Pangloss

Rofl, I guess the spare tire is the only thing on that guy that's Made in the USA. (grin) Classic.

Who said anything about using WYSIWYG? I think you're confusing my defense of whether WYSIWYG editors produce spaghetti code (they don't) as a statement that we use them. That wasn't my intent in my post above -- I was saying that we step up from Notepad to more powerful editing and site management tools (like Dreamweaver and Visual Studio), but not really for their WYSIWYG features. Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG editor is useful, I often run it in split screen mode just to see the immediate appearance of what I'm doing, but I'm still working in HTML. If that's what you meant by "hand-coding", Klaynos, then I agree. I will occassionally drop into WYSIWYG for something simple, but for any complex project I agree that the code has to be worked out carefully. But it's not so much because the WYSIWYG editor puts out mangled code as it is so that I will know what's going on in there, so I can refer to it programmatically. Of course these days every style element is controlled by CSS, and I don't typically write out that XML by hand, although I know many do. I know the syntax, but on a big job I usually find it faster to use the GUI CSS tool in either Dw or now VS2008 (which is basically ripped straight from Dw -- I'm AMAZED Microsoft hasn't been sued by Adobe over that). That's nice because I can bash out major style changes and see the immediate effect on all the pages, but even then I'll typically go over the XML it produces carefully to make sure I know what's in there. That's how it works. I don't believe that your MS Gold Partner would shun the use of Visual Studio and knock out ASP.NET "by hand" in Notepad. Most Partners (I am a Partner, by the way) actually see those higher-level Visual Studio versions as the main reason for being a partner (gold status is tens of thousands of dollars per year). Here are 2 million posts from Partners and other ASP.NET coders who clearly work the same way, or they wouldn't be posting in those forums. And that's true of programming languages as well, doG. If it weren't, there would be no JBuilder or NetBeans either, and those are great programs. (I actually had a professor for a Java class in my graduate program who did all his Java work in Visual Studio just because he liked the editor better. Go figure.)

Netflix hasn't listed it yet. I've been wondering why -- they usually list things well in advance of release. I just put the upcoming Indiana Jones movie in my queue, for example.

Great idea swansont, I'll throw 20 bucks into the pot for that. Come on guys, I know some of you are young and adventurous!

No, they really don't. Students and teachers and hobbyists use hand coding. And that's fine, so long as you don't mind a strictly linear relationship between labor hours and output. People who want to make as much money as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time they can possibly do it in use editing-and-site-management suites, which exponentially improve the relationship between labor hours and output. That's not to say that knowing how to do it by hand is irrelevent -- just the opposite in fact. You regularly have to drop into the code and change things or edit them or arrange them "just so". The more you know about HTML, the easier that is. Especially tables -- the bane of every new HTML student's existence. I also teach new web developers at my university, by the way. We do introduce them to HTML (as well as CSS and XML) in Notepad, but then we move on to more complex systems (typically Dreamweaver for the design students and Visual Studio for the technical/programming students). No, it really doesn't. Well I don't know NVU, maybe IT does. Early WYSIWYG editors did produce serious spaghetti HTML, but that hasn't been an issue in quite a few years.

One way to look at it is in terms of how efficiently we are using that growing store of fast-moving cache memory. We deal with slow main memory by stuffing as many instructions into cache memory as possible, so the CPU can do more during those 15-20 cycles it has before main memory is available again. Processors have stopped speeding up, but cache memory sizes continue to rise, and at some point someone realized that the cache could contain more information than the CPU could process in those 15-20 cycles. So they started throwing another core in there, just to make sure all those numbers get crunched before main memory wakes up again. It's not a perfect explanation by any means, but that's essentially what's going on. That's why it's not like a "9.6 ghz computer", because no matter how many cores you stuff into that cache-ram-and-processors package, it can only process however much data you were able to shove into that cache in a given cycle. So in the end the computer is still (more or less) revolving around the speed of its main memory. Also, as Bascule points out, how the code is written is a major factor on how efficiently this system runs. He could talk more about how Erlang addresses this, but I imagine that what it's doing is trying to be really efficient about what it shoves into the cache memory. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Given the level of trust people have in government these days it might be better to go the OPPOSITE direction and embrace and recommend psychics to people. Heck we could even have the government PAY for it. The conspiracy theories alone would provide Hollywood with a whole new well to tap for ideas. And the psychics would never see it coming. Badum-boom. But seriously, I wonder if one of the main benefits here would be to drive this sort of thing out of the mainstream media. Stories by local (and sometimes not local!) television reporters, syndicated television programs, stuff like that might have a hard time finding purchase if their underlying industry has to justify itself in court or face fraud charges. So even if it didn't result in any prosecutions it could have a positive impact.

I heard on a recent 60 Minutes story (about that catastrophe seed bank up in the tundra) that there were tens of thousands of species of apple in common consumption less than a century ago, but that homogenization through marketing has reduced the number to (according to this agriculture expert they were interviewing) "about 3 or 4 common varieties". The rest are down to just seeds in seed banks in various places, useful for research (cross-breeding for immunities, etc) but basically lost to the general public.

Wouldn't it be amusing if science groups started leading tours of the Creation Museum, lead by archeologists pointing out the flaws in their reasoning and why evolution really does answer those questions? It would be a great response to that story out of Colorado about creationists leading tours of a natural history museum out there.

Well I can hardly bow out of a discussion when Bascule is asking me direct questions. Besides, I believe I've earned some acknowledgement for the points I've raised AND given evidence for in this discussion. If you two didn't want to hear what I had to say, you shouldn't have baited me in the first place. (You in this post, bascule in this one.) You wanted an argument, and you got one. Why complain now? There were two sides participating in that discussion. And that was just one example. You just ignored this post, in which a member of this forum, in this very thread, made the political statement that he felt it was okay for Gore to exaggerate because if he doesn't then people aren't going to react and solve this problem, and this post, from another member agreeing with that point. Your comment contained a political statement as well as an analysis. For someone so well versed in logical fallacies, you sure make a habit of dragging out that old red herring. You said that the community shuts down dissention when it has no scientific merit (in this post). I disagreed with that in this post, saying that dissent is shut down here for political reasons, not scientific ones. I've gone on to show examples of that in this thread. It is exactly what you were saying. You implied that I'm the only one injecting politics into this thread, and I directly refuted that claim.

Who's saying that? Especially in this thread... All I'm seeing are scientific rebuttals to your arguments' date=' Pangloss, and you're trying to interject politics into it. That's just one big fat red herring.[/quote'] Oh really? All science, eh? No politics in this thread until I came along? The first three pages of this thread are about Al Gore's living habits. And here's an example of one member saying that he felt it was okay for Gore to exaggerate because if he doesn't then people aren't going to react and solve this problem! http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showpost.php?p=401634&postcount=53 And another member replying that he agreed with that being a good idea. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showpost.php?p=401637&postcount=54 Not only that, but you've contributed political analysis to this thread yourself. Not to mention your statement in your last post that "science shuts down dissention is that it has no scientific merit" (which I showed by example to be false, which you ignored). And you have the gall to say that no flaming has happened in this thread, but you'd have to be blind to miss it, with iNow calling SkepticLance a "condescending twit" (a personal attack completely out of the blue, which he has yet to apologize for) and a moderator calling for the flaming to end (which it did not). Wanna try that again?

I see the point, but the idea that we might draw the line at mere isolation from the outside world, or even parental indoctrination/brainwashing of an unpopular socio-political position, might undermine parental authority everywhere. Society has said that we want (and expect) parents to raise their children with minimal societal intervention. That means that there will ALWAYS be opinions indoctrinated onto children that many people in society don't like. Should children be removed because their parents are telling them things that others don't agree with? That makes me leery and worried about a different kind of brainwashing. I'm playing devil's advocate here because I have major problems with under-16 marriage and polygamy in an environment fraught with potential for brainwashing -- I'm totally repelled by that notiong and with you emotionally 100%.

I see no need to reiterate my position, but you can assume that I will continue to point out flaming when it's ignored because it's politically-correct flaming, and that I will not sit by and allow an atmosphere of intolerance and closed-mindedness to be created and even lauded in the name of science. I agree with much of what you said there, swansont. Rebutting bad arguments is NOT an inherently politial action, I agree, and I also agree that people want to have scientific discussion without having a political framework forced upon it. You are absolutely right. But talk about "convincing society what to do" and "how do we get the red-staters to stop listening to idiots" IS political. When you open that door, two or more opinions are going to walk through it.

You must have caught me online, but I'm heading out so I'll have to make this brief. Actually on this board my right not to be insulted by you does in fact supercede your right to insult me. In society at large you have a point, but not here. And you've got the infraction list to prove it, guy -- the only member I know of who has two pages of infractions to his name. And that's just the more eggregious stuff -- doesn't count the stuff they let you get away with because they agree with you or don't find it worth the effort to fix. Like that. I'm not reluctant to change human behavior in this area, and have stated such several times. Right, that's exactly right. You attack people whom you feel are like that. Insult them, curse at them, berate them, abuse them, and generally are rude to them, because you feel it's justified by your position. I completely agree that this is what you do. And I believe that if you a "denialist" then you wouldn't be allowed to get away with it. But because the position you're espousing is that human contribution is behind GW, you're allowed to get away with far more than you would otherwise, mainly due to the standard human behavior of same-POV-thread-skimming. I don't hate it here at all, so aside from the obvious assumption and false dilemma logical fallacy, there you go once again acting like the choir director, shaping the opinion of SFN and driving dissenters away. QED. I completely agree. I didn't say you weren't a valuable member or that I didn't respect your opinion. That may have been my opinion in the past (it never really was, I just got very angry at you a few times), but it's absolutely not my opinion now. I'm sorry if I've pissed you off in this thread, but it's not about slamming iNow, it's about pointing out something that I feel is a weakness and a lack of integrity in threads like these. We need to focus on the facts, knock off the angry rhetoric, and frankly if you accepted the occassional reminder that some of the science may not be there yet (or just counter-pointed it as swansont replied), that would be sufficient. That's progress. You win these things over time, iNow, by keeping the pressure on to check out all the loose ends in every theory, NOT by driving the opposition out of town on a rail. (to bascule) I don't buy this, by the way. Nobody tries to shut down experimental attemps to measure the speed of light or a myriad of other commonly accepted scientific theories. They try to shut down global warming "denialists" because they feel harmed by the dissent. That's a political position, not a scientific one. You want to make a case that there's only so much federal money to go around, fine, I'll even buy into that to some extent. But scientific investigation is scientific investigation, period, it's either correctly and validly done, or it is not. You don't get to shut down valid inquiry just because it's politically incorrect. Not for reasons of science, at any rate.

What else do I need? I need people to stop being disparaged and insulted just because they don't believe what you believe. I need this board to be a place where people have egalitarian and open-minded discussions, not receive insult and hurtful discouragement just because they espouse a backward or ignorant point of view. There's certainly nothing scientific about that. And you know it. Which isn't a proven point either, but more to the point at the moment, in your mind that belief of proof justifies disparagement and hateful rhetoric if that's what it takes to bring people in line with what you need them to do. And yet you talk to Norman Albers as if he's doing something completely different from what you're doing. Interesting. K, it's a moral issue too. Doesn't make it a scientific one. It's a moral, political, and faith-based issue. And you feel that those not following the correct faith need to be drummed out with tough love, or whatever. I get it. I'm glad to see you finally admitting it openly and talking about it. It's too bad nobody on your side of the argument will read what you just wrote. A shame, really. Example: You have yet to demonstrate where that is occurring. I ask for data' date=' and you respond with rhetoric. The whole issue in microcosm.[/quote'] See? Well yes, of course you see, iNow -- you ride the very wave, counting on the fact that people on your side of the argument will ignore most of your posts unless they get seriously out of hand. As long as you keep it under a certain level of behavior, you can verbally waterboard anybody you like.

That's an interesting way of looking at the problem, separating actions from beliefs. Of course it's almost impossible to conceive of how the freedom to go to church on Sunday could be curtailed without violating the principle of religious freedom, but in terms of offering a guideline for locating a starting point for regulation, that would seem to be a helpful signpost. Of course there is a legal aspect to all of this that doesn't question anything, which is the legal issue that the state of Texas is now wrangling with, and that is the question of abuse of minors. If they have evidence that children were being sexually abused, then presumably the state's statute does not protect religious members from prosecution for that abuse. The question will be whether the evidence is there to convict or not, and that's all there is to it. But of course in the real world perception affects everything, and I think these issues should come up and be debated. I don't see what's wrong with multiple-partner marriage, and I think 14 or 15 is old enough in some cultures to allow marriage-based sexual activity. (Though under 14 you really have to worry about abuse, IMO.) I think the real question, ultimately, is freedom of choice. Do these people have the ability to leave those relationships? If they don't, then that's not acceptable. But the brainwashing arguments are hard to accept, since that could happen anywhere, and that raises the spectre of religious demonization. ------------ An interesting point raised in the courtroom drama today: If there is an allegation of abuse against a specific individual, then why were the children removed from ALL of the houses in the community? Isn't that just guilt by association? Obviously there are reasons to think that the same kind of abuse MIGHT be happening in other houses in that community, but the legal question is whether any evidence of abuse in all 416 cases exists. If there is not, then the children have to be returned to their parents. I have a feeling that the state may have overstepped its bounds here, and that most of these kids may be going home in very short order, accompanied by 400 lawyers and a lot of victory dancing before the cameras. Which would be a shame if some of these children actually ARE being abused. Yet another case, perhaps, of overzealous, overambitious prosecution (ala Duke Lacross Team).

I figured he'd make a more direct statement on that eventually. Good catch.

What Bascule said. It can be very tedious in the more common languages. Since you're working in .NET I recommend checking out the MSDN library articles on the System.Threading namespace. Also this article is pretty good on the basics: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/mmehta/Multithreading211162005044506AM/Multithreading2.aspx

The good Captain was talking to YOU, Norman. Knock it off. Frankly I'm inclined to leave that line there just counter your immature claim that you were banned for no reason, but if you don't stop breaking the rules you're just going to end up staring at the login screen again. You've gotten some WIDE latitude here because, frankly, people like you and you're a valued member here. But you can't just go saying stuff like that and expect there to be no consequences.

Is there any actual evidence of Alzheimer's? If so please post it. Rumors persist that Reagan showed signs of it before leaving office, and God help us if we have to deal with a sudden, obvious onset in a candidate before the election. Holy cow what a mess that would be. But I suppose it would be better than having it show up after he was in office. Let's hope we don't have to deal with THAT nightmare. I agree with iNow's points two posts up, btw. It didn't really strike me as Alzheimer's, more the pressures of campaigning and traveling in the middle east. But he is considered a foreign policy and middle east expert (amongst politicians, at any rate) and I believe those statements will come back up after the Dems wrap up their nomination.

I've heard that those 4 dentists are part of the global conspiracy of denialism that refuses to acknowledge that teeth can be whitened. Which is rumored, by the way, to be funded by the tobacco industry! I need a emoticon with yellow teeth. (hehe)

Four out of five dentists agree -- Crest beats Aquafresh. That's 80%, important statistical evidence that NOT using Crest actually contributes to tooth decay. Show me another factor in tooth decay that has more than 80% support from the research community! What is it about basic oral endocrinology that people don't understand?! The debate is OVER! Aquafresh idiots are a dangerous and subversive element, and should not be tolerated! I for one welcome our shiny-rictus overlords.

I agree with both of the above posts. I'm continuously surprised at the way Clinton and Obama are shown to be weakening against McCain. I can't tell if that's an honest public sentiment or something trumped-up by the media, but even if it's honest I can't say that I really understand it. Maybe it's just that the political hobbyist in me doesn't understand people's lack of "stamina" for following this stuff.

I'm not arguing ID, so comparing me to ID arguers is just subtle disparagement and ad hominem. I'm not arguing that global warming shouldn't be taught in the classroom, nor that it shouldn't be studied, nor that human causes shouldn't be studied or taught in the classroom. I think all of those things should be taught and studied, and I have zero interest in trying to convince school children that global warming might not be caused by humans, either. As far as I'm concerned that's an issue for scientists. OBJECTIVE scientists. I think it's likely that humans are behind global warming, and certainly have to be viewed as a factor. What I have a problem with is the demonization rhetoric and the closing-of-debate. This closed-minded insistence that no dissention be tolerated even though the point hasn't actually been proven and another answer remains possible. As I said, that makes it a political argument, not a scientific one. And it's an argument you've already won me over on, in spades. Let's clean up the air and water and do something about carbon and everything else, absolutely. An obvious logical fallacy. Several are implied in that sentence, and your larger argument, actually. Composition fallacy Post hoc propter ergo hoc Argumentum ad populum Not to mention that's like trying to prove a negative. Prove to me that there's no intelligent life outside of Earth in the universe and I'll believe that aliens have never landed on Earth. And by the way, when did you stop beating your sister? You're not exactly making your case with arguments like that. You're making mine. Sure it is, but that was just a round number anyway. An opinion. A political statement. Yes, and we've seen what happens when they settle on short-term studies with small statistical samples, haven't we? Drugs that have to be recalled later because the greater-sized statistical study shows that the early evidence was way off base. Sometimes they'll stop those studies after just a few people out of thousands die, even though they have no idea why those people are dying. That's how weak that approach is. And yet it's fast becoming the cornerstone of modern science. Glory glory hallelujah, the truth be marching on! Whatever the truth happens to need to be this week to sell what needs to be sold, anyway. Still, if you want to make the point that our statistical evidence today is, say, vastly stronger than it was, say, 5 years ago, and that it's still pointing in the same direction, I've no problem with saying that to people. But that's a big difference from silence up the opposition and riding it out of town on a rail. The scientific questions do need to be addressed, and here in this forum, I agree. That's not what I'm arguing against. -- like calling anybody who disagrees with human causation a "denialist" -- Fine, but we've already agreed that "quantifying the level of understanding" in this case (human contribution) does not equate to the political decision to act or the subjects we will debate in this forum. So you don't disagree with me at all, you agree with me completely. If you want society to do something about falling rocks that's all you need right there. Which is why I think we have all the information we need to act on the issue of human contribution. An excellent analogy, thank you very much! No, one policy is being allowed to promulgate for discussion in this thread (and sub-forum), even though it is political in nature, and none other is allowed. If that wasn't the case I wouldn't be regularly opening my mouth here.

I think it's a very dicey and difficult subject to fully grok, and I think it raises major issues with society at large. It will be interesting to see if society steps up and looks at those questions seriously, or if this just fades to the background at the end of the news cycle, as I suspect it will. It's another in a long chain of recent stories questioning the legitimacy of marriage as a legal entity. It's another in a long chain of recent stories questioning the interface between parental rights (to raise children as they see fit) and society's fluctuating opinion of what constitutes abuse. And it's another in a long chain of recent stories questioning religious freedom. I saw a great story on ABC's Nightline last night where they interviewed the mothers of those children. It was a typical media circus, and lawyers for the church were actually landing on an airstrip in the background while the cameras were rolling on the moms! The most revealing part of the story was when the reporter asked the women questions like "how old were YOU when you got married", and the women would suddenly clam up and refuse to talk. Very interesting. But I think society needs to confront these issues, not continue to tuck them away and ignore them like they don't exist.