The goto statement is very useful. Your dislike of it is irrational. Do you even know why you do not like it? Often, goto is the best solution to given problem.
The rest are hard-working, honest people with varying degrees of ethical awareness, mostly fairly developed senses of ethical awareness
that, for their financial benefit, perpetuate a system in which only the affluent can afford justice.
They take legal aid cases because their clients can't afford representation, or they mount Charter challenges to challenge overzealous cops or bad laws, they draw up wills, guide clients through divorces, and do the paperwork for your house sale
while charging hundreds of dollars per hour to do so.
Some 15 years ago, a friend who at the time was a sniper in the IDF infantry unit told me the following story.
He just finished the sniper training (about a month long), they had a free weekend and the guys wanted to celebrate before going back to their respective units. One had a relative in the administration of a big amusement park and offered to get them discounted (or possibly even free, I don't recall the exact details) tickets.
So, on the designated day, those that lived reasonably close (almost everybody, we aren't talking USA distances) and didn't have other plans, as well as an assortment of girlfriends, met at the entrance and proceeded inside to have fun. Even the fact that the person who arranged the tickets was unable to attend due to some unforeseen circumstance didn't spoil their enjoyment.
After several hours of rides and attractions, one of the girls spotted a booth where one could get prizes (mostly stuffed animals of various sizes) for hitting a small target from an air gun and demanded "the big pink gorilla" from her boyfriend. His feeble protests that the sights are misaligned were met with a scoff and, when another member of the group suggested he'll do it for her if her "loser of a boyfriend" is not up to the challenge, things were about to get ugly. Fortunately, one of them suggested a plan...
The group remained some distance from the booth. Three pairs casually approached with the girls visibly nagging the seemingly reluctant guys. The guys paid for the tickets, picked up the guns and proceeded to miss their shots (the sights were indeed misaligned). The booth operator, thinking that the 18-19 year-olds would be easy to goad, "convinced" them them to try again but this time they already knew how to compensate for the bad alignment and did much better. Handing them their prizes, the operator expected them to move on but they unanimously declared they want to continue. And so they did, putting every shot dead center. After some time, the operator realized that something is not exactly kosher here and refused to let them continue playing. Not a problem, they went to their friends (struggling under the bulk of the prizes) and explained what adjustments to make when aiming each gun. The remaining guys started lining up...
It took the operator less than half an hour to close the booth. According to my friend, although only 2 people were in the car, the drive back was very crowded.
You block my ads, I sneak them past your adblocker. You adjust your adblocker, I adjust my ads.
Why?
It is obviously clear that "I" am not interested in your ads. I don't click on them, I don't even read them. The only attention I give them is concerned with removing them from the page.
So what's your angle? Why do you believe that the equivalent of advertising peanuts to the severely allergic is a viable financial strategy?
I uninstalled autopager because it caused FireFox to hickup on my (underpowered) home machine as well as my (quad core) work machine. You could see regular "blips" on the CPU graph of process explorer, every few seconds and during that time, FF will briefly freeze. It would last less than a second (estimate) but was very annoying when scrolling through a page or writing in a form.
I see no reason that will make constructing an artificial intelligence as complex as our own impossible. It may take 20 years or 2000, it may be take the form of a digital simulation or a biological "life"; the details don't matter as long as we eventually achieve that goal.
Now, when we have such an entity (manufactured in a fab, grown in a vat, whatever) that passes the Turing test perfectly and is thus indistinguishable from a human intelligence, we will have to contend with the notion that if it isn't different from us, we are not different from it. Soul not required, free will probably too.
Unfortunately, without concepts, many of the templates that would make features like those REALLY powerful aren't implementable due to silly things like the compiler insisting upon being able to instantiate member functions that don't make sense for a class and won't be used, just because there isn't a means to tell the compiler "and if this member doesn't make sense, just don't instantiate it, and throw an error IF AND ONLY IF somebody tries to use it." (and yes, I know about SFINAE, but that gets REALLY UGLY to do).
Stroustrup: "Concepts" as currently defined are too hard to use and will lead to disuse of "concepts," possibly disuse of templates, and possibly to lack of adoption of C++0x.
Sutter: Concepts would be great, but for most users, the presence or absence of concepts will make no difference to their experience with C++0x except for quality of error messages.
Sutter: Concepts are almost entirely about getting better error messages.
Sutter: We won't have a de-conceptized working draft for the post-meeting mailing, two weeks after the meeting, but should have one soon after that.
I agree that concepts are useful and important but they are not the end-all be-all you make them to be.
Does free will imply that one's thoughts and actions are not predetermined?
Because if it does, it means that one's thoughts and actions cannot, by definition, be known in advance by any entity, including divine ones. Which in turn means that omniscience is not possible.
Otherwise, if one's thoughts and actions can be known in advance (i.e., predetermined), free will does not exist.
Many beings in the old Heaven allied against God to do evil, but it was not God's wish at all.
If said God is omniscient and omnipotent, how can anything be done against his wishes?
Unless you are implying that said "beings" are at least equal in power to said God? That, apart from advocating polytheism (which I am sure you did not intend to do) also breaks the concept of omniscience and omnipotence, because two entities cannot both possess such qualities at the same time if their wishes clash.
If you accept Jesus and repent of sin, you're certainly going to Heaven. It is that easy. It is God's gift.
Ah, so you are advocating a particular religion (yours) and a belief in a particular god (yours). However, there are other religions, with their own "holy writings", which are incompatible with yours. How can one then judge which religion to follow and which god(s) to accept without a-priori deciding on a single set of "holy writings" as true?
In particular, since several religions claim that the punishment of people that believe in other gods will be more severe than of those that follow no faith at all, isn't rejecting the lot of them the safest course of action?
I am sorry, but your claims need to be reconciled with Mathematics (not even science) before I can give them any weight.
It seems a shame that kids these days don't get the chance to (or are just not interested in) take things apart just to see how they work
Tell that to my youngest.
According to his classification system, things fall into three broad categories: (1) Those that can be disassembled into pieces. (2) Those that cannot, and must be bashed to achieve a similar result. (3) Those that are too hard/sturdy and should be used to bash other things from category #2.
Slashdot Mirror
You misspelled "dismembered".
Only in Python.
GOTO is for wimps!
that, for their financial benefit, perpetuate a system in which only the affluent can afford justice.
while charging hundreds of dollars per hour to do so.
Fair enough.
You show it, I block it, we're both happy.
Some 15 years ago, a friend who at the time was a sniper in the IDF infantry unit told me the following story.
He just finished the sniper training (about a month long), they had a free weekend and the guys wanted to celebrate before going back to their respective units. One had a relative in the administration of a big amusement park and offered to get them discounted (or possibly even free, I don't recall the exact details) tickets.
So, on the designated day, those that lived reasonably close (almost everybody, we aren't talking USA distances) and didn't have other plans, as well as an assortment of girlfriends, met at the entrance and proceeded inside to have fun. Even the fact that the person who arranged the tickets was unable to attend due to some unforeseen circumstance didn't spoil their enjoyment.
After several hours of rides and attractions, one of the girls spotted a booth where one could get prizes (mostly stuffed animals of various sizes) for hitting a small target from an air gun and demanded "the big pink gorilla" from her boyfriend. His feeble protests that the sights are misaligned were met with a scoff and, when another member of the group suggested he'll do it for her if her "loser of a boyfriend" is not up to the challenge, things were about to get ugly. Fortunately, one of them suggested a plan...
The group remained some distance from the booth. Three pairs casually approached with the girls visibly nagging the seemingly reluctant guys. The guys paid for the tickets, picked up the guns and proceeded to miss their shots (the sights were indeed misaligned). The booth operator, thinking that the 18-19 year-olds would be easy to goad, "convinced" them them to try again but this time they already knew how to compensate for the bad alignment and did much better. Handing them their prizes, the operator expected them to move on but they unanimously declared they want to continue. And so they did, putting every shot dead center. After some time, the operator realized that something is not exactly kosher here and refused to let them continue playing. Not a problem, they went to their friends (struggling under the bulk of the prizes) and explained what adjustments to make when aiming each gun. The remaining guys started lining up...
It took the operator less than half an hour to close the booth.
According to my friend, although only 2 people were in the car, the drive back was very crowded.
The name of the town is Sukhumi.
"Cyxymu" is what the word looks like when written in Cyrillic script.
Why?
It is obviously clear that "I" am not interested in your ads. I don't click on them, I don't even read them.
The only attention I give them is concerned with removing them from the page.
So what's your angle? Why do you believe that the equivalent of advertising peanuts to the severely allergic is a viable financial strategy?
And the difference is?
I uninstalled autopager because it caused FireFox to hickup on my (underpowered) home machine as well as my (quad core) work machine. You could see regular "blips" on the CPU graph of process explorer, every few seconds and during that time, FF will briefly freeze. It would last less than a second (estimate) but was very annoying when scrolling through a page or writing in a form.
I see no reason that will make constructing an artificial intelligence as complex as our own impossible.
It may take 20 years or 2000, it may be take the form of a digital simulation or a biological "life"; the details don't matter as long as we eventually achieve that goal.
Now, when we have such an entity (manufactured in a fab, grown in a vat, whatever) that passes the Turing test perfectly and is thus indistinguishable from a human intelligence, we will have to contend with the notion that if it isn't different from us, we are not different from it. Soul not required, free will probably too.
What I can never understand is how you, as civilized individuals, are able to tolerate and turn a blind eye toward this phenomenon.
Live and learn.
Thanks.
That is your opinion.
However, both Bjarne Stroustrup and Herb Sutter disagree.
Some selective quoting (from the links above):
Stroustrup: "Concepts" as currently defined are too hard to use and will lead to disuse of "concepts," possibly disuse of templates, and possibly to lack of adoption of C++0x.
Sutter: Concepts would be great, but for most users, the presence or absence of concepts will make no difference to their experience with C++0x except for quality of error messages.
Sutter: Concepts are almost entirely about getting better error messages.
Sutter: We won't have a de-conceptized working draft for the post-meeting mailing, two weeks after the meeting, but should have one soon after that.
I agree that concepts are useful and important but they are not the end-all be-all you make them to be.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Couldn't sell your wife with the sensors intact, huh?
I sympathize, the market for used wives is terrible.
At ~1.6m/step, that would be one long pair of legs.
I'd like to see this "high accountability" group that you speak of, please.
Yes, please do.
Sturgeon?
Does free will imply that one's thoughts and actions are not predetermined?
Because if it does, it means that one's thoughts and actions cannot, by definition, be known in advance by any entity, including divine ones. Which in turn means that omniscience is not possible.
Otherwise, if one's thoughts and actions can be known in advance (i.e., predetermined), free will does not exist.
If said God is omniscient and omnipotent, how can anything be done against his wishes?
Unless you are implying that said "beings" are at least equal in power to said God? That, apart from advocating polytheism (which I am sure you did not intend to do) also breaks the concept of omniscience and omnipotence, because two entities cannot both possess such qualities at the same time if their wishes clash.
Ah, so you are advocating a particular religion (yours) and a belief in a particular god (yours). However, there are other religions, with their own "holy writings", which are incompatible with yours. How can one then judge which religion to follow and which god(s) to accept without a-priori deciding on a single set of "holy writings" as true?
In particular, since several religions claim that the punishment of people that believe in other gods will be more severe than of those that follow no faith at all, isn't rejecting the lot of them the safest course of action?
I am sorry, but your claims need to be reconciled with Mathematics (not even science) before I can give them any weight.
+1 Inciteful.
Um...
I'm not sure it came out the way you intended it to.
Get used to disappointments.
Tell that to my youngest.
According to his classification system, things fall into three broad categories:
(1) Those that can be disassembled into pieces.
(2) Those that cannot, and must be bashed to achieve a similar result.
(3) Those that are too hard/sturdy and should be used to bash other things from category #2.