Yo soy el mismo.

The only time that being able to understand other languages has come in handy is when the programmer I'm talking to forgets the English word for something.

English is built into programming languages, with a few exceptions.

Learning languages is wonderful in general, but not always useful in practice. English is overwhelmingly the world's most popular second language, the ipso facto lingua franca mundi. If you want to use your second language, go to someplace where there are many native speakers. In places where people from disparate lands mingle, you will invariable converse in English; it's really quite boring.

I ask this question in ignorance: what does the much-vaunted CPAN contain within it that has unit tests?

It is my current belief that any code lacking some sort of proof of correctness is valueless. In many cases it is worse than having no code at all.

I have strong feelings concerning the promotion of untested or untestable code, but will reserve them until I know whether they're warranted.

So this question is, on the surface, pretty retarded. It's obvious that the terms 'phase transition' and 'symmetry' are being used as scientific jargon; your question is based on a completely different set of semantic meanings and so ultimately attempts to answer it will boil down to telling you the definition of the term and how none of your examples have anything to do with the actual subject matter.

On the other hand, you just got a bunch of physics geeks to explain the concepts as applied to a variety of contexts.

Mod parent +5 Troll.

Our current generation of batteries has a tendency to explode in the right conditions. What happens when you pack five times the energy density of a lithium cell into your new device, and then something goes wrong?

Wikipedia gives the energy density (Megajoules/kg) of lithium batteries as 1.8, and that of dynamite as 4.6. (Gasoline is ~46) At that point I'd be happy if an electrical discharge were the worst of my concerns.

No. The word you are looking for is "epistemology."

A method for determining truth is not itself a truth. Facts, or beliefs, are the result of this process.

Further, science is an empirical epistemology, as opposed to (e.g.) a rational one. So your appeal to logical principles is actually unfounded.

The above statements should not be construed to imply that rational epistemologies are "wrong." More to point out that the truths produced by each process are not equal. You may have a rational truth that "the sky is blue," and a thought experiment which proves this. You may also have an empirical truth that "the sky is blue", and empirical measurements that suggest that the light emitted is such-and-such a wavelength on average.

Both systems have problems. Rational systems can prove anything, depending on the axioms chosen. This can include things that are not empirically true: the sky is green, the Earth is flat, etc. Empirical systems cannot deliver exact results; nothing is ever entirely "true." Both systems cannot fully describe the universe -- in point of fact, nothing can, since that book would have to contain all information about every part of the universe.

The relative value of each system is mostly not measurable. Most systems make both rational and empirical claims. However, taking empiricism to extremes means not believing in anything but data. The opposite course involves believing anything that you can construct a rational explanation for. Philosophically, these things are equal. I don't presume to inform the reader which may be preferred.

O hai!

I'd just like to take a minute to point out that you are both arrogant and clueless. You seem to believe that your generation has some sort of richer or better culture, or perhaps a deeper wisdom. Youth is often arrogant and derisive of what they have not experienced. What's your excuse?

You have constructed a bias in thought without input from reality. Your generation was decried by the previous one just the same -- the tradition is at least as old as Socrates. Aside from the general principle that ninety percent of everything is 'crud', your complaint is mostly one of ignorance. You don't seek out counterexamples, or involve yourself with the creative minds of the younger generations. For my part I am rather pleasantly astounded at the number of young people that I meet who have actually read The Brothers Karamazov, although meeting an equal number who have read Finnegan's Wake fails to elicit the same emotions.

Overall, this may be a generation that is unused to theatre -- but expects at least 20 hours of plot from video games. They may have a preference for netspeak -- but they interact with each other on a global scale. They may not write sonnets -- but only because you can't use a 3D printer to make them. They may not share your musical tastes -- and for that they should truly be damned, because everyone knows that good music hasn't been made since whichever formative decade you experienced.

I would label this as a case of projection: you are a small-minded person with limited knowledge outside your own domain, and assume that this is true of everyone else.

And mostly this part. Moody's didn't know what they were rating. Literally had no information about the component parts of the derivative. Are 20% of these loans bad? 80%? Don't know, but someone will buy them if they're rated right, so we'd better rate them just to stay relevant.

It really had nothing to do with homeowners and everything to do with Wall Street. Banks don't just give out cash they're never going to get back, just for the hell of it. It's not like all the homeowners woke up one day and decided to lie about their credit ratings, or that the bank managers' union(??) collectively decided to try for higher sales targets. This was a top-down crisis, a crime of ineptitude and fraud. Wall Street decided it could turn shit into gold, and then did this as much as possible until the first wave of defaults broke.

The triple-A rating was all Wall Street needed in order to not do any research into what they were buying. The rating agencies didn't create the crisis, but they certainly enabled it.

Markets are not a solution to everything. Read about natural monopolies. Like, before you read the rest of this post, even.

Rephrased, you're saying that the government can delegate authority to charge a tax for something to a private profit-driven entity.

Capitalism is what we call it when many entities compete to provide services. The competition part is what is good about that; it forces efficiency.

You're advocating Fascism.

It has ever been thus. Post offices were some of the first structures built in frontier America. In 1776 when the USPS was mandated in the Constitution, most of the country lived in rural areas. Socialism ain't all bad, you know, and in this case it's pretty obvious that this is how the system was designed to work. Take it up with those dead guys who are on all the money in this country.

Money! Now there's a socialist venture. We should go back to when all the banks printed their own notes.

Next time pick rural Alaska for the target of your sociopathy. It's an easier target.

That one is easy: because they are required to serve everyone.

If they were run as a normal company, they would not want to run rural routes because they're not cost-effective. Fedex does not deliver to rural Alaska. USPS does.

Government agencies are better when (a) the service being provided falls into the category of "natural monopoly", and (b) when coverage is required to be universal. Especially (b) because as long as you have to serve everyone, you should probably be accountable to everyone. That whole "by the people, for the people" thing, as opposed to "by the employees, for the shareholders" thing.

I'm not a big fan of having a universal tax for the benefit of the shareholders of some company.

You can disagree with the necessity of having a good postal system, but (a) as you mention, the Founders did not, and (b) I'd suggest you try living in someplace that does not have a well-run postal system.

I've lived in rural Alaska. It's a lot like frontier America in 1776: the USPS was often the only way to get things. I've also lived in rural Costa Rica, and the inability to get anything by mail was a sharp and unpleasant contrast.

Honestly, I see the USPS as being an excellent example of how government services should be run, although I would rather they be subsidized a bit more heavily. Service charges should be designed to prevent (or recoup the costs from) overuse; the majority of operating funds should come from taxation. Charges on services with a universal mandate are a form of hidden taxation: I'd rather be up-front about it. The idea of government agencies being run as for-profit businesses is actually a severe misunderstanding of what government is for.

Web developers don't have anything to say about IE10. Either we're already ignoring any browser-specific quirks, or we're condemned to support the legacy versions.

Now, if anyone were to raise the topic of killing off the security nightmare that XP has become, you might find that web developers have a thing or two to say on the subject.

For responses in the vein of "XP works for me!" : you want room 12A, just along the corridor.

<sarcasm>isn't that how BSD works?</sarcasm>

What stops you from doing that with open source? You don't even need a non-compete or copyright license for that anyway, it's already covered by work for hire.

You'll pardon me if I don't think GP was arguing for a 'reasonable' tax rate. You should also show that we don't already have that, and further that reducing income tax would do anything to improve the situation. You can force budget cuts, but the problem is that our politicians' spending priorities are not aligned with yours, and that won't change.

We have a debt to pay down. Unless you like the idea of China owning 8% of everything you see in this country, you should be clamoring for higher taxes, not lower. At the risk of becoming a scoundrel, I submit that paying taxes is an act of patriotism.

I enjoyed the hell out of Costa Rica, and didn't pay them a dime in taxes. I would go back in a heartbeat -- they have a great (socialized) medical system too. It's not like emigration isn't an option, or would be hugely unpleasant. My suggestion to GP is: put your money where your mouth is. I did.

Case in point, this guy, and this guy.

We burn poppies -- and flags, and bibles -- because it's better than burning men.

They don't have taxes in lots of places. Nor any other hallmark of civilization.

I only work freelance at the moment. I about as much in taxes as I would working for anyone else, the difference being that I don't see the payroll taxes my employer has to pay. Perhaps I pay more this way -- so it goes. What the exactly is wrong with paying taxes? I don't pay for any of the code I use: someone else wrote it. I don't pay for clean air, food, and water: someone else passed laws for me. I don't pay for the liberties my society affords me: someone else died for those.

I spent a couple years in Costa Rica lately. It was beautiful, people were happy, the government was largely ineffective. The rivers had untreated sewage in them. Criminals went unpunished -- commit murder and you'd spend like, at least a day in jail. If there was such thing as an electrical code no one had heard of it. The country's Supreme Court equivalent had mandated wheelchair access to public buildings a few years back, and you probably don't need this reporter to tell you its efficacy.

You don't like paying taxes? Fine. There are plenty of places where you don't have to. You don't want to pay taxes, but still want the civilization that goes with them? Well, I can only really suggest living extraterrestrially.