"Structure exists outside the field of mathematics."
You need to broaden your definition of mathematics.
"Better stated, I don't think high level math courses is the only way to teach algorithms."
The traditional way to introduce the subject of algorithms is to start with the analogy of a "recipie", but if you want to program a computer to do something usefull it's gonna take more than milk & honey.
Sure they are promised 72 virgins but how do you expain the women with bombs under their dresses? I think you look into it a bit deeper you will find exploding muslims are generally motivated by revenge rather than virgins.
In 20yrs I have never programmed in VB, yet I often use CamelCase. Most of the time it's best to just stick with whatever style (if any) that is already being used. As a friend of mine used to say: "Source code is like shit, it stinks unless it's your own".
"If a 17-year-old gets punished for having sex with a 15-year-old, it's a gross injustice, but when adults look at images of naked 15-year-olds they're loathsome basement rock spiders that need therapy?"
Read my post again as you seem to have twisted my words into something I didn't say.
Pedophiles have a horrible problem that's a huge burden for society. - fixed.
Touche, didn't know the connection. However it still IMHO clashes with the idea that consiousness is "outside science" unless you mean that it's ulimately unkowable but lets not get into teapots orbiting the sun - suffice to say I think Penrose should have stuck to maths.
I can't be bothered typing out my bookself but I found you don't have to be god to proclaim "I am".
The rock spiders in the basement are the ones who fund the asian child-porn. No matter how much I loath these people I do recognise that most need therapy more than they need prison. That said, "therapy" starts with cutting off their access to the "trade" and simultaneously providing other oportunities for the "workers".
Banning TPB however is not going to work, what "works" is using the evidence to track the producers & regular consumers down. Unfortunately it ain't gonna happen, one of the problems is that some of these people also walk the halls of power, as they found in Denmark in the 90's, no funds - no investigation. It's not just the EU, remeber the guy in congress who liked 14yo boys and "championed" the sex offenders list. If you think about that last one the intent would seem to be to trivialise "sex offender" by lumping porn lovers, streakers, skinny dippers, ect in with rapists, pedophiles and the child slave "trade".
Disclaimer: I also realise what constitutes a child can sometimes lead to gross injustice (surely that poor bastard is more deserving of a comute than Libby?).
Exactly the reason they were entirely ineffectual when Australia banned semi-auto's a couple of decades ago. The NRA sent a "posse" over here after the Port Authur massacare to "lobby" the govt against gun control. The the vast majority of people & politicians recognised the extereme bad taste of US based small arms lobbyists suddenly turning up in the halls of power so soon after an Australian massacare.
The only analogy I can think of is Australian box-cutter lobbyists turning up en-mass shortly after the 9/11 massacare handing out bumper stickers saying - "box-cutters don't kill people, terrorists do".
Sorry to reply twice, I think my first reply was probably a bit caustic. I have been thinking about your post and IMHO your specialist is milking you because you have private cover...and here is why...
Arthritis runs in the ex-wife's family, there are over 100 different "types" of athritis but pretty much all of them are incurable. The type they have starts in the late teens or early twenties, my ex has it and she is now 45. None of them have private cover but they have had arthroscopes, scans and diagnostic tests, anti-inflamatories, ect, they only ever pay the usual $15 for scripts. I cannot recall any of them having a problem waiting ( 6 weeks would be about the max but scans are usually 1-2 weeks, BTW: I'm speaking about the suburbs of Melbourne ).
I can also relate a similar tale for my (grown) daugters disc fusion from the xmas before last. She had been suffering from siatica due to a leaky disc in her lower back. For 18 months she saw a neorsergeon, had scans, ect. The doctors said she should do some special exercises and change jobs to one that does not require lifting (not an easy thing at 20 and living out of home). Anyway she persited, got a new job, but it didn't get any better and she would spend weeks at a time hobbling around (I have the same ailment but mine is manageable with exercise, ever spend an hour "rolling" off your bed in the morning? - it's fucking agony).
She finally decided the fusion was "worth the risk" (doctors had told her at the start it was an option but she should try and manage it first). I agreed but I told her to get a second opinion and if she could "queue jump" by paying the private gap I would happily fork over a few grand. Her neurosergeon told her "paying extra won't get it done any faster", she had another scan. The time from decision to "dancing" was a total of 6 weeks including the second opionion. She spent the night in a two bed room at Box Hill hospital and was "cured" from the moment she woke up. Again, the only thing she paid for were the $15 a pop scripts.
After having said that I do understand it can cost a few grand to go private. My current partner has private cover and payed (IIRC) ~$2k out of pocket for a recent operation. Her main concern is not waiting lists, she just wants a private room and is willing to pay to make sure she gets one.
Anyway I hope your fusion goes well, any serious operation on your feet is a bitch to recover from.
"and the gas station will get an ~2.4% rebate for gas delivered at 100F, but still sell it at full price to the customers! That's what's wrong."
Not if the retailer sells it at 60F, that's the whole point of the wholesalers paying the rebate. The argument would seem to be about the tempateure of the underground storage.
As another post pointed out: Neglecting the vodka content, if the retailer sells it at 67.4F he will skim ~$0.20 profit for every $50.00 of gas sold. - I'm pretty sure you would loose more than that in vapour expelled from the tank when filling up on a hot day.
Off course the reasonable answer is that everyone in the chain either does or doesn't get the adjustment, OTOH: "reasonable" and "oil company" are rarely mentioned in the same breath.
Perhaps your jihad on condoms has lead to syphilis infecting your brain or maybe I'm just missing the connection between code exploits and speed limits?
That is crap and you either you know it or someone is taking you for a ride. The only reason you are paying out of your pocket is because a "specialist" has told you that you need "stuff" and has offered you the oportunity to "jump the queue" by paying extra. Even if you consider the stuff "essential" to your well being, having two "incurable ailments" still has not sent you bankrupt.
Disclaimer: I acknowledge the system is far from perfect but would you swap it for US style health care and it's associated costs?
"A right. The free trade of services for money is "ripping me off"."
When the "customer" is under duress then it is not really "free trade" is it?
"Perhaps we simply value the provision of healthcare differently."
I know of two ways to "value health care", dollars and outcomes. For the last few decades the Australian health system has consistently "pissed on" the "free trade of services" by both measures. But hey, it's your money not mine!
"the guy just barely making by and not below the poverty line get's screwed hard as now he has to come up with $100-$300 a month to buy the mandatory health insurance."
That's not how it is here. But, yeah...thin edge and all that.
"It's a "law" designed to screw people into buying an overpaid and under delivering service."
"Corporate welfare" sums it up nicely.
"They want it fair, then they can raise the taxes in that state and give the insurance FREE to everyone. make the "healthcare tax" a percentage of gross income and call it done."
For at least 20yrs polls in Australia consitently show 80+% of taxpayers know from experience that "world class" health care for everyone costs no more than a 1.5% flat levy on taxable income. The feds collect it and the states are "encouraged" to co-operate when spending it.
"That will never happen as the jerks that passed this law are the same rich jerks that evade 90% of their taxes and are against a flat tax of any kind."
It happened here in Australia, and from what I can tell it's pretty rare for any country to "regress" once the change in the publics "mindset" has taken place.
Chairman Mao headed a "government" who's policies lead to the needless starvation of millions. In a less dramatic fashion your own illogical* ideology is being pandered to, ironically in order to "rip you off".
From what I have experienced in Australia I predict the US will adopt UHC and the insurance and pharamcutical companies will go down kicking and screaming, it's also a certainty they already have many lobby groups disguised as "proffesional bodies". If the US were to adopt a similar system to the Aussie one, it would still take a good 10-20yrs to weed out the drain on YOUR lifestyle, mine was long ago taken care of by bi-partisan common sense thankyou very much.
"People who can afford it don't want to go on waiting lists if they are in a life threatening situation."
If you are in Australia and also in a "life threatening" medical situation you are taken the BEST CARE POSSIBLE, even if this means putting the patient in a fucking helicopter to get to a surgeon who can (say) unblock the vien in the patients temple. Note also that the "best care possible" is almost certainly going to be a public hospital and treatment will be "free". The helicopter and the cable-TV above the hospital bed are not "free" but everything else is, including drugs and outpatient care. BTW: Ambulance cover for said helicopter is dirt cheap due to the regulatory absence of middle-men.
"Which is why private insurers still do good business in a market where free health care exists."
The reason "insurers still do good business" in Australia is beacuse the taxman gives those who have it a $500 rebate and "high income earners" who don't have it are "fined" an extra $500 on top of the flat 1.5% levy on taxable income - I pay the $500 corporate walfare contribution and I am still getting a much better deal financially than any US citizen. I say "corporate welfare" because the levy was introduced obstensibly to save what was left of the rapidly shrinking private industry from "totally collapsing".
IMHO: The primary reason why we have such "world class" care at bargain basement prices is that UHC is no longer a partisan issue in this country and it has been that way for at least the last 10yrs. As often displayed by the US military, a bipartisan attitude puts "mission before cost" particularly in a "life threatening situation".
All the predictions of long waiting lists, financial ruin, communist plots, medical brain-drains, ect that we are seeing in the current US debate were also made in Australia during the 70's. In Australia the dire prdictions failed to materialize, what happened instead was the miles of red tape and army of middle men all but evaporated and our national health outcomes have for decades consitently hovered around the top of any serious study you care to mention.
I'm not saying we don't have our own inefficientcies and injustice, I'm just thankfull "bankruptcy to pay for health care" is not one of them.
Unobtainium is worthless. Next up, a rant....(not aimed at "you" personally).
The Australian system is similar to the UK's NHS, so much so that we look after each others tourists for "free". I was an asthmatic teenager when the "establishment" told us universal health care was a communist plot that was crippling the UK and would bankrupt the country. 30+yrs later and we are far from bankrupt, we have "world class" prevention, care, teaching and research. I belive "the system" saved my son's life and it definitely kept me out of bankruptcy.
As for footing the bill for "non-taxpayers" (depending on political expediency the Australian term for non-taxpayers is either "bludgers" or "battlers").
I spent all of my 20's at the "trailer trash" end of the socio-economic scale. Happily, I am now in the "high income" bracket where I am supposed to "top up" with private cover for stuff such as dentistry and silcone tits - personally I prefer the extra $500 "fine" at tax time and pay for my own dentistry...anyway...When you do the math it turns out I am paying to cover 5-6 non-taxpayers, yet I have only two (grown) kids and I'm no longer married (to the lazy bitch...sorry...that just slipped out, see the "political expediency" comment earlier).
The reason I am not only glad but proud to pay the levy is that I hope the system works for those 5-6 people as well as it did for me in the past. The reason I don't buy "mandatory top up" insurance is because it is medicinal "fluff" that I can afford. Most of all I don't want a return to the partisan politics where one side refuses to acknowledge the inherent "social evil" in a system that can routinely take eveything the patient's family has, and then promptly hang the patient with red tape.
How do my costs compare to the cost of similar cover in the US?
From comparing notes with one or two US slashdotters in the past I belive my 1.5% levy on taxable income is considerably less than HALF of what similar cover (and care) would cost in the US, the exact ratio varies from state to state. Not very scientific I know, but I also know that the death rate from asthma in the US has now overtaken that of Australia, this is despite Australia having one of the highest incidence rates in the world. Make what you will of the facts and figures and competing "-isims", I know first hand it's not me and my five "battlers" who are getting "ripped off".
Wilson investigated Iraq and Africa whilst serving under Bush senior. He was officially "retired" when he was recalled to investigate the yellow cake lies. He may have been "disloyal to his boss" but as a public servant it was his duty to serve his country not it's would be king.
Disclaimer: I am not an American and have never set foot in the US, however there is nothing wrong with my bullshit detector.
Slashdot Mirror
"Israeli internal-security experts who studied the background of her case say..."
As someone with more wisdom than me once said: "Truth is the first casualty of war".
"Structure exists outside the field of mathematics."
You need to broaden your definition of mathematics.
"Better stated, I don't think high level math courses is the only way to teach algorithms."
The traditional way to introduce the subject of algorithms is to start with the analogy of a "recipie", but if you want to program a computer to do something usefull it's gonna take more than milk & honey.
Sure they are promised 72 virgins but how do you expain the women with bombs under their dresses? I think you look into it a bit deeper you will find exploding muslims are generally motivated by revenge rather than virgins.
In 20yrs I have never programmed in VB, yet I often use CamelCase. Most of the time it's best to just stick with whatever style (if any) that is already being used. As a friend of mine used to say: "Source code is like shit, it stinks unless it's your own".
;)
BTW: I think you mean Mongolian notation.
Check again, I didn't say TPB is funding anybody. In fact I think closing TPB has nothing to do with CP but that's another post.
"If a 17-year-old gets punished for having sex with a 15-year-old, it's a gross injustice, but when adults look at images of naked 15-year-olds they're loathsome basement rock spiders that need therapy?"
Read my post again as you seem to have twisted my words into something I didn't say.
Pedophiles have a horrible problem that's a huge burden for society. - fixed.
Touche, didn't know the connection. However it still IMHO clashes with the idea that consiousness is "outside science" unless you mean that it's ulimately unkowable but lets not get into teapots orbiting the sun - suffice to say I think Penrose should have stuck to maths.
;)
I can't be bothered typing out my bookself but I found you don't have to be god to proclaim "I am".
BTW: I liked your old sig better.
The rock spiders in the basement are the ones who fund the asian child-porn. No matter how much I loath these people I do recognise that most need therapy more than they need prison. That said, "therapy" starts with cutting off their access to the "trade" and simultaneously providing other oportunities for the "workers".
Banning TPB however is not going to work, what "works" is using the evidence to track the producers & regular consumers down. Unfortunately it ain't gonna happen, one of the problems is that some of these people also walk the halls of power, as they found in Denmark in the 90's, no funds - no investigation. It's not just the EU, remeber the guy in congress who liked 14yo boys and "championed" the sex offenders list. If you think about that last one the intent would seem to be to trivialise "sex offender" by lumping porn lovers, streakers, skinny dippers, ect in with rapists, pedophiles and the child slave "trade".
Disclaimer: I also realise what constitutes a child can sometimes lead to gross injustice (surely that poor bastard is more deserving of a comute than Libby?).
You post kinda clashes with your sig, here is a book that may line them up a bit better.
Exactly the reason they were entirely ineffectual when Australia banned semi-auto's a couple of decades ago. The NRA sent a "posse" over here after the Port Authur massacare to "lobby" the govt against gun control. The the vast majority of people & politicians recognised the extereme bad taste of US based small arms lobbyists suddenly turning up in the halls of power so soon after an Australian massacare.
The only analogy I can think of is Australian box-cutter lobbyists turning up en-mass shortly after the 9/11 massacare handing out bumper stickers saying - "box-cutters don't kill people, terrorists do".
"I spend so much time dealing with combative partisans on the internet that it looks like I made myself into one. How embarrassing..."
That is the most insightfull comment I can find in this thread.
Sorry to reply twice, I think my first reply was probably a bit caustic. I have been thinking about your post and IMHO your specialist is milking you because you have private cover...and here is why...
Arthritis runs in the ex-wife's family, there are over 100 different "types" of athritis but pretty much all of them are incurable. The type they have starts in the late teens or early twenties, my ex has it and she is now 45. None of them have private cover but they have had arthroscopes, scans and diagnostic tests, anti-inflamatories, ect, they only ever pay the usual $15 for scripts. I cannot recall any of them having a problem waiting ( 6 weeks would be about the max but scans are usually 1-2 weeks, BTW: I'm speaking about the suburbs of Melbourne ).
I can also relate a similar tale for my (grown) daugters disc fusion from the xmas before last. She had been suffering from siatica due to a leaky disc in her lower back. For 18 months she saw a neorsergeon, had scans, ect. The doctors said she should do some special exercises and change jobs to one that does not require lifting (not an easy thing at 20 and living out of home). Anyway she persited, got a new job, but it didn't get any better and she would spend weeks at a time hobbling around (I have the same ailment but mine is manageable with exercise, ever spend an hour "rolling" off your bed in the morning? - it's fucking agony).
She finally decided the fusion was "worth the risk" (doctors had told her at the start it was an option but she should try and manage it first). I agreed but I told her to get a second opinion and if she could "queue jump" by paying the private gap I would happily fork over a few grand. Her neurosergeon told her "paying extra won't get it done any faster", she had another scan. The time from decision to "dancing" was a total of 6 weeks including the second opionion. She spent the night in a two bed room at Box Hill hospital and was "cured" from the moment she woke up. Again, the only thing she paid for were the $15 a pop scripts.
After having said that I do understand it can cost a few grand to go private. My current partner has private cover and payed (IIRC) ~$2k out of pocket for a recent operation. Her main concern is not waiting lists, she just wants a private room and is willing to pay to make sure she gets one.
Anyway I hope your fusion goes well, any serious operation on your feet is a bitch to recover from.
"and the gas station will get an ~2.4% rebate for gas delivered at 100F, but still sell it at full price to the customers! That's what's wrong."
Not if the retailer sells it at 60F, that's the whole point of the wholesalers paying the rebate. The argument would seem to be about the tempateure of the underground storage.
As another post pointed out: Neglecting the vodka content, if the retailer sells it at 67.4F he will skim ~$0.20 profit for every $50.00 of gas sold. - I'm pretty sure you would loose more than that in vapour expelled from the tank when filling up on a hot day.
Off course the reasonable answer is that everyone in the chain either does or doesn't get the adjustment, OTOH: "reasonable" and "oil company" are rarely mentioned in the same breath.
Perhaps your jihad on condoms has lead to syphilis infecting your brain or maybe I'm just missing the connection between code exploits and speed limits?
"You're only talking about emergency care."
That is crap and you either you know it or someone is taking you for a ride. The only reason you are paying out of your pocket is because a "specialist" has told you that you need "stuff" and has offered you the oportunity to "jump the queue" by paying extra. Even if you consider the stuff "essential" to your well being, having two "incurable ailments" still has not sent you bankrupt.
Disclaimer: I acknowledge the system is far from perfect but would you swap it for US style health care and it's associated costs?
"A right. The free trade of services for money is "ripping me off"."
When the "customer" is under duress then it is not really "free trade" is it?
"Perhaps we simply value the provision of healthcare differently."
I know of two ways to "value health care", dollars and outcomes. For the last few decades the Australian health system has consistently "pissed on" the "free trade of services" by both measures. But hey, it's your money not mine!
"the guy just barely making by and not below the poverty line get's screwed hard as now he has to come up with $100-$300 a month to buy the mandatory health insurance."
That's not how it is here. But, yeah...thin edge and all that.
"It's a "law" designed to screw people into buying an overpaid and under delivering service."
"Corporate welfare" sums it up nicely.
"They want it fair, then they can raise the taxes in that state and give the insurance FREE to everyone. make the "healthcare tax" a percentage of gross income and call it done."
For at least 20yrs polls in Australia consitently show 80+% of taxpayers know from experience that "world class" health care for everyone costs no more than a 1.5% flat levy on taxable income. The feds collect it and the states are "encouraged" to co-operate when spending it.
"That will never happen as the jerks that passed this law are the same rich jerks that evade 90% of their taxes and are against a flat tax of any kind."
It happened here in Australia, and from what I can tell it's pretty rare for any country to "regress" once the change in the publics "mindset" has taken place.
What about food?
Chairman Mao headed a "government" who's policies lead to the needless starvation of millions. In a less dramatic fashion your own illogical* ideology is being pandered to, ironically in order to "rip you off".
From what I have experienced in Australia I predict the US will adopt UHC and the insurance and pharamcutical companies will go down kicking and screaming, it's also a certainty they already have many lobby groups disguised as "proffesional bodies". If the US were to adopt a similar system to the Aussie one, it would still take a good 10-20yrs to weed out the drain on YOUR lifestyle, mine was long ago taken care of by bi-partisan common sense thankyou very much.
* - See my other posts in this thread.
Thankyou (I think). As for my political mindset - refer to my sig.
"People who can afford it don't want to go on waiting lists if they are in a life threatening situation."
If you are in Australia and also in a "life threatening" medical situation you are taken the BEST CARE POSSIBLE, even if this means putting the patient in a fucking helicopter to get to a surgeon who can (say) unblock the vien in the patients temple. Note also that the "best care possible" is almost certainly going to be a public hospital and treatment will be "free". The helicopter and the cable-TV above the hospital bed are not "free" but everything else is, including drugs and outpatient care. BTW: Ambulance cover for said helicopter is dirt cheap due to the regulatory absence of middle-men.
"Which is why private insurers still do good business in a market where free health care exists."
The reason "insurers still do good business" in Australia is beacuse the taxman gives those who have it a $500 rebate and "high income earners" who don't have it are "fined" an extra $500 on top of the flat 1.5% levy on taxable income - I pay the $500 corporate walfare contribution and I am still getting a much better deal financially than any US citizen. I say "corporate welfare" because the levy was introduced obstensibly to save what was left of the rapidly shrinking private industry from "totally collapsing".
IMHO: The primary reason why we have such "world class" care at bargain basement prices is that UHC is no longer a partisan issue in this country and it has been that way for at least the last 10yrs. As often displayed by the US military, a bipartisan attitude puts "mission before cost" particularly in a "life threatening situation".
All the predictions of long waiting lists, financial ruin, communist plots, medical brain-drains, ect that we are seeing in the current US debate were also made in Australia during the 70's. In Australia the dire prdictions failed to materialize, what happened instead was the miles of red tape and army of middle men all but evaporated and our national health outcomes have for decades consitently hovered around the top of any serious study you care to mention.
I'm not saying we don't have our own inefficientcies and injustice, I'm just thankfull "bankruptcy to pay for health care" is not one of them.
"And yet everything has a value."
Unobtainium is worthless. Next up, a rant....(not aimed at "you" personally).
The Australian system is similar to the UK's NHS, so much so that we look after each others tourists for "free". I was an asthmatic teenager when the "establishment" told us universal health care was a communist plot that was crippling the UK and would bankrupt the country. 30+yrs later and we are far from bankrupt, we have "world class" prevention, care, teaching and research. I belive "the system" saved my son's life and it definitely kept me out of bankruptcy.
As for footing the bill for "non-taxpayers" (depending on political expediency the Australian term for non-taxpayers is either "bludgers" or "battlers").
I spent all of my 20's at the "trailer trash" end of the socio-economic scale. Happily, I am now in the "high income" bracket where I am supposed to "top up" with private cover for stuff such as dentistry and silcone tits - personally I prefer the extra $500 "fine" at tax time and pay for my own dentistry...anyway...When you do the math it turns out I am paying to cover 5-6 non-taxpayers, yet I have only two (grown) kids and I'm no longer married (to the lazy bitch...sorry...that just slipped out, see the "political expediency" comment earlier).
The reason I am not only glad but proud to pay the levy is that I hope the system works for those 5-6 people as well as it did for me in the past. The reason I don't buy "mandatory top up" insurance is because it is medicinal "fluff" that I can afford. Most of all I don't want a return to the partisan politics where one side refuses to acknowledge the inherent "social evil" in a system that can routinely take eveything the patient's family has, and then promptly hang the patient with red tape.
How do my costs compare to the cost of similar cover in the US?
From comparing notes with one or two US slashdotters in the past I belive my 1.5% levy on taxable income is considerably less than HALF of what similar cover (and care) would cost in the US, the exact ratio varies from state to state. Not very scientific I know, but I also know that the death rate from asthma in the US has now overtaken that of Australia, this is despite Australia having one of the highest incidence rates in the world. Make what you will of the facts and figures and competing "-isims", I know first hand it's not me and my five "battlers" who are getting "ripped off".
Perhaps TFA was redundant but the GP's first post was not.
Fucking obvious maybe, but redundant?
Wilson investigated Iraq and Africa whilst serving under Bush senior. He was officially "retired" when he was recalled to investigate the yellow cake lies. He may have been "disloyal to his boss" but as a public servant it was his duty to serve his country not it's would be king.
Disclaimer: I am not an American and have never set foot in the US, however there is nothing wrong with my bullshit detector.
"22,000 rubber ducks = ~3 million US dollars"
That is so insightfull, I'm still laughing while I type!