FTA: "Not surprisingly, 88 percent of Democratic economists think Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would be best, while 80 percent of Republican economists pick Republican Sen. John McCain."
If these guys are so objective (in prescribing seemingly-sensible solutions), why do they intend to vote along party lines anyway? Neither candidate seems to be presenting a program aligned with what the surveyed economists proposed.
I guess you can't take the politics out of an economist any more than you can take economics out of politics...
I once interviewed an older guy who came personally recommended. He was crap in the formal interview and coding test - just went to pieces, through nerves I guess.
Since he came via someone I trusted, I took him out to lunch to calm him down, then left him alone for the afternoon with some real spaghetti code that another one of my senior guys has been trying to debug. I just asked him to 'take a look at that, please'. No 'fix this & you got the job' b/s.
When I dropped by a few hours later, he'd just finished rewriting the entire damn thing. Worked. He got the job. Interviews and tests are not everything!
To expand on your post, lots of cheap under/unemployed people also make automated tools redundant or not required. Also makes countermeasures, (necessarily automated)less efficient & effective. Don't bother trying to crack the latest Craiglist captcha, just get a load of poor (in both senses of the word) people to do it. It's a service that's even 'advertised'...
Urm, not sure how that would work. If there's no checks, let's assume that everyone has RPGs and automatic weapons. Sounds like a receipe for safety at 50K feet...remember, these guys *want* to die...
More seriously, the airlines don't have the option - US Gov. law requires them (and the airports) to go through all the checks. Unfortunately, its not just the lives of the passengers that are at stake, as the Twin Towers tragically demonstrated, an airliner makes an effective missile.
The people who publish scientific journals have been mining a lucrative seam for years. Now, just as with music and video, they see their business model, and fat associated monopoly rents, being threatened.
Just as with the music and video industries, their efforts to stop the rot so far have been risible.
Their case has even less merit since, unlike the music and video inductries, the original authors of the works: 1. Have usually already been paid for their work, and 2. Actively want it be distributed as widely and freely as possible Indeed, since a lot of (published) science is paid for by our taxes, one could argue 'the public' already owns it / the right to read it freely.
The argument that reputable journals provide a robust peer-review function withers somewhat in the light of many recent scandals that have 'slipped through the net'. The comparison with 'many eyes' from open source sprngs to mind. How long before something really poor or inaccurate is challenged on Wikipedia? Minutes?
Still, that's enough analogies - better stop before I try and slip in a car one, too...
Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to demonstrated Chinese sat destruction capability. Although not stated in the summary as part of the goals, presumably a network of standard, modular and inter-connected sats would not only be cheaper, but also, if properly designed, more fault & attack tolerant. There's much concern in the military about how the armed forces are increasingly reliant on space-based systems, and their vulnerability to disruption / destruction.
To your point, whether or not they'd be more effective / capable is a question that maybe somebody here could answer? Could the same priciple apply as is used by astronomers, for both optical and radio telecopes, whereby multiple small detectors substitute for one big one? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array). Would also reduce the risk of losing one big spy sat at launch, as recently happened. (But presumably it was big because it needed to be?)
Finally, more satellites could perhaps be useful for tactical operations, since there'd be less time to wait for the next pass before getting a view of the area of interest. Harder for bad people, (and good), to avoid too - the times of passing sats are widely documented on the 'net, and Govs and others are known to time their sensitive activties to avoid being caught.
Thanks for taking the time to post an intelligent reply, and for the courage to post as yourself. As the saying goes, "I might not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it..."
Yup, not one of my faves. For a good mix of geek, scientist and writer, give me Pournelle any time. I still miss his old Byte 'Chaos Manor' column.
Still, I'm disappointed by the response so far. My orginal post was lighthearted, and I was expecting 'flamebait' at the worst.
It's not as if plenty of other faiths are not also based on weird beliefs or strange old (or more recent) texts - think Mormons for a start. The old testament has some heavy passages too...
Yet attack the Christians, Jews, Muslims whatever here and you'll soon get some robust replies.
is there rather a lot of anti-Scientology stuff here recently?
Interestingly, I don't see a lot - make that *any* pro-posts either. Surely somewhere in the vast/. userbase there must be some of L. Ron's acolytes. Plenty of science and SciFci fans here.
I'd love to - where's the technology? Even the Toyota Prius is a fraud - it has comparable or less fuel economy than a good, small diesel. Anyways, rather than carry around a ton of useless metal when I travel, I use a small 4-stoke scooter. It consumes and pollutes much less than a car. Not as safe, though...
Chinese, eh? Well, no need to ask about their attitudes to pollution, huh?
The last thing that one of the greatest expaneses of reasonably unpolluted places on earth, (reasonably? They can detect significant levels of lead at both poles thanks to the worldwide use of leaded fuel), is more pollution.
Not sure that's true. Look at the ratios. Ever since Napster and WinMX, there's always been a few with high bandwidth/willingness to share/got stuff you want feeding the others.
"The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully."
Neat trick, eh? I fail to see the common-sense logic, but I guess that's never stopped the legal-beagles before...
For those posting about changing the business model, (earn money by prosecuting the shit out of your consumers). Yes, but it's probably more to get headlines and increase the imagined "deterrent" effect... Yeah right. Sure worked with the death penalty and murder/serious crime rates, eh?
For those posting about stealing the CDs, well sorry, but the way these desperate dudes are going, pretty soon it'll be illegal to rip those tracks to your Ubuntu box/iPod/whatever anyway. Fair use? Byeeeeeeee... Next up, 2Bn$ fines for those who rip music from stolen CDs!!!! Think of the children!
Assuming that you live in a place with a regular, consistent source of sunshine. Plus older people tend to avoid the sun, as they can't stand the heat / brightness, quite apart from the cancer risks...
Still, on a lighter note:
Doctor: I'm sorry, Mr Smith, but your wife's symptoms match either Alzheimer's or AIDS. Smith: *gasp* What can I do, Doc? Dr: Well, I suggest you take her into town, and leave here there. If she finds her way home, wear a condom!
Nothing's going to change
on
Geekonomics
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Few people (rightly so) would tolerate Boeings or Airbuses that fell out of the sky through faulty software.
And yet, as a former coder then vendor, I always found it hard to get people to pony up for better education for programmers, analysts, project managers, or better coding tools, exhaustive testing protocols, whatever.
Now as a consultant, I face the same struggle getting people to be serious about backups, redundancy/eliminating single points of failure...
As long as it's not their head on the block, even senior managers will most often favour commercial expendiency over prudence. This in the face of many high-profile disasters that cost a lot more to put right than they would have done to do properly.
That's true if you have a low failure rate. Long burn-in cost a fortune, in many ways, (power consumption, test rigs, breaking production flow...), but returns are insanely expensive, so if you get many, (as seems to be M$'s case) then long heat-soak tests may help. Does not fix the basic problem though - bad design and/or component spec.
Slashdot Mirror
FTA: "Not surprisingly, 88 percent of Democratic economists think Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would be best, while 80 percent of Republican economists pick Republican Sen. John McCain."
If these guys are so objective (in prescribing seemingly-sensible solutions), why do they intend to vote along party lines anyway? Neither candidate seems to be presenting a program aligned with what the surveyed economists proposed.
I guess you can't take the politics out of an economist any more than you can take economics out of politics...
Wish I had mod points, you'd get 'em all.
I once interviewed an older guy who came personally recommended. He was crap in the formal interview and coding test - just went to pieces, through nerves I guess.
Since he came via someone I trusted, I took him out to lunch to calm him down, then left him alone for the afternoon with some real spaghetti code that another one of my senior guys has been trying to debug. I just asked him to 'take a look at that, please'. No 'fix this & you got the job' b/s.
When I dropped by a few hours later, he'd just finished rewriting the entire damn thing. Worked. He got the job. Interviews and tests are not everything!
To expand on your post, lots of cheap under/unemployed people also make automated tools redundant or not required. Also makes countermeasures, (necessarily automated)less efficient & effective. Don't bother trying to crack the latest Craiglist captcha, just get a load of poor (in both senses of the word) people to do it. It's a service that's even 'advertised'...
Urm, not sure how that would work. If there's no checks, let's assume that everyone has RPGs and automatic weapons. Sounds like a receipe for safety at 50K feet...remember, these guys *want* to die...
So you're on the list as of now.
More seriously, the airlines don't have the option - US Gov. law requires them (and the airports) to go through all the checks. Unfortunately, its not just the lives of the passengers that are at stake, as the Twin Towers tragically demonstrated, an airliner makes an effective missile.
Along with the spellchecker?
And PhishTank?
Are they really that out of touch?
They might not be, but most of their customers, (almost by definition), probably are...
The people who publish scientific journals have been mining a lucrative seam for years.
Now, just as with music and video, they see their business model, and fat associated monopoly rents, being threatened.
Just as with the music and video industries, their efforts to stop the rot so far have been risible.
Their case has even less merit since, unlike the music and video inductries, the original authors of the works:
1. Have usually already been paid for their work, and
2. Actively want it be distributed as widely and freely as possible
Indeed, since a lot of (published) science is paid for by our taxes, one could argue 'the public' already owns it / the right to read it freely.
The argument that reputable journals provide a robust peer-review function withers somewhat in the light of many recent scandals that have 'slipped through the net'. The comparison with 'many eyes' from open source sprngs to mind. How long before something really poor or inaccurate is challenged on Wikipedia? Minutes?
Still, that's enough analogies - better stop before I try and slip in a car one, too...
More discussion on topic here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/Eisen.htm
Why was this modded funny? Give him some 'insightful' points as well guys.
Sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to demonstrated Chinese sat destruction capability. Although not stated in the summary as part of the goals, presumably a network of standard, modular and inter-connected sats would not only be cheaper, but also, if properly designed, more fault & attack tolerant. There's much concern in the military about how the armed forces are increasingly reliant on space-based systems, and their vulnerability to disruption / destruction.
To your point, whether or not they'd be more effective / capable is a question that maybe somebody here could answer? Could the same priciple apply as is used by astronomers, for both optical and radio telecopes, whereby multiple small detectors substitute for one big one? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array). Would also reduce the risk of losing one big spy sat at launch, as recently happened. (But presumably it was big because it needed to be?)
Finally, more satellites could perhaps be useful for tactical operations, since there'd be less time to wait for the next pass before getting a view of the area of interest. Harder for bad people, (and good), to avoid too - the times of passing sats are widely documented on the 'net, and Govs and others are known to time their sensitive activties to avoid being caught.
Thanks for taking the time to post an intelligent reply, and for the courage to post as yourself.
As the saying goes, "I might not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it..."
You forgot - 'but I do this so that other people don't have to'
Thanks for your post - brought back happy memories and made me laugh out loud.
I'm off to the beach house with the 100 lb 'portable'.
Because there's plenty of ways of doing this already on Linux, without installing crap like this.
On windows and (OK, a little harder), Mac too...
Of course, if you really want it, just use Wine.
Yup, not one of my faves. For a good mix of geek, scientist and writer, give me Pournelle any time. I still miss his old Byte 'Chaos Manor' column.
Still, I'm disappointed by the response so far.
My orginal post was lighthearted, and I was expecting 'flamebait' at the worst.
It's not as if plenty of other faiths are not also based on weird beliefs or strange old (or more recent) texts - think Mormons for a start. The old testament has some heavy passages too...
Yet attack the Christians, Jews, Muslims whatever here and you'll soon get some robust replies.
Why the silence?
Well, since I just got trolled, I guess there ARE some L.Ron boys here after all!
Thanks for the mature and detailed rebuttal, boys!
is there rather a lot of anti-Scientology stuff here recently?
/. userbase there must be some of L. Ron's acolytes. Plenty of science and SciFci fans here.
Interestingly, I don't see a lot - make that *any* pro-posts either. Surely somewhere in the vast
C'mon boys, stand up for your faith!
Or is that forbidden too?
I'd love to - where's the technology? Even the Toyota Prius is a fraud - it has comparable or less fuel economy than a good, small diesel. Anyways, rather than carry around a ton of useless metal when I travel, I use a small 4-stoke scooter. It consumes and pollutes much less than a car. Not as safe, though...
Chinese, eh? Well, no need to ask about their attitudes to pollution, huh?
The last thing that one of the greatest expaneses of reasonably unpolluted places on earth, (reasonably? They can detect significant levels of lead at both poles thanks to the worldwide use of leaded fuel), is more pollution.
How about a large tank of hydrogen instead, guys?
Not sure that's true. Look at the ratios. Ever since Napster and WinMX, there's always been a few with high bandwidth/willingness to share/got stuff you want feeding the others.
From the article:
"The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully."
Neat trick, eh? I fail to see the common-sense logic, but I guess that's never stopped the legal-beagles before...
For those posting about changing the business model, (earn money by prosecuting the shit out of your consumers). Yes, but it's probably more to get headlines and increase the imagined "deterrent" effect... Yeah right. Sure worked with the death penalty and murder/serious crime rates, eh?
For those posting about stealing the CDs, well sorry, but the way these desperate dudes are going, pretty soon it'll be illegal to rip those tracks to your Ubuntu box/iPod/whatever anyway. Fair use? Byeeeeeeee... Next up, 2Bn$ fines for those who rip music from stolen CDs!!!! Think of the children!
Assuming that you live in a place with a regular, consistent source of sunshine.
Plus older people tend to avoid the sun, as they can't stand the heat / brightness, quite apart from the cancer risks...
Still, on a lighter note:
Doctor: I'm sorry, Mr Smith, but your wife's symptoms match either Alzheimer's or AIDS.
Smith: *gasp* What can I do, Doc?
Dr: Well, I suggest you take her into town, and leave here there. If she finds her way home, wear a condom!
Few people (rightly so) would tolerate Boeings or Airbuses that fell out of the sky through faulty software.
And yet, as a former coder then vendor, I always found it hard to get people to pony up for better education for programmers, analysts, project managers, or better coding tools, exhaustive testing protocols, whatever.
Now as a consultant, I face the same struggle getting people to be serious about backups, redundancy/eliminating single points of failure...
As long as it's not their head on the block, even senior managers will most often favour commercial expendiency over prudence. This in the face of many high-profile disasters that cost a lot more to put right than they would have done to do properly.
That's true if you have a low failure rate. Long burn-in cost a fortune, in many ways, (power consumption, test rigs, breaking production flow...), but returns are insanely expensive, so if you get many, (as seems to be M$'s case) then long heat-soak tests may help. Does not fix the basic problem though - bad design and/or component spec.