"Closing that internet up in some way"

I can't help but remember the following scenes from The IT Crowd in light of Trump's recent remarks about "the internet":

What is the single most influential book every programmer should read?

This post is dated, but it contains some classics - and not just in programming either!

For an intro to CS, check out Composing Programs via CS 61A at UC Berkeley. It looks like it's based on SICP, and taught in Python 3.

Although I would've preferred Scheme. Not that language ultimately matters a great deal. It's about understanding the underlying concepts. In this respect, I'd say SICP aka the wizard book is the answer inasmuch as there is a single answer.

As a side note, I hope Berkeley hasn't done what MIT has done (which in many ways seems to mirror how many medical school curricula have moved from traditional to more integrated problem-based learning or PBL):

The discussion has been sharper recently because MIT underwent a major redesign of their lower division EECS curriculum. People outside MIT tend to summarize that redesign as "MIT decided to switch to Python," but that's not a perceptive description. What MIT decided was to move from a curriculum organized around topics (programming paradigms, then circuits, then signal processing, then architecture) to a curriculum organized around applications (let's build and program a robot; let's build and program a cell phone). Everything about their courses had to be reorganized; the choice of programming language was the least of those decisions. Their new approach is harder to teach; for one thing, each course requires a partnership of Electrical Engineering faculty and Computer Science faculty. Perhaps in time the applications-first approach will spark a revolution as profound as the one that followed SICP, but it hasn't happened yet.

(Source)

Which programming language should I learn first?

There's a lot to disagree with (e.g. it's one-sided in favor of Python; I haven't rubbed elbows with software engineers, programmers, and developers let alone worked in the industry in years, but I'd suspect in general the money is mainly in C# and Java). Still, it's kind of fun to consider.

Would Muhammad have approved of the Islamic State?

A new series from Jonathan Mclatchie:

Part 1: The Meccan Years

Part 2: Influence in Medina

Obsessed with Israel

According to the father of San Bernardino jihadist Syed Farook:

Additionally, the father claims Farook was "obsessed with Israel."

"I told him he had to stay calm and be patient because in two years Israel will not exist any more. Geopolitics is changing: Russia, China and America don’t want Jews there any more," Farook explained, "but he did not listen to me, he was obsessed."

This may inadvertently illustrate a difference between radical Muslims and moderate Muslims: radical Muslims actively aid in "throwing Jews into the sea" by murdering Jews, while moderate Muslims patiently wait for "geopolitics" to end Israel.

If so, then it's a difference of degree, not of kind. Shall we patiently wait for Israel's demise, or shall we bring it about ourselves posthaste?

San Bernardino

A few slipshod thoughts on San Bernardino in no particular order:

• It's a bit uncanny how normal Farook and his wife were. It's like they're sleeper agents. Farook was born and raised in California. He describes himself as "modern" and "Muslim." I suppose he'd have been labeled a "moderate" Muslim. Their friends and family have been none the wiser (or so they say).
• Apparently they murdered some of their co-workers who had even thrown them a baby shower earlier in the year. How much more hospitable can we be towards Muslims?
• As I once heard someone say: it may be true most Muslims are not terrorists, but why does it seem most terrorists are Muslims? At the very least, there seems to be something about Islam that motivates many young Muslim men to terrorism.
• I sometimes think Muslims have the opposite effect on societies as Christians. The more one lives by the Bible, the more one preserves or improves the society in which one lives (e.g. see Rodney Stark's works), whereas the more one lives by the Qur'an, the more one corrodes the society in which one lives. We're salt and light, helping to preserve the true and good, while Muslims are rot and darkness, helping to spoil the true and good. Islam is the perfect antichrist religion.
• What sort of a parent (especially mother) leaves their newborn behind, knowing full well they're going to kill others and be killed? It's such a foreign mentality, to put it mildly.
• A lot of the media seems to want to focus on what caused Farook to become angry, leave the function, and come back and shoot everyone. As if the altercation was the cause of Farook shooting everyone, rather than the whole thing being premediated, planned, etc. Is the subtext that if we don't provoke Muslims (or others) with "microaggressions" then that'd mean they won't attack us?
• If so, does this mean we're headed towards thought crimes and thought police?
• On the one hand, the government has spent billions locating, vetting, and monitoring jihadis (among others). But on the other hand, given massacres like San Bernardino and the Boston bombings, all this apparently isn't good enough. I suppose it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But if there's so much hay that we can't find the needle, why focus on the hay (i.e. everyone in the US) rather than focus on the needles (i.e. Muslim males in their 20s-30s and the company they keep)? Why not adopt some of what Israel has in place?
• Otherwise, we'll continue to have "civil liberties" issues that (rightly or wrongly) people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange have leaked.
• Many if not most people wish to live for something beyond themselves. The question of meaning is especially prominent among those in our 20s-30s, for this is the time of life when people are most likely to search and explore.

  At the risk of stereotyping, many women wish to live for relationships (e.g. to be a wife, a mother, a sister), whereas many men wish to live for a great cause or grand idea. (From a Christian perspective, I suppose these female and male longings reflect God's immanence as well as his transcendence.)

  Our nation is a largely secular nation. But secularism offers no ultimate meaning for people. So, at best, we hear vacuous platitudes like "Do whatever makes you happy," "The meaning of life is whatever you want it to be," and "There's probably no God, now stop worrying and enjoy your life." It's the modern day equivalent of "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

  Worse, there's an unbearable lightness of being inherent in secularism. As the scifi show BSG puts it, "All of this has happened before, and will happen again." Again, this is the modern day equivalent to "There is nothing new under the sun" and "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity." It's all ultimately meaningless.

  However, religion offers people meaning. This includes Islam. And I presume Islam's warlike nature is part of its romantic appeal, especially to young men.

  I suspect meaninglessness will broaden and deepen across our land as secularism spreads its dark shadow. All the while Islam has captured and continues to capture the hearts and minds of many youth. Even youth who have grown up in the US, for Islam offers them what secularism ultimately cannot: meaning.

  Our leaders often tell us if we promote American democracy and capitalism, American beliefs and values, then people in places like Iraq will come to see how much better it is to live like we do, and not like how they currently live, and thus turn to our way of life.

  However, if what we're really offering them is our secular beliefs and values, then they will quickly see how hollow it all is in comparison to Islam. As nice as having a cushy life filled with cool gadgets, living in air conditioned high rise apartments, driving fast cars, etc. may be, these are all peripheral to what's central to human nature, that is, a meaningful life well lived. In short, it's hard to fight Islam if the alternative is secularism.

  That's another reason why we ought to promote Christianity, for only true religion can fight the counterfeit.

The devil made me do it!

(Source)

Disclaimer: I'm no expert on Islam. People like Sam Shamoun and David Wood are far and away more expert on Islam than I am.

I'm open to correction, but here's my understanding of the Satanic verses and the events around them:

1. When many of us Americans hear the phrase "the Satanic verses" we mostly associate it with Salman Rushdie's infamous satirical work.

2. However, the origins of the Satanic verses are far older than Rushdie. In fact, the Satanic verses, how they came to be, what they originally meant to Muhammad, etc., are found in the earliest historical accounts of Muhammad's life.

To be more specific, the Satanic verses are found in the biography of Muhammad called The Life of the Messenger of Allah by the Arab Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq (704-768 AD) as well as in the historical works of the Persian Muslim polymath Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839-923 AD).

Muhammad himself lived from 570-632 AD.

I've only named two sources, but there are many other sources which describe and explain the Satanic verses (e.g. Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi, Muhammad al-Bukhari). Some three dozen sources or so. I presume the earlier sources are in general more reliable.

3. What are the Satanic verses? Relying on the earliest sources, the Satanic verses refer to words initially uttered and claimed by Muhammad to be divine revelation from Allah (via the angel Jibril aka Gabriel), but which Muhammad later renounced and instead claimed were words which Satan had tricked him to utter. The Satanic verses were originally thought be Allah's revelation to Muhammad in chapter 53 of the Qur'an.

Hence, according to Muhammad himself, the Satanic verses were not Allah's words, but in fact deceptive words spoken under Satanic influence.

4. Here are the Satanic verses in question:

Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza, and Manat, the third - the other one? These are the exalted gharaniq, whose intercession is hoped for.

The names "al-Lat," "al-Uzza," and "Manat" refer to three pagan goddesses which were commonly worshipped in the Mecca of Muhammad's earliest days, while "gharaniq" refers to the long-necked bird known as the crane. These "cranes" carried people's prayers to Allah. Thus these goddesses or "cranes" were regarded as intermediaries between the people and Allah.

In other words, according to the Satanic verses, Allah sanctions people praying to these goddesses as intermediaries. As such, people could continue to pray to these goddesses as they had been doing in the Mecca of Muhammad's day. It's basically a compromise position between pagan idolatry and full-blown submission to Allah. Allah the monotheistic "God" sanctions polytheism.

5. The Satanic verses were originally found in the 53rd chapter of the Qur'an (i.e. surah an-Najm). That is, the Satanic verses were in the Qur'an itself, at least for a brief spell.

6. However, today the Qur'an doesn't contain the second half of the Satanic verses. Instead, Qur'an 53:19-22 reads:

Have you considered al-Lat and al-Uzza, and Manat, the third - the other one? These are the exalted gharaniq, whose intercession is hoped for. What! Are the males for you and the females for him [i.e. Allah]? Indeed that is an unfair division!

7. We have to look at the historical context in which Muhammad lived in Mecca in order to understand the reason(s) Muhammad is said to have thought the Satanic verses were divine revelation.

In Muhammad's day, Mecca was filled with the worship of various idols. Many merchants and traders made a lot of money in the worship of idols.

For years Muhammad had been preaching the monotheism of Allah with little success. In fact, he faced a lot of opposition from local pagans including violence. He was banned from Mecca.

Yet, according to Muslims, Muhammad loved his people and longed for them to turn away from idols and submit to the real "God," Allah. He longed that Allah would give him a revelation that he could take to his people so that they would turn to Allah. Thus, in a moment of weakness, Satan took advantage of Muhammad's love for his people to deceive him.

8. However, it's more reasonable to consider the Satanic verses were an accommodation to polytheism because helped limit the persecution of the locals against Muhammad. If I recall, it allowed Muhammad to return to Mecca too.

9. What's more, according to the collection of hadiths (i.e. the extra-Qur'anic sayings of Muhammad) called Sahih al-Bukhari, which are considered by Sunni Muslims to be authoritative: when Muhammad received the divine revelation of chapter 53 of the Qur'an from Allah (via Gabriel), Muhammad, his followers, and the local pagans (as well as the jinns) "prostrated" themselves.

If so, then this leads us to ask, why would pagans prostrate themselves to a revelation from Allah if the Satanic verses did not contain the accommodation to polytheism?

10. Given all this, Muhammad apparently couldn't differentiate revelation from Allah (via Gabriel) from Satan. He couldn't tell who was inspiring him. This undermines Muslim contentions about how Muhammad received the Qur'an or Allah's divine revelation. The divine revelation and transmission process from Allah to Muhammad may not have been so flawless if Satan could interpose his polytheistic words into Muhammad who wrote it into chapter 53 of the Qur'an.

11. Interestingly, Muhammad's very first ever encounter with the angel Gabriel to receive divine revelation caused Muhammad to think he had been possessed by an evil jinn. He said he felt as if he were being overpowered and even strangled by Gabriel. He was in tremendous fear.

In fact, he even wanted to commit suicide, for either he felt it'd be better to be dead than possessed, or that eventually he would be driven mad by the jinn to commit suicide anyhow. He wanted to throw himself off of a cliff.

It was mainly his wife, Khadija, who convinced Muhammad he was not possessed. Moreover, she convinced Muhammad he must have been experiencing revelations from the divine, not from an evil jinn. She convinced him he must be a prophet, not a demoniac.

One wonders if Muhammad's original impression about his experience with the alleged angel Gabriel wasn't the true one. And I could see a (pagan) wife who loves her (pagan) husband offering this alternative interpretation in order to keep her husband from killing himself.

12. According to Islam, shirk refers to the practice of polytheism. It is also an unforgivable sin in Islam.

However, if the events around Satanic verses are true, then Muhammad committed shirk.

13. Finally, for now, Islam claims the Bible itself verifies Islam. Yet, according to the Bible in Deut 18:20-22:

'But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?' - when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

If the Satanic verses and the events around them are true, then Muhammad would have been a false prophet, and would have deserved to die, for he spoke in God's name, but then what he spoke turned out to have been inspired by Satan, not God. In addition, what Muhammad said in the Qur'an didn't come to pass or come to be true, but instead was "abrogated" (as Muslims might say).

Veterans Affairs

Hillary Clinton recently said the following about the privatization of the VA:

Privatization is a betrayal, plain and simple, and I’m not going to let it happen.

I haven't paid any attention to talk about the VA so I might be wrong in what I'll have to say. But for what it's worth:

1. I presume the talk of privatization of the VA system is mainly due to its huge cost to our national budget. Not to mention many if not most VA hospitals and related medical facilities are very poorly run and would require tremendous reform.

2. What's wrong with having some key military hospitals, medical facilities, clinics, as well as military med schools, etc., and then privatizing the rest? Why does Hillary take such a black-and-white or all-or-nothing stance?

3. Sure, we have arguably the best military medicine in the world (e.g. trauma, aviation). But this isn't necessarily translated into VA hospitals. Also, having the best military medicine doesn't mean VA hospitals provide the best medical care in other specialties (e.g. psychiatry, oncology, family medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN).

4. Ideally it'd make the most sense for anyone to have the choice to go any doctor or hospital they want. This includes our soldiers. Why can't people choose which hospital they want to get treated at? Whether a VA hospital or private hospital or other hospital?

Caveat emptor

(For context see here.)

Kirk Skeptic

I'm all for that, but what about buying smuggled goods from the source?

I'm afraid to report that over the last year or so I've been sorely disappointed over the smuggled goods I've purchased from "the source." (Ahem, *wink* *wink* *nod* *nod* - I won't mention his name but I know precisely the person to whom you're referring.)

I mean, sure, "the source" has had a fairly decent track record over the years of catering smuggled goods to my mad scientist operation. If we're talking several years back, or maybe even a couple of years ago, then I'd definitely rate "the source" at least a 4 but likely even 5 stars out of 5. No question.

However, ever since the IPO launch, things just haven't been quite the same. For one thing, I feel as if "the source" has become too commercialized now. He's lost the ma and pa shop feel. It's not the same beloved family friendly outfit I once knew.

For example, "the source" used to have my uranium-235 as well as plutonium-241 hand delivered to me in lovely little hand-crafted heavy metallic storage containers, which in turn were even shaped to look like their own miniaturized nuclear reactor units, complete with control rods and cute external digital displays that would flash funny stuff like "Critical mass has been reached" or "Supernova or bust"! But now I'd be lucky to get such quality service and packaging. Let alone if the entire amalgamation didn't experience a catastrophic meltdown before it arrived in my barriered underground supervillain lair.

On another occasion, I ordered a wormhole portal gun from "the source." I knew something was wrong the second I fired it up. The tachyon particle levels instantly skyrocketed to above what I'd normally expect to see, the anti-gravity machine went on the fritz, and causality reversed direction. But it was when Stephen Hawking walked through the wormhole with Schrodinger's cat on a leash that I had had enough. After all, this isn't rocket science 101! I'm familiar enough to know there is no parallel universe in the multiverse in which Hawking can walk! So I put Hawking, the cat, and the wormhole portal gun in a big enough box along with a small flask of hydrocyanic acid, and returned to sender, posthaste.

Anyway, 1/5 I'll not use "the source" for my smuggled goods ever again. I'm going to go with Han Solo instead.

NHS: your health, our choices

I recall Michael Moore interviewing a UK physician in his "documentary" Sicko, and using the UK physician as a representative example that doctors do quite well under (in Moore's words) a "state control[led]" health care system - i.e. the UK's National Health Service (NHS):

Similarly, Danny Boyle included in the 2012 London Olympics a tremendous tribute to the UK's NHS:

But what do UK physicians who have worked or work in the NHS think about the NHS today? How fares the much lauded "state control[led]" NHS?

For instance:

A report commissioned by the Department of Health found the number of young doctors set to qualify as top-level consultants could increase by as much as 60 per cent.

This, it predicted, would take number of consultants to more than 60,000 by 2020, without guaranteed suitable jobs for all of them to move into.

The study, by the Centre for Workforce Intelligence, revealed NHS England’s salary bill would rise by £2.2bn before inflation if the future doctors were paid at the same rate as those currently.

The service is already attempting to meet a £40bn savings target, prompting suggestions new consultants could be asked take roles with lower salaries.

(Source)

Specialist recruitment agencies and GPs’ leaders say doctors, many of whom have just finished their training, are becoming disillusioned with the state of their profession and seeking fresh starts in countries such as Australia, where they can earn double what they are paid in Britain. Figures given to the Observer by the General Medical Council show that an average of 2,852 certificates enabling British doctors to work abroad were issued annually between 2008 and 2014 – a total of 19,522.

...He added that a number of factors were prompting British doctors to consider moving abroad. One was anger at the overly bureaucratic revalidation process, in which all doctors regularly undergo a series of checks so that they can retain their licence to practise.

Another was the issue of medical indemnity insurance, which Hazel said costs between six and 12 times more in the UK for a GP than in Australia. “While this cost is ‘covered’ by the NHS for salaried GPs, freelance GPs would need to cover this themselves,” Hazel explained. “A full-time GP can expect to pay between £5,000 to £12,000 for insurance, whereas in Australia they would pay under A$2,000 (£1,000). And the Australian insurance policy covers much more in terms of procedures than a UK policy.”

...Changes to the way in which British GPs will be expected to work is another push factor. “I have 40 positions in all the major capital cities in Australia for GPs, all earning around £160,000 with no out-of-hours work,” Hazel said. “The NHS offers a salaried GP around £80,000.”

...“GPs face increasingly challenging and stressful work environments, due to a combination of increasing demand and falling resources,” said Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee. “The result has been fewer junior doctors choosing general practice as a career, more senior GPs choosing to retire early and more doctors choosing to work abroad.” This has contributed to a workforce crisis and means existing doctors are struggling to meet the needs of the rising number of patients walking through their surgery doors. To stem this problem we urgently need to address issues around workload pressures, resourcing and work-life balance.”

...“In my practice we feel we are stuck in a hamster wheel. I see around 50 or 60 people a day on my on-call day. It’s very difficult to do that in a sustained fashion without getting really fatigued. I don’t want to be a tired and grumpy doctor. I want to be the kind of doctor who enjoys what they are doing, but sometimes you can’t do that because you’re too tired.

...“The workload is going up at a rate of knots. We have 8,000 patients at our practice. We used to do 24,000 consultancies a year; now it’s 50,000. Once, if you had a cold, a family member would give you advice. Now people don’t know who to ask, don’t seem to be resilient enough to cope themselves.

(Source)

Junior doctors’ pay has fallen in real terms by 25 per cent since 2009...

@Collins Lab

Of course it’s about money. Are you telling me my services as a doctor are worth 40 per cent less than I’m being paid, and that I should be working significantly more hours? It’s all good and well to claim that doctors should work for the principle of doing good, but are you suggesting we shouldn’t be remunerated for our compassion and hard work? For having to make impossible decisions any time of day or night, and still bring a smile and fresh mind to our next patient?

You speak as if working 90 hours a week is something every person in the country does. When divided by the actual hours a week I work, my salary barely come above the minimum wage.

The fact is, if you pay peanuts you’ll get monkeys. And when you treat highly trained, professional people as monkeys, they have a right to stand up and remind you just how far from the zoo they really are.

@Doctor A S

Yes, Mary Dejevsky, it is sometimes about the money. As doctors we are not expecting bankers’ salaries or anything similar to those in the private sector. What I do expect after eight years in the NHS at 32 years old is to be earning more than a manager of a fast-food chain.

Why should doctors not just work for the job satisfaction, you say? Because we are human beings too, who have lives, mortgages, families. I invite you, Mary, to come and join me on a 13-hour labour ward shift where there is often no time to eat, drink or pass urine. Where your actions can have implications on the outcome of a birth for a mother and a baby. Once you have done that you can tell me if I am worth my £47,000. By the way, that is the whole pay with the extra hours.

@KengaS

A junior doctor is a term that’s poorly understood among the public. A junior doctor is anyone who has completed his or her medical degree but is not yet a consultant. The Centre for Workforce Intelligence says it takes a median 15 years from finishing medical school to become a consultant.

Among the issues exercising junior doctors are the change of hours and the way they are remunerated. Currently, “plain time” is 7am to 7pm, Monday and Friday. Any hours a junior doctor is rostered to work beyond 7pm on a weekday, and any hours on a weekend, are paid at a small premium. This is anything from 20 per cent to 50 per cent of the plain time rate depending on the intensity of the workload. The new contract stipulates that plain time will now extend to Saturday and from 7am to 10pm. This means an extra 30 hours a week will be considered plain time, rather than unsocial hours. I do not agree that working beyond 7pm on Monday to Friday and also on a Saturday (all day) is plain time.

These are unsocial hours and should be remunerated as such. No doctor is unwilling to work these hours – but we often have to sacrifice much of our personal lives for our job and there should be some level of recognition for this. Junior doctors often have to work 12 days in a row, and some will be 12-hour shifts.

In 2003, the Government sought to accelerate junior doctor training by creating a more structured programme; it also agreed to the EWTD [European Working Time Directive] to reduce working hours to a maximum of 48 hours by 2009. To ensure this would happen, NHS Trusts faced financial penalties for introducing unsafe working rotas and were required to pay doctors overtime.

The new contract removes many of the contractual safeguards protecting junior doctors from working excessive hours. For instance, junior doctors are entitled to one 30-minute break for every four hours they work, but the new contract stipulates that doctors will only be entitled to one 20-minute break in a shift of up to 11 hours. Jeremy Hunt is right to say he wants to ensure there are fewer deaths in hospital, but a tired, hungry and demoralised doctor is hardly the correct prescription.

Changes to the pay progression rules will penalise doctors who are taking time out of their regular training to contribute to research in medicine, carry out humanitarian work or have a family. Creating disincentives for taking time out of training risks undermining the potential to create the clinical leaders of tomorrow.

We are keen to return to negotiations. However, junior doctors agree with the BMA that we need concrete assurances before this can happen. These include the following:

* Proper recognition of unsocial hours as premium time;

* No disadvantage for those working antisocial hours compared with today’s system;

* No disadvantage for those working less than full-time and taking parental leave/research time compared with the current system;

* Pay for all work done

* Proper hours safeguards to protect patients and their doctors.

There is also a risk that these changes could drive younger doctors to seek more favourable working conditions in countries such as Australia and Canada. About one in four of my junior trainees have made such a decision.

This dispute is not solely about remuneration. This proposed contract has real potential to create an unsafe working environment for doctors, the wider healthcare team and patients.

(Source)