We like to think that it's clear-cut. When it's not, we quibble over just how to redefine "clear-cut".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertility
It seems we may be at the very tail end of Horse/Donkey differentiation.
(Yes this is an assumption on my part, but I doubt there's good reason to think otherwise. A case to demonstrate this for more than two generations is probably too statistically unlikely to ask for. It might conceivably be possible to get Donkey genes into the Horse population with a couple of really lucky generations. IANAG)
You seem to have read something into my post that I didn't write, but I'm not entirely sure what. Further, you keep bringing the ease/difficulty of learning languages into the conversation, not something that I've addressed.
Companies and HR departments don't see this, though. They want everyone to be easily-replaceable cogs in their corporate machine. Thinking you can just swap a new programmer for a guy who's been there for 5 years is just... wrong...
Dude, where'd that come from? Were you just laid off, or something? I'm sorry if you were.
grumbel's example has data coming in from a pipe, so no excessive disk read activity will help. Memory is indeed the obvious problem here. State includes memory usage. My overall point remains. In general, you still must consider state when programming using the producer-consumer model.
Data-in leads to statefullness within the program handling the data. If that data leads the program into a non-nonsensical state, then you'll have problems. You must consider such things when coding bash commands. They may be black-boxes (or nearly so), but they still have state.
Consider: diff [...] | sed [...] | patch [...]
If you're not careful to consider the changes that sed makes to the datastream, patch will wind up in a bad state, and cause wildly unpredictable behavior.
For a lot of the languages you're making your wish for, is the problem the language or its libraries?
Both. For different reasons. In this context, specifically, I've not run into anything quite as useful as UNIX pipes anywhere else. They are somewhat limited to manipulating a stream of data, but they are eminently versatile with minimal typing, and minimal code confusion. This is language feature.
Sometimes libraries attempt cool things like this by using operator overloading, etc, but it's not the same. People writing UNIX cli programs write to the paradigm, and join an environment wide community. If I download a well written bash script, I can reasonably anticipate that it can be incorporated into more complex bash commands, with little effort. Libraries that do stuff like this wind up as one-offs that must be mastered for narrow uses.
Languages shouldn't try to do everything themselves, but they do need to present a paradigm that libraries will adhere to. The better the paradigm, the more seemless the libraries written for it will work together. Most languages don't take library cross-integration as a design goal.
... but you have to wrap your brain around their programming model. Which I haven't gotten around to doing for boost::asio yet.
Here's my biggest pet-peeve when it comes to libraries. Each one is designed to be used in a particular way, according to a particular paradigm... and they rarely describe these patterns of thought for you at the outset. You've got to read through half the object/function descriptions, and then google code samples to figure out what the library author was thinking. This is a documentation problem. (end rant)
No matter what you're trying to do or the programming paradigm you're trying to do it in, you will never be able to just crap out some code without thinking about its design and what you're trying to accomplish.
That's a given.
When people think of the difficulty of programming, that's where the hard part is. Learning a language is easy. Learning to express your instructions to the computer in a way that's maintainable, efficient and reasonably bug-free... that's not so easy.
This is also somewhere modern languages fall down. I'm not sure what the solution will be, but there's always that pesky step between building an elegant theoretical model and trying to express it in code. Once done, the code never expresses the model, and very few programmers go back and leave documentation. They'll include a few comments, but nothing meaningful in the big picture.
I hold that we write bad code because our languages and tools encourage us to write bad code. (and bad programmers will never go away)
A lot of the programming fads (OO, Functional, Ruby) imply that you can just start crapping out code without thinking much on what you're trying to accomplish.
I understand your frustration here, but this can be a very handy feature. I primarily write prototype code and one-offs. Starting to code before I fully understand what I'm doing saves a good deal of time and effort. And If I need to start over from scratch and really design something, I'll know what I'm up against. It's a royal pain to redesign a whole project from scratch 4 or 5 times because you didn't understand what you were doing.
(This isn't to say that I take no thought, nor that I expect code written this way to be any good. I start with a plan, even if it has great big holes in it. I write nothing this way unless I'm prepared to rewrite it from scratch.)
But for large projects, business critical projects, "production" code, or anything remotely long term (more than a day or two), I agree with your sentiment completely.
Fortune at the bottom of the page: "Any program which runs right is obsolete."
... as opposed to declarative languages such as SQL
Oh, boy. Hate to break it to you, but SQL is a de-facto procedural language masquerading as a declarative language. Think of it as a specialized interpreted scripting language. Yeah, the language does a bunch of stuff for you on its own, but so does any other procedural scripting language.
In the object oriented world, all objects must be immutable or you cannot enforce black boxes.
Not true. If you wrote a very small library with one class that contained a threadsafe counter, it would be both mutable, and quite possible to guarantee it's behavior (within the limits that can be guaranteed by the compiler, OS, hardware, etc), including all edge and corner cases. In other words, a mutable black box is entirely possible in OO code.
Your argument is akin to the one that says that it is impossible to write code entirely devoid of bugs. Our programming paradigms and environments just don't aid us in writing perfect programs, so we don't. We're still working largely with 90's paradigms in programming, just with snazzier editors and debuggers. Eventually we'll have better system design tools in our IDEs that will help us avoid and detect bugs at every stage of the development process. Then the best and brightest will actually write some code without bugs. Some.
...and don't have to worry about the state "sort", you simply throw data into it at once end and data comes out at the other.
Not entirely true. If you give sort a very large file, it's going to explode. You do need to worry about the state of the data that you're passing in, and what it will do to the state of the sort program.
On the flipside of the coin, well written OO code will practically initialize your objects for you, and keep you from doing stupid stuff with them (mutexes, etc). Yeah, I wish more OO languages made things as easy as UNIX pipes, but it isn't a difference of statefulness v. statelessness.
And you think they've been collecting domestic American phone records for the last 60 years? Possible, but unlikely. It's much more likely that they honestly started as signal and intelligence processing of foreign operatives, and gradually expanded their scope and hubris.
Just to be contrary, I wonder if the NSA was sharing data with the FBI in 2003. We know they weren't prior to 9/11, and they have been trying hard to keep this program secret. (when did this program start, I wonder?) It's possible there was no evidence to be had in 2003, or that most FBI agents were cut out of the loop.
We know (now) how the evidence was collected. We also know that most of it was collected without probable cause. The issue isn't the method of collection, but the justification for it. This isn't exculpatory evidence that they're withholding; it's evidence that they're using, but was obtained through improper means.
This is the "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument. It doesn't matter if it's true or not; evidence illegally collected by the government can't be used in court because of the "slippery slope" precedence that it sets.
I do think we're largely in agreement. I will point out that you misread something, though. The fundamental problem here is not caused by nullification, but partially mitigated by it. The flaw merely manifests as misapplied nullification in the US. Rather, the flaw is inherent in any justice system run by humans where individuals rights are honored. There is going to be error (even abuse) one way or the other. Nullification was a deliberate decision to err on the side of letting people off... even when people clearly don't deserve it. This helps prevent incarcerating (some) people who clearly do not deserve it.
... as I'm a Canadian and nullification is harder up here as the appeals process is considered part of the trial so it is possible for the government to overturn a nullification on appeal without invoking double jeopardy.
Interesting. Scary, but interesting. Do you have a right to have an appeal heard by a jury?
At least in the US, juries don't write opinions, merely issue decisions. They don't come right out and say: not guilty by nullification. This means that the jury's decision itself is very hard to appeal*. (short of a jury tampering ruling, etc.) An appeals court can't look at a jury's rational and apply legal reason (or bias) to find grounds for overturning a jury decision.
*(Legal technicalities that might possibly have incorrectly influenced the jury? Sure. The jury's decision based on what was presented to them? Nope.)
According to, I believe, the 10th amendment the powers of the FEDERAL governent are enumerated. All others are reserved to the state governments and the individual people.
Mind you, this amendment is never paid any attention to, but it's in the constitution.
Yeah, I got that.
We do sometimes forget how much power the states technically have, as the federal government constantly oversteps its bounds and prevents states from acting in their rightful roles. Still, even states are preempted by the right to an impartial jury. That includes the implicit right to nullification.
I'm unaware of any state constitutions that try to enumerate citizen rights, but then, I'm not a lawyer. Reference also the 14th amendment: "... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States... [etc]" This means that even if a state tried to limit and enumerate citizen rights, the federal government can override them*.
*(So long as they do so nation wide, sometimes ignored.)
Strictly speaking, an unconstitutional law should never make it to the jury as the Judge is supposed to dismiss the case due to unconstitutionality...
"Should never" and "does never" are two entirely different things. Again: "It is a last ditch" defense, not a first line of defense. Further, the John Jay quote addresses this directly. Courts are presumed better judges of law, but juries also hold that power.
The real problem can be when the jury decides the law based on their morals.
Interesting that you should say that.
Attributed to John Adams:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Setting religion aside, if jurors approach their role as mere automatons, they cannot fulfill their solemn duty as a check on the government. If government defines what is right, and what is wrong, then who is to stop them? Juries. They must have some compass to work from to determine if the government has overstepped its bounds. The constitution is great, but does not presume to be a full list of freedoms granted to man. This compass must be a shared set of ethics (not religion) that our nation rests upon.
Often nullification has been used to not convict a white man who obviously killed a black man.
I'm aware of that. Equally dismaying, it is more likely to be used today by a single juror to cause a hung-jury, getting a black murderer off. (varies by state)
This is an inherent flaw in the system. In fact, it's an inherent flaw in any system run by humans to protect human rights and administer justice at the same time. If the power were reserved to judges, then it would be the racial prejudices (etc) of judges that caused miscarriages of justice, not that of jurors. The system is supposed to err on the side of caution and false-negatives, instead of false-positives. Those false-negatives can stink pretty bad, sometimes.
Something can be legal/illegal on the books according to the letter of the law, but not be followed. This then leads to the question: what is the law? Is it the words passed by legislature, or is it the practice that will determine outcome?
The following quote is the best I've found to date on the topic of jury nullification. It was written by John Jay, the first Supreme Court justice in Georgia v. Brailsford. In other words, this is case law as close to the founding fathers as it can possibly get:
It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.
In other words, if law is unconstitutional, the jury has a right to hold it invalid. I would take it a step further and say they have a responsibility to do so. That is what a jury is for, ultimately. It is a last ditch mechanism to defend individuals rights against oppression. Otherwise, every case could be decided by a small panel of judges.
(There is an open question here as to the enumeration of individual rights, and to the spirit versus letter interpretations of the constitution. I hold that individual rights are not enumerated, rights of the government are.)
This video explains exactly what the problem is in US politics, but in a way that is very easy to follow. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Only responding because way too many Slashdot readers actually believe this.
Most of the US has stringent ethics protecting prisoners, so much so that we've really gone quite soft. Those that you're most likely to hear about are the exceptions... and you're most likely to hear about them because they're the exceptions. The only reason the world found out about Abu Ghraib is because reporters knew that the entire US would be shocked and outraged.
Torturing isn't quite the same as killing. Or benign, either. But perhaps the distinction is lost on [some people] these days.
FTFY
(PS, your rabid bias is showing. If you think that a majority of Americans are represented by either the Rs or Ds, then you're just as dense as the idiots on cable news.)
Because when a cat is "playing" with something smaller than itself, it's typically a bird, mouse, lizard, or small bug, etc. When a human adult is torturing something smaller than himself, it's often another human.
The leap from cockroach vivisection to psychopathy is a bit of a leap, but there kids out there that already lean that direction. It isn't a matter of whether we are going to encourage the average child to be a psychopath (a ridiculous notion), or be a bit more callous (perhaps worth discussing). But could this be a tiny step toward psychopathy for someone already headed in that direction? Probably.
We have more than enough money coming in, they are still collecting taxes.
You pay the interest and principal, then what is left over can run the budget... you, know, like in the real world.
But our government doesn't pay the interest, and grows the principle. It's running on a deficit. Any attempt to shrink the deficit is treated as horrendous cuts. In other words, they're constantly whining about being told to stop running up the credit card.
This particular fight really ought to be about the lack of fiscal responsibility, and not about healthcare.
I'll throw in my two cents here. The primary reason we have a two party system is because of the first-past-the-post election system we use. (It's called Duverger's Law.) Gerrymandered districts are bad, and further entrench the problem, but the real nuisance is the "lesser of two evils" choice that most voters make. No other method encourages strategic voting on this massive scale, almost entirely without prompting! It's egregious.
Ranked choice ballots are great, especially Condorcet Methods... but I'd settle for approval voting, or just about anything other than what we're stuck with.
(Approval voting can be explained in only a few minutes to the densest of idiot, making it an easier system to campaign for, even if ranked-choice methods tend to be even better. I could explain the Condorcet principle to anyone, if I could get them to sit still and listen... but they won't. If most of them won't pay attention to politics at all, how can we expect them to be interested in meta-politics?)
Also, threads don't collapse, and we don't get a moderation breakdown.
(If I'm moderating, I want to know if someone has reached a true 5, or if the score merely appears to be 5 because of karma or foaf bonus, for instance.)
Unlike the current design, it did not scale to fit my 1400x1050 screen, leaving large whitespace borders on both edges. If that's what it does on a 4:3 screen with a narrower horizontal resolution than many modern widescreen "high definition" displays, then this is a bad thing.
It also doesn't work well on my laptop 1024x768 screen. (Yeah, I know that's low, but It's a laptop. People are still using this resolution, making it a good minimum gauge.)
The font is larger, but the real problem is the right-hand panel that takes up too much room. This compresses the comments, forcing them to take more vertical space and making the conversation harder to follow. The font size and extra whitespace give a more open feel, but they exacerbate the conversation problem.
Remember, Slashdot comments aren't loved because we can read what others have written. They're loved because we can hold conversations. Anything that detracts from being able to hold or follow conversations will make Slashdot less popular.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's obvious you didn't follow his links. The argument there isn't that windmills never kill birds. The argument is that windmills kill several orders of magnitude fewer birds than windows or power lines, etc.
Now you can claim that's false (or point to national structure density), but you should at least address the response as he framed it. That would lead to intelligent discussion, and not merely angry retorts.
You're thinking too narrow. There is a glut of news anchors when you expand your search to all news outlets. You even get premium, high-volume ones if you include Fox and MSNBC. Just remember not to use them together, because the opposing biases would cancel themselves out.
The bias of all network news (at the moment) is conflict and irresponsible speculation (first to report). Thus, Fox and MSNBC don't cancel each other out, but feed off each other.
Slashdot Mirror
We like to think that it's clear-cut. When it's not, we quibble over just how to redefine "clear-cut".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertility
It seems we may be at the very tail end of Horse/Donkey differentiation.
(Yes this is an assumption on my part, but I doubt there's good reason to think otherwise. A case to demonstrate this for more than two generations is probably too statistically unlikely to ask for. It might conceivably be possible to get Donkey genes into the Horse population with a couple of really lucky generations. IANAG)
You seem to have read something into my post that I didn't write, but I'm not entirely sure what. Further, you keep bringing the ease/difficulty of learning languages into the conversation, not something that I've addressed.
Dude, where'd that come from? Were you just laid off, or something? I'm sorry if you were.
grumbel's example has data coming in from a pipe, so no excessive disk read activity will help. Memory is indeed the obvious problem here. State includes memory usage. My overall point remains. In general, you still must consider state when programming using the producer-consumer model.
Data-in leads to statefullness within the program handling the data. If that data leads the program into a non-nonsensical state, then you'll have problems. You must consider such things when coding bash commands. They may be black-boxes (or nearly so), but they still have state.
Consider: diff [...] | sed [...] | patch [...]
If you're not careful to consider the changes that sed makes to the datastream, patch will wind up in a bad state, and cause wildly unpredictable behavior.
Both. For different reasons. In this context, specifically, I've not run into anything quite as useful as UNIX pipes anywhere else. They are somewhat limited to manipulating a stream of data, but they are eminently versatile with minimal typing, and minimal code confusion. This is language feature.
Sometimes libraries attempt cool things like this by using operator overloading, etc, but it's not the same. People writing UNIX cli programs write to the paradigm, and join an environment wide community. If I download a well written bash script, I can reasonably anticipate that it can be incorporated into more complex bash commands, with little effort. Libraries that do stuff like this wind up as one-offs that must be mastered for narrow uses.
Languages shouldn't try to do everything themselves, but they do need to present a paradigm that libraries will adhere to. The better the paradigm, the more seemless the libraries written for it will work together. Most languages don't take library cross-integration as a design goal.
Here's my biggest pet-peeve when it comes to libraries. Each one is designed to be used in a particular way, according to a particular paradigm... and they rarely describe these patterns of thought for you at the outset. You've got to read through half the object/function descriptions, and then google code samples to figure out what the library author was thinking. This is a documentation problem. (end rant)
That's a given.
This is also somewhere modern languages fall down. I'm not sure what the solution will be, but there's always that pesky step between building an elegant theoretical model and trying to express it in code. Once done, the code never expresses the model, and very few programmers go back and leave documentation. They'll include a few comments, but nothing meaningful in the big picture.
I hold that we write bad code because our languages and tools encourage us to write bad code.
(and bad programmers will never go away)
I understand your frustration here, but this can be a very handy feature. I primarily write prototype code and one-offs. Starting to code before I fully understand what I'm doing saves a good deal of time and effort. And If I need to start over from scratch and really design something, I'll know what I'm up against. It's a royal pain to redesign a whole project from scratch 4 or 5 times because you didn't understand what you were doing.
(This isn't to say that I take no thought, nor that I expect code written this way to be any good. I start with a plan, even if it has great big holes in it. I write nothing this way unless I'm prepared to rewrite it from scratch.)
But for large projects, business critical projects, "production" code, or anything remotely long term (more than a day or two), I agree with your sentiment completely.
Fortune at the bottom of the page: "Any program which runs right is obsolete."
Oh, boy. Hate to break it to you, but SQL is a de-facto procedural language masquerading as a declarative language. Think of it as a specialized interpreted scripting language. Yeah, the language does a bunch of stuff for you on its own, but so does any other procedural scripting language.
Not true. If you wrote a very small library with one class that contained a threadsafe counter, it would be both mutable, and quite possible to guarantee it's behavior (within the limits that can be guaranteed by the compiler, OS, hardware, etc), including all edge and corner cases. In other words, a mutable black box is entirely possible in OO code.
Your argument is akin to the one that says that it is impossible to write code entirely devoid of bugs. Our programming paradigms and environments just don't aid us in writing perfect programs, so we don't. We're still working largely with 90's paradigms in programming, just with snazzier editors and debuggers. Eventually we'll have better system design tools in our IDEs that will help us avoid and detect bugs at every stage of the development process. Then the best and brightest will actually write some code without bugs. Some.
Not entirely true. If you give sort a very large file, it's going to explode. You do need to worry about the state of the data that you're passing in, and what it will do to the state of the sort program.
On the flipside of the coin, well written OO code will practically initialize your objects for you, and keep you from doing stupid stuff with them (mutexes, etc). Yeah, I wish more OO languages made things as easy as UNIX pipes, but it isn't a difference of statefulness v. statelessness.
And you think they've been collecting domestic American phone records for the last 60 years? Possible, but unlikely. It's much more likely that they honestly started as signal and intelligence processing of foreign operatives, and gradually expanded their scope and hubris.
Hmm. Ok.
Just to be contrary, I wonder if the NSA was sharing data with the FBI in 2003. We know they weren't prior to 9/11, and they have been trying hard to keep this program secret. (when did this program start, I wonder?) It's possible there was no evidence to be had in 2003, or that most FBI agents were cut out of the loop.
We know (now) how the evidence was collected. We also know that most of it was collected without probable cause. The issue isn't the method of collection, but the justification for it. This isn't exculpatory evidence that they're withholding; it's evidence that they're using, but was obtained through improper means.
This is the "fruit of the poisonous tree" argument. It doesn't matter if it's true or not; evidence illegally collected by the government can't be used in court because of the "slippery slope" precedence that it sets.
I do think we're largely in agreement. I will point out that you misread something, though. The fundamental problem here is not caused by nullification, but partially mitigated by it. The flaw merely manifests as misapplied nullification in the US. Rather, the flaw is inherent in any justice system run by humans where individuals rights are honored. There is going to be error (even abuse) one way or the other. Nullification was a deliberate decision to err on the side of letting people off... even when people clearly don't deserve it. This helps prevent incarcerating (some) people who clearly do not deserve it.
Interesting. Scary, but interesting. Do you have a right to have an appeal heard by a jury?
At least in the US, juries don't write opinions, merely issue decisions. They don't come right out and say: not guilty by nullification. This means that the jury's decision itself is very hard to appeal*. (short of a jury tampering ruling, etc.) An appeals court can't look at a jury's rational and apply legal reason (or bias) to find grounds for overturning a jury decision.
*(Legal technicalities that might possibly have incorrectly influenced the jury? Sure. The jury's decision based on what was presented to them? Nope.)
According to, I believe, the 10th amendment the powers of the FEDERAL governent are enumerated. All others are reserved to the state governments and the individual people.
Mind you, this amendment is never paid any attention to, but it's in the constitution.
Yeah, I got that.
We do sometimes forget how much power the states technically have, as the federal government constantly oversteps its bounds and prevents states from acting in their rightful roles. Still, even states are preempted by the right to an impartial jury. That includes the implicit right to nullification.
I'm unaware of any state constitutions that try to enumerate citizen rights, but then, I'm not a lawyer. Reference also the 14th amendment: "... No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States... [etc]" This means that even if a state tried to limit and enumerate citizen rights, the federal government can override them*.
*(So long as they do so nation wide, sometimes ignored.)
"Should never" and "does never" are two entirely different things. Again: "It is a last ditch" defense, not a first line of defense. Further, the John Jay quote addresses this directly. Courts are presumed better judges of law, but juries also hold that power.
Interesting that you should say that.
Setting religion aside, if jurors approach their role as mere automatons, they cannot fulfill their solemn duty as a check on the government. If government defines what is right, and what is wrong, then who is to stop them? Juries. They must have some compass to work from to determine if the government has overstepped its bounds. The constitution is great, but does not presume to be a full list of freedoms granted to man. This compass must be a shared set of ethics (not religion) that our nation rests upon.
I'm aware of that. Equally dismaying, it is more likely to be used today by a single juror to cause a hung-jury, getting a black murderer off. (varies by state)
This is an inherent flaw in the system. In fact, it's an inherent flaw in any system run by humans to protect human rights and administer justice at the same time. If the power were reserved to judges, then it would be the racial prejudices (etc) of judges that caused miscarriages of justice, not that of jurors. The system is supposed to err on the side of caution and false-negatives, instead of false-positives. Those false-negatives can stink pretty bad, sometimes.
Legal is as legal does.
Something can be legal/illegal on the books according to the letter of the law, but not be followed. This then leads to the question: what is the law? Is it the words passed by legislature, or is it the practice that will determine outcome?
The following quote is the best I've found to date on the topic of jury nullification. It was written by John Jay, the first Supreme Court justice in Georgia v. Brailsford. In other words, this is case law as close to the founding fathers as it can possibly get:
In other words, if law is unconstitutional, the jury has a right to hold it invalid. I would take it a step further and say they have a responsibility to do so. That is what a jury is for, ultimately. It is a last ditch mechanism to defend individuals rights against oppression. Otherwise, every case could be decided by a small panel of judges.
(There is an open question here as to the enumeration of individual rights, and to the spirit versus letter interpretations of the constitution. I hold that individual rights are not enumerated, rights of the government are.)
I've said it a hundred times already, and I'll keep banging this drum. We're stuck in a bad case of Duverger's Law.
The best video I've found on the topic so far: The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained
This video explains exactly what the problem is in US politics, but in a way that is very easy to follow. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Troll.
Only responding because way too many Slashdot readers actually believe this.
Most of the US has stringent ethics protecting prisoners, so much so that we've really gone quite soft. Those that you're most likely to hear about are the exceptions... and you're most likely to hear about them because they're the exceptions. The only reason the world found out about Abu Ghraib is because reporters knew that the entire US would be shocked and outraged.
Torturing isn't quite the same as killing. Or benign, either. But perhaps the distinction is lost on [some people] these days.
FTFY
(PS, your rabid bias is showing. If you think that a majority of Americans are represented by either the Rs or Ds, then you're just as dense as the idiots on cable news.)
Because when a cat is "playing" with something smaller than itself, it's typically a bird, mouse, lizard, or small bug, etc. When a human adult is torturing something smaller than himself, it's often another human.
The leap from cockroach vivisection to psychopathy is a bit of a leap, but there kids out there that already lean that direction. It isn't a matter of whether we are going to encourage the average child to be a psychopath (a ridiculous notion), or be a bit more callous (perhaps worth discussing). But could this be a tiny step toward psychopathy for someone already headed in that direction? Probably.
B.S.
We have more than enough money coming in, they are still collecting taxes.
You pay the interest and principal, then what is left over can run the budget... you, know, like in the real world.
But our government doesn't pay the interest, and grows the principle. It's running on a deficit. Any attempt to shrink the deficit is treated as horrendous cuts. In other words, they're constantly whining about being told to stop running up the credit card.
This particular fight really ought to be about the lack of fiscal responsibility, and not about healthcare.
I'll throw in my two cents here. The primary reason we have a two party system is because of the first-past-the-post election system we use. (It's called Duverger's Law.) Gerrymandered districts are bad, and further entrench the problem, but the real nuisance is the "lesser of two evils" choice that most voters make. No other method encourages strategic voting on this massive scale, almost entirely without prompting! It's egregious.
Ranked choice ballots are great, especially Condorcet Methods... but I'd settle for approval voting, or just about anything other than what we're stuck with.
(Approval voting can be explained in only a few minutes to the densest of idiot, making it an easier system to campaign for, even if ranked-choice methods tend to be even better. I could explain the Condorcet principle to anyone, if I could get them to sit still and listen... but they won't. If most of them won't pay attention to politics at all, how can we expect them to be interested in meta-politics?)
Welcome.
Also, threads don't collapse, and we don't get a moderation breakdown.
(If I'm moderating, I want to know if someone has reached a true 5, or if the score merely appears to be 5 because of karma or foaf bonus, for instance.)
It also doesn't work well on my laptop 1024x768 screen. (Yeah, I know that's low, but It's a laptop. People are still using this resolution, making it a good minimum gauge.)
The font is larger, but the real problem is the right-hand panel that takes up too much room. This compresses the comments, forcing them to take more vertical space and making the conversation harder to follow. The font size and extra whitespace give a more open feel, but they exacerbate the conversation problem.
Remember, Slashdot comments aren't loved because we can read what others have written. They're loved because we can hold conversations. Anything that detracts from being able to hold or follow conversations will make Slashdot less popular.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's obvious you didn't follow his links. The argument there isn't that windmills never kill birds. The argument is that windmills kill several orders of magnitude fewer birds than windows or power lines, etc.
Now you can claim that's false (or point to national structure density), but you should at least address the response as he framed it. That would lead to intelligent discussion, and not merely angry retorts.
You're thinking too narrow. There is a glut of news anchors when you expand your search to all news outlets. You even get premium, high-volume ones if you include Fox and MSNBC. Just remember not to use them together, because the opposing biases would cancel themselves out.
The bias of all network news (at the moment) is conflict and irresponsible speculation (first to report). Thus, Fox and MSNBC don't cancel each other out, but feed off each other.