Finally someone on the same page as me!:) My comment above was "-1 Overrated", and the GP is outright a troll now...
The whole point of this posting was about the Federal government largesse, somehow it deteriorated into the predictable "But, who would build the highways!!!??? OMG!" argument.:(
For the record, the first trans-continental US highway was built using private funds (the original Lincoln Highway, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway); in any case highways now are supposed to be funded by the *gas tax*.
Fire departments are, as far as I know, funded by local taxes (as they should, how would someone in Washington, DC know how much $$ to allocate to protect homes in the middle of nowhere? ). Same with the schools...
As to the Post Office, I am wondering if the poster above would really use it to send an important "package" via it or FedEx/UPS/etc. (by law latter are not allowed to deliver "letters", thus thick heavy envelopes one must use to send a simple cheque overnight).
Interesting, did not know that... What would be an example? I thought that some other Free CL implementations are interpreters, but I might be confused, CLISP does compile to bytecodes, and GCL uses gcc...
Sorry, was not clear -- had to proof-read. Not only the implementation is compiled (obviously), but everything you (load) or type into the REPL prompt is compiled to native code as well before being executed.
It can be, but any decent production implementation is compiled to native machine codes -- it just includes compiler (and usually pretty fancy optimizing one!) built into the image and always available.
Try running, say, SBCL one day before spreading misunderstandings...
Well, sorry if I made any too far-reaching conclusions from your post -- and no, I've never had a job with "developer", "coder" or "architect" in its title (while considering myself a computer scientist and physicist and/or engineer).
I was just reacting a bit to the implicit (I thought!) distinction in your post between developers and those who see the whole system (for the lack of better term, I called them the architects) -- as you might (or might not) agree, in computer programming this distinction is a pretty recent phenomenon. It used to be (not that long ago) that a developer would see something that he does over and over again and was totally justified to architect an abstraction around it. (e.g.: yacc/lex, lisp macros, network protocols...) in short, all cool well thought through libraries and abstractions that 70s and 80s gave us.
Now, I am not surprised that your average Java jockey or outsourced programmer on the other side of the globe needs to have way more discipline and supervision, but do you think this is because it has to be this way, or because we just failed to automate what he is doing and replace him with just another program? From personal standpoint, I could understand how bad he would feel (especially after being promised a lifelong gainful employment in the field of "computers" by his community college recruiters); from aestetical and philosophical standpoint, if it can be done by a machine, it should be, and humans should use their intellect for better things.
As to the song -- sure I know it, and, at least in my time learning about it in Soviet Russia;) the accepted interpretation was that the whole album was about Sid Barrett (and Wikipedia agrees with me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Barrett ).
... between what you were saying and your/..signature???;-)
As to the distinction between "the lowly developer" and "the wise Architects", I would say, look at the developer, and if he is any good, poor money into his own company!
No, you deposit (and pattern and etch) first sheet of metal, then a layer of insulator, then second sheet of metal. There are ways to etch away/remove all or some of insulator from under the second sheet (through patterned holes), forming what some call air-bridges. Then fill the cavity with electrolyte. Put some more insulator on top, rinse, repeat.
First of all, it is *micro*, not *nano*-anything -- you can see structures "hundreds of microns" across with your bare eyes!:)
Second, why go into the whole folding business, if it is just a single fold (or small number of folds)? Just etch an airbridge in standard microelectronics process and fill it with electrolyte -- I would expect one could achieve much smaller plate-to-plate distances this way.
If anything, the fact that you do not get unsolicited job offers from random LinkedIn users speaks good about their "lets' be a bit more careful whom we show your real e-mail" attitude.
Maybe we could have a selective accuracy, where programmers can set their needs via registers or direct it to different CPU cores... just keep using (say, in C) short, int, long, long long (no, AV codecs should not require floating point, but is you wish, there are floats, doubles, long doubles, etc.).
Of course proper implementation of some AV decoder on a modern processor will use available SIMD instructions (MMX and friends) where programmer can easily trade off accuracy (in byte-sized chunks) for speed.
A comet is crashing towards the area you live in. Scientists have a raging debate as to whether or not it will completely disintegrate before hitting your house. Do you stay in your house till they reach a "consensus" or get the hell out of there?
Add an "insurance company" selling "anti-comet credits" into the picture, with payments to said company quickly adding up to about twice what your house is worth now, and *then* think if you should be following special interests-induced paranoia so blindly...
This is not to say that we should not be cleaning up our mess with real pollution, but, hey, CO2 is *not* a pollutant!
The worst part is that there is really some quite deep-rooted mentality in the "ruling classes" that "people" would not know what is better for them; thus, they need to be ruled. Next time you go to the polls, please choose between Big Brother and Big Mother, and no, you do not have any other choices on your ballot. It is by design, silly you, and me...:(
Reminds me of a little project I did for one of my CS classes: try to predict nationality by last name. Was going along the same lines, take names, enclose in, say, $ and ^ (to mark beginning and end), then chop into up to 5 or so character blocks and accumulate frequencies of different blocks by nationality (learning data pulled from different countries universities phonebooks).
... with a (somewhat, maybe) Randian candidate who would do many of those things (and then some), in your opinion? It is somewhat obvious why you put that qualification in, but what someone's taste in literature (which may or may not be present) has to do with solving problems in hand?
You better start distributing free drugs on the street (no, not of medical kind)!
At least in the US if I were poor and hungry, but still *reasonable*, I'd commit a crime of squatting on some remote land somewhere once (and grow myself some potatoes) rather than keep mugging people for $20 over and over again, risking being beaten up, or shot.
Not to mention that there are many charities which seem to be able to come up with $6 per desperate person per day to feed them.
Food is cheap. Illegal drugs on the street are (comparably) not, and this is what, I'd expect, most of the muggings are happening for.
Ron wants to move use back to the gold standard...
No, he wants to make gold an alternative legal currency by, among other things, eliminating sales tax on gold -- and, I bet, if one Executive could sign that order 6102, another can as well make it null and void.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual currency, but that brings headaches of its own (like 2 price tags).
This is essentially his proposal. As to "2 price tags", it's unlikely. Let me tell you how it worked out in Russia (when USD was still stable, and rouble was going through quite bad inflation): most prices, for even moderately valuable items (and *salaries* in private sector) were in marked USD, you were paying for them in roubles at current exchange rate (posted all over the place). When (somewhat strengthened by that time) Russian government decided that this practice was a bit "unpatriotic", everyone switched to pricing in "accounting units" ("UE"), which were $1USD by definition.
Slashdot Mirror
Finally someone on the same page as me! :) My comment above was "-1 Overrated", and the GP is outright a troll now...
The whole point of this posting was about the Federal government largesse, somehow it deteriorated into the predictable "But, who would build the highways!!!??? OMG!" argument. :(
For the record, the first trans-continental US highway was built using private funds (the original Lincoln Highway, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway); in any case highways now are supposed to be funded by the *gas tax*.
Fire departments are, as far as I know, funded by local taxes (as they should, how would someone in Washington, DC know how much $$ to allocate to protect homes in the middle of nowhere? ). Same with the schools...
As to the Post Office, I am wondering if the poster above would really use it to send an important "package" via it or FedEx/UPS/etc. (by law latter are not allowed to deliver "letters", thus thick heavy envelopes one must use to send a simple cheque overnight).
Paul B.
Who is John Galt?
Hmm, CCL looks nice, thanks for the info!
Will check it out -- but is is SBCL over here, and, after dealing with some quirks, it is actually pretty robust and fast.
Paul B.
Interesting, did not know that... What would be an example? I thought that some other Free CL implementations are interpreters, but I might be confused, CLISP does compile to bytecodes, and GCL uses gcc...
Paul B.
Nope, different guy! But I do get your joke... ;-)
Paul B.
Sorry, was not clear -- had to proof-read. Not only the implementation is compiled (obviously), but everything you (load) or type into the REPL prompt is compiled to native code as well before being executed.
Paul B.
It can be, but any decent production implementation is compiled to native machine codes -- it just includes compiler (and usually pretty fancy optimizing one!) built into the image and always available.
Try running, say, SBCL one day before spreading misunderstandings...
Paul B.
Damn, my mod points just expired!
Funny how I was reading your comment and was thinking "Damn right!"
And when I got to .signature, it kind of explained why... ;)
Paul B.
[pb@localhost ~]$ tail ~/.bash_history
less GnosLoadPDFForms.pdf
file GnosLoadPDFForms.
mv GnosLoadPDFForms.pdf GnosLoadPDFForms.fdf
file GnosLoadPDFForms.fdf
evince GnosLoadPDFForms.fdf
less GnosLoadPDFForms.fdf
su
acroread GnosLoadPDFForms.fdf
top
Well, sorry if I made any too far-reaching conclusions from your post -- and no, I've never had a job with "developer", "coder" or "architect" in its title (while considering myself a computer scientist and physicist and/or engineer).
I was just reacting a bit to the implicit (I thought!) distinction in your post between developers and those who see the whole system (for the lack of better term, I called them the architects) -- as you might (or might not) agree, in computer programming this distinction is a pretty recent phenomenon. It used to be (not that long ago) that a developer would see something that he does over and over again and was totally justified to architect an abstraction around it. (e.g.: yacc/lex, lisp macros, network protocols...) in short, all cool well thought through libraries and abstractions that 70s and 80s gave us.
Now, I am not surprised that your average Java jockey or outsourced programmer on the other side of the globe needs to have way more discipline and supervision, but do you think this is because it has to be this way, or because we just failed to automate what he is doing and replace him with just another program? From personal standpoint, I could understand how bad he would feel (especially after being promised a lifelong gainful employment in the field of "computers" by his community college recruiters); from aestetical and philosophical standpoint, if it can be done by a machine, it should be, and humans should use their intellect for better things.
As to the song -- sure I know it, and, at least in my time learning about it in Soviet Russia ;) the accepted interpretation was that the whole album was about Sid Barrett (and Wikipedia agrees with me here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd_Barrett ).
Cheers,
Paul B.
... between what you were saying and your /. .signature??? ;-)
As to the distinction between "the lowly developer" and "the wise Architects", I would say, look at the developer, and if he is any good, poor money into his own company!
Paul B.
No, you deposit (and pattern and etch) first sheet of metal, then a layer of insulator, then second sheet of metal. There are ways to etch away/remove all or some of insulator from under the second sheet (through patterned holes), forming what some call air-bridges. Then fill the cavity with electrolyte. Put some more insulator on top, rinse, repeat.
Micorelectronics (and MEMS!) fabrication is fun!
Paul B.
First of all, it is *micro*, not *nano*-anything -- you can see structures "hundreds of microns" across with your bare eyes! :)
Second, why go into the whole folding business, if it is just a single fold (or small number of folds)? Just etch an airbridge in standard microelectronics process and fill it with electrolyte -- I would expect one could achieve much smaller plate-to-plate distances this way.
But other than that, looks cool! :)
Paul B.
*ASKED* for one? ;-)
If anything, the fact that you do not get unsolicited job offers from random LinkedIn users speaks good about their "lets' be a bit more careful whom we show your real e-mail" attitude.
Paul B.
Maybe we could have a selective accuracy, where programmers can set their needs via registers or direct it to different CPU cores ... just keep using (say, in C) short, int, long, long long (no, AV codecs should not require floating point, but is you wish, there are floats, doubles, long doubles, etc.).
Of course proper implementation of some AV decoder on a modern processor will use available SIMD instructions (MMX and friends) where programmer can easily trade off accuracy (in byte-sized chunks) for speed.
Paul B.
A comet is crashing towards the area you live in. Scientists have a raging debate as to whether or not it will completely disintegrate before hitting your house. Do you stay in your house till they reach a "consensus" or get the hell out of there?
Add an "insurance company" selling "anti-comet credits" into the picture, with payments to said company quickly adding up to about twice what your house is worth now, and *then* think if you should be following special interests-induced paranoia so blindly...
This is not to say that we should not be cleaning up our mess with real pollution, but, hey, CO2 is *not* a pollutant!
Paul B.
Yes, tricks like this would work!
(But I am wondering, how many of their Admins have heard of Bcc: ? :( )
Paul B.
If junk wasn't meant to be thrown away, someone would pay you for it.
And I've heard that some Chinese guys have offered to pay for (or paid and got) the rights to "mine" old US landfills (for copper, I think)!
Liked your Victorianism parallel too! :)
Paul B.
As far as I remember, the piston would do a (nuclear explosion) stoke about every second, but that could take you all over Solar System and beyond!
Paul B.
...people today...
-- there, corrected it for you! :)
The worst part is that there is really some quite deep-rooted mentality in the "ruling classes" that "people" would not know what is better for them; thus, they need to be ruled. Next time you go to the polls, please choose between Big Brother and Big Mother, and no, you do not have any other choices on your ballot. It is by design, silly you, and me... :(
Paul B.
Reminds me of a little project I did for one of my CS classes: try to predict nationality by last name. Was going along the same lines, take names, enclose in, say, $ and ^ (to mark beginning and end), then chop into up to 5 or so character blocks and accumulate frequencies of different blocks by nationality (learning data pulled from different countries universities phonebooks).
Worked surprisingly well too...
Paul B.
And to the AC above: "hey, let's toss a coin to see if you are playing White or Black!" -- sounds like *some* chance in a chess game.
Paul
... with a (somewhat, maybe) Randian candidate who would do many of those things (and then some), in your opinion? It is somewhat obvious why you put that qualification in, but what someone's taste in literature (which may or may not be present) has to do with solving problems in hand?
Paul B.
You better start distributing free drugs on the street (no, not of medical kind)!
At least in the US if I were poor and hungry, but still *reasonable*, I'd commit a crime of squatting on some remote land somewhere once (and grow myself some potatoes) rather than keep mugging people for $20 over and over again, risking being beaten up, or shot.
Not to mention that there are many charities which seem to be able to come up with $6 per desperate person per day to feed them.
Food is cheap. Illegal drugs on the street are (comparably) not, and this is what, I'd expect, most of the muggings are happening for.
Paul B.
Ron wants to move use back to the gold standard...
No, he wants to make gold an alternative legal currency by, among other things, eliminating sales tax on gold -- and, I bet, if one Executive could sign that order 6102, another can as well make it null and void.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a dual currency, but that brings headaches of its own (like 2 price tags).
This is essentially his proposal. As to "2 price tags", it's unlikely. Let me tell you how it worked out in Russia (when USD was still stable, and rouble was going through quite bad inflation): most prices, for even moderately valuable items (and *salaries* in private sector) were in marked USD, you were paying for them in roubles at current exchange rate (posted all over the place). When (somewhat strengthened by that time) Russian government decided that this practice was a bit "unpatriotic", everyone switched to pricing in "accounting units" ("UE"), which were $1USD by definition.
Paul B.