I go to an Episcopal church, which is one of the essentially non-doctrinaire Christian denominations. There are no creeds required to attend or be a member in good standing, though we do recite the Nicene Creed on Sundays. But some of my friends at church are "heretics" (heresy just being another word for a different idea about God; one that isn't mainstream), who don't e.g. believe that Jesus was divine in any way.
What should my church say about the physical world? My priest isn't a scientist, he's a priest.
I believe God created the heavens and the earth. I don't know how, though the observations indicate he knows a lot about chaos theory and there was some kind of big bang at the beginning. Where that initial matter came from that exploded (or I guess really just expanded), I don't know (but neither, yet, do physicists).
I believe that God wants me to do certain things (love others, charity, compassion, forgiveness), and not do other things (hatred, spitefulness). I think these are rather universal to the organized religion (mine and other Christian denominations).
But as for whether I should vote Democrat, Republican, independent, Libertarian, Green Party or should eschew politics, the religion is silent. If my priest told me who I should vote for (as seemed to happen at some churches in 2000 and 2004), or denied me communion because of my political affiliation or voting record (as happens at some Catholic churches) I would leave it, and hope that I could find some place to be in community with folk who share some of the same ideas about God that I have.
"The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things," he said. "I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it."
Hmm. Last I checked AIX and Solaris and HP-UX supported 128 CPUs or more. They all scale pretty well. So either he's talking about the desktop OS, where more than 2 CPUs is pretty new, or there's something new here.
I'd guess that it's not really something new; the basic problem of making programming for multiple CPUs "easy" has been around since the 1980s and it's still not "easy" -- oddly enough, you still have to think about concurrency, locks, multiple threads, etc.
Heh, I went from a child having my parent's beliefs, to atheist, to Christian, to atheist/agnostic back to Christian. I don't think my political beliefs ever changed, though.
Though I did have the surreal experience of asking my evangelical pastor where I could find some liberal Christians in Austin. He didn't seem to think they existed. A few months later I was going to an Episcopal church full of liberal (and conservative) Christians.:-)
My sister's church had a sign I always liked: under an image of Jesus, "He died to take away your sins, not your mind."
What is this nonsense? Trying to equate loving your family with loving a nebulously defined "thing"? And then trying to use it to bash people that got a Nobel prize...? Jealous much?
No. To have done the kind of work that earns a Nobel takes a lot of time and effort over many years. That kind of time spend on the science is incompatible with spending time with a family, because there's only 24 hours in the day for everyone.
You are clearly being not only argumentative, but dismissive (fantasy, magic, ghosts & goblins, and other unsubstantiated nonsense). Did I accidentally hit a sore spot of yours? Because for all that you (well, really the slashdot crowd in general) want to claim that you're rational, you don't argue very rationally sometimes about religion.
We're not talking about the Phelps crew. We're actually talking about you and others like you.
Actually, we're not. I was specifically implying the religious folk who don't understand evolution. I do understand it, and I accept it as the best scientific explanation for the diversity of life that we see. If the state of Texas wants to try to "teach the controversy" or whatever mumbo-jumbo phrase the creationists are using lately, and someone else doesn't get to it first, my wife will sue their ass to keep it off the curriculum.
I pity you, because you must have a really bad life to need to escape from reality and invent things that probably aren't there.
Ah, *probably* isn't there! You at least admit it's a possibility? That's some real progress!
I can't prove God exists to you or even to myself. You can't prove she doesn't. It's not really the same, but IIRC it's pretty unlikely we'll ever know what was on the far side of the Big Bang, either. That doesn't mean physicists haven't advanced hypotheses, and I'll wager some of them even *believe* that one or another of these hypotheses must be the right one... even without proof.
Among other things, I observe some people dying for others when they don't have to (altruism). I observe some amazing changes of heart in people I interact with that would not be expected or predicted. I observe some real sacrificial love. I observe people like Martin Luther King, who believed in God and also achieved some real greatness by following where he thought God was leading.
But I suppose MLK was also a quack who needed to escape reality? Mahatma Ghandi was just confused?
but unless you can show that they are a reality
This in fact is a fallacy; here's why. By its very nature the supernatural is "super" natural. If it were measurable, repeatable, therified and falsifiable, it would cease to be *super*natural and merely be a part of nature.
Perhaps someday we can figure out why (or if) prayer works -- is it quantum mechanics? What if it turned out that thinking positive thoughts about someone affected their life even if you never told them or interacted with them? (That's spooky action at a distance.:-)
There's plenty of things under the sun that aren't yet known. And in the end, no matter how much science explains of *how* things are done (gravity makes things fall, not angels; evolution created man, not God in 6 days), it will never explain *why*. Maybe there isn't a why, but *if* there is, science will never find it. It's not a question science is equipped to ask. So instead we have philosophers and religions to attempt an explanation of why.
Have a great day! Try not to get too mad because we disagree. I mean, I know someone (in your opinion, me) on the internet is *wrong*, but hey, it's just electrons. I don't want or need to convince you God is real, I just would like a little less reactionary hatred towards those who believe in God. Not all of us are also anti-science nuts.
Of course, critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god.
Well, I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult me, because that's not conducive to a rational argument.
Just because some folks don't need or want spirituality doesn't prevent others from having it. There are plenty of scientists and engineers and even evolutionary biologists who believe in God. The ones earning a Nobel probably won't, party because there's a lot of things you can't do if you want a Nobel -- you won't have time for your family, and if you were the kind of person who puts family (or God) ahead of a career then you weren't going to do what it takes to get that Nobel Prize.
There's some very confused, vocal people that have made the issue rather annoying. My religion says nothing about the physical world, and my science says nothing about the supernatural.
Some people have no need for religion or spirituality. Some do. Some people have no need to understand the science behind the things around them. Some do. They're orthogonal issues.
Maybe there are nooks and crannies of the computer industry where commercial software still has a genuine edge on free software, but NOT developer tools.
Indeed, I think you can make a simple argument for why this is so.
Free software zealots (i.e. won't use anything commercial) need tools to develop software. Ipso facto, those tools are free, and are sufficient to support large software development projects.
I've been trying to think of an analogy, but I'm coming up short. There aren't a lot of other mediums where you figuratively bootstrap -- software is an odd duck in that the tools needed to do the craft are themselves tools *built* by the craft.
For OSS projects that are trying to duplicate commercial software then they'll never catch up really
True, but who needs to catch up to MS Word? It hasn't had many useful features added since 1993. The few that were useful can be replicated and the rest can be ignored, and you have a better product.
The new tool is called BEAM (Bugs, Errors And Mistakes). I have no idea if there's plans to productize it. So far my code has found almost as many bugs in BEAM as BEAM found in my code.
Since we've had the tool for a while and have fixed most of the bugs it has found, we are required to run static analysis on new code for the latest release now (i.e. we should not be dropping any new code that has any error in it found via static analysis).
Just like code reviews, unit testing, etc., it has proved useful and was added to the software development process.
Here at IBM we have an internal tool from research that does static code analysis.
It has found some real bugs that are hard to generate a testcase for. It has also found a lot of things that aren't bugs, just like -Wall can. Since I work in the virtual memory manager, a lot more of our bugs can be found just by booting, compared to other domains, so we didn't get a lot of new bugs when we started using static analysis. But even one bug prevented can be work multiple millions of dollars.
My experience is that, just like enabling compiler warnings, any way you have to find a bug before it gets to a customer is worth it.
only an idiot would subscribe the philosophy that [foo]... Yet, that's what you're advocating.
I was looking for arguments; I seem to have found abuse. Ah well.
I don't know where you live and I don't know what property values look like compared to location and home structure. I do know a lot about property where I live, though, and in my area there's a reason that some houses cost more than others. They're not *less*, they're smaller. And closer to downtown. And in old neighborhoods with quaint architecture, and large shade trees. These things have a significant value too, though I suppose if your only metric is price per square foot, yeah, they're "less" for "more".
No one needs a 3000 sq ft house (unless maybe you house your in-laws and 6 kids and maybe a maid).
Because space has been plentiful in the suburbs, house design is crap. Families of 4 can live in 600 sq ft in NYC (admittedly a little tight). With some better house design, 3000 sq ft would go back to being a mansion as it should.
Even in major cities there are usually neighborhoods "near" downtown that are affordable; at least here in Austin I used to live 10 minutes from downtown (w/o traffic; 20 with) in a $120k house. It wasn't big but it was a roof, it was affordable. We moved out not because we had 2 kids but because opportunity presented, and I could then live 2 miles from work instead of 4. Our current house is 1800 sq ft and bigger than we need; one room is guest bedroom, one room has junk that we haven't found the time to sort, clean, give away, etc.
People need McMansions the same way they need an Excursion. Only in their fears, or in unusual circumstances.
Yeah, that's great math, because I never *want* to spend some of my time exercising instead of working.
Oh, wait, I don't like to work more than 40 hours a week, so any time of mine after that shouldn't be considered billable anyways for purposes of determining my time's value.
If all *you* want to do is work and make money, great, but there's a lot of people in the world who also enjoy exercise, fresh air, reducing their impact on the planet, perhaps other things too.
Have you ever told your daughter that watching her in a school play just cost you $100? You should've been working instead! Then you could buy her a pony!
Okay, yeah, I'm a bit angry. My wife worked at a corporate law firm for a few years, and without fail everyone who works there as a warped view of their priorities. So seeing bogus math about billable hours really sets my teeth on edge.
Customers keep requesting more power, more room, and more safety for the same amount of money.
Many do but not all.
I was disgusted last year when I looked at the Mazda 5 -- a nice car that seats 6 or has cargo space, very flexible. In Europe I could get it in a 1.8L or 2.0L IIRC, and in America I could get it in 2.3L or something even bigger.
Oddly enough, the 1.8L got better gas mileage and still had more power than I'd ever need. Since I didn't want to spend $19k on a car that wasn't what I wanted, I bought a 1997 Honda Odyssey instead (also seats 6). Getting 24 mpg in a car I paid $6k for is a lot more palatable than getting 27 mpg in one that cost over 3 times as much. $13k buys a lot of gas, still.
If you have a 35 mile commute you probably live too far from work.
Yes, I know that sometimes both people in a couple work at different locations, or one can't afford to move when they switch jobs, etc., etc.
But it seems many of my co-workers chose to buy a house not in the neighborhood that's 2 miles from work (a very nice neighborhood) or one 3 miles away, but rather 15 miles away, so they could spend a little less money and get a house built in 2005 instead of 1982.
While fully realizing not everyone has a choice in where they live, most people I know do have a choice and could make one that minimizes the expense of their most common travel activity -- driving to work.
The Eclipse platform goes off and garbage collects seemingly only when I'm using SameTime and trying to type, so it hangs for 30 seconds and loses the text I was typing. It's slow, it's bloated, and if Notes crashes I still have to run ZapNotes to get it back up.
A friend of mine who left IBM to work for Microsoft and now uses Outlook tells me it's a lot better. Since I've rarely had anything good to say about Notes or SameTime or Eclipse, I can believe it.
It may be better than it was, but I still hate having to use it.
Oh yeah, no way they'll make a bunch of hackers do PT
Er, why the hell not? It's a requirement of the job. There's nothing about PT that's bad for you; in fact, physical exercise sharpens the mind. A soldier is a soldier, and one who isn't trained or able to help his fellow soldier when the crap hits the fan is being a poor soldier. Obviously everyone has their area of expertise; I don't expect everyone to know or be able to do anything. But I'd be pissed if a comrade hadn't at least tried to get strong enough to carry me out if I were unconscious; hadn't learned the basics of first aid, etc.
You travel in VFFs? These days I wear flip-flops so I can take them off at all opportunities and be really barefoot, but still have a "shoe" when it's socially required.
I can see your point, but I disagree for several reasons.
1) My personal estimate is that things will look worse for a few yeas, but will begin looking better before the elections in 2012.
2) It's harder to fix the mess with fewer democrats in office, if you believe that is what will fix the mess. Getting it fixed is more important than taking the blame, for the health of the country.
3) Traditionally, the president's job isn't that big, in the sense that they don't make legislation (they sign it). What the president does (and here GWB was rather successful, sadly) is get Congress and the public to go along with his/her plans, even though they may not really want to. That is, they *lead*, by setting a vision and letting Congress implement it (if it needs new laws and incentives) or letting the American people do it (if it needs mass behaviour changes). And Obama is far more successful at inspiring than Clinton is.
People remember Reagan and JFK and Lincoln because they inspired. And hopefully had sound judgment along the way.
The president also toes a lot of talking to heads of other states, to begin the process of entering into treaty, or to convince them to do what we want. I suspect Reagan and JFK were pretty good at that, too.
Texas democrats knew Bush'd turn out to be a terrible president.
I don't know why no one much talks about coattails -- if Obama is the nominee then a lot of dems will get into Senate, House, and state offices. If Clinton is the nominee then a lot more Republicans will show up just to vote against her. That's why I don't understand why more of the superdelegates aren't behind Obama -- the coattails are amazing there.
I can smell when my wife is ovulating. Not consciously, but I get a lot more horny at the right time -- she got pregnant at age 37 three weeks after we got married, because I could "smell" it and we humped three times in 24 hours.
The next time was almost as fast -- five weeks after she stopped nursing, pregnant again.
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I go to an Episcopal church, which is one of the essentially non-doctrinaire Christian denominations. There are no creeds required to attend or be a member in good standing, though we do recite the Nicene Creed on Sundays. But some of my friends at church are "heretics" (heresy just being another word for a different idea about God; one that isn't mainstream), who don't e.g. believe that Jesus was divine in any way.
What should my church say about the physical world? My priest isn't a scientist, he's a priest.
I believe God created the heavens and the earth. I don't know how, though the observations indicate he knows a lot about chaos theory and there was some kind of big bang at the beginning. Where that initial matter came from that exploded (or I guess really just expanded), I don't know (but neither, yet, do physicists).
I believe that God wants me to do certain things (love others, charity, compassion, forgiveness), and not do other things (hatred, spitefulness). I think these are rather universal to the organized religion (mine and other Christian denominations).
But as for whether I should vote Democrat, Republican, independent, Libertarian, Green Party or should eschew politics, the religion is silent. If my priest told me who I should vote for (as seemed to happen at some churches in 2000 and 2004), or denied me communion because of my political affiliation or voting record (as happens at some Catholic churches) I would leave it, and hope that I could find some place to be in community with folk who share some of the same ideas about God that I have.
"The way the processor industry is going is to add more and more cores, but nobody knows how to program those things," he said. "I mean, two, yeah; four, not really; eight, forget it."
Hmm. Last I checked AIX and Solaris and HP-UX supported 128 CPUs or more. They all scale pretty well. So either he's talking about the desktop OS, where more than 2 CPUs is pretty new, or there's something new here.
I'd guess that it's not really something new; the basic problem of making programming for multiple CPUs "easy" has been around since the 1980s and it's still not "easy" -- oddly enough, you still have to think about concurrency, locks, multiple threads, etc.
Heh, I went from a child having my parent's beliefs, to atheist, to Christian, to atheist/agnostic back to Christian. I don't think my political beliefs ever changed, though.
:-)
Though I did have the surreal experience of asking my evangelical pastor where I could find some liberal Christians in Austin. He didn't seem to think they existed. A few months later I was going to an Episcopal church full of liberal (and conservative) Christians.
My sister's church had a sign I always liked: under an image of Jesus, "He died to take away your sins, not your mind."
Well, lets start at the beginning.
:-)
What is this nonsense? Trying to equate loving your family with loving a nebulously defined "thing"? And then trying to use it to bash people that got a Nobel prize...? Jealous much?
No. To have done the kind of work that earns a Nobel takes a lot of time and effort over many years. That kind of time spend on the science is incompatible with spending time with a family, because there's only 24 hours in the day for everyone.
You are clearly being not only argumentative, but dismissive (fantasy, magic, ghosts & goblins, and other unsubstantiated nonsense). Did I accidentally hit a sore spot of yours? Because for all that you (well, really the slashdot crowd in general) want to claim that you're rational, you don't argue very rationally sometimes about religion.
We're not talking about the Phelps crew. We're actually talking about you and others like you.
Actually, we're not. I was specifically implying the religious folk who don't understand evolution. I do understand it, and I accept it as the best scientific explanation for the diversity of life that we see. If the state of Texas wants to try to "teach the controversy" or whatever mumbo-jumbo phrase the creationists are using lately, and someone else doesn't get to it first, my wife will sue their ass to keep it off the curriculum.
I pity you, because you must have a really bad life to need to escape from reality and invent things that probably aren't there.
Ah, *probably* isn't there! You at least admit it's a possibility? That's some real progress!
I can't prove God exists to you or even to myself. You can't prove she doesn't. It's not really the same, but IIRC it's pretty unlikely we'll ever know what was on the far side of the Big Bang, either. That doesn't mean physicists haven't advanced hypotheses, and I'll wager some of them even *believe* that one or another of these hypotheses must be the right one... even without proof.
Among other things, I observe some people dying for others when they don't have to (altruism). I observe some amazing changes of heart in people I interact with that would not be expected or predicted. I observe some real sacrificial love. I observe people like Martin Luther King, who believed in God and also achieved some real greatness by following where he thought God was leading.
But I suppose MLK was also a quack who needed to escape reality? Mahatma Ghandi was just confused?
but unless you can show that they are a reality
This in fact is a fallacy; here's why. By its very nature the supernatural is "super" natural. If it were measurable, repeatable, therified and falsifiable, it would cease to be *super*natural and merely be a part of nature.
Perhaps someday we can figure out why (or if) prayer works -- is it quantum mechanics? What if it turned out that thinking positive thoughts about someone affected their life even if you never told them or interacted with them? (That's spooky action at a distance.
There's plenty of things under the sun that aren't yet known. And in the end, no matter how much science explains of *how* things are done (gravity makes things fall, not angels; evolution created man, not God in 6 days), it will never explain *why*. Maybe there isn't a why, but *if* there is, science will never find it. It's not a question science is equipped to ask. So instead we have philosophers and religions to attempt an explanation of why.
Have a great day! Try not to get too mad because we disagree. I mean, I know someone (in your opinion, me) on the internet is *wrong*, but hey, it's just electrons. I don't want or need to convince you God is real, I just would like a little less reactionary hatred towards those who believe in God. Not all of us are also anti-science nuts.
Not that anyone will listen, but...
Of course, critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god.
Well, I'm going to pretend you didn't just insult me, because that's not conducive to a rational argument.
Just because some folks don't need or want spirituality doesn't prevent others from having it. There are plenty of scientists and engineers and even evolutionary biologists who believe in God. The ones earning a Nobel probably won't, party because there's a lot of things you can't do if you want a Nobel -- you won't have time for your family, and if you were the kind of person who puts family (or God) ahead of a career then you weren't going to do what it takes to get that Nobel Prize.
There's some very confused, vocal people that have made the issue rather annoying. My religion says nothing about the physical world, and my science says nothing about the supernatural.
Some people have no need for religion or spirituality. Some do. Some people have no need to understand the science behind the things around them. Some do. They're orthogonal issues.
Flame on.
Maybe there are nooks and crannies of the computer industry where commercial software still has a genuine edge on free software, but NOT developer tools.
Indeed, I think you can make a simple argument for why this is so.
Free software zealots (i.e. won't use anything commercial) need tools to develop software. Ipso facto, those tools are free, and are sufficient to support large software development projects.
I've been trying to think of an analogy, but I'm coming up short. There aren't a lot of other mediums where you figuratively bootstrap -- software is an odd duck in that the tools needed to do the craft are themselves tools *built* by the craft.
For OSS projects that are trying to duplicate commercial software then they'll never catch up really
True, but who needs to catch up to MS Word? It hasn't had many useful features added since 1993. The few that were useful can be replicated and the rest can be ignored, and you have a better product.
The new tool is called BEAM (Bugs, Errors And Mistakes). I have no idea if there's plans to productize it. So far my code has found almost as many bugs in BEAM as BEAM found in my code.
I work on the VMM for AIX.
:-)
All software sucks, but the ones I know the internals of suck less.
I forgot to answer your other question.
Since we've had the tool for a while and have fixed most of the bugs it has found, we are required to run static analysis on new code for the latest release now (i.e. we should not be dropping any new code that has any error in it found via static analysis).
Just like code reviews, unit testing, etc., it has proved useful and was added to the software development process.
If you're using uninitialized memory to generate randomness, it wasn't very random in the first place.
Not that I actually read anything about the SSL "fix".
Here at IBM we have an internal tool from research that does static code analysis.
It has found some real bugs that are hard to generate a testcase for. It has also found a lot of things that aren't bugs, just like -Wall can. Since I work in the virtual memory manager, a lot more of our bugs can be found just by booting, compared to other domains, so we didn't get a lot of new bugs when we started using static analysis. But even one bug prevented can be work multiple millions of dollars.
My experience is that, just like enabling compiler warnings, any way you have to find a bug before it gets to a customer is worth it.
only an idiot would subscribe the philosophy that [foo] ... Yet, that's what you're advocating.
I was looking for arguments; I seem to have found abuse. Ah well.
I don't know where you live and I don't know what property values look like compared to location and home structure. I do know a lot about property where I live, though, and in my area there's a reason that some houses cost more than others. They're not *less*, they're smaller. And closer to downtown. And in old neighborhoods with quaint architecture, and large shade trees. These things have a significant value too, though I suppose if your only metric is price per square foot, yeah, they're "less" for "more".
No one needs a 3000 sq ft house (unless maybe you house your in-laws and 6 kids and maybe a maid).
Because space has been plentiful in the suburbs, house design is crap. Families of 4 can live in 600 sq ft in NYC (admittedly a little tight). With some better house design, 3000 sq ft would go back to being a mansion as it should.
Even in major cities there are usually neighborhoods "near" downtown that are affordable; at least here in Austin I used to live 10 minutes from downtown (w/o traffic; 20 with) in a $120k house. It wasn't big but it was a roof, it was affordable. We moved out not because we had 2 kids but because opportunity presented, and I could then live 2 miles from work instead of 4. Our current house is 1800 sq ft and bigger than we need; one room is guest bedroom, one room has junk that we haven't found the time to sort, clean, give away, etc.
People need McMansions the same way they need an Excursion. Only in their fears, or in unusual circumstances.
Yeah, that's great math, because I never *want* to spend some of my time exercising instead of working.
Oh, wait, I don't like to work more than 40 hours a week, so any time of mine after that shouldn't be considered billable anyways for purposes of determining my time's value.
If all *you* want to do is work and make money, great, but there's a lot of people in the world who also enjoy exercise, fresh air, reducing their impact on the planet, perhaps other things too.
Have you ever told your daughter that watching her in a school play just cost you $100? You should've been working instead! Then you could buy her a pony!
Okay, yeah, I'm a bit angry. My wife worked at a corporate law firm for a few years, and without fail everyone who works there as a warped view of their priorities. So seeing bogus math about billable hours really sets my teeth on edge.
Customers keep requesting more power, more room, and more safety for the same amount of money.
Many do but not all.
I was disgusted last year when I looked at the Mazda 5 -- a nice car that seats 6 or has cargo space, very flexible. In Europe I could get it in a 1.8L or 2.0L IIRC, and in America I could get it in 2.3L or something even bigger.
Oddly enough, the 1.8L got better gas mileage and still had more power than I'd ever need. Since I didn't want to spend $19k on a car that wasn't what I wanted, I bought a 1997 Honda Odyssey instead (also seats 6). Getting 24 mpg in a car I paid $6k for is a lot more palatable than getting 27 mpg in one that cost over 3 times as much. $13k buys a lot of gas, still.
If you have a 35 mile commute you probably live too far from work.
Yes, I know that sometimes both people in a couple work at different locations, or one can't afford to move when they switch jobs, etc., etc.
But it seems many of my co-workers chose to buy a house not in the neighborhood that's 2 miles from work (a very nice neighborhood) or one 3 miles away, but rather 15 miles away, so they could spend a little less money and get a house built in 2005 instead of 1982.
While fully realizing not everyone has a choice in where they live, most people I know do have a choice and could make one that minimizes the expense of their most common travel activity -- driving to work.
Maybe from a developer standpoint. I hate it.
The Eclipse platform goes off and garbage collects seemingly only when I'm using SameTime and trying to type, so it hangs for 30 seconds and loses the text I was typing. It's slow, it's bloated, and if Notes crashes I still have to run ZapNotes to get it back up.
A friend of mine who left IBM to work for Microsoft and now uses Outlook tells me it's a lot better. Since I've rarely had anything good to say about Notes or SameTime or Eclipse, I can believe it.
It may be better than it was, but I still hate having to use it.
Oh yeah, no way they'll make a bunch of hackers do PT
Er, why the hell not? It's a requirement of the job. There's nothing about PT that's bad for you; in fact, physical exercise sharpens the mind. A soldier is a soldier, and one who isn't trained or able to help his fellow soldier when the crap hits the fan is being a poor soldier. Obviously everyone has their area of expertise; I don't expect everyone to know or be able to do anything. But I'd be pissed if a comrade hadn't at least tried to get strong enough to carry me out if I were unconscious; hadn't learned the basics of first aid, etc.
You travel in VFFs? These days I wear flip-flops so I can take them off at all opportunities and be really barefoot, but still have a "shoe" when it's socially required.
I can see your point, but I disagree for several reasons.
1) My personal estimate is that things will look worse for a few yeas, but will begin looking better before the elections in 2012.
2) It's harder to fix the mess with fewer democrats in office, if you believe that is what will fix the mess. Getting it fixed is more important than taking the blame, for the health of the country.
3) Traditionally, the president's job isn't that big, in the sense that they don't make legislation (they sign it). What the president does (and here GWB was rather successful, sadly) is get Congress and the public to go along with his/her plans, even though they may not really want to. That is, they *lead*, by setting a vision and letting Congress implement it (if it needs new laws and incentives) or letting the American people do it (if it needs mass behaviour changes). And Obama is far more successful at inspiring than Clinton is.
People remember Reagan and JFK and Lincoln because they inspired. And hopefully had sound judgment along the way.
The president also toes a lot of talking to heads of other states, to begin the process of entering into treaty, or to convince them to do what we want. I suspect Reagan and JFK were pretty good at that, too.
Texas democrats knew Bush'd turn out to be a terrible president.
I don't know why no one much talks about coattails -- if Obama is the nominee then a lot of dems will get into Senate, House, and state offices. If Clinton is the nominee then a lot more Republicans will show up just to vote against her. That's why I don't understand why more of the superdelegates aren't behind Obama -- the coattails are amazing there.
IBM's AIX will work okay in 512MB. It also works well with 1TB or more.
So why does Vista need 1.5 GB? AIX is 20 year old software (well it started that long ago, but there's always new versions).
I can smell when my wife is ovulating. Not consciously, but I get a lot more horny at the right time -- she got pregnant at age 37 three weeks after we got married, because I could "smell" it and we humped three times in 24 hours.
The next time was almost as fast -- five weeks after she stopped nursing, pregnant again.
Cheers,
Matt
How many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None. Californians screw in hot tubs, not light bulbs.
Cheers,
Matt