| perceived lack of social skills
I love how people try to simultaneously embrace and reject the geek stereotype with words like "perceived".
Given that the issue at hand is social skills, isn't how other people perceive you the entire point? How can you claim "I'm actually a well liked person, it's just that everyone dislikes me"??!?!?!
Embrace the facts, kids. We're geeks, lots of people don't like us, and sometimes that sucks. On the plus side, most of them are morons, so what the hell....
|...coding multi-core applications...
What the hell does that mean, anyway?
Can someone explain what the difference is between a programmer being "prepared for paralellism" and a programmer who knows how to do a good job with threading?
Writing multi-threaded apps has always been hard, and likely always will be harder than writing single-threaded apps. Go figure-- doing more stuff at once is tricker than doing one thing at a time. ("Duh.") I fail to see what the Big New Thing is.
I wouldn't sweat the rovers-- it's a lousy 4 mill for a high-profile project. The funding will happen.
Shuttles *are* being replaced, albeit with expendables. Haven't you seen all the retro-looking vehicles they are putting together for the new moon and Mars stuff? At any rate, those are largely GOP-backed initiatives. Dems by and large are anti-NASA, since they see it as cutting into the butter budget (although not much, IMHO). There is some support over on that side of the aisle though, especially from delegations whose State has a space center in it.
And I agree with you that space exploration is underfunded-- but at least NASA has been given a mission and an attempt at a realistic budget. They are faring quite a bit better than they did under Clinton, anyway, where NASA was seen primarily as a foreign-aid operation to throw cash at the Russians. Dan Golden was put in place to dismantle the space program, not to motivate it.
That was back when a Republican (Nixon) got us out of a war that a Democrat (Kennedy) got us into and another Dem (Johnson) escalated to massive levels.
Nowadays the GOP likes space *and* wars, and the Dems dislike them both. Although, simply by reading the congressional voting records you could make a case that Dems are fine with wars, but dislike the investment required to actually win them. (Anyone else find it contradictory that Obama wants to pull out of Iraq but invade Pakistan?)
I'm in favor of getting value for our dollar. Right now that means not throwing away what we've bought in Iraq, and IMHO space has *always* been a pretty good investment-- tech advances, national prestige, etc.
Besides, as someone who is in a tax bracket that pays in a lot but doesn't get many government bennies back, I like seeing a few bucks thrown toward a program that at least gives me some kicks. A panoramic shot of Mars makes me happier than knowing that a few more "disadvantaged" people no longer needs to bother to hold down a job.
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| perceived lack of social skills I love how people try to simultaneously embrace and reject the geek stereotype with words like "perceived".
Given that the issue at hand is social skills, isn't how other people perceive you the entire point? How can you claim "I'm actually a well liked person, it's just that everyone dislikes me"??!?!?!
Embrace the facts, kids. We're geeks, lots of people don't like us, and sometimes that sucks. On the plus side, most of them are morons, so what the hell....
| ...coding multi-core applications...
What the hell does that mean, anyway?
Can someone explain what the difference is between a programmer being "prepared for paralellism" and a programmer who knows how to do a good job with threading?
Writing multi-threaded apps has always been hard, and likely always will be harder than writing single-threaded apps. Go figure-- doing more stuff at once is tricker than doing one thing at a time. ("Duh.") I fail to see what the Big New Thing is.
I wouldn't sweat the rovers-- it's a lousy 4 mill for a high-profile project. The funding will happen. Shuttles *are* being replaced, albeit with expendables. Haven't you seen all the retro-looking vehicles they are putting together for the new moon and Mars stuff? At any rate, those are largely GOP-backed initiatives. Dems by and large are anti-NASA, since they see it as cutting into the butter budget (although not much, IMHO). There is some support over on that side of the aisle though, especially from delegations whose State has a space center in it. And I agree with you that space exploration is underfunded-- but at least NASA has been given a mission and an attempt at a realistic budget. They are faring quite a bit better than they did under Clinton, anyway, where NASA was seen primarily as a foreign-aid operation to throw cash at the Russians. Dan Golden was put in place to dismantle the space program, not to motivate it.
Long ago, different rules.
That was back when a Republican (Nixon) got us out of a war that a Democrat (Kennedy) got us into and another Dem (Johnson) escalated to massive levels.
Nowadays the GOP likes space *and* wars, and the Dems dislike them both. Although, simply by reading the congressional voting records you could make a case that Dems are fine with wars, but dislike the investment required to actually win them. (Anyone else find it contradictory that Obama wants to pull out of Iraq but invade Pakistan?)
I'm in favor of getting value for our dollar. Right now that means not throwing away what we've bought in Iraq, and IMHO space has *always* been a pretty good investment-- tech advances, national prestige, etc.
Besides, as someone who is in a tax bracket that pays in a lot but doesn't get many government bennies back, I like seeing a few bucks thrown toward a program that at least gives me some kicks. A panoramic shot of Mars makes me happier than knowing that a few more "disadvantaged" people no longer needs to bother to hold down a job.