Quibbles and bits.
Python is the only language where I write logic and then massage data structures and outputs + design 'cooler' ways to create these for an extra hour -- a week after it is in production.
I wasn't really considering the repeated genearation on `io` in the `while` example...so now I see a clear benefit to the syntax. I guess I would say I am now lukewarm about adding this additional operator. It makes at least one logical structure nicer...but I wouldn't have been heartbroken if it wasn't accepted though.
You don't even have to fake a QR code to get into a lounge: There was a case in Germany a few years ago where someone bought a fully flexible business class ticket, used it to enter the business lounge in Munich and then rebooked it to another day from inside the lounge.
After doing that 36 times, Lufthansa noticed it and sent him a bill over 1980€ (55€ per lounge visit). He refused to pay, got sued and lost.
I keep meaning to do that someday, just so I can say I've done it, but if you think about it the hassle of traveling to the airport, going through security, paying $12 for a cocktail in a sterile room full of strangers, etc. would probably make for an overall crappy experience.
Edit: Oh, now that I clicked the link I see he got to eat for free. Hmmm...
Also useful if you have somewhere to fly on an economy ticket. Noteworthy is that often the alcohol is free, along with the food. Having flown business on a couple of trips I can tell you with 100% certainty that I'd rather wait in the lounge than out at the gates. Because, beds & showers.
FWIW, Emirates has free Alcohol on their flights for economy passengers. Don't know about the selection as I tend to sleep most of the flight, but they have at least red & white wine and Jack Daniels.
If you're going to do it, do it properly and get a first-class ticket on Lufthansa. At their hub in Frankfurt, first-class passengers get their own private terminal. Here's a sample:
It's quite nice. I scored that on an award ticket back when getting Lufthansa first class on United awards was easy to do. Being driven from the lounge to your plane in a Porsche is a pretty great way to start your flight.
Yes. AIUI, German law seems to draw heavily from the school of thought that "obviously you're not supposed to do that, jerk, now pay up". American law prefers to say, "oh, crud, you caught us. Add it to the ever-lengthening terms of service (that no one reads) so we can prove you agreed you wouldn't do it."
It goes both ways though. You can use the intent of a law as a defense in court. It gives more power to judges to interpret things, which can be seen as a disadvantage. Overall I'd still rather have that - in the American legal system I feel like the law being a sword of damocles over my head, constantly waiting for me to inadvertently walk into a trap, while with a European civil law system I get the feeling that the system works for me as long as I don't have bad intents (i.e. as long as my inner moral matches that of the culture I'm in).
Putting aside the obviously questionable ethics, this seems like a very poor use of a person's time...spending all this time mucking around with ticket changes, all just to get into a lounge.
Yeah, lounges are nice (I used to frequent the Emirates business class lounge in Dubai), but modern airports are more than comfortable for a <6hr layover.
My family spent 8+ hours in Atlanta airport, after getting up at 3AM in Kansas. We found an empty terminal with no scheduled flights for a few hours and had a decent nap.
No they aren't. You can choose to buy refundable business fares, much as you can buy refundable economy fares. But the default is non-refundable tickets with hundreds of dollars high change fees.
Some business travellers do buy mostly refundable tickets, but they specifically have to select them regardless of class of travel. Tickets bought on day of travel also tend to be refundable since that's often the only fare that can be sold close to departure.
Yes, but if you're keeping the ticket active so you can access the lounge, you have that several thousand dollars still tied up in the ticket. You could just buy a yearly pass for a small fraction of that, so it makes no sense.
Since most - if not all - airport lounges are behind security, you'd still need a valid boarding pass (and thus a ticket) to be able to reach them. And even if you don't, most lounges require that you present a boarding pass for same day travel together with your paid membership card to get access.
In this case, I assume the goal was to eventually cancel and fully refund the dollars in the ticket so that all lounge access could be had for free.
I know people who have done this too, just not abusing it like that guy. If it's a 100% refundable ticket you can get into the airport and so long as you reschedule or cancel before boarding you're good.
You have to keep in mind that OpenSSL runs several Perl scripts as part of its build process. And it's one of these scripts that generates a header which defines the cflags variable:
I can compile the previous versions. I've used the same script for several years, and its not until this version today I have an issue. When seeing the issue, I actually tried compiling the old versions again and those still worked.
It would seem odd if they actually change the build process in a security patch, right? The instructions on how to build OpenSSL on Windows has not been changed in 2 years.
> It would seem odd if they actually change the build process in a security patch, right?
No release of OpenSSL has ever been "the previous release plus the minimal patches for a security fix". This isn't a security patch. It's a new release that happens to include some security patches.
It's a security patch in the sense that the only way to get the security patches is to install the new version.
But thanks for the info. That seems like a pretty bad practice when it comes to a lib such as OpenSSL. Having to do changes to the build process to integrate an urgent security fix seems less than optimal.
I understand that people get a little passionate about their fields of study, but the tone of Aaronson's response is wildly inappropriate. Phrases like "a common novice mistake" and "as if he just emerged from a cave" are unnecessary and entirely condescending. This style of discourse fosters a really awful and exclusive atmosphere, and I wish it wasn't the norm.
I don't know this guy at all, and I'm guessing he's pretty respected in his field, but at the end of the day, he doesn't have to be a jerk to get his point across.
I find the dismissive tone and holier and thou attitude that Aaronson has garnered more that bit of notoriety for really detrimental to the growth of both our collective understanding of QM and our understanding of computability. if knowledge is truly power, lording your knowledge over a peer is paramount to oppression. A bit dramatic, of course, but not completely without warrant.
This maybe a bit of a kumbaya, everyone hold hands argument, but I'm going to make it. Its not as if the number of people that have the ambition to collect the wealth of knowledge required to characterize(even incorrectly) any perspective overlap between computation and quantum is exactly a huge working set. I don't consider it reasonable to shit on someone's work so indiscriminately in this space where its rather hard to be right and quite easy to be wrong.
Prima facie, the paper was accepted for publish in a peer reviewed journal (Physical Science International Journal), and. from all the terse looks of it I've encountered, is likely erroneous on a fundamental level. Highlighting this is not meant to imply that peer-review is a good/bad measure of academic muster, but rather an indicator of how complex comprehending and qualifying such theories might be.
My point is, even in its incorrectness, a bravo for thinking so wildly is likely in order.
Disclaimer: I'm a quantum chemist and computer scientist. I'm also not the biggest fan of Scott Aaronson, so I might be harder on him that is likely deserved.
I can see how it can be read that way, though you should also to look at this from his perspective (or at least my guess as to a possible perspective).
The internet (and the field) is flooded with nonsense papers that don't respect the hard work of others. A lot of them really do come from these "common novice mistakes". The authors are taking very superficial views of complexity theory and physics against the advice of researchers in those fields. This particular one hasn't, but a lot of them have incredibly bad and egotistical attitudes. I think researchers see this as incredibly insulting, ignorant, and a severe lack of humility. People aren't showing enough respect and care to this field.
This wouldn't be such a problem if it didn't happen more often than not. On top of that, these poor findings end up swarming around the media and dilute the field. Look, Aaronson is a well known guy who has spent a lot of time trying to point out and explain these mistakes. Though people, including pseudo-scientists, completely ignore him. They even start fights with him. He and others get spammed with this stuff weekly if not daily. For him, I bet it's simply too much to ignore.
It sounds like the paper is pretty much gibberish from a scientific perspective, which makes sense.
It was, however, an interesting thought for me, and brought up a lot of classic philosophy questions about the nature of our universe, e.g. why would it matter if anyone could calculate it or not? If it was true would it lend evidence to a 'universe is computer-like' model?
Yes, he will slow down the higher he gets. What's driving him up is the difference in density between the Helium inside his balloon and the air outside. The atmosphere becomes less dense with increasing altitude, so the density difference, and thus the buoyancy decreases as well.
Not sure about ascending too fast, I'd imagine at high speeds there's a risk of damaging the balloon due to wind.
