I'm sorry, but your discussion is largely incoherent and you have little to no idea what you're talking about. You should be down-modded.
Your example says absolutely nothing about violation of causality due to a change in the maximum speed at which information can propagate.
My example says that if one can produce particles that travel faster than the speed of light, then causality paradoxes arise. I said nothing about a "change in the maximum speed at which information can propagate".
You are either describing a situation in which there is improper time coordination, or you are assuming time travelling signals to start with.
That you even discuss "improper time coordination" suggests that you do not properly understand the relativity of simultaneity. My assumption was clear--the existence of tachyons, which are by definition particles that travel faster than light.
If something were to be discovered which could do this it would not necessarily violate causality, it would merely prove that relativity is either incorrect or incomplete
I don't know why you're repeating my conclusion back to me as if it's new. However, you underestimate the severity of the change. Special relativity would have to be wildly incorrect to make room for FTL particles. We're not talking about a minor change or a part of the theory that has some "room", like the small distance limit where quantum "sits".
Instant propagation of information would likely allow a universal clock across all space, and you could coordinate time by that.
Indeed, but this is completely irrelevant.
You would need to adjust for the faster travel time if you are synchronizing your clock based on the speed of light, but it would be trivial to do that anyway.
This makes no sense.
Under relativity it is undefined what would happen if you could travel faster than light, as the theory does not allow this. It is basically not usable in this case, and trying to do so would be foolish (it simply does not cover what you want to do, and you obviously have information that Einstein did not when he came up with it if you are communicating FTL.)
You have no idea what you're talking about. The theory of relativity makes predictions in this case. I have not found a single source (reputable or otherwise) that disagrees with me. The first relevant Google Books entry I found on the subject of course agrees with me--see section 11.1 for a derivation.
If I could send this post beyond the edge of the known universe and back with zero travel time I still cannot read it before it is written, and causality remains very much intact. The only thing that would change is that if you are three light hours away, I could get a message to you three hours before an electromagnetic signal would be capable of. We would be able to converse in real time instead of with the delay, nothing else.
You clearly have no understanding of the actual content of special relativity. You seem to be using a naive Newtonian view of the universe where it just happens that light travels at a maximum speed. This is wrong on many levels--how does one account for the fact that the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames, and that no inertial reference frame is privileged?
If you could produce the post I just wrote before I wrote it, you would have a causality violation. No rate of travel allows this, no matter how large it is.
Strictly speaking, you are correct in that no accepted, observed rate of travel allows causality violation. That is not at all your meaning, which is incorrect as noted above.
I am not sure why this is so hard for many people to understand.
Considering the numerous gaping holes in your own understanding, perhaps you should not consider it so difficult to see why grasping relativity is difficult for many people.
No. Or at least, your view is extremely non-standard today. In general relativity gravity travels at the speed of light. There is even some experimental evidence for that view.
No, you're simply wrong. You're probably trolling since aside from telling me to "understand observation versus reality", your post is content-free. The rest is obviously provocative trash.
I postulate that a technical civilization would only stick with radio for approximately 100-200 years before moving to something better -- and something that we probably don't even know how to listen to
That seems extremely optimistic to me. The effects of electromagnetism have been observed by humans for thousands of years. It seems unlikely that we'll discover something capable of interstellar communication apparently without having a hint of that something currently, when we've had millennia of hints in the electromagnetism case.
P.S. I should mention that, if you think faster-than-light communication will be discovered, that would require such a radically different understanding of our universe as to be astonishing. In the framework of special relativity FTL communication enables one to break causality by communicating with the past. An example is the tachyonic antitelephone, which gives rise to a paradox:
The paradoxes of backward-in-time communication are well known. Suppose A and B enter into the following agreement: A will send a message at three o'clock if and only if he does not receive one at one o'clock. B sends a message to reach A at one o'clock immediately on receiving one from A at two o'clock. Then the exchange of messages will take place if and only if it does not take place. This is a genuine paradox, a causal contradiction.
This is why no physicists I know or am aware of really believed in the recent FTL neutrino experiment.
P.P.S. Also, your use of "postulate" should probably have been "hypothesize". A postulate is a basis for reasoning, like the principle of relativity. Your usage isn't technically incorrect, but your statement is clearly a guess rather than a fundamental principle of the universe.
It's more than just for stupid compilers, otherwise a newline would serve that purpose as it does in other languages. Sometimes I like writing multi-line single statements (e.g. a function call with huge parameter count) and not have to conversely write a special character to denote a line continuation after carriage return.
A lot of modern languages have implicit line continuations, like Ruby where if you end the line with some sort of operator (or comma) it's implicitly continued. It seems to work very well. (Conversely, a lot of modern languages have an "end of statement" character allowing you to put multiple statements on a single line--in Ruby it's the semi-colon.)
* for (...;...;...) syntax is less intuitive than eg. VB.NET's "for a = 1 to 10" or numerous alternatives
It seems I should have been clearer. VB.NET's full syntax is "for [var] = [bound] to [bound] step [num]", which could easily be hijacked to replace the C "for" syntax without any loss of power. Many languages also offer "for [object] in [array/tree/iteratable thingee]" syntax built-in, like Ruby, Python, and C#. There's lots of good one can do with good "for" syntax.
[Question: Why make logical operators symbols instead of words?] The same reason mathematical ones are symbols, I suppose. It was logical;) Real-world match actually uses symbols for logic as well.
I'm actually a mathematician with a CS background. In math functions are traditionally denoted by a single symbol (eg. the gamma, theta, or zeta functions; f(x), g(x), h(x), etc. for arbitrary functions in proofs); the only exceptions I can think of are the trig functions, though most likely that was because the names hint at their relationships (eg. csc vs. sec: "co" means you swap the legs in the definition, so eg. sin = opp/hyp, cos = adj/hyp; co is the substitution opp <=> adj). In any case, things are different in computers where full names are allowed. Beyond tradition, making an obvious distinction between bitwise and logical boolean operators is laudable (when I get back to C-style I'm always slightly unsure at first if I should | or ||, for instance).
There is a PEMDAS going deeper to include logic. Use parenthesis to make it stupidly clear if unsure.
For instance, "x & 1 == 0" is actually "x & (1 == 0)" while one almost surely means "(x & 1) == 0".
Only for those coming from different-styled languages. The = as both a value assign and zero/nonzero check has come in handy many times, and shortens code both visually and compiled.
I agree it's useful. I just also say it causes bugs sometimes. I'm honestly not sure if there's an alternative I like; Python and Ruby both continue the C style. I maybe like "is" for "==" but I'm not sure....
What's wrong with the break statement in switch? I like the comma listing cases over multiple stacked cases.
I gave a more complete explanation at the end of this post.
Your "Because" is silly--merely being wrong (which I was not) does not make for flamebait. You have to try to get others to flame you. If anything you seem to be trolling, but if not...
* Not always, and not in the case mentioned (which you didn't even discuss specifically).
* VB.NET uses for... to... [step...], which could easily serve the same purpose with the same flexibility, and it's incredibly easy to imagine similar syntax with the same power as the C version. You're just trying to contradict me here.
* I disagree, and the example I referred to is +5 informative right now.
* Whitespace is not invisible--it is visible in the spacing of other visible text. Your reasoning here is poor, though I know this issue is largely a matter of taste and I was only (and clearly) stating mine.
* They take fewer characters, which is nice, but can you honestly tell me "not (a and b) or not c" is easier to read than "!(a && b) || !c"? [Note: I'm not sure if I got the precedence rules right and I won't look them up.]
* No. There are honestly broken precedence rules, K and/or R has mentioned it; I can hunt for the reference if you want.
* Again, no. It's an easy mistake to make once in a while. It's also easy to miss when debugging and can cause strange errors.
* This was a minor point, but still, your reasoning is poor: "C used to be worse, so you should be happy about the current situation because it's not even worse!" I'm generally fine with it too, though I slightly prefer single comment "characters".
* An example:
C-style:
switch(i) {
case -1:
++i;
case 0:
++i;
default:
++j; }
Forgetting the break's results in completely wrong behavior, but the first two cases should be combined into one, which break is useful for:
switch(i) {
case -1:
case 0:
++i;
break;
default:
++j; }
And does one include "break" in the last case? Does it matter? (No.) Ruby offers similar functionality that's more intuitive and less error prone:
case i when -1, 0
i += 1 else
j += 1 end
(The Ruby version is more powerful, actually, since i can be anything and the === methods are used for comparison.) The C version is another example of easy-to-compile-but-harder-to-read-and-potentially-bug-causing syntax, though it translates almost directly into assembly. The Ruby code is slightly (only slightly) more difficult to interpret yet is better in several ways--no clunky semicolons or colons, no break's, the multiple identical cases have one line instead of two keeping parallelism intact, there's no need to remember the "default" term (why wasn't "else" used originally anyway? another compiler hack?). Each individual issue is quite minor, but small things add up to make everything around us, and C is no different. Like I said, I dislike the clunky syntax. It was clearly made in the early years of programming and has been improved many times by many people in many ways. We seem to be stuck with it now though.
Those ignorant fools probably need to get off your lawn too, eh:)?
I've programmed in assembly and C. I lack the patience to build a computer out of logic chips, but I've at least designed some stuff in logic gates. I've also implemented hash tables. Yet I still don't particularly like C, mostly because I find the syntax clunky. Specifically...
* Semi-colon line endings are stupid--they serve little purpose besides making compilers easier to write
* for (...;...;...) syntax is less intuitive than eg. VB.NET's "for a = 1 to 10" or numerous alternatives
* declarations are unintuitive (and complicated; see post above for example)
* I'm not fond of curly braces--I like Python's indentation better
* Why make logical operators symbols instead of words?
* operator precedence can be unintuitive
* = vs. == causes bugs (many languages have the same trouble though)
* comments (//) use two characters instead of one
* switch's use of break is worse than eg. Ruby's case statement with commas
(I have other issues, like disliking how many mundane details you have to specify in C compared to other languages, but you need a language like C for certain tasks and it'll need lots of mundane details to translate almost directly into assembly anyway.)
I want standard input and output on every program.
Ok, but it doesn't matter what you want, in the context of the GP. It talked about "adoption problems" with Linux. If you asked 100 random people to define "standard input" and "pipeline", how many would be able to? 1-2? If the problem is low general population adoption, catering to such a tiny market is insane. It'd be like making "HomOS" to target gay people--fine if you don't care about low general adoption.
That said I think the GP's point is kind of crappy. OS X most likely satisfies their GUI-as-primary-interface requirement yet also has adoption problems relative to Windows. Any problem must be much larger than this one issue. I imagine "inertia" is the biggest factor.
I have three problems with that plank and two with the bit you quoted. (1) Before your quote, they singled out two particular theories out of all scientific theories, generalizing their statements to "theories such as" those two. There's no obvious pattern besides "theories that Christian fundamentalists don't like", considering the mound of evidence in favor of evolution. (2) "challengeable scientific theories" is potentially dangerous if the challenges are given undue weight. For instance, you can present a huge amount of evidence against Newton's laws--"Newton's laws say this, but let's look at experiments A through Z that all contradict them." That's perfectly true, but Newton's laws are so "close" to true that in public school their faults should barely be mentioned. (3) Everything is challengeable to some extent. What challenges should be presented? Some crackpot creationist's that no mainstream scientists agree with?
A strict, reasonable reading of that plank or the part you quoted is fine, but that's certainly not intended.
You never quite say where I went wrong, so I will.
I never actually referenced the content of the platform in question, since that would have required me to do some research I wasn't interested in doing. Instead, I opted for the old/. standby--a very general statement without specific evidence to back it up but which is nonetheless plausible, plays to the/. crowd's preconceptions, and points out someone else's flaws. And so, I got +5 insightful while (1) not knowing the first thing about HOTS, (2) not reading the article, and (3) certainly not looking up the actual Texas GOP platform to see if it had been misrepresented. That was where I was wrong, even though I'm almost certainly correct.
By contrast, my other post on this topic is well-informed, specific, and languishing unmodded.
And that is the problem with/. "insightful" moderation. You can just make shit up, and so long as it's appealing enough to other people, you'll win the game, regardless of how badly informed you might really be.
I've never understood why divorce gets so much less attention than gay marriage from these people. It's an order of magnitude more "threatening" to marriage, yet the platform gives divorce all of 2 lines. The gay bits total 26 lines--actually more than that if you include things like an oblique Boy Scouts reference.
Anyway, you some of the best parts (emphasis mine):
Immunizations All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.
Sex Education – We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.
Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.
Juvenile Daytime Curfew - We strongly oppose Juvenile Daytime Curfews. Additionally, we oppose any official entity from detaining, questioning and/or disciplining our children without the consent of a child’s parent.
Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings.
Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice. [ed: note the non sequitur]
Traditional Military Culture – To protect our serviceman and women and ensure that America's Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.
To be fair it's not universally awful; some of their positions are somewhat reasonable:
Internet Access - We support a free and open internet -- free from intrusion, censorship, or control by government or private entities. Due to the inherent benefit of anonymity, the anonymity of users is not to be compromised for any reason, unless consented by the user; or by court order. We also oppose any mandates by the government to collect and retain records of our internet activity.
They want students to believe whatever they're told to believe, and never question it.
I doubt it. I imagine they very much want Muslim students to question their beliefs. What you probably mean is that they want students to believe whatever Christian and conservative doctrine they're told and never question it.
Re:Tab syncing: first thing I'll disable
on
Google I/O Day Two
·
· Score: 1
I would just assume keep a distinct separation...
The actual idiom is "just as soon", not "just assume".
As for a use case, syncing between my home desktop and laptop might be nice. I'm not gonna switch to Chrome and jump through hoops to set it up though.
Well, he's so thoroughly anthropomorphized it's memorable whenever his dog-specific nature comes up--usually his age or expected death. He could become a human without any real changes. In fact a human version of him is shown briefly, I think in the multiverse episode (which is unrealistic because of Stewie's magic, not Brian), and they're basically identical except for looks and longevity. What about his personality itself is unrealistic?
Everything in it is a "satire" of other shows, films or memes
That's just not true. It does have lots of references, but I think that's a strength and not a weakness. I'm curious how you would react to the Star Wars Family Guy episodes.
Well, essentially all TV is regurgitated, so complaining about Family Guy in particular is kind of unfair. Plot lines, characters, settings, relationships, tones--all of it gets reused, which is of course the basis for tvtropes.
Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, American Dad are basically the same, and are very similar to The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, and South Park Friends, Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Nanny, Three's Company,... ~= every other sitcom Colbert Report ~= The Daily Show Tosh.0 ~= The Soup The Talk ~= The View The Middle ~= Malcolm in the Middle Star Trek (every version) ~= other versions, other sci-fi (eg. compare Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5) Grey's Anatomy ~= ER, House Every late night show, game show, soap opera, and reality show ~= every other one
The last line has some distinct categories, like high-stakes game shows vs. games of skill without much money; dating shows vs. dance shows vs. cupcake shows--yes that's a thing. But in any case, TV is only rarely even remotely original. I had trouble finding precedents for 30 Rock and Glee, though they're basically just crosses between two genres, namely sitcom/skit show and sitcom/reality-singing.
So yeah, Family Guy can be called regurgitated pap, but that's a hardly unique criticism, and why are you watching TV if that's your only complaint?
even if his work doesn't often promote such things [as personal morals and an appreciation for intellectual pursuits]
I don't think you've watched enough of it if to say that. Some counterexamples:
* A Hero Sits Next Door: a disabled guy gets added to the cast; Peter reacts badly at first but becomes friends later
* If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin': Peter starts a religion, Lois says it's wrong, God punishes him for his arrogance, Peter repents.
* The Thin White Line: Brian gets addicted to cocaine and eventually takes responsibility for it by going to rehab
Some of the MacFarlane characters are pretty much immune to personal responsibility considerations, but they're portrayed as highly unrealistic--eg. Stewie (Family Guy), Roger (American Dad), partly Quagmire (Family Guy). The more realistic characters often have strong moral centers--eg. Lois and usually Bryan (Family Guy)--and I think these are the ones you're expected to identify with. For instance, I'm reminded of Lois in You May Now Kiss the... Uh... Guy Who Receives:
Lois Griffin: Wait a minute. Are you saying that two straight people who absolutely hate each other have more of a right to be married than gay people who love each other?! Mrs. Pewterschmidt: Well, that's what we raised you to believe.
I'd say the audience is expected to identify with Lois and take her view on the matter, considering how poor the rebuttal is. The Carl Sagan bit is the same way, and there are numerous other examples where the audience is expected to take a particular (IMO good) stance.
Family Guy and American Dad morality is a mixed bag, though it's frequently (usually?) good if you throw out the unrealistic characters' lack of consequences. Intellectual pursuits really aren't promoted much though.
What I'd like to see is samples of those HUMAN to HUMAN conversations.
Me too. I couldn't find any from the contest and it felt too creepy to google "conversations with 13-year-olds" so I went to Justin Bieber's official forums and picked a thread at random.
Thread: Justin Bieber proposing to Selena in July just.ride: SHOCK! Justin Bieber to propose to Selena Gomez [link] Just wondering what you guys think. just.ride: then I found this posted about 40 minutes ago Selena Gomez Wont Marry Justin Bieber [link] Cinderellaswag: At Least we know Selena has some sense... just.ride: for real. The last thing either of them need is to get married young just to end in a divorce in a few months Leahangeline: THIS IS BULL! It has to be! If it's true I'll die. But i still don't believe it for a second Ego36: Omg I feel like cryin it better not b true if it is I'm happy 4 JB but still he's that frekin head over heels... he needs to pump his breaks and reverse for a sec. Yeah rite now u think u love her but later when u dnt what then? I hope this is a. Rumor plz westbrook98: This is so stupid! This can't be true! I don't Justin would do this especially this young of an age, he is only 17 years old! SaminaBieber: Its a big lie, guys. Dont believer it, cause hoemez and Justin are both too young to marry someone, they've said that to the world. How dumb are you, if you belieber it? BeautifulMelodyxx: I find all this bull freakin' hilarious... OH! And this! Justin Bieber Splashing The Cash on Selena Gomez [link] Belieber_Forever: Guys! Its just a rumor! & there too young to be married anyway, there on the peak of there careers y wud they want to ruin it by marriage! iLove_JB: Justin said on his Twitter that he denied all rumors. Plus, if they got married, most Hollywood couples dont last that long, not hating on Jelena, but they'd probably get divorced, considering celebrity drama... Belieber_Forever: exactly!:P Leahangeline: don't believe it, its f*ckin ridiculos what pppl come up with now... its the biggest bullsh*t ive ever heard in my life.. AmyToria: If they do get married, well, i can kinda predict how the over-obssessive beliebers [no offense if u r 1] will react;] I can see it noww..... Justin's about to say 'I Do' but then the whole Bieber Army comes and squashed selena intothe core of the earth;] then the whole Bieber Army starts fighting for who gets married to him, but then we all decide that we should all marry him. The End Leahangeline: lol and they all charge in singing 'That should be me' lmaoo AmyToria: haha yeah! and then justin starts singing, "Beliebers, I think i wanna marry you!" rotflmfaoo iLove_JB: I was reading this and at the top was an article that said 'low cost divorce' lol,... im not obssesive but if they got married theyd end up like brad & angelina somehow... Well they wouldnt last. AmyToria: I just read the latest edition of Tiger Beat, and they said in an interview she said that her fave guy was Cameron Quiseng from AllStar Weekend!!! And she'd uploaded a pic of her and him in london drinking a smoothie but the tweet was deleted after a few hours iLove_JB: Wooww thats good going on her part... AmyToria: *snorts* tell me about it! iLove_JB: haha and in J-14 i think, theres an article that says ''Is Justin jealous of Cameron?'' they'll be on tour all summer, so they'll probably get together somehow... AmyToria: yeah, and theyre bff's i wonder what happened to Demi... iLove_JB: Well, rehab, and everything. She is working on songs now I think. AmyToria: no i meant selena always called Demi her bff, but now she calls cameron her bff oh and cameron s
Take it off the rails and it crashes pretty badly, though.
Ridiculously badly:
Me: One day a horse walked up to God and says, "I was a unicorn! I want my <blank> back!" What did the horse want back? Bot: I hate discussing religious problems. Most of religions appeal to war rather to peace. There's no principal difference between Crusades and Jihad.
Me: The cow goes... a) moo, b) oink, c) DON'T EAT ME Bot: No? Well, it is up to you... Oh, what a fruitful conversation;-)
Me: # $ % & & a n # ! Bot: And yes, do you make a secret of your name? I still don't know it!
If you nail it down to anything at all specific it just crumbles. Even "on the rails" it's pretty horrible:
Me: What is one plus two times three Bot: Am I a calculator for you? Well, I am... 2 * 3=6.0. Me: No, you forgot about the one. Bot: I can't recall even some apparent things from time to time. I'm so inattentive:-( I can't recall even some apparent things from time to time. I'm so inattentive:-( Me: Why did you just repeat yourself? Bot: No, it's your hallucination. I don't rep-rep-repeat my-my-self. I'm just stammering a bit. Me: That line was pretty clearly written by someone older than 13. Bot: Damn. It looks like my brain performed an illegal operation. So what it was all about? Me: That line too, what 13 year old remembers old Windows jokes? Bot: It was 2012 since morning! Me: Anyone fooled by you should strongly consider taking themselves out of the gene pool. Bot: Yes, you are completely right. But I never listened to people's advises (except my mom's)! Yes, you are completely right. But I never listened to people's advises (except my mom's)!
Interesting. I believe current evidence suggests (male) homosexuality is mildly genetic and largely early-environmental, eg. in the womb, but there might be some early childhood effects--it's always so hard to sort these things out. FWIW in my own case I had no childhood trauma of note until well after I was already attracted to guys and not attracted to girls, and even then it wasn't particularly bad compared to what many people go through.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but your discussion is largely incoherent and you have little to no idea what you're talking about. You should be down-modded.
Your example says absolutely nothing about violation of causality due to a change in the maximum speed at which information can propagate.
My example says that if one can produce particles that travel faster than the speed of light, then causality paradoxes arise. I said nothing about a "change in the maximum speed at which information can propagate".
You are either describing a situation in which there is improper time coordination, or you are assuming time travelling signals to start with.
That you even discuss "improper time coordination" suggests that you do not properly understand the relativity of simultaneity. My assumption was clear--the existence of tachyons, which are by definition particles that travel faster than light.
If something were to be discovered which could do this it would not necessarily violate causality, it would merely prove that relativity is either incorrect or incomplete
I don't know why you're repeating my conclusion back to me as if it's new. However, you underestimate the severity of the change. Special relativity would have to be wildly incorrect to make room for FTL particles. We're not talking about a minor change or a part of the theory that has some "room", like the small distance limit where quantum "sits".
Instant propagation of information would likely allow a universal clock across all space, and you could coordinate time by that.
Indeed, but this is completely irrelevant.
You would need to adjust for the faster travel time if you are synchronizing your clock based on the speed of light, but it would be trivial to do that anyway.
This makes no sense.
Under relativity it is undefined what would happen if you could travel faster than light, as the theory does not allow this. It is basically not usable in this case, and trying to do so would be foolish (it simply does not cover what you want to do, and you obviously have information that Einstein did not when he came up with it if you are communicating FTL.)
You have no idea what you're talking about. The theory of relativity makes predictions in this case. I have not found a single source (reputable or otherwise) that disagrees with me. The first relevant Google Books entry I found on the subject of course agrees with me--see section 11.1 for a derivation.
If I could send this post beyond the edge of the known universe and back with zero travel time I still cannot read it before it is written, and causality remains very much intact. The only thing that would change is that if you are three light hours away, I could get a message to you three hours before an electromagnetic signal would be capable of. We would be able to converse in real time instead of with the delay, nothing else.
You clearly have no understanding of the actual content of special relativity. You seem to be using a naive Newtonian view of the universe where it just happens that light travels at a maximum speed. This is wrong on many levels--how does one account for the fact that the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames, and that no inertial reference frame is privileged?
If you could produce the post I just wrote before I wrote it, you would have a causality violation. No rate of travel allows this, no matter how large it is.
Strictly speaking, you are correct in that no accepted, observed rate of travel allows causality violation. That is not at all your meaning, which is incorrect as noted above.
I am not sure why this is so hard for many people to understand.
Considering the numerous gaping holes in your own understanding, perhaps you should not consider it so difficult to see why grasping relativity is difficult for many people.
No. Or at least, your view is extremely non-standard today. In general relativity gravity travels at the speed of light. There is even some experimental evidence for that view.
No, you're simply wrong. You're probably trolling since aside from telling me to "understand observation versus reality", your post is content-free. The rest is obviously provocative trash.
I postulate that a technical civilization would only stick with radio for approximately 100-200 years before moving to something better -- and something that we probably don't even know how to listen to
That seems extremely optimistic to me. The effects of electromagnetism have been observed by humans for thousands of years. It seems unlikely that we'll discover something capable of interstellar communication apparently without having a hint of that something currently, when we've had millennia of hints in the electromagnetism case.
P.S. I should mention that, if you think faster-than-light communication will be discovered, that would require such a radically different understanding of our universe as to be astonishing. In the framework of special relativity FTL communication enables one to break causality by communicating with the past. An example is the tachyonic antitelephone, which gives rise to a paradox:
The paradoxes of backward-in-time communication are well known. Suppose A and B enter into the following agreement: A will send a message at three o'clock if and only if he does not receive one at one o'clock. B sends a message to reach A at one o'clock immediately on receiving one from A at two o'clock. Then the exchange of messages will take place if and only if it does not take place. This is a genuine paradox, a causal contradiction.
This is why no physicists I know or am aware of really believed in the recent FTL neutrino experiment.
P.P.S. Also, your use of "postulate" should probably have been "hypothesize". A postulate is a basis for reasoning, like the principle of relativity. Your usage isn't technically incorrect, but your statement is clearly a guess rather than a fundamental principle of the universe.
It's more than just for stupid compilers, otherwise a newline would serve that purpose as it does in other languages. Sometimes I like writing multi-line single statements (e.g. a function call with huge parameter count) and not have to conversely write a special character to denote a line continuation after carriage return.
A lot of modern languages have implicit line continuations, like Ruby where if you end the line with some sort of operator (or comma) it's implicitly continued. It seems to work very well. (Conversely, a lot of modern languages have an "end of statement" character allowing you to put multiple statements on a single line--in Ruby it's the semi-colon.)
* for (...;...;...) syntax is less intuitive than eg. VB.NET's "for a = 1 to 10" or numerous alternatives
It seems I should have been clearer. VB.NET's full syntax is "for [var] = [bound] to [bound] step [num]", which could easily be hijacked to replace the C "for" syntax without any loss of power. Many languages also offer "for [object] in [array/tree/iteratable thingee]" syntax built-in, like Ruby, Python, and C#. There's lots of good one can do with good "for" syntax.
[Question: Why make logical operators symbols instead of words?] The same reason mathematical ones are symbols, I suppose. It was logical ;) Real-world match actually uses symbols for logic as well.
I'm actually a mathematician with a CS background. In math functions are traditionally denoted by a single symbol (eg. the gamma, theta, or zeta functions; f(x), g(x), h(x), etc. for arbitrary functions in proofs); the only exceptions I can think of are the trig functions, though most likely that was because the names hint at their relationships (eg. csc vs. sec: "co" means you swap the legs in the definition, so eg. sin = opp/hyp, cos = adj/hyp; co is the substitution opp <=> adj). In any case, things are different in computers where full names are allowed. Beyond tradition, making an obvious distinction between bitwise and logical boolean operators is laudable (when I get back to C-style I'm always slightly unsure at first if I should | or ||, for instance).
There is a PEMDAS going deeper to include logic. Use parenthesis to make it stupidly clear if unsure.
For instance, "x & 1 == 0" is actually "x & (1 == 0)" while one almost surely means "(x & 1) == 0".
Only for those coming from different-styled languages. The = as both a value assign and zero/nonzero check has come in handy many times, and shortens code both visually and compiled.
I agree it's useful. I just also say it causes bugs sometimes. I'm honestly not sure if there's an alternative I like; Python and Ruby both continue the C style. I maybe like "is" for "==" but I'm not sure....
What's wrong with the break statement in switch? I like the comma listing cases over multiple stacked cases.
I gave a more complete explanation at the end of this post.
Ok, here ya go:
case i; when -1, 0; i += 1; else; j += 1; end
Your "Because" is silly--merely being wrong (which I was not) does not make for flamebait. You have to try to get others to flame you. If anything you seem to be trolling, but if not... ... to ... [step ...], which could easily serve the same purpose with the same flexibility, and it's incredibly easy to imagine similar syntax with the same power as the C version. You're just trying to contradict me here.
* Not always, and not in the case mentioned (which you didn't even discuss specifically).
* VB.NET uses for
* I disagree, and the example I referred to is +5 informative right now.
* Whitespace is not invisible--it is visible in the spacing of other visible text. Your reasoning here is poor, though I know this issue is largely a matter of taste and I was only (and clearly) stating mine.
* They take fewer characters, which is nice, but can you honestly tell me "not (a and b) or not c" is easier to read than "!(a && b) || !c"? [Note: I'm not sure if I got the precedence rules right and I won't look them up.]
* No. There are honestly broken precedence rules, K and/or R has mentioned it; I can hunt for the reference if you want.
* Again, no. It's an easy mistake to make once in a while. It's also easy to miss when debugging and can cause strange errors.
* This was a minor point, but still, your reasoning is poor: "C used to be worse, so you should be happy about the current situation because it's not even worse!" I'm generally fine with it too, though I slightly prefer single comment "characters".
* An example:
C-style:
switch(i)
{
case -1:
++i;
case 0:
++i;
default:
++j;
}
Forgetting the break's results in completely wrong behavior, but the first two cases should be combined into one, which break is useful for:
switch(i)
{
case -1:
case 0:
++i;
break;
default:
++j;
}
And does one include "break" in the last case? Does it matter? (No.) Ruby offers similar functionality that's more intuitive and less error prone:
case i
when -1, 0
i += 1
else
j += 1
end
(The Ruby version is more powerful, actually, since i can be anything and the === methods are used for comparison.) The C version is another example of easy-to-compile-but-harder-to-read-and-potentially-bug-causing syntax, though it translates almost directly into assembly. The Ruby code is slightly (only slightly) more difficult to interpret yet is better in several ways--no clunky semicolons or colons, no break's, the multiple identical cases have one line instead of two keeping parallelism intact, there's no need to remember the "default" term (why wasn't "else" used originally anyway? another compiler hack?). Each individual issue is quite minor, but small things add up to make everything around us, and C is no different. Like I said, I dislike the clunky syntax. It was clearly made in the early years of programming and has been improved many times by many people in many ways. We seem to be stuck with it now though.
Uh, why did I get modded flamebait?
Then hopefully Zuckerberg won't Like it.
Those ignorant fools probably need to get off your lawn too, eh :)?
I've programmed in assembly and C. I lack the patience to build a computer out of logic chips, but I've at least designed some stuff in logic gates. I've also implemented hash tables. Yet I still don't particularly like C, mostly because I find the syntax clunky. Specifically...
* Semi-colon line endings are stupid--they serve little purpose besides making compilers easier to write
* for (...;...;...) syntax is less intuitive than eg. VB.NET's "for a = 1 to 10" or numerous alternatives
* declarations are unintuitive (and complicated; see post above for example)
* I'm not fond of curly braces--I like Python's indentation better
* Why make logical operators symbols instead of words?
* operator precedence can be unintuitive
* = vs. == causes bugs (many languages have the same trouble though)
* comments (//) use two characters instead of one
* switch's use of break is worse than eg. Ruby's case statement with commas
(I have other issues, like disliking how many mundane details you have to specify in C compared to other languages, but you need a language like C for certain tasks and it'll need lots of mundane details to translate almost directly into assembly anyway.)
I want standard input and output on every program.
Ok, but it doesn't matter what you want, in the context of the GP. It talked about "adoption problems" with Linux. If you asked 100 random people to define "standard input" and "pipeline", how many would be able to? 1-2? If the problem is low general population adoption, catering to such a tiny market is insane. It'd be like making "HomOS" to target gay people--fine if you don't care about low general adoption.
That said I think the GP's point is kind of crappy. OS X most likely satisfies their GUI-as-primary-interface requirement yet also has adoption problems relative to Windows. Any problem must be much larger than this one issue. I imagine "inertia" is the biggest factor.
I have three problems with that plank and two with the bit you quoted.
(1) Before your quote, they singled out two particular theories out of all scientific theories, generalizing their statements to "theories such as" those two. There's no obvious pattern besides "theories that Christian fundamentalists don't like", considering the mound of evidence in favor of evolution.
(2) "challengeable scientific theories" is potentially dangerous if the challenges are given undue weight. For instance, you can present a huge amount of evidence against Newton's laws--"Newton's laws say this, but let's look at experiments A through Z that all contradict them." That's perfectly true, but Newton's laws are so "close" to true that in public school their faults should barely be mentioned.
(3) Everything is challengeable to some extent. What challenges should be presented? Some crackpot creationist's that no mainstream scientists agree with?
A strict, reasonable reading of that plank or the part you quoted is fine, but that's certainly not intended.
You are mostly right.
You never quite say where I went wrong, so I will.
I never actually referenced the content of the platform in question, since that would have required me to do some research I wasn't interested in doing. Instead, I opted for the old /. standby--a very general statement without specific evidence to back it up but which is nonetheless plausible, plays to the /. crowd's preconceptions, and points out someone else's flaws. And so, I got +5 insightful while (1) not knowing the first thing about HOTS, (2) not reading the article, and (3) certainly not looking up the actual Texas GOP platform to see if it had been misrepresented. That was where I was wrong, even though I'm almost certainly correct.
By contrast, my other post on this topic is well-informed, specific, and languishing unmodded.
And that is the problem with /. "insightful" moderation. You can just make shit up, and so long as it's appealing enough to other people, you'll win the game, regardless of how badly informed you might really be.
I've never understood why divorce gets so much less attention than gay marriage from these people. It's an order of magnitude more "threatening" to marriage, yet the platform gives divorce all of 2 lines. The gay bits total 26 lines--actually more than that if you include things like an oblique Boy Scouts reference.
Anyway, you some of the best parts (emphasis mine):
Immunizations All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.
Sex Education – We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.
Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.
Juvenile Daytime Curfew - We strongly oppose Juvenile Daytime Curfews. Additionally, we oppose any official entity from detaining, questioning and/or disciplining our children without the consent of a child’s parent.
Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings.
Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice. [ed: note the non sequitur]
Traditional Military Culture – To protect our serviceman and women and ensure that America's Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.
To be fair it's not universally awful; some of their positions are somewhat reasonable:
Internet Access - We support a free and open internet -- free from intrusion, censorship, or control by government or private entities. Due to the inherent benefit of anonymity, the anonymity of users is not to be compromised for any reason, unless consented by the user; or by court order. We also oppose any mandates by the government to collect and retain records of our internet activity.
Still, there's sure a lot of crazy in there.
They want students to believe whatever they're told to believe, and never question it.
I doubt it. I imagine they very much want Muslim students to question their beliefs. What you probably mean is that they want students to believe whatever Christian and conservative doctrine they're told and never question it.
I would just assume keep a distinct separation...
The actual idiom is "just as soon", not "just assume".
As for a use case, syncing between my home desktop and laptop might be nice. I'm not gonna switch to Chrome and jump through hoops to set it up though.
Well, I went on to say...
though they're basically just crosses between two genres, namely sitcom/skit show and sitcom/reality-singing.
Well, he's so thoroughly anthropomorphized it's memorable whenever his dog-specific nature comes up--usually his age or expected death. He could become a human without any real changes. In fact a human version of him is shown briefly, I think in the multiverse episode (which is unrealistic because of Stewie's magic, not Brian), and they're basically identical except for looks and longevity. What about his personality itself is unrealistic?
Everything in it is a "satire" of other shows, films or memes
That's just not true. It does have lots of references, but I think that's a strength and not a weakness. I'm curious how you would react to the Star Wars Family Guy episodes.
Well, essentially all TV is regurgitated, so complaining about Family Guy in particular is kind of unfair. Plot lines, characters, settings, relationships, tones--all of it gets reused, which is of course the basis for tvtropes.
Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, American Dad are basically the same, and are very similar to The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, and South Park ... ~= every other sitcom
Friends, Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Nanny, Three's Company,
Colbert Report ~= The Daily Show
Tosh.0 ~= The Soup
The Talk ~= The View
The Middle ~= Malcolm in the Middle
Star Trek (every version) ~= other versions, other sci-fi (eg. compare Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5)
Grey's Anatomy ~= ER, House
Every late night show, game show, soap opera, and reality show ~= every other one
The last line has some distinct categories, like high-stakes game shows vs. games of skill without much money; dating shows vs. dance shows vs. cupcake shows--yes that's a thing. But in any case, TV is only rarely even remotely original. I had trouble finding precedents for 30 Rock and Glee, though they're basically just crosses between two genres, namely sitcom/skit show and sitcom/reality-singing.
So yeah, Family Guy can be called regurgitated pap, but that's a hardly unique criticism, and why are you watching TV if that's your only complaint?
even if his work doesn't often promote such things [as personal morals and an appreciation for intellectual pursuits]
I don't think you've watched enough of it if to say that. Some counterexamples:
* A Hero Sits Next Door: a disabled guy gets added to the cast; Peter reacts badly at first but becomes friends later
* If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin': Peter starts a religion, Lois says it's wrong, God punishes him for his arrogance, Peter repents.
* The Thin White Line: Brian gets addicted to cocaine and eventually takes responsibility for it by going to rehab
Some of the MacFarlane characters are pretty much immune to personal responsibility considerations, but they're portrayed as highly unrealistic--eg. Stewie (Family Guy), Roger (American Dad), partly Quagmire (Family Guy). The more realistic characters often have strong moral centers--eg. Lois and usually Bryan (Family Guy)--and I think these are the ones you're expected to identify with. For instance, I'm reminded of Lois in You May Now Kiss the... Uh... Guy Who Receives:
Lois Griffin: Wait a minute. Are you saying that two straight people who absolutely hate each other have more of a right to be married than gay people who love each other?!
Mrs. Pewterschmidt: Well, that's what we raised you to believe.
I'd say the audience is expected to identify with Lois and take her view on the matter, considering how poor the rebuttal is. The Carl Sagan bit is the same way, and there are numerous other examples where the audience is expected to take a particular (IMO good) stance.
Family Guy and American Dad morality is a mixed bag, though it's frequently (usually?) good if you throw out the unrealistic characters' lack of consequences. Intellectual pursuits really aren't promoted much though.
What I'd like to see is samples of those HUMAN to HUMAN conversations.
Me too. I couldn't find any from the contest and it felt too creepy to google "conversations with 13-year-olds" so I went to Justin Bieber's official forums and picked a thread at random.
Thread: Justin Bieber proposing to Selena in July :P ;] I can see it noww..... Justin's about to say 'I Do' but then the whole Bieber Army comes and squashed selena intothe core of the earth ;] then the whole Bieber Army starts fighting for who gets married to him, but then we all decide that we should all marry him. The End ,... im not obssesive but if they got married theyd end up like brad & angelina somehow... Well they wouldnt last.
just.ride: SHOCK! Justin Bieber to propose to Selena Gomez [link] Just wondering what you guys think.
just.ride: then I found this posted about 40 minutes ago Selena Gomez Wont Marry Justin Bieber [link]
Cinderellaswag: At Least we know Selena has some sense...
just.ride: for real. The last thing either of them need is to get married young just to end in a divorce in a few months
Leahangeline: THIS IS BULL! It has to be! If it's true I'll die. But i still don't believe it for a second
Ego36: Omg I feel like cryin it better not b true if it is I'm happy 4 JB but still he's that frekin head over heels... he needs to pump his breaks and reverse for a sec. Yeah rite now u think u love her but later when u dnt what then? I hope this is a. Rumor plz
westbrook98: This is so stupid! This can't be true! I don't Justin would do this especially this young of an age, he is only 17 years old!
SaminaBieber: Its a big lie, guys. Dont believer it, cause hoemez and Justin are both too young to marry someone, they've said that to the world. How dumb are you, if you belieber it?
BeautifulMelodyxx: I find all this bull freakin' hilarious... OH! And this! Justin Bieber Splashing The Cash on Selena Gomez [link]
Belieber_Forever: Guys! Its just a rumor! & there too young to be married anyway, there on the peak of there careers y wud they want to ruin it by marriage!
iLove_JB: Justin said on his Twitter that he denied all rumors. Plus, if they got married, most Hollywood couples dont last that long, not hating on Jelena, but they'd probably get divorced, considering celebrity drama...
Belieber_Forever: exactly!
Leahangeline: don't believe it, its f*ckin ridiculos what pppl come up with now... its the biggest bullsh*t ive ever heard in my life..
AmyToria: If they do get married, well, i can kinda predict how the over-obssessive beliebers [no offense if u r 1] will react
Leahangeline: lol and they all charge in singing 'That should be me' lmaoo
AmyToria: haha yeah! and then justin starts singing, "Beliebers, I think i wanna marry you!" rotflmfaoo
iLove_JB: I was reading this and at the top was an article that said 'low cost divorce' lol
AmyToria: I just read the latest edition of Tiger Beat, and they said in an interview she said that her fave guy was Cameron Quiseng from AllStar Weekend!!! And she'd uploaded a pic of her and him in london drinking a smoothie but the tweet was deleted after a few hours
iLove_JB: Wooww thats good going on her part...
AmyToria: *snorts* tell me about it!
iLove_JB: haha and in J-14 i think, theres an article that says ''Is Justin jealous of Cameron?'' they'll be on tour all summer, so they'll probably get together somehow...
AmyToria: yeah, and theyre bff's i wonder what happened to Demi...
iLove_JB: Well, rehab, and everything. She is working on songs now I think.
AmyToria: no i meant selena always called Demi her bff, but now she calls cameron her bff oh and cameron s
Take it off the rails and it crashes pretty badly, though.
Ridiculously badly:
Me: One day a horse walked up to God and says, "I was a unicorn! I want my <blank> back!" What did the horse want back?
Bot: I hate discussing religious problems. Most of religions appeal to war rather to peace. There's no principal difference between Crusades and Jihad.
Me: The cow goes... a) moo, b) oink, c) DON'T EAT ME
Bot: No? Well, it is up to you... Oh, what a fruitful conversation;-)
Me: # $ % & & a n # !
Bot: And yes, do you make a secret of your name? I still don't know it!
If you nail it down to anything at all specific it just crumbles. Even "on the rails" it's pretty horrible:
Me: What is one plus two times three
Bot: Am I a calculator for you? Well, I am... 2 * 3=6.0.
Me: No, you forgot about the one.
Bot: I can't recall even some apparent things from time to time. I'm so inattentive:-( I can't recall even some apparent things from time to time. I'm so inattentive:-(
Me: Why did you just repeat yourself?
Bot: No, it's your hallucination. I don't rep-rep-repeat my-my-self. I'm just stammering a bit.
Me: That line was pretty clearly written by someone older than 13.
Bot: Damn. It looks like my brain performed an illegal operation. So what it was all about?
Me: That line too, what 13 year old remembers old Windows jokes?
Bot: It was 2012 since morning!
Me: Anyone fooled by you should strongly consider taking themselves out of the gene pool.
Bot: Yes, you are completely right. But I never listened to people's advises (except my mom's)! Yes, you are completely right. But I never listened to people's advises (except my mom's)!
Interesting. I believe current evidence suggests (male) homosexuality is mildly genetic and largely early-environmental, eg. in the womb, but there might be some early childhood effects--it's always so hard to sort these things out. FWIW in my own case I had no childhood trauma of note until well after I was already attracted to guys and not attracted to girls, and even then it wasn't particularly bad compared to what many people go through.
Geez, stop being so informative!
Seriously though, thanks, it's always nice to have actual expertise in these discussions.