I wish these dumb scientists would consult the experts of Slashdot more often. It makes me wonder how they got equipment into space and to Mars in the first place!
Oh I see the implication: this complex game needs a designer, likewise if you are intelligent enough to design a game like this you need a designer. But what about *that* intelligent designer--who designed him? Oh now the argument no longer is needed. Now can YOU see the irony?
I often wonder about this. If a creator created all organisms from scratch, why are all species based on DNA? Why did the alleged creator do it this way instead of starting completely anew with each creature? Surely there are a million ways an organism could work besides DNA.
And the DNA varies predictably depending on time and space distances between different species. Why? Evolution explains so much of what we observe. So why did the creator create all species in such a way that they appeared to have evolved?
Certainly if anyone was rigging the electronic machine outputs they certainly also create the same type of anomolies in districts where democrats won. They'd be stupid not to.
What? hold on! Belief in the supernatural has become unfashionable? You better tell that to like 80% of Americans because belief in all kinds of supernatural bullshit is rampant here. Skepticism is what has become unfashionable.
Well they also do experiments that aren't practical for Average Joe viewer, like building a tree trunk cannon or trying to ignite fumes with a cellphone ring. Those are fun to watch.
I don't consider it dangerous if they 'tell me what to believe' because I can still decide to reject it anyway.
They should have just borrowed some cars with computers in them that report current gas mileage, then gather a lot of statistics at different speed, grade, air temp, car model, and so on. You could get a least a better *general idea* about which might be better.
Another one that really bugged me was they were testing whether lightning was attracted to pierced heads with metal jewelry. They did the test like 2 times or something and then start tweaking the heads! I'm thinking you gotta do that one like 100 times and count how many times the lightning hit each head.
I think some of the tests are better than others, but all in all it is entertaining and fun to see them blow shit up. Dropping cars from a crane, building giant slingshot and trebuchet, building hovercrafts from leaf blowers, cooling a beer. It's fun to watch.
Wadle became interested in the concept while studying lightning coming from the ground, "which led him to believe that there's some type of power emanating from earth, which led him to trees,"
to paraphrase "I done seen them pitchers where lightnin comes up from the ground. So I reckon thar must be 'lectricity in the earth, and mebbe it's them trees what are makin it"
The guy is clearly a kook and idiot and anyone who invests deserves what they get.
(indentation is slightly off because I can't figure out how to get <tt> to work right)
The macro will translate the '(arg2^2 + a*x)/x^2 - arg1/arg2' into real lisp code. Since it is a macro and does code expansion in place, the expanded code can reference lexically visible variables. You couldn't do that by passing '(arg2^2 + a*x)/x^2 - arg1/arg2' to a function. The function would not be able to see the variables it needs to see. However you could also define a local function here that can see those variables. It could compute the value and return it. However that would be at runtime.
That said, generally I wouldn't bother trying to cram infix notation into my program. I would just write it as prefix. Unless the program was loaded with expressions like that it is not worth the trouble.
More generally speaking here is another advantage of prefix. I can say things like (+ v1 v2 v3 v4) instead of v1 + v2 + v3 + v4 and even:
Of course you could just write a function to sum a list. But you have to write such a function for any operation you want to perform on a list that way.
Um 'slow but effective evolution of this planet into a life sustaining entity'?
I agree we are like ticks on the earth but the earth is unlikely to give a shit if its got life on it or not. And it's not living or evolving into anything, it's just a big blog of matter orbiting a glowing ball of gas. Yes mankind is fucking up the outer.1% of it, but I get tired of hearing the scolding tone when people start talking about man's behavior.
We evolved in this earth environment; we are a product of it. You could say it created us. Unfortunately 'short sited and greedy' was what worked best in that environment. Probably there is no other way we could have evolved. In other words as a species if we evolved not greedy and short sited we would have been wiped out by a competing species that was, or by some other environmental change.
How can you state that "the odds of our existence coming to be merely by chance are infinitesimally small"? That is your assumption. I say the odds of an omnipotent uncreated always-existing creator are even more infinitesimally small, so why bring it up? Your statement smacks of someone who doesn't understand the science, who thinks that evolution teaches atoms randomly collided until A DNA molecule came out. You are not a scientist, you are a creationist, which explains your anon post.
The theory that atoms and molecules "randomly collide" and just happen to "create" DNA millions of base pairs long, enzymes with specific functions and other complex biomolecules is ridiculous.
Yes it is ridiculous and makes a great strawman for you to knock down. No one who believes evolution would claim that, and for you to state that 'evolution' proposes it makes you either disingenuous, frightfully uniformed, or joking.
I realize that high level languages often decrease development time significantly in exchange for execution time. (in fact I am a Common Lisp user, so I am in the same boat). However your words made it sound as though you were saying the speed difference was less than it actually is. My understanding is that Python is going to be drastically slower than C++, not slightly. Granted in plenty of cases that is not an issue and using Python (or other HLLs such as Lisp, Ruby, etc) will be a huge win.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish these dumb scientists would consult the experts of Slashdot more often. It makes me wonder how they got equipment into space and to Mars in the first place!
Read Flatland.
If I had mod points I'd mod you up. Oblivion is a good rpg engine. I'm having fun with it but it aint perfect that's for sure.
Yeah, it boils down to, "why is there something rather than nothing?"
Oh I see the implication: this complex game needs a designer, likewise if you are intelligent enough to design a game like this you need a designer. But what about *that* intelligent designer--who designed him? Oh now the argument no longer is needed. Now can YOU see the irony?
if we had fundamentally different DNA from apes
I often wonder about this. If a creator created all organisms from scratch, why are all species based on DNA? Why did the alleged creator do it this way instead of starting completely anew with each creature? Surely there are a million ways an organism could work besides DNA.
And the DNA varies predictably depending on time and space distances between different species. Why? Evolution explains so much of what we observe. So why did the creator create all species in such a way that they appeared to have evolved?
Certainly if anyone was rigging the electronic machine outputs they certainly also create the same type of anomolies in districts where democrats won. They'd be stupid not to.
You know what is good for stuff that's ugly? macros. Macros in Common Lisp allow you to abstract away syntax you don't like.
In any case, you may think CLOS is ugly, but you probably won't find a more powerful object system anywhere.
What? hold on! Belief in the supernatural has become unfashionable? You better tell that to like 80% of Americans because belief in all kinds of supernatural bullshit is rampant here. Skepticism is what has become unfashionable.
Well they also do experiments that aren't practical for Average Joe viewer, like building a tree trunk cannon or trying to ignite fumes with a cellphone ring. Those are fun to watch.
I don't consider it dangerous if they 'tell me what to believe' because I can still decide to reject it anyway.
They should have just borrowed some cars with computers in them that report current gas mileage, then gather a lot of statistics at different speed, grade, air temp, car model, and so on. You could get a least a better *general idea* about which might be better.
Another one that really bugged me was they were testing whether lightning was attracted to pierced heads with metal jewelry. They did the test like 2 times or something and then start tweaking the heads! I'm thinking you gotta do that one like 100 times and count how many times the lightning hit each head.
I think some of the tests are better than others, but all in all it is entertaining and fun to see them blow shit up. Dropping cars from a crane, building giant slingshot and trebuchet, building hovercrafts from leaf blowers, cooling a beer. It's fun to watch.
Wadle became interested in the concept while studying lightning coming from the ground, "which led him to believe that there's some type of power emanating from earth, which led him to trees,"
to paraphrase "I done seen them pitchers where lightnin comes up from the ground. So I reckon thar must be 'lectricity in the earth, and mebbe it's them trees what are makin it"
The guy is clearly a kook and idiot and anyone who invests deserves what they get.
It could compute the value and return it. However that would be at runtime.
Sorry this is not clear. In both cases the value is computed at runtime. However using a function the expression is also parsed at runtime.
The macro will transform the INFIX expression (which Lisp doesn't parse) into PREFIX (which it does). So the code could read:
...
(defun typical-lisp-code (arg1 arg2 x)
(let* ((a (some-function arg1))
(another-value #i'(arg2^2 + a*x)/x^2 - arg1/arg2'))
)
(indentation is slightly off because I can't figure out how to get <tt> to work right)
The macro will translate the '(arg2^2 + a*x)/x^2 - arg1/arg2' into real lisp code. Since it is a macro and does code expansion in place, the expanded code can reference lexically visible variables. You couldn't do that by passing '(arg2^2 + a*x)/x^2 - arg1/arg2' to a function. The function would not be able to see the variables it needs to see. However you could also define a local function here that can see those variables. It could compute the value and return it. However that would be at runtime.
That said, generally I wouldn't bother trying to cram infix notation into my program. I would just write it as prefix. Unless the program was loaded with expressions like that it is not worth the trouble.
More generally speaking here is another advantage of prefix. I can say things like (+ v1 v2 v3 v4) instead of v1 + v2 + v3 + v4 and even:
(let ((var (list 1 2 3 4))
(var2 (some-func-returning-list-of-int)))
(apply #'+ (append var var2)))
Of course you could just write a function to sum a list. But you have to write such a function for any operation you want to perform on a list that way.
Dunno who modded the parent 'troll' but I think it is pretty accurate. Should be modded insightful.
I invite the entire music business to go fuck themselves.
I feel the same, but I just can't pass up the opportunity to overpay for a cd full of shit music that will FUCK UP MY PC!!!!!! good times!
Really it's just corporate greed, it's widespread (every industry) and getting worse.
Um 'slow but effective evolution of this planet into a life sustaining entity'?
.1% of it, but I get tired of hearing the scolding tone when people start talking about man's behavior.
I agree we are like ticks on the earth but the earth is unlikely to give a shit if its got life on it or not. And it's not living or evolving into anything, it's just a big blog of matter orbiting a glowing ball of gas. Yes mankind is fucking up the outer
We evolved in this earth environment; we are a product of it. You could say it created us. Unfortunately 'short sited and greedy' was what worked best in that environment. Probably there is no other way we could have evolved. In other words as a species if we evolved not greedy and short sited we would have been wiped out by a competing species that was, or by some other environmental change.
Definitely try this one: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents "Detective"
The MST3K guys watch you play this other bad IF game called "Detective" and make fun of it. It's pretty funny in a totally nerd kind of way...
How can you state that "the odds of our existence coming to be merely by chance are infinitesimally small"? That is your assumption. I say the odds of an omnipotent uncreated always-existing creator are even more infinitesimally small, so why bring it up? Your statement smacks of someone who doesn't understand the science, who thinks that evolution teaches atoms randomly collided until A DNA molecule came out. You are not a scientist, you are a creationist, which explains your anon post.
Yes it is ridiculous and makes a great strawman for you to knock down. No one who believes evolution would claim that, and for you to state that 'evolution' proposes it makes you either disingenuous, frightfully uniformed, or joking.
I realize that high level languages often decrease development time significantly in exchange for execution time. (in fact I am a Common Lisp user, so I am in the same boat). However your words made it sound as though you were saying the speed difference was less than it actually is. My understanding is that Python is going to be drastically slower than C++, not slightly. Granted in plenty of cases that is not an issue and using Python (or other HLLs such as Lisp, Ruby, etc) will be a huge win.
slightly slower execution
Are you actually saying that Python is only slightly slower than C++?
What makes you think light travels in straight lines? read QED by Richard Feynman..
Gold? nah.. Try oil. Imagine 30 supertankers entering the atmosphere daily to delivery Mars oil.