You do realize that it is not practical to perserve everything? That some things will have to be allowed to be lost to history?
See, the thing is, with exponential growth in storage space it's not only practical, but actually trivial to preserve everything. Well, for the evil pirates it is, anyway:).
Your CTO wants you to suggest spending a few extra hundreds of dollars on storage to avoid downtime.
A few hundred dollars gets you a few terabytes (it's around 163 dollars for a 2 terabyte drive in the first netstore I checked), not a few hundred gigabytes. Or are these "enterprise harddrives" ?-)
Even though I'd like to believe that Linux 2.6 was 1200% faster then Windows XP I can't bring myself to believe it.
On the contrary, it's easy to believe; for example, a different disk cache algorithm might easily result in such a difference - in fact, it would be a perfect fit to move the speed from tens of megabytes per second to a gigabyte per second.
Now, a 100% speedup would be difficult to explain, but this has a simple, natural explanation.
JDK7 will bring a new IO API that underneath uses epoll (Linux) or completion port (Windows).
Doesn't JDK6 already use epoll? I recall having to update glibc a few years back because a new JVM refused to work with an old glibc that didn't implement epoll...
High performance servers will be possible in Java too.
But Real Men will still program them in C++, or Assembly if they're wimps.
We don't drop old school because we want better performance, we drop it because we're lazy, and want easier ways to get the job done!
Um, threads and blocking I/O are far easier than asynchronous NIO. The only reason I've ever heard for anyone to be proposing using the later is it's supposed to be faster.
Yeah, yeah, my irrational belief, nay, my DELUSION, that Reality Exists and is consistent and can be measured and there are patterns that our primate brains can process and that everything can fit in them.
This isn't what you asserted in the post I answered to. Since you seem to have a reading comprehension problem, I spell it out for you: it is irrational to assume that anyone who disagrees with you is mentally ill. It is also irrational to assume that everyone will come to agree with you with enough time. Especially since your definition of religion differs quite a bit from normal definition.
I would also like to point out that your assertions about the nature of reality - which, by the way, are impossible to prove - in no way disprove the sky fairy hypothesis. However, "Reality Exists" sounds a bit like something an Objectivist would say, so I guess that would explain why you have such a condescending attitude...
Compared to the irrational belief that schizophrenics have a better understanding of the sky fairies who created the world and everything...
Some chizophrenics, and quite a lot of people with no diagnosed or apparent mental illnesses. Unless you wish to declare disagreeing with you a mental illness?
Because of that, it would be very difficult for Oracle to monetize their purchases.
Unless they used some of that 10 billion dollars to have the GPL declared invalid, or something to that effect. Yes, it's nonsensical, but $10 billion can help finance a lot of campaigns, plenty of astroturfers, and an army of lawyers, so I'm not so sure they couldn't do it.
Access to those mysteries outside a simulated sandbox we might live in would probably be precluded by a well-written virtual machine (unless we found the debugging hooks?:-)
You jest, but if this universe really is a simulation, then it almost certainly has bugs; and if it has bugs, we could potentially exploit those bugs to take control of the machine running the simulation, then continue reaching outward. In fact, that would make a pretty good science fiction novel...
"It's your choice, Aphrodite! Upload our man to the GodNet or your lab notes go bye-bye! Can you really afford to retake those 500 or so semesters?"
Erm, isn't it obvious that the illness we prudely call "religion" - the idea that an all-powerful imaginary friend really exists and affects your life - will have been cured long before we have interstellar travel?
Why, of course it'll be! after all, the very definition of progress is that everyone comes to admit that you were right and they were wrong all along.
Or so atheists, christians, muslims and all the other fundamentalistic nutjobs seem to think. And every now and then they feel the need to help heathens/infidels/delusional sky-fairy worshippers along to the path to One Noble Truth, and then we have crusades, jihads or Stalin's purges. Meanwhile, the rest of us hope that you all would just calm down and stop worrying about what weird believes others might have - sure, they're clearly delusional since they disagree with you, but they're otherwise okay fellows, so maybe you could simply accept this flaw as a personal quirk?
Still, clearly, you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. And soon they all see it, when we're Raptured - ups, sorry, wrong bunch of self-righteous assholes. I got you mixed up for some reason. Could be because you're both just as annoying yet amusing in your faith in your absurd proposition.
If your society travels between the stars, you can get all that want from ANY star.
No. You can get anything you want from almost any star. However, you can't get everything you want from a single star; after all, our Sun only has the mass of some 1.98892 × 10^30 kg, and produces about 3.86×10^26 J per second. We already have science fiction suggesting a use for such resources.
Unless, of course, Star Trek is right, and all aliens are essentially just like us.
I don't think that we will be like we are now for very much longer. We already spend much of our time online, in ever-more-sophisticated virtual worlds and forums, and replacing worn-out body parts with technology is already routine. A while longer and we become outright cyborgs, and once brain is understood well enough I'd imagine that mind uploading - converting yourself into a computer program - will become commonplace. After all, that form has many advantages, from not being tied to a single physical form to not having your intelligence limited by how much brain matter can fit inside your skull.
Human beings of weak and fragile flesh and blood traveling in starships will likely never cross the gulf between stars, but human beings who are starships... Well, that's another matter entirely. In fact I'd wager that most of humanity will have left flesh behind 5 centuries from now; and probably sooner. At that point our technology should be at the point where there's simply no advantage to being tied to and dependant on flesh, since virtual reality is ultrarealistic, and you can always use a remote-controlled humanlike robot body if you need one - or even download your mind to its control computer, if you really want to.
If an uninvolved passerby doesn't have an expectation of privacy, then it's hard to imagine how somebody directly involved in the incident has an expectation of privacy.
A random somebody might not have, but somebody wearing a uniform always does.
Note how you've changed the topic to "Look at all I know about quantum physics and how well-substantiated it is" rather than "are the definitions of 'physicist' and 'quantum mechanics' (or 'biologist' and 'evolution') different?"
No, I'm pointing out that being a physicist necessiates one to consider quantum mechanics a real phenomenom, just like being a biologist necessiates one to consider evolution a real phenomenom. The amount of evidence for these phenomenoms being real is simply overwhelming; so overwhelming, in fact, that I find it impossible for anyone to know the subject well and yet argue, in good faith, that they are not real.
The question isn't whether one coincides with the other (which they do), but whether the meanings are the same, and by extension, whether "evolutionist" is the most appropriate term that evolution's critics should refer to those who disagree with them.
Two words coinciding means that they have the same meaning. And evolution doesn't have "critics", as that would require someone pointing out flaws in the theory, rather than just a bunch of conspiracy nuts claiming it's all Satan's plot to lead mankind astray with the help of eeevil scientists. However, at least those nuts are honest, in the sense that they usually don't hide being religiously motivated; Intelligent Design adds a layer of deception on top of that, making itself simply despicable.
Unfortunately, there's a tendency to say, "hey, those people don't get to use the literal meanings of words because they're so offensively wrong", which I find ridiculous.
Creationists use the word "evolutionist" to suggest that it's just one school of biology. It's not, it's something that underlies the modern biology. Speaking of "evolutionists" rather than "biologists" is simply an attempt to mislead and deceive.
Unfortunately, your only reason seems to be, "I [justifiably] don't like IDers, therefore I will deny them even the ability to accurately refer to the class of people who disagree with them."
Disagree with what, exactly speaking? ID simply asserts that "maybe this was all designed". Could be; it's certainly impossible to prove one way or another. That's the reason why ID is not science, and doesn't belong in the science class. What's worse, ID is simply a deception designed to make creationism look "sciency" to get Christian creation myths taught in a science class, in a desperate attempt to make them look like a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution and make an end-run around the separation of church and state.
As for the class of people who disagree with taking ID to classroom... that would be pretty much everyone else. ID proponents are liars; they are lying on purpose about what they want taught, and why they want it taught. People arguing in bad faith - lying - shouldn't be surprised when others deny them the ability to twist words to deceive the unwary, which is exactly what calling people "evolutionists" does.
First, do you understand why "quantum physics is a reasonable belief" does not substantiate the position that "the word physicist means someone who explicitly endorses quantum mechanics"?
No. Please explain how one can do physics or even be reasonably well-versed in them, yet deny a theory that agrees with all observations better than any other we have and underlies most modern technology. In your explanation, please also answer whether or not the word "physicist" should, under the same principle, be used to cover someone who believes in classical Greek theory of world being made of four elements (air, water, fire, earth), and if not, why not?
Second, does a person studying optics or geology, but who has never looked at the quantum-specific physics equations, and doesn't ever think about the issue, count as a physicist?
No, a geologist is not a physicist, he's a geologist. Dunno what you mean by "a person studying optics" - an optician? A telescope maker? Either way, understanding the behaviour of light in detail beyond making lenses or mirrors does, as a matter of fact, require quantum physics - that's how they got started.
(If you feel that by saying yes, you're "giving the creationists a weapon", you're already on the wrong track.)
Well luckily my integrity was never endangered by temptation here, due to there being perfectly valid reasons for not answering "yes".
They can't use the term "biologists" because there are people (though not many) who study biology but agree with the IDers. Claiming that they have to refer to their opponents as "biologists" is like saying you can't have different terms for "physicist" and "proponent of the theory of quantum mechanics".
Seeing how the computer you're reading this message on works by utilizing quantum mechanics, and in fact atoms couldn't exist in classical physics (since electrons couldn't orbit nucleus, being charged particles and thus losing energy to electromagnetic radiation), I'd say it would be quite questionable to call someone "physicist" who wasn't a proponent of quantum mechanics.
There is a difference between arguing in good faith and in bad faith, and frankly, a biologist denying evolution or a physicist denying quantum physics crosses the line from honest uncertainty to intentional deception.
You get the government out of schools and then you don't have fights like this and you WILL SEE natural selection at work.
A libertarian fundamentalist posting to a story about religious fundamentalists is pretty ironic.
Some people will choose schools that teach hard science, some will not. The schools that teach the non-hard science will be un-selected by standardized tests, college admissions etc.
Actually, most people don't choose their schools, their parents do. And since we already intervene in cases of sufficiently bad parenting, and since - as you yourself noted - being sent to a school that doesn't teach hard science pretty much condemns you for life, this would seem to qualify as a valid target for intervention.
It is the intended consequences of government regulation and involvement, keeping people polarized and arguing among themselves so that the ruling class can keep ruling. Divide and conquer.
Do you libertarians actually believe this bullshit, or do you simply think that someone else might be dumb enough to?
Are you saying that if someone has ever in their entire life done something that you might object with, and you know about it, you won't be friends with them, and no one else should either?
No, I'm saying that that's the logic behind not hiring people because there's pictures online of them drinking beer, smoking marijuana, or in general having a life. Of course it is disgustingly cowardly, but that's humans for you.
Isn't alienation a big problem with ex-convicts that because no one likes them anymore and they can't get a job anywhere they often turn back to crime?
And there are quite a lot of people who find that a desirable outcome: after all, if an ex-convict turns back to crime, that is evidence that he was a bad person all along, and thus helps them divide the world into good people - themselves and those they like - and bad people - everyone else.
Of course this makes them very bad people indeed, far worse than most convicts, and of course they also realize that at some level, but that's simply their cue to continue repeating the "convicts are subhuman monsters" mantra with all the more fervor, to make themselves look better by contrast, yet actually becoming worse and worse.
Honestly, everyone has something in their past that you probably won't agree with.
Actually, I kinda doubt it. It takes outright psychopathic behaviour - rape, murder, beating your kids, that sort of thing - to get more than annoyance out of me.
I believe what the GP was trying to say is that if we are open and honest, and try to improve ourselves, why should it stand in the way?
And what I was trying to say is that most of us aren't open, honest or willing to take risks for the benefit of strangers.
If no one will ever hire someone or befriend someone that drank in college, then that person is going to get old, lonely, bitter, and probably start drinking to try and cope.
Yes. On the other hand, if I, Joe PHB, hire him, and he screws up in any way - which is inevitable, he being a mere mortal after all - and it comes out that I knew that he was less than perfect in every way, why, it must have been my fault! I should had hired the candidate who I didn't know was imperfect!
Of course this is absurd. It's Just World Fallacy - basically, the claim that world is just, therefore if anything bad happens to you it must have been your own fault somehow, therefore if we can't find anything else we'll blame it all on you drinking beer while in college - meeting ass-cowering. However, it's no more absurd that many other things companies have done in their quest for efficiency (such as firing the worst-performing 10% of their employees each year), so should it really surprise you that this happens? Especially in the current climate where everyone is deathly afraid of losing their job, knowing full well that the job market is never going to recover?
Meanwhile in your hiring analogy, you're stuck with the employee that's actually pretty good at hiding his cocaine addiction and only does a line at his desk while you're not watching.
Exactly. So when shit hits the fan, I can claim that I knew nothing about it, thus covering my ass when my boss is looking for someone to blame to cover his.
Of course that means that our employees will spend more time covering up any weaknesses and slips than doing actual productive work, but hey: that's efficiency - it's the capitalist way!
I know there are people out there that live fairly clean lives, but not enough that you can just the the rest to F off.
Once again: this has nothing to do with common sense, and everything to do with Keeping Up Appearances. Cowardice and hypocrisy combined tend to produce rather spectacularly irrational outcomes.
Instead, why don't we just learn to not hype people to unachievable heights and realize they're as human as we are and made as many mistakes as we all did?
If I know that you've drunk beer sometimes in your life, and hire you, and you come to work drunk one morning, it's my fault: why did I hire a drunkard rather than a teetotaler? Similarly, if I know you've done anything less than saintly in your life, and associate with you, and you do something less than saintly to me, it's my fault: why did I associate with someone I knew was pond scum? And if you do less than saintly things to someone else, it's still my fault: I'm "scum enabler", I made friends with someone I knew was scum, thus sending the message that it's okay to be scum. And of course, even if you never do anything even slightly questionable from any point of view ever again, I'm still guilty of risking others and myself by associating and justifying scum.
Basically, nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
And i seem to recall most people absolutely loving drama and being controlled by irrational desires.
Desires can never be irrational, for irrationality simply means that you're behaving in a way that is unlikely - as far as you know - to get you what you want. Alternatively, one could say that playing WoW at all is irrational, since it is unlikely to advance any of your real-life goals, and actually sucks up resources. For the same reason, however, no behavior in-game is likely to be irrational; after all, the goings-on in the gameworld don't affect your real-life status, so why not do whatever you want there? No point in worrying about efficiency or long-term consequences when there are no long-term consequences.
This sounds stressful to me.
What really stresses me is how some people begin a post in the subject and continue it in message body. It's annoying and it's wrong; such people are the SCUM OF THE EARTH, and should be banished from Slashdot and HUNTED DOWN and EXTERMINATED like the RABID DOGS THEY ARE!!!
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. I'll go play now...
But what I see done in my life-critical real-time processor applications borders on criminal. Data hiding? How the f'ing hell do I check what is going on to the bit level is some twit determined to "hide the data".
You read the code of the class that the data belongs to. You can be sure that what you read is the only thing going on because no other code can do anything to the data since it's hidden from it.
This is particularly apt right now, because we are adding a feature to our code that was almost trivial to add to our FORTRAN simulations, and because of the "cult of classes" C++ programming it's damn near impossible in the final product, and completely impossible to look at and tell what the heck it's doing.
Well, high-level languages generally make it impossible to figure out what's really going on behind the scenes. That's intentional: abstracting away details is the whole idea of a programming language.
C++ is particularly bad here because it mixes high- and lowe-level abstractions and allows you to redefine basic operations (such assignment, +, etc.). Combine that with manual memory management and lack of bounds checking and you have a rather explosive combination.
What we need is someone that can write straightforward procedural code, but no one seem to be willing or able to do it any more.
We went for two hours to get 10 lines into it, no one could explain how it was working but that we should just "trust the compiler".
If you are using a compiler, you have the choice of either trusting it, or inspecting the machine code it generates by yourself, which is harder than simply writing the damn thing in assembly to begin with, and thus defeats the whole point of using a compiler.
If you want straightforward procedural code, use C. Using C++ for procedural code is pointless, and simply adds unneeded complications.
It has all the features of a cult or a secret society, even when you get someone to understand and agree, they won't deviate from their dogma.
It could simply be that they disagree with you. Your earlier bit about data hiding making it more difficult to figure out what's going on makes it seem that you don't understand the idea of object-oriented programming, so of course it would seem like a "cult" to you.
It could also be that you're trolling. In that case: bravo sir, you truly have the art down.
But this means that the programming languages of the future will be less imperative and more functional.
No, that means that the programming languages of the future will be subjective: the computer will interpret your commands in the light of whatever other data it has. This, of course, requires artificial intelligence, and slowly but surely phases away the whole job of programming as a separate skill from commanding people.
In other words, the ultimate programming languages of future will be known as English, Chinese, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
See, the thing is, with exponential growth in storage space it's not only practical, but actually trivial to preserve everything. Well, for the evil pirates it is, anyway :).
A few hundred dollars gets you a few terabytes (it's around 163 dollars for a 2 terabyte drive in the first netstore I checked), not a few hundred gigabytes. Or are these "enterprise harddrives" ?-)
It's 2.8 gigs as it is, imagine how big it would get if 100 million pics were added to it ;-)
100 million pictures * 100,000 bytes per picture = around 10 terabytes. Not feasible yet, but soon will be.
On the contrary, it's easy to believe; for example, a different disk cache algorithm might easily result in such a difference - in fact, it would be a perfect fit to move the speed from tens of megabytes per second to a gigabyte per second.
Now, a 100% speedup would be difficult to explain, but this has a simple, natural explanation.
Doesn't JDK6 already use epoll? I recall having to update glibc a few years back because a new JVM refused to work with an old glibc that didn't implement epoll...
High performance servers will be possible in Java too.
But Real Men will still program them in C++, or Assembly if they're wimps.
Um, threads and blocking I/O are far easier than asynchronous NIO. The only reason I've ever heard for anyone to be proposing using the later is it's supposed to be faster.
This isn't what you asserted in the post I answered to. Since you seem to have a reading comprehension problem, I spell it out for you: it is irrational to assume that anyone who disagrees with you is mentally ill. It is also irrational to assume that everyone will come to agree with you with enough time. Especially since your definition of religion differs quite a bit from normal definition.
I would also like to point out that your assertions about the nature of reality - which, by the way, are impossible to prove - in no way disprove the sky fairy hypothesis. However, "Reality Exists" sounds a bit like something an Objectivist would say, so I guess that would explain why you have such a condescending attitude...
Some chizophrenics, and quite a lot of people with no diagnosed or apparent mental illnesses. Unless you wish to declare disagreeing with you a mental illness?
Unless they used some of that 10 billion dollars to have the GPL declared invalid, or something to that effect. Yes, it's nonsensical, but $10 billion can help finance a lot of campaigns, plenty of astroturfers, and an army of lawyers, so I'm not so sure they couldn't do it.
He who has the gold makes the rules.
You jest, but if this universe really is a simulation, then it almost certainly has bugs; and if it has bugs, we could potentially exploit those bugs to take control of the machine running the simulation, then continue reaching outward. In fact, that would make a pretty good science fiction novel...
"It's your choice, Aphrodite! Upload our man to the GodNet or your lab notes go bye-bye! Can you really afford to retake those 500 or so semesters?"
Why, of course it'll be! after all, the very definition of progress is that everyone comes to admit that you were right and they were wrong all along.
Or so atheists, christians, muslims and all the other fundamentalistic nutjobs seem to think. And every now and then they feel the need to help heathens/infidels/delusional sky-fairy worshippers along to the path to One Noble Truth, and then we have crusades, jihads or Stalin's purges. Meanwhile, the rest of us hope that you all would just calm down and stop worrying about what weird believes others might have - sure, they're clearly delusional since they disagree with you, but they're otherwise okay fellows, so maybe you could simply accept this flaw as a personal quirk?
Still, clearly, you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. And soon they all see it, when we're Raptured - ups, sorry, wrong bunch of self-righteous assholes. I got you mixed up for some reason. Could be because you're both just as annoying yet amusing in your faith in your absurd proposition.
No. You can get anything you want from almost any star. However, you can't get everything you want from a single star; after all, our Sun only has the mass of some 1.98892 × 10^30 kg, and produces about 3.86×10^26 J per second. We already have science fiction suggesting a use for such resources.
I don't think that we will be like we are now for very much longer. We already spend much of our time online, in ever-more-sophisticated virtual worlds and forums, and replacing worn-out body parts with technology is already routine. A while longer and we become outright cyborgs, and once brain is understood well enough I'd imagine that mind uploading - converting yourself into a computer program - will become commonplace. After all, that form has many advantages, from not being tied to a single physical form to not having your intelligence limited by how much brain matter can fit inside your skull.
Human beings of weak and fragile flesh and blood traveling in starships will likely never cross the gulf between stars, but human beings who are starships... Well, that's another matter entirely. In fact I'd wager that most of humanity will have left flesh behind 5 centuries from now; and probably sooner. At that point our technology should be at the point where there's simply no advantage to being tied to and dependant on flesh, since virtual reality is ultrarealistic, and you can always use a remote-controlled humanlike robot body if you need one - or even download your mind to its control computer, if you really want to.
A random somebody might not have, but somebody wearing a uniform always does.
Judging by the mafialike actions described in the summary, I'd imagine there might be quite a lot...
No, I'm pointing out that being a physicist necessiates one to consider quantum mechanics a real phenomenom, just like being a biologist necessiates one to consider evolution a real phenomenom. The amount of evidence for these phenomenoms being real is simply overwhelming; so overwhelming, in fact, that I find it impossible for anyone to know the subject well and yet argue, in good faith, that they are not real.
Two words coinciding means that they have the same meaning. And evolution doesn't have "critics", as that would require someone pointing out flaws in the theory, rather than just a bunch of conspiracy nuts claiming it's all Satan's plot to lead mankind astray with the help of eeevil scientists. However, at least those nuts are honest, in the sense that they usually don't hide being religiously motivated; Intelligent Design adds a layer of deception on top of that, making itself simply despicable.
Creationists use the word "evolutionist" to suggest that it's just one school of biology. It's not, it's something that underlies the modern biology. Speaking of "evolutionists" rather than "biologists" is simply an attempt to mislead and deceive.
Disagree with what, exactly speaking? ID simply asserts that "maybe this was all designed". Could be; it's certainly impossible to prove one way or another. That's the reason why ID is not science, and doesn't belong in the science class. What's worse, ID is simply a deception designed to make creationism look "sciency" to get Christian creation myths taught in a science class, in a desperate attempt to make them look like a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution and make an end-run around the separation of church and state.
As for the class of people who disagree with taking ID to classroom... that would be pretty much everyone else. ID proponents are liars; they are lying on purpose about what they want taught, and why they want it taught. People arguing in bad faith - lying - shouldn't be surprised when others deny them the ability to twist words to deceive the unwary, which is exactly what calling people "evolutionists" does.
No. Please explain how one can do physics or even be reasonably well-versed in them, yet deny a theory that agrees with all observations better than any other we have and underlies most modern technology. In your explanation, please also answer whether or not the word "physicist" should, under the same principle, be used to cover someone who believes in classical Greek theory of world being made of four elements (air, water, fire, earth), and if not, why not?
No, a geologist is not a physicist, he's a geologist. Dunno what you mean by "a person studying optics" - an optician? A telescope maker? Either way, understanding the behaviour of light in detail beyond making lenses or mirrors does, as a matter of fact, require quantum physics - that's how they got started.
Well luckily my integrity was never endangered by temptation here, due to there being perfectly valid reasons for not answering "yes".
Seeing how the computer you're reading this message on works by utilizing quantum mechanics, and in fact atoms couldn't exist in classical physics (since electrons couldn't orbit nucleus, being charged particles and thus losing energy to electromagnetic radiation), I'd say it would be quite questionable to call someone "physicist" who wasn't a proponent of quantum mechanics.
There is a difference between arguing in good faith and in bad faith, and frankly, a biologist denying evolution or a physicist denying quantum physics crosses the line from honest uncertainty to intentional deception.
A libertarian fundamentalist posting to a story about religious fundamentalists is pretty ironic.
Actually, most people don't choose their schools, their parents do. And since we already intervene in cases of sufficiently bad parenting, and since - as you yourself noted - being sent to a school that doesn't teach hard science pretty much condemns you for life, this would seem to qualify as a valid target for intervention.
Do you libertarians actually believe this bullshit, or do you simply think that someone else might be dumb enough to?
How do you test for the existence of God, or for the assertion that He created the universe?
Until and unless you can come up with some way to do that, these assertions, even if true, aren't science.
No, I'm saying that that's the logic behind not hiring people because there's pictures online of them drinking beer, smoking marijuana, or in general having a life. Of course it is disgustingly cowardly, but that's humans for you.
And there are quite a lot of people who find that a desirable outcome: after all, if an ex-convict turns back to crime, that is evidence that he was a bad person all along, and thus helps them divide the world into good people - themselves and those they like - and bad people - everyone else.
Of course this makes them very bad people indeed, far worse than most convicts, and of course they also realize that at some level, but that's simply their cue to continue repeating the "convicts are subhuman monsters" mantra with all the more fervor, to make themselves look better by contrast, yet actually becoming worse and worse.
Actually, I kinda doubt it. It takes outright psychopathic behaviour - rape, murder, beating your kids, that sort of thing - to get more than annoyance out of me.
And what I was trying to say is that most of us aren't open, honest or willing to take risks for the benefit of strangers.
Yes. On the other hand, if I, Joe PHB, hire him, and he screws up in any way - which is inevitable, he being a mere mortal after all - and it comes out that I knew that he was less than perfect in every way, why, it must have been my fault! I should had hired the candidate who I didn't know was imperfect!
Of course this is absurd. It's Just World Fallacy - basically, the claim that world is just, therefore if anything bad happens to you it must have been your own fault somehow, therefore if we can't find anything else we'll blame it all on you drinking beer while in college - meeting ass-cowering. However, it's no more absurd that many other things companies have done in their quest for efficiency (such as firing the worst-performing 10% of their employees each year), so should it really surprise you that this happens? Especially in the current climate where everyone is deathly afraid of losing their job, knowing full well that the job market is never going to recover?
Exactly. So when shit hits the fan, I can claim that I knew nothing about it, thus covering my ass when my boss is looking for someone to blame to cover his.
Of course that means that our employees will spend more time covering up any weaknesses and slips than doing actual productive work, but hey: that's efficiency - it's the capitalist way!
Once again: this has nothing to do with common sense, and everything to do with Keeping Up Appearances. Cowardice and hypocrisy combined tend to produce rather spectacularly irrational outcomes.
If I know that you've drunk beer sometimes in your life, and hire you, and you come to work drunk one morning, it's my fault: why did I hire a drunkard rather than a teetotaler? Similarly, if I know you've done anything less than saintly in your life, and associate with you, and you do something less than saintly to me, it's my fault: why did I associate with someone I knew was pond scum? And if you do less than saintly things to someone else, it's still my fault: I'm "scum enabler", I made friends with someone I knew was scum, thus sending the message that it's okay to be scum. And of course, even if you never do anything even slightly questionable from any point of view ever again, I'm still guilty of risking others and myself by associating and justifying scum.
Basically, nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
Desires can never be irrational, for irrationality simply means that you're behaving in a way that is unlikely - as far as you know - to get you what you want. Alternatively, one could say that playing WoW at all is irrational, since it is unlikely to advance any of your real-life goals, and actually sucks up resources. For the same reason, however, no behavior in-game is likely to be irrational; after all, the goings-on in the gameworld don't affect your real-life status, so why not do whatever you want there? No point in worrying about efficiency or long-term consequences when there are no long-term consequences.
What really stresses me is how some people begin a post in the subject and continue it in message body. It's annoying and it's wrong; such people are the SCUM OF THE EARTH, and should be banished from Slashdot and HUNTED DOWN and EXTERMINATED like the RABID DOGS THEY ARE !!!
Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. I'll go play now...
Australian Government: By the Convicts, For the Convicts.
You read the code of the class that the data belongs to. You can be sure that what you read is the only thing going on because no other code can do anything to the data since it's hidden from it.
Well, high-level languages generally make it impossible to figure out what's really going on behind the scenes. That's intentional: abstracting away details is the whole idea of a programming language.
C++ is particularly bad here because it mixes high- and lowe-level abstractions and allows you to redefine basic operations (such assignment, +, etc.). Combine that with manual memory management and lack of bounds checking and you have a rather explosive combination.
We went for two hours to get 10 lines into it, no one could explain how it was working but that we should just "trust the compiler".
If you are using a compiler, you have the choice of either trusting it, or inspecting the machine code it generates by yourself, which is harder than simply writing the damn thing in assembly to begin with, and thus defeats the whole point of using a compiler.
If you want straightforward procedural code, use C. Using C++ for procedural code is pointless, and simply adds unneeded complications.
It could simply be that they disagree with you. Your earlier bit about data hiding making it more difficult to figure out what's going on makes it seem that you don't understand the idea of object-oriented programming, so of course it would seem like a "cult" to you.
It could also be that you're trolling. In that case: bravo sir, you truly have the art down.
Real Men program by spitting beer on the board to cause strategic short-circuits.
No, that means that the programming languages of the future will be subjective: the computer will interpret your commands in the light of whatever other data it has. This, of course, requires artificial intelligence, and slowly but surely phases away the whole job of programming as a separate skill from commanding people.
In other words, the ultimate programming languages of future will be known as English, Chinese, etc.