I agree that it is a travesty that there is no overarching goal after the end of the shuttle program.
Why? It's exactly those overarching goals that keep effing NASA up. Pretty much every other government agency gets to do it's work in a straightforward and methodical fashion without a dramatic goal - but if NASA doesn't have one, it gets flamed. (Never mind that NASA only carries the policies set by the Administration and funded by Congress.) When NASA does get to do methodical development and to work out the basics, it gets flamed for 'going around in circles'.
Still though, when's the last time you saw government deliver a good, cheap, quality product on time?
About the same time I last saw a good cheap quality product delivered by anyone. I.E. never. 'Cheap' is pretty much antithetical to 'good quality' for a product of any significance. (Yeah, there are some down at the end of the bell curve, like Linux, but they're exceptions and you're fooling yourself if you believe otherwise.) Most government programs do get done more or less on time and in budget, but as always you never hear about the middle of the bell curve.
I get the feeling that in the next twenty years or so, commercial entities will be able to surpass our present status.
Not a chance. Commercial entities aren't going any further than LEO any time soon.
The only hope I have on the government front is to maintain the space program legacy to encourage smart young kids to pursue something greater than themselves.
In other words, you want the same mess we've always had - unsustainable, extremely expensive programs for entertainment. Why not? You get something to drool over (because it's SPACE!) and something to bitch about (because it's hard and expensive) all at once. What a bargain.
What's the point of bragging about how the program is rendered in 'the highest definition available' - and then putting it on You Tube in crappy low definition?
Personally, I'd use this to make specialty cabinets. Simple 3-axis is all you need, and if you keep the spindle speed down, wood does not need coolant.
No, it doesn't need coolant - but it does need careful and constant attention to feed rate and tool positioning to prevent tearout, excessive tool marks, and burning.
You don't need a plastic widget, just a few paper towels, some window cleaner, and a little elbow grease... it doesn't take much time to clean your headlights.
Assuming he is referring to the injection nozzles, I doubt it you can make a quality part on a reprap. You can probably make ones that work, but they wouldn't be any good IMO.
That's just the thing isn't it? Being able to design and (3D) print something isn't even remotely the same as being able to design and (3D) print something that works.
Look at Flickr and You Tube - and look at the ratio (among wholly original content) between even halfway decent and utter krep. It's rather steeply tilted towards the latter. I can't see how 3D printing will be any different, and in some ways it will be worse as people will be tempted to 'print' their own cheap crap to replace real parts.
"You wouldnt get in an airplane designed by model results as crappy as these"
Hate to break this to you but you already do, climate models work on the same finite element algorithims as any other engineering model does when there is no anylitical solution to the equations.
Nonsense. Just because they use the same mathematical tools doesn't mean they are the same. When it comes to engineering models, we have vast reams of data and equations empirically proven and extensively tested over decades to serve as input into the data and decades of comparing the output to actual behavior in order to validate the performance of the models. With climate models we have... Well, frankly not much. We have reams of input data of varying accuracy... But we don't have a clear understanding of the feedback loops, the terrestrial cycles of temperature variation, no long term comparisons of results to the real world, etc... etc... Climatologists do their best, but to claim their best is anywhere on par with the engineers is nonsense.
Are they perfect? - Of course not but imperfect certainly does not mean useless, if it did all of science would be useless.
Nobody is claiming they are perfect. Only that they are riddled with known and unknown unknowns.
So, you're suggesting that we replace something that we know works more or less... with something that 'might' work?
Obviously yes. Isn't it a wiser investment to eradicate a disease at a greater cost today than to hold it at bay indefinitely? And that doesn't even consider the risk of mutation.
You seem to have missed the point, so I'll spell it out in small words: The current method works, you have no evidence for your method beyond tinfoil hat ravings and assumptions that you confuse with facts.
And read the above link on polio's eradication. We've had a vaccine since the 50s, yet we only started an eradication program in 1988. And that was 8 years after we were finished eradicating smallpox.
Here on my planet, the one described in the link, the (largely funded in increments over the years by foundations) research and vaccine program eradicated the disease in the West within a couple of years of it's introduction. When the (funded in annual increments) program was expanded across the world, it was effective in a couple of years. What your point is, and what the conditions on your planet are, eludes me.
Ask the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (a disease virtually eradicated) - they became the American Lung Association and anti-smoking crusaders. Ask the trustees of Benjamin Franklin's estate (established to pay for apprenticeships)... which now funds college scholarships since nobody offers apprenticeships anymore.
I believe you missed the point of my statement. It is not one of "we can't cure the disease because then we'll have no purpose". It is "we can't risk spending 20% of the foundation's budget every year in trying to cure the disease because the foundation can't survive indefinitely that way". You found some instances where a foundation has been transformed because their original purpose is gone.
When you demonstrate that spending massive amount of cash are somehow better than the current model - you'll *have* a point. Any idiot can handwave and blow smoke, which is all you have on offer. It's not enough.
Spending the interest gained, say ~5.5% of $40 Billion (ie ~$2.2 Billion), indefinitely may stop the hemorrhaging of the disease indefinitely. But it might well take a good deal more, say $10 Billion per year, along with an actual plan to cure the disease.
So, you're suggesting that we replace something that we know works more or less... with something that 'might' work?
Governments have been for years doing the same sort of massive, yet inadequate, money and supply donations.
Yet, under exactly this scheme, Polio is gone, as is Smallpox, and vast progress has been made on other infectious diseases. Given that research takes years, and deploying the cures takes years, and that the current funding process pays off over years... I'd say that based on the evidence, infusions of cash on an annual basis precisely matches the requirements of the recipients.
The fact that a government or a foundation may be very unwilling to even consider many options because it could "kill" the government/foundation may make them rather unsuitable in to actually solving some problems.
Ask the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (a disease virtually eradicated) - they became the American Lung Association and anti-smoking crusaders. Ask the trustees of Benjamin Franklin's estate (established to pay for apprenticeships)... which now funds college scholarships since nobody offers apprenticeships anymore.
A bunch of angry idiots decide to have themselves a little riot, do some burning and head-cracking, and so far hardly a comment questioning whether this is in any way appropriate?
A bunch of idiots attacking Our Corporate Overlords and you expect Slashdot to question that? Seriously, you must be new here. So long as the idiots don't defame the One True Google they can pretty much do whatever they like without Slashdot raising so much as an eyelash.
It doesn't help Derek, that so much of the "skeptic" group have been well funded by marketing firms tasked by certain industries of creating FUD about the science, and remembering it was the same firms (and sometimes the same "scientists") that where claiming that smoking doesnt cause cancer.
No offense, but it doesn't help that you call a denier a skeptic - your roommate may have been able to demolish his equations, but that hasn't stopped you from swallowing his propaganda and accepting him as a skeptic regardless.
Science might shy from rhetoric, but it also shys from charlatains, and the 'climate skeptic' field sure seems to have a lot of those.
The real problem is that charlatans abound on *both* sides of the aisle. The original poster in this subthread is an excellent example - he's not interested in any result other than DOOM DOOMITY DOOM.
I dunno, in the professional photography world there's a lot of apps available for the iPad with the capability to edit images, manage your collection, etc... etc... If you know what you're doing with your camera, the image generally doesn't need much in the way of editing.
Then effectively you're creating content on the camera, and just playing with it on the other device. Seems to prove my point more than refute it.
Um, no. If you think editing a photo is just 'playing', you couldn't be further off base. Trying to minimize what people are actually doing with real tablets in the real world to bolster a refuted claim isn't a very effective debating technique.
My example was graphics, and they don't have to be billboard-sized... let's see you create a professional brochure on a phone.:)
I know your example was graphics - which is why I brought photography into the discussion, to show that your argument only functioned if you excluded what professionals were already doing in the real world. And again, as with choosing such a small niche market as billboard graphics, taking extreme cases like brochures one a phone (especially when phones weren't the topic of discussion) is a pretty poor debating tactic.
If your method of 'discussion' is to mistakenly treat edge cases as the middle and to move the bar - that's prima facie evidence that your argument has severe problems. Or that you don't actually know what you're talking about.
A tablet (etc.) is for consumption of content. They rock for accessibility and convenience: just what you need when you are passively consuming content, such as reading or watching. Even gaming counts, as you are not putting anything in to the device: just getting entertainment out of it.
But if you are trying to create something (prose, music, code, graphics, databases, and so on and so on), then a full-fledged computer is vastly superior.
I dunno, in the professional photography world there's a lot of apps available for the iPad with the capability to edit images, manage your collection, etc... etc... If you know what you're doing with your camera, the image generally doesn't need much in the way of editing.
Maybe this will change someday, as the interfaces for devices improve and the apps develop. But in the short-term, I defy someone to create billboard-quality graphics, commercial-grade websites, or a publication-level novel on a tablet. I suppose it can be done, but it would be a heck of a lot easier with a full computer.
As far as photography goes, billboard quality is a pretty small specialty market. The vast market below that is, as I indicated above, is finding tablet class devices very useful.
A) It's an old one, and stopped being funny years and years ago. Only imbeciles repeat it now. B) In case you haven't noticed, we don't live 200 years ago. C) More childish handwaving, doubly amusing because by using 'file sharer', that's exactly what you're doing - arbitrarily creating a term to support whatever you have to say. D) No, you and your ilk are childish imbeciles who pick and choose dictionary definitions to suit you and who are ignorant that most words have more than one meaning, and are unaware of such concepts as common usage, connotation, and denotation. E) Yes, I read 1984 - which is why I used it ironically. Because you and childish ilk are indulging the same behavior - in place of a commonly accepted and widely understood term you're trying to create a new term that doesn't make you sound like thieves. F) More childish handwaving.
Now think of a pirate. What are his motivations? Booty (money), rape, and pillage.
So as long as file sharers are not motivated by raping (Julian Assange doesn't count!) and pillaging then they should finally be off the hook and put to bed that stupid terminology!
Newspeak is alive and well in the Slashdot community I see. Or less kindly, the immature and childish debating tactic of sticking to the strict dictionary definition of the word.
Grow up. The term 'piracy' has been an acceptable description of this kind of behavior for centuries. Nobody but you and your childish ilk confuses it with sea borne pirates and rape, pillage, or murder.
No, that's *self* justification you're feeling. (It's kinda like masturbation, but cleaner and you can do it in public.) You've pulled some numbers out of your ass and invoked "won't somebody think of the children" (oops, artists), then followed it up with a flag waving appeal to the Constitution. Then you topped it off with a ritual "and their business model is broken too!".
Almost totally fact free, and completely unrelated to the real world. It's the fantasy whine of an eight year old who is absolutely convinced he has done nothing wrong.
The biggest confounding factor is that the technology setting is completely different. It's not very easy to put Doom inside Facebook in a way that makes any sense or gets people coming back.
Not that Doom is anything but one game in one genre of games.
Is facebook really technology? From what i can figure out, its a place where people spend 700 billion minutes a month playing farville and mafia wars.
Yep, as predictable as the sun rising - "I'm a slashdotter and I don't use Facebook, so I'll diss it to show how cool and how willingly ignorant I am". Seriously, it never occured to you that even though you don't like Rasberry Vanilla Fudge flavor that other people might? News flash - the Universe doesn't revolve around you, never has, never will.
I'd rather have all the facebook employees working on something significant, like i dunno, developing software for the space missions, or heck, even search engines. Search engines are awefully complicated - facebook is just a photo album with lots of cookies to track you.
Just this morning (and I'm still on my first cup of coffee) on Facebook I have;
Seen some amazing photography by several photographers whose pages I follow.
Started arranging going out to dinner with some high school classmates when we're all in town for our 30th reunion this spring.
Discussed with my niece the value, or lack thereof, of internet 'awareness' memes (an anti child abuse campaign meme having gone viral on Facebook over the weekend).
Confirmed with one real life friend I'll be attending his Christmas party, and confirmed with another our plans for Christmas Eve.
Been informed by my local micro brewery that their holiday ale (whose kegging and bottling was delayed due to a storm caused power outage and damage to their machinery) will roll out this weekend.
Helped a fellow geocacher solve puzzle and another fellow geocacher find some materials he needs for remodeling his house.
And courtesy of a post by my sister about a toy she bought for her four year old took a nice trip down memory lane sharing our memories of that exact same toy with my mother, my sister, and my brothers.
And actually, that's a pretty typical day on Facebook for me.
At what point do we realize that people wasting time on such sites is as big a danger as say, drugs? When's the war on facebook ?
Yes, it has security and privacy issue, anyone with sense knows that. But after a shedload of stories on Slashdot about Facebook, and many comments like yours, and many many comments like mine explaining how wrong you are, such ignorance as yours is pretty hard to understand. You may call staying connected with family, friends, etc... etc... 'wasting time', but a lot of people disagree with you. Given the number of tools developed to allow people to share and interact via the 'net (email, instant messaging, forums, blogs, social media...), I suspect you're in a distinct minority.
It might seem that way - if you weren't aware that it's all information that Facebook already has and already displays. This is a change to an UI, not a change to information collected or displayed.
I was referring to the statement that "PAPER" can be secured better than digital information.
No shit Sherlock. And just which statement do you think I was replying to? Here's a clue for you (since you so obviously badly in need of one): It's the only fucking statement in your post.
The Pentagon Papers were just that: Paper. Despite the TOP SECRET designation stamped on each sheet of that paper, they were photocopied and distributed.
No shit Captain Obvious. Did you bother to read and comprehend what I wrote in reply? In faint hope that this time you'll understand it, I'll repeat myself:
"You remember the Pentagon Papers because it was huge, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to notice that a) the Pentagon Papers were actually just a relative handful compared to the Wikileaks releases, and b) there have been few or no similar episodes in the four decades since.
" 'words on paper can be made secure, electronic archives not.'"
Really? Really? You really said that and seriously meant it?
Um, yeah. Because it's roughly as obvious as gravity to anyone with any actual knowledge of security.
You remember the Pentagon Papers because it was huge, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to notice that a) the Pentagon Papers were actually just a relative handful compared to the Wikileaks releases, and b) there have been few or no similar episodes in the four decades since.
You mean the NASA space pen urban legend? In reality the pen was privately developed and submitted unsolicited to NASA. (The kicker is that the Russians eventually abandoned the pencil for the pen.)
Slashdot Mirror
Why? It's exactly those overarching goals that keep effing NASA up. Pretty much every other government agency gets to do it's work in a straightforward and methodical fashion without a dramatic goal - but if NASA doesn't have one, it gets flamed. (Never mind that NASA only carries the policies set by the Administration and funded by Congress.) When NASA does get to do methodical development and to work out the basics, it gets flamed for 'going around in circles'.
About the same time I last saw a good cheap quality product delivered by anyone. I.E. never. 'Cheap' is pretty much antithetical to 'good quality' for a product of any significance. (Yeah, there are some down at the end of the bell curve, like Linux, but they're exceptions and you're fooling yourself if you believe otherwise.) Most government programs do get done more or less on time and in budget, but as always you never hear about the middle of the bell curve.
Not a chance. Commercial entities aren't going any further than LEO any time soon.
In other words, you want the same mess we've always had - unsustainable, extremely expensive programs for entertainment. Why not? You get something to drool over (because it's SPACE!) and something to bitch about (because it's hard and expensive) all at once. What a bargain.
What's the point of bragging about how the program is rendered in 'the highest definition available' - and then putting it on You Tube in crappy low definition?
No, it doesn't need coolant - but it does need careful and constant attention to feed rate and tool positioning to prevent tearout, excessive tool marks, and burning.
You don't need a plastic widget, just a few paper towels, some window cleaner, and a little elbow grease... it doesn't take much time to clean your headlights.
That's just the thing isn't it? Being able to design and (3D) print something isn't even remotely the same as being able to design and (3D) print something that works.
Look at Flickr and You Tube - and look at the ratio (among wholly original content) between even halfway decent and utter krep. It's rather steeply tilted towards the latter. I can't see how 3D printing will be any different, and in some ways it will be worse as people will be tempted to 'print' their own cheap crap to replace real parts.
Nonsense. Just because they use the same mathematical tools doesn't mean they are the same. When it comes to engineering models, we have vast reams of data and equations empirically proven and extensively tested over decades to serve as input into the data and decades of comparing the output to actual behavior in order to validate the performance of the models. With climate models we have... Well, frankly not much. We have reams of input data of varying accuracy... But we don't have a clear understanding of the feedback loops, the terrestrial cycles of temperature variation, no long term comparisons of results to the real world, etc... etc... Climatologists do their best, but to claim their best is anywhere on par with the engineers is nonsense.
Nobody is claiming they are perfect. Only that they are riddled with known and unknown unknowns.
You seem to have missed the point, so I'll spell it out in small words: The current method works, you have no evidence for your method beyond tinfoil hat ravings and assumptions that you confuse with facts.
Here on my planet, the one described in the link, the (largely funded in increments over the years by foundations) research and vaccine program eradicated the disease in the West within a couple of years of it's introduction. When the (funded in annual increments) program was expanded across the world, it was effective in a couple of years. What your point is, and what the conditions on your planet are, eludes me.
When you demonstrate that spending massive amount of cash are somehow better than the current model - you'll *have* a point. Any idiot can handwave and blow smoke, which is all you have on offer. It's not enough.
Since the purpose of the philanthropy isn't to pull us out of the financial crisis, I'm not exactly certain what your point is.
So, you're suggesting that we replace something that we know works more or less... with something that 'might' work?
Yet, under exactly this scheme, Polio is gone, as is Smallpox, and vast progress has been made on other infectious diseases. Given that research takes years, and deploying the cures takes years, and that the current funding process pays off over years... I'd say that based on the evidence, infusions of cash on an annual basis precisely matches the requirements of the recipients.
Ask the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (a disease virtually eradicated) - they became the American Lung Association and anti-smoking crusaders. Ask the trustees of Benjamin Franklin's estate (established to pay for apprenticeships)... which now funds college scholarships since nobody offers apprenticeships anymore.
A bunch of idiots attacking Our Corporate Overlords and you expect Slashdot to question that? Seriously, you must be new here. So long as the idiots don't defame the One True Google they can pretty much do whatever they like without Slashdot raising so much as an eyelash.
No offense, but it doesn't help that you call a denier a skeptic - your roommate may have been able to demolish his equations, but that hasn't stopped you from swallowing his propaganda and accepting him as a skeptic regardless.
The real problem is that charlatans abound on *both* sides of the aisle. The original poster in this subthread is an excellent example - he's not interested in any result other than DOOM DOOMITY DOOM.
No, I called a spade a spade based on his exhibited behavior - I.E. deduced the facts directly from evidence.
That you can't tell the difference is telling.
This. Someone afraid of skeptics, and lumping them with the deniers, is someone pushing a religion, not someone interested in science.
That's an acceptable alternative too.
It (this years selected laureate) is not.
Um, no. If you think editing a photo is just 'playing', you couldn't be further off base. Trying to minimize what people are actually doing with real tablets in the real world to bolster a refuted claim isn't a very effective debating technique.
I know your example was graphics - which is why I brought photography into the discussion, to show that your argument only functioned if you excluded what professionals were already doing in the real world. And again, as with choosing such a small niche market as billboard graphics, taking extreme cases like brochures one a phone (especially when phones weren't the topic of discussion) is a pretty poor debating tactic.
If your method of 'discussion' is to mistakenly treat edge cases as the middle and to move the bar - that's prima facie evidence that your argument has severe problems. Or that you don't actually know what you're talking about.
I dunno, in the professional photography world there's a lot of apps available for the iPad with the capability to edit images, manage your collection, etc... etc... If you know what you're doing with your camera, the image generally doesn't need much in the way of editing.
As far as photography goes, billboard quality is a pretty small specialty market. The vast market below that is, as I indicated above, is finding tablet class devices very useful.
A) It's an old one, and stopped being funny years and years ago. Only imbeciles repeat it now.
B) In case you haven't noticed, we don't live 200 years ago.
C) More childish handwaving, doubly amusing because by using 'file sharer', that's exactly what you're doing - arbitrarily creating a term to support whatever you have to say.
D) No, you and your ilk are childish imbeciles who pick and choose dictionary definitions to suit you and who are ignorant that most words have more than one meaning, and are unaware of such concepts as common usage, connotation, and denotation.
E) Yes, I read 1984 - which is why I used it ironically. Because you and childish ilk are indulging the same behavior - in place of a commonly accepted and widely understood term you're trying to create a new term that doesn't make you sound like thieves.
F) More childish handwaving.
Newspeak is alive and well in the Slashdot community I see. Or less kindly, the immature and childish debating tactic of sticking to the strict dictionary definition of the word.
Grow up. The term 'piracy' has been an acceptable description of this kind of behavior for centuries. Nobody but you and your childish ilk confuses it with sea borne pirates and rape, pillage, or murder.
No, that's *self* justification you're feeling. (It's kinda like masturbation, but cleaner and you can do it in public.) You've pulled some numbers out of your ass and invoked "won't somebody think of the children" (oops, artists), then followed it up with a flag waving appeal to the Constitution. Then you topped it off with a ritual "and their business model is broken too!".
Almost totally fact free, and completely unrelated to the real world. It's the fantasy whine of an eight year old who is absolutely convinced he has done nothing wrong.
Not that Doom is anything but one game in one genre of games.
Yep, as predictable as the sun rising - "I'm a slashdotter and I don't use Facebook, so I'll diss it to show how cool and how willingly ignorant I am". Seriously, it never occured to you that even though you don't like Rasberry Vanilla Fudge flavor that other people might? News flash - the Universe doesn't revolve around you, never has, never will.
Just this morning (and I'm still on my first cup of coffee) on Facebook I have;
And actually, that's a pretty typical day on Facebook for me.
Yes, it has security and privacy issue, anyone with sense knows that. But after a shedload of stories on Slashdot about Facebook, and many comments like yours, and many many comments like mine explaining how wrong you are, such ignorance as yours is pretty hard to understand. You may call staying connected with family, friends, etc... etc... 'wasting time', but a lot of people disagree with you. Given the number of tools developed to allow people to share and interact via the 'net (email, instant messaging, forums, blogs, social media...), I suspect you're in a distinct minority.
It might seem that way - if you weren't aware that it's all information that Facebook already has and already displays. This is a change to an UI, not a change to information collected or displayed.
No shit Sherlock. And just which statement do you think I was replying to? Here's a clue for you (since you so obviously badly in need of one): It's the only fucking statement in your post.
No shit Captain Obvious. Did you bother to read and comprehend what I wrote in reply? In faint hope that this time you'll understand it, I'll repeat myself:
"You remember the Pentagon Papers because it was huge, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to notice that a) the Pentagon Papers were actually just a relative handful compared to the Wikileaks releases, and b) there have been few or no similar episodes in the four decades since.
There's a reason for that."
Um, yeah. Because it's roughly as obvious as gravity to anyone with any actual knowledge of security.
You remember the Pentagon Papers because it was huge, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to notice that a) the Pentagon Papers were actually just a relative handful compared to the Wikileaks releases, and b) there have been few or no similar episodes in the four decades since.
There's a reason for that.
You mean the NASA space pen urban legend? In reality the pen was privately developed and submitted unsolicited to NASA. (The kicker is that the Russians eventually abandoned the pencil for the pen.)