"his record of handling the economy and national defense....."
After inheriting a recession (yes, the recession started while Clinton was still in office), then falling victim to an extremely large terrorist attack on some of our key financial centers, followed by the collapse of some of our biggest companies (who had been corrupt for years before GW Bush got there), Bush manages to make it only a recession (not a depression), and the economy is surging back. I like it!
As for national defence - have we been attacked again on our soil? There's several things that he's not doing (like border patrol) but Kerry hasn't said he'll do them either.
The minimalistic number of US casualties from the two wars we've been in show that he is either a great military leader or at least knows who to hire/listen to.
I think he's done a great job, overall. He's way too liberal for me in general, but the issues that have counted in the past 4 years he's come through on.
I understand your general feeling, but most people who don't like Bush but will vote for him anyway are all in a single camp - those who believe that the war on terror is the most important issue of the day.
As to tax cuts, I, making $45,000 / year (and only $5,500 taxable income) got a few hundred from his last tax cut. His tax cuts are across-the-board.
The problem with footage is that it can be easily manipulated. Get the cuts right, and you can get "true" video to say almost anything. I'd be more interested in a written piece (in fact, that's how I like my news, too). It is easier to check facts and has less of a "false reality" to it. If you see it on video you assume it's true, even though it's just as easy to lie with video. Reading involves more skepticism, and is harder (but not impossible) to be fooled.
'"One hundred days until Bush is reelected" from a news anchor '
Who?
"And "shut up!" very rarely qualifies as a rebuttal."
Are you referring to O'Reilly? He hardly ever says shut up unless the guest is making up facts. O'Reilly doesn't like liars and theives. What's wrong with that? He is fair to people who are making valid points, and he is a bulldog to those who only use propoganda to make their points.
Kerry tried to lead a clean campaign? On what planet?
Anyway, I don't fault Kerry for it - in fact I think that critical campaigns are positive, because who else is going to point out flaws of your oponents? Certain issues are below-the-belt, but not ones relating to character and issues. Swiftees barely make the above-the-belt cut because the issue is whether or not Kerry lied to gain his purple hearts, which he regularly refers to in his campaign. However, I don't really think that his speech before congress about war crimes is relevant, because he was reporting what others told him to congress. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? I think the fact it was aired internationally was a problem, but I don't think that's Kerry's fault.
I think Bush's Vietnam record is open-season, because it goes to his truthfulness (NewsMax has a great story on this). I really don't see this campaign on either side going very much in the "too far" range, although I am perturbed that Kerry doesn't seem to have a vision.
I don't see why you don't think Fox News is fair and balanced?
O'Reilly is in the center. Hannity is weighted by Colmes. Those are their big ones. Greta is on the left. I'm sure there are others but those are the ones on during my TV watching times.
I think you're the first anti-Bush person I've found to have _real_ reasons for not wanting Bush. I disagree with some of them, but it's not the mindless drivel that seems to be coming out of the Kerry campaign. Thanks for a good perspective!
What's wrong with FoxNews? They have pretty standard reporting (which the topics they cover are still generally left-wing-interest), and analysts on both sides, and a few in the middle.
Of course, these days telling both sides must mean that you are a right-winger:)
On the other networks, you have reporters who are working _for_ the Kerry campaign. It's rediculous.
"But who is to say that one parent or another in every family is necessarily a good teacher (or even merely adequate)?"
I've never met anyone who couldn't explain things that they knew to their kids. Note that it's very different from explaining things to someone else's kids. Your kids know you, and they "get" what you're trying to say. Teachers have to be skillful because they're teaching strangers. Kids can learn just from watching their parents. How do you think kids learn to talk? It's not because their parents are skilled grammaticists.
"And what of single-parent families"
First of all, the epidemic of single-parent families is caused in a large degree by the values-free-zone of public education. Of course, I find your solution highly amusing: "the single parent can collect a public subsidy". Is the solution to every problem a government guarantee? How about allowing free citizens to keep enough of their money that they can be generous themselves? Right now, we work a minimum of 4 months a year for the government (probably more if you add in sales tax, property tax, and other taxation). Even if you deduct everything, you can't deduct social security or the portion of your taxes that your employer pays (this is masked by saying "making the company pay its fair share", which is just another way of saying "making you pay taxes that you can't deduct".)
Before the government intervened, we had no problem educating everyone. If they leave, it will be a few rough transition years, but we'll get our families back.
"One-size-fits-all solutions rarely work."
This is hardly a one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, homeschooling (or private schooling cooperatives) is about as customized as they come.
"But you underestimate the selfishness and/or incompetence of most parents."
A lot of that comes from public schools. Public school separates children from their parents for such a long period of time that the natural family bonding is nearly eliminated.
Really, in high school, who did you trust more, your friends or your family? Why do you think that is?
First of all, wealth has little to do with labor, but a lot to do with value. But that distinction isn't very important. You are correct in that the value of money is basically the value of what is produced divided by the amount of money in circulation. However, that isn't what we're talking about here. When you deal with banks, you are not dealing with "money as a wealth equivalent" but rather, specifically, with money. Because banks have a monopoly on the creation of money, no matter how much value is produced within an economy, the fact is you cannot pay off your debts with the amount of money in circulation, no matter how much or how little that money is worth.
Let's go back to the banking example. Let's say I borrow $10 from the bank and Frank borrows $10, each at $1 interest. Let's say I harvest 1,100 oranges and Frank harvests 900 oranges. That means that the value of the $20 in the economy is 2,000 oranges. Had I produced 600 oranges and Frank produced 400 oranges, then the value of the $20 would be only worth half of what it was in the previous scenario. IN BOTH CASES, WE CANNOT REPAY THE BANKS IN FULL. Even if the next year we produce more or less, and cause inflation or deflation, or if more people join the economy and get more loans to increase the money supply, the result is the same, there is not enough money in circulation to repay all of the loans.
If you can find a scenario that allows all of the individuals to repay their loans, please post it.
If it makes you feel better, it's mitigated to a large extent due to inflation. Therefore, it's easier to pay back yesterday's bills today, because money is worth less than it was. However, inflation can only come about from a nation that is more and more riddled with debt...
I think what he was saying was that the ONLY way money comes into circulation is through loans. Therefore, although some can pay back there loans, it is physically impossible for the entire country to ever pay back their loans, because not only are we responsible to pay back the loans, but we also have to pay back interest! But the banks only created enough money for the _principle_ of the loan, not for the interest. So, while you and me can pay back our individual loans, it is physically impossible for the whole country to pay off its debt, because the money supply would be gone, and there would be nothing left to pay with.
Let's say that there is a small economy. I am a central bank. Right now, there is no money. Therefore, you take a loan out for $10, and I charge $1 interest. Frank takes out a loan for $10, and I charge him $1 interest. The whole economy has $20 in it, but they owe $22. There's no way this can be paid off. Now, one of you could handle their money better than the other, and get a $1 advantage to pay off their loan, but that would leave only $9 in the economy to pay off a remaining $11 loan. One of you would be fine, but there is no way in this system for everyone to pay back their debts. So, eventually, the banks own nearly everything.
This is why the founders of our country hated central banks, and was one of the primary reasons for the revolutionary war.
Even worse, let's say that everyone started to be financially responsible and start paying back their loans, and only buying things they had money for. Sounds good, right?
Well, as loans are paid back, the amount of money in the system will decrease dramatically. This will cause a HUGE deflation in the economy, which would cause everyone who hasn't paid their debts to suddenly be unable to pay -- because they wouldn't be able to get enough money.
The problem with a debt-based economy is that if everyone pays off their debts, then the economy comes to a dead halt.
Apache's pools are pretty cool. You can also do the same thing with GNU's obstacks.
Re:I've got mine on pre-order.
on
Port-A-Nuke
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I think the problem is that people are more averse to lots os small problems than a single large disaster. I'd rather have 200 cuts than have my entire hand severed. Nuclear tends to have fewer minor problems, but more large-scale problems.
However, we are not draining our energy as fast as we once thought. First of all, many dry oil well have been refilling (in fact, it's causing some to reconsider what the process is for oil production in the earth actually is). Second of all, the calculation for "years supply of oil" is actually "years supply of oil at the present price" meaning that it excludes all oil reserves that we know about but aren't worth going after at the present price of oil.
For those interested in NetHack, but who don't want to do it text-based, here is Falcon's Eye - a 3D perspective version of Nethack (it's 2D, but w/ a 3D perspective). Much more enjoyable gameplay.
"I think this would be a good place for 5 year software patents or something"
AHHHH! NOOOO!!
_Patents_ prevent people from building the same thing from scratch, cleanroom, by themselves. If you build software A and I build software B completely independently, but you patent software A, then I can get fined for any similarities between B and A. NOT GOOD.
Now, copyrighted works _do_ eventually go into the public domain. The problem is that software copyright is annoyingly long. 75 years is it now? 10-15 years would be a good copyright term for software I think.
My Book is focused on kind of the same area, but focuses on the interface between the application and the operating system and hardware. While Knuth essentially assumes the complete lack of an operating system, my book teaches how it interacts with your program through system calls, linking, memory management, etc. It talks about calling conventions, addressing modes, and all of the other gritty details that programmers need to know that usually just comes in bits and pieces from other sources.
"As I've stated elsewhere, I've done lots of COBOL programming and have accomplished anything that needed doing."
The fact that you _can_ accomplish anything that needs doing doesn't mean it's the best way. For example, I recently needed to do some logic programming. Instead of writing an algorithm to search the problem domain, I found a Scheme extension that does ambiguous values. For example, I have a list of questions that a user fills out, and the answers he gives are matched to questions and all items that match the requirements specified by the user are returned. It turns out, this was pretty simple:
;assume all_items is an associative array of items and their corresponding answers ;assume user-answers are the answers that a user answered to questions ;note that "(amb:amb)" is an ambiguous return operator that implicitly causes it to loop through all values until it assigns one that causes all amb:asserts to succeed. ;amb:collect-possibilities collects _all_ values that could be returned by the given ambiguous function, not just the first as would normally happen ;------Here's the code------- (amb:collect-possibilities (lambda () (let* ( (the_item (apply amb:amb all-items)) (item_answers (assoc the_item items))) (for-each (lambda (x) (amb:assert (member x item_answers))) user-answers))))
I know that COBOL _can_ solve such problems, I just think it would wind up being a 20-page program rather than 5 lines. Sorry about the bad indentation, I just don't know how to force slashdot to indent.
You should learn Scheme or LISP. In addition, they don't have to be interpretted. Chicken is a great Scheme compiler, with easy-to-use methods for interfacing with any external function.
The great thing about Scheme/LISP is that you can extend the languages themselves through macros (real macros, not crap like C/C++ has). In fact, you could probably implement the COBOL language as macros if you wanted to, and still get all of the advantages of Scheme - continuations, closures, the ability to do lazy evaluation, etc.
The problem w/ COBOL is that it's verbose, and very hard to simplify. Newer versions of COBOL are probably better at this, but compared to the amount of code reduction you can get from languages like Scheme and LISP, I have trouble believing that COBOL matches up.
The one thing I can probably agree with is your #2, though. Few other programming languages put as much thought into fixed-point representations of numbers.
An added requirement is not necessarily an increase in complexity. I think by "increase in complexity" they mean is something like a relation that was previously 1:1 becomes 1:Many. That becomes a much more tricky task to deal with.
Slashdot Mirror
"his record of handling the economy and national defense....."
After inheriting a recession (yes, the recession started while Clinton was still in office), then falling victim to an extremely large terrorist attack on some of our key financial centers, followed by the collapse of some of our biggest companies (who had been corrupt for years before GW Bush got there), Bush manages to make it only a recession (not a depression), and the economy is surging back. I like it!
As for national defence - have we been attacked again on our soil? There's several things that he's not doing (like border patrol) but Kerry hasn't said he'll do them either.
The minimalistic number of US casualties from the two wars we've been in show that he is either a great military leader or at least knows who to hire/listen to.
I think he's done a great job, overall. He's way too liberal for me in general, but the issues that have counted in the past 4 years he's come through on.
????
I understand your general feeling, but most people who don't like Bush but will vote for him anyway are all in a single camp - those who believe that the war on terror is the most important issue of the day.
As to tax cuts, I, making $45,000 / year (and only $5,500 taxable income) got a few hundred from his last tax cut. His tax cuts are across-the-board.
The problem with footage is that it can be easily manipulated. Get the cuts right, and you can get "true" video to say almost anything. I'd be more interested in a written piece (in fact, that's how I like my news, too). It is easier to check facts and has less of a "false reality" to it. If you see it on video you assume it's true, even though it's just as easy to lie with video. Reading involves more skepticism, and is harder (but not impossible) to be fooled.
'"One hundred days until Bush is reelected" from a news anchor '
Who?
"And "shut up!" very rarely qualifies as a rebuttal."
Are you referring to O'Reilly? He hardly ever says shut up unless the guest is making up facts. O'Reilly doesn't like liars and theives. What's wrong with that? He is fair to people who are making valid points, and he is a bulldog to those who only use propoganda to make their points.
Kerry tried to lead a clean campaign? On what planet?
Anyway, I don't fault Kerry for it - in fact I think that critical campaigns are positive, because who else is going to point out flaws of your oponents? Certain issues are below-the-belt, but not ones relating to character and issues. Swiftees barely make the above-the-belt cut because the issue is whether or not Kerry lied to gain his purple hearts, which he regularly refers to in his campaign. However, I don't really think that his speech before congress about war crimes is relevant, because he was reporting what others told him to congress. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? I think the fact it was aired internationally was a problem, but I don't think that's Kerry's fault.
I think Bush's Vietnam record is open-season, because it goes to his truthfulness (NewsMax has a great story on this). I really don't see this campaign on either side going very much in the "too far" range, although I am perturbed that Kerry doesn't seem to have a vision.
I don't see why you don't think Fox News is fair and balanced?
O'Reilly is in the center. Hannity is weighted by Colmes. Those are their big ones. Greta is on the left. I'm sure there are others but those are the ones on during my TV watching times.
I think you're the first anti-Bush person I've found to have _real_ reasons for not wanting Bush. I disagree with some of them, but it's not the mindless drivel that seems to be coming out of the Kerry campaign. Thanks for a good perspective!
What's wrong with FoxNews? They have pretty standard reporting (which the topics they cover are still generally left-wing-interest), and analysts on both sides, and a few in the middle.
:)
Of course, these days telling both sides must mean that you are a right-winger
On the other networks, you have reporters who are working _for_ the Kerry campaign. It's rediculous.
For helping out all of us Schemer's learn the more advanced stuff on IRC. I don't think the guy ever sleeps!
"But who is to say that one parent or another in every family is necessarily a good teacher (or even merely adequate)?"
I've never met anyone who couldn't explain things that they knew to their kids. Note that it's very different from explaining things to someone else's kids. Your kids know you, and they "get" what you're trying to say. Teachers have to be skillful because they're teaching strangers. Kids can learn just from watching their parents. How do you think kids learn to talk? It's not because their parents are skilled grammaticists.
"And what of single-parent families"
First of all, the epidemic of single-parent families is caused in a large degree by the values-free-zone of public education. Of course, I find your solution highly amusing: "the single parent can collect a public subsidy". Is the solution to every problem a government guarantee? How about allowing free citizens to keep enough of their money that they can be generous themselves? Right now, we work a minimum of 4 months a year for the government (probably more if you add in sales tax, property tax, and other taxation). Even if you deduct everything, you can't deduct social security or the portion of your taxes that your employer pays (this is masked by saying "making the company pay its fair share", which is just another way of saying "making you pay taxes that you can't deduct".)
Before the government intervened, we had no problem educating everyone. If they leave, it will be a few rough transition years, but we'll get our families back.
"One-size-fits-all solutions rarely work."
This is hardly a one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, homeschooling (or private schooling cooperatives) is about as customized as they come.
"But you underestimate the selfishness and/or incompetence of most parents."
A lot of that comes from public schools. Public school separates children from their parents for such a long period of time that the natural family bonding is nearly eliminated.
Really, in high school, who did you trust more, your friends or your family? Why do you think that is?
Actually you are not quite right.
First of all, wealth has little to do with labor, but a lot to do with value. But that distinction isn't very important. You are correct in that the value of money is basically the value of what is produced divided by the amount of money in circulation. However, that isn't what we're talking about here. When you deal with banks, you are not dealing with "money as a wealth equivalent" but rather, specifically, with money. Because banks have a monopoly on the creation of money, no matter how much value is produced within an economy, the fact is you cannot pay off your debts with the amount of money in circulation, no matter how much or how little that money is worth.
Let's go back to the banking example. Let's say I borrow $10 from the bank and Frank borrows $10, each at $1 interest. Let's say I harvest 1,100 oranges and Frank harvests 900 oranges. That means that the value of the $20 in the economy is 2,000 oranges. Had I produced 600 oranges and Frank produced 400 oranges, then the value of the $20 would be only worth half of what it was in the previous scenario. IN BOTH CASES, WE CANNOT REPAY THE BANKS IN FULL. Even if the next year we produce more or less, and cause inflation or deflation, or if more people join the economy and get more loans to increase the money supply, the result is the same, there is not enough money in circulation to repay all of the loans.
If you can find a scenario that allows all of the individuals to repay their loans, please post it.
If it makes you feel better, it's mitigated to a large extent due to inflation. Therefore, it's easier to pay back yesterday's bills today, because money is worth less than it was. However, inflation can only come about from a nation that is more and more riddled with debt...
I think what he was saying was that the ONLY way money comes into circulation is through loans. Therefore, although some can pay back there loans, it is physically impossible for the entire country to ever pay back their loans, because not only are we responsible to pay back the loans, but we also have to pay back interest! But the banks only created enough money for the _principle_ of the loan, not for the interest. So, while you and me can pay back our individual loans, it is physically impossible for the whole country to pay off its debt, because the money supply would be gone, and there would be nothing left to pay with.
Let's say that there is a small economy. I am a central bank. Right now, there is no money. Therefore, you take a loan out for $10, and I charge $1 interest. Frank takes out a loan for $10, and I charge him $1 interest. The whole economy has $20 in it, but they owe $22. There's no way this can be paid off. Now, one of you could handle their money better than the other, and get a $1 advantage to pay off their loan, but that would leave only $9 in the economy to pay off a remaining $11 loan. One of you would be fine, but there is no way in this system for everyone to pay back their debts. So, eventually, the banks own nearly everything.
This is why the founders of our country hated central banks, and was one of the primary reasons for the revolutionary war.
Even worse, let's say that everyone started to be financially responsible and start paying back their loans, and only buying things they had money for. Sounds good, right?
Well, as loans are paid back, the amount of money in the system will decrease dramatically. This will cause a HUGE deflation in the economy, which would cause everyone who hasn't paid their debts to suddenly be unable to pay -- because they wouldn't be able to get enough money.
The problem with a debt-based economy is that if everyone pays off their debts, then the economy comes to a dead halt.
Apache's pools are pretty cool. You can also do the same thing with GNU's obstacks.
I think the problem is that people are more averse to lots os small problems than a single large disaster. I'd rather have 200 cuts than have my entire hand severed. Nuclear tends to have fewer minor problems, but more large-scale problems.
However, we are not draining our energy as fast as we once thought. First of all, many dry oil well have been refilling (in fact, it's causing some to reconsider what the process is for oil production in the earth actually is). Second of all, the calculation for "years supply of oil" is actually "years supply of oil at the present price" meaning that it excludes all oil reserves that we know about but aren't worth going after at the present price of oil.
For those interested in NetHack, but who don't want to do it text-based, here is Falcon's Eye - a 3D perspective version of Nethack (it's 2D, but w/ a 3D perspective). Much more enjoyable gameplay.
"I think this would be a good place for 5 year software patents or something"
AHHHH! NOOOO!!
_Patents_ prevent people from building the same thing from scratch, cleanroom, by themselves. If you build software A and I build software B completely independently, but you patent software A, then I can get fined for any similarities between B and A. NOT GOOD.
Now, copyrighted works _do_ eventually go into the public domain. The problem is that software copyright is annoyingly long. 75 years is it now? 10-15 years would be a good copyright term for software I think.
No, actually, as the introduction says, it's more geared as a "prequel" to TAOCP.
Rekall is available under the GPL:
u rce.shtml
http://www.rekallrevealed.org/toplevel/getting/so
My Book is focused on kind of the same area, but focuses on the interface between the application and the operating system and hardware. While Knuth essentially assumes the complete lack of an operating system, my book teaches how it interacts with your program through system calls, linking, memory management, etc. It talks about calling conventions, addressing modes, and all of the other gritty details that programmers need to know that usually just comes in bits and pieces from other sources.
The fact that you _can_ accomplish anything that needs doing doesn't mean it's the best way. For example, I recently needed to do some logic programming. Instead of writing an algorithm to search the problem domain, I found a Scheme extension that does ambiguous values. For example, I have a list of questions that a user fills out, and the answers he gives are matched to questions and all items that match the requirements specified by the user are returned. It turns out, this was pretty simple:
I know that COBOL _can_ solve such problems, I just think it would wind up being a 20-page program rather than 5 lines. Sorry about the bad indentation, I just don't know how to force slashdot to indent.You should learn Scheme or LISP. In addition, they don't have to be interpretted. Chicken is a great Scheme compiler, with easy-to-use methods for interfacing with any external function.
The great thing about Scheme/LISP is that you can extend the languages themselves through macros (real macros, not crap like C/C++ has). In fact, you could probably implement the COBOL language as macros if you wanted to, and still get all of the advantages of Scheme - continuations, closures, the ability to do lazy evaluation, etc.
The problem w/ COBOL is that it's verbose, and very hard to simplify. Newer versions of COBOL are probably better at this, but compared to the amount of code reduction you can get from languages like Scheme and LISP, I have trouble believing that COBOL matches up.
The one thing I can probably agree with is your #2, though. Few other programming languages put as much thought into fixed-point representations of numbers.
An added requirement is not necessarily an increase in complexity. I think by "increase in complexity" they mean is something like a relation that was previously 1:1 becomes 1:Many. That becomes a much more tricky task to deal with.