Sure, but that doesn't really apply to Google; everyone thinks they are way cool already. As for Apple, the success of the iPod provides perfectly good reasons for sophisticated investors to think they are cool. In any case, the really basic investment tip to keep in mind is: If you think you can predict what stocks will do better than professional institutional investment managers with lots of experience and an extensive research staff, ask youself why you aren't one.
Right, as long as Google is priced right now, and not insanely overblown. I don't have any idea what their stock (or more to the point their price/earnings) is at; but I know which way I'd bet.
Free investment tip: Avoid buying stock in any company if an unsophisticated investor, for reasons unrelated to profitability, would think that company is Way Cool.
It appears Google has a sound business plan and competent management. Which probably justifies some particular, perfectly healthy stock price. But I'm guessing their stock price has to be at least twice that, because they are also, quite legitimately, Way Cool.
It' OK as long as you have to buy an additional single-purpose device??? I don't want another device, and no one is forcing anything onto my computer. I can already choose whether to buy DRMed music or not.
Lost my temper? I think you give yourself too much credit. Certainly I've become more crudely insulting in recent posts as I've lost the interest level to try to be clever about it. I suppose your confusion on this particular topic is reasonable though. As you correctly note, I generally refrain from using profanity, but this is not because I have any problem with it, but because sometimes others do, and I don't want that to get in the way of their understanding my point. Thus, when I start using it, it is not because I've lost my temper, but because I'm actively trying to offend you. It's cheap, I know, but what the hell. Sorry to hear you don't give a fuck.
Anyhow, back to whatever it was I was going to say... oh yes: You were only trying to give me a ribbing? Give me a break. Go back and read your first reply to me. Count the number of times you tell me (in various insulting ways) that I'm an idiot for daring to suggest that fraud is wrong, and that you should think so too. The tone and manner of your original reply to me was the work of a complete jerk.
Strangely, it seems like it was my "graduation" comment that actually stung. Funny, since I only meant it to be mildly insulting; I thought it might bug you only because I thought I might have guessed right. Your naive thinking that fraud is fine as long as there is an Evil Corporation on the other end; Your amatuerish prose; and particularly your inability to tell someone you disagree with them without the pointless but continual drone of uncreative belittlements; all of these led me to put your age in the late-teen ballpark. Plus, people in that age bracket tend to have a lot of time on their hands, and no real life. But you're what, almost 40, and the best thing you've got to do with your time is have pointless arguments with strangers on the internet who think you're an idiot? Wow. That's, well, that's kind of sad. I mean, sure, I'm doing it too, but I'm feeling pretty immature about it, and I'm a lot younger than you. I mean, god, I hope I've got better things to do than this drivel in my late 30s. I don't mean to belabor the point, but damn. Hell, I almost feel sorry for you. Nah, nevermind, being pathetic doesn't make you not a jerk. It just makes you a pathetic jerk.
That's insane. My feelings on Regexes were set early in my career. I discovered them, and like many started using them everywhere. Then in a code review, my boss pointed to one particularly complex one and said "See, there's why you shouldn't try to do such complex things with regular expressions, this one has a bug" "Where?" says me. "Let's leave that as an exercise for the student. Come ask me if you can't figure it out in an hour or so." Well, I certainly wasn't going to admit defeat, even though it took me several hours to find the rather subtle problem. So I went back and demanded to know how he had spotted it so fast. And he said "I didn't. It was a regex 3 lines long. It had to have a bug."
"the compiled regex will likely be faster than any parsing library you write"
If I write custom code to do a specific parsing job in the fastest way possible, it will be slower than using generic code to do it in one particular way? I must not be understanding what you're saying.
"Growing up watching this show" and now you've got a daughter older than mine? Are you sure you're remembering correctly? I guess it's possible, but the scheduling seems pretty tight... I just know that when I saw the summaries mention of something in high school reminding them of when they used to watch the show, my immediate thought was "Damn. I'm old."
No, that was your revision of your untenable position, in the tenth or so post of this increasingly pointless thread. You original quote was to liken people who fraudulently agree to iTunes terms to the Founding Fathers and Rosa Parks. I thought this questionable, and said that I thought lying to iTunes in order to get music under terms you had no intention of obeying sounded immoral to me. You replied along the lines of:
"You moronic coporate sycophant!!! How dare YOU suggest you can MAKE moral judgements for others, STUPID?!?!? You THINK there is only ONE WAY TO LIVE, and that is EVIL, you pea BRAINED turd!!!!!!! YOU should never judge others!!!!! YOU are JUST like Mussolini! (Aren't I just the coolest for not having said 'Hitler'?)"
I explained I didn't think there was just one way to live, but did think it was sometimes permissible to impose one's moral code on others, for example, Mussolini.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to explain my position in more detail.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to explain my position in a different way.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to suggest you weren't paying attention to what I was saying, and said it again.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I boiled down your argument to the point of ridiculousness (easy), and now you say "No, no, we were only ever talking about victimless crimes". Right. You thought I was talking about victimless crimes when Mussolini was the example.
So obviously, we agree that one does sometimes have to impose ones moral code on others; in the case of theft of physical property at least. (I'm sure you'll have some stupid reason that shouldn't count as imposing morals). So we could debate whether non-physical things should be considered property; exactly why physical things are your property and not mine (hint: your moral code), and blah, blah, blah. But I'm not going to. I'm not even going to read any replies you might write to this, because this thread is way past being worth my time.
Instead, I'll close with what I should have said in response to your equating those who commit fraud versus iTunes with Rosa Parks:
That's the most moronic thing I've ever heard! Even on Slashdot! You must be the biggest fucking idiot who has ever lived! Doesn't being that stupid HURT?
"we're talking about the culturally-ingrained notion that moral choices that directly harm no one else should follow one moral code or another, which is what you are arguing for"
You have this weird habit of telling me what I'm saying, then pointing out that it is wrong. Perhaps you should try actually reading what I say, as I have never advanced the position you ascribe to me. I do not beleive choices that directly harm no one else are even moral choices to begin with. I beleive that in this thread the only moral principle I have advocated imposing on others is "Stealing is wrong", and I've even couched that in terms like "usualy", and acnowledged that the definition of stealing is not entirely precise; one could certainly argue whether violating iTunes TOS qualifies.
The position you seem to be advocating, though I find it hard to beleive, is either that I should not consider stealing to be wrong, or that I should not try to impose that moral judgement on others. I find this bizzare. If I see a thief take someones wallet, should I just not say anything? After all, why would I say anything, except to impose my moral judgement that stealing is wrong upon the thief? For that matter, should I reasonably consider him a thief? Perhaps he has a different moral code than me, under which he is just as entitled to possesion of the wallet as the person who's pocket it was in. Are you really arguing that it is unreasonable of me to impose my "stealing is wrong" judgement on the thief? Does it really seem contradictory to you that I can be willing to say something when I see a thief taking someones wallet, but I can still think it's lame that I can't buy beer on a Sunday?
OK, listen up. I've said it about six different ways, but you don't seem to have the ability to read what I'm actually writing, instead of what you assume I believe.
My moral code is just my opinion. There is nothing absolute about it. There is nothing external to either of us that makes my moral code superior to that of someone else. So there are many cases where it pisses me off that others try to impose their differing moral code upon me. Not letting me buy beer on a Sunday, to pick a relatively innocuous example. Yet there are other times when I think it is perfectly permissible, and even desirable for people to enforce their moral code on others. To use your example, my moral code differs from that of Mussolini. Yet a while back some people who's moral code is more in line with mine than his got together and forced their code upon him. And I think they were right to do so. Because I think our moral code is superior to that of Mussolini. Yes, it does boil down to some people deciding their moral code should be applied to others, even though there is no objective proof they are right (because there is no objective "right").
Sometimes, one person imposing their moral code on another is essential. It is the basis of all law enforcement; it is the basis of every defense of human rights. Other times, one person imposing their moral code on another is absolutely heinous it is the source of much evil.
I'm sorry I can't make it black and white for you. You'll just have to stretch your brain around the fact that I beleive some moral principles should be imposed on others, even though there is no objective standard for what they are, yet I still don't think there is "one right way to live for all humans", and I'd prefer to keep the list of morals to be imposed on everyone to an absolute minimum.
While I think violating iTunes TOS is an almost stupidly trivial matter, it is lying and/or (depending how you look at it) stealing. I think those are, in most cases, wrong. I do not see a problem with my deciding stealing is wrong, nor with my willingness to enforce that judgement on others. But, (pay attention here please, this is tricky) I still think people should be able buy whisky on Sunday. Even though I won't drink whisky no matter what day it is.
I realize this may be a bit of a nuanced position for you to grasp. Given that you can't handle subtleties, I'm glad you've chosen not ever judging others over always judging others; that's preferable. But unfortunately, the real world is more complicated than that. There are plenty of people who are just different from you, and you should avoid judging them. But unfortunately there are also people who are liars, thieves, racists, bullies; and you must avoid failing to judge them for what they are, lest they continue unchecked, or even come to beleive their behavior is acceptable.
Someday you may apreciate this distinction. It may not be until years after graduation, which I realize must seem awfully far off itself. Some people take their whole lives to move beyond simplistic moral relativism; some never do. Yes, two people can form opposing conclusions, based only on their own opinions and prejudices, and most of the time, neither of them is justified in telling the other they are wrong. But sometimes, one of them is wrong, and the other has the right, and even the obligation, to tell them so.
Here's hoping you make it to understanding that someday. But honestly, I wouldn't try it today if I were you. I'd work on reading comprehension first. And that compulsion to put random stuff in all caps; you held off longer in this post, but it eventually got the better of you. Maybe there's some medication that would help with that?
Seriously, the woodwork involved is not particularly difficult, yet he doesn't appear to have done a particularly good job of it. A wooden keyboard would be a lot of work, but not overwhelmingly difficult, so I'd at least expect that on The Amazing Solid Wood Laptop (for sale...).
"Then why did they disguise themselves as Native Americans when they threw the tea overboard, moron?"
I would guess they wanted to avoid being recognized so they wouldn't be jailed. I'm surprised you couldn't figure that out, given that I'm the moron. You'll note they didn't quietly smuggle the tea ashore while publicaly agreeing to the stamp tax. And you do understand that they never expected anyone to think they were actually Indians? The whole point was that the normally tea-consuming colonists were dumping the stuff overboard rather than pay the tax; the Indians didn't drink tea or pay taxes in any case (for the most part anyway).
"The problem is that you, like the rest of us, are brainwashed to think that there just simply MUST BE one "perfect" moral code..."
Not at all. Certainly many people seem to believe their morals are correct, and must be imposed on others, and these people are the cause of much that is wrong with the world, but I am not among them. You and I both apparently have the insight to see beyond this, and realize that no one can claim to have a superior hold on morality. You go from there to the conclusion that no one should ever impose their morals on others, or even tell others what they are doing is immoral. Everyone must be given a free reign to do what they like within their own moral code. Need I cite historical examples of people who needed to be prevented from doing things they considered moral? You've provided perfectly good ones in your dodging of Goodwin's Law (by the way, if that's your idea of clever, you need to get out more). Perhaps there is some actual complexity here, and there simply isn't a hard and fast line for when it is OK to judge others or not. The world is like that sometimes. I continue to beleive that lying so someone will give you something you're not particularly entitled to is wrong, and I think it's in the category where it's OK for me to say others should agree with me.
I suppose my saying you were lying could have been seen as a personal attack, so I'm glad you understand it was based on thinking you were in fact lying, instead of merely advocating lying. I am heartened to learn that you dislike personal attacks, though I'm somewhat curious how I should interpret the following:
"you and the other cartel apologists"
"FEE-FIE-FO-FUM! I smell the blood of a hypocrite!"
"simple-minded"
"your tiny little pea-brain."
"your slavering, knee-jerk, apologist attempt to nitpick"
"You see, little one, here in the grown-up world... Can you believe it? Maybe in a few more years, but, isn't the world a dark and wonderful, yet strange and confusing place?!?"
"very thick skull"
"maybe you need some mental 'glasses'"...and of course the aforementioned comparison to Mussolini, et al. I am glad to hear that none of these were personal attacks. For future reference, were I actually attacking you, it would go something like this:
Your understanding of morality is so classically sophmoric it is almost laughable. I would congratulate you on having moved beyond the level of total ignorance, but really, the only advantage of attaining the sopmores understanding is the hope that one will move from there to a truly mature position. Sadly, it seems clear you lack the mental capacity to do so. Further advancement in your thinking would require understanding the positions of others; but you either make no attempt to do so, or are incapable of it in your rush to ineptly attack what you erroneously assume to be their position. Your compulsive need to bellitle those who debate you, along with your penchant for CAPITALIZING random WORDS is illustrative of your limited intelectual capacity. It saddens me that one who showed such promise in getting beyond the assumption that his own morals were absolute has stalled in the phase of thinking that no moral code is superior to any other. Some moral codes are superior to others, yet there is no objective way of establishing which those are. We need more people to understand this, and I pity you for not being able to handle the complexity, dipshit.
So keep an eye out for that if you want to spot when I'm making a personal attack.
Maybe, but I don't think anyone really knows. As for me, I haven't heard anything I liked in ten years; NIN is to me in no way prefferable to Britney. Less prefferable, really, as I can ignore Britney. But what do I know; I own the complete works of the BeeGees. In keeping with my point, it's hard to think of examples of bands people don't like from 30 years ago; I had to go with one I actually do like, but was pretty sure the poster wouldn't. Then again, my appreciation of the BeeGees is a perfect example of the difference between enjoying something and thinking it's "Art" (or even "Good")
I've been entirely swayed by your stupendous rhetorical skill. Now I realize, All people are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and unencumbered access to the creative works of others. Corporations are inherently evil, and any means to oppose them are justified.
"'You're just lying.' Wow, so smart and psychic, too! From so many miles distant, you can look inside my head and tell me what I believe, better than I know what I believe for myself! I wanna be just like you when I grow up!"
I'm terribly flattered you think I might be psychic, but based on the rest of your post, I am terribly unintelligent compared to you. Obviously, someone as smart as you wouldn't throw around huge numbers of ad hominem attacks just to be insulting, so it must be true. Perhaps this is why, in the quote above, I have been unable to communicate my point; it's just too unsophisticated. Let me try to take it really slowly, to make sure I know what I'm saying:
You did not agree with iTunes terms, but you told iTunes you agreed with the terms.
I'm terribly sorry to level any such accusation against such a great freedom-fighter as yourself, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but to a simpleton such as myself, this looks ever so much like lying.
Anyway, I appologize for having argued with you before. I didn't realize you were right up there with George Washington and Rosa Parks. I hope you'll understand and forgive me, I was distracted by the way both of them made a lot of noise about the injustice they were fighting. It wasn't clear to one as simple as me that silently taking music from iTunes was such a mighty blow for freedom. Heck, you're even better than those guys! They were such attention hounds, always trying to get people to notice what they were doing. And there you are, toiling away day in and day out, downloading music from iTunes and violating their terms of service, and not once asking for a bit of recognition. Here I thought it was because iTunes would cancel your account; but it's just your saintly humility. Well, sir, I salute you.
"In fact, aren't all revolutions and / or protests, whether considered in hindsight by history to be "moral" or "immoral", BASED on disobedience to "terms" that were previously agreed to, either on an individual or collective basis?"
No. Generally, they are based on quite publicly refusing to agree to those terms.
"Didn't the Founding Fathers in the U.S. agree to the levels of taxation without representation that the crown put upon them, by simply agreeing to the 'Terms' of living in the colonies"
No. They did not agree to those terms explicitly, and in case there was any confusion about possible implicit agreement, they sent the King a (somewhat famous) Declaration stating that they did not agree, and that they did not wish to receive the supposed benefits their taxes were paying for.
"Wasn't Rosa Parks then quite the immoral wretch for not sitting on the back of the bus, as she'd 'agreed' to do, by living in a place where the majority supported such rules?"
She did not agree to, and said so. In both your examples, people who might otherwise have been assumed to implicitly agree to something quite clearly said that they explicitly did not agree to that.
Now consider the case at hand: There is no assumtion that you have any agreement with or obligation to iTunes whatsoever. Then you explicitly state, "Yes. I agree to these terms." Then you knowingly break those terms. You don't tell them you don't agree and ask them to cancel your account; you just break the terms, relying on their implicit assumption that you still agree.
I don't particularly like the Music industry. (Though I'm a bit unclear how they will control everthing I hear, since I don't plan on selling them my ears.) But there's plenty of people or organizations I don't particularly like. This may influence my interest in entering into agreements with them. But it does not influence the morality of doing so fraudulently.
Sorry, but I don't have any problem at all seeing a moral distinction here. The founding fathers and Rosa Parks took a courageous stand against injustice. You're just lying. And I guess I will be the one to tell you you should consider it immoral.
"Yeah, because britney spears and ashlee simpson is just SO much better."
Better than what? The best music of your teenage years and/or the best music of several past decades? No they're not better than that. But I expect in ten years or so there will be some pop music remembered from today that will be just as good as that from the good old days. I don't know what it will be, though I hope it won't be Britney.
But, really, think about it: I know you'd quickly go crazy if locked in a room forced to listen to endless Britney Spears. But would it really take much longer if it were the BeeGees or Cindy Lauper? I'm guessing not for at least one of those. Every era has it's cr*p, and typically, that's what 14 year olds love.
If webmasters don't code for IE, they'll get fired and replaced with more people interested in reaching their audience than making a political point; no matter how valid that point may be.
Asking webmasters to write pages so that they don't look good for more than 80% of their users is pointless.
Do I mind if you use "Apatheist"? I didn't make it up in the first place, but I'm pretty confident the guy who did (as far as I know), would go with the obvious answer: Whatever. He's not only an apatheist, but a laid back one to boot. My innovation, as far as I can tell, is that I'm agressively apatheist. I don't care if God exists, and I think one of the main problems in the world today is that so many other people do care. It should not matter to you whether God exists. I ought to note that I know many nice people who beleive in God, and even go to church regularly; but when it comes right down to it, I'm pretty sure they don't particularly care if any of it is true. I have no problem with these people; there fine folks, and they don't yammer on about God.
You can spot the ones who really care whether God exists. God will come up in their conversation regularly, whether particularly on-topic or not. Best to keep an eye on these. They are irrational and frequently dangerous.
" I find it improbable that any organization that necessarily thrives on secrecy and order would allow somebody to post AC"
They don't thrive on secrecy for it's own sake. I know a couple people who work there. They certainly don't talk about any details of what they do, and generally avoid mentioning where they work. But when GWB was trying to have Homeland Security be exempt from the FOIA, they were telling everyone they knew to write their congressperson in oposition. And they had no problem mentioning that they get regular training on the requirements of the FOIA, and the importance of strict compliance. I see no reason the NSA would give a hoot about the above AC posting.
"Secondly, who in the hell would spill anything about internal procedures unless they were forced to do so by Congress or a FOIA beatdown?"
Maybe because they're not the instinctively conniving evil conspiracists you seem to assume? Maybe they're just regular people (well, regular math geeks) doing a job that does in fact require secrecy about many aspects of it. But the fact they have extensive internal procedures intended to prevent illegal abuses of their access hardly seems like one of those aspects now does it? Besides, what's a FOIA beatdown? The FOIA depends on the org your're getting info from complying with the law. You file a FOIA request, and nobody breaks down doors looking for the info. If they just ignore the law and say "we don't have any info on that", you'd be out of luck. Which is what they'd do if they were what you imagine. Luckily, if there is one thing the people I know have in common (besides math geekiness), it's that they are rules-folowers to the boring extreme. Which makes sense; if you don't like following the rules, you don't work there. They've got a lot of rules.
"Let's assume, for fun, that the above AC poster is telling the truth. I have a problem with a powerful organization covering up incidental violations..."
If we're assuming the poster is telling the truth (and, at the least, it jibes with what I've heard elsewhere), you should note he's saying that they don't cover up violations. They fire your ass.
For the record, you're entirely right that the "well, it wouldn't be admissable in court" argument is worthless.
Re:What I found interesting.
on
Donald Knuth On NPR
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"For someone to see a lack of evidence and firmly come down against something is just as bad as firmly coming down in favor of it. This is why people often call Atheism a religion."
Hogwash. If someone tells you there are magic elephants in their back yard that can not be detected by any means, you have no evidence that they are right and no evidence that they are wrong. If choose to beleive that there are elephants, or choose to beleive that there are not, well, I say one of these positions is more reasonable.
An agnostic would say, it is impossible to determine for sure whether the undetectable elephants exist. This is true, so perhaps that makes me an agnostic.
An atheist would say, "I do not beleive there are elephants". Thus, I am an atheist. Perhaps Atheists and Agnostics are not entirely disjoint sets.
You seem to think an atheist has to say "There cannot possibly be elephants.", but this is not so. Atheist do not (all) say God is impossible. They say they do not beleive God exists.
I do not beleive God exists. I do not beleive undetectable elephants exist. I do not beleive either of those beleifs can reasonably be called a religion.
I submit that it is you who do not understand the terminology. You are not alone. Many people seem to like to redefine Atheism to mean only super-extra-strong-to-the-point-of-obvious-falacy Atheism. This is dumb, because I know of no one at all who subscribes to that beleif set, and so Atheist becomes a useless term. It seems much more useful to ditinguish between people who do not beleive God exists, people who do, and people who are undecided.
Whereas your post is a perfect example of "common sense". Just because you are incapable of imagining a way to prevent your trash can from being kicked over doesn't mean Knuth is.
I used to debate being atheist or agnostic, etc. Finnally, I have stopped beating around the bush: I'm a fundamentalist apatheist. Does God exist? I don't care, and neither should you!
"Just because someone is functional doesn't mean they're normal and not sick"
If someone is fully functional, where do you get off calling them "sick"? Just because someone is functional doesn't mean they're mundane and not unusual, certainly.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but that doesn't really apply to Google; everyone thinks they are way cool already. As for Apple, the success of the iPod provides perfectly good reasons for sophisticated investors to think they are cool.
In any case, the really basic investment tip to keep in mind is: If you think you can predict what stocks will do better than professional institutional investment managers with lots of experience and an extensive research staff, ask youself why you aren't one.
Right, as long as Google is priced right now, and not insanely overblown. I don't have any idea what their stock (or more to the point their price/earnings) is at; but I know which way I'd bet.
Free investment tip: Avoid buying stock in any company if an unsophisticated investor, for reasons unrelated to profitability, would think that company is Way Cool.
It appears Google has a sound business plan and competent management. Which probably justifies some particular, perfectly healthy stock price. But I'm guessing their stock price has to be at least twice that, because they are also, quite legitimately, Way Cool.
It' OK as long as you have to buy an additional single-purpose device??? I don't want another device, and no one is forcing anything onto my computer. I can already choose whether to buy DRMed music or not.
Lost my temper? I think you give yourself too much credit. Certainly I've become more crudely insulting in recent posts as I've lost the interest level to try to be clever about it. I suppose your confusion on this particular topic is reasonable though. As you correctly note, I generally refrain from using profanity, but this is not because I have any problem with it, but because sometimes others do, and I don't want that to get in the way of their understanding my point. Thus, when I start using it, it is not because I've lost my temper, but because I'm actively trying to offend you. It's cheap, I know, but what the hell. Sorry to hear you don't give a fuck.
Anyhow, back to whatever it was I was going to say... oh yes: You were only trying to give me a ribbing? Give me a break. Go back and read your first reply to me. Count the number of times you tell me (in various insulting ways) that I'm an idiot for daring to suggest that fraud is wrong, and that you should think so too. The tone and manner of your original reply to me was the work of a complete jerk.
Strangely, it seems like it was my "graduation" comment that actually stung. Funny, since I only meant it to be mildly insulting; I thought it might bug you only because I thought I might have guessed right. Your naive thinking that fraud is fine as long as there is an Evil Corporation on the other end; Your amatuerish prose; and particularly your inability to tell someone you disagree with them without the pointless but continual drone of uncreative belittlements; all of these led me to put your age in the late-teen ballpark. Plus, people in that age bracket tend to have a lot of time on their hands, and no real life. But you're what, almost 40, and the best thing you've got to do with your time is have pointless arguments with strangers on the internet who think you're an idiot? Wow. That's, well, that's kind of sad. I mean, sure, I'm doing it too, but I'm feeling pretty immature about it, and I'm a lot younger than you. I mean, god, I hope I've got better things to do than this drivel in my late 30s. I don't mean to belabor the point, but damn. Hell, I almost feel sorry for you. Nah, nevermind, being pathetic doesn't make you not a jerk. It just makes you a pathetic jerk.
"an *11-page* regex."
That's insane. My feelings on Regexes were set early in my career. I discovered them, and like many started using them everywhere. Then in a code review, my boss pointed to one particularly complex one and said "See, there's why you shouldn't try to do such complex things with regular expressions, this one has a bug" "Where?" says me. "Let's leave that as an exercise for the student. Come ask me if you can't figure it out in an hour or so." Well, I certainly wasn't going to admit defeat, even though it took me several hours to find the rather subtle problem. So I went back and demanded to know how he had spotted it so fast. And he said "I didn't. It was a regex 3 lines long. It had to have a bug."
"the compiled regex will likely be faster than any parsing library you write"
If I write custom code to do a specific parsing job in the fastest way possible, it will be slower than using generic code to do it in one particular way? I must not be understanding what you're saying.
"Growing up watching this show" and now you've got a daughter older than mine? Are you sure you're remembering correctly? I guess it's possible, but the scheduling seems pretty tight... I just know that when I saw the summaries mention of something in high school reminding them of when they used to watch the show, my immediate thought was "Damn. I'm old."
"That was my original quote"
No, that was your revision of your untenable position, in the tenth or so post of this increasingly pointless thread. You original quote was to liken people who fraudulently agree to iTunes terms to the Founding Fathers and Rosa Parks. I thought this questionable, and said that I thought lying to iTunes in order to get music under terms you had no intention of obeying sounded immoral to me. You replied along the lines of:
"You moronic coporate sycophant!!! How dare YOU suggest you can MAKE moral judgements for others, STUPID?!?!? You THINK there is only ONE WAY TO LIVE, and that is EVIL, you pea BRAINED turd!!!!!!! YOU should never judge others!!!!! YOU are JUST like Mussolini! (Aren't I just the coolest for not having said 'Hitler'?)"
I explained I didn't think there was just one way to live, but did think it was sometimes permissible to impose one's moral code on others, for example, Mussolini.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to explain my position in more detail.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to explain my position in a different way.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I tried to suggest you weren't paying attention to what I was saying, and said it again.
You said the same thing you did before, and insulted me some more.
I boiled down your argument to the point of ridiculousness (easy), and now you say "No, no, we were only ever talking about victimless crimes". Right. You thought I was talking about victimless crimes when Mussolini was the example.
So obviously, we agree that one does sometimes have to impose ones moral code on others; in the case of theft of physical property at least. (I'm sure you'll have some stupid reason that shouldn't count as imposing morals). So we could debate whether non-physical things should be considered property; exactly why physical things are your property and not mine (hint: your moral code), and blah, blah, blah. But I'm not going to. I'm not even going to read any replies you might write to this, because this thread is way past being worth my time.
Instead, I'll close with what I should have said in response to your equating those who commit fraud versus iTunes with Rosa Parks:
That's the most moronic thing I've ever heard! Even on Slashdot! You must be the biggest fucking idiot who has ever lived! Doesn't being that stupid HURT?
"we're talking about the culturally-ingrained notion that moral choices that directly harm no one else should follow one moral code or another, which is what you are arguing for"
You have this weird habit of telling me what I'm saying, then pointing out that it is wrong. Perhaps you should try actually reading what I say, as I have never advanced the position you ascribe to me. I do not beleive choices that directly harm no one else are even moral choices to begin with. I beleive that in this thread the only moral principle I have advocated imposing on others is "Stealing is wrong", and I've even couched that in terms like "usualy", and acnowledged that the definition of stealing is not entirely precise; one could certainly argue whether violating iTunes TOS qualifies.
The position you seem to be advocating, though I find it hard to beleive, is either that I should not consider stealing to be wrong, or that I should not try to impose that moral judgement on others. I find this bizzare. If I see a thief take someones wallet, should I just not say anything? After all, why would I say anything, except to impose my moral judgement that stealing is wrong upon the thief? For that matter, should I reasonably consider him a thief? Perhaps he has a different moral code than me, under which he is just as entitled to possesion of the wallet as the person who's pocket it was in. Are you really arguing that it is unreasonable of me to impose my "stealing is wrong" judgement on the thief? Does it really seem contradictory to you that I can be willing to say something when I see a thief taking someones wallet, but I can still think it's lame that I can't buy beer on a Sunday?
OK, listen up. I've said it about six different ways, but you don't seem to have the ability to read what I'm actually writing, instead of what you assume I believe.
My moral code is just my opinion. There is nothing absolute about it. There is nothing external to either of us that makes my moral code superior to that of someone else. So there are many cases where it pisses me off that others try to impose their differing moral code upon me. Not letting me buy beer on a Sunday, to pick a relatively innocuous example. Yet there are other times when I think it is perfectly permissible, and even desirable for people to enforce their moral code on others. To use your example, my moral code differs from that of Mussolini. Yet a while back some people who's moral code is more in line with mine than his got together and forced their code upon him. And I think they were right to do so. Because I think our moral code is superior to that of Mussolini. Yes, it does boil down to some people deciding their moral code should be applied to others, even though there is no objective proof they are right (because there is no objective "right").
Sometimes, one person imposing their moral code on another is essential. It is the basis of all law enforcement; it is the basis of every defense of human rights. Other times, one person imposing their moral code on another is absolutely heinous it is the source of much evil.
I'm sorry I can't make it black and white for you. You'll just have to stretch your brain around the fact that I beleive some moral principles should be imposed on others, even though there is no objective standard for what they are, yet I still don't think there is "one right way to live for all humans", and I'd prefer to keep the list of morals to be imposed on everyone to an absolute minimum.
While I think violating iTunes TOS is an almost stupidly trivial matter, it is lying and/or (depending how you look at it) stealing. I think those are, in most cases, wrong. I do not see a problem with my deciding stealing is wrong, nor with my willingness to enforce that judgement on others. But, (pay attention here please, this is tricky) I still think people should be able buy whisky on Sunday. Even though I won't drink whisky no matter what day it is.
I realize this may be a bit of a nuanced position for you to grasp. Given that you can't handle subtleties, I'm glad you've chosen not ever judging others over always judging others; that's preferable. But unfortunately, the real world is more complicated than that. There are plenty of people who are just different from you, and you should avoid judging them. But unfortunately there are also people who are liars, thieves, racists, bullies; and you must avoid failing to judge them for what they are, lest they continue unchecked, or even come to beleive their behavior is acceptable.
Someday you may apreciate this distinction. It may not be until years after graduation, which I realize must seem awfully far off itself. Some people take their whole lives to move beyond simplistic moral relativism; some never do.
Yes, two people can form opposing conclusions, based only on their own opinions and prejudices, and most of the time, neither of them is justified in telling the other they are wrong. But sometimes, one of them is wrong, and the other has the right, and even the obligation, to tell them so.
Here's hoping you make it to understanding that someday. But honestly, I wouldn't try it today if I were you. I'd work on reading comprehension first. And that compulsion to put random stuff in all caps; you held off longer in this post, but it eventually got the better of you. Maybe there's some medication that would help with that?
Seriously, the woodwork involved is not particularly difficult, yet he doesn't appear to have done a particularly good job of it. A wooden keyboard would be a lot of work, but not overwhelmingly difficult, so I'd at least expect that on The Amazing Solid Wood Laptop (for sale...).
"Then why did they disguise themselves as Native Americans when they threw the tea overboard, moron?"
I would guess they wanted to avoid being recognized so they wouldn't be jailed. I'm surprised you couldn't figure that out, given that I'm the moron. You'll note they didn't quietly smuggle the tea ashore while publicaly agreeing to the stamp tax. And you do understand that they never expected anyone to think they were actually Indians? The whole point was that the normally tea-consuming colonists were dumping the stuff overboard rather than pay the tax; the Indians didn't drink tea or pay taxes in any case (for the most part anyway).
"The problem is that you, like the rest of us, are brainwashed to think that there just simply MUST BE one "perfect" moral code..."
...and of course the aforementioned comparison to Mussolini, et al.
Not at all. Certainly many people seem to believe their morals are correct, and must be imposed on others, and these people are the cause of much that is wrong with the world, but I am not among them. You and I both apparently have the insight to see beyond this, and realize that no one can claim to have a superior hold on morality.
You go from there to the conclusion that no one should ever impose their morals on others, or even tell others what they are doing is immoral. Everyone must be given a free reign to do what they like within their own moral code. Need I cite historical examples of people who needed to be prevented from doing things they considered moral? You've provided perfectly good ones in your dodging of Goodwin's Law (by the way, if that's your idea of clever, you need to get out more). Perhaps there is some actual complexity here, and there simply isn't a hard and fast line for when it is OK to judge others or not. The world is like that sometimes. I continue to beleive that lying so someone will give you something you're not particularly entitled to is wrong, and I think it's in the category where it's OK for me to say others should agree with me.
I suppose my saying you were lying could have been seen as a personal attack, so I'm glad you understand it was based on thinking you were in fact lying, instead of merely advocating lying. I am heartened to learn that you dislike personal attacks, though I'm somewhat curious how I should interpret the following:
"you and the other cartel apologists"
"FEE-FIE-FO-FUM! I smell the blood of a hypocrite!"
"simple-minded"
"your tiny little pea-brain."
"your slavering, knee-jerk, apologist attempt to nitpick"
"You see, little one, here in the grown-up world... Can you believe it? Maybe in a few more years, but, isn't the world a dark and wonderful, yet strange and confusing place?!?"
"very thick skull"
"maybe you need some mental 'glasses'"
I am glad to hear that none of these were personal attacks. For future reference, were I actually attacking you, it would go something like this:
Your understanding of morality is so classically sophmoric it is almost laughable. I would congratulate you on having moved beyond the level of total ignorance, but really, the only advantage of attaining the sopmores understanding is the hope that one will move from there to a truly mature position. Sadly, it seems clear you lack the mental capacity to do so. Further advancement in your thinking would require understanding the positions of others; but you either make no attempt to do so, or are incapable of it in your rush to ineptly attack what you erroneously assume to be their position. Your compulsive need to bellitle those who debate you, along with your penchant for CAPITALIZING random WORDS is illustrative of your limited intelectual capacity. It saddens me that one who showed such promise in getting beyond the assumption that his own morals were absolute has stalled in the phase of thinking that no moral code is superior to any other. Some moral codes are superior to others, yet there is no objective way of establishing which those are. We need more people to understand this, and I pity you for not being able to handle the complexity, dipshit.
So keep an eye out for that if you want to spot when I'm making a personal attack.
Maybe, but I don't think anyone really knows. As for me, I haven't heard anything I liked in ten years; NIN is to me in no way prefferable to Britney. Less prefferable, really, as I can ignore Britney. But what do I know; I own the complete works of the BeeGees. In keeping with my point, it's hard to think of examples of bands people don't like from 30 years ago; I had to go with one I actually do like, but was pretty sure the poster wouldn't. Then again, my appreciation of the BeeGees is a perfect example of the difference between enjoying something and thinking it's "Art" (or even "Good")
I've been entirely swayed by your stupendous rhetorical skill. Now I realize, All people are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and unencumbered access to the creative works of others. Corporations are inherently evil, and any means to oppose them are justified.
"'You're just lying.' Wow, so smart and psychic, too! From so many miles distant, you can look inside my head and tell me what I believe, better than I know what I believe for myself! I wanna be just like you when I grow up!"
I'm terribly flattered you think I might be psychic, but based on the rest of your post, I am terribly unintelligent compared to you. Obviously, someone as smart as you wouldn't throw around huge numbers of ad hominem attacks just to be insulting, so it must be true. Perhaps this is why, in the quote above, I have been unable to communicate my point; it's just too unsophisticated. Let me try to take it really slowly, to make sure I know what I'm saying:
You did not agree with iTunes terms, but you told iTunes you agreed with the terms.
I'm terribly sorry to level any such accusation against such a great freedom-fighter as yourself, and I'm sure I'm missing something, but to a simpleton such as myself, this looks ever so much like lying.
Anyway, I appologize for having argued with you before. I didn't realize you were right up there with George Washington and Rosa Parks. I hope you'll understand and forgive me, I was distracted by the way both of them made a lot of noise about the injustice they were fighting. It wasn't clear to one as simple as me that silently taking music from iTunes was such a mighty blow for freedom. Heck, you're even better than those guys! They were such attention hounds, always trying to get people to notice what they were doing. And there you are, toiling away day in and day out, downloading music from iTunes and violating their terms of service, and not once asking for a bit of recognition. Here I thought it was because iTunes would cancel your account; but it's just your saintly humility. Well, sir, I salute you.
"In fact, aren't all revolutions and / or protests, whether considered in hindsight by history to be "moral" or "immoral", BASED on disobedience to "terms" that were previously agreed to, either on an individual or collective basis?"
No. Generally, they are based on quite publicly refusing to agree to those terms.
"Didn't the Founding Fathers in the U.S. agree to the levels of taxation without representation that the crown put upon them, by simply agreeing to the 'Terms' of living in the colonies"
No. They did not agree to those terms explicitly, and in case there was any confusion about possible implicit agreement, they sent the King a (somewhat famous) Declaration stating that they did not agree, and that they did not wish to receive the supposed benefits their taxes were paying for.
"Wasn't Rosa Parks then quite the immoral wretch for not sitting on the back of the bus, as she'd 'agreed' to do, by living in a place where the majority supported such rules?"
She did not agree to, and said so. In both your examples, people who might otherwise have been assumed to implicitly agree to something quite clearly said that they explicitly did not agree to that.
Now consider the case at hand: There is no assumtion that you have any agreement with or obligation to iTunes whatsoever. Then you explicitly state, "Yes. I agree to these terms." Then you knowingly break those terms. You don't tell them you don't agree and ask them to cancel your account; you just break the terms, relying on their implicit assumption that you still agree.
I don't particularly like the Music industry. (Though I'm a bit unclear how they will control everthing I hear, since I don't plan on selling them my ears.) But there's plenty of people or organizations I don't particularly like. This may influence my interest in entering into agreements with them. But it does not influence the morality of doing so fraudulently.
Sorry, but I don't have any problem at all seeing a moral distinction here. The founding fathers and Rosa Parks took a courageous stand against injustice. You're just lying. And I guess I will be the one to tell you you should consider it immoral.
"Yeah, because britney spears and ashlee simpson is just SO much better."
Better than what? The best music of your teenage years and/or the best music of several past decades? No they're not better than that. But I expect in ten years or so there will be some pop music remembered from today that will be just as good as that from the good old days. I don't know what it will be, though I hope it won't be Britney.
But, really, think about it: I know you'd quickly go crazy if locked in a room forced to listen to endless Britney Spears. But would it really take much longer if it were the BeeGees or Cindy Lauper? I'm guessing not for at least one of those. Every era has it's cr*p, and typically, that's what 14 year olds love.
If webmasters don't code for IE, they'll get fired and replaced with more people interested in reaching their audience than making a political point; no matter how valid that point may be.
Asking webmasters to write pages so that they don't look good for more than 80% of their users is pointless.
Do I mind if you use "Apatheist"? I didn't make it up in the first place, but I'm pretty confident the guy who did (as far as I know), would go with the obvious answer: Whatever. He's not only an apatheist, but a laid back one to boot.
My innovation, as far as I can tell, is that I'm agressively apatheist. I don't care if God exists, and I think one of the main problems in the world today is that so many other people do care. It should not matter to you whether God exists. I ought to note that I know many nice people who beleive in God, and even go to church regularly; but when it comes right down to it, I'm pretty sure they don't particularly care if any of it is true. I have no problem with these people; there fine folks, and they don't yammer on about God.
You can spot the ones who really care whether God exists. God will come up in their conversation regularly, whether particularly on-topic or not. Best to keep an eye on these. They are irrational and frequently dangerous.
" I find it improbable that any organization that necessarily thrives on secrecy and order would allow somebody to post AC"
They don't thrive on secrecy for it's own sake. I know a couple people who work there. They certainly don't talk about any details of what they do, and generally avoid mentioning where they work. But when GWB was trying to have Homeland Security be exempt from the FOIA, they were telling everyone they knew to write their congressperson in oposition. And they had no problem mentioning that they get regular training on the requirements of the FOIA, and the importance of strict compliance. I see no reason the NSA would give a hoot about the above AC posting.
"Secondly, who in the hell would spill anything about internal procedures unless they were forced to do so by Congress or a FOIA beatdown?"
Maybe because they're not the instinctively conniving evil conspiracists you seem to assume? Maybe they're just regular people (well, regular math geeks) doing a job that does in fact require secrecy about many aspects of it. But the fact they have extensive internal procedures intended to prevent illegal abuses of their access hardly seems like one of those aspects now does it? Besides, what's a FOIA beatdown? The FOIA depends on the org your're getting info from complying with the law. You file a FOIA request, and nobody breaks down doors looking for the info. If they just ignore the law and say "we don't have any info on that", you'd be out of luck. Which is what they'd do if they were what you imagine. Luckily, if there is one thing the people I know have in common (besides math geekiness), it's that they are rules-folowers to the boring extreme. Which makes sense; if you don't like following the rules, you don't work there. They've got a lot of rules.
"Let's assume, for fun, that the above AC poster is telling the truth. I have a problem with a powerful organization covering up incidental violations..."
If we're assuming the poster is telling the truth (and, at the least, it jibes with what I've heard elsewhere), you should note he's saying that they don't cover up violations. They fire your ass.
For the record, you're entirely right that the "well, it wouldn't be admissable in court" argument is worthless.
"For someone to see a lack of evidence and firmly come down against something is just as bad as firmly coming down in favor of it. This is why people often call Atheism a religion."
Hogwash. If someone tells you there are magic elephants in their back yard that can not be detected by any means, you have no evidence that they are right and no evidence that they are wrong. If choose to beleive that there are elephants, or choose to beleive that there are not, well, I say one of these positions is more reasonable.
An agnostic would say, it is impossible to determine for sure whether the undetectable elephants exist. This is true, so perhaps that makes me an agnostic.
An atheist would say, "I do not beleive there are elephants". Thus, I am an atheist. Perhaps Atheists and Agnostics are not entirely disjoint sets.
You seem to think an atheist has to say "There cannot possibly be elephants.", but this is not so. Atheist do not (all) say God is impossible. They say they do not beleive God exists.
I do not beleive God exists. I do not beleive undetectable elephants exist. I do not beleive either of those beleifs can reasonably be called a religion.
I submit that it is you who do not understand the terminology. You are not alone. Many people seem to like to redefine Atheism to mean only super-extra-strong-to-the-point-of-obvious-falacy Atheism. This is dumb, because I know of no one at all who subscribes to that beleif set, and so Atheist becomes a useless term. It seems much more useful to ditinguish between people who do not beleive God exists, people who do, and people who are undecided.
Whereas your post is a perfect example of "common sense".
Just because you are incapable of imagining a way to prevent your trash can from being kicked over doesn't mean Knuth is.
I used to debate being atheist or agnostic, etc. Finnally, I have stopped beating around the bush: I'm a fundamentalist apatheist. Does God exist?
I don't care, and neither should you!
"Just because someone is functional doesn't mean they're normal and not sick"
If someone is fully functional, where do you get off calling them "sick"? Just because someone is functional doesn't mean they're mundane and not unusual, certainly.
I beleive he meant immediately after. Still, I think Alexander Hamilton would question his use of the word "nearly".