Generally agreed, although the huge number of bugs out there that are attributable to manual memory management suggests that other solutions are worth looking for. Perhaps Rust is heading in the right direction.
Sure, popular election of senators is at least a little problematic. But maybe what we really want is a return to the original model, where members of the House are elected by the people, while senators are chosen by state legislatures.
> ... I can't help but feel bitter towards the proponents of AA who insist on it being a monopoly... especially those in positions of power in the criminal justice or public health systems ....
Not an alcoholic, but I had extended discussions with a number of AA members some years ago. And I found that many of them also felt pretty negatively about the involvement of the justice system with AA. What happens (they said) is that people are forced to attend AA meetings as part of sentencing, but these people generally are not interested in recovery. The result is a lot of wasted time and the diversion of resources away from people who could be helped.
For the second, Γάμος is like the word "marriage", meaning both the occasion of getting married and the state of being married. So a better translation would be "Master (your) marriage". Given the Ancient Greeks' dim view of women, I'm guessing it boils down to "Wear the pants at home."
For the third, I think it should be "Cause no grief onto [others]" (ἐπί+ dat.)
My guess is that rather than "always be thrifty", this is more like "don't let cost-optimizations stop forward progress". So, somewhat more like "penny-wise, pound-foolish" or "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" than "always be thrifty".
Master wedding-feasts
My guess here would be a meaning like "take full advantage of important ceremonial celebration feasts", with possible connotations of both "enjoy them fully" but also "don't over-imbibe or take them for granted".
Grieve for no one
Could very well be dependent on the exact form of 'grieve' in the original formulation; if a word meaning to mope or remain backward-looking (as opposed to honoring/learning in memories), it might really be about doing the right kind of mourning. Or, if the emphasis was on 'one' unique person, it might mean never to focus grief on any singular loss, as loss is universal – sort of related for "ask not for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee".
I think this might be a mistranslation. Maxim #118 has the same last two words in Greek, and is translated as "Do not abandon honor". So #122 is probably better translated as "Do not abandon thrift", or "Do not forget to be thrifty", or something like that.
> I realize that it costs money to publish journals and papers, ....
Does it?
The authors are not paid. The referees (who do peer review) are not paid. The editors are not paid. The authors submit LaTeX, so no professional typesetters are needed. Eliminate the hard-copy printed journal, which no one reads these days, and all you are left with are the costs of hosting and maintaining a website -- which doesn't need to be at all fancy. That's dirt cheap.
> I have told the above story to different audiences. Programmers, as a rule, are delighted by it, and managers, invariably, get more and more annoyed as the story progresses; true mathematicians, however, fail to see the point.
I see the point. In fact I'd go so far as to call myself "delighted". But I thought I was a true mathematician.
'Scuse me while I go have a little existential crisis.
Still, there is so much out there that is available only in one of the MS Office formats, and Gov.UK is apparently doing better than that. So there is actually some cause for celebration here, IMHO.
