If they really wanted to learn, they would actively allow and encourage the "questioning" of their faith/beliefs. They would also at least learn about another religion
Why do you assume that people at seminary don't do that? In my experience (second-hand, from people who have been) that's exactly what goes on at seminary. It also goes on a great deal in the churches I have dealings with, although necessarily at a less academic level. A local Christian church recently organised a trip to a Hindu Temple for an explanation of Hinduism and invited a Muslim speaker along to explain Islam (I went along to both). Last time I attended a Christian service (not at the same church) part of the address was given by an atheist Jew. Don't assume that all believers are Fred Phelps, and that all churches are like Westboro Baptist Church!
Most people with such beliefs don't need confirmation from some "outside source" as to whether their beliefs are well founded. That's why they call if faith.
That's a common myth, often repeated by the more militant atheists. Although there have been some crackpots who reject evidence and reason, who provide ample fuel for the myth to get around, I think you will find that most people of faith have just as much regard for reason and evidence as atheists do and agnostics like I do (at least within the Christian traditions, which have a strong history of reliance on evidence). They simply make different assumptions when the evidence runs out. (And everybody makes assumptions when the evidence runs out. That is where "faith" comes into it.)
Have a look at William James' lecture The Will To Believe for a realistic discussion of the role of faith in religion.
I can't help but think that while people who are genuinely interested in the history of the Bible might find it fascinating, there's a certain amount of "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it". Particularly among any that are interested in the history of the Bible because of their own religious beliefs rather than just an academic interest in a very old book.
You don't think it possible that they might want to know whether their beliefs are well founded?
Not necessarily. A lot of the time the complexity simply isn't needed, and is only there because somebody "thought it would be a good idea". Even when the complexity is necessary, putting it into the system means it can be managed whereas leaving it to people who are not specialists in the field leaves it unmanaged (as seems to be the case here -- the specialists involved were specialists in the wrong field [1]). Sure, if you can't safely automate it then you're going to need a human in the system, but if that's the case and it's a safety critical system then you need a specialist human, not a non-specialist.
[1] They were medical specialists, not specialists in operating this piece of equipment.
Only if you accept that it will never be reached, and that there is a tradeoff in aiming for it. I'm all too used to the media and government calling for punishment for those who failed to do what could not be done, or processes getting bogged down with "protections" that will probably never protect in the lifetime of the systems they "protect". Safety is best served by realism and honesty, not by a "something must be done" attitude.
Testing isn't enough. The Therac-25 system was tested, but that didn't catch the UI issues (only occurred when operators got very familiar with the system) or the race condition (too rare to occur in testing). A system that can cause serious harm needs serious analysis, not just testing.
As a user of GE machines I would have to say they are pretty well locked down. It's hard to change anything. That may sound good, but in practice it means if you *do* want to change something then you need to do some pretty nasty workarounds. E.g. you have to edit a text file on the scanner so that it does what you want it to do, however as far as the scanner software is concerned it is still running the original protocol.
A proper safety analysis would identify that as a major hazard and force it to be corrected. If you have a need to make the change then it should be possible to make the change in a safe way. If you don't have the need to make the change then you should not be able to. What you describe is the worst of both worlds, and looks to me to be highly unsafe (and anything but "pretty well locked down").
If you can do it with hardware then do it with hardware. One case I remember from a safety critical systems conference was a robot for performing prostate operations. This involved insering a surgical tool through the uretha. The usual worst case failure for a human surgeon is to leave the patient incontinent. Unfortunately, the usual failure mode of a robot arm is to travel at top speed to one extreme of its movement, which in this case would rip the patient's penis off and throw it across the room. The solution was to put the surgical tool on a radial arm of a semicircular mount, so the maximum physically possible movement was still within the surgical area.
I'm not sure how radiation exposure is controlled in kit like this, but I don't think it would be difficult to ensure that a screen falls into place after a fixed time, or something similar, irrespective of what the sofrtware does. The hardware system should allow a dose that is slightly higher than would credibly be used, but not much higher. If the dosage that the patients had received had been 10% high rather than eight times high then this would still be a story but nowhere near such a scary one.
The solution isn't to do complex training, which as you suggest is a recurring cost and will lead to few skilled operators. Rather, the solution is to make the equipment so that it doesn't need complex training (beyond what the medical staff will have already!), which would be a one-off cost and wouldn't significantly limit the number of operators.
This particular error is the kind that occurs when you simplify complex procedures in the interest of widespread use. It is the fault of specialization, which we typically embrace because it allows us to leverage human labor into increasingly complex areas of inquiry. It's more than just "human oversight" or "machine failure," it's the kind of problem that typically arises when people are trained to use machines without being trained to fully understand those machines.
A certain segment of society--that's mostly us geeks--strives against this tendency; we become technicians in various fields. But most people, including medical people, get trained by vendors to use a particular piece of software or hardware without reference to its underlying principles or inner workings. This is normal and usually beneficial for various reasons an economist could doubtless relate.
But one of the things that we geeks should be doing is looking at equipment like this in its overall system context, which includes the operator and which includes the training the operator has received. That's mandatory in the Aviation industry pretty much worldwide (my field); I don't know what the situation is for medical equipment in the USA. No, we will never make such mistakes "uncommittable" -- perfect safety is a myth. But we should be considering possible failure modes, and the likelihood and consequences of those failure modes, to ensure that the risk is tolerable.
nor do you want to always be responding to some questions that take away your time and concentration.
I think that's an important point. I think that the people who make these pronouncements tend to work in jobs that don't require complex analysis but are focussed on snap responses to situations. The RA was from the Wall Street Journal, and I agree that email is probably not the best means of tactical communication on a trading floor. The trouble comes when people who work in that way assume that everybody works in that way. I once worked for an employer who decided that our workplace should be designed to maximise distraction and interruption because that would be "vibrant" and "creative". It might have been, but it was absolutely terrible for making sure that a system that could kill hundreds of people was safely designed.
I'm pretty sure it didn't. The storyline tended to keep you in areas that matched your abilities, but I found that if I wandered off track I would get completely mauled by stuff that turned out to be fine to deal with once I was supposed to go to that area. I think that's the way it should be, pretty much open, but not sensible to go to some places before you were ready (although some way to run away from bosses that you weren't ready for would have helped).
What is NOT fun is running into a muskrat that I was able to kill three months earlier with a rusty sword and barely the ability to swing it, and find it nearly as difficult to kill with a high quality sword and armor and a high level of fighting skill. What the hell? When the muskrats are nearly as tough as the dragons, something is wrong. That's the experience of Oblivion.
Which is one reason I still much prefer Morrowind. You don't find that the scamps get more powerful, you find that you are running into storm atronachs instead -- which is consistent with the storyline, as Dagoth-Ur is increasing in power.
Are you going to ignore that writer's books in future and buy something more suited to your reading level? Sure. That's why there's no right answer to the original question (short of making everything configurable). Different people have different abilities and play games for different reasons. Rubberbanding isn't right or wrong, it just shifts your target demographic. After all, Dara O'Briain might be really bad at video games, but I bet he's got a lot more money to spend on them than I have!
Yes, but that's just badly implemented rubberbanding. Badly implemented pretty-much-anything in a game is going to suck, but it doesn't mean that pretty-much-anything is a bad idea.
Slashdot Mirror
If they really wanted to learn, they would actively allow and encourage the "questioning" of their faith/beliefs. They would also at least learn about another religion
Why do you assume that people at seminary don't do that? In my experience (second-hand, from people who have been) that's exactly what goes on at seminary. It also goes on a great deal in the churches I have dealings with, although necessarily at a less academic level. A local Christian church recently organised a trip to a Hindu Temple for an explanation of Hinduism and invited a Muslim speaker along to explain Islam (I went along to both). Last time I attended a Christian service (not at the same church) part of the address was given by an atheist Jew. Don't assume that all believers are Fred Phelps, and that all churches are like Westboro Baptist Church!
Most people with such beliefs don't need confirmation from some "outside source" as to whether their beliefs are well founded. That's why they call if faith.
That's a common myth, often repeated by the more militant atheists. Although there have been some crackpots who reject evidence and reason, who provide ample fuel for the myth to get around, I think you will find that most people of faith have just as much regard for reason and evidence as atheists do and agnostics like I do (at least within the Christian traditions, which have a strong history of reliance on evidence). They simply make different assumptions when the evidence runs out. (And everybody makes assumptions when the evidence runs out. That is where "faith" comes into it.)
Have a look at William James' lecture The Will To Believe for a realistic discussion of the role of faith in religion.
Now you're being silly -- that wouldn't be a question, would it?
I think the idea was to show the purchaser those price points, not limit the customer to those pay points.
I can't help but think that while people who are genuinely interested in the history of the Bible might find it fascinating, there's a certain amount of "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it". Particularly among any that are interested in the history of the Bible because of their own religious beliefs rather than just an academic interest in a very old book.
You don't think it possible that they might want to know whether their beliefs are well founded?
It's also a word used a lot by listeners to BBC Radio 4 -- usually to describe why they listen to BBC Radio 4.
Yes, Shakespeare got within 1 of the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything!
he believes the majority of issues are being triggered by misbehaving drivers or applications
Linux is finally learning from Microsoft!
Not necessarily. A lot of the time the complexity simply isn't needed, and is only there because somebody "thought it would be a good idea". Even when the complexity is necessary, putting it into the system means it can be managed whereas leaving it to people who are not specialists in the field leaves it unmanaged (as seems to be the case here -- the specialists involved were specialists in the wrong field [1]). Sure, if you can't safely automate it then you're going to need a human in the system, but if that's the case and it's a safety critical system then you need a specialist human, not a non-specialist.
[1] They were medical specialists, not specialists in operating this piece of equipment.
That might justify Hiroshima. Nagasaki is not so easy.
Only if you accept that it will never be reached, and that there is a tradeoff in aiming for it. I'm all too used to the media and government calling for punishment for those who failed to do what could not be done, or processes getting bogged down with "protections" that will probably never protect in the lifetime of the systems they "protect". Safety is best served by realism and honesty, not by a "something must be done" attitude.
Testing isn't enough. The Therac-25 system was tested, but that didn't catch the UI issues (only occurred when operators got very familiar with the system) or the race condition (too rare to occur in testing). A system that can cause serious harm needs serious analysis, not just testing.
As a user of GE machines I would have to say they are pretty well locked down. It's hard to change anything. That may sound good, but in practice it means if you *do* want to change something then you need to do some pretty nasty workarounds. E.g. you have to edit a text file on the scanner so that it does what you want it to do, however as far as the scanner software is concerned it is still running the original protocol.
A proper safety analysis would identify that as a major hazard and force it to be corrected. If you have a need to make the change then it should be possible to make the change in a safe way. If you don't have the need to make the change then you should not be able to. What you describe is the worst of both worlds, and looks to me to be highly unsafe (and anything but "pretty well locked down").
If you can do it with hardware then do it with hardware. One case I remember from a safety critical systems conference was a robot for performing prostate operations. This involved insering a surgical tool through the uretha. The usual worst case failure for a human surgeon is to leave the patient incontinent. Unfortunately, the usual failure mode of a robot arm is to travel at top speed to one extreme of its movement, which in this case would rip the patient's penis off and throw it across the room. The solution was to put the surgical tool on a radial arm of a semicircular mount, so the maximum physically possible movement was still within the surgical area.
I'm not sure how radiation exposure is controlled in kit like this, but I don't think it would be difficult to ensure that a screen falls into place after a fixed time, or something similar, irrespective of what the sofrtware does. The hardware system should allow a dose that is slightly higher than would credibly be used, but not much higher. If the dosage that the patients had received had been 10% high rather than eight times high then this would still be a story but nowhere near such a scary one.
The solution isn't to do complex training, which as you suggest is a recurring cost and will lead to few skilled operators. Rather, the solution is to make the equipment so that it doesn't need complex training (beyond what the medical staff will have already!), which would be a one-off cost and wouldn't significantly limit the number of operators.
This particular error is the kind that occurs when you simplify complex procedures in the interest of widespread use. It is the fault of specialization, which we typically embrace because it allows us to leverage human labor into increasingly complex areas of inquiry. It's more than just "human oversight" or "machine failure," it's the kind of problem that typically arises when people are trained to use machines without being trained to fully understand those machines.
A certain segment of society--that's mostly us geeks--strives against this tendency; we become technicians in various fields. But most people, including medical people, get trained by vendors to use a particular piece of software or hardware without reference to its underlying principles or inner workings. This is normal and usually beneficial for various reasons an economist could doubtless relate.
But one of the things that we geeks should be doing is looking at equipment like this in its overall system context, which includes the operator and which includes the training the operator has received. That's mandatory in the Aviation industry pretty much worldwide (my field); I don't know what the situation is for medical equipment in the USA. No, we will never make such mistakes "uncommittable" -- perfect safety is a myth. But we should be considering possible failure modes, and the likelihood and consequences of those failure modes, to ensure that the risk is tolerable.
nor do you want to always be responding to some questions that take away your time and concentration.
I think that's an important point. I think that the people who make these pronouncements tend to work in jobs that don't require complex analysis but are focussed on snap responses to situations. The RA was from the Wall Street Journal, and I agree that email is probably not the best means of tactical communication on a trading floor. The trouble comes when people who work in that way assume that everybody works in that way. I once worked for an employer who decided that our workplace should be designed to maximise distraction and interruption because that would be "vibrant" and "creative". It might have been, but it was absolutely terrible for making sure that a system that could kill hundreds of people was safely designed.
I like the weather here, you insensitive clod!
I'm pretty sure it didn't. The storyline tended to keep you in areas that matched your abilities, but I found that if I wandered off track I would get completely mauled by stuff that turned out to be fine to deal with once I was supposed to go to that area. I think that's the way it should be, pretty much open, but not sensible to go to some places before you were ready (although some way to run away from bosses that you weren't ready for would have helped).
What is NOT fun is running into a muskrat that I was able to kill three months earlier with a rusty sword and barely the ability to swing it, and find it nearly as difficult to kill with a high quality sword and armor and a high level of fighting skill. What the hell? When the muskrats are nearly as tough as the dragons, something is wrong. That's the experience of Oblivion.
Which is one reason I still much prefer Morrowind. You don't find that the scamps get more powerful, you find that you are running into storm atronachs instead -- which is consistent with the storyline, as Dagoth-Ur is increasing in power.
Are you going to ignore that writer's books in future and buy something more suited to your reading level? Sure. That's why there's no right answer to the original question (short of making everything configurable). Different people have different abilities and play games for different reasons. Rubberbanding isn't right or wrong, it just shifts your target demographic. After all, Dara O'Briain might be really bad at video games, but I bet he's got a lot more money to spend on them than I have!
Yes, but that's just badly implemented rubberbanding. Badly implemented pretty-much-anything in a game is going to suck, but it doesn't mean that pretty-much-anything is a bad idea.
Hey, I was less than an inch out!
These guys are in the media field!
So now we need some sort of a light probe to measure the outline of that field!
Except the E and B fields being visualised are not there. The tag is passive, it does not broadcast. You've missed the point of what they're doing.