I'm curious what "complex constructs" the teacher thinks are missing from python that can be done in Visual Basic, or C for that matter. I haven't done VB in a long time, but I have significant experience in C and Python. The only construct I can think of that exist in C and not in Python is pointers, and I'd be surprised if they are covering pointers in VB in an intro class.
Looking at a random page from the book, the manuscript is clearly nonsensical
Yeh, you're right. The world's greatest linguists, historians, and cryptographers have been studying this for a century and are still undecided about the nature of the work, but you "looked at a random page" and have a pretty solid grasp on it.
Yeh, and for a long time, SSL was considered "good enough".
But honestly, getting two people to assure you that "yes, this is solid, the NSA isn't trying to trick you and certainly hasn't recruited me to play along" is hardly "good enough". A dozen experts, maybe. A hundred independent experts from different institutions around the globe is getting close to "good enough". But I hardly think two people is sufficient.
But from whom do you learn the math? A teacher? A textbook? Unless you derive it all yourself from base axioms, you do have to trust someone at some point. Math is logic, pure and simple: that's true, but it is subtle enough and complex enough, especially at the level of cryptography, that you could be taught something which is false and yet verifiable (i.e., internally consistent, but externally incorrect). And of course, beyond outright misinformation, there is the very real possibility that the math is sound but someone has discovered a technique for busting right through it.
But I think the more important point is that our entire society breaks down instantly without trust. Specialization is the basis for all of human advancement, and trust is the basis for specialization. You don't learn to build a car yourself, you trust an auto mfr to do it for you. You don't spend time growing or hunting your own food, you trust the food industry to provide you with safe and sufficient sustenance. If you didn't trust anyone, you'd spend all your own time and resource attending to your most basic needs.
The same goes for cryptography and software: everybody uses crypto these days (TLS, for instance), but the vast majority of people don't have any where close to the expertise to verify even the algorithms, let alone the implementations. Sure, we could have a society of crypto experts and everyone could independently verify every algorithm and every piece of code that they use. But whose going to build the the cars and grow the food?
There's basically nothing you can do that isn't bad for some part of you. Living produces wear and tear on your body.
I switched to a primarily standing desk about three years ago and, anecdotally, it's been going great. I don't think I lost any significant amount of weight because of it, but my back doesn't get tired, and I generally feel less lethargic at the end of the day. I also feel like it helps my working because I can more easily pace around my office when I need to work through a tough problem.
Most people who recommend standing recommend alternating between standing and sitting every few hours, to avoid the kinds of issues you mention.
But I think part of it has to do with your general fitness level. If your legs are strong, your knees are in good shape, and you're not carrying around too much extra weight, you'll probably hold up a lot better to extended periods of standing. Then again, if you're not really in shape, you may have even more reason not to sit all day.
Personally, I sit while I eat my lunch, I typically sit a bit more on Mondays, and I just generally sit when I feel tired, but I spend most of my work day standing. And you don't need a fancy convertible desk, just a set of cinder blocks to elevate your desk, and a high chair to sit on when you feel like it (the kind you find in electronics labs).
The burden of proof should be on the challengers of the current laws.
The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim. You're claiming that gay marriage erodes marriage. Now offer any kind of argument for how it does this.
The face that divorce is up and marriages are on the decline is a good indicator of what I said before about the destruction of the family.
I can totally agree to this, but it is in no way caused by gay marriage, that was my whole point.
I am all for civil unions and I don't have a problem with what people do inside or outside the bedroom, but devaluing marriage does impact me.
Firstly, it impacts you because you choose to let it impact you emotionally. Allowing someone else to get married has no direct effect on your life. Gay marriage laws in no way impact your ability to get married or any of your other rights. Laws are crafted to protect people's rights, not to stop them from being upset because they don't feel comfortable with what someone else is doing.
Secondly, the burden of proof is on you to show that allowing gays to marry in anyway devalues marriage. If you're really worried about the sanctity of marriage, you'd should be focusing on quickie marriages, serial marriages, and divorce rates, all of which have been trending up since long before any state passed gay marriage. If there's a threat to marriage, it's that people aren't interested anymore, or else don't take the commitment seriously. How is more people wanting to participate a threat to the institution?
It boggles my mind that you can't draw parallels between your own biracial marriage and gay marriage issues. Forty or fifty years ago, a biracial marriage was at least as taboo as a gay marriage is today, and until 1967, was illegal throughout much of the US, including many of the same states that are now trying to prevent gay marriage. Back then, people made the same arguments: biracial marriage was a threat to society, a threat to family values, a threat to the institution of marriage. Did you marry a black woman because you were trying to overturn marriage? Of course not. Open your brain for half a second, and try to imagine that gay couples today are going through the exact same thing. They are being targeted, harassed, and vilified simply for being in love.
And if nothing else, just recognize that you're on the wrong damn side of history. In thirty of forty more years, gay marriage will be legal in every state and will be widely accepted, just as biracial marriage is today. And the children of that age will look back and think how ignorant and how bigoted it was to try to block that.
Ah ha! Now I see the problem. You think we're judging him as moral shit simply because he has a different opinion. That's not it at all. It's the specific opinion he that he holds that we judge him for. And more to the point, it's the actions he takes as a result of those opinions that we judge him for. I don't judge him based on whether we have the same taste in food or music or art. I judge him because he has expressed a desire to take away the rights of another group.
And, again, you really are just wrong about the definition of prejudice. It absolutely requires judging without evidence. That's where the "pre" comes in. It's unrelated to his rationale or his other opinions. Now, for instance, if I assumed that because he's a homophobe he's also a racist, that would be prejudice. If I assumed he's a racist because he expressed his opinion that black people are inferior to whites, that's not prejudice, it's just standard garden variety judgement.
I've no doubt that Card has some rationale for why he wants to take away the rights of gays. But just because you have a reason for being a certain way, doesn't mean you aren't that way. If he's a homophobe, then he's a homophobe regardless of his reason, just like if you're Christian, then you're Christian regardless of your reasons. So again, if he has confirmed himself as a homophobe, which he has, then judging him as such is not prejudice, no matter what rationale he has.
Bold statements. I won't argue any more on this point, we'll just agree to disagree. But just to summarize: you think it's a good idea to hang out with neonazis in order to "broaden your view of life", that you can't judge an artist until you've experienced every last drop of their work, and that you wouldn't have qualms about paying money to Hitler because it probably wouldn't make that much of a contribution to his efforts at exterminating the Jews, besides which he's been demonized by society.
Why do you need to DO anything to Orson Scott Card, regardless of whether you can? If you feel strongly about gay marriage, go advocate for gay marriage. You can do that without targeting people.
Sure and why did the US need to get involved in liberating Nazi concentration camps during WWII? We could have advocated for Jewish rights without specifically targeting anybody. But that would have been a pretty hollow and pathetic gesture under the circumstances.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. When someone is actively campaigning to take away a person's civil rights, the most effective way to defend those rights is to stop whoever is trying to take them away. If I came to your house and demanded all your money, would you go out and campaign for your right to keep your money, or would you throw me the hell out of your house?
He used his fame and money to advocate a bigoted point of view
There are famous and rich people advocating for gay marriage as well.
Yes, and there are bananas for sale at my local grocery store, but that's not relevant either. The point is that he's using his money and fame to do something that we believe is wrong (specifically, trying to take away people's rights), and now he's asking us to just ignore that and support him anyway. He wants us to see his movie to make him more famous and more wealthy so he can use that against us. It'd be like asking the Westboro Baptist Church to fund the gay pride parade. Only difference is that the gay pride parade doesn't challenge anybody's rights.
I think you mean the latter, but yet, I get your point. I should pay more attention to user names, I probably would not have made that mistake on your other post =)
No, sweety, it's not. But I'm not sure I can make it any clearer. Judgement is always based on your opinions, that's why it's called "judgement", not "fact finding". Prejudice is a particular form of judgement where your opinions are based on unfounded assumptions. Since Card has made it quite clear how he feels about gay rights, assumptions that he is anti-gay are well founded.
Or if you meant that judging somebody because of that person's opinions is prejudice, well then you're still wrong. Again, it would only be prejudiced if you were judging based on unfounded assumptions about that person's opinions. For instance, if I judged you to be a bigot because I assumed you were anti-gay, that would be prejudice, since you haven't specifically expressed your feelings about gay rights. But, one more time now, Card has clearly expressed his feelings about gay rights, and so judging him based on those expressed feelings is no prejudice.
Subtle difference, JackieBrown. You're protesting to stop people from doing something that doesn't impact you, as opposed to protesting against people who are actively trying to take away someone's civil rights.
I realize you were probably being rhetorical and you may not actually demonstrate against gay marriage, but your point was still stupid.
I don't support gay marriage, but honestly it's never even occurred to me to boycott movies by director who do support gay marriage. I mean who cares?
Ah, but there's the difference between you and Card. He's actively trying to stop people from doing something that doesn't effect anyone else, and then bemoaning the prospect that anyone might try to stop him from doing something that negatively effects other people. You may be satisfied to sit quietly with your bigotry, but Card, apparently, is not.
Oh, and off topic but: I don't support your right to marry, either.
Good point. In fact, you better go attend some KKK meetings to make sure you're not walling yourself off from ideas that are different from yours.
Your implicit argument is based on the assumption that they haven't already been exposed to Card's ideas. In reality, they have been, and have rejected them. They haven't built a wall around their mental garden, but they have revoked Card's access to it.
Hitler was a painter. If he was still alive and had an art exhibit, can you honestly say that you would consider going, knowing that the money you pay would most likely fund his antisemitic campaigns?
Nicely put. "Intellectual bully" is right on the nose. Everyone's always yammering about their damned first amendment rights: well it goes both way. You may have the right to say what you want, but I have the right to respond, and to think you're an asshole for saying what you said. (The proverbial "you", that was not directed at the parent comment).
[...] strongly prejudiced; forming opinions without just cause.
The key there is "without just cause". Card forms opinion based on a very general attribute of the person without checking his assumptions about that person. Those of us who have judged Card to be a prick have done so based on his own comments and actions. Yes, we are obstinately devoted to our opinion that he is a prick, but it's based on judgement of his actions, not prejudgement based on unfounded assumptions about him.
Seriously, I know it's linguistically sticky, but can we all get past this pedantic nonsense that being intolerant to intolerance is some kind of contradiction?
That depends on what was meant by "people like Card". If it meant "white people" or "sci-fi writers" or "people over 60", then yes, it's stereotyping. More likely, it meant "people who actively campaign against gay rights," in which case it's not stereotyping, it's grouping people together based on their actions and then specifying the action used to create such a classification.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious what "complex constructs" the teacher thinks are missing from python that can be done in Visual Basic, or C for that matter. I haven't done VB in a long time, but I have significant experience in C and Python. The only construct I can think of that exist in C and not in Python is pointers, and I'd be surprised if they are covering pointers in VB in an intro class.
Any ideas what is being referred to?
Looking at a random page from the book, the manuscript is clearly nonsensical
Yeh, you're right. The world's greatest linguists, historians, and cryptographers have been studying this for a century and are still undecided about the nature of the work, but you "looked at a random page" and have a pretty solid grasp on it.
Lame. femtobyte made a more clever variant of the same joke last month.
Quite possibly, but a lot of what would have sounded like paranoia last winter no longer does.
Yeh, and for a long time, SSL was considered "good enough".
But honestly, getting two people to assure you that "yes, this is solid, the NSA isn't trying to trick you and certainly hasn't recruited me to play along" is hardly "good enough". A dozen experts, maybe. A hundred independent experts from different institutions around the globe is getting close to "good enough". But I hardly think two people is sufficient.
But from whom do you learn the math? A teacher? A textbook? Unless you derive it all yourself from base axioms, you do have to trust someone at some point. Math is logic, pure and simple: that's true, but it is subtle enough and complex enough, especially at the level of cryptography, that you could be taught something which is false and yet verifiable (i.e., internally consistent, but externally incorrect). And of course, beyond outright misinformation, there is the very real possibility that the math is sound but someone has discovered a technique for busting right through it.
But I think the more important point is that our entire society breaks down instantly without trust. Specialization is the basis for all of human advancement, and trust is the basis for specialization. You don't learn to build a car yourself, you trust an auto mfr to do it for you. You don't spend time growing or hunting your own food, you trust the food industry to provide you with safe and sufficient sustenance. If you didn't trust anyone, you'd spend all your own time and resource attending to your most basic needs.
The same goes for cryptography and software: everybody uses crypto these days (TLS, for instance), but the vast majority of people don't have any where close to the expertise to verify even the algorithms, let alone the implementations. Sure, we could have a society of crypto experts and everyone could independently verify every algorithm and every piece of code that they use. But whose going to build the the cars and grow the food?
I'm concerned primarily with the last point:
...how the world could be sure Syria had handed over its entire stockpile
If Assad makes a big show of turning over his stockpile, but manages to hang onto some anyway, he'll have a good alibi if another attack occurs.
There's basically nothing you can do that isn't bad for some part of you. Living produces wear and tear on your body.
I switched to a primarily standing desk about three years ago and, anecdotally, it's been going great. I don't think I lost any significant amount of weight because of it, but my back doesn't get tired, and I generally feel less lethargic at the end of the day. I also feel like it helps my working because I can more easily pace around my office when I need to work through a tough problem.
Most people who recommend standing recommend alternating between standing and sitting every few hours, to avoid the kinds of issues you mention. But I think part of it has to do with your general fitness level. If your legs are strong, your knees are in good shape, and you're not carrying around too much extra weight, you'll probably hold up a lot better to extended periods of standing. Then again, if you're not really in shape, you may have even more reason not to sit all day.
Personally, I sit while I eat my lunch, I typically sit a bit more on Mondays, and I just generally sit when I feel tired, but I spend most of my work day standing. And you don't need a fancy convertible desk, just a set of cinder blocks to elevate your desk, and a high chair to sit on when you feel like it (the kind you find in electronics labs).
Why on earth would you misuse the word "literally" on Slashdot of all places? How can I possibly take you seriously after a boner like that?
The burden of proof should be on the challengers of the current laws.
The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim. You're claiming that gay marriage erodes marriage. Now offer any kind of argument for how it does this.
The face that divorce is up and marriages are on the decline is a good indicator of what I said before about the destruction of the family.
I can totally agree to this, but it is in no way caused by gay marriage, that was my whole point.
I am all for civil unions and I don't have a problem with what people do inside or outside the bedroom, but devaluing marriage does impact me.
Firstly, it impacts you because you choose to let it impact you emotionally. Allowing someone else to get married has no direct effect on your life. Gay marriage laws in no way impact your ability to get married or any of your other rights. Laws are crafted to protect people's rights, not to stop them from being upset because they don't feel comfortable with what someone else is doing.
Secondly, the burden of proof is on you to show that allowing gays to marry in anyway devalues marriage. If you're really worried about the sanctity of marriage, you'd should be focusing on quickie marriages, serial marriages, and divorce rates, all of which have been trending up since long before any state passed gay marriage. If there's a threat to marriage, it's that people aren't interested anymore, or else don't take the commitment seriously. How is more people wanting to participate a threat to the institution?
It boggles my mind that you can't draw parallels between your own biracial marriage and gay marriage issues. Forty or fifty years ago, a biracial marriage was at least as taboo as a gay marriage is today, and until 1967, was illegal throughout much of the US, including many of the same states that are now trying to prevent gay marriage. Back then, people made the same arguments: biracial marriage was a threat to society, a threat to family values, a threat to the institution of marriage. Did you marry a black woman because you were trying to overturn marriage? Of course not. Open your brain for half a second, and try to imagine that gay couples today are going through the exact same thing. They are being targeted, harassed, and vilified simply for being in love.
And if nothing else, just recognize that you're on the wrong damn side of history. In thirty of forty more years, gay marriage will be legal in every state and will be widely accepted, just as biracial marriage is today. And the children of that age will look back and think how ignorant and how bigoted it was to try to block that.
Ah ha! Now I see the problem. You think we're judging him as moral shit simply because he has a different opinion. That's not it at all. It's the specific opinion he that he holds that we judge him for. And more to the point, it's the actions he takes as a result of those opinions that we judge him for. I don't judge him based on whether we have the same taste in food or music or art. I judge him because he has expressed a desire to take away the rights of another group.
And, again, you really are just wrong about the definition of prejudice. It absolutely requires judging without evidence. That's where the "pre" comes in. It's unrelated to his rationale or his other opinions. Now, for instance, if I assumed that because he's a homophobe he's also a racist, that would be prejudice. If I assumed he's a racist because he expressed his opinion that black people are inferior to whites, that's not prejudice, it's just standard garden variety judgement.
I've no doubt that Card has some rationale for why he wants to take away the rights of gays. But just because you have a reason for being a certain way, doesn't mean you aren't that way. If he's a homophobe, then he's a homophobe regardless of his reason, just like if you're Christian, then you're Christian regardless of your reasons. So again, if he has confirmed himself as a homophobe, which he has, then judging him as such is not prejudice, no matter what rationale he has.
Bold statements. I won't argue any more on this point, we'll just agree to disagree. But just to summarize: you think it's a good idea to hang out with neonazis in order to "broaden your view of life", that you can't judge an artist until you've experienced every last drop of their work, and that you wouldn't have qualms about paying money to Hitler because it probably wouldn't make that much of a contribution to his efforts at exterminating the Jews, besides which he's been demonized by society.
Why do you need to DO anything to Orson Scott Card, regardless of whether you can? If you feel strongly about gay marriage, go advocate for gay marriage. You can do that without targeting people.
Sure and why did the US need to get involved in liberating Nazi concentration camps during WWII? We could have advocated for Jewish rights without specifically targeting anybody. But that would have been a pretty hollow and pathetic gesture under the circumstances.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. When someone is actively campaigning to take away a person's civil rights, the most effective way to defend those rights is to stop whoever is trying to take them away. If I came to your house and demanded all your money, would you go out and campaign for your right to keep your money, or would you throw me the hell out of your house?
He used his fame and money to advocate a bigoted point of view
There are famous and rich people advocating for gay marriage as well.
Yes, and there are bananas for sale at my local grocery store, but that's not relevant either. The point is that he's using his money and fame to do something that we believe is wrong (specifically, trying to take away people's rights), and now he's asking us to just ignore that and support him anyway. He wants us to see his movie to make him more famous and more wealthy so he can use that against us. It'd be like asking the Westboro Baptist Church to fund the gay pride parade. Only difference is that the gay pride parade doesn't challenge anybody's rights.
I think you mean the latter, but yet, I get your point. I should pay more attention to user names, I probably would not have made that mistake on your other post =)
My apologies. You're right, I did misunderstand what you were saying.
No, sweety, it's not. But I'm not sure I can make it any clearer. Judgement is always based on your opinions, that's why it's called "judgement", not "fact finding". Prejudice is a particular form of judgement where your opinions are based on unfounded assumptions. Since Card has made it quite clear how he feels about gay rights, assumptions that he is anti-gay are well founded.
Or if you meant that judging somebody because of that person's opinions is prejudice, well then you're still wrong. Again, it would only be prejudiced if you were judging based on unfounded assumptions about that person's opinions. For instance, if I judged you to be a bigot because I assumed you were anti-gay, that would be prejudice, since you haven't specifically expressed your feelings about gay rights. But, one more time now, Card has clearly expressed his feelings about gay rights, and so judging him based on those expressed feelings is no prejudice.
Subtle difference, JackieBrown. You're protesting to stop people from doing something that doesn't impact you, as opposed to protesting against people who are actively trying to take away someone's civil rights.
I realize you were probably being rhetorical and you may not actually demonstrate against gay marriage, but your point was still stupid.
I don't support gay marriage, but honestly it's never even occurred to me to boycott movies by director who do support gay marriage. I mean who cares?
Ah, but there's the difference between you and Card. He's actively trying to stop people from doing something that doesn't effect anyone else, and then bemoaning the prospect that anyone might try to stop him from doing something that negatively effects other people. You may be satisfied to sit quietly with your bigotry, but Card, apparently, is not.
Oh, and off topic but: I don't support your right to marry, either.
Good point. In fact, you better go attend some KKK meetings to make sure you're not walling yourself off from ideas that are different from yours.
Your implicit argument is based on the assumption that they haven't already been exposed to Card's ideas. In reality, they have been, and have rejected them. They haven't built a wall around their mental garden, but they have revoked Card's access to it.
Hitler was a painter. If he was still alive and had an art exhibit, can you honestly say that you would consider going, knowing that the money you pay would most likely fund his antisemitic campaigns?
Nicely put. "Intellectual bully" is right on the nose. Everyone's always yammering about their damned first amendment rights: well it goes both way. You may have the right to say what you want, but I have the right to respond, and to think you're an asshole for saying what you said. (The proverbial "you", that was not directed at the parent comment).
Cut and dry, I like it.
Well said! I've been searching for some linguistic distinction to clarify all this nonsense: tolerance versus acceptance does the job nicely.
Ah, but there's always more than one definition of a word. From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bigoted
[...] strongly prejudiced; forming opinions without just cause.
The key there is "without just cause". Card forms opinion based on a very general attribute of the person without checking his assumptions about that person. Those of us who have judged Card to be a prick have done so based on his own comments and actions. Yes, we are obstinately devoted to our opinion that he is a prick, but it's based on judgement of his actions, not prejudgement based on unfounded assumptions about him.
Seriously, I know it's linguistically sticky, but can we all get past this pedantic nonsense that being intolerant to intolerance is some kind of contradiction?
That depends on what was meant by "people like Card". If it meant "white people" or "sci-fi writers" or "people over 60", then yes, it's stereotyping. More likely, it meant "people who actively campaign against gay rights," in which case it's not stereotyping, it's grouping people together based on their actions and then specifying the action used to create such a classification.