Insurance is a red herring in the American health care debate - insurance simply is not about what Americans seem to think it should be about.
Precisely this. Over the last few decades many Americans seem to have to come to believe that insurance is a slot machine - one that pays off every time they pull the lever. For every quarter they spend, and they don't want to spend more than a quarter, they get fifty dollars.
Just because it could have been very much worse doesn't mean this isn't a huge clusterfuck.
It sounds a lot like the fire code made sure that everyone made it out of the building alive but now you're upset because the fire department tracked mud on the carpet and soaked all your furniture with their fire hoses.
No, I'm upset because even though the fire code got everyone out of the houses alive - sparks from my neighbors house burning cause my house to burn down too. On top of that, the fire department was in such a hurry and so careless that they backed into and knocked over my free standing garage, rammed my car (totaling it), and then knocked a hole in the wall of the house on the other side of me.
And now you want us to stop building houses and live in tents, never mind that the house that caught fire was made of wood and the houses being built today are made of brick.
A house made of brick will burn just as readily as a house made of wood. The interior walls, floors, joists, etc... are still wood. It's still filled with flammable contents. The roof is still tarpaper and shingles. There's still an electrical system to short and a gas system to leak.
Given the variable spacing between characters and that in several places seemingly identical characters are drawn differently... What's the point of rendering it in text?
And assuming it had, since it would have been in a stacked configuration they'd have had an escape tower and a parachute system like on all the other stacked manned vehicles we've launched
Actually, that's not true. (Gemini used ejection seats and had no escape tower.)
Now all that said, I'm not sure how we'd have stacked something with the size requirements of the shuttle without rebuilding the VAB to make it even taller.
And at last, you begin to show the glimmer of wisdom - every design is a compromise. No design is perfect.
its an empty vapid game. its also pretty much boilerplate sociological fact. consider nightclubs in cities: the small chic "in" club that everyone wants to get into, overexposure, then decline because the "cool" kids want their own exclusive club. rinse, repeat
The problem with your analogy is that Facebook isn't a chic 'in' club for young hipsters. It's Disneyworld and *everyone* is there - Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, all the aunts and uncles, all the cousins... And they don't give a damn which nightclub the young hipsters are currently flocking to.
And like Disneyworld, every one else is seeking to locate nearby (I.E. the 'share' buttons on damn near every website) in order to take advantage of the millions flocking there. What's dying, in the virtual world as in the real, are all the old and increasingly decrepit attractions and lodgings scattered about that can't take advantage of this. Equally, I suspect that while the hipsters may lemming from one nightclub to the next - they'll take their kids to Disneyworld.
Yes, I realize that. I also realize that that large amounts of money are spent to make all launch systems and manned craft that reliable. The Shuttle isn't unique in that respect.
I also realize that of the various manned accidents to date (Russian and US), escape systems would have been useful in only a fairly small percentage of them. Out of two hundred odd manned launches, and twenty odd serious accidents - escape systems were or would have been useful in precisely two... And for the Soviet accident in which it was used, the US wouldn't have used theirs - they have a different system (present on the Shuttle) for use during pad accidents.
So, like the poster to whom I responded, you aren't exactly conversant with the facts either.
We went down the wrong path with the shuttles. I think their main purpose was a plot to make the Soviets copy them breaking their economy. If we would have kept making Saturn V's ( 10 times the lift capacity of the shuttle ) we would be walking on Mars TODAY.
In some parallel universe where Shuttle development didn't begin in the early 60's and Saturn V production hadn't been canceled in 1965, sure. But we don't live in that universe. In our universe the Saturn V was canceled because there weren't any payloads for it in the pipeline, and no prospect for any in the foreseeable future. (Mostly because reasonable payloads for it cost in the billions of dollars.)
but the basic fact is that a stacked vehicle (with the crew at the top) would not have had these failures
No, a tandem vehicle wouldn't have had those failures - it would have had different failures.
But there's another basic fact you're either ignoring or unaware of, the Shuttle isn't the only vehicle to use parallel staging. In fact, there are many such and many flights of them under our belt - and their failure rate isn't noticeably different from those using only tandem stages. Notably, the Shuttle's reliability rate is around 99% - with a couple of tenths of a percentage point of pretty much every other launch vehicle.
Your conclusion that parallel staging is a bad idea or worse than tandem staging is unsupported by facts.
And then you dropped two of them on top of Japan. Which is also irrelevant?
Yes, it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The topic under discussion is nuclear power. Even when discussing nuclear contamination, they're nearly irrelevant because the release in those two cases is vastly dwarfed by later ones.
NOTHING from the past is irrelevant, you learn from history or are bound to repeat it. And I rather not have you guys repeat that dark part of history.
For the first part, yes the past history of nuclear contamination is irrelevant to this discussion - it can't be undone. Just because I lost $10 fifty years ago doesn't mean I shouldn't be concerned about losing $10 tomorrow. As to the second, again utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is nuclear power.
But banks don't hold your hand when you send money to someone by mistake. It's caveat emptor.
You can cancel checks - and you can reverse credit card charges. So no, it's not caveat emptor. Being able to reverse transactions is not the same thing as holding you hand.
I agree that no processor should be able to take your money and then not reverse that transaction, but I'm talking about where you send money, and then change your mind.
The problem is, under the law and in certain circumstances, I'm allowed to change my mind. Your suggestion removes that legally protected right and basically places me at the mercy of the processor. No thank you.
Non reversible is bad. Non reversible means the payee has no rights and no recourse after payment is made if the services or goods paid for are not provided or turn out to be faulty. (Or at a minimum, it means exercising those legally protected rights becomes more difficult.)
Are payment processors supposed to be modes of payment, or net-nannies? If anything, non-reversible would mean fewer problems as people won't buy from anything other than reputable stores.
Payment processors should be held to the same standards as banks and credit card companies - and that they've operated outside the regulatory envelope to date is a problem, a big one. And even reputable stores have problems and bad days now and again. How they react to that problems and bad days is how they became reputable - and non reversible transactions significantly reduces incentives to behave responsibly.
I find it amusing how US media is worried about Fukushima nuclear contamination of Japan and surrounding arrea, including US territories or... Europe. They seem to forgot hundreds of nuclear tests made by the US both in Pacific and continental US. I wonder which event released more radioactive material in the atmosphere, a few hundreds nuclear test or the damaged reactors from Fukushima?
That we used to test in atmosphere is irrelevant, that was fifty years ago and what's done is done. That we used to test underground are equally irrelevant, because except for the first few (as we were figuring out the methodology) considerable measures were taken to prevent atmospheric release and again what's done is done.
Five years out of school and working as an engineer, I make a mid five figure salary. Friends I went to school with who now work in finance make low six figures. America is not interested in keeping its innovative edge.
The problem isn't the difference in pay... The problem is in the belief in some mystic fairyland where engineers were not only paid beyond their wildest dreams, they had groupies and sycophants hanging on their every word, and gardens of pleasure to dally in after finishing their 168 hour work week for the Greater Benefit of Man.
Grow up. It was never like that. It was never anything even close to that. Financiers have made more than engineers since roughly 1x10^-9 seconds after their respective professions were invented.
Without an accurate method of determining the position of your UAV/blimp/whatever you're not going to be producing maps of any accuracy. (And consumer grade GPS isn't going to cut it.) Not to mention, you don't mention the sensitivity of your mapping instrument, etc... etc...
If you're invited inside a big datacenter and want to take good pictures, at least rent an ultra-wide-angle lens. These pedestrian shots of individual wiring cabinets feel extremely flat.
I doubt the article's author is a photographer. Even so, no need for an ultra wide lens, just something better than a pocket point-and-shoot and a little knowledge of photography. Actually, if you know what you're doing even a little point-and-shoot can produce better photographs than those in TFA.
Look, I know these articles are user submitted, but there's really no harm in correcting spelling and grammar; in fact it would make this site look more professional.
It needs more than spelling and grammar corrections - it pretty much needs a top-to-bottom rewrite. My 5th grade English teacher would have just put a big red "F" on the page about halfway through and given up.
Kinda like how your simile between the car industry and the space industry bears no relation to the real world, as they utilize completely different design cycles, program cost models, and product requirements?
Since I was only providing a simple example of differing levels of cost and performance, all of that is irrelevant.
Contrary to popular Slashdot belief, car analogies don't actually produce any meaningful data for a proper analysis of a given situation.
Yet you understood what I meant immediately. My analogy worked because it displayed a useful comparison between different levels of cost and capability. Your analogy failed, and was rejected, because it didn't provide a useful comparison.
A more careful reading of what I said would show that you and I are on the same page.
When you mention things like "authenticity" and "foundation", it's blatantly obvious that you and I aren't on the same page. When you imply that you "need to know who $X is' to have 'cred'", it's even more obvious.
When a friend told me to hand in my geek card because I've never cared for Firefly
When somebody tells me to 'turn in my geek card' for 'not [liking|having [watched|read]] $FASHIONABLE_MEDIA_PRODUCT', I tell them to eff themselves with a sharp spiny object. That's being a fashionista, and no different or better than the masses who swoon over American Idol or Survivor.
I'm an old school geek - I'm a geek because I have a particular approach to living and learning and a fascination with an obscure and specialized field of knowledge. (Actually several in my case.) That's why back in the day we had "computer geeks" and "history geeks" and "math nerds", etc... etc...
Long story, made short: "Nerd authenticity" is relative, and it's worth shaking the foundations a little to ensure that they stand on merit rather than orthodoxy.
Long story short, once you start talking about 'geek cards' and 'nerd cred', you're announcing that you're a sheep - not a geek or a nerd. When you talk about 'standing on merit', you're actually talking about what is widely accepted as merit - which is just another way of saying orthodox.
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Precisely this. Over the last few decades many Americans seem to have to come to believe that insurance is a slot machine - one that pays off every time they pull the lever. For every quarter they spend, and they don't want to spend more than a quarter, they get fifty dollars.
That the state of robotics in the real world isn't nearly as advanced as you imagine?
No, I'm upset because even though the fire code got everyone out of the houses alive - sparks from my neighbors house burning cause my house to burn down too. On top of that, the fire department was in such a hurry and so careless that they backed into and knocked over my free standing garage, rammed my car (totaling it), and then knocked a hole in the wall of the house on the other side of me.
A house made of brick will burn just as readily as a house made of wood. The interior walls, floors, joists, etc... are still wood. It's still filled with flammable contents. The roof is still tarpaper and shingles. There's still an electrical system to short and a gas system to leak.
Given the variable spacing between characters and that in several places seemingly identical characters are drawn differently... What's the point of rendering it in text?
Actually, that's not true. (Gemini used ejection seats and had no escape tower.)
And at last, you begin to show the glimmer of wisdom - every design is a compromise. No design is perfect.
Go look up how many tandem staged vehicles have failed - and how many cargo's have been destroyed. (Hint: The numbers are identical.)
In some strange universe where it's impossible to put an escape rocket on a parallel staged vehicle. (Hint: we don't live in that universe.)
Wrong. Virtually all parallel staged launched vehicles use solid propellant.
Wrong. Solids can be shut down in flight. (It was first done back in the 1950's.)
Irrelevant to my basic point. No matter how you slice it, the Shuttle's failure rate is not significantly different from any other vehicle.
Three for three.
The problem with your analogy is that Facebook isn't a chic 'in' club for young hipsters. It's Disneyworld and *everyone* is there - Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, Dad, all the aunts and uncles, all the cousins... And they don't give a damn which nightclub the young hipsters are currently flocking to.
And like Disneyworld, every one else is seeking to locate nearby (I.E. the 'share' buttons on damn near every website) in order to take advantage of the millions flocking there. What's dying, in the virtual world as in the real, are all the old and increasingly decrepit attractions and lodgings scattered about that can't take advantage of this. Equally, I suspect that while the hipsters may lemming from one nightclub to the next - they'll take their kids to Disneyworld.
Yes, I realize that. I also realize that that large amounts of money are spent to make all launch systems and manned craft that reliable. The Shuttle isn't unique in that respect.
I also realize that of the various manned accidents to date (Russian and US), escape systems would have been useful in only a fairly small percentage of them. Out of two hundred odd manned launches, and twenty odd serious accidents - escape systems were or would have been useful in precisely two... And for the Soviet accident in which it was used, the US wouldn't have used theirs - they have a different system (present on the Shuttle) for use during pad accidents.
So, like the poster to whom I responded, you aren't exactly conversant with the facts either.
In some parallel universe where Shuttle development didn't begin in the early 60's and Saturn V production hadn't been canceled in 1965, sure. But we don't live in that universe. In our universe the Saturn V was canceled because there weren't any payloads for it in the pipeline, and no prospect for any in the foreseeable future. (Mostly because reasonable payloads for it cost in the billions of dollars.)
No, a tandem vehicle wouldn't have had those failures - it would have had different failures.
But there's another basic fact you're either ignoring or unaware of, the Shuttle isn't the only vehicle to use parallel staging. In fact, there are many such and many flights of them under our belt - and their failure rate isn't noticeably different from those using only tandem stages. Notably, the Shuttle's reliability rate is around 99% - with a couple of tenths of a percentage point of pretty much every other launch vehicle.
Your conclusion that parallel staging is a bad idea or worse than tandem staging is unsupported by facts.
Yes, it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. The topic under discussion is nuclear power. Even when discussing nuclear contamination, they're nearly irrelevant because the release in those two cases is vastly dwarfed by later ones.
For the first part, yes the past history of nuclear contamination is irrelevant to this discussion - it can't be undone. Just because I lost $10 fifty years ago doesn't mean I shouldn't be concerned about losing $10 tomorrow. As to the second, again utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is nuclear power.
You can cancel checks - and you can reverse credit card charges. So no, it's not caveat emptor. Being able to reverse transactions is not the same thing as holding you hand.
The problem is, under the law and in certain circumstances, I'm allowed to change my mind. Your suggestion removes that legally protected right and basically places me at the mercy of the processor. No thank you.
Non reversible is bad. Non reversible means the payee has no rights and no recourse after payment is made if the services or goods paid for are not provided or turn out to be faulty. (Or at a minimum, it means exercising those legally protected rights becomes more difficult.)
Payment processors should be held to the same standards as banks and credit card companies - and that they've operated outside the regulatory envelope to date is a problem, a big one. And even reputable stores have problems and bad days now and again. How they react to that problems and bad days is how they became reputable - and non reversible transactions significantly reduces incentives to behave responsibly.
That we used to test in atmosphere is irrelevant, that was fifty years ago and what's done is done. That we used to test underground are equally irrelevant, because except for the first few (as we were figuring out the methodology) considerable measures were taken to prevent atmospheric release and again what's done is done.
The problem isn't the difference in pay... The problem is in the belief in some mystic fairyland where engineers were not only paid beyond their wildest dreams, they had groupies and sycophants hanging on their every word, and gardens of pleasure to dally in after finishing their 168 hour work week for the Greater Benefit of Man.
Grow up. It was never like that. It was never anything even close to that. Financiers have made more than engineers since roughly 1x10^-9 seconds after their respective professions were invented.
Given the amount of damage even small amount of water can do over time, the difference is semantic once you have standing water.
Without an accurate method of determining the position of your UAV/blimp/whatever you're not going to be producing maps of any accuracy. (And consumer grade GPS isn't going to cut it.) Not to mention, you don't mention the sensitivity of your mapping instrument, etc... etc...
I doubt the article's author is a photographer. Even so, no need for an ultra wide lens, just something better than a pocket point-and-shoot and a little knowledge of photography. Actually, if you know what you're doing even a little point-and-shoot can produce better photographs than those in TFA.
It needs more than spelling and grammar corrections - it pretty much needs a top-to-bottom rewrite. My 5th grade English teacher would have just put a big red "F" on the page about halfway through and given up.
Well, from the pictures it appears to be nearly completely abandoned - preserved sites don't have standing water on the floor.
Since I was only providing a simple example of differing levels of cost and performance, all of that is irrelevant.
Yet you understood what I meant immediately. My analogy worked because it displayed a useful comparison between different levels of cost and capability. Your analogy failed, and was rejected, because it didn't provide a useful comparison.
Since that is an imaginary situation that bears no relation to the real world, I decline to do so.
When you mention things like "authenticity" and "foundation", it's blatantly obvious that you and I aren't on the same page. When you imply that you "need to know who $X is' to have 'cred'", it's even more obvious.
When somebody tells me to 'turn in my geek card' for 'not [liking|having [watched|read]] $FASHIONABLE_MEDIA_PRODUCT', I tell them to eff themselves with a sharp spiny object. That's being a fashionista, and no different or better than the masses who swoon over American Idol or Survivor.
I'm an old school geek - I'm a geek because I have a particular approach to living and learning and a fascination with an obscure and specialized field of knowledge. (Actually several in my case.) That's why back in the day we had "computer geeks" and "history geeks" and "math nerds", etc... etc...
Long story short, once you start talking about 'geek cards' and 'nerd cred', you're announcing that you're a sheep - not a geek or a nerd. When you talk about 'standing on merit', you're actually talking about what is widely accepted as merit - which is just another way of saying orthodox.