I can follow you, up until your last sentence.

Pseudo-anonymous accounts are perfectly viable, certainly on slashdot. Have been using them for years, and never got any spam or harrassement. I mean, not outside of the commentary/thread itself.

I've never quite understood the 'online harassment' claim, frankly. Certainly not when one is posting with nicknames that don't (cor)relate with your real person. You can always just decide to not read trollish posts or put spam in the bin or auto-filter it. Straightforwardly said: you can easily ignore that crap. There is no issue there.

So I don't think an AC is really necessary for those reasons. If anything, it dilutes the incentive for posting something worthwhile as an AC, as the VAST majority of AC-post prove. I rather applaud people giving there opinion when posting under their actual nickname: at least one shows one is confident enough to put one's online reputation at stake - small comfort as that may be, it's still something. With AC's, you don't even know IF you're talking to the same AC anyumore, the next comment.

There is no such thing as an uninterrupted view in all angles and directions, if one stays in Earth's orbit - and certainly not a low Earth orbit, as the HST does.

0ne can get longer uninterrupted exposures in some directions, especially if you move out of Earth's low orbit, but the question is, if that's relevant. Deep field imagery is depended on the lightgathering, which, indeed, is dependent on exposure-time BUT even far more so on aperture size. Meaning, you can see far more with a bigger aperture in less time. And since since Earth-telescopes can be built MUCH larger - and for far less money - than space-based telescopes, I think the clear advantage still goes to the former.

For instance, if they had built OWL, it would have overwhelmed and provided better pictures than anything that the WST will be able to do, for less than a fifth of the cost.

EXCEPT of course, for infra-red wavelengths, which is exactly the reason they shifted to that, instead of visible light as with the HST. It's a pitty we won't see 'real' pictures in visible light from the WST, but scientifically spoken, it was the right decision. If you're going to spend 10 billion on something, at least spend it at something that can't be done otherwise.

There is no denying that since the adoption of adaptive optics, one of the major advantages of space-telescopes has been starkly reduced. And if you consider the cost as well, it's clear space-telescopes only make sense anymore in very specific circumstances.

"True in both cases but irrelevant to my point."

Granted, but then you shouldn't have used it in substantiation of the point.

The original point being: "The achievement is that due to adaptive optics, an earth based telescope can deliver pictures as sharp or sharper than a space based telescope."

Which, basically, is true. As we seem both to agree, the fact that one can built better space-telescopes does not change or counter anything to the above claim, since better Earth-based telescopes can be built as well.

If one wants to qualify it, it would be that, for exactly the same aperture, and in visible light, the space-telescope only has a small advantage anymore, due to adaptive optics. For the same *cost* however, an earth-telescope provides much, much sharper images than any space-based telescope. For infra-red and ultra-violet wavelengths, the space telescope still has moderate to far better advantages (depending on which specific wavelength you're looking).

Note that the bang-for-the-bucks argument will ALWAYS be true, no matter how 'better' space-telescopes will become, provided that technology doesn't stand still for neither concepts. One can call this a generalization or speculation or assumption, but it's a reasonable and very logical assumption, bordering on being an obvious certitude. At least, up until technology moves in such direction, both the cost of sending it up into space (SpaceX?) goes drastically down, and/or the structural components can only be fulfilled by a space-environment (which isn't the case for classical mirror-segments).

Only partially true. Space-telescopes still have an advantage in some area's, especially for the deep and near-infrared wavelengths, and ultraviolet wavelengths, but the other advantages are becoming less and less obvious, especially if you consider the cost of both space-based as Earth-based telescopes.

The disturbances of the atmosphere - the major drawback (diffraction limit) up until the last decade of the 20th century - have become largely reduced thanks to adaptive optics and other technological advances.

The argument that we are now capable of constructing space-telescopes that are better than Hubble has no bearings on the comparative advances, since we can also create better earth-based telescopes than VLT, these days. As the Extremely Large Telescope will show, no doubt. There is little doubt this latter one will exceed the JWST, just as the VLT did with Hubble - IF the JWST was going for the visible light waves, which it isn't. In fact, it's the main reason Beryllium mirrors were used that excel in infra-red wavelengths, about the last advantage space-telescopes still have that warrant the vastly more expensive cost (now at more than 10 *billion* for the JWST, if I remember correctly).

Note that for that price, you could have made 10 Overwhelmingly Large Telescopes (OWL) which would completely DWARF the JWST on almost all other fronts, certainly when using interferometry.

There is a saying in the Linux community that if you learn Red Hat, you'll know Red Hat, but if you learn Slackware, you'll know Linux. This is particularly true today when many other Linux distributions keep developing heavily customised products to meet the needs of less technical Linux users.

https://distrowatch.com/dwres....

It seems to me that if you want to get into using Linux, use Ubuntu or Mint or something. If you want to get into Linux the hard way and really get your hands dirty then Slackware is up to the challenge.

Again you're getting this wrong. They said they were going to bring UIKit to macOS. That's all. The press is reporting on this like it's going to be some sort of magic thing that lets your iOS apps run on the Mac, oe that they're merging the operating systems, or that the Mac is going to have at touch interface. It's not that.

There's two UI libraries in the Apple world. The Mac uses AppKit and iOS uses UIKit. They have similarities but they're different enough to be a challenge. The big overall thing is that AppKit is much older than UIKit which makes sense as the Mac is older than the iPhone. It's been said that to some extent UIKit is what AppKit would be if they started over on it today and were able to use all of the stuff they've learned over the years, which is basically exactly the situation they were in when making the iPhone.

So for example, let's say you have an iOS app and you have a screen where you need a text view. Like, it's a box with text in it and if it needs to, it can scroll if you have too much text in it. You can make it read-only or editable. So you drag a UITextView onto the screen and you're most of the way there. It has a text property and you set that to be what the text is, either in the designer or in the code. You can specify if it's editable, scrollable, etc. in the same way.

Now let's say you want to do that same thing on the Mac. You have a form and you drag an NSTextView control onto it. It has the same name except for the first two letters because Apple's naming convention (at least in the Objective-C era) is to have the first 2-3 letters be uppercase and the rest be descriptive. UI stands for UIKit. The NS? That stands for NEXTSTEP (that's really the name in all caps like that), because macOS is derived from what used to be NEXTSTEP, which was the OS from the company Steve Jobs started when Apple gave him the boot. Yeah.

OK so UITextView vs. NSTextView. Simple enough, right? Well not quite. See, when you drag that onto the form you'll notice that it's an NSTextView embedded in an NSClipView, and then that's embedded in an NSScrollView along with two NSScroller objects for the scrollbars. So everything involved in this equation gets its own separate object and so you have to remember to specify the text in the NSTextView but the scrolling in the NSScrollView. And I'm not sure what the NSClipView does other than just provide a window into whatever part of the view the NSTextView is visible.

Basically at some point they realized everyone wanted to work with the one object and have it handle all the stuff like scrolling and scrollbars itself. And this is one simple example. But it means that it's not quite as simple as writing some library that says "if Mac then NSTextView else UITextView", although some have tried. In fact apparently Apple has a library of their own called UXKit that basically does that but it's not available for use yet.

errata:

"if implied to some high(er) moral stake" = "if applied to some high(er) moral stake "
"all hominids fall under 'people' automatically" = "all humans fall under 'people' automatically"

And probably a few others, but it's getting awfully late. I'll assume you will know what I mean, even if I made some additional minor spelling- and other mistakes.

"Yes I do, I just think you're focusing on a minor mundane detail and missing the purpose of the lawsuit."

Exactly. You fail to see the principle of the matter. If it was NOT such a rather mundane topic, but something of importance, *exactly the same reasoning* would NOT be accepted. This shows that the reasoning is flawed and applied arbitrarily.

"Yikes. I'm going to skip the loaded appeal-to-emotion example if you don't mind."

I do mind a bit. Because you're basically ignoring it, then, while the example was put there to demonstrate how arbitrarily your reasoning is, if implied to some high(er) moral stake - which is why it has to be emotionally laden, indeed. But if your *reasoning* is correct and consistent, than emotional load should not have any bearings on your argumentation. As you will note, *I* will not skip around your own example.

"no more revenue for you"

Since when is it the courts job to provide the government with more revenue? It's those little remarks of you that make me feel how distant your premise from mine is. How dangerous would that be, if that was truly the job of the courts, instead of, you know, meet out justice in a logical and consistent way. Also, while one can argue it was the politician/lawmakers job, he didn't do a very good job of it, and should have been required to write it better, IF he wanted to make a distinction. That would be the same for all the things you described above, if you want to make a distinction between all kinds of different things. But all this misses the point.

Let me give a simple example where your objections would be nullified: the lawmaker could have NOT made such a distinction, and said that taxes were equally due for vegetables AND fruits. There. 'Revenue for the government' ensured! (If that were to be deemed the goal for the court, which I refute). So you see, your objection to it didn't go to heart of the matter at all. If one wants to make complex laws, one can not complain afterwards about the complexity of it. Saying but what about those, those, and those things then? Indeed, what about them? Do you WANT to differentiate and exempt some from taxes and some not, and on what objective grounds? Any competent lawmaker would realize you either keep it simple and then you have less work to do to keep it consistent and concise, or you make it more complex, and then you have more work to do to keep it consistent and concise. But I've been over this before.

You gave a counterexample with the homo sapiens, but one big glaring omission is, that you did not give any clear definition of 'people' or 'human'. Scientifically, for instance, all species with 'homo' in it, are per definition 'human', since that is what the word means (as I'm sure you know, because you don't seem to be an idiot). So it reinforces my point once again: if you take a clear scientific definition, for instance; all hominids fall under 'people' automatically, this would be FAR more clear and consistent than saying something like "what is seen as human in common parlance". IF one would argue it's only valid for 'people' and you have a wishy-washy vague definition again, you would have to argue this for EVERY case of species, or even subspecies, or even ethnicity. Even worse, if we take the analogy further to its correct statement, then it would be like this: a law saying "You have humans and you have animals. You can kill animals but you can't kill humans EXCEPT for homo sapiens neanderthalis". Because THAT is the equivalent of the courtcase. And then the court arguing: "Yes, we KNOW that Neanderthals are also human, but in common parlance it's viewed differently; only the homo sapiens sapiens is seen as human. Therefor they can be killed like an animal. The lawmaker too, only knew of homo sapiens sapiens, so his intent was to safeguard us, and not other humans. So for the sake of killing, we judge they may be killed, but that doesn't mean we don't consider them humans.

This, as said, makes NO SENSE. The exact reverse of what you claimed, thus. Fruits are fruits, like humans are humans. It makes as much sense to say 'but you can tax tomatoes even though they're fruits and not vegetables' as saying 'but you can kill neanderthals even though they're humans and not animals'. You *assume* this wouldn't happen because you assume 'common parlance' would include the Neanderthals, as well as the intent of the lawmaker would. But you don't actually know that, do you? People regarded other ethnicities as less than humans, even in the 19th century - the same timeperiod, thus. Including lawmakers, who made slave-laws. So how much would they mind killing another subspecies of humans, if they didn't even care about fellow humans? Are you seeing where the problem lays with your kind of reasoning? Following your reasoning, it would be perfectly valid, in that case, that the courts decided Neanderthals may be killed like animals, even though they themselves know they're human. As long as they use the 'common parlance' of the populace - wrong as it may be, and follow the intent of the lawmaker, ignorant as he may be.

"I like how you try to frame my argument "

You seem to let your own feelings play too much in reading something into my words that isn't there. The sentence "For me, facts, reality, logic and consistency trumps considerations of 'not rocking the boat' or 'being easy on traders', or 'to cater to the intent, ignorance or wishful thinking of people or lawmakers'." speaks for itself, and if I wanted to say 'contrary to you', I would have said so, rest assured. You seem to interpret the preceding sentence as being in juxtaposition with this, but it should be clear the 'you do not concur with this' is referencing to what came before, not what comes after. If you feel that is already framing, I think you should take note of your own paragraph(s) preceding this. And no, they didn't judge a tomato a fruit in a *de facto* way. We are, indeed, in a fundamental disagreement on this, which is why I gave you the examples of the black man / animal and the flat-earth - which you basically ignored.

Of course, I can't really tell your take on facts, logic, etc., because you seem to both disregard, as well as acknowledge the importance of all those things. Though I guess you would disagree with this as well. In any case, I clearly only spoke for myself.

That said, we've been on long enough as it is. I think we both made our positions pretty clear by now, and there is little chance the claims, notions, statements, arguments and viewpoints we still don't agree with each other will change in a near future, nor that we can add something meaningful that hasn't already been said in some way or form.

As said, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

"Yeah, I agree."

Well, at least we both agree to something, then. And I'm glad to note it's not a of trivial importance, that which we agree on. :-)

On slashdot, one may already consider the discussion a success, then. ;-)

We'll simply have to agree to disagree. Saying "we accept they are fruits" but then judge they don't fall under fruits when it comes to taxation just does NOT make sense. I could re-iterate and make bold what I said before, but what's the use. I think I've explained to you more than enough what my point is.

The only way this is accepted, is because it's of minor import to most people. If it was something of large importance, no-one would actually accept such a thing. Imagine a law about whether blacks should be considered people or animals with a law saying "you can shoot an animal without any punishment" in the 50ies. And if one would shoot blacks and then claim "but the lawmaker back than regarded black people as animals" - quite possible back then - would anyone now really be following the same reasoning you're upholding here? Would one say: "no, no! The court made no mistake, they just followed the 'intent'! See? The court AGREED with you that blacks are not animals, they just followed intent."

And when I would point out that that DE FACTO means they regard blacks as animals, you could argue; "Not at all. They acknowledge *the fact* that blacks are people, and then just go on to say "we don't think that's what the author of the law meant when he said humans vs. animals.""

Following your reasoning, this would be a perfectly valid reasoning, and the court made the right call that blacks could be shot, without this meaning they didn't acknowledge blacks are humans.

But one can easily see this is BS. *The differentiation ITSELF* of the judgement means you're *de facto* MAKING a distinction between the two. I just can not wrap my mind around you not comprehending this. The court SAYING they acknowledge it, but then not applying it, means they're NOT acknowledging it where it matters most; not in their words, but in their actions. The reason for that is immaterial. Intent does not change reality. Humans have also a very clear biological definition. Whether one wants to acknowledge this or not, or invoke 'intent' or 'common parlance' is aside the question. If the court would deem it allowed to shoot blacks, regarding the question whether one could consider them humans or animals (aka, vegetables or fruits), you de facto consider them animals if you allow blacks to be shot, but not 'humans' - this is true, EVEN if the court says it acknowledges blacks are humans as well. Do you understand what I'm saying, here?

For some reason, you seem to think what the court says about it ways heavier than how they actually have judged it to be. I disagree. You would too - presumably - if it was a case of high moral stake as the example I gave - but now you're just content arguing differently.

It is contradictory. It makes no sense. Saying "The world is round, but because people think it's flat (or the lawmaker thought it was flat) we're going to agree to a flat-earth tax" is stupid, wrong, and nonsensical, and grates with what one first said, namely that the Earth was round. If they KNOW the Earth is round, or a black a human, or a tomato a fruit, they need to be consistent and logical, REGARDLESS of intent or what trade-people think about it, and make a judgement in accordance with reality, as they - in fact - know it is. Again: "Fiat justitia ruat caelum".

So yes, I agree that the court knew fully well it were fruits, but *in reality* they judged it were not fruits - not by saying it, but by their judgement, in this case. Which makes it twice as worse, in fact. You're looking at what they 'say' about it, and conclude they judged tomatoes as fruits. You do not consider the logical consequences and implication of the judgment itself they actually made, which means they do *not* consider tomatoes fruits because it doesn't suited them in this case (aka, because of 'intent' or 'common usage'). But denying reality because of convenience, is still denying reality. Saying you acknowledge this reality, but then make a judgement that goes against it, makes it hypocritical on top.

That IS my point. I've been saying this over and over now. I understand you do not concur with this, but it is as it is. For me, facts, reality, logic and consistency trumps considerations of 'not rocking the boat' or 'being easy on traders', or 'to cater to the intent, ignorance or wishful thinking of people or lawmakers'.

?

Ermm.. you just gave the normal definitions, that one can find in all dictionaries... which pretty much say what I said. I was well aware of THOSE, since that was my whole point. The scienitfic defintion is there, all right. My question was for the 'trade-definition' that apparently was as logic, concise and clear as the scientific the scientific one, as you claimed. (or, at least, some commentator here claimed - the comments are getting a bit too much in quantity, so excuse me if I bring something up that you didn't even allude at, in this regard ;-)).

Basically, you've proven that the scientific definition is readily available and clear to all. what I don't see is any definition of some 'trade-dictionary' where it is otherwise defined to explain why tomatoes are not to be considered fruit - even though you (or someone else here) has said it is 'well documented'. Apparently so well documented, there is no trace to be found in any official dictionary of any repute. I guess they just all missed this widely adopted and used definition, then? Or... maybe... there isn't one to begin with. Well, in that case, if you want to define something, I would say it makes more sense - certainly in regard to clarity - to use an existing definition to define something, than a non-existing definition.

As for the 'real' one; I get what you're trying to say. But clearly, the definitions are made in order of importance, and while it may change slightly, they ALL say more or less the same, and they ALL have the scientific definition as one of the first definitions. Of course there can be other meanings, I said so myself. The 'fruits of labor' for instance. But all that has no bearing to this case. A trade-definition explaining why tomatoes are not fruit WOULD have been relevant, but as you can see in your examples, is nowhere to be found. One can throw up 'common parlance' again, but that's not a definition, and, indeed, while "correct" is an ambiguous word on itself, I would want to make clear that science is always going to be MORE correct than an non-scientific definition, in the sense that it better describes reality.

" respectfully disagree"

Well, at least you're being respectful, contrary to some others.

No sweat, that's what civil discussions are for. Each can give his/her arguments, but in the end one can only agree or disagree to the different points made - or at least agree to disagree, if nothing else. ;-)

"Yeah, you think so? What if the law sets different tax rates for berries, drupes, pomes [snip]"

Then he's making it harder for himself. I fail to see your point, if that point was a counter to what I said. I didn't say there are no other ways to make things more complicated, I said using inconsistent and arbitrary and illogical definitions and interpretations of laws are a sure want to complicate it further, while being concise and consistent lessens this.

"You keep getting that wrong. The court did not say "tomatoes are not a fruit."

you used that statement before, but it's logically inconsistent. If the question is between taxation or non-taxation of fruit and vegetables - which was the point: fruits were exempt - yet you judge tomatoes must pay the taxes contrary to, well, the fruits, you DE FACTO claim that tomatoes are not fruit. that is the implicit claim made in the case of those taxes, even if they don't *directly* said as such. Now, the *reason* they give for that is, granted, that they assume the intent was different for the lawmaker who made this law in ignorance or incompetence. And my point is, that that shouldn't supersede reality, namely that tomatoes are fruits.

"Here's something else to consider: if 100% of laws were non-ambiguous /snip"

I often hear that counter, and it always baffles me because it makes no sense at all, in determining which way one should *strive* how society (and in this case, the courts/laws) should go. Look: did I say all laws are 100% non-ambiguous? Or that that all people are rational and logical? Or that lawmakers are all competent and wise?

No.

So why act as if I did? It's very close to a straw man fallacy what you're using here.

I'm saying concise and consistent laws that are clear and non-contradictory drastically improve things. Whether it IS this way now, was not the question. Clearly, since I argue the law and judgement makes little sense, and the lawmaker ignorant or incompetent, already shows I'm aware of people's faults and societies' shortcommings. Obviously. ;-) However, it changes *nothing* to my above statement. So, seen we're never going to be 100% perfect, one should leave things as they are and not impove, and keep things illogical and inconsistent? Strange reasoning. If we had judges that actually would follow logic and be consistent and not cater to ignorance - even ignorance in parlance - and force the lawmaker to make clear, concise and consistent laws, we would need LESS courts and judges and have less courtcases in general. Yes, true. And? I would think that a good thing.

That we would never attain it fully because people never are totally, does nothing to repudiate what I said. no; that's why we would always have some courts and judges and courtcases. But the lesser we have/do, the better. So one should go for that, obviously.

"No it's not, it's people trying to do their best."

No, if they had done their best, they would have concluded tomatoes falls under fruits and are exempt from taxes, and if the lawmaker wanted it differently, he should make a law that is more logical, clear and consistent - aka: better.

" I'd assume you could notice that from the view up there on your horse."

Here we go. Always an indication of strong counterarguments, if people start to play ad hominem in their rebuttal... Why not go all the way and say 'up there on your horse on the rooftop of your ivory tower'? ;-)

"Oh, well, then apologies indeed good sir, perhaps the gentleman would consider fucking off to a society /snip"

Apologies accepted, but I'll decline the suggestion, polite and amicable as it may be. It's sufficient if our current societies (including courts and judges) would *strive* to be more rational and logical, when they make or apply laws that govern people, instead of catering to ignorance of the populace - even if that ignorance is the current 'best they can do'. If you never teach anyone why what they think makes no sense or what they feel is correct in 'common usage' is wrong, or laws are inconsistent, etc., you only perpetuate this ignorance and foolishness. Sometimes they do, btw. Strive, I, mean. But this case clearly wasn't one of those times.

That people aren't 100% logical and consistent should not be an excuse, nor hamper or lessen the need for being MORE logical and consistent, if you want less conflict in your society (as you yourself actually acknowledged, since, as you state, if we'd be able to do it 100%, we'd need NO courts and judges anymore.) That ultimate endgoal is not possible, but the principle is clear, thus, even to you.

"We were not discussing science, we were discussing tax law."

And the link to that was, since science is more concise, you are better of with the scientific definition, also in law. And, btw, the next sentence said exactly the same about language, so 'science' was only one of the examples.

"But even in science it is in fact extremely common /"

Yes, and those are always well defined, and everyone knows what is meant by it. and in the rare cases it isn't we DO get a mess there too, so this rather strengthens the case I made.

"The usage in question is not arbitrary at all, it is well established common usage and this is easy to document."

The usage is vague and inconsistent, which makes the *distinction* arbitrary. As for 'documented': I'm still waiting on a link to a dictionary of any repute with a completely different 'trade-definition' of the word fruit that involves tomatoes, but not other fruits.

"As does yours."

I beg to differ. Mine certainly is more consistent and concise. Only if you ADD things to it, and want to make more distinctions, does it need any elaboration. you gave the examples of flour and what not, but do note that the original definition says nothing about that neither, so you'd need even more additional (and far less logical) elaboration of the law as well, if you wanted to include differentiation between those distinctions as well.

For THE SAME thing, thus, my law is both more clear, concise, consistent and logical. It's immediately clear what fruits are, and when and why they're exempt from taxes - also for tomatoes.

Granted, it says nothing about flower, but so didn't the other law. that is purely a question of how complex the world is, and even more how complex you want to want to make the laws to have influence on that complex world. This does not diminish by making vague and inconsistent laws, however, rather the contrary.

"I agree that the law should be sent back to the drawing board"

Well, at least we're agreeing to some things, then. ;-) It's becoming increasingly rare in discussions, especially on slashdot. :-)

For the rest of your paragraph I - again - have a slightly different opinion. What we see happening now, is that it's NOT being revised, but the law, in all its inconsistency, is applied and continues to be applied. Which will happen almost in every case, when you do so with a law, because it it becomes a case for precedent, NOT for revision that way.

I also disagree with the catering to ignorance, as I've said before. Even if all trade-people would start bowling their eyes out because they realize they should adapt their misinformed and highly inconsistent idea about tomatoes and fruits - used as they are in their parlance, the court should have gone through with it. "Fiat justitia ruat cælum" as said before. In reality, traders would adapt really quickly, I assure you. They really don't care. If the court had said tomatoes are fruits, that would be that. And if the lawmaker didn't agree, he would be FORCED to make a better, more logical law. all advantages, as far as I'm concerned.

Then, as a lawmaker, IF you want to make a distinction, you can say: for all fruits, except when peeled or any sort of treatment has been done on the fruit.

The world is, indeed, not as simple, that's why simplistic arbitrary laws that are not consistent does not do justice to the complexity of the world. If the world is complex, and you want to make complex distinctions, your laws must be reflect that as well, if you want to be concise. The clarity does not come from simplistic laws, but from internal logic and consistency in the laws.

The law, however, dated from the time we already had the scientific definition, so the lawmaker was either ignorant of this, or incompetent, or both, as I said.