So I tried searching for "We Play Civ"...

[Lorizael]

If you were actually a lawyer you would know that:

a) suicide isn't a crime
b) you can't get sued for a single phone call to somebody's house in which you tell the truth
c) there is such a thing as a de minimis argument

Er. I'm an editor.

Also, are you suggesting that the thousands and thousands of unpaid hours generated by workers on Apolyton are less significant than some guy who might be contemplating making a poor decision with regards to his life?

[KrazyHorse]

The C preprocessor is orders of magnitude faster than a C or C++ compiler, especially with optimization turned on.

I was implying that the calculations would all be done in the preprocessor via ifdefs and flags.

[Asher]

Can all of the arts people please stop talking so the science people can talk more?

I'm looking at you Lori.

[Asher]

I was implying that the calculations would all be done in the preprocessor via ifdefs and flags.

If you're calculating it in the preprocessor, you'd only have static data.

So what's the point?

[KrazyHorse]

Er. I'm an editor.

Also, are you suggesting that the thousands and thousands of unpaid hours generated by workers on Apolyton are less significant than some guy who might be contemplating making a poor decision with regards to his life?

a) It's not the guy who's going to be making a poor decision
b) Then maybe you should stop claiming that there will be liabilities where there aren't
c) One phone call < thousands of phone calls
d) I might simply have a very low opinion of the value of the time of polytubbies

[Kuciwalker]

a) It's not credible that his statements to us regarding his feelings on the matter are less honest than his statements to his girlfriend are

Sure it is, especially when you consider that he may not KNOW his feelings.

b) You're making the same error in reasoning that the anti-DP people were a week or so ago

No. For one thing, in this case neither the harm nor the probabilities can be reasonably quantified, and the two harms are not necessarily equal or even directly comparable without more information.

c) Expressing a desire for anonymity is indicative of nothing more than his desire to continue misleading his girlfriend

Alternatively, it could be a desire to:
troll us with no consequence
or
get real advice about things even when he's unsure of his feelings
or
get real advice about whether something he's considering doing is wrong

Or most likely, all four of those.

[KrazyHorse]

If you're calculating it in the preprocessor, you'd only have static data.

So what's the point?

Duh. You insert the initial conditions in a file which you pipe into the source file.

[Kuciwalker]

I was implying that the calculations would all be done in the preprocessor via ifdefs and flags.

All the preprocessor does is textual substitution on the code before the compiler runs. Moreover, it's not Turing-complete and can't accept arbitrary binary data, so as Asher said you can't really implement that kind of algorithm in it.

[Kuciwalker]

Duh. You insert the initial conditions in a file which you pipe into the source file.

Can your algorithms really run on a finite state machine?

[KrazyHorse]

No. For one thing, in this case neither the harm nor the probabilities can be reasonably quantified, and the two harms are not necessarily equal or even directly comparable without more information.

I think they can be reasonably quantified (via handwaving). This is what I do to make most of my decisions in life, Kuci...and it's also what you do.

Again, your argument here seems to be that I can do no harm by not doing anything. But this is not compelling. Sins of omission and commission are equivalent to me.

[KrazyHorse]

All the preprocessor does is textual substitution on the code before the compiler runs. Moreover, it's not Turing-complete and can't accept arbitrary binary data, so as Asher said you can't really implement that kind of algorithm in it.

Explain why not? All you need is a large-but-finite number of if statements and flags, no?

[Kuciwalker]

No. For one thing, in this case neither the harm nor the probabilities can be reasonably quantified, and the two harms are not necessarily equal or even directly comparable without more information.

I think they can be reasonably quantified (via handwaving). This is what I do to make most of my decisions in life, Kuci...and it's also what you do.

Again, your argument here seems to be that I can do no harm by not doing anything. But this is not compelling. Sins of omission and commission are equivalent to me.

No, my argument is that you have very little knowledge of the situation and there's the potential that EITHER course of action could result in harm, so there is substantial risk. Even if you judge that the expected outcome of intervention is positive, it isn't (in my judgement) worth the risk.

[Lorizael]

a) It's not the guy who's going to be making a poor decision

Yes. But your imperative to act in this decision should be based on the degree of wrongness of the person contemplating a poor decision.

b) Then maybe you should stop claiming that there will be liabilities where there aren't

This isn't my primary argument. I'll concede that the risk of litigation is probably negligible.

c) One phone call < thousands of phone calls

This is the real crux of the issue. Your laziness far outweighs your sense of morality. Perhaps our indifference outweighs our morality?

d) I might simply have a very low opinion of the value of the time of polytubbies

It's the value of the time of all the companies we're stealing from that you need to take into account, not our time.

[Jon Miller]

ROOT was written by physicists, therefore it sucks by definition.

Plenty of languages with good plotting support (Matlab, Mathematica, [Python?]) have C language bindings.

There are many terrible things about ROOT, one of the most terrible is that it is built around a C interpreter.

However, it has fabulous support for plotting, histograms, fitting, and the like. I definitely stopped using gnuplot when I started using it. I have occasionally still used mathematica, but generally can do more involved numerical stuff faster in ROOT.

Maybe if I was more of a Mathematica Samurai I would find it as good (for everything but heavy data analysis).

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Explain why not? All you need is a large-but-finite number of if statements and flags, no?

Does your program ever loop?