he fact of the matter is that for most people, who is in office has much less to do with their quality of life than local factors do.
This is truely a day for insight. That thought dovetails nicely with my post about no one is fooled, but in a way I was utterly unprepared for.
Looking at the world, I realize that like you, I too have improved my situation. And it was me, working my ass off, and not some Federal program. And it didn't have anything to do with going to school, or getting some piece of paper.
I developed a skill. I'm continually refining that skill, and I've developed a reputation for work that preceeds me in a positive way. I frankly couldn't pick up and move across the country, because half of my career is all of the contacts I've made with local business people, computer enthusiasts, even a politician or two.
Concepts schmoncepts. Conceptually solving a problem is of absolutely no use in the real world unless is backed up by a sufficient understanding of reality as to implement it.
I have years ago conceptually solved all of the worlds problems. We have to get rid of money and develop a form of exchange that better reflects the difference between necessity (capital) and luxury (funny money). You can't "borrow" 20 metric tons of grain, and amortize it over 5 years. If you leave it in a bin, you don't grow more. Indeed, it goes bad. The problem with money is that it accumulates, like a heavy metal or oil-soluble poisen. It corrupts whatever it has accumulated in, and concentrates at the top of the food chain.
What is needed is a system for moving essential materials through a common rate of exchange that decays naturally. We also need a separate system for reward that is redeemed in a different way. This way, if someone is trying to horde money, they can only build of the phony stuff.
That analysis is worthless. I have no means of making this new concept a reality. Even if I did, who is to say that it's not going to cause the same problems as the old system, or just different manifestations of the same problem?
I have worked with a lot of Engineers in my career. You have the stoics geeks, and the lazy freaks. The Geeks are the type that will happily whack flint against steal to start a fire with wet wood. The Freaks use a magnigying glass and some dry bark.
Granted, the Freak can't lights a fire at night or on a cloudy day, buy on average they both tend to take about as long to get the flames going.
In EE we have the theory of control. I admit, I curl into a fetal position when I recall Laplace. But we did learn it. In fact, many of my peers (the much more successful ones) actually found it useful. While I'm there trying to solve a problem with my primative stone tools, they figure out how to model the problem in some higher order. I remember on guy who designed one of our machines at K&S managed to use some high order math to accurately (I'm talking fractions of a millimeter) position a robotic wire bonder with a voice coil and a few encoders!
One of these days I'm going to go back to school and actually learn how to do this stuff right.
It doesn't help that they keep farming work out to contractors. Every layer of communication is a chance for an dumb mistake to creep in, when someone is getting paid by the hour at least.
I do hear you on the limitations of Simulators. They can only help you eliminate the factors you already know about.
That said, a lot of these problems could have been caught in simulation. Take the metric conversion issue.
Could it have really hurt matters to have had a computer model running side by side with the spacecraft? Try out all new settings THERE through a simulated set of the same mechanisms you contact the spacecraft with. Accellerate time, to see the effect, and when you are sure you have it right, make the change.
Apollo 13 was nearly lost on re-entry because of a math error that was only caught because the Astronauts were double checking their own calculations.
I think what I'm trying to say is testing should break things, not validate things. In the Martial Arts that say "Cry in the Dojo, Laugh in the battlefield." The systems that succeed failed miserably in simulation, where corrected. Engineers kept throwing curveballs at it until it worked even when everything wasn't perfect.
Too often testing is a rubber stamp. It needs to be a brutal ordeal.
Software, on the other hand, is completely deterministic. With error-checking and proper testing, it is possible, at least in principle, to write software that will not fail. Software failure that results in loss of life is simply inexcusable.
Software is NEVER deterministic in an operating environment. Just because you can put it on a bench and test the snot out of it does not certify it's behavior in the real world. I have written many programs that work perfectly in testing, only to have a user punch in an unexpected value and bring things to a crashing halt.
Oh no, all design documents dissolve on contact with the real world. The best software is the type that realizes it is operating in an imperfect world, and takes pains to vet its data before processing, or die in a manner that is the least catastrophic to life and property.
The Apollo 1 accident was caused by bad wiring and a pure Oxygen atmosphere. It had nothing to do with the computers.
And when I point out an aerospace system that does work, showing me a zillion ones that don't doesn't invalidate my point. The difference between the systems that work and the system that fail is crafstmanship.
means that your desktop probably (Anyone want to do the math?) has more computing power than all the deep space explorers ever launched, combined.
Yes, but can your computer recover from a triple memory failure? Can you rewire your computer remotely to fall back on a redundent system? Frankly I keep the covers off my case to keep my CPU from overheating.
State of the art is not always measured in Gigahertz.
Funny. Of all of the things that went wrong mechanically with the shuttle, from enginees that had to be tweaked beyond what a Rice-Boy would consider safe, to a protective houseing made of glass, to strapping 2 solid fuel boosters just to jet the sucker off the ground, the software on the Space Shuttle worked well, and worked the first time.
Part of it was the fact they had absolute geniouses working on the problem. Think of it, they designed a system in the late 1970's, tested it on the ground, and had it successfully fly for 20 years without a major "oopsie". Or rather, if a major "Oopsie" happened, they had ways around, over, or through it. They spent YEARS developing the flight software for the Shuttle.
Software CAN be done right. It just has to be a priority.
Did anyone else in the process of reading this think "Gee, this sounds just like Maxwell's Demon."
Maxwell's Demon is a physics problem the is the basis of quantum mechanics. Simply, suppose you had a tank of air that was divided in 2 by a tiny split, with a gate. At the gate is a "demon" who lets high energy particle in on side, and low-energy particles in the other.
Theoretically, by expending no energy save that to open and close the gate (plus whatever overhead the Demon requires) you could thwart the laws of physics. Soon one side of the tank would be "cold" and the other "hot" even if they both started off at the same temperature.
It's not really blocking "pressure" it's making it worth every molecule's while to go the other way. Think of it like a Rent-A-Cop with a velvet rope. Neither the velvet rope nor the Rent-A-Cop would stop a raging mob of 100 people walking straight into it.
But, the Rent-A-Cop and his/her rope will "kindly" deflect any stray party goers that encounter it. Since you are repelling individual particles at a time, the physics are much different.
Remember folks, temperature is not the same thing as heat. 15,000 Kelvin that's a few molecule's thick won't damage your finger. The thermal mass of your finger would snuff it out lickety split.
Now, the high voltage shock might give you pause before touching it again though...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The thugs of the world just find a different population to victimize. (Think Justice Department.) In this case the High Priests are simply trying to keep people contributing to the building fund centuries after the Cathedral is finished.
Actually that is stealing. You are taking something from someone else. That lack of something will be harms to the victimized party.
"Copying" music leaves the original intact. The "Harm" is from lost sales, but the law doesn't give a rat's ass about potential sales. Copyright with designed to keep publishers honest. It was not designed to keep individuals in line.
The other strategy would have been to simply produce content that was novel and promote it on the radio. You know, that strategy that worked well before we had a "Clear Channel" from Maine to California.
The radio in my car must be convinced there are only 2 channels in existance. NPR, and KYW (local news radio.) And KYW's only on for the traffic reports.
The old joke was that folks were doing the speed limit that was printed on the blue signs. Of course, today you have to add a decimal point.
In Philly we have I-7.6, 9.5, and 6.76. And people ask me "how can you live in the City?" Simple folks: it takes me less time for me to walk 2 miles than you to drive 20!
I think the rumors of the death of the Constitution are a bit premature. King George II is still on the throne, granted, but no one is fooled.
His goof was pulling all of his stupid crap in the first year of his Presidency. Time enough for us to see the emperor indeed has no clothes. And no, I'm not even going to get in to 9/11. I'm just talking about his Economic Programs (or lack thereof), trying to de-ball Environmental regulations, and the policies of Don't Tax and Spend More.
Residents of Texas, please tell me: Are you better off today than you were before Dubya?
It's just nice being able to pop in the damn disk, and play the damn game. This from a man who thinks pre-compiled Linux distros are for children and newbies. Go figure.
I do at least pipe the Video output through the TV tuner card.
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This is truely a day for insight. That thought dovetails nicely with my post about no one is fooled, but in a way I was utterly unprepared for.
Looking at the world, I realize that like you, I too have improved my situation. And it was me, working my ass off, and not some Federal program. And it didn't have anything to do with going to school, or getting some piece of paper.
I developed a skill. I'm continually refining that skill, and I've developed a reputation for work that preceeds me in a positive way. I frankly couldn't pick up and move across the country, because half of my career is all of the contacts I've made with local business people, computer enthusiasts, even a politician or two.
Ouch, and thank you.
Actually, compared to the Old boys, Sega and Nintendo, Sony's licensing system is downright generous to developers.
That has evidently not stopped NASA, nor its contractors now has it?
I have years ago conceptually solved all of the worlds problems. We have to get rid of money and develop a form of exchange that better reflects the difference between necessity (capital) and luxury (funny money). You can't "borrow" 20 metric tons of grain, and amortize it over 5 years. If you leave it in a bin, you don't grow more. Indeed, it goes bad. The problem with money is that it accumulates, like a heavy metal or oil-soluble poisen. It corrupts whatever it has accumulated in, and concentrates at the top of the food chain.
What is needed is a system for moving essential materials through a common rate of exchange that decays naturally. We also need a separate system for reward that is redeemed in a different way. This way, if someone is trying to horde money, they can only build of the phony stuff.
That analysis is worthless. I have no means of making this new concept a reality. Even if I did, who is to say that it's not going to cause the same problems as the old system, or just different manifestations of the same problem?
Granted, the Freak can't lights a fire at night or on a cloudy day, buy on average they both tend to take about as long to get the flames going.
In EE we have the theory of control. I admit, I curl into a fetal position when I recall Laplace. But we did learn it. In fact, many of my peers (the much more successful ones) actually found it useful. While I'm there trying to solve a problem with my primative stone tools, they figure out how to model the problem in some higher order. I remember on guy who designed one of our machines at K&S managed to use some high order math to accurately (I'm talking fractions of a millimeter) position a robotic wire bonder with a voice coil and a few encoders!
One of these days I'm going to go back to school and actually learn how to do this stuff right.
I do hear you on the limitations of Simulators. They can only help you eliminate the factors you already know about.
That said, a lot of these problems could have been caught in simulation. Take the metric conversion issue.
Could it have really hurt matters to have had a computer model running side by side with the spacecraft? Try out all new settings THERE through a simulated set of the same mechanisms you contact the spacecraft with. Accellerate time, to see the effect, and when you are sure you have it right, make the change.
Apollo 13 was nearly lost on re-entry because of a math error that was only caught because the Astronauts were double checking their own calculations.
I think what I'm trying to say is testing should break things, not validate things. In the Martial Arts that say "Cry in the Dojo, Laugh in the battlefield." The systems that succeed failed miserably in simulation, where corrected. Engineers kept throwing curveballs at it until it worked even when everything wasn't perfect.
Too often testing is a rubber stamp. It needs to be a brutal ordeal.
Thank you. I'm going to print that post out and stick it to my wall, right next to excepts from "The Art of War" and "Alpha Centari".
Software is NEVER deterministic in an operating environment. Just because you can put it on a bench and test the snot out of it does not certify it's behavior in the real world. I have written many programs that work perfectly in testing, only to have a user punch in an unexpected value and bring things to a crashing halt.
Oh no, all design documents dissolve on contact with the real world. The best software is the type that realizes it is operating in an imperfect world, and takes pains to vet its data before processing, or die in a manner that is the least catastrophic to life and property.
And when I point out an aerospace system that does work, showing me a zillion ones that don't doesn't invalidate my point. The difference between the systems that work and the system that fail is crafstmanship.
Yes, but can your computer recover from a triple memory failure? Can you rewire your computer remotely to fall back on a redundent system? Frankly I keep the covers off my case to keep my CPU from overheating.
State of the art is not always measured in Gigahertz.
Part of it was the fact they had absolute geniouses working on the problem. Think of it, they designed a system in the late 1970's, tested it on the ground, and had it successfully fly for 20 years without a major "oopsie". Or rather, if a major "Oopsie" happened, they had ways around, over, or through it. They spent YEARS developing the flight software for the Shuttle.
Software CAN be done right. It just has to be a priority.
Of course it Sucks. It's reporting about how to maintain a vacuum!
Have you noticed that they are always "Invited" to the blood drive venues?
Maxwell's Demon is a physics problem the is the basis of quantum mechanics. Simply, suppose you had a tank of air that was divided in 2 by a tiny split, with a gate. At the gate is a "demon" who lets high energy particle in on side, and low-energy particles in the other.
Theoretically, by expending no energy save that to open and close the gate (plus whatever overhead the Demon requires) you could thwart the laws of physics. Soon one side of the tank would be "cold" and the other "hot" even if they both started off at the same temperature.
But, the Rent-A-Cop and his/her rope will "kindly" deflect any stray party goers that encounter it. Since you are repelling individual particles at a time, the physics are much different.
Now, the high voltage shock might give you pause before touching it again though...
(Er, had to put hand down to type.)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The thugs of the world just find a different population to victimize. (Think Justice Department.) In this case the High Priests are simply trying to keep people contributing to the building fund centuries after the Cathedral is finished.
"Copying" music leaves the original intact. The "Harm" is from lost sales, but the law doesn't give a rat's ass about potential sales. Copyright with designed to keep publishers honest. It was not designed to keep individuals in line.
Hark, you mean that I don't have to brave the depths of the Amazon?[amazon.com]
Have you noticed that the same contractors who build the prisons also build the schools?
The radio in my car must be convinced there are only 2 channels in existance. NPR, and KYW (local news radio.) And KYW's only on for the traffic reports.
In Philly we have I-7.6, 9.5, and 6.76. And people ask me "how can you live in the City?" Simple folks: it takes me less time for me to walk 2 miles than you to drive 20!
His goof was pulling all of his stupid crap in the first year of his Presidency. Time enough for us to see the emperor indeed has no clothes. And no, I'm not even going to get in to 9/11. I'm just talking about his Economic Programs (or lack thereof), trying to de-ball Environmental regulations, and the policies of Don't Tax and Spend More.
Residents of Texas, please tell me: Are you better off today than you were before Dubya?
It's just nice being able to pop in the damn disk, and play the damn game. This from a man who thinks pre-compiled Linux distros are for children and newbies. Go figure.
I do at least pipe the Video output through the TV tuner card.