The problem with that philosophy is that there's a substantial portion of the audience that will know and care. Okay, maybe not in some fields -- I have no way of knowing how realistic the internal White House politics in West Wing are, f'rinstance, and neither do 99 44/100 % of viewers. But when you're talking about, say, emergency medicine, or the military, or computers, or law, or any sort of science... most viewers may not know the difference between reality and cliche, but a lot of them will. Certainly enough that, when it's easy to fix, any wrier who gives a shit* will find someone to check with. Speaking as a veteran, a medic, a programmer, and a scientist, and thus a representative of a number of the most-often-abused groups, I have to say that my enjoyment of otherwise-good books, movies, and TV shows is very often spoiled by egregious stupidity.
*Of course, this is Hollywood we're talking about.
Granted they have a more long term approach, and the Rutan design is more of a quick fix.
Bingo; SS1, as impressive as it is, is simply not what the USAF is looking for. They want a simple, cheap, reliable orbital access system, and that is something SS1 will never be. Remember, they sent some of their people up for the "suborbital joyride" thing back in the 1950's.
That being said, I think that if Rutan puts his mind to orbital solutions, he's got as good a chance as anyone; hopefully he'll be able to do it with the money he's getting from Branson. I certainly see nothing wrong with (at least) two well-funded, innovative companies working on different approaches to a single problem at the same time...
They get their cut for their labor, same as I get mine. Which is the way it ought to be. Understand I don't define "labor" purely as physical work here; intellectual work certainly counts too. What I object to is the idea that most of what C*O's do counts in either sense.
Good managers are useful, I'm not denying that. My point is that once you get above a certain level, management isn't "making shit happen" -- at least not any shit that's useful to the company. Usually that happens about the point that the company develops an alphabet soup of top positions.
If it wasn't for those 'millionaire CEOs', we wouldn't have much of what is available today at such a low cost.
Bullshit. Executives produce nothing. They're parasites, and they raise prices for everyone else. Pretty much any time anyone is getting paid a million or more a year and/or uses "C*O" as his job title, you can be sure he's not doing any useful work.
Don't blame NASA. I guarantee you there are a shitload of NASA scientists and engineers who are chomping at the bit to build this thing, and have been for decades. It's the politicians who make the spending decisions you should blame, and more generally, the voters who elect those politicians; if it weren't for our general loss of national will as regards space exploration after we beat the USSR to the Moon, we'd have a fleet of nuclear-powered spacecraft moving both cargo and people all over the Solar System by now.
It simply amazes me how we have so many business geniuses, but not one of them has even considered space as the next new continent.
Because the vast majority of businessmen, "geniuses" or not (mostly not) are incapable of thinking past next quarter's results. The potential ROI on space travel is huge, but it's also very long-term. Interesting that you mention "new continent" as an example -- it's worth remembering that the early voyages of the Age of Exploration were done on government funding. I think the lesson here is pretty obvious.
The main exception I see is the supremacy of the military. This administration talks them up, but its actual treatment of our troops is contemptable. We've all heard of soldiers injured, discharged, then told to repay their enlistment bonus since they didn't complete their term of service. Or told to pay hospital fees while recooperating from loss of limbs. (The argument was that they shouldn't have gotten a food and housing stipend while living on hospital grounds but not in a hospital room, or something equally lame.)
Actually, even that's not an exception. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy coddled their top commanders while treating the grunts like shit.
Don't pretend that this is the result of some inherent flaw in the American political system. (Now, there are many flaws in that system, to be sure, but this isn't one of them.) This is a flaw of the Bush administration; no other administration in American history* has been so ruthless in attempting to remove opposing voices entirely from the political process.
most people running computers don't know what software its running
Very true, and much of the time it makes no difference. But when you're conducting a study on software costs, it makes sense to make sure the people you're asking questions of do know, or else the results are meaningless.
It's not quite as huge an improvement as it sounds like, because versions of these utilities that do work with HFS+, such as CpMac and MvMac, have been available as part of the (free) dev tools suite for a while. However, there's no particular reason you should have to install the dev tools to get such functionality, and it will be awfully nice to just have the regular Unix names for such things handle HFS+ files correctly, so it's a Good Thing. My guess is that they ironed out the slight inconsistencies between cp and CpMac, and mv and MvMac, and are now shipping these as cp and mv.
If you're going to engage in literary criticism, check your spelling.
That being said, I'm curious as to why you consider Firefly sufficiently advanced only for ten-year-olds. Is it because it's science fiction, or because it's a TV show (and now a movie)? Either way, of course, your prejudices are clearly blinding you; I'd just like to know which variety of pretentiousness I'm looking at.
As opposed to the yuppie assholes who think snobbery and exclusivity are a sign of quality?
No, as opposed to -- pay attention, AC, this is important -- people who do some research, find out what the best tool is for the task, and buy that tool rather than buying the same crap all their friends buy and then bitching about it when the tool breaks.
Ah, the usual worldly-wise accusation of naivete. "You kids today, you just don't understand..." Well, as another geezer, I'll weigh in.
* The exception is, of course, google - they also get a free pass when indulging in questionable behaviour. It seems that there is a lot of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" going on, with MS being the enemy. I'm old enough to remember when MS was in google's position, and IBM was the leviathan, crushing all before it. And I'm astute enough to realise the there will be a new enemy along in a minute, and the next generation of geeks will be vilifying google (or whoever - google are my bet) praising a new upstart through rose-tinted glasses, and slightly bemused that MS was once seen as an 800lb gorilla.
Yes, because this is a practical way to think in the real world. It's not so much "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as "no permanent allies, only permanent interests." When Apple, and Google, and IBM, act in ways which are in the community's interest, we support them. When they act in ways which are contrary to the community's interest, we oppose them. And because right now Microsoft can be counted on to act against the community interest at every turn, anyone acting against Microsoft is therefore acting for the community. No one thinks this is a permanent state of affairs, but it is indisputably the current situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe MS is evil, any more. They were once upon a time, but I think that something's fundamentally changed over there.
... is still a serial killer.
A serial killer who one day decides to donate blood
The problem with that philosophy is that there's a substantial portion of the audience that will know and care. Okay, maybe not in some fields -- I have no way of knowing how realistic the internal White House politics in West Wing are, f'rinstance, and neither do 99 44/100 % of viewers. But when you're talking about, say, emergency medicine, or the military, or computers, or law, or any sort of science ... most viewers may not know the difference between reality and cliche, but a lot of them will. Certainly enough that, when it's easy to fix, any wrier who gives a shit* will find someone to check with. Speaking as a veteran, a medic, a programmer, and a scientist, and thus a representative of a number of the most-often-abused groups, I have to say that my enjoyment of otherwise-good books, movies, and TV shows is very often spoiled by egregious stupidity.
*Of course, this is Hollywood we're talking about.
Granted they have a more long term approach, and the Rutan design is more of a quick fix.
...
Bingo; SS1, as impressive as it is, is simply not what the USAF is looking for. They want a simple, cheap, reliable orbital access system, and that is something SS1 will never be. Remember, they sent some of their people up for the "suborbital joyride" thing back in the 1950's.
That being said, I think that if Rutan puts his mind to orbital solutions, he's got as good a chance as anyone; hopefully he'll be able to do it with the money he's getting from Branson. I certainly see nothing wrong with (at least) two well-funded, innovative companies working on different approaches to a single problem at the same time
Good point.
... MBA's want the magic glowy box to do their thinking for them.
Fortunately, Microsoft will be there to take their money.
They get their cut for their labor, same as I get mine. Which is the way it ought to be. Understand I don't define "labor" purely as physical work here; intellectual work certainly counts too. What I object to is the idea that most of what C*O's do counts in either sense.
The 19th century was right about some things. That's one of them.
Good managers are useful, I'm not denying that. My point is that once you get above a certain level, management isn't "making shit happen" -- at least not any shit that's useful to the company. Usually that happens about the point that the company develops an alphabet soup of top positions.
If it wasn't for those 'millionaire CEOs', we wouldn't have much of what is available today at such a low cost.
Bullshit. Executives produce nothing. They're parasites, and they raise prices for everyone else. Pretty much any time anyone is getting paid a million or more a year and/or uses "C*O" as his job title, you can be sure he's not doing any useful work.
But they're stylish and attractive mutant flesh-eating monsters, available in a range of designer colors!
Don't blame NASA. I guarantee you there are a shitload of NASA scientists and engineers who are chomping at the bit to build this thing, and have been for decades. It's the politicians who make the spending decisions you should blame, and more generally, the voters who elect those politicians; if it weren't for our general loss of national will as regards space exploration after we beat the USSR to the Moon, we'd have a fleet of nuclear-powered spacecraft moving both cargo and people all over the Solar System by now.
It simply amazes me how we have so many business geniuses, but not one of them has even considered space as the next new continent.
Because the vast majority of businessmen, "geniuses" or not (mostly not) are incapable of thinking past next quarter's results. The potential ROI on space travel is huge, but it's also very long-term. Interesting that you mention "new continent" as an example -- it's worth remembering that the early voyages of the Age of Exploration were done on government funding. I think the lesson here is pretty obvious.
The main exception I see is the supremacy of the military. This administration talks them up, but its actual treatment of our troops is contemptable. We've all heard of soldiers injured, discharged, then told to repay their enlistment bonus since they didn't complete their term of service. Or told to pay hospital fees while recooperating from loss of limbs. (The argument was that they shouldn't have gotten a food and housing stipend while living on hospital grounds but not in a hospital room, or something equally lame.)
Actually, even that's not an exception. Both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy coddled their top commanders while treating the grunts like shit.
Don't pretend that this is the result of some inherent flaw in the American political system. (Now, there are many flaws in that system, to be sure, but this isn't one of them.) This is a flaw of the Bush administration; no other administration in American history* has been so ruthless in attempting to remove opposing voices entirely from the political process.
*No, not even Lincoln's.
most people running computers don't know what software its running
Very true, and much of the time it makes no difference. But when you're conducting a study on software costs, it makes sense to make sure the people you're asking questions of do know, or else the results are meaningless.
It's not quite as huge an improvement as it sounds like, because versions of these utilities that do work with HFS+, such as CpMac and MvMac, have been available as part of the (free) dev tools suite for a while. However, there's no particular reason you should have to install the dev tools to get such functionality, and it will be awfully nice to just have the regular Unix names for such things handle HFS+ files correctly, so it's a Good Thing. My guess is that they ironed out the slight inconsistencies between cp and CpMac, and mv and MvMac, and are now shipping these as cp and mv.
If you're going to engage in literary criticism, check your spelling.
That being said, I'm curious as to why you consider Firefly sufficiently advanced only for ten-year-olds. Is it because it's science fiction, or because it's a TV show (and now a movie)? Either way, of course, your prejudices are clearly blinding you; I'd just like to know which variety of pretentiousness I'm looking at.
It is regular people, not urban elites we should be listening to!
The idea that "urban elites" are somehow a separate group from "regular people" is one of the stupidest ideas politics has ever had inflicted on it.
As opposed to the yuppie assholes who think snobbery and exclusivity are a sign of quality?
No, as opposed to -- pay attention, AC, this is important -- people who do some research, find out what the best tool is for the task, and buy that tool rather than buying the same crap all their friends buy and then bitching about it when the tool breaks.
So you're saying everybody should just shut up and stop telling new stories because it's all been done?
Because the world is full of idiots who think popularity is an indicator of quality, and buy accordingly.
:) Just a bit.
The MPAA and RIAA are different the way the Mafia and the Yakuza are different.
Fine, substitute "informed users who pay attention to what's going on in the industry" for "community" above.
Ah, the usual worldly-wise accusation of naivete. "You kids today, you just don't understand ..." Well, as another geezer, I'll weigh in.
* The exception is, of course, google - they also get a free pass when indulging in questionable behaviour. It seems that there is a lot of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" going on, with MS being the enemy. I'm old enough to remember when MS was in google's position, and IBM was the leviathan, crushing all before it. And I'm astute enough to realise the there will be a new enemy along in a minute, and the next generation of geeks will be vilifying google (or whoever - google are my bet) praising a new upstart through rose-tinted glasses, and slightly bemused that MS was once seen as an 800lb gorilla.
Yes, because this is a practical way to think in the real world. It's not so much "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as "no permanent allies, only permanent interests." When Apple, and Google, and IBM, act in ways which are in the community's interest, we support them. When they act in ways which are contrary to the community's interest, we oppose them. And because right now Microsoft can be counted on to act against the community interest at every turn, anyone acting against Microsoft is therefore acting for the community. No one thinks this is a permanent state of affairs, but it is indisputably the current situation.
So you'd rather believe Hollywood history based on half-remembered folktales? [shrug] Up to you.