Group Wants To Recover 36-Year-Old Historic Spacecraft From Deep Space

An anonymous reader writes "A band of space hackers and engineers are trying to do something never done before — recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft from the grips of deep space and time. With old NASA documents and Rockethub crowdfunding, a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, 'ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists helping with design and travel to Mars'. Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, propulsion designs are in hand and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration."

Comments

Oblig.

[Cryacin]

http://www.xkcd.com/1337/

Re:Oblig.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking of just that xkcd when I read TFS. Did not realize till now that it was xkcd #1337.

Re:Oblig.

[rbf]

Best on-topic post ever!

Re:Oblig.

[rbf]

You must be new here!

Re:Oblig.

[inasity_rules]

You would think, but I actually lurked as an AC for ages before joining. Slashdot does occasionally produce interesting discussions. Over the many years I have been here, I have seen a few.

Re:Oblig.

[inasity_rules]

No, I got the joke, I just didn't consider it very good.

Re:Oblig.

[Vintowin]

Wow. just took a look at both sites, as I am always in the hunt for new sites.. 10 comments on a story was one of the more active ones. Not really a big crowd over there yet...

Re:Oblig.

[Agent0013]

I think it's kind of funny how the slashdot community uses xkcd comics pretty regularly by posting just the link. It always reminds me of the joke where everyone just shouts out the number of the joke and the rest of the group laughs. I have pasted the joke below for those who have not heard it before.

In a bar in a remote Alaskan town, a newcomer hears people yell out numbers (#23!, #56, etc.) and then everyone laughs. He asks the guy next to him what's going on, and he says the jokes have been told so many times, people just yell out their numbers instead of retelling them. So he yells out #27! but nobody laughs. The guy next to him says, "Some people can tell a joke, and some people can't."

Re:Oblig.

[causality]

No, I got the joke, I just didn't consider it very good.

Slashdot is odd. Most other places, jokes are considered good if they are clever, unexpected, witty, amusing, and most of all, ORIGINAL (around here, most jokes like that will offend someone's sacred cow and get modded as -1 Troll).

Here, jokes are most likely to be enjoyed, encountered, and/or modded up to +5 Funny if they are repetitive, predictable, expected, tiresome memes.

This pattern is so consistent and observable that I think a conclusion about it can be made: slashdot is filled with insecure (and perceived or real) outcasts who have a certain desperation to feel like they fit into a culture of likeminded people. If you view it that way, suddenly the irrational celebration of the ten millionth "sharks with lasers on their heads" joke makes sense. If you view it that way, the hostility they often show when you reject or even question their brand of humor also makes sense.

It's sort of like when you were in high school and the more "average" people suddenly adopted the mannerisms, gestures, and speech patterns of the latest big movie or TV show, all the time pretending that they have always expressed themselves that way. The terror of being an individual! No meme is too repetitive, no joke too lame if it offers even a phony escape from that!

Re:Oblig.

[causality]

Wow. just took a look at both sites, as I am always in the hunt for new sites.. 10 comments on a story was one of the more active ones. Not really a big crowd over there yet...

Most of the time you must choose between quality and quantity.

Having both has been known to occur ... for a little while ... but it's very rare.

Re:Oblig.

[CohibaVancouver]

Here, jokes are most likely to be enjoyed, encountered, and/or modded up to +5 Funny if they are repetitive, predictable, expected, tiresome memes.

In Soviet Russia, joke tell you!

Re:Oblig.

[rbf]

I did the same thing, lurked for years before creating an account, but I think my high (IMO) but still respectably low UID says enough by itself...

As for these "interesting discussions" you mention, they are very rare and only found at night, in near darkness illuminated only by the glow of monitors, network switches, and that annoying security light that no one can quite figure out how to turn off, fueled by way too much caffeine, and best read while intoxicated or some set base of intoxication approaching superman status. This, plus ... profit!

Re:Oblig.

[causality]

That's the spirit!

dat's v'ger, man

[turkeydance]

kain't y'all spel wurth spit?

Satellite smash

[Solid StaTe_1]

So, do they have a large insurance policy? If the re-orbit goes wrong and it smashes into other satellites or space debris, who is liable?

Re:Satellite smash

[iroll]

Liability insurance would be cheaper than sending you to a community college class about statistics and probability.

Re:Satellite smash

[VortexCortex]

A likely story.

Re:Satellite smash

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, this is Dennis Wingo, co-project lead for this effort.

There is no need for insurance as the probability of collision is extremely small, far less than for satellites in any other orbit. At no time is this orbit coming even as close as geosynchronous orbit.

Re:Satellite smash

[JWSmythe]

Check their video. It sounded like they wanted to put it in orbit around the Earth. Their video shows it parking out around SEL1, out where ACE is on the 16th year of it's 5 year gig.

So, they don't want to recover it. They just want to park it an awful long way from home. I misread TFS, and was trying to figure out how they'd design, build, and launch a recovery vehicle in 40 days. That would have been really cool though.

Re:Satellite smash

[Lumpy]

You havent seen how badly Solid_StaTe_1 drives...

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

You seriously do not want to enter Shadesmar on Sel.

Re:Satellite smash

[TangoMargarine]

So maybe you snarky bastards could explain where we're going wrong instead of just heckling us?

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

Let's say you buy a computer, and you buy insurance in case that computer burns out. Is this a good decision?

How about if you buy 10,000 computers for a company, and you buy insurance in case those burn out. Is that a good decision?

In the first case, yes. You have one computer. You are exposed to either the marginal cost of a computer some percentage of the time OR slightly more than that percentage of the marginal cost of the computer 100% of the time. Let's say 1 in 100 computers burns out in a short life--1% risk probability--for a $1000 computer. You face a 1% chance of losing $1000; or you pay somewhere above but close to $10--let's call it $12.50--and face a 100% chance of losing exactly $12.50.

In the second case, you own 10,000 of these. You face a damn near 100% chance of losing 100 of them, at a marginal cost of $100,000. Of the replacements, you'll probably lose 1 more, adding $1000. Thus your costs are $101,000. For insurance, you're adding $12.50 per computer, providing a guaranteed loss of $125,000. This puts you $24,000 behind--you should forgo insurance.

Why is this?

In the first case, your total cost is low: you have one object and are exposed to a very low, but very severe margin of risk. It's unpredictable, and will be significantly costly. For some very small marginal cost, you can avert this risk.

In the second case, your total cost is high: you have many objects and are exposed to a very low margin of risk, but one that is now a fraction of your initial cost. Likewise, the risk is repeated across many things--failure is isolated and your system is robust.

In the first case, your experienced risk is many, many times higher the marginal cost of insurance: $1000 versus $12.50. In the second case, however, your experienced risk is almost guaranteed to be $10 per machine, and so you're going to pay an extra $2.50 for an extremely unlikely event--you're overpaying for risk mitigation. Your risk is spread wide and predictable, and the cost estimates of $101,000 versus $125,000 show that you're now paying more for protection than the failure event will probably cost you.

Ignoring that this project doesn't generate profit (and thus can't act as its own source of liability mitigation), what we're looking at is the risk of an extremely expensive one-off failure. If you have a 1 in 50,000 chance of hitting a $1M satellite, then you would be appropriately insured by a policy of about $20. Foregoing that insurance puts you at a $1M risk. On the other hand, if you were to do this substantially more than 50,000 times and each time profited you more than $20, it would be highly likely that you would incur a $1M liability occasionally BUT it would be more expensive to purchase insurance than to simply accept the occasional cost of liability.

This project is a prime candidate for liability insurance. Purchasing liability insurance is a good decision, even if nothing bad happens. Purchasing liability insurance with parameters as described above is a bad decision--even if you're unlucky, not purchasing it is usually a good decision (unless risk appetite is extremely low).

Re:Satellite smash

[TangoMargarine]

Okay, thanks for the explanation.

Is anybody likely to sell you a $20 insurance policy if all those numbers we're pulling out of our asses are accurate, though.

Now I'm just trying to figure out whether you were replying to the article itself or the person you actually replied to, and being sarcastic or not. Because if you're replying to the AC and being straight, it sounds like you're agreeing with the guy you're calling an idiot.

There is no need for insurance as the probability of collision is extremely small

A man who doesn't understand insurance. [...] Purchasing liability insurance with parameters as described above is a bad decision--even if you're unlucky, not purchasing it is usually a good decision

—><—

Re:Satellite smash

[painandgreed]

This project is a prime candidate for liability insurance. Purchasing liability insurance is a good decision, even if nothing bad happens. Purchasing liability insurance with parameters as described above is a bad decision--even if you're unlucky, not purchasing it is usually a good decision (unless risk appetite is extremely low).

You're forgetting that insurance comes out of operations budget which is a given known cost ahead of time and replacing above computers would come out of Capital Budget which is planned out a year in advance, not a given, and hard to get. Thus it's a good plan to get the insurance all the time because replacing the failed equipment will be a quicker, easier given rather than a political nightmare which might cost you your job.

Re:Satellite smash

[uninformedLuddite]

You aren't as smart as you think you are?

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

We have Chief Risk Officers and Chief Financial Officers for a reason. They can come to immediate agreement about why we should or should not have insurance on a case-by-case basis.

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

The parameters described were purchasing insurance for a bulk event that has a cost. Insurance increases the cost by the probability of a risk multiplied by the cost of the risk, plus overhead.

These people are talking about not purchasing liability insurance for a one-off. A one-off is exactly the correct time to purchase insurance: You represent a small fraction of the risk pool, and so you derive the greatest benefit for the smallest cost. As you begin to represent a larger portion of the risk pool--as you have to insure repeatedly (hundreds of actions, hundreds of items, hundreds of potential claims), the cost of insurance outweighs the probable loss, and the amount of actual loss can more accurately be predicted with higher confidence.

Doing it once? Get insurance. Doing it a thousand times? Don't get insurance.

Re:Satellite smash

[TangoMargarine]

Oh, you were talking about the deorbiting happening repeatedly. That was kind of intentionally misrepresenting the issue as we were only talking about doing it once in the first place, but whatever.

It's rather unfortunate though that as (presumably) the risk of incident approaches 1, so also does the value of purposely not guarding against it increase.

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

It's not really unfortunate for those taking the risk many times; it is marginally unfortunate for one-offs, but this is less of an issue than it seems.

Many, many individuals purchase computers, watches, or houses. They purchase cars. They purchase all manner of things which they may insure. At the same time, we have companies with fleets of antiques, rental units, and automobiles. This gives us a large and robust risk leveling base.

It is unfortunate that law requires liability insurance for vehicles. A large taxi or trucking corporation has financial resources to manage this risk and, in fact, many countries in Europe mandate that capital funds be held by a company to match the expenditures associated with calculated and understood risks such as the inevitability of liability in vehicular collisions. Were we to allow large corporations to manage their own risk, they would incur less expense by avoiding insurance costs; while individuals, sans documented funds for liability coverage, would still require insurance.

In the prescribed situation, the large fleet insurance represents a somewhat different risk than individual liability. Further, removing the large fleet leaves a huge individual liability risk--and many insured drivers amongst which to balance that risk. The impact would be negligible, likely to the point that insurance companies would find no compelling reason to adjust rates. At the same time, large companies would be required to maintain risk protocols and funds to cover risk events, either showing insurance or showing funds to cover said risks--meaning they could opt out of insurance and potentially save quite a bit of money, which itself could move into driver improvement programs to keep risk low and increase the savings by reducing the risk.

Because of this, I do not see why you would feel the situation is unfortunate. Perhaps you misunderstand: it is expensive to deal with a single isolated risk event; insurance cuts that risk down by distributing the marginal cost of risk. If you have 100 people and 2 of them are likely to incur a cost of $100, then you distribute $200 amongst 100 people and charge everyone $2. Everyone has now spent $2 to ensure that they are not subject to $100. When you are one person with 100 chances to incur a cost of $100 with a probability of 2%, you will likely incur a cost of $200; to purchase $200 of insurance gains you nothing, and you are better off guarding against this inevitability by putting $200 under a pillow.

Re:Satellite smash

[mark_reh]

An interesting idea, but it seems to be the opposite case for doctors purchasing malpractice insurance. They do what they do many thousands of times with each instance being a risk for a future lawsuit. By your logic, they should not purchase malpractice insurance. I don't know what the stats are for career long comparison of cost of insurance vs cost of settling with disgruntled patients, but I'd bet it's actually cheaper to self insure. The problem is you may not be able to afford to do that until several years into practice and by then you may have already faced enough suits to bankrupt you.

I think the real question is whether someone taking a risk can afford the cost of the worst possible outcome. If they can't, they should either find something less risky to do or buy the insurance.

Re:Satellite smash

[TangoMargarine]

Unfortunate for any people who are, to extend the analogy, hit by a flaming satellite when we start deorbiting them by the thousands and decide it's no longer worth insuring; not unfortunate for the company not seeking the insurance, since we've already established that they will in fact save money.

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

Doctors are sued constantly, and the hospital may require them to have malpractice insurance as a way to redirect lawsuits (suing a doctor could put hospital at liability, unless the doctor is independently insured--legal bullshit). In such cases, it's essentially a continuous risk and the risk is in variation of severity.

The worst possible outcome is your insurer going bankrupt. Look into operational risk management, you'll understand eventually.

Re:Satellite smash

[bluefoxlucid]

The outcome for those impacted by another's liability is the same: the other party pays. It's a difference in whether they pay by insurance claim or by their own risk funds.

Pretty interesting, until...

[The Grim Reefer]

From TFA: "If successful ISEE-3 will spend its retirement as a platform for citizen science, with smartphone apps—and a twitter feed"

Perhaps it would be better to let it drift off into space and die with some dignity after all.

Re:Pretty interesting, until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi this is Dennis Wingo, co project lead for the ISEE-3 reboot project.

There is still a lot of very good use that this satellite can be put to. It can be used as a real time monitor for space weather or as a tool for education. That is dignified.

Re:Pretty interesting, until...

[bluefoxlucid]

It can be used as a real time monitor for space weather

Re:So...

[Brainguy]

Close enough.

In for $18

[Quinn_Inuit]

Let's bring this baby to life!

Re:In for $18

[bigpat]

The requested $125k is about what it would cost to build and launch a cubesat, but a cubesat would only be in orbit for a couple months at most. So this is a very good return on investment if they can get some longer term use out of it.

Warning... grammar police!

[NewtonsLaw]

"a very unique milestone in space exploration"

WTF?

"unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.

Aaargh!

That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest

</rant>

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[hawguy]

"a very unique milestone in space exploration"

WTF?

"unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.

Aaargh!

That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest

</rant>

Funny thing about English - many words have more than one meaning:

http://www.merriam-webster.com...

unique adjective \yu-nk\

...

3: unusual <a very unique ball-point pen> <we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger>

Usage Discussion of UNIQUE

Many commentators have objected to the comparison or modification (as by somewhat or very) of unique, often asserting that a thing is either unique or it is not. Objections are based chiefly on the assumption that unique has but a single absolute sense, an assumption contradicted by information readily available in a dictionary....

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[camperdave]

An ace may be unique in your poker hand, but it isn't unique in the deck. Thus it is more unique in your hand than in the deck. If my hand is the two of hearts, the three, queen, and king of diamonds and the ace of spades, each card is unique, but the two of hearts is more unique than the king of diamonds because there are other diamonds but no other hearts. The ace of spades is the uniquest, because not only are there no other cards of that rank and suit, there are also no other cards of that color.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[TubeSteak]

"infinity" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "infinity". Something is either infinite or it's not.

Aaargh!

That's why there are no such words as infiniter or infinitest

Or maybe there can be degrees of uniqueness.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[sconeu]

There are no degrees of "infinity". Something is either infinite or it's not.

Aleph-null and Aleph-one would like a word with you.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[JWSmythe]

uniquilessnessishis?

You know I couldn't resist after a rant like that. :)

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[wonkey_monkey]

Understandable whoosh.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[El Puerco Loco]

but the "un" in unique comes from the latin unus, which means one. you can't be relatively unique any more than you can be relatively dead.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[hawguy]

but the "un" in unique comes from the latin unus, which means one. you can't be relatively unique any more than you can be relatively dead.

Perhaps if we were in Ancient Rome, you might have a point. However, while many words in English have their origins in Latin, their modern meanings have deviated from the original Latin roots.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Stuarticus]

And that is why no-one has multiple unicycles.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Ecuador]

His point is that there is no infiniter infinitest, but there ARE degrees of infinity. If you read it again in relation to the post it responds to you will get it.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[CrimsonAvenger]

And that is why no-one has multiple unicycles.

No, but it IS why noone has a unicycle with two wheels.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[oojah]

I'm not arguing grammar, but this may be of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[sFurbo]

That view makes the word "unique" close to meaningless.
Disregarding objects where quantum mechanics are the dominant theory, everything is unique. No two LEGO bricks are completely identical at the atomic level, so they are all at least a little unique. If there are no degrees of unique, they are all unique, and as unique as this spacecraft, or the moon, or the George Washington.
So it merely becomes a word for "a thing that we can distinguish from other things given enough effort", which is another way to say "a thing that is not primarily controlled by quantum mechanics".
We don't need a word for that concept.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[schlachter]

There are degrees of uniqueness. Try developing an algorithm that sorts data on uniqueness and you will realize this.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[TangoMargarine]

Or maybe we could just use the meaning that the damn word was intended for in the first place! If I meant "unusual," I'd just say "unusual!"

But let's continue muddying up the language until everyone can only communicate using the 200 most common words. Then we can have more fun articles like that time we spent 90% of the comments section arguing about abbreviating "Supreme Court of the United States" to "Supremes." We all want that, right?

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[TangoMargarine]

http://www.w3schools.com/sql/s...

CREATE TABLE Persons
(
P_Id int NOT NULL UNIQUE,
LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName varchar(255),
Address varchar(255),
City varchar(255)
)

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[hawguy]

Or maybe we could just use the meaning that the damn word was intended for in the first place! If I meant "unusual," I'd just say "unusual!"

But let's continue muddying up the language until everyone can only communicate using the 200 most common words. Then we can have more fun articles like that time we spent 90% of the comments section arguing about abbreviating "Supreme Court of the United States" to "Supremes." We all want that, right?

Ahh, so you're on a crusade to stop the evolution of the English language.

Alack, I fear your wood gardyloo shan't end in a fain result, meseems evolution is too puissant and your quest will end in wanion.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Prien715]

Another way to think about infinity (discretely).

How many round numbers above 0 are there? Well, 1,2,3,4,...10000000...infinity right? Let's call that group "natural numbers".

How many odd numbers are there above 0? Also infinity. Let's call that group "positive odds".

While both numbers are infinite, I can say with reasonable precision that there are twice as many natural numbers as there are positive odd numbers and that every positive odd number is also a natural number.

If you agree to that proposition, you'd have to agree that all infinities aren't equal.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Rich0]

While both numbers are infinite, I can say with reasonable precision that there are twice as many natural numbers as there are positive odd numbers and that every positive odd number is also a natural number.

I would disagree. There are exactly the same number of natural numbers as there are positive odd numbers.

For each natural number n there is exactly one positive odd number n*2-1. This pairing accounts for every natural number once, and for every odd number once. Thus, there must be the same number of them.

Now, you can argue that there are more real numbers than natural numbers, because it is not possible to account for them in this way. You can also argue that there are the same number of rational numbers as natural numbers, because there is a way to pair them up.

The concept of the cardinality of infinite sets is a fairly established one in mathematics.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Rich0]

For each natural number n there are exactly 2 natural numbers: one positive even number 2*n, and one positive odd number n*2-1.

Thus there are exactly twice as many natural numbers as there are natural numbers.

I accept your first sentence (at least, if you intend it the way I read it). I don't see how your second sentence follows from the first.

We're getting sloppy with definitions here.

Two sets have the same cardinality if there exists is a 1:1 function that maps between their members. Such a relationship exists between the set of natural numbers and the set of positive odd numbers.

I'm not sure which two sets you're actually trying to compare here - I see three different sets in your first sentence, and one set mentioned twice in your second.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[eric_harris_76]

Dialog (close to verbatim) from TBBT.

Stuart: You couldn't be more wrong.

Sheldon: [typical Sheldon-ish pedantic lecture]

Stuart: It's wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable. It's more wrong to say it's a suspension bridge.

It's not just a sitcom, it's also a source of parables.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Rich0]

2. E and O are mutually exclusive, so |N| = |E| + |O|

You skipped defining addition of cardinalities, and multiplication of them by scalars. However, if you define the cardinality of the union of two disjoint sets as the sum of the cardinalities of the individual sets, and you further define |A| + |A| = 2|A|, then I'm fine with |N|=2|N| by the argument you propose.

Re:Warning... grammar police!

[Dabido]

That's the uniquest post I've read this week. I feel embiggened by the cromulensity of it all.

Re:Save VIGER

[Adriax]

V'GER.
Wrong probe anyway, VoyaGER is far beyond recovery with current technology and politics.

It's sure to be a really gripping smart phone app.

[Old Fatty Baldman]

*Beep* HELIUM DETECTED *Beep* COSMIC RAY *Beep* MORE HELIUM *Beep* AIR'S KINDA THIN UP HERE *Beep* FOR GOD'S SAKE GUYS LET ME DIE *Beep*

Re:Save VIGER

[AK Marc]

Catching Voyager is within our tech. The return trip is beyond our capability. The politics are irrelevant.

I remember that show!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Vulture has Landed!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvage_1

Re:I remember that show!

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

God I loved that show! I found a torrent of the movie a few years ago, but I have never been able to find the series.
Hell, at this point I would even pay for it.

Sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

1) You don't need a space hacker for this, you need a financial hacker.
2) Operating any new spacecraft with brand spanking new procedures, trained personnel and lots of rehearsals is a damn pain.
3) Operating any old spacecraft that was designed, built and operated by others, is three times as much trouble as (2) when it is possible at all.
4) The only thing engineers will learn from this is points 1, 2 and 3. I'm telling them this for free.

Re:Sigh

[rev0lt]

1) You're a short-sighted moron, but that we already knew;
2) If crowdfunding of these kind of projects work, we'll see many more in the future - even if it fails its goal;
3) Learning engineering tricks form a viable, proven piece of tech that went where no man has been before is priceless. You can simulate whatever you want, but in the end I'll take a proven piece of gear to a simulation any day;
4) Your opinion's worth is way inflated. Even for free, its still overpriced.

Space Pirates

[goarilla]

Let the satellite hijacking begin.

Cheaper to Outsource

[retroworks]

It's a "make vs. buy" decision. The cheaper thing is to release it open source and wait for someone in Guangdong to make a knock off and buy in online for $2M.

Re:It's sure to be a really gripping smart phone a

[TheDarkMaster]

Hahaha, sounds like the Kerbal Space Program sensors reporting

Re:Gramar Sholar

[CohibaVancouver]

"I could care less" is the most common phrase indicating sarcasm in English.

Only amongst morons.

Re:Gramar Sholar

[CohibaVancouver]

I guess you mean morons such as Harvard linguist Steven Pinker.

Well, Anonymous Coward, I don't know the gentleman in question, but if he says "I could care less" to indicate that in fact he *couldn't* care less about a topic, then yes, Mr. Pinker is a moron.

Re:Gramar Sholar

[fuzzywig]

In UK English it's always 'couldn't'. "I could care less" just isn't used over here, it wouldn't make sense.

Re:Gramar Sholar

[bluefoxlucid]

I've read the Harvard Business Review guide to quality writing. I am convinced it degraded my writing ability.

I would suggest the fourth edition of William Strunk, Jr.'s and E.B. White's small volume, "The Elements of Style". Avoid Harvard garbage.

Re:what???

[tapi0]

oh dear, don't let that get out. I see a rush of new tech patents coming up:

clicking on a dynamically generated link to information but in space

Re:Gramar Sholar

[TangoMargarine]

Well, obviously he *could* care less because otherwise he wouldn't be posting...