If few people follow a standard, is it a standard? Cue the tree in the woods.
You make a good point. I think we are on the same team. I'm just putting in a good word for our team so that maybe others will join it. I think ours is a team of reasonable people with a moderate and helpful suggestion to improve the world in a small way. I'm always surprised that even this suggestion divides people.
Yes. I am advocating that version numbers should carry broadly-recognizable meaning. I accept your different opinion but I disagree with it.
In fact I think it would be silly for you to try to defend the suggestion that "version numbers should have no inherent meaning". None? Would you advocate that version numbers be non-sequential? After all, Mac OS 10.6 came after Mac OS 10.5, but maybe next they could release Mac OS 3.6, and then Mac OS 31.5, and then Mac OS -2, and then Mac OS Pi.
Of course version numbers carry meaning. They can't carry lots and lots of meaning, but they can carry a little bit. Why even bother with dotted-decimal version numbers if the dots and decimals mean nothing? Just use integers, but even monotonically increasing integers have "meaning" in that they convey directional advancement of the software. Likewise, if you use dates, dates carry meaning. Other than random numbers, it's difficult to imagine a version numbering scheme that has "no inherent meaning".
No different? Come on, man, of course it is different. Are you unable, or just unwilling, to make subtle arguments instead of meaninglessly grandiose black-and-white statements?
What is it that stops you from saying "this law shares some similarity with sharia law imposed by the Taliban, which of course is vastly worse and more violent, but shares an unfounded sense of moral superiority from the imposer"?
When you say that banning porn flicks is "no different than" murdering women who uncover their hair, nobody should listen to you.
"If porn gets banned, we don't lose anything that will improve our society."
I don't follow your argument. If we ban porn, then we lose something that will improve our society, because porn improves our society. What exactly do you mean?
I agree. I feel the same way when I hear American Christians (or any religious folks anywhere, I suppose) say that "religious freedom" means that they are "free" to use the government to force their religion onto the public. Yeah, uh, that's actually the opposite of religious freedom. It would be like a Catholic priest bellyaching that he is not "free" to rape alter boys. Yeah, that's not what "freedom" means. It would be like the American South fighting a civil war for the "freedom" to own niggers. Yeah, that's not what "freedom" means.
But don't say that the "only" harm from porn is the reactionary judgement. There is harm from porn, just not very much, and not nearly so much as the benefits.
Yeah! Or like making all nuclear bombs illegal even though not everyone would blow up cities with them.
My point: it's a balance. We decide issues based on the amount of harm, and the use of the tool. Nuclear bombs are a trite but obvious example of a tool where even the minority use of the tool warrants its universal ban. Guns are somewhere in the middle. Poisons are somewhere in the middle, different for different poisons.
Porn, on the other hand, is nowhere near the balancing point: to me it is totally obvious that porn is overwhelmingly good in almost every way, with only a tiny amount of harm. There is no reasonable argument for banning porn because the bad does not come anywhere close to outweighing the good.
But, to say that any modicum of positive use for a tool means the tool should not be banned, is the kind of childish black-and-white thinking that would put nuclear bombs into the hands of prison inmates (after all, what part of "shall not be infringed" don't you understand, right?) Use subtle thought and moderation. They will take you far.
My understanding is that brain cells are not replaced over time. Although it is true that we grow new brain cells over our lifetime, we don't replace brain cells the way we replace skin cells or other cells. And for humans a sub-part of the brain is where "we" are, so "we" aren't really like the ship of theseus. (But, we could be like that, if it were true that we replaced our brain cells over time. It wouldn't stop "us" from being "us".)
"Not all software is versioned with the assumption that 1.0 = finished."
This is the problem. This should be true: version 1.0 should be a statement by the author that the software has reached maturity for its initial, core feature set. Users should be able to rely on this. Version 0 should be when you write your first line of code; less than 1.0 should be initial implementation effort; 1.0 should mean first stable, complete public release; and full-number versions thereafter should indicate compatibility shifts or otherwise large functional jumps.
Let's get together on this, open source nerds. Give up on the fetish for teensy weensy version numbers. I know you think it's cool, but it's not, it makes obvious that you have no regard for the meaning of version numbers. (On the flip side, software like Chrome should stop using full-number increments for every single release. That also razes the meaning of version numbers.)
I sort of follow, but none of the premises are right. People aren't benefitted equally by government -- not at all. Certain people benefit disproportionately by wide margins. Consider a poor person who gets a transfer payment. Consider the person who lives near public roads, versus a person who does not. Even national defense certainly does not benefit everyone equally -- doubtlessly, rich people benefit much more from national defense because they have much more to lose.
All government action, every last bit of it, literally 100%, is "requiring one individual to pay for the benefit of another". (Think about it, if private people buying things for themselves in private markets suffice for any given problem, then government doesn't bother to get involved.) If that violates your notion of freedom, then you aren't alone, you can quorum with the anarchists. I'm not an anarchist, but I don't really want to get into picking apart anarchy.
Oh, is that your complaint? That this new information provided to people doesn't meet your definition of "reveal"? What does it mean to you to "reveal" something? Here's what my dictionary says:
make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others
That's pretty much dead center what this study does: it makes previously unknown information known to others. What do you think the word means?
This is what we mean when we say that science makes predictions. Remember tiktaalik? Based on the rest of the fossil record and based on geology, scientists predicted that a certain fossil of a certain creature would be found in a certain kind of rock at a certain depth. It took them several years of digging but they found that fossil at that depth in that rock. Science made a specific prediction and it came true.
Likewise, based on the rest of the fossil record we believe this creature must have existed. We might be able to predict where we would find fossils for it.
If it lays eggs then it's not a placental mammal (is that right? I think that's right). That would make it a more distant ancestor to this creature, a placental mammal.
To be honest, I think pension programs are a total scam. They should be abolished by law. All retirement programs should be funded during the working life of the individual -- IRAs. So I'm theoretically with Congress, except for the fact that they singled out the USPS. They should pass a new law applying that same logic to every American company and citizen.
Grab your duckets, workers! Don't believe The Man when he says he'll pay you later!
I don't know the history as well as you apparently do. Did the Mail Company offer universal service? in every corner where the Post Office delivered? If so, then tell me more about the rates. If not, then the comparison is moot.
The Post is un-American? It's in the fucking Constitution! What next, you want to have competing Navies because the "government monopoly on national defense" violates your absurd notion of "freedom"?
You do know, of course, that that is exactly what happend in 1971? The USPS is the best a corporation can do while providing universal postal service.
Whatever you do, don't make the silly mistake of comparing the USPS to any other system which does not offer universal service. If you don't offer universal service, then you don't compare at all to the USPS. Thus nobody compares to the USPS.
Whoa. Eighteen dollars an hour is not a high way, it's a very low wage. That's the kind of wage that high-school graduates should be making for labor which is unskilled but requires sobriety and attention. If it takes a union to get that low-but-livable wage for people, then by all means let's have unions.
This is (or, used to be) exactly my problem with UPS/FedEx. To receive a package I had to take one or two days off of work, to wait all day long for the ten second visit from the package delivery person.
I benefit from a front porch which the Postal worker never has any problem leaving packages on, but UPS and FedEx seem to refuse to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
You give Microsoft too much credit. To be pre-alpha, they would have to be trying to fix bugs, or have any coherent plan.
If few people follow a standard, is it a standard? Cue the tree in the woods.
You make a good point. I think we are on the same team. I'm just putting in a good word for our team so that maybe others will join it. I think ours is a team of reasonable people with a moderate and helpful suggestion to improve the world in a small way. I'm always surprised that even this suggestion divides people.
Yes. I am advocating that version numbers should carry broadly-recognizable meaning. I accept your different opinion but I disagree with it.
In fact I think it would be silly for you to try to defend the suggestion that "version numbers should have no inherent meaning". None? Would you advocate that version numbers be non-sequential? After all, Mac OS 10.6 came after Mac OS 10.5, but maybe next they could release Mac OS 3.6, and then Mac OS 31.5, and then Mac OS -2, and then Mac OS Pi.
Of course version numbers carry meaning. They can't carry lots and lots of meaning, but they can carry a little bit. Why even bother with dotted-decimal version numbers if the dots and decimals mean nothing? Just use integers, but even monotonically increasing integers have "meaning" in that they convey directional advancement of the software. Likewise, if you use dates, dates carry meaning. Other than random numbers, it's difficult to imagine a version numbering scheme that has "no inherent meaning".
No different? Come on, man, of course it is different. Are you unable, or just unwilling, to make subtle arguments instead of meaninglessly grandiose black-and-white statements?
What is it that stops you from saying "this law shares some similarity with sharia law imposed by the Taliban, which of course is vastly worse and more violent, but shares an unfounded sense of moral superiority from the imposer"?
When you say that banning porn flicks is "no different than" murdering women who uncover their hair, nobody should listen to you.
"If porn gets banned, we don't lose anything that will improve our society."
I don't follow your argument. If we ban porn, then we lose something that will improve our society, because porn improves our society. What exactly do you mean?
I agree. I feel the same way when I hear American Christians (or any religious folks anywhere, I suppose) say that "religious freedom" means that they are "free" to use the government to force their religion onto the public. Yeah, uh, that's actually the opposite of religious freedom. It would be like a Catholic priest bellyaching that he is not "free" to rape alter boys. Yeah, that's not what "freedom" means. It would be like the American South fighting a civil war for the "freedom" to own niggers. Yeah, that's not what "freedom" means.
But don't say that the "only" harm from porn is the reactionary judgement. There is harm from porn, just not very much, and not nearly so much as the benefits.
Yeah! Or like making all nuclear bombs illegal even though not everyone would blow up cities with them.
My point: it's a balance. We decide issues based on the amount of harm, and the use of the tool. Nuclear bombs are a trite but obvious example of a tool where even the minority use of the tool warrants its universal ban. Guns are somewhere in the middle. Poisons are somewhere in the middle, different for different poisons.
Porn, on the other hand, is nowhere near the balancing point: to me it is totally obvious that porn is overwhelmingly good in almost every way, with only a tiny amount of harm. There is no reasonable argument for banning porn because the bad does not come anywhere close to outweighing the good.
But, to say that any modicum of positive use for a tool means the tool should not be banned, is the kind of childish black-and-white thinking that would put nuclear bombs into the hands of prison inmates (after all, what part of "shall not be infringed" don't you understand, right?) Use subtle thought and moderation. They will take you far.
My understanding is that brain cells are not replaced over time. Although it is true that we grow new brain cells over our lifetime, we don't replace brain cells the way we replace skin cells or other cells. And for humans a sub-part of the brain is where "we" are, so "we" aren't really like the ship of theseus. (But, we could be like that, if it were true that we replaced our brain cells over time. It wouldn't stop "us" from being "us".)
"Not all software is versioned with the assumption that 1.0 = finished."
This is the problem. This should be true: version 1.0 should be a statement by the author that the software has reached maturity for its initial, core feature set. Users should be able to rely on this. Version 0 should be when you write your first line of code; less than 1.0 should be initial implementation effort; 1.0 should mean first stable, complete public release; and full-number versions thereafter should indicate compatibility shifts or otherwise large functional jumps.
Let's get together on this, open source nerds. Give up on the fetish for teensy weensy version numbers. I know you think it's cool, but it's not, it makes obvious that you have no regard for the meaning of version numbers. (On the flip side, software like Chrome should stop using full-number increments for every single release. That also razes the meaning of version numbers.)
Theseus? Is that you?
Do people still use Microsoft Office? Huh, I didn't know that.
I sort of follow, but none of the premises are right. People aren't benefitted equally by government -- not at all. Certain people benefit disproportionately by wide margins. Consider a poor person who gets a transfer payment. Consider the person who lives near public roads, versus a person who does not. Even national defense certainly does not benefit everyone equally -- doubtlessly, rich people benefit much more from national defense because they have much more to lose.
All government action, every last bit of it, literally 100%, is "requiring one individual to pay for the benefit of another". (Think about it, if private people buying things for themselves in private markets suffice for any given problem, then government doesn't bother to get involved.) If that violates your notion of freedom, then you aren't alone, you can quorum with the anarchists. I'm not an anarchist, but I don't really want to get into picking apart anarchy.
So, it didn't offer universal service. Thanks for clearing that up, now I can ignore comparisons between the two mail-delivery services.
Nope.
Oh, is that your complaint? That this new information provided to people doesn't meet your definition of "reveal"? What does it mean to you to "reveal" something? Here's what my dictionary says:
make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others
That's pretty much dead center what this study does: it makes previously unknown information known to others. What do you think the word means?
This is what we mean when we say that science makes predictions. Remember tiktaalik? Based on the rest of the fossil record and based on geology, scientists predicted that a certain fossil of a certain creature would be found in a certain kind of rock at a certain depth. It took them several years of digging but they found that fossil at that depth in that rock. Science made a specific prediction and it came true.
Likewise, based on the rest of the fossil record we believe this creature must have existed. We might be able to predict where we would find fossils for it.
If it lays eggs then it's not a placental mammal (is that right? I think that's right). That would make it a more distant ancestor to this creature, a placental mammal.
Shit I bonked the regex didn't I.
Mod me down! Hide my shame!
s/l(o+)s/o/g
To be honest, I think pension programs are a total scam. They should be abolished by law. All retirement programs should be funded during the working life of the individual -- IRAs. So I'm theoretically with Congress, except for the fact that they singled out the USPS. They should pass a new law applying that same logic to every American company and citizen.
Grab your duckets, workers! Don't believe The Man when he says he'll pay you later!
I don't know the history as well as you apparently do. Did the Mail Company offer universal service? in every corner where the Post Office delivered? If so, then tell me more about the rates. If not, then the comparison is moot.
The Post is un-American? It's in the fucking Constitution! What next, you want to have competing Navies because the "government monopoly on national defense" violates your absurd notion of "freedom"?
You do know, of course, that that is exactly what happend in 1971? The USPS is the best a corporation can do while providing universal postal service.
Whatever you do, don't make the silly mistake of comparing the USPS to any other system which does not offer universal service. If you don't offer universal service, then you don't compare at all to the USPS. Thus nobody compares to the USPS.
Whoa. Eighteen dollars an hour is not a high way, it's a very low wage. That's the kind of wage that high-school graduates should be making for labor which is unskilled but requires sobriety and attention. If it takes a union to get that low-but-livable wage for people, then by all means let's have unions.
This is (or, used to be) exactly my problem with UPS/FedEx. To receive a package I had to take one or two days off of work, to wait all day long for the ten second visit from the package delivery person.
I benefit from a front porch which the Postal worker never has any problem leaving packages on, but UPS and FedEx seem to refuse to do that.