Restated: Most people are biased. Scientists are people. Thus it is not unreasonable to believe that scientists are biased unless shown evidence that they aren't.
Your suggestion that I am a serial killer because you don't have any evidence to the contrary would make sense if the statement "Most people are serial killers" were true. It isn't.
Your logic fails because it assumes a false premise. Mine doesn't. Run along, Anonymous Coward, and continue living in your dreamworld where scientists are pure and unbiased. I assume you don't even believe the dung you're shoveling and are just trolling. Well done.
That scientists are human is generally accepted knowledge. That humans are seldom, if ever, without bias is also generally accepted. Do you have any proof that would give us reason to believe that scientists are any different simply because of their profession? If not, it's by no means unreasonable to think that a lot of scientists are not nearly as pure as you portray science to be.
Granted, the ideals of science are pure, but those that practice it aren't. Just like many would say the ideals of Christianity are pure, but those that practice fall far short of the ideals (as witnessed by, say, gay priests molesting children).
Don't mistake the ideal with the reality. The ideals of science and Christianity are both very commendable. The reality is that those that practice each of these "systems" are far less perfect than the ideal, and both systems are perverted by the inherent shortcomings of mankind.P>
So you still think the world is flat like these people did back then? How about 100,000 years ago?
The Bible doesn't say the world is flat. That some people believed the world was flat and happened to be Christians had absolutely nothing to do with the Bible.
I saw the summary for this story and I immediately thought, "Ok, gotta click this one to see how long it takes for someone to recognize the very obvious relation to Genesis and, more interestingly, see how long it takes that resonse to be moderated into hell and the inevitable Slashdot atheist response to be moderated insightful." I must admit that I am surprised that the observation of the similarity to the Bible actually has a higher score than the mindless attempt to say anything to try to discredit anything (even science) that supports the Bible.
Anyway, you atheists and general critics of the Bible better get used to being on the defensive. As science advances, you're going to find more and more similarities between science and the Bible and will have to accept the fact that many of the things "discovered" by science were already known to Christians thousands of years ago. We're glad you're finally accepting what we've known for a long time, but ya gotta admit you were a little slow on the uptake!:)
If you have new neighbors and they're waiting on DSL, be a good neighbor and ring their friggin' doorbell and introduce yourself! If, in the course of the discussion, you realize they need Internet access, offer them your WEP/WAP passphrase and let them join. I'm sure they'll thank you, they'll appreciate your generosity, they won't feel awkward using an unsecured network wondering if the person minds, and you'll have actually met them in the process.
If someone's lost and your house is just about anywhere except in a downtown high-rise, the chance of anyone being lost within 100' of your access point and having a laptop and actually using it to grab a map is extremely remote. What that person needs is a GPS, not free/anonymous Internet access. If they're lost, they can do what's worked for decades: Drive to the next gas station/convenience store and ask for directions. I'll bet they figure out where they are faster than the person that cruises around wardriving for unsecured APs in residential areas.
My attitude is not selfish. But in the current environment, it's far more likely that most unsecured APs will be used for less than noble causes... again, unless you live in the middle of a very dense downtown area. In which case you still have a pretty high risk for less-than-noble uses, but at least you might have a few cases where someone actually uses it for legitimate purposes.
Saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my AP is no more reasonable than saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my SMTP server against open relays.
You're very much right. And, yes, you can easily get hundreds of instructions if you're working on an 8-bit platform. And most price-critical embedded applications still are done on 8-bit processors. Anyone that's doing "embedded development" and working with some version of Windows or Linux have a humorous definition of "embedded." They're either selling just a few of the products so the hardware cost doesn't matter, or they're being awfully lazy by using Linux/Windows to save them the effort of having to do any real embedded development which, God forbid, might mean they have to leave their 'C' compiler behind and get down in the mud in an 8-bit instruction set and get the job done without any crutches.
Do you really think that high-level programming is just C with GUIs? If so, you have a pretty limited understanding of that world. I'm not familiar with VB...
Amazing that you'd comment if you aren't even familiar with all the languages in the discussion.
Anyway, I didn't say that VB was just 'C' with GUIs. But if you've programmed in assembly language, 'C', and VB and you had two make two logical groupings, assembly language would be in one group and 'C' and VB would be in the other.
I can understand thinking that C is high level after working with assembler. I can also understanding thinking that it is very low level after working with high level languages. Both viewpoints have some truth.
Perhaps. But I suspect that if you've worked across the spectrum of languages, 'C' has a lot more in common with high level languages than with a low level language. Like I said elsewhere, I'd be ok with calling 'C' a lower level language than VB, but calling it a low level language really ignores all the "magic" that 'C' does for the developer.
Essentially, if you can write a program in a language with essentially no knowledge of the underlying architecture and/or instruction set, I have an awful hard time calling that a "low level language." And, yes, you can write most 'C' code knowing next to nothing about what's going on under the hood. And this is often a problem in the truly embedded industry; 'C' hotshots come along and think they can just sit down and write good embedded code because they know 'C', but they don't know the first thing about the embedded platform they are compiling for. They produce all kinds of marvelously bad and inefficient code. And because 'C' is such a high-level language, they can often get away with it--until something blows up and they don't have the first idea why because they know nothing about what's going on at the low levels.
See above. 'C' is only "low level" to those that haven't truly worked at a low level. Yes, it is lower level than VB, but it is far from low level. Try coding some of the above arithmetic formulas in assembly and you'll realize just how low level 'C' isn't. 'C' is far higher level than just "abtracting away the registers." Printf? That library function can convert to hundreds--even thousands of instructions (no, I'm not just talking about 80x86/Pentium assembly language here). Floating-point math? Generally a nightmare in assembly language and can, again, correspond to hundreds or thousands of assembly language instructions. Scanf? Same. Etc. etc.
Sure, those are libraries in the language. But if you aren't going to count that as part of what 'C' is, then you shouldn't count all the GUI stuff that makes VB what it is. If we're just going to look at the underlying control structures of every language, every language is low-level. But they aren't. A language is made up of its underlying control structures and the libraries of functions that go with the "core" language. And, in that sense, 'C' is far, far, far away from being "low level."
Again, someone that hasn't worked at a low level will be forgiven for thinking that 'C' is a low level language.
AI? I would think this could be done by running Bayesian statistics on current conditions and current conditions of every weather station within X miles. If you want the prediction for tomorrow, run the Bayesian stats that take into account everything within, say, 600 miles. Two days, 1200 miles, etc. I wouldn't be at all surprised that with a sufficiently large historical dataset, Bayesian statistics would be able to do quite well.
It's amazing how much "smarter" simple statistics can be than our own feeble attempts at intelligence and reasoning.
Haven't people generally considered C to be kind of a cross platform assembler? That certainly seems to be the attitude of the Scheme crowd...
Anyone that considers C to be a "cross-platform assembler" probably has never worked in assembler, and almost definitely hasn't done so on more than one platform.
'C' is only "low level" to those that don't get any closer to the hardware than, say, Visual Basic. Anyone that has programmed in assembly language will assure you that 'C' is quite high level. I'd be willing to accept "mid-level", but in reality once you've worked at the assembly level you will realize that there's very little difference between 'C' and Visual Basic. 'C' and VisualBasic are essentially both high-level languages; but 'C' just seems more intimidating than VisualBasic to the VisualBasic programmer. Those that call 'C' mid-level are probably VisualBasic programmers that think 'C' is intimidating so it clearly can't be a high-level language like VB.
When you write a single line in 'C' and realize that that can correspond to hundreds of assembly language instructions, you realize that 'C' is very much a relatively high-level language. When you try to do floating point math on an 8-bit processor with no floating point instructions, you realize that 'C' is very much a high-level language. When you try to add three numbers and multiply it by a fourth, and you come from 'C', you realize that (1 + 2 + 3) * 4 is a heck of a lot more complicated than you imagined.
The main difference between VB and 'C' is that VB gives you more self-contained packages to let you interact with today's GUI's. 'C' gave you printf which was fine for writing to a terminal. VB gives you all kinds of controls to let you do pretty GUI stuff. The concept is exactly the same, and both are high level.
I say all of this having programmed in assembly language, then Basic, then QuickBasic, then 'C', then VisualBasic, and now almost exclusively 'C' and assembly language in truly embedded systems (embedded != Windows or Linux in a small form factor).
If I leave my AP open and someone transfers kiddie porn or talks to terrorists, sure, maybe I didn't do it myself. But I sure as hell made it easy for someone else to do it. Is that really a good thing?
Secondly, sure, I didn't do it. But it's a hell of a lot easier to secure my AP then get charged with kiddie porn or terrorism and try to build a defense around, "It wasn't me, I just intentionally left my AP wide open for abuse." Kind of like leaving your house unlocked and not taking any action when a group of people walk in and start taking obscene pictures of little kids, and then claiming "I have a policy of leaving my door unlocked, it's not my fault they walked in and did that! I had nothing to do with it, I'm innocent!" Yeah, go sell that to the jury. If you're lucky, you'll be found not guilty by reason of stupidity. If you're not lucky, they'll think you were involved and are making up technical mumbo jumbo to try to get out of it. I dunno, but when being found not guilty by reason of stupidity is your best case scenario, it just doesn't sound attractive to me.
Anyway, the point remains... I don't want my connection being used by terrorists or kiddie porn people even if I'm not going to be held responsible.
Not me, but a lot of people do. My wife does. It's viral. She was on Gaim until enough of her friends and family wanted to talk to her via voice and/or video and Gaim wouldn't do it. So she eventually installed MS MSN. So while I agree that a lot of us would never use audio/voice over Messenger, unfortunately a lot of people do. I'm sure my wife isn't the only person that left Gaim due to it lacking those features.
I agree with all the points you make about ease of use, but don't you regret giving up your freedoms to boot?
That's why it took me three years to leave Linux to go back to Windows. I can never say it was easy to run Linux on my laptop. So the fact I endured it for three years really is testament to the fact that, yes, I liked the freedom. Yes, I got a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I was completely free--in both senses of the word--with Linux and no-one controlled me or what I could do with my laptop.
So instead of being able to do things that I'd like to be able to do on principle but in reality virtually never do in reality(rip audio CDs, burn MP3s, copy DVDs without regard to copyright limitations), I found myself not being able to do things that I do want to do on a daily basis and which no-one is trying to prevent me from doing in Windows (having my laptop hibernate correctly when I shut the lid, having the screen turn off properly, burning a CD to backup my data, being able to stick a USB Bluetooth adapter in and have it work, drive my internal modem without having to pay some money for the WinModem drivers for Linux). These are all things that Linux can do (probably), but none of them "just worked"--and they really aren't rocket science.
I guess it can be argued that defending my never-used freedoms is more important than taking advantage of daily luxuries that no-one is trying to take away. But, as often is said, hey, I have a computer to get work done. It's not like I didn't try. I tried for three years. I put in my time. I even was running Windows under Win4Lin. But at some point it just got to be too much work. When Linux is ready for my laptop desktop, I'll be more than willing to try again. But I'm not going to try again until it is ready. If I install Linux and it doesn't hibernate when I close my laptop and it doesn't turn off the screen after the specified amount of idle time, it's not ready for my laptop desktop.
Note: As I said above, I haven't abandoned Linux. I still use it as my Internet hosting computer as well as my local office server running server-type applications. For that, there's no substitute for Linux (in my opinion). I'll still push people to drop IIS and migrate to Linux. But I am not longer suggesting that Linux is ready for the desktop.
I used Linux (RedHat7.3, then 9.0, and then Fedora Core 3) for 3 years on my laptop desktop. Recently, I started doing work that required I work in Windows, so I got a new laptop that had Win XP installed.
I've believed for years that Linux was ready for the desktop but upon switching back to XP, I realize that that's a fairly questionable viewpoint. Yes, it works, but I got used to the hassles I just treated as "normal." It seems like everything is hit more miss, especially on a laptop. It could tell me how much of my battery was remaining, but couldn't completely shut off my laptop's screen. It wouldn't hibernate when I shut the screen. Getting anything but common hardware to work always required tweaking that was, for me, annoying and caused me to put it off, but would be nearly impossible for an end-user. I had to put up with silly interfaces such as GIMP that no-one can really like.
So when I got my new XP laptop I realized just how much torture I was putting myself through. Everything just works. And, no, the laptop hasn't frozen or crashed a single time in 6 months. I close the laptop screen and it goes to sleep/hibernate. I attach hardware and it just works. I don't have to tweak configuration options when I want to try to burn a CD or DVD. It just works.
I still have my old Linux laptop, but it's acting as my home office server at this point. It hosts Apache for testing websites, it has MySQL going, etc. And if I'm busy doing something on my Windows laptop I *sometimes* lean over and use the Linux machine to browse to a website or two. But for the most part I've put my Linux laptop back to where Linux still is king: The server. The desktop still belongs to Windows. I say that having been an avid Linux desktop user for 3 years.
Win98's EOL is not going to make any significant difference for Linux desktop marketshare.
Thanks for that tip. I'll have to look into it and, if you're right, get that disabled. Why in the world would I want to let a webpage mess up my ALT keys? Strange; also strange it only happens sometimes. But thanks again!
From what I see, most have not even read them. Wikipedia encourages folks to jump in and start editing
It's too friggin' easy. I've almost done it by mistake several times. I go to Wiki searching for something, find the article, and search for a specific keyword. For some reason (which isn't clear to me yet), sometimes hitting ALT-E will cause Wiki to let me start editing the article rather than opening up the drop-down Edit window (so I can subsequently hit 'F' for Find). So instead of searching for something on the page, all the sudden Wiki is offering to let me edit it. If I hit the wrong keystroke and caused that to be submitted, wow, talk about uncontrolled editing!
I think Wiki is great, there's a lot of good information. But there are some very significant biases. Kind of like Slashdot. There are a lot of smart people here, but there are some significant biases. Not all of them are reasonable. For what Wiki is, it's surprisingly good. You just have to be intelligent enough to recognize the bias and "correct" for it when necessary. But that's true whether you read Wiki, read Slashdot, read CNN, or listen to the president. Everyone has a bias--the best solution would be to know what the bias of the author is when you're reading it for those people who aren't perceptive enough to figure it out by reading the article.
At the very least Wiki gives you a heck of a lot of information on a topic which makes it a lot easier to refine your Googling efforts. Wikipedia entries are often near the top of Google results, so I usually read them first. That gives me enough knowledge on the topic that I then know what I really need to Google for.
401k's shouldn't be the sum total of your investment portfolio. No-one can stop you from diversifying. Instead of spending money on a 50" flat-screen TV for your wall, invest that money wisely and spread it around.
This doesn't excuse accounting fraud, but anyone that lost their entire life savings on Enron invested very foolishly. There's a reason why you are supposed to diversify.
She went to a payphone and called 911 and hung around till the cops came. No ambulance, just cops. Nobody heard from him for a week until he turned up as a John Doe at UCI, comatose with no wallet. We know he had his wallet on him because the reason he was in Mission Viejo was to pick up his wallet from his friend's house. A request for the police report got the 1st of 9 pages. The last 8 pages cannot be found. The doctor at UCI told my aunt that the injury he had could only be cause by upward blunt trauma to the nose and normally would cause INSTANT paralysis. Cops say he hit his face on the handlebars. Of course, the ONLY damage to his face is to his nose.
So what are you saying? That a lady called 911 and reported the thing and at that point the decision was already made to screw your cousin over? Obviously so, otherwise an ambulance would have been sent. Instead, they send cops who found an injured person on the side of the road with a witness (the lady) hanging around and, after the fact, decided to beat the crap out of someone who had his foot impaled on the foot rest, take his wallet, and leave him in a coma in the hospital?
Dropping from 55 immediately to 25 is unreasonable.
Absolutely. I'd like to know where that is. I've driven through lots of small highway towns and the speed limit always drops from 65 down to 55 down to 45 and then it might drop to 30, but even then it usually goes to 35 first. I've never seen 55 to 25.
Slashdot is a world wide form so I have to ask, what country are you living in?
U.S.
Here in the usa, if I act like an ass towards the police I'm harrassed the maximum allowed by law, at least entertained for a hour or so, and I'd expect it at least. The other hand if the cop is an ass, if I could do something, now I can't even prove it happened? I'd demand nothing less than a termination of all parties involed with this case.
That might be appropriate. But just as appropriate is not to be an ass in the first place. If I remember correctly, I've been pulled over by police on 5 occasions in a total of 4 states for minor traffic violations (three cases of speeding, two cases of being pulled over for the same burned-out tail light in the course of 30 minutes). In every case the officer was completely professional and polite. So I definitely don't buy the "99% of cops are assholes" nonsense. I'm thinking that people that have that impression are probably the assholes themselves.
Not really the same thing. Burning down a post office is illegal. Whether you get convicted is based on whether or not there's sufficient evidence to support the assertion that you did it. But just because you don't get convicted doesn't mean the act of burning down a post office is not illegal.
In the Bush/wiretapping case, the question is whether or not it's illegal, not whether or not he instructed it to be done. Bush has recognized the fact that he ordered warrantless wiretapping in certain cases; Bush does not dispute it. The question is whether or not it is illegal. And, no, that hasn't been determined yet.
* Note: Simply pointing to FISA does not prove your case. The U.S. legal system isn't just about the law but about the interpretation of those laws through precedent. So not only do you have to look at FISA, you have to look at court rulings since it was enacted. Any court that reviews the subject won't just look at FISA but also at legal precedent since FISA. That hasn't been done yet so, no, it's not known whether or not it was illegal. There are just strong opinions on both sides.
Not defending the charges in this case (which do seem 100% bogus), but I have found that if you respect the police, they will respect you. If you treat the cops like assholes, they'll probably do the same to you. Now arguably it shouldn't be that way since the cops should be expected to behave professionaly even if the citizen doesn't. The reality, though, is that police are people too and just like we probably would not react perfectly to someone treating us with disresect on the job, police probably don't either. Treating others how you want to be treated is a good way to live life and usually brings the exact results you're looking for.
Now something definitely seems wrong with this police department since the charges are nonsense and it seems like, at that point, they are harassing the citizen. But they do mention the guy's kid is being investigated for some crimes, the guy hasn't been cooperative in the past, and has been verbally abusive. And my completely inappropriate "judge a book by its cover" sensors tell me that by looking at the guy's picture in the article, he rather looks like an uncooperative, verbally abusive redneck. So I suspect that while these charges against him are completely wrong and inappropriate, I get the distinct feeling this isn't some average Joe that's being randomly victimized for no reason by the police. I think there's more to the story here than we know.
Hopefully the brainwashing of my socialist upbringing will start to fade with time.
The "all you can drink" refillable sodas is more socialistic than the "pay for each refill." Those that drink a lot of soda are being subsidized by those that only drink one and leave. Ironically, captalism has driven the industry to such socialistic measures.:)
Anyway, "convenience centers" (or serving your own drinks) doesn't bother me. As mentioned, you get to prepare your drink exactly like you want it, you get to refill as many times as you'd like, you don't spend as long in line waiting for them to prepare drinks for the customers in front of you, and McDs can serve more customers more quickly. Isn't it great when something works out for everyone?
If you want your drink filled and ready-to-go, use drive-thru! Then not only do you have to not be bothered to fill your drink, your lazy butt doesn't even have to get out of the car.
Name calling doesn't help the tone of the debate much either. Why don't you try looking for the valid parts of their argument instead of just dismissing them as "nut jobs"?
Valid point. The insanity and their overstating the case gets to me after awhile. And it's been more than a decade.
They may be overstating things, but there are real problems at the core of their concerns.
I'm not so sure there are. I fully support efforts to keep our water clean, our air clean, and reduce the contaminants that we spew into the air. I hate seeing a brown cloud of pollution as much as the next guy. I don't litter and I don't take leaks in streams when I'm camping. These are all things that make sense.
I do take issue with placing CO2 in the category of a "pollutant." I really do. Those that wish to reduce CO2 output should feel free to stop breathing any time; their contribution to the effort will be appreciated.
My opinion is that humanity doesn't have to worry about extinction, but it definitely does have to worry about massive die-offs due to extreme resource shortages
And I find that to be overstating the case as much as the other messages I've responded to in this thread.
It's not that I'm in denial. It's that I've looked at the evidence we have so far, weighed it, and I do not reach the same dire conclusions; or I at least recognize the lack of certainty in those predictions. Sure, certain areas might become less fertile for growing food, but other places will become more fertile. The gloom and doomers have no more concrete evidence to back up the belief that this will ultimately be a net loss than I do to back up my belief that it will be a neutral change or even a net-gain. Someone may assert that I'm engaged in "wishful thinking" but it's just as valid for me to turn around and say, "Yeah, well you're engaged in pesimistic thinking."
Even if we assume that the earth is warmer and that man had something to do with it, we're far from certain that that's really a bad thing. The Little Ice Age was definitely not a good thing for humanity and I think it's definitely good that we're now living in a warmer climate.
Slashdot Mirror
Restated: Most people are biased. Scientists are people. Thus it is not unreasonable to believe that scientists are biased unless shown evidence that they aren't.
Your suggestion that I am a serial killer because you don't have any evidence to the contrary would make sense if the statement "Most people are serial killers" were true. It isn't.
Your logic fails because it assumes a false premise. Mine doesn't. Run along, Anonymous Coward, and continue living in your dreamworld where scientists are pure and unbiased. I assume you don't even believe the dung you're shoveling and are just trolling. Well done.
Granted, the ideals of science are pure, but those that practice it aren't. Just like many would say the ideals of Christianity are pure, but those that practice fall far short of the ideals (as witnessed by, say, gay priests molesting children).
Don't mistake the ideal with the reality. The ideals of science and Christianity are both very commendable. The reality is that those that practice each of these "systems" are far less perfect than the ideal, and both systems are perverted by the inherent shortcomings of mankind.P>
The Bible doesn't say the world is flat. That some people believed the world was flat and happened to be Christians had absolutely nothing to do with the Bible.
I saw the summary for this story and I immediately thought, "Ok, gotta click this one to see how long it takes for someone to recognize the very obvious relation to Genesis and, more interestingly, see how long it takes that resonse to be moderated into hell and the inevitable Slashdot atheist response to be moderated insightful." I must admit that I am surprised that the observation of the similarity to the Bible actually has a higher score than the mindless attempt to say anything to try to discredit anything (even science) that supports the Bible.
Anyway, you atheists and general critics of the Bible better get used to being on the defensive. As science advances, you're going to find more and more similarities between science and the Bible and will have to accept the fact that many of the things "discovered" by science were already known to Christians thousands of years ago. We're glad you're finally accepting what we've known for a long time, but ya gotta admit you were a little slow on the uptake! :)
If someone's lost and your house is just about anywhere except in a downtown high-rise, the chance of anyone being lost within 100' of your access point and having a laptop and actually using it to grab a map is extremely remote. What that person needs is a GPS, not free/anonymous Internet access. If they're lost, they can do what's worked for decades: Drive to the next gas station/convenience store and ask for directions. I'll bet they figure out where they are faster than the person that cruises around wardriving for unsecured APs in residential areas.
My attitude is not selfish. But in the current environment, it's far more likely that most unsecured APs will be used for less than noble causes... again, unless you live in the middle of a very dense downtown area. In which case you still have a pretty high risk for less-than-noble uses, but at least you might have a few cases where someone actually uses it for legitimate purposes.
Saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my AP is no more reasonable than saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my SMTP server against open relays.
Amazing that you'd comment if you aren't even familiar with all the languages in the discussion.
Anyway, I didn't say that VB was just 'C' with GUIs. But if you've programmed in assembly language, 'C', and VB and you had two make two logical groupings, assembly language would be in one group and 'C' and VB would be in the other.
I can understand thinking that C is high level after working with assembler. I can also understanding thinking that it is very low level after working with high level languages. Both viewpoints have some truth.
Perhaps. But I suspect that if you've worked across the spectrum of languages, 'C' has a lot more in common with high level languages than with a low level language. Like I said elsewhere, I'd be ok with calling 'C' a lower level language than VB, but calling it a low level language really ignores all the "magic" that 'C' does for the developer.
Essentially, if you can write a program in a language with essentially no knowledge of the underlying architecture and/or instruction set, I have an awful hard time calling that a "low level language." And, yes, you can write most 'C' code knowing next to nothing about what's going on under the hood. And this is often a problem in the truly embedded industry; 'C' hotshots come along and think they can just sit down and write good embedded code because they know 'C', but they don't know the first thing about the embedded platform they are compiling for. They produce all kinds of marvelously bad and inefficient code. And because 'C' is such a high-level language, they can often get away with it--until something blows up and they don't have the first idea why because they know nothing about what's going on at the low levels.
Sure, those are libraries in the language. But if you aren't going to count that as part of what 'C' is, then you shouldn't count all the GUI stuff that makes VB what it is. If we're just going to look at the underlying control structures of every language, every language is low-level. But they aren't. A language is made up of its underlying control structures and the libraries of functions that go with the "core" language. And, in that sense, 'C' is far, far, far away from being "low level."
Again, someone that hasn't worked at a low level will be forgiven for thinking that 'C' is a low level language.
It's amazing how much "smarter" simple statistics can be than our own feeble attempts at intelligence and reasoning.
Anyone that considers C to be a "cross-platform assembler" probably has never worked in assembler, and almost definitely hasn't done so on more than one platform.
'C' is only "low level" to those that don't get any closer to the hardware than, say, Visual Basic. Anyone that has programmed in assembly language will assure you that 'C' is quite high level. I'd be willing to accept "mid-level", but in reality once you've worked at the assembly level you will realize that there's very little difference between 'C' and Visual Basic. 'C' and VisualBasic are essentially both high-level languages; but 'C' just seems more intimidating than VisualBasic to the VisualBasic programmer. Those that call 'C' mid-level are probably VisualBasic programmers that think 'C' is intimidating so it clearly can't be a high-level language like VB.
When you write a single line in 'C' and realize that that can correspond to hundreds of assembly language instructions, you realize that 'C' is very much a relatively high-level language. When you try to do floating point math on an 8-bit processor with no floating point instructions, you realize that 'C' is very much a high-level language. When you try to add three numbers and multiply it by a fourth, and you come from 'C', you realize that (1 + 2 + 3) * 4 is a heck of a lot more complicated than you imagined.
The main difference between VB and 'C' is that VB gives you more self-contained packages to let you interact with today's GUI's. 'C' gave you printf which was fine for writing to a terminal. VB gives you all kinds of controls to let you do pretty GUI stuff. The concept is exactly the same, and both are high level.
I say all of this having programmed in assembly language, then Basic, then QuickBasic, then 'C', then VisualBasic, and now almost exclusively 'C' and assembly language in truly embedded systems (embedded != Windows or Linux in a small form factor).
If I leave my AP open and someone transfers kiddie porn or talks to terrorists, sure, maybe I didn't do it myself. But I sure as hell made it easy for someone else to do it. Is that really a good thing?
Secondly, sure, I didn't do it. But it's a hell of a lot easier to secure my AP then get charged with kiddie porn or terrorism and try to build a defense around, "It wasn't me, I just intentionally left my AP wide open for abuse." Kind of like leaving your house unlocked and not taking any action when a group of people walk in and start taking obscene pictures of little kids, and then claiming "I have a policy of leaving my door unlocked, it's not my fault they walked in and did that! I had nothing to do with it, I'm innocent!" Yeah, go sell that to the jury. If you're lucky, you'll be found not guilty by reason of stupidity. If you're not lucky, they'll think you were involved and are making up technical mumbo jumbo to try to get out of it. I dunno, but when being found not guilty by reason of stupidity is your best case scenario, it just doesn't sound attractive to me.
Anyway, the point remains... I don't want my connection being used by terrorists or kiddie porn people even if I'm not going to be held responsible.
Secure your damn AP, please.
That's why it took me three years to leave Linux to go back to Windows. I can never say it was easy to run Linux on my laptop. So the fact I endured it for three years really is testament to the fact that, yes, I liked the freedom. Yes, I got a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that I was completely free--in both senses of the word--with Linux and no-one controlled me or what I could do with my laptop.
So instead of being able to do things that I'd like to be able to do on principle but in reality virtually never do in reality(rip audio CDs, burn MP3s, copy DVDs without regard to copyright limitations), I found myself not being able to do things that I do want to do on a daily basis and which no-one is trying to prevent me from doing in Windows (having my laptop hibernate correctly when I shut the lid, having the screen turn off properly, burning a CD to backup my data, being able to stick a USB Bluetooth adapter in and have it work, drive my internal modem without having to pay some money for the WinModem drivers for Linux). These are all things that Linux can do (probably), but none of them "just worked"--and they really aren't rocket science.
I guess it can be argued that defending my never-used freedoms is more important than taking advantage of daily luxuries that no-one is trying to take away. But, as often is said, hey, I have a computer to get work done. It's not like I didn't try. I tried for three years. I put in my time. I even was running Windows under Win4Lin. But at some point it just got to be too much work. When Linux is ready for my laptop desktop, I'll be more than willing to try again. But I'm not going to try again until it is ready. If I install Linux and it doesn't hibernate when I close my laptop and it doesn't turn off the screen after the specified amount of idle time, it's not ready for my laptop desktop.
Note: As I said above, I haven't abandoned Linux. I still use it as my Internet hosting computer as well as my local office server running server-type applications. For that, there's no substitute for Linux (in my opinion). I'll still push people to drop IIS and migrate to Linux. But I am not longer suggesting that Linux is ready for the desktop.
I've believed for years that Linux was ready for the desktop but upon switching back to XP, I realize that that's a fairly questionable viewpoint. Yes, it works, but I got used to the hassles I just treated as "normal." It seems like everything is hit more miss, especially on a laptop. It could tell me how much of my battery was remaining, but couldn't completely shut off my laptop's screen. It wouldn't hibernate when I shut the screen. Getting anything but common hardware to work always required tweaking that was, for me, annoying and caused me to put it off, but would be nearly impossible for an end-user. I had to put up with silly interfaces such as GIMP that no-one can really like.
So when I got my new XP laptop I realized just how much torture I was putting myself through. Everything just works. And, no, the laptop hasn't frozen or crashed a single time in 6 months. I close the laptop screen and it goes to sleep/hibernate. I attach hardware and it just works. I don't have to tweak configuration options when I want to try to burn a CD or DVD. It just works.
I still have my old Linux laptop, but it's acting as my home office server at this point. It hosts Apache for testing websites, it has MySQL going, etc. And if I'm busy doing something on my Windows laptop I *sometimes* lean over and use the Linux machine to browse to a website or two. But for the most part I've put my Linux laptop back to where Linux still is king: The server. The desktop still belongs to Windows. I say that having been an avid Linux desktop user for 3 years.
Win98's EOL is not going to make any significant difference for Linux desktop marketshare.
Thanks for that tip. I'll have to look into it and, if you're right, get that disabled. Why in the world would I want to let a webpage mess up my ALT keys? Strange; also strange it only happens sometimes. But thanks again!
It's too friggin' easy. I've almost done it by mistake several times. I go to Wiki searching for something, find the article, and search for a specific keyword. For some reason (which isn't clear to me yet), sometimes hitting ALT-E will cause Wiki to let me start editing the article rather than opening up the drop-down Edit window (so I can subsequently hit 'F' for Find). So instead of searching for something on the page, all the sudden Wiki is offering to let me edit it. If I hit the wrong keystroke and caused that to be submitted, wow, talk about uncontrolled editing!
I think Wiki is great, there's a lot of good information. But there are some very significant biases. Kind of like Slashdot. There are a lot of smart people here, but there are some significant biases. Not all of them are reasonable. For what Wiki is, it's surprisingly good. You just have to be intelligent enough to recognize the bias and "correct" for it when necessary. But that's true whether you read Wiki, read Slashdot, read CNN, or listen to the president. Everyone has a bias--the best solution would be to know what the bias of the author is when you're reading it for those people who aren't perceptive enough to figure it out by reading the article.
At the very least Wiki gives you a heck of a lot of information on a topic which makes it a lot easier to refine your Googling efforts. Wikipedia entries are often near the top of Google results, so I usually read them first. That gives me enough knowledge on the topic that I then know what I really need to Google for.
This doesn't excuse accounting fraud, but anyone that lost their entire life savings on Enron invested very foolishly. There's a reason why you are supposed to diversify.
So what are you saying? That a lady called 911 and reported the thing and at that point the decision was already made to screw your cousin over? Obviously so, otherwise an ambulance would have been sent. Instead, they send cops who found an injured person on the side of the road with a witness (the lady) hanging around and, after the fact, decided to beat the crap out of someone who had his foot impaled on the foot rest, take his wallet, and leave him in a coma in the hospital?
I'm sorry, sir, I'm just not buying it.
Absolutely. I'd like to know where that is. I've driven through lots of small highway towns and the speed limit always drops from 65 down to 55 down to 45 and then it might drop to 30, but even then it usually goes to 35 first. I've never seen 55 to 25.
U.S.
Here in the usa, if I act like an ass towards the police I'm harrassed the maximum allowed by law, at least entertained for a hour or so, and I'd expect it at least. The other hand if the cop is an ass, if I could do something, now I can't even prove it happened? I'd demand nothing less than a termination of all parties involed with this case.
That might be appropriate. But just as appropriate is not to be an ass in the first place. If I remember correctly, I've been pulled over by police on 5 occasions in a total of 4 states for minor traffic violations (three cases of speeding, two cases of being pulled over for the same burned-out tail light in the course of 30 minutes). In every case the officer was completely professional and polite. So I definitely don't buy the "99% of cops are assholes" nonsense. I'm thinking that people that have that impression are probably the assholes themselves.
In the Bush/wiretapping case, the question is whether or not it's illegal, not whether or not he instructed it to be done. Bush has recognized the fact that he ordered warrantless wiretapping in certain cases; Bush does not dispute it. The question is whether or not it is illegal. And, no, that hasn't been determined yet.
* Note: Simply pointing to FISA does not prove your case. The U.S. legal system isn't just about the law but about the interpretation of those laws through precedent. So not only do you have to look at FISA, you have to look at court rulings since it was enacted. Any court that reviews the subject won't just look at FISA but also at legal precedent since FISA. That hasn't been done yet so, no, it's not known whether or not it was illegal. There are just strong opinions on both sides.
Now something definitely seems wrong with this police department since the charges are nonsense and it seems like, at that point, they are harassing the citizen. But they do mention the guy's kid is being investigated for some crimes, the guy hasn't been cooperative in the past, and has been verbally abusive. And my completely inappropriate "judge a book by its cover" sensors tell me that by looking at the guy's picture in the article, he rather looks like an uncooperative, verbally abusive redneck. So I suspect that while these charges against him are completely wrong and inappropriate, I get the distinct feeling this isn't some average Joe that's being randomly victimized for no reason by the police. I think there's more to the story here than we know.
The "all you can drink" refillable sodas is more socialistic than the "pay for each refill." Those that drink a lot of soda are being subsidized by those that only drink one and leave. Ironically, captalism has driven the industry to such socialistic measures.
Anyway, "convenience centers" (or serving your own drinks) doesn't bother me. As mentioned, you get to prepare your drink exactly like you want it, you get to refill as many times as you'd like, you don't spend as long in line waiting for them to prepare drinks for the customers in front of you, and McDs can serve more customers more quickly. Isn't it great when something works out for everyone?
If you want your drink filled and ready-to-go, use drive-thru! Then not only do you have to not be bothered to fill your drink, your lazy butt doesn't even have to get out of the car.
Valid point. The insanity and their overstating the case gets to me after awhile. And it's been more than a decade.
They may be overstating things, but there are real problems at the core of their concerns.
I'm not so sure there are. I fully support efforts to keep our water clean, our air clean, and reduce the contaminants that we spew into the air. I hate seeing a brown cloud of pollution as much as the next guy. I don't litter and I don't take leaks in streams when I'm camping. These are all things that make sense.
I do take issue with placing CO2 in the category of a "pollutant." I really do. Those that wish to reduce CO2 output should feel free to stop breathing any time; their contribution to the effort will be appreciated.
My opinion is that humanity doesn't have to worry about extinction, but it definitely does have to worry about massive die-offs due to extreme resource shortages
And I find that to be overstating the case as much as the other messages I've responded to in this thread.
It's not that I'm in denial. It's that I've looked at the evidence we have so far, weighed it, and I do not reach the same dire conclusions; or I at least recognize the lack of certainty in those predictions. Sure, certain areas might become less fertile for growing food, but other places will become more fertile. The gloom and doomers have no more concrete evidence to back up the belief that this will ultimately be a net loss than I do to back up my belief that it will be a neutral change or even a net-gain. Someone may assert that I'm engaged in "wishful thinking" but it's just as valid for me to turn around and say, "Yeah, well you're engaged in pesimistic thinking."
Even if we assume that the earth is warmer and that man had something to do with it, we're far from certain that that's really a bad thing. The Little Ice Age was definitely not a good thing for humanity and I think it's definitely good that we're now living in a warmer climate.