Wind would be a good alternative if there was a safe and clean way to store energy.
Hydroelectricity? As in, pump water uphill to store energy, run it downhill through turbines to release it.
I don't know how well it scales, but there's one near my hometown that I believe to be successful, and it's significantly prettier than most power facilities.
Now, sure, in hindsight they could have built to withstand a bigger earthquake and someone could have decided 10 metres wasn't enough (actually, I don't know how high the tsunami defences were here?)... but actually, given the size of the quake and resulting tsunami I reckon the designers/builders did a pretty good job.
Hindsight would not have been required. An earthquake this big was almost certain to hit within the next couple of hundred years. They took a big gamble, and lost. Except they weren't gambling with their own money, so it's all good, right?
I think GP was being deliberately imprecise. Lots of stars would need to align in order for two people with the same CD to end up with exactly the same MP3, although if you both used cdparanoia and the same version of LAME, you could expect to.
Different encoders will have different psycho-acoustic models; different versions of a psycho acoustic model will have tweaks here and there. CDs will be released at various volume levels, etc.
With the block matching GP alluded to, a scratched CD might result in MP3s with lots of matching sequences, but not aligned to a block boundary.
But with thousands of people uploading their own rips of the same CD, you could expect a good few matches.
I'd rather have verification built into my production code, otherwise you have two sets of code, the production code and the tests that use bits of the production code in a different environment.
In a TDD project, you'd treat test code as an equal priority. Sure, the tests aren't included in your compiled deliverable, but you don't distribute the application code without the test code, or vice versa.
You need to design for testability (which just happens automatically, since you're writing the tests first!), such that tests don't rely on external test data. Yes, this means you're testing against mocks and stubs, which might make you worry about what happens if the mock doesn't imitate the real dependency accurately enough. That's fine though -- unit tests don't mean you can avoid end-to-end tests. They just provide a means to develop more quickly and with more confidence.
[citation needed], I know. But, you know how it is.
My perception is that TDD is not an academic ivory tower thing. It's something pragmatists have settled on as a way to write high quality code quickly and cheaply.
TDD seems to be a relic of this approach. It would assume you have that first part, a very detailed list of everything you need, up front, before implementation.
You seem to have a misapprehension of TDD. TDD is very agile; you write tests as a way to explore the problem space. Tests can be amended, and even deleted as you go along. It's a tight loop consisting of:
- while not finished {
- Invent a test, write it -- it is likely to not compile, as it will reference types and methods that don't exist
- Write just enough code for the test to compile - skeleton classes with methods that return null
- Code until all your tests pass
- refactor to remove any duplicate code, re-running the test suite between each refactoring - }
It is *not* a matter of writing all your tests upfront. It's more like "Hmm, my game is going to need a scoreboard class, and when I construct it, the score should be zero, so I'll write a test for that now."
I think you need to read a good TDD book. Kent Beck's is the standard.
One of the key points is that you don't write *anything* unless it causes a test that was failing, to pass. If all your tests pass, but you know you've got more functionality to add, then you write a new, failing, test. It's a very tight loop of: - write test - code until test compiles - run test -- it fails - code until all tests pass - refactor to remove duplicate code (this is where the real wins happen) - GOTO 10
So, if you're a good enough developer to provide all the functionality that's needed -- then you're a good enough developer to write tests for all that functionality too, because you create a unit test as a side effect of coding each new piece of functionality.
FWIW, I did my CS degree in 1994, and we didn't do OO until the second year. It was presented alongside FP in "programming language concepts and paradigms", and was half of a single term module.
It was a looong time after that, that I finally grokked OO to the extent that I would choose it for real work. But Groovy or Java is my natural choice now.
A nice thing about Java is that you can design APIs with immutable objects when you want to, but have the option of not doing so at other times.
They got things right when they designed the String API (Strings are immutable), and they got it wrong when they designed the Date/Calendar APIs. (tip: use Joda-Time for immutable Java dates done right).
The problem with using a language for teaching is, if it gives you the flexibility to do things the wrong way, then learners will do it the wrong way, and maybe never learn a different way. It's a tricky balance between giving them enough rope to hang themselves, or not enough to learn.
One function of events like the World Cup and the Olympics is that it fosters development.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, nor that Qatar is a great choice -- but it does mean that "already has the infrastructure" isn't that big a deal.
12oz is a little over half an imperial pint, and typical US domestic bottled beer is a bit weaker than a typical British tap beer. So yeah, I suppose my 2-4 beers would be 4-8 bottles in the US.
I personally limit myself to a pint, because I can feel the effects of the second pint, and that's enough to know it may affect my driving.
I don't know what any of the "several things wrong with homosexuality" are, other than that you find it "disgusting", and that your church denies the value of sexual contact other than for purposes of reproduction. Alcoholism can be demonstrated to harm both the individual and those around him -- I have seen it happen. I don't see how you could say the same of homosexuality -- except perhaps the harm caused by those intolerant of it.
On God being unknowable -- I thought the transcendence of God was a fundamental tenet of Christianity. Many church artefacts allude to that. But, you are a Christian and don't share that view -- which is fine, and fascinating. I'm not religious, but I'm interested in it, and I've learned something from you.
The fact it does happen, doesn't make gay sex right or wrong and no one should be offended by facts.
I think the problem is that the word "cure" strongly implies that being homosexual is an illness -- that is, "wrong".
Like, if someone was promoting something that "cured" me of wearing green shirts, I'd be offended -- how dare they criticise my taste in shirts. That homosexuality is a preference that has attracted more than its fair share of hatred and prejudice throughout history, makes it more incendiary.
Do I think it should be allowed? Why yes, yes I do. Especially because you don't get rid of bigotry by silencing bigotry.
I mostly agree with you. However, silencing prejudiced opinion might reduce prejudice. I say this because I think most of us have prejudices which we keep in check, because we know they're irrational and wrong. However if an impressionable person encounters a few other people who are willing to express their prejudices, they begin to think it's socially acceptable, and that prejudice blossoms into full scale hatred.
I still feel uncomfortable about gagging people; I'd prefer to keep them quiet by ridiculing them.
1. You're really not attracted to ANY non-whites? Are you mad? (My mind is boggling as a parade of gorgeous multi-ethnic babes slinks through my imagination)
2. I agree it's a combination of nature and nurture, but I don't see why anyone should want to, or be expected to, resist their nature. I might (hypothetically!) be born with an urge to kill, but I think most of us can see why it's in society's best interest to nurture me away from that urge; and I can see (when the red mist isn't present) why it's in my best interest not to murder. But if my urge is to seek physical intimacy with a man with whom I share a mutual attraction - why would I fight that? Why would anyone want me to?
I'm not aware that any pope has made an Ex Cathedra pronouncement about homosexuality.
The closest you could get to an official church position is JPII's Catechism of the Catholic Church, which appears to be broadly in line with what Supersloshy wrote.
But some Catholics believe that this work is soft on heterosexuality (and soft on other things), which goes to show that there is room for dissent within the church.
The formal cause of the reformation was whether or not the Pope / church tradition was authoritative; a Catholic who doesnt believe so may want to stop and ask in what way he isnt protestant.
A strong attachment to transubstantiation in the Eucharist, perhaps?
The thing is, it's not the 16th century. I'm an atheist with a great deal of interest in what makes religious people tick, and one thing I've learned is that religious identity is a lot more nuanced and complex than one might imagine. Church doctrine can, and does, change (look at the, admittedly tiny, concession the Pope made on condoms recently) -- and it changes because senior Catholics don't accept everything as a constant. They know they may disagree with the Pope. You can too.
We are going for definition no. 2, "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ."... and what I am accusing you of, is having a prejudice (and you have admitted as such, in saying that you personally find homosexuality disgusting). All the "logic/reason" you have applied is false rationale applied after the fact.
Let's assume I do dislike Pepperoni (I don't; this is for argument's sake). For it to be equivalent to your stance on homosexuality, I would first need to assert that other people should dislike Pepperoni too. Actually, no -- we must accept that some people like pepperoni, but that they should exercise self-control, and not actually eat the pepperoni. That's right, *they* should abstain from pepperoni, because *I* find it disgusting. Next I would need to justify my position on pepperoni, by ascribing some views to an unknowable deity. Something like, God's intention for pork was that it be enjoyed as a hog roast. We reject Pepperoni because it denies the natural goodness of the hog roast.
It's not "The Pope", but "The Church". I agree with the Church completely and I don't see why I wouldn't as they're one of the most logical and reasonable religions on the planet (as far as I've seen).
The Catholic Church's official view is a consensus of its senior clergy, evolved over the ages. It has changed in the past, and can change again. A brief scan of Wikipedia revealed to me that there is at least *some* controversy within the church over its stance on homosexuality.
We are in agreement. I felt that most of what you said was correct in the first place, just that (as I wrote) you weakened it by being so absolute in that one sentence.
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Wind would be a good alternative if there was a safe and clean way to store energy.
Hydroelectricity? As in, pump water uphill to store energy, run it downhill through turbines to release it.
I don't know how well it scales, but there's one near my hometown that I believe to be successful, and it's significantly prettier than most power facilities.
Now, sure, in hindsight they could have built to withstand a bigger earthquake and someone could have decided 10 metres wasn't enough (actually, I don't know how high the tsunami defences were here?) ... but actually, given the size of the quake and resulting tsunami I reckon the designers/builders did a pretty good job.
Hindsight would not have been required. An earthquake this big was almost certain to hit within the next couple of hundred years. They took a big gamble, and lost. Except they weren't gambling with their own money, so it's all good, right?
I think GP was being deliberately imprecise. Lots of stars would need to align in order for two people with the same CD to end up with exactly the same MP3, although if you both used cdparanoia and the same version of LAME, you could expect to.
Different encoders will have different psycho-acoustic models; different versions of a psycho acoustic model will have tweaks here and there. CDs will be released at various volume levels, etc.
With the block matching GP alluded to, a scratched CD might result in MP3s with lots of matching sequences, but not aligned to a block boundary.
But with thousands of people uploading their own rips of the same CD, you could expect a good few matches.
I'd rather have verification built into my production code, otherwise you have two sets of code, the production code and the tests that use bits of the production code in a different environment.
In a TDD project, you'd treat test code as an equal priority. Sure, the tests aren't included in your compiled deliverable, but you don't distribute the application code without the test code, or vice versa.
You need to design for testability (which just happens automatically, since you're writing the tests first!), such that tests don't rely on external test data. Yes, this means you're testing against mocks and stubs, which might make you worry about what happens if the mock doesn't imitate the real dependency accurately enough. That's fine though -- unit tests don't mean you can avoid end-to-end tests. They just provide a means to develop more quickly and with more confidence.
Studies show that TDD saves you time.
[citation needed], I know. But, you know how it is.
My perception is that TDD is not an academic ivory tower thing. It's something pragmatists have settled on as a way to write high quality code quickly and cheaply.
TDD seems to be a relic of this approach. It would assume you have that first part, a very detailed list of everything you need, up front, before implementation.
You seem to have a misapprehension of TDD. TDD is very agile; you write tests as a way to explore the problem space. Tests can be amended, and even deleted as you go along. It's a tight loop consisting of:
- while not finished {
- Invent a test, write it -- it is likely to not compile, as it will reference types and methods that don't exist
- Write just enough code for the test to compile - skeleton classes with methods that return null
- Code until all your tests pass
- refactor to remove any duplicate code, re-running the test suite between each refactoring
- }
It is *not* a matter of writing all your tests upfront. It's more like "Hmm, my game is going to need a scoreboard class, and when I construct it, the score should be zero, so I'll write a test for that now."
I think you need to read a good TDD book. Kent Beck's is the standard.
One of the key points is that you don't write *anything* unless it causes a test that was failing, to pass. If all your tests pass, but you know you've got more functionality to add, then you write a new, failing, test. It's a very tight loop of:
- write test
- code until test compiles
- run test -- it fails
- code until all tests pass
- refactor to remove duplicate code (this is where the real wins happen)
- GOTO 10
So, if you're a good enough developer to provide all the functionality that's needed -- then you're a good enough developer to write tests for all that functionality too, because you create a unit test as a side effect of coding each new piece of functionality.
FWIW, I did my CS degree in 1994, and we didn't do OO until the second year. It was presented alongside FP in "programming language concepts and paradigms", and was half of a single term module.
It was a looong time after that, that I finally grokked OO to the extent that I would choose it for real work. But Groovy or Java is my natural choice now.
A nice thing about Java is that you can design APIs with immutable objects when you want to, but have the option of not doing so at other times.
They got things right when they designed the String API (Strings are immutable), and they got it wrong when they designed the Date/Calendar APIs. (tip: use Joda-Time for immutable Java dates done right).
The problem with using a language for teaching is, if it gives you the flexibility to do things the wrong way, then learners will do it the wrong way, and maybe never learn a different way. It's a tricky balance between giving them enough rope to hang themselves, or not enough to learn.
LISP is not a pure functional language, and it seems that a lot of real LISP code uses the non-functional aspects.
One function of events like the World Cup and the Olympics is that it fosters development.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, nor that Qatar is a great choice -- but it does mean that "already has the infrastructure" isn't that big a deal.
It may be illegal in the UK too. I think the law should be changed.
Forbidding covert speed cameras is like forbidding plain clothes policemen.
No you aren't! The Pope speaks for God, and everything (theological) he says is completely true.
Read your own link. Papal Infallibility only applies to pronouncements made Ex Cathedra
I rather suspect that if you expressed to a bishop your conviction that the RCC had no authority, they would encourage you to leave the church.
I rather think it depends on the bishop, and on what limits you expressed on the scope of the church's authority :)
12oz is a little over half an imperial pint, and typical US domestic bottled beer is a bit weaker than a typical British tap beer. So yeah, I suppose my 2-4 beers would be 4-8 bottles in the US.
I personally limit myself to a pint, because I can feel the effects of the second pint, and that's enough to know it may affect my driving.
I don't know what any of the "several things wrong with homosexuality" are, other than that you find it "disgusting", and that your church denies the value of sexual contact other than for purposes of reproduction. Alcoholism can be demonstrated to harm both the individual and those around him -- I have seen it happen. I don't see how you could say the same of homosexuality -- except perhaps the harm caused by those intolerant of it.
On God being unknowable -- I thought the transcendence of God was a fundamental tenet of Christianity. Many church artefacts allude to that. But, you are a Christian and don't share that view -- which is fine, and fascinating. I'm not religious, but I'm interested in it, and I've learned something from you.
Worker ants are sterile, so they do not directly result in offspring. However they are not "malformed in the Darwinian sense".
There are ways to pass on (some of) your genes, other than by impregnating someone. Helping your nephew reach reproductive age would suffice.
the simple fact of the matter is that people CAN be cured of being 'gay'. It does happen.
http://www.samesexattraction.org/
The fact it does happen, doesn't make gay sex right or wrong and no one should be offended by facts.
I think the problem is that the word "cure" strongly implies that being homosexual is an illness -- that is, "wrong".
Like, if someone was promoting something that "cured" me of wearing green shirts, I'd be offended -- how dare they criticise my taste in shirts. That homosexuality is a preference that has attracted more than its fair share of hatred and prejudice throughout history, makes it more incendiary.
Do I think it should be allowed? Why yes, yes I do. Especially because you don't get rid of bigotry by silencing bigotry.
I mostly agree with you. However, silencing prejudiced opinion might reduce prejudice. I say this because I think most of us have prejudices which we keep in check, because we know they're irrational and wrong. However if an impressionable person encounters a few other people who are willing to express their prejudices, they begin to think it's socially acceptable, and that prejudice blossoms into full scale hatred.
I still feel uncomfortable about gagging people; I'd prefer to keep them quiet by ridiculing them.
1. You're really not attracted to ANY non-whites? Are you mad? (My mind is boggling as a parade of gorgeous multi-ethnic babes slinks through my imagination)
2. I agree it's a combination of nature and nurture, but I don't see why anyone should want to, or be expected to, resist their nature. I might (hypothetically!) be born with an urge to kill, but I think most of us can see why it's in society's best interest to nurture me away from that urge; and I can see (when the red mist isn't present) why it's in my best interest not to murder. But if my urge is to seek physical intimacy with a man with whom I share a mutual attraction - why would I fight that? Why would anyone want me to?
I'm not aware that any pope has made an Ex Cathedra pronouncement about homosexuality.
The closest you could get to an official church position is JPII's Catechism of the Catholic Church, which appears to be broadly in line with what Supersloshy wrote.
But some Catholics believe that this work is soft on heterosexuality (and soft on other things), which goes to show that there is room for dissent within the church.
The formal cause of the reformation was whether or not the Pope / church tradition was authoritative; a Catholic who doesnt believe so may want to stop and ask in what way he isnt protestant.
A strong attachment to transubstantiation in the Eucharist, perhaps?
The thing is, it's not the 16th century. I'm an atheist with a great deal of interest in what makes religious people tick, and one thing I've learned is that religious identity is a lot more nuanced and complex than one might imagine. Church doctrine can, and does, change (look at the, admittedly tiny, concession the Pope made on condoms recently) -- and it changes because senior Catholics don't accept everything as a constant. They know they may disagree with the Pope. You can too.
I thought I'd done quite the opposite...
We are going for definition no. 2, "One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ." ... and what I am accusing you of, is having a prejudice (and you have admitted as such, in saying that you personally find homosexuality disgusting). All the "logic/reason" you have applied is false rationale applied after the fact.
Let's assume I do dislike Pepperoni (I don't; this is for argument's sake). For it to be equivalent to your stance on homosexuality, I would first need to assert that other people should dislike Pepperoni too. Actually, no -- we must accept that some people like pepperoni, but that they should exercise self-control, and not actually eat the pepperoni. That's right, *they* should abstain from pepperoni, because *I* find it disgusting. Next I would need to justify my position on pepperoni, by ascribing some views to an unknowable deity. Something like, God's intention for pork was that it be enjoyed as a hog roast. We reject Pepperoni because it denies the natural goodness of the hog roast.
It's not "The Pope", but "The Church". I agree with the Church completely and I don't see why I wouldn't as they're one of the most logical and reasonable religions on the planet (as far as I've seen).
The Catholic Church's official view is a consensus of its senior clergy, evolved over the ages. It has changed in the past, and can change again. A brief scan of Wikipedia revealed to me that there is at least *some* controversy within the church over its stance on homosexuality.
We are in agreement. I felt that most of what you said was correct in the first place, just that (as I wrote) you weakened it by being so absolute in that one sentence.