Years of information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet without any sort of methodology or study of sources and just "impressions" or "feelings" in my opinion (and experience from bullshit I've said and heard based on "information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet") amounts to random statements. But you migh be right. It might not be random at all since most news outlets (and bloggers, etc) just recycle the same information over and over - even though the information might be biased and just the product of someones imagination, impressions or feelings (based on "years of information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet").
And you are allowed to be concerned with whatever you want and in this case your concerns are important and reveal serious issues with many Muslim societies but we were not discussing these issues. So, other than pointing out problems in many (Muslim) societies it is irrelevant to the present discussion.
Affirming that a majority supports something is a strong statement. Had you said everyone supported this something it would take only a single Muslim to deny your statement. Now, you said a majority and the only approach one can have in such a situation is statistical and in this context things get complicated. Sure, you could simply make everyone answer a few questions. But, then, how representative would those answers be? If I were planning to blow up something I would certainly say anything to avoid being detected. On the other hand, I, personally, would have said whatever.
Now, how can I go about this? Since I am saying that a *minority* has some behavior my sample would have to much smaller for a given level of uncertainty in the assessment. This basically means that my small drop in the ocean is probably much more representative than your random statements.
But there are polls. Some of them well designed (to reduce bias in the methodology) that try to determine overall opinions of Muslims in different circumstances (different countries, different economic status, etc) and I have never heard of any single one where most people support your statements. Usually it is very much the opposite. It is true that the US/Britain are very poorly regarded by most polls but that in no way means that people want to be blow up London or NY. Anyway, what would you expect of the polls? For the last century these people have been colonized, murdered and bombed by western countries. And usually who dies can not find the US in a map.
You say that many give their quiet support. Where do you get this information? Then you bring to the table other issues that are not under discussion and that doesn't directly affect you or I in the least even though it might appall us. And, by the way, genital mutilation is not a Muslim thing it is much more related to geographical regions and it is conducted by Christians too for instance. Domestic violence and honor killings is very common in many Christian countries. Many of these countries have honor crimes encoded in law (even though these laws are falling in disuse in most places).
Let me understand this correctly. You say that the majority behave one way and my pool of information is too small? I guess you must be a master mind reader sucking the wishes and pathologies of millons of Muslims every where. I read somewhere on this topic that there are 2 million Muslims on England (or UK). Let's assume the majority means 1 million. If they behave like you say they are awfully quiet and well behaved. Maybe they are just waiting for the right moment. But that doesn't sound much like the behavior of raging religious fanatics to me. Maybe they are just scared of British police.
You obviously have no sense of proportions. And you should study logic. It is not that difficult.
So it is not a few people? It is most of them? You are probably expressing the views of the "Arab street" whatever that means.
It's funny I've met several Muslims and many of them are close friends and they are from several places and include Shia and Sunni and I haven't met a single one who tried to change, rule or convert me in any way. OTOH almost every day I meet some evangelical moron who tries to talk me in to going to his church or whatever. Once I turn the guy down he basically implys that I will go to Hell or something like it.
No one said there was a wonderful multiculturalism in the Islamic world but there was multiculturalism. And it probably wasn't such a nightmare because it is still there even with all the problems and hate nowadays. I have never heard of a Christian Palestinian thanking Israel's "multiculturalism" or for their liberation from the nasty Muslim yoke. But I see many of them fighting with Muslims for their liberation.
Muslims do not believe in co-existence with other religions. What an accurate statement! There are no maronites christians in Lebanon. Neither Greek orthodox nor Armenians. Every major Muslim city had sizeable jewish communities (at least until the founding of Israel). Hell, there are even Jews in Iran! Edward Said was of Christian family and so was George Habash and he was a terrorist. Middle Age Spain was a haven for European Jews. They were expelled by Christians. Were did they go? Most of them to northern Africa. Some important Christian families in Lebanon and Palestine are descendents of the Crusaders, they even have frenchy names! Talk about diversity! And I'm not including other places such as Indonesia.
I am not saying that there were no problems and eventual persecution but over the centuries these countries were "liberal" enough that all these minorities continued to exist and even flourished. Where else can you find such a diversity of cultures living together for so long? Multiculturalism is something very new for western civilization.
Suicide bombings did not exist until the 1980's. Terrorism in arab countries was no different from terrorism in other places until 1980. And it was not restricted to Muslims. In Lebanon there were even a few Christian suicide bombers.
So what is wrong? Did islam suddenly change? Or your statement might be wrong? It is interesting that the more the west pokes on arab countries, the worse things get. In palestine trouble began with massive European Jewish immigration in early 20th century under British rule. Suicide bombings began with Israeli invasion of Lebanon and US support of some factions in the civil war.
It is obvious that these countries have issues but western involvement certainly has responsibilities. But one thing is certain: Islamic rule co-existed every sort ethnic and religious faith for a 1000 years. Don't mistake recent behavior of a few people with a the attitudes of a civilization.
I mean Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Haiti, Congo(Zaire), Marrocos, Western Sahara (invaded by Marrocos with US support), South Africa (for a long time), Rhodesia (and while it was interesting, Zimbabwe too), (and scores of other african countries), Iran (the Sha), Iraq (before 1990), Pakistan (all those long military dictatorships), Indonesia, Philipines, South Vietnam. These are just the most blatant US interventions. There are several others that I don't recall right now and several much subtler interventions. How many millions of deaths are involved.
I won't argue with you about the Taliban because I completely agree with you but that's not the point. Many people including large numbers of Afganis (it is difficult to estimate the percentage) just do not agree with you. Is the population coerced? Often but it is simply not possible to fight a guerrilla war against the US without active support and solid bases among part of the population. And I think I should remind you that these are the same guys that were fighting the soviets in the 80's and were called by the US "freedom fighters". And they were doing the same thing they are doing now. If you don't know or don't recall, one of the reasons the Taliban was successful was because they brought "order" to places that had been wrecked by the militias of the northern alliance and the same same situation is repeating now.
About Iraq, now it is Iranian backed "insurgents"? What about Falluja, Ramadi, Sunni triangle they are all Shia places!?! Al-Qaeda claimed the yesterdays bombings; have they converted to Shia Islam? Maybe you mean the Mehdi army? Or the Badr brigades whose leaders were and are very close to Iran. But guess what: the Badr brigades have a new name: the Iraqi Army! So, if you think about it, the US occupation forces is just another group, the LARGEST, very strong and with deep pockets group, in a large mess. And by the way, they are clearly the most foreign forces in the region.
You sound like a very nice and decent guy so I'll give you a word of advice: be a little more skeptical of what US governement says (and is repeated by the main media outlets). Probably the only place US foreign policy did some good was western Europe after WWII and I don't think they did it because they were nice guys. More likely they were afraid of growing Soviet influence in the region.
I in no way agree with these lunatics but that is the basic question of every liberation or "liberation" movement. In early 20th century you could say that some guy born in India had a country: British Empire. I am not sure he would agree. Some might even cherish the thought but others would be willing to fight to the bitter end. They argue that their countries are ruled by tyrants backed by the US (Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Morroco are in your list). And if History is a valid witness, the US has seldom encouraged "constitutional democracy" anywhere in the world. I could list countries. How many do you want?
I agree with you that the Taliban is not liberating the people of Afghanistan but they surely do not agree with you. And if you dig up in the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, one of the first things that happened in that war was the murder of teachers and women deemed "too liberal". Then they were considered freedom fighters. Again, I in no way support soviet actions but there is a striking similarity in both occupations.
The base line is that torture is wrong whatever the policy. If it is carried out, the movements suffering it will gain a lot of credibility at least with the locals and in a little while there will be people calling them "liberators" (see Iraq and Afghanistan).
There is something called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I don't believe that torture was included in it. The Islamic fundamentalists shouldn't have to be under protection of Geneva Conventions to avoid being tortured, the Universal Declaration should be enough.
Just to set a few things straight, even though there are foreigners in Iraq, most people fighting are Iraqis the same is valid in Afghanistan.
So don't call it *war* on terror! BTW, you just described any and all of liberation movements in history. And usually the cell structure is a result of torture not otherwise. If these guys knew they would not be miss-treated when imprisoned they would have a more formal structure that could be dealt with somehow. And if they had a country they would not be killing US soldiers in Iraq. This is a pattern that repeats all over the world whatever ideological tendency these groups and the respective governments have.
Does it matter if it worked or not? Any half ass Sci-Fi writer was wiser than all of these government semi-fascist bastards. Asimov dwelt so long on the 3 rules and the recently deceased Arthur Clarke reflected upon the consequences of contradictory orders to a sentient computer (HAL9000 in 2001) and these idiots are building robots whose only purpose is to kill?
If you wanna shoot someone at least have the guts to pull the trigger yourself. Non-personal, no-risk guilt free killing just can't lead to any good.
What you say is true but OTOH, I hear the same complaint about young engineers all over the world: they should learn to work in groups better! With attitudes such as this school's you can be sure that no study groups collaborative or copy/paste will be very popular.
Even though they are intangible, doesn't the US law stipulate something like $150,000 per infringement? When it works for them they set these absurd values. Why not charge them on that value? What about something like they decide the value for each infringement and tax is calculated based on this value. You don't pay taxes then anyone can copy. If you want some protection pick a value and pay the according tax. Hell, this value could even be changed after some period of time.
Well, that might not mean anything. What is the number of children in public schools in NYC compared to the number of children daily involved with priests? And do not forget another aspect that is very important: priests are able to pressure a kid with much more effectiveness than a teacher (something like: "if you tell anyone you will go to hell"). You could well be right (I could even say that you are probably right) but these simple numbers do not mean much without a definite and quantifiable context. That's the difficulty with statistics.
That's easy: something on the order of the amount they can charge for each copyright infringement (was it something like $150,000?). I think $30,000 would be a reasonable amount.
There is something else that people forget. I write tons of software that I will not distribute (no point in doing it) and most people I know also write a lot of software that is not distributed. I don't think that it is far fetched to say that 95% of all software written was never meant to be distributed in any way.
For situations like this, free software is wonderful. I remember the old days when I had to program every thing from scratch. The availability of free libraries has really made things much easier. But I'm probably destroying markets because I should hire some idiot like him to write my programs...
That is not correct. They actually said that if the US could provide evidence for 9/11 they would turn Bin Laden over. The US said they should turn him unconditionally and bombed them. Whether they would actually turn Bin Laden over I don't know but the US would have bombed them anyway.
The cane is not burned to produce ethanol. It is burned on the fields to make manual harvest easier. It is actually illegal nowadays even though still common (at night it is beautiful sight). Actually, manual harvest is supposed to be phased out. Now, there is a catch: if manual harvest is eliminated, many will lose their main source of income. These workers com from all over the country during harvest time. So there are pressures to keep these workers employed.
The ethanol production itself requires energy (heat) which comes often from the burning of the what is left of the sugar cane but conditions on the plants are much better than they used to be and this is not so big a problem compared to the burning of the fields.
Smog? I haven't seen this around. You see smog in São Paulo but that is due to motor vehicles not sugar can plantations. In the regions that produce sugar cane during harvest time there is an increase in the rate of respiratory problems and you can see the ashes accumulating in the backyard but I haven't seen any smog yet.
I don't like this argument very much. It would be valid for high profile crimes where there are very strong interests playing a part. But these guys can easily get guns either way. On the other hand, common thugs usually don't have your kind ability. Sure you find martial arts experts doing time and I've met a couple of them over the years and I can tell you their abilities didn't make much of a difference: they were way to high and desperate to do anything. But I could be wrong: haven't seen any statistics...
I've used labview and while it is easy to connect the output from one control to the input of another it is a whole other business developing anything a little more complicated. It is a nightmare. It is a real mess with all those wires. That's why most people I know make a simple GUI interface and save the data to a file and use some other environment (matlab/octave/scilab/R/etc) to do all mathematical processing. In my opinion labview is great for developing a user interface that controls instrumentation but not much more. The first time a saw LabView, 10 years ago, I was amazed, thought it was great. This lasted until I had to do a little programming. Since we had already invested some time on the thing we kept using it. Fortunately I found out about the possibility to call a DLL and only used LabView for the DAQ and GUI parts only.
I guess labview is very nice to people with very little programming experience and do not feel like learning to program. They are usually the ones that love LabView.
The other day I found out about a labview toolbox that allows the use of scilab functions. This should really improve things for Labview. It will certainly be blessing for anyone trying any thing more than trivial mathematical programming. But without such tools labview is a horrible programming environment with a great set of libraries.
The last few years I've been using R to do data acquisition. Even though there is no GUI it is a great environment for data acquisition and . I had to write the drivers for the DAQ boards and other instruments but since many of those do not have a LabView driver or have lousy LabView drivers, it wasn't much work. But for standard measurements (things we do very often) the lack of an appropriate easy to use GUI is a pain.
Paulo
The only condition was the maintenance of the Emperor which ended up happening anyway. Japan's shipping fleet was destroyed. They had absolutely no raw materials least of all oil. They were going to have problems with food. Source: History of the Second World War - Liddell Hart.
Anyway, you are missing the point. This unconditional surrender was a small factor and other reasons were behind. The parent's argument is still valid even if your assertions are correct.
Slashdot Mirror
Years of information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet without any sort of methodology or study of sources and just "impressions" or "feelings" in my opinion (and experience from bullshit I've said and heard based on "information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet") amounts to random statements. But you migh be right. It might not be random at all since most news outlets (and bloggers, etc) just recycle the same information over and over - even though the information might be biased and just the product of someones imagination, impressions or feelings (based on "years of information gathered on a daily basis from every corner of the planet").
And you are allowed to be concerned with whatever you want and in this case your concerns are important and reveal serious issues with many Muslim societies but we were not discussing these issues. So, other than pointing out problems in many (Muslim) societies it is irrelevant to the present discussion.
Affirming that a majority supports something is a strong statement. Had you said everyone supported this something it would take only a single Muslim to deny your statement. Now, you said a majority and the only approach one can have in such a situation is statistical and in this context things get complicated. Sure, you could simply make everyone answer a few questions. But, then, how representative would those answers be? If I were planning to blow up something I would certainly say anything to avoid being detected. On the other hand, I, personally, would have said whatever.
Now, how can I go about this? Since I am saying that a *minority* has some behavior my sample would have to much smaller for a given level of uncertainty in the assessment. This basically means that my small drop in the ocean is probably much more representative than your random statements.
But there are polls. Some of them well designed (to reduce bias in the methodology) that try to determine overall opinions of Muslims in different circumstances (different countries, different economic status, etc) and I have never heard of any single one where most people support your statements. Usually it is very much the opposite. It is true that the US/Britain are very poorly regarded by most polls but that in no way means that people want to be blow up London or NY. Anyway, what would you expect of the polls? For the last century these people have been colonized, murdered and bombed by western countries. And usually who dies can not find the US in a map.
You say that many give their quiet support. Where do you get this information? Then you bring to the table other issues that are not under discussion and that doesn't directly affect you or I in the least even though it might appall us. And, by the way, genital mutilation is not a Muslim thing it is much more related to geographical regions and it is conducted by Christians too for instance. Domestic violence and honor killings is very common in many Christian countries. Many of these countries have honor crimes encoded in law (even though these laws are falling in disuse in most places).
Let me understand this correctly. You say that the majority behave one way and my pool of information is too small? I guess you must be a master mind reader sucking the wishes and pathologies of millons of Muslims every where. I read somewhere on this topic that there are 2 million Muslims on England (or UK). Let's assume the majority means 1 million. If they behave like you say they are awfully quiet and well behaved. Maybe they are just waiting for the right moment. But that doesn't sound much like the behavior of raging religious fanatics to me. Maybe they are just scared of British police.
You obviously have no sense of proportions. And you should study logic. It is not that difficult.
So it is not a few people? It is most of them? You are probably expressing the views of the "Arab street" whatever that means.
It's funny I've met several Muslims and many of them are close friends and they are from several places and include Shia and Sunni and I haven't met a single one who tried to change, rule or convert me in any way. OTOH almost every day I meet some evangelical moron who tries to talk me in to going to his church or whatever. Once I turn the guy down he basically implys that I will go to Hell or something like it.
No one said there was a wonderful multiculturalism in the Islamic world but there was multiculturalism. And it probably wasn't such a nightmare because it is still there even with all the problems and hate nowadays. I have never heard of a Christian Palestinian thanking Israel's "multiculturalism" or for their liberation from the nasty Muslim yoke. But I see many of them fighting with Muslims for their liberation.
Muslims do not believe in co-existence with other religions. What an accurate statement! There are no maronites christians in Lebanon. Neither Greek orthodox nor Armenians. Every major Muslim city had sizeable jewish communities (at least until the founding of Israel). Hell, there are even Jews in Iran! Edward Said was of Christian family and so was George Habash and he was a terrorist. Middle Age Spain was a haven for European Jews. They were expelled by Christians. Were did they go? Most of them to northern Africa. Some important Christian families in Lebanon and Palestine are descendents of the Crusaders, they even have frenchy names! Talk about diversity! And I'm not including other places such as Indonesia.
I am not saying that there were no problems and eventual persecution but over the centuries these countries were "liberal" enough that all these minorities continued to exist and even flourished. Where else can you find such a diversity of cultures living together for so long? Multiculturalism is something very new for western civilization.
Suicide bombings did not exist until the 1980's. Terrorism in arab countries was no different from terrorism in other places until 1980. And it was not restricted to Muslims. In Lebanon there were even a few Christian suicide bombers.
So what is wrong? Did islam suddenly change? Or your statement might be wrong? It is interesting that the more the west pokes on arab countries, the worse things get. In palestine trouble began with massive European Jewish immigration in early 20th century under British rule. Suicide bombings began with Israeli invasion of Lebanon and US support of some factions in the civil war.
It is obvious that these countries have issues but western involvement certainly has responsibilities. But one thing is certain: Islamic rule co-existed every sort ethnic and religious faith for a 1000 years. Don't mistake recent behavior of a few people with a the attitudes of a civilization.
The bicycle.
I don't think you assertion applies to every sociopath. I haven't heard of any bushFS in development. Perhaps once he leaves office...
If that is the case it would surely be very similar to our own TV transmissions...
I mean Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Republica Dominicana, Haiti, Congo(Zaire), Marrocos, Western Sahara (invaded by Marrocos with US support), South Africa (for a long time), Rhodesia (and while it was interesting, Zimbabwe too), (and scores of other african countries), Iran (the Sha), Iraq (before 1990), Pakistan (all those long military dictatorships), Indonesia, Philipines, South Vietnam. These are just the most blatant US interventions. There are several others that I don't recall right now and several much subtler interventions. How many millions of deaths are involved.
I won't argue with you about the Taliban because I completely agree with you but that's not the point. Many people including large numbers of Afganis (it is difficult to estimate the percentage) just do not agree with you. Is the population coerced? Often but it is simply not possible to fight a guerrilla war against the US without active support and solid bases among part of the population. And I think I should remind you that these are the same guys that were fighting the soviets in the 80's and were called by the US "freedom fighters". And they were doing the same thing they are doing now. If you don't know or don't recall, one of the reasons the Taliban was successful was because they brought "order" to places that had been wrecked by the militias of the northern alliance and the same same situation is repeating now.
About Iraq, now it is Iranian backed "insurgents"? What about Falluja, Ramadi, Sunni triangle they are all Shia places!?! Al-Qaeda claimed the yesterdays bombings; have they converted to Shia Islam? Maybe you mean the Mehdi army? Or the Badr brigades whose leaders were and are very close to Iran. But guess what: the Badr brigades have a new name: the Iraqi Army! So, if you think about it, the US occupation forces is just another group, the LARGEST, very strong and with deep pockets group, in a large mess. And by the way, they are clearly the most foreign forces in the region.
You sound like a very nice and decent guy so I'll give you a word of advice: be a little more skeptical of what US governement says (and is repeated by the main media outlets). Probably the only place US foreign policy did some good was western Europe after WWII and I don't think they did it because they were nice guys. More likely they were afraid of growing Soviet influence in the region.
I in no way agree with these lunatics but that is the basic question of every liberation or "liberation" movement. In early 20th century you could say that some guy born in India had a country: British Empire. I am not sure he would agree. Some might even cherish the thought but others would be willing to fight to the bitter end. They argue that their countries are ruled by tyrants backed by the US (Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Morroco are in your list). And if History is a valid witness, the US has seldom encouraged "constitutional democracy" anywhere in the world. I could list countries. How many do you want?
I agree with you that the Taliban is not liberating the people of Afghanistan but they surely do not agree with you. And if you dig up in the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, one of the first things that happened in that war was the murder of teachers and women deemed "too liberal". Then they were considered freedom fighters. Again, I in no way support soviet actions but there is a striking similarity in both occupations.
The base line is that torture is wrong whatever the policy. If it is carried out, the movements suffering it will gain a lot of credibility at least with the locals and in a little while there will be people calling them "liberators" (see Iraq and Afghanistan).
There is something called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I don't believe that torture was included in it. The Islamic fundamentalists shouldn't have to be under protection of Geneva Conventions to avoid being tortured, the Universal Declaration should be enough.
Just to set a few things straight, even though there are foreigners in Iraq, most people fighting are Iraqis the same is valid in Afghanistan.
So don't call it *war* on terror! BTW, you just described any and all of liberation movements in history. And usually the cell structure is a result of torture not otherwise. If these guys knew they would not be miss-treated when imprisoned they would have a more formal structure that could be dealt with somehow. And if they had a country they would not be killing US soldiers in Iraq. This is a pattern that repeats all over the world whatever ideological tendency these groups and the respective governments have.
Does it matter if it worked or not? Any half ass Sci-Fi writer was wiser than all of these government semi-fascist bastards. Asimov dwelt so long on the 3 rules and the recently deceased Arthur Clarke reflected upon the consequences of contradictory orders to a sentient computer (HAL9000 in 2001) and these idiots are building robots whose only purpose is to kill?
If you wanna shoot someone at least have the guts to pull the trigger yourself. Non-personal, no-risk guilt free killing just can't lead to any good.
Actually the drag increases as the square of velocity: F = Cd.A.1/2.rho.V^2
What you say is true but OTOH, I hear the same complaint about young engineers all over the world: they should learn to work in groups better! With attitudes such as this school's you can be sure that no study groups collaborative or copy/paste will be very popular.
Even though they are intangible, doesn't the US law stipulate something like $150,000 per infringement? When it works for them they set these absurd values. Why not charge them on that value? What about something like they decide the value for each infringement and tax is calculated based on this value. You don't pay taxes then anyone can copy. If you want some protection pick a value and pay the according tax. Hell, this value could even be changed after some period of time.
Well, that might not mean anything. What is the number of children in public schools in NYC compared to the number of children daily involved with priests? And do not forget another aspect that is very important: priests are able to pressure a kid with much more effectiveness than a teacher (something like: "if you tell anyone you will go to hell"). You could well be right (I could even say that you are probably right) but these simple numbers do not mean much without a definite and quantifiable context. That's the difficulty with statistics.
That's easy: something on the order of the amount they can charge for each copyright infringement (was it something like $150,000?). I think $30,000 would be a reasonable amount.
There is something else that people forget. I write tons of software that I will not distribute (no point in doing it) and most people I know also write a lot of software that is not distributed. I don't think that it is far fetched to say that 95% of all software written was never meant to be distributed in any way.
For situations like this, free software is wonderful. I remember the old days when I had to program every thing from scratch. The availability of free libraries has really made things much easier. But I'm probably destroying markets because I should hire some idiot like him to write my programs...
That is not correct. They actually said that if the US could provide evidence for 9/11 they would turn Bin Laden over. The US said they should turn him unconditionally and bombed them. Whether they would actually turn Bin Laden over I don't know but the US would have bombed them anyway.
The cane is not burned to produce ethanol. It is burned on the fields to make manual harvest easier. It is actually illegal nowadays even though still common (at night it is beautiful sight). Actually, manual harvest is supposed to be phased out. Now, there is a catch: if manual harvest is eliminated, many will lose their main source of income. These workers com from all over the country during harvest time. So there are pressures to keep these workers employed.
The ethanol production itself requires energy (heat) which comes often from the burning of the what is left of the sugar cane but conditions on the plants are much better than they used to be and this is not so big a problem compared to the burning of the fields.
Smog? I haven't seen this around. You see smog in São Paulo but that is due to motor vehicles not sugar can plantations. In the regions that produce sugar cane during harvest time there is an increase in the rate of respiratory problems and you can see the ashes accumulating in the backyard but I haven't seen any smog yet.
I don't like this argument very much. It would be valid for high profile crimes where there are very strong interests playing a part. But these guys can easily get guns either way. On the other hand, common thugs usually don't have your kind ability. Sure you find martial arts experts doing time and I've met a couple of them over the years and I can tell you their abilities didn't make much of a difference: they were way to high and desperate to do anything. But I could be wrong: haven't seen any statistics...
I've used labview and while it is easy to connect the output from one control to the input of another it is a whole other business developing anything a little more complicated. It is a nightmare. It is a real mess with all those wires. That's why most people I know make a simple GUI interface and save the data to a file and use some other environment (matlab/octave/scilab/R/etc) to do all mathematical processing. In my opinion labview is great for developing a user interface that controls instrumentation but not much more. The first time a saw LabView, 10 years ago, I was amazed, thought it was great. This lasted until I had to do a little programming. Since we had already invested some time on the thing we kept using it. Fortunately I found out about the possibility to call a DLL and only used LabView for the DAQ and GUI parts only.
I guess labview is very nice to people with very little programming experience and do not feel like learning to program. They are usually the ones that love LabView.
The other day I found out about a labview toolbox that allows the use of scilab functions. This should really improve things for Labview. It will certainly be blessing for anyone trying any thing more than trivial mathematical programming. But without such tools labview is a horrible programming environment with a great set of libraries.
The last few years I've been using R to do data acquisition. Even though there is no GUI it is a great environment for data acquisition and . I had to write the drivers for the DAQ boards and other instruments but since many of those do not have a LabView driver or have lousy LabView drivers, it wasn't much work. But for standard measurements (things we do very often) the lack of an appropriate easy to use GUI is a pain. Paulo
You do realize that there are such things as libraries?
Well, http://www.murdoch-sutherland.com/Rtools/ provides the tools necessary to build http://www.r-project.org/ on windows. When compiling the latest version, R-2.6.0, just released it uses gcc 4.2.1 to compile.
I don't have windows to test the compiler out but I tried the binaries and they work fine. BTW, R is a fairly large project.
The only condition was the maintenance of the Emperor which ended up happening anyway. Japan's shipping fleet was destroyed. They had absolutely no raw materials least of all oil. They were going to have problems with food. Source: History of the Second World War - Liddell Hart.
Anyway, you are missing the point. This unconditional surrender was a small factor and other reasons were behind. The parent's argument is still valid even if your assertions are correct.