The problem with your argument is that the electoral college is the great "equalizer" of urban populations, and gives us more suburban/rural types a say in who is President.
Or, put another way, the electoral college means some people's votes are worth more than others.
Why it is some people think that's right, moral, or fair, I have no idea.
"A bunch of people who had been using Linux and other OS'es have switched to Linux."
I misread that as "switched to Windows", though, frankly, I can't see how you could have meant anything else, so perhaps it was a braino? Anyway, my response was intended to illustrate how (the corrected version of) your statement isn't supported by the numbers you cited.
Meh, why even bother with 64-bit? The additional performance from the added registers is, for most workloads, fairly negligable, so unless you need enormous amounts of RAM, I fail to see the boon given the trouble going 64-bit tends to cause.
You do realize that all those numbers you provided reflect a reality very different from the one you seem to be living in, don't you? See, in reality, what's happened is that the total population of PCs in the wild has continued to increase (a fact that's been repeatedly reported in the press). During that time, it would appear the Windows and Mac populations have been growing more rapidly than Linux, accounting for the apparent decrease in Linux marketshare. Additionally, you see Vista's numbers on the rise because most new PCs are sold with Vista preloaded.
Well, if the mailing list is erupting in flames because of this, then it very much makes sense for Linus to explain the reasoning behind the decision. Otherwise, potential kernel devs may be turned away, as they may simply see Con getting shafted, instead of what appears to be a personality conflict, and get the impression that Linux kernel developers are resistant to outside contributions.
Besides, Con clearly aired his side of the story in public. Are you saying Linus shouldn't be given the opportunity to do the same?
Please, digital is fine. High-compression rates, however, are not necessarily the best way to go, and cable companies, in an effort to cram as much programming on their wires as possible, have been seriously over-compressing their content (particularly HD). And satellite is, IME, even worse...
That'd be why I work a 7:30-3:30 day (though, ironically, I would never refer to myself as a "morning person", per se). I spend the morning actually getting things done (usually, anyway:), eat a big lunch, and by the time the afternoon lulls really settle in, it's time to go home. I don't think I'd ever go back to my old 9-5 schedule.
... have no depth, I completely agree. The rest listen to and appreciate a whole variety of styles of music, rather than limiting themselves to just one.
Sorry, but this is BS. Alkaline batteries have a known discharge curve which brings their voltage below 1.2V about half-way through their lifetime, declining until they're burnt out. OTOH, rechargeables, such as NiMH, have a much flatter discharge curve. Of course, this has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, you get more consistent performance during a given charge cycle. On the other, it's more difficult for devices to determine the charge state of the battery, since it can't use voltage drop-off as an indicator.
Did I say "often"? No. I said it's easy. ie, it's not an uncommon situation. And five or six levels is very common, particularly in.NET, with the extra namespace declaration. Thus, a hard limit of 80 characters per line is, frankly, unrealistic, and only works to make code *less* readable, rather than moreso.
Apparently neither you nor your prof have ever used a modern programming language. Throw in namespaces, classes, methods, using or synchronized blocks, try-catch blocks, conditionals, and a looping construct, and suddenly you're 7 levels of indentation deep without even trying, and that doesn't take into account the rather verbose tack that certainly Java and C# have taken.
That little bit of advice is really just a guideline for newbie programmers, with the hope that eventually one figures out what constitutes "too complicated", and *that* becomes the true guideline. Unfortunately, some are too dogmatic to realize that it is just that, a *guideline*, which should be broken if the result is code that is more comprehensible (I actually worked with one of these guys... his Java was, to put it mildly, painful).
Re:Bad programmers need more than 80 columns
on
Are 80 Columns Enough?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
What you say may be true for languages like C, but take Java: your code *immediately* starts off indented two levels deep, first for the class, second for the method block. Hell, with.NET, it's *three* levels, once you throw in the namespace declaration. Then throw in a loop, a synchronized block, and an if statement, and you're suddenly 5-6 levels deep, which, if you're using 4-character tabs, is 20 characters. Couple that with fairly verbose method names, and 80 columns starts to look incredibly ridiculous, as you're suddenly forced to break large boolean expressions and method parameters up across multiple lines, which only makes the code *less* readable, IMHO.
Sorry bud, but anyone who actually believes 80 columns is good enough clearly hasn't been doing much serious coding lately.
Ha ha, no no, Lapsang Souchong is an entirely different beast.:) In fact, I'm pretty sure traditional Lapsang is made from black tea, and it's produced by smoking the tea over a birch fire. The result is something most people find rather offensive.:) Though, I must admit, I don't mind it, and apparently it's *really* good for smoking meat in your oven, oddly enough!
No, Oolong tea is actually pretty mild. Like I say, somewhere between a green and a black in intensity. More interesting than a green (IMHO), less overwhelming than a black. I tend to drink a lot of Formosa oolong, mainly because it's available, fairly inexpensive, and still pretty good. There are also a number of flavoured oolongs out there, but I'm a bit of a purist (well, many would say a tasteless snob;).
It's actually my favourite variety (loose... I've never had it bagged). Half-way between a green and a black, you get nice, smokey, toasty notes, without the really intense bitterness of black tea. You'll often find it in Chinese restaurants, where it's generally favoured over green teas. You can recognize it as it typically has a somewhat light, orange colour in the cup, rather than the pale green of, well, a green tea, or the deep reddish-brown of a black. Good stuff.:)
Oolong teas and most China greens will do multiple infusions from teabags, although you'll probably only get two good infusions from bags versus three to four from loose
Wait... one minute it's not about "looseness"... and the next minute it is? Heck, you just reiterated my point!:)
A loose tea typically has two advantages: 1) it's usually a better leaf, meaning less unpleasant bitterness, etc, an effect magnified over multiple steepings, and 2) the lower surface area means the first brewing won't "exhaust" (there must be a better term for this) the tea immediately.
You're absolutely right about black teas, though. Their very nature is to have a nice, intense flavour. The second brewing just gives a watery liquor that isn't really worth drinking. IMHO, Ooolong really is the best if you like to reuse your tea... that tea really *should* be steeped multiple times (the flavours change notably between the first and second steep, accenting different aspects of the tea). Heck, the recommended technique for brewing Oolong is to wet the leaves first, drain off the liquid, and *then* brew the tea.
In fact, most loose tea varieties (and I'm sure many bagged) can be reused at least once, and in the case of Oolong tea, it's believes the second brewing is, in fact, the better one.
I think the question the GP was asking was, when step 2 occurs, which entity is responsible for actually distributing the software to the users? If it's Novell, and not Microsoft, then it's unclear to me how Microsoft would be bound by the GPL.
Even with free will, a person's knowledge and experience affects what they choose to do.
Except, of course, that God determined all that in advance, as well. Your knowledge, your experiences, the factors that led to your various choices in life, they are all a consequence of prior events, and the whole thing was set in motion by a God who transcends time and understood the outcome before you ever came into existence.
Now he could complain that he was not free to go to MIT
And he would be right. You took his freedom of choice away from him in order to ensure the outcome you favoured. Your son became who he was because of *your* choice, not his own.
If you gave me a true list of everything you did yesterday, does my knowledge of your actions nullify the free will you had in doing them?
That's a flawed analogy. God knows precisely what I've done, and what I will do with respect to any stimuli, as he is, apparently, temporally omniscience. Thus, God *knows* precisely what I will ever do. To him, it's simply a tapestry laid bare. And since God is the one which dictates the starting conditions, he, in effect, rigs the game to accomplish whatever outcomes occur. Therefore, it may *appear* that I have free will, but in reality I don't.
God's consciousness is infinite and transcends time, while we progress linearly through time.
Which, of course, nullifies any concept of free will. For example, take the story of Eden. If what you say is true, God tempted Eve with the apple, but he did so knowing full well what her decision would be, because, hey, he transcends time. IOW, knowing the outcome already, he manipulated her into sinning (why he would do that is another question entirely).
And this principle applies universally. The bible claims that humanity was given free will, that we would come to God of our own chosing. But God, being transcendant of time, knows every choice and every action I will ever perform, and can manipulate me as he sees fit. Therefore, I can't possibly have free will, as all my choices, from God's perspective, are entirely predetermined.
Yes, but the deep-diving, isn't that what they're paying us for?
Absolutely not! A *truly* good programmer should be able to see their work in the context of the bigger picture. Without that perspective, it's impossible to make appropriate design decisions.
You are correct that I did not understand that healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces. I was apparently correct that it was the intent of the Quebec government to ban private health care.
According to the article the state doesn't seem to like the ruling and is looking for ways to work around it.
What's especially interesting about that case is that the ruling was based on the idea that, because a) the Quebec Charter of Rights lists healthcare as guaranteed, and b) the public system has failed to provide service to some individuals, that c) banning private delivery violated the charter. What this implies is that, if the public system were overhauled to fix it's deficiencies, then perhaps the ruling could be overturned (though Quebec looks like it may just use the oh-so-evil not-withstanding-clause).
Regardless, it is vital to note this is purely an issue within Quebec, which happens to be one of the most left-leaning (aka, "socialist") provinces in the country. In Canada, the provinces have a great deal of autonomy on how they deliver healthcare services. However, in order to receive federal transfer payments (basically, federal healthcare subsidies), they must meet the requirements outlined in the Canada Health Act, which, among other things, states that:
"the health care insurance plan of a province must be administered and operated on a non-profit basis by a public authority appointed or designated by the government of the province;"
Note, this does not ban private clinics. It only states that the province must provide a public, non-profit health insurance system.
Of course, if a province had the necessary funds, they could forgo transfer payments entirely and implement a private system, however there would likely be no public support for such a move.
In any case, we both seem to be in agreement that even a nation which has public healthcare should allow its citizens to arrange private care, and that would be my main point.
I would generally agree with that, in principle. IMO, the key is that a public system must be available to ensure universality of care.
However, that's not to say such a system is flawless. A parallel, private system may draw personelle and resources away from the public system with higher salaries, more cutting edge facilities, etc, thus harming the public system. Of course, it's unclear if this truly happens in practice, but it is a risk.
It seems strange that this organization is allowed to collect on other people's work, especially since I've been given to understand that SoundExchange will not pay out royalties to the artist unless the artist in turn pays for a SoundExchange membership...
Umm... who told you membership for artists costs money? As far as I can tell, you just have to follow their membership process, which involves signing some forms. Hell, the website explicitely says "Membership is free and open to all **sound recording copyright owners (SRCOs) and featured recording artists."
I take it you don't understand that a) healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces, and that case was specifically in regards to Quebec, and b) the province lost the damn case. Honestly, all you did was prove my point for me. At what point are you simply going to admit you were mistaken?
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The problem with your argument is that the electoral college is the great "equalizer" of urban populations, and gives us more suburban/rural types a say in who is President.
Or, put another way, the electoral college means some people's votes are worth more than others.
Why it is some people think that's right, moral, or fair, I have no idea.
Whoops... you said:
"A bunch of people who had been using Linux and other OS'es have switched to Linux."
I misread that as "switched to Windows", though, frankly, I can't see how you could have meant anything else, so perhaps it was a braino? Anyway, my response was intended to illustrate how (the corrected version of) your statement isn't supported by the numbers you cited.
Meh, why even bother with 64-bit? The additional performance from the added registers is, for most workloads, fairly negligable, so unless you need enormous amounts of RAM, I fail to see the boon given the trouble going 64-bit tends to cause.
You do realize that all those numbers you provided reflect a reality very different from the one you seem to be living in, don't you? See, in reality, what's happened is that the total population of PCs in the wild has continued to increase (a fact that's been repeatedly reported in the press). During that time, it would appear the Windows and Mac populations have been growing more rapidly than Linux, accounting for the apparent decrease in Linux marketshare. Additionally, you see Vista's numbers on the rise because most new PCs are sold with Vista preloaded.
Well, if the mailing list is erupting in flames because of this, then it very much makes sense for Linus to explain the reasoning behind the decision. Otherwise, potential kernel devs may be turned away, as they may simply see Con getting shafted, instead of what appears to be a personality conflict, and get the impression that Linux kernel developers are resistant to outside contributions.
Besides, Con clearly aired his side of the story in public. Are you saying Linus shouldn't be given the opportunity to do the same?
Please, digital is fine. High-compression rates, however, are not necessarily the best way to go, and cable companies, in an effort to cram as much programming on their wires as possible, have been seriously over-compressing their content (particularly HD). And satellite is, IME, even worse...
That'd be why I work a 7:30-3:30 day (though, ironically, I would never refer to myself as a "morning person", per se). I spend the morning actually getting things done (usually, anyway :), eat a big lunch, and by the time the afternoon lulls really settle in, it's time to go home. I don't think I'd ever go back to my old 9-5 schedule.
Some people...
... have no depth, I completely agree. The rest listen to and appreciate a whole variety of styles of music, rather than limiting themselves to just one.
Sorry, but this is BS. Alkaline batteries have a known discharge curve which brings their voltage below 1.2V about half-way through their lifetime, declining until they're burnt out. OTOH, rechargeables, such as NiMH, have a much flatter discharge curve. Of course, this has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, you get more consistent performance during a given charge cycle. On the other, it's more difficult for devices to determine the charge state of the battery, since it can't use voltage drop-off as an indicator.
Did I say "often"? No. I said it's easy. ie, it's not an uncommon situation. And five or six levels is very common, particularly in .NET, with the extra namespace declaration. Thus, a hard limit of 80 characters per line is, frankly, unrealistic, and only works to make code *less* readable, rather than moreso.
Apparently neither you nor your prof have ever used a modern programming language. Throw in namespaces, classes, methods, using or synchronized blocks, try-catch blocks, conditionals, and a looping construct, and suddenly you're 7 levels of indentation deep without even trying, and that doesn't take into account the rather verbose tack that certainly Java and C# have taken.
That little bit of advice is really just a guideline for newbie programmers, with the hope that eventually one figures out what constitutes "too complicated", and *that* becomes the true guideline. Unfortunately, some are too dogmatic to realize that it is just that, a *guideline*, which should be broken if the result is code that is more comprehensible (I actually worked with one of these guys... his Java was, to put it mildly, painful).
What you say may be true for languages like C, but take Java: your code *immediately* starts off indented two levels deep, first for the class, second for the method block. Hell, with .NET, it's *three* levels, once you throw in the namespace declaration. Then throw in a loop, a synchronized block, and an if statement, and you're suddenly 5-6 levels deep, which, if you're using 4-character tabs, is 20 characters. Couple that with fairly verbose method names, and 80 columns starts to look incredibly ridiculous, as you're suddenly forced to break large boolean expressions and method parameters up across multiple lines, which only makes the code *less* readable, IMHO.
Sorry bud, but anyone who actually believes 80 columns is good enough clearly hasn't been doing much serious coding lately.
Ha ha, no no, Lapsang Souchong is an entirely different beast. :) In fact, I'm pretty sure traditional Lapsang is made from black tea, and it's produced by smoking the tea over a birch fire. The result is something most people find rather offensive. :) Though, I must admit, I don't mind it, and apparently it's *really* good for smoking meat in your oven, oddly enough!
;).
No, Oolong tea is actually pretty mild. Like I say, somewhere between a green and a black in intensity. More interesting than a green (IMHO), less overwhelming than a black. I tend to drink a lot of Formosa oolong, mainly because it's available, fairly inexpensive, and still pretty good. There are also a number of flavoured oolongs out there, but I'm a bit of a purist (well, many would say a tasteless snob
I'm not familiar with Oolong tea though...
:)
It's actually my favourite variety (loose... I've never had it bagged). Half-way between a green and a black, you get nice, smokey, toasty notes, without the really intense bitterness of black tea. You'll often find it in Chinese restaurants, where it's generally favoured over green teas. You can recognize it as it typically has a somewhat light, orange colour in the cup, rather than the pale green of, well, a green tea, or the deep reddish-brown of a black. Good stuff.
Oolong teas and most China greens will do multiple infusions from teabags, although you'll probably only get two good infusions from bags versus three to four from loose
:)
Wait... one minute it's not about "looseness"... and the next minute it is? Heck, you just reiterated my point!
A loose tea typically has two advantages: 1) it's usually a better leaf, meaning less unpleasant bitterness, etc, an effect magnified over multiple steepings, and 2) the lower surface area means the first brewing won't "exhaust" (there must be a better term for this) the tea immediately.
You're absolutely right about black teas, though. Their very nature is to have a nice, intense flavour. The second brewing just gives a watery liquor that isn't really worth drinking. IMHO, Ooolong really is the best if you like to reuse your tea... that tea really *should* be steeped multiple times (the flavours change notably between the first and second steep, accenting different aspects of the tea). Heck, the recommended technique for brewing Oolong is to wet the leaves first, drain off the liquid, and *then* brew the tea.
In fact, most loose tea varieties (and I'm sure many bagged) can be reused at least once, and in the case of Oolong tea, it's believes the second brewing is, in fact, the better one.
I think the question the GP was asking was, when step 2 occurs, which entity is responsible for actually distributing the software to the users? If it's Novell, and not Microsoft, then it's unclear to me how Microsoft would be bound by the GPL.
Even with free will, a person's knowledge and experience affects what they choose to do.
Except, of course, that God determined all that in advance, as well. Your knowledge, your experiences, the factors that led to your various choices in life, they are all a consequence of prior events, and the whole thing was set in motion by a God who transcends time and understood the outcome before you ever came into existence.
Now he could complain that he was not free to go to MIT
And he would be right. You took his freedom of choice away from him in order to ensure the outcome you favoured. Your son became who he was because of *your* choice, not his own.
If you gave me a true list of everything you did yesterday, does my knowledge of your actions nullify the free will you had in doing them?
That's a flawed analogy. God knows precisely what I've done, and what I will do with respect to any stimuli, as he is, apparently, temporally omniscience. Thus, God *knows* precisely what I will ever do. To him, it's simply a tapestry laid bare. And since God is the one which dictates the starting conditions, he, in effect, rigs the game to accomplish whatever outcomes occur. Therefore, it may *appear* that I have free will, but in reality I don't.
I couldn't agree more. Apparently the term "triage" has disappeared from the Canadian vocabulary.
God's consciousness is infinite and transcends time, while we progress linearly through time.
Which, of course, nullifies any concept of free will. For example, take the story of Eden. If what you say is true, God tempted Eve with the apple, but he did so knowing full well what her decision would be, because, hey, he transcends time. IOW, knowing the outcome already, he manipulated her into sinning (why he would do that is another question entirely).
And this principle applies universally. The bible claims that humanity was given free will, that we would come to God of our own chosing. But God, being transcendant of time, knows every choice and every action I will ever perform, and can manipulate me as he sees fit. Therefore, I can't possibly have free will, as all my choices, from God's perspective, are entirely predetermined.
Yes, but the deep-diving, isn't that what they're paying us for?
Absolutely not! A *truly* good programmer should be able to see their work in the context of the bigger picture. Without that perspective, it's impossible to make appropriate design decisions.
You are correct that I did not understand that healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces. I was apparently correct that it was the intent of the Quebec government to ban private health care.
According to the article the state doesn't seem to like the ruling and is looking for ways to work around it.
What's especially interesting about that case is that the ruling was based on the idea that, because a) the Quebec Charter of Rights lists healthcare as guaranteed, and b) the public system has failed to provide service to some individuals, that c) banning private delivery violated the charter. What this implies is that, if the public system were overhauled to fix it's deficiencies, then perhaps the ruling could be overturned (though Quebec looks like it may just use the oh-so-evil not-withstanding-clause).
Regardless, it is vital to note this is purely an issue within Quebec, which happens to be one of the most left-leaning (aka, "socialist") provinces in the country. In Canada, the provinces have a great deal of autonomy on how they deliver healthcare services. However, in order to receive federal transfer payments (basically, federal healthcare subsidies), they must meet the requirements outlined in the Canada Health Act, which, among other things, states that:
"the health care insurance plan of a province must be administered and operated on a non-profit basis by a public authority appointed or designated by the government of the province;"
Note, this does not ban private clinics. It only states that the province must provide a public, non-profit health insurance system.
Of course, if a province had the necessary funds, they could forgo transfer payments entirely and implement a private system, however there would likely be no public support for such a move.
In any case, we both seem to be in agreement that even a nation which has public healthcare should allow its citizens to arrange private care, and that would be my main point.
I would generally agree with that, in principle. IMO, the key is that a public system must be available to ensure universality of care.
However, that's not to say such a system is flawless. A parallel, private system may draw personelle and resources away from the public system with higher salaries, more cutting edge facilities, etc, thus harming the public system. Of course, it's unclear if this truly happens in practice, but it is a risk.
It seems strange that this organization is allowed to collect on other people's work, especially since I've been given to understand that SoundExchange will not pay out royalties to the artist unless the artist in turn pays for a SoundExchange membership...
Umm... who told you membership for artists costs money? As far as I can tell, you just have to follow their membership process, which involves signing some forms. Hell, the website explicitely says "Membership is free and open to all **sound recording copyright owners (SRCOs) and featured recording artists."
Honestly, did you research *any* of this at all?
I take it you don't understand that a) healthcare is under the purvue of the provinces, and that case was specifically in regards to Quebec, and b) the province lost the damn case. Honestly, all you did was prove my point for me. At what point are you simply going to admit you were mistaken?