I'll be in Sydney (airport) on Monday (but only for an hour or so before I fly on to Canberra). Are there good pubs in Canberra?
Are there any good LUGs in Canberra or Wollongong? What should a visitor from the US see while visiting Australia (assuming one is also going to do research, collaborate, etc.)?
"The next question is what is the impact this increasing concentration of CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gasses) on the climate."
I did not mention methane in my post above but it is one of the greenhouse gasses. The concentration of methane is much lower than that of CO2 and so it is not mentioned as often. There was an interesting article in Scientific American about the impact of methane in the distant past; I am too lazy to look up a reference.
"Majority acceptance is no proof"
I agree completely. You have to look at their reasoning and see why they reached their conclusions. On the basis of the best models and physical evidence available, they conclude that global warming is real. If you object to their conclusions, it should be on a firm scientific basis rather
than merely "I am wary of anything that uses popular acceptance as proof".
No (ethical) scientist would use popularity as a basis of proof. (If I am not an expert in a particular area, I might rely on the opinion of experts but I will merely say "The opinion of experts is..." rather than making any direct claims myself.)
"Come on guys, your liberalism is showing."
Not everything is political. There is a consistent record of increasing concentrations of CO2 over time. This increase corresponds to an increase in the production of CO2 by humans (coal, oil, etc.); the predicted increase is twice the observed increase, possibly because the oceans have acted as CO2 sinks. The record on CO2 concentrations goes back about
800,000 years
(also interesting).
I assume that any reasonable person can accept this information (i.e. this is not political).
The next question is what is the impact this increasing concentration of CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gasses) on the climate. No one has a completely correct answer. A variety of mathematical models have been used and the predictions of these models have been tested in various ways (e.g. comparison with existing recoreds). None of these models is perfect. However, the majority of scientists who study climate questions, using a variety of techniques, conclude that the increased concentration of greenhouse gasses has contributed and will contribute to a warming of the earth's atmosphere. No one knows exactly how great will be this increase and this is a subject of great interest.
I find the situation in and around Isreal to be quite sad. People on both sides are being hurt and both sides deserve a great deal of blame.
The final outcome will include the facts that:
Isreal will own more land than it is entitled to own.
The "Palestinians" will have lower wages and worse living conditions than they had in the past because of Hamas, etc.
"Yanks give God knows how many billions of Dollars"
The US also gives billions to Egypt. Do you object to this?
"And if their business partners are being fucked, then they should stop being partners with Microsoft."
PR guy: "Sun is an experienced player in IT and runs no risk in cooperation with Microsoft."
Scott McNealy: "Yes, Mr. Gates, sir, how far should I bend over?"
My feeling was that you have much higher standards than one might have guessed from your initial posts. I agree with your comments on the difficulty of code verification. It reminds me of interval analysis in which a computer program returns a guess (the "answer") and an interval in which it is mathematically certain the correct answer resides. Interval analysis is not yet a useful tool (at least to obtain mathematical proofs) but it is an interesting idea. I am not an expert on code verification but I believe it is important to make one's best attempt to verify the code; this sounds like the procedure at your company.
I enjoyed the books 1632 (by Eric Flint) and 1633 (by Eric Flint and David Weber) but I cannot stand to finish 1634 (by Eric Flint and
Andrew Dennis). Have you read these? What is your opinion?
"I must defend Oregon State"
You do not need to defend Oregon State (from which I am also an alumnus) but please don't make the rest of us (OSU alumni) look bad.:-)
You have made a good argument why decades of solid Fortran code developed to do scientific work should be maintained and used rather than rewriten in C.
(OK, I will not say the same thing about COBOL.)
Bad "QA people are a dime a dozen". Good QA people who actually know something are not so common.
I know a number of PhDs (generally university faculty) in electrical engineering, industrial engineering, psychology, sociology, and other areas who use statistics in "cookbook ways" and know almost nothing about experimental design and other areas of statistics. These people design experiments and, after the fact, try to see if they have learned anything (i.e. can they draw any statistical inferences). They usually find that if they have a big enough sample (far larger than is necessary) and a cookbook approach to statistics, they can reach some conclusions.
I also know that aircraft companies (and others) hire people who took the "five steps to learning QA" and "QA buzzwords" programs and claim to know QA; these people are often a joke. (These you can fire. Keep and listen to the good ones.)
"I indicated that programmers should be rewarded for not producing them, as evidenced by a lack of reported problems per release cycle."
MS produced software which had lots of security holes which were not discovered for a long time. Your suggestion would reward people like this. Why not reward people for writing good code that is tested and verified? (Did you read the article?)
Step 2 might or might not make sense. A QA person who really knows statistics and will point out problems even when "higher ups" do not want to be told can be rare and valuable if the environment is right. I know a QA person at Boeing who did this (and was laid off as soon as possible, which was a couple of years since she was not the most junior person in QA); her suggestions were generally ignored (since politics at Boeing is much more important than quality). Step 6 sounds like "make sure no problems are found" rather than "write good code". We have a graduate student who help write IIS. His experience was that programmers at MS had huge egos and would usually not accept criticism. Step 6 would just encourage people to hide their errors better.
There is nothing in this post which encourages teamwork and code verification. It is completely contrary to Cox's comments about writing good code. Modding this up is just silly.
Do not speak ill of "fortran 77". It is a great tool when used for its intended purposes. For example, I am preparing to use zipper to help create graphics for my upcoming talk. Another tool is
PLTMG. These are both written in Fortran. (Of course,
Surface Evolver is also a great program.)
"there are tons and tons of professors now nestled into tenure who have a whole-cloth marxist outlook"
Really? I am a professor and I know lots of professors. I even know one who
might be sorry Stalin is gone. One! (from California). I easily know hundreds. I do not "have a whole-cloth marxist outlook." With one exception, no professor I know has "a whole-cloth marxist outlook". (By the way, what exactly is this?)
So, where are these "tons and tons of professors now nestled into tenure who have a whole-cloth marxist outlook"? Could you cite some sources?
It is possible that the English department is full of "pinko commie spies"; I do not know the political views of many English faculty. Do you have any lists of such people? I understand that English professors have great parties; perhaps an English professor does "need to be a party member." You know, that evil invention, grammar, is probably a commie plot by English professors to rule the world. From now own, speak and write only l33t.
"Laura Bush was the one to violate the speed limit by 100KM/r, drunk, and kill that guy"
Well, perhaps not drunk and with
speed illedgable
but she did kill one person (Michael Douglas).
I should have been more careful with my original statement. Would you prefer the following?
Did we find any WMDs after Iraq was occupied (in 2003)? NO!
Did we find any evidence that WMDs existed in Iraq in 2000 (or later)? NO!
Do we see evidence that the inspection process (from 1992-2003) was effective in forcing Iraq to eliminate its (chemical) WMDs? YES!
Have we found evidence that Iraq had biological WMDs in 2000 (or later)? I believe the answer is "no".
The US and UK went to war largely on the basis of the claim that Iraq had WMDs (and was involved in international terrorism, 9/11, etc.).
Everyone can judge the truth of these claims for herself/himself.
Since I was chair of the committee representing all of the public university faculty in my state, I hope I know at least a little about thses faculty. Since I have visited a few universities (Stanford, Oregon State, U. Waterloo (Canada), U. Washington, Cal. Poly. Pomona, Cal. Poly. SLO, UC Berkeley, Hayward State, UC Davis, U. Alberta (Canada), Georgetown U., U. Kansas, U. Texas, Texas A&M, Humboldt State, Oxford (UK), U. Edinburgh (UK), U. Leipzig, U. Wyoming, U. Pisa (Italy), U. Toledo, etc.) and talked with (mostly math) faculty, I have a very slight idea about some issues faculty discuss. I do not claim to have done a survey or scientific study but at most universities one finds very liberal faculty and very conservative faculty; the ratio at UC Berkeley might not be the same as at LSU but both kinds exist.
If you are a political science (or related) professor and have actually done a study (and cite references), I will accept you are correct and I am wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll be in Sydney (airport) on Monday (but only for an hour or so before I fly on to Canberra). Are there good pubs in Canberra?
Are there any good LUGs in Canberra or Wollongong? What should a visitor from the US see while visiting Australia (assuming one is also going to do research, collaborate, etc.)?
I am not sure what you mean by "made it in the mainstream" but the following people come to mind:
Bruce Conner
Michael McClure
Of course, there is Bob Dylan. Has he "made it in the mainstream"?
"The next question is what is the impact this increasing concentration of CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gasses) on the climate."
I did not mention methane in my post above but it is one of the greenhouse gasses. The concentration of methane is much lower than that of CO2 and so it is not mentioned as often. There was an interesting article in Scientific American about the impact of methane in the distant past; I am too lazy to look up a reference.
"Majority acceptance is no proof" ..." rather than making any direct claims myself.)
I agree completely. You have to look at their reasoning and see why they reached their conclusions. On the basis of the best models and physical evidence available, they conclude that global warming is real. If you object to their conclusions, it should be on a firm scientific basis rather than merely "I am wary of anything that uses popular acceptance as proof". No (ethical) scientist would use popularity as a basis of proof. (If I am not an expert in a particular area, I might rely on the opinion of experts but I will merely say "The opinion of experts is
"Come on guys, your liberalism is showing."
Not everything is political. There is a consistent record of increasing concentrations of CO2 over time. This increase corresponds to an increase in the production of CO2 by humans (coal, oil, etc.); the predicted increase is twice the observed increase, possibly because the oceans have acted as CO2 sinks. The record on CO2 concentrations goes back about 800,000 years (also interesting). I assume that any reasonable person can accept this information (i.e. this is not political).
The next question is what is the impact this increasing concentration of CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gasses) on the climate. No one has a completely correct answer. A variety of mathematical models have been used and the predictions of these models have been tested in various ways (e.g. comparison with existing recoreds). None of these models is perfect. However, the majority of scientists who study climate questions, using a variety of techniques, conclude that the increased concentration of greenhouse gasses has contributed and will contribute to a warming of the earth's atmosphere. No one knows exactly how great will be this increase and this is a subject of great interest.
"Take a real close look at both of the candidates and then vote for the smart one - James Taylor"
But James Taylor isn't running??
I find the situation in and around Isreal to be quite sad. People on both sides are being hurt and both sides deserve a great deal of blame.
The final outcome will include the facts that:
Isreal will own more land than it is entitled to own.
The "Palestinians" will have lower wages and worse living conditions than they had in the past because of Hamas, etc.
"Yanks give God knows how many billions of Dollars"
The US also gives billions to Egypt. Do you object to this?
I seem to recall hearing a report this morning that one of the Houses of Congress did pass some legislation: tax breaks for big corporations.
"And if their business partners are being fucked, then they should stop being partners with Microsoft."
PR guy: "Sun is an experienced player in IT and runs no risk in cooperation with Microsoft."
Scott McNealy: "Yes, Mr. Gates, sir, how far should I bend over?"
My feeling was that you have much higher standards than one might have guessed from your initial posts. I agree with your comments on the difficulty of code verification. It reminds me of interval analysis in which a computer program returns a guess (the "answer") and an interval in which it is mathematically certain the correct answer resides. Interval analysis is not yet a useful tool (at least to obtain mathematical proofs) but it is an interesting idea. I am not an expert on code verification but I believe it is important to make one's best attempt to verify the code; this sounds like the procedure at your company.
I enjoyed the books 1632 (by Eric Flint) and 1633 (by Eric Flint and David Weber) but I cannot stand to finish 1634 (by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis). Have you read these? What is your opinion?
"I must defend Oregon State" :-)
You do not need to defend Oregon State (from which I am also an alumnus) but please don't make the rest of us (OSU alumni) look bad.
"Actually Evil A^2 + Evil B^2 = (Evil A - Evil B) x (Evil A + Evil B)"
Actually Evil A^2 - Evil B^2 = (Evil A - Evil B) x (Evil A + Evil B).
And you call yourself an Oregon State University graduate? For Shame!
Did you actually read all of the books in this series? (I got tired of them in book 3 ??).
"~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?" ...
Well, if your parents are rich or you have a rich uncle,
You have made a good argument why decades of solid Fortran code developed to do scientific work should be maintained and used rather than rewriten in C.
(OK, I will not say the same thing about COBOL.)
How was problem discovered?
Is this attempted hack a "simple trivial bug" or an "interesting bug"?
I suspect that your method works because of who you are and might fail if someone else took over and used your procedures.
Bad "QA people are a dime a dozen". Good QA people who actually know something are not so common.
I know a number of PhDs (generally university faculty) in electrical engineering, industrial engineering, psychology, sociology, and other areas who use statistics in "cookbook ways" and know almost nothing about experimental design and other areas of statistics. These people design experiments and, after the fact, try to see if they have learned anything (i.e. can they draw any statistical inferences). They usually find that if they have a big enough sample (far larger than is necessary) and a cookbook approach to statistics, they can reach some conclusions.
I also know that aircraft companies (and others) hire people who took the "five steps to learning QA" and "QA buzzwords" programs and claim to know QA; these people are often a joke. (These you can fire. Keep and listen to the good ones.)
"I indicated that programmers should be rewarded for not producing them, as evidenced by a lack of reported problems per release cycle."
MS produced software which had lots of security holes which were not discovered for a long time. Your suggestion would reward people like this. Why not reward people for writing good code that is tested and verified? (Did you read the article?)
Step 2 might or might not make sense. A QA person who really knows statistics and will point out problems even when "higher ups" do not want to be told can be rare and valuable if the environment is right. I know a QA person at Boeing who did this (and was laid off as soon as possible, which was a couple of years since she was not the most junior person in QA); her suggestions were generally ignored (since politics at Boeing is much more important than quality). Step 6 sounds like "make sure no problems are found" rather than "write good code". We have a graduate student who help write IIS. His experience was that programmers at MS had huge egos and would usually not accept criticism. Step 6 would just encourage people to hide their errors better.
There is nothing in this post which encourages teamwork and code verification. It is completely contrary to Cox's comments about writing good code. Modding this up is just silly.
Do not speak ill of "fortran 77". It is a great tool when used for its intended purposes. For example, I am preparing to use zipper to help create graphics for my upcoming talk. Another tool is PLTMG. These are both written in Fortran. (Of course, Surface Evolver is also a great program.)
"there are tons and tons of professors now nestled into tenure who have a whole-cloth marxist outlook"
Really? I am a professor and I know lots of professors. I even know one who might be sorry Stalin is gone. One! (from California). I easily know hundreds. I do not "have a whole-cloth marxist outlook." With one exception, no professor I know has "a whole-cloth marxist outlook". (By the way, what exactly is this?)
So, where are these "tons and tons of professors now nestled into tenure who have a whole-cloth marxist outlook"? Could you cite some sources?
It is possible that the English department is full of "pinko commie spies"; I do not know the political views of many English faculty. Do you have any lists of such people? I understand that English professors have great parties; perhaps an English professor does "need to be a party member." You know, that evil invention, grammar, is probably a commie plot by English professors to rule the world. From now own, speak and write only l33t.
"Laura Bush was the one to violate the speed limit by 100KM/r, drunk, and kill that guy"
Well, perhaps not drunk and with speed illedgable but she did kill one person (Michael Douglas).
I should have been more careful with my original statement. Would you prefer the following?
Did we find any WMDs after Iraq was occupied (in 2003)? NO!
Did we find any evidence that WMDs existed in Iraq in 2000 (or later)? NO!
Do we see evidence that the inspection process (from 1992-2003) was effective in forcing Iraq to eliminate its (chemical) WMDs? YES!
Have we found evidence that Iraq had biological WMDs in 2000 (or later)? I believe the answer is "no".
The US and UK went to war largely on the basis of the claim that Iraq had WMDs (and was involved in international terrorism, 9/11, etc.). Everyone can judge the truth of these claims for herself/himself.
"You do not know me" OK, who are you?
Since I was chair of the committee representing all of the public university faculty in my state, I hope I know at least a little about thses faculty. Since I have visited a few universities (Stanford, Oregon State, U. Waterloo (Canada), U. Washington, Cal. Poly. Pomona, Cal. Poly. SLO, UC Berkeley, Hayward State, UC Davis, U. Alberta (Canada), Georgetown U., U. Kansas, U. Texas, Texas A&M, Humboldt State, Oxford (UK), U. Edinburgh (UK), U. Leipzig, U. Wyoming, U. Pisa (Italy), U. Toledo, etc.) and talked with (mostly math) faculty, I have a very slight idea about some issues faculty discuss. I do not claim to have done a survey or scientific study but at most universities one finds very liberal faculty and very conservative faculty; the ratio at UC Berkeley might not be the same as at LSU but both kinds exist.
If you are a political science (or related) professor and have actually done a study (and cite references), I will accept you are correct and I am wrong.