Skepticism is good, but it must also be temporary. We will generally not have all the evidence needed for a complex problem before we must act to try to solve it. Skepticism cannot be an excuse for permanent inaction.
Because, for example, although somebody like Karzai can't be too surprised that the US doesn't really like or trust him, knowing exactly how much is extremely important. Enough to topple him? Enough to abandon him? Enough to assassinate him? Do you actually propose telling him if any of the three are true?
Understand this: patriotism in the US now means supporting the government, not the constitution.
Which is why even Republicans, who just won the House of Representatives and can effective block action in the Senate, support the Obama government in most of its policies.
I fear you fail to understand the reason behind the "demotion." What we call it has never made any real difference in what Pluto does or does not do. The only use of these names is to help us understand them better. As such, the terrestrial planets share much in common, the gas giants share much in common, and Pluto shares little with either group. Thus, if you're saying that all Pluto-like objects should be called "planets", it would make some sense except that there are lots of them. If you're saying that Pluto alone should be a planet while similar objects are not, then that's a far less defensible position.
Seriously, you're going to say that there's a simple answer to millions of people with no opportunities in life outside of crime? We've locked up lots of minorities and lots of drug users, how's that working so far?
What I'm trying to point out is that the kind of country we have in the future depends on far more than just your well-educated kids. It requires millions and millions of well-educated kids.
How about we start with not taxing capital gains (which I think we can agree is not the hardest work) at a lower rate than, say, salary for digging a ditch or running into burning buildings?
No, you're coming from a position of moral fairness, which is a fine viewpoint, but not the only valid one. I'm sure you can raise fine children, but did you ever consider that the children you refuse to help educate today can grow up to become criminals who prey on your hardworking and successful children? How do you suppose your children will thrive in a country where most voters are illiterate and bad at math anyway?
Re:"Alice" one of the best learning languages toda
on
Land of Lisp
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· Score: 1
I wouldn't recommend BASIC or LISP for someone wanting to learn modern object-oriented programming today.
I don't completely agree. A true beginner doesn't really need to understand how to structure a large program, which is what the modern principles are for. The first goal should be to write "linear" programs of the input-process-output model, learn the basic control structures and operators, and how to debug. From that foundation, you could go one way and learn how things work "under the hood" and try C or even assembly, or the other direction to learn how to build large programs (such as OO, patterns, etc).
Thus, I actually think BASIC (not line-numbered BASIC, the modernized ones) sweeps enough of both under the rug so that the beginner can concentrate on dealing with the code logic itself.
Every iPod came with a Firewire connector until 2005, and every Macintosh produced between 1995 and 2008 included a firewire port.
Which is because we're talking about USB 1.1 in those days, when the 400 Mbps that Firewire provided exceeded both USB and Ethernet. Today, in a world of USB 2.0 and gigabit ethernet, Firewire has mostly outlived its uniqueness.
We do have a choice, and you could decide not to use expensive medical treatments.
That isn't a solution to the problem. That is the very problem we're trying to solve.
Even in the event that everyone has insurance, that money will be used to treat a small percentage of the population. If you think that in your magical solution everyone will be afforded equal or even competent care you are fooling yourself.
Equal treatment is a pipe dream. The rich will always get better medical care, and I'm okay with that. What's at stake is the level of minimal medical care. The level that most of us can individually afford is dismal.
My solution is consistent with my objection. I do not use insurance companies, I do not visit traditional doctors, and I do not go to the hospital for care.
Hardly. If you, hypothetically speaking, have an accident and becomes unconscious, you will hopefully be brought to the hospital where the doctors we pay will treat you. At that point, if you are unable to afford the care provided, we'd be stuck with the bill.
Now, if it's just you, we can absorb it easily. The problem is that millions of people have to do this, and when they fall sick they're not going to be so principled as you to choose death.
My statement that "if no one had health insurance the medical industry would find a way" comes from experience and seeing health care adapt and find a way. Of course this excludes MRIs and TomoTherapy and numerous other treatments that are highly specialized.
You cannot just avoid the hard part of the problem. The objective is to provide even specialized treatments to people who cannot afford them. Otherwise, of course health care can be made cheaper.
Let me put this more directly: the solution consistent with your objection requires not using expensive medical equipment. How is that a solution worth discussing?
Your choosing to support it even though you want something else will never lead to change.
I don't see how supporting partial solutions preclude me from advocating its improvement.
If you feel like I was belittling you, then I apologize sincerely. Your post gave me the impression that you are ignorant of the issues involved, expressed as "if no one had health insurance, the medical industry would have to find a way to provide care for reasonable prices" and then later admitting that you don't actually see how this would plausibly happen. My intention was to explain to you how this compromise came about, not to belittle you.
The fact that you accept that a single payer option is better, but are accepting a far worse alternative makes you a tool. There are few options you have, but simply accepting what you are fed is the one that ensures you will never get what you want.
I live in a democracy; I already accept that I will generally not get exactly what I want. Now, if standing my ground on the theoretically-better option has any plausible path to success then I would, but that takes 60 willing votes in the Senate, which is unlikely to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, millions cannot afford health care, so excuse me while I take what I can get.
You say that you don't think government should mandate payments to private health insurance. I respect that entirely. But what's the solution otherwise? The reason I say you're just reciting mantra is because you have proposed no solution that is consistent with your objection.
What are the things that have made people go 'wow' over the past 30 years? iPhones, TiVos, Digital Cameras, Plasma TVs, Priuses, Netbooks, CD Players, webcams... They've all been hardware.
Huh? In no particular order, what about Doom? PageMaker? Windows 95 (people lined up in the middle of the night for this)? MacOS X? Flight Simulator? Final Cut Pro? Keynote? Hell, Linux?
Well, if you bothered to follow the progress of health care reform, you'd know that what Obama actually wanted was a public option. You'd pay the government for medical insurance, which doesn't have the "giving money to private companies" problem you speak of. The problem is that the right side of the Democratic Party would not support this, much less the Republicans. There's a reason why this law took a year to calibrate.
Either way (public or private), if you required insurers not to deny coverage to anybody, then clever people are going to not join up when they're healthy, and get insurance only when they fall sick. This makes the system even more expensive (and obviously unfair) for other people, which is why everybody is required to join.
Look, the system is either going to be wildly expensive for a small number of unfortunate patients, or is going to be mandatory. I prefer a single-payer public option, but this is the country we have. Now, I respect libertarians who want to take care of themselves, and philosophically I think they should be able to opt out. The costly problem is that we can't easily identify these people, and in emergency situations would have to treat them first, even if they couldn't pay.
Governing is navigation of compromises. It's not sitting in your corner, reciting mantra. When your mantra prevents you from offering a plausible solution at all, you should review it for sanity.
If no one had health insurance, the medical industry would have to find a way to provide care for reasonable prices, rather than just dipping into a vast supply of money (pool of insurance).
You say "would have to find a way" like there's some inevitable and wonderful solution to a problem that every country is facing. Let's take an example, the MRI machine. Let's say it costs $1M to buy, but you'll only need it (but really need it) for ten patients a year. How exactly will you make this "reasonably priced" for these ten patients?
You might say let's not all buy MRI machines, and have MRI centers scattered around. That's a good idea, but there are lots of other equipment that really should be right in the hospital, so that we're not shipping very sick patients all over the State. The point remains: specialized medical equipment are expensive, and are used only on a small fraction of patients. Not having them readily available has a negative impact on the quality of health care.
Insurance offers a way out. By all paying more in premiums than most of us actually use, we avoid paying the real price if we're unlucky enough to need those expensive machines. Now, I also find for-profit health insurance the wrong way to go, but what's your solution?
This isn't Jurassic Park the movie, dude. Life doesn't just find a way.
The tea party is a name for the majority of americans who oppose the wasting of over 3 trillion dollars now by our government.
A government wasting tax money is very different than a man wasting his salary on, say, collectible figures. If the figure has no practical use or resale value, the money effectively vaporized as if he had burned it. Government waste, however, generally cannot just vaporize like that. The money might be given to some corn farmers, some oil companies, or poor people, or old people, or used to pay government employees or contractors. That money, in turn, gets spent in the economy. Even money spent on a bomb dropped in some godforsaken wasteland benefited some defense workers. IOW, the fraction of GDP that gets paid as taxes come right back into the economy, even if some people got paid what they shouldn't have*.
Now, I understand that by "wasted" you probably more accurately mean "misspent", but it's important to understand that the government did not just burn the $3 trillion you're talking about. It doesn't mean we shouldn't fix misspending, but it does mean that you can't just save $3 trillion as if you didn't buy that figurine. If you cut that $3 trillion in spending suddenly and entirely, a lot of people would be laid off and the economy could suffer greatly.
* As determined by our personal sense of whether the money is well spent.
Nonsense, large vendors like Microsoft and Adobe will get a free pass
...and so, for Apple, forfeit their 30% cut of most of the profits* made on Mac application software? What would be the point of this entire exercise then?
You don't seriously believe that all the major game studios are doing the 70/30 thing for their releases on the App Store, do you?
Do you know they're not?
* I'm referring to all the "large vendors", not just Microsoft and Adobe here.
How long until the only way to get software on your Mac desktop is via Apple's store and all Mac developers are required to pay a 30% tribute to Apple?
As soon as Apple can convince Microsoft and Adobe to hand over 30% of their revenue from Office and Photoshop. I like a conspiracy theory as much as anybody... no, wait, I actually don't.
When you're about to install a dumb wallpaper app and your phone says that it wants access to your location, the internet, and your call log, that should be a giant warning sign.
Displays a different set of pictures based on your location and time of year: needs location. Downloads new pictures: needs Internet. Superimpose your friends' faces on funny costumes: needs contacts list and call log.
Most people are not that alert. Ever heard of phishing?
This guy is taking the role of CEO, not chief engineer.
True, but I'm not sure there is such a thing as a functional chief engineer in the consumer space. If they were designing aircraft, I can see the suits deferring to the engineers except for general requirements, budgets, and such. It'll probably be harder to convince any CEO that he doesn't understand cell phones enough to have an opinion...
I can completely understand if you feel that the H1-B policy is not a good one for at least some segments of the US. However, the individuals who found jobs under this policy have done nothing wrong to you personally, or to the US as a nation. They arrived legally, pay taxes (in fact, they even pay social security taxes that they cannot benefit from, because they must leave the country if they lose their jobs) without receiving any representation, and spend a good chunk of their income in the US. At the top end, these are the sharpest minds in the world that we need to attract and keep if we want to remain relevant in R&D.
What you need to realize is that software bugs are frequently not created at one time. Instead, successive changes (sometimes years apart) that are each correct but done without full understanding of the system can conspire to create bugs. For example, the string in question may initially have been generated by a trusted source (another of your servers, for example) and did not need to be escaped or quoted. It may have originally been an internal tool where the users are trusted, and had to be hacked together in two hours. It may have been running on a much slower server, where this performance optimization was necessary, on the guarantee that some other front-end was going to check the input. And then, people quit or are laid off, and FIXMEs get forgotten.
Frankly, you are naive to think only "total and utter imbeciles" can do this.
Slashdot Mirror
Skepticism is good, but it must also be temporary. We will generally not have all the evidence needed for a complex problem before we must act to try to solve it. Skepticism cannot be an excuse for permanent inaction.
Now, consider where those poor criminals would be living if there was no police protection at all. :)
Because, for example, although somebody like Karzai can't be too surprised that the US doesn't really like or trust him, knowing exactly how much is extremely important. Enough to topple him? Enough to abandon him? Enough to assassinate him? Do you actually propose telling him if any of the three are true?
Which is why even Republicans, who just won the House of Representatives and can effective block action in the Senate, support the Obama government in most of its policies.
I fear you fail to understand the reason behind the "demotion." What we call it has never made any real difference in what Pluto does or does not do. The only use of these names is to help us understand them better. As such, the terrestrial planets share much in common, the gas giants share much in common, and Pluto shares little with either group. Thus, if you're saying that all Pluto-like objects should be called "planets", it would make some sense except that there are lots of them. If you're saying that Pluto alone should be a planet while similar objects are not, then that's a far less defensible position.
What I'm trying to point out is that the kind of country we have in the future depends on far more than just your well-educated kids. It requires millions and millions of well-educated kids.
How about we start with not taxing capital gains (which I think we can agree is not the hardest work) at a lower rate than, say, salary for digging a ditch or running into burning buildings?
No, you're coming from a position of moral fairness, which is a fine viewpoint, but not the only valid one. I'm sure you can raise fine children, but did you ever consider that the children you refuse to help educate today can grow up to become criminals who prey on your hardworking and successful children? How do you suppose your children will thrive in a country where most voters are illiterate and bad at math anyway?
I don't completely agree. A true beginner doesn't really need to understand how to structure a large program, which is what the modern principles are for. The first goal should be to write "linear" programs of the input-process-output model, learn the basic control structures and operators, and how to debug. From that foundation, you could go one way and learn how things work "under the hood" and try C or even assembly, or the other direction to learn how to build large programs (such as OO, patterns, etc).
Thus, I actually think BASIC (not line-numbered BASIC, the modernized ones) sweeps enough of both under the rug so that the beginner can concentrate on dealing with the code logic itself.
Which is because we're talking about USB 1.1 in those days, when the 400 Mbps that Firewire provided exceeded both USB and Ethernet. Today, in a world of USB 2.0 and gigabit ethernet, Firewire has mostly outlived its uniqueness.
That isn't a solution to the problem. That is the very problem we're trying to solve.
Equal treatment is a pipe dream. The rich will always get better medical care, and I'm okay with that. What's at stake is the level of minimal medical care. The level that most of us can individually afford is dismal.
It's one thing to fix the problem on one iPhone, quite another to ensure that you can do it cheaply enough, in an assembly line for millions of units.
Hardly. If you, hypothetically speaking, have an accident and becomes unconscious, you will hopefully be brought to the hospital where the doctors we pay will treat you. At that point, if you are unable to afford the care provided, we'd be stuck with the bill.
Now, if it's just you, we can absorb it easily. The problem is that millions of people have to do this, and when they fall sick they're not going to be so principled as you to choose death.
You cannot just avoid the hard part of the problem. The objective is to provide even specialized treatments to people who cannot afford them. Otherwise, of course health care can be made cheaper.
Let me put this more directly: the solution consistent with your objection requires not using expensive medical equipment. How is that a solution worth discussing?
I don't see how supporting partial solutions preclude me from advocating its improvement.
If you feel like I was belittling you, then I apologize sincerely. Your post gave me the impression that you are ignorant of the issues involved, expressed as "if no one had health insurance, the medical industry would have to find a way to provide care for reasonable prices" and then later admitting that you don't actually see how this would plausibly happen. My intention was to explain to you how this compromise came about, not to belittle you.
I live in a democracy; I already accept that I will generally not get exactly what I want. Now, if standing my ground on the theoretically-better option has any plausible path to success then I would, but that takes 60 willing votes in the Senate, which is unlikely to happen any time soon. Meanwhile, millions cannot afford health care, so excuse me while I take what I can get.
You say that you don't think government should mandate payments to private health insurance. I respect that entirely. But what's the solution otherwise? The reason I say you're just reciting mantra is because you have proposed no solution that is consistent with your objection.
Huh? In no particular order, what about Doom? PageMaker? Windows 95 (people lined up in the middle of the night for this)? MacOS X? Flight Simulator? Final Cut Pro? Keynote? Hell, Linux?
Well, if you bothered to follow the progress of health care reform, you'd know that what Obama actually wanted was a public option. You'd pay the government for medical insurance, which doesn't have the "giving money to private companies" problem you speak of. The problem is that the right side of the Democratic Party would not support this, much less the Republicans. There's a reason why this law took a year to calibrate.
Either way (public or private), if you required insurers not to deny coverage to anybody, then clever people are going to not join up when they're healthy, and get insurance only when they fall sick. This makes the system even more expensive (and obviously unfair) for other people, which is why everybody is required to join.
Look, the system is either going to be wildly expensive for a small number of unfortunate patients, or is going to be mandatory. I prefer a single-payer public option, but this is the country we have. Now, I respect libertarians who want to take care of themselves, and philosophically I think they should be able to opt out. The costly problem is that we can't easily identify these people, and in emergency situations would have to treat them first, even if they couldn't pay.
Governing is navigation of compromises. It's not sitting in your corner, reciting mantra. When your mantra prevents you from offering a plausible solution at all, you should review it for sanity.
You say "would have to find a way" like there's some inevitable and wonderful solution to a problem that every country is facing. Let's take an example, the MRI machine. Let's say it costs $1M to buy, but you'll only need it (but really need it) for ten patients a year. How exactly will you make this "reasonably priced" for these ten patients?
You might say let's not all buy MRI machines, and have MRI centers scattered around. That's a good idea, but there are lots of other equipment that really should be right in the hospital, so that we're not shipping very sick patients all over the State. The point remains: specialized medical equipment are expensive, and are used only on a small fraction of patients. Not having them readily available has a negative impact on the quality of health care.
Insurance offers a way out. By all paying more in premiums than most of us actually use, we avoid paying the real price if we're unlucky enough to need those expensive machines. Now, I also find for-profit health insurance the wrong way to go, but what's your solution?
This isn't Jurassic Park the movie, dude. Life doesn't just find a way.
A government wasting tax money is very different than a man wasting his salary on, say, collectible figures. If the figure has no practical use or resale value, the money effectively vaporized as if he had burned it. Government waste, however, generally cannot just vaporize like that. The money might be given to some corn farmers, some oil companies, or poor people, or old people, or used to pay government employees or contractors. That money, in turn, gets spent in the economy. Even money spent on a bomb dropped in some godforsaken wasteland benefited some defense workers. IOW, the fraction of GDP that gets paid as taxes come right back into the economy, even if some people got paid what they shouldn't have*.
Now, I understand that by "wasted" you probably more accurately mean "misspent", but it's important to understand that the government did not just burn the $3 trillion you're talking about. It doesn't mean we shouldn't fix misspending, but it does mean that you can't just save $3 trillion as if you didn't buy that figurine. If you cut that $3 trillion in spending suddenly and entirely, a lot of people would be laid off and the economy could suffer greatly.
* As determined by our personal sense of whether the money is well spent.
...and so, for Apple, forfeit their 30% cut of most of the profits* made on Mac application software? What would be the point of this entire exercise then?
Do you know they're not?
* I'm referring to all the "large vendors", not just Microsoft and Adobe here.
As soon as Apple can convince Microsoft and Adobe to hand over 30% of their revenue from Office and Photoshop. I like a conspiracy theory as much as anybody... no, wait, I actually don't.
Displays a different set of pictures based on your location and time of year: needs location. Downloads new pictures: needs Internet. Superimpose your friends' faces on funny costumes: needs contacts list and call log.
Most people are not that alert. Ever heard of phishing?
True, but I'm not sure there is such a thing as a functional chief engineer in the consumer space. If they were designing aircraft, I can see the suits deferring to the engineers except for general requirements, budgets, and such. It'll probably be harder to convince any CEO that he doesn't understand cell phones enough to have an opinion...
I can completely understand if you feel that the H1-B policy is not a good one for at least some segments of the US. However, the individuals who found jobs under this policy have done nothing wrong to you personally, or to the US as a nation. They arrived legally, pay taxes (in fact, they even pay social security taxes that they cannot benefit from, because they must leave the country if they lose their jobs) without receiving any representation, and spend a good chunk of their income in the US. At the top end, these are the sharpest minds in the world that we need to attract and keep if we want to remain relevant in R&D.
So where do you get the gall to call them names?
The other thing that is interesting is the "a total of $475,000." When was the last time NASA dealt in dollar amounts under a million?
What you need to realize is that software bugs are frequently not created at one time. Instead, successive changes (sometimes years apart) that are each correct but done without full understanding of the system can conspire to create bugs. For example, the string in question may initially have been generated by a trusted source (another of your servers, for example) and did not need to be escaped or quoted. It may have originally been an internal tool where the users are trusted, and had to be hacked together in two hours. It may have been running on a much slower server, where this performance optimization was necessary, on the guarantee that some other front-end was going to check the input. And then, people quit or are laid off, and FIXMEs get forgotten.
Frankly, you are naive to think only "total and utter imbeciles" can do this.