Keith Devens .com

There's a wealth of information out there in journals/academia-- you don't need a book.

There's a wealth of information out there in journals/academia-- you don't need a book.
Try this: http://www.ams.org/msnmain?fn=130&s1=parsing%20theory&pg1=ALLF

"There's a wealth of information out there in journals/academia"... Ok, what "journals" are out there that specialize in parsing, and won't be so technical as to be practically useless to me? The point of books is that they're "timeless", in a sense. They'll cover an entire issue from beginning to end, whereas journals usually discuss only current theory. Technical journals usually require a background in the appropriate area, and aren't appropriate for what I'm asking for.

And if by academia you include professors, don't be ridiculous. I've searched the NJIT and Rutgers CS departments for answers to simple questions and they haven't been able to help me. Obviously, that's why I'm trying really hard to get myself into MIT, but the point is, I'm currently on my own with most everything. And what is it you have against looking in books for information?

Oh, and I don't have a subscription to MathSciNet, so I wasn't able to check out that link.

Dude, calm the heck down... I don't have anything against books, and I wasn't suggesting that academia has all the answers... why'd you wig-out so much about my response?! I simply suggested another avenue for you to get the information you desire. And yes, I think journals/papers/etc. are sometimes the way to go-- I've read about some pretty heafty networking concepts (try to explain RED or TCP Vegas to me off the top of your head) both in networking texts as well as in RFCs-- they're not all that different (textbook's just watered-down somewhat)-- and if you want to get into MIT and think you're MIT caliber material, you shouldn't think comprehending RFCs/journals is all that difficult-- you'll be doing a whole hell of a lot of that if you do get in (Richmond doesn't have a top 50 Comp Sci dept., and we're required to read RFCs/journals fairly requently)... uhh.

I read RFC's all the time! Trust me, I'd usually rather read the specs than books about the specs. That's why I wish the C and C++ specs were freely available.

I never said comprehending journals, let alone RFC's, is hard. RFC's tend to be easy... they explain everything you need to know, because they have to, because they're for the people implementing the stuff! As for journals, all I said was that they often require background I don't have, and tend to discuss current theory rather than take time to explain more general aspects, and therefore I wouldn't be able to find a journal specifically on parsing that would have what I wanted right now. I was more interested in the "practice" part, where journals, academic papers, etc. tend to be about new research and theory.

So what was in that MathSciNet link?

...still, chill. anyway, there were a few articles on parsing (theory, implementation, etc.) on that page-- i also found a few sites through google where coders, profs, and research types posted some of their work/papers/etc. anyway, i'm putting this issue to rest now-- look around if you want, if you don't, get a book.

also: The debate over the moral status of animals remained peripheral to philosophical thinking until the 1970s, when a spate of books and articles led to a vigorous and continuing debate. Peter Singer compared speciesism with racism and sexism, and urged that there is no good reason for refusing to extend the basic principle of equality - the principle of equal consideration of interests - to non-human animals. Singer argued specifically against factory farming and animal experimentation, and urged that, where there are nutritionally adequate alternatives to eating meat, the pleasures of our palate cannot outweigh the suffering inflicted on animals by the standard procedures of commercial farming; hence vegetarianism is the only ethically acceptable diet. On animal experimentation, Singer urged that, in considering whether a given experiment is justifiable, we ask ourselves whether we would be prepared to perform it on an orphaned human being at a mental level similar to that of the proposed animal subject. Only if the answer was affirmative could we claim that our readiness to use the animal was not based on a speciesist prejudice against giving the interests of non-human animals a similar weight to the interests of members of our own species.

Kind of unrelated to the parent post

The problem with this argument against "speciesism" is that it fundamentally rests on a naturalistic view of the world which I don't hold. I deny the naturalistic (macro-evolutionary) basis on which the argument rests. Furthermore, even on his basis, the argument has no teeth because on that worldview it's contradictory to speak of "rights" that beings have.

On a naturalistic worldview, "might makes right", and that's as far as you can go. So on his own presuppositions, if I want to eat animals, and I have the power to kill and eat them, I have every right to do so.

On the Christian worldview, on the other hand, you can make an argument about "animal rights". All animals are part of God's creation, and it does make sense to talk about rights that they have as God's creatures. While on an atheistic worldview it might make sense to speak of dogs (or slugs, pigs, what have you) and babies having equivalent rights, on a Christian worldview it doesn't.