samfoo

How does scala make this more confusing?

Either the types that are returned are scala collections, or they're java collections. If you want to treat java collections like scala collections you can always `import JavaConversions._` and huzzah, shallow conversions and collection uniformity.

Finally, if something has the possibility of being null, you can use the option construct, e.g.

    if (Option(someListThatMightBeNull).getOrElse(List()).isEmpty) { ... }

Or more likely:

    Option(someListThatMightBeNull) match {
        case Some(list) => // do something...
        case None => // do something else...
    }

More than likely if you're dealing with scala libs, things that can be "null" are returning options anyway.

Only if you presuppose that the "poo-pooing" of human social interaction has no value, or perhaps misunderstand the value of social conventions.

Even if you're brilliant and correct, a tactful approach to persuasion/discussion is virtually guaranteed to yield better results than verbal blunt-trauma. Unless the goal of life is simply "To be correct", which honestly strikes me as a fairly depressing end game compared to the other options.

If I'm honest: I mostly want high speed rail because it's badass :-) I've been on HSR in France, Japan and China and always feel like I'm in the future.

Yes: Seattle/Portland/Vancouver BC via plane take only about 45 minutes of actual flight time, but 2 hours or so of hassle going through airport nonsense (more if you cross the border).

The drive is two hours, but a waste of gas and time if you're only going for a weekend. Highspeed rail is the perfect intermediate and at a reasonable price (read: $100 or so round trip) would be well more than enough reason to ditch my car for basically all trips greater than 100 miles.

Just because there are some places in the USA where highspeed rail doesn't make sense doesn't mean that argument extends to the whole country.

Do you have any evidence that this is the case? Most of the people I know who work as barristas (Starbucks or otherwise) are college students or people obsessed with coffee. And in the suburbs the demographics change even more. (Seattle)

Forgive my ignorance, I'm actually curious. How did AI failures contribute to FP, garbage collection, and OO?

> Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. [Emphasis mine.]

They were minting physical coins. They called them dollars. Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage or currency doesn't change the fact that, that's very obviously the intent.

Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge.

Because the world is a complicated place where a single (short) document is unlikely to fairly represent anything other than guiding principles. Having guiding principles is hugely important and valuable, just as giving people the leeway to make judgement calls on those principles is. Justice shouldn't be black and white.

There's a benefit to having nuclear power plants around that is worth the risk (in my opinion) even if we accept that there will be some nuclear safety issues over time. The positive benefits of nuclear power are so astronomically greater than the negatives that it borders on criminal to report in it like the media has.

When coal miners die in China, you don't hear the media clamoring to shutdown every coal mine. Or perhaps more apropos: when there's a coal slurry disaster no one calls for halting all coal mining everywhere.

The real reason is that nuclear is scary because people don't understand it.

Click and hold on the back button brings up the list. This works in chrome too.

Some 14 thousand people have died due to the earthquake and tsunami directly. Zero confirmed deaths due to radiation. There very well may be deaths in the future, but I think it's astronomically unlikely they'll even approach two orders of magnitude of those caused by the quake. Of coure there are ramifications from the nuclear plant problems. Are they even remotely close to the scale of problems caused by the earthquake? Good lord, no.

The focus in the media on the reactor is criminally unethical in my opinion. It just adds to the populist echo chamber that nuclear is bad (no matter what) without any context or perspective at all and without any education.

To clarify, I don't think its a left or right issue. I probably worded it wrong. The stranger is Seattle's alt-Weekly and while it typically has very good reporting, the format lends itself to sensationalism on some issues.

I'm assuming you're Jacob? I'm curious how accurately you believe the article portrays the harassment. It's hard to read between the lines, and the Stranger is biased to the left (not that this invalidates it). Have you consulted a lawyer about legal recourse? Is UW supporting you?

It says that (presumably in Newark?) you were handed over to a US Army official. Are you certain the individual worked for the Army?

Wikileaks and the Federal Government's response to it is fascinating to me. I'd love to hear more details than what little teaser of an article offers.

How does it weaken the argument that the internet should be actively censored?

Just because .xxx exists doesn't mean there won't be "pornography" or "offensive materials" on .com/.{foo} addresses. This just provides an excuse for policy and law makers to write legislation saying "Pornography can only be on *.xxx domains".

It's naive to think this will have any effect whatsoever on the availability of porn to your average < 18 year old anywhere in the world.

Ah, re-reading your article, I think I misunderstood your use of "pretty". Where I was reading it to mean "well designed and aesthetically pleasing", retrospectively it seems like you're using it as a catch-all term for "a-look-of-some-kind-that-appeals-to-women"? In which case, I apologize for crying sexist-wolf.

Incidentally; Wikifashion is genius. I'm totally going to score points by showing it to my fashion-obsessed-and-wikipedia-contributing girlfriend tonight.

Leaving aside the sexist subtext that women appreciate beauty more than men...

While Wikifashion is pretty and, that beauty certainly (I'm sure) helps contribute to it's success: Don't you think your high female contributor ratio has more to do with your subject matter being more interesting to women?

Fair enough. I obviously only ever experience it from the perspective of an American, and theoretical knowledge doesn't hold a candle to experience.

As a deal: You tell your guys stop being dicks to me when I fly to London, and I'll tell my guys to stop being dicks to you when you fly to [US city of choice] :-D

I didn't mean it as a pejorative. I've been living out of a backpack and travelling (adventuring?) for the last two plus years (well, until very recently), and I've grown something of a thin skin for when people vilify the US without much travel experience of their own.

> Yes you can say that, say, an Iraqi citizen will have a hard time getting in to any country, not just the US; but when we're talking people from England, Europe, China, hell, even Mexico and Canada

England and most western European countries don't require visas to enter the US at all, since they qualify under the VWP. Mexico and Canada only recently required a passport to entry, and at most high-volume crossings you can use a special state/federal ID instead.

Harrowing, I think, is too strong of a word. Several years ago I was stopped at the Canadian border on I5 (between Seattle and Vancouver) and had my car searched. I had to sit in an immigration office for an hour and answer a ton of questions. That's about as bad as it can get between NAFTA countries and it's hardly what I'd call harrowing.

All of that having been said: You're preaching to the choir. I'm 100% in favor of relaxing entry and work requirements for foreigners into the US. I think that people overreact about the US requirements when for most first world citizens it's not that big of a deal, and for the rest of the world it's complicated just about everywhere else too.

> 20-something backpackers who get hassled crossing into America today, or who choose to go to a different country for 6 months instead of face American border bureaucracy, will take those experiences with them when they enter industry and leadership positions in the future.

Agreed, but this has more to do with foreign policy and international PR rather than just border security and hassle.

> Edit: another anecdote--on entering New Zealand I was asked for proof of onward travel (as I later found out, a requirement to enter the country). I didn't have any; I had planned on staying a few months then carrying on to Australia when I felt like it. When I told the agent this, she laughed and waved me on. Can you imagine a US border agent doing that?

Counter anecdote: I once flew back from Mexico without a passport or any identification other than a driver's license (this was right after the passport requirements for flight went into effect -- Mexico didn't require a US passport for entry, but the US required a passport for re-entry) and had to convince the CBP agent that I was an American. He asked me a couple questions and ended with "Who was your freshman English teacher?" which I laughed at and said: "Are you serious?! Does anyone remember that?" and he laughed and let me in. Took just about as long as a normal border crossing.

As a US citizen I've been hassled in much the same way by the UK (the Schengen zone is generally much easier). I've had to produce both bank statements and proof of onward tickets. I've been to a ton of other countries (30+) and your method of entry (train, car, boat, motorcycle, or air) in general effects how difficult the entry is more than anything else.

It's frustrating to read things like this. If you think the US is easily the most unwelcoming country even to citizens -- to be frank -- you just haven't been through that many countries.

Does flying through the US as the citizen of a non-waived-visa country suck? Yup. But it's not like the US is the only country that has these policies. The UK has a list of countries that require transit visas. The Schengen Zone has a list of countries that require transit visas. Russia does.

And to add further anecdotal fuel to the fire (and counter yours): As a US citizen the worst customs I've been through is far and away the UK.

Why can't we have both? There's no regulation on rating doctors at the present and it seems to me like the fact that there aren't a dearth of patient/consumer ratings of doctors already precludes your assertion that if we stop requiring certification that many will suddenly spring up.

There's also the problem that medical care is an inherently non-free market. If I'm bleeding to death, I don't have time to search the BBB's ratings on a hospital and decide which emergency room I'd prefer. The same is true for pricing: If I'm dying my demand for service is going to be irrespective of it's price.

Regulation is a critical component in the medical industry, in my opinion.

You're not taking into account things like carrying a pack and equipment, and difficult varying terrain. I would assume that these would lower the optimal speed.

The population distribution in Finland is nearly all in the lower 1/3 of the country though. Population distribution in the US is (I'm guessing) more normalized. So really you're talking about the population density of the Helsinki metro area, which is likely pretty high.

> - Most people don't see a difference between an Op-Ed and actual news. Most cable news networks don't easily distinguish between news and opinion reporting since both are regularly done by the same people.

So your argument is: "Most people don't realize that there's a difference between opinion and reporting, so there isn't one."? I don't accept that people can't distinguish, and even if true, I don't accept that it makes any difference in the truth.

There is also a difference between real new organizations -- viz. print -- and cable news. Even on Fox News, however (note: I don't watch cable news frequently, I'm assuming this is still the case), their opinion shows are clearly separate from their actual reporting. O'Reilly, Hannity, Fox and Friends all discuss the news but aren't reporting it.

> Again we're focusing on Julian Assange. While there is a story to be written about him, that story is easy and lazy. The far harder story is to actually investigate the cables.

Forgive me, but, It's a bit offensive to the reporters at the New Yorker, or the Times, or the NYT to imply that such a story is easy and lazy. You make it sound like the two stories are mutually exclusive and it's not as it the cables themselves are being ignored by anyone.

> The rape accusations against him (while serious and perhaps true) do not change the information contained therein. The source doesn't actually taint the leaked information.

I'm not sure how major media outlets are implying that it does tain the leaked information. If you can see that, what makes you think that others can't?

> Former illegal cocaine and marijuana user, President Barack Obama, took a trip to Hawaii for Christmas break. Since he had been known to get a speeding ticket, it's interesting that he's asked to speed up the time table for implementing the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell".

I honestly don't know how you can't see that there's an ethical difference between what you said and the bias it contains and reporting that Julian Assange is accused of rape. If Obama were accused of rape and tried to pass DADT, you can bet it would be reported on too. Like it or not, the world doesn't organize itself into self-contained encapsulated segments of information. Humanity and human faces are a part of reporting, one that drives more people to know about things like the leaks than otherwise would have.

> The media has been all over Assange (especially his personal life), but they've been minimally interested in the leaks themselves.

I disagree strongly with you. The NYT (as an example) has entire pages dedicated on their website for both the war logs and and diplomatic cables. Even several days ago their front page (print) story was from the leaks. The media is not dropping the ball on this, it's just that alternative media talking heads desperately want them to drop the ball and so just keep saying that they have.

Like it or not, Julian is the face of Wikileaks and his eccentricities and the intrigue surrounding him is part of the story. A compelling part. One that gets more people reading about this than otherwise would have. Reporting isn't just about telling facts no matter how unbiased a reporter or news establishment might be. This is precisely why Wikileaks releases raw data to their media partners for analysis under an embargo in the first place; analysis which comes with some bias.

Would you consider it good reporting if the media were to never address the rape allegations when interviewing Assange? Even if they're fabricated?

> In fact, many media outlets have gone so far as to condemn the Wikileaks organization or to dismiss them as "not containing anything we didn't already know".

Which media outlets are those? Suggesting that outside of the context of an Op-Ed would be pretty unethical, but I haven't see that and I haven't read it anywhere.

Earlier this year, I lived in Guatemala studying Spanish, climbing volcanos and motorcycling around. At one point a friend of mine visited me from Mexico for a couple weeks and we decided we'd rent a car and drive around the country. It's much safer than the busses, and way more freedom.

We were going between villages in the mountains that were -- to say the least -- rural. Most of them probably had thirty or forty people living in them and the only access was a single-lane dirt road barely passable by even four-wheel drive vehicles. The workers in the villages rely on hitchhiking or private "taxis" to get to work. Those with trucks generally pick up anyone on the side of the road who's going in the same direction and flags them down.

Having been the hiker myself on some similar Guatemalan roads previously, I discovered that it's customary to ask the driver how much you owed them for the trip at the end and then pay them (depending on the length of the trip) maybe 5 or 10 quetzales -- I think at the time that was about $1.00 - $1.20 USD or so.

My friend and I got in the habit of picking up everyone we saw and dropping them off at their location; por gratis. Most of them didn't speak Spanish (this was rural enough that nearly everyone spoke some mayan dialect) so it was always a bit of a silly experiment trying to explain that I didn't them to pay.

I like to think that maybe we made a couple people's days and they were able to put a little more food on their table (or heck, beer in their belly).

More generally, I make a point to pick up hitchhikers when I have time -- which sadly is less and less frequent these days. Even if it's a risky proposal, I've been on the other side of the equation one too many times in my life not to try and return the favor.

Luckily, the State Department doesn't have the power to declare something illegal. Please stop adding to the hyperbole of the already heated reactions.

Not to be too much of a pedant, but: Turkish-Germans make up only 2.1% of the German population and while France doesn't have hard numbers because it's illegal to survey on the basis of race/ethnicity, estimates are around 7% of the population.

American blacks make up nearly 13% of the population in the US. That's a pretty significant difference and if you include all minority groups, America's a significantly less homogeneous place than any country in Europe or Asia that I'm aware of.

I agree with your (unstated) premise that this isn't the point, though.

Some aspects of grammar are important, but it's important to reflect on the purpose of its study: The ability to construct a sentence that's cogent, clear and understandable both in writing and while speaking.

Some things are simply not important to know as a native speaker but still manage to get taught in English classes. A couple of examples:

1. The different between "that" and "which" (e.g. The curtains that/which cover the windows). Either way is perfectly clear and rigid adherence to a correct "rule" is just language fascism.

2. Terminology for many things that are specific to grammar are also pretty useless. Words like 'participle', 'split-infinitive', and 'gerund' (I literally had to look that up to remember it) are basically useless. Specifically from the test are phrases which obviously have been taught within the class, but don't have any real meaning outside of the concept it's teaching: "Parts of Speech" and "Define Case".

Grammar is only important insomuch as you can write and speak intelligently and coherently. Construction beyond that belongs in a linguistics class specifically focused on the mechanics of language.

Several points:

First, children aren't the best judges of the topics they should be learning.

Second, children aren't the best judges of how to most effectively spend their time and judge their own pace, nor should they be: They're children. If I were given a choice in high school, I would have skipped all literature and English classes, played videogames all day, or something else that would be equally destructive to my future.

    > Wouldn't it be the best possible outcome if children grew to love the learning process instead of learning to sit and regurgitate?

You're knocking down a straw man: Allowing children absolute freedom isn't necessarily going to lead to them love the learning process, nor is the current system completely about regurgitating facts.