This is the second time this week I've heard someone who's theoretically part of the tech media discuss "network neutrality" in a way that demonstrates they have no idea what the concept actually means.
You assume that "network neutrality" is a technical or legal term with a widely shared and unambiguous meaning.
It isn't. "Network neutrality" is a buzzword and marketdroid speak with a variety of somewhat overlapping meanings - and which meaning is meant depends on the speaker and the audience.
In the same way that Walmart comes into a town and destroys local businesses, Google can enter into an industry/sector and destroy most of the competition overnight by giving an application away for free. Who is going to pay $100 for a Maps Application now (or more for a hardware device) when they can just download one for free.
Yep, and just like Wal Mart, the free/cheap stuff is shit compared to the McCoy. On the geocaching forums we're already seeing people having problems with dropping their phone in the mud (which a real GPS shrugs off), of inaccuracy traceable to having a non optimized antenna, with folks having their [cell phone] batteries run out in mid day in the middle of nowhere (most cachers carry at least one set of the bog standard AA batteries virtually all GPSs use)...
The GPS consumer market is a great way for the manufacturers to ditch the receivers that don't pass military QC.
Very, very unlikely. Not only are the military chipsets different (being able to use the P(y) code for example), no manufacturer is going to base his production on an unreliable source. (That is, the number of units which fail QA is a variable.)
My experience is quite the opposite... My Garmin Nuvi takes me on very direct routes, and in my native area sometimes on faster and more direct routes than I would pick myself. Google Maps is the opposite, the routes it frequently choose in my native area are counter intuitive and often outright wrong.
One thing you might do, if you haven't, is check your preferences and avoidances in your Garmin. Mine didn't perform well until I tuned those.
What makes you think I haven't tried reasoning? Oh, right - I don't echo the Gospel of Google, and that is prima facie evidence that I haven't tried reasoning or that my reasoning is by definition wrong.
You are correct, in that by reasoning based on indirect evidence one can reach a valid conclusion. If and only if the evidence used in reaching that conclusion is itself valid.GIGO applied to data processing done in wetware as it does in software. When your inputs consist only of hype, assumptions, and accounts largely by those inclined to praise - that alone is sufficient to question the validity of the conclusion.
Doubly so when you note the proponents of a position are ignoring valid evidence. In this case, further downthread, you'll note a few reports of problems - explained away by proponents as being a natural consequence of early release software. This ignores past and ongoing evidence that with Google, WYSIWYG. Their early releases are often largely what ships, updates come only at great intervals and the underlying paradigm is rarely questioned.
One can also illuminate the issue by substituting other companies names in place 'Google' and modeling the probable results.
It is also entirely possible to take the same limited subset of (as I point out above) questionable data and reach a very different conclusion by incorporating different assumptions.
For example, take your assertion:
The original claim is that Wave is an aggregation of various existing technologies. You claim that it is impossible to know how useful this will be without using it. Some intrepid souls, however, are reflecting that the existing technologies which Wave aggregates all have drawbacks, and reasoning that by combining them, Google has eliminated, or at least mitigated, these drawbacks.
One can equally reason that the technologies only have drawbacks because the users insist on using a screwdriver as a paintbrush - and complaining when they gouge the wall. However, one can argue that combining a paintbrush with a screwdriver yields a tool that is likely gouge your arm in paintbrush mode and which is in it's rack drying when you need a screwdriver. (And the brush head gets in your way when trying to get the screwdriver in a tight spot anyhow.) Or you end up with a tool like the Leatherman - cool, and useful in some circumstances, but when you want to do real work you reach for the real tools.
In other words, their conclusions are based on reasoning that requires treating an assumption as fact. It's quite valid to show that if you use a different assumptions you reach a different conclusion, and thus question their conclusion and the motivations behind it.
In other words, sometimes what you mistakenly believe in your haste is evidence of lack of thought is in fact quite the opposite - evidence that apparent the lack of thought is yours.
And what exactly do you think is the main part of a turbine is? (Hint: It's a word that starts with 'B', and has the letters 'L''A''D''E' and 'S' in it.)
Except, it's not just the media who are hyping this. Look at the comments on the various Slashdot stories about Wave and you can see how the followers of the Cult of Google are willingly hyping this as well.
The fact that so many people chime in with "I don't get it" is probably an indication of how revolutionary it is.
Or maybe it's a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Those who are chiming in with "I get it, I get it!" are praising his amazing new suit...
Relatively speaking, you have one person who has actually tried it, and just here on Slashdot, a thousand people who are proclaiming "I Get It! It's Wonderful". How can you Get or know to be Wonderful, something you haven't experienced and only know of via press releases and hype?
Seriously. Comments like the one quoted above make me suspicious as hell, especially given the prevalence of the Cult Of Google here on Slashdot. Google Has Spoken and His true believers are willingly going forth to spread His Word. By proclaiming how they Get It, they prove their faith and spread the Word among the unbelievers.
Re:More like forums, really
on
D&D On Google Wave
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Why try proprietary software when there's an excellent Free Software option that you can customize to your needs?
Because not everyone is a programmer. Some of us just want to play.
Nah. What's happened is the definition of geek has become so rote and watered down, that anyone can be one.
Used to be that a 'geek' (the old carnie definition notwithstanding) was someone who was not only very smart, but very interested in one or more (usually scholarly) pursuits or interests that were outside the norm. Hence the term 'computer geek' arose back when few households, offices, or businesses had one. Back in high school I was the 'space geek' because I was heavily into the space program. (That was about as high tech as the average person got in the late 70's/early 80's)
But nowadays all that has changed. To be a geek you just have to have the 'right' (read: latest) tech toy, watch the 'right' TV programs or movies (how many times have you seen "turn in your geek card if you haven't seen ____"?), hang out in the 'right' places (like coffee shops), etc... It's not about intelligence, knowledge, or passion at all.
As a side note, back in high school I moved freely among jocks, geeks, nerds, stoners, etc... I spent more time making friends than worrying about fitting in, and as I result I fit in everywhere - despite being a dyed in the wool geek.
But despite the rabid comments by many - China doesn't actually appear to have any interest in much beyond the minimal space program they actually have.
Russia takes yet another Brave Powerpoint Forward in space exploration. That's, what, the six or seventh in 2009? I think that sets their all time record!
It appeared that not all eight of the retro-rockets fired. They were designed to slow the first stage enough to separate the two stages, before the "tumble rockets" fired. From the footage, the retro-rocket flame is visibly asymmetrical. It appeared that only a few of the retro-rockets fired on one side of the aft skirt fairing.
Reviewing the configuration of the Ares I-X, shows the separation and tumble motors to be assembled in two groups rather than symmetrically disposed about the skirt - given the extreme angle at which the booster was viewed from the ground, I'd expect it to look asymmetrical. In fact, the video released by NASA seems to be looking right at one of the two packages.
Very cool looking rocket, more narrow exhaust plume than I'm used to seeing, interesting angled ascent (it didn't go up straight vertically like a shuttle).
The Shuttle doesn't go straight up either - it starts to pitch over within a few seconds after launch, exactly as the Ares 1-X did. The Shuttle's pitchover is often less obvious because of the geometry of the cameras and because it's usually launched on a trajectory much further north or south of the due eastward one flown by the 1-X.
That being said, the 1-X did pitch over further than the Shuttle, I suspect it did this so that it could produce the same aerodynamic effects as the full vehicle will experience, despite having a lower performing first stage.
Also, the weather was a hassle (as it should have launched yesterday:P)
In this case, the weather was bound to be a hassle - the Ares I-X wasn't built to full spec. NASA (rightly) didn't see any reason to spend the money, if the launch was delayed a day or a week or a month by weather there wouldn't be any great impact.
Yet, the times the West has faced Russian hardware (I.E. Vietnam, various Middle East conflicts), the hardware has, on average, performed pretty well against equivalent Western hardware.
That's not true. The regular Vietnamese army by and large lost when it fought the Americans head on.
Note I said hardware vs. hardware - consider the air war and the Russian supplied SAM's.
Actually I think the real explanation was that the North Vietnamese and Iraqis had "Monkey Model" societies compared to the US, i.e. tyrannies that are unable to process information properly or engineer effective armaments. That means that their armies have a tendency to get slaughtered when they fight determined democracies.
Yet the Soviets fought well in WWII as did the equally tyrannical Germans. In Korea the tyrannies acquitted themselves admirably as well.
I suspect the unequal outcomes in Vietnam and in Iraq was that as much a product of training, maintenance, and logistics (and to a lesser extent technology*) as anything else. (This is less clear in Vietnam, but abundantly clear in Iraq.) Even many 'experts' fail to completely consider the effects of these things.
*Not just high tech, but basic tech such as communications as well.
Google flew right past them in what sense? Google is bigger by some measures, and rakes in a ton of revenue from serving advertising across the web, but... Other than search, where Google and Yahoo! compete head to head - Google's offering is almost always second best.
So it's not too surprising these sorts of countries decided to buy stuff from the USSR instead. Unfortunately for them the Russians had a cunning plan with weapons. Soviet weapons systems actually came in two variants - a high end one to be made in peace time and a stripped down one to be made in a war quickly and in larger quantities. The export customers got the stripped down version, known as the 'monkey model'.
I.e. the monkey model looked the same or similar to the domestic version but was cheaper to make and had far inferior capabilities.
Yet, the times the West has faced Russian hardware (I.E. Vietnam, various Middle East conflicts), the hardware has, on average, performed pretty well against equivalent Western hardware. Which means that either a) the monkey models weren't all that less capable, or b) the real hardware was a helluva lot more capable than any source informed us. IOW, option 'a' is the one congruent with other sources of data.
(BTW: Using Suvorov as a source for information on the Soviet military is roughly on par with using Velikovsky as a reference on astrophysics.)
Another thing you are forgetting is that we built atomic bombs with minimal computing power.
And you could build one today with minimal computing power - but you'll still have a extraordinarily difficult time getting the nuclear material, a fairly difficult time getting the high precision and specialized electronics, and a modestly difficult time producing explosives to the standards required. None of it is off the shelf.
Another thing you are forgetting is that we built atomic bombs with minimal computing power. The first computers had trouble doing ballistic tables. Now you could make ballistics tables as an iPhone app.
And once you've written the app - where are you going to get the artillery pieces you'll need to put those ballistic tables to use? Hell, for that matter, where are going to get the internal and external ballistics data and the aerodynamic data[1] needed as input for the app to calculate those tables in the first place?
Don't let the easy availability of computing power or the relative simplicity of the equations fool you - software isn't hardware. When you leave the digital world and start interacting with the real world, things get difficult pretty quickly.
I think you missed the point. Yes military grade guidance systems that are accurate to with 1 meter and travel 500 miles are very advanced and a hobbyist couldn't build that from hobby store parts. However, if your goal is to indiscriminatingly kill people it is very easy to do with off the shelf components, if you are so inclined.
No, it seems to me the grandparent was blatantly claiming he do as good or better than military grade hardware with off the shelf components. Like you he mistakenly believes that computers are the Answer To Everything.
[1] Making firing tables in the real world is a medium hard job - there are a lot of variables, and not all them obvious to the non specialist.
At the very least it should hide the messages from me that I mark as spam. But no, it doesn't even remember which messages I've marked as spam from login to login. They've just dropped the ball for some reason.
The reason, at least to me, seems abundantly clear: Google has the attention span of a three year old. They fixate heavily on something for a while... then their attention drifts and they are off to the next shiny thing. They've got a lot of products, but no clear vision or effective management.
Here's a free clue for you: You aren't the center of the universe. The world doesn't revolve around you. Things you care less about are intensely interesting to others. Grow up and deal.
I'm curious, by what mechanism would the liquid propellant in the *second stage* have any positive feedback (not damping) to thrust oscillations in the *first stage*?
In case you hadn't noticed - the second stage is attached to the first stage.
The reason longitudinal oscillations (call them what you like) can be really huge in a liquid is because of the positive feedback loop in which a thrust oscillation causes a reinforcing change in the inlet pressure of the pumps, this mechanism does not exist in a solid
That's one mechanism for Pogo. It's not the only one.
Yes, so. Or did you even bother to read what you cut and pasted and noted it's absolute failure to define Pogo as only being characteristic of liquid fueled vehicles?
The "big military rockets" you're thinking of are ICBMs. Which, being unmanned, can handle a lot more vibration than can a rocket carrying a crew of 4-7 people.
The issue under discussion isn't the level of vibration, but the frequency of the vibration and whether or not that frequency matches a one of the vehicle's resonant frequencies. If it does, then even a modest level of vibration can (if undamped) quickly generate dangerous forces.
Slashdot Mirror
You assume that "network neutrality" is a technical or legal term with a widely shared and unambiguous meaning.
It isn't. "Network neutrality" is a buzzword and marketdroid speak with a variety of somewhat overlapping meanings - and which meaning is meant depends on the speaker and the audience.
Yep, and just like Wal Mart, the free/cheap stuff is shit compared to the McCoy. On the geocaching forums we're already seeing people having problems with dropping their phone in the mud (which a real GPS shrugs off), of inaccuracy traceable to having a non optimized antenna, with folks having their [cell phone] batteries run out in mid day in the middle of nowhere (most cachers carry at least one set of the bog standard AA batteries virtually all GPSs use)...
Very, very unlikely. Not only are the military chipsets different (being able to use the P(y) code for example), no manufacturer is going to base his production on an unreliable source. (That is, the number of units which fail QA is a variable.)
My experience is quite the opposite... My Garmin Nuvi takes me on very direct routes, and in my native area sometimes on faster and more direct routes than I would pick myself. Google Maps is the opposite, the routes it frequently choose in my native area are counter intuitive and often outright wrong.
One thing you might do, if you haven't, is check your preferences and avoidances in your Garmin. Mine didn't perform well until I tuned those.
What makes you think I haven't tried reasoning? Oh, right - I don't echo the Gospel of Google, and that is prima facie evidence that I haven't tried reasoning or that my reasoning is by definition wrong.
You are correct, in that by reasoning based on indirect evidence one can reach a valid conclusion. If and only if the evidence used in reaching that conclusion is itself valid. GIGO applied to data processing done in wetware as it does in software. When your inputs consist only of hype, assumptions, and accounts largely by those inclined to praise - that alone is sufficient to question the validity of the conclusion.
Doubly so when you note the proponents of a position are ignoring valid evidence. In this case, further downthread, you'll note a few reports of problems - explained away by proponents as being a natural consequence of early release software. This ignores past and ongoing evidence that with Google, WYSIWYG. Their early releases are often largely what ships, updates come only at great intervals and the underlying paradigm is rarely questioned.
One can also illuminate the issue by substituting other companies names in place 'Google' and modeling the probable results.
It is also entirely possible to take the same limited subset of (as I point out above) questionable data and reach a very different conclusion by incorporating different assumptions.
For example, take your assertion:
One can equally reason that the technologies only have drawbacks because the users insist on using a screwdriver as a paintbrush - and complaining when they gouge the wall. However, one can argue that combining a paintbrush with a screwdriver yields a tool that is likely gouge your arm in paintbrush mode and which is in it's rack drying when you need a screwdriver. (And the brush head gets in your way when trying to get the screwdriver in a tight spot anyhow.) Or you end up with a tool like the Leatherman - cool, and useful in some circumstances, but when you want to do real work you reach for the real tools.
In other words, their conclusions are based on reasoning that requires treating an assumption as fact. It's quite valid to show that if you use a different assumptions you reach a different conclusion, and thus question their conclusion and the motivations behind it.
In other words, sometimes what you mistakenly believe in your haste is evidence of lack of thought is in fact quite the opposite - evidence that apparent the lack of thought is yours.
And what exactly do you think is the main part of a turbine is? (Hint: It's a word that starts with 'B', and has the letters 'L''A''D''E' and 'S' in it.)
Except, it's not just the media who are hyping this. Look at the comments on the various Slashdot stories about Wave and you can see how the followers of the Cult of Google are willingly hyping this as well.
Or maybe it's a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Those who are chiming in with "I get it, I get it!" are praising his amazing new suit...
Relatively speaking, you have one person who has actually tried it, and just here on Slashdot, a thousand people who are proclaiming "I Get It! It's Wonderful". How can you Get or know to be Wonderful, something you haven't experienced and only know of via press releases and hype?
Seriously. Comments like the one quoted above make me suspicious as hell, especially given the prevalence of the Cult Of Google here on Slashdot. Google Has Spoken and His true believers are willingly going forth to spread His Word. By proclaiming how they Get It, they prove their faith and spread the Word among the unbelievers.
Because not everyone is a programmer. Some of us just want to play.
Nah. What's happened is the definition of geek has become so rote and watered down, that anyone can be one.
Used to be that a 'geek' (the old carnie definition notwithstanding) was someone who was not only very smart, but very interested in one or more (usually scholarly) pursuits or interests that were outside the norm. Hence the term 'computer geek' arose back when few households, offices, or businesses had one. Back in high school I was the 'space geek' because I was heavily into the space program. (That was about as high tech as the average person got in the late 70's/early 80's)
But nowadays all that has changed. To be a geek you just have to have the 'right' (read: latest) tech toy, watch the 'right' TV programs or movies (how many times have you seen "turn in your geek card if you haven't seen ____"?), hang out in the 'right' places (like coffee shops), etc... It's not about intelligence, knowledge, or passion at all.
As a side note, back in high school I moved freely among jocks, geeks, nerds, stoners, etc... I spent more time making friends than worrying about fitting in, and as I result I fit in everywhere - despite being a dyed in the wool geek.
But despite the rabid comments by many - China doesn't actually appear to have any interest in much beyond the minimal space program they actually have.
Russia takes yet another Brave Powerpoint Forward in space exploration. That's, what, the six or seventh in 2009? I think that sets their all time record!
Reviewing the configuration of the Ares I-X, shows the separation and tumble motors to be assembled in two groups rather than symmetrically disposed about the skirt - given the extreme angle at which the booster was viewed from the ground, I'd expect it to look asymmetrical. In fact, the video released by NASA seems to be looking right at one of the two packages.
The Shuttle doesn't go straight up either - it starts to pitch over within a few seconds after launch, exactly as the Ares 1-X did. The Shuttle's pitchover is often less obvious because of the geometry of the cameras and because it's usually launched on a trajectory much further north or south of the due eastward one flown by the 1-X.
That being said, the 1-X did pitch over further than the Shuttle, I suspect it did this so that it could produce the same aerodynamic effects as the full vehicle will experience, despite having a lower performing first stage.
It's funny how you don't want NASA to go to the moon 'just to go back', but you're OK with them going to Mars 'just to go there'.
And here, the real reason stands revealed.
In this case, the weather was bound to be a hassle - the Ares I-X wasn't built to full spec. NASA (rightly) didn't see any reason to spend the money, if the launch was delayed a day or a week or a month by weather there wouldn't be any great impact.
Note I said hardware vs. hardware - consider the air war and the Russian supplied SAM's.
Yet the Soviets fought well in WWII as did the equally tyrannical Germans. In Korea the tyrannies acquitted themselves admirably as well.
I suspect the unequal outcomes in Vietnam and in Iraq was that as much a product of training, maintenance, and logistics (and to a lesser extent technology*) as anything else. (This is less clear in Vietnam, but abundantly clear in Iraq.) Even many 'experts' fail to completely consider the effects of these things.
*Not just high tech, but basic tech such as communications as well.
Google flew right past them in what sense? Google is bigger by some measures, and rakes in a ton of revenue from serving advertising across the web, but... Other than search, where Google and Yahoo! compete head to head - Google's offering is almost always second best.
Yet, the times the West has faced Russian hardware (I.E. Vietnam, various Middle East conflicts), the hardware has, on average, performed pretty well against equivalent Western hardware. Which means that either a) the monkey models weren't all that less capable, or b) the real hardware was a helluva lot more capable than any source informed us. IOW, option 'a' is the one congruent with other sources of data.
(BTW: Using Suvorov as a source for information on the Soviet military is roughly on par with using Velikovsky as a reference on astrophysics.)
And you could build one today with minimal computing power - but you'll still have a extraordinarily difficult time getting the nuclear material, a fairly difficult time getting the high precision and specialized electronics, and a modestly difficult time producing explosives to the standards required. None of it is off the shelf.
And once you've written the app - where are you going to get the artillery pieces you'll need to put those ballistic tables to use? Hell, for that matter, where are going to get the internal and external ballistics data and the aerodynamic data[1] needed as input for the app to calculate those tables in the first place?
Don't let the easy availability of computing power or the relative simplicity of the equations fool you - software isn't hardware. When you leave the digital world and start interacting with the real world, things get difficult pretty quickly.
No, it seems to me the grandparent was blatantly claiming he do as good or better than military grade hardware with off the shelf components. Like you he mistakenly believes that computers are the Answer To Everything.
[1] Making firing tables in the real world is a medium hard job - there are a lot of variables, and not all them obvious to the non specialist.
The reason, at least to me, seems abundantly clear: Google has the attention span of a three year old. They fixate heavily on something for a while... then their attention drifts and they are off to the next shiny thing. They've got a lot of products, but no clear vision or effective management.
Here's a free clue for you: You aren't the center of the universe. The world doesn't revolve around you. Things you care less about are intensely interesting to others. Grow up and deal.
In case you hadn't noticed - the second stage is attached to the first stage.
That's one mechanism for Pogo. It's not the only one.
Yes, so. Or did you even bother to read what you cut and pasted and noted it's absolute failure to define Pogo as only being characteristic of liquid fueled vehicles?
The issue under discussion isn't the level of vibration, but the frequency of the vibration and whether or not that frequency matches a one of the vehicle's resonant frequencies. If it does, then even a modest level of vibration can (if undamped) quickly generate dangerous forces.