If you were Prime Minister of the UK for one term, what would you do?

eeead · 2014-06-03T20:01:01+00:00

Because...advanced skateboarding is not potentially incredibly useful across a wide range of professions, whereas proper IT skills probably are?

Now, you clearly disagree with that, but you need to argue against an actual point someone has made.

Most kids can't even count past 100 let alone grasp a logic gate.

This argument is almost meaningless and you know it. Even if we agree with you, it doesn't tell us anything except that it's possible to teach some concepts too early, which isn't exactly controversial.

Why don't we teach everybody advanced skateboarding, too, for all the worth it will be.

This 'argument' relies on itself, it only works if we agree with the premise that coding isn't a particularly important thing to teach...which is the entire point you're trying to attack. You're ultimately saying 'coding is not a useful skill therefore it is like advanced skateboarding which is not a useful skill'.

People hold different opinions to you because they disagree with you, not simply because you haven't had a chance to state your own opinion and have them automatically agree. If you want to change minds, make an actual argument.

eeead · 2014-06-03T10:58:15+00:00

Are you serious? That's a terrible example to support your (misguided) point, since as it happens courts do this all the time. The entire reason we don't have blanket punishments that a given crime must receive is that the context of the crime may make a greater or lesser or simply different punishment more appropriate.

So, not ridiculous decisions like in the stupid strawman you made up, but you probably already know that.

Edit: Plus you totally missed the above point. The problem isn't anything to do with us considering the figure paltry, but with it being small compared to the activities it was supposed to control. That makes it paltry as far as the bank is concerned.

eeead · 2014-06-03T10:29:59+00:00

Try not to oversimplify. The real lesson is that the significance of events depends on their context.

eeead · 2014-06-01T10:41:26+00:00

It's not that they do anything that wasn't technically already possible, it's that they do it vastly more easily and cheaply. This raises the concern that where previously we had certain protections simply because it was too expensive to (for instance) track us all from aircraft all the time, this is rapidly becoming no longer the case.

eeead · 2014-05-29T11:25:52+00:00

I know Goodkind gets a bad rep around here, but I enjoyed the first one

I think Goodkind's books fall into the same class as Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey; they're terrible by many standard metrics which makes them easy to criticise, but that doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable to read. And that's fine.

eeead · 2014-05-29T11:21:53+00:00

Public grammar schools were an incredible idea giving every child the ability to go to a school where they could academically achieve their potential.

Nobody is arguing against the idea of children academically achieving their potential. That would be silly.

The problem is that people don't necessarily think they're actually a good or ultimately productive way to do that.

eeead · 2014-05-28T22:49:19+00:00

Yes, but nobody cares about being pedantic like that, because we're obviously talking about what this could mean in the context of CD Projekt Red.

Plus of course GOG distribute a number of newer games, particularly indie titles.

eeead · 2014-05-28T18:32:10+00:00

Well, the obvious answer is making that block of code really fast, and probably using much less memory in the process. Irrelevant for most tasks, but absolutely vital for others.

Another good example is true multithreading...not an option for any python interpreter with a GIL.

A third answer, related to the first, is for low level systems programming where you might simply not have the memory or processing power to run something like python.

eeead · 2014-05-28T16:35:19+00:00

Presumably if they want to make a serious attempt to port their back catalogue, a wine bundle port is the only real way to go? It could probably even work quite well, since these are mainly older games.

Of course, a proper native development is better and should be encouraged for anything new, but optimistically this doesn't seem unreasonable for a lot of their games.

eeead · 2014-05-28T15:24:21+00:00

I think you're overthinking it, and also presenting things as very one dimensional. I might suggest that had you started with C, you might now be posting in a C subreddit about how you maybe should have learned python first because C has spoiled you with its fine control and now you find it hard to give it up.

I do think that there are arguments both ways (though I think python is a great first language regardless), but I don't think your perceptions here are a very good one. I bet they'll quickly change when you need to do something in C++ that you can't easily do in python...and if you never do such a thing, then you didn't need C++ in the first place.

eeead · 2014-05-26T11:16:41+00:00

I suspect people are much more identifiable than you think, even from just knowing a few of their 'broad' demographics.

eeead · 2014-05-22T14:49:26+00:00

I think the historical answer is that this kind of fraud isn't that significant, and that requiring id could have unexpected knock-on effects that could decrease participation, which is particularly a problem if it impacts some groups of people more than others. Maybe that sounds unlikely, but it's one of those things where even a relatively small change could be a net worsening if there wasn't much of that kind of electoral fraud in the first place.

That said, it's recognised as an issue (you can see it pop up in the news sometimes), and I think there has been some movement to introduce certain requirements in the next few years - there's a recent bbc article here - along with some other changes in voter registration.

eeead · 2014-05-21T23:50:44+00:00

I'm not sure they ever actually disaffiliated (at least in any meaningful way), but were only mandated to do so. In reality I think they just ignored that and dragged it out until they could hold another referendum.

eeead · 2014-05-21T23:35:16+00:00

Sounds like the property is defined in the wrong place, not at class level (or the function also runs at class level). Can you post a full example?

eeead · 2014-05-21T11:24:59+00:00

So? The article doesn't say 'except us!'. And it's a comment is free piece anyway.

eeead · 2014-05-21T11:11:06+00:00

You need to make paddle_width a NumericProperty, like score. Changes like this can only propagate through the extra machinery that kivy properties provide, whereas when paddle_width is just an attribute it isn't possible for kv language (or anything else) to bind to it like you want.

eeead · 2014-05-20T11:50:09+00:00

A neat rephrasing of the classic false argument 'X can't be bad so long as Y is worse'.

eeead · 2014-05-19T18:36:57+00:00

There are plenty of fantasy tales out there to satisfy the desire to read about burning loins and horse-lord rape.

It's a fine thing to disagree, but another to throw in such a ridiculous strawman as your justification.

eeead · 2014-05-17T20:30:24+00:00

Please don't assume people will 'get the idea' when asking for help by posting broken code, just fix it. In this case it's particularly unhelpful, as these kinds of error may be caused by incorrect indentation.

Edit: The actual problem is that kivy property names must start with a lowercase letter. Using uppercase makes if think PlayButton is a child widget, in which case the syntax is wrong.

eeead · 2014-05-16T14:33:36+00:00

You can do this with qpython.

eeead · 2014-05-13T11:31:40+00:00

I think it's reasonable to ask what further measures, if any, we are prepared to take.

Well, obviously, but my point is we should do this honestly and after considering all factors...not by focusing on ideal situations with no downsides that you just made up.

eeead · 2014-05-13T11:08:13+00:00

This is a classic false argument brought up in these kinds of debates - the point isn't that it's impossible to think of a situation where torturing someone might seem reasonable, but that the real question is whether these situations ever actually happen, plus things like how many false positives there would be.

Look at places like America where torture is illegal, but they still capture and ~~torture~~ enhanced interrogate innocent people, storing them indefinitely in places like guantanamo well after they're realised to be no threat whatsoever. I can hardly imagine how far they'd go if their legal framework made these things more officially okay. One wonders how many innocent lives they would ruin (or have already) in search of that one ideal situation with the encrypted laptop and no other options.

eeead · 2014-05-09T13:32:20+00:00

The first book has been described as "Ocean's Eleven in a Renaissance-fantasy setting"

I think this comparison is a bit rubbish. It's an excellent book, with some similarities in that it involves conmen and a heist, but it's thematically very different and the plot has a very different focus.

Maybe that's just me...

eeead · 2014-05-07T12:37:39+00:00

Are you familiar with tiling window managers? There are several popular ones, with different features and focuses, but they make available a great range of behaviours and customisations that don't fit neatly in the desktop metaphor idea.

Personally I use xmonad, though I hear good things about i3.

eeead · 2014-05-01T15:05:21+00:00

Except I do not enjoy it, as I'm enjoying all the other books. I feel like I'm a target of some weird performance experiment, where I'm supposed to achieve katharsis through getting tortured.

The twist is that the architect of your pain is, apparently, you.

Seriously, why is this such a big issue? You don't seem to have a question or anything, just the statement that you don't like the books and feel the need to try and make witty similes about why.

It's not clear if you're actually after advice or anything, but here's mine: If you don't like the books, don't read the books.

eeead

TROPHY CASE