With my medical records on a server somewhere in Seattle, and me living across the Puget Sound (let alone when I'm traveling) - I'd beg to differ. Let alone the IT infrastructure that controls the water and power to my dwelling.
the Internet has been working fine without Governments interfering
And you're willing to bet my life/job/comfort that it will continue to do so? No thank you.
Besides, it's the responsibility of businesses and individuals to secure their own network or computers; it's not the Government's responsibility.
Since the government isn't the one doing the securing here, I fail to see your point. (It's obscured by all the other spaghetti you've thrown against the wall in the vague hope that it will stick.)
Look at the post just above mine. The temperature is NOT the only thing that's changing.
I didn't claim it was. I merely pointed that your claim that changes only took place on a scale of centuries to millenia was false.
These changes are also long-duration ones, not short-term crisies that can be waited out like a volcano eruption or El Nino.
Were I talking about a short term crisis, you'd have a point. I should also point out, these are not sentient organisms that can choose to wait out a crisis - if there's decade long changes (as shown on the graph I linked to), then they either adapt or they die.
For once we don't have to worry about losing development support when X device fails to achieve 25% market share by Q3. Thankfully, the PI is produced by a non-profit so no hedge fund manager can pull the plug when the projected growth rate increase drops below 50% or whatever they do in their volcano fortresses
So, in a few years, when this unit is obsolescent, or in a few years further when it's obsolete... It'll be a good thing? And you expect them to keep producing it, even as the costs of sourcing the now [obsolete|obsolescent] components rises dramatically?
There's been plenty of dramatic short term changes too, like the Little Ice Age. Climate change, over the history of the Earth, happens at all manner of timescales - it's not the smooth(ish) sinusoidal wave many mistakenly view it as. Study this graph, which shows just the last two millenia for multiple examples.
Exactly where did you see anything about refusing to grow up, or using fiction as proof, or not being able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy, in the actual message you answer to?
By actually reading the message while sober and in full possession of my faculties.
And of course a certain amount of unrealism will be involved. You don't actually think that little girls dreaming of being princesses and having a pony actually thought through such aspects as "and be some piece of property to pawn off or give as a reward" like real princesses were, or about having to shovel the crap a pony produces, do you?
No, I don't. But neither do those little girls (now grown into adults or even seniors) go on and on about how much reality sucks compared to the fiction they read as youth. On the other hand, such things are part and parcel of the discussion pretty much everywhere nerds and geeks gather.
A talking robot is "cool" enough to be an inspiration. Using a browser to access Google translations is not.
Yeah, there's just no way universal access to things beyond even the wildest dreams of SF (like near universal access to knowledge, in a handy pocket size package) is as cool as something so common in SF it's practically a cliche.
You don't grow up dreaming of having a cell phone with a browser. (Or if anyone does, well, they probably need help.)
I need help because I think that something like a Star Trek communicator or the MINISEC depicted in Imperial Earth is cool? You really are a sad little unit. (As well as ignorant of your SF history.) As in your original message, when faced with a reality you don't accept... you deny the reality.
I think it was more like the extrapolation of where it's going. SF told us stories of it becoming a mass thing, every other guy being at least a space freighter pilot, and the cool ones like us would be space FIGHTER pilots, exploration, whole colonies on other planet and in orbit, meeting horny green alien babes, and going bald where nobody had gone before. Oh wait, the last one was the porn;) And not just space travel. It told us tales of robots, lasers, near-infinite sources of energy, etc.
It was an age of very rapid progress in a whole bunch of domains, and a naive linear extrapolation ahead promised to soon take us where we can't even imagine.
And that's the basic problem - too many people refuse to grow the hell up and shed that naivete. They insist on blaming reality for not living up to their childish beliefs, and then they use fiction as 'proof' that those beliefs were reasonable.
Seriously, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and the juveniles of Robert Heinlein are all creations of imagination. If you're over eighteen and can't tell the difference between them and reality, you're in need of some serious professional help.
instead of C3PO style protocol droids, we have cell phones with translator apps, or just a browser to point to Google translation
So the f' what? Are you seriously so immature as to be disappointed that something as amazing as real time machine translation (which was nothing put a pipe dream when I was in high school a mere thirty years ago) is available 24/7 in something you can put in your pocket rather than being a 'kewl' 'droid? Hell, I consider the whole "in your pocket" thing far more impressive than the "being a droid" part. When I was a kid, we expected such things to take a whole room of computers, if it was ever possible at all.
The beauty of the old Bell Labs was that to a certain extent, basic research was OK and appreciated.
If it was basic research in support of research and development for Bell products and services. (I.E. that could eventually make money.) Seriously, Bell Labs was a corporate lab, with all that implies - not a pie-in-the-sky research facility. They researched so many things, because they were (for the day) a high tech company, and not only did telecommunications require a variety of technologies (everything from undersea cable to microwaves) they were also into a variety of things not directly related to telecommunications. (They did a great deal of operational research and basic studies related to early spy satellites for example.)
And all this was paid for with the oodles of cash they got from a being a monopoly.
Libertarians talk about how the market will solve everything, but the market shows time and time again that it does not value the correct jobs.
Of course, which job is the 'correct' one varies with the speaker.
Don may not be in it for the money, but by all rights he should get more money as a matter of principle.
Why? He's just one of anything from dozens to hundreds or more people on the project. The linked article hews to the "lone heroic engineer" myth... But you don't build a product like that and get it installed as widely as it is alone. (Hint: There's a corporate name associated with his lab. Did you stop and wonder why that may be?)
That may well be true, but here in the UK I've noticed DVD vending machines have started popping up (sometimes in the unlikeliest places - e.g. Fenchurch Street railway station). I've never used one so I can't attest to the quality or process, but I'd be amazed if they have a stock of each individual film; I very strongly suspect it burns a disc, prints a sleeve, wraps the disc in it and spits it out.
Here in the US they do. This makes sense, as DVD's take up very little physical space (even in a box, much less so if they're simply in a sleeve), and burning takes time - more time than a consumer is likely willing to stand about. Not to mention the expense of all the additional equipment required to burn/print/handle.
So many people here seem to think that data transfer is free just because their home broadband doesn't bill them for it. Serious data transfer is expensive.
And serious data transfer at triple or quadruple nines is even more so.
It only seems so because you're repeating the 8th grade/History channel version of history. (With a strong streak of anti-Catholicism and ignorance of the history of the bible.)
Before printing, the almost all of the writing was done by monks, and the Bible was of course their very best seller.
Yes, "almost all", which is exactly what I claimed - the Church did not have a monopoly.
Many of Gutenberg's first bibles were burned as work of the devil.
That's an odd claim - since so many of them show up (shortly after being printed) in the inventories of churches, monasteries, and universities (which were largely Church controlled if not influenced at the time). So, [[citation needed]].
I suspect that this was the Church not liking their loss of bible creation control.
Since they never had that control in the first place... I fail to see your point. I suspect you're either repeating erroneous information you've heard elsewhere, or you're confusing the Church's burning of such things as Luther's and Tyndale's bibles with Gutenberg's.
The general public thinks of "hackers" as super geniuses. This gives actual smart people a bad reputation.
No, the greater damage is to so-disant 'smart people's self image. He's pretty typical of most smart people I've known... intelligence and common sense are in no way connected.
I know, that's exactly what I thought when the head developer told me that. But if you think about it, if you are the largest -- Insert Anything -- company in the world you are a target and if you have ever eaten at Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Long Horn Steak House, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze or Seasons 52 a single recipe or trade secret could be worth millions.
You really should stop watching Ratatouille and Mission Impossible back-to-back while under the influence - because you've gotten them confused. Either that, or be really, really careful because you're gullible as hell.
Who exactly is that recipe going to be worth millions to? No Mom & Pop restaurant has that kind of cash, and no big chain is going to pony up that kind of cash when they can send in a chef to taste the dish or order it take-out and head over to the lab. (Not that they have any real interest in duplicating another chain's dish, the rush is to have something different, unique, yet fitting in with the chain's theme and whatever the current trend is.)
Olive Garden's Seafood Portofino with Minestrone Soup is without question the best recipe of it's type I have ever tasted, and don't get me started on the bread sticks.
Sure, if by 'type' you mean "soups made of overly processed ingredients and designed for the least portion cost and to be prepared by food service staff without notable culinary training". But, that's being the smelliest person in the office - yeah, you're number one, but it's not a competition most people want to be in.
And no, don't get me started on the breadsticks. The few times I've not been able to avoid Olive Garden, I've found them to be utter shit. Over salted, greasy, and often undercooked and then reheated in a microwave.
Slashdot is full of rational people? You're either new around here, or seriously out of touch. The only difference between Slashdot and your average tinfoil hat/truther/birther site is that most Slashdotters know how to spell and capitalize, and are at least vaguely conversant with punctuation.
Fresher? Skills aren't vegetables. The older guy is also the wiser and more experienced. He knows the meta behind the skills, and what will work, and what won't.
He also has a chance of having acquired bad habits and/or prejudices that are going to be harder to train out.
And if he's worth his titles, he has been constantly learning throughout his career. He knows how to be part of a team (even if he never grew into liking to "work with others"), and how to get things done.
Between the two quotes above and most of the unquoted remainder - it seems you really need to read about the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
Why are we paying truck drivers to haul blu-rays to store shelves when we could be using the internet to deliver the movies for 1/100th the cost?
Two reason, the first is that people still seem to prefer to either own or rent a physical copy. The second is because Joe's Corner Mom & Pop isn't going to invest the thousands of dollar it's going to take to set up a burner, printer, and shrink wrap system and then spend the money to stock up on blank media, decent printer stock, and empty cases/jewel boxes and *then* pay someone to burn, print, and wrap in order to make a buck (or less) a copy. Hollywood and the entertainment industry would love to push all those capital and operating expenses off their own bottom line - but they know they'll face a revolution.
Not only is putting a blu-ray on a store shelf inherently risky (essentially a master copy of the movie) but it costs MONEY to produce, deliver, and manage.
This is why those in charge aren't listening to you - you're talking nonsense. How is putting a physical master copy risky... but a virtual master isn't? Not to mention that virtual delivery isn't exactly free either - servers, bandwidth, and the bodies to maintain and manage them aren't cheap.
Other thing's you'll "never" stop. Rape. Murder. Child abuse. Alcoholism. The list goes on and on. Shall we stop enforcing the laws against them as well?
While I commend the writer for articulating what is wrong with the current movie industry model, the reality is that Hollywood is hell bent on preserving their business model.
The thing is - the only really 'wrong' with their business is that a fairly small demographic think they should get the products of someone else's work either free or at ridiculously low prices, and that same demographic also believes that nobody but them has any rights. (I.E. they have the right to low/ridiculously cheap, and the other party had better lay back and enjoy it.)
The business model for mass market buggy whips is broken - because there isn't a mass demand for buggy whips. The business model for blacksmith's is broken for the same reason. Etc... etc... But there is still a high demand for the entertainment industry's output and no reason that they are not entitled to be recompensed for their work.
Dr. De Geer is using evidence of a fission reaction to support the conclusion that a fusion reaction occurred? That makes no sense whatsoever. I don't think a near fizzle/low yield detonation can even induce fusion in the first place.
Evidence of a low yield uranium blast would make me think of testing a new weapons design and/or a composite core, not boosted fission.
Well then, someone else needs to fill the need. If they had stricter QC then the app might have not even made it into the store. There's really no way to tell whether the developer will say "Okay, I guess I'll make this run better" or "Fuck it, I'll code something else that's easier and will make me more money."
You say that like keep crappy apps out of the store is a bad thing. If the developer isn't willing to do the work to write a decent app, then let him compete amongst the (many) others going for the low hanging fruit. He won't make much.
If an app exists, is really crappy, and is the only one of its kind, that is what we call a "business opportunity". The market lacks quality software and that's a hole that you can fill.
If I wanted to be in app writing business, I'd already *be* in the app writing business. But there's a reason why I'm downloading rather than writing.
If an app doesn't exist but it would be useful (or fun!), then do it and make some money.
In addition to not wanting to be in the app writing business... I don't have the months it would take to learn how to write apps in the first place.
Consider Apollo. We didn't just fire up the ol' Saturn V and head to the Moon. [Listing of pre-landing testing snipped]
And the missions you list are just the final testing of Apollo... You also have to consider the basic research and engineering done in the Gemini program. Like the development of rendezvous techniques, flight control techniques, mission design and analysis techniques, etc... etc... Apollo gets all the glory, but a great deal of the real world (as opposed to the ivory tower of the labs and simulators) grunt work was done by Gemini.
(as an aside, I have to admit that if I was on the Apollo 10 mission and everything was working out, I'd be tempted to yell "Fuck you, Neil!" into my radio and land on the Moon. What's NASA gonna do?)
Watch as you die... The Apollo 10 LM was considerably overweight. The ascent stage was only partially fueled in order to keep the total vehicle weight within performance limits.
It's also worth noting that the Apollo testing schedule was greatly compressed and accelerated due to schedule pressure.
Are you saying we should have just shot astronauts at the Moon until one of them made it?
Sadly, there's a lot of people who seem to think that unless you're 'boldly going', you're wasting money and time.
But we won't do it till we spend a lot more time on earth doing the grunt work (engineering and thinking) instead of spending billions on half baked manned missions to nowhere worthwhile.
Grunt work in the labs and simulators is nothing but an exercise in intellectual masturbation unless and until you go out into the real world and actually see how things work. You don't learn without actually doing.
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With my medical records on a server somewhere in Seattle, and me living across the Puget Sound (let alone when I'm traveling) - I'd beg to differ. Let alone the IT infrastructure that controls the water and power to my dwelling.
And you're willing to bet my life/job/comfort that it will continue to do so? No thank you.
Since the government isn't the one doing the securing here, I fail to see your point. (It's obscured by all the other spaghetti you've thrown against the wall in the vague hope that it will stick.)
I didn't claim it was. I merely pointed that your claim that changes only took place on a scale of centuries to millenia was false.
Were I talking about a short term crisis, you'd have a point. I should also point out, these are not sentient organisms that can choose to wait out a crisis - if there's decade long changes (as shown on the graph I linked to), then they either adapt or they die.
So, in a few years, when this unit is obsolescent, or in a few years further when it's obsolete... It'll be a good thing? And you expect them to keep producing it, even as the costs of sourcing the now [obsolete|obsolescent] components rises dramatically?
There's been plenty of dramatic short term changes too, like the Little Ice Age. Climate change, over the history of the Earth, happens at all manner of timescales - it's not the smooth(ish) sinusoidal wave many mistakenly view it as. Study this graph, which shows just the last two millenia for multiple examples.
By actually reading the message while sober and in full possession of my faculties.
No, I don't. But neither do those little girls (now grown into adults or even seniors) go on and on about how much reality sucks compared to the fiction they read as youth. On the other hand, such things are part and parcel of the discussion pretty much everywhere nerds and geeks gather.
Yeah, there's just no way universal access to things beyond even the wildest dreams of SF (like near universal access to knowledge, in a handy pocket size package) is as cool as something so common in SF it's practically a cliche.
I need help because I think that something like a Star Trek communicator or the MINISEC depicted in Imperial Earth is cool? You really are a sad little unit. (As well as ignorant of your SF history.) As in your original message, when faced with a reality you don't accept... you deny the reality.
And that's the basic problem - too many people refuse to grow the hell up and shed that naivete. They insist on blaming reality for not living up to their childish beliefs, and then they use fiction as 'proof' that those beliefs were reasonable.
Seriously, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and the juveniles of Robert Heinlein are all creations of imagination. If you're over eighteen and can't tell the difference between them and reality, you're in need of some serious professional help.
So the f' what? Are you seriously so immature as to be disappointed that something as amazing as real time machine translation (which was nothing put a pipe dream when I was in high school a mere thirty years ago) is available 24/7 in something you can put in your pocket rather than being a 'kewl' 'droid? Hell, I consider the whole "in your pocket" thing far more impressive than the "being a droid" part. When I was a kid, we expected such things to take a whole room of computers, if it was ever possible at all.
If it was basic research in support of research and development for Bell products and services. (I.E. that could eventually make money.) Seriously, Bell Labs was a corporate lab, with all that implies - not a pie-in-the-sky research facility. They researched so many things, because they were (for the day) a high tech company, and not only did telecommunications require a variety of technologies (everything from undersea cable to microwaves) they were also into a variety of things not directly related to telecommunications. (They did a great deal of operational research and basic studies related to early spy satellites for example.)
And all this was paid for with the oodles of cash they got from a being a monopoly.
Of course, which job is the 'correct' one varies with the speaker.
Why? He's just one of anything from dozens to hundreds or more people on the project. The linked article hews to the "lone heroic engineer" myth... But you don't build a product like that and get it installed as widely as it is alone. (Hint: There's a corporate name associated with his lab. Did you stop and wonder why that may be?)
Here in the US they do. This makes sense, as DVD's take up very little physical space (even in a box, much less so if they're simply in a sleeve), and burning takes time - more time than a consumer is likely willing to stand about. Not to mention the expense of all the additional equipment required to burn/print/handle.
And serious data transfer at triple or quadruple nines is even more so.
It only seems so because you're repeating the 8th grade/History channel version of history. (With a strong streak of anti-Catholicism and ignorance of the history of the bible.)
Yes, "almost all", which is exactly what I claimed - the Church did not have a monopoly.
Etc... etc...
Go away child.
That's an odd claim - since so many of them show up (shortly after being printed) in the inventories of churches, monasteries, and universities (which were largely Church controlled if not influenced at the time). So, [[citation needed]].
Since they never had that control in the first place... I fail to see your point. I suspect you're either repeating erroneous information you've heard elsewhere, or you're confusing the Church's burning of such things as Luther's and Tyndale's bibles with Gutenberg's.
No, the greater damage is to so-disant 'smart people's self image. He's pretty typical of most smart people I've known... intelligence and common sense are in no way connected.
You really should stop watching Ratatouille and Mission Impossible back-to-back while under the influence - because you've gotten them confused. Either that, or be really, really careful because you're gullible as hell.
Who exactly is that recipe going to be worth millions to? No Mom & Pop restaurant has that kind of cash, and no big chain is going to pony up that kind of cash when they can send in a chef to taste the dish or order it take-out and head over to the lab. (Not that they have any real interest in duplicating another chain's dish, the rush is to have something different, unique, yet fitting in with the chain's theme and whatever the current trend is.)
Sure, if by 'type' you mean "soups made of overly processed ingredients and designed for the least portion cost and to be prepared by food service staff without notable culinary training". But, that's being the smelliest person in the office - yeah, you're number one, but it's not a competition most people want to be in.
And no, don't get me started on the breadsticks. The few times I've not been able to avoid Olive Garden, I've found them to be utter shit. Over salted, greasy, and often undercooked and then reheated in a microwave.
Slashdot is full of rational people? You're either new around here, or seriously out of touch. The only difference between Slashdot and your average tinfoil hat/truther/birther site is that most Slashdotters know how to spell and capitalize, and are at least vaguely conversant with punctuation.
He also has a chance of having acquired bad habits and/or prejudices that are going to be harder to train out.
Between the two quotes above and most of the unquoted remainder - it seems you really need to read about the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
Two reason, the first is that people still seem to prefer to either own or rent a physical copy. The second is because Joe's Corner Mom & Pop isn't going to invest the thousands of dollar it's going to take to set up a burner, printer, and shrink wrap system and then spend the money to stock up on blank media, decent printer stock, and empty cases/jewel boxes and *then* pay someone to burn, print, and wrap in order to make a buck (or less) a copy. Hollywood and the entertainment industry would love to push all those capital and operating expenses off their own bottom line - but they know they'll face a revolution.
This is why those in charge aren't listening to you - you're talking nonsense. How is putting a physical master copy risky... but a virtual master isn't? Not to mention that virtual delivery isn't exactly free either - servers, bandwidth, and the bodies to maintain and manage them aren't cheap.
Other thing's you'll "never" stop. Rape. Murder. Child abuse. Alcoholism. The list goes on and on. Shall we stop enforcing the laws against them as well?
The thing is - the only really 'wrong' with their business is that a fairly small demographic think they should get the products of someone else's work either free or at ridiculously low prices, and that same demographic also believes that nobody but them has any rights. (I.E. they have the right to low/ridiculously cheap, and the other party had better lay back and enjoy it.)
The business model for mass market buggy whips is broken - because there isn't a mass demand for buggy whips. The business model for blacksmith's is broken for the same reason. Etc... etc... But there is still a high demand for the entertainment industry's output and no reason that they are not entitled to be recompensed for their work.
Dr. De Geer is using evidence of a fission reaction to support the conclusion that a fusion reaction occurred? That makes no sense whatsoever. I don't think a near fizzle/low yield detonation can even induce fusion in the first place.
Evidence of a low yield uranium blast would make me think of testing a new weapons design and/or a composite core, not boosted fission.
You say that like keep crappy apps out of the store is a bad thing. If the developer isn't willing to do the work to write a decent app, then let him compete amongst the (many) others going for the low hanging fruit. He won't make much.
If I wanted to be in app writing business, I'd already *be* in the app writing business. But there's a reason why I'm downloading rather than writing.
In addition to not wanting to be in the app writing business... I don't have the months it would take to learn how to write apps in the first place.
And the missions you list are just the final testing of Apollo... You also have to consider the basic research and engineering done in the Gemini program. Like the development of rendezvous techniques, flight control techniques, mission design and analysis techniques, etc... etc... Apollo gets all the glory, but a great deal of the real world (as opposed to the ivory tower of the labs and simulators) grunt work was done by Gemini.
Watch as you die... The Apollo 10 LM was considerably overweight. The ascent stage was only partially fueled in order to keep the total vehicle weight within performance limits.
It's also worth noting that the Apollo testing schedule was greatly compressed and accelerated due to schedule pressure.
Sadly, there's a lot of people who seem to think that unless you're 'boldly going', you're wasting money and time.
Grunt work in the labs and simulators is nothing but an exercise in intellectual masturbation unless and until you go out into the real world and actually see how things work. You don't learn without actually doing.
And still lacks the majority of the capabilities of the Shuttle.
Before you rant - you really should read up on patents - try this link.