The Shuttle doesn't tell us anything about the cost effects of reusable vehicles. Even if it were fully reusable -- which it's not -- everybody agrees the damn thing is a design disaster.
I don't need to go back to the history books -- I was alive at the time, and something of a space nut. Even before the Apollo program was cancelled, it seemed obvious to me that it was a dead end project. It had one purpose, and one purpose only: get to the moon before the Russians.
Certainly if we had continued to spend huge gobs of money on space travel, we could have eventually ended up with real space infrastructure. That doesn't change the sheer stupidity of not creating the infrastructure first.
What you just said is so dense, I hardly know how to approach it. I'm arguing that the $30 Billion we spent on a series of dead-end Apollo missions to the moon would have been better spent on space infrastructure, that later could have been used to send people to the moon permanently. Your response is that we should have spent twice as much on Apollo, and then started investing in space infrastructure.
I'm no fan of Walter Mondale, but you make him look positively brilliant!
I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, boring little infrastructure projects don't attract funding.
Back in the 60s, the U.S. decided it had to go to the moon. If we'd done it right, we'd have done it in stages, building up an infrastructure of reusable vehicles and permanent orbital stations. But that would have taken too long. So instead somebody designed a huge rocket that cost $100 million a pop -- and could only be used once! Which is why nobody's been back to the moon for 30 years.
Actually, if you have heavy objects impacting the Earth's surface, it's sort of preferrable to have them hit land, not water. Dust clouds and solid ejecta are unpleasant for the locals, but tsunamis are unpleasant for people who live thousands of miles away.
Jeez, try to imagine the havoc if the cable comes loose from its orbital anchor. Thousands of miles of pure splat! Whatever safeguards the builders promise, the NIMBY factor is so huge, it has no chance of happening.
I have learned not to try to use SBA dollars anywhere but banks, however... Cashiers simply assume them as quarters without a second glance (which, AFAIK, caused their demise in the first place... What a dumb size, shape (milled edges), and color to make a dollar coin!)
You're forgetting that the SBA coin was an attempt to "fix" the existing dollar coin, which nobody was using, despite its clear distinction from the quarter. Somebody must have thought that making the coin vending-machine friendly would be crucial.
Making a dollar coin that was hard to distinguish from the quarter was obviously a mistake -- but not the big one. We just won't have a successful dollar coin until we make room in the nations cash registers by withdrawing the dollar bill.
Jeez, talk about childish and subjective. I get flamed and downmodded every time I say anything that's vaguely anti-Bush.
It's amazing. The Bigoted Right controls the White House, both branches of Congress, most state governments, is moving to "control" the courts, and has a more than proportinate say in what goes on TV, movies, and radio. I know people who've lost their jobs because they're "unpatriotic" or "anti-Christian". Yet the BR continues to paint itself as victimized by the "mainstream"! Brainless.
What are they gonna sue you for? The increase in salary you received for disclosing that you have the knowledge to complete the project at hand?
No, for the damage you did to them by disclosing their secrets. Which could run to millions.
I admit that you're unlikely to face criminal prosecution for disclosing a few lines of source code. All the same, stealing confidential information is a crime.
That was pretty much my own reaction to Linux, the first time I encountered it. My first experience was with Yggdrasil, which seemed to have an endless number of complicated, poorly-documented features and hacks. A nasty demonstration that license fees are only a part of TCO.
What's changed? Well, current Linux distros are cleaner, simpler, and better documented. And TCO of Windows went up and up as their feature bloat, poor docs, and total mismanagement of security issues got out of control.
But back when I sailed my Yggdrasil CD into the trash, my first thought was not to simply go back to Windows and stay there. The obvious alternative was Solaris x86. Sure, there was a license fee. But there was also decent documentation and a support organization.
Then I discovered that Sun had little interest in seriously supporting, or even selling, Solaris x86. To them, it was just a migration path for people who had outgrown their Wintel boxes, and needed to be shephered into "real" computers: Solaris/SPARC workstations and servers.
I've long thought that Sun missed a big opportunity by refusing to consider Solaris x86 a serious product in its own right. Which they did eventually -- but only after Linux had taken over a market they could have dominated.
There's more risk than losing your job. People do get sued for breaking NDAs. In some cases, you might even face criminal prosecution. I would be very cautious about doing something that runs that kind of risk, even if the risk is small.
And suppose your NDA violation becomes common knowledge? Hard to get a job if nobody who might hire you trusts you.
As for your father's story -- there's no law against do non-original research. But once your invention or discovery leaves the lab and enters the marketplace, you do have an obligation to make sure you're not infringing on somebody's IP.
Do you mean United States Notes? I'm suprised there are any still in circulation -- none have been printed since 1966.
I do thank you for reminding me of them. I dimly recall bills with red seals from my childhood, but I was unaware that they were a different kind of currency!
Probably more practical to find an existing project that needs help. Easy enough to find on Sourceforge. Besides, your interactions with other project members will probably do more to establish your reputation than just creating some code that might or might not be interesting to others. Developing software is mostly a collaborative effort these days, and when you demonstrate your ability to collaborate, you're demonstrating a job skill that's just as important as coding.
So first my point was invalid because it (according to you) came from a textbook, and when I point out that it came from the heart it's "a personal prejudice" (and thus inconsequential). I'm afraid to ask where you'd like it to come from...
You're treating this as a sidebar, but I consider this a central issue. I'm not suggesting that language is something you can make up by individual whim -- it is indeed a matter of convention. I simply refuse to concede that the author of textbooks and references are the final arbiters of that convention. Indeed, many of those authors themselves refuse to accept that role. They see themselves as describers of language, not prescribers.
...95% of the people asked by the Harper's Dictionary of Contemporary Usage (to pick one source sitting on my desk) about the use of "gifted" in this sense found it unacceptable.
But that's not a linguistic convention, it's a social one. When I talk to people, I do try to use their conventions. To take an extreme case, I wouldn't talk to a somebody from France in English, and assume he was stupid because he couldn't understand me. (Though there are people who would jump to that conclusion.) Or to take a more usual case, if I were talking to some people at a church picnic, I'd avoid using vulgar language and might refrain from addressing people by their first names. Then again, if you're with some drunken friends in a nudie bar...
Need I mention that the social conventions of Slashdot readers is not the same as that of the people in your poll?
It occurs to me that a lot of what we're talking about here comes down to courtesy. Courtesy is very important -- and a big part of it is respecting the conventions of the people around you. Using "improper" language can be rude -- but insisting that everybody honor your idea of what's improper, regardless of the social context, is just as rude.
We also need to get back to the original argument. You insist that "gift" is a noun, not a verb. And it's perfectly true that "standard" English no longer recognizes "gift" as a verb. But it used to. That's why we still speak of a smart or talented person as "gifted".
The point being that language evolves. And why does it evolve? Because people experiment with it, either deliberately, or accidentally, as when the guy said "I've been gifted with $100." When you sneer at normal intelligent wordplay as ignorant, you're betraying your own ignorance.
Well, when you're a small country (and your citizenry is relatively sane), it's a lot easier to force that kind of change. Then again, your dollar coin is called a "loonie", so don't get too smug.
Slashdot Mirror
The Shuttle doesn't tell us anything about the cost effects of reusable vehicles. Even if it were fully reusable -- which it's not -- everybody agrees the damn thing is a design disaster.
I propose a new downmod: repeating a TV comedy reference as if you were actually saying something.
Most of my comments are!
Certainly if we had continued to spend huge gobs of money on space travel, we could have eventually ended up with real space infrastructure. That doesn't change the sheer stupidity of not creating the infrastructure first.
I actually rather liked Punch Drunk Love. But even his worst movies make money. And in Hollywood, that's the only measure of non-disasterhood.
I'm no fan of Walter Mondale, but you make him look positively brilliant!
No in disaster movies. Yet.
Ok, so you break the cable at the halfway point.
Well, with all the seaports destroyed in tsunamis, the cost of your favorite electronic toys would go up a tad.
Don't say these things! You float an idea for a bad movie often enough, and the stupid thing will eventually get made!
Back in the 60s, the U.S. decided it had to go to the moon. If we'd done it right, we'd have done it in stages, building up an infrastructure of reusable vehicles and permanent orbital stations. But that would have taken too long. So instead somebody designed a huge rocket that cost $100 million a pop -- and could only be used once! Which is why nobody's been back to the moon for 30 years.
Actually, if you have heavy objects impacting the Earth's surface, it's sort of preferrable to have them hit land, not water. Dust clouds and solid ejecta are unpleasant for the locals, but tsunamis are unpleasant for people who live thousands of miles away.
Jeez, try to imagine the havoc if the cable comes loose from its orbital anchor. Thousands of miles of pure splat! Whatever safeguards the builders promise, the NIMBY factor is so huge, it has no chance of happening.
Making a dollar coin that was hard to distinguish from the quarter was obviously a mistake -- but not the big one. We just won't have a successful dollar coin until we make room in the nations cash registers by withdrawing the dollar bill.
It's amazing. The Bigoted Right controls the White House, both branches of Congress, most state governments, is moving to "control" the courts, and has a more than proportinate say in what goes on TV, movies, and radio. I know people who've lost their jobs because they're "unpatriotic" or "anti-Christian". Yet the BR continues to paint itself as victimized by the "mainstream"! Brainless.
I admit that you're unlikely to face criminal prosecution for disclosing a few lines of source code. All the same, stealing confidential information is a crime.
What's changed? Well, current Linux distros are cleaner, simpler, and better documented. And TCO of Windows went up and up as their feature bloat, poor docs, and total mismanagement of security issues got out of control.
But back when I sailed my Yggdrasil CD into the trash, my first thought was not to simply go back to Windows and stay there. The obvious alternative was Solaris x86. Sure, there was a license fee. But there was also decent documentation and a support organization.
Then I discovered that Sun had little interest in seriously supporting, or even selling, Solaris x86. To them, it was just a migration path for people who had outgrown their Wintel boxes, and needed to be shephered into "real" computers: Solaris/SPARC workstations and servers.
I've long thought that Sun missed a big opportunity by refusing to consider Solaris x86 a serious product in its own right. Which they did eventually -- but only after Linux had taken over a market they could have dominated.
And suppose your NDA violation becomes common knowledge? Hard to get a job if nobody who might hire you trusts you.
As for your father's story -- there's no law against do non-original research. But once your invention or discovery leaves the lab and enters the marketplace, you do have an obligation to make sure you're not infringing on somebody's IP.
Don't try this at home, boys and girls. Killing people for real is much harder than it is on TV!
I suppose they do. I doubt if it amounts to much.
I do thank you for reminding me of them. I dimly recall bills with red seals from my childhood, but I was unaware that they were a different kind of currency!
Probably more practical to find an existing project that needs help. Easy enough to find on Sourceforge. Besides, your interactions with other project members will probably do more to establish your reputation than just creating some code that might or might not be interesting to others. Developing software is mostly a collaborative effort these days, and when you demonstrate your ability to collaborate, you're demonstrating a job skill that's just as important as coding.
Need I mention that the social conventions of Slashdot readers is not the same as that of the people in your poll?
It occurs to me that a lot of what we're talking about here comes down to courtesy. Courtesy is very important -- and a big part of it is respecting the conventions of the people around you. Using "improper" language can be rude -- but insisting that everybody honor your idea of what's improper, regardless of the social context, is just as rude.
We also need to get back to the original argument. You insist that "gift" is a noun, not a verb. And it's perfectly true that "standard" English no longer recognizes "gift" as a verb. But it used to. That's why we still speak of a smart or talented person as "gifted".
The point being that language evolves. And why does it evolve? Because people experiment with it, either deliberately, or accidentally, as when the guy said "I've been gifted with $100." When you sneer at normal intelligent wordplay as ignorant, you're betraying your own ignorance.
Jeeze, lighten up. With an attitude like that, you're living on the wrong side of the border!
Well, when you're a small country (and your citizenry is relatively sane), it's a lot easier to force that kind of change. Then again, your dollar coin is called a "loonie", so don't get too smug.