Crikey. It’s like a Neal Stephenson novel: “The Whigs are returning to British politics. We are going into the 2015 General Election to provide a fresh choice to the British people, and to show that everyone can get involved in politics. Our campaign will be positive and optimistic, both online and in the streets. The Whigs are back. Come and join the party.” (tags: whigpoliticselectionhistoryukgeneral-election)
Is there a response to Hume’s “sensible knave”, who does evil only when he can be reasonably sure of not getting found out? (tags: david-humehumemoralityknavephilosophyglaucon)
Prof Adam Tomkins explains the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. Points out that, while a defeat which is not a motion of no confidence does not allow an early election, nothing compels a Prime Minister to stay in office: Labour could hold the threat of Milliband’s resignation (and the Tories being invited to form a government) over the SNP in order to pass a budget, for example. (tags: constitutiongovernmentpoliticselectionconfidence)
Even the broadsheets don’t bother to hide the fact that they’re rooting for the Tories because their oligarch owners told them to (except the Graun, of course). No one in my liberal bubble actually reads print newspapers, they just share links to the Graun’s “Comment is Dumb” section on Facebook. Still, I might not be typical, so it’s all a bit worrying. (tags: pressnewspapersjournalismpoliticsbritainelection)
Make replacement in Python which finds file dependencies by using strace to work out which files the compiler reads. (tags: pythontoolsbuildmakeprogramming)
Things to bear in mind before starting on your quest to replace Make, especially if you’re writing your own replacement. (tags: makebuildprogrammingtools)
John Regehr and friends note that C compilers aggressive optimising around use of constructs the spec says are “undefined” can lead to unexpected behaviour. They propose a friendly C dialect where compilers would produce unspecified values in response to use of these constructs, but would not feel free to make demons fly out of your nose. (tags: Cprogramminglanguagesoftware-engineering)
This, from Al Razi of Ex-Muslim Forum, seems a sensible response, although as the worlds only impartial observer, I’d say that both the class of the victims and the race of both victims and perpetrators contributed to the horrors being ignored for so long. The Guardian will only talk about the former and the Telegraph about the latter, I suspect. (tags: rotherhamabusereligionislamnewsmulticulturalism)
"And in one of those dreaded realizations pilots are advised to avoid, that insulation between cockpit calm and atmospheric anarchy looks thin indeed. An extrapolated horror: the riveted aluminum planks bending apart, the wind rushing in, explosive depressurization, death, the first airliner — no, the first vehicle — in history to crash because of an overflowing toilet." This guy tells a good story. Via marnanel (tags: flyingtoiletpilotaircraftfunny)
"But our brains are fooling us. Even though this will be in the news for weeks, we should recognize this for what it is: a rare event. That’s the very definition of news: something that is unusual — in this case, something that almost never happens. " (tags: terrorismbruce-schneiersecurity)