It's not civil right violation to be asked to speak clear, but it is to be pressed to speak without your native accent.
Isn't this really a question of marketing? "Accent neutralization" or "voice neutralization" is definitely evil. OTOH if your employment comes with the perquisite of "free elocution lessons" there can hardly be any complaint, can there?;)
If you native accent is a (more or less) standard flavour of English --and Standard Indian English pronunciation is every bit as much as say Australian or American English standards a proper pronunciation --then yes, I agree, it is mere chauvinism not to recognise that English can be spoken to more than one standard or regional variation.
However if you are learning any (living) language as a "second" language, part of the task is to learn a pronunciation of the language sufficient standard to be easily understood by native speakers of that language. Judging by the output, I feel that there is too much stress on grammar and too little on elocution in much ESL teaching. I had quite a time trying to decipher "wartal" when the (Chinese) guy on the desk next to me was trying to say 'virtual,' just today. We can surely deal much more easily with grammatical errors such as "asked to speak clear [sic]" if we can at least understand the words being uttered. Then again, I'm not an ESL teacher and judging teachers by their students (who don't necessarily make the effort to learn absolutely everything taught to them) is perhaps unfair.
Very likely the measurement death per terawatt hour is not very meaningfull.
Sure it's meaningful and reflects the actual question: How many units energy can we generate per unit risk?
Perhaps workers per terawatt is much higher in coal industries than in nuclear industries?
Yes that could be the case, and this means is that more people are would exposed to risk per unit energy generated. Which goes to emphasise the meaningfulness of the measure originally given.
Also including solar makes not mcuh sense either, or?... Falling from a roof while installing a paneel? So why don't you compare it then with other industries that do work on the rooftop?
Mode of death is irrelevant to the question of how many units energy can we generate per unit risk! It's meaningless to compare "other industries that do work on the rooftop," unless the risk adopted in working on said rooftop is being spent generating energy. Or?
Yes, you're the typical grandmother if ever there was one.
Well no, she's an actual grandmother, as opposed to the cliche of a typical one. What is offensive here is applying such cliches to depersonalise actual individual human beings and to tar them with connotations of incompetence using with a brush of unconstrained width.
A non-belief in the manner you pose is just a fancy way of saying a belief in not-X.
Are we perhaps confusing implication with equivalence?
To take a concrete example: Because no evidence of extra-terrestrial life has ever been presented, I don't believe in the existence of life anywhere else than on earth. But, contrary to what you wrote, non-belief is not a belief in non-X, for I similarly, don't believe in the non-existence of extra-terrestrial life. And I wonder what evidence might possibly establish that?
In exactly the same way a person could both not believe in the existence of gods and not believe in their non-existence. This person would be an atheist, they would not be a believer, they would, by definition, be a non-believer.
An actual non-belief would be something more like a non-conception
Now we have seen that this is untrue, you can have non-belief without non-conception. I have no problem, for instance, conceiving of life elsewhere in the universe.
As it happens, however, an atheist may additionally be subject to a level of non-conception. For when a believer says God "exists;" and we are told that this existence is, by definition, non-corporeal; and, one presumes, the believer means to say something more than "Harry Potter exists" (most atheists would acknowledge God as a mental or cultural artefact), then the atheist may find it difficult even to conceive of the nature of this "existence."
It may turn out that the difference between an atheist and a theist is precisely the ability to conceive (or the atheist may say, "convince oneself") of this species of existence which is neither material nor mental, but an existence sui generis to God.
Isn't the CRU constantly breaking "one of the strongest" rules of scientific life: appealing to the state and or populace when your science fails to convince?
No.
The science is convincing on it own. The appeal to the state is for a policy response based on the imperatives revealed by this convincing science. The appeal to the public, such as it is, is an attempt by a few scientists to disabuse the victims of the disinformation industry.
Logic and strong correlation of data are all that is required.
It's there. And unlike almost any other field or research, it's virtually all publicly available. There is little excuse any more for ignorance.
Thus far, in my opinion, CRU has shown themselves to be anything but scientific. They appeal to the head of state and to the public at large!
You opinion seems ill founded. It's simply nonsensical to claim that CRU has ever appealed to any head of state or the public to establish any matter of science.
What other respected branch of science reaches out for a "consensus" in the government or the populace to prove their theories?
Again, Climate science does not "reach out to government or the populace" to prove any theories. It reaches out to urge government and the populace to take action to avert a clear and present danger. The 'consensus' referred to is that >95% of active publishing climate scientists agree among themselves (and without regard to what heads of state or a systematically disinformed public happen to believe) on a number of propositions about the nature of recent climate change and the role of human activity in bringing it about. Which is not to say they agree about everything (or anything) else in the field.
Science is not the blatant politicizing of science to overpower the paradigm group you disagree with.
That is absolutely right! Unfortunately, as your and many other posts evidence, those who are politically overpowering science seem to have been stunningly effective.
The subtle difference being that a semicolon is detectable by the venerable mk1 eyeball, therefore you don't need to apply any of the bandaids you suggest.
Yes I agree, the invisibility of different kinds of white space, and not the failure of a language to make allowance for a programmer's bad habits, is the source of this "issue." However, to characterise my suggestions as "bandaids" is emotive misdirection. The issue is trivially dealt with: Set up your tools properly and it ceases to exist. Editors are highly configurable. They are so for a very good reason. Use the force.
No, the fact the language doesn't deal with the real programmer's life issues with (eventually) bad text editor, or simply because there will always people with bad or diverging habits is python downside.
In the same way that the the it is difficult to drive nails into wood with a nail file is the downside of a nail. Once you apply the correct tool in the correct fashion the problem vanishes.
Really all you have to do is alias python to path/python -tt and there is no problem only a syntax error. Or Alternatively, I have a "bad habit" I tend on occasion to leave the semi-colon off the end of the line when writing in Perl or C. Thus both Perl and C's "downside" is that they "[don't] with the real programmer's life issues.. simply because there will always people with bad or diverging habits." Makes sense to me.
The fact that one may or may not use a text editor that you consider "good"
I wrote "... whatever text editor you have you ought to be able to set this up." If you can't then the editor is not "good," but not as a function of my personal aesthetics, but due to its lack of fitness to do its job. Are there really programmer's text editors out there that cannot substitute a tab for four spaces throughout a file?!!
You may "like it", and I can see why... but do not dismiss the issues associated with it.
After 2 or 3 months annoyance with the tabs/spaces "issue" followed by about 10 years withoIn factut even noticing any, I think I'm entitled to dismiss the "issues associated with it."
As it happens I wasn't dismissing the issue, I was offering advice about how anyone still suffering from this issue could dismiss it.
I like python too. My *ONLY* bitch about it is beginning and ending tags that are non existent. Indent level? Really?
I think we all felt that like at the beginning. Now I get really annoyed when I have to use curly braces.
I can NOT tell you the number of times this has created a bug for me, because the spacing was off. Had one 'flavor' where if you mixed tabs and spaces in the same file (one dev liked tabs the other spaces) or didnt put tabs on empty lines it would cause the python interpreter to go into lala land.
You need a get text editor.:p
Seriously though this isn't a major problem if you take a few steps to avoid it. For a start, make sure your text editor will substitute any tabs you might accidentally put into python code with four spaces. Say you use vim or a derivative (I use gvim), put a line in your.vimrc file which will do this automagically, ie au FileType python set shiftwidth=4 expandtab (you also need to make sure.vimrc has:filetype on with pure vi you have to use a hack of setting ts really wide (as there is no et). But whatever text editor you have you ought to be able to set this up.
Secondly if you are working with someone else's code check for mixed tabs and spaces by running python with the -t or even -tt switch at the cmd line. If there's a problem just do a quick sed s/\t//g src.py > src_fixed.py or do this in your editor.
Once your work environment is properly set up this problem simply vanishes. With time you will come to appreciate the clean code this affords us. Marking blocks by indentation is both easier to type and because it enforces good indentation practice, easier to read and maintain. I had a similar problems with the python idiom (not enforced) not to use accessor methods, but to access attributes directly. Until I realised the properties overcame any tight coupling issues and allowed for changes in object level implementation without breaking any dependencies on that object, all the while resulting in code that is much easier on the eye.
What is this punch cards? Seriously? Indent level? Did I step back into the 60s or something?
I've been trying, in vain, to find that Dijsktra quote about how indentation might in the future be used to mark off blocks... did I just imagine it? Suffice to say that in the 60s, 70s and 80s they could only dream of such syntactic simplicity. This is nothing like column specified Fortran. If that is truly your "*ONLY*" bitch, then with a bit of workflow setup and some more experience using the language, you are about to fall seriously in love!
Yep. Spend a billion Euro now, get a nice return on that from Germany and Italy, because they can't meet energy demands.
Don't imagine for a moment that the German government was not planning on this. Angela Merkel (who personally supports nuclear power) had to make sure of France's continued commitment before she could take the politically expedient step of announcing Germany's withdrawal. It's a luxury you have when you live in a close knit economic community with technologically advanced neighbours within reach of you grid.
It is completely to be anticipated, as the need to reduce carbon emissions becomes more urgent, that nuclear energy generation will be farmed out to Germany's eastern neighbours as well, so as to indulge the German populace in their illusion that they are nuclear free.
The Euro is becoming worthless because it is poorly backed by the EU. The USD is becoming worthless because it is poorly backed by the US Government.
Nonsense. They are being knowingly devalued as via quantitative easing in an (so far successful) attempt to guarantee a money supply sufficient to stave off economic Armageddon. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Those currencies and the Bitcoin are backed by essentially "nothing."
The USD and EUR are backed by the relevant governments' ability to levy tax. The BC is backed by the "proof of work" expressed as blocks. In turn, both taxes and proof of work require resources and labour to be realised.
The difference is that the Bitcoin system will reach a maximum number in circulation.
Which is one reason Bitcoins cannot substitute for money. They are collectables.
If you have one bitcoin, it does not become "worth less than it was" because new coins are flooding the market.
Yes, eventually (ie. when production ceases) the price of a collectable, eg Picasso paintings, is demand driven.
OTOH, for money to work, its supply must, over the long term, match economic growth (or such growth will be throttled by deflation). This is how metallic standards persisted for so long, ie. mining activity was more or less a reflection of the general productivity of an economy. Only with the development of the advanced economies of the C19th did this relationship break down, thus necessitating, after a series of severe currency crises, the advance to modern fiat currency.
The community of buyers and sellers, like all economies...
As an aside: Not all economies are free market economies. [In the limited sense of the term 'free market,' ie. that buyers and sellers are free to enter the market and to determine between each other the price of exchange without unnecessary charges being levied on the exchange.]
More commonly (from an historical perspective) prices were fixed by law. Nor is it unknown for specified transactions to be limited to specified classes of participants.
will determine the relationship between bitcoins and real goods (price) and that price will remain rather stable
Stable?! Assuming they catch on (big IF), their price will be stable only in the absence of economic or population growth (of either sign).
unless governments try to criminalize transactions...
Oh come now you are just being paranoid. Surely governments would never interfere with attempts to set up non-sovereign currencies. No never!
I mean just listen to this sage investment advice:
Since bitcoin appreciates in value very rapidly during the singularity phase, you should convert all of your liquid assets to bitcoin as quickly as possible. Do not keep any cash, savings, or checking beyond what you need to pay for goods and services that cannot yet be paid for with bitcoin. The more things you can buy with bitcoin, the more bitcoin you should keep.
Stop wasting money on excessively expensive meals, televisions, cars, and anything else that loses value quickly or instantly. Instead, put your money into bitcoin. You will be much richer that way. You may think having less stuff is less fun, but actually the pleasure of financial freedom far, far outweighs any losses.
During the singularity phase, you should also take out loans to buy bitcoin, since bitcoin appreciates far more rapidly than interest on any fiat currency loan. When bitcoin gets near saturation, which is the end of the singularity, you should pay off the loans, because at that point the rate of appreciation will probably be a lot closer to the interest on the loans, and you may not be able to reliably earn money that way anymore.
I'm always reassured when I read such a balanced consideration of the pros and cons of any situation, aren't you? Clearly the people who really understand the all the nuances of finance and have thought this through deeply are on board with Bitcoin. What could possibly go wrong?
Or enough people start using the black market and a black market currency to do almost all of their trading instead. In most countries,
Indeed. The history of currency in earlier times was largely the history of sovereign attempts to coerce the populace to the exclusive use of sovereign currency. The technology by which tax liability is assessed and collected was nowhere near as efficacious as it is today, so this was quite a struggle. Hence the punishment of heating non-sovereign coin to a glow and imprinting it into the miscreant's forehead. Hence also the often ruinous practice of issuing in specie coinage to encourage its adoption.
... it is more expensive to use the black market and risk the punishments for tax evasion than to simply pay the tax...
Quite.
... but there is a level where it become more economically smart to use the black market and risk getting caught than to pay the onerous taxes.
I would dispute how "economically smart" it is to get on the wrong side of your local tax-collection authority, especially in light of the numerous perfectly legal methods by which the financially literate minimise their tax liability. Remember with the advance in evasion technology there comes an advance in surveillance technology.
People have always been criminally evading tax, that won't stop. Some will get caught, other's not. The main thing is that enough people will keep paying taxes and using sovereign currency to maintain modern civilisation. with all the freedoms (and restrictions) and the economic prosperity that entails.:)
The same thing all fiat currency is backed by: The government's exclusive right to raise taxes. In fact, it is argued, that even when there was commodity backed currency (eg. a metallic standard), the backing ultimately was not the commodity itself, but taxation (for which see Modern Monetary Theory).
It follows that when an economy becomes so degraded (or in the case of Zimbabwe when the government so degrades the economy) that there is no longer anything to tax, the currency the government issues will become worthless. This is why those of use who trade currencies look to the various indicia of the economic health of a nation (or of the EC in the case of the Euro) when assessing the value of a currency.
Re:Let's attempt some critical thinking.
on
Bitcoin Price Crashes
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Imagine this headline: Forex.com hacked, concept of USD put into question. Doesn't that sound a bit ridiculous? This was a bad day for mtgox.com and bitcoin speculators, but it does not demonstrate inherent weaknesses in the system of bitcoin.
I agree, this does not "demonstrate inherent weaknesses" in the design or Bitcoin, per se, and I would add that an event such as this one could strangle Bitcoin in its cradle. Consider these points:
i) Unlike the USD, Bitcoin has still to establish legitimacy in the eyes of the serious investor.
ii) Sites such as Mt Gox, provide the primary (perhaps even exclusive) gateway to Bitcoin. FX dealing sites are very much down the list on how most people gain exposure to USD.
iii) The USD can be used by US citizens to settle their taxation debt. The USD can be used internationally to purchase oil. Within the US (and not only there), the USD can be used to purchase practically the entire range of goods and services.
If we apply critical thinking, it will be apparent that the analogy you propose with your headline, while appealing on the surface, cannot do justice to the differences between Bitcoin and the USD.
since the effects of a half century long solar minimum would almost certainly be at least as devastating to civilization as global warming...
But devastation of civilisation would lower the rate of fossil fuel consumption, or?
Actually I agree that it would be be a tragedy if we squandered any respite which gives us an opportunity massively to scale up hydro, nuclear, solar, wind &c, capacity, and we were dropped quickly into a much hotter climate. However that the likely effects of solar hibernation have been modelled and indications are that it is unlikely to produce a 50 year long little ice age. For which see the discussion of Feuler and Rahmsdorf at skeptical science.
[Only fools trust WSJ]... because it is owned by Newscorp ( Rupert Murdoch ).
So long as the disclosure of information is in the financial interests of Newcorp (or advances Newscorp's march towards world domination), you can trust Rupert with your life.
... it certainly implies consent to receive a reply to that correspondence.
I doubt that consent is required at all to "reply to that correspondence." No one here is arguing that forwarding a misdirected email to its intended recipient is a crime in Australia. The offence contemplated in section 16 is that of sending a commercial electronic message, that is a message which intends to offer for sale...; advertise or promote...; &c., &c. (s6). That is what requires specific consent.
If you can express, with certitude, the opinion that a misdirected email is sufficient to satisfy the consent requirements stipulated in Schedule 2 of the Act, I think we are entitled to conclude that you are not, in fact, a lawyer.:)
By your own admission you are in violation of the Spam act of 2003.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but you seem quite certain of that. Have you entirely dismissed the possibility that the message might qualify as a designated commercial electronic message for the purposes of s16?
[A] mistaken email address is not express consent in any court in the country.
If you have an actual case with this precise fact scenario could you please provide the citation. That should settle the argument.
No, you're wrong. Sending someone an unprompted email is a solicitation for a response.
Hmm my first reply went walkabout...
The question here isn't what you think is fair or not, the question is whether Qurikz' has committed an offence under Australian anti-spam legislation such that mjwx's complaint would carry any weight or not.
What you are in effect claiming (though you might not realise it.:) is that mistakenly sending an email to a commercial party constitutes consent ( per Spam Act 2003 (C'th), Schedule 2, 2(b)(ii) ). Now I won't say you are wrong, but it does seem along bow to draw.
OTOH, Quirkz may well escape criminal liability on other grounds. The question is not nearly as simply as either you or mjwx imagine.
I was only offering information. I took no positions.
And then only in response the the comment about shrink-wrap contracts. Yes that's how I read you post, hence my bracketed comment. My comment was not a criticism of anything your wrote, which was, after all only factual information.
Call them "victims" all you want, but they appeared to be happier that I answered as I did than if I'd left them unanswered and without assistance.
99 out of 100 Australians would respond the same way, but that won't help you if you strike a mjwx one day. Bear in mind that Spam Act 2003 (C'th) [yes they seriously called it that], makes it an offence to send "unsolicited commercial electronic messages."
Note what follows is NOT legal advice: Were I a practising lawyer giving you legal advice it would probably be simply to desist from advertising (we tend to want to avoid trouble), but since I'm a non-practising one not giving you legal advice, I will point you to section 2 of the First Schedule which you should read in conjunction with section 16 so that you can assess for yourself (preferably with professional input) whether your behaviour is liable to get you into trouble.
Shrink wrap licenses are legally binding contracts in the US, at least in the 7th Cir.
What Zeidenberg proves is that a button asking a party to agree to terms is a valid offer and that a mouse-click on that button constitutes a valid acceptance sufficient to form a binding contract. It is, in my opinon, an unremarkable result. Moreover it is a result based on facts are pertiently distinguished from the present case.
[I realise you were probably only disabusing the parent as to his/her comment re shrink-wrap licenses, but to the veer back onto topic...]
In the present case the mail is unsolicited; it is fetched from a mail server without any specific human intervention; and -most importantly -the statement purporting to impose a contractual obligation on the reader of the email is evident only after the mouse-click to open the mail has been made. Quite apart from the question of what consideration might flow to the reader of an unsolicited email (upon which the putative contract might also fail) there has been no acceptance of any agreement by the reader of the mail sufficient to impose upon the reader an obligation to "destroy all copies this email."
Next we must turn to the issue of whether there exists any statutory provision, over and above contract law, which may impose such an obligation upon the reader....
This is yet another FUD article on nuclear power submitted by mdsolar.
I think a very compelling argument in favour of nuclear energy can be made in terms of both carbon amelioration and a quantitative comparison of actual human fatalities / environmental damage caused by nuclear vs coal, oil and even hydro. Ad hominem arguments are best saved for situations where you really have no better weapon to deploy.
Slashdot Mirror
Which might be just a teensy bit ironic. Not sure.
Depends on how pedantic you want to get about the meaning of 'ironic' <g>
It's not civil right violation to be asked to speak clear, but it is to be pressed to speak without your native accent.
Isn't this really a question of marketing? "Accent neutralization" or "voice neutralization" is definitely evil. OTOH if your employment comes with the perquisite of "free elocution lessons" there can hardly be any complaint, can there? ;)
If you native accent is a (more or less) standard flavour of English --and Standard Indian English pronunciation is every bit as much as say Australian or American English standards a proper pronunciation --then yes, I agree, it is mere chauvinism not to recognise that English can be spoken to more than one standard or regional variation.
However if you are learning any (living) language as a "second" language, part of the task is to learn a pronunciation of the language sufficient standard to be easily understood by native speakers of that language. Judging by the output, I feel that there is too much stress on grammar and too little on elocution in much ESL teaching. I had quite a time trying to decipher "wartal" when the (Chinese) guy on the desk next to me was trying to say 'virtual,' just today. We can surely deal much more easily with grammatical errors such as "asked to speak clear [sic]" if we can at least understand the words being uttered. Then again, I'm not an ESL teacher and judging teachers by their students (who don't necessarily make the effort to learn absolutely everything taught to them) is perhaps unfair.
Very likely the measurement death per terawatt hour is not very meaningfull.
Sure it's meaningful and reflects the actual question: How many units energy can we generate per unit risk?
Perhaps workers per terawatt is much higher in coal industries than in nuclear industries?
Yes that could be the case, and this means is that more people are would exposed to risk per unit energy generated. Which goes to emphasise the meaningfulness of the measure originally given.
Also including solar makes not mcuh sense either, or? ... Falling from a roof while installing a paneel? So why don't you compare it then with other industries that do work on the rooftop?
Mode of death is irrelevant to the question of how many units energy can we generate per unit risk! It's meaningless to compare "other industries that do work on the rooftop," unless the risk adopted in working on said rooftop is being spent generating energy. Or?
Yes, you're the typical grandmother if ever there was one.
Well no, she's an actual grandmother, as opposed to the cliche of a typical one. What is offensive here is applying such cliches to depersonalise actual individual human beings and to tar them with connotations of incompetence using with a brush of unconstrained width.
A non-belief in the manner you pose is just a fancy way of saying a belief in not-X.
Are we perhaps confusing implication with equivalence?
To take a concrete example: Because no evidence of extra-terrestrial life has ever been presented, I don't believe in the existence of life anywhere else than on earth. But, contrary to what you wrote, non-belief is not a belief in non-X, for I similarly, don't believe in the non-existence of extra-terrestrial life. And I wonder what evidence might possibly establish that?
In exactly the same way a person could both not believe in the existence of gods and not believe in their non-existence. This person would be an atheist, they would not be a believer, they would, by definition, be a non-believer.
An actual non-belief would be something more like a non-conception
Now we have seen that this is untrue, you can have non-belief without non-conception. I have no problem, for instance, conceiving of life elsewhere in the universe.
As it happens, however, an atheist may additionally be subject to a level of non-conception. For when a believer says God "exists;" and we are told that this existence is, by definition, non-corporeal; and, one presumes, the believer means to say something more than "Harry Potter exists" (most atheists would acknowledge God as a mental or cultural artefact), then the atheist may find it difficult even to conceive of the nature of this "existence."
It may turn out that the difference between an atheist and a theist is precisely the ability to conceive (or the atheist may say, "convince oneself") of this species of existence which is neither material nor mental, but an existence sui generis to God.
Isn't the CRU constantly breaking "one of the strongest" rules of scientific life: appealing to the state and or populace when your science fails to convince?
No.
The science is convincing on it own. The appeal to the state is for a policy response based on the imperatives revealed by this convincing science. The appeal to the public, such as it is, is an attempt by a few scientists to disabuse the victims of the disinformation industry.
Logic and strong correlation of data are all that is required.
It's there. And unlike almost any other field or research, it's virtually all publicly available. There is little excuse any more for ignorance.
Thus far, in my opinion, CRU has shown themselves to be anything but scientific. They appeal to the head of state and to the public at large!
You opinion seems ill founded. It's simply nonsensical to claim that CRU has ever appealed to any head of state or the public to establish any matter of science.
What other respected branch of science reaches out for a "consensus" in the government or the populace to prove their theories?
Again, Climate science does not "reach out to government or the populace" to prove any theories. It reaches out to urge government and the populace to take action to avert a clear and present danger. The 'consensus' referred to is that >95% of active publishing climate scientists agree among themselves (and without regard to what heads of state or a systematically disinformed public happen to believe) on a number of propositions about the nature of recent climate change and the role of human activity in bringing it about. Which is not to say they agree about everything (or anything) else in the field.
Science is not the blatant politicizing of science to overpower the paradigm group you disagree with.
That is absolutely right! Unfortunately, as your and many other posts evidence, those who are politically overpowering science seem to have been stunningly effective.
"It" sounds like you're referring to a thing, not a person.
Yes but when that person is a company it's terribly confusing to refer to it as 'she.'
The subtle difference being that a semicolon is detectable by the venerable mk1 eyeball, therefore you don't need to apply any of the bandaids you suggest.
Yes I agree, the invisibility of different kinds of white space, and not the failure of a language to make allowance for a programmer's bad habits, is the source of this "issue." However, to characterise my suggestions as "bandaids" is emotive misdirection. The issue is trivially dealt with: Set up your tools properly and it ceases to exist. Editors are highly configurable. They are so for a very good reason. Use the force.
No, the fact the language doesn't deal with the real programmer's life issues with (eventually) bad text editor, or simply because there will always people with bad or diverging habits is python downside.
In the same way that the the it is difficult to drive nails into wood with a nail file is the downside of a nail. Once you apply the correct tool in the correct fashion the problem vanishes.
Really all you have to do is alias python to path/python -tt and there is no problem only a syntax error. Or Alternatively, I have a "bad habit" I tend on occasion to leave the semi-colon off the end of the line when writing in Perl or C. Thus both Perl and C's "downside" is that they "[don't] with the real programmer's life issues .. simply because there will always people with bad or diverging habits." Makes sense to me.
The fact that one may or may not use a text editor that you consider "good"
I wrote "... whatever text editor you have you ought to be able to set this up." If you can't then the editor is not "good," but not as a function of my personal aesthetics, but due to its lack of fitness to do its job. Are there really programmer's text editors out there that cannot substitute a tab for four spaces throughout a file?!!
You may "like it", and I can see why ... but do not dismiss the issues associated with it.
After 2 or 3 months annoyance with the tabs/spaces "issue" followed by about 10 years withoIn factut even noticing any, I think I'm entitled to dismiss the "issues associated with it."
As it happens I wasn't dismissing the issue, I was offering advice about how anyone still suffering from this issue could dismiss it.
I like python too. My *ONLY* bitch about it is beginning and ending tags that are non existent. Indent level? Really?
I think we all felt that like at the beginning. Now I get really annoyed when I have to use curly braces.
I can NOT tell you the number of times this has created a bug for me, because the spacing was off. Had one 'flavor' where if you mixed tabs and spaces in the same file (one dev liked tabs the other spaces) or didnt put tabs on empty lines it would cause the python interpreter to go into lala land.
You need a get text editor. :p
Seriously though this isn't a major problem if you take a few steps to avoid it. For a start, make sure your text editor will substitute any tabs you might accidentally put into python code with four spaces. Say you use vim or a derivative (I use gvim), put a line in your .vimrc file which will do this automagically, ie au FileType python set shiftwidth=4 expandtab (you also need to make sure .vimrc has :filetype on with pure vi you have to use a hack of setting ts really wide (as there is no et). But whatever text editor you have you ought to be able to set this up.
Secondly if you are working with someone else's code check for mixed tabs and spaces by running python with the -t or even -tt switch at the cmd line. If there's a problem just do a quick sed s/\t/ /g src.py > src_fixed.py or do this in your editor.
Once your work environment is properly set up this problem simply vanishes. With time you will come to appreciate the clean code this affords us. Marking blocks by indentation is both easier to type and because it enforces good indentation practice, easier to read and maintain. I had a similar problems with the python idiom (not enforced) not to use accessor methods, but to access attributes directly. Until I realised the properties overcame any tight coupling issues and allowed for changes in object level implementation without breaking any dependencies on that object, all the while resulting in code that is much easier on the eye.
What is this punch cards? Seriously? Indent level? Did I step back into the 60s or something?
I've been trying, in vain, to find that Dijsktra quote about how indentation might in the future be used to mark off blocks ... did I just imagine it? Suffice to say that in the 60s, 70s and 80s they could only dream of such syntactic simplicity. This is nothing like column specified Fortran. If that is truly your "*ONLY*" bitch, then with a bit of workflow setup and some more experience using the language, you are about to fall seriously in love!
Yep. Spend a billion Euro now, get a nice return on that from Germany and Italy, because they can't meet energy demands.
Don't imagine for a moment that the German government was not planning on this. Angela Merkel (who personally supports nuclear power) had to make sure of France's continued commitment before she could take the politically expedient step of announcing Germany's withdrawal. It's a luxury you have when you live in a close knit economic community with technologically advanced neighbours within reach of you grid.
It is completely to be anticipated, as the need to reduce carbon emissions becomes more urgent, that nuclear energy generation will be farmed out to Germany's eastern neighbours as well, so as to indulge the German populace in their illusion that they are nuclear free.
The Euro is becoming worthless because it is poorly backed by the EU. The USD is becoming worthless because it is poorly backed by the US Government.
Nonsense. They are being knowingly devalued as via quantitative easing in an (so far successful) attempt to guarantee a money supply sufficient to stave off economic Armageddon. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Those currencies and the Bitcoin are backed by essentially "nothing."
The USD and EUR are backed by the relevant governments' ability to levy tax. The BC is backed by the "proof of work" expressed as blocks. In turn, both taxes and proof of work require resources and labour to be realised.
The difference is that the Bitcoin system will reach a maximum number in circulation.
Which is one reason Bitcoins cannot substitute for money. They are collectables.
If you have one bitcoin, it does not become "worth less than it was" because new coins are flooding the market.
Yes, eventually (ie. when production ceases) the price of a collectable, eg Picasso paintings, is demand driven.
OTOH, for money to work, its supply must, over the long term, match economic growth (or such growth will be throttled by deflation). This is how metallic standards persisted for so long, ie. mining activity was more or less a reflection of the general productivity of an economy. Only with the development of the advanced economies of the C19th did this relationship break down, thus necessitating, after a series of severe currency crises, the advance to modern fiat currency.
The community of buyers and sellers, like all economies ...
As an aside: Not all economies are free market economies. [In the limited sense of the term 'free market,' ie. that buyers and sellers are free to enter the market and to determine between each other the price of exchange without unnecessary charges being levied on the exchange.] More commonly (from an historical perspective) prices were fixed by law. Nor is it unknown for specified transactions to be limited to specified classes of participants.
will determine the relationship between bitcoins and real goods (price) and that price will remain rather stable
Stable?! Assuming they catch on (big IF), their price will be stable only in the absence of economic or population growth (of either sign).
unless governments try to criminalize transactions ...
Oh come now you are just being paranoid. Surely governments would never interfere with attempts to set up non-sovereign currencies. No never!
History is littered with the detritus of "inevitable ideas whose time has come" that weren't inevitable, and whose time hadn't come.
Yes but this time it's different. What you are missing is that bitcoin is the economic singularity!
I mean just listen to this sage investment advice:
Since bitcoin appreciates in value very rapidly during the singularity phase, you should convert all of your liquid assets to bitcoin as quickly as possible. Do not keep any cash, savings, or checking beyond what you need to pay for goods and services that cannot yet be paid for with bitcoin. The more things you can buy with bitcoin, the more bitcoin you should keep.
Stop wasting money on excessively expensive meals, televisions, cars, and anything else that loses value quickly or instantly. Instead, put your money into bitcoin. You will be much richer that way. You may think having less stuff is less fun, but actually the pleasure of financial freedom far, far outweighs any losses.
During the singularity phase, you should also take out loans to buy bitcoin, since bitcoin appreciates far more rapidly than interest on any fiat currency loan. When bitcoin gets near saturation, which is the end of the singularity, you should pay off the loans, because at that point the rate of appreciation will probably be a lot closer to the interest on the loans, and you may not be able to reliably earn money that way anymore.
I'm always reassured when I read such a balanced consideration of the pros and cons of any situation, aren't you? Clearly the people who really understand the all the nuances of finance and have thought this through deeply are on board with Bitcoin. What could possibly go wrong?
Or enough people start using the black market and a black market currency to do almost all of their trading instead. In most countries,
Indeed. The history of currency in earlier times was largely the history of sovereign attempts to coerce the populace to the exclusive use of sovereign currency. The technology by which tax liability is assessed and collected was nowhere near as efficacious as it is today, so this was quite a struggle. Hence the punishment of heating non-sovereign coin to a glow and imprinting it into the miscreant's forehead. Hence also the often ruinous practice of issuing in specie coinage to encourage its adoption.
Quite.
I would dispute how "economically smart" it is to get on the wrong side of your local tax-collection authority, especially in light of the numerous perfectly legal methods by which the financially literate minimise their tax liability. Remember with the advance in evasion technology there comes an advance in surveillance technology.
People have always been criminally evading tax, that won't stop. Some will get caught, other's not. The main thing is that enough people will keep paying taxes and using sovereign currency to maintain modern civilisation. with all the freedoms (and restrictions) and the economic prosperity that entails. :)
What was the Zimbabwean dollar backed by?
The same thing all fiat currency is backed by: The government's exclusive right to raise taxes. In fact, it is argued, that even when there was commodity backed currency (eg. a metallic standard), the backing ultimately was not the commodity itself, but taxation (for which see Modern Monetary Theory).
It follows that when an economy becomes so degraded (or in the case of Zimbabwe when the government so degrades the economy) that there is no longer anything to tax, the currency the government issues will become worthless. This is why those of use who trade currencies look to the various indicia of the economic health of a nation (or of the EC in the case of the Euro) when assessing the value of a currency.
Imagine this headline: Forex.com hacked, concept of USD put into question. Doesn't that sound a bit ridiculous? This was a bad day for mtgox.com and bitcoin speculators, but it does not demonstrate inherent weaknesses in the system of bitcoin.
I agree, this does not "demonstrate inherent weaknesses" in the design or Bitcoin, per se, and I would add that an event such as this one could strangle Bitcoin in its cradle. Consider these points:
i) Unlike the USD, Bitcoin has still to establish legitimacy in the eyes of the serious investor.
ii) Sites such as Mt Gox, provide the primary (perhaps even exclusive) gateway to Bitcoin. FX dealing sites are very much down the list on how most people gain exposure to USD.
iii) The USD can be used by US citizens to settle their taxation debt. The USD can be used internationally to purchase oil. Within the US (and not only there), the USD can be used to purchase practically the entire range of goods and services.
If we apply critical thinking, it will be apparent that the analogy you propose with your headline, while appealing on the surface, cannot do justice to the differences between Bitcoin and the USD.
since the effects of a half century long solar minimum would almost certainly be at least as devastating to civilization as global warming ...
But devastation of civilisation would lower the rate of fossil fuel consumption, or?
Actually I agree that it would be be a tragedy if we squandered any respite which gives us an opportunity massively to scale up hydro, nuclear, solar, wind &c, capacity, and we were dropped quickly into a much hotter climate. However that the likely effects of solar hibernation have been modelled and indications are that it is unlikely to produce a 50 year long little ice age. For which see the discussion of Feuler and Rahmsdorf at skeptical science.
[Only fools trust WSJ] ... because it is owned by Newscorp ( Rupert Murdoch ).
So long as the disclosure of information is in the financial interests of Newcorp (or advances Newscorp's march towards world domination), you can trust Rupert with your life.
I doubt that consent is required at all to "reply to that correspondence." No one here is arguing that forwarding a misdirected email to its intended recipient is a crime in Australia. The offence contemplated in section 16 is that of sending a commercial electronic message, that is a message which intends to offer for sale ...; advertise or promote ...; &c., &c. (s6). That is what requires specific consent.
If you can express, with certitude, the opinion that a misdirected email is sufficient to satisfy the consent requirements stipulated in Schedule 2 of the Act, I think we are entitled to conclude that you are not, in fact, a lawyer. :)
By your own admission you are in violation of the Spam act of 2003.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but you seem quite certain of that. Have you entirely dismissed the possibility that the message might qualify as a designated commercial electronic message for the purposes of s16?
[A] mistaken email address is not express consent in any court in the country.
If you have an actual case with this precise fact scenario could you please provide the citation. That should settle the argument.
No, you're wrong. Sending someone an unprompted email is a solicitation for a response.
Hmm my first reply went walkabout ...
The question here isn't what you think is fair or not, the question is whether Qurikz' has committed an offence under Australian anti-spam legislation such that mjwx's complaint would carry any weight or not.
What you are in effect claiming (though you might not realise it. :) is that mistakenly sending an email to a commercial party constitutes consent ( per Spam Act 2003 (C'th), Schedule 2, 2(b)(ii) ). Now I won't say you are wrong, but it does seem along bow to draw.
OTOH, Quirkz may well escape criminal liability on other grounds. The question is not nearly as simply as either you or mjwx imagine.
I was only offering information. I took no positions.
And then only in response the the comment about shrink-wrap contracts. Yes that's how I read you post, hence my bracketed comment. My comment was not a criticism of anything your wrote, which was, after all only factual information.
Call them "victims" all you want, but they appeared to be happier that I answered as I did than if I'd left them unanswered and without assistance.
99 out of 100 Australians would respond the same way, but that won't help you if you strike a mjwx one day. Bear in mind that Spam Act 2003 (C'th) [yes they seriously called it that], makes it an offence to send "unsolicited commercial electronic messages."
Note what follows is NOT legal advice: Were I a practising lawyer giving you legal advice it would probably be simply to desist from advertising (we tend to want to avoid trouble), but since I'm a non-practising one not giving you legal advice, I will point you to section 2 of the First Schedule which you should read in conjunction with section 16 so that you can assess for yourself (preferably with professional input) whether your behaviour is liable to get you into trouble.
Shrink wrap licenses are legally binding contracts in the US, at least in the 7th Cir.
What Zeidenberg proves is that a button asking a party to agree to terms is a valid offer and that a mouse-click on that button constitutes a valid acceptance sufficient to form a binding contract. It is, in my opinon, an unremarkable result. Moreover it is a result based on facts are pertiently distinguished from the present case.
[I realise you were probably only disabusing the parent as to his/her comment re shrink-wrap licenses, but to the veer back onto topic ...]
In the present case the mail is unsolicited; it is fetched from a mail server without any specific human intervention; and -most importantly -the statement purporting to impose a contractual obligation on the reader of the email is evident only after the mouse-click to open the mail has been made. Quite apart from the question of what consideration might flow to the reader of an unsolicited email (upon which the putative contract might also fail) there has been no acceptance of any agreement by the reader of the mail sufficient to impose upon the reader an obligation to "destroy all copies this email."
Next we must turn to the issue of whether there exists any statutory provision, over and above contract law, which may impose such an obligation upon the reader. ...
This is yet another FUD article on nuclear power submitted by mdsolar.
I think a very compelling argument in favour of nuclear energy can be made in terms of both carbon amelioration and a quantitative comparison of actual human fatalities / environmental damage caused by nuclear vs coal, oil and even hydro. Ad hominem arguments are best saved for situations where you really have no better weapon to deploy.