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The Hand Licking Incident

raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com

351–358 of 358 posts

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#351
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did violence invent the Apollo guidance computer or the Saturn V? Did violence build the SR-71? Did violence design Teller’s hydrogen bomb? Did violence build Apple or Google or Facebook or Amazon? I think if that is the answer you want, you will be able to find enough examples (slavery, et c) to support that conclusion. But many countries had slavery; only a few could build planes to outrun SAMs, land on the moon, i…

No but if I have a strong desire to kill an enemy I could invent something to make me better at killing. All modern military technology and the technology that spawned from it such as the Saturn V or the hydrogen bomb were invented because of the desire to inflict violence on an enemy. Creativity is a tool; violence, hatred and competition is a driving force. That is not to discount empathy and altruism as driving fo…

Defensive weapons are not developed out of a desire to inflict violence, but out of a desire to have the ability to inflict violence. It is a tremendously important but subtle distinction. One is a desire for violence and the other is a desire to avoid violence.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#352
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but if I have a strong desire to kill an enemy I could invent something to make me better at killing. All modern military technology and the technology that spawned from it such as the Saturn V or the hydrogen bomb were invented because of the desire to inflict violence on an enemy. Creativity is a tool; violence, hatred and competition is a driving force. That is not to discount empathy and altruism as driving fo…

Defensive weapons are not developed out of a desire to inflict violence, but out of a desire to have the ability to inflict violence. It is a tremendously important but subtle distinction. One is a desire for violence and the other is a desire to avoid violence.

Thats what everyone says nowadays. Both sides of a conflict build weapons for "defense." Sort of like how my gun nut dad owns 4 different types of guns for "defense."

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#353
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes possible, but not always. An executable test is good for documenting what a piece of code should do, but not always entirely sufficient for documenting why .

Exactly, and in the pathological case it ends up documenting the why incorrectly and the code is still wrong.

Yes, but this is hardly an argument against using comments.

There will always be a pathological case. The question is what approach will increase your chances of success, what's least likely to lead to problems, what's the cost-risk-benefit tradeoff etc.

Comments detailing the intent of a non-obvious function are valuable for maintainers wanting to figure out what's happening in the code. They are written in human-oriented business-oriented language, so they don't take effort to read. The intent of the code should not change that often. If they diverge from the code, the effort of changing them should be small enough to be worth it. Ideally they should be treated as important and if they are wrong it should be picked up in the code-review.

Comments detailing just the description of what a function does, by contrast, are not valuable, since that information can be deduced from the code itself. Every time the function changes, the comment will change. Reading them is as much effort as reading the code, so if they diverge it won't be picked up as easily.

There are always exceptions to these kinds of guidelines, of course, but this at least gives motivation for why I think comments should be used in this way.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#354
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to comment in a constructive way on this. Do you have kids? If so, have you thought about, sorted out and covered all the things that would be unacceptable? What about what other people might think unacceptable, but you don't? If you however don't have kids, imho you are hardly entitled to criticise. There are many legit reasons that could cause the mother to not necessarily provide gloves. Then again yes…

> Do you have kids? If so, have you thought about, sorted out and covered all the things that would be unacceptable? What about what other people might think unacceptable, but you don't? If you however don't have kids, imho you are hardly entitled to criticise. You are overcomplicating things, while I keep them concrete: gloves in cold weather is common sense. I do not have kids (so points for you I guess), but it's…

Hey, thanks for the constructive reply. Reading everything a day later I do feel like my comment was maybe a bit too intense in tone, although I still stand a couple points:

> A more robust/practical approach is that I act the way I speak: when I have kids, I will make 100% sure they always wear gloves in cold weather :)

Which is very commendable, but bear in mind you might be forgetting things, or deciding different on things that are obvious for other people and not for you.

> If you put out your opinion in the public domain, you should expect support and/or criticism. People will attack your ideas, even if they are good. You are criticising me, yet I am not feeling sad at all.

Totally agreed. I just think that the tone and the intention behind the criticism is quite important.

Anyway, I understand your point better know, and realise that maybe I did to you exactly the same thing I'm (constructively I hope) criticising you for.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#355
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defensive weapons are not developed out of a desire to inflict violence, but out of a desire to have the ability to inflict violence. It is a tremendously important but subtle distinction. One is a desire for violence and the other is a desire to avoid violence.

Thats what everyone says nowadays. Both sides of a conflict build weapons for "defense." Sort of like how my gun nut dad owns 4 different types of guns for "defense."

I own a lot more than 4 different types of guns and I have a strong desire to avoid shooting any living thing. Your example doesn’t hold up.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#356
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats what everyone says nowadays. Both sides of a conflict build weapons for "defense." Sort of like how my gun nut dad owns 4 different types of guns for "defense."

I own a lot more than 4 different types of guns and I have a strong desire to avoid shooting any living thing. Your example doesn’t hold up.

People are contradictory. And you are not an exception. You don't buy guns to kill. But you wouldn't buy those guns if those guns were incapable of killing. You don't buy bb guns.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#357

I dunno about this story. When I saw my son lick his hands the very first time, this was the convo: - Are your hands tasty? No - Are your hands dirty? No - Are your hands dry? Yes! Problem solved. Plus a quick visual inspection will usually confirm dry hands. It’s not like an insidious disease with no visible symptoms.

For me it wasn't easy. When I was about 30 I noticed my hand itch like hell. Visual inspection revealed a lot of small wounds that were cause of the itching. I tried washing them thoroughly and drying (no effect beyond temporary pleasure of hot water similar to scratching). I put on them some cream with steroids that supposedly helps with wound healing. This helped for few days. Then the problem reoccured. I applied…

what book was this?

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#358
post #125
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choose curiosity and patience over judgement and commands. Such a simple message, and yet in practice it's so easy to fall for the (illusion of?) control, thinking "there's no time for curiosity or patience here."

With a kid kicking and screaming violently at you, that's kinda hard. You are right though. Letting go of the urge to control my older son often helps more than tighten up.

A kicking and screaming kid should be rare though.
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