I don't consider background checks and mental health investigations as "gun control", that falls into the bucket of "people control". The reason I think this falls short is if we admit we have a problem with lunatics running around in society, we also admit we have a very expensive problem we should fix.

Instead, we blame inanimate objects.

We stand and deliver.

Reddit, and SOE don't have the market cornered on fucking over their customers because $$$. Look at Blizzard, they removed a key in-game feature, people screamed, cried alienation, quit, pounded chests, then they put the feature sorta back in, in the future if you jump through all these hoops no one will jump through, which was their plan all along but actually pacified a few very dumb people. And Microsoft? How many times over the past 30 years have they fucked up and fucked over their customers? The other thread is all of these people are (more or less) still in business, only SOE is more or less gone but that's less due to SWG and more due to continuous outages and security breaches.

All the blah blah always signifies to me, and I suspect a few executives, that people aren't actually willing to stop using their product. As such, the money keeps flowing in and the company keeps going. The boss can spin that. The boss has a harder time spinning people simply walking off and finding another, competing product.

TL;DR: stop bad mouthing Pao who only looks good if you keep generating page hits, and start finding another website

A real stand-up commedian

"extremely" high is an exaggeration. Quite a lot of us who are liberal are also against gun control, I can't say I've met more than a handful of true gun control advocates in my travels. There are a number of people who want strong gun control, but I'm not sure how large this group of people is. I usually equate them to Mother's Against Drunk Driving, who continue to try to essentially ban alcohol sales or consumption any time the issue is raised, and are very effective at keeping old anti-alcohol laws on the books (in several different states I've lived). They remain a minority, but a powerful one in that they can be relied upon to consistently fight for their beliefs, even though it is usually a losing battle.

The way I started, was I read books from people who were successful. Then messed around with their code. Then realized I wanted a new feature and added my own code, and then it was broken and I read more, etc.

I cannot imagine how watching someone type for hours is instructional, you could get well in to a book by that point.

I understand, I actually debugged an issue in my sleep three days ago. The solution came to me a few hours before my alarm went off, I opened my laptop, typed some stuff, problem solved. Back to blissful sleep.

Exciting stuff.

I don't know who does this, but I'm waiting for the market of "watching paint dry" to start picking up, then I'm buying a can of paint and charging $300 for an hour of viewing.

There's always idiots who want to make money running studies and put themselves in a position of being the arbiters of what should or should not be, but in most cases we can safely ignore them.

Kids are passing the AP CS test with higher scores, but nearly 50% of them cannot understand concepts that involve a slight amount of thinking. In other words, it's a shitty test or most taking it are stupid.

The more kids that pass the AP CS test, the more colleges that accept AP credits lose funding. It stands to reason the test is designed primarily to throw people off the boat and justify having them retake the class, setting them back between 1 and 2 semesters. In reality, in college, they will learn exactly the same stuff as in high school with probably worse teachers (or grad students).

Now, consider that most people taking AP CS have no interest in "computer science", they have interest in computer programming, specifically the fraction of computer science that will get them the big $$$ in private industry. Very nearly no one has interest in academia (in this or any other field), for very good financial and practical reasons, yet a test is being administered to young kids with inadequate knowledge of what is important/what is not important who have been exposed to the field for, in most cases, exactly one year. The kids probably know how to write a program that will compile or otherwise execute, but have limited idea or perhaps a certain degree of animosity to academic formalism.

Take a combination of predatorial testing, and contrasting motives and hilarity shall inevitably ensue. The best way to appreciate computer science, is similar to the best way to understanding electrical engineering: start with the useful practical things that will get them interested, show them how a bit of education improves the design & function, and get them hooked. It makes all the diffeq a whole lot easier to sit through, or in the case of CS, the algorithms and discrete math.

Correct. You understand my point, I see: we rapidly move total wealth forward, so even the lowest and most abuse face an improving life situation. You argue that we shouldn't abuse the child of Omelas today so that he may be better off--but still abused--tomorrow; I only argue that it is more efficient, which you seem to understand.

No, I can't go there. The Great Leap Forward? How'd that work out? Tens of millions dead to try to turn China into a modern industry. Yes, communist rhetoric was involved, but I would argue that was pillow talk, and there have been numerous attempts by leaders in history to do this sort of thing, the most radical ones ended in tears. To yank a country by the horns and turn it around quickly, you are going to have to do it at someone's expense. My point in this being that this sudden, lurching change in economics and industry is mostly equivalent to a genocide in Omelas today, and no clear victory tomorrow.

I find morality silly, but won't argue it in this case; I always attack morality where it leads to conclusions in which people would rather let millions suffer and die than condemn thousands,

I do not think we can reach any sort of accord if you reject morality. If for no other reason than that I would be unsure what value all this wealth is, if we're miserable and our planet is wrecked, in the process of acquiring it. Great, I have cushions for my chair that sits in a cloud of debris, but that's ok because i'm busy working in the factory to get a swivel mount on it for tomorrow.

in which people would rather let millions suffer and die than condemn thousands,

I imagine you would attack less if it was you being condemned. Your viewpoint on this change doesn't seem to take in to account the various leakages and inequalities present in the system. Pushing for a great economic leap forward in the united states is, in my opinion, bankrupting us. Perhaps that's ok by your argument because Asia outnumbers us 10:1 so we're just the few condemned, but I guess I'm not sure why I should be ok with that and sue for other options. Yes a few people in the US will be wealthy, and SOME of their wealth will be invested in services that can only come from those in close geographic proximity, but not enough. It sounds a lot like a lord sitting in a castle with a few very poor people working his lands, while his real money is being invested and put to use overseas where the comparative advantage exists. All these products and luxuries that we spend our money on, which cost ever so much less, are in fact bankrupting us. We are becoming the worlds greatest holder of imaginary property, without the resources to retain it if a big guy with a gun comes asking.

I understand the economics lesson, to the degree I accept economics as a viable field of study, I'm not really arguing about it. Nor do I think the world should bow to economics, but take it under advisement and engineer it to the benefit of the majority of the population.

I guess my point about cheap labor was more oriented around the problem that their labor protection laws, even if enforced, are feeble by comparison even to the United States, which themselves are feeble by comparison to much of Europe. So comparative advantage here is significantly achieved at the expense of undermining laws and unions we have established to protect our workers from the impact of the monotonically increasing profit motive that most corporations need to present. My environmental argument is roughly parallel.

It is worthless to have these laws if we're going to allow our corporations to make an end run around them. We should impose insane tariffs until such time as their laws resemble our own, and are actually enforced. Certainly there will be upstream impacts to this, almost your argument in reverse. But I will assume such conditions will not last long, China would shape up and join the 21st century and play nice or not play at all.

At that point your argument, to the degree it applies to pure economics will still apply (albeit with less profit involved). They will still enjoy comparative advantage at least in terms of labor: they outnumber us almost 5:1, and that assumes their distribution of labor matches our own, which I suspect it does not (yet). The trade advantage is certainly lesser, but it doesn't ruin the whole picture. If we believe in these laws so much to hurt ourselves, we really must insist.

By this argument then we should have news on the front page about the South Carolina shooting. It's definitely a concern of mine that raging lunatics are running around shooting people they don't like. It definitely is concerning as a human of earth, and particularly America.

However the reason I have read this website all these years is that it has a small demographic of people in a particular field whose opinions of issues in that field are frequently more informed and valuable than the general public. I may not agree with all opinions, but for those not trolling, who actually seek to inform and sway, there has been value to the commentary. For the same reason that I don't focus heavily on Hillary Swank's general opinion on politics, I'm not sure I want to dwell on a nerd's opinion on Constitutional Law.

On this issue, I would rather go read the opinions of lawyers on a more legal focused website. While I am glad that the ruling is going to put this issue to rest, I am troubled by what appears to be the supreme court taking a power away from the states. I know that nobody likes Scalia, but honestly I am not sure he's entirely wrong. IANAL, or an expert in interpretations and rulings on the constitution, but it really seems like politics has ruled the day. Our government is set up like it is for a reason, while it is frustrating when it stagnates, or when a vocal minority holds the remainder of the country hostage, the OTHER part of due process is to our collective benefit. I don't think I'm going to find that here, I'm going to find people who like the result of the decision, or do not.

"stuff that matters" originally implied "to nerds" or at least "to American nerds". This only matters to homosexuals/sympathizers who happen to be nerds. It has no strict nerd-interest.

I'm not sure if this new interpretation of the constitution means that we can expect Microsoft to stop trying to rule all things, or if SCO has a new case against Linux, or if a new technology has been invented to allow displays to be mounted in my glasses to give full AR without bulky headwear, etc.

Foxconn is one of the most NRE allergic companies I have ever seen. Unless you, as a customer, are willing to pay the NRE for machines on their assembly line for your product, they will attempt to use the most backwards, insanity inducing flow that can be conceived of. And you will say "Hey, there's a machine for that", and they'll say "Sure, for x amount we'll do that!". And so the negotiations begin, and in the end you realize you're paying for them to build up their factory. While you will both simultaneously make profit anyway, it is entirely because the labor is so cheap, and the environmental regulations so lax, that what you're really doing is hurting your own country to make some other people very rich at the expense of just about everyone else.

Then, if you are smart, you quit your job and leave the field. If Foxconn says "no robot labor" it must mean that some major customer has decided he is not going to pay for it. The idea that the Chinese government is actually protecting its labor is asinine, but they certainly do love the press that makes it seem like it.