But i does have to be positive if a is an array, and that's the only case that matters in this context - the point being that the language could still implement arrays by defining a[i] as meaning *(a+i), even if pointer arithmetic was constrained to be unsigned.

I don't think the distinction is necessarily unimportant just because it is fuzzy. But I don't feel all that strongly about it.

As for signed pointer arithmetic: a[i] isn't really a good example because i has to be positive. But I was wrong anyway - I was thinking about things like this but now that I look at it again, the language really does need to let you subtract pointers and get a negative answer - the real problem in that example is the silly implicit conversion from signed to unsigned.

My point is that if (hypothetically speaking) the next specification of C left all that stuff out, it would still be a useful language. *Less* useful, but not useless.

(I don't need size_t because I can use ULONG_PTR. Signed pointer arithmetic is best avoided IMO, but if you force me to do it I have LONG_PTR. If there were no standard library, there would probably be an implementation-defined replacement for va_list, but if not, I can do without it; if necessary, I can always pass an array of pointers. No problem.)

Copyright exists to benefit society. How does it benefit society for APIs to be copyrightable?

Not at all. I have a number of C programs that (quite deliberately) do not use the standard library at all.

Having the standard C library - so that at least some parts of your code don't need to be rewritten for each operating system - is certainly convenient, but it is far from essential.

Exactly - though I think there may be some truth to the criticism that string theory shows no signs of getting anywhere.

The thing is that we don't currently have a single coherent theory that explains all the experimental results we have to date, even if we were to ignore complicating factors like Dark Matter. The Standard Model explains everything we can see in a particle accelerator, and GR explains most of what we see on a large scale, but there's no theory that does both. That's what string theory was supposed to do, and perhaps one day it will.

The successful development of such a theory would be a legitimately big deal, in my opinion, even if it doesn't predict anything different enough to the Standard Model in the one regime, or to GR in the other, that we can test it yet.

But Fast Track still allows Congress to reject the treaty, doesn't it? Presumably, they can even say "we're rejecting it, but if you make these changes, we'll approve it." Then it needs to be renegotiated accordingly.

Without Fast Track, Congress can apparently accept the treaty but change the terms - which doesn't make sense, because if you change the terms it isn't the same treaty any more. It would still need to be renegotiated, and presumably taken back to Congress unless the resulting document happens to be exactly the same as the one Congress came up with, which is unlikely unless the changes were trivial.

So what's the difference? (Serious question. Apart from perhaps wasting less time in Congress - and it isn't as if they don't seem to have plenty of it to spare - I see neither a disadvantage nor a benefit to Fast Track.)

I think the religion lobby is more likely to cause trouble than feminism. The latter has better sense. But either way, the consequences of failing to enforce such a rule are so very clear and present that I don't think anyone will be willing to give in.

Of course, there's a reasonable chance the longevity treatment(s) will be banned instead.

The worst case scenario is a war that the religious lobby win. But if they don't ban the longevity treatment, and probably even if they do, it won't be long before there's another war, and sooner or later they'll lose, or humanity will be wiped out, or our level of technology will drop to the point where the issue is moot. But I don't think my cautious optimism on this point is entirely unjustified.

Obviously. But that's a second-order effect, not something we'd need to take into consideration immediately.

Right now, we should be telling people not to reproduce excessively.

Given immortality, we need to tell people not to reproduce at all. Not the same thing.

And it can be enforced, at least in principle - there might be some cheating, but if immortality is popular there would presumably be few enough children to allow the parents of each to be identified. (It doesn't really matter if we get the wrong parents occasionally, just so long as the numbers balance.)

It's a popular enough premise in science fiction - Boat of a Million Years springs to mind, but also a great deal of Heinlein's work, and Larry Niven, etc., etc.

If it becomes necessary to tell people not to reproduce, the laws can be changed.

(More likely, though, it would be presented as a choice between being allowed to live indefinitely and being allowed to reproduce.)

At first glance, at least, that sounds absurd. Zen Energy is advertising prices starting at $5,750, and that's New Zealand dollars - about US$4500 at current rates.

It isn't surprising that there's a difference, labour costs if nothing else, but four to five times seems excessive.

Never mind, already answered further down the thread.

Early voting would be another option for people in this situation.

Why would you need to use a postal ballot just because you're out of town? You are talking about national elections, right?