Explain where in the constitution freedom of speech is limited. I'm not sure how libel and slander laws are even defensible under the US Constitution. Not that I disagree with them, I'd be happy to see a reasonable amendment to the constitution that disallowed slander & libel.

I am NOT happy with how so many people (including entire government institutions) treat the constitution as meaningless.

When the hell did "you'r e an idiot" posts start qualifying for an upvote of any kind?

What was the gender distribution of the tweets this was tested against? If 65.9% of the tweets were from a male, the algorithm "return Gender.male;" will get the gender right 65.9% of the time...

It seems to me your experience must be somewhat limited. I programmed c/c++ for 7 years (with some perl on the side) and switched to java. I've now done java (and some perl, and some python, etc) for about 12 years. I know several other developers who've done the same thing.

Maybe it's just that you're young, and people who are still doing c/c++ as of 5 years ago are stuck on it.

I dug through this thread looking for the surely inevitable reply to ask you for actual evidence to back your claim (that Kurzweil's predictions are often wrong), so I could mod it up.

I can't find one, so I sacrifice my option to mod this thread to call you out. Can you back up your claim?

I certainly don't think Kurzweil has been perfect in his prediction, but I think he does quite a good job. Here is my evidence: http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/19/kurzweil-defends-predictions-for-2009-says-he-is-102-for-108/

The predictions criticized in that article are definitely not entirely accurate, but they're also pretty damn good for having been made in 1998. We are close to where Kurzweil says we should be.

Please defend with counterexamples :-)

either Oracle is right and thus is in violation of it's (Sun's) own terms for Java

That's not how licensing works. Licensing are the rules under which people who *are not the copyright holder* may distribute copies. If you own the copyright, you may distribute copies however you like.

I don't give up rights on what I can do with my copyrighted materials when I distribute under a license. I am just giving people the option to distribute in ways otherwise restricted by copyright law. I can't take away your distribution rights with a license, and I certainly don't give up my own distribution rights by granting you a license.

Yeah, that's why I copped out and said "likely". I personally have rarely worked on code in which CPU performance was a big factor - less than 1% of my time. I have been programming professionally on a large variety of projects for about 17 years.

I totally agree with you for the kind of work you mention, with the caveat that you should ALWAYS profile before doing low level optimization.

Usually slower, yes. Enough slower to make you turn your nose up? You're just being precious.

In some situations Java will be faster than unoptimized C++ - JIT compilation will do enough of a better job than vanilla C++ to make the difference. In general, C++ will clearly be faster. However, I think what most of the people you're qualifying as idiots get up in arms about (rightly) is the assumption that so many programmers seem to make that Java will be many times slower than C++. That's (usually) just wrong.

In particular, here's what Google's analysis had to say about it on page 9:

Jeremy Manson brought the performance of Java on par with the original C++ implementation

They go further to say that they deliberately chose not to optimize the Java further, but several of the other C++ optimizations would have applied to Java.

For most programming tasks, use the language that produces testable, maintainable code, and which is a good fit for the kind of problem you're solving. If it performs badly (unlikely on modern machines), profile it and optimize the critical sections. If you have to, write the most critical sections in C or assembly.

If you're choosing the language to write your app based on how it performs, you are likely the one making bad technical decisions.

I totally agree that each person should decide whether to have kids. I apologize; I saw an inflammatory comment and I responded with another inflammatory comment slanted the other direction.

On the other hand, I do agree that the tendency to not have kids will self correct, and I'd rather it's the thinking people correcting it than Idiocrats.

Only, chroot every service you provide that could be accessed over the network.

You don't think your genes and memes deserve to live on beyond you?

The real question is "Does the D-Wave 'quantum computer' do anything useful at all?"

See Scott Aaronson's opinions on the topic: http://blogs.forbes.com/alexknapp/2011/05/24/q-and-a-with-prof-scott-aaronson-on-d-waves-quantum-computer/

Aaronson is a brilliant quantum algorithm complexity professor for MIT. You can read his blog at http://www.scottaaronson.com/

Ah, actually, that was Wovel, not me. I was just sticking in my 2c.

I guess I personally agree that we shouldn't say they have done nothing, but I still believe they need to demonstrate value before the question of making what they do legal is even worth discussing.

I'm sure you're a troll, but I'll bite.

I very specifically backed up my assertions with facts, yet you don't even mention the 4th amendment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

What grounds are there for the search? Is getting on a plane a valid basis to suspect illegal behavior? If they don't have probable cause, a government search is illegal, period. If you think this search is OK, in what circumstances does the 4th amendment protect anything? I guarantee the founding fathers didn't intend it to be meaningless.

If you have valid refutation of any signficant point here, I'm glad to debate. If you only have a tired, unfounded repetition of the supposed security benefits (with no evidence of a statistically signficant number of attacks *actually prevented* by the screening), I have no interest in responding.

Beyond that, though, it doesn't matter legally whether the checks are needed for our security (which I don't believe). Now, IF the checks gave material gains in our security, that would be a good starting point for a debate about amending the constitution. Until an amendment passes, however, it's still illegal to search everyone who wants to board a plane.

If your argument is about lives saved, you have to address the reasons why it's OK to spend many $$$s and subject ourselves to indignities to save lives in air travel, but not OK to limit speeds to 55 mph, have more restrictive driving license rules, integrate breathalysers into the ignition system for cars, etc. to save many more lives for fewer $$$s and less loss of liberty in auto travel.

Additionally, I see no reason why flights shouldn't opt in to the travel procedures. If you want to pay an extra $20 to get invasive body scans done before you get on a plane for the supposed peace of mind of knowing everyone else on that plane had them, have at. I don't, and I'll choose the flight that doesn't do it.