> if you take out the hard to get past old english, it becomes an enjoyable story once again.
Never understood that at all, maybe being English helps, but when I did it at school my problem was understanding what the hell was so difficult about it. When people asked me to translate a section into understandable English I was baffled, it all made perfect sense already [some exceptions of course]. Take away the language and a fair amount of the point goes away. I thought http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/ did a good job of leaving the language in place but updating the setting.
And, closer to the topic he also said that DNA was created while heart of gold was operating at probability of just below infinity to 1 and it spread through the universe causing havoc wherever it took root. The notion that creation of life is less probable than life spreading has been around for a long time.
Its a question of degree. At one extreme one could make the argument that since driving at all is dangerous driving should be banned altogether except for licensed professionals like bus/ambulance drivers. Assuming one doesnt agree with that you have to accept that some level of risk is accepable.
Someone driving a regular car who crashes into an SUV is far more likely to get killed than when colliding with another car. Maybe we should ban SUVs too. That would be unamerican, but being puritanical, moralistic and unrealistic about about alcohol is part of a proud tradition. Claiming any risk is unacceptable is nonsense. We need a fair cost-benefit analysis and a myriad of ways to combat the problem, maybe including subsidised shuttle services, laws encouraging bars to provide overnight parking etc. [Personally, I think people should be allowed to take their driving test under various levels of inebriation. That way I could get qualified to drive with a.15 alcohol level - not happy with that.. fine, make driving tests harder until I can't and keep a million other morons off the road at the same time].
> Frankly, I take offence in the fact that you actually posted that comment.
Blimey, if you take offence at that you're either strangely thin skinned or a bit touchy on the subject. The fact you bothered to feed racist troll-boy coherently suggests the latter.
> I will not, however, partake in ceremonies that have their roots in organized religion.
Marriage has fuck all to do with religion for most people. Legal implications wrt taxes, immigration, paternity rights, financial separation arrangements etc are more significant. Saying its the origin of the ceremony you object to seems disingenuous. It seems like you're claiming you want to not get married for religious reasons. Personally I think the decision to marry or not is too important to be determined by religious considerations, but each to their own.
Sancitmonious tripe. Those who lose money from poker do so voluntarily so its a a form of entertainment they pay for. Professional poker players are no more a leach on society than opera singers.
"Men came off worse than women. Only 55 per cent of men could remember their wedding anniversary, compared to 90 per cent of women."
There are a whole bunch of things in that article that are not necessarily anything to do with the hypothesis. The above is just a particularly egregious example. Apart from men not caring as much about relationships, how much thought does an average man put into thinking about the wedding beforehand compared to his spouse, 10% would be my estimate, but that's a little on the high side.
In the rest of it, so older people remember birthdays better than younger people, maybe that's because they have been giving presents for longer etc
> A good software developer writes applications that are meant to be run as binaries. er.. wtf ?
> Software developers should typically not try to write web applications well who should ?
Ok, you seem to think that there are two distinct species of developers, scripting and compiled, where a software developer writes in compiled languages and a web developer writes using scripting languages. It's not that simple. Any decent developer knows a selection of tools. A web developer is a particular type of software developer. If by web developer you mean someone who knows a little javascript/php/asp and some design stuff but not enough about software development to be considered a software developer [and that's a fairly common useage of the term] then they should not be writing web applications. They can customise/configure existing web applications, or collaborate with software developers in the creation of web applications, but writing web applications definitely needs people with enough knowledge to be considered software developers.
You make some sensible points, but I think you're misguided about how to deal with the problem. You don't have to have huge enforcement efforts to prevent people getting here or forcing them back once they're here, you just make it so they don't want to stay. There are two sides to this. Firstly, irradicate the huge agribusiness subsidies that have bankrupted small farmers in mexico leaving them no alternative than to cross the border seeking work. Secondly, make it economic suicide for anyone to hire undocumented workers. Don't go after the immigrants just go after the employers. Companies which are caught hiring undocumented workers should face huge fines along with jail time for their top executives. The idea that the illegals are doing jobs Americans won't do is plainly nonsense. There are no jobs Americans wont do if paid enough.
> I usually get called a "fanboy" (or, more often, "fanboi", and sometimes even "fangirl") when I disseminate correct information about Apple on slashdot
That's because you're posting on a Linux fanboy site.
You can stick it in the back of your truck for when you need to get somewhere inaccessible by normal means - like closer to the mall entrance than a regular parking spot.
Hey, do you know how to save a recorded macro and then run it again later - eg, if I have 3 macros I want to be able to use, how to I run them each at will rather than just the most recently recorded ?
I've wanted an answer to this question for about, oh, maybe 15 years now, but never badly enough to wade through enough documentation to find an answer.
"If you find any ancient artefact take it to your local museum or police station. All Treasure finds must be reported to the Coroner within 14 days. Failure to do so is a criminal offence. The Coroner will contact the relevant body to investigate your find.
If the find is declared to be Treasure then it may be claimed by the Crown and if so the Treasure Valuation Committee will value the find and you will be awarded the full market value of the Treasure. "
ie, the crown or a museum can claim it, but then they need to pay you the full market value. If they're not interested, you just keep it, this is just to stop items of historical interest from just being melted down or items of cultural interest from leaving the country. You might want to reexamine some other stuff you've "grown up knowing.."
> I don't mind arguing about the senselessness of the war or the futility of trying to enact democracy in chaos, but don't try to tell me that this war has been waged badly.
Why not ? Iraq wasnt in chaos before we invaded. Before the war a couple of generals were sacked for saying we needed several hundred thousand troups to secure the country. Rumsfeld was sure we could secure Iraw with 100,000. He was wrong.
> to program in C++ by manipulating graphical symbols
What does that mean ? In what sense would they be programming ? Did your proposal have any concrete ideas which you ommitted [Let alone programming in C++, which to most people means writing C++]
This visual programming crap crops up from time to time because so many people are brainwashed by that crap about a picture being worth a 1000 words. Draw me a picture of "misguided". They are stuck on the "pictures are better than words" meme. Sure, until you learn to read.
Programming is done with languages because programming is communication. It's communication between programmer and computer.
I can believe in this stuff as a decent way to introduce people to programming, like picture books introduce people to language but I don't see it moving beyond that.
For those who havent noticed, gay doesnt necessarily mean homosexual anymore, it often just means crap. I can understand that some Gays might be upset about this but that doesnt change the fact. Gay is just one of those words that changes meaning from time to time: once upon a time it meant happy, then it meant homosexual, now it means crap and at some stage in the future it will probably mean quiche or something.
You know what would be good for next year.. how about no april fools stories at all. That would be really novel and confusing, people might actually read each story wondering.. come on, this cant be real, its april 1. Having every single story on april 1 be bogus is so stupid it might be genius if they drop the retarded idea next year.
You don't *need* to use an editor, you can write your programs with cat if you really want to. Not using the best tool for the job is a sign of stupidy rather than proficiency.
> I'm wating for a language which would parallelize stuff for you. T
You may as well wait for a language which does everything for you. For many problems, coming up with an algorithm for efficiently solving the problem on multiple cores is harder than the algorithm on a single core [eg, try parallelising a large matrix inversion etc etc]. I wouldnt expect languages to come up with algorithms as fundamental as QuickSort any time soon [when they do, they'll be smarter than we are, so we wont be programming at all].
Slashdot Mirror
> is almost always the wrong choice for a large-scale application
No, its wrong for a medium-scale application. For large
applications, it can make perfect sense for people to write
their own frameworks.
> if you take out the hard to get past old english, it becomes an enjoyable story once again.
Never understood that at all, maybe being English helps, but when I did
it at school my problem was understanding what the hell was so difficult
about it. When people asked me to translate a section into understandable
English I was baffled, it all made perfect sense already [some exceptions
of course]. Take away the language and a fair amount of the point goes away.
I thought http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/ did a good job of leaving
the language in place but updating the setting.
And, closer to the topic he also said that DNA was created while heart of gold
was operating at probability of just below infinity to 1 and it spread through
the universe causing havoc wherever it took root. The notion that creation of life
is less probable than life spreading has been around for a long time.
Its a question of degree. At one extreme one could make the argument that
.15 alcohol level - not happy with that.. fine, make
since driving at all is dangerous driving should be banned altogether except
for licensed professionals like bus/ambulance drivers. Assuming one doesnt agree
with that you have to accept that some level of risk is accepable.
Someone driving a regular car who crashes into an SUV is far
more likely to get killed than when colliding with another car.
Maybe we should ban SUVs too. That would be unamerican, but
being puritanical, moralistic and unrealistic about about alcohol
is part of a proud tradition. Claiming any risk is unacceptable
is nonsense. We need a fair cost-benefit analysis and a myriad
of ways to combat the problem, maybe including subsidised shuttle services,
laws encouraging bars to provide overnight parking etc.
[Personally, I think people should be allowed to take their driving
test under various levels of inebriation. That way I could get qualified to
drive with a
driving tests harder until I can't and keep a million other morons
off the road at the same time].
> Frankly, I take offence in the fact that you actually posted that comment.
Blimey, if you take offence at that you're either strangely thin skinned
or a bit touchy on the subject. The fact you bothered to feed
racist troll-boy coherently suggests the latter.
> I will not, however, partake in ceremonies that have their roots in organized religion.
Marriage has fuck all to do with religion for most people. Legal implications
wrt taxes, immigration, paternity rights, financial separation arrangements
etc are more significant. Saying its the origin of the ceremony
you object to seems disingenuous. It seems like you're claiming you
want to not get married for religious reasons. Personally I think
the decision to marry or not is too important to be determined by
religious considerations, but each to their own.
- I have a girlfriend
- She is good looking and pregnant to boot
- I caused the pregnancy
You know, some people would consider getting married in the circumstances...
Volume is pretty easy to measure, just get in a bath. Granted,
not quite as easy as weight/height, but simple enough to bother
with.
Sancitmonious tripe. Those who lose money from poker do so voluntarily
so its a a form of entertainment they pay for. Professional poker
players are no more a leach on society than opera singers.
"Men came off worse than women. Only 55 per cent of men could remember their wedding anniversary, compared to 90 per cent of women."
There are a whole bunch of things in that article that are not necessarily
anything to do with the hypothesis. The above is just a particularly egregious
example. Apart from men not caring as much about relationships, how much thought
does an average man put into thinking about the wedding beforehand compared
to his spouse, 10% would be my estimate, but that's a little on the high side.
In the rest of it, so older people remember birthdays better than younger people,
maybe that's because they have been giving presents for longer etc
> A good software developer writes applications that are meant to be run as binaries.
er.. wtf ?
> Software developers should typically not try to write web applications
well who should ?
Ok, you seem to think that there are two distinct species of developers,
scripting and compiled, where a software developer writes in compiled languages
and a web developer writes using scripting languages. It's not that simple.
Any decent developer knows a selection of tools. A web developer is a particular
type of software developer. If by web developer you mean someone who knows
a little javascript/php/asp and some design stuff but not enough about software
development to be considered a software developer [and that's a fairly common
useage of the term] then they should not be writing web applications.
They can customise/configure existing web applications, or collaborate with software
developers in the creation of web applications, but writing web applications
definitely needs people with enough knowledge to be considered software
developers.
How do you know the CIA had nothing to do with Kennedy assassination:
because he's dead.
You make some sensible points, but I think you're misguided
about how to deal with the problem. You don't have to have huge
enforcement efforts to prevent people getting here or forcing
them back once they're here, you just make it so they don't want
to stay. There are two sides to this. Firstly, irradicate the huge agribusiness subsidies that have bankrupted small farmers in mexico
leaving them no alternative than to cross the border seeking work.
Secondly, make it economic suicide for anyone to hire
undocumented workers. Don't go after the immigrants
just go after the employers. Companies which are caught hiring
undocumented workers should face huge fines along with jail
time for their top executives. The idea that the illegals are doing jobs
Americans won't do is plainly nonsense. There are no jobs Americans
wont do if paid enough.
> I usually get called a "fanboy" (or, more often, "fanboi", and sometimes even "fangirl") when I disseminate correct information about Apple on slashdot
That's because you're posting on a Linux fanboy site.
You can stick it in the back of your truck for when you need to get somewhere
inaccessible by normal means - like closer to the mall entrance than a
regular parking spot.
Hey, do you know how to save a recorded macro and then run
it again later - eg, if I have 3 macros I want to be able to use,
how to I run them each at will rather than just the most recently recorded ?
I've wanted an answer to this question for about, oh, maybe 15 years
now, but never badly enough to wade through enough documentation to find an answer.
> I've grown up knowing that any
You are badly misinformed. http://hmcoroner.powys.gov.uk/index.php?id=8
"If you find any ancient artefact take it to your local museum or police station. All Treasure finds must be reported to the Coroner within 14 days. Failure to do so is a criminal offence. The Coroner will contact the relevant body to investigate your find.
If the find is declared to be Treasure then it may be claimed by the Crown and if so the Treasure Valuation Committee will value the find and you will be awarded the full market value of the Treasure. "
ie, the crown or a museum can claim it, but then they need to pay you the full market value. If they're not interested, you just keep it, this is just to stop items of historical interest from just being melted down or items of cultural interest from leaving the country. You might want to reexamine some other stuff you've "grown up knowing.."
> I don't mind arguing about the senselessness of the war or the futility of trying to enact democracy in chaos, but don't try to tell me that this war has been waged badly.
Why not ? Iraq wasnt in chaos before we invaded. Before the war a couple of generals were sacked for saying we needed several hundred thousand troups to secure the country. Rumsfeld was sure we could secure Iraw with 100,000. He was wrong.
> to program in C++ by manipulating graphical symbols
What does that mean ? In what sense would they be programming ?
Did your proposal have any concrete ideas which you ommitted
[Let alone programming in C++, which to most people means writing C++]
This visual programming crap crops up from time to time because so many people are brainwashed by that crap about a picture being worth a 1000 words. Draw me a picture of "misguided". They are stuck on the "pictures are better than words" meme. Sure, until you learn to read.
Programming is done with languages because programming is communication. It's communication between programmer and computer.
I can believe in this stuff as a decent way to introduce people to programming, like picture books introduce people to language but I don't see it moving beyond that.
I'm more proud of myself when I manage to remove more than a 1000 lines
in a day.
For those who havent noticed, gay doesnt necessarily mean homosexual anymore, it often just means crap. I can understand that some Gays might be upset about this but that doesnt change the fact. Gay is just one of those words that changes meaning from time to time: once upon a time it meant happy, then it meant homosexual, now it means crap and at some stage in the future it will probably mean quiche or something.
I'll leave the hypocrisy detection as an excerise for the reader
Now the annual idiocy is over can we have a vote /. april 1st edition:
on what readers actually think of
[ ] lame
[ ] really lame
[ ] totally fucking lame
[ ] gay
[ ] I'm an idiot
You know what would be good for next year.. how about no april fools
stories at all. That would be really novel and confusing,
people might actually read each story wondering.. come on, this cant
be real, its april 1. Having every single story on april 1 be bogus
is so stupid it might be genius if they drop the retarded idea next year.
You don't *need* to use an editor, you can write your programs with cat if you really want to. Not using the best tool for the job is a sign of stupidy rather than proficiency.
Really ?? Then I might consider it. w2003 server is excellent.
> I'm wating for a language which would parallelize stuff for you. T
You may as well wait for a language which does everything for you.
For many problems, coming up with an algorithm for efficiently solving the
problem on multiple cores is harder than the algorithm on a single core
[eg, try parallelising a large matrix inversion etc etc].
I wouldnt expect languages to come up with algorithms as fundamental
as QuickSort any time soon [when they do, they'll be smarter than we
are, so we wont be programming at all].