One interesting thing here is that in LISP you are always taking the first and rest of a list and then recursing on the rest. This is not efficient with the Python list(dynamic array). You would need to use deque maybe or roll your own linked list. The linked list would not be efficient to pass to functions expecting a regular list.
The Python functions map, filter and reduce provided me a gentle introduction to the ideas of functional programming. I find the arguments for functional programming very compelling. I frequently use Python in a functional style. However, the reality is, Python is not really the best vehicle for this style of programming, and it appears that Python is going to remain at heart an imperative language. I really like the Python standard library though and this is one of the main things keeping me from switching to a functional language. What are your thoughts on porting a functional language to the Python virtual machine? Is there too much of an impedance mismatch to interface with the libraries. Historically the libraries often took lists(dynamic arrays), whereas functional programming usually works with linked lists. On the other hand Python is moving towards iterators for everything which would seem to solve this mismatch.
I have often wondered if it is possible to create a program that would automatically generate bindings to C/C++ libraries. The binding issue is a huge problem for all languages. It seems doable to me, but I fear I am missing something because it has not been done. There is SWIG, but it needs an IDL like description file. I frequently read comments like, oh it it so easy to call a 'C' function. However, when you look at something like the Windows API with over a million functions and a massive number of struct types, and millions of constants, writing an IDL file becomes prohibitive. I know of no language with a very thorough binding to the Windows API. As of right now PySide needs a binding to Qt5. The first problem is just getting any kind of binding, but one would prefer a Pythonic binding. For example in 'C' an array is often followed by a size parameter. A good binding would understand how to take a list and make the underlying call with the array and the size parameter. So this involves an IDL file again. However, I envision a tool that could highlight possible ambiguities like this and provide some sort of web interface to crowd source the answers to the ambiguities. I guess my question is, is this possible? or what makes this so hard that it has not been done? I can see C++ definitely being harder, but dealing with a 'C' header file doesn't seem so complicated.
I recently have used PySide with Qt 4.8 and find this to work very well. The only caveat is that Qt 5.0 is moving in a different direction trying to support more of a web based html.css approach and leaving the old widgets in support mode. The biggest problem here though is that PySide had not been updated for Qt 5. It looks like Digia only has the resources to pursue C++ development. Also disappointing is that Qt 5.0 did not have any widgets with the new model. Honestly, I don't know what they were thinking. I am not sure a full blown widget library is needed and would be a lot of work, but I think if the important lower level layers (primitive drawing, font drawing, font metrics, mouse, keyboard, and touch input) were added it would be a good thing. Perhaps even a next higher layer that provided for basic nested window support, tabbing, focus, selection, layout managers, and.css style themeing and an event pump. At this point I am sure the community would start adding widgets.
I wish the administration would focus on the cost breakdown of medical procedures. I have read articles that basically seem to show hospital costs are pulled out of thin air and that the costs have no basis in care provided, or in any kind of reality. I mean $400 for an aspirin type stuff. Why does 1 night in a hospital cost $10,000? Hospitals are supposed to be non-profit after all. Why is a short ambulance ride $1000? It seems completely nonsensical to me. Until this is well understood, there is no hope. I basically assume the reason for these costs are either 1) They make up for people getting treated for free or 2) fraud. If the case is 1), I want to see this makeup cost as an explicit line item. It is also odd that surgeons get a small part of the total bill, and that hospitals are broke. Where does the money really go?
Until Javascript has a standard foreign function interface, and people being writing bindings to C/C++ libraries, and there exists some sort of packaging system to install these bindings and libraries, Javascript will be severely lacking capabilities present in several other languages.
Lets just assume 100 shares and say player1 is asking $10.04 and player2 is bidding $10.00, and there are no other players. For starters, I don't really understand how a transaction happens at all here. It would seem that one of these two would need to modify their bid or ask. So now lets say you are a new player3 and are employing high frequency trading. The most obvious thing that comes to my mind is that you could get in the middle of this and buy at $10.04 from player1 and then sell at $10.00 to player2 and lose $0.04 cents. Clearly this is no good. Alternatively player3 could place a bid at $10.02 and hope that player1 will lower his ask. If this transactions occurs then player3 can start asking at $10.03 and hope that player2 will now up his bid. If this goes as planned player3 makes $0.01. There would be a window of risk here for player3. The stock has been bought at $10.02 and the only buyer is bidding $10.00 and the ask has just come down from $10.04 to $10.03. There is no guarantee there will ever be a buyer at greater than $10.02. If this what actually goes on, then player3 is sort of facilitating a transaction. The spread was originally too wide for either player1 or player2 to move. player3 has essentially lowered the spread and enticed both player1 and player2 to make a transaction. The above is really sort of a big question. I have no idea what HFT is really doing.
I remember years ago, under the Bush administration that the Telcoms were caught recording this information. It was a big deal in the news for about 2 days and then gone. Absolutely no one was held accountable. No one promised to stop recording this information. Sometime later Congress passed a bill giving the Telcoms immunity for collecting this information. No one would reasonable assume that the activity was stopped because this information came out. The only real surprise to me is that they are not recording the contents of the calls. I seem to recall that the Telcoms recorded this at the behest of the NSA, but I can recall reading similar stories that the FBI are also collecting similar information. I also remember how Quest was the only Telcom that did not comply and that the CEO is now in jail for insider trading. I don't think his jail time is simply a coincidence. I also remember some group that tried to sue the government over this data collection, but were ultimately denied because the government did not waive their right to be sued on this matter. Sorry, I don't remember any of the details of the above. The government has simply decided that this information is not private, because it flows through servers owned by other people. I don't agree with this argument, but it has been upheld by the courts. Is the only bit of new information here the fact that this activity was not stopped when previously discovered?
What I don't understand, is why would trading be different for Facebook than every other stock on the exchange? Don't they just add the symbol to the database and then it trades like everything else. The fact the only Facebook was glitched seems to imply either a very sloppy system for initializing the software with a new symbol or there was some sort of malfeasance being employed with just this stock.
The above is close to what I wanted to say. If one decides to take the approach that new software creates a new machine, then how do you determine if two software machines are the same or are different when the machines accomplish similar goals. If you take something real simple like "1-click" then you have something like the following:
A form to gather billing information for an individual.
A button which executes an order utilizing billing information obtained prior.
So does any software doing these two things violate the patent, or can it be worked around by say storing the data with a different method or writing the software in a different language or re-arranging the order of items on the form. There are a million ways to create source code with the same basic result. Additionally if software is considered as broken down into pieces with those pieces being broken down into smaller pieces until eventually arriving at trivial pieces, then there is this hierarchy of pieces where each lower level piece could be implemented in many different ways. In effect, each upper layer is an idea and each lower layer is an implementation of that idea. To me this really blurs the line between idea and implementation. Every so called implementation could be looked at as an idea, with a lower level implementation.
I just can't help but think it isn't right to perpetually sell an operating system, word processor, and email program. Eventually, these are sufficiently complete or good enough. Maybe they can be made slightly better, but who wants to keep paying year after year for so little added value. Additionally when it comes to the user interface of the operating system, I don't think they have done a very good job. Who wants to keep paying for a bad product? Its been 28 years now and you can still barely edit the system path variable, and there is no sudo. I keep hoping Linux will eventually overtake it. However, just the other day, I was running a Qt app with Cleanlooks style on GTK and the tooltips were unreadable due to the color background/foreground contrast. I spent about 1 hour trying to fix it and couldn't. It seems with Linux there is always something weird like this.
I took a flight when I was child 38 years ago, with a hand held video game. The game interfered with cockpit radio and I was told to turn it off.
Today, my wireless router generates noises in my PC speakers.
I would not be so sure that interference is not a problem.
I don't see the problem with deflation. It allows one to save their money and get good future value for their saved money. I think inflation is wrong. Inflation depletes your savings. My father could watch a movie for a dime when he was young. Crazy that it cost 100 times that now. I know some people say that it will prevent people from spending their money, but I don't think this is true. People still need things. I know they say that it encourages investment. But I think it is wrong for the government to essentially force people to invest. There are a lot of crooks in this world just waiting to cheat you out of your investment money. I know they say it allows the government to manage the economy, but I don't think the government should manage the economy. When the government helps one group by say propping up home prices, the government invariable hurts another group (those looking to buy a house). The government gets in trouble by borrowing too much. Leaving the gold standard, just allowed them to borrow more and delay their problems. It would be better if the government didn't borrow any money at all.
I have always heard a scientific theory described as something that has already been well tested. It remains an hypothesis until it is well tested. Wikipedia currently agrees with this, "a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method". And livescience.com states "A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step—known as a theory—in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon."
Javascript is sand-boxed. Great for a browser, but on the desktop, I might need to make a system call. I don't see how this can work at all, unless they fork Javascript.
The thing I don't understand about using Javascript is the lack of interfaces to libraries. Is there even a 'C' foreign function interface? What if I need access to a database or numerical libraries or FFTs or whatever. I think Node.js is starting to change this a little. I think it has sockets and database access. But how is this functionality provided. I think that until Javascript has some solid method to work with external libraries and perhaps a module system, it just doesn't seem like a good choice.
In all my years of schooling, except one college class, I never really knew how the grades on my papers were determined, and I never really received any feedback other than a letter grade. I knew the teachers wanted correct spelling and grammar but that was about it. In college, I finally had a teacher point out that I had a tendency to jump around from past to present tense. She explained that usually one wants to keep the same tense. I had never noticed I did this. She also happened to mention that George Orwell's writing style was considered good, because he made his point with a minimum of superfluous words. She mentioned many students are so used to trying to pad essays with words to reach the word limit that everybody starts using lots of unnecessary text to make their point. I also had a teacher who occasionally read a student essay he liked. I noticed these usually used lots of big words. Whether that actually had anything to do with the grade I have no idea. I also once had an architectural drawing class. The teacher like to give penmanship assignments. For the half the class I never got a good grade on the penmanship assignments and I never knew why. I worked at them meticulously for hours. I had pen been using a regular #2 pencil. Then one day I used a.5mm mechanical pencil and I received a perfect score. Would it have killed the teacher to tell me to buy the right pencil. I much preferred math to english in school. When you had the right answer, you pretty much always knew you had the right answer.
"Oil isn't going away any time soon". You know I really hope you're right. However, according to wikipedia, the 17 largest reserves total 1.3 trillion barrels. If I divide that by world usage of 88 million barrels per day, I get 40 years. Plus population growth is still happening and the third world is becoming more advanced. Of course eventually this oil will become harder to get, driving up its price and possibly slowing consumption. I believe expensive oil is going to severly impact this world. So while there still might be oil, will it be cheap enough and plentiful enough to prevent the complete collapse of society within the next 100 years. I would really like it if somebody could point me to a decent resource that will alleviate my fears. Sure we might find more oil. Everytime I hear about a big new discovery though, I just divide it by 88 million barrels a day, and I quickly realize that it is a truly insignificant discovery. Sometimes I hear the Canada tar sands will save us, but those reserves are in the above wikipedia figure. Some of the reserve life figures on wikipedia have a longer life time, but that is because the production is low relative to the 88 million barrels per day. In the next 70 years we could have twice as many people on this planet. How much oil will we need then?
I have a Samsung TV with an internet browser. Unfortunately, the TV does not have a useable means of entering any input. The process is so painful it literally took me 20 minutes to enter a URL. I do mean entering it, not trying to learn how to enter it. I completely understood the input process before beginning. I have done it only 1 time, simply to see if it actually brought up the webpage I wanted. I am pretty shocked just how poorly this was thought out. The picture quality though is fantastic.
Slashdot Mirror
One interesting thing here is that in LISP you are always taking the first and rest of a list and then recursing on the rest. This is not efficient with the Python list(dynamic array). You would need to use deque maybe or roll your own linked list. The linked list would not be efficient to pass to functions expecting a regular list.
The Python functions map, filter and reduce provided me a gentle introduction to the ideas of functional programming. I find the arguments for functional programming very compelling. I frequently use Python in a functional style. However, the reality is, Python is not really the best vehicle for this style of programming, and it appears that Python is going to remain at heart an imperative language. I really like the Python standard library though and this is one of the main things keeping me from switching to a functional language. What are your thoughts on porting a functional language to the Python virtual machine? Is there too much of an impedance mismatch to interface with the libraries. Historically the libraries often took lists(dynamic arrays), whereas functional programming usually works with linked lists. On the other hand Python is moving towards iterators for everything which would seem to solve this mismatch.
I have often wondered if it is possible to create a program that would automatically generate bindings to C/C++ libraries. The binding issue is a huge problem for all languages. It seems doable to me, but I fear I am missing something because it has not been done. There is SWIG, but it needs an IDL like description file. I frequently read comments like, oh it it so easy to call a 'C' function. However, when you look at something like the Windows API with over a million functions and a massive number of struct types, and millions of constants, writing an IDL file becomes prohibitive. I know of no language with a very thorough binding to the Windows API. As of right now PySide needs a binding to Qt5. The first problem is just getting any kind of binding, but one would prefer a Pythonic binding. For example in 'C' an array is often followed by a size parameter. A good binding would understand how to take a list and make the underlying call with the array and the size parameter. So this involves an IDL file again. However, I envision a tool that could highlight possible ambiguities like this and provide some sort of web interface to crowd source the answers to the ambiguities. I guess my question is, is this possible? or what makes this so hard that it has not been done? I can see C++ definitely being harder, but dealing with a 'C' header file doesn't seem so complicated.
I recently have used PySide with Qt 4.8 and find this to work very well. The only caveat is that Qt 5.0 is moving in a different direction trying to support more of a web based html .css approach and leaving the old widgets in support mode. The biggest problem here though is that PySide had not been updated for Qt 5. It looks like Digia only has the resources to pursue C++ development. Also disappointing is that Qt 5.0 did not have any widgets with the new model. Honestly, I don't know what they were thinking. I am not sure a full blown widget library is needed and would be a lot of work, but I think if the important lower level layers (primitive drawing, font drawing, font metrics, mouse, keyboard, and touch input) were added it would be a good thing. Perhaps even a next higher layer that provided for basic nested window support, tabbing, focus, selection, layout managers, and .css style themeing and an event pump. At this point I am sure the community would start adding widgets.
I wish the administration would focus on the cost breakdown of medical procedures. I have read articles that basically seem to show hospital costs are pulled out of thin air and that the costs have no basis in care provided, or in any kind of reality. I mean $400 for an aspirin type stuff. Why does 1 night in a hospital cost $10,000? Hospitals are supposed to be non-profit after all. Why is a short ambulance ride $1000? It seems completely nonsensical to me. Until this is well understood, there is no hope. I basically assume the reason for these costs are either 1) They make up for people getting treated for free or 2) fraud. If the case is 1), I want to see this makeup cost as an explicit line item. It is also odd that surgeons get a small part of the total bill, and that hospitals are broke. Where does the money really go?
Almost 1% the speed of light
Until Javascript has a standard foreign function interface, and people being writing bindings to C/C++ libraries, and there exists some sort of packaging system to install these bindings and libraries, Javascript will be severely lacking capabilities present in several other languages.
Lets just assume 100 shares and say player1 is asking $10.04 and player2 is bidding $10.00, and there are no other players. For starters, I don't really understand how a transaction happens at all here. It would seem that one of these two would need to modify their bid or ask. So now lets say you are a new player3 and are employing high frequency trading. The most obvious thing that comes to my mind is that you could get in the middle of this and buy at $10.04 from player1 and then sell at $10.00 to player2 and lose $0.04 cents. Clearly this is no good. Alternatively player3 could place a bid at $10.02 and hope that player1 will lower his ask. If this transactions occurs then player3 can start asking at $10.03 and hope that player2 will now up his bid. If this goes as planned player3 makes $0.01. There would be a window of risk here for player3. The stock has been bought at $10.02 and the only buyer is bidding $10.00 and the ask has just come down from $10.04 to $10.03. There is no guarantee there will ever be a buyer at greater than $10.02. If this what actually goes on, then player3 is sort of facilitating a transaction. The spread was originally too wide for either player1 or player2 to move. player3 has essentially lowered the spread and enticed both player1 and player2 to make a transaction. The above is really sort of a big question. I have no idea what HFT is really doing.
I remember years ago, under the Bush administration that the Telcoms were caught recording this information. It was a big deal in the news for about 2 days and then gone. Absolutely no one was held accountable. No one promised to stop recording this information. Sometime later Congress passed a bill giving the Telcoms immunity for collecting this information. No one would reasonable assume that the activity was stopped because this information came out. The only real surprise to me is that they are not recording the contents of the calls. I seem to recall that the Telcoms recorded this at the behest of the NSA, but I can recall reading similar stories that the FBI are also collecting similar information. I also remember how Quest was the only Telcom that did not comply and that the CEO is now in jail for insider trading. I don't think his jail time is simply a coincidence. I also remember some group that tried to sue the government over this data collection, but were ultimately denied because the government did not waive their right to be sued on this matter. Sorry, I don't remember any of the details of the above. The government has simply decided that this information is not private, because it flows through servers owned by other people. I don't agree with this argument, but it has been upheld by the courts. Is the only bit of new information here the fact that this activity was not stopped when previously discovered?
What I don't understand, is why would trading be different for Facebook than every other stock on the exchange? Don't they just add the symbol to the database and then it trades like everything else. The fact the only Facebook was glitched seems to imply either a very sloppy system for initializing the software with a new symbol or there was some sort of malfeasance being employed with just this stock.
There is also AngularJS. The third thing to solve the same problem.
The above is close to what I wanted to say. If one decides to take the approach that new software creates a new machine, then how do you determine if two software machines are the same or are different when the machines accomplish similar goals. If you take something real simple like "1-click" then you have something like the following: A form to gather billing information for an individual. A button which executes an order utilizing billing information obtained prior. So does any software doing these two things violate the patent, or can it be worked around by say storing the data with a different method or writing the software in a different language or re-arranging the order of items on the form. There are a million ways to create source code with the same basic result. Additionally if software is considered as broken down into pieces with those pieces being broken down into smaller pieces until eventually arriving at trivial pieces, then there is this hierarchy of pieces where each lower level piece could be implemented in many different ways. In effect, each upper layer is an idea and each lower layer is an implementation of that idea. To me this really blurs the line between idea and implementation. Every so called implementation could be looked at as an idea, with a lower level implementation.
I just can't help but think it isn't right to perpetually sell an operating system, word processor, and email program. Eventually, these are sufficiently complete or good enough. Maybe they can be made slightly better, but who wants to keep paying year after year for so little added value. Additionally when it comes to the user interface of the operating system, I don't think they have done a very good job. Who wants to keep paying for a bad product? Its been 28 years now and you can still barely edit the system path variable, and there is no sudo. I keep hoping Linux will eventually overtake it. However, just the other day, I was running a Qt app with Cleanlooks style on GTK and the tooltips were unreadable due to the color background/foreground contrast. I spent about 1 hour trying to fix it and couldn't. It seems with Linux there is always something weird like this.
I took a flight when I was child 38 years ago, with a hand held video game. The game interfered with cockpit radio and I was told to turn it off. Today, my wireless router generates noises in my PC speakers. I would not be so sure that interference is not a problem.
I don't see the problem with deflation. It allows one to save their money and get good future value for their saved money. I think inflation is wrong. Inflation depletes your savings. My father could watch a movie for a dime when he was young. Crazy that it cost 100 times that now. I know some people say that it will prevent people from spending their money, but I don't think this is true. People still need things. I know they say that it encourages investment. But I think it is wrong for the government to essentially force people to invest. There are a lot of crooks in this world just waiting to cheat you out of your investment money. I know they say it allows the government to manage the economy, but I don't think the government should manage the economy. When the government helps one group by say propping up home prices, the government invariable hurts another group (those looking to buy a house). The government gets in trouble by borrowing too much. Leaving the gold standard, just allowed them to borrow more and delay their problems. It would be better if the government didn't borrow any money at all.
I have always heard a scientific theory described as something that has already been well tested. It remains an hypothesis until it is well tested. Wikipedia currently agrees with this, "a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method". And livescience.com states "A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step—known as a theory—in the scientific method and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon."
Javascript is sand-boxed. Great for a browser, but on the desktop, I might need to make a system call. I don't see how this can work at all, unless they fork Javascript.
The thing I don't understand about using Javascript is the lack of interfaces to libraries. Is there even a 'C' foreign function interface? What if I need access to a database or numerical libraries or FFTs or whatever. I think Node.js is starting to change this a little. I think it has sockets and database access. But how is this functionality provided. I think that until Javascript has some solid method to work with external libraries and perhaps a module system, it just doesn't seem like a good choice.
Its not admissible if the private citizen was working on behalf of the government. Good luck proving that defense though.
Only if it takes into account vehicle weight, where large trucks should pay the bulk of the cost.
What is with the bright center spot? Is that just millions of stars packed way more densely than on the spiral arms?
you can only copyright something if it has no practical application
So why the exception for code libraries? or applications?
In all my years of schooling, except one college class, I never really knew how the grades on my papers were determined, and I never really received any feedback other than a letter grade. I knew the teachers wanted correct spelling and grammar but that was about it. In college, I finally had a teacher point out that I had a tendency to jump around from past to present tense. She explained that usually one wants to keep the same tense. I had never noticed I did this. She also happened to mention that George Orwell's writing style was considered good, because he made his point with a minimum of superfluous words. She mentioned many students are so used to trying to pad essays with words to reach the word limit that everybody starts using lots of unnecessary text to make their point. I also had a teacher who occasionally read a student essay he liked. I noticed these usually used lots of big words. Whether that actually had anything to do with the grade I have no idea. I also once had an architectural drawing class. The teacher like to give penmanship assignments. For the half the class I never got a good grade on the penmanship assignments and I never knew why. I worked at them meticulously for hours. I had pen been using a regular #2 pencil. Then one day I used a .5mm mechanical pencil and I received a perfect score. Would it have killed the teacher to tell me to buy the right pencil. I much preferred math to english in school. When you had the right answer, you pretty much always knew you had the right answer.
"Oil isn't going away any time soon". You know I really hope you're right. However, according to wikipedia, the 17 largest reserves total 1.3 trillion barrels. If I divide that by world usage of 88 million barrels per day, I get 40 years. Plus population growth is still happening and the third world is becoming more advanced. Of course eventually this oil will become harder to get, driving up its price and possibly slowing consumption. I believe expensive oil is going to severly impact this world. So while there still might be oil, will it be cheap enough and plentiful enough to prevent the complete collapse of society within the next 100 years. I would really like it if somebody could point me to a decent resource that will alleviate my fears. Sure we might find more oil. Everytime I hear about a big new discovery though, I just divide it by 88 million barrels a day, and I quickly realize that it is a truly insignificant discovery. Sometimes I hear the Canada tar sands will save us, but those reserves are in the above wikipedia figure. Some of the reserve life figures on wikipedia have a longer life time, but that is because the production is low relative to the 88 million barrels per day. In the next 70 years we could have twice as many people on this planet. How much oil will we need then?
I have a Samsung TV with an internet browser. Unfortunately, the TV does not have a useable means of entering any input. The process is so painful it literally took me 20 minutes to enter a URL. I do mean entering it, not trying to learn how to enter it. I completely understood the input process before beginning. I have done it only 1 time, simply to see if it actually brought up the webpage I wanted. I am pretty shocked just how poorly this was thought out. The picture quality though is fantastic.