I can't think of a Blizzard title I've enjoyed less [than War3].
The worst part of War3 was that the unit control and general modernization was good enough to ruin Starcraft for me, but the overall game wasn't good enough to last like Starcraft.
not guessing what I might want to do also and mess up the output and resulting database dump.
That's the result of a very bad implementation of "smart";)
I think correct use of character encodings and locales are the way to go with software, but only if done correctly. And you certainly can't count on MySQL AB to do something correctly.
good old days when a database was a dumb (smart, depending your POV) engine that only worries about a string of bytes (chars)
Databases use data types for the same reason data types are used in programming languages.
Relational databases offer a lot more as well that I won't go into. But if you don't care about any of those things and just want to store bytes, there are plenty of ways to do that, and there have been for a long time (files are the most obvious example).
Representative republic is JUST A FORM OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.
There are three branches of government:
Judicial - Completely undemocratic. There are some very minor democratic influences, such as local judges being confirmed by the people.
Legislative - House of Representatives is democratically elected. More recently, the Senate is also democratically elected, but it was not always that way.
Executive - Everyone in the executive (at least at the federal level) other than the president is appointed. The president is elected indirectly by electors, who are democratically elected. If the president doesn't receive a majority of the vote (if the electors are divided more than two ways), the House chooses the president. The vice president was once chosen by the same process as the president, but now is "bundled" with the president. Others (like Secretary of Defense, CIA director, Secretary of State, etc) are appointed.
Doesn't seem so democratic when you actually look at it, does it? The House of Representatives is called that because it is really the primary democratic influence in the nation (or at least was).
The vendor then has to pass its cost to the consumer with higher prices, TNSTAAFL.
You assume that the vendor always charges the same price. Often, the vendor will pay for good shelf space and lower the price. It's called a promotion.
The vendor uses this as an investment to encourage new customers to try the product or people who've forgotten about the product to start purchasing it again. Some of those people then begin to like the product and purchase it when or where the promotion is not available (perhaps they purchase Coca-Cola on promotion at the store, and then ask for it in a restaurant later).
You're right: there is no such thing as a free lunch. The people who pay for the shelf space and the promotional prices are the people who purchase at non-promotional prices because they were reminded of (or introduced to) the product by the promotion.
Remember, a judge has to sign the warrant first. That doesn't mean you did anything wrong necessarily, but it does mean that it looks pretty suspicious.
It most certainly is an academic topic. I expect the junior developers I hire to be able to actually do something, like write code. You can talk academics all you want, but in the end I expect people to be able to produce something.
Your argument is all over the place. I'm not saying that practical knowledge is bad, but call it what it is. And it is not academic. Of course you want people to have practical knowledge.
As for teaching people to use some library not being academic, EVERYTHING now is a library
Practical knowledge is required to do everything. You have to know English to read an English textbook, but it can still be an academic endeavor. Many types of learning involve both academic and practical learning.
There is no academic quality to learning a GUI library unless you study some tangential aspect, such as human-computer interfaces. That doesn't mean it's not valuable knowledge -- it is -- it's just not academic.
You're redefining academic to mean any kind of knowledge at all. I think there's that tendency because academic pursuits have a higher social status than vocational pursuits, thus people want to redefine their specialty to be an academic one.
after learning the first library, learning the second library will be easier
That mentality is consistent with skills and other vocational education. After you learn how one car works, learning how a second model works is easier. I'm not saying vocational education is bad; quite the contrary. You just have a bad association with vocational education because it doesn't have the same social status as academic education.
Academics are universal. The idea is to learn how to manipulate and analyze abstract ideas using logic and reason. This is as true for a literature major as a mathematics major (both are academic).
Academics are becoming increasingly confused with skills, product knowledge, political correctness, and assorted facts about how people happen to do things currently.
Granted, assorted facts are important -- perhaps a prerequisite -- for academic endeavors. But the idea is not to blindly accept the status quo but to arrive at conclusions through an analytical process better than trial-and-error.
What abstract ideas do you manipulate and analyze by reading API documentation?
Why is GUI programming a topic at all in an academic environment? It certainly shouldn't be. You could have an academic class in communication between humans and computers, but teaching people to use some library or other is simply not an academic pursuit.
It should be made more of a science, not less of one.
Agreed.
I think a lot of the force pushing programming and other industry skills (what I call "product knowledge") into an academic environment is that smart people don't want to admit that they go to a trade school. But when your instructor is babbling on and on about the java way of doing things, how MS SQL server behaves this way, etc., that's exactly where you are: a trade school.
When I ask what has happened in society to make a person want to kill those around them at schools, I'm not looking to assign blame to society. I just want to know what changed.
Fair enough. It's worthwhile to consider those kinds of things.
In general I think that environmental factors are more of a test that reveals immorality (this is just my belief). That being said, I feel no need to test people's morality more than absolutely necessary.
I think you're the one with a fundamental misunderstanding. There are many people put in far worse situations than he, yet he is the one who committed the atrocities. No doubt that environmental factors play a role. However, environmental factors are a test of one's morality, not the definition of one's morality.
This gunman was evil, and the "human condition" revealed that he was evil.
If you buy something as an end-of-the-line consumer, you pay taxes on that consumption. It doesn't matter whether it's food, shelter, or second-hand, it's still consumption, and you should still pay taxes. The only type of consumption you shouldn't pay taxes on is when the same person produces and consumes something (which isn't taxed under the current system anyway).
It should be run more like income tax than sales tax. Your banks can report withdrawn amounts (including credit-card purchases) rather than your employer reporting income. Large purchases and monthly bills can include withholdings (which could also be done by the bank).
The benefit is that you tax those who consume not those who produce.
I think a lot of people forget, actually. The media portrayal is that corruption of science can only come from big business, but governments have strong agendas as well. The U.N. would love it if everyone turned over power to it so that it could regulate global warming.
But wanting to know the truth is also a motive - which should be the one motivating scientists, but more than often it isn't.
Scientists aren't the biggest part of the problem. The problem is selectivity in funding and agenda-driven "summaries" of the findings. The largest amount of research money right now is going to scientists who are studying the connections between CO2 and global warming, and predicting possible negative outcomes.
Even if the scientists involved are all good researchers, the selectivity plays a huge role. If you look hard enough, you are likely to see connections between two things even if the connections are weak or non-existent. Normally, the scientific process would introduce new data and theories that would overshadow the weaker theories, but such scientific research is not being done. And when evidence to the contrary is introduced, it's left out of "summaries".
Very interesting, that's exactly the explanation I was looking for. It seems that warming causes CO2 and CO2 causes warming, if I understand correctly. The first 800 years I guess is just part of a natural cycle, and then the CO2 amplifies it.
the variance between temp and CO2 are less than the margin of certainty in the data.
The question isn't whether or not a correlation exists. We know a correlation exists. But if event A happens after event B, it's impossible for event A to cause event B. The documentary stated that CO2 levels rise after the rise in temperature (that is, the graph of CO2 looked like the graph of temperature shifted a few hundred years right), not before, thus eliminating the CO2 as the cause of the temperature rise (perhaps it's an effect instead?).
do you think pollution is a good thing?
CO2 isn't pollution. It's perfectly natural, and within historically normal levels (that may change in the future, but for now it is).
Also, there's costs and benefits to everything. We get a lot of benefit from the release of CO2, and it's really quite harmless (at least, now). It's colorless, odorless, and non-toxic (unless you're asphyxiated).
It's in our interest to conserve and replace our dependence on them as soon as possible.
That may be true, but there are many other factors involved. Right now I'm trying to determine if CO2 is a cause of global warming. Even if not, there are other reasons to look at other fuels.
I don't think our Sun is large enough to create Uranium. It's probably from some other star, but you're really reaching here even if it is from the Sun. The Earth has the Uranium now, so fission can be a sustainable source of energy for a long time, even without the Sun.
i think temperatures have been lagging the CO2 levels, as CO2 levels
Interesting. Do you happen to have a link so I can see the data from the ice cores more directly? It was my understanding that a large part of the argument for CO2 causing global warming was that historically CO2 levels correlated with temperature. However, the causation would be reversed if the CO2 increases happened hundreds of years after the temperature increases.
this tracks VERY closely with weather, coupled with CO2 levels from ice cores. EXCEPT in the past few decades, where CO2 levels shot way up
Ah, interesting. That makes sense. Thanks for the insight. If you have a link, that would be appreciated.
I'll ask you these questions because I've been looking for an answer. These are serious questions, so don't think that I have a foregone conclusion about the answer. I'd really like to know the facts:
1. I've heard that the CO2 rises in the ice cores follow the temperature rises by hundreds of years. That would seem to eliminate CO2 levels as the cause, since they happen afterward. Is this true?
2. I understand that the temperature rises are originating on the surface of the Earth, not in the atmosphere as predicted by the CO2 warming theory.
The reason I ask these questions is because I just watched a documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". They have an alternate theory in which the Sun Spot activity affects cosmic rays hitting the Earth which affects cloud formation which reflects the sunlight. Greater Sun Spot activity means fewer cosmic rays hit the earth means fewer clouds means more warming. Is this plausible?
ALL power (except geothermal) is solar energy anyway
Nuclear power is neither. You knew this, I'm sure, but I think it should be said. I'd be interested to know why he thinks nuclear power can't satisfy our needs. My suspicion is that he made all kinds of costly assumptions for nuclear power that we may be able to overcome. There's still a lot of room for improvement in nuclear power.
This is an honest question and I hope you can answer it. I just watched a documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle," and it contained several facts that seem to blow the theory that CO2 causes global warming.
First, it says that the Volstok ice core data show that CO2 levels follow temperature rises. That means that there can be no causation.
Second, it says that the troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface, which indicates that the warming is not occurring due to atmospheric warming.
Their hypothesis is that Sun Spot activity deflects more cosmic rays from the Earth. With fewer cosmic rays, that causes fewer clouds to form, causing warming (clouds deflect solar energy).
I have switched my beliefs of global warming back and forth several times, so I hope you take my questions as a serious inquiry.
And I think that donations are covered under the umbrella of commerce.
None of the definitions I see involve the word "donation" either. You seem to think that "commerce" means anything you want it to mean; including respiration (which releases CO2).
Please show more intellectual honesty and back up your definition. Words don't mean what you feel, think, interpret or believe that they mean, and so your line of reasoning is not adding to the debate. Definitions are facts. There is room to argue around some finer points, but you haven't shown any evidence at all aside from what you "think" (which begs the question: why do you think that?). I'm not asking you to resurrect the founding fathers and ask them; just provide evidence more than "I think".
Show some alternate definitions in any dictionary, or at minimum some writings from the revolutionary era that back up your definition.
Until you provide something, it looks like you're flat wrong on this one, from a factual standpoint. If so, I suggest that you be honest with yourself and reevaluate your opinions of the Constitution. Perhaps you really don't like the Constitution at all after you see that the document was meant to limit the power of the Federal government to a few well-defined powers.
The Supreme Court essentially said that commerce is everything, and that falls under the feds if it crosses state borders.
The Supreme Court is as wrong as you are. They are just more creative in their wording.
In this case, it was obvious why he didn't want to cite. He had only one source, and that source said basically the same thing as the author.
If the references were checked, it would be obvious that the author did not add much to the pool of human intellect.
Granted, it's hard to add something new to human thought. But it's good to at least try, and knowing that you are rewriting something in your own words you know you aren't adding much. If it's an innocent collision, that's not as bad, but he knew there was a lot of overlap.
Here's the way you avoid plagiarism:
* use multiple sources
* organize others' ideas under a common theme
If you arrive at profound conclusions along the way; great. If not, you at least added dimension, context, etc. to ideas that already exist; and probably learned a lot along the way.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't think of a Blizzard title I've enjoyed less [than War3].
The worst part of War3 was that the unit control and general modernization was good enough to ruin Starcraft for me, but the overall game wasn't good enough to last like Starcraft.
You might think that is how it should be, but legally you don't have the right...
If the Constitution says one thing an a law is in conflict, is it really a law? After all, at any time it could be overturned by the SCOTUS.
and only do what I want it to do
;)
Fair enough.
not guessing what I might want to do also and mess up the output and resulting database dump.
That's the result of a very bad implementation of "smart"
I think correct use of character encodings and locales are the way to go with software, but only if done correctly. And you certainly can't count on MySQL AB to do something correctly.
good old days when a database was a dumb (smart, depending your POV) engine that only worries about a string of bytes (chars)
Databases use data types for the same reason data types are used in programming languages.
Relational databases offer a lot more as well that I won't go into. But if you don't care about any of those things and just want to store bytes, there are plenty of ways to do that, and there have been for a long time (files are the most obvious example).
Representative republic is JUST A FORM OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT.
There are three branches of government:
Judicial - Completely undemocratic. There are some very minor democratic influences, such as local judges being confirmed by the people.
Legislative - House of Representatives is democratically elected. More recently, the Senate is also democratically elected, but it was not always that way.
Executive - Everyone in the executive (at least at the federal level) other than the president is appointed. The president is elected indirectly by electors, who are democratically elected. If the president doesn't receive a majority of the vote (if the electors are divided more than two ways), the House chooses the president. The vice president was once chosen by the same process as the president, but now is "bundled" with the president. Others (like Secretary of Defense, CIA director, Secretary of State, etc) are appointed.
Doesn't seem so democratic when you actually look at it, does it? The House of Representatives is called that because it is really the primary democratic influence in the nation (or at least was).
The vendor then has to pass its cost to the consumer with higher prices, TNSTAAFL.
You assume that the vendor always charges the same price. Often, the vendor will pay for good shelf space and lower the price. It's called a promotion.
The vendor uses this as an investment to encourage new customers to try the product or people who've forgotten about the product to start purchasing it again. Some of those people then begin to like the product and purchase it when or where the promotion is not available (perhaps they purchase Coca-Cola on promotion at the store, and then ask for it in a restaurant later).
You're right: there is no such thing as a free lunch. The people who pay for the shelf space and the promotional prices are the people who purchase at non-promotional prices because they were reminded of (or introduced to) the product by the promotion.
they could just as easily use PostgreSQL then realize that they might have to distribute source code of their product
I don't know what you meant by that. PostgreSQL is licensed under the BSD license.
Probable cause sucks, but it's a compromise.
Remember, a judge has to sign the warrant first. That doesn't mean you did anything wrong necessarily, but it does mean that it looks pretty suspicious.
It most certainly is an academic topic. I expect the junior developers I hire to be able to actually do something, like write code. You can talk academics all you want, but in the end I expect people to be able to produce something.
Your argument is all over the place. I'm not saying that practical knowledge is bad, but call it what it is. And it is not academic. Of course you want people to have practical knowledge.
As for teaching people to use some library not being academic, EVERYTHING now is a library
Practical knowledge is required to do everything. You have to know English to read an English textbook, but it can still be an academic endeavor. Many types of learning involve both academic and practical learning.
There is no academic quality to learning a GUI library unless you study some tangential aspect, such as human-computer interfaces. That doesn't mean it's not valuable knowledge -- it is -- it's just not academic.
You're redefining academic to mean any kind of knowledge at all. I think there's that tendency because academic pursuits have a higher social status than vocational pursuits, thus people want to redefine their specialty to be an academic one.
after learning the first library, learning the second library will be easier
That mentality is consistent with skills and other vocational education. After you learn how one car works, learning how a second model works is easier. I'm not saying vocational education is bad; quite the contrary. You just have a bad association with vocational education because it doesn't have the same social status as academic education.
Academics are universal. The idea is to learn how to manipulate and analyze abstract ideas using logic and reason. This is as true for a literature major as a mathematics major (both are academic).
Academics are becoming increasingly confused with skills, product knowledge, political correctness, and assorted facts about how people happen to do things currently.
Granted, assorted facts are important -- perhaps a prerequisite -- for academic endeavors. But the idea is not to blindly accept the status quo but to arrive at conclusions through an analytical process better than trial-and-error.
What abstract ideas do you manipulate and analyze by reading API documentation?
GUI programming is not a first year topic.
Why is GUI programming a topic at all in an academic environment? It certainly shouldn't be. You could have an academic class in communication between humans and computers, but teaching people to use some library or other is simply not an academic pursuit.
It should be made more of a science, not less of one.
Agreed.
I think a lot of the force pushing programming and other industry skills (what I call "product knowledge") into an academic environment is that smart people don't want to admit that they go to a trade school. But when your instructor is babbling on and on about the java way of doing things, how MS SQL server behaves this way, etc., that's exactly where you are: a trade school.
Universities are a place for academic pursuits.
When I ask what has happened in society to make a person want to kill those around them at schools, I'm not looking to assign blame to society. I just want to know what changed.
Fair enough. It's worthwhile to consider those kinds of things.
In general I think that environmental factors are more of a test that reveals immorality (this is just my belief). That being said, I feel no need to test people's morality more than absolutely necessary.
We all have it in us to do something horrid
I think you're the one with a fundamental misunderstanding. There are many people put in far worse situations than he, yet he is the one who committed the atrocities. No doubt that environmental factors play a role. However, environmental factors are a test of one's morality, not the definition of one's morality.
This gunman was evil, and the "human condition" revealed that he was evil.
The bigger issue is what is wrong with our society that makes a person want to kill innocents around them?
So let me get this straight: this is society's fault?
Give me a break. Some people are just evil, evil, evil. This guy was one of them, and now he's dead (good riddance).
For you to blame society is to suggest that you, too, would shoot up a school given the same societal forces. I sincerely hope that's not the case.
Fair tax has some inconsistencies.
Consumption tax should be run like an income tax.
If you buy something as an end-of-the-line consumer, you pay taxes on that consumption. It doesn't matter whether it's food, shelter, or second-hand, it's still consumption, and you should still pay taxes. The only type of consumption you shouldn't pay taxes on is when the same person produces and consumes something (which isn't taxed under the current system anyway).
It should be run more like income tax than sales tax. Your banks can report withdrawn amounts (including credit-card purchases) rather than your employer reporting income. Large purchases and monthly bills can include withholdings (which could also be done by the bank).
The benefit is that you tax those who consume not those who produce.
Everyone has a motive for the claims he makes.
I think a lot of people forget, actually. The media portrayal is that corruption of science can only come from big business, but governments have strong agendas as well. The U.N. would love it if everyone turned over power to it so that it could regulate global warming.
But wanting to know the truth is also a motive - which should be the one motivating scientists, but more than often it isn't.
Scientists aren't the biggest part of the problem. The problem is selectivity in funding and agenda-driven "summaries" of the findings. The largest amount of research money right now is going to scientists who are studying the connections between CO2 and global warming, and predicting possible negative outcomes.
Even if the scientists involved are all good researchers, the selectivity plays a huge role. If you look hard enough, you are likely to see connections between two things even if the connections are weak or non-existent. Normally, the scientific process would introduce new data and theories that would overshadow the weaker theories, but such scientific research is not being done. And when evidence to the contrary is introduced, it's left out of "summaries".
In regards to the lag in CO2:
Very interesting, that's exactly the explanation I was looking for. It seems that warming causes CO2 and CO2 causes warming, if I understand correctly. The first 800 years I guess is just part of a natural cycle, and then the CO2 amplifies it.
Regarding Cosmic Rays:
Again exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
I'll browse that site some more.
Thanks for the link.
It's Vostok! No "l" in there at all.
Gotcha.
the variance between temp and CO2 are less than the margin of certainty in the data.
The question isn't whether or not a correlation exists. We know a correlation exists. But if event A happens after event B, it's impossible for event A to cause event B. The documentary stated that CO2 levels rise after the rise in temperature (that is, the graph of CO2 looked like the graph of temperature shifted a few hundred years right), not before, thus eliminating the CO2 as the cause of the temperature rise (perhaps it's an effect instead?).
do you think pollution is a good thing?
CO2 isn't pollution. It's perfectly natural, and within historically normal levels (that may change in the future, but for now it is).
Also, there's costs and benefits to everything. We get a lot of benefit from the release of CO2, and it's really quite harmless (at least, now). It's colorless, odorless, and non-toxic (unless you're asphyxiated).
It's in our interest to conserve and replace our dependence on them as soon as possible.
That may be true, but there are many other factors involved. Right now I'm trying to determine if CO2 is a cause of global warming. Even if not, there are other reasons to look at other fuels.
nuclear FISSION is definitely solar
I don't think our Sun is large enough to create Uranium. It's probably from some other star, but you're really reaching here even if it is from the Sun. The Earth has the Uranium now, so fission can be a sustainable source of energy for a long time, even without the Sun.
i think temperatures have been lagging the CO2 levels, as CO2 levels
Interesting. Do you happen to have a link so I can see the data from the ice cores more directly? It was my understanding that a large part of the argument for CO2 causing global warming was that historically CO2 levels correlated with temperature. However, the causation would be reversed if the CO2 increases happened hundreds of years after the temperature increases.
this tracks VERY closely with weather, coupled with CO2 levels from ice cores. EXCEPT in the past few decades, where CO2 levels shot way up
Ah, interesting. That makes sense. Thanks for the insight. If you have a link, that would be appreciated.
I'll ask you these questions because I've been looking for an answer. These are serious questions, so don't think that I have a foregone conclusion about the answer. I'd really like to know the facts:
1. I've heard that the CO2 rises in the ice cores follow the temperature rises by hundreds of years. That would seem to eliminate CO2 levels as the cause, since they happen afterward. Is this true?
2. I understand that the temperature rises are originating on the surface of the Earth, not in the atmosphere as predicted by the CO2 warming theory.
The reason I ask these questions is because I just watched a documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle". They have an alternate theory in which the Sun Spot activity affects cosmic rays hitting the Earth which affects cloud formation which reflects the sunlight. Greater Sun Spot activity means fewer cosmic rays hit the earth means fewer clouds means more warming. Is this plausible?
ALL power (except geothermal) is solar energy anyway
Nuclear power is neither. You knew this, I'm sure, but I think it should be said. I'd be interested to know why he thinks nuclear power can't satisfy our needs. My suspicion is that he made all kinds of costly assumptions for nuclear power that we may be able to overcome. There's still a lot of room for improvement in nuclear power.
This is an honest question and I hope you can answer it. I just watched a documentary entitled "The Great Global Warming Swindle," and it contained several facts that seem to blow the theory that CO2 causes global warming.
First, it says that the Volstok ice core data show that CO2 levels follow temperature rises. That means that there can be no causation.
Second, it says that the troposphere is warming more slowly than the surface, which indicates that the warming is not occurring due to atmospheric warming.
Their hypothesis is that Sun Spot activity deflects more cosmic rays from the Earth. With fewer cosmic rays, that causes fewer clouds to form, causing warming (clouds deflect solar energy).
I have switched my beliefs of global warming back and forth several times, so I hope you take my questions as a serious inquiry.
And I think that donations are covered under the umbrella of commerce.
None of the definitions I see involve the word "donation" either. You seem to think that "commerce" means anything you want it to mean; including respiration (which releases CO2).
Please show more intellectual honesty and back up your definition. Words don't mean what you feel, think, interpret or believe that they mean, and so your line of reasoning is not adding to the debate. Definitions are facts. There is room to argue around some finer points, but you haven't shown any evidence at all aside from what you "think" (which begs the question: why do you think that?). I'm not asking you to resurrect the founding fathers and ask them; just provide evidence more than "I think".
Show some alternate definitions in any dictionary, or at minimum some writings from the revolutionary era that back up your definition.
Until you provide something, it looks like you're flat wrong on this one, from a factual standpoint. If so, I suggest that you be honest with yourself and reevaluate your opinions of the Constitution. Perhaps you really don't like the Constitution at all after you see that the document was meant to limit the power of the Federal government to a few well-defined powers.
The Supreme Court essentially said that commerce is everything, and that falls under the feds if it crosses state borders.
The Supreme Court is as wrong as you are. They are just more creative in their wording.
What's with the loath to cite thing? Ego?
In this case, it was obvious why he didn't want to cite. He had only one source, and that source said basically the same thing as the author.
If the references were checked, it would be obvious that the author did not add much to the pool of human intellect.
Granted, it's hard to add something new to human thought. But it's good to at least try, and knowing that you are rewriting something in your own words you know you aren't adding much. If it's an innocent collision, that's not as bad, but he knew there was a lot of overlap.
Here's the way you avoid plagiarism:
* use multiple sources
* organize others' ideas under a common theme
If you arrive at profound conclusions along the way; great. If not, you at least added dimension, context, etc. to ideas that already exist; and probably learned a lot along the way.