throwawayukcyb

No.

> The common ground is functional-ish and mostly-stateless programming ("const" etc). C# is actually becoming very good at this, and you can always cross into F# if you want.

Newish C# is just functional programming dressed up as Java, and goes far beyond const. C.f. functional-ish C# programs to C programs that use const. Striking difference.

F# is just .NET's version of a straight up a very traditional and canonical functional language. If F# isn't functional then nothing except maybe untyped lambda calculus is functional.

The article's title is correct only in the tautological sense that unpopular things are weird, even in the paradoxical case where those unpopular things are actually fully embraced while remaining unpopular.

It's really not. GP (or whatever) was saying that perhaps there's a reasonable difference of opinion. You responded by stating the author was wrong becuase "there [is] one best way to serve the people" and accusing GP of relativism (which is clearly a Bad Thing).

> So respecting natural rights and popular sovereignty are not the right way to serve people?

Natural Rights: There are reasonable conceptions of natural rights which allow for the FBI's interpretation of the All Writs Act. The exact scope and meaning of natural rights has never been and never will be resolved. Anyone proclaiming otherwise is just wrong. Hell, the philosophers who originated this concept had heated disagreements about their meaning. Things have only become more convoluted as we've tried to apply this idea in scaled-up settings.

Popular sovereignty: It's not at all clear to me how what the FBI is doing violates popular soverignty. In fact, it seems to me that they are fully engaged in a PR campaign designed, precisely, to leverage the legitimacy of popular sovereignty...

More generally, "natural rigths + popular sovereignty" is not a deterministic algorithm. It's entirely possible for people to adhere to both of thse philosophies and still vehemently disagree on the best way to govern. I might excuse a philosopher for not being able to foresee this fact 2000 or even 300 years ago. But clinging to the notion that "natural rigths + popular sovereignty" is a panacea to political disfunction after the past 200 years is rather astounding.

I happen to strongly agree with Apple and loathe what the FBI is trying to do. But I also think the argument you're making here is dead wrong. The case against the FBI here is not based upon natural rights. It is either based upon constitutional rights, or it is based upon pure pragmatics. And the final answer will almost certainly the latter.

> Your perspective on this was the point of Professor Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind.

1. No, it really isn't...

2. I was educated in exactly the style Bloom suggests. Suffice it to say that actually reading the classics has a way of undermining the authority that staunchy old conservative men try to get out of their particular interpretations and applications of ideas expressed in those books.

2a. Damned marxists bastardized Nietzsche and also rock music is for flooseys. lol

3. If Bloom's opinions were at all sincerely held, he would likely have agreed with the observations about natural rights and popular sovereignty given above.

> I don't personally care what ill-informed people who are victims of the American Historical Association think about classical liberalism and human freedom.

Don't worry, I use tin foil bookmarks.

> The FBI will not exist in the future

Okay.

No. Not unless you are omniscient and all-powerful. And even then, still no, because different people are different and want different things.

No one is claiming that the FBI is without fault or even that its actual goal is serving the people. But there are plenty of people out there who have a sincerely held -- and in a few cases even informed -- belief that the FBI is on the right side of this debate.

The author's point is that recursion is a pervasive concept that is essential to understand even how modern computer hardware works:

> the very concept of a digital computer is grounded in recursive self-reference (the cross-connection of gates to form a latch), which, needless to say, does not involve a stack. Not only do real programmers use recursion, there could not even be programmers were it not for that.

The author is not suggesting that we forget about "what's really going on". He's rightly pointing out that you actually cannot understand what's really going on at all without first understanding recursive self-reference.

This is an interesting observation, actually. It suggests that there is a (legal) price to be paid for retaining tight control over firmware.

After 5 minutes of search I cannot find the story. But there was a super interesting story (in The Atlantic maybe?) about an investigation into an assassination plot where the major break was exactly this slip-up.

Sure, if we were all flush companies then filing suit over things like this or risking lawsuits when we know we are correct would be perfectly reasonable. But when you don't have the money or time to fight legal battle -- even one you think you should win -- you have to appeal to the court of public opinion instead.

Is this satire?

I don't think this is a truism.

Sites in the style of BBC/CNN/Fox/Yahoo/etc. may have a tough time with their online content if they aren't able to support those properties with ads.

IME most content that's actually worth the time it takes to consume (e.g., well-composed articles and essays written by field experts) is not ad-supported. A lot is behind paywalls, and still more is provided on non-ad-supported websites. For example, distributed freely by fee-supported professional organizations or else by the author him/her-self as a tool for self-promotion/brand building. I don't see any reason why high-quality content can't survive on non-ad revenue, given that there are plenty of counter-examples.

And that's just considering the ad-supported sites that are actually content-driven. A lot of online advertisement is not supporting original content creation at all.

I very much doubt there was ever a time when experimental psychologists or sociologists held themselves to that standard.

i.e. unicorns and rainbows. You're essentially just responding to every response to your posts with "yeah but more assumptions make it true!"

Basically, my advice is to scrap what the article suggests and instead prefer "intellectually stimulating" to "related to security" when diverting a bright child's interests. It's often easy to find something sufficiently intellectually stimulating if you don't focus on security. Also, something related to security isn't necessarily at all intellectually stimulating (again, please don't flip my quantifier...).

> I object to your dismissal of my industry as "configuring firewalls and installing AV".

This wasn't my intention. FTR I respect security professionals and IT folk of all stripes.

But there are boring jobs in every indsutry.

My observation is only that diverting a student to the nearest person whose job has anything to do with "cyber security" is not likely to end with that student showing up at a security research lab. Similarly, I think it's a laughably bad idea to try to get a kid who is already checking out of school to prep for something like a CREST certification exam.

> Certainly the security industry is not for everyone

This was more my other point.

I doubt that most students who are interested in computers and who are also acting out using computers are necessarily interested in computer security. I think that assuming this fundamentally misunderstands/conflates two very different things going on in the student's life -- their interest in computers/science/technology, and anti-social behavior.

> A lot of people in the security industry would not even consider "configuring firewalls and installing AV" to be security work

Unfortunately most of the teachers/parents reading that webpage are unlikely to know the difference.