Thread: Loaded question survey

  1. #1
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    Loaded question survey

    I just received the Democratic Party Survey in the mail that:

    1. asked me for money, of course
    2. was so full of loaded questions as to be insulting


    They might as well have asked questions like:

    Will you fly on an airplane on your next vacation even though it could crash and if it does will kill you?
    ( ) Yes ( ) No ( ) Unsure

    Anyone else get this survey in the mail? Ridiculous.
    The survey also made it sound like that we should all breathe a sigh of relief now b/c the Democratic party is in control of the country now. Oh boy. Gives me the warm fuzzies just thinking about it.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 10-11-2009 at 10:11 PM.

  2. #2
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Yay, Politics! It sucks, I get similar spam -- usually asking me to boycott the move to make technical college cost, something I don't have a problem with since I pay vast amounts of money per year to go to Uni.

    Politics makes no sense. Speaking of which, lol'd at Obama getting a Nobel prize for peace -- something odd to give a man who runs a country that is at war (not that I'm opposed). Boost the economy with ordinance factories in my opinion.
    Last edited by zacs7; 10-11-2009 at 11:46 PM.

  3. #3
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    He was given the prize for what he is PLANNING to do.

    I plan to make some BIG discovery in theoretical physics, too. Can I get the prize first?

  4. #4
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyberfish
    He was given the prize for what he is PLANNING to do.
    I wonder if he gave rejecting the prize a thought... now if he fails, his failure would just be more epic.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

  5. #5
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    The Nobel Peace Prize lost all meaning when Al Gore won it for presenting global warming. I found a lot of irony in Gore being an alarmist and winning the Peace Prize. Besides Irony, we can all win the award in Potential. Yes we can. I'm mad that Obama won it before Energy, that's a rip off.

    /me shot

  6. #6
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    Anyone else get this survey in the mail? Ridiculous.
    I doubt I'll receive it since "on paper" I am a Republican (although I don't actually affiliate myself with any political party), and I assume the Democratic Party Survey only goes to those who are Democrats (on paper)?

    I wonder if he gave rejecting the prize a thought... now if he fails, his failure would just be more epic.
    I think rejecting the prize would have been the best option for Obama. It would have been the honest thing to do, since he hasn't actually done anything to truly deserve the prize (yet...I am not saying he won't sometime in the future), and it would have raised his public image in the eyes of those who are scoffing at this (lots of people).
    Last edited by DavidP; 10-12-2009 at 09:18 AM. Reason: grammatical correction
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  7. #7
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidP View Post
    (lots of people).
    Indeed, although I don't know anymore who's the most scoffed. If him or the Norwegian Committee. The whole institution is rapidly losing any last vestige of credibility. This Committee needs to change... like fast.

    Conversely, I heard an interesting comment the other day out of the mouth of the most unsuspecting person you can hope for; a old and grey, I-can-barely-read, fish vendor. And his words, which should probably deserve being inscribed were:

    "Are we in such desperate lack of heroes that the only person they can think of for the nobel peace prize is an American President?". I'm afraid the answer is yes.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 10-12-2009 at 05:07 PM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F.
    "Are we in such desperate lack of heroes that the only person they can think of for the nobel peace prize is an American President?". I'm afraid the answer is yes.
    I bet if you looked at the list of people who were considered for the prize, but passed over, you would find many heroes that are far more deserving. It's not that we have a lack of heroes, just a lack of brains in the people giving out the award.

    But yeah, Obama should have rejected the award.
    bit∙hub [bit-huhb] n. A source and destination for information.

  9. #9
    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    I didn't know about the peace prize bit.
    Quote Originally Posted by http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html
    ...The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons...
    What of bunch of dimwits. Award him for his 'vision' and 'efforts'??? I don't remember him doing squat - besides for raising taxes, incrementing troop count in Iraq, etc..
    Last edited by Yarin; 10-12-2009 at 05:27 PM.

  10. #10
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Well, the actual arguments for his award aren't necessarily bad. But like others have said these are all things that he has yet to actually do. For now they aren't anything more than good intentions. And Hell is paved out with good intentions.

    That said, I find his bridging between the western countries and the Muslim countries the strongest of the arguments for this award. Not so much the nuclear thing.

    But I personally feel uncomfortable with a peace nobel prize being given to someone who on the other hand actively promotes war in another country. Make no mistake, I'm all pro war in Afghanistan. I always felt that was the war we should all have been engaged in, and it annoys me to no end the near lack of support of the international community. But despite whatever motivations, no nobel peace prize should ever be given to someone actively promoting a state of war. It's goes beyond ridiculous. It becomes a lie.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #11
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    >> I don't remember him doing squat - besides for raising taxes, incrementing troop count in Iraq, etc.. <<
    I assume you're joking, but you never know. The two things you mention are the opposite of what he has done.


    As far as the peace prize goes, I don't think Obama should have been awarded it. While the reasoning behind the decision is laudable (Obama has actually had a tangible effect on the world despite not having done much yet), I don't like the idea of using the award to promote future peace as opposed to rewarding actual movement towards peace.

  12. #12
    The larch
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    Well he did call off the plans to build rocket defense systems in Poland, leading to Russia taking back the promise to move its rockets to Kaliningrad (Köningsberg). But I guess now Denmark is a less safe place to live in.
    I might be wrong.

    Thank you, anon. You sure know how to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.
    Quoted more than 1000 times (I hope).

  13. #13
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    The peace prize bit is very disturbing but I, too, lost faith in the credibility of the award when it was awarded to Gore so I cannot say it comes as a total surprise. Obama IMO should reject the award for there are many out there that are far more deserving of it - not to short circuit his plans or somehow demean their effectiveness...but they are future plans and have not yet come to fruition so how can you award someone for what they plan to do?

    As for the survey, I'm not sure I'm registered as a Democrat here but I'm also not sure I'm registered as a Republican. I've sort of lost faith in either party to bring relevant issues and problems to the table, discuss them as adults, and come up with intelligent solutions. Really all I see is partisan bickering about this or that and it quickly becomes tiresome. I believe we have arrived at the point in American politics that no matter how well meant campaign promises are at the time there is no way they could ever be fulfilled. I think the first year of being President is probably an enormous wake-up call to how business is really done in day to day government as opposed to what a candidate and his campaign staff may 'think' is done. After all you are campaigning for an office you have never held and making promises to change the way business is done when you have never held the position. That would be like stating in an interview how you were going to change the way the company writes and develops code and layout all kinds of grandiose plans yet have never spent one full day working at the company to know if any of your ideas would even work.

    Maybe since I'm not registered for either one they are trying to get my vote. Admirable I guess since the Republican party has sent me nothing of the sort. Not admirable though in the sense that the survey literally insulted my intelligence.
    Last edited by VirtualAce; 10-13-2009 at 08:33 PM.

  14. #14
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserlight View Post
    I wonder if he gave rejecting the prize a thought... now if he fails, his failure would just be more epic.
    Which was exactly why he was given the prize. It's an extremely clever plan, actually. The prize sets some extremely high expectations for Obama which he will now have to attempt to fulfil. The prize was not about what Obama has done, or was planning to do. The prize was about what the Nobel commission would like to COERCE Obama into doing.

    It's a devilish plan, and one that might actually work.
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  15. #15
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Now, THAT a scary thought!
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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