jean_lannes

Let me ask: what sort of background is necessary to get jobs based on your skills in a second language? I'm very into language learning as a hobby, but would it be necessary to get a degree before applying to these sorts of jobs? Where would one even look for jobs?

As someone who took a standard undergrad linear algebra course but never really used it in my work, what are some good ways to get acquainted with practical applications of linear algebra?

These seem like two different things. Testing many different optimizations is not the same experiment; it's many different experiments. The SE equivalent of the practice being described would be repeatedly benchmarking code without making any changes and reporting results only from the favorable runs.

That's a decent idea, thanks

Good points, thanks for the help.

What sorts of target fields do you think would be worth looking at? I'm very interested in compilers, but my sense is that there isn't much entry-level work there.

> In your vision of the supreme court, if the majority decided they wanted to lock up some minorty and send them to gas chambers, the court couldn't do anything to stop them because the populace would vote for it in a referendum

I don't agree with the commenter you responded to, but I think this sort of view is similarly flawed. Many developed Western democracies endow the courts with much weaker powers of judicial review than the US. In the UK, for example, judicial review applies only to Orders of Council, while Acts of Parliament are exempt.

The Bill of Rights came about largely as a product of anti-federalist agitation. Many prominent federalists felt that a Bill of Rights would be redundant; in federalist 84, Hamilton writes the following:

> There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights. And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union. Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the State constitutions. Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also been attended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention. It may be said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can with no propriety be contended that there is no such thing. It certainly must be immaterial what mode is observed as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are to be found in any part of the instrument which establishes the government. And hence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign from the substance of the thing. [1]

[1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed84.asp