Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 380 Editor's Choice: 40
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I didn't realize you were a conspiracy theorist
[Read the article: Did a coding error contribute to the credit crunch?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Newsflash for you and naked capitalist - in the programming community bugs are typically and sarcastically referred to as "features".
I don't propose to waste space explaining how computer programs are created. There are entire books that discuss how various people think they should be created (which are rarely actually slavishly followed) and there are legions of us who know how it is actually done and most of us have opinions of how to do it better. You can take the following points to the bank:
1. Bugs are not inserted in computer programs. Their existence reflects a failure in testing regardless of how rigorous your testing is.
2. A bug reflects the consequences of a set of inputs that causes the program to give the incorrect answer. Most testing involves feeding inputs to the program for which you know the correct answer and seeing if the program gives you that answer.
3. Bugs frequently arise from the simplest of programming errors. Using the front end of a conditional branching statement, you might say IF X > Y THEN, instead of IF X >= Y THEN (read greater than or equal to). If X and Y are equal in the first instance, program execution will not proceed to the THEN statement because the comparison fails; it will proceed somewhere else (usually an ELSE statement). That may not be what you want.
4. Bugs do not arise from a flawed algorithm (model) but from the flawed implementation of an algorithm. If your algorithm is flawed, you've got another problem and it's not a bug.
5. Bugs are not deliberate.
You are welcome to your conspiracy theories that the rating agencies tweaked their ratings to keep their customers if you like. And if the agencies created their ratings manually, you might be right for all I know. If the agencies were using automated tools to create their ratings and you are suggesting that they "tweaked" their tools to give them the answers they wanted, you need to warn your readers that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
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I agree with you but....
[Read the article: The California marriage decision and basic civics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sometimes courts "interpret" constitutional clauses in new and interesting ways. When I heard the decision, I said the same thing you just did. Plausibly less elegantly and without the op cits but the same thing.
As long as you're handing out civics lessons, you might want to point out that the real squidge in judicial decisions is how they read (or don't) applicable constitutional clauses. Weather they take the clause as written or they choose to decide that, regardless of what's written, the clause means something other than what's actually written.
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A few comments
[Read the article: Yours in holy "manimony"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. Marriage has its roots as a financial institution but not the one you suggest. Early on (Roman times and later) marriage was something only the nobility and gentry class did. It's purpose was to delineate what everybody got up front and where the money went when either of the spousal units expired - something that happened a lot earlier than it does now. Common folk didn't bother to get married in the sense we have today. The Catholic Church couldn't get any traction with their idea of marriage until around 1100.
2. The time frame for the woman to be considered "chattel" would have been several hundred years earlier than the 1800s. And the term chattel is misleading. You couldn't literally buy and/or sell your wife which is and was an important and specific legal meaning of the word chattel. So husbands never "owned" their wives in the same sense that they may have owned a goat or a cow.
3. The original purpose of alimony was to give the woman who had spent her time caring for the children and the household and who, therefore, had not had a regular job a chance to transition into the wage earning class. The male wouldn't need such a thing because he already had a job and had been working presumably for some time. I am uncertain what it has morphed into but I find the idea that either spousal unit should be forking over cash to the other spousal unit simply because they make more money than the other abhorent.
4. Within my living memory (but probably not yours), the state took your marriage vows seriously. Prior to the advent of the so-called "no fault" divorce of the '60s, in order to divorce you had to either (a) have your spouse's consent or (b) be able to prove that he or she had broken their vows, i.e. by way of adultery or some other egregious thing. If you couldn't get (a) or prove (b), the state would not dissolve your marriage. This is why places like Las Vegas were so important - they had different rules.
5. Originally, the state had nothing to do with marriage. The church recorded your marriage and controlled everything marriage. Roles are now reversed. The church is irrelevant and the state controls everything marriage.
6. For the woman who was whining that she felt financially raped, all I can say is "Breaks my fuckin' heart, lady. Now you know what it feels like." Having been through divorce myself, I know what it feels like. Most of the marriage laws were written, as you say, with the underlying assumption that the male would be making more than the female. With those assumptions being overturned more often today, we may see a resurgence of 19th century (and earlier) attitudes about marrying someone other than your social equal - it rarely happened.
I view this as the down side of equality. Women should be able to be whatever they want to be (including homemaker if that's their choice) with, as the phrase goes, all the rights and responsibilities thereunto appertaining. If the circumstances are right, paying alimony is one of those responsibilities.
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Maybe
[Read the article: Obama, Clinton's record campaign finances overwhelm Excel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They should consider putting it in an open file format that can be read by something other than Micro$oft's weak assed products.
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Did you really have to include the picture?
[Read the article: "Ugh" of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't the text bad enough?
Why isn't he in jail already, already.