I think the point is that it was more "character assasination" or "racketeering" than "censorship". They (ClearChannel) showed the Dixie Chicks who was boss, and what would happen if they stepped out of line again.
As long as you mean "radio companies boycotted the Dixie Chicks and fired employees for playing their songs, even though the public still loved them enough to ensure that their concerts were still sellouts", when you use the term "boycotted", rather than trying to imply that they lost nearly all of their fans and quit making good money...
I would have to second the other replier's suggestion of Neverwinter Nights. Being able to create a good storyline is more important with that toolchest than programming ability. Although you do need to know or figure out C-like syntax, you have tons of graphics, spells, items, and other content at your disposal. Of course, you can't make money off your creation...
There is also Garage Games (www.garagegames.com). They have a cheap $100 game engine that can be used to create your own game with little more than scripting (you also get the full source to modify as you wish). I think they can also help publish, for what sounded like reasonable fees the last time I looked.
I agree with much of what you've been saying, but trying to turn that particular incident into a "a police department can't be outgunned" story is a stretch. The best you could do is point out some policy changes that have been made (like rifles being available to regular patrolmen).
The AK47s the robbers were using punched straight through police cruisers and the peoples' legs behind them, destroying their bones and folding their legs back. The fact that nobody who was hiding behind a car took a life-ending body or head shot is simply a miracle.
The cops' bullets, though, bounced harmelessly off the robbers' body armor. A number of headshots were scored by one policeman in particular, but to no avail. The second robber to die did so because he shot himself in the head (after being almost surely fatally wounded).
Also, one true and accurate story most definitely *is* solid and real evidence. Keep up the fight, but keep a base under your arguments. Point out that one incident does not prove a trend.
To summarize: Yes, the police were ill-equipped to deal with that threat on that day. But, it was a rare event, and one that prompted changes to ensure that it will take a lot more to cause a police department that much trouble again.
You're correct, I've completely ignored the validity of any points you've made or tried to make. I've done so because you completely ignored the request for a simple explanation or example of why COBOL (and its syntax, in particular) sucks. SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS. That's all anyone is asking. But, rather than give such an example or explanation, you went on to bring up Turing Machines and other things. Now, you attack me for what I say. And, still, you don't support your claims.
FWIW, I don't disagree with what I can understand of what you've said (understanding being hampered by a lack of well-phrased discussion, not knowledge on my part). I'm simply annoyed that you're unwilling to justify your inflammitory remarks about COBOL.
As far as your recent claim of "I have never written anything else!": On numerous occasions you attacked COBOL; claiming that it has bad syntax, and that if it was worth anything as a language, then it would have supplanted C++. You also said, in so many words, that Lisp could do the job better. Maybe your "being in a hurry" simply made the ideas you were trying to get across come out wrong, but your unwillingness to comprehend the thread, and slow down and actually make your points rather than spew unbacked opinion, makes me not care.
I've decided that there is a language barrier seriously getting in the way here. (Note: Yes, I read the entire chain the first time through, I didn't just jump in the conversation).
A perfect example is the first line in the reply to my post. I was asking a rhetorical question.
The issue here is the following behavior: You claim just now that you received the argument that COBOL just had a bad rep. However, that's not what happened. What happened was that you attacked COBOL with: The reason here would be to get something as usable as COBOL but that wasn't more disgusting than x86 assembly language -- that still reads like a bad novel. And then, when asked to provide proof [You know, I've heard that "drawback" thing a number of times. Problem is, nobody backs it up with any real drawbacks. (...) can you give me some of those "drawbacks"?], you don't.
Also, in response to "expressing the problem domain is exactly what COBOL does", you reply Yes. Which was my point. You could get the same but without the uglyness. Again, you are attacking the language without providing proof, evidence, or example.
If you can't even show a single deficiency in COBOL (specifically, its syntax, and how it is ugly), then how can you possibly claim that another language could do the job better?
Further, comments like If it was just a bad rep, the COBOL people at least would use for something else are silly. Unless you're showing off or playing around, you use the best language for the job. If Perl lets you develop admin scripts 10X faster with less complexity, then you use it to develop admin scripts. If COBOL handles currency better than any/most other languages, then use it for financial programs. That's the entire point of "Fact 30" quoted in the article. The way in which you can point out to me that my rhetorical question was discussed in the article, and then totally miss the concept they were trying to convey, points to 1) mis-understanding English, 2) Trolling, or 3) ill-logic. I suppose a 4th possibility exists: laziness combined with arrogant haste.
FYI, in a logical argument, you're not allowed to ask for proof as you do with your "Turing Machine" comment. See, his comment was a request that you supply proof for your posits. Had you done so, then you would have the right to ask him to prove his.
Yes, I am being inflammitory, but only because I'm pretty sure I'm being confronted by trolling or obstinate daftness. My feeling that there is a language problem has all but left. Continually asking others for proof, while providing none yourself, is not a problem related to the understanding of a particular human language, but a problem of coherence of thought. Whether intentional or not is a mystery to me.
For an actual example of "exact points", see: http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11 9628&c id=10118313
If COBOL sucks so hard, then why is it used exactly where it's used? Nobody is claiming that it's a C++ replacement, they're claiming that it's good at its job. But, you're the one claiming that it sucks because it's not a good scripting language or C++ replacement.
Oohh, wait, that's a classic Straw Man Argument!
Also, rather than looking up the definition of Turing Machine, you should look up the definition of "begging the question". I'll help: it's when you say "it sucks", somebody asks, "hmm, really? why is that?", and you tell them "cuz. it does!", rather than supply anything remotely resembling actual proof.
Wait, I think I found the pattern! This must be an English class assignment to use fallacious argument techniques! Hmm, but, considering that you even know of Turing Machines (the word, if not their application), this may actually be a Logic 101 assignment...
Actually, you're thinking Christopher Reeves. Hawking can feel everywhere, just not control it. Proof: he left his wife for his nurse! He's a rowdy old cudger.
could be highly inaccurate depending on what it is you were pointing at.
Umm, so the accuracy of the laser is dependant on the target, eh? So, if I point it at, say, and egg, I might get +/-.000001mm accuracy; but, if I point it at a lamp, it might be +/- 300m?
Weird! They had better win a Nobel for this one!:)
Umm, no, by his logic counterfeiting is called counterfeiting rather than theft. Also, by his logic, he doesn't MIND if you copy his money; he didn't say anything about it being OK or legal. The point was that the Attourney General of the USA doesn't know or use accurate crime definitions, and that's a big friggin problem.
Anyone can write a firewall, it's a bitch writing software to throttle network and CPU usage for a particular process.
Umm, a firewall *is* throttling network usage. It throttles to 0 if you tell it to block, or 100 if you tell it to pass. Adding a bytes/s variable and only allowing that much through on a given connection should be trivial, if you're already peeking in enough to be able to stop the traffic alltogether.
no, no, no. See, it's like buying a car. First, you buy a car for $15,000 to $45,000. Then, when you're ready to pay for it, they tag on an "advertising fee". Cause, see, ADVERTISING isn't part of their regular business, see? It's an extra, over-the-top thing they do for ya, and see, they just gotta pay for their lights and rent and all, and if they don't charge ya this extra fee for something that you're already paying them to do anyway, then they'll just plum go out of business! waaaah!
I think I'll open a pizza shop. Pepperoni will be $1 extra. Of course, that will also incur an additional $.50 pepperoni delivery charge, a $.25 pepperoni placement labor fee, a $.25 pepperoni re-stocking fee, and a $.50 aren't-you-glad-you-got-pepperoni fee, so the total is $2.25. Yup, sounds logical to me! heh
Why do you think id, Blizzard, etc. keeps polishing their games before they declare them good enough to ship?
They don't. They're just a bunch of sadists, and enjoy torturing hundreds of thousands of people by not releasing their games. They actually finish near the initially advertised release period, and then they sit in their offices playing their awesome games all day, all the while reveling in the satisfaction that fanboys are crying themselves to sleep!:D
No, No! It's the GUN that kills people, not the person who pulls the trigger!
It's the video game that made the kid snap! Not bullies, hostile teachers, and a crappy home environment!
It's the fault of the guy who programmed tcpdump! It's not my fault for using it to sniff passwords instead of troubleshoot legitimate networking problems!
[/sarcasm]
Don't you love 12 year-olds trying to find their way through the complex world of BASIC ETHICS?
For a good while, I really thought this was a well-formatted troll.
Of the "things computers are good for", I think adding 1 to an integer is at the top of the list.
Doing the cryptographic calculations necessary for voter confidence (so a voter can verify their vote was counted) and printing a paper trail are also things computers are good at. There have been articles in the past mentioned here on/. that have very well thought-out systems that meet the criteria of accuracy and accountability, without sacrificing anonymity or allowing one to get a "receipt" so they can sell their vote.
Also, I've never understood the point of a "no one" option. I don't imagine that any party would mind at all if 99% of the country voted for no-one, as long as the majority who voted for a person voted for their candidate. It's not as if we can leave the position open and "try again, but this time with feeling!". Either the incumbant would have to stay in, or the person with the most votes would take over.
Other than those 2 points, I agreed with your post, and decided you weren't trolling:)
if you're in a riot situation are you gonna bitch that the pistol you grabbed and the maglight you found can't be one unit? No. You use what you have and deal with it.
Exactly. I'm gonna hold the pistol in one hand, and the maglight in the other. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll do the "rest your shooting hand in the bent wrist of your flashlight-holding hand" move that's well-known even to laymen. Also, if I were in a military base (or part of a military detachment that brought a weapons cache, or whatever the exact storyline is), I would expect to find at least *some* of the weapons equipped with flashlights. I'd expect pretty much ALL of the fancy helmets I've seen screenshots of to have lights on them. This isn't Joe Schmo caught up in the LA riots, it's a (hopefully) well-prepared and trained military unit. So, the fact that it's either a light or a gun is not only contrived, but logically inconsistant with the universe in which you're placed. Unless, of course, that it's made clear that only imbiciles apply for the military in that particular universe.
The rest of your complaints about whiners, though, I completely agree with.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the point is that it was more "character assasination" or "racketeering" than "censorship". They (ClearChannel) showed the Dixie Chicks who was boss, and what would happen if they stepped out of line again.
As long as you mean "radio companies boycotted the Dixie Chicks and fired employees for playing their songs, even though the public still loved them enough to ensure that their concerts were still sellouts", when you use the term "boycotted", rather than trying to imply that they lost nearly all of their fans and quit making good money...
I would have to second the other replier's suggestion of Neverwinter Nights. Being able to create a good storyline is more important with that toolchest than programming ability. Although you do need to know or figure out C-like syntax, you have tons of graphics, spells, items, and other content at your disposal. Of course, you can't make money off your creation...
There is also Garage Games (www.garagegames.com). They have a cheap $100 game engine that can be used to create your own game with little more than scripting (you also get the full source to modify as you wish). I think they can also help publish, for what sounded like reasonable fees the last time I looked.
I agree with much of what you've been saying, but trying to turn that particular incident into a "a police department can't be outgunned" story is a stretch. The best you could do is point out some policy changes that have been made (like rifles being available to regular patrolmen).
The AK47s the robbers were using punched straight through police cruisers and the peoples' legs behind them, destroying their bones and folding their legs back. The fact that nobody who was hiding behind a car took a life-ending body or head shot is simply a miracle.
The cops' bullets, though, bounced harmelessly off the robbers' body armor. A number of headshots were scored by one policeman in particular, but to no avail. The second robber to die did so because he shot himself in the head (after being almost surely fatally wounded).
Also, one true and accurate story most definitely *is* solid and real evidence. Keep up the fight, but keep a base under your arguments. Point out that one incident does not prove a trend.
To summarize: Yes, the police were ill-equipped to deal with that threat on that day. But, it was a rare event, and one that prompted changes to ensure that it will take a lot more to cause a police department that much trouble again.
FWIW, I don't disagree with what I can understand of what you've said (understanding being hampered by a lack of well-phrased discussion, not knowledge on my part). I'm simply annoyed that you're unwilling to justify your inflammitory remarks about COBOL.
As far as your recent claim of "I have never written anything else!": On numerous occasions you attacked COBOL; claiming that it has bad syntax, and that if it was worth anything as a language, then it would have supplanted C++. You also said, in so many words, that Lisp could do the job better. Maybe your "being in a hurry" simply made the ideas you were trying to get across come out wrong, but your unwillingness to comprehend the thread, and slow down and actually make your points rather than spew unbacked opinion, makes me not care.
A perfect example is the first line in the reply to my post. I was asking a rhetorical question.
The issue here is the following behavior: You claim just now that you received the argument that COBOL just had a bad rep . However, that's not what happened. What happened was that you attacked COBOL with: The reason here would be to get something as usable as COBOL but that wasn't more disgusting than x86 assembly language -- that still reads like a bad novel. And then, when asked to provide proof [You know, I've heard that "drawback" thing a number of times. Problem is, nobody backs it up with any real drawbacks. (...) can you give me some of those "drawbacks"?], you don't.
Also, in response to "expressing the problem domain is exactly what COBOL does", you reply Yes. Which was my point. You could get the same but without the uglyness. Again, you are attacking the language without providing proof, evidence, or example.
If you can't even show a single deficiency in COBOL (specifically, its syntax, and how it is ugly), then how can you possibly claim that another language could do the job better?
Further, comments like If it was just a bad rep, the COBOL people at least would use for something else are silly. Unless you're showing off or playing around, you use the best language for the job. If Perl lets you develop admin scripts 10X faster with less complexity, then you use it to develop admin scripts. If COBOL handles currency better than any/most other languages, then use it for financial programs. That's the entire point of "Fact 30" quoted in the article. The way in which you can point out to me that my rhetorical question was discussed in the article, and then totally miss the concept they were trying to convey, points to 1) mis-understanding English, 2) Trolling, or 3) ill-logic. I suppose a 4th possibility exists: laziness combined with arrogant haste.
FYI, in a logical argument, you're not allowed to ask for proof as you do with your "Turing Machine" comment. See, his comment was a request that you supply proof for your posits. Had you done so, then you would have the right to ask him to prove his.
Yes, I am being inflammitory, but only because I'm pretty sure I'm being confronted by trolling or obstinate daftness. My feeling that there is a language problem has all but left. Continually asking others for proof, while providing none yourself, is not a problem related to the understanding of a particular human language, but a problem of coherence of thought. Whether intentional or not is a mystery to me.
However, lemonparty is really cool.
Sigh. Since I hate to mod down:
1 9628&c id=10118313
For an actual example of "exact points", see:
http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1
If COBOL sucks so hard, then why is it used exactly where it's used? Nobody is claiming that it's a C++ replacement, they're claiming that it's good at its job. But, you're the one claiming that it sucks because it's not a good scripting language or C++ replacement.
Oohh, wait, that's a classic Straw Man Argument!
Also, rather than looking up the definition of Turing Machine, you should look up the definition of "begging the question". I'll help: it's when you say "it sucks", somebody asks, "hmm, really? why is that?", and you tell them "cuz. it does!", rather than supply anything remotely resembling actual proof.
Wait, I think I found the pattern! This must be an English class assignment to use fallacious argument techniques! Hmm, but, considering that you even know of Turing Machines (the word, if not their application), this may actually be a Logic 101 assignment...
duct-tape.
Actually, you're thinking Christopher Reeves. Hawking can feel everywhere, just not control it. Proof: he left his wife for his nurse! He's a rowdy old cudger.
I hear-tell there's a new GMail filesystem hack. As long as your systems have internet access, you've got 1GB of hosted storage!
Exactly.
So, what he needs to do is hit the library first, then spend the next few weekends trying out chairs!
"Umm, that creepy guy is back with his book and Mountain Dew. Should we call security? He was here from open to close last Saturday."
could be highly inaccurate depending on what it is you were pointing at.
.000001mm accuracy; but, if I point it at a lamp, it might be +/- 300m?
:)
Umm, so the accuracy of the laser is dependant on the target, eh? So, if I point it at, say, and egg, I might get +/-
Weird! They had better win a Nobel for this one!
Yeah, but it's rarely used in the US; so when it is used, it's usually the more technical term of "animal reproductive mating".
In US slang, "root" is often a reference to a penis, much like "tool".
Nice pun btw. "big fucking joke". heh.
You can probably mount the dd image using the loopback device (-lo 0 I think).
Umm, no, by his logic counterfeiting is called counterfeiting rather than theft. Also, by his logic, he doesn't MIND if you copy his money; he didn't say anything about it being OK or legal. The point was that the Attourney General of the USA doesn't know or use accurate crime definitions, and that's a big friggin problem.
Anyone can write a firewall, it's a bitch writing software to throttle network and CPU usage for a particular process.
Umm, a firewall *is* throttling network usage. It throttles to 0 if you tell it to block, or 100 if you tell it to pass. Adding a bytes/s variable and only allowing that much through on a given connection should be trivial, if you're already peeking in enough to be able to stop the traffic alltogether.
And it doesn't make it any more of a device that's able to change its external color and patterns at a whim, either. You're just being facetious.
no, no, no. See, it's like buying a car. First, you buy a car for $15,000 to $45,000. Then, when you're ready to pay for it, they tag on an "advertising fee". Cause, see, ADVERTISING isn't part of their regular business, see? It's an extra, over-the-top thing they do for ya, and see, they just gotta pay for their lights and rent and all, and if they don't charge ya this extra fee for something that you're already paying them to do anyway, then they'll just plum go out of business! waaaah!
I think I'll open a pizza shop. Pepperoni will be $1 extra. Of course, that will also incur an additional $.50 pepperoni delivery charge, a $.25 pepperoni placement labor fee, a $.25 pepperoni re-stocking fee, and a $.50 aren't-you-glad-you-got-pepperoni fee, so the total is $2.25. Yup, sounds logical to me! heh
Why do you think id, Blizzard, etc. keeps polishing their games before they declare them good enough to ship?
:D
They don't. They're just a bunch of sadists, and enjoy torturing hundreds of thousands of people by not releasing their games. They actually finish near the initially advertised release period, and then they sit in their offices playing their awesome games all day, all the while reveling in the satisfaction that fanboys are crying themselves to sleep!
No, it's more like 70%-80%, which numerous studies of nature vs. nurture show.
No, No! It's the GUN that kills people, not the person who pulls the trigger!
It's the video game that made the kid snap! Not bullies, hostile teachers, and a crappy home environment!
It's the fault of the guy who programmed tcpdump! It's not my fault for using it to sniff passwords instead of troubleshoot legitimate networking problems!
[/sarcasm]
Don't you love 12 year-olds trying to find their way through the complex world of BASIC ETHICS?
Thank you for thinking of us in our time of need.
For a good while, I really thought this was a well-formatted troll.
/. that have very well thought-out systems that meet the criteria of accuracy and accountability, without sacrificing anonymity or allowing one to get a "receipt" so they can sell their vote.
:)
Of the "things computers are good for", I think adding 1 to an integer is at the top of the list.
Doing the cryptographic calculations necessary for voter confidence (so a voter can verify their vote was counted) and printing a paper trail are also things computers are good at. There have been articles in the past mentioned here on
Also, I've never understood the point of a "no one" option. I don't imagine that any party would mind at all if 99% of the country voted for no-one, as long as the majority who voted for a person voted for their candidate. It's not as if we can leave the position open and "try again, but this time with feeling!". Either the incumbant would have to stay in, or the person with the most votes would take over.
Other than those 2 points, I agreed with your post, and decided you weren't trolling
if you're in a riot situation are you gonna bitch that the pistol you grabbed and the maglight you found can't be one unit? No. You use what you have and deal with it.
Exactly. I'm gonna hold the pistol in one hand, and the maglight in the other. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll do the "rest your shooting hand in the bent wrist of your flashlight-holding hand" move that's well-known even to laymen. Also, if I were in a military base (or part of a military detachment that brought a weapons cache, or whatever the exact storyline is), I would expect to find at least *some* of the weapons equipped with flashlights. I'd expect pretty much ALL of the fancy helmets I've seen screenshots of to have lights on them. This isn't Joe Schmo caught up in the LA riots, it's a (hopefully) well-prepared and trained military unit. So, the fact that it's either a light or a gun is not only contrived, but logically inconsistant with the universe in which you're placed. Unless, of course, that it's made clear that only imbiciles apply for the military in that particular universe.
The rest of your complaints about whiners, though, I completely agree with.