You've hit the nail on the head, thought I didn't realize it until I read your comment. The HARD part of programming is dealing with the people. Everything else can be understood logically, which is easy, but dealing with people is an irrational process. Anyone can find the square root of 8 (ie write code) but not everyone can find the square root of an apple (dealing with people).
You don't seem to have read the Challenger report. There had been a number of O-ring burn-through and near-burn-through events at low temperatures. It wasn't a question of if but of when there would be a disastrous result. If you do something risky often enough you WILL encounter disastrous results.
I'll grant that the Challenger management wasn't murderous; merely criminally stupid. I will not grant that for the Columbia management. The same problems in management and bureaucracy that doomed the Challenger were permitted to remain in place, guaranteeing that management would eventually ignore a fatal risk long enough to destroy another orbiter and kill its crew.
"Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So I was right, from a certain point of wiew."
"Blizzard" never existed - they were a corporation, legal fiction, a social construct, a consensual hallucination. There is no person or thing that you can point to and say "That is Blizzard."
HOWEVER, there was once a group of people who at one time could say "I am part of Blizzard." They made some remarkably good games. When those people had all left Blizzard, then the original Blizzard was no more. I think it is safe to say that the Blizzard that existed in 1997 no longer exists.
But that's a red herring. USEFUL isn't the topic of discussion; the X-Prize, or more generally, manned spaceflight, is the topic. The post the GP was replying to suggested that funding should go somewhere besides NASA. I don't suggest de-funding NASA (they ARE useful), but I would suggest funding some manned space programs that might actually get us out of the gravity well. LEO doesn't cut it. 20,000 bureaucrats doesn't cut it. Feynman's report on the shuttle bureaucracy (in the wake of the Challenger explosion) was quite damning. Nothing changed, and 15 years later we lost another shuttle and another crew to another avoidable problem again predicted in advance by engineers. We will NOT get large-scale manned spaceflight with NASA as it currently exists. Feel free to point to empirical evidence that suggests otherwise.
"Besides, if we liken NASA to..." I'd liken NASA to one of the kings who had already turned down Columbus (he approached several monarchs of several nations before hitting it off with Isabella. I would liken her to the X-Prize. (Yeah, it's not a perfect analogy.) Columbus didn't care who funded him as long as someone did. I don't care who funds manned spaceflight as long as someone does. Again, hanging around in LEO doesn't cut it, and I haven't seen anything from NASA to suggest they'll do anything else.
"It has done a lot..." Agreed. It has done amazing things, in fact.
"...it can do more." Empirical evidence suggests otherwise. NASA will continue to do what NASA is good at, but they are an active impediment to manned spaceflight. WRT manned spaceflight, NASA is resting on its laurels: we haven't been past LEO for 30 years. The point of the X-Prize is manned spaceflight. To quote a grandparent post, for manned space flight, it is a better investment to fund private groups than NASA.
No, not at all. But LOOK at Columbus - he approached a number of countries before Spain agreed to fund his expedition. There were MANY sources of funding in Renaissance Europe for oceanic exploration. There is only ONE source int he US for space exploration. NASA has accomplished a lot - agreed. Currently, however, they are an acive impediment to wholesale human spaceflight. If you have this great idea for manned flight, you're out of luck, just as Columbus would have been if the first nation he approached had been the only seagoing nation.
it isn't because NASA suffers from tunnel vision Yes, it is. They would rather pay legions of bureaucrats than pay for manned spaceflight.
Yup. Any grandma who makes up stories is well versed in the technique of reaching a climactic moment and asking "And then what do you think happened?" The child responds, and grandma exclaims "That's exactly right!" Then grandma continues, dramatizing and expounding on the child's answer.
We sailed to England. And back. Multiple times. We sent messengers to Persia. And India. And beyond. We sent caravans to India. We still trade with them. We built several working sailing ships. We swam in the sea. We colonized a tiny island. And then we colonized another one. We chased whales. And sent the collected materials back. We've sent our driftwood around the world on the ocean's currents. We have spice. We have gunpowder, algeabra, paper, Arabic numerals, and modern surgery.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR US TO FINANCE THIS FLEET OF YOURS, COLUMBUS!!!
The missing phrase is "to the seller." If a product is known TO THE SELLER to be dangerous, but not to the buyer, then the seller is culpable.
Recall the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit. McDonald's was selling a product that THEY knew would cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns, and they knew that people would put it in their lap, and they knew that some people would spill it. BUYERS, on the other hand, thought they were buying a product that was hot and would cause discomfort or 1st degree burns at worst.
Who, then, is at fault in a situation like this? Clearly, in the McDonald's coffee lawsuit, the buyer was partially at fault; she spilled something on her that she knew might burn, HOWEVER, she didn't realize the extent or severity of the burns. McDonald's, by not clearly warning of the magnitude of the risk, was also partially at fault. A jury of ordinary Americans determined that McDonald's held most of the blame.
Preciseley. If things keep up this way, why, we MIGHT just get back the climate we had during the first part of the last millenium. You know, when Greenland was habitable and its name wasn't just propaganda...
No, that wwas pretty much it as far as points go.It's a silly point, I know, but I have grown amused over the years at watching Intel's "THIS IS ONLY FOR SERVERS!!!!" products show up at Computer City.
I am reminded of the oft-misquoted remark by IBM's president about a worldwide market for only five computers. He was correct, of course; there probably WERE only about five computers sold that year.
"Itanium was not, nor ever will be, a workstation processor" - Erik Hollensbe, 2004
Heh. I've heard that before: "The Pentium Pro is a server CPU; it is not suitable for desktop use.." - Intel, 1996
"The Pentium II, based on the Pentium Pro core..." - Intel, 1999
"The 486 is intended as a CPU for high-end computing needs." - Intel, 1991
Re:Own a computer, own a car
on
Security Alert
·
· Score: 1
X has not happened, therefore X cannot happen. Heh. Let me know when you have a well-reasoned argument.
Re:Own a computer, own a car
on
Security Alert
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
And the battery. And the brakepads. And spark plugs. And spark plug wires. And the air filter. And the fuel filters. And check fluid levels. And refill with fluid when necessary.
In short, people should know how to do all those things that the engineers can't do for them, since the engineers must design cars with parts that wear out.
Another car analogy - if you put your CAR on the ROAD you must ensure that your CAR is not a danger to other CARs on the ROAD. Replace CAR with COMPUTER and ROAD with INTERNET. Granted, no one will die if you get infected with a zombie, but neither is your car capable of crashing every other car on every road in the world.
I want ads. The other day I was trying to find a place to buy giant chess pieces (for an outdoor chess board.) The ads contained more relevant sites than the actual search.
Now, if I was on a 300 baud connection (getting, oh, maybe 1200 bps), I might be upset by the bandwidth consumed by the ads. But the marginal cost of the ads to me is ZERO. There is a non-zero probability that the ads will contain useful information. I don't perceive that as evil.
Contrast that with AskJeeves. I left AltaVista (remember when it was the best?) for AskJeeves years ago, because Jeeves queried multiple search engines, including AltaVista. Within about six months, I was getting only sponsored links in the results of my searches. THAT is evil. That's about when I discovered Google.
"some state-specific lotteries claim that their profits pay toward education costs"
Specifically, Missouri (where I live) made this claim. It is 100% true. Furthermore, as the state's gambling revenues went up, the state disbursed less tax revenue to education. Education funding didn't change, but the source did. I suspect that other states are similar.
on't see how having to use text as a communications medium could do anything but help spelling abilities.
HA! I've thought long and hard about this issue, and I disagree heartily. With regard to blogs, I think they do have a detrimental effect on spelling.
Here's things were: 1. Kid reads books and sees correctly spelled words. Correct spelling reinforced. 2. Teacher reads everything kid writes. Teacher corrects misspellings. Correct spelling reinforced.
Here's how things are: 1. Kid reads internet and sees many misspelled words. Incorrect spelling reinforced. 2. Most of what kid writes is not read by teacher. Most misspellings are not corrected. Correct spelling not reinforced.
In the words of my junior high gym teacher, "Practice does not make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect."
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND...the purpose of written communication is to COMMUNICATE. If you spell a word differently from a dictionary, but you get your meaning across, where is the harm? Who is bothered except for pedants? People who spell well will think you stupid...but weightlifters will think you weak unless you can bench press what they can. Who cares?
There's been some mention in the discussion of making phony files with infringing-sounding names (perhaps oops_i_did_it_again.mp3). This could at some point generate a letter from the RIAA to your ISP in which they accuse you of infringing their copyright.
IANAL, but that sounds an awful lot like libel to me - lying about me to a third party, trying to besmirch my reputation, trying to instigate problems for me. Would that work as an offensive tactic against the RIAA?
Latitude is one reason, well-explained by other replies.
Another is safety. Rockets must launch to the east (or lose the advantage of the earth's rotation). If there's a problem with a lunch from Florida, the debris crash into the ocean. Launches from western states could crash into eastern states.
Actually, that's EXACTLY what you do. You go to court, you get an order to have him removed. The police DO enforce orders of the court. There are some pretty stringent laws about evicting people who refuse to leave your property. It's doable but not always easy if the freeloaders know the law.
Slashdot Mirror
PRECISELY!!!
You've hit the nail on the head, thought I didn't realize it until I read your comment. The HARD part of programming is dealing with the people. Everything else can be understood logically, which is easy, but dealing with people is an irrational process. Anyone can find the square root of 8 (ie write code) but not everyone can find the square root of an apple (dealing with people).
You don't seem to have read the Challenger report. There had been a number of O-ring burn-through and near-burn-through events at low temperatures. It wasn't a question of if but of when there would be a disastrous result. If you do something risky often enough you WILL encounter disastrous results.
I'll grant that the Challenger management wasn't murderous; merely criminally stupid. I will not grant that for the Columbia management. The same problems in management and bureaucracy that doomed the Challenger were permitted to remain in place, guaranteeing that management would eventually ignore a fatal risk long enough to destroy another orbiter and kill its crew.
Let's see...
Hurts business. Check.
Hurts people. Check.
Has terrorist excuse. Check.
Must be from the Democrat administration (SEE ALSO - Bosnia, Iraq, WTC I, etc.)
Why should I take advice about the web from someone who can't even close a tag?
obStarWarsQuote:
"Your father was seduced by the dark side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So I was right, from a certain point of wiew."
"Blizzard" never existed - they were a corporation, legal fiction, a social construct, a consensual hallucination. There is no person or thing that you can point to and say "That is Blizzard."
HOWEVER, there was once a group of people who at one time could say "I am part of Blizzard." They made some remarkably good games. When those people had all left Blizzard, then the original Blizzard was no more. I think it is safe to say that the Blizzard that existed in 1997 no longer exists.
"government programs are doing useful research"
But that's a red herring. USEFUL isn't the topic of discussion; the X-Prize, or more generally, manned spaceflight, is the topic. The post the GP was replying to suggested that funding should go somewhere besides NASA. I don't suggest de-funding NASA (they ARE useful), but I would suggest funding some manned space programs that might actually get us out of the gravity well. LEO doesn't cut it. 20,000 bureaucrats doesn't cut it. Feynman's report on the shuttle bureaucracy (in the wake of the Challenger explosion) was quite damning. Nothing changed, and 15 years later we lost another shuttle and another crew to another avoidable problem again predicted in advance by engineers. We will NOT get large-scale manned spaceflight with NASA as it currently exists. Feel free to point to empirical evidence that suggests otherwise.
"Besides, if we liken NASA to..."
I'd liken NASA to one of the kings who had already turned down Columbus (he approached several monarchs of several nations before hitting it off with Isabella. I would liken her to the X-Prize. (Yeah, it's not a perfect analogy.) Columbus didn't care who funded him as long as someone did. I don't care who funds manned spaceflight as long as someone does. Again, hanging around in LEO doesn't cut it, and I haven't seen anything from NASA to suggest they'll do anything else.
"It has done a lot..."
Agreed. It has done amazing things, in fact.
"...it can do more."
Empirical evidence suggests otherwise. NASA will continue to do what NASA is good at, but they are an active impediment to manned spaceflight. WRT manned spaceflight, NASA is resting on its laurels: we haven't been past LEO for 30 years. The point of the X-Prize is manned spaceflight. To quote a grandparent post, for manned space flight, it is a better investment to fund private groups than NASA.
No, not at all. But LOOK at Columbus - he approached a number of countries before Spain agreed to fund his expedition. There were MANY sources of funding in Renaissance Europe for oceanic exploration. There is only ONE source int he US for space exploration. NASA has accomplished a lot - agreed. Currently, however, they are an acive impediment to wholesale human spaceflight. If you have this great idea for manned flight, you're out of luck, just as Columbus would have been if the first nation he approached had been the only seagoing nation.
it isn't because NASA suffers from tunnel vision
Yes, it is. They would rather pay legions of bureaucrats than pay for manned spaceflight.
Yup. Any grandma who makes up stories is well versed in the technique of reaching a climactic moment and asking "And then what do you think happened?" The child responds, and grandma exclaims "That's exactly right!" Then grandma continues, dramatizing and expounding on the child's answer.
We sailed to England. And back. Multiple times.
We sent messengers to Persia. And India. And beyond.
We sent caravans to India. We still trade with them.
We built several working sailing ships.
We swam in the sea.
We colonized a tiny island. And then we colonized another one.
We chased whales. And sent the collected materials back.
We've sent our driftwood around the world on the ocean's currents.
We have spice.
We have gunpowder, algeabra, paper, Arabic numerals, and modern surgery.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED FOR US TO FINANCE THIS FLEET OF YOURS, COLUMBUS!!!
The missing phrase is "to the seller." If a product is known TO THE SELLER to be dangerous, but not to the buyer, then the seller is culpable.
Recall the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit. McDonald's was selling a product that THEY knew would cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns, and they knew that people would put it in their lap, and they knew that some people would spill it. BUYERS, on the other hand, thought they were buying a product that was hot and would cause discomfort or 1st degree burns at worst.
Who, then, is at fault in a situation like this? Clearly, in the McDonald's coffee lawsuit, the buyer was partially at fault; she spilled something on her that she knew might burn, HOWEVER, she didn't realize the extent or severity of the burns. McDonald's, by not clearly warning of the magnitude of the risk, was also partially at fault. A jury of ordinary Americans determined that McDonald's held most of the blame.
Preciseley. If things keep up this way, why, we MIGHT just get back the climate we had during the first part of the last millenium. You know, when Greenland was habitable and its name wasn't just propaganda...
+137, Funny.
/. in months. Thanks.
This is the first LOL experience I've had on
No, that wwas pretty much it as far as points go.It's a silly point, I know, but I have grown amused over the years at watching Intel's "THIS IS ONLY FOR SERVERS!!!!" products show up at Computer City.
I am reminded of the oft-misquoted remark by IBM's president about a worldwide market for only five computers. He was correct, of course; there probably WERE only about five computers sold that year.
"Itanium was not, nor ever will be, a workstation processor" - Erik Hollensbe, 2004
Heh. I've heard that before:
"The Pentium Pro is a server CPU; it is not suitable for desktop use.." - Intel, 1996
"The Pentium II, based on the Pentium Pro core..." - Intel, 1999
"The 486 is intended as a CPU for high-end computing needs." - Intel, 1991
X has not happened, therefore X cannot happen. Heh. Let me know when you have a well-reasoned argument.
And the battery. And the brakepads. And spark plugs. And spark plug wires. And the air filter. And the fuel filters. And check fluid levels. And refill with fluid when necessary.
In short, people should know how to do all those things that the engineers can't do for them, since the engineers must design cars with parts that wear out.
Another car analogy - if you put your CAR on the ROAD you must ensure that your CAR is not a danger to other CARs on the ROAD. Replace CAR with COMPUTER and ROAD with INTERNET. Granted, no one will die if you get infected with a zombie, but neither is your car capable of crashing every other car on every road in the world.
I want ads. The other day I was trying to find a place to buy giant chess pieces (for an outdoor chess board.) The ads contained more relevant sites than the actual search.
Now, if I was on a 300 baud connection (getting, oh, maybe 1200 bps), I might be upset by the bandwidth consumed by the ads. But the marginal cost of the ads to me is ZERO. There is a non-zero probability that the ads will contain useful information. I don't perceive that as evil.
Contrast that with AskJeeves. I left AltaVista (remember when it was the best?) for AskJeeves years ago, because Jeeves queried multiple search engines, including AltaVista. Within about six months, I was getting only sponsored links in the results of my searches. THAT is evil. That's about when I discovered Google.
"some state-specific lotteries claim that their profits pay toward education costs"
Specifically, Missouri (where I live) made this claim. It is 100% true. Furthermore, as the state's gambling revenues went up, the state disbursed less tax revenue to education. Education funding didn't change, but the source did. I suspect that other states are similar.
When the 486DX2 first came out, 8MB was considered top of the line. I think a 386 should be permitted 4MB, tops.
Confound it, I'm OLD!
on't see how having to use text as a communications medium could do anything but help spelling abilities.
HA! I've thought long and hard about this issue, and I disagree heartily. With regard to blogs, I think they do have a detrimental effect on spelling.
Here's things were:
1. Kid reads books and sees correctly spelled words. Correct spelling reinforced.
2. Teacher reads everything kid writes. Teacher corrects misspellings. Correct spelling reinforced.
Here's how things are:
1. Kid reads internet and sees many misspelled words. Incorrect spelling reinforced.
2. Most of what kid writes is not read by teacher. Most misspellings are not corrected. Correct spelling not reinforced.
In the words of my junior high gym teacher, "Practice does not make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect."
BUT ON THE OTHER HAND...the purpose of written communication is to COMMUNICATE. If you spell a word differently from a dictionary, but you get your meaning across, where is the harm? Who is bothered except for pedants? People who spell well will think you stupid...but weightlifters will think you weak unless you can bench press what they can. Who cares?
There's been some mention in the discussion of making phony files with infringing-sounding names (perhaps oops_i_did_it_again.mp3). This could at some point generate a letter from the RIAA to your ISP in which they accuse you of infringing their copyright.
IANAL, but that sounds an awful lot like libel to me - lying about me to a third party, trying to besmirch my reputation, trying to instigate problems for me. Would that work as an offensive tactic against the RIAA?
And THEN we'll finally have our Amigas back!
Latitude is one reason, well-explained by other replies.
Another is safety. Rockets must launch to the east (or lose the advantage of the earth's rotation). If there's a problem with a lunch from Florida, the debris crash into the ocean. Launches from western states could crash into eastern states.
Actually, that's EXACTLY what you do. You go to court, you get an order to have him removed. The police DO enforce orders of the court. There are some pretty stringent laws about evicting people who refuse to leave your property. It's doable but not always easy if the freeloaders know the law.