Liberals, conservatives, ALUs, and 32-bit floating point numbers

[seasleepy]

So, my computer architecture test went relatively well.  I'm hoping for a good grade in there.  The only question I'm concerned about is the last once because it was pretty open-ended and I didn't have much to back myself up with.  Oh well, I think I did okay.

Other thing: As I'm getting roundly ignored at the moment, and this is something I think is important, I think I'm going to stick a post of mine from bn.net in here.

It's worth pointing out that liberal and conservative *are* worthwhile things to mention in political debate, and they can apply to anybody (with quantifiers).

However, the misrepresentation of these words as synonyms for Democrat and Republican is dangerous because you imply things that are false. Additionally, using them as blanket labels incorporates several of the meanings of these two words and essentially equates them all.

There is a difference beween being conservative in upholding traditional values and being conservative in desiring moderation in spending, for instance. (Currently, the Republicans are all for the first and not so much for the second.)

Actually, the definitions for conservatism and liberalism show just how much these words have been twisted in current public usage.

Conservatism is defined simply as preferring the status quo and upholding traditional institutions and values. Okay, this fits somewhat with the current Republican party (although I don't know why party members would be okay with defining themselves by this).

Liberalism is defined as favoring laissez-faire, individual autonomy, and protection from arbitrary authority. In all honesty, this is traditionally rather opposite from many Democratic platform planks (Democrats tend to emphasize increasing social welfare programs, regulating business, etc).

By calling someone conservative, you are implying that they are unwilling to change.
By calling someone liberal, you are implying that they value freedom and individualism.

I know which one most Republicans would prefer to be called.

Comments

[hanrow.livejournal.com]

I can see why it's being ignored -- posts that require people to think and examine themselves do tend to be ignored. Because, it's harder.

That's when you start beating them over the head with a big stick. (8-)

JGH

[golfballgirl.livejournal.com]

I think it's less that you are being ignored, and more that no one can find something in that post with which to argue. You weren't controversial enough for that board...and this is coming from a chick whose posts are generally ignored or tragically misunderstood these days.

I rarely post to those things anymore. It doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever, and we've got way too many members who would rather name-call than actually discuss.

[seasleepy.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the time, your posts get misunderstood because you're trying to use humor and sarcasm with people who have to be beat over the head to understand just about anything. ;)
I'm a wuss and tend to ignore those folks in favor of people who will at least get what I'm talking about.
Notice, for example, that I completely ignored the original topic of that thread. (Bleh. Rhetoric. And poorly written rhetoric at that.) :)

There are still people who would rather discuss (obviously, since you're one of them <g>), just the signal-to-noise ratio is high at the moment.

You know what I think would kick ass? A moderated debate thread. Have a different topic every week or so...let topics repeat as necessary. That way you could have a good discussion, but not have all the stupid contentless posts (kick them back with a note explaining why they're not getting posted, or something). Use the Argument Clinic sketch as a checklist of what not to do. ;)

[golfballgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. The original post. Where to begin? It spurred another of my, "I'll let someone else field this," moments. Just too easy...and I'm too bitchy.

I think a moderated debate would be a good idea, but I have a feeling it would cause Excedrin headaches this big for the unfortunate moderator.

[int.livejournal.com]

This is totally unrelated to this post but:

I remember reading in deepestsender ages ago that you had a Firefox installation on a USB memory stick. How'd you do it? I keep trying to set the location of the profile directory but it wipes it all out for some reason after logging off/on.

[seasleepy.livejournal.com]

Hmm....odd. I've never had problems with it losing profiles except for it being confused about what drive to look for them on when the USB stick was on a different drive letter than normal.

I just "installed" from zip. I used to start it with -p all the time so as to avoid the aforementioned confusion, but now I just use this batch script (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=377398#377398), which takes care of that problem.

I bet you've done it already, but try unzipping to a new folder on the USB stick and starting it for the first time on the command line with -p to make sure it's really making a new profile and putting it on the stick properly (it'll try to put it in the default profile folder, which means it'll use your regular profile if you have Firefox on that computer already). If you get it working, the batch script's really handy, particularly if you're using machines with different configurations on the same Windows profile.

Yeah, not much help probably, but maybe there's something you hadn't tried there. :)