Re: Half a Century of Crappy Computing

If you guys are going to engage in this sort of juvenile stuff you can at least use Follow up lines and edit headers and resort to email instead.

Yes.

Yes crappy computing is a valid topic.

Carry on.

By all means. ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

Louis Savain

Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It:

Yes and so is ass kissing. ahahaha... Computing is crappy primarily because ass kissing is a time-honored tradition among gutless computer geeks. ahahaha... What is needed in order to "decrapify" computing is for a few courageous people with backbones to make themselves heard. My point is that most of the people who frequent the comp.arch groups are like jellyfish with no backbones. ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

Louis Savain

Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It:

Why yes Louis you truly are a jellyfish and a kiss ass.

ahahaha... Miya takes offense and shoots out a flame. Forget it, Miya. I ain't gonna kiss your ass. ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

Louis Savain

Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It:

That's a slur on all jellyfish, imnsho.

Terje

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"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

That's because brains are not designed to be a thing that someone outside of it goes and types commands into, unlike a computer.

*Some* have free will. It is possible to has a mental disorder that takes away free will.

--
Guy Macon

[...]

Okay, thank you for that. So a whale can decide to die, even though its "technically" programmed to want to live... Is that some form of so-called free-will?

That's a nasty parasite indeed. I remember watching a documentary a while back that included a section on that. Can't those things effect the human brain as well?

Termite's aside, I wonder of the Honeybee, and Spiders mentiond, know they it will die if they perform the actions described... And if they would stop doing those actions if they ever found out?

;^)

If that isn't free will than I don't know what is...

:^0

You misrepresent Calvin. *Fatalists* believe that there is no free will. Calvinists believe that nobody can choose to live a life purely without sin and that nobody can become a Christian without God calling them to do so. Calvinists have no problem with free will in conexts other than Christian Salvation.

A better example would be Mark Twain, who actually was a fatalist.

"We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons shielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung with both hands- not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to."

Whales beach themselves and are known to re-beach themselves after humans drag them back into the sea.

Pets are know to stop eating and die after the owner dies.

Marine researcher Richard Ellis describes an octopus biting itself until it died, following experiments involving shock treatments.

Salmon stop eating and die after laying/fertilizing eggs.

The parasite Toxoplasma gondii makes rats become unafraid of cats, and an infected rat will walk right in front of a deadly cat.

Some termite soldiers explode their bodies thus immobilizing their enemies in sticky goo. Honeybees die almost immediately after they sting someone.

Males of the praying mantis, black widow spider, Australian redback spider, etc. seek to mate even though doing so is suicide. Some of these spiders have been known to return to be eaten if they escape the female.

And, of course, Lemmings are known to strap on explosive vests and blow themselves up in order to kill Lemmings that are followers of rival Lemming religions.

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Guy Macon

No, no!

Lemmings only blow themselves up after first standing guard to save the rest of the tribe to die by downing or falling: They, after one or two working lemmings have constructed a safe way home, then _have_ to voluntarily blow themselves up to allow the rest to pass through.

Terje (great game btw!)

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"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Ah. Thanks for pointing that out.

I haven't played _Lemmings_ in years. I think I will get a copy. :)

--
Guy Macon

Here is an online version:

Regards Anton Erasmus

[...]

voluntarily performing an action that destroys ones self is an act of so-called free-will?

Please correct as I am probably wrong wrt this subject...

;^0

You just requested "Please correct as I am probably wrong," but you hade no statement that can be right/wrong and thus there is nothing to correct. All you did was ask a question.

BTW, most folks would consider knowingly and voluntarily performing an action that destroys ones self to be an act of free-will.

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Guy Macon

Yup... I think that the last bit of my response made it sound timid to say the least...

I have to agree with all of them.

So you have a keyboard instead of ears, eyes, and other senses?

We certainly command others often, sometimes direct and sometimes implied. Inputs come from the general environment as well. If they are unresponsive because they are asleep, we then react and either wake them or deal with it according to our own programming. You've got to think beyond a PC, Mike. Think embedded systems, robotics, and things like that. Just as brains are in so many different animal systems, you find CPU's are in a lot more that just computer systems. Keyboards are just so old fashioned an input device.

Ed.

|> > BTW, most folks would consider knowingly and voluntarily performing |> > an action that destroys ones self to be an act of free-will. |> |> I have to agree with all of them.

Ah, so you don't have any free will about the matter, then? :-)

Regards, Nick Maclaren.