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0h7V3Twb-Qk Sometimes it's really hard to gauge how China's economy is actually doing, especially when you see things like this. The discussion of how building an empty city affects their GDP is a very strange one as well. It was also weird to read that while this city is unoccupied, most of the property has been sold to people who are holding it as investments.

But what about cases where it isn't going across state lines?

In light of this thread, I was reminded of something I've been curious about for awhile... Where in the Constitution is the federal government granted power to regulate "substances", especially in cases where they aren't crossing state lines? Why aren't drugs a states rights issue?

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead This was a pretty interesting read for me, especially as someone who liked Ayn Rand earlier in my life (I read her books in high school and enjoyed them) It's funny how people read the tea leaves of the financial crisis and see two different things. Some people look at the bailouts and see the scenario depicted in Atlas Shrugged actually happening. This article takes the opposite perspective: Randroids caused the financial crisis. The article certainly has an interesting perspective. It describes how many people become temporarily infatuated with Rand then wake up and realize "Oh wait, Ayn Rand is horrible, I should stop liking her" while for others the "infection persists". And it just so happened that some of the individuals the infection persisted in were the ones making the decisions which lead to the financial crisis. What do you think? Did Ayn Rand's ideas contribute to the financial crisis?

I guess the distinction I'm trying to make that you're missing is that "JIT" is not the opposite of "compiled". JIT means just-in-time compiled. The opposite of "just in time" is "ahead of time"

The important distinction between compiled and interpreted execution is code output through a JIT is native code and is executed directly by the CPU. This is much faster than an interpreter, which is effectively a machine-with-in-the-machine. .NET, for example, has no interpreter. All .NET apps execute as native code. The real difference here is that there is a runtime present handling the translation to native code (not to mention providing garbage collection, etc) What you consider to be a "compiled" app can have a runtime too. Py2EXE will happily package your Python programs into a Windows .EXE file. This is indistinguishable to the end user from a program compiled from C/C++. The same could be said of any Objective C program running on OS X or the iPhone. These all depend on the Objective C runtime.

JITs generate native code. Languages with them should be considered compiled, not interpreted.

Yes, like the fact that reclassifying marijuana as Schedule II would require a lot of people admitting that they're wrong, because they've spouted unscientific bull$hit for years. At least the AMA is willing to stand up and admit they're wrong.

Personally I think PHP is a terrible first language. In general, it's very messy and uncohesive, and its semantics are rather ad hoc as opposed to being planned. It has some of the worst type coercion I've ever seen ("3 dog night" + 2 = 5?!!!). Object orientation was tacked-on after-the-fact and is not used by the standard library. The standard library is enormous, with many functions that duplicate each other. Determining which version is best for the task at hand is often difficult (I should use mysql_real_connect instead of mysql_connect?), and worse, often writing things yourself in PHP are better than using the hooks into C libraries provided by the stdlib, which is totally counterintuitive (I assume because the runtime used to be even slower than it is now). The PHP interpreter is also extremely slow (in some cases slower than the standard Ruby interpreter), however the language is not featureful and expressive like Ruby, so you're really getting the worst of both worlds: a slow, low quality language. I would suggest learning another language like Python or Ruby first, then moving to PHP later.

Yes, unless, say, the virtual machine executing my code happens to automagically cache the compiled versions... which it does!

Oh jeezus. So if your child has anencephaly (warning: graphic) which essentially means their brain is absent along with the top of their skull, Obamacare won't pay to have it aborted.

Which is why I prefer scripting languages...

Well, before you can talk about seed AI (recursively self-improving AI) we have to get to strong AI first. We aren't anywhere close to a computer as intelligent as your average 4 year old child. One of the biggest problems is that most of the research has been misguided. Rather than trying to crib from biology, researchers attempted to invent their own ideas about how the mind works out of thin air and implement those. Perhaps the book that makes this clearest is Marvin Minsky's The Society of Mind. Now don't get me wrong, it's a good book and I do think he gets a lot right, but at the same time this entire hypothesis is untestable and cannot be accurately tested to determine if it's how our minds work. Worse, the book has its own nomenclature for describing everything. The other problem is one of the sheer amount of computation involved. Our brains contain a hundred billion neurons, each of which has the equivalent complexity of an integrated circuit. Right now computers simply aren't fast enough to perform all the calculations necessary to rival a human brain. Things are moving in the right direction though. Software is being developed that is designed to perform similar functions to the human neocortex. This software is already being used to develop intelligent narrow AI products, and, over time, could form the basis of a strong AI system.

Blah, you nitpickers I was referencing the phenomenon of waveform collapse. No need to get all pedantic on me.

Doesn't help if they're in a district full of people who eat that stuff up with a spoon. Ever watch Idiocracy?

Go is a new language created by Google: http://golang.org It's a comparatively low level language in a similar vein to C with a clear emphasis on speed. And not just execution speed, but also compile speed: wwoWei-GAPo As someone who would love to see scientists abandon horrid old monstrosities of programming languages like Fortran, here's another contender to add to the list. Oh, and did I mention it's garbage collected? Personally I can't see myself using it, but hey scientists, go nuts.

The American Medical Association has issued a statement in support of medical marijuana: http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist/2009/11/ama_advocates_change_in_mariju.php This is quite interesting to see, especially given the recent firing of UK scientist Professor David Nutt over his claims that marijuana should be given a lower classification in the UK. This is all very nice to see as the present classification of marijuana in both the US and UK does not reflect the scientific reality. Especially interesting is that until now, the AMA has stated that marijuana should remain Schedule I, indicating it has no acceptable medical use.

Our bodies are physical; our minds are metaphysical. They are in two different "worlds" in that regard, but rest assured our brains are located safely in this dimension.

Unfortunately there are many Republicans who approve of this behavior. When Joe Wilson shouted "You Lie" to Obama's face during a joint session of Congress, he was met with an outpouring of support.

Russia was not "true" socialism or communism. Russia was a militaristic oligarchy that enslaved its people. A country like Sweden is much closer to "true" socialism than Russia ever was.

Yes, that said, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin are all bad people. Some are just worse than others. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Because people who vote and affect the leadership of this country are listening to Fox's lies. This is a lie: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-10-2009/sean-hannity-uses-glenn-beck-s-protest-footage It's being reported as news.

Yeah, was about to post that myself. Let's review how Fox "News" works: 1. Call yourself a news organization 2. Create, sponsor, and promote anti-Democrat protests in Washington, DC 3. Use stock footage of that protest to make subsequent anti-Democrat protests look bigger, while simultaneously lying about the number of attendees 4. ... 5. PROFIT!

LOL, way to spoil! That said, I put together fairly early on that "Phaedrus" had a mental breakdown and it sounds like he received electroconvulsive therapy. I'm a bit concerned about the direction the author is going. At first Quality was a romantic concept and the classical world was separate from it. Then it became part of the classic world as well. Now Quality is the root of EVERYTHING, and Quality is the Eternal Tao and the Buddha. I can't say it's entirely unexpected, but... perhaps he's descending into madness... Perhaps the narrator discovered some dangerous knowledge... Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedReading a bit more, the author sees Quality as being an inextricable part of the universe, yet he pays immense attention to the role of the perceiver in using Quality to discern what observations are relevant. No slight to the author, but while I entirely agree Quality exists, it is entirely subjective. This is a difficult book to follow as the author is retracing his steps and conveying his fluctuating views on various matters, and the there's the whole "Phaedrus" factor to account for. The author relates to his former self as a different person with a different set of values. Overall I seem to relate more to "Phaedrus" than the author himself, although I do like the author's separation of classical (i.e. left-brained) ideas versus romatic (i.e. right-brained) ideas. At least that's how I interpret them. This is the kind of book I would really like to read as part of a group. That said I am drawing close to the conclusion and not really sure what to make of it. I am sure this book is revolutionary to people who don't have an extensive philosophical background. I certainly relate to it, but I wouldn't consider it "life-changing".

I prefer assertive, aggressive, dominant women. Unfortunately, they're hard to come by.

It should be completely automatic.