I think if you're going to school and refusing to put forth the work to succeed ( do homework and study, for instance ) perhaps you should stop, it doesn't seem like its a good fit for you. Either that or step up your game so you're not wasting time and money. There's a lot that one can learn during their time at University, there's also a lot of time one can waste.
That's nice. If there were a competition of who could grasp the main point from this article the quickest without even reading it you might be in the running for first.
You guess wrong - demand will always be high. For the most part, the people who can easily get hookups on Tinder are not the same people who would be paying for sex.
Agreed. The text of the article simply should have been one word, 'Because'. Trying to make reason of the nature of absurdity seems fairly absurd itself.
Because you don't want the people in your life knowing that you pay money to manipulate and deceive those around you? Seems smart to keep that a secret.
[edited because I was unnecessarily brusque.] It was a practical joke, pretty much at my own expense, and I told my friends afterwards. The "joke" is that two very attractive women fighting over me is very unbelievable.
By greatest marketing concept you mean a quick and easy way to make money, yeah? I wouldn't be so hard on yourself for not having thought of it. Personally, I believe humanity would be at a net gain had no one thought of or executed on this idea.
You realize this has real and tangible value to lots of folks, right?
Despite spending the vast majority of my life on the Internet, every single day I am disappointed by how judgmental and incapable of empathy folks are who say things to other people online.
Jesus, put yourself in someone else's shoes just this once. I wouldn't use this service, and I don't know anyone who would, but to say that Invisible Boyfriend is a net loss to humanity requires a level of hubris that, even today, is stunning to find on the Internet.
This is a life/death thing to some LGBT folks, who if outed face physical harm from their own families and friends. Helping someone like that stay in the closet until they can get to safety is a service Invisible Boyfriend adds to this world. Who the fuck are you to say that's not a value-add?
I was right there with you until you brought up the LGBT bit. This service has no real safety benefits for members of the queer community who are in danger. Full stop..
Queer person here. This company is clearly riding on the coat tails of the community and doesn't give two shits about us. They are simply marketing themselves this way to tap into a market of closeted people and they decided to play this up to boost revenue.
If they were actually concerned with the safety and wellbeing of LGBT folk they would create something that reflects the needs of communities and it would take into account how complex we are. They would not push something so simplistic on us claiming it's good for us without ever asking themselves if this is true or if their idea is actually a positive contribution to the community. I'm not sorry to say this: LGBT issues are not so simple that they can be solved with such quick fixes because a handful of community members find such fixes momentarily useful. This company might tangentially help a few people but realistically it might also make a lot of scenarios worse. More credibility to closet stories = less people out = less safety due to smaller numbers; more attention drawn to fake SMS relationship = higher chance of forced outing; transaction history on a teenager's bank account = higher chance of forced outing to parents = higher chance of homelessness and/or abuse; only some people can afford $25/mo. = separation of LGB community by class = fragmentation of community; doesn't consider the entire queer community = less solidarity; etc.
Also companies should stop saying LGBT when really they mean "some lesbians & some gays & maybe some bisexuals but not any trans* folk and definitely no one who doesn't have money".
In my mind there are two major ways you could keep a queer person in danger safe: 1. educate the would-be aggressors so their bigotry goes away, or 2. keep them physically safe from harm (guards, locks, etc.). This service does neither of those things.
In fact, maybe in some ways it's worse; some people may _never_ get to a point in their life where it is safe to come out. This is sort of like saying to them "you can't have a real SO because it's not safe; but here, have this fake one to tide you over". Similar to "you can't get married, but you can have this civil union".
"Your mind" completely ignores non US-cultures, so "your mind" needs to expand a bit.
Pretending like a man in Iran or Russia can come out as gay and be safe isn't going to change the immutable fact that a gay man in either of those two countries is in serious danger simply by being a gay man.
I don't think laziness or a lack of desire to learn java script is the driving force for these projects. Rather, its simply for people who prefer a facade of strong types over their java script.
What do strong types get you? Being I write a bunch of C# at work and almost all JavaScript at home I find types very limiting, so I still don't get why?
When I implement a type zoo that models the problem I am solving I do not need to spend as much time reasoning about the semantics (with a good IDE) and the compiler warns me if I've done something odd and won't run the program if I've done something wrong.
With a strong typesystem I can first figure out what I need to do, then write it (like a fews of hundreds of lines), compile it and be fairly confident that the program runs almost correctly. Static typesystem does not help with the bugs that have to do with bugs in algorithms (wrong iteration order etc.) but it let's me concentrate on those parts mostly.
Static typing also functions as a self documentation - I see the intended program flow from the type signatures and do not need other means necessarily to figure out what the program flow is.
To me types are like lego bricks and dynamic languages are like ducktape - both have their uses.
I love it when I can get the computer to hold my hand and limit my actions. Personally I feel the limits of my cognition and enjoy when the computer assists in proofing the correctness of my programs.
That way I can be more sure I don't do anything that breaks the program logic and that developers that come after me remain within the boundaries of correctness when modifying my code. Types don't help in design but they help in forming a coherent whole.
I've figured out there are two constraint systems I can use to effectively write correct programs. One of them is a typesystem and the second is set theory.
Granted, the most mainstream statically typed languages come with so much syntactical baggage and lack type hinting (C++, Java, C#) that they can effectively hide the elegance of types as a problem modeling tool.
Types can be used just as a non-value adding anal-retentive bureaucratic baggage but that's not how they should be used.
I'm professionally mostly a C++ programmer but did not really 'get it' until I familiarized myself with functional languages (Ocaml, F#) which helped me understand how to actually leverage a typesystem to help me write correct code instead of 'just using typedeclarations because the compiler is too stupid to figure out what I want to do'. To be precise, the languages themselves did not really teach me that much but the learning materials I used with those language did.
When I need to do something small data processing in a jiffy I usually pick Python. For small programs few-liners in dynamic languages are usually a win.
>One of them is a typesystem and the second is set theory.
What do you mean with set theory? I'm asking because languages like Ceylon and Whiley have union and intersection types which are basicially set theory.
Sorry, that was a bit odd way of putting it, perhaps.
What I mean that I first model a particular problem on pen and paper as a group of set operations and identities and then implement that using container operations. I.e. a set as a container, or a particular subset of the elements in the container. I totally depends on the program whether that simplifies things or not.
But for instance, I usually find that rather than adding lots of state variables to entities I model state as those objects belonging to various sets. I.e. store object Id in a list pertaining to a particular property.
This way subsystems can be implemented in a non-invasive, and extensible way. The set operators (union, difference etc.) do not need to be implemented explicitly, rather just figure out what is the most simple isomorphic routine to compute the output for that particular operation.
I find Typescript catches all sorts of typos that get missed in pure JS because I don't have 100% code coverage tests. Sure a JSLinter might catch some of those, but it won't find mis-spelled method names.
Other benefits include not having to remember the 'interesting' rules around 'this' in pure JS (though that occassionally slips through in libraries that use it). Having saner (to my eyes) syntax for modules and encapsulation. And having intellisense support in Visual Studio reduces the effort of writing the code.
Every language works pretty well for solo personal projects. It's when you scale up to dozens of team members and millions of lines of code that some things don't work as well.
I'm sorry, are you hoping I provide an all encompassing answer that convinces you of its usefulness? I can't provide that. Like I said, its simply a matter of personal preference. You find types limiting, others find them helpful.
Just to clarify, the original response was to the original posters claim that God does not exist. My request for him to present his proof to me was not meant as an open attack on atheism or even a critique of it, I was simply speaking to and about one persons beliefs. In any event, I begin to suspect I should have said nothing with this being such an emotional issue for people.
Possibly because you missed the sarcasm/joke nature of my comment and gave a serious reply. I wasn't defining atheism as faith in no-God.
I was digging at the idea that someone would accept a claim on Faith, then demand evidence before giving up the idea, and how that is inconsistent. If someone can faith into an idea without evidence it should be equally easy to faith out of it with no evidence.
That it's not easy, is interesting.
Nothing -> belief in God, costs little and gains much.
Belief in God -> no belief, costs much and gains little.
Where by costs and gains, I include social acceptance, eternal life, favourable relations with a powerful being, forgiveness of sins, approved life habits, connections to history and social groups, etc.
It's not a Boolean. Or at least, from inside a mind it doesn't feel like a Boolean.
I feel like its important to point out that having faith in a creator is not exclusive to having a belief in things like eternal life, favourable relations with a powerful being, etc. etc. People seem to easily conflate faith in a creator with practicing a mainstream religion.
edit: I would also like to add, although I already said it, that I believe both of these opinions regarding the creator are acts of faith, to absolutely say there is not one and to absolutely say there is, and if someone where to have made a statement as if a creators existence was a sure thing I would have called them out just the same.
I'd agree, it takes faith to know that there was no creator of the world, the same faith it takes to know there was. Just to clarify, I'm not arguing there's proof that 'God' does exist, I'm arguing there's no proof that 'God' doesn't exist. The original comparison falls short, the world can be proven to be round, not flat.
edit: a thanks in advance to all you enlightened fervent atheists for the down votes.
It only takes courage for those who live in areas that are indoctrinated with dense religious ideology's who will suffer consequences for their actions. For most in the western world, it is not such a hard thing to identify oneself with.
edit: original response claimed it took courage to doubt the existence of a creator. It has since edited out to claim it simply takes intellectual curiosity. I would argue that the same intellectual curiosity could have the end result of someone having a belief in a singular creator of reality.
> I would argue that the same intellectual curiosity could have the end result of someone having a belief in a singular creator of reality.
Possible, but not likely, given how many intellectually curious people have independently reinvented atheism but no religion has been independently reinvented.
Religion and belief in a singular creator are not the same thing. Furthermore, I don't really believe you have any credible way of producing a valid number of 'intellectually curious' individuals who have made the choice to believe in a singular creator versus not.
edit: misunderstanding of mutually exclusive and added some more words.
It's far more likely to be the other way round. Atheism was only really formed about 300 years ago, and by that time the world had been explored and the printing press had been invented. In contrast, all of the ancient religions, formed in completely disconnected continents, had the notion of a creator at their centre.
Agnosticism is a belief that we can't possibly know whether there's a supernatural. I don't hold that view. My view is a skepticism of the supernatural, which is atheism.
