Two seconds spent waiting for a reboot can be an eternity when you are in a supersonic fighter jet. If all redundant systems run the same code and all happen to choke, and the pilot happens to be taking off, the situation does not avail itself to a favorable conclusion. For example:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/13.46.html
Software running such an important system should be much more reliable than 93%.
This is probably much too late a response for anyone to care, but I meant that domestic security was too weak before 9/11. Beating the crap out of weak countries filled only with potential suicide operatives tends to weaken national security. But the fact remains a bunch of men with knives hijacked four planes nad killed three thousand people. Simple measures could have prevented this--such as locked doors.
America, before the attacks, had become a lazy country in terms of self-defense. Come on. Four airplanes hijacked at once? Each one a cross-country flights loaded with fuel? No lock on the cockpit?!?!?!
The current level of spending on national security may be too high, but the previous level was too low. Osama did nothing but open our eyes. To remain exactly the same after such devastating attacks is tantmount to suicide.
Taxes are necessary to pay for objects known as public goods. Imagine national defense. You can't exclude a non-paying member from enjoying it yet no one has incentive to pay if others are already paying for it. And yet defense is necessary. Other public goods include education and vaccination programs for the poor. (If everyone else is vaccinated, why should I pay for it?)
And how should cops and judges be paid? By the rich? That would not be just, would it?
And are the rich at the mercy of the poor? Tax cuts target predominantly the rich. Think about that for a while.
Well, when someone jumps up and down inside an airplane, he doesn't fly backwards at 600 mph. This is because the aircraft skin protects him from the airflow. Imagine, then, if he fell from the plane and hit the wing. He would initially be at the same relative speed of the aircraft, but would then be immediately flung across the wing at a very high speed.
Yep. Bad.
Re:The problem with spy satellites is predictabili
on
Satellite Imagery
·
· Score: 1
Crazy people with ground based telescopes track satellites upon launch. Remember, during ascent, everything is basically ballistic. Some years ago, some people found that a satellite "disappeared", that is, it didn't show up where it's orbit should have continued. Everyone assumed it was moved away using fuel. But then someone took a picture of it and it was basically covered in a really dark material, something similar to Martin Black. It would flicker in and out depending on where the sun was and stuff.
Incidentally, two lens were made for the Hubble Space Telescope, a flawed one and a perfect one. The flawed one ended up on Hubble. The government claimed to have lost the second one.
A spacewalk before re-entry sounds nice. However, what would be the point? After the fact testing on Enterprise with a huge gun revealed that collision with foam can cause unexpectedly considerable damage to the aluminum substructure of the shuttle. This cannot be repaired in space. A rescue mission would have endangered more lives. There wasn't enough fuel to reach the space station. Air was running out since it was the end of the mission. What would the point of a spacewalk even if it were possible?
Also, there are no handles on the bottom or wing of the space shuttle, for obvious aerodynamic reasons. A space walk to that region would be extremely difficult, since Newton's laws of physics are harshly enforced in space. (Turn screw, and the screw turns you!)
After Apollo 1 burst into flames on the ground, a commission remade the craft into one robust enough to not only put a man on the moon but to bring men back after catastrophic damage (Apollo 13). Perhaps something meaningful will similarly come out of these red tape and paperwork.
Re:The problem with spy satellites is predictabili
on
Satellite Imagery
·
· Score: 1
Assuming that no one has created a stealth telescope coated with optical and radar stealth. Or side-scanning satellites. The US government has not demonstrated these capacities at all.....
The law takes forever to catch up with technology, and until such time many things will be unfair. Look at the computer technology front. Spamming is just being made illegal, and hacking is now a terrorist crime. The biotech revolution has just started in ernest, and the law hasn't even had a chance to catch up. Eventually, things will equilibrate and be just peachy. Western civilization didn't peak on 9/11, just like it didn't perish after World War II. We have had penicillin, space flight, computers, and Eminem. Who can ask for more?
Even the most evil corporations run in the confines of the law. Enron, when it broke the law, was eventually brought down by the DOJ. What we need is the people of the United States to rise up against RIAA and the MPAA. This will take place later than we realize, because we are the tech vanguards. In ten years, when technology becomes commonplace, then everyone will start worrying about the implications of our patent/copyright system and how it has gone amuck. But until then, evil corporations will continue to run, and they will have the right to representation by the dollar just like Enron did before its fall.
Re:This disease is blown way out of proportion.
on
SARS and the Internet
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Right now, the response to SARS can be considered to be disproportionate. However, SARS seems to have been a recent member of human-infecting virii and may refine its infectiousness through rapid mutation/evolution. Stopping it now can save many lives later on.
Just imagine if the first hundred people with AIDS were quarantined. How many lives would that have saved?
This discovery will almost definitely not come to market as a germline alteration. Instead, someone is probably going to find a protein that mimics what the body is doing, produce them, and then sell them.
Evolution would only select against stimuli that would inhibit the transfer of genetic material to future generations. Cancer does not necessarily do this. People get cancer, generally, after they have children. Thus, their "flawed" genes are not removed. Someone did an experiment with fruit flies and only let those who lived past a certain age reproduce. After a few generations, the new bred flies all lived really long. Hmmmm...
Or perhaps cancer works to hone out weak immune systems. Should people with weak immune systems be honed out if it is what nature wants? How about people who can't see ten feet without glasses? Wouldn't we not exist without them. ("What's that sound?" ).
Was anyone reminded of Asimov's Foundation series by this entire argument? Basically, he posited these nerds who studied mass psychology and basically predicted the future. Not that of one or two people, but that of nations and peoples because their behavior is much easier to assay.
Quantum mechanically, there is nothing forbidding you from floating clear through the Earth. It's just very unlikely. Quantum tunneling is a huge problem in small-scaled mechanics such as processors (electrons tunnel through material that should classically hinder them) and fusion (hydrogen nuclei fuse though separated by repulsive electron clouds).
However, quantum mechanics does not seem to hold in large scale mechanics, in which case relativity would hold. Someone recently described an upper bounds to Heisenberg Uncertainty. Who knows? Perhaps someday someone will prove that the events you state are exactly zero!
I once got a telemarketing call from a woman who, after I said no to her first spiel, actually told me that she got paid by how far down the script she got. She sounded as if she really needed the money (why else would she be doing this?) so I listened for about a minute or two more. I said no again, and then she thanked me and hung up.
The point I would like to make is that the telemarketers are people too. They just aren't as fortunate as we are since they are stuck in a crummy job. Don't scream curses at them; imagine if that was your sister on the other end. Just say no, please take me off your list, and if you really are pissed say goodbye and hangup. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Or you can do what I do, say you're twelve and your parents aren't home.
Maybe the whistleblowers are working with a sense of revenge, but ratting out the company also covers them from legal problems. If they took part in the fraud (like actually altering the tapes) and they get caught, the PHBs will claim ignorance and let the peons take the fall.
Also, as far as business ethics, it is important to document internal attempts at redress before going public. Read about the A-7 brakes. (On 28.8 connection, so no link for you.) Basically, the company was selling the Navy airplane brakes that couldn't possibly stop the plane without bursting into flames. One man tried to fix the system internally before he blew the whistle. Required reading (literally) on ethics.
If there is a treatment, no matter how expensive, then at least some people can be cured. Perhaps the rich, perhaps the UN steps in and pays for it. Either way, many lives will be saved. What you are arguing is that these lives should not be saved because not everyone can be saved. This is wrong-headed. Does this mean that nobody should be using AIDS medication because the poor Africans cannot? That would be ridiculous. If we have an opportunity to save lives, we must. Perhaps the treatment might be cheap as hell. Until we try, we cannot know, so let science work before you inject politics into it.
Lawyers don't do anything other than represent their clients. Jerky clients lead to jerky lawyers. Without lawyers, you can't sue to protect your legtimate interests ("Hey, Microsoft is exerting monopoly powers to put us out of business!") nor would you be able to protect yourself from lawsuits. So blame the clients and the system, not the lawyers.
In America, we know that HIV causes AIDS and HIV is transmitted through unprotected sex, needles exchange, and blood transfusions (though extremely rarely nowadays, one would hope.) But what about the President of Congo, who declared that HIV didn't cause AIDS? He claimed that it was a scam by evil Americans to overcharge for AIDS drugs. Or when women can't use condoms because that is a sign they are unfaithful--when the men sleep around as a sign of virility? Education will avail them to the risk that they are taking. Research into social implications may help, since teens may think, for example, that nothing will kill them. (The so-called, "She's hot and wants to sleep with me after the first date, she must not have AIDS" syndrome.)
Re:A time of leaps and bounds
on
Secret Empire
·
· Score: 1
The existence of the SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 was top-secret for many years. This didn't mean, of course, that research didn't take place. There is still much research in the US (and the world) concerning high-tech stuff. Read this.
Why shouldn't they? It's not as though the government agency (NASA, in this instance) is a private group. it belongs to all of us. Just look what happened to AZT. It was created by the NIH, but the royalty rights were transferred to a private drug company that is now making a killing. Keep intellectual property, especially those relating to basic science, in the public domain is a good thing.
I took a Business Ethics class and they say that the right thing to do is to follow "limited paternalism." They make a distinction between professional and non-professional knowledge. For example, if you are selling stereos, you are ethically required to give out information only a professional would know, such as the response, etc. But you are not required to tell them layman stuff like the same unit is cheaper in the store across the street.
In this case, tell them your professional opinion. Put it in writing, so they can't let you take the fall.
Slashdot Mirror
Two seconds spent waiting for a reboot can be an eternity when you are in a supersonic fighter jet. If all redundant systems run the same code and all happen to choke, and the pilot happens to be taking off, the situation does not avail itself to a favorable conclusion. For example:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/13.46.html
Software running such an important system should be much more reliable than 93%.
This is probably much too late a response for anyone to care, but I meant that domestic security was too weak before 9/11. Beating the crap out of weak countries filled only with potential suicide operatives tends to weaken national security. But the fact remains a bunch of men with knives hijacked four planes nad killed three thousand people. Simple measures could have prevented this--such as locked doors.
America, before the attacks, had become a lazy country in terms of self-defense. Come on. Four airplanes hijacked at once? Each one a cross-country flights loaded with fuel? No lock on the cockpit?!?!?!
The current level of spending on national security may be too high, but the previous level was too low. Osama did nothing but open our eyes. To remain exactly the same after such devastating attacks is tantmount to suicide.
Taxes are necessary to pay for objects known as public goods. Imagine national defense. You can't exclude a non-paying member from enjoying it yet no one has incentive to pay if others are already paying for it. And yet defense is necessary. Other public goods include education and vaccination programs for the poor. (If everyone else is vaccinated, why should I pay for it?)
And how should cops and judges be paid? By the rich? That would not be just, would it?
And are the rich at the mercy of the poor? Tax cuts target predominantly the rich. Think about that for a while.
Or think about Microsoft's shift to safe computing and the government's need to access secured data. One hand washes the other, I say.
Well, in NYC they have CompStat. First, they don't reveal the data. Secondly, they update the data and the action plan rather frequently.
Well, when someone jumps up and down inside an airplane, he doesn't fly backwards at 600 mph. This is because the aircraft skin protects him from the airflow. Imagine, then, if he fell from the plane and hit the wing. He would initially be at the same relative speed of the aircraft, but would then be immediately flung across the wing at a very high speed.
Yep. Bad.
Crazy people with ground based telescopes track satellites upon launch. Remember, during ascent, everything is basically ballistic. Some years ago, some people found that a satellite "disappeared", that is, it didn't show up where it's orbit should have continued. Everyone assumed it was moved away using fuel. But then someone took a picture of it and it was basically covered in a really dark material, something similar to Martin Black. It would flicker in and out depending on where the sun was and stuff.
Incidentally, two lens were made for the Hubble Space Telescope, a flawed one and a perfect one. The flawed one ended up on Hubble. The government claimed to have lost the second one.
Hmmmm....
A spacewalk before re-entry sounds nice. However, what would be the point? After the fact testing on Enterprise with a huge gun revealed that collision with foam can cause unexpectedly considerable damage to the aluminum substructure of the shuttle. This cannot be repaired in space. A rescue mission would have endangered more lives. There wasn't enough fuel to reach the space station. Air was running out since it was the end of the mission. What would the point of a spacewalk even if it were possible?
Also, there are no handles on the bottom or wing of the space shuttle, for obvious aerodynamic reasons. A space walk to that region would be extremely difficult, since Newton's laws of physics are harshly enforced in space. (Turn screw, and the screw turns you!)
After Apollo 1 burst into flames on the ground, a commission remade the craft into one robust enough to not only put a man on the moon but to bring men back after catastrophic damage (Apollo 13). Perhaps something meaningful will similarly come out of these red tape and paperwork.
Assuming that no one has created a stealth telescope coated with optical and radar stealth. Or side-scanning satellites. The US government has not demonstrated these capacities at all.....
The law takes forever to catch up with technology, and until such time many things will be unfair. Look at the computer technology front. Spamming is just being made illegal, and hacking is now a terrorist crime. The biotech revolution has just started in ernest, and the law hasn't even had a chance to catch up. Eventually, things will equilibrate and be just peachy. Western civilization didn't peak on 9/11, just like it didn't perish after World War II. We have had penicillin, space flight, computers, and Eminem. Who can ask for more?
Even the most evil corporations run in the confines of the law. Enron, when it broke the law, was eventually brought down by the DOJ. What we need is the people of the United States to rise up against RIAA and the MPAA. This will take place later than we realize, because we are the tech vanguards. In ten years, when technology becomes commonplace, then everyone will start worrying about the implications of our patent/copyright system and how it has gone amuck. But until then, evil corporations will continue to run, and they will have the right to representation by the dollar just like Enron did before its fall.
Right now, the response to SARS can be considered to be disproportionate. However, SARS seems to have been a recent member of human-infecting virii and may refine its infectiousness through rapid mutation/evolution. Stopping it now can save many lives later on.
Just imagine if the first hundred people with AIDS were quarantined. How many lives would that have saved?
This discovery will almost definitely not come to market as a germline alteration. Instead, someone is probably going to find a protein that mimics what the body is doing, produce them, and then sell them.
Germline alteration is just too risky.
Evolution would only select against stimuli that would inhibit the transfer of genetic material to future generations. Cancer does not necessarily do this. People get cancer, generally, after they have children. Thus, their "flawed" genes are not removed. Someone did an experiment with fruit flies and only let those who lived past a certain age reproduce. After a few generations, the new bred flies all lived really long. Hmmmm...
Or perhaps cancer works to hone out weak immune systems. Should people with weak immune systems be honed out if it is what nature wants? How about people who can't see ten feet without glasses? Wouldn't we not exist without them. ("What's that sound?" ).
Was anyone reminded of Asimov's Foundation series by this entire argument? Basically, he posited these nerds who studied mass psychology and basically predicted the future. Not that of one or two people, but that of nations and peoples because their behavior is much easier to assay.
Quantum mechanically, there is nothing forbidding you from floating clear through the Earth. It's just very unlikely. Quantum tunneling is a huge problem in small-scaled mechanics such as processors (electrons tunnel through material that should classically hinder them) and fusion (hydrogen nuclei fuse though separated by repulsive electron clouds).
However, quantum mechanics does not seem to hold in large scale mechanics, in which case relativity would hold. Someone recently described an upper bounds to Heisenberg Uncertainty. Who knows? Perhaps someday someone will prove that the events you state are exactly zero!
I once got a telemarketing call from a woman who, after I said no to her first spiel, actually told me that she got paid by how far down the script she got. She sounded as if she really needed the money (why else would she be doing this?) so I listened for about a minute or two more. I said no again, and then she thanked me and hung up.
The point I would like to make is that the telemarketers are people too. They just aren't as fortunate as we are since they are stuck in a crummy job. Don't scream curses at them; imagine if that was your sister on the other end. Just say no, please take me off your list, and if you really are pissed say goodbye and hangup. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
Or you can do what I do, say you're twelve and your parents aren't home.
Maybe the whistleblowers are working with a sense of revenge, but ratting out the company also covers them from legal problems. If they took part in the fraud (like actually altering the tapes) and they get caught, the PHBs will claim ignorance and let the peons take the fall.
Also, as far as business ethics, it is important to document internal attempts at redress before going public. Read about the A-7 brakes. (On 28.8 connection, so no link for you.) Basically, the company was selling the Navy airplane brakes that couldn't possibly stop the plane without bursting into flames. One man tried to fix the system internally before he blew the whistle. Required reading (literally) on ethics.
If there is a treatment, no matter how expensive, then at least some people can be cured. Perhaps the rich, perhaps the UN steps in and pays for it. Either way, many lives will be saved. What you are arguing is that these lives should not be saved because not everyone can be saved. This is wrong-headed. Does this mean that nobody should be using AIDS medication because the poor Africans cannot? That would be ridiculous. If we have an opportunity to save lives, we must. Perhaps the treatment might be cheap as hell. Until we try, we cannot know, so let science work before you inject politics into it.
Lawyers don't do anything other than represent their clients. Jerky clients lead to jerky lawyers. Without lawyers, you can't sue to protect your legtimate interests ("Hey, Microsoft is exerting monopoly powers to put us out of business!") nor would you be able to protect yourself from lawsuits. So blame the clients and the system, not the lawyers.
In America, we know that HIV causes AIDS and HIV is transmitted through unprotected sex, needles exchange, and blood transfusions (though extremely rarely nowadays, one would hope.) But what about the President of Congo, who declared that HIV didn't cause AIDS? He claimed that it was a scam by evil Americans to overcharge for AIDS drugs. Or when women can't use condoms because that is a sign they are unfaithful--when the men sleep around as a sign of virility? Education will avail them to the risk that they are taking. Research into social implications may help, since teens may think, for example, that nothing will kill them. (The so-called, "She's hot and wants to sleep with me after the first date, she must not have AIDS" syndrome.)
The existence of the SR-71 Blackbird and U-2 was top-secret for many years. This didn't mean, of course, that research didn't take place. There is still much research in the US (and the world) concerning high-tech stuff. Read this.
http://www.nauticom.net/users/ata/aircraft.htm
Cool, huh?
Why shouldn't they? It's not as though the government agency (NASA, in this instance) is a private group. it belongs to all of us. Just look what happened to AZT. It was created by the NIH, but the royalty rights were transferred to a private drug company that is now making a killing. Keep intellectual property, especially those relating to basic science, in the public domain is a good thing.
I took a Business Ethics class and they say that the right thing to do is to follow "limited paternalism." They make a distinction between professional and non-professional knowledge. For example, if you are selling stereos, you are ethically required to give out information only a professional would know, such as the response, etc. But you are not required to tell them layman stuff like the same unit is cheaper in the store across the street.
In this case, tell them your professional opinion. Put it in writing, so they can't let you take the fall.