, but on a gut level the human mind does not recognize that distinction.
Over the last few decades we've gotten used to hearing about snipers on the news, of course, and the whole postal-worker thing, but this one seems different to me. Looking at the reaction, I don't think I'm the only one. IMHO the perceived difference has to do with the scale of the thing, the bombs, the amount of planning, the determination of the killers, etc. I don't claim to have a definitive answer.
The unexplainable doesn't happen?
Ahhh! Now you're nailing it. Name ten unexplainable things that happened in the past year. Not just things that seem explainable, but lack an adequate explanation -- things where everybody is completely baffled. That doesn't happen very often.
Seems like a problem with your worldview (and you are not alone).
For one thing, I think it's an issue with the human worldview, which is to say that the fact that I am "not alone" is half of the point.
However, I'm not sure I'd call it a "problem" as such. It's not practical to go through life expecting the unexpected every minute. We make assumptions about the world based on past experience, and every single one of those assumptions is a rough approximation based mostly on typical cases (while people subjected to intense trauma often come to base their assumptions on wildly atypical cases), but usually they're good enough. They let us deal with things without having to stop and treat every event as a unique special case. Sometimes that kills us, but it's so helpful in so many cases that we keep on doing it anyway. We're striking a balance between precision on the one hand, and speed and convenience on the other.
I think all the "how could it happen?" questions are a similar reaction to yours.
I think I was taking that as a given. I was just trying to puzzle out the mechanism of it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
if they were not "goths" the media would put them in a different light possibly.
That, I don't buy. The killed thirteen people. I can't see the media looking for a way to soft-pedal that. It'd be a hell of a stretch.
Do you think there would be a witchhunt for jocks? I don't see it happening.
On that one, you're absolutely right. There will never be a witch-hunt for jocks. They're "normal", so however badly they act, only the individual responsible will be judged for it. By the mainstream, anyway. People judge members of their own group as individuals, but they judge members of other groups as representatives of those groups. The entire group is held responsible for the actions of its members. If a white kid robs somebody, white people will say "what a little shit", but if a black kid does the same thing, people say "blacks are a bunch of shits". It's a crock but IMHO it's human nature.
If somebody does something bad enough, s/he will be retroactively kicked out of the group entirely. Most likely, if a jock freaked out and killed thirteen people, the media would find ways to "demonstrate" that he wasn't a member of the dominant group after all. They'd tell us endlessly how different he really was from all the other guys on the team, and the other guys on the team would be delighted to help out, because who the hell wants to admit kinship with a monster? Journalists would waste just as much ink calling him an "atypical" jock as they're now wasting calling those Harris and Kleber typical "goths" or whatever.
I just said my opinion and you took it the wrong way.
What, just because it's your opinion he's not allowed to consider it objectionable, offensive, or idiotic? He didn't "take it the wrong way", he took it the right way, as an opinion that was out there to be disagreed with. IMHO he freaked out a lot further than he had to, but some people are like that. So flame him back. "Geez. Calm down you fucking idiot" was a reasonable and sane response on your part.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Ooh! So . . . brisk! So manly! I think it might "de Tocqueville", by the way. Not that I'd bet anything on that. I haven't read him.
Debate the real facts of democracy, not some fiction writers rehashed ideas of another.
I wasn't debating anything about democracy. I was providing examples of Robert A. Heinlein holding opposing beliefs at different points in his life, as expressed in his writing. If I wanted to debate democracy, I wouldn't quote anybody. I've enough indefensible ideas of my own on the subject not to need help, thank you very much.:)
Personally, I don't think your post debated the doctrine of transsubstantiation (which may or may not have that many s's in it in real life:) any better than mine debated democracy. Then again, you were talking about something else, weren't you?
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I think the biggest problem here is that everyone is looking for a Cause.
You're right! That's what's causing it!
. . . more than likely the Cause they find will not be them.
You're right about that as well -- the Cause you found isn't you!
:)
Okay, I'm being a prick. I couldn't resist.
An armed society is a polite society.
Just because a good writer said it, doesn't make it true. Heinlein also, at various times, alternately condenmed democracy ("zero times a million still equals zero") and celebrated it. Likewise a lot of other things. For example, read Coventry, where the dominant culture is un-armed, and very, very polite (until Methuselah's Children, where they freak out under unbearable stresses). That culture, the culture of the Covenant, struck him as very realistic for a long time. He never repudiated it either, the way he did the "self-appointed supermen" who he was so fond of in the first Kettle Belly Baldwin story (dammit, I can't remember the name, but Friday was set in the future of that world, and in Friday he expressed extreme distaste for that whole breed-for-IQ gang).
The Covenant culture is built on an ethic based on mutual respect, not on fear. You could argue that any culture based on fear is doomed, and that any ethic based on fear of retribution is perverse. See Heinlein's address to the graduates at Annapolis for a clear exposition of his later thoughts about ethics, unobscured by narrative.
Then there's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where "there was killing enough to chill your teeth in the old days". Does that sound like a "polite society"? He felt at the time of writing (as well as at other times) that such a culture would eventually settle down into a polite society, but he was basing that assumption on some questionable premises. First, he assumed that nearly all citizens would stand up for their own personal rights, and that most would choose not to interfere with the rights of others. He left toadies and followers out of the picture entirely, apparently assuming that such people don't tend to be criminals and therefore wouldn't have been transported. All of these assumptions were necessary because in normal groups of humans, a power vacuum has, historically, always been filled by a gang of thugs. His view of the criminal mentality (if there even is such a thing) is woefully romanticized. Heinlein's talent was such that he could tell a story with holes in it that you could chuck a dog through, and still make it believable. He carries the reader right over the gaps, and you never notice. He was a very good goddamn writer, but that doesn't mean he was worth spit as a sociologist or anything else.
(Disclaimer: All quotes are from memory, I'm at work.)
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
If you don't think nerds are more important than the herded masses, I have to wonder why you're using our forum.
I don't know about you, but I've never thought that the fact that I'm a part of a group means I have to despise everybody else. Nerds are not "more important", just more interesting -- to me, not necessarily to anybody else. It's a free country.
As for your disdain for the "herded masses", Nietzsche is a bore. Claiming to worship the ubermensch does not make you an ubermensch, any more than worshipping Zeus ever helped anybody turn into a shower of gold and get laid.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
What's drawing everybody on Slashdot to this is just what's drawing the rest of us to it: It's a crack in the walls of reality. A month ago, you could've gone to 100 Americans and described these events in Colorado, and then described Martians landing in New Jersey. More people would have bought the story about Martians. This is not much less of an blow to our worldview than anti-gravity or extraterrestrials. Somebody instantiated a bad dream, and it's real. Those kids are really dead. Real blood, right there on TV, but without P. J. Soles and a Ramones soundtrack. This is what some of us read Hunter Thompson for: Back in the day, at least, Thompson was a moving, self-propelled crack in the walls of reality. He behaved (or claimed to behave:) in ways that were simply inconceivable. It had to be fiction, but part of the kick is that he keeps claiming that it isn't. I haven't read his Hell's Angels recently, but IIRC he said something similar about the Angels having that effect on people.
Why is there such an enduring fascination with Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast? Because the walls of reality broke down for an hour or two, and things came in. This is also the root of a lot of fascination with nuclear war: Suddenly, everything you know is meaningless and you're on a different planet where "nothing is true, everything is permitted".
What grabs us isn't so much the horror of the particular acts that were committed. It's the fact that we have suddenly stumbled into a different reality, a parallel universe, where we don't know the rules any more. If what we "knew" about nerdy high-school students isn't true, what else isn't true? The ground is shaking beneath our feet and there's nowhere to stand. The people freaking out and peddling quick fixes are trying to invent something to stand on.
After a while, we'll get used to it and calm down. People adapt when they have to, but they don't enjoy it.
It's better because we all get to genuflect interactively?
The medium is the message, hahahahahaaaaa! Yes, yes, yes, the key here is not the genuflection as such but the interactivity. Can you say "slashdot sexbot" five times fast without sounding like "the village drunk in an irish novel"? Me neither! I think that supports my point, but I'm not sure why.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
WSB has always struck me as being too cynical and well adjusted to be truly appreciated by anyone dwelling in existential misery and laughable pseudo-intellectualism.
To the contrary, I've always seen him as a magnet for that type. Not the really dumb ones, but the smarter ones who are just clueless and take themselves too seriously. I'm guessing that they giggle over the naughty bits and miss most of what's worthwhile about it, but who knows. Hey, Burroughs writes well and he's a master of atmosphere (he's not Jack Vance, but most sensibilities are too coarse-grained for Vance anyway). Maybe some boneheads are fitfully capable of appreciating something good for the right reasons. And boneheads can certainly enjoy watching Burroughs turn his cold, withering eye on the human race without realizing that he's turning it on them, too. Heh. Actually I try not to think about that part myself.:)
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
It would be worthwhile to distinguish between two classes of complaints here:
Kids with genuine grievances, for example the one whose home was searched gratuitously -- can you say "probably cause"? Yes, and so can his attorneys. The courts just love to say "probable cause".
Kids who just hate school for the usual reasons -- namely, that a lot of kids would rather hang out at that age.
We're angry, and rightly so, because the media, the police, and school administrators are galloping off in all directions without thinking first. Must we do the same?
Very few generalizations about people are reliably valid, even when the people in question are school administrators and police.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: How do we all feel about the recent flap in New Jersey, about the state police "profiling" drivers? They've been stopping a higher percentage of black drivers than white. Of the drivers who are stopped, it seems that they search the cars of a dramatically higher percentage of black drivers. So how do Slashdotters feel about that, and the fact that it's happening in close proximity to Camden, Trenton, North Philadelphia, Newark, etc.?
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
According to the evidence of stones and bones, long before Ellis Island opened its doors America was a veritable Rainbow Coalition of ethnic types, peopled by southern Asians, East Asians--and even, perhaps, Ice Age Europeans,
That's not as simple as the article's title seems to suggest. Depressingly, I can easily see some unprincipled yahoos latching onto this (without reading or understanding the article, much less the actual research) and claiming that it "justifies" our stealing land from the natives. Oh, well.
Furthermore, none of those people were your or my direct ancestors, unless of course you're a Native American (I'm not) -- which brings us right back to the post you replied to.
It's a neat article. Thanks for posting the link.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Ayn Rand had a small number of very clear, simple, elegant rules which tell us how everything works, and how to fix it all. When you read Rand, you discover that the universe is actually a terribly simple place, and that human relationships are the the simplest thing of all. She explains how you can take her small number of simple rules, apply them to society and to the members of society, and make everybody happy and productive. She had a Manifesto. She had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything.
So did the Unabomber.
So did Karl Marx, Hitler, and a lot of other widely-admired historical figures, from all over the political spectrum. The one thing they had in common was some form of a Messiah complex: They had been granted the Final Truth.
Fortunately, Rand's Grand Unified Theory of Everything didn't revolve around violence[1], nor around seizing political power, so people who try to implement it don't usually do much damage[2]. So it's not like "Objectivists" are really likely to be dangerous or anything, but they are still addicted to radical oversimplification of very complicated issues. Militarily they're harmless, but intellectually they're not so hot.
the philosophy of Objectivism that puts rational thinking and thought, intellect and being an individual over top of popularity
There's a caveat there: Ayn Rand defined "rational thinking and . . . intellect" as "agreeing with Ayn Rand about everything". Rand believed that only yes-men (specifically, her yes-men) can truly think for themselves, and do it rationally. Of course, some of us might disagree with that, but then we're not yes-men, are we? So by definition, we're irrational and we can safely be ignored. Some people call this a self-reinforcing delusional system, while others call it philosophy. Hey, it's a free country.
[1] She didn't advocate violence, but she condoned it when "necessary". See Atlas Shrugged where Dagny and whatsisname kill a guard for the sake of momentary convenience.
[2] Big-time con-artists like Michael Milken are an occasional exception, but if get to choose the kind of "damage" that people will do, I'd much rather be swindled than blown up. So Rand is better than the Unabomber in that respect as well.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Every time you "quote" me, the words bear less resemblance to what I actually wrote. Obviously, you think I'm right. If you thought I was wrong, you'd quote me accurately and refute what I said. Instead, you're refuting something else. There's only one reason why people do that.
In general, your hysterical and hyperaggressive manner is that of somebody who knows he is wrong. If you had any confidence in the truth of the dogma you love so much, you wouldn't go into hysterics when somebody disagrees with you. Do you know what a polygraph is? It's popularly known as a "lie detector". It doesn't magically "detect" lies or anything like that, though. What it does is measure a number of things like heart rate, perspiration, etc. It measures nervousness. The assumption is that if you're calm, you're telling the truth. This generally does turn out to be the case in practice. People who are telling the truth don't need to be afraid of anything.
Sound familiar?
You can't respond intelligently so you must resort of personal attacks.
See above. Bear in mind also that I started this sub-thread by observing that most gun advocates are incapable of discussing the issue without resorting to personal attacks themselves. They start off with personal attacks. You certainly did. You think that anybody who disagrees with you is evil and out to get you. Well, not only is that crazy, but it's a great way to convince people that you're not worth listening to. That, in fact, was the point of departure for this whole discussion. I started flaming you because you clearly were not capable of behaving rationally, and it was more fun to poke you with a stick than to waste my time trying to communicate.
Pry open your small closed mind, disregard your preconceived notions
This sounds odd coming from somebody who gets all of his thoughts and ideas from the NRA, and who flames anybody who disagrees with him. If you were capable of communicating other than by chanting received dogma at the top of your lungs, I might take this seriously.
Learn something about the objects you so viciously hate
Who but a lunatic would "viciously hate" an inanimate object? Does that make sense to you? If so, you need therapy now. I mean, sure, I may say that I "hate eggplant", but that's a figure of speech.
It's a fact that I have said absolutely nothing which in any way indicates that I "hate" guns, "viciously" or otherwise. In fact, I've mentioned more than once the fact that I've had some experience with them. So where are you getting this "vicious hate" thing? I'll tell you where. You're pulling it out of the sad little stock of preconceived notions which you use instead of the capacity for reason which the good Lord carelessly wasted on you. You're not talking to me at all, really. You're talking to yourself.
Think for yourself for a change.
See above. If you're not even capable of reading plain English when it conflicts with your expectations, how can you possibly believe that you "think"?
what a "choke" on a shotgun is, and the difference between "improved cylinder", "modified" and "extra full"
Are you talking about one of those "pump" things? I've never used one. If that's the case, you probably fish with bait. I don't have a whole lot to say to people like that.
Study the relationship between violence, crime, socio-economics, and gun ownership.
Crime is a separate issue, but the other three do show some very interesting correlations. There's no call to be rude so I'll leave it at that.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Some conservatives claim that this whole thing happened because America isn't "Christian" enough
Hell, they blame everything on that. The blame the weather on not being "christian" enough.
Did you read the response to the second link you gave? It's brilliant. I am in awe. I was going to reply myself but there was nothing left to say.
Expect to see much more of this in the next several weeks. Eventually, it will be only Christians that they were targeting.
That wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Look on the bright side: The "Great Awakening" in the 19th century blew over after a few decades. The present silly season has been going on for a while already. It may just be hitting its stride, but you never know. Ten years from now this may all seem like a bad dream.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
You can't because the whole anti-gun agenda is centered around ignoring the truth, and is in fact afraid of the truth.
The "anti-gun agenda"? That's a joke, right? You're insane, too. I hope you realize that.
As for the truth, what's your idea of the "truth"? ZOG? The black helicopters? You are enmeshed in an endlessly complicated and fundamentally hilarious delusional system.
Grow up.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
You are a very unfortunate young man.
on
Why Kids Kill
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· Score: 1
Apparently you've never shot a handgun,
Of course I have. Not often, nor recently, but I have.
aiming is alot like pointing your finger.
Actually, handguns are a lot heavier. In fact, that's not the impression I recall at all. Never mind.
With a shotgun you just basically point in the general direction and fire
Have you ever set eyes on a firearm in your life?
Unless you're firing from the end of a nice long hallway, the pellets aren't going to spread that much before they go winging harmlessly past the intruder. Pointing in the "general direction" signifies optimism and faith, but very little common sense.
With spittle flying, eyes rolling, and much boldface, you howled the following unsupported claim: In the US, the rate is 13%. In Canada and the UK where gun control laws keep guns out of law abiding citizens hands, the rate is 50%
Hey, that may even be accurate. You don't have the necessary mental equipment to tell time properly, but maybe you guessed right on that one.
But you know what? It's fine by me. I just had a cool idea: Sure, there are thousands of borderline-schizophrenic maniacs out there like you, hiding under the bed, quivering in fear with your gun in your hand. Okay. I'm cool with that. For one thing, I live in the civilized part of the country (Cambridge, MA) so I don't have to look at you. That makes it easier. But the main point is this: If you really are scaring the elephants away, you're scaring them away from my house, too. So I can lead a normal, rational life while the elephants (if any) stay clear. I can read books while you listen to the civil defense radio, eat interesting food while you gnaw on MRE's, etc. And you're there under your bed muttering and gnashing your teeth because I'm not insane too. Well, hey, tough shit. We all make choices, and you've made yours.
I think that's really what's eating you here. You're pissed off because you suspect that I'm having a lot more fun than you are. Well, you're right. I am.
Wright and Rossi (1986, p. 151) interviewed felony prisoners in ten state correctional systems and found that 56 percent . ..
. . . of convicted felons told them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Are you really that naive? Who am I kidding, of course you are. Look at you.
Look, I'm sorry if I'm not taking you very seriously here, but it's just not possible. You're a clown. You're a cartoon. You're unintentionally hilarious.
And once again: I've met a lot of people who are mentally competent and emotionally stable enough to be trusted with firearms, but you are not one of them.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
All you have to offer is mindless ideological name-calling. That is my point. That has been my point from the start. It is a very simple and clear thought which you are unable to comprehend, because you have the mentality of a rabid dog. I will now stop wasting my time reasoning with you. Instead, I will enjoy myself.
I've provide stats and studies from many sources.
All I've seen is one tired, shopworn propaganda leaflet that I've seen dozens of times before. It doesn't even seem to come with a bibliography.
Oh, God. Now I've done it. He's gonna come up with a bibliography. And in keeping with the insane formal requirements for the "right wing documentation" signifier, it's gonna be four thousand pages long and consist mostly of unpublished monographs by the same author and/or his wife -- along with seven impeccably credentialled Holocaust deniers, whereabouts presently unknown.
Dude, I am not gonna read this thing all the way through, okay? The medium is the message anyway, such as it is.
Please come up with a scientific study that shows more guns equals more crime.
Why? I don't really give a rat's ass one way or the other. You're the one obsessed with the issue, not me.
Your opinions such as "a baseball bat is better for defense then a gun",
Your compulsion to quote out of context is not as amusing as you probably think. In the dark, as I said, I'd rather have a baseball bat in my hand than a gun. Think about the geometry involved. Think about aiming. Do you know what "geometry" is? No? Want me to explain it? Sorry, no handouts. Figure it out for yourself.
"criminals don't break into houses too often, do they?"
Name more than half a dozen recorded instances in the last year in any major city. Compare that to mugging. It's damn rare, dude, face it. It's a bogeyman. You're trying to stir up irrational fears without offering any evidence. No, lists of large round numbers from the NRA do not count as evidence. Sorry. I can press the zero key, too, as many times as I like -- but that doesn't tell you about anything except the fact that I have fingers. As for you, I'll grant fingers, but on the opposable thumb issue the jury is just about in. Between the two of us, it doesn't look good.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Right Wing "engaged in a massive act of communal myth-generation," I don't see that.
If that's the case, you're probably not watching very closely. Either that or you're too close to see the outlines.
I think that once a person gets elevated to national status in a party, they get swept up in the politicing and forget what they use to be about.
I'm not talking about those people. A lot of grass-roots right-wingers feel badly betrayed by "their" leadership in congress, and quite a few never trusted "moderates" like Buchanan and Gingrich to begin with. The people generating the myths are not elected officials. I am not talking about the mainstream. I am not talking about anybody who will ever turn up on network television (except for a few who get arrested, like Tim McVeigh -- but that's not the same kind of exposure as the McLaughlin Group) (oh, yeah, just for the record: IMHO Tim McVeigh deserves the same presumption of innocence as you and me and everybody else Ken Starr doesn't have a grudge against).
Stereotyping the whole group doesn't get us anywhere.
I'm looking at observed phenomena here. I'm not suggesting any profiles for state troopers to use in arresting "suspected right-wing kooks", or anything like that. I am discussing the fact that this consensual hallucination does in fact exist. The militias are out there. Have a look at their web sites. They exist, and they're not living on the same planet as the rest of us. Naturally, some are in the middle of it and some are at the edges. Some buy it all, and some buy only parts.
The same goes for the new-age flying-saucer lunatics. They're at least as crazy as the right wing, believe me. Fortunately they don't go in for weapons so much, so they seem less dangerous, but any wholesale rejection of reality is a cause for concern.
Yeah, there are a lot of kooks out there screaming out about nationalism, about how the races should be seperate or how there should be just one race, but those people are not what makes up a political faction.
Nobody's talking about political factions as such. I was talking about the people I describe above. By the way, though, that is precisely what makes up political factions, in some extreme cases.
I think your post has nothing of value in it.
Well, ain't that special. God forbid we should pay attention to the world around us, much less try to understand it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Slashdot Mirror
I use MSVC++ 6.0 for the Windows port, but wish I didn't have to. If you need to use the Standard Template Library, you're only hope to compile . .
Oh, lord. Is it that their STL implementation (Dinkum?) is broken, or the compiler's template implementation breaks a good STL implementation, or is it just incompatible with older versions? I can't think offhand of any MSVC 5 template problems that require you to write code that would break in a good implementation, but I'm far from an expert on templates.
I seem to recall reading that the ANSI STL differs enough from previous versions to be a problem -- or in other words, we're in a transitional period when the Standard (capital 'S') is non-standard (small 's'). So to speak.
Damn, I use the STL a lot. I don't do anything arcane or clever with it, but I do use it.
Microsoft has a long way to go before their development tools are enterprise ready.
:)
Unfortunately, they don't often seem to be going in the right direction. I read an intervew with the guy in charge of that project. He's a total pod person. Nine out of ten of his answers mentioned either "innovation" or "all the great features of Windows". I mean, verbatim, "all the great features of Windows", that exact phrase, over and over. He also thought that portability was a waste of time, because most developers only have one computer on their desks anyway (maybe that's not precisely what he meant, but it looked like that was what he was getting at and I was too horrified by then to pay close attention). Like all things that Microsoft people say, it made me unspeakably depressed for several days after reading it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
If that's a "transgression", uh, well, I don't quite know what to say.
Hopefully, within a few years, somebody will implement the f*cking standard, especially WRT templates.
We need an industry-wide organization to require vendors to prominently display the following information:
"Our Fucking Compiler is Broken in the Following Ways:
Like, truth in advertising or something.
If I may go charging blindly off-topic, does anybody know offhand how badly broken MSVC 6 is with templates? v5 is a mess, but I'm hoping that with 6 they took a break from adding useless bells'n'whistles to the IDE (and removing useful ones from the help system), and put a couple of guys on fixing the compiler for a week or so. We don't have v6 at work because we don't use templates that much, and we're too busy to "take advantage of productivity features". I mean, "productivity" is great if you've got a lot of time on your hands, but we have to ship stuff so we just write code instead. We've already got our hands full avoiding the "productivity features" in v5. The last thing we need is more of them.
v5 seems to have a few quirks with resolving overloaded functions in derived classes, too. Or maybe it was my own error, mixing overloads and virtuals. Aarrgghh.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I personally think you're mistaken about what he meant, but dammit, it's good to see somebody raising language issues in a coherent and polite way. Somebody will probably moderate you down, but hey, that's why I keep my threshold at -1.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Am I the only one who was instantly filled with dread and anxiety on reading that, because it's a job ad? Aarrgghh. My brain is like, "okay, c/c++, no problem . . . Oh, no, I don't have any 3D graphics experience at all, let alone a year! I've never done assembly! I have no math background at all! God, I'm doomed! I'm gonna be unemployed! I'll starve!" My heart rate increases, I need a cigarette, etc. etc.
Just for the sake of clarity, I'm sitting at my desk at work here, I like my job, I'm good at it, and they want to keep me. I'm not looking for a job. Even if I were, I'm not all that interested in graphics, and the last thing I ever want to do is get mixed up in hardware and drivers and whatnot. But in spite of all that, I'm still weirding out here.
It's funny what turns up between one's ears.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
. . . his speech, . . . took place in a tent during a driving rainstorm.
I work a mile up the road from the new Sun thing in Burlington, and there was no "driving rainstorm" yesterday. It did rain, but lightly and intermittently.
I resent cheap shots like that.
:)
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
remember Ezra Pound, a great man who, motivated by envy and other personal issues made some statements he later came to regret during WWII.
It's true that he later came to regret a lot of the crap he spewed out, but IIRC there was some ugly nonsense in a lot of the pre-war Cantos as well. God knows he was a great poet, but he was a swine on a personal level for more than just those few years.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
They compete directly with Linux in a number of areas and have a lot to gain by using their leverage to apply ample amount of FUD to the Linux phenomenon.
Is Inferno really competing with Linux? Like for web servers and such?
Even if it is, I really think that a techy interview with Ken Thompson is hardly a great way to spread FUD to the masses. This is an intervew with a research scientist at Bell Labs. With no pictures! The IT suits are not reading this stuff. Christ, for all I know Thompson may have a Ph.D. or something.
Here's a quote from the article:
Multics was a virtual memory system with page faults, and it didn't differentiate between data and programs. You'd jump to a segment as it was faulted in, whether it was faulted in as data or instructions.
You really think the average MSCE is reading that stuff and getting all pumped up about Microsoft World Domination? It doesn't seem likely.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Jeez.
It's just a damn operating system. Okay, it's a nice one, and I'm not fond of Windows either, but let's get some perspective here. You're not competing with Thompson.
Furthermore, re-implementing and refining something isn't quite on the same level as inventing it. Linux is to UNIX as Windows 95 is to Xerox PARC, more or less.
Think about it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I've heard many a shipmate read the newspaper, then throw it down in disgust and say "These are the people we're defending with our lives?" It's that sort of superior attitude that leads to police states, military coups, and restrictions on freedom.
I hear ya. I've never served, but I've been told that an politically neutral military is one of the few things standint between the U.S. and the political state Argentina is in. My Dad saw a lot of Latin America when he was in the Navy in the 1960's, and he came back with some very firm ideas about what roles the military should and should not play in society.
You may believe that you're smarter than everyone you see around you, but that doesn't make you a better person, nor does it make them any less so.
Uh, "me, too!" Right on.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Are you saying that in your worldview death does not occur? Evil is non-existent?
No, of course not. The point is that there are specific implementations of death and evil that we're not accustomed to. There are places where it's very hard for us to accept them happening beyond a certain scale, or in certain ways. We have expectations of the world, and they're very deeply ingrained. If I drop something, I expect it to fall down, not up. If I walk into a "nice" suburban school, I don't expect to walk into a hell of semi-automatic small-arms fire and exploding bombs (more on snipers in a moment). It's easy to say that one is a matter of natural law, and the other is a matter of learned behavior which is subject to change without notice, but on a gut level the human mind does not recognize that distinction.
Over the last few decades we've gotten used to hearing about snipers on the news, of course, and the whole postal-worker thing, but this one seems different to me. Looking at the reaction, I don't think I'm the only one. IMHO the perceived difference has to do with the scale of the thing, the bombs, the amount of planning, the determination of the killers, etc. I don't claim to have a definitive answer.
The unexplainable doesn't happen?
Ahhh! Now you're nailing it. Name ten unexplainable things that happened in the past year. Not just things that seem explainable, but lack an adequate explanation -- things where everybody is completely baffled. That doesn't happen very often.
Seems like a problem with your worldview (and you are not alone).
For one thing, I think it's an issue with the human worldview, which is to say that the fact that I am "not alone" is half of the point.
However, I'm not sure I'd call it a "problem" as such. It's not practical to go through life expecting the unexpected every minute. We make assumptions about the world based on past experience, and every single one of those assumptions is a rough approximation based mostly on typical cases (while people subjected to intense trauma often come to base their assumptions on wildly atypical cases), but usually they're good enough. They let us deal with things without having to stop and treat every event as a unique special case. Sometimes that kills us, but it's so helpful in so many cases that we keep on doing it anyway. We're striking a balance between precision on the one hand, and speed and convenience on the other.
I think all the "how could it happen?" questions are a similar reaction to yours.
I think I was taking that as a given. I was just trying to puzzle out the mechanism of it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
if they were not "goths" the media would put them in a different light possibly.
That, I don't buy. The killed thirteen people. I can't see the media looking for a way to soft-pedal that. It'd be a hell of a stretch.
Do you think there would be a witchhunt for jocks? I don't see it happening.
On that one, you're absolutely right. There will never be a witch-hunt for jocks. They're "normal", so however badly they act, only the individual responsible will be judged for it. By the mainstream, anyway. People judge members of their own group as individuals, but they judge members of other groups as representatives of those groups. The entire group is held responsible for the actions of its members. If a white kid robs somebody, white people will say "what a little shit", but if a black kid does the same thing, people say "blacks are a bunch of shits". It's a crock but IMHO it's human nature.
If somebody does something bad enough, s/he will be retroactively kicked out of the group entirely. Most likely, if a jock freaked out and killed thirteen people, the media would find ways to "demonstrate" that he wasn't a member of the dominant group after all. They'd tell us endlessly how different he really was from all the other guys on the team, and the other guys on the team would be delighted to help out, because who the hell wants to admit kinship with a monster? Journalists would waste just as much ink calling him an "atypical" jock as they're now wasting calling those Harris and Kleber typical "goths" or whatever.
I just said my opinion and you took it the wrong way.
What, just because it's your opinion he's not allowed to consider it objectionable, offensive, or idiotic? He didn't "take it the wrong way", he took it the right way, as an opinion that was out there to be disagreed with. IMHO he freaked out a lot further than he had to, but some people are like that. So flame him back. "Geez. Calm down you fucking idiot" was a reasonable and sane response on your part.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
De Touqueville, read it.
Ooh! So . . . brisk! So manly! I think it might "de Tocqueville", by the way. Not that I'd bet anything on that. I haven't read him.
Debate the real facts of democracy, not some fiction writers rehashed ideas of another.
I wasn't debating anything about democracy. I was providing examples of Robert A. Heinlein holding opposing beliefs at different points in his life, as expressed in his writing. If I wanted to debate democracy, I wouldn't quote anybody. I've enough indefensible ideas of my own on the subject not to need help, thank you very much.
Personally, I don't think your post debated the doctrine of transsubstantiation (which may or may not have that many s's in it in real life
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
I think the biggest problem here is that everyone is looking for a Cause.
You're right! That's what's causing it!
. . . more than likely the Cause they find will not be them.
You're right about that as well -- the Cause you found isn't you!
:)
Okay, I'm being a prick. I couldn't resist.
An armed society is a polite society.
Just because a good writer said it, doesn't make it true. Heinlein also, at various times, alternately condenmed democracy ("zero times a million still equals zero") and celebrated it. Likewise a lot of other things. For example, read Coventry, where the dominant culture is un-armed, and very, very polite (until Methuselah's Children, where they freak out under unbearable stresses). That culture, the culture of the Covenant, struck him as very realistic for a long time. He never repudiated it either, the way he did the "self-appointed supermen" who he was so fond of in the first Kettle Belly Baldwin story (dammit, I can't remember the name, but Friday was set in the future of that world, and in Friday he expressed extreme distaste for that whole breed-for-IQ gang).
The Covenant culture is built on an ethic based on mutual respect, not on fear. You could argue that any culture based on fear is doomed, and that any ethic based on fear of retribution is perverse. See Heinlein's address to the graduates at Annapolis for a clear exposition of his later thoughts about ethics, unobscured by narrative.
Then there's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, where "there was killing enough to chill your teeth in the old days". Does that sound like a "polite society"? He felt at the time of writing (as well as at other times) that such a culture would eventually settle down into a polite society, but he was basing that assumption on some questionable premises. First, he assumed that nearly all citizens would stand up for their own personal rights, and that most would choose not to interfere with the rights of others. He left toadies and followers out of the picture entirely, apparently assuming that such people don't tend to be criminals and therefore wouldn't have been transported. All of these assumptions were necessary because in normal groups of humans, a power vacuum has, historically, always been filled by a gang of thugs. His view of the criminal mentality (if there even is such a thing) is woefully romanticized. Heinlein's talent was such that he could tell a story with holes in it that you could chuck a dog through, and still make it believable. He carries the reader right over the gaps, and you never notice. He was a very good goddamn writer, but that doesn't mean he was worth spit as a sociologist or anything else.
(Disclaimer: All quotes are from memory, I'm at work.)
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
If you don't think nerds are more important than the herded masses, I have to wonder why you're using our forum.
I don't know about you, but I've never thought that the fact that I'm a part of a group means I have to despise everybody else. Nerds are not "more important", just more interesting -- to me, not necessarily to anybody else. It's a free country.
As for your disdain for the "herded masses", Nietzsche is a bore. Claiming to worship the ubermensch does not make you an ubermensch, any more than worshipping Zeus ever helped anybody turn into a shower of gold and get laid.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
What's drawing everybody on Slashdot to this is just what's drawing the rest of us to it: It's a crack in the walls of reality. A month ago, you could've gone to 100 Americans and described these events in Colorado, and then described Martians landing in New Jersey. More people would have bought the story about Martians. This is not much less of an blow to our worldview than anti-gravity or extraterrestrials. Somebody instantiated a bad dream, and it's real. Those kids are really dead. Real blood, right there on TV, but without P. J. Soles and a Ramones soundtrack. This is what some of us read Hunter Thompson for: Back in the day, at least, Thompson was a moving, self-propelled crack in the walls of reality. He behaved (or claimed to behave
Why is there such an enduring fascination with Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast? Because the walls of reality broke down for an hour or two, and things came in. This is also the root of a lot of fascination with nuclear war: Suddenly, everything you know is meaningless and you're on a different planet where "nothing is true, everything is permitted".
What grabs us isn't so much the horror of the particular acts that were committed. It's the fact that we have suddenly stumbled into a different reality, a parallel universe, where we don't know the rules any more. If what we "knew" about nerdy high-school students isn't true, what else isn't true? The ground is shaking beneath our feet and there's nowhere to stand. The people freaking out and peddling quick fixes are trying to invent something to stand on.
After a while, we'll get used to it and calm down. People adapt when they have to, but they don't enjoy it.
It's better because we all get to genuflect interactively?
The medium is the message, hahahahahaaaaa! Yes, yes, yes, the key here is not the genuflection as such but the interactivity. Can you say "slashdot sexbot" five times fast without sounding like "the village drunk in an irish novel"? Me neither! I think that supports my point, but I'm not sure why.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
WSB has always struck me as being too cynical and well adjusted to be truly appreciated by anyone dwelling in existential misery and laughable pseudo-intellectualism.
To the contrary, I've always seen him as a magnet for that type. Not the really dumb ones, but the smarter ones who are just clueless and take themselves too seriously. I'm guessing that they giggle over the naughty bits and miss most of what's worthwhile about it, but who knows. Hey, Burroughs writes well and he's a master of atmosphere (he's not Jack Vance, but most sensibilities are too coarse-grained for Vance anyway). Maybe some boneheads are fitfully capable of appreciating something good for the right reasons. And boneheads can certainly enjoy watching Burroughs turn his cold, withering eye on the human race without realizing that he's turning it on them, too. Heh. Actually I try not to think about that part myself.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
It would be worthwhile to distinguish between two classes of complaints here:
We're angry, and rightly so, because the media, the police, and school administrators are galloping off in all directions without thinking first. Must we do the same?
Very few generalizations about people are reliably valid, even when the people in question are school administrators and police.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: How do we all feel about the recent flap in New Jersey, about the state police "profiling" drivers? They've been stopping a higher percentage of black drivers than white. Of the drivers who are stopped, it seems that they search the cars of a dramatically higher percentage of black drivers. So how do Slashdotters feel about that, and the fact that it's happening in close proximity to Camden, Trenton, North Philadelphia, Newark, etc.?
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
From the newsweek article you linked to:
According to the evidence of stones and bones, long before Ellis Island opened its doors America was a veritable Rainbow Coalition of ethnic types, peopled by southern Asians, East Asians--and even, perhaps, Ice Age Europeans,
That's not as simple as the article's title seems to suggest. Depressingly, I can easily see some unprincipled yahoos latching onto this (without reading or understanding the article, much less the actual research) and claiming that it "justifies" our stealing land from the natives. Oh, well.
Furthermore, none of those people were your or my direct ancestors, unless of course you're a Native American (I'm not) -- which brings us right back to the post you replied to.
It's a neat article. Thanks for posting the link.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Ayn Rand had a small number of very clear, simple, elegant rules which tell us how everything works, and how to fix it all. When you read Rand, you discover that the universe is actually a terribly simple place, and that human relationships are the the simplest thing of all. She explains how you can take her small number of simple rules, apply them to society and to the members of society, and make everybody happy and productive. She had a Manifesto. She had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything.
So did the Unabomber.
So did Karl Marx, Hitler, and a lot of other widely-admired historical figures, from all over the political spectrum. The one thing they had in common was some form of a Messiah complex: They had been granted the Final Truth.
Fortunately, Rand's Grand Unified Theory of Everything didn't revolve around violence[1], nor around seizing political power, so people who try to implement it don't usually do much damage[2]. So it's not like "Objectivists" are really likely to be dangerous or anything, but they are still addicted to radical oversimplification of very complicated issues. Militarily they're harmless, but intellectually they're not so hot.
the philosophy of Objectivism that puts rational thinking and thought, intellect and being an individual over top of popularity
There's a caveat there: Ayn Rand defined "rational thinking and . . . intellect" as "agreeing with Ayn Rand about everything". Rand believed that only yes-men (specifically, her yes-men) can truly think for themselves, and do it rationally. Of course, some of us might disagree with that, but then we're not yes-men, are we? So by definition, we're irrational and we can safely be ignored. Some people call this a self-reinforcing delusional system, while others call it philosophy. Hey, it's a free country.
[1] She didn't advocate violence, but she condoned it when "necessary". See Atlas Shrugged where Dagny and whatsisname kill a guard for the sake of momentary convenience.
[2] Big-time con-artists like Michael Milken are an occasional exception, but if get to choose the kind of "damage" that people will do, I'd much rather be swindled than blown up. So Rand is better than the Unabomber in that respect as well.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
You spew laughable and easyly disproved opinions
Every time you "quote" me, the words bear less resemblance to what I actually wrote. Obviously, you think I'm right. If you thought I was wrong, you'd quote me accurately and refute what I said. Instead, you're refuting something else. There's only one reason why people do that.
In general, your hysterical and hyperaggressive manner is that of somebody who knows he is wrong. If you had any confidence in the truth of the dogma you love so much, you wouldn't go into hysterics when somebody disagrees with you. Do you know what a polygraph is? It's popularly known as a "lie detector". It doesn't magically "detect" lies or anything like that, though. What it does is measure a number of things like heart rate, perspiration, etc. It measures nervousness. The assumption is that if you're calm, you're telling the truth. This generally does turn out to be the case in practice. People who are telling the truth don't need to be afraid of anything.
Sound familiar?
You can't respond intelligently so you must resort of personal attacks.
See above. Bear in mind also that I started this sub-thread by observing that most gun advocates are incapable of discussing the issue without resorting to personal attacks themselves. They start off with personal attacks. You certainly did. You think that anybody who disagrees with you is evil and out to get you. Well, not only is that crazy, but it's a great way to convince people that you're not worth listening to. That, in fact, was the point of departure for this whole discussion. I started flaming you because you clearly were not capable of behaving rationally, and it was more fun to poke you with a stick than to waste my time trying to communicate.
Pry open your small closed mind, disregard your preconceived notions
This sounds odd coming from somebody who gets all of his thoughts and ideas from the NRA, and who flames anybody who disagrees with him. If you were capable of communicating other than by chanting received dogma at the top of your lungs, I might take this seriously.
Learn something about the objects you so viciously hate
Who but a lunatic would "viciously hate" an inanimate object? Does that make sense to you? If so, you need therapy now. I mean, sure, I may say that I "hate eggplant", but that's a figure of speech.
It's a fact that I have said absolutely nothing which in any way indicates that I "hate" guns, "viciously" or otherwise. In fact, I've mentioned more than once the fact that I've had some experience with them. So where are you getting this "vicious hate" thing? I'll tell you where. You're pulling it out of the sad little stock of preconceived notions which you use instead of the capacity for reason which the good Lord carelessly wasted on you. You're not talking to me at all, really. You're talking to yourself.
Think for yourself for a change.
See above. If you're not even capable of reading plain English when it conflicts with your expectations, how can you possibly believe that you "think"?
what a "choke" on a shotgun is, and the difference between "improved cylinder", "modified" and "extra full"
Are you talking about one of those "pump" things? I've never used one. If that's the case, you probably fish with bait. I don't have a whole lot to say to people like that.
Study the relationship between violence, crime, socio-economics, and gun ownership.
Crime is a separate issue, but the other three do show some very interesting correlations. There's no call to be rude so I'll leave it at that.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Some conservatives claim that this whole thing happened because America isn't "Christian" enough
Hell, they blame everything on that. The blame the weather on not being "christian" enough.
Did you read the response to the second link you gave? It's brilliant. I am in awe. I was going to reply myself but there was nothing left to say.
Expect to see much more of this in the next several weeks. Eventually, it will be only Christians that they were targeting.
That wouldn't surprise me a bit.
Look on the bright side: The "Great Awakening" in the 19th century blew over after a few decades. The present silly season has been going on for a while already. It may just be hitting its stride, but you never know. Ten years from now this may all seem like a bad dream.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
You can't because the whole anti-gun agenda is centered around ignoring the truth, and is in fact afraid of the truth.
The "anti-gun agenda"? That's a joke, right? You're insane, too. I hope you realize that.
As for the truth, what's your idea of the "truth"? ZOG? The black helicopters? You are enmeshed in an endlessly complicated and fundamentally hilarious delusional system.
Grow up.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Apparently you've never shot a handgun,
.
Of course I have. Not often, nor recently, but I have.
aiming is alot like pointing your finger.
Actually, handguns are a lot heavier. In fact, that's not the impression I recall at all. Never mind.
With a shotgun you just basically point in the general direction and fire
Have you ever set eyes on a firearm in your life?
Unless you're firing from the end of a nice long hallway, the pellets aren't going to spread that much before they go winging harmlessly past the intruder. Pointing in the "general direction" signifies optimism and faith, but very little common sense.
With spittle flying, eyes rolling, and much boldface, you howled the following unsupported claim: In the US, the rate is 13%. In Canada and the UK where gun control laws keep guns out of law abiding citizens hands, the rate is 50%
Hey, that may even be accurate. You don't have the necessary mental equipment to tell time properly, but maybe you guessed right on that one.
But you know what? It's fine by me. I just had a cool idea: Sure, there are thousands of borderline-schizophrenic maniacs out there like you, hiding under the bed, quivering in fear with your gun in your hand. Okay. I'm cool with that. For one thing, I live in the civilized part of the country (Cambridge, MA) so I don't have to look at you. That makes it easier. But the main point is this: If you really are scaring the elephants away, you're scaring them away from my house, too. So I can lead a normal, rational life while the elephants (if any) stay clear. I can read books while you listen to the civil defense radio, eat interesting food while you gnaw on MRE's, etc. And you're there under your bed muttering and gnashing your teeth because I'm not insane too. Well, hey, tough shit. We all make choices, and you've made yours.
I think that's really what's eating you here. You're pissed off because you suspect that I'm having a lot more fun than you are. Well, you're right. I am.
Wright and Rossi (1986, p. 151) interviewed felony prisoners in ten state correctional systems and found that 56 percent . .
. . . of convicted felons told them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Are you really that naive? Who am I kidding, of course you are. Look at you.
Look, I'm sorry if I'm not taking you very seriously here, but it's just not possible. You're a clown. You're a cartoon. You're unintentionally hilarious.
And once again: I've met a lot of people who are mentally competent and emotionally stable enough to be trusted with firearms, but you are not one of them.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Simple enough for you? Nope? Oh, well.
All you have to offer is mindless ideological name-calling. That is my point. That has been my point from the start. It is a very simple and clear thought which you are unable to comprehend, because you have the mentality of a rabid dog. I will now stop wasting my time reasoning with you. Instead, I will enjoy myself.
I've provide stats and studies from many sources.
All I've seen is one tired, shopworn propaganda leaflet that I've seen dozens of times before. It doesn't even seem to come with a bibliography.
Oh, God. Now I've done it. He's gonna come up with a bibliography. And in keeping with the insane formal requirements for the "right wing documentation" signifier, it's gonna be four thousand pages long and consist mostly of unpublished monographs by the same author and/or his wife -- along with seven impeccably credentialled Holocaust deniers, whereabouts presently unknown.
Dude, I am not gonna read this thing all the way through, okay? The medium is the message anyway, such as it is.
Please come up with a scientific study that shows more guns equals more crime.
Why? I don't really give a rat's ass one way or the other. You're the one obsessed with the issue, not me.
Your opinions such as "a baseball bat is better for defense then a gun",
Your compulsion to quote out of context is not as amusing as you probably think. In the dark, as I said, I'd rather have a baseball bat in my hand than a gun. Think about the geometry involved. Think about aiming. Do you know what "geometry" is? No? Want me to explain it? Sorry, no handouts. Figure it out for yourself.
"criminals don't break into houses too often, do they?"
Name more than half a dozen recorded instances in the last year in any major city. Compare that to mugging. It's damn rare, dude, face it. It's a bogeyman. You're trying to stir up irrational fears without offering any evidence. No, lists of large round numbers from the NRA do not count as evidence. Sorry. I can press the zero key, too, as many times as I like -- but that doesn't tell you about anything except the fact that I have fingers. As for you, I'll grant fingers, but on the opposable thumb issue the jury is just about in. Between the two of us, it doesn't look good.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Right Wing "engaged in a massive act of communal myth-generation," I don't see that.
If that's the case, you're probably not watching very closely. Either that or you're too close to see the outlines.
I think that once a person gets elevated to national status in a party, they get swept up in the politicing and forget what they use to be about.
I'm not talking about those people. A lot of grass-roots right-wingers feel badly betrayed by "their" leadership in congress, and quite a few never trusted "moderates" like Buchanan and Gingrich to begin with. The people generating the myths are not elected officials. I am not talking about the mainstream. I am not talking about anybody who will ever turn up on network television (except for a few who get arrested, like Tim McVeigh -- but that's not the same kind of exposure as the McLaughlin Group) (oh, yeah, just for the record: IMHO Tim McVeigh deserves the same presumption of innocence as you and me and everybody else Ken Starr doesn't have a grudge against).
Stereotyping the whole group doesn't get us anywhere.
I'm looking at observed phenomena here. I'm not suggesting any profiles for state troopers to use in arresting "suspected right-wing kooks", or anything like that. I am discussing the fact that this consensual hallucination does in fact exist. The militias are out there. Have a look at their web sites. They exist, and they're not living on the same planet as the rest of us. Naturally, some are in the middle of it and some are at the edges. Some buy it all, and some buy only parts.
The same goes for the new-age flying-saucer lunatics. They're at least as crazy as the right wing, believe me. Fortunately they don't go in for weapons so much, so they seem less dangerous, but any wholesale rejection of reality is a cause for concern.
Yeah, there are a lot of kooks out there screaming out about nationalism, about how the races should be seperate or how there should be just one race, but those people are not what makes up a political faction.
Nobody's talking about political factions as such. I was talking about the people I describe above. By the way, though, that is precisely what makes up political factions, in some extreme cases.
I think your post has nothing of value in it.
Well, ain't that special. God forbid we should pay attention to the world around us, much less try to understand it.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"