I think that was more a case of really wishful thinking on the part of Western governments. It looks like Ahmadinejad really did win and independent polls indicate it was the likely result as well. He's simply very popular outside of a relatively wealthy, city-based proto-elite. On the subject of the protests, Russia made some quiet and veiled comments about how the US should avoid trying to forment a "colour revolution" similar to what occurred in the Ukraine. Like of dislike Ahmadinijed, I think he appears the legitimately chosen leader (ignoring the vast influence wielded by a despicable bunch of theocrats, anyway). If you have any evidence to the contrary that stands up, I know a number of national governments and news agencies that would be desparate to cast doubt on his legitimacy.;)
Because he writes like Israel just has some burning, reasonless hatred driving them to destroy Iran with any excuse they can get. That's childishly false.
Indeed. Israel has nuclear weapons and reasons for having them - they are situated amidst a number of countries where there is a lot of ill-will toward them and in which political capital is made out of voicing hatred of the country. It's not a reassuring position to be in. In the past, they have been subject to a war of aggression due to the aggressor the countries' internal troubles. As far as Israel is concerned, Iran gaining a nuclear capability would (whilst not actually doing so as far as any sane person were concerned) remove the deterrent to attacking them in the future and open the door to devestating attacks (subjecting them to the deterrent). It is in Israel's rational interests that Iran does not gain nuclear capability.
However, when your options for achieving that end come with their own risks and costs, then you have to assess that rationality carefully. Just as Israel has rational reasons for not wanting Iran to gain nuclear capability for the sake of Israel's protection, so Iran has rational reasons for wanting that capability for their own protection (some may fear that Iran wants nuclear capability for purposes of offense, but I think even the current ruling group are far from that stupid). Iran certainly has the potential given enough years to become a nuclear power so there are only three ways to avoid this that anyone has come up with. The first is sanctions. If Israel really isn't bluffing about launching an attack (which I find hard to believe, but a lot of reputable sources disagree with me), then sanctions might actually be our best hope for avoiding a war. Sadly, I think they'd probably lead us directly into one, but still... The second option is a pre-emptive strike. This has been a part of Israeli military doctrine for a long time. Israel could launch bombing raids on suspecte key targets in Iran to eliminate it's embryonic nuclear capability. Again, a widespread war immediately following this isn't inevitable, but it's pretty likely and you'd certainly see responses from Iran that caused significant effects. And I think long-term, it would lead to a major and ongoing conflict involving actual territoral invasions. The third option is paying off Iran. This has been tried to lesser extents in previous years. But either the price has been too low or Iran sees nuclear capability as an end-game too valuable to give up. I think there is more mileage in the bribery route, personally. The more integrated a country is into the global economy and cultural exchange, the less likely it is to start major wars. But I'm not an expert on this and I would imagine if it were thought an option, the US would be pursuing it like a dog after a rabbit.
So those are the options it seems and they both have, if not a very high price, then the risk of one. Balanced against those, is the interest of Israel in Iran not being nuclear capable worth it for them? They are saying that it is at the moment, but I think it can be debated. Unless you're considering bombing Iran to nothing (not an option) or a permanent occupation forever, then Iran is going to end up with nuclear weapons. It may be better to start working harder on eliminating reasons why people would want war to be honest. That's a major process, but the initial key elements would be less hard-line government and more reform in Iran, and more concilliation to the Palestinians from Israel.
Political analysis isn't my strongest area. I am open to comments and criticisms on the above.
Similarly thanks for the time you took to reply. I wondered after I'd posted whether I sounded a little snappish.:/
I have the fullest of respect for you worrying about your grandchildren's world. I think we citizens ar to blame to some extent. If a burglar robs me because I removed all the locks and alarms from my house then, yes, the burglar is still to blame, but I would have been the fool who let him. Where one draws the line between victimhood and culpability is debatable. Certainly the populations are well-played by their governments. A friend in the US was asked by some Iranian neighbours (topical, eh?) why there weren't riots and civil disobedience when Bush 'won' his first election with a minority of the vote and dubious procedures in Florida. She replied: "we're all too busy trying to pay mortgages". And there's a lot of truth to that. Few of us think we have the time to devote to opposing undemocratic behaviour. But still, I think we in the UK and people in the USA, need to act for ourselves to help protect our countries. If the countries become totalitarian, we share the blame for that.
But conversely, if a country is untotalitarian I suppose the people share the credit for that by the same principle, so kudos to old Canadians, I guess.:) You seem to have ended up with a country that has a good level of respect amongst freedom-lovers around the world. If you can keep it that way, it will always help people fighting the fight elsewhere to have something to point at.:)
That's the problem with tiny countries getting nukes, if they were to fire you couldn't fire back without significantly harming your allies.
I agree with your general point, but I have to ask which "tiny" countries you're talking about. Iran is huge and ancient. Iraq similar. North Korea is smaller (though still bigger than countries like Austria) so I guess that's what you had in mind. But you never know on Slashdot. I'd lay money on some people round here being surprised that Iran has trains. : / Hence I hope you don't mind me clarifying that Iran doesn't fit that definition.
Anyway, we're approaching the point faster every day, where humanity has to learn how to live peacefully or watch this whole planet get devastated piece by piece.
Probably because someone thinks pointing out the double-standard for Israel is un-american or something. Anyway, the idea of sanctions is doomed unless the US can get both Russia and China to go along with them. China because (major reason) it has a permanent seat on the UN security council and can veto any sanction request and (minor reason) they can hit back at the US if they ever wish to by engaging in mildly self-harming trade war with the USA (which they own a lot of thanks to government borrowing and so can dump US dollars). Russia because it has a similar veto right and (especially) because if it wants to it has enough reserve capacity to fuel the whole of Iran and can provide it by (in order of convenience) rail, Caspian sea or road.
Anyway, the GP is right to bring Israel into this. One of the big pressures on the USA (I suppose THE pressure) is that Israel is threatening to initiate bombing raids on Iran if they aren't satisfied with it reigning in its technological progress. Israel is confident that the US would back it up in any action (indeed, Israeli bombers would need to pass over US controlled airspace to carry out the attacks as I understand it, which would make the US complicit even if it didn't supply military aid beyond the tech and money over previous years).
What the inner government of Iran thinks privately I don't think many people really know. It's quite possible that they think Israel wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war which would drag the whole region down in flames. There has to be some doubt in their minds about that - after all this is Israel - but publically, they're not showing much willingness to roll over for US demands.
At anyrate, the US will have to pay quite the price to Russia to get it to help with sanctions (after all, Russia is fine with Iran, though they probably don't want to see it nuclear-capable). The US has already backed down on Ballistic Missile Defence (alienating Poland and the Czech republic who were supposed to be hosting two of the bases, incidentally), but BMD was an over-priced failing project anyway and Medvedev pretty much said that Russia just considered withdrawing it merely a return to the negotiating table. If the US wants sanctions against Iran, other people will probably be paying the price - that will be the US giving in on pushing for greater control of Georgia and the Ukraine (or from a certain point of view, throwing them to the Bears).
If Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes (it would make sense that they are trying to do so - so would you if you were threatened by two nuclear powers - but nobody's shown any good evidence that they are)... if Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes than we think and US or Russian Intelligence know this then perhaps Russia will be more amenable to sanctions. But if Iran is not near to having nuclear weapons as everyone appears to think, then Russia's only going to help at a big old cost of some kind. After all, they hold a bargaining chip that could stave off US involvement in a long-term and very destructive war.
So that's more or less how I see sanctions and the cost of them if they come about. If we do get sanctions then (a) a lot of Iranian people will probably suffer in the same way that the Iraqi people suffered when that country was put under sanctions during Saddam's regime; (b) moderate elements in Iran (e.g. Moussavi's former supporters) will become hardline elements in droves strengthening Ahmadinijad enormously; (c) Iran will probably mine oil shipping routes causing a massive interruption in international oil supplies.
If we don't get sanctions, then we have to hope that either Iran gets nuclear weapons and everyone has to accept it and play more nicely in future, or that Israel isn't willing to plunge the whole region into a great bloody struggle. If they do, then Russia will probably sell Iran some more modern weaponry (they've been turning Iran down for years) because they see no reason why the US and Israel should be attacking a fairly non-aggressive country next door to them.
I welcome constructive criticism of the above.
Harmony.
I'm European. I raised the US Constitution because that's where this incident took place. But really, we living in the UK are in no strong position to criticize. Our police shot someone in a public place without any cause, and then tried to cover it up with a series of lies, and no heads have rolled for that one yet. The only legal challenge that made it as far as an actual court case was one on whether Health and Safety laws had been violated. When things have become so bad that this happens, then I find little comfort in criticizing a fellow victim (the US public). The forces that are bringing about these changes are global. It's right therefore, that people work and talk together globally to oppose them. Hence this is of interest to me as a UK citizen, just as oppression in the UK, France or China is of interest to people in the USA. I didn't draw national boundaries or get to say who can or can't be a member of a country if they want to be. So I base my group on things I do control, not arbitrary nationalities.
Hmm...I am marked a troll merely for pointing out the fact that the police are using nonlethal methods rather than randomly shooting actual bullets and killing people,
I can't speak for those modding you troll, but most of us don't think the police are using tasers and sound cannons instead of killing people. It's naive in the extreme to think that if they hadn't a method of pain compliance such as this sound weapon, those people would have been shot and killed. People are objecting to (a) the police being able to use the infliction of pain to control whoever they want and (b) their willingness to do so against people who are gathering to speak out against perceived injustice, meet and exchange views and publicise their cause - none of which merits being driven off by police forces with pain weapons.
A very mainstream reporter for the Guardian (a major national UK newspaper) documented her direct experience of an undercover police officer agitating for violence at a protest in London. He was showing people how to unhook barriers and trying to persuade people (unsuccessfully) to charge the police. Even a little common sense indicates some of the more violent protestors in London were undercover police. For example, in a protests involving thousands, lasting from morning into the night, suddenly a few people in balaclavas kick in a window whilst coincidentally surrounded by photographers. And were they arrested? No. There were proven police agitators masquerading as protestors at a city in the US, but I'm afraid I don't recall what the event was. The UK police have also engaged in what is now called "kettling" where they push as many people together as possible and keep them there in a confined area. There's no actual reason for it, but it does make for some good photos and a better chance you'll get to arrest someone for trying to get out of it.
You say that the legitimate arguments of the protestors are obscured by "these cretins". To that I point out that police forces have been proven quite willing to provide these people for exactly that purpose and secondly, its the media that are the problem. After all, is it natural or logical that three people kicking in a window should grab all the media coverage rather than the thousand-times that number of people peacefully protesting and making intelligent cases for why they are protesting to anyone who'll listen? No, it doesn't make sense, so why do the media focus on these minor and outlying cases? Honestly, in London, there's a window being kicked in somewhere on any day you care to mention. So can you really blame some bloke in a ski mask that there's so little actual interviews and coverage of the hundreds, often thousands, demonstrating about an important issue? No, you have to blame the media for that.
There are around six posts at the time of writing this one. Give it a little time. If there's anything clear, it's that oppression of people through means such as this isn't limited by what party is in power. Trampling the constitution like this should be objected to by intelligent Democrat and Rebublican voters / members.
The police who used this? Yeah. We don't need police driving around inflicting pain on any individuals or groups that they or the government disapproves of. Now what law or part of the constitution does this contravene and what steps are necessary to bring a prosecution?
I can't see much reason for that. I can only guess that he's downloading TV programs or something off free file hosting companies. With a limit of 100MB for example, people break larger media into rar archives so that they can be downloaded piecemeal.
Except that he's not writing about "good to expert developers". His examples are people who don't even understand what they're rejecting. From TFA:
You see, everybody else is too afraid of looking stupid because they just cant keep enough facts in their head at once to make multiple inheritance, or templates, or COM, or multithreading, or any of that stuff work. So they sheepishly go along with whatever faddish programming craziness has come down from the architecture astronauts who speak at conferences and write books and articles and are so much smarter than us that they dont realize that the stuff that theyre promoting is too hard for us.
Sorry, but multithreading is not "faddish". And COM is just an antiquated example that makes him sound like it's a very long time since he did any programming if he's using it as an example of what 'trendy' people are doing. His argument is that this theory stuff is - and I directly quote from the above - "too hard for us". The whole article just sounds like he's got a massive chip on his shoulder. It's a massive rant about some hypothetical programmers that produce wonderful code without getting bogged down "design patterns" and such. It's weird to be the one defending this, because a lot of the time, I fall into what he would call a "duct tape programmer". I get thrown into work with too little time to do things by the book and yes - I do bang out code without formal specifications or unit tests because someone comes into my office and says "actually we want it to do X right now". BUT that's because I have to. And though I'm usually the first to rant about hype in the world of programming, I can't feel anything but disgust for the wrong thinking in this article. I've seen a number of methodologies and technologies go through their over-hyped bubbles. When I started programming it was all Yourden and SSADM (kids - Google it). I watched UML appear and get frantically added to everyone's CVs, I saw XML appear with all its over-fat text books straining the bookshop shelves (people still just about needed text-books back then). More recently I've had people charging around shouting Agile and Scrum. And I decried the hype at each stage, but I didn't and I don't think these are all stupid things and I certainly don't write web-articles proudly boasting about my ignorance of them and exalting programmers who don't understand them.
Let's take Design Patterns which he mocks people for "all being at conferences on". Well firstly, I dislike argument through mockery. I don't know anyone who has gone to a conference on design patterns - that tends to be the area of academics. But I do know people (and I am one) who have taken the time to read up on the subject. Like many things, it's not something radically new, just a slightly more dressed up and formalized consolidation of a lot of existing knowledge. So it may not deserve a great deal of hype but people (particularly less-experienced programmers) can and have benefited from reading up on it.
"Duct Tape Programmer" sounds like a derogatory term to me. If you find yourself improvising functionality on the fly, that should be because you need to, not because you have an aversion to planning. If you choose not to use multithreading, that should be because it's not applicable to your work, not because you think (and again I directly quote) "that stuff is too hard for us". I tell you, when I watch one of my four cores maxed out by a MySQL for several minutes whilst the other three do nothing, I don't sit there thinking, "Wow! I'm glad they had some Duct Tape Programmers working on this who were real programmers, not those pussy faddish types with their parallel programming theories".
The whole article is nothing but laughing and mockery of some caricature of "architecture astronauts". It's the laughter of the kid in the bottom maths set deriding those getting A's for being good at it. The caricature is doubly stupid seeing as astronauts are actually very skilled people
I'm probably a "duct-tape programmer" in some ways. How did I become one? By learning everything I could about being an "architecture astronaut" first.
You learn how to do things properly and then you know when and when not to step back from that. If anyone RTFS and says to themselves they don't need to have a good solid understanding of the principles of software design or even a grounding in some of the popular modern methodologies. The linked article is full of colourful metaphors about go-karts and WD-40. Making your argument by metaphor is usually a bad sign - you use them for people who would have trouble understanding the subject if you just stated the case plainly. I hope that's none of us. The article writer seems to see some great division between those who "wield their WD-40 and duct tape elegantly even as their go-kart careens down the hill at a mile a minute" and those who "are still at the starting line arguing over whether to use titanium or some kind of space-age composite material". Well the division between those two groups isn't normally one between two sets of people, but between two environments and resource levels. In an ideal situation, I'll create a rigorous specification and use that as the formal basis for my unit tests and do things by the book. Sometimes I find myself "careening down the hill" because I'm suddenly dumped a big, live system and told "make these vaguely described modifications by yesterday". And I'm the same individual. I'll tell you what I want to see if you're in that latter environment - I want to see someone who understands what corners they are cutting and when to do so and when they can't. Same goes for some of the project management methodologies. You don't have to do things by the letter of the law of Agile development or whatever, but if everyone in the group understands the principles, it can streamline things.
Being better than the rest at anything doesn't come easy. This stupid article has some metaphorical "duct-tape programmer" who doesn't need to bother with the "achitecture astronaut" stuff because they're a whiz with their "WD-40". Enough with the metaphor. Show me the real instances of people who are better than others because they don't know about the theory.
Some articles are stupid. This is one. It's a load of overblown metaphor and hypotheticals. Ironically enough, it falls into the trap of dealing only in hypothetical and idealised situations that it lambasts some programmers for. Sure - if you're up against a tight deadline and in the midst of a melee of programmers, don't waste two weeks drawing UML diagrams and Gantt charts. But that sort of judgement has nothing to do with not knowing the principles of software design or project management. Banging out a quick website might be a case of shifting images left and right from day to day based on customer feedback. But real programming is most definitely not a "downhill go-kart race". It's about producing maintainable, reliable code that meets the customers' needs. And if you see someone who looks like they're gluing brilliant code together on the fly with "duct tape", you'll probably find they're someone with a lot of experience and who understands the theory well enough that you don't notice them using it. As Ovid said: "Thus by art, is art concealed." In other words - they make it look easy, because they're good.
None of which supports the OP's bizarre contention that ethnic groups killing each other off is inevitable. Every example of interbreeding that you raise supports my point exactly. If people want to redistribute human DNA via sex, then I'm fine with that. In fact, humans have been doing this for, well, before they were humans.;)
Or you could bypass the issue all together and go with a "digital paper" solution. I think the questioner is mistaken asking "what is the best tablet PC", and instead should be asking "what is the best method of achieving what I want". Solutions like Oxford Papershow use a form of patterned paper (very faint) that you draw on with a bluetooth-enabled pen, and it then transforms pretty much any computer into a tablet. You have to use it to get a real feel for it, but it's incredibly easy to set up (at least the Oxford Papershow tool) and you can use it on as many or any computers you want. Arrive in lecture theatre, plug in USB dongle, spend three minutes setting it up and you're good to go. You buy the initial device (pen and USB dongle combo) for around UK£100, I think. Then pads of the special paper are around UK£10 for a pad of a 100 sheets, I think. It's an expense, but it's upfront and works out okay actually. Certainly better than a lot of ongoing licences depending on how much you use. You can even print out copies of your slides onto the special paper in advance so that you're drawing on your powerpoint slide or whatever. The whole thing can be recorded, you can use it as a normal interface like a mouse, it's really surprisingly good.
The above sounds like a sales pitch. I have no connection to the company though our university is now trialling the product. I would rate it as better than spending the money on a tablet for a lot of people's needs. Windows only so far as I know, but I could be wrong.
That's the definition of a species. But interbreeding also in practice leads to the extermination of genes and fenotypes.
To put it very, very unsubtly : just look at the amount of African genes in our "black" president.
Sure. He's half-Luo (Black) and half-Caucasian. And he's a demonstration of interbreeding - an idea that for some bizarre reason seems to have entirely escaped the OP who stated that ethnic groups would inevitably wipe each other out in warfare. Interbreeding pretty much always happens. People like sex and furthermore, often like sex with people who are different to themselves.
Or if you believe in evolution, and that the human race is not above evolution, it is normal to have ethnic wars, fought to extermination. Okay the "it doesn't have to be a war" crowd is probably right, but whatever action evolution does involve does have to end with the other guy dead (meaning specific entire ethnic groups).
The possibility of inter-breeding seems to have escaped you.
There are two fundamental problems in your court-based solution. The least intractable is that it is both an effort in itself to extract recompense from courts in matters like this (the example you are responding to is someone who's health is damaged by poor air quality. If lung cancer incidents rise by 15% in a city due to poor air quality, if average IQ of children in Hokaido is 5 points lower due to mercury contamination in fish stocks, how do you take that to court?
The second and insoluble problem is that you still haven't recompensed the victim for the damage. They don't view money as a substitute for their lost health, never being able to see a certain breed of animal or whatever anymore. Saying that it is a court that sets a price on their health makes no difference. If your son were in the remedial class because there was contamination in the water supply (there was a case in the UK some years ago where a whole town suffered brain damage from contaminated water), or you yourself suddenly found yourself damaged due to the same, is it any less true for me to say that someone assigning an amount of money to it and giving you that money isn't going to be a fair arbitration whether that amount of money is set by the courts or direct from the party responsible? The point is that people don't see some things equivalent to any in terms of money and a court telling them they do does not make it so.
The logic is inarguable - if you can't buy something with money, if you can't exchange money for something, then there can be no equivalence and you can't say any quantity of money is arbitrarily worth that thing. The courts award damages in money all the time, but that's only because it's the best that they can do. They're not saying that the loss of your wife / girlfriend in an accident can be offset by the negligent driver's insurance company or her employer or whatever was worth X amount. If they could make the responsible party give her back, that's what they'd do. But they can't, they can only offer some damages to punish the perpetrator and compensate you. Not recompense, compensate. The poster I replied to wasn't talking about damages awarded after the incident, they were talking about some agreed level of compensation, like a contingent contract. For some people, there can be no such agreement in principle and it's not for courts to force prices on people in advance. If someone isn't willing to agree that company X may pollute their lungs for $Y, then no party should be able to set a price on my behalf. That's the free market. If I don't want to sell, I shouldn't have to. And that's what a lot of environmental legislation is about: a collective statement that something isn't for sale.
And keep in mind that it's not merely parents that will be tracking the children. The next logical step is for schools and "child-care" companies to spring up keeping an eye on them for the busy children". They don't need to just be able to say where the child is, either. Next thing you know they'll be offering services to "parent" your child as well - e.g. they'll do random "listen ins" on children to listen out for "bad language", bullying, talk of misbehaviour, whatever. And parents will pay for this privilege.
Honestly, I don't think it's highly doubtful. Children are a highly emotive subject, If a group of parents are tracking their children's every move and you say that they're wrong to do so - even if only by implication because you're not - then you risk a lot of hostility. The subject of parenting can rapidly become a for us or against us divider.
Nonetheless, he was criticizing the Israeli government, not Jewish people. Whilst the Israeli lobbyists play the Israel === Jewish card endlessly and it's a trap that you fell into. To assume that people sharing ethnicity share traits that have no basis in ethnicity, such as morality or national allegiance, is racism. A form that you personally may object less to, but it is in principle racism. You should not let the strength of your disagreement with someone push you into adopting an incorrect viewpoint yourself in order to oppose them. That just opens you up to manipulation by those that can speak the loudest for a supposed faction.
A friend of mine worked in a hotel in Yorkshire where they served Black Pudding. A group of americans asked her what it was and she told them but they wouldn't believe her. I mean they actually would not believe that this was a dish that British people ate, despite repeated assertions. I had a similar reaction when I tried to get some americans to enjoy the delicious taste of Marmite.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that was more a case of really wishful thinking on the part of Western governments. It looks like Ahmadinejad really did win and independent polls indicate it was the likely result as well. He's simply very popular outside of a relatively wealthy, city-based proto-elite. On the subject of the protests, Russia made some quiet and veiled comments about how the US should avoid trying to forment a "colour revolution" similar to what occurred in the Ukraine. Like of dislike Ahmadinijed, I think he appears the legitimately chosen leader (ignoring the vast influence wielded by a despicable bunch of theocrats, anyway). If you have any evidence to the contrary that stands up, I know a number of national governments and news agencies that would be desparate to cast doubt on his legitimacy. ;)
Indeed. Israel has nuclear weapons and reasons for having them - they are situated amidst a number of countries where there is a lot of ill-will toward them and in which political capital is made out of voicing hatred of the country. It's not a reassuring position to be in. In the past, they have been subject to a war of aggression due to the aggressor the countries' internal troubles. As far as Israel is concerned, Iran gaining a nuclear capability would (whilst not actually doing so as far as any sane person were concerned) remove the deterrent to attacking them in the future and open the door to devestating attacks (subjecting them to the deterrent). It is in Israel's rational interests that Iran does not gain nuclear capability.
However, when your options for achieving that end come with their own risks and costs, then you have to assess that rationality carefully. Just as Israel has rational reasons for not wanting Iran to gain nuclear capability for the sake of Israel's protection, so Iran has rational reasons for wanting that capability for their own protection (some may fear that Iran wants nuclear capability for purposes of offense, but I think even the current ruling group are far from that stupid). Iran certainly has the potential given enough years to become a nuclear power so there are only three ways to avoid this that anyone has come up with. The first is sanctions. If Israel really isn't bluffing about launching an attack (which I find hard to believe, but a lot of reputable sources disagree with me), then sanctions might actually be our best hope for avoiding a war. Sadly, I think they'd probably lead us directly into one, but still... The second option is a pre-emptive strike. This has been a part of Israeli military doctrine for a long time. Israel could launch bombing raids on suspecte key targets in Iran to eliminate it's embryonic nuclear capability. Again, a widespread war immediately following this isn't inevitable, but it's pretty likely and you'd certainly see responses from Iran that caused significant effects. And I think long-term, it would lead to a major and ongoing conflict involving actual territoral invasions. The third option is paying off Iran. This has been tried to lesser extents in previous years. But either the price has been too low or Iran sees nuclear capability as an end-game too valuable to give up. I think there is more mileage in the bribery route, personally. The more integrated a country is into the global economy and cultural exchange, the less likely it is to start major wars. But I'm not an expert on this and I would imagine if it were thought an option, the US would be pursuing it like a dog after a rabbit.
So those are the options it seems and they both have, if not a very high price, then the risk of one. Balanced against those, is the interest of Israel in Iran not being nuclear capable worth it for them? They are saying that it is at the moment, but I think it can be debated. Unless you're considering bombing Iran to nothing (not an option) or a permanent occupation forever, then Iran is going to end up with nuclear weapons. It may be better to start working harder on eliminating reasons why people would want war to be honest. That's a major process, but the initial key elements would be less hard-line government and more reform in Iran, and more concilliation to the Palestinians from Israel.
Political analysis isn't my strongest area. I am open to comments and criticisms on the above.
Regards,
H.
Similarly thanks for the time you took to reply. I wondered after I'd posted whether I sounded a little snappish.
I have the fullest of respect for you worrying about your grandchildren's world. I think we citizens ar to blame to some extent. If a burglar robs me because I removed all the locks and alarms from my house then, yes, the burglar is still to blame, but I would have been the fool who let him. Where one draws the line between victimhood and culpability is debatable. Certainly the populations are well-played by their governments. A friend in the US was asked by some Iranian neighbours (topical, eh?) why there weren't riots and civil disobedience when Bush 'won' his first election with a minority of the vote and dubious procedures in Florida. She replied: "we're all too busy trying to pay mortgages". And there's a lot of truth to that. Few of us think we have the time to devote to opposing undemocratic behaviour. But still, I think we in the UK and people in the USA, need to act for ourselves to help protect our countries. If the countries become totalitarian, we share the blame for that.
But conversely, if a country is untotalitarian I suppose the people share the credit for that by the same principle, so kudos to old Canadians, I guess.
Regards,
Harmony.
I agree with your general point, but I have to ask which "tiny" countries you're talking about. Iran is huge and ancient. Iraq similar. North Korea is smaller (though still bigger than countries like Austria) so I guess that's what you had in mind. But you never know on Slashdot. I'd lay money on some people round here being surprised that Iran has trains. : / Hence I hope you don't mind me clarifying that Iran doesn't fit that definition.
Anyway, we're approaching the point faster every day, where humanity has to learn how to live peacefully or watch this whole planet get devastated piece by piece.
Probably because someone thinks pointing out the double-standard for Israel is un-american or something. Anyway, the idea of sanctions is doomed unless the US can get both Russia and China to go along with them. China because (major reason) it has a permanent seat on the UN security council and can veto any sanction request and (minor reason) they can hit back at the US if they ever wish to by engaging in mildly self-harming trade war with the USA (which they own a lot of thanks to government borrowing and so can dump US dollars). Russia because it has a similar veto right and (especially) because if it wants to it has enough reserve capacity to fuel the whole of Iran and can provide it by (in order of convenience) rail, Caspian sea or road.
Anyway, the GP is right to bring Israel into this. One of the big pressures on the USA (I suppose THE pressure) is that Israel is threatening to initiate bombing raids on Iran if they aren't satisfied with it reigning in its technological progress. Israel is confident that the US would back it up in any action (indeed, Israeli bombers would need to pass over US controlled airspace to carry out the attacks as I understand it, which would make the US complicit even if it didn't supply military aid beyond the tech and money over previous years).
What the inner government of Iran thinks privately I don't think many people really know. It's quite possible that they think Israel wouldn't be stupid enough to start a war which would drag the whole region down in flames. There has to be some doubt in their minds about that - after all this is Israel - but publically, they're not showing much willingness to roll over for US demands.
At anyrate, the US will have to pay quite the price to Russia to get it to help with sanctions (after all, Russia is fine with Iran, though they probably don't want to see it nuclear-capable). The US has already backed down on Ballistic Missile Defence (alienating Poland and the Czech republic who were supposed to be hosting two of the bases, incidentally), but BMD was an over-priced failing project anyway and Medvedev pretty much said that Russia just considered withdrawing it merely a return to the negotiating table. If the US wants sanctions against Iran, other people will probably be paying the price - that will be the US giving in on pushing for greater control of Georgia and the Ukraine (or from a certain point of view, throwing them to the Bears).
If Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes (it would make sense that they are trying to do so - so would you if you were threatened by two nuclear powers - but nobody's shown any good evidence that they are)... if Iran is a lot closer to creating nukes than we think and US or Russian Intelligence know this then perhaps Russia will be more amenable to sanctions. But if Iran is not near to having nuclear weapons as everyone appears to think, then Russia's only going to help at a big old cost of some kind. After all, they hold a bargaining chip that could stave off US involvement in a long-term and very destructive war.
So that's more or less how I see sanctions and the cost of them if they come about. If we do get sanctions then (a) a lot of Iranian people will probably suffer in the same way that the Iraqi people suffered when that country was put under sanctions during Saddam's regime; (b) moderate elements in Iran (e.g. Moussavi's former supporters) will become hardline elements in droves strengthening Ahmadinijad enormously; (c) Iran will probably mine oil shipping routes causing a massive interruption in international oil supplies.
If we don't get sanctions, then we have to hope that either Iran gets nuclear weapons and everyone has to accept it and play more nicely in future, or that Israel isn't willing to plunge the whole region into a great bloody struggle. If they do, then Russia will probably sell Iran some more modern weaponry (they've been turning Iran down for years) because they see no reason why the US and Israel should be attacking a fairly non-aggressive country next door to them.
I welcome constructive criticism of the above.
Harmony.
I'm European. I raised the US Constitution because that's where this incident took place. But really, we living in the UK are in no strong position to criticize. Our police shot someone in a public place without any cause, and then tried to cover it up with a series of lies, and no heads have rolled for that one yet. The only legal challenge that made it as far as an actual court case was one on whether Health and Safety laws had been violated. When things have become so bad that this happens, then I find little comfort in criticizing a fellow victim (the US public). The forces that are bringing about these changes are global. It's right therefore, that people work and talk together globally to oppose them. Hence this is of interest to me as a UK citizen, just as oppression in the UK, France or China is of interest to people in the USA. I didn't draw national boundaries or get to say who can or can't be a member of a country if they want to be. So I base my group on things I do control, not arbitrary nationalities.
I can't speak for those modding you troll, but most of us don't think the police are using tasers and sound cannons instead of killing people. It's naive in the extreme to think that if they hadn't a method of pain compliance such as this sound weapon, those people would have been shot and killed. People are objecting to (a) the police being able to use the infliction of pain to control whoever they want and (b) their willingness to do so against people who are gathering to speak out against perceived injustice, meet and exchange views and publicise their cause - none of which merits being driven off by police forces with pain weapons.
You see something wrong with listening? :)
A very mainstream reporter for the Guardian (a major national UK newspaper) documented her direct experience of an undercover police officer agitating for violence at a protest in London. He was showing people how to unhook barriers and trying to persuade people (unsuccessfully) to charge the police. Even a little common sense indicates some of the more violent protestors in London were undercover police. For example, in a protests involving thousands, lasting from morning into the night, suddenly a few people in balaclavas kick in a window whilst coincidentally surrounded by photographers. And were they arrested? No. There were proven police agitators masquerading as protestors at a city in the US, but I'm afraid I don't recall what the event was. The UK police have also engaged in what is now called "kettling" where they push as many people together as possible and keep them there in a confined area. There's no actual reason for it, but it does make for some good photos and a better chance you'll get to arrest someone for trying to get out of it.
You say that the legitimate arguments of the protestors are obscured by "these cretins". To that I point out that police forces have been proven quite willing to provide these people for exactly that purpose and secondly, its the media that are the problem. After all, is it natural or logical that three people kicking in a window should grab all the media coverage rather than the thousand-times that number of people peacefully protesting and making intelligent cases for why they are protesting to anyone who'll listen? No, it doesn't make sense, so why do the media focus on these minor and outlying cases? Honestly, in London, there's a window being kicked in somewhere on any day you care to mention. So can you really blame some bloke in a ski mask that there's so little actual interviews and coverage of the hundreds, often thousands, demonstrating about an important issue? No, you have to blame the media for that.
There are around six posts at the time of writing this one. Give it a little time. If there's anything clear, it's that oppression of people through means such as this isn't limited by what party is in power. Trampling the constitution like this should be objected to by intelligent Democrat and Rebublican voters / members.
The police who used this? Yeah. We don't need police driving around inflicting pain on any individuals or groups that they or the government disapproves of. Now what law or part of the constitution does this contravene and what steps are necessary to bring a prosecution?
I can't see much reason for that. I can only guess that he's downloading TV programs or something off free file hosting companies. With a limit of 100MB for example, people break larger media into rar archives so that they can be downloaded piecemeal.
Except that he's not writing about "good to expert developers". His examples are people who don't even understand what they're rejecting. From TFA:
Sorry, but multithreading is not "faddish". And COM is just an antiquated example that makes him sound like it's a very long time since he did any programming if he's using it as an example of what 'trendy' people are doing. His argument is that this theory stuff is - and I directly quote from the above - "too hard for us". The whole article just sounds like he's got a massive chip on his shoulder. It's a massive rant about some hypothetical programmers that produce wonderful code without getting bogged down "design patterns" and such. It's weird to be the one defending this, because a lot of the time, I fall into what he would call a "duct tape programmer". I get thrown into work with too little time to do things by the book and yes - I do bang out code without formal specifications or unit tests because someone comes into my office and says "actually we want it to do X right now". BUT that's because I have to. And though I'm usually the first to rant about hype in the world of programming, I can't feel anything but disgust for the wrong thinking in this article. I've seen a number of methodologies and technologies go through their over-hyped bubbles. When I started programming it was all Yourden and SSADM (kids - Google it). I watched UML appear and get frantically added to everyone's CVs, I saw XML appear with all its over-fat text books straining the bookshop shelves (people still just about needed text-books back then). More recently I've had people charging around shouting Agile and Scrum. And I decried the hype at each stage, but I didn't and I don't think these are all stupid things and I certainly don't write web-articles proudly boasting about my ignorance of them and exalting programmers who don't understand them.
Let's take Design Patterns which he mocks people for "all being at conferences on". Well firstly, I dislike argument through mockery. I don't know anyone who has gone to a conference on design patterns - that tends to be the area of academics. But I do know people (and I am one) who have taken the time to read up on the subject. Like many things, it's not something radically new, just a slightly more dressed up and formalized consolidation of a lot of existing knowledge. So it may not deserve a great deal of hype but people (particularly less-experienced programmers) can and have benefited from reading up on it.
"Duct Tape Programmer" sounds like a derogatory term to me. If you find yourself improvising functionality on the fly, that should be because you need to, not because you have an aversion to planning. If you choose not to use multithreading, that should be because it's not applicable to your work, not because you think (and again I directly quote) "that stuff is too hard for us". I tell you, when I watch one of my four cores maxed out by a MySQL for several minutes whilst the other three do nothing, I don't sit there thinking, "Wow! I'm glad they had some Duct Tape Programmers working on this who were real programmers, not those pussy faddish types with their parallel programming theories".
The whole article is nothing but laughing and mockery of some caricature of "architecture astronauts". It's the laughter of the kid in the bottom maths set deriding those getting A's for being good at it. The caricature is doubly stupid seeing as astronauts are actually very skilled people
I have a one-word rebuttal to that: Vista.
I'm probably a "duct-tape programmer" in some ways. How did I become one? By learning everything I could about being an "architecture astronaut" first.
You learn how to do things properly and then you know when and when not to step back from that. If anyone RTFS and says to themselves they don't need to have a good solid understanding of the principles of software design or even a grounding in some of the popular modern methodologies. The linked article is full of colourful metaphors about go-karts and WD-40. Making your argument by metaphor is usually a bad sign - you use them for people who would have trouble understanding the subject if you just stated the case plainly. I hope that's none of us. The article writer seems to see some great division between those who "wield their WD-40 and duct tape elegantly even as their go-kart careens down the hill at a mile a minute" and those who "are still at the starting line arguing over whether to use titanium or some kind of space-age composite material". Well the division between those two groups isn't normally one between two sets of people, but between two environments and resource levels. In an ideal situation, I'll create a rigorous specification and use that as the formal basis for my unit tests and do things by the book. Sometimes I find myself "careening down the hill" because I'm suddenly dumped a big, live system and told "make these vaguely described modifications by yesterday". And I'm the same individual. I'll tell you what I want to see if you're in that latter environment - I want to see someone who understands what corners they are cutting and when to do so and when they can't. Same goes for some of the project management methodologies. You don't have to do things by the letter of the law of Agile development or whatever, but if everyone in the group understands the principles, it can streamline things.
Being better than the rest at anything doesn't come easy. This stupid article has some metaphorical "duct-tape programmer" who doesn't need to bother with the "achitecture astronaut" stuff because they're a whiz with their "WD-40". Enough with the metaphor. Show me the real instances of people who are better than others because they don't know about the theory.
Some articles are stupid. This is one. It's a load of overblown metaphor and hypotheticals. Ironically enough, it falls into the trap of dealing only in hypothetical and idealised situations that it lambasts some programmers for. Sure - if you're up against a tight deadline and in the midst of a melee of programmers, don't waste two weeks drawing UML diagrams and Gantt charts. But that sort of judgement has nothing to do with not knowing the principles of software design or project management. Banging out a quick website might be a case of shifting images left and right from day to day based on customer feedback. But real programming is most definitely not a "downhill go-kart race". It's about producing maintainable, reliable code that meets the customers' needs. And if you see someone who looks like they're gluing brilliant code together on the fly with "duct tape", you'll probably find they're someone with a lot of experience and who understands the theory well enough that you don't notice them using it. As Ovid said: "Thus by art, is art concealed." In other words - they make it look easy, because they're good.
None of which supports the OP's bizarre contention that ethnic groups killing each other off is inevitable. Every example of interbreeding that you raise supports my point exactly. If people want to redistribute human DNA via sex, then I'm fine with that. In fact, humans have been doing this for, well, before they were humans.
Or you could bypass the issue all together and go with a "digital paper" solution. I think the questioner is mistaken asking "what is the best tablet PC", and instead should be asking "what is the best method of achieving what I want". Solutions like Oxford Papershow use a form of patterned paper (very faint) that you draw on with a bluetooth-enabled pen, and it then transforms pretty much any computer into a tablet. You have to use it to get a real feel for it, but it's incredibly easy to set up (at least the Oxford Papershow tool) and you can use it on as many or any computers you want. Arrive in lecture theatre, plug in USB dongle, spend three minutes setting it up and you're good to go. You buy the initial device (pen and USB dongle combo) for around UK£100, I think. Then pads of the special paper are around UK£10 for a pad of a 100 sheets, I think. It's an expense, but it's upfront and works out okay actually. Certainly better than a lot of ongoing licences depending on how much you use. You can even print out copies of your slides onto the special paper in advance so that you're drawing on your powerpoint slide or whatever. The whole thing can be recorded, you can use it as a normal interface like a mouse, it's really surprisingly good.
The above sounds like a sales pitch. I have no connection to the company though our university is now trialling the product. I would rate it as better than spending the money on a tablet for a lot of people's needs. Windows only so far as I know, but I could be wrong.
Sure. He's half-Luo (Black) and half-Caucasian. And he's a demonstration of interbreeding - an idea that for some bizarre reason seems to have entirely escaped the OP who stated that ethnic groups would inevitably wipe each other out in warfare. Interbreeding pretty much always happens. People like sex and furthermore, often like sex with people who are different to themselves.
The possibility of inter-breeding seems to have escaped you.
There are two fundamental problems in your court-based solution. The least intractable is that it is both an effort in itself to extract recompense from courts in matters like this (the example you are responding to is someone who's health is damaged by poor air quality. If lung cancer incidents rise by 15% in a city due to poor air quality, if average IQ of children in Hokaido is 5 points lower due to mercury contamination in fish stocks, how do you take that to court?
The second and insoluble problem is that you still haven't recompensed the victim for the damage. They don't view money as a substitute for their lost health, never being able to see a certain breed of animal or whatever anymore. Saying that it is a court that sets a price on their health makes no difference. If your son were in the remedial class because there was contamination in the water supply (there was a case in the UK some years ago where a whole town suffered brain damage from contaminated water), or you yourself suddenly found yourself damaged due to the same, is it any less true for me to say that someone assigning an amount of money to it and giving you that money isn't going to be a fair arbitration whether that amount of money is set by the courts or direct from the party responsible? The point is that people don't see some things equivalent to any in terms of money and a court telling them they do does not make it so.
The logic is inarguable - if you can't buy something with money, if you can't exchange money for something, then there can be no equivalence and you can't say any quantity of money is arbitrarily worth that thing. The courts award damages in money all the time, but that's only because it's the best that they can do. They're not saying that the loss of your wife / girlfriend in an accident can be offset by the negligent driver's insurance company or her employer or whatever was worth X amount. If they could make the responsible party give her back, that's what they'd do. But they can't, they can only offer some damages to punish the perpetrator and compensate you. Not recompense, compensate. The poster I replied to wasn't talking about damages awarded after the incident, they were talking about some agreed level of compensation, like a contingent contract. For some people, there can be no such agreement in principle and it's not for courts to force prices on people in advance. If someone isn't willing to agree that company X may pollute their lungs for $Y, then no party should be able to set a price on my behalf. That's the free market. If I don't want to sell, I shouldn't have to. And that's what a lot of environmental legislation is about: a collective statement that something isn't for sale.
It's the only way to keep us safe, you know.
And keep in mind that it's not merely parents that will be tracking the children. The next logical step is for schools and "child-care" companies to spring up keeping an eye on them for the busy children". They don't need to just be able to say where the child is, either. Next thing you know they'll be offering services to "parent" your child as well - e.g. they'll do random "listen ins" on children to listen out for "bad language", bullying, talk of misbehaviour, whatever. And parents will pay for this privilege.
Honestly, I don't think it's highly doubtful. Children are a highly emotive subject, If a group of parents are tracking their children's every move and you say that they're wrong to do so - even if only by implication because you're not - then you risk a lot of hostility. The subject of parenting can rapidly become a for us or against us divider.
Nonetheless, he was criticizing the Israeli government, not Jewish people. Whilst the Israeli lobbyists play the Israel === Jewish card endlessly and it's a trap that you fell into. To assume that people sharing ethnicity share traits that have no basis in ethnicity, such as morality or national allegiance, is racism. A form that you personally may object less to, but it is in principle racism. You should not let the strength of your disagreement with someone push you into adopting an incorrect viewpoint yourself in order to oppose them. That just opens you up to manipulation by those that can speak the loudest for a supposed faction.
A friend of mine worked in a hotel in Yorkshire where they served Black Pudding. A group of americans asked her what it was and she told them but they wouldn't believe her. I mean they actually would not believe that this was a dish that British people ate, despite repeated assertions. I had a similar reaction when I tried to get some americans to enjoy the delicious taste of Marmite.