bballant

10 ms·

31.
by bballant 17y ago
I will second the vote for Mastering Algorithms in C. This book will bring you right into the details you want: http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Algorithms-C-Kyle-Loudon/dp/... Accelerated C++ was also mentioned and I just love this book.
32.
by bballant 17y ago
I'm glad you commented wrt the title. This issue is already over-politicized and the Times seems to be stoking that fire when it needs dampening to make room for real discussion.
33.
by bballant 17y ago
You have valid points, but you also must consider how different France is from the U.S. When their unions strike over compensation, for example, they close down roads and burn things. Our unions strike by marching in circles with signs.
34.
by bballant 17y ago
Unemployment rates are counted differently in other countries. In the United States, you have to be looking for a job to be counted as unemployed, so our numbers tend to look lower than they actually are. Also, an American friend of mine w
35.
by bballant 17y ago
I know you're trying to be incendiary, and I don't think corporations are evil, but I will give you an example of corporations acting like witches. Look up redlining (implicates the government as well).
36.
by bballant 17y ago
When you invest and buy local, you support your community and the people around you which often improves your community. It's easier to see or find out how the thing is made or how the money gets used. So, it's less likely you'll find lea
37.
by bballant 17y ago
Although I agree that amending the constitution takes things too far, I also think that corporations already have too much influence on American lives and I disagree with the recent SCOTUS decision because it validates that influence to a d
38.
by bballant 17y ago
I love it when The Onion predicts real life and reminds us how absurd things can be: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/supreme_court_al...
39.
by bballant 17y ago
"Intellectuals claiming to be in the service of high intellectual ideas will show up in at least two of those (Stalin's farm purges, Mao's political purges)" This is, maybe, a non-sequitur, but for the sake of intellectual correctness, I be
40.
by bballant 17y ago
Of course there is no purely free market anywhere in the world. Just as there is no pure socialism. My point is that free market reforms (i.e. deregulation and privatization) have lead to inefficiencies (and so have social programs). If y
41.
by bballant 17y ago
This mention of efficiency reminds me of the time when the energy market in California was de-regulated and the result was sky-rocketing costs and rolling black-outs. America's free-market healthcare system is extremely inefficient. We pay
42.
by bballant 17y ago
I think one of Hitchens' points is that there may be no good to be done with a civil position toward North Korea. In discussing the book, The Cleanest Race, he says the conclusions of the book could "mean that peace and disarmament negotia
43.
by bballant 17y ago
Slate is a politics and culture magazine, not a newspaper, that features essays and columns often expressing the opinions of mostly well-known regular writers. Hitchens is one of Slate's better-known writers and is most famous for his work
44.
by bballant 17y ago
First of all, the "margin of error" theory comes from you and not the articles you told me to search out myself. And the hunting definitely adds some perspective to the ">4x increase" so it's worth mentioning. I'm surprised you didn't m
45.
by bballant 17y ago
Thanks for sharing the article. In looking at the data, one notices a clear cyclic pattern but also a subtle general upward trend in temperature and downward trend in ice cover (i.e. the temperature lows are higher and the highs are higher
46.
by bballant 17y ago
I guess one can't know for sure, but I imagine the climate-change deniers and conspiracy-theorists would have uncovered more than one case of data fudging if it was wide spread. Money and prestige? Really? I wasn't aware climate science w
47.
by bballant 17y ago
Trust your instinct and don't lose site of the fact that these cases of bad science are few compared to the good. My instinct tells me that we're destroying the planet. The effect of global warming is hard to see, but it's not hard to imag
48.
by bballant 17y ago
Ice is and polar bear populations are increasing? I have only read evidence to the contrary. Please provide a citation so I don't think you just made this up.
49.
by bballant 17y ago
Ah, thanks. I was gonna say "only 6 comments!?"
50.
by bballant 17y ago
This news has really made my day. Let us hope this sets a precedent for other media and internet companies doing business in China who should no longer be complicit in the Communist party's suppression of the Chinese people. The Tibetans,
51.
by bballant 17y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nom...
52.
by bballant 17y ago
It is true that a developing nation typically needs to exploit its natural resources and cheap labor to industrialize and grow, which means CO2 emissions, but this is not true in modern, primarily service-based, economies, like the US. Aga
53.
by bballant 17y ago
France generates the majority of their power from nuclear power stations, but it is certainly not the "biggest reason" the EU's CO2 emissions are half of the US's.
54.
by bballant 17y ago
But there is no clear link between GDP and carbon emissions. For example, US's GDP is slightly less than the EU's but our CO2 emissions are double the EU. The idea that investing in alternative energy and the like will cost jobs or even li
55.
by bballant 17y ago
Fair enough, but the security and welfare of citizens is the primary interest of big government (o.k. secondary, but aligned with the primary interest of getting re-elected), whereas big oil has no interest other than making loot. With re
56.
by bballant 17y ago
Alpha Blondy, who is a reggae artist from the historically war-ravaged West African country, Côte d'Ivoire, has a song called Kalashnikov Love -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgSkpRhP5nI -- which I think speaks to the sort-of mythical l
57.
by bballant 17y ago
I think in messy pictures. Strangely, the pictures are as poorly drawn in my sloppy style as they are on the page. For example, a loop is an ugly circle with a downward facing arrow on the right side and it looks just like something I wou
58.
by bballant 17y ago
We could go back and forth on this forever. I think it's a valid, if not tiresome, debate -- if you publish something on-line, is it yours anymore? Was _why's stuff art? Does it matter if we consider it art? Maybe pulling things down is "
59.
by bballant 17y ago
I completely disagree that _why was simply an on-line persona, "a farce". The Fake Steve Jobs was satirical, first of all. _why was often funny, but it wasn't satire. I think his work alone, often times personal, was a testament to his a
60.
by bballant 17y ago
Zed will never understand _why and his simplistic depiction (not understanding) of Buddhism is a testament to this. Moreover he doesn't recognize _why as an artist. He does this in numerous ways but the most obvious and most gauche is the

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