You are not alone with that usage pattern. (And I am happy to see that neither am I, after all.)
I was "forced" to upgrade to 57 yesterday, due to that restart, unfortunately. Since then, many of the tabs in my ~50 browser windows just won't render. They remain blank, or flicker with various black rectangles that. New tabs are the same. Occasionally it works, and a page gets displayed.
I am seriously considering downgrading to 56. This is on Xubuntu 17.04, an i5 CPU machine with 16 GiB RAM. (So _that_ shouldn't be the issue.)
I haven't posted on Slashdot for a while, but I find it necessary to point this out. IMO it _is_ a problem with goto.
The code was structured like this: if(err=aFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) goto cleanup; if(err=anotherFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) goto cleanup;.. err = oneLastFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode(); if(err != 0) { doSomeLogging(); goto cleanup; }//hey - a redundant goto! cleanup: freeStuff(); return err;
It could have been written completely without gotos like this: if((err=aFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) == 0) if((err=anotherFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) == 0).. if((err = oneLastFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) { doSomeLogging(); }//For some reason we only want to log the error from the last call freeStuff(); return err;
No gotos needed at all! The code is shorter, and IMHO easier to read as well.
I am an atheist, but I have close relatives who belong to religious communities, include a couple of catholic cousins. I don't think that religious people are inherently bad or evil. I do, however, think they have been systematically brainwashed. Oh, btw my standpoint on Islam is the exact opposite of yours, I have very much against Islam, but we have many nice Muslims here in Denmark, and I don't have any problems with them.
Maybe you are right: organized religion doesn't cause suffering. However, there is strong evidence that religious organizations constitute a framework that allows suffering to happen on a large scale: the most recent example being the Ryan report in Ireland.
And to add insult to injury - literally - a Spanish cardinal Canizares has tried to trivialize the abuse by saying that abortion is worse.
Now, I am no expect on the catholic church and its hierarchy, but I think a cardinal is a rather high-placed figure. So the catholic church - as a religious organization - seems to be trying to sweep a lot of stuff under the carpet. I realise it may not be the catholic religion as such, that causes the suffering. If religious people decide voluntarily not to fuck before some other religious person of the same creed - who has voluntarily decided not to fuck at all ever - has performed some weird ritual, fine by me.
However, it seems there are no organized religions that do not have some sort of religious organization in some kind of control, and those organizations are - to me anyway - obviously corrupt, hypocritical, and downright evil. And as organized religion apparantly doesn't make sense without a religious organization, the organized religion becomes guilty by direct association.
Now, it would seem that if righteous believers recognized that the organization controlling their religion was corrupt and evil, they could rebel against it and try to change the organization. And indeed this has happened: a case in point could be the Lutheran reformation. However, the new organization, while perhaps not *quite* as evil as the old one, still seems to have problems. Therefore I am compelled to think that the cause of evil is not the organization, but the religion itself.
As it happens, I consider myself a religious person, even though I am an atheist. I even believe in Jesus. I do not believe in any form of miracle, but I do adhere to many of the teachings that are attributed to Jesus in the bible. Christianity as a philosophy is not inherently bad, and a historical Jesus, who made company with people outcast from society, is a person I can admire to some extent, even if I may not agree with all the ideas that are attributed to him. Just as I can admire Gautama Buddha, Confucius or Lao-Tzu. I do, however, prefer to decide for myself, which of their ideas I find agreeable, and I am perfectly capable of separating them and their ideas from the organized religions their "successors" have created. Even the allegedly most "peaceful" of all organized religions, Buddhism, has aspects that are absolutely appalling to me. Aspects, that I do not consider compatible with their origins - but who am I to tell a religious organization that their rules are obviously opposite to what their founder taught, according to my interpretation? I doubt that Gautama had any intentions that people should make statues of him to be revered religiously. And I doubt that he would condone a massacre of 20000 hindu tamils. (For some reason, though, I find it likely that Mohammed would have had fewer problems with such a massacre.)
Thus, I believe that people who submit themselves to organized religion are forced to do so, either through their upbringing, or through brainwash later in life, often facilitated by a personal crisis, making them easy victims. Ignorance also helps./Lasse
Thank you for mentioning Brazil. The second I saw the heading, I was certain someone would have - this is really insane. Although Denmark is rapidly approaching similar levels of government bureaucracy insanity, we are still a few years behind - much to the dismay of our stupid, but eagerly willing prime minister. But if I had to choose between the world of Brazil, and the USA, I would pick Brazil, it would be the saner place of the two. Also, I know a few things about plumbing, ducts and the proper application of duct tape, after all, although I am not exactly a Robert De Niro lookalike.
Doesn't neuroscience have a good explanation for precisely that problem?
I have been reading Damasio, who describes people who are blatantly unaware of being completely paralyzed on one side of the body. When you demonstrate the limpness of their arm and leg on the paralyzed side, they are puzzled for a moment, then gloss over it, and forget about it completely after a little time. Also, it is well-known that certain substances will affect the belief of various facts and conditions, like a person on LSD being convinced he is able to fly.
Thus it should not be surprising that even educated people can hold beliefs they should be capable of debunking easily. You just have to want to believe something strongly enough.
In fact (!), I believe (!), that it is the people who claim to be completely rational, who are the really deceived ones. I strongly doubt that it is possible to live without having beliefs that are not rationally based. You just can't rationalize feelings and emotions; lust, desires, aestetics, and ethics. I am not saying that there isn't a rational explanation for these things (having to do with levels of various hormones), but that they do not perform a rational function in the person having them. For example, you cannot rationally explain your love for another person. It follows, that such irrational beliefs serve a purpose, for example making possible social groups. It is also clear, that such an irrational love or devotion, when directed towards certain targets, may become problematic. A fetishist who has a strong urge to obtain the used underwear of women he knows definitely has a problem. Just like a muslim, who believes that it is an insult to his God (or his prophet, the apparant inability to really make this distiction is another issue) to name a teddy bear after the prophet. But note that it is not having a belief or urge that is problematic, but the particular kind of belief.
I didn't say your argument was equivalent to Pascal's wager, just that it reminded me of it.
As for your evidence that ETI could exist, I suppose you mean that because TI exists, it follows that (more advanced) ETI could also exist. Sorry, but I can use the same "proof technique" on Hell: Terrestrial Suffering exists, therefore (more advanced) Extraterrestrial Suffering could exists. I identify more advanced Extraterrestrial Suffering with Hell. (Pascal's hypothesis that nonbelievers would also somehow _go_ to Hell is irrelevant.)
I am not saying that we need a feedback loop to benefit from SETI. We benefit already from the knowledge gained by observing the universe surrounding us. A candidate ETIgram would be no different. But how would we discern an ETIgram from radiation caused by a natural process not involving intelligence? I am saying that this identification is only possible if we can interact. OK, another method used to identify intelligence on our own planet is to observe the behaviour of a group of animals. Somehow that doesn't seem much easier when ETI is considered...
Wow. That reminds me of Pascal's wager. While Pascal's wager is interesting - and I have the deepest respect and love for Pascals thinking - it is also, in my opinion, wrong. But back to SETI. In the SETI case, the benefits are rather more "wordly" one would think? Or are they? Suppose we did identify a signal as being from an intelligent source. How would we verify that this was indeed true? After all, people are inclined to see patterns as "proof of sentience", when this is not the case. Are the patterns seen in fractals a result of intelligence, or a curious sideeffect of applying a trivial algorithm?
To answer this question we could look at how we attempt to identify intelligence in subjects where intelligence is far more likely to occur: Animals. How do we go about that? We try to communicate with them - try to provoke reactions that imply some sort of consideration was used to form the response.
And this is precisely why SETI is going to be difficult, to the point where I would not hesitate to call it futile. We have obviously devoted lots of attention to our closest astronomical neighbors, and found no evidence. The further away we get, the more impossible the thought of actual communication becomes. So what would be the benefit of knowing about a civilization 1000 light-years away? Apart from the fact itself, what would we gain? How would we proceed, once we discover the signal? How could we maintain a communicative relationship over a timespan longer than historic time? OK, so for 2K years, it might be doable: we could send a SYN-ACK astrogram, and wait another 4K years for the next packet. But finding ETI so close should be comparatively easier as well, and yet, nothing.
Sorry, but unless we discover ways to communicate that violate the limits imposed by what is currently considered well-established physical laws, even the reception of a candidate SETI signal would be of approximately zero value. The validation alone would require a feedback loop spanning millennia, and getting to a point where a common vocabulary was established, through which ideas advanced enough to be interesting could be communicated, would take millions of years. It really doesn't sound cost-effective to me.
Wow. A (-1) flamebait mod. I'm not sure if this is actually a first for me, but it definitely comes as a surprise. A sad surprise, may I add. I would by far have preferred a proper argument.
So I presume that you will agree that a huge amount of religious works, including the bible, should be banned, as they offend me by contradicting and thus denying a well-established historical fact, the fact of biological evolution. No? Then perhaps banning holocaust denial is also a bad idea.
Again, my point in writing here is that I get the shivers each time politicians in a European country try to impose a little censorship, like Italy this time. (Last time was German minister of justice B. Zypriess, trying to extend their ridiculous nazi-complex to all of Europe, fortunately that was also prevented.) The reason I am scared is that there is actually a chance that such a law would also be implemented in Denmark, and I would really, really hate that. Not because I sympathize in any way with nazis, but because it is important to uphold the "neutrality" of freedom of speech, as it was formulated by Voltaire: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."
Once you allow censorship, you'll soon see that it can just as easily be used to opress the truth.
Nonsense. If you don't want teens exploited, have laws that forbid *that*. Then, when a site posts porn showing girls who didn't consent to this, use that law instead. No need to have carte blanche laws to rubber stamp whatever type of censorship you would like.
I notice your.il website. So let me ask you a question directly. I presume it is forbidden in Israel, just like it is in Germany and a couple other European countries, to deny holocaust. Now the question: Is it also forbidden to say that water isn't wet? If no, why not? Why is the absurd denial of one known fact allowed, and the equally absurd denial of another, forbidden? I never understood the logic behind that. Insult? I can't see how anyone could be insulted by someone demonstrating extreme stupidity. If someone would try to insult me, for example by saying my mother was a prostitute, it would be pointless. It would be like trying to insult me by saying 2+2=5.
In my opinion, censorship of nazism is itself nazism. The creeps thrive far better underground, so by all means let us keep them out in the open, where we can watch them, ridicule them, and above all be aware of them.
Censorship is bad, end of story. That is not to say that there should be no penalty for publishing certain things (child porn being the obvious example), but that these matters can be dealt with without (preemptive) censorship. There is no red line.
Here in Denmark (and I guess there are other places with a similar system), Danish authors and translators who have their books in libraries, can apply for a grant, which depends on the number of copies of their works in Danish libraries. This is a form of Public Lending Right compensation, and is not based in copyright law. It is only paid for works in Danish (originals or translations to Danish), and should be viewed more as a way to support Danish language and culture. The pay varies between (this year) 1737 DKR (the least amount that is paid out) up to 752060 DKR. 21784 authors applied, but only 8564 had enough copies in libraries to qualify, of these, more than half got paid less than 5000 DKR. The most prolific and popular writers probably could live quite well of nothing else but this "welfare", the five top payouts all being above 500000 DKR. 1 USD is around 5.30 DKR (the greenback isn't worth much these days, eh?), so that's a bit less than 100K USD per year.
The fairness of such a system, of course, is open for debate. An argument could be made, that the top authors get a significant profit from their sales, and thus don't really need any additional subsidy, whereas "narrow-scope" literature (poetry, for example) hardly has a market worth speaking of, despite being of "greater cultural value". I believe the system for calculating the grant takes this into account to a degree. Literature for children and youth is particularly encouraged, and it is no surprise that the top scoring author is the very popular Bjarne Reuter.
Silly Coward, I didn't say he doesn't pay, I said he doesn't pay his health care with his taxes, he pays for the right to have free access to health care. The health care system, funded by his taxes, has an obligation to give him that access, by paying for his health care. His cost is thus not directly coupled to the actual price of the healthcare he may need, although it may be a contributing factor.
We all know the distinction between "free as in beer" and "free as in freedom". Maybe there is a third meaning of "free": "as you like or need"?
And I don't know about you, but I pay (at the supermarket) for the groceries I use to cook our meals. I don't pay for the meal at the dinner table. The meal is free, the groceries aren't. I don't even calculate an exact price for the meal. And maybe it would even be too hard. Should I amortize the cost of the silverware and plates the meal is served on, and add that? What about the apples I used for the dessert, they are from the tree in front of the house; should I calculate the cost of buying that tree as some fraction of the price of the house and ground on which it stands? Oh, and I had to buy a bottle of vinegar to prepare this meal, although I only used a few drops, should I include the entire price of the bottle now, even if I put the almost full bottle in the fridge? But then, next time I make a salad, and use the - now fully paid - vinegar shouldn't I calculate the vinegar at zero cost? Yes? Then why can't I do that with all the other ingredients right away? What if my son's friend eats with us? Is it free for him? Sometimes our son eats at his place? So does the friends mother pay partially for our meal, by allowing my son to eat with them sometimes? What did they eat, how often did it happen? Who's turn is it next time?
I will postulate that there are many valuable things, for which a price calculation would be so complex that it would display fractal behaviour and vary wildly, depending on what level of detail you look at. For the exchange of such valuables, it is more efficient - not to mention fair - to just use a gift economy instead of calculating an approximate and opaque price either in money or in other equivalent goods, simply because such an equivalence is impossible to define.
I think the biggest problem facing the world right now is that price is viewed as more important than value. People think everything has a price, and needs to have its price set - not so: everything has value, but many valuable things are absolutely priceless. Good health is only one such thing. If you have it, you can't sell it. So if you don't have it and need it, why should you have to buy it?
OK, troll, I'll accept your flamebait. Could you be more specific in your criticism, instead of the void statements you posted, questioning my mental fitness instead of my post?
As for my beer example, you seem to lack elementary comprehension skills, to the point that I strongly suspect you must be a libertarian. You seem to have a hard time understanding that precisely because the group paid collectively for the beer, it becomes free for the individual member of the group.
And it is definitely not a contrived example. I am actually invited to a party, which is financed half by our Employee Club at work, which itself is financed by a small monthly membership fee, and probably also by the company we all work for. The other half of the party cost will be paid by those who actually want to attend. At the party, there will be no extra payment for food and drink, but whereas the food will probably be a menu served as portioned dishes, beer and wine is served "ad libitum". Guess what: that means "as you please". It is also commonly understood as "free beer". There is no direct relation between how much I am going to drink, and how much I pay.
I suppose you are that kind of person who would put in a lot of effort to ensure you will "get your money's worth" at such a party. After all, you paid for it, right?
Tell you what: if you ever come to Aarhus, Denmark, look me up, and I'll give you free beer. Till you drop.
Sure he does. If I give you a beer, that beer is free. For you that is. I probably paid for it. If a group of people pool their money to buy a couple of beer crates, and party - guess what: the beer is free. Even though everyone in the group paid for it. Why? Because of the implication, that enough beer is bought, so that the likelihood of anyone being "thirsty" afterwards, is sufficiently small. There is no restriction that you can only drink whatever it is you actually paid for. Sure, some will drink a bit more than they actually paid for, and others less, but if the group is sufficiently homogeneous, the discrepancy should be negligible. So why bother with the overhead of accounting for each and every beer - it only makes the hangover worse?
The grandparent doesn't pay his health care with his taxes; he pays for the right to have free access to health care. There is a great difference in that. It is both a form of insurance and a form of wealth redistribution. Insurance, because you pay a small amount, which may or may not be returned to you as health care. (I once attended a statistics lecture, where the professor said that insurance is a bet you make with the insurance company, that you will become sick. A bet that you would probably prefer to lose.) And wealth redistribution because a poor person will probably benefit more (or rather: pay less) than a rich person. In both cases it is a form of risk distribution. Some "libertarians" might say that this is not good. But as the risk of many forms of bad health are distributed "unfairly", by chance or genetics, I believe that it is right for society to compensate for this unfair distribution. Being genetically predisposed to a disease is not something a person can make an informed choice about, and anyone can get injured in an accident - so why not lessen the consequences of these risks by sharing them?
An interesting observation is that for a "social" system to work properly, there seems to be a requirement for an initial state of relative homogeneity. In a very flat society where the difference between poor and rich is small, the rich people will lose relatively little. if the difference is large, the top side will be very reluctant to change to a system of fair redistribution. Even though such a system would probably - viewed as a whole - benefit a lot more from it.
The obvious solution is to consider the data as a record of the relation between the health care provider and the patient. Both have interests in preserving a copy of these data, and in ensuring that they are not tampered with. So obviously each should store a copy, signed by each party. The health care provider could optionally be allowed or required by law to store the data for a certain period and/or discard the data after a certain time.
The question is, would it be prudent to impose a similar requirement on the patient? And how about giving consent to access old records? In a world of commercial medicine like the USA, this is perhaps not the same choice as in a world of primarily public/social medicine like Denmark. Should it be legal for insurance companies to require full disclosure in order to get insurance? I think not, but then, I'm all for public/social medicine.
Finally there is the issue about access to these records in an emergency, where the patient is unconscious and cannot give consent. A more or less centralized backup service could store the complete health record of a person, but encrypted, so that only people or organisations designated by the patient have an emergency key, and can gain access to just those data the patient has deemed desirable to expose in case of an emergency. For instance, a person who had been cured from an STD, would not want the record of the STD to be accessible, as it wouldn't matter much in an emergency, whereas data such as blood type, or severe medical allergies, would definitely matter. But would AIDS for example be a condition that should be required in the emergency records?
Making the decisions would not be easy for the patient, and most people would rather not be bothered to have to manage their own copy of the records, so perhaps the persons usual GP would be a good compromise for a designated Health Record manager for the patient. Of course, this results in a potential conflict of interest, so there would have to be a solution that would allow the patient to at least monitor any access (and object to illegal or unfounded access) to his records, that was granted by the GP. Hence the centralized third party backup or storage service.
It took less than a day to install everything (however, less was installed).
I am really having a hard time parsing that sentence. Are you saying you installed only "less", or are you saying you installed everything except "less" (because it was installed already), or are you saying you could have installed everything in less than a day, but you didn't need everything, so you installed less than anything (presumably in less than "less than a day", whatever that was)?
You're probably right. The LEGO (rec.toys.lego) FAQ mentions a Chinese clone that was called 0937.
Nice tank, btw. I really need to take some time out to play with my son and his huge box of LEGO. It's a great way to relax and boost creativity, and I should do it more often. He and I both need to get away from our computers - computers are terrible.
I can see why that approach didn't take off. (The idea seems to be 8 years old.)
However, the line you quote is quite satisfying: csh certainly deserves to be shot. Of course, so do users of csh. This also applies to tcsh of course.
It's been a while since I last bought LEGO for my son - he has plenty! - so I can't say whether there is any LEGO production in China at the moment. It may be so. I just checked Google ('"LEGO" "produktion" "Kina"', yielding mostly Danish results, which are perhaps a little more likely to be accurate) and there are several hits that seem to indicate that LEGO has no or very little production based in China. Not out of ethical concerns, but because it didn't really make economical sense.
However, the financial troubles LEGO was in just a few years ago are over now, and LEGO is doing very fine again. This success is partly based on outsourcing the production almost completely from Denmark (where the industries are now fast running out of hands due to a workforce shortage - we are fast going towards zero or negative unemployment, and our economy is stronger than ever), and on reinstating classic/basic LEGO values and principles, and the traditional product lines. (The huge success of Star Wars LEGO may also have played a part.)
So, regarding China, LEGO is not a big player. I suspect another good reason is that the quality achievable would not be up to the extreme standards of LEGO, whether it be plastic composition and color, or dimensional tolerances. Back in the 80es, LEGO was criticized sharply in Denmark because the yellow bricks were suspected to contain cadmium. I doubt they want to repeat that on a world scale, like what happened recently with Mattel. Chinese plastic just stinks - literally.
Regarding finance, LEGO is doing very well right now, and saving up to ensure they can withstand another crisis if necessary. So, to sum things up, all is well in LEGOland. (Although LEGO doesn't actually own the first LEGOland themepark anymore, which I think is a big shame, LEGO still controls its "spirit".)
Slashdot Mirror
You are not alone with that usage pattern. (And I am happy to see that neither am I, after all.)
I was "forced" to upgrade to 57 yesterday, due to that restart, unfortunately.
Since then, many of the tabs in my ~50 browser windows just won't render. They remain blank, or flicker with various black rectangles that. New tabs are the same. Occasionally it works, and a page gets displayed.
I am seriously considering downgrading to 56. This is on Xubuntu 17.04, an i5 CPU machine with 16 GiB RAM. (So _that_ shouldn't be the issue.)
I haven't posted on Slashdot for a while, but I find it necessary to point this out.
IMO it _is_ a problem with goto.
The code was structured like this: .. //hey - a redundant goto!
if(err=aFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) goto cleanup;
if(err=anotherFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) goto cleanup;
err = oneLastFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode();
if(err != 0) { doSomeLogging(); goto cleanup; }
cleanup: freeStuff(); return err;
It could have been written completely without gotos like this: .. //For some reason we only want to log the error from the last call
if((err=aFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) == 0)
if((err=anotherFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) == 0)
if((err = oneLastFunctionReturningZeroOnSuccessOrErrorCode()) != 0) { doSomeLogging(); }
freeStuff(); return err;
No gotos needed at all! The code is shorter, and IMHO easier to read as well.
I am an atheist, but I have close relatives who belong to religious communities, include a couple of catholic cousins. I don't think that religious people are inherently bad or evil. I do, however, think they have been systematically brainwashed. Oh, btw my standpoint on Islam is the exact opposite of yours, I have very much against Islam, but we have many nice Muslims here in Denmark, and I don't have any problems with them.
Maybe you are right: organized religion doesn't cause suffering. However, there is strong evidence that religious organizations constitute a framework that allows suffering to happen on a large scale: the most recent example being the Ryan report in Ireland.
And to add insult to injury - literally - a Spanish cardinal Canizares has tried to trivialize the abuse by saying that abortion is worse.
Now, I am no expect on the catholic church and its hierarchy, but I think a cardinal is a rather high-placed figure. So the catholic church - as a religious organization - seems to be trying to sweep a lot of stuff under the carpet. I realise it may not be the catholic religion as such, that causes the suffering. If religious people decide voluntarily not to fuck before some other religious person of the same creed - who has voluntarily decided not to fuck at all ever - has performed some weird ritual, fine by me.
However, it seems there are no organized religions that do not have some sort of religious organization in some kind of control, and those organizations are - to me anyway - obviously corrupt, hypocritical, and downright evil. And as organized religion apparantly doesn't make sense without a religious organization, the organized religion becomes guilty by direct association.
Now, it would seem that if righteous believers recognized that the organization controlling their religion was corrupt and evil, they could rebel against it and try to change the organization. And indeed this has happened: a case in point could be the Lutheran reformation. However, the new organization, while perhaps not *quite* as evil as the old one, still seems to have problems. Therefore I am compelled to think that the cause of evil is not the organization, but the religion itself.
As it happens, I consider myself a religious person, even though I am an atheist. I even believe in Jesus. I do not believe in any form of miracle, but I do adhere to many of the teachings that are attributed to Jesus in the bible. Christianity as a philosophy is not inherently bad, and a historical Jesus, who made company with people outcast from society, is a person I can admire to some extent, even if I may not agree with all the ideas that are attributed to him. Just as I can admire Gautama Buddha, Confucius or Lao-Tzu. I do, however, prefer to decide for myself, which of their ideas I find agreeable, and I am perfectly capable of separating them and their ideas from the organized religions their "successors" have created. Even the allegedly most "peaceful" of all organized religions, Buddhism, has aspects that are absolutely appalling to me. Aspects, that I do not consider compatible with their origins - but who am I to tell a religious organization that their rules are obviously opposite to what their founder taught, according to my interpretation? I doubt that Gautama had any intentions that people should make statues of him to be revered religiously. And I doubt that he would condone a massacre of 20000 hindu tamils. (For some reason, though, I find it likely that Mohammed would have had fewer problems with such a massacre.)
Thus, I believe that people who submit themselves to organized religion are forced to do so, either through their upbringing, or through brainwash later in life, often facilitated by a personal crisis, making them easy victims. Ignorance also helps. /Lasse
Nah, black holes suck!
-Lasse
And of course the uglyness is all in the syntax:
... but perhaps that was your point?
echo $myData|zip|encrypt >test.txt
-Lasse
Thank you for mentioning Brazil. The second I saw the heading, I was certain someone would have - this is really insane. Although Denmark is rapidly approaching similar levels of government bureaucracy insanity, we are still a few years behind - much to the dismay of our stupid, but eagerly willing prime minister. But if I had to choose between the world of Brazil, and the USA, I would pick Brazil, it would be the saner place of the two. Also, I know a few things about plumbing, ducts and the proper application of duct tape, after all, although I am not exactly a Robert De Niro lookalike.
-Lasse T*uttle
Doesn't neuroscience have a good explanation for precisely that problem?
I have been reading Damasio, who describes people who are blatantly unaware of being completely paralyzed on one side of the body. When you demonstrate the limpness of their arm and leg on the paralyzed side, they are puzzled for a moment, then gloss over it, and forget about it completely after a little time. Also, it is well-known that certain substances will affect the belief of various facts and conditions, like a person on LSD being convinced he is able to fly.
Thus it should not be surprising that even educated people can hold beliefs they should be capable of debunking easily. You just have to want to believe something strongly enough.
In fact (!), I believe (!), that it is the people who claim to be completely rational, who are the really deceived ones. I strongly doubt that it is possible to live without having beliefs that are not rationally based. You just can't rationalize feelings and emotions; lust, desires, aestetics, and ethics. I am not saying that there isn't a rational explanation for these things (having to do with levels of various hormones), but that they do not perform a rational function in the person having them. For example, you cannot rationally explain your love for another person. It follows, that such irrational beliefs serve a purpose, for example making possible social groups. It is also clear, that such an irrational love or devotion, when directed towards certain targets, may become problematic. A fetishist who has a strong urge to obtain the used underwear of women he knows definitely has a problem. Just like a muslim, who believes that it is an insult to his God (or his prophet, the apparant inability to really make this distiction is another issue) to name a teddy bear after the prophet. But note that it is not having a belief or urge that is problematic, but the particular kind of belief.
-Lasse
I didn't say your argument was equivalent to Pascal's wager, just that it reminded me of it.
As for your evidence that ETI could exist, I suppose you mean that because TI exists, it follows that (more advanced) ETI could also exist. Sorry, but I can use the same "proof technique" on Hell: Terrestrial Suffering exists, therefore (more advanced) Extraterrestrial Suffering could exists. I identify more advanced Extraterrestrial Suffering with Hell. (Pascal's hypothesis that nonbelievers would also somehow _go_ to Hell is irrelevant.)
I am not saying that we need a feedback loop to benefit from SETI. We benefit already from the knowledge gained by observing the universe surrounding us. A candidate ETIgram would be no different. But how would we discern an ETIgram from radiation caused by a natural process not involving intelligence? I am saying that this identification is only possible if we can interact. OK, another method used to identify intelligence on our own planet is to observe the behaviour of a group of animals. Somehow that doesn't seem much easier when ETI is considered...
-Lasse
Wow. That reminds me of Pascal's wager. While Pascal's wager is interesting - and I have the deepest respect and love for Pascals thinking - it is also, in my opinion, wrong. But back to SETI. In the SETI case, the benefits are rather more "wordly" one would think? Or are they? Suppose we did identify a signal as being from an intelligent source. How would we verify that this was indeed true? After all, people are inclined to see patterns as "proof of sentience", when this is not the case. Are the patterns seen in fractals a result of intelligence, or a curious sideeffect of applying a trivial algorithm?
To answer this question we could look at how we attempt to identify intelligence in subjects where intelligence is far more likely to occur: Animals. How do we go about that? We try to communicate with them - try to provoke reactions that imply some sort of consideration was used to form the response.
And this is precisely why SETI is going to be difficult, to the point where I would not hesitate to call it futile. We have obviously devoted lots of attention to our closest astronomical neighbors, and found no evidence. The further away we get, the more impossible the thought of actual communication becomes. So what would be the benefit of knowing about a civilization 1000 light-years away? Apart from the fact itself, what would we gain? How would we proceed, once we discover the signal? How could we maintain a communicative relationship over a timespan longer than historic time? OK, so for 2K years, it might be doable: we could send a SYN-ACK astrogram, and wait another 4K years for the next packet. But finding ETI so close should be comparatively easier as well, and yet, nothing.
Sorry, but unless we discover ways to communicate that violate the limits imposed by what is currently considered well-established physical laws, even the reception of a candidate SETI signal would be of approximately zero value. The validation alone would require a feedback loop spanning millennia, and getting to a point where a common vocabulary was established, through which ideas advanced enough to be interesting could be communicated, would take millions of years. It really doesn't sound cost-effective to me.
-Lasse
Wow. A (-1) flamebait mod. I'm not sure if this is actually a first for me, but it definitely comes as a surprise. A sad surprise, may I add. I would by far have preferred a proper argument.
So I presume that you will agree that a huge amount of religious works, including the bible, should be banned, as they offend me by contradicting and thus denying a well-established historical fact, the fact of biological evolution. No? Then perhaps banning holocaust denial is also a bad idea.
Again, my point in writing here is that I get the shivers each time politicians in a European country try to impose a little censorship, like Italy this time. (Last time was German minister of justice B. Zypriess, trying to extend their ridiculous nazi-complex to all of Europe, fortunately that was also prevented.) The reason I am scared is that there is actually a chance that such a law would also be implemented in Denmark, and I would really, really hate that. Not because I sympathize in any way with nazis, but because it is important to uphold the "neutrality" of freedom of speech, as it was formulated by Voltaire: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."
Once you allow censorship, you'll soon see that it can just as easily be used to opress the truth.
BTW, how is Mordechai Vanunu doing these days?
-Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
And the day it is no longer so, all hope is really lost.
-Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
Nonsense. If you don't want teens exploited, have laws that forbid *that*. Then, when a site posts porn showing girls who didn't consent to this, use that law instead. No need to have carte blanche laws to rubber stamp whatever type of censorship you would like.
.il website. So let me ask you a question directly. I presume it is forbidden in Israel, just like it is in Germany and a couple other European countries, to deny holocaust. Now the question: Is it also forbidden to say that water isn't wet? If no, why not? Why is the absurd denial of one known fact allowed, and the equally absurd denial of another, forbidden? I never understood the logic behind that. Insult? I can't see how anyone could be insulted by someone demonstrating extreme stupidity. If someone would try to insult me, for example by saying my mother was a prostitute, it would be pointless. It would be like trying to insult me by saying 2+2=5.
I notice your
In my opinion, censorship of nazism is itself nazism. The creeps thrive far better underground, so by all means let us keep them out in the open, where we can watch them, ridicule them, and above all be aware of them.
Censorship is bad, end of story. That is not to say that there should be no penalty for publishing certain things (child porn being the obvious example), but that these matters can be dealt with without (preemptive) censorship. There is no red line.
-Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
Here in Denmark (and I guess there are other places with a similar system), Danish authors and translators who have their books in libraries, can apply for a grant, which depends on the number of copies of their works in Danish libraries. This is a form of Public Lending Right compensation, and is not based in copyright law. It is only paid for works in Danish (originals or translations to Danish), and should be viewed more as a way to support Danish language and culture. The pay varies between (this year) 1737 DKR (the least amount that is paid out) up to 752060 DKR. 21784 authors applied, but only 8564 had enough copies in libraries to qualify, of these, more than half got paid less than 5000 DKR. The most prolific and popular writers probably could live quite well of nothing else but this "welfare", the five top payouts all being above 500000 DKR. 1 USD is around 5.30 DKR (the greenback isn't worth much these days, eh?), so that's a bit less than 100K USD per year.
The fairness of such a system, of course, is open for debate. An argument could be made, that the top authors get a significant profit from their sales, and thus don't really need any additional subsidy, whereas "narrow-scope" literature (poetry, for example) hardly has a market worth speaking of, despite being of "greater cultural value". I believe the system for calculating the grant takes this into account to a degree. Literature for children and youth is particularly encouraged, and it is no surprise that the top scoring author is the very popular Bjarne Reuter.
-Lasse
Silly Coward, I didn't say he doesn't pay, I said he doesn't pay his health care with his taxes, he pays for the right to have free access to health care. The health care system, funded by his taxes, has an obligation to give him that access, by paying for his health care. His cost is thus not directly coupled to the actual price of the healthcare he may need, although it may be a contributing factor.
We all know the distinction between "free as in beer" and "free as in freedom". Maybe there is a third meaning of "free": "as you like or need"?
And I don't know about you, but I pay (at the supermarket) for the groceries I use to cook our meals. I don't pay for the meal at the dinner table. The meal is free, the groceries aren't. I don't even calculate an exact price for the meal. And maybe it would even be too hard. Should I amortize the cost of the silverware and plates the meal is served on, and add that? What about the apples I used for the dessert, they are from the tree in front of the house; should I calculate the cost of buying that tree as some fraction of the price of the house and ground on which it stands? Oh, and I had to buy a bottle of vinegar to prepare this meal, although I only used a few drops, should I include the entire price of the bottle now, even if I put the almost full bottle in the fridge? But then, next time I make a salad, and use the - now fully paid - vinegar shouldn't I calculate the vinegar at zero cost? Yes? Then why can't I do that with all the other ingredients right away? What if my son's friend eats with us? Is it free for him? Sometimes our son eats at his place? So does the friends mother pay partially for our meal, by allowing my son to eat with them sometimes? What did they eat, how often did it happen? Who's turn is it next time?
I will postulate that there are many valuable things, for which a price calculation would be so complex that it would display fractal behaviour and vary wildly, depending on what level of detail you look at. For the exchange of such valuables, it is more efficient - not to mention fair - to just use a gift economy instead of calculating an approximate and opaque price either in money or in other equivalent goods, simply because such an equivalence is impossible to define.
I think the biggest problem facing the world right now is that price is viewed as more important than value. People think everything has a price, and needs to have its price set - not so: everything has value, but many valuable things are absolutely priceless. Good health is only one such thing. If you have it, you can't sell it. So if you don't have it and need it, why should you have to buy it?
No free beer for you, AC!
-Lasse
OK, troll, I'll accept your flamebait. Could you be more specific in your criticism, instead of the void statements you posted, questioning my mental fitness instead of my post?
As for my beer example, you seem to lack elementary comprehension skills, to the point that I strongly suspect you must be a libertarian. You seem to have a hard time understanding that precisely because the group paid collectively for the beer, it becomes free for the individual member of the group.
And it is definitely not a contrived example. I am actually invited to a party, which is financed half by our Employee Club at work, which itself is financed by a small monthly membership fee, and probably also by the company we all work for. The other half of the party cost will be paid by those who actually want to attend. At the party, there will be no extra payment for food and drink, but whereas the food will probably be a menu served as portioned dishes, beer and wine is served "ad libitum". Guess what: that means "as you please". It is also commonly understood as "free beer". There is no direct relation between how much I am going to drink, and how much I pay.
I suppose you are that kind of person who would put in a lot of effort to ensure you will "get your money's worth" at such a party. After all, you paid for it, right?
Tell you what: if you ever come to Aarhus, Denmark, look me up, and I'll give you free beer. Till you drop.
-Lasse Hillerøe Petersen
Sure he does. If I give you a beer, that beer is free. For you that is. I probably paid for it. If a group of people pool their money to buy a couple of beer crates, and party - guess what: the beer is free. Even though everyone in the group paid for it. Why? Because of the implication, that enough beer is bought, so that the likelihood of anyone being "thirsty" afterwards, is sufficiently small. There is no restriction that you can only drink whatever it is you actually paid for. Sure, some will drink a bit more than they actually paid for, and others less, but if the group is sufficiently homogeneous, the discrepancy should be negligible. So why bother with the overhead of accounting for each and every beer - it only makes the hangover worse?
The grandparent doesn't pay his health care with his taxes; he pays for the right to have free access to health care. There is a great difference in that. It is both a form of insurance and a form of wealth redistribution. Insurance, because you pay a small amount, which may or may not be returned to you as health care. (I once attended a statistics lecture, where the professor said that insurance is a bet you make with the insurance company, that you will become sick. A bet that you would probably prefer to lose.) And wealth redistribution because a poor person will probably benefit more (or rather: pay less) than a rich person. In both cases it is a form of risk distribution. Some "libertarians" might say that this is not good. But as the risk of many forms of bad health are distributed "unfairly", by chance or genetics, I believe that it is right for society to compensate for this unfair distribution. Being genetically predisposed to a disease is not something a person can make an informed choice about, and anyone can get injured in an accident - so why not lessen the consequences of these risks by sharing them?
An interesting observation is that for a "social" system to work properly, there seems to be a requirement for an initial state of relative homogeneity. In a very flat society where the difference between poor and rich is small, the rich people will lose relatively little. if the difference is large, the top side will be very reluctant to change to a system of fair redistribution. Even though such a system would probably - viewed as a whole - benefit a lot more from it.
-Lasse
The obvious solution is to consider the data as a record of the relation between the health care provider and the patient. Both have interests in preserving a copy of these data, and in ensuring that they are not tampered with. So obviously each should store a copy, signed by each party. The health care provider could optionally be allowed or required by law to store the data for a certain period and/or discard the data after a certain time.
The question is, would it be prudent to impose a similar requirement on the patient? And how about giving consent to access old records? In a world of commercial medicine like the USA, this is perhaps not the same choice as in a world of primarily public/social medicine like Denmark. Should it be legal for insurance companies to require full disclosure in order to get insurance? I think not, but then, I'm all for public/social medicine.
Finally there is the issue about access to these records in an emergency, where the patient is unconscious and cannot give consent. A more or less centralized backup service could store the complete health record of a person, but encrypted, so that only people or organisations designated by the patient have an emergency key, and can gain access to just those data the patient has deemed desirable to expose in case of an emergency. For instance, a person who had been cured from an STD, would not want the record of the STD to be accessible, as it wouldn't matter much in an emergency, whereas data such as blood type, or severe medical allergies, would definitely matter. But would AIDS for example be a condition that should be required in the emergency records?
Making the decisions would not be easy for the patient, and most people would rather not be bothered to have to manage their own copy of the records, so perhaps the persons usual GP would be a good compromise for a designated Health Record manager for the patient. Of course, this results in a potential conflict of interest, so there would have to be a solution that would allow the patient to at least monitor any access (and object to illegal or unfounded access) to his records, that was granted by the GP. Hence the centralized third party backup or storage service.
-Lasse
I am really having a hard time parsing that sentence. Are you saying you installed only "less", or are you saying you installed everything except "less" (because it was installed already), or are you saying you could have installed everything in less than a day, but you didn't need everything, so you installed less than anything (presumably in less than "less than a day", whatever that was)?
And if you answer "more or less", I'll page you!
-Lasse
You're probably right. The LEGO (rec.toys.lego) FAQ mentions a Chinese clone that was called 0937.
Nice tank, btw. I really need to take some time out to play with my son and his huge box of LEGO. It's a great way to relax and boost creativity, and I should do it more often. He and I both need to get away from our computers - computers are terrible.
-Lasse
He's not a Higgs boson, then.
-Lasse
The most obvious example of prior art would be the propeller hat, and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet,
As Lotus Notes uses it as an icon (for advanced configs or something? I never could figure out!), it "must" be a universal archetype.
-Lasse
Pity. Perhaps if she stopped, she'd get well.
Thanks for calling me an insensitive clod, btw.
-Lasse
I was just going to suggest what I think geeks would prefer. But then I noticed your username.
-Lasse
I can see why that approach didn't take off. (The idea seems to be 8 years old.)
However, the line you quote is quite satisfying: csh certainly deserves to be shot. Of course, so do users of csh. This also applies to tcsh of course.
-Lasse
It's been a while since I last bought LEGO for my son - he has plenty! - so I can't say whether there is any LEGO production in China at the moment. It may be so. I just checked Google ('"LEGO" "produktion" "Kina"', yielding mostly Danish results, which are perhaps a little more likely to be accurate) and there are several hits that seem to indicate that LEGO has no or very little production based in China. Not out of ethical concerns, but because it didn't really make economical sense.
However, the financial troubles LEGO was in just a few years ago are over now, and LEGO is doing very fine again. This success is partly based on outsourcing the production almost completely from Denmark (where the industries are now fast running out of hands due to a workforce shortage - we are fast going towards zero or negative unemployment, and our economy is stronger than ever), and on reinstating classic/basic LEGO values and principles, and the traditional product lines. (The huge success of Star Wars LEGO may also have played a part.)
So, regarding China, LEGO is not a big player. I suspect another good reason is that the quality achievable would not be up to the extreme standards of LEGO, whether it be plastic composition and color, or dimensional tolerances. Back in the 80es, LEGO was criticized sharply in Denmark because the yellow bricks were suspected to contain cadmium. I doubt they want to repeat that on a world scale, like what happened recently with Mattel. Chinese plastic just stinks - literally.
Regarding finance, LEGO is doing very well right now, and saving up to ensure they can withstand another crisis if necessary. So, to sum things up, all is well in LEGOland. (Although LEGO doesn't actually own the first LEGOland themepark anymore, which I think is a big shame, LEGO still controls its "spirit".)
-Lasse