Ah I see you're the Aussie originally posting... In which case strike that last paragraph:)
Seriously point me to the legislation which requires them to take you in for some serious questioning for making a stupid joke (maybe it exists now, but I I'd like to see it). Really if they know you are joking it, you'll get into trouble because you've pissed them off (after a dozen of bomb jokes a day, it's gonna wear thin eventually). And as I said, posting something like that online actually is asking for trouble.
I highly doubt they'd take that kind of comment lightly.
Obviously not. They went to the expense of having signs made telling people to stop doing it.
Sure, they might get that you're joking but they'd still be required to take you in for some serious questioning.
If they get that you're joking why would they waste time questioning you?
Seriously, what happened in Canada wouldn't happen here. I mean people with an IQ as low as the guy who called the alarm just because someone told him they had a machine gun in a violin case (of all things!)... you know, they're all on welfare here. A custodial sentence?!!! That's just friggin' crazy, what kind of crack-pot police state they got up there anyway?
If you want some serious questioning here you'll have to try a bit harder! Say breaching the most massive security operation the country had ever put on. You know go through two checkpoints with fake IDs, get, dressed up as Osama bin Laden and drive your limo right up to the front door of the hotel where the US President is staying. Don't count on actually getting prosecuted though, that would be un-Australian.
You are underestimating our larrikin ways, overestimating the efficiency of our security services and universalising the oppression you are obviously subject to.
A few months ago I had a domestic flight in Australia... I'm glad I was smart enough not to.
Irony is more acceptable in Australian culture and you are a lot less likely to get in trouble for that sort of thing here. The problem really occurs when we travel overseas.
Recall the Australian violinist who when checking trough Canadian customs responded to the question "what have you got in that violin case" in the only acceptable manner "whatdya reckon, a machine gun..." (ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer being the accepted norm in Australian English), which caused the shutdown of Toronto (from memory) Airport and earned him a (short) custodial sentence. No bloody sense of humour those Canadians!
OK, the fact that it was the 12th or 13th of Sept 2001 didn't help any, "tragedy plus time" and all that...
Doing that here would more likely have earn you the reply "don't be a bloody dickhead mate!" Indeed, a few months afterwards I saw signs plastered all over Kingsford Smith Airport (Sydney) to the effect that "Making jokes about bombs is NOT funny." Which clearly evidences a rash of such behaviour, which while obviously not appreciated did not get the Tactical Response Unit called out or cause a major international incident.
OK posting on Facebook is a little more dangerous, since your tone of voice can't be assessed. And imagine what Today Tonight would to if the coppers missed it and someone really did have C4 at home. So maybe instead of putting it on your FB status you should reserve such comments for the person swabbing you, who will give you a dirty look and point at the sign and maybe get even, by making you unpack all your belongings, or conducting a cavity search or something. On second thoughts...
Hah, hah. Very funny. In what way are they not money?
If we define money as the form of payment a government will accept in satisfaction of debt, (as a Chartalist or MMTer might) the question becomes: In what way is Bitcoin money at all? Of course that is not the only definition of money and I personally doubt 'money' is capable of satisfactory definition at all. Since, however, you can neither discharge your tax liability, nor compel a debtor to settle in it, Bitcoin does fail to meet a core criterion of money, which is to say, it is not legal tender.
Now if you had asked instead, in what way it is money, my answer would have been very different, of course.;)
WTF? Shit, I've either been feeding a troll or you're clueless about history. Mao Tse Tung was about as far from a libertarian as one could possibly get.
That's what the poking tongue smiley was doing there (I don't know how to do a tongue-in-cheek smiley), I simply pointing out the delicious irony. If that fits your definition of a troll, then troll I am. And no, I'm anything but clueless about history. Of course a naive libertarian (if I may use that term) might simply observe that Mao is honestly laying bare the true nature of the state. And I wonder if the prominence of this quote in years gone by may not have in some way influenced the tendency among the more extreme of contemporary libertarians, such as AC above, to see absolutely all actions of the state as an expression of violence.
C'mon, what AC wrote on his blog really made no sense at all, unless you remembered that they literally do believe that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Coming to "see the wisdom" of requiring helmets and goggles is violence!?
The reason I wrote "Libertarian fundies" (or "naive libertarianism" above) was not merely to be derogatory, but to distinguish myself. As you would know (if you followed that link) I do endorse what I called the "libertarian imperative," my own ethics are based in part on respecting the dignity of the individual human being (and liberty is a requirement for such dignity), even if this has led me to consider the problematic cases under which freedom might to some extent be curtailed.
Listen, grandpa, I've been smoking pot for 41 years
Clearly it's addled your brain!
I'm only joking, and if your think I'm arguing in favour of drug prohibition your are wildly mistaken. See my last response here especially the last two paragraphs. The "wise"-crack was only because he accused me of being arrogant. And who you calling grandpa, I first smoked it for 35 years (mind I was relatively late in starting, no longer in HS)! Well I gave it up when I went to law school (fairly late in life), kinda goes with the territory
I value freedom. Apparently you do not.
I value freedom very highly. I just don't believe that it's the one word answer to every conceivable question.
You also refuse to look at the math.
Show me the maths.:)
The societal cost of drug illegality far outweigh the societal cost of the druggies...
I could not agree more. The social costs both for any particular nation and internationally are simply atrocious. As I wrote in the linked post, prohibition is morally indefensible. It's so whichever way you cut it whatever ideological orientation you claim, if you claim to be acting to increase human freedom or to relieve human suffering.
In other words, failure to learn from your mistakes.
Yes it's that, but it's also learning from life's experiences that aren't necessarily failures and the position you are placed in as life progresses, son, friend, father, boss... More than that though it's also a question of the development of cognitive abilities. And on that score sadly many supposed adults are developmentally retarded, preferring the simple and false to the nuance and realistic. This in fact is a factor in the continued existence of the failed drug control regime.
I suspect that those in favore of continued prohibition are making tons of money because of those laws.
I have always thought so too. And because it is easier for the police to take the small time operators out, even without the existence of corruption (which the current regime undoubtedly fosters), honest police end up acting in the interests of big organised crime.
But this alone is not enough to account for the continued stupidity. We are having this debate in Australia at the moment (check out smh.com.au), and polls apparently show the vast majority in favour of continued criminalisation. Politicians are shit scared to do what many of them must know is right. Why is this. Simply because people don't like to think. Apparently studies also show the majority of adults are either incapable or disinclined to indulge in abstract thought.
One line I hear/read all the time is that decriminalisation will lead to vast increases in usage. But the empirical evidence (Netherlands, Spain) simply doesn't bear this out. The entire presumption that underlies the regime, namely that criminalisation leads to lower usage rates needs to be challenged. Once people see that there is no good reason to believe that, maybe the will be more inclined to think about it.
Oh, I see. You're making assumptions about my age, are you? Interesting "wisdom."
How so? Later I wrote "if you are still in your early 20s" just carry on and ignore us, which is a statement I would hardly make were I aware of your actual age. There is no basis for reading into my contrasting my opinions of 30 years ago, your opinions of now and my current greater wisdom, any assumption as to your age. To patronise you with a concrete example: What distinguishes my next door neighbour's motorcycle from my car (or the pushbike I rode as a kid for that matter) is the number of wheels.
I would go further and point out that in truth the presumption that one opinion carries as much weight as any other is itself as much an opinion as it is a nonsense.
I see. I disagree with your opinion, then.
You can't!
If you reject my "opinion," namely that not all opinions carry the same weight, you must accept the negation as true (ie in your opinion, all opinions are indeed of the same weight). Therefore you must hold my opinion as being of equal weight with yours and you can no more disagree with my opinion than your own (which would of course be a nonsense). And yes, I am presuming that you are not merely an irrational madman, which presumption is rebuttable. OTHO, I suffer no such impairment in disagreeing with your opinions.
The educated reader will recognise this as the famous argument against Protagoras from Plato's Theaetetus, of course.
There is nothing distinguishing your opinion from mine (unless you wish to appeal to a higher power).
The only "higher power" we are dealing with here is my ego.;) That was a joke, of course, despite what you may think.
It simply means that what is appropriate behaviour for a 5 year old when manifested in a 50 year old will be regarded as developmental retardation.
What is "appropriate"?
I would have thought it very clear what "appropriate behaviour" meant in the context of that sentence?! Your English comprehensions skills seem compromised, perhaps your love of the halfling's leaf has slowed your mind?
Define it.
Buy a dictionary! Better still, come to grips with the body of literature pertaining to child developmental psychology.
Well, if that's what you believe my current thought process is, then it shouldn't matter whether I'm 20, 30, or some other age.
Firstly, this isn't really about so much about your individual thought processes (go back to my original contribution). Secondly if you stop to consider what you wrote, namely that if I believe what is appropriate at one developmental stage may not be so at another, "then it shouldn't matter whether [said man is] 20, 30, or some other age" you will surely recognise the invalidity of your statement. Please tell me you can.
The point is that if you are a young adult male (I will not presume here to talk for women), you are not to be admonished for rejecting parental and especially paternal authority. And it is easy for this to transfer to authority in general. This is, especially in our culture, part of emerging into independent adulthood. However maturity allows you to develop a more nuanced relationship with authority. And as a mature person, when say you may be responsible not only for yourself but for others (who are perhaps subject to your authority), greater sagacity is called for.
Now, where did I say I was confident about anything?
Now, where did I say you were confident about anything?
I do not see anything wrong with my "solutions" even if you deem them "simple."
I agree you do not see anything wrong and I concede I used the wrong word when I wrote "simple." I meant simplistic, of course. What I can't work out is where the word 'solutions' is being quoted from? W
And what does that even mean? Who decided that they "need" to grow up? What does "grow up" even refer to? Agree with someone else's opinion? Because that's all it is. An opinion. It sounds awfully arrogant to me.
Of course it's an opinion, just as yours is. What distinguishes my opinion from yours (or mine some 30 years ago for that matter) is simply my greater wisdom. I agree that must sound awfully arrogant to you and I would go further and point out that in truth the presumption that one opinion carries as much weight as any other is itself as much an opinion as it is a nonsense.
Who decided that they "need" to grow up?
Why put quote marks around the word you introduced into the conversation? I could have written "ought to", or "it is healthier if", or something similar, but I was replying to you. And why ask "who"? You can see whom you responded to, and who responded to you.
What does "grow up" even refer to?
It simply means that what is appropriate behaviour for a 5 year old when manifested in a 50 year old will be regarded as developmental retardation. That's clear enough, isn't it? But look, if you are still in your early 20s chronologically, pay us no heed, you just go... sock it to the man! Simple solutions and overconfidence in their application are completely appropriate at that developmental stage.
Right. They just need to grow up if they don't agree with you.
I think the point is that the angry young libertarian males need to grow up if they are still manifesting their late adolescent rejection of paternal authority after about the age of 24. From the point of view especially of those of us who used to identify as "libertarian" (even though in years past that may have meant an anti-properterian libertarianism, or even anarcho-communism), older men who persist in imagining that political utopia is to be found in their unresolved familial issues seem slightly pathetic.
Oh simple. The Libertarian fundies regard all state action as violence since, following their unacknowledged philosophical mentor, Mao Tse Tung, they believe that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.":p
I think this is how libertarians get their reputation as being a little bit goofy.
This is surely not the sole source of their goofyness?
But where do you get that dichotomy? There's nothing in the Python language spec that implies it.
I disagree, I think it's strongly implied. Moreover, this is about narratives, yours, mine and the spec, which allow programmers to understand their tools in such a way as to avoid surprise. And arguably also about their pedagogic efficacy. No doubt the language spec has unrivalled authoritativeness, but I doubt its suitability for the aforementioned purposes.
Identity and location are not the same.
Theoretically of course they are not! By the same token the very concept of location forms no necessary part of Python. (And obviously 'location' in this context refers to memory location.) Nor did I write "[a]s implemented," merely to pad the text. If I speak of "location," and do so as a synonym for identity, or the object residing at that location, that merely reflects CPython implementation.
To quote the language spec:
Every object has an identity, a type and a value. An object's identity never changes once it has been created; you may think of it as the objectâ(TM)s address in memory. The âisâ operator compares the identity of two objects; the id() function returns an integer representing its identity (currently implemented as its address). [Emphasis added]
Fortuitously, this implementation detail does allow us to examine claims about actual location, such as the one in your post above, that "[e]very Python variable is bound to its own separate location, and assignment copies the value of one location to another." Accepting your definition of variable from the same post, namely "conventional terminology is 'location' for a chunk of memory that is used to store a value, and 'variable' for a name bound to such a chunk of memory," this claim demonstrably incorrect!
My contention above, to which you took exception, was that while in C var1 = var2 does in fact copy the value into two separate locations, in Python by contrast, it "merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) asvar0." Thus:
x = uint(42)
y = uint(42)
x is y
=> False
#but...
y = x
x is y
=> True
A fortiori if we do not counteract interring. This should dispose of the contention that var1 = var2 "copies" the contents of the variable in the same way it does in C, along with the idea that every Python name is bound to it's own location.
More interesting (to me) was the implications raised by your statement that followed:
A location, in turn, always holds a reference to an object, but that is another different level of indirection. This becomes evident once you use closures (nested functions) and "nonlocal" (in Python 3). If every assignment were rebinding the name to a different object, then the variable captured by a closure would always retain the original object, having captured the original name-value binding.
This seemed to imply that assignment can happen without binding, and it posits an extra level of indirection between a name and its object. Apparenty that's not what you meant since you now write
I cannot show you [changes to the value of an immutable without changes to its id()], and it was not the gist of my argument. As explained above, anyway, id() is not the same as location. Even if it were, when you call id() on a variable, you get the identity of the object referenced by that variable, not of the variable itself.
We wouldn't expect the name to have an identity, after all "a name cannot have it's own location (only objects do)";)
OK, I just installed py3, stuck the lines 'nonlocal a' and 'print("a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a)))' (oh yeah and py3d all the print statements of course) a line above the assignment a = b in bar from the example above... unsurprisingly it really is just a rebinding.:(
a = uint(42)
b = uint(42)
a == b, a is b
=> (True, False)
ham, spam = foo(a)
=> a: 42 at 205c4d0
ham(b)
=> a: 42 at 205c4d0
> assingment of captured name
> a: 42 at 205c518
> b: 42 bt 205c518
spam(b)
=> is a still a?
> a: 42 at 205c518
> b: 42 bt 205c518
'%x' % id(a)
=>'205c4d0'
"Assingment [sic] of captured name" Sheeesh, the coffee's not working anymore...
All nonlocal does here is make the name from the higher namespace the operative name, which is then rebound by the assignment in the lower namespace. Not that dissimilar from global for this particular example. And as expected the a in the __main__ namespace still exists as itself.
So no evidence that names themselves have locations, which of course they don't! Sadly it appears that it's not my turn to learn today.
Why do you believe that only objects can have its own location?
It follows necessarily from the division of python things into the dichotomy of names and objects.
On the contrary, quite clearly a variable is a named location. An object by itself is not a location, though its slots (fields) are. In fact, an object in Python is basically just identity + type + slots (locations)
As implemented, identity is location. You can id() any object and it will give it's location (identity) how can it be that the object has the location give? The slots (if by slots you don't mean the slot names) are themselves objects (with distinct locations) as is the type of course. Clearly I'm no longer following your narrative. However this conversation has convinced me that the Pythonista are correct when they insist that it is not productive to speak of 'variables' in regard to python names.
You missed a very important part of my original example - you need to declare the captured variable as "nonlocal"...
I beg your pardon, you are quite correct, I read the 'and' as enumerative rather than conjunctive.
We don't have py3 installed anywhere, but if you can show me some py3 code where an assignment happens to a variable (in any namespace or combination thereof) which changes the value of an immutable type without changing the value returned from id() (ie location), I'll install it on a personal box just to see.
Python semantics are that, by default, if you assign to a variable that is not declared in current scope, it is then automatically declared in that scope (thereby hiding any outer declarations). This is what you observe, not name rebinding - every scope has its own name, bound to its own location. So after you have assigned to "a" inside bar, you are no longer working with the original variable - you're working with a new variable that is local to bar, and of course baz will not reflect any changes you make to it.
Yes that's clear. Any assignment to a in bar hides foo.a in that namespace. Thus if we placed z = abefore the assignment to a, it would barf (bar.a being undeclared at that stage and foo.a being hidden by the subsequent assignment.) Similarly a in baz is (the unchanged) foo.a (there being no attempt to create a baz.a in the fn).
Try it with "nonlocal", though, so that all three functions work with the same variable, and you'll see the effect I had described.
Are you sure that this is not a case of rebinding? (ie. can you show that the same id() is retained) Interesting, I may need to play with py3 for while.
It doesn't really change anything if you look at integers alone. Sure, in Python they are objects, but they don't have an intrinsic object identity (i.e. any int 1 is identical - in terms of operator "is" - to any other int 1, no matter how you have produced that value).
Forgive my clumsiness, I used ints to avoid complications of C strings and python lists... but I forgot, small ints are interned in the CPython implementation as a performance hack. I wasn't really speaking about python implemented in C, but about python implemented in the breath of God.;)
This is true only for small ints (and small strings) of course, ie. a = 1001
b = 1001
a is b
=> False
Since we are condemed to rely on corporeal implementations, let's just discard interning for present purposes:
class UninternedInt (int) : pass
uint = UninternedInt
x = uint(1)
y = uint(1)
x is y
=> False
#and so turning to matters of substance...
Instead var0 = var1 merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) as var0.
Not really, no.
In the simplest** case yes! [**in the hope that I'll be shown a case where this is not so]
#to repeat myself...
x = uint(42)
y = uint(42)
x is y
=> False
#but...
y = x
x is y
=> True
No surprises there.
Every Python variable is bound to its own separate location, and assignment copies the value of one location to another. A location, in turn, always holds a reference to an object, but that is another different level of indirection.
Surely not! A python name is just a label not an object in it's own right (everything in the python universe since py2.2 (?) being either an object or a name) A name cannot have it's own location (only objects do) and an assigment of one name to another causes the lval to refer to the same object as the rval.
This becomes evident once you use closures... If every assignment were rebinding the name to a different object, then the variable captured by a closure would always retain the original object, having captured the original name-value binding. But this is not how it works in practice - after you assign to a captured variable, the closure will see the new value.
Surely an assignment in python is a rebinding, though not necessarily to a different object.
I'm not sure that I follow you here!? If you assign to a captured value, you will see the new value in that namespace precisely because assignment does rebind! Of course the captured value in the higher namespace should be left intact. And isn't that exactly what happens? def foo (a) :
____print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
____def bar (b) :
________a = b
________print "assingment of captured name"
________print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
________print "b: %s bt %x" % (str(b), id(b))
____def baz (b) :
________print "is a still a?"
________print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
________print "b: %s bt %x" % (str(b), id(b))
____return bar, baz
x = uint(11)
y = uint(22)
#not the we really need uint anymore...
ham, spam = foo(x)
=> a: 11 at 1493698
ham(y)
=> assingment of captured name
>a: 22 at 14937d8
>b: 22 at 14937d8
#OK so the assignment rebound a
spam(y)
=>is a still a?
>a: 11 at 1493698
>b: 22 at 14937d8
#while leaving the capture var intact in the higher namespace... as expected!
I'm seeing no evidence that the any of the names have been stored anywhere... in python that is, of course they must be in the underlying C implementation. But that speaks to C not python, nor need it c
Variable assignment in Python works exactly the same as in C... it copies the value of the variable.
Not in the conventional sense of 'copy.' In python, as opposed to C, there is no copy made of the contents of the variable at a new memory location. Instead var0 = var1 merely binds the namevar1 to the same location (or object) as var0.
Said value may be an object reference (which in C would be a pointer)
Naively, we are contrasting the difference in behaviour between var0 = var1 where both are, eg. of type 'int' in their respective universes. Since we are concerned about learners being mislead, not those with your sophisticated understanding. The need to understand that a python "variable" is like a C pointer actually foregrounds the difference. However even where our variables are pointers in C, the operation var0 = var1 relies on their being two distinct variables (memory locations) in C, each holding an equivalent pointer. Again in python there is only one object (memory location) with separate names bound to that single instance.
Variable is a binding by definition
A variable name is a binding, a variable is a location in memory to which that name is bound, or loosely the contents of that location, no? We're both veering close to argument by definition here.;)
Look, I actually agree with almost everything you wrote. However it is correct from the conceptual viewpoint (I'm tempted to call it a narrative) you have developed implicitly to harmonise the very differences between python and a "real" language like C. Which kind of begs the question really. Now this kind of narrative is invaluable, precisely because it corrects misunderstandings that might be drawn because of the difference between python names and C variables. The danger is that newbs may not have you around to help them to this higher understanding.
Python is strictly pass by value... the value you are passing may be an object reference, but that reference is passed by value.
I won't even go there! Again I refer the interested reader to a number of these discussion from about 5 to 10 years ago on comp.lang.python. Highly educational for anyone wishing to develop their own harmonising narrative.
... C/C++, with explicit pointers, is an exception...
OT, but I thought Obj-C would be in that group too?!
Ya reckon!? Seems to have stopped the Europeans hacking each other to pieces for nearly three score 'n ten. You know... we let Germany win the World (or Euro-) Cup every now and then and the tanks stay in Berlin.
In the sense that something as fundamental as variables behave radically differently in python from say C. For instance consider the effect of the assignment var0 = var1 in python as opposed to C or indeed "the vast majority of other languages out there." [OK, personally I'd drop the "vast"] In fact, it perhaps better to insist that python has no variables, but names (or bindings if you prefer). In the same vein, consider the core concept of passing values: Is Python a pass-by-value or a pass-by-reference language? And how does this play with mutability --a vital concept to grok in python, but hardly in the majority of languages out there.
At least in this regard there are very basic differences between how python and them others languages do stuff, that transcend mere differences in syntax. Now you could probably make out a case for basic differences between X and them others for almost any language X, so this is perhaps not the soundest argument against using python (or X for that matter).
At each stage Pharaoh wanted to let the Israelites [sic: there were no "Israelis" until 1948] go, "but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go" (Ex 11:10).
Why did Yahweh do this? Well it was the mother of all PR campaigns, "I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD." (Ex 10:1-2). Sure it sux that all those firstborns had to die, but hey, if you wanna make an omlette, you gotta break eggs.
In any case, don't try to shift the blame here... you might be taken to be diminishing Yahweh's glory!
I.e. e-mails that go from Bob the programmer to Jenny the accounts-receivable lady explaining how to use the new version of the "Just Pay Me" software would be analysed to see if Bob is getting sick of working at AAA Dodads.
I'm sorry, did you just write "Just Pay Me?!" Consider yourself flagged!
Slashdot Mirror
Ah I see you're the Aussie originally posting ... In which case strike that last paragraph :)
Seriously point me to the legislation which requires them to take you in for some serious questioning for making a stupid joke (maybe it exists now, but I I'd like to see it). Really if they know you are joking it, you'll get into trouble because you've pissed them off (after a dozen of bomb jokes a day, it's gonna wear thin eventually). And as I said, posting something like that online actually is asking for trouble.
I highly doubt they'd take that kind of comment lightly.
Obviously not. They went to the expense of having signs made telling people to stop doing it.
Sure, they might get that you're joking but they'd still be required to take you in for some serious questioning.
If they get that you're joking why would they waste time questioning you?
Seriously, what happened in Canada wouldn't happen here. I mean people with an IQ as low as the guy who called the alarm just because someone told him they had a machine gun in a violin case (of all things!) ... you know, they're all on welfare here. A custodial sentence?!!! That's just friggin' crazy, what kind of crack-pot police state they got up there anyway?
If you want some serious questioning here you'll have to try a bit harder! Say breaching the most massive security operation the country had ever put on. You know go through two checkpoints with fake IDs, get, dressed up as Osama bin Laden and drive your limo right up to the front door of the hotel where the US President is staying. Don't count on actually getting prosecuted though, that would be un-Australian.
You are underestimating our larrikin ways, overestimating the efficiency of our security services and universalising the oppression you are obviously subject to.
A few months ago I had a domestic flight in Australia ... I'm glad I was smart enough not to.
Irony is more acceptable in Australian culture and you are a lot less likely to get in trouble for that sort of thing here. The problem really occurs when we travel overseas.
Recall the Australian violinist who when checking trough Canadian customs responded to the question "what have you got in that violin case" in the only acceptable manner "whatdya reckon, a machine gun ..." (ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer being the accepted norm in Australian English), which caused the shutdown of Toronto (from memory) Airport and earned him a (short) custodial sentence. No bloody sense of humour those Canadians!
OK, the fact that it was the 12th or 13th of Sept 2001 didn't help any, "tragedy plus time" and all that ...
Doing that here would more likely have earn you the reply "don't be a bloody dickhead mate!" Indeed, a few months afterwards I saw signs plastered all over Kingsford Smith Airport (Sydney) to the effect that "Making jokes about bombs is NOT funny." Which clearly evidences a rash of such behaviour, which while obviously not appreciated did not get the Tactical Response Unit called out or cause a major international incident.
OK posting on Facebook is a little more dangerous, since your tone of voice can't be assessed. And imagine what Today Tonight would to if the coppers missed it and someone really did have C4 at home. So maybe instead of putting it on your FB status you should reserve such comments for the person swabbing you, who will give you a dirty look and point at the sign and maybe get even, by making you unpack all your belongings, or conducting a cavity search or something. On second thoughts...
Hah, hah. Very funny. In what way are they not money?
If we define money as the form of payment a government will accept in satisfaction of debt, (as a Chartalist or MMTer might) the question becomes: In what way is Bitcoin money at all? Of course that is not the only definition of money and I personally doubt 'money' is capable of satisfactory definition at all. Since, however, you can neither discharge your tax liability, nor compel a debtor to settle in it, Bitcoin does fail to meet a core criterion of money, which is to say, it is not legal tender.
Now if you had asked instead, in what way it is money, my answer would have been very different, of course. ;)
There's a bit of fuss in Australia at the moment because despite our unemployment, they are allowing foreign workers to be imported.
That would be because unemployed Australians refuse to move to where the work is, whereas foreign workers are happy to.
And look mate, if I personally insulted you (say with my quip about what is pathetic in older men), I apologise. I can be a real arsehole.
WTF? Shit, I've either been feeding a troll or you're clueless about history. Mao Tse Tung was about as far from a libertarian as one could possibly get.
That's what the poking tongue smiley was doing there (I don't know how to do a tongue-in-cheek smiley), I simply pointing out the delicious irony. If that fits your definition of a troll, then troll I am. And no, I'm anything but clueless about history. Of course a naive libertarian (if I may use that term) might simply observe that Mao is honestly laying bare the true nature of the state. And I wonder if the prominence of this quote in years gone by may not have in some way influenced the tendency among the more extreme of contemporary libertarians, such as AC above, to see absolutely all actions of the state as an expression of violence.
C'mon, what AC wrote on his blog really made no sense at all, unless you remembered that they literally do believe that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Coming to "see the wisdom" of requiring helmets and goggles is violence!?
The reason I wrote "Libertarian fundies" (or "naive libertarianism" above) was not merely to be derogatory, but to distinguish myself. As you would know (if you followed that link) I do endorse what I called the "libertarian imperative," my own ethics are based in part on respecting the dignity of the individual human being (and liberty is a requirement for such dignity), even if this has led me to consider the problematic cases under which freedom might to some extent be curtailed.
Sorry, that would be mcgrew's original statement.
Listen, grandpa, I've been smoking pot for 41 years
Clearly it's addled your brain!
I'm only joking, and if your think I'm arguing in favour of drug prohibition your are wildly mistaken. See my last response here especially the last two paragraphs. The "wise"-crack was only because he accused me of being arrogant. And who you calling grandpa, I first smoked it for 35 years (mind I was relatively late in starting, no longer in HS)! Well I gave it up when I went to law school (fairly late in life), kinda goes with the territory
I value freedom. Apparently you do not.
I value freedom very highly. I just don't believe that it's the one word answer to every conceivable question.
You also refuse to look at the math.
Show me the maths. :)
The societal cost of drug illegality far outweigh the societal cost of the druggies ...
I could not agree more. The social costs both for any particular nation and internationally are simply atrocious. As I wrote in the linked post, prohibition is morally indefensible. It's so whichever way you cut it whatever ideological orientation you claim, if you claim to be acting to increase human freedom or to relieve human suffering.
In other words, failure to learn from your mistakes.
Yes it's that, but it's also learning from life's experiences that aren't necessarily failures and the position you are placed in as life progresses, son, friend, father, boss... More than that though it's also a question of the development of cognitive abilities. And on that score sadly many supposed adults are developmentally retarded, preferring the simple and false to the nuance and realistic. This in fact is a factor in the continued existence of the failed drug control regime.
I suspect that those in favore of continued prohibition are making tons of money because of those laws.
I have always thought so too. And because it is easier for the police to take the small time operators out, even without the existence of corruption (which the current regime undoubtedly fosters), honest police end up acting in the interests of big organised crime.
But this alone is not enough to account for the continued stupidity. We are having this debate in Australia at the moment (check out smh.com.au), and polls apparently show the vast majority in favour of continued criminalisation. Politicians are shit scared to do what many of them must know is right. Why is this. Simply because people don't like to think. Apparently studies also show the majority of adults are either incapable or disinclined to indulge in abstract thought.
One line I hear/read all the time is that decriminalisation will lead to vast increases in usage. But the empirical evidence (Netherlands, Spain) simply doesn't bear this out. The entire presumption that underlies the regime, namely that criminalisation leads to lower usage rates needs to be challenged. Once people see that there is no good reason to believe that, maybe the will be more inclined to think about it.
Oh, I see. You're making assumptions about my age, are you? Interesting "wisdom."
How so? Later I wrote " if you are still in your early 20s" just carry on and ignore us, which is a statement I would hardly make were I aware of your actual age. There is no basis for reading into my contrasting my opinions of 30 years ago, your opinions of now and my current greater wisdom, any assumption as to your age. To patronise you with a concrete example: What distinguishes my next door neighbour's motorcycle from my car (or the pushbike I rode as a kid for that matter) is the number of wheels.
I would go further and point out that in truth the presumption that one opinion carries as much weight as any other is itself as much an opinion as it is a nonsense.
I see. I disagree with your opinion, then.
You can't!
If you reject my "opinion," namely that not all opinions carry the same weight, you must accept the negation as true (ie in your opinion, all opinions are indeed of the same weight). Therefore you must hold my opinion as being of equal weight with yours and you can no more disagree with my opinion than your own (which would of course be a nonsense). And yes, I am presuming that you are not merely an irrational madman, which presumption is rebuttable. OTHO, I suffer no such impairment in disagreeing with your opinions.
The educated reader will recognise this as the famous argument against Protagoras from Plato's Theaetetus, of course.
There is nothing distinguishing your opinion from mine (unless you wish to appeal to a higher power).
The only "higher power" we are dealing with here is my ego. ;) That was a joke, of course, despite what you may think.
It simply means that what is appropriate behaviour for a 5 year old when manifested in a 50 year old will be regarded as developmental retardation.
What is "appropriate"?
I would have thought it very clear what "appropriate behaviour" meant in the context of that sentence?! Your English comprehensions skills seem compromised, perhaps your love of the halfling's leaf has slowed your mind?
Define it.
Buy a dictionary! Better still, come to grips with the body of literature pertaining to child developmental psychology.
Well, if that's what you believe my current thought process is, then it shouldn't matter whether I'm 20, 30, or some other age.
Firstly, this isn't really about so much about your individual thought processes (go back to my original contribution). Secondly if you stop to consider what you wrote, namely that if I believe what is appropriate at one developmental stage may not be so at another, " then it shouldn't matter whether [said man is] 20, 30, or some other age" you will surely recognise the invalidity of your statement. Please tell me you can.
The point is that if you are a young adult male (I will not presume here to talk for women), you are not to be admonished for rejecting parental and especially paternal authority. And it is easy for this to transfer to authority in general. This is, especially in our culture, part of emerging into independent adulthood. However maturity allows you to develop a more nuanced relationship with authority. And as a mature person, when say you may be responsible not only for yourself but for others (who are perhaps subject to your authority), greater sagacity is called for.
Now, where did I say I was confident about anything?
Now, where did I say you were confident about anything?
I do not see anything wrong with my "solutions" even if you deem them "simple."
I agree you do not see anything wrong and I concede I used the wrong word when I wrote "simple." I meant simplistic, of course. What I can't work out is where the word 'solutions' is being quoted from? W
And what does that even mean? Who decided that they "need" to grow up? What does "grow up" even refer to? Agree with someone else's opinion? Because that's all it is. An opinion. It sounds awfully arrogant to me.
Of course it's an opinion, just as yours is. What distinguishes my opinion from yours (or mine some 30 years ago for that matter) is simply my greater wisdom. I agree that must sound awfully arrogant to you and I would go further and point out that in truth the presumption that one opinion carries as much weight as any other is itself as much an opinion as it is a nonsense.
Who decided that they "need" to grow up?
Why put quote marks around the word you introduced into the conversation? I could have written "ought to", or "it is healthier if", or something similar, but I was replying to you. And why ask "who"? You can see whom you responded to, and who responded to you.
What does "grow up" even refer to?
It simply means that what is appropriate behaviour for a 5 year old when manifested in a 50 year old will be regarded as developmental retardation. That's clear enough, isn't it? But look, if you are still in your early 20s chronologically, pay us no heed, you just go ... sock it to the man! Simple solutions and overconfidence in their application are completely appropriate at that developmental stage.
Right. They just need to grow up if they don't agree with you.
I think the point is that the angry young libertarian males need to grow up if they are still manifesting their late adolescent rejection of paternal authority after about the age of 24. From the point of view especially of those of us who used to identify as "libertarian" (even though in years past that may have meant an anti-properterian libertarianism, or even anarcho-communism), older men who persist in imagining that political utopia is to be found in their unresolved familial issues seem slightly pathetic.
[H]ow do you get "respond with violence"
Oh simple. The Libertarian fundies regard all state action as violence since, following their unacknowledged philosophical mentor, Mao Tse Tung, they believe that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." :p
I think this is how libertarians get their reputation as being a little bit goofy.
This is surely not the sole source of their goofyness?
But where do you get that dichotomy? There's nothing in the Python language spec that implies it.
I disagree, I think it's strongly implied. Moreover, this is about narratives, yours, mine and the spec, which allow programmers to understand their tools in such a way as to avoid surprise. And arguably also about their pedagogic efficacy. No doubt the language spec has unrivalled authoritativeness, but I doubt its suitability for the aforementioned purposes.
Identity and location are not the same.
Theoretically of course they are not! By the same token the very concept of location forms no necessary part of Python. (And obviously 'location' in this context refers to memory location.) Nor did I write "[a]s implemented," merely to pad the text. If I speak of "location," and do so as a synonym for identity, or the object residing at that location, that merely reflects CPython implementation. To quote the language spec:
Every object has an identity, a type and a value. An object's identity never changes once it has been created; you may think of it as the objectâ(TM)s address in memory. The âisâ operator compares the identity of two objects; the id() function returns an integer representing its identity (currently implemented as its address).
[Emphasis added]
Fortuitously, this implementation detail does allow us to examine claims about actual location, such as the one in your post above, that "[e]very Python variable is bound to its own separate location, and assignment copies the value of one location to another." Accepting your definition of variable from the same post, namely "conventional terminology is 'location' for a chunk of memory that is used to store a value, and 'variable' for a name bound to such a chunk of memory," this claim demonstrably incorrect!
My contention above, to which you took exception, was that while in C var1 = var2 does in fact copy the value into two separate locations, in Python by contrast, it "merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) as var0." Thus:
x = uint(42) ...
y = uint(42)
x is y
=> False
#but
y = x
x is y
=> True
A fortiori if we do not counteract interring. This should dispose of the contention that var1 = var2 "copies" the contents of the variable in the same way it does in C, along with the idea that every Python name is bound to it's own location.
More interesting (to me) was the implications raised by your statement that followed:
A location, in turn, always holds a reference to an object, but that is another different level of indirection. This becomes evident once you use closures (nested functions) and "nonlocal" (in Python 3). If every assignment were rebinding the name to a different object, then the variable captured by a closure would always retain the original object, having captured the original name-value binding.
This seemed to imply that assignment can happen without binding, and it posits an extra level of indirection between a name and its object. Apparenty that's not what you meant since you now write
I cannot show you [changes to the value of an immutable without changes to its id()], and it was not the gist of my argument. As explained above, anyway, id() is not the same as location. Even if it were, when you call id() on a variable, you get the identity of the object referenced by that variable, not of the variable itself.
We wouldn't expect the name to have an identity, after all "a name cannot have it's own location (only objects do)" ;)
In any case I peppered your closure wi
OK, I just installed py3, stuck the lines 'nonlocal a' and 'print("a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a)))' (oh yeah and py3d all the print statements of course) a line above the assignment a = b in bar from the example above ... unsurprisingly it really is just a rebinding. :(
a = uint(42)
b = uint(42)
a == b, a is b
=> (True, False)
ham, spam = foo(a)
=> a: 42 at 205c4d0
ham(b)
=> a: 42 at 205c4d0
> assingment of captured name
> a: 42 at 205c518
> b: 42 bt 205c518
spam(b)
=> is a still a?
> a: 42 at 205c518
> b: 42 bt 205c518
'%x' % id(a)
=>'205c4d0'
"Assingment [sic] of captured name" Sheeesh, the coffee's not working anymore ...
All nonlocal does here is make the name from the higher namespace the operative name, which is then rebound by the assignment in the lower namespace. Not that dissimilar from global for this particular example. And as expected the a in the __main__ namespace still exists as itself.
So no evidence that names themselves have locations, which of course they don't! Sadly it appears that it's not my turn to learn today.
Why do you believe that only objects can have its own location?
It follows necessarily from the division of python things into the dichotomy of names and objects.
On the contrary, quite clearly a variable is a named location. An object by itself is not a location, though its slots (fields) are. In fact, an object in Python is basically just identity + type + slots (locations)
As implemented, identity is location. You can id() any object and it will give it's location (identity) how can it be that the object has the location give? The slots (if by slots you don't mean the slot names) are themselves objects (with distinct locations) as is the type of course. Clearly I'm no longer following your narrative. However this conversation has convinced me that the Pythonista are correct when they insist that it is not productive to speak of 'variables' in regard to python names.
You missed a very important part of my original example - you need to declare the captured variable as "nonlocal" ...
I beg your pardon, you are quite correct, I read the 'and' as enumerative rather than conjunctive.
We don't have py3 installed anywhere, but if you can show me some py3 code where an assignment happens to a variable (in any namespace or combination thereof) which changes the value of an immutable type without changing the value returned from id() (ie location), I'll install it on a personal box just to see.
Python semantics are that, by default, if you assign to a variable that is not declared in current scope, it is then automatically declared in that scope (thereby hiding any outer declarations). This is what you observe, not name rebinding - every scope has its own name, bound to its own location. So after you have assigned to "a" inside bar, you are no longer working with the original variable - you're working with a new variable that is local to bar, and of course baz will not reflect any changes you make to it.
Yes that's clear. Any assignment to a in bar hides foo.a in that namespace. Thus if we placed z = a before the assignment to a, it would barf (bar.a being undeclared at that stage and foo.a being hidden by the subsequent assignment.) Similarly a in baz is (the unchanged) foo.a (there being no attempt to create a baz.a in the fn).
Try it with "nonlocal", though, so that all three functions work with the same variable, and you'll see the effect I had described.
Are you sure that this is not a case of rebinding? (ie. can you show that the same id() is retained) Interesting, I may need to play with py3 for while.
Ooops, I made I made a lengthy reply, but attached it to the wrong post. :/
It doesn't really change anything if you look at integers alone. Sure, in Python they are objects, but they don't have an intrinsic object identity (i.e. any int 1 is identical - in terms of operator "is" - to any other int 1, no matter how you have produced that value).
Forgive my clumsiness, I used ints to avoid complications of C strings and python lists ... but I forgot, small ints are interned in the CPython implementation as a performance hack. I wasn't really speaking about python implemented in C, but about python implemented in the breath of God. ;)
This is true only for small ints (and small strings) of course, ie.
a = 1001
b = 1001
a is b
=> False
Since we are condemed to rely on corporeal implementations, let's just discard interning for present purposes: ...
class UninternedInt (int) : pass
uint = UninternedInt
x = uint(1)
y = uint(1)
x is y
=> False
#and so turning to matters of substance
Instead var0 = var1 merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) as var0.
Not really, no.
In the simplest** case yes! [**in the hope that I'll be shown a case where this is not so]
#to repeat myself
x = uint(42)
y = uint(42)
x is y
=> False
#but
y = x
x is y
=> True
No surprises there.
Every Python variable is bound to its own separate location, and assignment copies the value of one location to another. A location, in turn, always holds a reference to an object, but that is another different level of indirection.
Surely not! A python name is just a label not an object in it's own right (everything in the python universe since py2.2 (?) being either an object or a name) A name cannot have it's own location (only objects do) and an assigment of one name to another causes the lval to refer to the same object as the rval.
This becomes evident once you use closures ... If every assignment were rebinding the name to a different object, then the variable captured by a closure would always retain the original object, having captured the original name-value binding. But this is not how it works in practice - after you assign to a captured variable, the closure will see the new value.
Surely an assignment in python is a rebinding, though not necessarily to a different object.
I'm not sure that I follow you here!? If you assign to a captured value, you will see the new value in that namespace precisely because assignment does rebind! Of course the captured value in the higher namespace should be left intact. And isn't that exactly what happens?
...
... as expected!
def foo (a) :
____print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
____def bar (b) :
________a = b
________print "assingment of captured name"
________print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
________print "b: %s bt %x" % (str(b), id(b))
____def baz (b) :
________print "is a still a?"
________print "a: %s at %x" % (str(a), id(a))
________print "b: %s bt %x" % (str(b), id(b))
____return bar, baz
x = uint(11)
y = uint(22)
#not the we really need uint anymore
ham, spam = foo(x)
=> a: 11 at 1493698
ham(y)
=> assingment of captured name
>a: 22 at 14937d8
>b: 22 at 14937d8
#OK so the assignment rebound a
spam(y)
=>is a still a?
>a: 11 at 1493698
>b: 22 at 14937d8
#while leaving the capture var intact in the higher namespace
I'm seeing no evidence that the any of the names have been stored anywhere ... in python that is, of course they must be in the underlying C implementation. But that speaks to C not python, nor need it c
Variable assignment in Python works exactly the same as in C ... it copies the value of the variable.
Not in the conventional sense of 'copy.' In python, as opposed to C, there is no copy made of the contents of the variable at a new memory location. Instead var0 = var1 merely binds the name var1 to the same location (or object) as var0.
Said value may be an object reference (which in C would be a pointer)
Naively, we are contrasting the difference in behaviour between var0 = var1 where both are, eg. of type 'int' in their respective universes. Since we are concerned about learners being mislead, not those with your sophisticated understanding. The need to understand that a python "variable" is like a C pointer actually foregrounds the difference. However even where our variables are pointers in C, the operation var0 = var1 relies on their being two distinct variables (memory locations) in C, each holding an equivalent pointer. Again in python there is only one object (memory location) with separate names bound to that single instance.
Variable is a binding by definition
A variable name is a binding, a variable is a location in memory to which that name is bound, or loosely the contents of that location, no? We're both veering close to argument by definition here. ;)
Look, I actually agree with almost everything you wrote. However it is correct from the conceptual viewpoint (I'm tempted to call it a narrative) you have developed implicitly to harmonise the very differences between python and a "real" language like C. Which kind of begs the question really. Now this kind of narrative is invaluable, precisely because it corrects misunderstandings that might be drawn because of the difference between python names and C variables. The danger is that newbs may not have you around to help them to this higher understanding.
Python is strictly pass by value ... the value you are passing may be an object reference, but that reference is passed by value.
I won't even go there! Again I refer the interested reader to a number of these discussion from about 5 to 10 years ago on comp.lang.python. Highly educational for anyone wishing to develop their own harmonising narrative.
OT, but I thought Obj-C would be in that group too?!
Yeah, that doesn't seem to be working.
Ya reckon!? Seems to have stopped the Europeans hacking each other to pieces for nearly three score 'n ten. You know ... we let Germany win the World (or Euro-) Cup every now and then and the tanks stay in Berlin.
maybe sports are a way to channel certain instincts without the massive damage of war
That's what Freud thought.
In what sense?
In the sense that something as fundamental as variables behave radically differently in python from say C. For instance consider the effect of the assignment var0 = var1 in python as opposed to C or indeed "the vast majority of other languages out there." [OK, personally I'd drop the "vast"] In fact, it perhaps better to insist that python has no variables, but names (or bindings if you prefer). In the same vein, consider the core concept of passing values: Is Python a pass-by-value or a pass-by-reference language? And how does this play with mutability --a vital concept to grok in python, but hardly in the majority of languages out there.
At least in this regard there are very basic differences between how python and them others languages do stuff, that transcend mere differences in syntax. Now you could probably make out a case for basic differences between X and them others for almost any language X, so this is perhaps not the soundest argument against using python (or X for that matter).
Put the blame where it lies - with Pharaoh.
At each stage Pharaoh wanted to let the Israelites [sic: there were no "Israelis" until 1948] go, "but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go" (Ex 11:10).
Why did Yahweh do this? Well it was the mother of all PR campaigns, "I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD." (Ex 10:1-2). Sure it sux that all those firstborns had to die, but hey, if you wanna make an omlette, you gotta break eggs.
In any case, don't try to shift the blame here ... you might be taken to be diminishing Yahweh's glory!
Your coworkers that want to do a little fraud would much rather do it with your UID than their own. And yes, I assume they know your userID.
But since it is well known that he keeps his passwords on stickies under his monitor any he has plausible deniability.
I.e. e-mails that go from Bob the programmer to Jenny the accounts-receivable lady explaining how to use the new version of the "Just Pay Me" software would be analysed to see if Bob is getting sick of working at AAA Dodads.
I'm sorry, did you just write "Just Pay Me ?!" Consider yourself flagged!