you chance being abducted is probably higher than wining lottery jackpot.
This assumes conditions in the Middle East stay roughly the same as they are now. From the looks of the news, however, I'd say things are deteriorating. I know that I, for one, would not want to be in Saudi Arabia when the shit really hits the fan...
You have to potential to flare out into interesting color patterns until it settles into a solid state if you step between two radically different backgrounds.
That's okay -- if the military won't buy it, the rave kiddies will.
For some reason, the hummingbird flew straight into a copper cable, sticking his beak into it. Why?
Result of having a brain the size of an M&M, perhaps? In any case, once they finally start selling those flying cars, you'll see that people aren't much smarter....
Because you are only passing one reference to the function call instead of ten, and thus you only need one register instead of many. (This assumes you are passing in the same set(s) of values around repeatedly, of course... if you are passing in completely different combinations every time, then copying them into an object first will of course not help)
it's really quite sad that so many programmers just let their applications fill the hardware vacuum they think their users will have, or should have, just because they didn't take an extra day to think about what they're doing and write their code a little more efficiently.
Actually, it's great that people can write software and get it to run usably fast without having to be super-geniuses and/or spend hours or days poring over the code to get it to run fast enough. With more programmers having the ability to code, and each programmer being able to code more in less time, the result is much more software available that would otherwise be the case. And since CPU power and RAM is so cheap these days, the downside is minimal. So the glass is half full:^)
At the end of the day, what matters is how much useful work people can get out of their computer. So I'd rather have a fast, cheap machine running lots of inefficient software, than any kind of machine with only a few highly optimized packages available for it.
Agreed -- but I would argue that if you are making lots of function calls that take 10 arguments each, your code isn't very readable either. In most cases like that, the thing to do is create a class that contains all the parameters and just pass in a reference to an object of that class. Then your code is both efficient AND easy to understand.
There's some very real people out there that want to do some very real harm to our very real civilians. Are they as numerous as people say? No. Are people be incorrectly persecuted in this country for it? Yes.
There seems to be a growing trend of people interviewing themselves as a rhetorical technique. Does John Ashcroft do it every time he's on TV? Yes he does. Is it an effective means of controlling the direction of the interview? You bet. Is it starting to grate on my nerves? Absolutely! Will it get old and go away soon? We can only hope.
(Yeah, it's off-topic, but when the topic is "Nigritude Ultramarine", so is pretty much everything else)
I agree that unchecked aggressiveness was often an evolutionary advantage in the past, but as Bill Joy and others have noted, it's becoming more and more maladaptive as technological power increases. Fortunately, aggression and war aren't the only successful evolutionary strategies -- there are others based on co-operation that can work as well or better, in the right circumstances. The trick is to provide those cirmcumstances, and then convince people to act in their own long term best interest.
There is no way around it - this is not like the right to bear arms - you simply have to ban the technology and pretty much wipe out everyone who seeks to acquire it
That would be a good idea -- if it was even remotely possible. But of course it isn't, and banning the technology will only ensure that when the technology IS developed, it is only those who ignored your ban (i.e. your enemies) who have access to it. Good luck fighting that new plague when none of your scientists are allowed to research it!
A more workable (albeit still iffy) solution would be to figure out what makes people want to develop WMDs, and work on ways to keep them from wanting to do so. Put effort into reducing poverty, increase global co-operation, promote cross-cultural goodwill, stabilize population growth, etc. Basically do the opposite of everything Bush is doing.:^P
In order to gain significant market share, earn the trust of potential users, and develop with a strong backbone in a reliable direction, Linux must be accountable.
Oh, I don't know... the English language does pretty well without holding anyone "accountable". I think the "who can I sue?" question is, in the long run, a red herring.
Thank goodness Bush-hating is still a pretty elite passtime, because people like you would give anything to take him out.
"People like us" now include the majority of the US population, so I don't think it's an "elite pastime" anymore. As far as "taking Bush out", we will do that using the standard democratic method this November.
I too thought that at first, but it turns out the real skill you learn from DDR is how to enjoy looking silly in public. Even if you never get the coordination, being able to set aside your natural nerdly inhibitions (without the aid of alcohol) is always a good skill to have...:^)
If you still drink 6 bottles of Coke, and eat a bucket of chicken for lunch -- that's how.
Even then you'll gain less weight than you would have without the exercise. (Of course, if eat your 6,000-calorie meal just before starting your DDR workout, you'll probably lose the entire meal)
Fuel costs too expensive? Instead of whining about how much it costs and how much profit the energy companies are making off of you, why not put your money where your mouth is and stop buying (or at least cut down on your consumption of) their product? Conservation is a great way to do this, or if you don't find it convenient to conserve, find an alternative energy source to use instead. (if you can't find an alternative energy source that's cheaper, then maybe that's a clue that the current gas prices aren't such a bad deal after all...)
I'm just as pissed off at Bush as you are, but let's face it -- if real progress is going to occur, it's going to take actual effort from the people, and not just waiting around for the "government to do something about it".
Is that what he was going to fund with his $.50 / gallon hike in the gasoline tax?
Hurray for the Big Lie! Remember kids, the more often you repeat it, the more people will think it's true!
For those of you interested in the truth, and not GOP talking points propoganda, read this
Personally, I think a gas tax is a great idea, as long as it is accompanied by other programs that encourage reduction in fossil fuel usage -- i.e. as long as its effect is actually reduce consumption, and doesn't end up just making people pay more for the same amount of gas as always.
... along the same lines: it's a well known fact that Osama bin Laden likes to eat Corn Flakes for breakfast. Think about that next time you are in the cereal aisle, and choose wisely!
as if the written language could changed, and there'd even BE an election, much less with the same two candidates
It just goes to show that while things like spelling may be arbitrary, a two-party system will always end up providing us with the same awful choices. Who would have guessed that Bradbury was capable of such subtle political satire?
So success in Iraq, i.e. free democratic country is more like Nazi Germany's goal, and failure in Iraq, defined as civil war or theocracy, is less like Nazi Germany's goal?
Success in Iraq would lead to a US government that continues to believe that it is acceptable to pre-emptively invade foreign countries under false justifications, and then retroactively change the rationale whenever necessary. (The invasion supposed to be about Weapons of Mass Destruction, remember? Hussein was an immediate threat to America, and all that?) Such a precedent would be (in fact, is) extremely destabilizing -- if every country felt morally allowed to do such things, "because the USA does it" -- how many more unjustifiable wars can we expect in the future?
Additionally, I seriously doubt that "a free democratic Iraq" was a primary goal of the invasion -- that was just the politically correct window dressing used (along with spurious connections to WMD and Al-Quaeda) to sell the war to the American public. The real reasons for the war had a lot more to do with securing long-term access to oil and "shocking and awing" other nations' governments into political obedience (not that we're likely to succeed in either of those goals, either).
I would argue that if failure means more death and less freedom in Iraq, and you want this so Bush is not re-elected
Pick a scenario:
Bush "succeeds" in crushing the Iraqi resistance, installing an America-friendly puppet government in Iraq, and wins re-election. During his next term, another country raises our government's ire, and boyed by the success of our previous ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, we again rush to invade. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon it's World War 3, with millions dead, vast environmental and economic damage, and America in tatters.
Bush continues to fail in Iraq, and a newly chastened America decides that dishonest bullying is not a viable foreign policy, and instead decides to embrace the rest of the world as equals, working co-operatively with them to solve the problems of the day. With help from governments around the world, terrorism and eventually poverty and environmental decline are dealth with, and the quality of life is peacefully advanced for all mankind.
maybe you should question your motives and values.
My values tell me to promote peaceful, honest, respectful solutions to our nation's problems, and to the world's problems. Bush's Iraq invasion ran roughshod over all of that, and resulted in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths (so far... there are undoubtedly more to come) and to the destruction of America's image as a country of genuine ideals. If it takes a painful failure to remind us of the costs of irresponsible behaviour, perhaps it is worth it to make sure that such a horrible debacle doesn't happen again.
How else do you have "a government of the people, by the people, for the people" if the people themselves don't get involved? Acta non verba!
Sure... but running for President isn't necessarily the most practical way to get the changes you want. Take Ralph Nader as Exhibit A -- he's doing just that, and the most likely effect of his campaign will be a better chance of Bush being re-elected. In this case, I think Moore is using his talents (and he is a very talented provocateur/gadfly/showman) to promote change more effectivly than he ever could by becoming a politician (as you almost said yourself, people would never vote for him).
You don't need to be a millioinaire. You don't need to be a war hero. You don't need to be a lawyer or even have a degree. You don't need to have a full head of hair or perfect teeth. You need to have been born in the United States and you need to be at least 35. That's all.
That is the what they teach in the schools, of course... but I just don't see that happening in practice. In practice, you need to have truckloads of money to get your message out, and so you either need to be a millionaire, or you need to be able to milk money out of the people or companies that are... in which case you are now (to a greater or lesser degree) representing their interests instead of your own. The Internet helps somewhat in this regard, of course (see Howard Dean), but it's not enough IMHO.
You know what this country really needs? Another presidential election where nobody gets the majority of electoal votes.
You'll probably get it too -- the country is so evenly divided that the winner of the 2004 presidential election will very likely not have a majority. I don't see how it would help, though... two of the last three Presidential elections were won that way (2000 and 1992), and people pretty much shrugged it off each time.
What I think this country really needs is a well-devised system of public campaign financing (to make politicals less about who can best sell his soul to the special interests, and more about the interests of the voters), and a voting system other than winner-take-all, so that the "spoiler" problem is removed, and people are allowed to vote for the candidate they really prefer rather than having to vote strategically to block the majority candidate they dislike the most. Not that I'm holding my breath for either, anytime soon.:^(
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Does it matter what the reason is? Useless is useless.
This assumes conditions in the Middle East stay roughly the same as they are now. From the looks of the news, however, I'd say things are deteriorating. I know that I, for one, would not want to be in Saudi Arabia when the shit really hits the fan...
That's okay -- if the military won't buy it, the rave kiddies will.
Result of having a brain the size of an M&M, perhaps? In any case, once they finally start selling those flying cars, you'll see that people aren't much smarter....
Sure, but given the option of dual-core processors, I want a system with two of them... I know, it's a fetish, what can I say?
Because you are only passing one reference to the function call instead of ten, and thus you only need one register instead of many. (This assumes you are passing in the same set(s) of values around repeatedly, of course... if you are passing in completely different combinations every time, then copying them into an object first will of course not help)
Actually, it's great that people can write software and get it to run usably fast without having to be super-geniuses and/or spend hours or days poring over the code to get it to run fast enough. With more programmers having the ability to code, and each programmer being able to code more in less time, the result is much more software available that would otherwise be the case. And since CPU power and RAM is so cheap these days, the downside is minimal. So the glass is half full
At the end of the day, what matters is how much useful work people can get out of their computer. So I'd rather have a fast, cheap machine running lots of inefficient software, than any kind of machine with only a few highly optimized packages available for it.
Agreed -- but I would argue that if you are making lots of function calls that take 10 arguments each, your code isn't very readable either. In most cases like that, the thing to do is create a class that contains all the parameters and just pass in a reference to an object of that class. Then your code is both efficient AND easy to understand.
There seems to be a growing trend of people interviewing themselves as a rhetorical technique. Does John Ashcroft do it every time he's on TV? Yes he does. Is it an effective means of controlling the direction of the interview? You bet. Is it starting to grate on my nerves? Absolutely! Will it get old and go away soon? We can only hope.
(Yeah, it's off-topic, but when the topic is "Nigritude Ultramarine", so is pretty much everything else)
I agree that unchecked aggressiveness was often an evolutionary advantage in the past, but as Bill Joy and others have noted, it's becoming more and more maladaptive as technological power increases. Fortunately, aggression and war aren't the only successful evolutionary strategies -- there are others based on co-operation that can work as well or better, in the right circumstances. The trick is to provide those cirmcumstances, and then convince people to act in their own long term best interest.
I'm not. You think the tourists are annoying now? Just wait...
Is that really true? How do you figure?
That would be a good idea -- if it was even remotely possible. But of course it isn't, and banning the technology will only ensure that when the technology IS developed, it is only those who ignored your ban (i.e. your enemies) who have access to it. Good luck fighting that new plague when none of your scientists are allowed to research it!
A more workable (albeit still iffy) solution would be to figure out what makes people want to develop WMDs, and work on ways to keep them from wanting to do so. Put effort into reducing poverty, increase global co-operation, promote cross-cultural goodwill, stabilize population growth, etc. Basically do the opposite of everything Bush is doing.
And all those other fun Ambrosia games for the Mac. That's reason enough for me!
Oh, I don't know... the English language does pretty well without holding anyone "accountable". I think the "who can I sue?" question is, in the long run, a red herring.
"People like us" now include the majority of the US population, so I don't think it's an "elite pastime" anymore. As far as "taking Bush out", we will do that using the standard democratic method this November.
Perhaps this is the game you are looking for...
I too thought that at first, but it turns out the real skill you learn from DDR is how to enjoy looking silly in public. Even if you never get the coordination, being able to set aside your natural nerdly inhibitions (without the aid of alcohol) is always a good skill to have...
Even then you'll gain less weight than you would have without the exercise. (Of course, if eat your 6,000-calorie meal just before starting your DDR workout, you'll probably lose the entire meal)
I'm just as pissed off at Bush as you are, but let's face it -- if real progress is going to occur, it's going to take actual effort from the people, and not just waiting around for the "government to do something about it".
Hurray for the Big Lie! Remember kids, the more often you repeat it, the more people will think it's true!
For those of you interested in the truth, and not GOP talking points propoganda, read this
Personally, I think a gas tax is a great idea, as long as it is accompanied by other programs that encourage reduction in fossil fuel usage -- i.e. as long as its effect is actually reduce consumption, and doesn't end up just making people pay more for the same amount of gas as always.
... along the same lines: it's a well known fact that Osama bin Laden likes to eat Corn Flakes for breakfast. Think about that next time you are in the cereal aisle, and choose wisely!
It just goes to show that while things like spelling may be arbitrary, a two-party system will always end up providing us with the same awful choices. Who would have guessed that Bradbury was capable of such subtle political satire?
Success in Iraq would lead to a US government that continues to believe that it is acceptable to pre-emptively invade foreign countries under false justifications, and then retroactively change the rationale whenever necessary. (The invasion supposed to be about Weapons of Mass Destruction, remember? Hussein was an immediate threat to America, and all that?) Such a precedent would be (in fact, is) extremely destabilizing -- if every country felt morally allowed to do such things, "because the USA does it" -- how many more unjustifiable wars can we expect in the future?
Additionally, I seriously doubt that "a free democratic Iraq" was a primary goal of the invasion -- that was just the politically correct window dressing used (along with spurious connections to WMD and Al-Quaeda) to sell the war to the American public. The real reasons for the war had a lot more to do with securing long-term access to oil and "shocking and awing" other nations' governments into political obedience (not that we're likely to succeed in either of those goals, either).
I would argue that if failure means more death and less freedom in Iraq, and you want this so Bush is not re-elected
Pick a scenario:
maybe you should question your motives and values.
My values tell me to promote peaceful, honest, respectful solutions to our nation's problems, and to the world's problems. Bush's Iraq invasion ran roughshod over all of that, and resulted in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths (so far... there are undoubtedly more to come) and to the destruction of America's image as a country of genuine ideals. If it takes a painful failure to remind us of the costs of irresponsible behaviour, perhaps it is worth it to make sure that such a horrible debacle doesn't happen again.
Sure... but running for President isn't necessarily the most practical way to get the changes you want. Take Ralph Nader as Exhibit A -- he's doing just that, and the most likely effect of his campaign will be a better chance of Bush being re-elected. In this case, I think Moore is using his talents (and he is a very talented provocateur/gadfly/showman) to promote change more effectivly than he ever could by becoming a politician (as you almost said yourself, people would never vote for him).
You don't need to be a millioinaire. You don't need to be a war hero. You don't need to be a lawyer or even have a degree. You don't need to have a full head of hair or perfect teeth. You need to have been born in the United States and you need to be at least 35. That's all.
That is the what they teach in the schools, of course... but I just don't see that happening in practice. In practice, you need to have truckloads of money to get your message out, and so you either need to be a millionaire, or you need to be able to milk money out of the people or companies that are... in which case you are now (to a greater or lesser degree) representing their interests instead of your own. The Internet helps somewhat in this regard, of course (see Howard Dean), but it's not enough IMHO.
You know what this country really needs? Another presidential election where nobody gets the majority of electoal votes.
You'll probably get it too -- the country is so evenly divided that the winner of the 2004 presidential election will very likely not have a majority. I don't see how it would help, though... two of the last three Presidential elections were won that way (2000 and 1992), and people pretty much shrugged it off each time.
What I think this country really needs is a well-devised system of public campaign financing (to make politicals less about who can best sell his soul to the special interests, and more about the interests of the voters), and a voting system other than winner-take-all, so that the "spoiler" problem is removed, and people are allowed to vote for the candidate they really prefer rather than having to vote strategically to block the majority candidate they dislike the most. Not that I'm holding my breath for either, anytime soon.