Not that I don't get your point but surely the fact that your << operator is not shifting bits left indicates that you've used *some* object orientated feature.
Operator overloading is a C++ feature, not an OO feature.
What you're ignoring is that doing OO programming in non-OO languages means you're using a home-brew OO system which surely hasn't been designed with as much thought as true OO languages..
I dunno about this. Have you seen the design of some "true" OO languages?:-)
and is also non-standard, so that anyone looking at your code or joining your project will not understand what the hell is going on.
Unless something in the industry has changed drastically, being able to readily understand "what the hell is going on" is not a required property of the object-oriented paradigm. Some key ideas and principles, such as the already-mentioned tools of information hiding, abstraction, polymorphism, and inheritance, are what OO is about.
Now, I'm not claiming that it's wiser to implement a large, complex OO system in C than it is to implement it in C++. All that I'm saying is that it certainly can be done, and it is no less of an object-oriented solution than its C++ counterpart is.
If you want to look at it that way, I suppose assembly language is "object oriented".
There really is no such thing as an "object-oriented language", if your definition is "a language you can write object-oriented code with." As an adjective in that context, "object-oriented" is really only meaningful when it's applied to code. For example, I claim that the following program is legal C++ code:
However, I wouldn't dream of claiming that the program is "object-oriented" simply because C++ is perceived to be an "object-oriented" language. Obviously, I have not made use of any object-oriented facilities, so there is no way that I can make this claim. However, when I write a GTK+ program in C, and I call gtk_widget_set_usize() with arbitrary widget types, including some that I have created myself by inheriting built-in widget types, I can (correctly) claim that I am writing OO code, even though C is not perceived to be an "object-oriented" language.
The useful working definition for "object-oriented language" must remain what it always has been, namely, "a language that supplies direct, language-level support for OO concepts." That does not mean that you're required to write OO code in that language, nor does it mean that you cannot write OO code in other languages that do not meet that definition.
You are saying that every language/compiler that runs in a chip/VM is the same thing.
so functional, OO, Imperative programing are all the same. Guau!
No, I'm saying that code that is based on the concepts of inheritance and polymorphism in one language is still based on the concepts of inheritance and polymorphism if it is translated into another language.
I think you need to look at the definition of an "Object Oriented" language. You'll see that to be OO a language must support certain things like inheritance, polymorphism, run time binding (dynamic binding) and many other fun things that you can't do in procedural languages. C doesn't support any of those.
Of course it "supports" them. It's just not as easy as it is in other languages. As has been pointed out before, creative use of function pointers in C can be used to implement polymorphism and "dynamic binding."
Think about it a minute. What does a C++ compiler do? It translates the (high-level) C++ code to (low-level) assembly code. Are you somehow suggesting that there is no way that the generated assembly code can implement inheritance and polymorphism because no assembly language "supports any of those?" If so, how is it that C++ programs are able to compile, link, and execute? The original C++ compiler, cfront, generated C code as output from the input C++ code. Surely the output C code was no less "object-oriented" than the C++ code it was generated from.
You can write object-oriented code in nearly any language. The difference is how much language-level support for OO is provided. Just because you can't write "virual void myFunc()" in C doesn't mean you can't generate the same behavior.
I personally think that if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory in an objective philosophy class as it contains an inherent world view.
Biological evolution is change in the gene pool over time. That's it. That this happens is a matter of fact, not fancy. Any "inherent world view" that it contains is something that you have fabricated or have been force-fed by religious handlers. Biological evolution and its logical results (natural selection and common descent) say nothing about the meaning or purpose of life. They are processes; nothing more and nothing less.
Atheists who claim that evolution proves there is no God do so groundlessly. Fundamentalists who claim that evolution is incompatible with and an attack on their religion do so groundlessly. Biological evolution is as important to modern biology as atomic theory is to modern chemistry, and to suggest that it ought to be taught as philosophy is (at best) a joke or (more likely) a rather clever troll.
In the case of the latter, congratulations.. you got me. But it seems these days you never know!
However, I think the case can be made for beating them within an inch of their lives, to the point where they are unrecognizable. My logic is as follows: The primary reason that script kiddies pull shit like this is so that they can get recognition. If they have been worked over to the point where they are unrecognizable, what's the point? You'd see incidents like this drop like a rock.
So by all means, go a little vigilante and work them over with a tire iron. But don't kill them. Make an example of them, and the others will fall into line.
Even if somoene tried this type of shady practice, competitors would pop up instantaneously and everything would work itself out. So people would perhaps undergo a temporary convience, but nothing longterm.
If a company has a monopoly on natural gas delivery, how is a competitor going to pop up and lay entirely new networks of pipe to the entire city "instantaneously?" Ask a typical small businessman in Southern California what his opinion on complete government deregulation is after having seen his electric bill quadruple with no competitors to turn to.
The people have a right to demand government regulation of certain essential services such as their utilities, to protect their livelihoods (and, perhaps, their lives) from racketeering, price-gouging scumbags. In a perfect world, CEOs would value the well-being of the people they (claim to) serve over their ability to buy sunhats for their racehorses. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and as a result, the last line of defense is sensible regulation.
How can a corporation infringe on your rights unless the government gives them that right?
Often times, government gives corporations the right to infringe on the rights of citizens through inaction. Let's say that I own an energy company, and that I am the sole supplier of natural gas to a certain region. Looking at the weather report, it seems that the weather will be 20 degrees colder than normal. As a shrewd businessman, I decide to triple my prices. It's not as if there is any shortage, or any supply problems.. I just want to make money. After all, it's not as if the people can get their gas somewhere else. And it's not like they can go without it!
Here the government infringes on the rights of its citizens by not taking action and allowing the company to engage in such outrageous tactics. That is to say, it infringes on the right of its citizens to pay a fair and equitable cost for its energy based on market conditions and operating costs and to not be price-gouged by greedy suits out to line their pockets with gold.
I realize that many of the Libertarian bent would suggest that those who freeze or starve to death in such conditions do so because of their own actions, and that their passing would represent the natural order of things. However, reasonable people recognize that the right to equitable energy prices is not at all the same thing as the right to "free food" or "free healthcare." The role of the government is to protect its citizens from all threats, both foreign and domestic, and an energy supplier who tried such a tactic would be the epitome of a domestic threat.
What libertarians (and big-government liberals) don't like to hear is that there is a definite, but limited, government role when it comes to corporate control. The control cannot be heavy-handed to the extent that it interferes with the ability of the corporation to function, but at the same time, corporations cannot be completely unleashed to do whatever they please. History has shown us that this more often than not leads to disastrous results.
I agree that randomly throwing money at schools and calling it good is no solution at all. Still, you can't raise teacher pay (which is desperately needed) by cutting funding. You can't reduce classroom size (again, which is needed) by cutting funding. You can't wire schools and classforms for Internet access by cutting funding. You can't.. and the list goes on and on.
Throwing money at schools simply for the sake of throwing money at them is certainly the wrong approach. But increasing funding with specific, measurable goals and a definitive chain of accountability would do wonders to improve the current educational system.
Okay, so I don't have an actual PDP-10, but if you're looking for a little bit of fun and nostalgia, there are PDP-10 emulators available. This page has plenty of PDP-10 software links, and a PDP-10 emulator can be found here.
There really isn't one. Sure, you can point to a dictionary and quote the entry for "planet", but I can point to a different dictionary with a different definition. You can point to an astronomer who has put forth his or her preferred definition, and I can point to another astronomer who uses a different definition as his or her standard.
There are a few we can discuss (and possibly dismiss.) Clearly, "something which orbits the Sun" is inappropriate, because that would make planets out of everything from asteroids to man-made spacecraft.
"An object in space with an atmosphere and sufficient mass to have compressed it to a sphere or oblate spheroid" is much better, but there are a couple of problems with this, as well. First of all, this would mean that objects like Titan (Saturn's largest moon) would be considered planets. Additionally, not all of the objects that we consider to be planets have appreciable atmospheres; Mercury has virtually none, and the atmosphere of Pluto tends to freeze onto the planet's surface as it approaches the perihelion of its very elliptical orbit (due to the extreme cold.)
So maybe we can combine the two examples and say that a planet is "an object that directly orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to have been compressed into a sphere or an oblate spheroid, and has an atmosphere or a trace thereof." This is better, but there are still going to be people who have problems with it and object to it for one reason or another.
So in lieu of any hard-and-fast definition, I offer the following:
An object is a planet if people generally think it is.
Unscientific as hell, but it might be the only one that keeps people happy.:-)
INTEL ANNOUNCES MERGER WITH MATTEL
Multi-Billion Dollar Deal To Create Chip/Toy Recall Empire
LOS ANGELES, CA (UPI) - In yet another high-stakes mega-merger that is sure to draw scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, microprocessor manufacturer Intel today announced that it plans to merge with children's toy giant Mattel. The multi-billion dollar stock swap deal, which much be approved by stockholders, was announced today at a gala media event hosted at the Los Angeles Civic Center.
The new company, tentatively entitled Mintel, will oversee an empire of famous product names, such as "Pentium", "Barbie", "RAMBUS", and "Hungry Hungry Hippoes." "The goal of this merger," stated Mattel chairman Charles Waxley, "is to get a Mintel product in every American home. We can combine Intel's processing power with Mattel's child appeal to create gobs and gobs of revenue." Waxley did not specify how much money a gob consists of.
The new combined corporation will also have its share of recall woes to contend with. Intel, having gone through this process with its microprocessors at several points in the past, is currently facing a recall of its newest product, the Pentium 4 (codenamed "Ravenous Hedgehog".) Mattel is in the process of recalling several of its product lines, including "Survivalist Steve's Napalm Kit For Children" and "Silly Scissors Race."
"It's a matter of pooling resources," explained Intel chairman Andy Grove. "For example, if we have to send a field rep to somebody's home with a fire extinguisher to recall an Intel Pentium 4-based machine, it's only good business sense to have that same representative pick up their kid's 'I Dare You To Drink This Unmarked Bottle From The Garage' Mattel board game. It's called killing two birds with one stone." Financial analysts have estimated that Mattel and Intel could save upwards of a billion dollars by pooling their recall resources.
Mattel and Intel stock were both sharply higher in overnight trading.
There are upwards of 500 stars in the Pleiades cluster. It just so happens that there are only a handful (six or seven, as you've noted) that are reasonably visible to the naked eye.
.. he has made statements such as, "Even though I won the popular vote..."
.. which is a statement of fact; it is not an opinion or a call to arms.
Hillary of New York has called for the abolition of the Electoral College.
As has Arlen Specter, a prominent Pennsylvania Republican. Ditto for Ray LaHood, a Republican representative who had drafted pre-emptive legislation to bring before the House if the reverse outcome would have happened (if Bush had won the popular vote but lost the electoral college.)
First of all, I'd like to point out that before all this madness occured, it was thought that Bush may win the popular vote, but Gore win the electoral vote. Gore didn't complain about that possibility. Now we come to the interesting proposition that Gore may have won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. Now (gasp!) Gore doesn't think that the electoral system is fair.
Is that so?
Can you produce a single quote or statement since this election concluded where Gore has called for the abolition of the electoral college, advocated hearings to investigate it, or "whined" about the electoral college "not being fair?" Don't waste your time trying, because he hasn't. Plenty of people -- on both sides of the aisle, I might add -- have done exactly this, but Gore has not been among them. He has, in fact, done the opposite; he has defended the electoral college as the law of the land, which it obviously is.
(But far be it from me to rain on your fire and vitriol!)
The campaigning by both candidates, as well as the actual voting by the country, are made with the electoral college in mind. Both the candidates and the voters would have behaved totally differently under true popular vote.
I'm not sure if I buy this. One of the big arguments made by proponents of the electoral college is that it makes it impossible for candidates to ignore small states and focus on the populated areas. I live in a small state with a whopping total of three electoral votes. During the campaign, we never saw Bush or Gore once. Not a single time. We saw Ralph Nader and Howie Phillips (whoop-dee-doo), and Bush Sr. stopped by for a few hours, but that was it. Small states are already ignored under the current system, and I can honestly tell you that it would not be possible to ignore them any further under a direct popular vote.
Secondly, the margin for Gore's victory in the so-called popular vote is something like 0.3%, well within of the margin of error.
What is the "margin of error?" This isn't a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll where some statistician on the telephone queries a select few voters and uses those results to extrapolate the results. "Margin of error" is a useful indicator in polls. This is the election itself. This is all the voters.. the whole shebang. If people are willing to stipulate that there is a significant margin of error in the election results (by "significant", I mean "large enough to affect the outcome"), then they cannot possibly begrudge the right of Al Gore (or George Bush, or anybody) to call for manual recounts.
Thirdly, the electoral college is the law of the land. We simply cannot violate it based on whim.
Right. And I don't think that any reasonable person has suggested otherwise (which is to say that I'm not aware of anybody who has claimed that the presidency should be given to Gore because he got more votes.) The fact that he did win more votes has significant psychological and political implications, but very few (if any) legal implications.
Fourthly, there are good arguments for and against the electoral college. If you're going to argue against the status quo, you should at least make a strong case for it.
To me, it's a matter of common sense and fairness. If Bush wins Florida by a couple hundred votes out of six million, giving him all of that state's electoral votes is simply unbalanced. Similarly, if Gore wins California by a handful of votes, handing him 54 electors is not fair and equitable. The current system is set up so that a Wyoming citizen's vote is worth less than a California citizen's vote, and that is diametrically opposed to the idea of a democracy where every citizen's vote is of equal value.
The electoral college was set up because the founding fathers did not trust John Q. Citizen to make his or her own informed decision about who the next president should be. Maybe this made some sense back in the days when information flow was scarce, but we passed those days a long time ago. The government should trust individual Americans to make up their own minds, and pursuant to this, it should employ a system where every American citizen's vote is of equal value.
Fifthly, Gore was more than ready to win on an electoral vote (see his tapes on CNN and company) when that was what the media was predicting.
This is true. And to be fair to Gore, you should also point out that out of all the voices calling for the abolition of the electoral college, his is nowhere to be found. Plenty of people, both Democrats (i.e., Hillary Clinton) and Republicans (i.e., Arlen Specter) have called for hearings on this, but Al Gore hasn't. Even after learning the results of this election, he came out and publicly defended the college as the "law of the land."
Whoops.. so it is! It's correct now. I normally browse at -1 anyway, so I'm not accustomed to seeing that type of message.
And I've used it as a sig for almost as long as I've had this account (checks UID, yup, far too long).
Heh.. well, I can only hold up my hands and claim ignorance.:-) I was reading Slashdot once from a machine at work where I hadn't logged in before, and so it defaulted me to zero (or is it one now? I don't pay attention to these things) which resulted in me seeing a bunch of these "below/beneath current threshold" messages. At the time, I thought it would make a nifty sig. However, I didn't (consciously, at least) steal the idea from you.. but I'm sure you're right about using it longer, because I've only used it for a couple of weeks.
IF I EVER MEET YOU I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!
Heh.:-) Well, I can change it if you want. You've got the claim on it.
METALLICA SUES DESCENDANTS OF ALAN TURING
".. And Justice For All," Vows Furious Drummer
LOS ANGELES, CA (AP) - In a legal move that is likely to set a precedent for many portions of the entertainment industry, the rock group Metallica today brought suit against the living descendents of Alan Turing, who is widely regarded as the father of modern computing. Claiming that Turing's work spawned the creation of "unabashed piracy machines," Metallica is seeking unspecified millions in damages.
Though Turing had no children of his own, he is survived by a large number of great-nephews and nieces. Spike Turing, the owner of a Starbucks' franchise in El Paso, Texas, told the Associated Press that he recieved a letter from Metallica's legal firm, Dewey, Cheat & Howe. "The letter claims that great Uncle Al is responsible for the destruction of the economies of the Western world," explained Turing. "They're taking us to trial."
"This is bullshit," stated a confused 84-year old Bertha Turing, who is a retired seamstress living in a cozy London suburb. "These Metallica fellers sent letters like this to all of us."
Lars Ulrich, who is Metallica's drummer, has taken the lead in fighting against what he claims is "a coordinated band of pirates hell-bent on obliterating creativity and musical freedom." Ulrich expressed hope that the Turing lawsuit would send a message to the rest of the community. "Um, we want people to understand that file sharing is not to be tolerated," explained Ulrich. "Open source is not to be.. uh.. tolerated. Piracy is not to be tolerated. Britney Spears is not to be.. well, her music is not to be tolerated. And above all, we want to make the relatives of the inventor of all of these fucking devil-boxes pay their dues."
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the title of the Spaceballs sequel (as revealed in the original movie) is Spaceballs: The Search For More Money. The almighty Yogurt, after all, is never wrong.
This line has already been quoted several times, but I got such a kick out of it that it bears repeating:
Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.
Okay.
In the interest of impartiality, couldn't the judge also have said:
Plaintiffs, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that Government and Large Corporations should be able to intrude into people's homes and make sure that consumers are not doing Unauthorized Things with a movie that they legally purchased on a piece of media which they legally own.
Sigh.
Look for this to continue. As long as the MPAA and their corporate lackies can give this whole thing the appearance of a war between the Good Guys and a bunch of pimply teenaged hackers bent on destroying the economy, they will continue to enjoy support from the media and from the legal community. It is only by pointing out the preposterous implications of their restrictions that we can frame this debate in the proper light.
"Having somebody who can screw around with my operating system would make me very, very nervous." -- Peter Firstbrook
So I guess Mr. Firstbrook is claiming that Linux is the only operation system that can be "screwed around with." Perhaps some kind soul should direct him to REGEDIT.EXE?
The fact of the matter is this: Linux is widely-deployed in both homes and businesses around the world, and it has been for some time. Mr. Firstbrook's "concerns" are only legitimate he can produce any evidence that his predictions have actually come to pass. Can he (or anybody else, for that matter) demonstrate that the ability of Kowboy Koders to modify the OS source code has resulted in systematic, wide-spread outages and downtimes? Of course he can't, for a very simple reason: he's wrong.
Firstbrook and his cronies can run around shouting "The sky is falling!" until Kingdom Come. But until they're able to document their claims with hard evidence, they should not be surprised that nobody is looking up.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I don't get your point but surely the fact that your << operator is not shifting bits left indicates that you've used *some* object orientated feature.
Operator overloading is a C++ feature, not an OO feature.
What you're ignoring is that doing OO programming in non-OO languages means you're using a home-brew OO system which surely hasn't been designed with as much thought as true OO languages ..
:-)
I dunno about this. Have you seen the design of some "true" OO languages?
and is also non-standard, so that anyone looking at your code or joining your project will not understand what the hell is going on.
Unless something in the industry has changed drastically, being able to readily understand "what the hell is going on" is not a required property of the object-oriented paradigm. Some key ideas and principles, such as the already-mentioned tools of information hiding, abstraction, polymorphism, and inheritance, are what OO is about.
Now, I'm not claiming that it's wiser to implement a large, complex OO system in C than it is to implement it in C++. All that I'm saying is that it certainly can be done, and it is no less of an object-oriented solution than its C++ counterpart is.
If you want to look at it that way, I suppose assembly language is "object oriented".
There really is no such thing as an "object-oriented language", if your definition is "a language you can write object-oriented code with." As an adjective in that context, "object-oriented" is really only meaningful when it's applied to code. For example, I claim that the following program is legal C++ code:
#include <iostream>
int main( void ) {
cout << "Hello, world!" << endl;
return 0;
}
However, I wouldn't dream of claiming that the program is "object-oriented" simply because C++ is perceived to be an "object-oriented" language. Obviously, I have not made use of any object-oriented facilities, so there is no way that I can make this claim. However, when I write a GTK+ program in C, and I call gtk_widget_set_usize() with arbitrary widget types, including some that I have created myself by inheriting built-in widget types, I can (correctly) claim that I am writing OO code, even though C is not perceived to be an "object-oriented" language.
The useful working definition for "object-oriented language" must remain what it always has been, namely, "a language that supplies direct, language-level support for OO concepts." That does not mean that you're required to write OO code in that language, nor does it mean that you cannot write OO code in other languages that do not meet that definition.
You are saying that every language/compiler that runs in a chip/VM is the same thing.
so functional, OO, Imperative programing are all the same. Guau!
No, I'm saying that code that is based on the concepts of inheritance and polymorphism in one language is still based on the concepts of inheritance and polymorphism if it is translated into another language.
I think you need to look at the definition of an "Object Oriented" language. You'll see that to be OO a language must support certain things like inheritance, polymorphism, run time binding (dynamic binding) and many other fun things that you can't do in procedural languages. C doesn't support any of those.
Of course it "supports" them. It's just not as easy as it is in other languages. As has been pointed out before, creative use of function pointers in C can be used to implement polymorphism and "dynamic binding."
Think about it a minute. What does a C++ compiler do? It translates the (high-level) C++ code to (low-level) assembly code. Are you somehow suggesting that there is no way that the generated assembly code can implement inheritance and polymorphism because no assembly language "supports any of those?" If so, how is it that C++ programs are able to compile, link, and execute? The original C++ compiler, cfront, generated C code as output from the input C++ code. Surely the output C code was no less "object-oriented" than the C++ code it was generated from.
You can write object-oriented code in nearly any language. The difference is how much language-level support for OO is provided. Just because you can't write "virual void myFunc()" in C doesn't mean you can't generate the same behavior.
I personally think that if evolution is taught in schools, it should be taught as a theory in an objective philosophy class as it contains an inherent world view.
.. you got me. But it seems these days you never know!
Biological evolution is change in the gene pool over time. That's it. That this happens is a matter of fact, not fancy. Any "inherent world view" that it contains is something that you have fabricated or have been force-fed by religious handlers. Biological evolution and its logical results (natural selection and common descent) say nothing about the meaning or purpose of life. They are processes; nothing more and nothing less.
Atheists who claim that evolution proves there is no God do so groundlessly. Fundamentalists who claim that evolution is incompatible with and an attack on their religion do so groundlessly. Biological evolution is as important to modern biology as atomic theory is to modern chemistry, and to suggest that it ought to be taught as philosophy is (at best) a joke or (more likely) a rather clever troll.
In the case of the latter, congratulations
However, I think the case can be made for beating them within an inch of their lives, to the point where they are unrecognizable. My logic is as follows: The primary reason that script kiddies pull shit like this is so that they can get recognition. If they have been worked over to the point where they are unrecognizable, what's the point? You'd see incidents like this drop like a rock.
So by all means, go a little vigilante and work them over with a tire iron. But don't kill them. Make an example of them, and the others will fall into line.
Even if somoene tried this type of shady practice, competitors would pop up instantaneously and everything would work itself out. So people would perhaps undergo a temporary convience, but nothing longterm.
If a company has a monopoly on natural gas delivery, how is a competitor going to pop up and lay entirely new networks of pipe to the entire city "instantaneously?" Ask a typical small businessman in Southern California what his opinion on complete government deregulation is after having seen his electric bill quadruple with no competitors to turn to.
The people have a right to demand government regulation of certain essential services such as their utilities, to protect their livelihoods (and, perhaps, their lives) from racketeering, price-gouging scumbags. In a perfect world, CEOs would value the well-being of the people they (claim to) serve over their ability to buy sunhats for their racehorses. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and as a result, the last line of defense is sensible regulation.
How can a corporation infringe on your rights unless the government gives them that right?
.. I just want to make money. After all, it's not as if the people can get their gas somewhere else. And it's not like they can go without it!
Often times, government gives corporations the right to infringe on the rights of citizens through inaction. Let's say that I own an energy company, and that I am the sole supplier of natural gas to a certain region. Looking at the weather report, it seems that the weather will be 20 degrees colder than normal. As a shrewd businessman, I decide to triple my prices. It's not as if there is any shortage, or any supply problems
Here the government infringes on the rights of its citizens by not taking action and allowing the company to engage in such outrageous tactics. That is to say, it infringes on the right of its citizens to pay a fair and equitable cost for its energy based on market conditions and operating costs and to not be price-gouged by greedy suits out to line their pockets with gold.
I realize that many of the Libertarian bent would suggest that those who freeze or starve to death in such conditions do so because of their own actions, and that their passing would represent the natural order of things. However, reasonable people recognize that the right to equitable energy prices is not at all the same thing as the right to "free food" or "free healthcare." The role of the government is to protect its citizens from all threats, both foreign and domestic, and an energy supplier who tried such a tactic would be the epitome of a domestic threat.
What libertarians (and big-government liberals) don't like to hear is that there is a definite, but limited, government role when it comes to corporate control. The control cannot be heavy-handed to the extent that it interferes with the ability of the corporation to function, but at the same time, corporations cannot be completely unleashed to do whatever they please. History has shown us that this more often than not leads to disastrous results.
I agree that randomly throwing money at schools and calling it good is no solution at all. Still, you can't raise teacher pay (which is desperately needed) by cutting funding. You can't reduce classroom size (again, which is needed) by cutting funding. You can't wire schools and classforms for Internet access by cutting funding. You can't .. and the list goes on and on.
Throwing money at schools simply for the sake of throwing money at them is certainly the wrong approach. But increasing funding with specific, measurable goals and a definitive chain of accountability would do wonders to improve the current educational system.
Okay, so I don't have an actual PDP-10, but if you're looking for a little bit of fun and nostalgia, there are PDP-10 emulators available. This page has plenty of PDP-10 software links, and a PDP-10 emulator can be found here.
Surely you meant to say "aphelion," since Pluto gets colder the farther it gets from the sun?
:-)
You're right. Must've been a pre-coffee misfired neuron. Mea culpa.
Whats the scientific defintion of a planet?
:-)
There really isn't one. Sure, you can point to a dictionary and quote the entry for "planet", but I can point to a different dictionary with a different definition. You can point to an astronomer who has put forth his or her preferred definition, and I can point to another astronomer who uses a different definition as his or her standard.
There are a few we can discuss (and possibly dismiss.) Clearly, "something which orbits the Sun" is inappropriate, because that would make planets out of everything from asteroids to man-made spacecraft.
"An object in space with an atmosphere and sufficient mass to have compressed it to a sphere or oblate spheroid" is much better, but there are a couple of problems with this, as well. First of all, this would mean that objects like Titan (Saturn's largest moon) would be considered planets. Additionally, not all of the objects that we consider to be planets have appreciable atmospheres; Mercury has virtually none, and the atmosphere of Pluto tends to freeze onto the planet's surface as it approaches the perihelion of its very elliptical orbit (due to the extreme cold.)
So maybe we can combine the two examples and say that a planet is "an object that directly orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to have been compressed into a sphere or an oblate spheroid, and has an atmosphere or a trace thereof." This is better, but there are still going to be people who have problems with it and object to it for one reason or another.
So in lieu of any hard-and-fast definition, I offer the following:
An object is a planet if people generally think it is.
Unscientific as hell, but it might be the only one that keeps people happy.
INTEL ANNOUNCES MERGER WITH MATTEL
Multi-Billion Dollar Deal To Create Chip/Toy Recall Empire
LOS ANGELES, CA (UPI) - In yet another high-stakes mega-merger that is sure to draw scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, microprocessor manufacturer Intel today announced that it plans to merge with children's toy giant Mattel. The multi-billion dollar stock swap deal, which much be approved by stockholders, was announced today at a gala media event hosted at the Los Angeles Civic Center.
The new company, tentatively entitled Mintel, will oversee an empire of famous product names, such as "Pentium", "Barbie", "RAMBUS", and "Hungry Hungry Hippoes." "The goal of this merger," stated Mattel chairman Charles Waxley, "is to get a Mintel product in every American home. We can combine Intel's processing power with Mattel's child appeal to create gobs and gobs of revenue." Waxley did not specify how much money a gob consists of.
The new combined corporation will also have its share of recall woes to contend with. Intel, having gone through this process with its microprocessors at several points in the past, is currently facing a recall of its newest product, the Pentium 4 (codenamed "Ravenous Hedgehog".) Mattel is in the process of recalling several of its product lines, including "Survivalist Steve's Napalm Kit For Children" and "Silly Scissors Race."
"It's a matter of pooling resources," explained Intel chairman Andy Grove. "For example, if we have to send a field rep to somebody's home with a fire extinguisher to recall an Intel Pentium 4-based machine, it's only good business sense to have that same representative pick up their kid's 'I Dare You To Drink This Unmarked Bottle From The Garage' Mattel board game. It's called killing two birds with one stone." Financial analysts have estimated that Mattel and Intel could save upwards of a billion dollars by pooling their recall resources.
Mattel and Intel stock were both sharply higher in overnight trading.
Alan Greenspan contributed to this story.
thank you
There are upwards of 500 stars in the Pleiades cluster. It just so happens that there are only a handful (six or seven, as you've noted) that are reasonably visible to the naked eye.
.. he has made statements such as, "Even though I won the popular vote..."
.. both sides of the aisle.
.. which is a statement of fact; it is not an opinion or a call to arms.
Hillary of New York has called for the abolition of the Electoral College.
As has Arlen Specter, a prominent Pennsylvania Republican. Ditto for Ray LaHood, a Republican representative who had drafted pre-emptive legislation to bring before the House if the reverse outcome would have happened (if Bush had won the popular vote but lost the electoral college.)
As I said
First of all, I'd like to point out that before all this madness occured, it was thought that Bush may win the popular vote, but Gore win the electoral vote. Gore didn't complain about that possibility. Now we come to the interesting proposition that Gore may have won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. Now (gasp!) Gore doesn't think that the electoral system is fair.
Is that so?
Can you produce a single quote or statement since this election concluded where Gore has called for the abolition of the electoral college, advocated hearings to investigate it, or "whined" about the electoral college "not being fair?" Don't waste your time trying, because he hasn't. Plenty of people -- on both sides of the aisle, I might add -- have done exactly this, but Gore has not been among them. He has, in fact, done the opposite; he has defended the electoral college as the law of the land, which it obviously is.
(But far be it from me to rain on your fire and vitriol!)
The campaigning by both candidates, as well as the actual voting by the country, are made with the electoral college in mind. Both the candidates and the voters would have behaved totally differently under true popular vote.
.. the whole shebang. If people are willing to stipulate that there is a significant margin of error in the election results (by "significant", I mean "large enough to affect the outcome"), then they cannot possibly begrudge the right of Al Gore (or George Bush, or anybody) to call for manual recounts.
I'm not sure if I buy this. One of the big arguments made by proponents of the electoral college is that it makes it impossible for candidates to ignore small states and focus on the populated areas. I live in a small state with a whopping total of three electoral votes. During the campaign, we never saw Bush or Gore once. Not a single time. We saw Ralph Nader and Howie Phillips (whoop-dee-doo), and Bush Sr. stopped by for a few hours, but that was it. Small states are already ignored under the current system, and I can honestly tell you that it would not be possible to ignore them any further under a direct popular vote.
Secondly, the margin for Gore's victory in the so-called popular vote is something like 0.3%, well within of the margin of error.
What is the "margin of error?" This isn't a Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll where some statistician on the telephone queries a select few voters and uses those results to extrapolate the results. "Margin of error" is a useful indicator in polls. This is the election itself. This is all the voters
Thirdly, the electoral college is the law of the land. We simply cannot violate it based on whim.
Right. And I don't think that any reasonable person has suggested otherwise (which is to say that I'm not aware of anybody who has claimed that the presidency should be given to Gore because he got more votes.) The fact that he did win more votes has significant psychological and political implications, but very few (if any) legal implications.
Fourthly, there are good arguments for and against the electoral college. If you're going to argue against the status quo, you should at least make a strong case for it.
To me, it's a matter of common sense and fairness. If Bush wins Florida by a couple hundred votes out of six million, giving him all of that state's electoral votes is simply unbalanced. Similarly, if Gore wins California by a handful of votes, handing him 54 electors is not fair and equitable. The current system is set up so that a Wyoming citizen's vote is worth less than a California citizen's vote, and that is diametrically opposed to the idea of a democracy where every citizen's vote is of equal value.
The electoral college was set up because the founding fathers did not trust John Q. Citizen to make his or her own informed decision about who the next president should be. Maybe this made some sense back in the days when information flow was scarce, but we passed those days a long time ago. The government should trust individual Americans to make up their own minds, and pursuant to this, it should employ a system where every American citizen's vote is of equal value.
Fifthly, Gore was more than ready to win on an electoral vote (see his tapes on CNN and company) when that was what the media was predicting.
This is true. And to be fair to Gore, you should also point out that out of all the voices calling for the abolition of the electoral college, his is nowhere to be found. Plenty of people, both Democrats (i.e., Hillary Clinton) and Republicans (i.e., Arlen Specter) have called for hearings on this, but Al Gore hasn't. Even after learning the results of this election, he came out and publicly defended the college as the "law of the land."
It's actually beneath, not below
.. so it is! It's correct now. I normally browse at -1 anyway, so I'm not accustomed to seeing that type of message.
.. well, I can only hold up my hands and claim ignorance. :-) I was reading Slashdot once from a machine at work where I hadn't logged in before, and so it defaulted me to zero (or is it one now? I don't pay attention to these things) which resulted in me seeing a bunch of these "below/beneath current threshold" messages. At the time, I thought it would make a nifty sig. However, I didn't (consciously, at least) steal the idea from you .. but I'm sure you're right about using it longer, because I've only used it for a couple of weeks.
:-) Well, I can change it if you want. You've got the claim on it.
Whoops
And I've used it as a sig for almost as long as I've had this account (checks UID, yup, far too long).
Heh
IF I EVER MEET YOU I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!
Heh.
It's actually "Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe" ..
:-)
I knew I didn't have it quite right.
Thanks for the correction.
METALLICA SUES DESCENDANTS OF ALAN TURING
.. uh .. tolerated. Piracy is not to be tolerated. Britney Spears is not to be .. well, her music is not to be tolerated. And above all, we want to make the relatives of the inventor of all of these fucking devil-boxes pay their dues."
".. And Justice For All," Vows Furious Drummer
LOS ANGELES, CA (AP) - In a legal move that is likely to set a precedent for many portions of the entertainment industry, the rock group Metallica today brought suit against the living descendents of Alan Turing, who is widely regarded as the father of modern computing. Claiming that Turing's work spawned the creation of "unabashed piracy machines," Metallica is seeking unspecified millions in damages.
Though Turing had no children of his own, he is survived by a large number of great-nephews and nieces. Spike Turing, the owner of a Starbucks' franchise in El Paso, Texas, told the Associated Press that he recieved a letter from Metallica's legal firm, Dewey, Cheat & Howe. "The letter claims that great Uncle Al is responsible for the destruction of the economies of the Western world," explained Turing. "They're taking us to trial."
"This is bullshit," stated a confused 84-year old Bertha Turing, who is a retired seamstress living in a cozy London suburb. "These Metallica fellers sent letters like this to all of us."
Lars Ulrich, who is Metallica's drummer, has taken the lead in fighting against what he claims is "a coordinated band of pirates hell-bent on obliterating creativity and musical freedom." Ulrich expressed hope that the Turing lawsuit would send a message to the rest of the community. "Um, we want people to understand that file sharing is not to be tolerated," explained Ulrich. "Open source is not to be
Dr. Dre contributed to this story.
Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the title of the Spaceballs sequel (as revealed in the original movie) is Spaceballs: The Search For More Money. The almighty Yogurt, after all, is never wrong.
Okay.
In the interest of impartiality, couldn't the judge also have said:
Sigh.
Look for this to continue. As long as the MPAA and their corporate lackies can give this whole thing the appearance of a war between the Good Guys and a bunch of pimply teenaged hackers bent on destroying the economy, they will continue to enjoy support from the media and from the legal community. It is only by pointing out the preposterous implications of their restrictions that we can frame this debate in the proper light.
So I guess Mr. Firstbrook is claiming that Linux is the only operation system that can be "screwed around with." Perhaps some kind soul should direct him to REGEDIT.EXE?
The fact of the matter is this: Linux is widely-deployed in both homes and businesses around the world, and it has been for some time. Mr. Firstbrook's "concerns" are only legitimate he can produce any evidence that his predictions have actually come to pass. Can he (or anybody else, for that matter) demonstrate that the ability of Kowboy Koders to modify the OS source code has resulted in systematic, wide-spread outages and downtimes? Of course he can't, for a very simple reason: he's wrong.
Firstbrook and his cronies can run around shouting "The sky is falling!" until Kingdom Come. But until they're able to document their claims with hard evidence, they should not be surprised that nobody is looking up.