We have been lacking in the space exploration for a while now. A lot of people think we can just go to Mars now, while in reality we are in a Space Age Dark Age so we are actually kinda stupid on Space Travel, and we are back to thinking of it in Science fiction terms vs practical.
Meh, technology-wise I think we're in good shape. Even though the people on the ISS haven't been going anywhere we have long term experience with living in space. Basically it's not about where you are, it's about keeping the conditions on the inside habitable. We also have decades more experience sending satellites and probes. What's missing is money, lots and lots of money. Look at Falcon Heavy, there's still just the demo flight and no more heavy launches scheduled this year. There's two next year, but the market is like 1/10th of the F9.
What's the market for the BFR? Today, none. Musk was guessing $2-10 billion to develop, most likely $5 billion but that's just 10-50% of NASA's budget for a single year. If you had Apollo level funding with 4.5% of the federal budget it'd be $200 billion in the peak year. With that and the same "beat the Ruskies at any cost" attitude we'd be on Mars by 2025, no doubt in my mind. But since that's not happening we need something a lot cheaper. I hope Musk will fly the first re-re-used booster soon.
I have seem people apologize for being male of for "their gender" while being male. I don't get that either. It is not a club that you were ever asked to be a member of or not.
So? If I heard a white supremacist shout "Get out of here n*gger, we don't want your kind around here" then yeah I'd like to go over and apologize on behalf of white people for the racist asshole. Doesn't matter that you didn't pick your skin color, there will be two levels to it - what individual A does to individual B and what white people do to black people, because he's asserting to speak or act for all of us. And no, he didn't ask your permission but it still happens quite often and if you don't object people think that's how it is. It's not simply a matter of genetics, being white you have a say in what white culture is like. It doesn't mean you're in majority or that there isn't some subculture that'll reject the majority, but it's kinda hard not to be part of it.
Yeah there's the rapist. But there's also the people who think the drunk slut in the miniskirt flirting with everyone was "asking for it". And the people who are okay with other people having that attitude. I mean if it's part of the male culture then yes I think we have a problem. Though honestly, I don't recall that ever being treated as okay. Given how common it supposedly is I assume that means I've gone to school or maybe even to class with a rapist but to me that's one person who wanted to do the crime. It was never anybody who talked or acted like it would be okay or not a big deal. Now homophobia... yeah, I think you can definitively say there was a cultural bias against gays growing up. I'd excuse myself by saying it was different times, but that's just a roundabout way of saying there were lots of us.
First of all: What's a "device"? That sounds like a weasel-word if ever I heard one.
It's the word Microsoft started to use when they thought they'd be counting Win10 phones too. But since they contribute practically nothing it's basically just PCs like before.
There isn't a big financial incentive to go into STEM jobs if you are a college-educated professional. The pay is good, but there is a limit to your professional growth and you have to actually do work and produce results. In reality, sales and marketing at tech companies make as much or more as STEM people. So unless you really enjoy STEM, it is better off avoiding it as a career. I think many women have figured this out.
With all due respect, it's overwhelmingly women who become primary school teachers and nurses which are two of the absolutely most dead-end and poorly paying careers relative to their education level. So while I could say a lot about sales and marketing, I don't think women shy away from STEM because they generally make "smarter" choices. And by the way if it was that easy, why is it that most tech people are terrible at sales? I mean even in job interviews some people struggle to give even a fair impression of themselves, much less a good one. Maybe being a smooth talker is a form of skill...
It's quite obvious that consuming services can be cheaper and easier than doing it yourself, that's the whole reason we started having bakers and smiths and whatnot. But if we separate the services from the object, like if we assume your building management is subcontracting out everything what they have in net is simply working capital. And they'll want a return on their investment, of course you could say so does the bank if that's the alternative. But a lot of people just don't see it as a hidden form of debt, sure the credit card debt is "real". But the rented apartment, leased car, phone plan and so on is not even though a lot of the cost is basically baked in interest payments for loaning something expensive. And you're usually paying quite a bit for flexibility which is totally wasted if you're not going to take advantage of it.
I don't blame people for having a mortgage, it's kinda hard to buy a place without one. But I really, really wonder about the people who'll pay like 15% interest to have something now instead of in a year. I wouldn't do that unless I was absolutely can't-put-food-on-table desperate, not because I want a new TV and PlayStation - which happens to be what one of my friends did. I know you only live once but you shouldn't fuck over your future self either. It's not that cool when other friends is almost done repaying their loans and got lots of spending cash while you're still near zero net worth because you never get out of that interest hell. But ah well not my life.
If the proof is a dud or just some nonsense, it get's written off as an unfortunate case of dementia, doesn't invalidate lifetime of excellent work. If it checks out however, well solving a millennium problem at age 90 is just a cherry on top.
And the middle ground is still the most likely, that it'll be a plausible proof but somehow gets poked holes in. That's what happens to most people who think they've solved the big conjectures no matter their credentials. But if it stands up to scrutiny he'll rise from famed to legend.
We previously reported that a skeleton crew will remain behind to complete work on The Walking Dead Final Season. That information was inaccurate. Sources who wish to remain anonymous explained that there is a skeleton crew at Telltale, but they will be working on the Minecraft Story Mode project for Netflix. In fact, The Walking Dead team was also laid off today and The Walking Dead Final Season will not be completed.
This matches with the statement issued by Telltale games where the company promised to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners." Our sources say The Walking Dead Final Season is set to end after the second episode launches next week.
Though I'm not sure that makes any sense, I mean they've already sold the full season and it's not a bankruptcy (yet). So if they don't deliver, I expect massive refund demands that will undoubtedly kill it. But I'm not sure they care, the news story said they were all let go without severance. Basically we're toast, doesn't matter what bridges we burn now...
On Autoline After Hours a robot-programming gentleman said "Using robots to build cars is difficult. We nickname them Blind, Dumb, One-Armed Bobs because they can't see what they are doing. They have no intelligence. And they only have one arm so the tasks have to be extremely simple." He then went on to explain there are many situations where the human is the better worker.
That's the "classic" industrial robot arms that have been around since the 80s. They're still in use because although quite basic and inflexible they're also cheap and reliable. But if he think those are the only kind of robots coming for the jobs, well then I think he missed the last 30 years. We have robots with sensors. We have robots with more than one arm. And I don't know if they're really intelligent but we have robots that'll check its input, output and self-integrity and will set off alerts and alarms, not just blindly keep doing what it's doing. I suppose there's still many situations where the human is still the better worker, but robots have far from peaked in functionality.
On the other hand, doctors make life changing decisions all the time, frequently get it wrong, and frequently are not held accountable. Nor should they be: when you make life changing decisions with limited information, you often get it wrong. That's not a flaw, that's life.
And very often you can punish that person, but the system can't change. Every year experienced doctors retire, every year new inexperience doctors have their first patient. Now humans are really great at improvisation but algorithms are really great at accumulation. You can put them in a test environment or a simulation and keep tweaking it until it does what you want. And when you find new breaking points you can enhance it and make it better. My uncle witnessed an old lady run over somebody in the crosswalk in broad daylight without braking at all. Obviously she lost her license, but it's just one driver and it doesn't stop the next one. If Waymo's car runs somebody over maybe there's no one person to hang, but is that really important? There will be massive economic penalties both inside and outside the court room, it's a jackpot compared to being run over by your average DUI. And it will be fixed to do better.
I know there is a problem when you don't know that you've been disadvantaged by the algorithm, like it suggested you wouldn't be a very good employee for some reason so they pick the other guy with the higher score. But the alternative is usually the subjective opinion of the guy interviewing you, who can have all sorts of hidden biases you don't know about and are even less available to scrutiny. I mean if you have an algorithm then it's written down, even if it's code and not very well documented at that it's something that could be subpoena'd. It's a lot harder to show that your hiring manager has a gender bias than to show that your algorithm factors gender into the score. It's far from perfect, but from where I'm standing it looks superior to the alternatives.
I can name a hundred things that are hard, but that we aren't choosing to do. Stop increasing atmospheric CO2 is a good one. Going to the moon is easy.
Okay bro. If you go to the moon in your own rocket, I'll stop global warming. Deal?
The heaviest rocket system in the world, not in history. The Saturn V, for all its merit, is not a current player.
That's not how English works... if you say he's the world's tallest man without further qualifications it's generally assumed to mean the tallest man in history. True, the SpaceX page says "The world's most powerful rocket" as a headline but immediately follows up with "Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two." and that's fair. It's like using "The world's tallest man" as a headline and "At 251 cm, Sultan Kosen is the world's tallest currently living man." as the introduction. But if you're not going to say anything more then it's a bit dishonest...
Wha...? How does a CoC "enslave" open-source contributors? They have to agree to other conditions to contribute to a project (such as licenses.) CoCs are hardly a stretch.
Well licenses are legal obligations usually well defined in law and precedent and where any ambiguity generally counts against the one who drafted it. CoCs are generally more like "I promise not to do or say anything somebody else finds offensive", which has an near unlimited scope if the process is subverted and taken over by people with a political or social agenda. If I was to create a code of conduct it would probably go something like this:
This is a software development project, where the purpose is to turn business requirements into code that deliver functionality. There will be disagreements on many topics like priorities, design, implementation, testing and support but we expect all participants to behave professionally. This means discussing the pros and cons of different solutions, offer constructive criticism and feedback, report bugs and flaws without making personal insults, using slurs or in other ways attacking others. This includes extrapolating from a flawed design or major bug to a general attack on the developer's capabilities and skills, if there is a recurring pattern let it speak for itself.
We welcome and encourage people of all shapes and colors to participate, however this is not a platform for pushing personal agendas that go outside this scope. While we encourage people of all ethnic groups, religions, age, gender identity, sexual identity, political and social groups etc. to join us this is primarily neutral ground. This does not mean talking about such topics are forbidden or even discouraged, but you will meet people who hold other views and the onus is generally on you to work with them despite your differences. Any contributor who feels this is becoming distracting or pushy may ask that these topics are moved to side channels and/or to be excluded from the topic.
I'd probably have to make a long list of specific instances of explicitly forbidden behavior but really... I'd let the code of conduct be where it belongs, playing second fiddle to the primary goal. And if you have some nutters that don't agree that making software is the primary goal well... good riddance.
Because I've watched it happen. When everyone knows daddy is going to scold you if you screw up, you try really hard not to screw up. Quality stays high. The alternative is people know they won't get scolded, so they not only commit shit to start with, but then they want to debate how bad the shit stinks when there's push back. Then they throw a tantrum when the merge is denied. "I worked a whole hour on this. I spent my time and effort!" Before long, they've worn down the maintainers who get tired of their shit and leave for another project. The gates of hell open onto the project at this point. Shit begins to flood in and nobody can stop it.
This, so much this... every time you give an inch, it comes back to haunt you. At work we've been far too kind to fix other people's problems and special cases, we say it'll be just this once little tweak or hack or kludge that we'll remove as soon as they fix the problem. Except they never do because then it's "fixed" and we end up maintaining a shitload of spaghetti with tons of little gotchas. And eventually it circles back at us because we're crumbling under all the straws that are about to break the camel's back. I wish we had an asshole in charge that pushed back harder. The first time you should be polite. The second time you can be rude. The third time to shovel the same shit our way then I think chewing them out is the only way to make them stop.
This is a very curious move from Linus. He's previously been so adamantly anti-tone-policing, anti-SJW, and pro-meritocracy that I can't help but wonder if he is in fact being blackmailed or coerced in some fashion.
From his LKML post it seems the immediate cause was that he wanted to skip the whole summit, that after twenty years everything is fine and there'd only be minor tweaking left. And that seems to have made some of the other attendees vent some frustrations and made him realize he's got a blind spot where he doesn't see things the way other people do. So because he's of good nature he feels there need to be more explicit guidelines, hence the CoC. At least on the bright side it'll still be the same people in the Technical Advisory Board taking complaints now like before, so unless they're able to load that up with SJWs there shouldn't be that much change.
Meh, most people talk about UBI as a way to provide the basics for people that are or have become unemployable. The experience from pretty much every other benefit program is that people tend to become less employable that way, not more. If you wanted more student, you could do that today much simpler through better student benefits.
I can think of jobs that aren't easily automatable. But few of them seem candidates for shipping off the Africa. For example, picking apples can't currently be done by machines because the fruit bruises easily, and picking has to be done without damaging next year's buds. But shipping the whole tree off to the DRC to be plucked seems somewhat impractical.
Everything related to harvesting a raw material obviously has to be where that raw material is. And some things are perishable, apples are both so they're pretty safe from outsourcing. But everything else... just to take a random example here from Norway, a lot of the bread is actually no longer made here. It comes half-baked and frozen, here they simply put it in the oven and finish it. I have a friend that works in construction, more and more comes as prefab modules like say entire bathrooms and in case of smaller apartments sometimes the whole thing. There's a lot of creativity in moving work you'd think needs to be done on site somewhere else. If Africa becomes cheaper than Asia don't be surprised if they ship containers of cotton and set up sweatshops in Africa instead.
Why do we measure in lines of code? Serious question.
Lack of a better metric? Though at this level of abstraction I think classifying a project as small = 1 kLOC, medium = 10 kLOC, big = 100 kLOC and huge = 1000 kLOC project works just fine. I would think the number of maintainers you need scales pretty linearly with LOC. But it doesn't mean it's a useful measure of productivity....
The only thing that IS special, is that our reality is intolerable for more and more people, and they find forms of escape. Can you blame them?
I guess every generation have to find their own sob story about why they're angsty teens, but honestly... what the fuck is so wrong with society today? For the most part we have all our basic needs met, in fact the only thing I can think of is that we're so independent and socially liberal that nobody wants partner with uninteresting people because of economic dependence or social pressure or they got pregnant. Today she gets an abortion, there's no shotgun wedding.
and if they are a man, knowing that they are never allowed to cry or express frustration
What? Has there ever been a point in history where the male role has been less macho? In fact, many men struggle to find the balance between still being a gentleman and not behaving in a way a modern woman finds condescending. And how to functionally date when it's not like I'll wine and dine you and you'll sleep with me. And use #metoo as an excuse to say that ordinary flirting and dating has become impossible, as if "grab her by the pussy" is ordinary dating behavior. If you think that, maybe that's the problem...
Both of these things are true - but the 'rest of the story' (as they say) is that his track record isn't one of doing what he wants, but what people will pay him to do.
I think this is a "is the glass half full or half empty" situation, is he a corporate puppet that follows the money or is he leveraging what others will pay him for to further his own goals. Nobody asked him for a rocket that lands or a methalox engine or the Falcon Heavy, yes NASA paid for many of the primary missions particularly early on but that's just good business. And it was work they previously did themselves or hired the Russians, it's not like they created make-work for SpaceX to do. The BFR needs to be useful for other things that being a new Saturn V and IMHO that's a good thing, there's no sustainable market for flag planting. You do it once at great fanfare and then interest drops to near zero.
"A billion dollar revenue stream" sure sounds impressive - so long as you don't dwell too hard on the vast gaping difference between revenue and profit.
Well it was more the scope of the organization, SpaceX now has ~7000 employees. NASA had ~36000 and employed ~400000 total during the Apollo program but we also have 50 years of progress in computers, CAD systems, simulations and industrial production techniques. Even if they're both at break-even I wouldn't believe a company of ~70 employees that they're going to Mars, but SpaceX seem to have the qualifications. They just need to make enough money off satellite launches to fuel their own ambitions.
BAH -- you can charge peanuts for that. The real charges appear when you want to return to Earth.
Well if one-way tickets were an option they probably should because they really are much more expensive to create. But short term you're probably bringing so many tools and supplies that returning just the crew is no big deal.
Do we still take what Musk says seriously? I mean, how many times has he said something will happen at some time, and how many times has he actually followed on?
The flip side of that is how often has he actually been forced to give up? Like not on a particular timeline or event or scaling it back but abandon it altogether? Tesla is churning out cars. SpaceX is building rockets. Landing has gone from highly experimental to routine in a few years. We'll see if the F9 block 5 is really as reusable as they say or if that's more aspirational too, but it's probably more reusable than the block 4. The Falcon Heavy flew... eventually and nailed 2/3rds of the landing on the first try.
We know Musk wants to put people in space. We know Musk wants to go to Mars. As long as he's in charge at SpaceX they're developing the Raptor methalox engine. They are developing the BFR/BFS. They are pursuing manned flight through the Commercial Crew program. They're making space suits. He's not some loon building a rocket in his back yard, they got engineers capable of doing it. Doing 20 satellite launches at $60 million a year is a billion dollar revenue stream, so they got money too.
I'm pretty sure that if you'd like to book a Moon trip then Musk is the right person to go to and that he'll eventually deliver. In that sense getting in first in line might be a good idea no matter when the doors open. Musk wants an Apollo program, how can we get to Mars in less than a decade not a plan that takes 20-30 years. I don't think he can pull that off without Apollo-level funding too, but then again sometimes it brings out the "they said it was impossible so we did it" in engineers.
As long as you're sitting along a square table that seems the most trivial and obvious reason, you end up with three in a row. It's tough to hear, tough to make eye contact and a bit rude if you're talking past the person in the middle. If you're seated around a small round table I'd say a casual conversation of up to six works well.
You are saying then education is the best solution.
Well that was one of three:
A significant portion of welfare recipients have poor education, mental health problems, or drug addiction.
And that's assuming poor education was because they never had the chance and not that they'd flunk it. There's a lot of people who're functional enough that you wouldn't want to put them in institutionalized care but who just aren't very bright or not stable enough to hold down a job. Some people really need their fixed costs subtracted and then a daily "allowance", they really do need to be treated more like teens than adults but not quite like toddlers. I know the plural of anecdote is not data but I know at least two that are on welfare where honestly I don't see more education making any difference.
Slashdot Mirror
We have been lacking in the space exploration for a while now. A lot of people think we can just go to Mars now, while in reality we are in a Space Age Dark Age so we are actually kinda stupid on Space Travel, and we are back to thinking of it in Science fiction terms vs practical.
Meh, technology-wise I think we're in good shape. Even though the people on the ISS haven't been going anywhere we have long term experience with living in space. Basically it's not about where you are, it's about keeping the conditions on the inside habitable. We also have decades more experience sending satellites and probes. What's missing is money, lots and lots of money. Look at Falcon Heavy, there's still just the demo flight and no more heavy launches scheduled this year. There's two next year, but the market is like 1/10th of the F9.
What's the market for the BFR? Today, none. Musk was guessing $2-10 billion to develop, most likely $5 billion but that's just 10-50% of NASA's budget for a single year. If you had Apollo level funding with 4.5% of the federal budget it'd be $200 billion in the peak year. With that and the same "beat the Ruskies at any cost" attitude we'd be on Mars by 2025, no doubt in my mind. But since that's not happening we need something a lot cheaper. I hope Musk will fly the first re-re-used booster soon.
I have seem people apologize for being male of for "their gender" while being male. I don't get that either. It is not a club that you were ever asked to be a member of or not.
So? If I heard a white supremacist shout "Get out of here n*gger, we don't want your kind around here" then yeah I'd like to go over and apologize on behalf of white people for the racist asshole. Doesn't matter that you didn't pick your skin color, there will be two levels to it - what individual A does to individual B and what white people do to black people, because he's asserting to speak or act for all of us. And no, he didn't ask your permission but it still happens quite often and if you don't object people think that's how it is. It's not simply a matter of genetics, being white you have a say in what white culture is like. It doesn't mean you're in majority or that there isn't some subculture that'll reject the majority, but it's kinda hard not to be part of it.
Yeah there's the rapist. But there's also the people who think the drunk slut in the miniskirt flirting with everyone was "asking for it". And the people who are okay with other people having that attitude. I mean if it's part of the male culture then yes I think we have a problem. Though honestly, I don't recall that ever being treated as okay. Given how common it supposedly is I assume that means I've gone to school or maybe even to class with a rapist but to me that's one person who wanted to do the crime. It was never anybody who talked or acted like it would be okay or not a big deal. Now homophobia... yeah, I think you can definitively say there was a cultural bias against gays growing up. I'd excuse myself by saying it was different times, but that's just a roundabout way of saying there were lots of us.
First of all: What's a "device"? That sounds like a weasel-word if ever I heard one.
It's the word Microsoft started to use when they thought they'd be counting Win10 phones too. But since they contribute practically nothing it's basically just PCs like before.
There isn't a big financial incentive to go into STEM jobs if you are a college-educated professional. The pay is good, but there is a limit to your professional growth and you have to actually do work and produce results. In reality, sales and marketing at tech companies make as much or more as STEM people. So unless you really enjoy STEM, it is better off avoiding it as a career. I think many women have figured this out.
With all due respect, it's overwhelmingly women who become primary school teachers and nurses which are two of the absolutely most dead-end and poorly paying careers relative to their education level. So while I could say a lot about sales and marketing, I don't think women shy away from STEM because they generally make "smarter" choices. And by the way if it was that easy, why is it that most tech people are terrible at sales? I mean even in job interviews some people struggle to give even a fair impression of themselves, much less a good one. Maybe being a smooth talker is a form of skill...
It's quite obvious that consuming services can be cheaper and easier than doing it yourself, that's the whole reason we started having bakers and smiths and whatnot. But if we separate the services from the object, like if we assume your building management is subcontracting out everything what they have in net is simply working capital. And they'll want a return on their investment, of course you could say so does the bank if that's the alternative. But a lot of people just don't see it as a hidden form of debt, sure the credit card debt is "real". But the rented apartment, leased car, phone plan and so on is not even though a lot of the cost is basically baked in interest payments for loaning something expensive. And you're usually paying quite a bit for flexibility which is totally wasted if you're not going to take advantage of it.
I don't blame people for having a mortgage, it's kinda hard to buy a place without one. But I really, really wonder about the people who'll pay like 15% interest to have something now instead of in a year. I wouldn't do that unless I was absolutely can't-put-food-on-table desperate, not because I want a new TV and PlayStation - which happens to be what one of my friends did. I know you only live once but you shouldn't fuck over your future self either. It's not that cool when other friends is almost done repaying their loans and got lots of spending cash while you're still near zero net worth because you never get out of that interest hell. But ah well not my life.
If the proof is a dud or just some nonsense, it get's written off as an unfortunate case of dementia, doesn't invalidate lifetime of excellent work. If it checks out however, well solving a millennium problem at age 90 is just a cherry on top.
And the middle ground is still the most likely, that it'll be a plausible proof but somehow gets poked holes in. That's what happens to most people who think they've solved the big conjectures no matter their credentials. But if it stands up to scrutiny he'll rise from famed to legend.
Very good question... sources may indicate no:
We previously reported that a skeleton crew will remain behind to complete work on The Walking Dead Final Season. That information was inaccurate. Sources who wish to remain anonymous explained that there is a skeleton crew at Telltale, but they will be working on the Minecraft Story Mode project for Netflix. In fact, The Walking Dead team was also laid off today and The Walking Dead Final Season will not be completed.
This matches with the statement issued by Telltale games where the company promised to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners." Our sources say The Walking Dead Final Season is set to end after the second episode launches next week.
Though I'm not sure that makes any sense, I mean they've already sold the full season and it's not a bankruptcy (yet). So if they don't deliver, I expect massive refund demands that will undoubtedly kill it. But I'm not sure they care, the news story said they were all let go without severance. Basically we're toast, doesn't matter what bridges we burn now...
On Autoline After Hours a robot-programming gentleman said "Using robots to build cars is difficult. We nickname them Blind, Dumb, One-Armed Bobs because they can't see what they are doing. They have no intelligence. And they only have one arm so the tasks have to be extremely simple." He then went on to explain there are many situations where the human is the better worker.
That's the "classic" industrial robot arms that have been around since the 80s. They're still in use because although quite basic and inflexible they're also cheap and reliable. But if he think those are the only kind of robots coming for the jobs, well then I think he missed the last 30 years. We have robots with sensors. We have robots with more than one arm. And I don't know if they're really intelligent but we have robots that'll check its input, output and self-integrity and will set off alerts and alarms, not just blindly keep doing what it's doing. I suppose there's still many situations where the human is still the better worker, but robots have far from peaked in functionality.
On the other hand, doctors make life changing decisions all the time, frequently get it wrong, and frequently are not held accountable. Nor should they be: when you make life changing decisions with limited information, you often get it wrong. That's not a flaw, that's life.
And very often you can punish that person, but the system can't change. Every year experienced doctors retire, every year new inexperience doctors have their first patient. Now humans are really great at improvisation but algorithms are really great at accumulation. You can put them in a test environment or a simulation and keep tweaking it until it does what you want. And when you find new breaking points you can enhance it and make it better. My uncle witnessed an old lady run over somebody in the crosswalk in broad daylight without braking at all. Obviously she lost her license, but it's just one driver and it doesn't stop the next one. If Waymo's car runs somebody over maybe there's no one person to hang, but is that really important? There will be massive economic penalties both inside and outside the court room, it's a jackpot compared to being run over by your average DUI. And it will be fixed to do better.
I know there is a problem when you don't know that you've been disadvantaged by the algorithm, like it suggested you wouldn't be a very good employee for some reason so they pick the other guy with the higher score. But the alternative is usually the subjective opinion of the guy interviewing you, who can have all sorts of hidden biases you don't know about and are even less available to scrutiny. I mean if you have an algorithm then it's written down, even if it's code and not very well documented at that it's something that could be subpoena'd. It's a lot harder to show that your hiring manager has a gender bias than to show that your algorithm factors gender into the score. It's far from perfect, but from where I'm standing it looks superior to the alternatives.
I can name a hundred things that are hard, but that we aren't choosing to do. Stop increasing atmospheric CO2 is a good one. Going to the moon is easy.
Okay bro. If you go to the moon in your own rocket, I'll stop global warming. Deal?
Saturn V is the heaviest rocket system in the world in the same way that Rome is the largest city. I mean, it USED to be, right?
If all current cities were smaller than ancient Rome then that analogy would make sense. You're comparing apples and oranges...
The heaviest rocket system in the world, not in history. The Saturn V, for all its merit, is not a current player.
That's not how English works... if you say he's the world's tallest man without further qualifications it's generally assumed to mean the tallest man in history. True, the SpaceX page says "The world's most powerful rocket" as a headline but immediately follows up with "Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two." and that's fair. It's like using "The world's tallest man" as a headline and "At 251 cm, Sultan Kosen is the world's tallest currently living man." as the introduction. But if you're not going to say anything more then it's a bit dishonest...
Wha...? How does a CoC "enslave" open-source contributors? They have to agree to other conditions to contribute to a project (such as licenses.) CoCs are hardly a stretch.
Well licenses are legal obligations usually well defined in law and precedent and where any ambiguity generally counts against the one who drafted it. CoCs are generally more like "I promise not to do or say anything somebody else finds offensive", which has an near unlimited scope if the process is subverted and taken over by people with a political or social agenda. If I was to create a code of conduct it would probably go something like this:
This is a software development project, where the purpose is to turn business requirements into code that deliver functionality. There will be disagreements on many topics like priorities, design, implementation, testing and support but we expect all participants to behave professionally. This means discussing the pros and cons of different solutions, offer constructive criticism and feedback, report bugs and flaws without making personal insults, using slurs or in other ways attacking others. This includes extrapolating from a flawed design or major bug to a general attack on the developer's capabilities and skills, if there is a recurring pattern let it speak for itself.
We welcome and encourage people of all shapes and colors to participate, however this is not a platform for pushing personal agendas that go outside this scope. While we encourage people of all ethnic groups, religions, age, gender identity, sexual identity, political and social groups etc. to join us this is primarily neutral ground. This does not mean talking about such topics are forbidden or even discouraged, but you will meet people who hold other views and the onus is generally on you to work with them despite your differences. Any contributor who feels this is becoming distracting or pushy may ask that these topics are moved to side channels and/or to be excluded from the topic.
I'd probably have to make a long list of specific instances of explicitly forbidden behavior but really... I'd let the code of conduct be where it belongs, playing second fiddle to the primary goal. And if you have some nutters that don't agree that making software is the primary goal well... good riddance.
Because I've watched it happen. When everyone knows daddy is going to scold you if you screw up, you try really hard not to screw up. Quality stays high. The alternative is people know they won't get scolded, so they not only commit shit to start with, but then they want to debate how bad the shit stinks when there's push back. Then they throw a tantrum when the merge is denied. "I worked a whole hour on this. I spent my time and effort!" Before long, they've worn down the maintainers who get tired of their shit and leave for another project. The gates of hell open onto the project at this point. Shit begins to flood in and nobody can stop it.
This, so much this... every time you give an inch, it comes back to haunt you. At work we've been far too kind to fix other people's problems and special cases, we say it'll be just this once little tweak or hack or kludge that we'll remove as soon as they fix the problem. Except they never do because then it's "fixed" and we end up maintaining a shitload of spaghetti with tons of little gotchas. And eventually it circles back at us because we're crumbling under all the straws that are about to break the camel's back. I wish we had an asshole in charge that pushed back harder. The first time you should be polite. The second time you can be rude. The third time to shovel the same shit our way then I think chewing them out is the only way to make them stop.
This is a very curious move from Linus. He's previously been so adamantly anti-tone-policing, anti-SJW, and pro-meritocracy that I can't help but wonder if he is in fact being blackmailed or coerced in some fashion.
From his LKML post it seems the immediate cause was that he wanted to skip the whole summit, that after twenty years everything is fine and there'd only be minor tweaking left. And that seems to have made some of the other attendees vent some frustrations and made him realize he's got a blind spot where he doesn't see things the way other people do. So because he's of good nature he feels there need to be more explicit guidelines, hence the CoC. At least on the bright side it'll still be the same people in the Technical Advisory Board taking complaints now like before, so unless they're able to load that up with SJWs there shouldn't be that much change.
Meh, most people talk about UBI as a way to provide the basics for people that are or have become unemployable. The experience from pretty much every other benefit program is that people tend to become less employable that way, not more. If you wanted more student, you could do that today much simpler through better student benefits.
I can think of jobs that aren't easily automatable. But few of them seem candidates for shipping off the Africa. For example, picking apples can't currently be done by machines because the fruit bruises easily, and picking has to be done without damaging next year's buds. But shipping the whole tree off to the DRC to be plucked seems somewhat impractical.
Everything related to harvesting a raw material obviously has to be where that raw material is. And some things are perishable, apples are both so they're pretty safe from outsourcing. But everything else... just to take a random example here from Norway, a lot of the bread is actually no longer made here. It comes half-baked and frozen, here they simply put it in the oven and finish it. I have a friend that works in construction, more and more comes as prefab modules like say entire bathrooms and in case of smaller apartments sometimes the whole thing. There's a lot of creativity in moving work you'd think needs to be done on site somewhere else. If Africa becomes cheaper than Asia don't be surprised if they ship containers of cotton and set up sweatshops in Africa instead.
Good bet very few get either your post or mine
Why? There's an XKCD for nearly every story posted here. Also it's Cherokee ;)
Why do we measure in lines of code? Serious question.
Lack of a better metric? Though at this level of abstraction I think classifying a project as small = 1 kLOC, medium = 10 kLOC, big = 100 kLOC and huge = 1000 kLOC project works just fine. I would think the number of maintainers you need scales pretty linearly with LOC. But it doesn't mean it's a useful measure of productivity....
The only thing that IS special, is that our reality is intolerable for more and more people, and they find forms of escape. Can you blame them?
I guess every generation have to find their own sob story about why they're angsty teens, but honestly... what the fuck is so wrong with society today? For the most part we have all our basic needs met, in fact the only thing I can think of is that we're so independent and socially liberal that nobody wants partner with uninteresting people because of economic dependence or social pressure or they got pregnant. Today she gets an abortion, there's no shotgun wedding.
and if they are a man, knowing that they are never allowed to cry or express frustration
What? Has there ever been a point in history where the male role has been less macho? In fact, many men struggle to find the balance between still being a gentleman and not behaving in a way a modern woman finds condescending. And how to functionally date when it's not like I'll wine and dine you and you'll sleep with me. And use #metoo as an excuse to say that ordinary flirting and dating has become impossible, as if "grab her by the pussy" is ordinary dating behavior. If you think that, maybe that's the problem...
Both of these things are true - but the 'rest of the story' (as they say) is that his track record isn't one of doing what he wants, but what people will pay him to do.
I think this is a "is the glass half full or half empty" situation, is he a corporate puppet that follows the money or is he leveraging what others will pay him for to further his own goals. Nobody asked him for a rocket that lands or a methalox engine or the Falcon Heavy, yes NASA paid for many of the primary missions particularly early on but that's just good business. And it was work they previously did themselves or hired the Russians, it's not like they created make-work for SpaceX to do. The BFR needs to be useful for other things that being a new Saturn V and IMHO that's a good thing, there's no sustainable market for flag planting. You do it once at great fanfare and then interest drops to near zero.
"A billion dollar revenue stream" sure sounds impressive - so long as you don't dwell too hard on the vast gaping difference between revenue and profit.
Well it was more the scope of the organization, SpaceX now has ~7000 employees. NASA had ~36000 and employed ~400000 total during the Apollo program but we also have 50 years of progress in computers, CAD systems, simulations and industrial production techniques. Even if they're both at break-even I wouldn't believe a company of ~70 employees that they're going to Mars, but SpaceX seem to have the qualifications. They just need to make enough money off satellite launches to fuel their own ambitions.
BAH -- you can charge peanuts for that. The real charges appear when you want to return to Earth.
Well if one-way tickets were an option they probably should because they really are much more expensive to create. But short term you're probably bringing so many tools and supplies that returning just the crew is no big deal.
Do we still take what Musk says seriously? I mean, how many times has he said something will happen at some time, and how many times has he actually followed on?
The flip side of that is how often has he actually been forced to give up? Like not on a particular timeline or event or scaling it back but abandon it altogether? Tesla is churning out cars. SpaceX is building rockets. Landing has gone from highly experimental to routine in a few years. We'll see if the F9 block 5 is really as reusable as they say or if that's more aspirational too, but it's probably more reusable than the block 4. The Falcon Heavy flew... eventually and nailed 2/3rds of the landing on the first try.
We know Musk wants to put people in space. We know Musk wants to go to Mars. As long as he's in charge at SpaceX they're developing the Raptor methalox engine. They are developing the BFR/BFS. They are pursuing manned flight through the Commercial Crew program. They're making space suits. He's not some loon building a rocket in his back yard, they got engineers capable of doing it. Doing 20 satellite launches at $60 million a year is a billion dollar revenue stream, so they got money too.
I'm pretty sure that if you'd like to book a Moon trip then Musk is the right person to go to and that he'll eventually deliver. In that sense getting in first in line might be a good idea no matter when the doors open. Musk wants an Apollo program, how can we get to Mars in less than a decade not a plan that takes 20-30 years. I don't think he can pull that off without Apollo-level funding too, but then again sometimes it brings out the "they said it was impossible so we did it" in engineers.
As long as you're sitting along a square table that seems the most trivial and obvious reason, you end up with three in a row. It's tough to hear, tough to make eye contact and a bit rude if you're talking past the person in the middle. If you're seated around a small round table I'd say a casual conversation of up to six works well.
You are saying then education is the best solution.
Well that was one of three:
A significant portion of welfare recipients have poor education, mental health problems, or drug addiction.
And that's assuming poor education was because they never had the chance and not that they'd flunk it. There's a lot of people who're functional enough that you wouldn't want to put them in institutionalized care but who just aren't very bright or not stable enough to hold down a job. Some people really need their fixed costs subtracted and then a daily "allowance", they really do need to be treated more like teens than adults but not quite like toddlers. I know the plural of anecdote is not data but I know at least two that are on welfare where honestly I don't see more education making any difference.