Wow, thats the most innocent sounding question I've ever heard of Slashdot! I imagine a small child, ragged hat in hand and doe-eyed, speaking with a whistle through a lost front tooth.
I didn't say that. I gave 2 specific examples of other people you could help...
Correct... other people. But instead of giving $25 to random folks, I could give that $25 to someone I know. Why is charity only good if it's for strangers?
Why? Because he wrote some books? That makes him worthy of charity?
Again, correct! But he didn't just "write some books". Its not every day that someone writes stories so ubiquitous that they becomes absorbed into our everyday culture. I'd give money to Orwell or Joyce, too.
Let's keep things in perspective here. You're saying that since this guy wrote some books, and is famous, that he deserves your money. But the soldiers who lose limbs fighting for your right to read those books don't deserve your money, because "you don't even know them?"
I never said anything about fame being a qualification. I said that I know him... thats enough. My dad was a POW in Vietnam, and his knee was blown out by shrapnel... I'd have give him money too if he had needed it. If I had any left over and was feeling charitable, I may donate to some random cause, but there is nothing wrong with prefering your heros over strangers... nothing wrong with that at all.
I weep for our future.
Oh sheesh, give me a break. I've never understood the "If you can't help everyone, why help anyone" arguement. Everyone is not equal, and should not be treated as such. I am far more likely to give money to a cultural icon whom I personally respect, than some guy I don't even know.
Rather than reply to parent, I'm going to give it the Wikipedia treatment:
Er, Um, all these comments, and nobody[verification needed] tried doing the math?
A capacitor bank to store that much charge (100 to 200 KwH) is going to cost, retail, at today's prices, oh, about $220,000 to $440,000[citation needed] AND take up most of the space inside a minivan. . It's unlikely these folks have made that much of an improvement in cost and density[verification needed].
That much energy stored in a capacitor bank will make Jerry Brukheimer really envious-- every such car out there will explode on impact[citation needed].
Most houses are only wired for 100 to 200 amps at 120VAC, which scientists tell us, is only 24KwH per hour. Every house would have to be rewired from the power pole with wire two to five times as thick. And a fusebox and timer able to schedule your time sucking up the amps.[verification needed]
If EVERYBODY tried to do this, we'd need three to five times the available electic power.[verification needed] No way this can happen,[verification needed] there isnt that much available capital in the whole world to build that many power plants[verification needed]. And oh, those power plats would have to use nuclear or coal[verification needed], not exactly "clean energy" in the broad view[citation needed].
Yeah, this is true, to some extent. Here in Kansas City, there is a little office that no one seems to know exists. Its called Tradebot. At any given day they do 5% of the trading on Nasdaq. Because they trade in so quickly and in such high volumes the business consistently makes money (I hear around $50,000/day). However, the secret their their success is not merely the software. The owner also employs 30 people to help him monitor trends, and adjust the software to match. I'd say the big secret is that his software is very agile.
I was alluding to automated memory mgmt via garbage collection. Obviously memmgt in some for existed, in C via "dealloc" before the far superior "delete" keyword. Christ, is Slashdot so overrun by higschool kids? Can't we assume intelligent debate?
That's hardly a general purpose harware virtual machine (hence the "as we know them today" qualifier... do you read parentheticals?). Obviously the existance of ANY virtual machine is not new. The concept of general purpose hardware virtual machine's with built in memory management? Quite recent (early-mid 80's, see Smalltalk). But considering that K&R was written in the 70's, I fail to see how you've proven me wrong.
I've got one better. A new guy we just hired was complaining about Java being a "low-level" language. He wants to use "high-level" languages, like Python and Ruby.
Compiling is soooo 1990's!
So you don't believe stealing is a matter of morality? Then why does the government regulate ownership? Because people have realized that stealing is morally wrong and unacceptable. People have a moral right to retain their property without interference.
Wow. Maybe that's the problem with modern government... people like you have no idea why it exists, and bend it to unintended consequences.
Stealing is socially unfeasible. Its morality is incidental. Enforcing codes of ownership is a primary function of government, that's why they do it, not becuase of abstract moral codes. I personally don't want government to exist to force my morals on the population, because I don't really care about the 'population'. I want a government to protect me, protect my friends, and protect my right to own stuff. Despite the high-minded mis-ideals of fools, this is what most people want (which is why they form governments). When your stuff is stolen, you'll right right to the police. What will you tell them? Someone did something immoral? Yeah right, you'll want you stuff back, and then want revenge (read: jailtime) on the perpetrator.
Back to the unfeasibility. For example: No one would buy land if there was no enforcement of ownership (and by extension, enforcement of life). It's just easier to buy guns, kill the previous owners, and move in. Regulation of ownership is precicely what allows modern life to exist. If no government existed, people would form "home associations" to protect large groupings of property (honestly, who wants to stand watch 24/7 to ensure their house doesn't get invaded?). Perhaps these people would rotate responsibilities for protection of the larger group (such as, manning the machine gun turret perimeter around the neighborhood?), so the rest could spend their time doing other things. Some people would not want to do "protection duty" at all, some would prefer to do protection all the time. Hey! I have an idea! Let's pay a small fraction of the group to protect us all the time, and we can spend our time doing other things! Right, there you go. That's the government. And just to ensure there are no competing "security groups", there can be only one. So, in a nutshell, government must have a monopoly on violence.
If you notice, nowhere did I mention anything about morality. Thats because, as I stated before, government regulates ownership, not morality.
"kidnaps your children, hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?"
These are all questions of ownership, not morality. Arbitration of ownership disputes are something that the government very much does have a monopoly on.
The thing is, databases aren't fast because they tend to be written in native languages. Databases are fast because they optimize queries and index data to ultimately reduce disk access, which are orders of magnitude slower than the processing itself. HSQLDB is a pretty damn good database, and it's 100% Java.
Slashdot Mirror
Medical research... for his condition... in his name. You obviously have no idea how hospitals work.
Yeah, but Wheel of Time? I mean, that series sucked ;)
In any case, despite the lack of a slashdotting, he is asking for medical bill money: http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=270%20
Wow, thats the most innocent sounding question I've ever heard of Slashdot! I imagine a small child, ragged hat in hand and doe-eyed, speaking with a whistle through a lost front tooth.
I didn't say that. I gave 2 specific examples of other people you could help...
Correct... other people. But instead of giving $25 to random folks, I could give that $25 to someone I know. Why is charity only good if it's for strangers? Why? Because he wrote some books? That makes him worthy of charity?
Again, correct! But he didn't just "write some books". Its not every day that someone writes stories so ubiquitous that they becomes absorbed into our everyday culture. I'd give money to Orwell or Joyce, too. Let's keep things in perspective here. You're saying that since this guy wrote some books, and is famous, that he deserves your money. But the soldiers who lose limbs fighting for your right to read those books don't deserve your money, because "you don't even know them?"
I never said anything about fame being a qualification. I said that I know him... thats enough. My dad was a POW in Vietnam, and his knee was blown out by shrapnel... I'd have give him money too if he had needed it. If I had any left over and was feeling charitable, I may donate to some random cause, but there is nothing wrong with prefering your heros over strangers... nothing wrong with that at all. I weep for our future.
You presume too much, young one.
Oh sheesh, give me a break. I've never understood the "If you can't help everyone, why help anyone" arguement. Everyone is not equal, and should not be treated as such. I am far more likely to give money to a cultural icon whom I personally respect, than some guy I don't even know.
Thank you!
Buy an iPod.
Shut up, nerd!
Actually, you can do a lot with TiVo hardware: http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/
Wow... a Self fan. Only on Slashdot.
Really? Because my Treo was $600 brand new, and I broke it after a month. Good thing I got the replacement plan! ;)
Yeah, this is true, to some extent. Here in Kansas City, there is a little office that no one seems to know exists. Its called Tradebot. At any given day they do 5% of the trading on Nasdaq. Because they trade in so quickly and in such high volumes the business consistently makes money (I hear around $50,000/day). However, the secret their their success is not merely the software. The owner also employs 30 people to help him monitor trends, and adjust the software to match. I'd say the big secret is that his software is very agile.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to be a beta tester for this thing.
Um... we need a new archetype - like Thompson - not a clone.
If your statement was a parody, it was brilliant. If it was supposed to pass as your "style", get a new bag of tricks.
I, for one, think that in a few years Tycho will be up to the task. He has plenty of style, now all he needs is more substance.
I just assumed you were advocating gay love or something.
I was alluding to automated memory mgmt via garbage collection. Obviously memmgt in some for existed, in C via "dealloc" before the far superior "delete" keyword. Christ, is Slashdot so overrun by higschool kids? Can't we assume intelligent debate?
That's hardly a general purpose harware virtual machine (hence the "as we know them today" qualifier... do you read parentheticals?). Obviously the existance of ANY virtual machine is not new. The concept of general purpose hardware virtual machine's with built in memory management? Quite recent (early-mid 80's, see Smalltalk). But considering that K&R was written in the 70's, I fail to see how you've proven me wrong.
I've got one better. A new guy we just hired was complaining about Java being a "low-level" language. He wants to use "high-level" languages, like Python and Ruby. Compiling is soooo 1990's!
Uh, K&R is slightly older than Java or C#... there was no such thing as memory management or virtual machines (as we know them today) back then.
Stealing is socially unfeasible. Its morality is incidental. Enforcing codes of ownership is a primary function of government, that's why they do it, not becuase of abstract moral codes. I personally don't want government to exist to force my morals on the population, because I don't really care about the 'population'. I want a government to protect me, protect my friends, and protect my right to own stuff. Despite the high-minded mis-ideals of fools, this is what most people want (which is why they form governments). When your stuff is stolen, you'll right right to the police. What will you tell them? Someone did something immoral? Yeah right, you'll want you stuff back, and then want revenge (read: jailtime) on the perpetrator.
Back to the unfeasibility. For example: No one would buy land if there was no enforcement of ownership (and by extension, enforcement of life). It's just easier to buy guns, kill the previous owners, and move in. Regulation of ownership is precicely what allows modern life to exist. If no government existed, people would form "home associations" to protect large groupings of property (honestly, who wants to stand watch 24/7 to ensure their house doesn't get invaded?). Perhaps these people would rotate responsibilities for protection of the larger group (such as, manning the machine gun turret perimeter around the neighborhood?), so the rest could spend their time doing other things. Some people would not want to do "protection duty" at all, some would prefer to do protection all the time. Hey! I have an idea! Let's pay a small fraction of the group to protect us all the time, and we can spend our time doing other things! Right, there you go. That's the government. And just to ensure there are no competing "security groups", there can be only one. So, in a nutshell, government must have a monopoly on violence. If you notice, nowhere did I mention anything about morality. Thats because, as I stated before, government regulates ownership, not morality.
"kidnaps your children, hacks into your back accounts and empties them out, steals your car, and backs a moving van up to your home and empties it?"
These are all questions of ownership, not morality. Arbitration of ownership disputes are something that the government very much does have a monopoly on.
The thing is, databases aren't fast because they tend to be written in native languages. Databases are fast because they optimize queries and index data to ultimately reduce disk access, which are orders of magnitude slower than the processing itself. HSQLDB is a pretty damn good database, and it's 100% Java.