She's not a politician, she's a celebrity. She is no more qualified to be a politician than Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ciccolina.
She's also one of many recent political figures to be an IP maximalist.
Ah, the tired talking points of the entirely clueless.
First of all, she was a very successful office holder in Alaska. Even after being savaged by the national media, her popularity never fell below 50% when she was governor. Second, she did some pretty amazing and worthwhile things during her governorship.
On the other hand, we have 0bama, who reads a teleprompter fairly well. He had less time in public office before becoming President, and as Senator he didn't do much besides vote "Present". We're all getting the treat of seeing how well electing 0 is working out.
At least Sarah Palin loves America and believes in American Exceptionalism. I'd rather have her as President than 0 by a factor of about 1000.
This is one of the early supporters of the "Teabaggers", yes, you know, the ridiculous right wing nut jobs who called themselves "teabaggers"
Another ignorant, sophomoric idiot spouts forth. Great job.
"Tea Partiers" have never referred to themselves as "teabaggers". That tasteless epithet splattered nastily from the various liberal talking heads on TV.
The good news is that the Tea Party folk will have the last laugh in 2012, just as they enjoyed the 2010 crushing of the progressives. I'm amazed how many folk on Slashdot who no doubt consider themselves intelligent have bought in to the unworkable ideas of the Progressive Movement. The size and scope of government is inversely proportional to individual liberty.
Good analysis overall, but you missed one big point regarding "Speed of app". iOS apps, for instance, are fully compiled Obj-C programs, versus interpreted Javascript. JS has gotten a lot better, but it's not close to precompiled code efficiency. That's why any serious game developer releases a native app rather than a web app.
Flash games arrived because they were easy and Flash is pervasive, but they perform very poorly and are serious resource hogs for what they are.
Thanks to some cables regarding Australia which shows excessive alignment between certain Australian politicians and the US government (A government that has lied to the Australia government to involve it in a war that cost Australian lives)
What "lies" would those be? The intelligence estimates regarding Iraqi WMD? The same ones that were independently generated by many other major countries, probably including Australia?
The "alignment" is most likely "excessive" to the fringe Left only.;-)
, what happens to Julian Assange is a leadership issue and a successful extradition from Australia would likely result in a change of leadership and a cancellation of extradition.
Based on your vast knowledge of politics in general and Australian politics in particular, no doubt.
Overall in it's arrogance and the ego of the Individuals the US has succeeded in making the biggest possible mess out of the cable release it could possibly have done.
The "Individuals"? Not the "government"? Really... Which "Individuals" do you blame? lol
Like a child throwing a temper tantrum with no focus on outcomes, no realistic view of the situation, no planning to achieve goals, just blindly reacting circumstance driven by nothing but childish emotion.
Sure, the general release of state secrets is nothing but "childish emotion".
If another country had conducted espionage and then released these documents, there would have been consequences. Assange was a fool to think he could do it with none.
Actually he might be best off spending a long time in US custody, otherwise he might find his salad includes polonium dressing courtesy of annoyed Russians.
Absolutely. It's good to see a rare common-sense post on/.
The ocean acidification issue is worrisome, but there is little to be done about it in the short term. It will take a breakthrough in geoengineering to reverse things given how the next fifty years is likely to shake out.
So, there's no immediacy to global warming, we have time to get it right - rather than wrecking our economy for most likely no reason.
Yes, let's jump to grand conclusions based on a single unproven assumption. Betting all life as we know it against maximizing profits is a perfectly rational course of action.
Uh, no. No one is saying global warming will destroy "all life as we know it". In fact, the alarmists never mention the benefits of global warming for some - it's all about the negatives. Think of Canadian wheat for instance.
At any rate, global power generation could be moving much more rapidly towards less carbon emissions, if it weren't for the irrational fear of nuclear power exhibited by the eco-fringe. Market forces should also prevail as solar power actually becomes competitive with fossil fuels.
Note that that study predicts only ~1.7 C warming with CO2 doubling from current levels - and that (as always) presumes no change to solar or volcanic inputs.
Another point often discarded by the alarmists is no matter what Western society does to mitigate CO2, Russia, India, China and the "developing world" will swamp those efforts. China's CO2 output in 2030 could equal the ENTIRE WORLD's output today. The good news is that so far the real world has not reflected the alarmism from the GW proponents computer models. Most/. readers are familiar with the GIGO principle I'm sure..;-)
This cycle is matching up very nicely (along with the previous two cycles actually) with the beginning of the Dalton Minimum, which produced sharply colder temperatures around the globe.
Corbyn’s prediction:
Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years. He goes on to speculate that a genuine ice age might then settle in, since an ice age is now cyclically overdue.
So, there's no immediacy to global warming, we have time to get it right - rather than wrecking our economy for most likely no reason.
Wow, I'm getting so tired of repeating myself. I wish I'd never posted.
I probably wish you'd never posted too.:-)
For the last time (you'd know if you switched away from Fox News once in a while), the Obama healthcare reform is budget neutral. The reforms will result in $622 billion in savings over 10 years (preventative care vs emergency care) so there is no wealth redistribution involved.
That is a giant load of crap. Even the GAO and administration are now admitting that 0care will be extremely expensive. It is already screwing up private insurance (for instance most group plans no longer cover children).
Second, just because it's "budget neutral" there is no guarantee there's no "wealth redistribution". That entirely depends on how 0 plans to finance his monstrosity. It's widely known he plans to increase the tax burden of the wealthy compared with everyone else. That is, by definition, "wealth redistribution".
I won't even comment on the second part regarding tax breaks as I've done this a dozen times already so you can just read my other posts if you are interested.
Seems you're not clueful enough to have a meaningful opinion.;-)
Sorry for the delay,/.'s great editing system ate my first two replies.:P
I'm not sure why you think the F-22 is "unlikely to ever see real combat".
Because it is stationed on US soil to defend it only. It's not stationed anywhere overseas. At this point, the idea of a conventional attack on US soil is laughable.
The plane it's replacing, the F-15, has a combat record of 105-0. That is to say, not a single F-15 has been shot down in the process of downing 105 adversaries.
Hopefully you understand that it's not so much about the plane, as it is about facing opponents on older equipment and with much worse training. The latter bit in particular is important.
The F-15 has faced same-generation adversaries such as the Mig-29. The other factors are important, but having top-notch airframes and weapons makes the rest possible.
Even if it never sees combat, a major reason for that may very well be the fear it engenders in our enemies. That would be fine, as deterrence is very much a part of our strategy. "Peace through superior firepower."
Nothing wrong with that, it's only a question of how much superior is has to be to achieve the desired effect. There is some doubt about whether F-22 was overkill there or not. If it wasn't, there is also still a question of numbers - how many do you need for guaranteed deterrence?
Enough, of course. Which is impossible to determine ahead of time. Americans have become overly complacent about military superiority, it can switch quite rapidly. You might want to reflect that the original F-22 buy was supposed to be for over 600 planes. We got 187.
Another oft-ignored point regarding the F-22 is that we could sold many billions of dollars worth as exports, but it was regarded as too good for even our closest allies.
In any case, my point was to compare spending on F-22 - which, short term, is only about very hypothetical deterrence (since the existing fleet of planes was more than adequate to hold back all potential US adversaries such as Russia or China) - to service rifle, which is something that American troops use heavily in actual combat today. Making the latter better results in a very direct reduction in body bags coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, for a fraction of the price. Don't you think that it makes sense to prioritize that?
Sure it makes sense, but that has nothing to do with your silly remarks regarding the F-22.
This is especially strange given that US spends obscene amount of money on other expensive military toys, such as F-22, which don't even see (and are unlikely to ever see) real combat!
I'm not sure why you think the F-22 is "unlikely to ever see real combat". The plane it's replacing, the F-15, has a combat record of 105-0. That is to say, not a single F-15 has been shot down in the process of downing 105 adversaries. I hope the F-22 manages as exemplary of a record!
Even if it never sees combat, a major reason for that may very well be the fear it engenders in our enemies. That would be fine, as deterrence is very much a part of our strategy.
This whole thing is so distorted. The REASON that we don't mandate these ships use strong pollution controls or clean fuels is specifically because pollution is part quantity, part location. If there's nobody to breathe a pollutant before it degrades, it's not hurting anyone. Car exhaust is released at ground level in populated areas.
CO2 doesn't "hurt anyone" but a lot of Gaea worshipers seem pretty worked up about it regardless... You're also assuming that such pollution doesn't accumulate in sea life, which we, uh, eat.
In terms of fuel consumed and CO2 released, ship pollution from transporting a car (and all of its component parts) is a small fraction of the fuel consumed and CO2 released in the vehicle's lifespan.
Of course, comparing the CO2 used to transport the car ONCE versus the entire output over the 100,000+ mile lifetime of the car is meaningless...
Cargo ships are the most efficient way, from a fuel and CO2 perspective, to move a given mass of freight (even more than trains), at nearly 500 miles per gallon per ton.
Complete nonsense. These huge container ships are perfect candidates for nuclear power, which would, you know, completely eliminate all forms of air pollution - including CO2 (not that I'm worried about CO2 in the least, but as I said some are have given the propaganda credence). I think stationing a squad of military on each ship to protect the nuclear material would be a small price to pay. The new reactor designs are super safe as well.
Not only are garage bioweapons a risk, but there's a ton of knowledge that's readily available to anyone. Some of the sequencers available on the open market are capable of synthesizing polio virus from raw materials. Couple that with research such as this, where researchers accidentally created a 100% deadly organism, and you've got a big problem!
Money quote from the article:
"We wanted to make it clear to the scientific community that they should be careful, that it is not too difficult to create severe organisms."
My 19 month old has his own iPhone. It's a 3G, it's not getting cell service but the previous owner (teenage son) somewhat broke the headset jack, the headset buttons don't work with multiple headsets that do work elsewhere. So, can't really sell it off otherwise I would.
It's in a case, is fairly bulletproof, and the 19 month old is having a blast with (some of) the games.:-)
It's in the Politics section. As incredibly depressing as it may be, Glenn Beck crying on camera and Colbert making fun of him represents the height of political discourse these days, so it fits.
I quite disagree with that assessment, actually. Then, I'm a Sarah Palin fan and respect the founding documents, so I doubt we have a lot of common ground.
Hell, they don't even really debate things in the halls of Congress anymore, they just shout their talking points at each other to rile up the extremists on either end of the political spectrum because they're apparently the only ones who still vote.
It's worse than that. The politicians can't even be bothered to read the legislation they're voting on, which affects all of us. That is simply wrong, by any standard. Thus, the "throw the bums out" mentality which looks to be the decisive edge in the coming election.
I hope more people will try to improve themselves and actually learn rather than immersing in popular culture, which is ultimately an exercise in mediocrity, at best.
Meanwhile, comedians like Colbert try to point out the absurdity of it all, and everyone has a good laugh, and no one changes their behavior.
I think that analysis is simply wrong. Watch what happens come November.:-)
I'm sorry that your education system has failed so many of you so miserably.
I'm sure that someday most of you will gain enough real-world experience to understand why 0bama is a disaster and folks like Glenn Beck have to raise the alarm. In the meantime, I think we'll be OK given the way things are going into November.:-)
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea. - Robert Anton Wilson
everyone else wishes he was at least interesting enough to pay attention to.
Plenty of people simply wish he were doing something in some way positive, especially with the economy. Since he (and his team) clearly have no idea how the economy actually works, people are understandably eager for a sane alternative.
Plus, a lot of folks out there have been shocked at the actual policies of 0 as opposed to what they thought they'd get when they elected him.
The very successful Tea Party influence on the primaries pales beside what's going to happen in November.;-)
Nice job moving the goalposts. I referenced gcj because it's a real, live example of a native Java compiler, and a Gnu project to boot (no pun intended).
gcj ended up being targeted at embedded applications, more or less, as I said above it hasn't competed very well against the Sun/IBM JREs. gcj is robust enough to compile Eclipse though, which is quite a non-trivial Java app. I'd say you should think a bit more before denigrating the hard work of a lot of dedicated people.
I mentioned the availability of commercial native compilers, obviously you didn't look into that. In particular there's Excelsior Jet, which claims to pass the Java 6 compatibility tests.
The point remains, there's nothing preventing Java from being "traditionally compiled", and such compilers are in fact available. They simply don't offer anything highly compelling for most Java users.
Java is an interpreted scripting language. It's also nowhere near number one - most hosting providers don't even offer it.
And before we get into *that* argument again... Java is no more compiled than converting a word doc to a pdf is "compiling" it.
Java source is compiled to either native object format, or bytecode. The Gnu gcj compiler is an example of a "native" Java compiler. There are also a few commercial compilers that do the same thing.
You cannot execute the resulting class files directly - they need to be interpreted by the run-time (originally, they were supposed to be interpreted by a special "Java chip" - "write once, run anywhere" was the exact opposite of the original design goals).
You should explain why the original versions of Java had a VM, and why the "Java chip" never went anywhere (hint: there were implementations, but they didn't really offer anything compelling).
If Sun had had any brains, they would have fixed the slowness of Java by including the ability to compile down to native code. Then they could have arguably had the best of both worlds.
I guess you're too uninformed to know that one of the big reasons gcj hasn't taken off, is because the HotSpot type VMs outperform it a lot of the time? If native compilation were that great, some of the other Java entities might be more interested in it.
There really are optimization opportunities that are better exploited at runtime.
But what do you expect from a project that changed its goals so many times, even in the early years?
I'd say rather that Java has attempted to become a general purpose language, which implicitly means it has many goals. How well it's accomplished that is of course arguable.
It has been the most successful and important language in recent years though, without a doubt. C# is a fine example of "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".
There are valid criticisms of Java, for instance it's hard to make a small implementation given some of the dependencies of Object and Exception, but your criticisms don't fall into the "valid" category.
Slashdot Mirror
Tea Partiers (and conservatives in general) aren't reactionary - just sane. ;-)
She's not a politician, she's a celebrity. She is no more qualified to be a politician than Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ciccolina.
She's also one of many recent political figures to be an IP maximalist.
Ah, the tired talking points of the entirely clueless.
First of all, she was a very successful office holder in Alaska. Even after being savaged by the national media, her popularity never fell below 50% when she was governor. Second, she did some pretty amazing and worthwhile things during her governorship.
On the other hand, we have 0bama, who reads a teleprompter fairly well. He had less time in public office before becoming President, and as Senator he didn't do much besides vote "Present". We're all getting the treat of seeing how well electing 0 is working out.
At least Sarah Palin loves America and believes in American Exceptionalism. I'd rather have her as President than 0 by a factor of about 1000.
This is one of the early supporters of the "Teabaggers", yes, you know, the ridiculous right wing nut jobs who called themselves "teabaggers"
Another ignorant, sophomoric idiot spouts forth. Great job.
"Tea Partiers" have never referred to themselves as "teabaggers". That tasteless epithet splattered nastily from the various liberal talking heads on TV.
The good news is that the Tea Party folk will have the last laugh in 2012, just as they enjoyed the 2010 crushing of the progressives. I'm amazed how many folk on Slashdot who no doubt consider themselves intelligent have bought in to the unworkable ideas of the Progressive Movement. The size and scope of government is inversely proportional to individual liberty.
Live free or die!
Good analysis overall, but you missed one big point regarding "Speed of app". iOS apps, for instance, are fully compiled Obj-C programs, versus interpreted Javascript. JS has gotten a lot better, but it's not close to precompiled code efficiency. That's why any serious game developer releases a native app rather than a web app.
Flash games arrived because they were easy and Flash is pervasive, but they perform very poorly and are serious resource hogs for what they are.
Thanks to some cables regarding Australia which shows excessive alignment between certain Australian politicians and the US government (A government that has lied to the Australia government to involve it in a war that cost Australian lives)
What "lies" would those be? The intelligence estimates regarding Iraqi WMD? The same ones that were independently generated by many other major countries, probably including Australia?
The "alignment" is most likely "excessive" to the fringe Left only. ;-)
, what happens to Julian Assange is a leadership issue and a successful extradition from Australia would likely result in a change of leadership and a cancellation of extradition.
Based on your vast knowledge of politics in general and Australian politics in particular, no doubt.
Overall in it's arrogance and the ego of the Individuals the US has succeeded in making the biggest possible mess out of the cable release it could possibly have done.
The "Individuals"? Not the "government"? Really... Which "Individuals" do you blame? lol
Like a child throwing a temper tantrum with no focus on outcomes, no realistic view of the situation, no planning to achieve goals, just blindly reacting circumstance driven by nothing but childish emotion.
Sure, the general release of state secrets is nothing but "childish emotion".
If another country had conducted espionage and then released these documents, there would have been consequences. Assange was a fool to think he could do it with none.
Actually he might be best off spending a long time in US custody, otherwise he might find his salad includes polonium dressing courtesy of annoyed Russians.
What will we do then?
We'll use our many decades of increased science and engineering to fix the problem. ;-)
Think how far we've come with aviation since 1940 for instance....
BTW, nice job posting AC... LOL
Piers Corbyns beliefs and speculations aren't based on any actual science or evidence.
That is completely incorrect. You'd better do some more reading.
Are you denying that Solar Grand Minima have an effect on the Earth? Ludicrous if so...
Isn't this a great thing, though?
Absolutely. It's good to see a rare common-sense post on /.
The ocean acidification issue is worrisome, but there is little to be done about it in the short term. It will take a breakthrough in geoengineering to reverse things given how the next fifty years is likely to shake out.
Yes, let's jump to grand conclusions based on a single unproven assumption. Betting all life as we know it against maximizing profits is a perfectly rational course of action.
Uh, no. No one is saying global warming will destroy "all life as we know it". In fact, the alarmists never mention the benefits of global warming for some - it's all about the negatives. Think of Canadian wheat for instance.
At any rate, global power generation could be moving much more rapidly towards less carbon emissions, if it weren't for the irrational fear of nuclear power exhibited by the eco-fringe. Market forces should also prevail as solar power actually becomes competitive with fossil fuels.
There never has been a major crisis, it's been manufactured. Even NASA is beginning to come around.
Note that that study predicts only ~1.7 C warming with CO2 doubling from current levels - and that (as always) presumes no change to solar or volcanic inputs.
Another point often discarded by the alarmists is no matter what Western society does to mitigate CO2, Russia, India, China and the "developing world" will swamp those efforts. China's CO2 output in 2030 could equal the ENTIRE WORLD's output today. The good news is that so far the real world has not reflected the alarmism from the GW proponents computer models. Most /. readers are familiar with the GIGO principle I'm sure.. ;-)
Merry Christmas!
This cycle is matching up very nicely (along with the previous two cycles actually) with the beginning of the Dalton Minimum, which produced sharply colder temperatures around the globe.
Here's a relevant article.
So, there's no immediacy to global warming, we have time to get it right - rather than wrecking our economy for most likely no reason.
I hope SpaceX eventually fields the first commercial nuclear propelled spaceship! :-)
Wow, I'm getting so tired of repeating myself. I wish I'd never posted.
I probably wish you'd never posted too. :-)
For the last time (you'd know if you switched away from Fox News once in a while), the Obama healthcare reform is budget neutral. The reforms will result in $622 billion in savings over 10 years (preventative care vs emergency care) so there is no wealth redistribution involved.
That is a giant load of crap. Even the GAO and administration are now admitting that 0care will be extremely expensive. It is already screwing up private insurance (for instance most group plans no longer cover children).
Second, just because it's "budget neutral" there is no guarantee there's no "wealth redistribution". That entirely depends on how 0 plans to finance his monstrosity. It's widely known he plans to increase the tax burden of the wealthy compared with everyone else. That is, by definition, "wealth redistribution".
I won't even comment on the second part regarding tax breaks as I've done this a dozen times already so you can just read my other posts if you are interested.
Seems you're not clueful enough to have a meaningful opinion. ;-)
I'm not sure why you think the F-22 is "unlikely to ever see real combat".
Because it is stationed on US soil to defend it only. It's not stationed anywhere overseas. At this point, the idea of a conventional attack on US soil is laughable.
Nope, the F-22 was stationed on Guam and is currently in Japan as well.
The plane it's replacing, the F-15, has a combat record of 105-0. That is to say, not a single F-15 has been shot down in the process of downing 105 adversaries.
Hopefully you understand that it's not so much about the plane, as it is about facing opponents on older equipment and with much worse training. The latter bit in particular is important.
The F-15 has faced same-generation adversaries such as the Mig-29. The other factors are important, but having top-notch airframes and weapons makes the rest possible.
Even if it never sees combat, a major reason for that may very well be the fear it engenders in our enemies. That would be fine, as deterrence is very much a part of our strategy. "Peace through superior firepower."
Nothing wrong with that, it's only a question of how much superior is has to be to achieve the desired effect. There is some doubt about whether F-22 was overkill there or not. If it wasn't, there is also still a question of numbers - how many do you need for guaranteed deterrence?
Enough, of course. Which is impossible to determine ahead of time. Americans have become overly complacent about military superiority, it can switch quite rapidly. You might want to reflect that the original F-22 buy was supposed to be for over 600 planes. We got 187.
Another oft-ignored point regarding the F-22 is that we could sold many billions of dollars worth as exports, but it was regarded as too good for even our closest allies.
In any case, my point was to compare spending on F-22 - which, short term, is only about very hypothetical deterrence (since the existing fleet of planes was more than adequate to hold back all potential US adversaries such as Russia or China) - to service rifle, which is something that American troops use heavily in actual combat today. Making the latter better results in a very direct reduction in body bags coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, for a fraction of the price. Don't you think that it makes sense to prioritize that?
Sure it makes sense, but that has nothing to do with your silly remarks regarding the F-22.
This is especially strange given that US spends obscene amount of money on other expensive military toys, such as F-22, which don't even see (and are unlikely to ever see) real combat!
I'm not sure why you think the F-22 is "unlikely to ever see real combat". The plane it's replacing, the F-15, has a combat record of 105-0. That is to say, not a single F-15 has been shot down in the process of downing 105 adversaries. I hope the F-22 manages as exemplary of a record!
Even if it never sees combat, a major reason for that may very well be the fear it engenders in our enemies. That would be fine, as deterrence is very much a part of our strategy.
"Peace through superior firepower."
This whole thing is so distorted. The REASON that we don't mandate these ships use strong pollution controls or clean fuels is specifically because pollution is part quantity, part location. If there's nobody to breathe a pollutant before it degrades, it's not hurting anyone. Car exhaust is released at ground level in populated areas.
CO2 doesn't "hurt anyone" but a lot of Gaea worshipers seem pretty worked up about it regardless... You're also assuming that such pollution doesn't accumulate in sea life, which we, uh, eat.
In terms of fuel consumed and CO2 released, ship pollution from transporting a car (and all of its component parts) is a small fraction of the fuel consumed and CO2 released in the vehicle's lifespan.
Of course, comparing the CO2 used to transport the car ONCE versus the entire output over the 100,000+ mile lifetime of the car is meaningless...
Cargo ships are the most efficient way, from a fuel and CO2 perspective, to move a given mass of freight (even more than trains), at nearly 500 miles per gallon per ton.
Complete nonsense. These huge container ships are perfect candidates for nuclear power, which would, you know, completely eliminate all forms of air pollution - including CO2 (not that I'm worried about CO2 in the least, but as I said some are have given the propaganda credence). I think stationing a squad of military on each ship to protect the nuclear material would be a small price to pay. The new reactor designs are super safe as well.
Not only are garage bioweapons a risk, but there's a ton of knowledge that's readily available to anyone. Some of the sequencers available on the open market are capable of synthesizing polio virus from raw materials. Couple that with research such as this, where researchers accidentally created a 100% deadly organism, and you've got a big problem!
Money quote from the article:
My 19 month old has his own iPhone. It's a 3G, it's not getting cell service but the previous owner (teenage son) somewhat broke the headset jack, the headset buttons don't work with multiple headsets that do work elsewhere. So, can't really sell it off otherwise I would.
It's in a case, is fairly bulletproof, and the 19 month old is having a blast with (some of) the games. :-)
It's in the Politics section. As incredibly depressing as it may be, Glenn Beck crying on camera and Colbert making fun of him represents the height of political discourse these days, so it fits.
I quite disagree with that assessment, actually. Then, I'm a Sarah Palin fan and respect the founding documents, so I doubt we have a lot of common ground.
Hell, they don't even really debate things in the halls of Congress anymore, they just shout their talking points at each other to rile up the extremists on either end of the political spectrum because they're apparently the only ones who still vote.
It's worse than that. The politicians can't even be bothered to read the legislation they're voting on, which affects all of us. That is simply wrong, by any standard. Thus, the "throw the bums out" mentality which looks to be the decisive edge in the coming election.
I hope more people will try to improve themselves and actually learn rather than immersing in popular culture, which is ultimately an exercise in mediocrity, at best.
Meanwhile, comedians like Colbert try to point out the absurdity of it all, and everyone has a good laugh, and no one changes their behavior.
I think that analysis is simply wrong. Watch what happens come November. :-)
I'm sorry that your education system has failed so many of you so miserably.
I'm sure that someday most of you will gain enough real-world experience to understand why 0bama is a disaster and folks like Glenn Beck have to raise the alarm. In the meantime, I think we'll be OK given the way things are going into November. :-)
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea. - Robert Anton Wilson
everyone else wishes he was at least interesting enough to pay attention to.
Plenty of people simply wish he were doing something in some way positive, especially with the economy. Since he (and his team) clearly have no idea how the economy actually works, people are understandably eager for a sane alternative.
Plus, a lot of folks out there have been shocked at the actual policies of 0 as opposed to what they thought they'd get when they elected him.
The very successful Tea Party influence on the primaries pales beside what's going to happen in November. ;-)
GCJ DOESN'T WORK.
Nice job moving the goalposts. I referenced gcj because it's a real, live example of a native Java compiler, and a Gnu project to boot (no pun intended).
gcj ended up being targeted at embedded applications, more or less, as I said above it hasn't competed very well against the Sun/IBM JREs. gcj is robust enough to compile Eclipse though, which is quite a non-trivial Java app. I'd say you should think a bit more before denigrating the hard work of a lot of dedicated people.
I mentioned the availability of commercial native compilers, obviously you didn't look into that. In particular there's Excelsior Jet, which claims to pass the Java 6 compatibility tests.
The point remains, there's nothing preventing Java from being "traditionally compiled", and such compilers are in fact available. They simply don't offer anything highly compelling for most Java users.
Java is an interpreted scripting language. It's also nowhere near number one - most hosting providers don't even offer it.
And before we get into *that* argument again ... Java is no more compiled than converting a word doc to a pdf is "compiling" it.
Java source is compiled to either native object format, or bytecode. The Gnu gcj compiler is an example of a "native" Java compiler. There are also a few commercial compilers that do the same thing.
You cannot execute the resulting class files directly - they need to be interpreted by the run-time (originally, they were supposed to be interpreted by a special "Java chip" - "write once, run anywhere" was the exact opposite of the original design goals).
You should explain why the original versions of Java had a VM, and why the "Java chip" never went anywhere (hint: there were implementations, but they didn't really offer anything compelling).
If Sun had had any brains, they would have fixed the slowness of Java by including the ability to compile down to native code. Then they could have arguably had the best of both worlds.
I guess you're too uninformed to know that one of the big reasons gcj hasn't taken off, is because the HotSpot type VMs outperform it a lot of the time? If native compilation were that great, some of the other Java entities might be more interested in it.
There really are optimization opportunities that are better exploited at runtime.
But what do you expect from a project that changed its goals so many times, even in the early years?
I'd say rather that Java has attempted to become a general purpose language, which implicitly means it has many goals. How well it's accomplished that is of course arguable.
It has been the most successful and important language in recent years though, without a doubt. C# is a fine example of "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".
There are valid criticisms of Java, for instance it's hard to make a small implementation given some of the dependencies of Object and Exception, but your criticisms don't fall into the "valid" category.
Actually someone blew three mod points modding me down. Idiots abound all right. ;-)
+1 to everything you said, including your sig. :-)