I disagree. your source may not be bloated, but the binary at the end will be.
If the automatic system is good, it only adds checks where needed (and doesn't recheck things already checked), so it doesn't add any checks the programmer wouldn't. And it can, in fact, leave out checks a programmer would have to make, since the compiler/VM knows which functions call which, so it can track the checks accross function calls and leave them out if the parameters were already checked by the calling function, which a human can't, at least not reliably and without making the program a nightmare to maintain.
Besides, didn't people say the exact same thing to defend the use of hand-optimized assemblers against such inefficient bloated crap like C, and C against C++ ? Even if it was true, it didn't really matter, because computers keep on getting faster while humans don't, so moving more and more of the work from the programmer to the programmed is inevitable; you simply won't stay competitive otherwise.
making programming simpler only means that simpler coders will be coding.
You make that sound like it was a bad thing. It isn't. Making coding simpler and thus accessible for larger number of people is a good thing; it makes computers more useful to them.
And of course, the less effort you need to put towards the details, the more you can put to the big picture; consequently, removing the grunt work from programming makes even good programmers more productive, since they'll be using less of their time for said grunt work.
The argument was against lazy idiots. Have we really degenerated to the point where anybody who is not a lazy idiot gets to be called a "superstar"? Sad.
No, the argument was against people who "think that a language should do everything for you, thus making you lazy and bloated like your code." That only leaves people who have a passion for doing things the hard way, rather than simply using programming as a tool for solving problems. In other words, everyone but the superstars.
Simply because you don't want to do something which the computer can do for you automatically doesn't make you a lazy idiot. But even if it did, my point still stands: requiring higher quality programmers would make programming more expensive.
explain this event in terms that a person with a sex life not involving the Internet could understand?
"If you let your computer fuck with shady websites, it's condom-equivalent might burst, in which case it'll get infected, propably with something nasty. This is because the manufacturer - Adobe - of its virtual Viagra-equivalent - called Flash - made a stupid error in the manufacturing process.
It was suggested on a net forum Slashdot that the underlaying cause of the problem is in the so-called C/C++ manufacturing equipment used, which is well known to be almost impossible to use correctly, and that the whole episode could had been avoided by using another, more advanced process which automates the difficult parts so the user can't screw them up. This immediately drew a chorus of protests from people defending C/C++ and opposing the idea of automation."
what should be banned are those useless coders who think that a language should do everything for you, thus making you lazy and bloated like your code.
People who can't be bothered to use the Shift key shouldn't blame others for laziness.
Sure, we could ban all but programming superstars. Of course, if we did, then Flash, Firefox and Linux would neve have gotten written in the first place, since the price of coding would be far too high for anything but megacorporations to pay for. Given this, wouldn't it be better to have the computer compensate for the inherent laziness of human beings by putting as much automation as possible into the programming language ?
Besides, having the computer automatically do things like memory management behind the scenes means that you don't have to do them in your code, making it simpler, not bloated.
remember: you are in control of the machine, not the other way around.
Yes. And since the machine is faster and more accurate than you, why not make it take care of the details like memory management ?
That is just silly, and demonstrates a lack of understanding of programming. High level langauges with built in checks and safties are very useful in a lot of situations, but they do not meet the needs when precision and control of the underlaying hardware is required. Whether flash needs this level of control I do not know, but plenty of applications do.
The only things which need precise control of underlaying hardware are the parts of device drivers which actually control the hardware (as opposed to sanitizing input or talking to the rest of the system). Flash isn't a device driver, it is an utility program.
And, oh yes, WTF!!OMG!! - '...should be banned...'. Yeah, ban the filthy programming languages that don't babysit the programmer. While we are at it lets ban corners, very dangerous.
Absurd analogies aside, doesn't this bug - and thousands upon thousands just like it - prove that your average programmer needs to be babysat ?
Besides, just why are you so hostile towards the of having the computer automatically make correctness checks that stop this kind of thing from happening, and as a side effect lessen the burden of the programmer considerably ? Is it some form of geek machismo - "Real Men manage their own memory" ?
He's wrong. Unlike armed robbery, shoplifting won't get you 12 years in prison on your first offence whereas you can happily shoplift here knowing your first offence will be a caution that won't show up on a criminal records check, your second a small fine in the region of 100 euros and your third a larger fine maybe 500 euros (all depends on your income).
No, he's right. Armed robbery carries high risk, but you only need to do it once. You might get lucky and get away with a loot; if so, you're set, and need not perform any more crimes. You can now invest the cash (low-profile, of course) and live off the profits for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, while a single case of shoplifing only carries a small penalty, it also has only a small potential gain. If you needed to do it once, the chances are you need to do it again, and again, and again, in which case you will get caught the first, second and third time; not maybe, but certainly. It is only a matter of time. As a saying goes: "You have no chance to survive make your time."
Furthermore, if you are poor enough to make shoplifting worth the risk, 500 euro fine is ruinous. It will almost certainly crash your personal finances for good.
The lesson: if you're going to risk everyting on a desperate gamble, make sure that the payoff is large enough that you don't need to do it again. Forget the shop, go for the car. And plan beforehand what you'll do with the loot. Invest it so it can gain interest while you do time, either in prison or in hiding; burying it in the ground is stupid. Every good bank robber team should include a crooked accountant, who launders and invests the funds.
Not that I'd condone any such thing, but it is an interesting problem to plan an efficient robbery.
As far as I know that defense probably wouldn't work. It's akin to leaving your gun on the kitchen table. In the US, the use of various tools implies knowledge & responsible handling. Unless you live in California where you can get away with anything.
What if I sell coffee out of my kitchen window ? Could I then claim to be an Internet Cafe, and not liable for my customer's actions ? Or is this yet another right which only companies over a certain size rather than real human beings have ?
You also claim that the tires cancel out the effect of the bullet. However, the satellite is not completely solid. It would be crushed on impact at some of the energy that would deflect the asteroid would be absorbed. Is this not similar to the tires?
No. The tires transmit the momentum of the bullet to the ground. Furthermore, the driver will simply turn the wheel to cancel out any deviation on the vechile's course. But if that truck were in freefall, it would indeed have its course altered by the bullet.
When and if the asteroid hits the satellite, the satellite's course changes. It will most likely be smashed into bits, some of which might possibly stick to the asteroid and some of which will scatter around. Since the satellite's course changes, the course of the asteroid must also change, because otherwise the conservation of momentum - one of the fundamental laws of nature - would be broken.
I believe that most people at the FBI are there out of a genuine desire to do good.
A genuine desire to do good is not sufficient to avoid corruption. In fact it might make you more vulnerable to it, since you are able to rationalize away that corruption for being neccessary for greater good. When you bend the rules, or follow their letter while ignoring their spirit, you can silence your conscience; after all, you aren't pursuing your own good, but common good, so you aren't doing anything wrong.
And of course once you've bent the rules just a little, there's no reason not to bend them just a tiny bit more, and then more, and then even more, until one day you are doing shit like the summary said - all the time having nothing but the best of intentions. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." That's one saying people working in intelligence agencies should really take to heart.
Plus, if the belt traps you in the car after a crash, and the car catches fire or ends up in a body of water, THAT is an automatic death sentence.
You do realize that the belt can be opened, cut, or simply slipped away from, right ? It's not an escape-proof bondage device. And that it propably still served you by softening the blow, hopefully enough to keep you from going unsconscious and burning/drowning like a rat ?
People who go around like sheep bleating "seat belts save lives" act as if they are miracle belts that will magically save you from any accident, no matter how severe.
No, they are claiming that objects which are properly secured so they can't bounce around are less likely to suffer damage when the vechile's speed abrutly changes than ones which aren't. This is a direct result of the physics involved and has nothing to do with magic.
You probably are better off wearing a belt than not, but it shouldn't be the government's place to tell us we MUST wear them or get ticketed.
Ah, I understand. And so a libertarian pounces on a chance to spill his anti-government propaganda, masked as a response to another message. Never mind that your arguments are rubbish and increase the risk of death for anyone stupid enough to believe them and cease the use of seatbelt, since they are nothing but stepping stones towards your goal and compassion, after all, is an evil socialistic instinct. Besides, they're just sheep anyway.
Actually, there's an endless amount of ice, since more is generated all the time. Snow falls in Greenland, more snow falls on top of that, and finally the weight is enough to compresses the bottom layer into ice, which starts to flow towards the sea like any river. When it reaches the sea, chunks break off, becomeing icebergs.
Since global warming will increase precipiation from the seas, it might also increase rainfall in Greenland, in which case the iceberg-formation will get much faster and stay that way until the next major shift in climate.
The "temperature" of the Big Bang is the theoretical hottest you can ever get, since at that point all mass was in the form of energy, and therefore you had the maximum energy at the maximum density. Nothing can ever exceed that.
Since the volume of space at t=0 was zero, but the energy content was not, the temperature at t=0 is infinite. That isn't useful for determining a scale. Alternatively, if the energy content was zero, then the temperature is lim(x->0) x/x, which is 0. If energy is zero but volume is nonzero, then temperature is 0/x (x>0), which is also 0. And if both volume and energy are nonzero, then you get a very large but finite amount, which is exceeded by classical black holes, where singularity has zero volume but nonzero energy content.
This is, of course, all assuming that neither volume nor energy can be (were not) negative, since if they are, you get all kinds of extra nastiness.
Thus, if you knew what that was, you could assign it a fixed value as your upper end of the scale.
How do you define this numerical value ? How are you going to make such a scale any less arbitrary than Kelvin scale ?
I propose an alternative: since temperature is determined by the average kinetic energy of a particle, use that as a gauge: at the temperature of 1 base unit, the average kinetic energy per particle is 1 Joule.
Alternatively, use the blackbody radiation: the base unit corresponds to the temperature of a blackbody object who's peak of radiation has wavelength of 1 meter.
If the rivets were such inferior quality why did the Olympic sail without problems (including being rammed by the cruiser HMS Hawke) for 24 years?
Perhaps precisely because it sailed without problems ? That is, it never ran into situation where the strength of the rivets might be tested.
It's similar to how most people who don't use seatbelts don't die in traffick accidents. It's a risk-increasing factor, not an automatic death sentence. It only becomes the latter when an accident happens.
Re:Confront him in a context where there's proof
on
Dealing With an IT Bully
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Your suggestions are spot on, and very appropriate for the currently emasculated workplace where little ever actually gets done.
An interesting choice of words. It immediately set of my testosterone overdoze alarm.
Invite the person out for drinks. Over a beer, grow a pair and tell the person that if he/she/yo ever talks to you like that again, you will beat the crap out of them, regardless of their position in the company, regardless of the consequences. Make it clear that when someone talks to you like that, normal hierarchies go out the window.
Threats of violence are illegal. Actually following them through is more so. Threatening an aggressive person when he's slightly drunk is unbelievable stupid, unless you're trying to start a fight. And if you are trying to start a fight and risk injury - even death - and/or jail time and getting a criminal record and almost certainly get fired just to show you have a pair, then frankly, you are an idiot.
Otherwise, my personal opinion is that you should suck it up. You can go "by the book" all you want, but even if you win the battle (unlikely) you will still lose the respect of your coworkers and consequently lose the war. It might not be fair and you might not like it, but that's the way the real world (not the one described in your HR handbook or the business section of Barnes & Noble) works.
In the real world, stupid macho posturing is unlikely to win the respect of anyone who's opinion actually matters, at least once you're out of grade school. Also, in real world, there are more important things than showing what a though guy you are.
The general theory he puts forth in the book is that human consciousness only happened 3,000-3,500 years ago. He suggests that before this change (over a great deal of time, not instantly) humans had split minds where one half would communicate it's type of information to the other half via auditory and visual hallucinations.
Well, that's one theory which is absolutely impossible to prove either way. It is, after all, impossible for anyone to prove that they have subjective consciousness, rather than being puppets being guided by hallucinations - which, I presume, would still originate from a consciousness of sorts, but whatever.
Then again, it might be easy to disprove: if it happened so recently, long after the current main groups of humanity split from each other, there should still be plenty of people in this split-mind state today. So make predictions about the difference between us and them, and go find them.
To support his theories he uses early written language examples which lack the concept of free will, let alone will at all. He argues that it was much more than just a literary device, but was in fact an accurate representation of human thinking in that time.
Of course, it could simply be that writing at that time was mainly used for bookkeeping, not to mention philosophy hadn't yet developed to the point of making this a problem... And besides, as far as I can tell, my dog has free will, and stubborn one at that.
Anyway, this theory is very likely rubbish, because plenty of old kingdoms - such as ancient Egypt - already existed far before 3000 years ago, and it's hard to imagine how merely following hallucinations without conscious forethought could build and upkeep large and complex societies; for that matter, it is hard to imagine just how the heck such a double-mind could develop. Getting sudden hallucinations while you're hunting woolly mammoths is not a good thing.
Of course it does. If nothing else gets it, then it ultimately gets buried into the bottom sediments of oceans and swept into Earth's magma ocean, and burns there.
Altought I find it far more likely that bacteria capable of using it for nutrition will emerge before that and eat it up. It is, after all, simply a mesh of long hydrocarbons.
In any case, plastics are no match for the forces of entropy.
Assuming that he isn't immortal - for which there is empirical evidence - it would have happened anyway. It's just a question of when.
Perhaps. Then again, Soviet Russia survived the death of Lenin and later Stalin, and communist China outlived Mao. Simply because a dictator is dead doesn't neccessarily mean that his regime will collapse.
Does anyone know pre-invasion Iraq well enough to know if the Baath party could had stayed in power with Saddam dead ?
The drug patents is the only way we've come up to encourage the entities with money to help fund the development of drugs.
Not true at all. Have the state post bounties for developing treatments for certain conditions. Or simply have the state employ the personnel and fund the research directly.
I thought that would be a reason to pick up the pitchfork... real geeks play Eve.
Geeks play Urban Dead, graargh. Real geeks play D&D through IRC. Libertarian nutjob geeks play Eve Online. Communist geeks don't play due to being unable to afford a computer. And geeks with troll blood - undoubtedly the result of the afromentioned IRC sessions getting out of hand - play with themselves while posting to Slashdot.
And a real geek doesn't pick up a pitchwork, he builds a Transformer to wield it for him. Nothing says "I hate you" like having a 20-ton rhinocerus-shaped killer robot with a flamethrower and a ballistic pitchfork for a horn charge your ass.
I suppose that by presenting the show in 3d, that makes it hard for the teenager in the projection booth to record with his camcorder and resell.
Is there any particular reason why the teenager couldn't simply record through a lens of the 3D glasses ? Or even both lenses simultanously, using two camcorders ?
Slashdot Mirror
If the automatic system is good, it only adds checks where needed (and doesn't recheck things already checked), so it doesn't add any checks the programmer wouldn't. And it can, in fact, leave out checks a programmer would have to make, since the compiler/VM knows which functions call which, so it can track the checks accross function calls and leave them out if the parameters were already checked by the calling function, which a human can't, at least not reliably and without making the program a nightmare to maintain.
Besides, didn't people say the exact same thing to defend the use of hand-optimized assemblers against such inefficient bloated crap like C, and C against C++ ? Even if it was true, it didn't really matter, because computers keep on getting faster while humans don't, so moving more and more of the work from the programmer to the programmed is inevitable; you simply won't stay competitive otherwise.
You make that sound like it was a bad thing. It isn't. Making coding simpler and thus accessible for larger number of people is a good thing; it makes computers more useful to them.
And of course, the less effort you need to put towards the details, the more you can put to the big picture; consequently, removing the grunt work from programming makes even good programmers more productive, since they'll be using less of their time for said grunt work.
No, the argument was against people who "think that a language should do everything for you, thus making you lazy and bloated like your code." That only leaves people who have a passion for doing things the hard way, rather than simply using programming as a tool for solving problems. In other words, everyone but the superstars.
Simply because you don't want to do something which the computer can do for you automatically doesn't make you a lazy idiot. But even if it did, my point still stands: requiring higher quality programmers would make programming more expensive.
"If you let your computer fuck with shady websites, it's condom-equivalent might burst, in which case it'll get infected, propably with something nasty. This is because the manufacturer - Adobe - of its virtual Viagra-equivalent - called Flash - made a stupid error in the manufacturing process.
It was suggested on a net forum Slashdot that the underlaying cause of the problem is in the so-called C/C++ manufacturing equipment used, which is well known to be almost impossible to use correctly, and that the whole episode could had been avoided by using another, more advanced process which automates the difficult parts so the user can't screw them up. This immediately drew a chorus of protests from people defending C/C++ and opposing the idea of automation."
People who can't be bothered to use the Shift key shouldn't blame others for laziness.
Sure, we could ban all but programming superstars. Of course, if we did, then Flash, Firefox and Linux would neve have gotten written in the first place, since the price of coding would be far too high for anything but megacorporations to pay for. Given this, wouldn't it be better to have the computer compensate for the inherent laziness of human beings by putting as much automation as possible into the programming language ?
Besides, having the computer automatically do things like memory management behind the scenes means that you don't have to do them in your code, making it simpler, not bloated.
Yes. And since the machine is faster and more accurate than you, why not make it take care of the details like memory management ?
The only things which need precise control of underlaying hardware are the parts of device drivers which actually control the hardware (as opposed to sanitizing input or talking to the rest of the system). Flash isn't a device driver, it is an utility program.
Absurd analogies aside, doesn't this bug - and thousands upon thousands just like it - prove that your average programmer needs to be babysat ?
Besides, just why are you so hostile towards the of having the computer automatically make correctness checks that stop this kind of thing from happening, and as a side effect lessen the burden of the programmer considerably ? Is it some form of geek machismo - "Real Men manage their own memory" ?
No, he's right. Armed robbery carries high risk, but you only need to do it once. You might get lucky and get away with a loot; if so, you're set, and need not perform any more crimes. You can now invest the cash (low-profile, of course) and live off the profits for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, while a single case of shoplifing only carries a small penalty, it also has only a small potential gain. If you needed to do it once, the chances are you need to do it again, and again, and again, in which case you will get caught the first, second and third time; not maybe, but certainly. It is only a matter of time. As a saying goes: "You have no chance to survive make your time."
Furthermore, if you are poor enough to make shoplifting worth the risk, 500 euro fine is ruinous. It will almost certainly crash your personal finances for good.
The lesson: if you're going to risk everyting on a desperate gamble, make sure that the payoff is large enough that you don't need to do it again. Forget the shop, go for the car. And plan beforehand what you'll do with the loot. Invest it so it can gain interest while you do time, either in prison or in hiding; burying it in the ground is stupid. Every good bank robber team should include a crooked accountant, who launders and invests the funds.
Not that I'd condone any such thing, but it is an interesting problem to plan an efficient robbery.
What if I sell coffee out of my kitchen window ? Could I then claim to be an Internet Cafe, and not liable for my customer's actions ? Or is this yet another right which only companies over a certain size rather than real human beings have ?
No. The tires transmit the momentum of the bullet to the ground. Furthermore, the driver will simply turn the wheel to cancel out any deviation on the vechile's course. But if that truck were in freefall, it would indeed have its course altered by the bullet.
When and if the asteroid hits the satellite, the satellite's course changes. It will most likely be smashed into bits, some of which might possibly stick to the asteroid and some of which will scatter around. Since the satellite's course changes, the course of the asteroid must also change, because otherwise the conservation of momentum - one of the fundamental laws of nature - would be broken.
Not true ! Many of the most famous politicians of all time - Hitler, Stalin, Mao - were in it for the sake of their vision, not money.
Perhaps you should be thankful that most of your politicians are in it for the money.
A genuine desire to do good is not sufficient to avoid corruption. In fact it might make you more vulnerable to it, since you are able to rationalize away that corruption for being neccessary for greater good. When you bend the rules, or follow their letter while ignoring their spirit, you can silence your conscience; after all, you aren't pursuing your own good, but common good, so you aren't doing anything wrong.
And of course once you've bent the rules just a little, there's no reason not to bend them just a tiny bit more, and then more, and then even more, until one day you are doing shit like the summary said - all the time having nothing but the best of intentions. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." That's one saying people working in intelligence agencies should really take to heart.
You do realize that the belt can be opened, cut, or simply slipped away from, right ? It's not an escape-proof bondage device. And that it propably still served you by softening the blow, hopefully enough to keep you from going unsconscious and burning/drowning like a rat ?
No, they are claiming that objects which are properly secured so they can't bounce around are less likely to suffer damage when the vechile's speed abrutly changes than ones which aren't. This is a direct result of the physics involved and has nothing to do with magic.
Ah, I understand. And so a libertarian pounces on a chance to spill his anti-government propaganda, masked as a response to another message. Never mind that your arguments are rubbish and increase the risk of death for anyone stupid enough to believe them and cease the use of seatbelt, since they are nothing but stepping stones towards your goal and compassion, after all, is an evil socialistic instinct. Besides, they're just sheep anyway.
Creep.
Actually, there's an endless amount of ice, since more is generated all the time. Snow falls in Greenland, more snow falls on top of that, and finally the weight is enough to compresses the bottom layer into ice, which starts to flow towards the sea like any river. When it reaches the sea, chunks break off, becomeing icebergs.
Since global warming will increase precipiation from the seas, it might also increase rainfall in Greenland, in which case the iceberg-formation will get much faster and stay that way until the next major shift in climate.
Since the volume of space at t=0 was zero, but the energy content was not, the temperature at t=0 is infinite. That isn't useful for determining a scale. Alternatively, if the energy content was zero, then the temperature is lim(x->0) x/x, which is 0. If energy is zero but volume is nonzero, then temperature is 0/x (x>0), which is also 0. And if both volume and energy are nonzero, then you get a very large but finite amount, which is exceeded by classical black holes, where singularity has zero volume but nonzero energy content.
This is, of course, all assuming that neither volume nor energy can be (were not) negative, since if they are, you get all kinds of extra nastiness.
How do you define this numerical value ? How are you going to make such a scale any less arbitrary than Kelvin scale ?
I propose an alternative: since temperature is determined by the average kinetic energy of a particle, use that as a gauge: at the temperature of 1 base unit, the average kinetic energy per particle is 1 Joule.
Alternatively, use the blackbody radiation: the base unit corresponds to the temperature of a blackbody object who's peak of radiation has wavelength of 1 meter.
Actually, global warming will likely make it worse, since it weakens the arctic icecap and thus increases the rate at which pieces break of it.
Perhaps precisely because it sailed without problems ? That is, it never ran into situation where the strength of the rivets might be tested.
It's similar to how most people who don't use seatbelts don't die in traffick accidents. It's a risk-increasing factor, not an automatic death sentence. It only becomes the latter when an accident happens.
An interesting choice of words. It immediately set of my testosterone overdoze alarm.
Threats of violence are illegal. Actually following them through is more so. Threatening an aggressive person when he's slightly drunk is unbelievable stupid, unless you're trying to start a fight. And if you are trying to start a fight and risk injury - even death - and/or jail time and getting a criminal record and almost certainly get fired just to show you have a pair, then frankly, you are an idiot.
In the real world, stupid macho posturing is unlikely to win the respect of anyone who's opinion actually matters, at least once you're out of grade school. Also, in real world, there are more important things than showing what a though guy you are.
Well, that's one theory which is absolutely impossible to prove either way. It is, after all, impossible for anyone to prove that they have subjective consciousness, rather than being puppets being guided by hallucinations - which, I presume, would still originate from a consciousness of sorts, but whatever.
Then again, it might be easy to disprove: if it happened so recently, long after the current main groups of humanity split from each other, there should still be plenty of people in this split-mind state today. So make predictions about the difference between us and them, and go find them.
Of course, it could simply be that writing at that time was mainly used for bookkeeping, not to mention philosophy hadn't yet developed to the point of making this a problem... And besides, as far as I can tell, my dog has free will, and stubborn one at that.
Anyway, this theory is very likely rubbish, because plenty of old kingdoms - such as ancient Egypt - already existed far before 3000 years ago, and it's hard to imagine how merely following hallucinations without conscious forethought could build and upkeep large and complex societies; for that matter, it is hard to imagine just how the heck such a double-mind could develop. Getting sudden hallucinations while you're hunting woolly mammoths is not a good thing.
They aren't competitive with the workaholic nuts.
Yes, but with most jobs outsourced and economy in freefall, there's hardly a shortage of skilled workers to replace the burned-out ones.
Of course it does. If nothing else gets it, then it ultimately gets buried into the bottom sediments of oceans and swept into Earth's magma ocean, and burns there.
Altought I find it far more likely that bacteria capable of using it for nutrition will emerge before that and eat it up. It is, after all, simply a mesh of long hydrocarbons.
In any case, plastics are no match for the forces of entropy.
Perhaps. Then again, Soviet Russia survived the death of Lenin and later Stalin, and communist China outlived Mao. Simply because a dictator is dead doesn't neccessarily mean that his regime will collapse.
Does anyone know pre-invasion Iraq well enough to know if the Baath party could had stayed in power with Saddam dead ?
Not true at all. Have the state post bounties for developing treatments for certain conditions. Or simply have the state employ the personnel and fund the research directly.
A false dichotomy, since Billy also has much better chances with vaccines than without them.
A rather unwise decision, since any significant social problems will also affect you, and a catastrophic failures will most likely kill you.
Geeks play Urban Dead, graargh. Real geeks play D&D through IRC. Libertarian nutjob geeks play Eve Online. Communist geeks don't play due to being unable to afford a computer. And geeks with troll blood - undoubtedly the result of the afromentioned IRC sessions getting out of hand - play with themselves while posting to Slashdot.
And a real geek doesn't pick up a pitchwork, he builds a Transformer to wield it for him. Nothing says "I hate you" like having a 20-ton rhinocerus-shaped killer robot with a flamethrower and a ballistic pitchfork for a horn charge your ass.
Is there any particular reason why the teenager couldn't simply record through a lens of the 3D glasses ? Or even both lenses simultanously, using two camcorders ?