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  1. Re:Well on Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness · · Score: 1

    Actually, no. My argument assumes that fairness requires the party which is responsible for the mishap to bear the burden of its consequences. Since the people with increased chance of receiving a green card were in no way responsible, they should not be bearing the cost of having received and consequently rescinded allotment. The cost should be born by the responsible party. In this case the mishap was result of an error by a US government service. So it should be the INS (as an agent of the US government) which should be forced to bear the burden of extra allotment.

  2. Re:The number itself is entertaining but ... on Microsoft Developer Made the Most Changes To Linux 3.0 Code · · Score: 2

    Why we even want Microsoft's VM module I will never understand given Microsoft wants to see Linux rot in hell and never be allowed to surface again. Microsoft as a company calls us a virus that infects everything ruining everything it touches, thieves and intellectual pirates. You should never accept anything from someone actively trying to stab you in the back. When the person is getting behind you it isn't for encouragement but rather so they get a better angle to stab you in the back.

    Welcome to capitalism. Trade forces enemies to cooperate out of necessity (in exchanges which are mutually beneficial). The fact that the two trading parties may want to see each others' demise doesn't preempt the fact that they benefit in the short run from mutual exchange. Once they are deep enough in each others' pockets, past reasons for conflicts become obsolete.

  3. Re:Hell, that should be obvious on Study Shows Programmers Get Better With Age · · Score: 1

    Well, goto's were unavoidable in C from deeply nested locks until exceptions were introduced in C++.

  4. Re:Asinine on Study Shows Programmers Get Better With Age · · Score: 2

    ACID is a false god. Isolation is, in fact, theoretically impossible. In almost any problem domain, there will be situations where the permutation group of the data is not solvable. This is pretty much why relational wins over trees. Having said that, in most situations, isolation is attainable or something close-enough to it is attainable.

  5. averages don't describe subtleties on Study Shows Programmers Get Better With Age · · Score: 1

    I'd say that *many* older programmers get better than *most* younger programmers. But that's hardly a guarantee. Plenty of people don't learn from experience. And there are occasional people whose raw talent is better than is gained from experience. Ultimately, programming is an exercise in attention-span management. Bad code=trespassing on others' attention span. But there is plenty of older programmers who never honed the attention span management and who simply survive by jumping from one technology to the next.

  6. Re:Finally, logic and reason win out. on Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness · · Score: 1

    Allowing the initial winners to keep the green card and allotting extra green cards to be randomly distributed among those 93% would still be the only fair way to handle this. Even if you make the assumption that distributing extra green cards is somehow harmful to the cause of legal immigration, "fair" means that the party at fault should be responsible for the damages. And since it was the US lottery system which was at fault, the burden should be born by the INS rather than the people who had an increased chance of winning through no fault of their own.

  7. Re:Well on Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness · · Score: 1

    And what would be the harm in having all those who applied after the 1st two days given a 2nd chance? Rescinding the offer puts the cost of the mistake on those who won with a higher chance. But they didn't do anything to cause that mistake to happen. So why should they pay the price? Having a slight increase in the number of green cards issued during one month would not have harmed anyone.

  8. Re:Finally, logic and reason win out. on Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness · · Score: 1

    Not at all. Actually, the fact you state necessitates the opposite conclusion. If the bug was only in place for 2 out of 30 days, then keeping the decision as it was would have statistically only effected 6-7% of overall applicants. That's not *most* people. That's a fraction of people so small that is close to being within the margin of error. Given that the human toll that rescinding an acceptance would cause, it is fairly cruel to insist that this small portion of the applicants bear such a burden through no fault of their own.

  9. Re:Finally, logic and reason win out. on Green Card Lottery Judgment Favors Mathematical Randomness · · Score: 1

    I would agree. It does seem like rescinding acceptance because of an unknown computer error is unusually cruel. Certainly it ignores the fact that the lottery winners probably started making changes to their lifestyle and going through the expenses necessary to make the move.

  10. Re:It makes sense. on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 1

    Violence may be the last refuge of the incompetent, but that doesn't mean exclusively. Self-defense against violence generally also involves violence.

  11. Re:Hey! on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 1

    It wasn't in a free fall. Plenty of bubbles burst before. The subsequent recession only turned into a depression twice (I am counting this second time as a depression for now). Both times it was because government tried massive price support through federal programs.

  12. Re:Someone has an axe to grind on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 2

    The phrase used was not "nuclear submarines." It was "nuclear-armed" submarines. That's pretty umambiguous.

  13. Re:What? on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 1

    The only reason why there are so many is because there is a fear that none of them will reach the target before being shot down.

    In war you have plan for unknown unknowns. Which means that everyone plans for the case that there is way for an sneak attack which disables most of the opponents launching capabilities, too.

  14. Re:Wat? on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 1

    Pakistan, that's the real threat to global peace.

    I bet my watch and warrant that the same applies to the USA.

    Only because it's the Internet and you know that there is no way for anyone to call you out and actually make that bet. *I* would bet that you would never put actual money on that bet.

  15. Re:What? on Cut Down On Nukes To Shave the Deficit · · Score: 1

    This whole article has a wrong premise. All the stats cited only talk about which hardware gets introduced or upgraded. They don't mention that it happens simultaneously with retiring some of the all hardware. Just because we are spending money on the nukes, doesn't mean we are increasing the nuclear arsenal. First of all, it takes money to dismantle old nukes to use the materials for civilian purposes. And second of all, updates to electronics and guidance systems to use modern components make the operation possible. If those are not updated, they would be using electronics which would be more and more expensive to maintain in the long run. Old components and expertise to use them becomes more rare and, therefore, more expensive in the long run.

  16. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    Explain how any of this is comparable to religion,

    I wasn't arguing religion's case. In fact, I don't care about your opinion of religion. I was arguing against a bad argument (yours). The fact that you were using a bad argument to dispute another (presumably) bad argument, doesn't make your argument solid.

  17. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    Considering the size and scope of the universe, it'd be ludicrous to think that this has only happened once in the whole of existence.

    Religion aside (I don't even know if any religion has a set-in-stone dogma on this subject), it's not at all ridiculous. In fact, if conditions required for life to exist are narrow enough, then believing the opposite is quite a stretch of imagination. In essence, it's like believing that something with near-zero probability happens regularly (which is unlikely). Just because you hit 1 point on a real line, doesn't mean you'd ever hit it again. In fact, probability of hitting the same point again is 0. And yet every time you pick any point, that point has been picked. So an event happening once does not guarantee (at all) that it's reproducible.

  18. Re:Dodgy conclusions... on Zeroing In On the Internet's 'Evil Cities' · · Score: 1

    Or even more importantly because it contains a large percentage of the country's population. No US city has as high a percentage of the US population.

  19. Re:Pharmaceutical Industry Next on Have American Businesses Been Stranded By the MBAs? · · Score: 1

    Why the future tense? Reality shows are the collapse of the content industry.

  20. great! on Millions of Jellyfish Invade Nuclear Reactors · · Score: 1

    Now they are gonna blame any new problems in the nuclear reactor on the Israeli jellyfish.

  21. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    Thing is, prayer has been studied pretty extensively, and there's no evidence that it will [i]actually[/i] increase the chances of anything happening.

    So? An inaccurate description of a behavior which is based on an implausible assumption is just as inaccurate as an inaccurate description of a behavior which is based on a plausible assumption.

  22. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 2

    Every thing you have on your mind is a set of axioms. Next you'll complain that both are written in books.

    No. I have the fortune of having 5 senses. These act as input devices. Knowledge stemming from the input received though those devices is not axiomatic. It is observation-based. Is this gonna be another Kant argument? I don't quite feel like rehashing it again.

    Physics is a set of axioms that work

    Nonsense. Pure nonsense. That's not how scientific method works. Observation->hypothesis->theory->verification->rinse-and-repeat is the scientific process. "Hypothesis" can sometimes match a known axiomatic system. But any number of axiomatic systems are developed long before there is any hypothesis to match them (this is math). When hypothesis does match a known axiomatic system, the implications of the axioms (theorems, etc.) can be used to further advance a theory. If no axiomatic system matches a hypothesis, then a new axiomatic system needs to be constructed. The problem is that all observations are local (in the rigorously-defined mathematical sense of that word). And observations of different localities could lead to irreconcilable theories. None of this is to say that science is akin to religion. I am not against the argument that science is not religion and the two are different mental exercises. I am, however, very much against portraying science as something it isn't. My argument is not with how you describe lack of relationship between science and religion. It is with how you try to establish a false relationship between science and math. Most (overwhelmingly most) axiomatic systems are developed as mental exercises long before they have any kind of use to describe any observed phenomena.

  23. Re:Exactly. on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    Tangents aren't tangible. In fact, all math isn't tangible. There is no such thing as a "two". There is two of something. But there is no "two." Hint: numbers are natures adjectives which we describe as nouns in order to facilitate our communication through abstractions. But our mode of communication doesn't cause these abstractions to exist. This was a tangential point however. </self_amusement>

  24. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    After all, all of it can be proven and observed and none of them are missing evidence where evidence should be present

    That's reeeeally not true. Theoretical physics is developed axiomatically. Axioms are based on an attempt at interpreting already-known physics, but it is often not verified through observation for a long, long time. General relativity and Quantum Mechanics are to this day irreconcilable. Even though both appear to be true under the conditions they address.

  25. Re:there is no way to disprove a person's religion on Idle: File-Sharing Is Not a Religion, Says Swedish Government · · Score: 1

    Now, now... your language is openly hostile to the point where you mischaracterize the religious people.

    You may think that your level of hostility is warranted by some priorities which you espouse in life; but, as an atheist, I don't want to be mischaraterized by the opinion that an atheist necessarily holds the same level of hostility as yours.

    Talking to invisible friends: check.

    Believing in invisible friends: check.

    That's true of every conversation on the Internet. I think you really meant to say non-existent friends, but you didn't say it because that would have made this part of your argument a tautology.

    Believing that wanting something really, really badly is going to make it come true: check.

    Well, that's just plain inaccurate. The accurate way of stating why religious people pray for something is that they believe that expressing a wish will increase the chances of it happening -- not that it will guarantee that it will happen.

    Thinking that talking snakes, people that can walk on water, and other manner of physics-defying shit really happens: check.

    They don't believe that either. They believe that such events happened once. And the reason they re-tell stories about them happening is because they know that such things happening is not a normal everyday thing. If they expected to see a talking snake everyday on their way to work, I don't think they would think all that much of a snake which spoke once a few thousand years ago.