Motorola had significant cash and tax offsets, making the effective price about $ 3bn.

see https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Google-buy-Motorola-for-12-5-billion-and-sell-it-off-for-2-91-billion :

"And what of Google’s supposed $10bn loss? It’s a misreported myth calculated by subtracting Motorola’s $2.91bn sale price from its $12.5bn purchase. What it misses are the $3.2bn Motorola had in cash, $2.4bn saved in deferred tax assets and two separate Motorola unit sales totalling $2.5bn in 2013. Factor in Lenovo’s purchase against roughly $2bn of Motorola losses during Google’s ownership and Google has still only paid $3bn for what it retained: $5.5bn worth of Motorola patents and the company’s cutting edge research lab."

Strange, I could have sworn that I replied to this with a very detailed and lengthy response... urg.

Anyway, upshot is this: Perl 6 hasn't yet had a chance to flop. It was released in beta in December of last year and continues to make steady progress. Users are checking it out slowly, but I don't expect a landslide migration. P6 will have to prove itself as a language.

I won't say, "I don't think it has," because it demonstrably has not.

The language has been released in open beta. It still has many properties that I think chase away those who approach it outside of language research communities. As a Perl 5 nostalgia fix, the learning curve is just too daunting, so as the beta progresses, I expect it to continue to build its own base of enthusiasts, the same way Perl did when it was first released.

So the language has not "flopped" yet because it hasn't had a chance to succeed yet.

It took Perl many years to go from a small toy that a trivial number of Usenet enthusiasts had heard of to a standard part of the Unix and Unix-like toolset. I don't think Perl 6 will gain traction any faster, especially given the learning curve. That's not flopping.

However, it has some substantial advantages over other languages. High on that list is the trivial nature of slinging highly functional grammars as first-class objects. That's something that you just can't do as easily in any other language that I know of. Perl 5 parsers and those of many other high level languages have some pretty severe performance penalties; yacc and its kin aren't dynamic enough; the various parser generators for Java are fast and mostly complete, but really painful to use.

Basically, you need a language that closely integrates grammars with the language itself in order gain the benefits of Perl 6. Here's and example parser I posted to reddit the other day:

https://www.reddit.com/r/perl6...

A few other notable things that I think will draw people in:

The generalization of operators over iterable sequences and the hyper-operator version of reduction are features that you're going to hear a lot more about, I suspect. Perhaps in Perl 6, perhaps in other languages that adopt these ideas. I'm especially stunned by the utility of hyper-method-invocation (foo>>.method) which dispatches a given method over any iterable sequence of objects (whether they are the same type or not).

Full macros have not yet landed, not least because we've never had a full understanding of what macros would be. We know that they need to operate on the ASTs that represent code, and all of the self-hosting properties necessary to support that are there, but the exact syntax and semantics that are most Perl-friendly haven't fully gelled, yet. Once they do, I think that every language to have true macros in the past (mostly Lisp variants) has demonstrated the power of this tool.

A few other languages auto-generate accessors for classes, but I find the way Perl 6 does it to be a substantial improvement on the field, and it really is a joy to use. I think others will feel the same.

Speaking of objects, role composition will take some time for people to get used to, but as in other languages that have had similar features, I think this will be critical to Perl 6's adoption.

There are dozens of smaller features that are just quality-of-life benefits ranging from lexical variable/named parameter passing to the way any block can be turned into an anonymous closure and even curried. Some of these will be important to some, but not to others. It will be interesting to see it play out.

Danger Will Robinson!

Do yourself a favor; avoid the hostile Latvians at Mikrotik and use UBNT's Edge Router! [And hey, I've got nothing against Latvians - a colleague is Latvian and the nicest guy ever. Dunno, perhaps it's something in the water, but wow Normis is out there - as are most of the other 'Tik guys.]

Seriously! The feature set of EdgeRouters is pretty full and there's nothing I can't do on ER that I could [and used] on 'Tik.

Plus you get a real Linux underbelly - if you can't do it in the CLI, you can probably find a way to do it in Debian.

-Greg

++1

Seriously. I've used Mikrotik (hostile latvians [check], and buggy firmware [super check] - really the rant list is too long to enumerate here!) and am moving lots of stuff to UBNT.

The edge-router line is frankly totally incredible.
And speaking of VPN - they have an OpenVPN that actually supports the full spec, rather than the totally neutered one 'Tik does.
Real IPSec firewall interfaces! [L2TP where IPSec can get bypassed? Another 'Tik exclusive!]

(Do I sound kind of bitter about 'Tik? :) Yeah, I've got quite a number of people on 'Tik stuff, but given their hostility [it's legendary] and crap firmware [firmware russian roulette anyone!?] and a host of other issues - I'll be glad to have all my clients off onto Ubiquiti's stuff. )

Learning curve is steep, but no more than equivalent products - for example 'Tik, Cisco etc. It's a Vyatta based platform. UBNT's forum is incredible, as are UBNT staff themselves.

Virtually any UBNT product I'd not hesitate to buy. It's *incredible* value.

---
As for a router on a PC or some other idea...
It's way less power than a franken-PC.
Solid-state disks. [less mechanical failure possibilities]
Massive packet throughput. [1M pps for the $100 ER Lite, 2Mpps for the 8 port versions!] Based on Debian. Rocks.
Damn cheap!
Quiet!
And best of all. Really pretty easy, quick.

Basic stuff won't require a lot of work/time. If you want more, pretty much the sky's the limit. But more fancy stuff will take more time.
But basic functionality - probably a couple of hours start to finish.

Good luck!

-Greg

Are you asking for evidence of donation or of the ACLU doing far more good than the NRA? Both seem to be odd questions.

The NRA claims that protecting gun ownership protects civil rights by empowering the individual to defend themselves against the government (we'll ignore, for a moment that nothing could be further from the truth, and everyone in this nation, armed or not is a heartbeat away from a smart bomb at their breakfast table, or that you can be financially and socially ruined without ever having the opportunity to shoot back). Let's take the NRA's claim at face value and assume that they are 100% correct.

They still only defend the status quo. Having a gun doesn't undo the erosion of rights due to the corrosive influence of the re-election cycle in Washington. The ACLU seeks to actively move the line of civil rights back to where it started, and hopefully even a bit further through the courts and activism.

Now, the ACLU and the NRA happen to disagree over the interpretation of the 2nd amendment (FWIW, I think that was the stupidest call the ACLU ever made) but even when they disagree they're still nominally working toward the same goal (the ACLU isn't trying to prop up the gun industry, but I'm talking about implied goals, here), so it's pretty easy to judge which of them objectively makes the most progress...

Speed skate blades have never been banned for Carry-on air travel.
[At least as far as I know - they were legal before this change.]

And if you know anything about speed-skate blades, you know they're literally RAZOR sharp 17 inch mini-swords.
They might not be as dangerous as a full-on machete, but pretty damn close.

When I heard about ice blades being fine for carry-on - I was astonished. You can't bring a razor-blade or a small knife, but 17" clap blades you could shave with? Just peachy!

The whole BS around airline security is insane.

Can you point to any statement I made that showed I supported "censor[ing]" them?

Can you point to any case I made that said we ought to force people to behave a certain way?

Perhaps I missed it somewhere?

-Greg

With strong implication that it was sound, reasonable fact.

"If you eat cyanide, it will decrease your appetite won't it?"
Yes, perhaps it will. It also has substantial, nay catastrophic side effects.

Your statement, while not as inane, uses the same veneer of "question" to imply benefit.

If you can't or won't see that, I guess I can't help you.

So the whole country, including all it's people are "outright evil?"

When I say I love my country - I mostly mean many of the good people I meet who are my fellow citizens. But you have to narrow that down, like much of your other postings, to vary narrow black-and-white caricatures.

Further, there *are* good things this country has done, along with it's evil. I'm not sure our place in the standings of good/bad world forces is particularly higher or lower than any other. But as in much the rest of life - you applaud the good and work hard to mitigate or change the bad.

But go ahead - take the most absurd and narrow view and expand it to truly inane proportions.

Hopefully you'll come back and read this.

Thanks for the effort at reconciling our divergent views. [Not that you care what I think, but I say - "Good work."]

I've actually watched substantial parts of VB's presentation she linked to in her response to this episode, and I have to say - I'm not sure the two sets of content are the same. The title of the presentation would seem to indicate different, but perhaps the title is intended to be edgy and mysterious.

I have to say, I tend to fall, reflexively, on VBlue's side. I've read some of her writings and come across her in the past and tend to view what she's done with no prejudice. So, given all that - if the two talks were similar - I'd again have to say that I think someone over reacted.

But that often happens. I wish it wouldn't and I'd say a vigorous apology to VBlue would be a minimal level of effort that should be required.

I'd probably tend to asses the blame as 80/20 or 70/30 - but again I don't consider myself adequately in possession of the facts to really judge.

Better pre-talk clarification on what the content is would be helpful. At least this way, everyone knows what's coming and can adjust accordingly.

The unspoken assumption is that avoiding these "triggers" helps the PTSD victim manage. I would suspect that exposing the individual to these triggers in a safe environment would serve to decondition their adverse response.

After all, isn't desensitization effective for phobias? Wouldn't it be reasonable to hypothesize that it would work for PTSD too? What does the actual data say?

Citation needed. +1000

I'll try not to be contemptuous, but it amazes me that you make such sweeping statements and apparently have taken no steps to actually do some research to back up such ideas.

Even if we just assume that "aversion" therapy is the one and best approach to solving someone's phobia [it's probably not the best approach for PTSD] - treatment would be a "with consent" kind of thing.

That you'd suggest/imply that we subject victims of any kind of abuse or trauma to repeat said trauma without their consent in an effort to HELP them, seems beyond the pale.

Clearly the argument was - whether you agree with it or not - that victims of sexual trauma/violence would be, without their consent, subjected to re-injury. And you're going to actually make the point that we should not avoid it, because it *might* conceivably help them? [And I can anticipate you're going to throw in the "in a safe environment" as your escape. And in a crowded room of males who seem to often have boundaries issues with sex and women - that's a safe environment, and with consent? Sheesh.]

Perhaps that's not what you're claiming, but seriously, If it's not, then this discussion has veered way off the topic of either the initial thread, or even the subthread here about treating people with dignity, respect and empathy.

A safe environment isn't in a room full of men, many of whom seem incapable of anything other than "that effing bitch just needs to get the f out of there." - referring to either Violet Blue or the hypothetical women who would might have been wounded by the talk [depending on which half of seemingly 40% of the responses here have been.]

You're far from the worst, so perhaps you deserve a break, but damn - I really can't believe many of the offensive, uneducated, unknowledgeable and uncaring and frankly offensive posts I've seen on this thread - from the top down.

Do you really want a discussion, or is this just a mindless troll attempt?

Perhaps you'd like to ponder what those words mean, and consider that they have some significance other than the facile way you apparently are interpreting them.

Do you love your parents? For most, the answer is yes.
Do you agree with everything they do?
Do you disagree with everything they do? ...Probably somewhere in the middle.
Do they make bad decisions sometimes? Harm people sometimes?

Again, for most, they aren't angelic beings or absolute devils.

And yet you still love them.
And yet you still help them.
And yet you still try to help them do better.

[sarcasm] But they do horrible things! Then why do you love and support [them]? [/sarcasm]

Clear enough?

I appreciate that you've posted non-anon. It seems few are willing to actually stand behind their beliefs.

---
As far as the source of the article. I am confused about the actual content of the talk. But, provided I understand what occurred, I think I disagree with the decision. [To cancel. Yes, that's right: disagree.]

But my points here are not about agreement [or not] of the actual decision. It's more about: How much should I be understanding and accommodating to needs I don't much understand - even if I feel they're excessive.

Because, perhaps even often, we feel someone else's needs are excessive when in reality - if the roles were reversed - we'd have the same position as the person we're opposing.

Because, far too often, we lack empathy for those around us, for those we don't identify as "like us."

Do you seriously think that was a reasonable accommodation, like helping a blind person cross the street?

...since I'm unclear of the actual facts of the case - because I'm unsure what happened, and because I was responding to a poster who seemed to feel his "problem" should be his alone, and because I see this lack of care and empathy in so many ways in peoples lives. ...because I think it's at epidemic levels here in the United States. [Lack of empathy for those not "like us."] ...for all those reasons - I thought it was incredibly important to highlight that lack of civility, honor, and empathy. I thought if one were to err on one side vs another - that in that case, I'd err on the side of being "too" accommodating, "too" empathetic, rather than not enough.

Was the harm from not having the talk greater than the harm that might have been done by glossing over victims of sexual violence? I really don't know. But I do know that by reading a lot of what is up-thread - that really caring about the sensitivities of the victims of sexual violence isn't, by any standard, universally in evidence here. [Along with respect for Women etc.]

Ergo, perhaps a good reason to push hard on the boundaries the other way.

-Greg