"Cornering" can connotate "fast and nimble handling," as well as "exceptional stability," when used in the context of cars.
Not that I anticipate that in this case...
Re:Google: Fix the top post reply method
on
Gmail Goes Public
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· Score: 1
Yeah, Slashdot is upside down! What's up with that?
Re:I just want C++ programs to COMPILE faster
on
GCC 4.0 Preview
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· Score: 1
Part of my job is to teach fresh CompSci graduates the difference between "college programming" and "real-world programming." Entry-level C++ programmers might look at his post and think, "oh, that must be a good idea, because in one shot it makes all those compiler errors go away." That kind of misinformation makes my job harder.
If you see a bad practice documented anywhere, why not take a second to refute it, or at least provide alternatives? "Every drop raises the sea," and all that. If "teaching" equals "whoring" where you come from, then I wouldn't want to live there.
Isn't that what open-source contributions are all about? Isn't that what this thread is about? People providing C++ tools free-of-charge to a world of users. I'm sorry you considered it off-topic to relay C++ best-practices in a discussion about C++ compilers.
Re:I just want C++ programs to COMPILE faster
on
GCC 4.0 Preview
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· Score: 5, Informative
I use "using namespace std;" in the common include files of all of my home-built programs.
It's generally regarded as a Bad Idea to place using directives in header files.
They propogate down into every.cpp that includes your library's headers, whether or not the calling programmer wanted to import the entire std namespace.
Some programmers may have their own classes called map, or string, or list, or a dozen other things, and a single using statement buried in a nested.h can cause unanticipated namespace collisions.
In general, it's safest and most polite to refer to classes canonically in header files (std::string, etc), and keep the using statements in your implementation files.
Wrong. In 2000, there was no "another" recount. There were ZERO recounts in Florida.
I shouldn't go that far. The NORC Study spent far more manhours and money over their 6-month intensive operation than election officials possibly could have focused in the few weeks left before inauguration (this would have had to occur over Christmas and New Years, remember, when staffing and budgets are at their tightest).
I'm aware that the NORC study does not label itself as a "recount", but they have surely amassed far more data than any court-ordered recount could possibly have accrued.
We now know that Gore would have won
Wow, you know that, even though you claim no recounts were ever done?
The truth is that the NORC results were massively inconclusive. "Who would have won" would have depended entirely on what ruleset you used to validate or disqualify ballots. Such a detailed ruleset does not exist in any legislative or voter-approved constitutional text. Therefore, any ruleset picked would have been annointed by a set of judges.
No matter what ruleset emerged, the winner would have been appointed by the judiciary. You can't escape that conclusion. I agree with those who, at the time, decided it would be better to simply go with the first count, which was in fact in accordance with existing voter-enacted law.
I didn't think Objectivist ideas was _that_ strong in USA to inflict on the election. Maybe I'm wrong though...
No, I shouldn't think so. But nor is it the only philosophy out there. My intent was only to debunk the notion that all Bush voters citing "moral values" were evangelical Christians, as well as the suggestion that moral values could not be the product of critical thinking, rather than its replacement.
I don't know that a reliable count of American Objectivists has ever been conducted. In some ways, they're a difficult group to track, because they don't build churches (except under contract:-), haven't formed an independent political party (though most, one would think, at least lean Libertarian), etc.
They are certainly out there, however. I keep a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my desk at work, and have found perhaps a half-dozen like-minded peers through this simple advertisement. Not a stellar count over a few years, but that is partly the product of the generic Objectivist aversion to proselytization. I am always pleased to hear Neal Boortz's periodic plugs on "hate radio":-)
Indeed, that is part of why I am posting today. Seeing so many electoral commentators broad-brush Bush "moral values" voters as "evangelical", I decided that perhaps I should rise to the charge. Objectivism, and the world, could do with a healthy dose of evangelical exhortation, and the mood of the country suggests that perhaps they are ready to listen. One may hope.
I'm still a little leery of the idea of not taxing business expenditures, because it sounds like you could drive a semi through that loophole.
I agree that that particular point requires refinement or compromise. It struck me on first reading, too. I don't have a pat answer, and don't claim that the current FairTax draft is perfect or complete. As with Badnarik-niks and Naderites, for now I am pleased merely to see the issue raised to a point of public policy debate.
To roll back to the initial discussion, however, I hope this has provided evidence that, when asked whether they voted on "moral values," not all Bush supporters necessarily meant "religious doctrine." Many Democrats seem to be reading that interpretation into the answer, and while it obviously holds some truth, it is far from a comprehensive explanation.
Excepting only the most ardent anarchists and mentally ill, everyone has moral values. Liberals hold it as a moral value that "those who have" have a moral obligation to help "those who have not." Conservatives generally hold the same value, but with the caveat that charity should be willing, not state-enforced, and that mandatory redistribution of wealth becomes akin to theft.
If future pollsters wish to ascertain more precisely why America voted in such predominant numbers for the GOP slate, and against Democratic candidates nationwide, they will need to ask more specific questions: such as, "did you cast you vote because of Christian or Bibical teachings?" "Moral values" is simply too broad a brush. (If anyone voted without consulting their personal moral compass, they should be sincerely slapped.)
And the notion that moral values repudiate critical thinking is simply bizarre. The implication that those who judge choices as alternately "right" or "wrong" have passively absorbed their views from a book -- or Book, or parents or Hollywood or wherever -- is insulting and absurd. America has a robust population of mature adults quite capable of objectively observing the world around them, discerning relationships between choices and outcomes, and using critical thinking to infer moral axioms.
Theft is wrong. Slavery is wrong. Deliberate and malicious infliction of pain and suffering is wrong. Terrorist bombings of innocent civilians is most decidedly wrong. I do not require Divine guidance to ascertain these things. But they are part of my moral code, and they did greatly influence my decision to vote for President Bush.
(For the record, I am not suggesting that Senator Kerry is a thief, terrorist, or otherwise. But I do think his foreign policies are less anti-terrorist than Bush's, and I think his economic policies are more pro-theft (redistribution) than Bush's.)
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine. --John Galt
if the government converted to a flat tax, but exempted some of the consumption (say, vouchers that would exempt $1000/year in transportation and food costs, or the first $2000 in housing) would you call that system more or less fair than a straight consumption tax? I would side with more fair, since there is a certain minimum level of consumption that needs to be done in order to survive. I don't believe that necessities ought to be taxed . . .
I'm saying that the poor generally spend all their money on necessities, and even have to forego things that people even a little better off would consider necessities.
Agreed. And that's why the rebate system is already built into the FairTax.org plan which is already being floated among GOP leadership. The proposed rebate levels are well-documented in the FAQ:-)
Now, what's your beef with a progressive tax code?
Say the government decides to get the money it requires by taxing everyone at 20%. A person making $10,000 a year pays $2000, while a person making $200,000 a year pays $40,000. Sounds perfectly fair, right?
Yes, it does.
But it isn't. Taking $40K from the rich guy causes relatively little hardship, while taking $2K from the poor guy causes a great deal of hardship.
I hold that the purpose of taxes is to fund the provision of fundamental government services that everyone requires and benefits from. It is not the purpose of taxes to "levy equal hardship." Nor would I trust you to define what constitutes "hardship" for me.
That's like the Oracle pricing model: every customer receives the same product, but they try to price it based on how much money they perceive you to have. That's how used car dealers work, where the value of the product is only ephemerally connected to the price they set for each customer.
I don't buy from those kinds of companies, and I don't want my government to use that model either.
You and I are using very different definitions of "fair". My version is strictly quantitative, based on an unbiased application of an agreed-upon percentage to a known quantity (income). Yours seems to be biased on subjective assessments of "how much pain a recipient can/should bear." I don't trust that subjective aspect, for the normal "three lions and a lamb" reasons.
Please don't take any of this as arguing heavily for a flat tax. Although I regard a flat tax as less-evil than the current progressive tax, I would much prefer a consumption (sales) tax. That's how pretty much everything else in capitalism works, and I like it.
I like the incentive structure (discouraging overconsumption rather than discouraging productivity, success, and promotion); I like the intuitive "fairness" of "paying for what you use". That definition of fairness goes beyond human ideology, and resonates profoundly with our most fundamental understanding of physics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
This is the toll-road model, and I believe it to be both fiscally and morally sound.
I am aware many Americans -- generally those below the $200K "rich folks" threshold -- hold the opposing view, that it is both right and proper to extract an equal level of "pain" from every taxpayer. (Rather like the educational idealistists who continue to clamor for "equal outcomes" versus "equal opportunity".)
I can only say that I will continue to use my vote to resist the economic policies of socialism and communism, which I believe are absolutely irreconcilable with America's capitalist foundations.
Cheers, and thank you for your thoughtful and courteous reply. That is the real mark of distinction between/. and Freepers/DU/Kos/etc.
It matters because your beliefs dictate your choices. If you believe that you were created by a God, then you are justified (arguably obligated) to spend a portion of your life paying respect and giving thanks to that God.
If you believe that you are an independent, unique, unsolicited, and temporary spawn of an otherwise uncaring universe, then you presumably have to make up your own mind as to the value of your life and how it should most productively be spent.
However, it is false to suggest that the absence of a Creator means that "nothing matters at all" and "everything is a waste of time." Regardless of how we got here, we generally have 70+ years of experiences and choices to navigate. Some of us do have the ability, will, and determination to define meanings for our own existence.
Part of the premise of free will is the choice to craft the meanings of our own lives. Neither Creationism nor Evolutionary Theory abrogate that.
The most disappointing thing though with respect to critical thinking, and the part I must admit I don't fully understand, is the irrationality and shortsightedness of US voters.
According to the CNN exit polls (off by 2-3%) the most important issue for voters were "Moral values " (22%) and "Economy/Jobs" (20%).
If I understand US politics right that "Moral values" here means issues like Abortion, Gay marriage, christianity/religiousness, "family values" and and qualities like steadfastness and itegrity as well as "trustworthiness".
How people manage to prioritize these areas above Economy/Jobs, Iraq and terrorism is beyond me.
The fact that people are voting increasingly on "values" leaves little room from critical thinking.
To Objectivists, as well as many Libertarians, economic issues are of moral import. I voted Bush, and did so for primarily moral reasons, but didn't give a thought to any of the examples you listed. Rather, I (and others) consider the current "progressive" tax code to be innately immoral ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need").
Moral values and critical thinking are not anti-thetical; they are mutually dependent and reinforcing.
Here is the beginning of philosophy:
a recognition of the conflicts between men,
a search for their cause,
a condemnation of mere opinion...
and the discovery of a standard of judgement
Epictetus, Discourses, 1st century A.D.
Um, no, it is not relatively easy to make a helicopter that can fly itself.
"The tricky part" is managing to keep it in the air at all.
It is way, WAY easier to make an automated flixed-wing airplane, which is why most commercial airliners ARE automated (can take off, fly to their destination, and land unaided), and have been for years.
Helicopters are a vastly more complicated technology, which is why even the US Army, which has the best and most advanced helicopters in the world, continues to suffer repeated fatalities from training accidents and normal operations.
It is a truism in the helicopter industry that "they don't fly...they're so ugly that the earth itself repels them."
Spend some time here How They Fly before you next post:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I anticipate that in this case...
Yeah, Slashdot is upside down! What's up with that?
If you see a bad practice documented anywhere, why not take a second to refute it, or at least provide alternatives? "Every drop raises the sea," and all that. If "teaching" equals "whoring" where you come from, then I wouldn't want to live there.
Isn't that what open-source contributions are all about? Isn't that what this thread is about? People providing C++ tools free-of-charge to a world of users. I'm sorry you considered it off-topic to relay C++ best-practices in a discussion about C++ compilers.
They propogate down into every .cpp that includes your library's headers, whether or not the calling programmer wanted to import the entire std namespace.
Some programmers may have their own classes called map, or string, or list, or a dozen other things, and a single using statement buried in a nested .h can cause unanticipated namespace collisions.
In general, it's safest and most polite to refer to classes canonically in header files (std::string, etc), and keep the using statements in your implementation files.
Sources: "Accelerated C++" (Koenig, Moo); comp.lang.c++ (sample)
I'm aware that the NORC study does not label itself as a "recount", but they have surely amassed far more data than any court-ordered recount could possibly have accrued.
Wow, you know that, even though you claim no recounts were ever done?The truth is that the NORC results were massively inconclusive. "Who would have won" would have depended entirely on what ruleset you used to validate or disqualify ballots. Such a detailed ruleset does not exist in any legislative or voter-approved constitutional text. Therefore, any ruleset picked would have been annointed by a set of judges.
No matter what ruleset emerged, the winner would have been appointed by the judiciary. You can't escape that conclusion. I agree with those who, at the time, decided it would be better to simply go with the first count, which was in fact in accordance with existing voter-enacted law.
I don't know that a reliable count of American Objectivists has ever been conducted. In some ways, they're a difficult group to track, because they don't build churches (except under contract :-), haven't formed an independent political party (though most, one would think, at least lean Libertarian), etc.
They are certainly out there, however. I keep a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my desk at work, and have found perhaps a half-dozen like-minded peers through this simple advertisement. Not a stellar count over a few years, but that is partly the product of the generic Objectivist aversion to proselytization. I am always pleased to hear Neal Boortz's periodic plugs on "hate radio" :-)
Indeed, that is part of why I am posting today. Seeing so many electoral commentators broad-brush Bush "moral values" voters as "evangelical", I decided that perhaps I should rise to the charge. Objectivism, and the world, could do with a healthy dose of evangelical exhortation, and the mood of the country suggests that perhaps they are ready to listen. One may hope.
To roll back to the initial discussion, however, I hope this has provided evidence that, when asked whether they voted on "moral values," not all Bush supporters necessarily meant "religious doctrine." Many Democrats seem to be reading that interpretation into the answer, and while it obviously holds some truth, it is far from a comprehensive explanation.
Excepting only the most ardent anarchists and mentally ill, everyone has moral values. Liberals hold it as a moral value that "those who have" have a moral obligation to help "those who have not." Conservatives generally hold the same value, but with the caveat that charity should be willing, not state-enforced, and that mandatory redistribution of wealth becomes akin to theft.
If future pollsters wish to ascertain more precisely why America voted in such predominant numbers for the GOP slate, and against Democratic candidates nationwide, they will need to ask more specific questions: such as, "did you cast you vote because of Christian or Bibical teachings?" "Moral values" is simply too broad a brush. (If anyone voted without consulting their personal moral compass, they should be sincerely slapped.)
And the notion that moral values repudiate critical thinking is simply bizarre. The implication that those who judge choices as alternately "right" or "wrong" have passively absorbed their views from a book -- or Book, or parents or Hollywood or wherever -- is insulting and absurd. America has a robust population of mature adults quite capable of objectively observing the world around them, discerning relationships between choices and outcomes, and using critical thinking to infer moral axioms.
Theft is wrong. Slavery is wrong. Deliberate and malicious infliction of pain and suffering is wrong. Terrorist bombings of innocent civilians is most decidedly wrong. I do not require Divine guidance to ascertain these things. But they are part of my moral code, and they did greatly influence my decision to vote for President Bush.
(For the record, I am not suggesting that Senator Kerry is a thief, terrorist, or otherwise. But I do think his foreign policies are less anti-terrorist than Bush's, and I think his economic policies are more pro-theft (redistribution) than Bush's.)
That's like the Oracle pricing model: every customer receives the same product, but they try to price it based on how much money they perceive you to have. That's how used car dealers work, where the value of the product is only ephemerally connected to the price they set for each customer. I don't buy from those kinds of companies, and I don't want my government to use that model either.
You and I are using very different definitions of "fair". My version is strictly quantitative, based on an unbiased application of an agreed-upon percentage to a known quantity (income). Yours seems to be biased on subjective assessments of "how much pain a recipient can/should bear." I don't trust that subjective aspect, for the normal "three lions and a lamb" reasons.
Please don't take any of this as arguing heavily for a flat tax. Although I regard a flat tax as less-evil than the current progressive tax, I would much prefer a consumption (sales) tax. That's how pretty much everything else in capitalism works, and I like it.
I like the incentive structure (discouraging overconsumption rather than discouraging productivity, success, and promotion); I like the intuitive "fairness" of "paying for what you use". That definition of fairness goes beyond human ideology, and resonates profoundly with our most fundamental understanding of physics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is the toll-road model, and I believe it to be both fiscally and morally sound.
I am aware many Americans -- generally those below the $200K "rich folks" threshold -- hold the opposing view, that it is both right and proper to extract an equal level of "pain" from every taxpayer. (Rather like the educational idealistists who continue to clamor for "equal outcomes" versus "equal opportunity".)
I can only say that I will continue to use my vote to resist the economic policies of socialism and communism, which I believe are absolutely irreconcilable with America's capitalist foundations.
Cheers, and thank you for your thoughtful and courteous reply. That is the real mark of distinction between /. and Freepers/DU/Kos/etc.
If you believe that you are an independent, unique, unsolicited, and temporary spawn of an otherwise uncaring universe, then you presumably have to make up your own mind as to the value of your life and how it should most productively be spent.
However, it is false to suggest that the absence of a Creator means that "nothing matters at all" and "everything is a waste of time." Regardless of how we got here, we generally have 70+ years of experiences and choices to navigate. Some of us do have the ability, will, and determination to define meanings for our own existence.
Part of the premise of free will is the choice to craft the meanings of our own lives. Neither Creationism nor Evolutionary Theory abrogate that.
Moral values and critical thinking are not anti-thetical; they are mutually dependent and reinforcing.
"The tricky part" is managing to keep it in the air at all.
It is way, WAY easier to make an automated flixed-wing airplane, which is why most commercial airliners ARE automated (can take off, fly to their destination, and land unaided), and have been for years.
Helicopters are a vastly more complicated technology, which is why even the US Army, which has the best and most advanced helicopters in the world, continues to suffer repeated fatalities from training accidents and normal operations.
It is a truism in the helicopter industry that "they don't fly...they're so ugly that the earth itself repels them."
Spend some time here How They Fly before you next post :-)