Remember, "public" means "government", and "government" is the stupidest there is, unable to do anything at all right. All such intelligence and acumen reside with "business". If only "government" would get out of the way with silly regulations, operating under the principles of the "free market", the profit motive would induce "business" to do the right thing, with the end result that we'd all be better off.
Silly things like effective medications that are inherently low-cost are an aberration, and don't really exist.
Oops... Then it can't possibly be any good at all.
After all, NASA -> BAD! Anything but NASA -> good!
What's sad is, there really seem to be people who think like this. I wonder how many people would change their minds about the project, based just on your post.
There are several farms here in Vermont taking care of all of their electrical needs, plus selling some back to the utilities, all on Cow Power. Though now that you mention it, turbines are generally used at large-scale powerplants, for their efficiency. I wonder at what scaling point that becomes true. Perhaps the farm still doesn't need a rocket engine, but it would be better off with a methane-powered jet engine instead of its current I.C. engine.
I've heard counter opinions, too. I suppose it's a matter of time. Maybe I'll get to one of them one of these days, and see for myself. Ahead of that, I'd like to try the "real" posthumus Frank Herbert "Dune" book.
I've never read any of the Baroques. I looked in on the coverleaf in the store, saw the names "Waterhouse" and "Shaftoe", (Both!) and put it right back down. Carrying both names into the past smacked too much of fanfic/crossover to me.
Besides, I still haven't read much Iain Banks. Finished "Consider Phlebas" a week or 2 ago.
Snow Crash was a wonderfully flawed book. There were problems with it all over place. Thing was, there were also such delightful concepts thrown so fast, that you forgave the flaws, and just enjoyed it.
Lends a different meaning to, "to Reason with someone."
It wasn't the ending, or lack that annoyed me about Cryptonomicon. It was the speed of the last hundred pages or so, after the detail of the first 800 or 900. After so much detail through the rest of the book, suddenly things started happening with little or no explanation, especially what the heck that attorney just happened to be in that jungle, and just happened to have his hobby weapons along, and felt moved to practice his hobby while pretty badly wounded, just so spite someone.
Your argument might be true, except for one problem. At the moment, there isn't private competition.
As far as I can see, last-mile information providers want it both ways. They want the subsidies and safety of a power company, and they want the profits of a hi-tech. So far, they're getting it, too.
Wish I still had some mod points left, but I used them up earlier today.
I won't go so far as to say ALL Microsoft bashing is true, but I've certainly seen enough well-researched information to know that a LOT of the Microsoft bashing IS true.
Interesting and difficult question, especially question of values.
We pride ourselves in being "civilized", in opposition to nature, "red in tooth and claw."
I submit to you that fully unfettered Capitalism is just as savage as nature, only it's "green in tooth and claw."
From that perspective, unfettered Capitalism is no less savage than nature - it just grants all to economic whizzes instead of whizzes at battle. No great change, there. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The problem is how to draw the line. Just how MUCH should Capitalism be fettered? I don't pretend at all that the question is not tough. Unfortunately I don't see many trying to find the line, just argue about its existence.
Imagine that you DO know how to pilot a plane. But imagine that getting a job as an airplane pilot has LITTLE to do with knowing how to pilot a plane. As a matter of fact, imagine that there are many airplane pilots out there who CAN'T pilot a plane, but since there's so much cockpit automation in place, they're getting away with it.
Take that job that you thought had tangible requirements, and make the requirements fuzzy. For that matter, make evaluation of failure or success fuzzy. Actually, airplane pilots are a bad example, because measurement of success or failure can be pretty darned absolute, which was why I had to fudge with cockpit automation.
That's the contention here. The top caliber jobs in the US today appear to have little to do with qualifications and much more to do with ego and connections. Those people are setting their own salaries AND the salaries of those under them, giving themselves the heartiest share, without regard to qualifications, performance, etc.
Maybe none of what I just suggested really applies. But it sure APPEARS that it does, and that can be just as bad, or worse. I do competent, sometimes inspired work, pretty much every day. But when my lifetime earnings are dwarfed by the screwup payment given to a failed CEO as a golden parachute, I suspect something's a little rotten.
By the way, to cite another Slashdot favorite, I seem to remember that Carly Fiorina's "qualifications", or at least her collegiate studies, had nothing to do with a high-tech company.
Got to count the father in, too. The mother carries the parasite inside her for 9 months. The father's there too, though the parasite is outside him. Then they both carry the external parasite for the next 18 years or so.
The main character in the series, Robinette Broadhead, dies somewhere I believe in the second book. His wife uploads his Turing Image, and he spends the rest of the series, still as a prime character, as software.
Not to mention the admin time. Tools can automate the software admin for 200 boxes to a good extent, but you're also talking about 200 boxes of commodity-class hardware. The quality standards are lower than mainframe-class hardware, and you've got enough pieces that mtbf starts to factor in. I've heard that part of google's value is that they keep running with a goodly number of dead boxes in the cluster, just to reduce the physical admin load.
On Jan 21, 2001 the US government turned its attention completely away from the Middle East and Muslim radicals. Their centerpiece, their entire focus became getting out of the ABM treaty so they could restart Star Wars development and deployment. During that time, one of Clinton's aids stayed on, trying to alert the administration to the dangers, but was given no traction. Think back to the 9/11 commission, and the August briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US." That too was ignored - iirc some fessed up to having seen it, others didn't. Even the unusually high levels of intelligence chatter noted during the summer of 2001 didn't get any significant attention or action.
Actually Bush isn't my #1 problem here, it's Condi Rice. When the report said, "Failure of imagination," it was HER job to connect the dots and do the imagining.
Did you see Clinton on the "attack interview?" From everything I saw, the Clinton administration was trying, was engaged in the Middle East and was paying careful attention to Muslim radicals.
As for feeling safer after 9/11, try reading what Bruce Schneier writes. First off, the stuff that has made the real difference after 9/11 has been cleaning out Afghanistan, and ordinary police work - perhaps extraordinary police work, but still police work. Only 2 things have really made air travel safer - locking cockpit doors and air travellers no longer expecting that they will be safe if they sit back like sheep.
For the most part, the crap - the intrusive datamining, the warrentless stuff, RealID, silly airport inspections haven't done SPIT to make us safer. They just annoy us, chew up money, and whittle away at the foundations of our democracy. One relevant term is "Security Theater" look like lot's happening when nothing effective is.
By the way, now that we're bogged down in Iraq, the Taliban is making gains in Afghanistan, undoing the effective work we did, there.
Some people seem to really have a bug up their orifices about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. He's no angel, he was doing things that he shouldn't have, the whole situation was a mess. But it wasn't worth what we've done to ourselves in the past few years.
I'd rather they had applied a technobabble filter to the image, and had the characters jump out, rather than simple extreme magnification. Using extreme magnification as a concept dis-teaches. The public would accept a technobabble filter, since we've been taught to accept so much other technobabble in TV. After using the filter, the characters could have popped out, at pixel+ size. For instance, 8 pixels per character, assuming simple LSB encoding, and you wouldn't have had to tell the audience that level of detail.
It would have also been good to hear the word, "steganography" since that's what they were talking about.
There was an opportunity to introduce a concept to the public - with a tiny bit of modification it could have even been done correctly. Yes, they "visualized" it, but in no more time (They spent several passes of magnification, and one of those could have been the technobabble filter.) they could have introduced the concept simply and well.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm over twice your age. My son is almost as old as you.
Raquel Welch used to be THE symbol, predating even the Farrah Fawcett poster.
Try 1,000,000 for her in the prototype fur bikini.
I suspect I know of Marilyn Monroe the same you know of Raquel Welch. It's a generational thing.
No, I haven't seen here lately. Do you realize that most /.ers are probably to young to even know who she is, let alone remember her?
You seem to forge that this is Slashdot.
Remember, "public" means "government", and "government" is the stupidest there is, unable to do anything at all right. All such intelligence and acumen reside with "business". If only "government" would get out of the way with silly regulations, operating under the principles of the "free market", the profit motive would induce "business" to do the right thing, with the end result that we'd all be better off.
Silly things like effective medications that are inherently low-cost are an aberration, and don't really exist.
Oops... Then it can't possibly be any good at all.
After all, NASA -> BAD! Anything but NASA -> good!
What's sad is, there really seem to be people who think like this. I wonder how many people would change their minds about the project, based just on your post.
You're not limited to rocket engines.
There are several farms here in Vermont taking care of all of their electrical needs, plus selling some back to the utilities, all on Cow Power. Though now that you mention it, turbines are generally used at large-scale powerplants, for their efficiency. I wonder at what scaling point that becomes true. Perhaps the farm still doesn't need a rocket engine, but it would be better off with a methane-powered jet engine instead of its current I.C. engine.
I've heard counter opinions, too. I suppose it's a matter of time. Maybe I'll get to one of them one of these days, and see for myself. Ahead of that, I'd like to try the "real" posthumus Frank Herbert "Dune" book.
I've read "Look to Windward", "Use of Weapons", (or something like that) and just now "Consider Phlebas".
I like the Culture. I'm just working my way through the books as I find/borrow them.
I also read a non-Culture book, "The Algebraist", and consider it to be downright excellent.
I've never read any of the Baroques. I looked in on the coverleaf in the store, saw the names "Waterhouse" and "Shaftoe", (Both!) and put it right back down. Carrying both names into the past smacked too much of fanfic/crossover to me.
Besides, I still haven't read much Iain Banks. Finished "Consider Phlebas" a week or 2 ago.
Snow Crash was a wonderfully flawed book. There were problems with it all over place. Thing was, there were also such delightful concepts thrown so fast, that you forgave the flaws, and just enjoyed it.
Lends a different meaning to, "to Reason with someone."
It wasn't the ending, or lack that annoyed me about Cryptonomicon. It was the speed of the last hundred pages or so, after the detail of the first 800 or 900. After so much detail through the rest of the book, suddenly things started happening with little or no explanation, especially what the heck that attorney just happened to be in that jungle, and just happened to have his hobby weapons along, and felt moved to practice his hobby while pretty badly wounded, just so spite someone.
After what preceded, it was a pell-mell rush.
Your argument might be true, except for one problem. At the moment, there isn't private competition.
As far as I can see, last-mile information providers want it both ways. They want the subsidies and safety of a power company, and they want the profits of a hi-tech. So far, they're getting it, too.
Wish I still had some mod points left, but I used them up earlier today.
I won't go so far as to say ALL Microsoft bashing is true, but I've certainly seen enough well-researched information to know that a LOT of the Microsoft bashing IS true.
Interesting and difficult question, especially question of values.
We pride ourselves in being "civilized", in opposition to nature, "red in tooth and claw."
I submit to you that fully unfettered Capitalism is just as savage as nature, only it's "green in tooth and claw."
From that perspective, unfettered Capitalism is no less savage than nature - it just grants all to economic whizzes instead of whizzes at battle. No great change, there. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The problem is how to draw the line. Just how MUCH should Capitalism be fettered? I don't pretend at all that the question is not tough. Unfortunately I don't see many trying to find the line, just argue about its existence.
Still don't see anything about roaming usage. It's been promised for a long time, and unheard of almost a long.
Issues are crossing in the night, here.
Imagine that you DO know how to pilot a plane. But imagine that getting a job as an airplane pilot has LITTLE to do with knowing how to pilot a plane. As a matter of fact, imagine that there are many airplane pilots out there who CAN'T pilot a plane, but since there's so much cockpit automation in place, they're getting away with it.
Take that job that you thought had tangible requirements, and make the requirements fuzzy. For that matter, make evaluation of failure or success fuzzy. Actually, airplane pilots are a bad example, because measurement of success or failure can be pretty darned absolute, which was why I had to fudge with cockpit automation.
That's the contention here. The top caliber jobs in the US today appear to have little to do with qualifications and much more to do with ego and connections. Those people are setting their own salaries AND the salaries of those under them, giving themselves the heartiest share, without regard to qualifications, performance, etc.
Maybe none of what I just suggested really applies. But it sure APPEARS that it does, and that can be just as bad, or worse. I do competent, sometimes inspired work, pretty much every day. But when my lifetime earnings are dwarfed by the screwup payment given to a failed CEO as a golden parachute, I suspect something's a little rotten.
By the way, to cite another Slashdot favorite, I seem to remember that Carly Fiorina's "qualifications", or at least her collegiate studies, had nothing to do with a high-tech company.
I always have trouble with my Pohl/Poul confusion.
Ready to grant your parents that right?
Got to count the father in, too. The mother carries the parasite inside her for 9 months. The father's there too, though the parasite is outside him. Then they both carry the external parasite for the next 18 years or so.
Science fiction reference - Poul Anderson's "Gateway" books
**** Mild Spoiler ****
The main character in the series, Robinette Broadhead, dies somewhere I believe in the second book. His wife uploads his Turing Image, and he spends the rest of the series, still as a prime character, as software.
Not to mention the admin time. Tools can automate the software admin for 200 boxes to a good extent, but you're also talking about 200 boxes of commodity-class hardware. The quality standards are lower than mainframe-class hardware, and you've got enough pieces that mtbf starts to factor in. I've heard that part of google's value is that they keep running with a goodly number of dead boxes in the cluster, just to reduce the physical admin load.
Heck, I've pretty much dropped TV, except for...
Dr.Who
Mythbusters
Daily Show / Colbert Report (or Countdown)
Sorry, but I have to disagree, here.
On Jan 21, 2001 the US government turned its attention completely away from the Middle East and Muslim radicals. Their centerpiece, their entire focus became getting out of the ABM treaty so they could restart Star Wars development and deployment. During that time, one of Clinton's aids stayed on, trying to alert the administration to the dangers, but was given no traction. Think back to the 9/11 commission, and the August briefing titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US." That too was ignored - iirc some fessed up to having seen it, others didn't. Even the unusually high levels of intelligence chatter noted during the summer of 2001 didn't get any significant attention or action.
Actually Bush isn't my #1 problem here, it's Condi Rice. When the report said, "Failure of imagination," it was HER job to connect the dots and do the imagining.
Did you see Clinton on the "attack interview?" From everything I saw, the Clinton administration was trying, was engaged in the Middle East and was paying careful attention to Muslim radicals.
As for feeling safer after 9/11, try reading what Bruce Schneier writes. First off, the stuff that has made the real difference after 9/11 has been cleaning out Afghanistan, and ordinary police work - perhaps extraordinary police work, but still police work. Only 2 things have really made air travel safer - locking cockpit doors and air travellers no longer expecting that they will be safe if they sit back like sheep.
For the most part, the crap - the intrusive datamining, the warrentless stuff, RealID, silly airport inspections haven't done SPIT to make us safer. They just annoy us, chew up money, and whittle away at the foundations of our democracy. One relevant term is "Security Theater" look like lot's happening when nothing effective is.
By the way, now that we're bogged down in Iraq, the Taliban is making gains in Afghanistan, undoing the effective work we did, there.
Some people seem to really have a bug up their orifices about Iraq and Saddam Hussein. He's no angel, he was doing things that he shouldn't have, the whole situation was a mess. But it wasn't worth what we've done to ourselves in the past few years.
To the man with a laser, every problem looks like someone else's retina.
I'd rather they had applied a technobabble filter to the image, and had the characters jump out, rather than simple extreme magnification. Using extreme magnification as a concept dis-teaches. The public would accept a technobabble filter, since we've been taught to accept so much other technobabble in TV. After using the filter, the characters could have popped out, at pixel+ size. For instance, 8 pixels per character, assuming simple LSB encoding, and you wouldn't have had to tell the audience that level of detail.
It would have also been good to hear the word, "steganography" since that's what they were talking about.
There was an opportunity to introduce a concept to the public - with a tiny bit of modification it could have even been done correctly. Yes, they "visualized" it, but in no more time (They spent several passes of magnification, and one of those could have been the technobabble filter.) they could have introduced the concept simply and well.
I believe the phrase from "Flash Bazbo, Space Explorer!" was,
"Languish in caves of methane ice!"
But at the moment, I can't even remember where the Flash Bazbo reference came from - maybe it was Firesign Theater.