Also, that I have two feet attached to my toes.

You saying you have twenty feet?

I'd have thought you'd have been aware of that no matter how much weight you were carrying.

You can see the evolution of the global warming argument in that acronym.

When it was just "global warming", the argument was basically "global warming is not happening".

Then, when it got too hard to sustain pure denial, they added "anthropogenic", so the argument became "OK, global warming is happening, but it's not us that's causing it"

Now we see "catastrophic" added and the argument morphs again: "OK we are causing global warming, but it's not going to be as bad as people say".

If things carry on like this, presumably the next letter will be "L" for "liable". LCAGW: "Ok, global warming might get pretty bad, but I don't see why I should have to pay for it"

"Thus the Superior Man sets his phaser to stun and listens on all hailing frequencies.

It will be advantageous to engage Warp Factor Five

Arnold in one of his textbooxs demonstrated that, to make a weather prediction one month in advance ...

In his textbooks, does he end each chapter with the words "I'll be back!" by any chance?

I never said it wasn't usable as a better C - quite the opposite in fact. It's just that any time you try and use it that way, some people will get on your case because they automatically assume that you're using that way out of ignorance. Which isn't always the case.

And you'll soon be able to get emails from the recently deposed Ploivark of Proxima Centauri who needs your help in getting 2^27 Zroogledollars out of the country and is willing to cut you in for a generous percentage and just needs a very small investment to make the funds available to you.

Yeah, but a lot of C++ types get really arsey with you if you try and use C++ as "a better C". If I wanted to write in C, I'd probably just write in C

There is nothing fundamentally different from spoken languages in programming languages

Well, there is the matter of ambiguity. Most human languages have scope for ambiguity in the syntax. A piece of computer code means one thing and one thing only. If it doesn't, it's a bug.

Also computer languages evolve differently from spoken ones. Spoken languages may have a precise syntax, but the speakers are free of ignore or adapt it and the meaning can still be carried across. If you try and get creative with the syntax of a computer language, the computer either doesn't understand (if you'll pardon the anthropomorphism) or worse, it misunderstands and does something other than what you wanted. If you want to evolve a computer language, it needs a change to the language spec and to conforming compilers.

I'm sure there are other differences as well.

Sounds like he already has one.

Problem is, you just locked yourself into Windows PCs

Sure, but that is 95% of the world... I didn't pick it, the world did, I'm just using what everyone else uses...

Have you ever considered a career as a Lemming?

Ahem, forgot about the angle brackets.

        "Blessit! Lemme look... <tappity clickity tappity> Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... <tappity clickity tap... save... compile> There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"

Without ANY bugs? Really? The only way this idea works is if you have a divine programmer who cannot make any mistakes who created the universe

Reminds me of one of my favourites from /usr/games/fortune

        "Yo, Mike!"
        "Yeah, Gabe?"
        "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah."
        "I thought you fixed that last century!"
        "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere."
        "Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"
                -- Cold Fusion, 1989

I'd love to see some evidence for that claim to correct my opinion. XP was what started the meme 'every other Windows release is as bad as a Star Trek (odd number) release', it sucks and should be avoided. (3.11, good, 95, bad, 98, good, ME, bad, XP, good, etc).

Of course! That's why they skipped a version number and jumped from 8 to 10. So they could avoid having to make another good windows and go straight to the next bad one!

It all makes so much sense now...

Take as evidence iOS jailbreakers who do it so they can download $0.99 apps for free. There are plenty of people who are never going to pay anything if they can get away with it.

Well sure. On the other hand, look at iTunes. Before iTunes Napster et all were wildly popular. Then Apple starts offering downloads at $0.99 a track and suddenly they're making a ton of money and the music filesharing sites seemed to lose all traction. Lowering the price may not have solved the problem, but it greatly reduced it while creating a revenue stream that wasn't there previously.

There will always be those who won't pay, granted. With that in mind, the question becomes one of how much do you want to penalise the honest Internet users in the vain pursuit of an unobtainable absolute?

If you think for example that a computer game is too expensive and you pirate it, surely you should put the amount that you think is correct in an envelope and send it to the producer of the game? How many people are doing that? Everyone else is just lying.

Well, if someone was to illegally download a game, they'd be foolish to provide paper evidence of the crime, so to that extent I suppose it's understandable. On the other hand, if the game creators established a channel for this to happen safely, they might be surprised. I mean that's the basis on which Humble Bundles operate and I gather they've frequently been quite successful.

Granted, it's the publisher's decision whether or not to offer work on those terms, but you can't really claim it never happens or that it never works.

Most scientist that influence politics are social scientists, political scientists, medicine, theologians, philosophers, economists, and historians.

You think historians are scientists? Really? Theologians? Seriously?

I did have a fairly detailed reply in mind. Then I read that little gem and decided that there was nothing I could say that would make you look stupider than you do right now.

I'm going to go talk to the grown-ups. Do feel free to have the last word.