Aircraft that cannot fly in inclement weather are not well-designed aircraft.
Even if you suppose Columbia was due to poor weather (which I do not believe to be a substantial contributor), Shuttle's obscene costs and worst-of-both-worlds design makes me very eager for the day that it is decomissioned.
It was neat to have a 'reusable' spacecraft, but I'd rather have one that is cheap and reliable.
I'm really curious as to what government agencies you think are actually doing their job.
The FAA is one. FDA, maybe...but they're going deeper and deeper into the pockets of the drug companies. I'm worried about 'em.
The reason nobody will invest in space is at least partly because they've seen NASA destroy every privately funded manned space initiative with white papers alleging that the rockets won't work.
Of course, when that company goes bankrupt and dies, NASA comes in and buys the (rather clever) rocket designs for pennies on the dollar.
Go read up on Beale Aerospace. Rotary Rocket is also another good example.
Were these firms ahead of their time? Perhaps, but NASA should have been helping them, not killing them.
I think that grabbing said mouse to move it would be really uncomfortable. The first thing they taught me in my Rocket Science 101 class is: "Rockets is hot."
Sorta like my dad's stories about his pharmacy classes. Rule 1: Do not lick the spoon.
Just so's we're clear. I am not trying to imply that the mouse "knows" anything, since it is a non-sentient hunk of plastic. I am also not arguing that the mouse hardware has any ability in and of itself to keep track of its position.
However, when taken together with its support software, the mouse system does in fact have sufficient data (that would be trivial to collect) to determine a reasonably accurate position and velocity history.
My contention was, and remains, that the same hardware that makes your optical mouse would, in principle, work for the print head.
If you set your "mouse acceleration" to zero, then your mouse pointer's position is directly proportional to the displacement of the mouse, so in that sense, the mouse "knows" where it is with respect to the place where it started.
I'll go round for round with your pedantry. Hope you're having fun.
Articles are written by writers. Press releases are written by marketing flacks.
Although, anymore, it's harder and harder to tell the difference. : /
Re:Don't like it?
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
See, now you're saying that we (as a society) ought to be ignoring the problems at both ends of the spectrum.
Uh, isn't that where you find the problems that need solving?
re: executive compensation:
According to "Executive Excess 2000," CEO pay jumped 535 percent in the 1990s, dwarfing the 297% rise in the S&P 500, 116 percent rise in corporate profits and 32 percent increase in average worker pay. If average pay for production workers had grown at the same rate, instead of barely outpacing inflation, their 1999 annual earnings would have been $114,035 instead of $23,753, and minimum wage would now be $24.13 an hour, instead of $5.15.
This article (quoted above) has only the virtue that it was first in my google results, but it does support my assertion.
Re:Like this is something new...
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
wow.
That is a great quote. Made my day. Thanks. : )
Want to hire me? Have BS Aerospace Engineering, will travel... : )
If by "works" you mean "makes the pointer stagger across the screen in a vaguely controllable and infinitely frustrating manner", then you're absolutely right.
I've played with those before, and boy are they annoying.
It'd have a not-bad notion as to the position of the ball.
Of course, mice are only two-axis devices, but trackballs are three-axis (in the sense that they can be rotated about all three axes, and typically only two axes, X and Y, have encoders on them).
So, the point stands. A trackball does a pretty good job of tracking the position of the ball. Wonder if that's where the name came from?
Velocity is the rate of change of position, dx/dt. Therefore, by taking the velocity history at a known time interval, you can determine the position history by integrating. Obviously, your time interval must be sufficiently small to accurately model the motion of the mouse.
In practice, pointer motion is typically not linear with respect to mouse motion, but that is a convenience for the user, not a limitation of the hardware.
So, in point of fact, by only knowing the velocity history, you COULD know your position history with respect to some origin (IE where you put the mouse down on your pad, or more to the point where you put the printer).
I'm not suggesting that the printer uses an optical sensor like my mouse does. I'd guess it would need far finer resolution (at a guess, at least twice as good as the desired printout resolution, which of course need not be terrifically high in order to be useful) than is currently available with optical mice. It seems like it would also need an orientation sensor, which would at least require a second optical sensor and some very clever code.
Tell me, where exactly can one feed a child, or a wife, or even oneself on a 40 hour/week job at McDonalds? I mean, assuming you want to keep a roof over your head, and maybe the odd article of clothing.
McDonalds, and other minimum wage employers, are operating on a government subsidy. They need not pay a living wage to their employees, because they know the government will fill the gap.
Now you might say that those people flippin' burgers ought to do something to better themselves.
Like what? Go to school? How are they going to afford that? Stop feeding his kids? Put THEM to work?
The working poor are not the problem. "get ahead of the regular guy"? What the hell does that mean? If you mean, "not starve", well, yeah, I'd like to get ahead of the regular guy too.
Many CEOs work hard for their money, and by their ingenuity, ambition, and initiative lead their corporations to greatness.
However, many CEOs at very large companies need do nothing, save beg for more subsidies from government (see airline industry for a perfect example).
My argument isn't against corporations. More precisely, it's not against small corporations, nor against ethically-run large corporations (though, frankly, I couldn't name many of those off the top of my head). It's against the ones that are large and powerful enough to get themselves subsidized by my tax dollars, and pay their executives obscene salaries in the process.
The delta between executive compensation and average worker's salary has been exploding over the past 30 years. Do you really expect me to believe that the competence of executives is exploding at the same rate? I would absolutely LOVE to see how laissez-faire capitalism works. However, the most powerful "capitalists" (read: corporatists) would never permit that.
Somebody who's working, but can't feed their kids, and must receive welfare, is somehow equivalent to a Fortune 500 CEO raking in six-figures a year before bonuses?
Yeah. I can only think of 500 or so off the top of my head.
Don't pretend that big company CEOs are compensated grossly beyond their usefulness.
I would be DELIGHTED to take my compensation in stock (in a reputable company), assuming that I was able to run the company as I saw fit. However, if Ken Lay is the one pouring the Kool-Aid (and don't even THINK about pretending he's an aberration), then I'll take my compensation in the form of nice, negotiable dollars.
Slashdot Mirror
Aircraft that cannot fly in inclement weather are not well-designed aircraft.
Even if you suppose Columbia was due to poor weather (which I do not believe to be a substantial contributor), Shuttle's obscene costs and worst-of-both-worlds design makes me very eager for the day that it is decomissioned.
It was neat to have a 'reusable' spacecraft, but I'd rather have one that is cheap and reliable.
newsflash: nascar does suck eggs.
Just thought I'd let you know. : )
I'm really curious as to what government agencies you think are actually doing their job.
The FAA is one. FDA, maybe...but they're going deeper and deeper into the pockets of the drug companies. I'm worried about 'em.
The reason nobody will invest in space is at least partly because they've seen NASA destroy every privately funded manned space initiative with white papers alleging that the rockets won't work.
Of course, when that company goes bankrupt and dies, NASA comes in and buys the (rather clever) rocket designs for pennies on the dollar.
Go read up on Beale Aerospace. Rotary Rocket is also another good example.
Were these firms ahead of their time? Perhaps, but NASA should have been helping them, not killing them.
Emphatically, YES.
Exploration is dangerous. The risks can be managed, but never eliminated.
For the record, I'd be glad to risk my life on a real space exploration mission, but we haven't had one of those for 30 years.
The space shuttle is anything but well designed. You might have noticed that its safety record isn't too great.
NASA has botched any number of technology overhauls and replacements for STS. I'm getting really tired of waiting for them to get their shit together.
Uh huh. And most of Europe didn't care about the New World either. What's your point?
Exploration and discovery are their own rewards. They've also been absurdly lucrative over the course of history.
I think that grabbing said mouse to move it would be really uncomfortable. The first thing they taught me in my Rocket Science 101 class is: "Rockets is hot."
Sorta like my dad's stories about his pharmacy classes. Rule 1: Do not lick the spoon.
Whoops. I got tripped up in the rhetoric and attributed to you a point that you weren't making.
My mistake. Apologies. : )
You are splitting hairs.
Just so's we're clear. I am not trying to imply that the mouse "knows" anything, since it is a non-sentient hunk of plastic. I am also not arguing that the mouse hardware has any ability in and of itself to keep track of its position.
However, when taken together with its support software, the mouse system does in fact have sufficient data (that would be trivial to collect) to determine a reasonably accurate position and velocity history.
My contention was, and remains, that the same hardware that makes your optical mouse would, in principle, work for the print head.
If you set your "mouse acceleration" to zero, then your mouse pointer's position is directly proportional to the displacement of the mouse, so in that sense, the mouse "knows" where it is with respect to the place where it started.
I'll go round for round with your pedantry. Hope you're having fun.
They're press releases.
Articles are written by writers. Press releases are written by marketing flacks.
Although, anymore, it's harder and harder to tell the difference. : /
Uh, isn't that where you find the problems that need solving?
re: executive compensation:
This article (quoted above) has only the virtue that it was first in my google results, but it does support my assertion.
wow.
That is a great quote. Made my day. Thanks. : )
Want to hire me? Have BS Aerospace Engineering, will travel... : )
If by "works" you mean "makes the pointer stagger across the screen in a vaguely controllable and infinitely frustrating manner", then you're absolutely right.
I've played with those before, and boy are they annoying.
It'd have a not-bad notion as to the position of the ball.
Of course, mice are only two-axis devices, but trackballs are three-axis (in the sense that they can be rotated about all three axes, and typically only two axes, X and Y, have encoders on them).
So, the point stands. A trackball does a pretty good job of tracking the position of the ball. Wonder if that's where the name came from?
Velocity is the rate of change of position, dx/dt. Therefore, by taking the velocity history at a known time interval, you can determine the position history by integrating. Obviously, your time interval must be sufficiently small to accurately model the motion of the mouse.
In practice, pointer motion is typically not linear with respect to mouse motion, but that is a convenience for the user, not a limitation of the hardware.
So, in point of fact, by only knowing the velocity history, you COULD know your position history with respect to some origin (IE where you put the mouse down on your pad, or more to the point where you put the printer).
I'm not suggesting that the printer uses an optical sensor like my mouse does. I'd guess it would need far finer resolution (at a guess, at least twice as good as the desired printout resolution, which of course need not be terrifically high in order to be useful) than is currently available with optical mice. It seems like it would also need an orientation sensor, which would at least require a second optical sensor and some very clever code.
Care to go another round? : )
Uh, WHOA.
Tell me, where exactly can one feed a child, or a wife, or even oneself on a 40 hour/week job at McDonalds? I mean, assuming you want to keep a roof over your head, and maybe the odd article of clothing.
McDonalds, and other minimum wage employers, are operating on a government subsidy. They need not pay a living wage to their employees, because they know the government will fill the gap.
Now you might say that those people flippin' burgers ought to do something to better themselves.
Like what? Go to school? How are they going to afford that? Stop feeding his kids? Put THEM to work?
The working poor are not the problem. "get ahead of the regular guy"? What the hell does that mean? If you mean, "not starve", well, yeah, I'd like to get ahead of the regular guy too.
Many CEOs work hard for their money, and by their ingenuity, ambition, and initiative lead their corporations to greatness.
However, many CEOs at very large companies need do nothing, save beg for more subsidies from government (see airline industry for a perfect example).
My argument isn't against corporations. More precisely, it's not against small corporations, nor against ethically-run large corporations (though, frankly, I couldn't name many of those off the top of my head). It's against the ones that are large and powerful enough to get themselves subsidized by my tax dollars, and pay their executives obscene salaries in the process.
The delta between executive compensation and average worker's salary has been exploding over the past 30 years. Do you really expect me to believe that the competence of executives is exploding at the same rate?
I would absolutely LOVE to see how laissez-faire capitalism works. However, the most powerful "capitalists" (read: corporatists) would never permit that.
Neither, if I can help it. I want to work for somebody who actually is interested in exploring space, not futzing around in LEO.
But thanks for askin'. : )
I don't understand your point.
Somebody who's working, but can't feed their kids, and must receive welfare, is somehow equivalent to a Fortune 500 CEO raking in six-figures a year before bonuses?
I am extremely confused.
An objectivist who is opposed to gun ownership...
Now THAT, my friends, is an interesting specimen.
Uh, I'll take the welfare scammers. They're a LOT cheaper.
Uh. Oops. Tripped on my rhetoric there.
Don't pretend that blah blah blah ARE NOT compensated grossly blah blah words words.
Stupid double negatives. : )
Yeah. I can only think of 500 or so off the top of my head.
Don't pretend that big company CEOs are compensated grossly beyond their usefulness.
I would be DELIGHTED to take my compensation in stock (in a reputable company), assuming that I was able to run the company as I saw fit. However, if Ken Lay is the one pouring the Kool-Aid (and don't even THINK about pretending he's an aberration), then I'll take my compensation in the form of nice, negotiable dollars.
That, my friend, is an excellent question.
Wow.
What a dick.
You mean stupid people will use tools to do stupid things?
You don't say. When will the madness end!?