It is not being called a "treaty" because then the senate would have to vote on it, giving the American public a small window of opportunity to review it and decide whether or not we want it.
If you're right, I'm really concerned and sadenned. Bush et al weren't proscuted for committing torture, perhaps simply because they refused to accept that choice of terminology. If the other two branches of government let the same, humiliatingly vapid technique keep them slapping down Obama regarind a treaty that he has no right to enact, then I just don't know what to say. I know that people in power (all three branches) get away with ignoring the Consitution, but it's starting to seem like the norm rather than the exception.
I know people often say, "If.... happens, I'm moving to Canada / Australia / Europe." Usually when I say it, I'm just joking. But if the U.S. adopts ACTA and Europe does not, I really might be getting close to the tipping point of seeking a visa for some European country. It just seems like there are more and more straws on the camels back, starting with around W's presidency.
Wow, if you actually *like* the templates in C++, I guess we just need to agree we'll never agree on the issue.
I wouldn't say I love them, but there's a particular problem they solved for us...
In the original version of the application, lots of confusion reigned regarding the units associated with various numbers. I.e., feet, meters, radians, dB, etc. We were looking for a way to drastically reduce the confusion in the code related to that. So we created a C++ class for each kind of number (Length, Angle, Pressure_ratio, etc.)
We wanted various tables, grids, vectors, etc. containing these values to also remain highly typed, so that they too helped avoid units confusion. So we have things like this:
To ask a stupid question, have you ever tried benchmarking your code in another language, or did you just automatically assume "fast = C++" without any research at all? If the latter (which I assume is the case), then I'm going to put you in the "habit" category.
I had a guy on my team who's a genuinely great programmer do some benchmarking (to check what we already suspected), and he confirmed that Java couldn't keep pace for tight, math-intensive code like what we had to write.
We're also constrained, for practical purposes, to languages that are known to many programmers, and that can be compiled for all reasonable desktops and super-computers. Those two constraints limited the list to C/C++ and Java. (If these constraints didn't exist, I probably would have even considered MLTON. But that's just not the situation I had.)
To make a stupid observation, you left out C as a viable choice. It's a lot like C++, but with fewer ways to shoot yourself in the foot. (Also, you used to be able to natively compile Java, I'm not sure if that's still the case.)
To be honest I probably didn't give C enough consideration, because I have much more experience with C++. But it turns out that for the parts of our code that aren't tight computational kernels, C++'s templates, polymorphism, and the STL are serving us quite well. So even if I had given C more consideration, I suspect I would have chosen C++ anyway.
Frankly, in this day and age, I don't see any reason at all to use C++ other than: 1) established, large, codebase; 2) habit. It's long been shown that languages with automatic memory management are easier and quicker to write, and end up with fewer bugs that are more easily fixed. Plus C/C++ have tons of unsafe hard-to-use functions still in the standard library... let's finally put an end to buffer overflow bugs, please!
Not to start a religious war, but I write physics modeling code that has to run as fast as possible. My only obvious, viable choices were C++ and Fortran. And there was no way in hell I'm going to start a new project in Fortran.
Maybe the biggest lamentation I have is regarding C#. I keep on hearing how it's a wonderful improvement on C++, which is my bread-and-butter language. But I'm just not willing to invest time in a language that requires paying a Microsoft tax one way or another.
Similarly for F# (I have a deep love for functional programming).
Where I'm working, I started out as a generic software developer. Having some math competency permitted me to lead a really interesting software project in acoustic modeling. I'm not developing the mathematical models, but I need some math fluency to be able to communicate effectively with the acousticians who do develop the models.
So at least for me, knowing a little math enabled me to be part of the best project of my career so far.
Obviously your mileage may vary, especially for more routine business information systems development.
It's probably reasonable to assume that the physiological claims are also applicable in the U.S. I suspect we permit other kinds of medical studies, performed outside the U.S., to have bearing within the U.S. courts.
I wonder if some teenager's parents will sue for a later start to the school day, due to the health risks to adolescents of starting early.
After all, if "think of the children" can be used to justify all kinds of things, including taking kids away from parents, surely school systems can be compelled to shift their work day a few hours later.
Why should you ever, with all this parallel hardware, ever be waiting for your computer?
I dunno - maybe because optimal multiprocessor scheduling is an NP-complete problem? Or because concurrent computations require coordination at certain points, which is an issue that doesn't exist with single-threaded systems, and it's therefore wishful thinking to assume you'll get linear scaling as you add more cores?
If your boss asks you to break the law, the argument "I was just following orders!" doesn't hold up according to the authorities, especially when your boss decides to "cooperate with them" and throw you under the bus.
This is only sometimes true. If you tortured people for the CIA under orders, the Obama administration says it won't prosecute you. Although that's not exactly the same, because their argument is that it's okay because the CIA lawyers said it was.
If he gets poison ivy, even real bad, he has to sit at home and suffer rather than visiting a doctor to get a prescription for a cortico steroid that could cure it. That's not right.....
This is the crux of the issue for many conservatives, I believe: Whether or not there's a moral or legal imperative for the federal government to provide healthcare. I think there's a lot of fundamental issues that come into play:
Does the federal government have the authority to do this? Many people believe that the federal goverment's entire set of authorities is enumerated in the Constitution, and that it has no legal basis for making federal law in this area.
Why can't this be done by the states, individually, as each state sees fit? Having it be a federal law is, in some senses, anti-democratic, because there are more localities in which it lacks the consent of the governed.
Is it automatically the case that the Federal government is the best agent to fix this situation? They've fsck'ed up a lot of other areas of governance in the past.
Why should people who earned their wealth through hard work, careful investment, and self-sacrifice have to pay for lazy people? I'm not saying that all poor persons are lazy; I'm referring to the fraction of poor persons who truly don't deserve to have other people pay for their bills. Example: should I have to pay for treating emphasema in a smoker?
Is healthcare a true Right? If so, accoridng to what framework of reasoning?
I'm not saying what the particular answers to those questions should be. I'm just saying that the notion of healthcare being a "right" touches on a lot of fundamental issues of ideology and political and moral philosophy about which reasonable people can and do disagree.
I don't mean that in the snarky, "everyone should only use Linux" sense. But my Linux computers are certainly the ones that require the least care and feeding. And Linux is free.
If I was a parent I wouldn't want to interfere with my 16-17 year old teen sex life, and I sure as hell didn't want my parents to interfere with mine when I was that age.
For some very reasonable definitions of "parent", being a good parent often has little to do with what a parent wants to do, or what their kids want. And that's no less true for teenagers than for toddlers.
You don't want a test that favors kids who have studied that particular language in the past. I suggest the Turing-complete language LaTeX. It's the only way to be sure.
Apples and oranges, one is a health risk, one isn't.
Apples and near-apples from my perspective. Both types of problems can have negative consequences if allowed to continue due to lack of public scrutiny. And in neither problem type is there a compelling public interest in secrecy.
Just yesterday my wife said to me, "I can't believe you're still not bored of Civ3 after all these years." She knew I was at risk of staying up until 2 a.m. again playing it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're right, I'm really concerned and sadenned. Bush et al weren't proscuted for committing torture, perhaps simply because they refused to accept that choice of terminology. If the other two branches of government let the same, humiliatingly vapid technique keep them slapping down Obama regarind a treaty that he has no right to enact, then I just don't know what to say. I know that people in power (all three branches) get away with ignoring the Consitution, but it's starting to seem like the norm rather than the exception.
I know people often say, "If .... happens, I'm moving to Canada / Australia / Europe." Usually when I say it, I'm just joking. But if the U.S. adopts ACTA and Europe does not, I really might be getting close to the tipping point of seeking a visa for some European country. It just seems like there are more and more straws on the camels back, starting with around W's presidency.
I wouldn't say I love them, but there's a particular problem they solved for us...
In the original version of the application, lots of confusion reigned regarding the units associated with various numbers. I.e., feet, meters, radians, dB, etc. We were looking for a way to drastically reduce the confusion in the code related to that. So we created a C++ class for each kind of number (Length, Angle, Pressure_ratio, etc.)
We wanted various tables, grids, vectors, etc. containing these values to also remain highly typed, so that they too helped avoid units confusion. So we have things like this:
I had a guy on my team who's a genuinely great programmer do some benchmarking (to check what we already suspected), and he confirmed that Java couldn't keep pace for tight, math-intensive code like what we had to write.
We're also constrained, for practical purposes, to languages that are known to many programmers, and that can be compiled for all reasonable desktops and super-computers. Those two constraints limited the list to C/C++ and Java. (If these constraints didn't exist, I probably would have even considered MLTON. But that's just not the situation I had.)
To be honest I probably didn't give C enough consideration, because I have much more experience with C++. But it turns out that for the parts of our code that aren't tight computational kernels, C++'s templates, polymorphism, and the STL are serving us quite well. So even if I had given C more consideration, I suspect I would have chosen C++ anyway.
Not to start a religious war, but I write physics modeling code that has to run as fast as possible. My only obvious, viable choices were C++ and Fortran. And there was no way in hell I'm going to start a new project in Fortran.
Maybe the biggest lamentation I have is regarding C#. I keep on hearing how it's a wonderful improvement on C++, which is my bread-and-butter language. But I'm just not willing to invest time in a language that requires paying a Microsoft tax one way or another.
Similarly for F# (I have a deep love for functional programming).
Here's how I read the parent post:
blah blah blah "so I ain't exactly derpa derpa derpa when it comes to numbers." [Hah! Australians are funny!] blah blah blah
Where I'm working, I started out as a generic software developer. Having some math competency permitted me to lead a really interesting software project in acoustic modeling. I'm not developing the mathematical models, but I need some math fluency to be able to communicate effectively with the acousticians who do develop the models.
So at least for me, knowing a little math enabled me to be part of the best project of my career so far.
Obviously your mileage may vary, especially for more routine business information systems development.
What a bunch of boobs.
Does the Patent Office even pretend to do their job any more?
Pride goeth before the meltdown.
It's probably reasonable to assume that the physiological claims are also applicable in the U.S. I suspect we permit other kinds of medical studies, performed outside the U.S., to have bearing within the U.S. courts.
I wonder if some teenager's parents will sue for a later start to the school day, due to the health risks to adolescents of starting early.
After all, if "think of the children" can be used to justify all kinds of things, including taking kids away from parents, surely school systems can be compelled to shift their work day a few hours later.
Your words look sort of like English or German, but I can't understand what you're saying.
I dunno - maybe because optimal multiprocessor scheduling is an NP-complete problem? Or because concurrent computations require coordination at certain points, which is an issue that doesn't exist with single-threaded systems, and it's therefore wishful thinking to assume you'll get linear scaling as you add more cores?
I've never had my desk crash, losing all pieces of paper on it. Contrast that to Windows.
When push comes to shove, I can always get a paper form to the person that needs it. Contrast that to relying on an Exchange server.
When a form needs authorization, having the right person sign it with a pen always works. Contrast that to trying to get digital signatures to work.
This is only sometimes true. If you tortured people for the CIA under orders, the Obama administration says it won't prosecute you. Although that's not exactly the same, because their argument is that it's okay because the CIA lawyers said it was.
This is the crux of the issue for many conservatives, I believe: Whether or not there's a moral or legal imperative for the federal government to provide healthcare. I think there's a lot of fundamental issues that come into play:
I'm not saying what the particular answers to those questions should be. I'm just saying that the notion of healthcare being a "right" touches on a lot of fundamental issues of ideology and political and moral philosophy about which reasonable people can and do disagree.
Linux :)
I don't mean that in the snarky, "everyone should only use Linux" sense. But my Linux computers are certainly the ones that require the least care and feeding. And Linux is free.
For some very reasonable definitions of "parent", being a good parent often has little to do with what a parent wants to do, or what their kids want. And that's no less true for teenagers than for toddlers.
You don't want a test that favors kids who have studied that particular language in the past. I suggest the Turing-complete language LaTeX. It's the only way to be sure.
Why Are Digital Hearing Aids So Expensive?
What???
Apples and near-apples from my perspective. Both types of problems can have negative consequences if allowed to continue due to lack of public scrutiny. And in neither problem type is there a compelling public interest in secrecy.
The same reason I don't want nuclear regulators getting fired for admitting when there was a heavy water leak into an aquifer.
Just yesterday my wife said to me, "I can't believe you're still not bored of Civ3 after all these years." She knew I was at risk of staying up until 2 a.m. again playing it.
This will not be good for me.
The First Rule of Cyberwar is...