While avocate strongly for the right to privacy, to complain that there are groups out there collecting information on people is the height of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Oh please. This is, at best, a non-sequitor, at worst a strawman argument. This isn't about "putting the genie back in the bottle". This is about setting regulations and guidelines for how this data can be used. Canada has already passed laws to this effect, which seem to be working fairly well. The only reason the US doesn't do the same is a lack of political will ('course, things like corporate lobbyists don't help).
but I don't think that packing enriched uranium into a glovebox could cause a nuclear reaction
And you'd be wrong. From the wikipedia article on fast neutron reactors: "Such a reactor needs no neutron moderator, but must use fuel that is relatively rich in fissile material when compared to that required for a thermal reactor." In essence, the fast neutrons emitted by the radioactive decay of the fuel triggers further fission, resulting in a chain reaction. Or, as the article on fast breeder reactors states, "While fast neutrons are less likely to be absorbed by uranium-235 or plutonium-239 than thermal neutrons, the highly enriched fuel used in fast breeder reactors allows for a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction."
Note, the key, here, is the fact that this was an *enriched* fuel leak. Were this regular Uranium, you'd be absolutely right, as the neutrons would need to be thermalized (slowed down by a moderator) before a chain reaction could progress, hence the need for a moderator in a traditional reactor design.
Bush's people called it classified. I guess we can't exercise oversight after all.
The question is, are they right? If the Bushies *do* declare something classified, or within the purview of executive privilege, what power does congress have to exercise oversight? No, this isn't sarcastic or anything. I really would like to know.
You're still going to have a "Master" tree, it just happens that in Linux the master tree is Linus's.
Uhuh... and in an organization where there is no one person controlling the product, who does this? Or did you just ignore that question because you can't admit there is no good answer?
Perhaps I should rephrase. In most organizations, there's a central repository of code that people check in to and out of, and occasionally releases are branched and cut from that central repository. So, in a decentralized model, how do you propose this be done? You aren't seriously suggesting that one person's tree become the "official tree", and that person is responsible for merging everyone's changes so a release can be done, are you? Need I go into the many many reasons why this is a remarkably dumb idea for a typical company?
unfortunately they chose the wrong model to start from
Because there's only one "right" model? WTF do you believe that distributed version control is the end-all and be-all for all situations? Did it ever occur to you that a centralized SCM might be more appropriate in some cases?
For example, suppose you work in an organization using a distributed SCM and you want to cut a release. Where does the code come from? Sure, in an OSS project, you just release the main developer's tree (eg, Linus'), but in a traditional organization, where there is no one person controlling the product, where does that code get cut from?
Honestly, you centralized SCM folks are as bad as hard-code OOP or functional programmers. You have this bizarre delusion that there's only one best solution for any given SCM problem, ignoring the myriad other possible use cases out there.
Or maybe if I'd read your post more thoroughly, I would've seen you mention it "prevents allergies"... in which case, I'll just blame my parents for the crappy genes.:)
Yeah, obviously a single example doesn't constitute proof. Not that I'm the only one, either (my brother and wife had similar experiences... my sister, though, has not). However, keep in mind, a "stronger immune system" and an absence of allergies aren't necessarily the same thing, so we may be comparing apples and oranges, here.
Meh, I grew up with dogs and cats. Today, I'm allergic (extremely so, in the case of cats). Childhood exposure doesn't seem to do a damn thing, unfortunately...
In addition, Wikipedia states that Mira's velocity is 63.8km/s -
Well, either, Wikipedia is wrong, or the guys at Galex, who actually did the work, are wrong, as they say Mira is traveling at approximately "130 kilometers per second" relative to the gas it's traveling through. And that, combined with Mira shedding it's outer layers as it expands and contracts, is why it has a tail.
As for Sol, the reason it doesn't have a tail is:
1) Unlike Mira, it's not a red giant sloughing off it's outer shell, and 2) Sol is traveling through the Local Bubble, which is an area with a particularly low ISM density.
Personally, I wish folks who don't consider themselves laymen would get their facts straight before criticizing a NASA press release, not to mention all the scientists who did the original work. But hey, that's just me.
Just to make it clear to any idiot mods who might attempt to give the parent a +1 Insightful/Interesting, Saskatchewan doesn't include an exclamation point in it's name. That's merely a marketing gimmick on their provincial website (and trust me, Saskatchewan can use all the marketing gimmicks it can get;).
I'm not sure that's true anymore (TBH, I'm not sure it ever was). I work in an office full of relatively normal, well-socialized folk, and they're all talented programmers, too. Further, the bulk of my graduating class (around, oh... 2002 or so? I can't remember...) were much the same. I also did a 16 month internship with Nortel Networks, in a research group no less, and they were all pretty normal people, by and large.
Slashdotters, OTOH... that's an entirely different matter.:)
Anyways, what man-made technology we have to collect solar energy totally sucks when compared with the efficiency of photosynthesis
Umm... what? According to Britannica, photosynthesis is at most 1-3% efficient at receiving and storing solar energy. In fact, theoretical efficiency of photosynthesis is only around 26%.
Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia, the first commercially available solar cells had a conversion efficiency of about 6 percent, and these days, the numbers are much higher (I believe commercially available photovoltaics are in the 17-20% range, though I may be mistaken).
Of course, one might argue about the amount of energy that's put into producing a solar cell. I might rebut that it takes an awful lot of energy to grow, harvest, and convert a crop of soybeans or sugar cane into usable energy (with numerous losses along the way, not the least of which occurs during combustion).
Without break you can always tell at a glance what the post condition is by looking at the loop condition, but with break you have to search through the body of the loop to find that out.
If you're using break in anything but error handling code, or an infinite loop, you're asking for trouble, anyway. But in those situations, I would argue break is no less clear.
I avoid continue because it obfuscates the structure of the code within the loop.
Bah, that's just a matter of taste. In fact, I find your version more confusing, as the first is an affirmative statement that the loop iteration is aborting early, while in the second, that's implicit. Further, continue and break allow you to cluster all your special case handling in one place. eg:
while (1) {
int ret = some_func();
if (ret == ERROR) {
log_error;
break;
} else if (ret == DONE) {
break;
} else if (ret == WAIT) {
continue;
}
do_some_stuff; }
I prefer this over the do-while version, which distributes the various checks all over the place:
do {
int ret = some_func();
if (ret == ERROR) {
log_error;
} else if (ret != WAIT) {
do_some_stuff;
} } while ((ret != DONE) && (ret != ERROR));
As for goto, it is indeed very useful for cleanup. I you've never done something like:
the copyright system should be abolished because it leads to our current mess in which a few giant companies use it to deprive the artists of their rightful income.
Yes... because that is the fault of copyright law, and not the artists, who sign over the rights to their works for a pittance.
By your reasoning, I presume the police should break all laws with reckless abandon in order to get the criminals
The difference is, when police investigate regular criminals, they can acquire evidence via warrants, traditional investigative techniques, and so forth. When it comes to the government (particularly this one, considered by observers to be the most secretative US administration *ever*), they can simply declare the program a state secret, and *NO ONE* will be allowed investigate the issue. Hence, the only way people will find out about these kinds of programs is if someone leaks the information.
Honestly, are you *seriously* arguing that, if the government is performing acts which are, at minimum, extremely questionable, it isn't a person's *duty* to ensure that information reaches the public? Seriously? Because, frankly, that's at best incredibly stupid, and at worst, flat out frightening. By that standard, if someone had found out about, say, Abu Ghraib, they should've felt obligated to keep their mouth shut. Are you *really* arguing for that?
I've heard that some zoologists consider that speciation between wolves & dogs isn't quite complete yet.
It's not. Speciation is, generally speaking, marked by the inability to produce viable offspring (where viable == can reproduce successfully). This isn't true for dogs and wolves.
presumed innocent until proven guilty in the courts
But unless someone leaks information about legally questionable acts in the first place, *no one will go to court*. Seriously, how fucking retarded are you?
That's no big surprise. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, and so can trigger headaches in some people. Though, interestingly, when combined with an analgesic, that same effect can actually speed the reduction of headache symptoms in others (hence the presence of caffeine in some analgesics, such as Motrin).
Yeah, I know that's what he's saying. The problem is, his comment has nothing at all to do with the motivations for environmentalists who "advocate banning incandescents" (hint: while the science may be bad, their (the environmentalist's) intentions are good). Yeah, I really "stepped right into that one"...
Perhaps there is a group of people who would like to sell you CFLs and make a higher profit and are manipulating naive people by using environmentalism as a marketing too
Wow, congratulations, you've explained why manufacturers might want to fake or otherwise misrepresent the environmental impact of their products. Tell me again how that outlines an alternative motivation for *environmentalists*? Or are you telling me all those dirty hippy environmentalists are actually corporate marketing agents?
Will you take me at my word if I said a lot of people advocate banning incandescents for environmental reasons?
Why the fuck else would they advocate it? Because in their hateful environmentalist glee, they wanna make everyone look ugly by bathing them in unnaturally green light?
If people argued for action on global warming as if it weren't "just another excuse to get the laws we'd want anyway". Maybe if each offered solution didn't specifically target those environmentalists hate without regard to actual environmental damage?
You know what? That's fucking *bullshit*. I'm just waiting for you to start bitching about those "dirty hippies". Honestly, do you have *any* proof this is the case? Or are you just making up strawman arguments to justify your own prejudices? Somehow, I suspect it's the latter...
Were you, by chance, shot in the head during your tour of duty? Is that why you can't tell the difference between leaking military intel to the enemy (for money, no less), and leaking information about illegal acts perpetrated by the government?
But who is to determine what an illegal program is?
Umm... the *law*, dipshit. You know, those things that congress and the senate pass, and the executive is charged, by the constitution, to enforce and uphold?
Slashdot Mirror
While avocate strongly for the right to privacy, to complain that there are groups out there collecting information on people is the height of trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Oh please. This is, at best, a non-sequitor, at worst a strawman argument. This isn't about "putting the genie back in the bottle". This is about setting regulations and guidelines for how this data can be used. Canada has already passed laws to this effect, which seem to be working fairly well. The only reason the US doesn't do the same is a lack of political will ('course, things like corporate lobbyists don't help).
but I don't think that packing enriched uranium into a glovebox could cause a nuclear reaction
And you'd be wrong. From the wikipedia article on fast neutron reactors: "Such a reactor needs no neutron moderator, but must use fuel that is relatively rich in fissile material when compared to that required for a thermal reactor." In essence, the fast neutrons emitted by the radioactive decay of the fuel triggers further fission, resulting in a chain reaction. Or, as the article on fast breeder reactors states, "While fast neutrons are less likely to be absorbed by uranium-235 or plutonium-239 than thermal neutrons, the highly enriched fuel used in fast breeder reactors allows for a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction."
Note, the key, here, is the fact that this was an *enriched* fuel leak. Were this regular Uranium, you'd be absolutely right, as the neutrons would need to be thermalized (slowed down by a moderator) before a chain reaction could progress, hence the need for a moderator in a traditional reactor design.
Bush's people called it classified. I guess we can't exercise oversight after all.
The question is, are they right? If the Bushies *do* declare something classified, or within the purview of executive privilege, what power does congress have to exercise oversight? No, this isn't sarcastic or anything. I really would like to know.
You're still going to have a "Master" tree, it just happens that in Linux the master tree is Linus's.
Uhuh... and in an organization where there is no one person controlling the product, who does this? Or did you just ignore that question because you can't admit there is no good answer?
Perhaps I should rephrase. In most organizations, there's a central repository of code that people check in to and out of, and occasionally releases are branched and cut from that central repository. So, in a decentralized model, how do you propose this be done? You aren't seriously suggesting that one person's tree become the "official tree", and that person is responsible for merging everyone's changes so a release can be done, are you? Need I go into the many many reasons why this is a remarkably dumb idea for a typical company?
unfortunately they chose the wrong model to start from
Because there's only one "right" model? WTF do you believe that distributed version control is the end-all and be-all for all situations? Did it ever occur to you that a centralized SCM might be more appropriate in some cases?
For example, suppose you work in an organization using a distributed SCM and you want to cut a release. Where does the code come from? Sure, in an OSS project, you just release the main developer's tree (eg, Linus'), but in a traditional organization, where there is no one person controlling the product, where does that code get cut from?
Honestly, you centralized SCM folks are as bad as hard-code OOP or functional programmers. You have this bizarre delusion that there's only one best solution for any given SCM problem, ignoring the myriad other possible use cases out there.
Or maybe if I'd read your post more thoroughly, I would've seen you mention it "prevents allergies"... in which case, I'll just blame my parents for the crappy genes. :)
Yeah, obviously a single example doesn't constitute proof. Not that I'm the only one, either (my brother and wife had similar experiences... my sister, though, has not). However, keep in mind, a "stronger immune system" and an absence of allergies aren't necessarily the same thing, so we may be comparing apples and oranges, here.
Meh, I grew up with dogs and cats. Today, I'm allergic (extremely so, in the case of cats). Childhood exposure doesn't seem to do a damn thing, unfortunately...
In addition, Wikipedia states that Mira's velocity is 63.8km/s -
Well, either, Wikipedia is wrong, or the guys at Galex, who actually did the work, are wrong, as they say Mira is traveling at approximately "130 kilometers per second" relative to the gas it's traveling through. And that, combined with Mira shedding it's outer layers as it expands and contracts, is why it has a tail.
As for Sol, the reason it doesn't have a tail is:
1) Unlike Mira, it's not a red giant sloughing off it's outer shell, and
2) Sol is traveling through the Local Bubble, which is an area with a particularly low ISM density.
Personally, I wish folks who don't consider themselves laymen would get their facts straight before criticizing a NASA press release, not to mention all the scientists who did the original work. But hey, that's just me.
Just to make it clear to any idiot mods who might attempt to give the parent a +1 Insightful/Interesting, Saskatchewan doesn't include an exclamation point in it's name. That's merely a marketing gimmick on their provincial website (and trust me, Saskatchewan can use all the marketing gimmicks it can get ;).
I'm not sure that's true anymore (TBH, I'm not sure it ever was). I work in an office full of relatively normal, well-socialized folk, and they're all talented programmers, too. Further, the bulk of my graduating class (around, oh... 2002 or so? I can't remember...) were much the same. I also did a 16 month internship with Nortel Networks, in a research group no less, and they were all pretty normal people, by and large.
:)
Slashdotters, OTOH... that's an entirely different matter.
Anyways, what man-made technology we have to collect solar energy totally sucks when compared with the efficiency of photosynthesis
Umm... what? According to Britannica, photosynthesis is at most 1-3% efficient at receiving and storing solar energy. In fact, theoretical efficiency of photosynthesis is only around 26%.
Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia, the first commercially available solar cells had a conversion efficiency of about 6 percent, and these days, the numbers are much higher (I believe commercially available photovoltaics are in the 17-20% range, though I may be mistaken).
Of course, one might argue about the amount of energy that's put into producing a solar cell. I might rebut that it takes an awful lot of energy to grow, harvest, and convert a crop of soybeans or sugar cane into usable energy (with numerous losses along the way, not the least of which occurs during combustion).
Without break you can always tell at a glance what the post condition is by looking at the loop condition, but with break you have to search through the body of the loop to find that out.
If you're using break in anything but error handling code, or an infinite loop, you're asking for trouble, anyway. But in those situations, I would argue break is no less clear.
I avoid continue because it obfuscates the structure of the code within the loop.
Bah, that's just a matter of taste. In fact, I find your version more confusing, as the first is an affirmative statement that the loop iteration is aborting early, while in the second, that's implicit. Further, continue and break allow you to cluster all your special case handling in one place. eg:
while (1) {
int ret = some_func();
if (ret == ERROR) {
log_error;
break;
} else if (ret == DONE) {
break;
} else if (ret == WAIT) {
continue;
}
do_some_stuff;
}
I prefer this over the do-while version, which distributes the various checks all over the place:
do {
int ret = some_func();
if (ret == ERROR) {
log_error;
} else if (ret != WAIT) {
do_some_stuff;
}
} while ((ret != DONE) && (ret != ERROR));
As for goto, it is indeed very useful for cleanup. I you've never done something like:
void func() {
if (! lock_resource_one() || ! lock_resource_two()) {
goto DONE;
}
while (! done) {
if (operation_on_resource() == ERROR) {
goto DONE;
}
do_some_stuff;
}
do_some_other_things;
DONE:
unlock_resource_one();
unlock_resource_two();
return;
}
Then, frankly, I don't know what you've been doing for the past 20 years.
but, if we talk about managed languages, I'd go straight for Python or Common Lisp.
:)
Meh, I'll take Smalltalk, thanks.
the copyright system should be abolished because it leads to our current mess in which a few giant companies use it to deprive the artists of their rightful income.
Yes... because that is the fault of copyright law, and not the artists, who sign over the rights to their works for a pittance.
By your reasoning, I presume the police should break all laws with reckless abandon in order to get the criminals
The difference is, when police investigate regular criminals, they can acquire evidence via warrants, traditional investigative techniques, and so forth. When it comes to the government (particularly this one, considered by observers to be the most secretative US administration *ever*), they can simply declare the program a state secret, and *NO ONE* will be allowed investigate the issue. Hence, the only way people will find out about these kinds of programs is if someone leaks the information.
Honestly, are you *seriously* arguing that, if the government is performing acts which are, at minimum, extremely questionable, it isn't a person's *duty* to ensure that information reaches the public? Seriously? Because, frankly, that's at best incredibly stupid, and at worst, flat out frightening. By that standard, if someone had found out about, say, Abu Ghraib, they should've felt obligated to keep their mouth shut. Are you *really* arguing for that?
I've heard that some zoologists consider that speciation between wolves & dogs isn't quite complete yet.
It's not. Speciation is, generally speaking, marked by the inability to produce viable offspring (where viable == can reproduce successfully). This isn't true for dogs and wolves.
presumed innocent until proven guilty in the courts
But unless someone leaks information about legally questionable acts in the first place, *no one will go to court*. Seriously, how fucking retarded are you?
That's no big surprise. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, and so can trigger headaches in some people. Though, interestingly, when combined with an analgesic, that same effect can actually speed the reduction of headache symptoms in others (hence the presence of caffeine in some analgesics, such as Motrin).
Yeah, I know that's what he's saying. The problem is, his comment has nothing at all to do with the motivations for environmentalists who "advocate banning incandescents" (hint: while the science may be bad, their (the environmentalist's) intentions are good). Yeah, I really "stepped right into that one"...
Perhaps there is a group of people who would like to sell you CFLs and make a higher profit and are manipulating naive people by using environmentalism as a marketing too
Wow, congratulations, you've explained why manufacturers might want to fake or otherwise misrepresent the environmental impact of their products. Tell me again how that outlines an alternative motivation for *environmentalists*? Or are you telling me all those dirty hippy environmentalists are actually corporate marketing agents?
Will you take me at my word if I said a lot of people advocate banning incandescents for environmental reasons?
Why the fuck else would they advocate it? Because in their hateful environmentalist glee, they wanna make everyone look ugly by bathing them in unnaturally green light?
If people argued for action on global warming as if it weren't "just another excuse to get the laws we'd want anyway". Maybe if each offered solution didn't specifically target those environmentalists hate without regard to actual environmental damage?
You know what? That's fucking *bullshit*. I'm just waiting for you to start bitching about those "dirty hippies". Honestly, do you have *any* proof this is the case? Or are you just making up strawman arguments to justify your own prejudices? Somehow, I suspect it's the latter...
Were you, by chance, shot in the head during your tour of duty? Is that why you can't tell the difference between leaking military intel to the enemy (for money, no less), and leaking information about illegal acts perpetrated by the government?
But who is to determine what an illegal program is?
Umm... the *law*, dipshit. You know, those things that congress and the senate pass, and the executive is charged, by the constitution, to enforce and uphold?