What's it going to take for mathematicians to get some mainstream coverage?
Mathematicians who produce work that is actually somehow related to the real world. So much of mathematics is mathematics for mathematics sake. Even the more arcane and esoteric branches of physics and cosmology tell us something about our physical world - their mathematic equivalents seem to largely serve as continued employment programs for mathematicians.
Anything is a step in the right direction when you consider what a Luddite the military can be in terms of support applications versus the modern hardware they're running. Training new users on ancient system is very inefficient and dangerous (read the article on their ancient interface hardware!), giving them an interface they recognize makes sense from many angles, including safety.
The problem is - this theory isn't supported by facts. The military was training people on [user] interfaces for decades before the general public knew what an [user] interface was - without suffering from efficiency or safety problems. The military *continues* to train recruits on those interfaces today - again without suffering from efficiency or safety problems.
This suggests that the military should stay it's course - working on interfaces optimized to it's needs rather than to the bias of the general public.
They had some in-house software to program the protection and control devices. That software could also be run under Windows for testing and debugging purposes. I worked on a prototype of an extension of said testing and debugging environment, so I have a bit of experience with this kind of embedded-ish real-time Windows programming, and I must say that Windows is definitely not the way to go for anything like that. It just lacks the flexibility of operating systems made for this sort of task.
Later I found out that what they actually wanted to do is to replace the special-purpose systems with the simulation and debugging environment, all running on Windows because it was supposedly much easier to use and what not.
Actually - it could be argued that replacing the specialized systems with systems identical to that used in simulation and debugging is a smart move. Any experienced programmer or engineer knows that testing what you deploy, and deploying what you test is usually the best way to go.
If the USS Yorktown (CV-5) had been equipped with these systems, we would have lost the Pacific theater in WWII. Rather than continuing to fight after taking torpedo after torpedo after torpedo, her systems would have crashed or been corrupted, and that would have been the end of her fighting ability.
Actually, when you look at all WWII ship losses, rather than cherrypicking - you find multiple cases of ships being lost because a single critical system crashing/faling/being damaged. (Bismark and her rudder, Prince of Wales and her screw, and Hood all come to mind.) Consider the loss of Thresher caused by the cascading effects of a single small leak!
[Snippage the familiar story of Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway.]
The thing you fail to mention (or understand) is this: Yorktown's example is a rare one - well out at the end of the bell curve. Ships like her (and Franklin or Puffer) are the exception, not the rule.
But one failure should never, ever, ever lead to another one. If it does, people die and wars are lost.
Every failure in battle invariably leads to another one - especially if the failure is caused by damage. (Yet nations with ships that suffer so (Hood, Lexington, multiple British BC's at Jutland) do continue on to win the war.
I cannot speak to the rest of the article; but I will say that most of what it says in relation to the HMS Vanguard and Trident (-II) missiles is nothing but pure FUD (those parts that aren't utter nonsense). The missiles and guidance systems are controlled by a variant of the MK98/1 FCS used by the US for the same purpose - and the only significant difference between the two variants is that the UK version is 'cut down' to handle 16 missiles vice the 24 missile version used by the US.
And the 98/1 is incapable of running Windows without a ground up rewrite - it's a (IIRC) 24 bit machine with an architecture that is (to put it mildly) wildly different from a PC.
The line "We're starting to search really hard for things to panic about here." from TFA could more accurately be written "We're writing nonsense here without actually having a clue" - which makes one wonder about the veracity of the remainder of the article. Especially since on a mailing list for sailors and naval professionals (of many nations) I am on, many things about US and UK kit are discussed - but the massive reliability issues TFA brings up (handwaves) are notable by their absence.
The bit in TFA about paper charts is especially telling - because any experienced and knowledgable sailor knows those charts have been retained on purpose. Charts don't crash - and the vast majority of the time they are more than sufficient to the task.
From TFA:
To this very day, RN navigators typically have to track the ship's position in pencil on a paper chart. There is normally no moving-map display of the sort found in every merchant ship - or even minicab. The results of this luddism are often expensive and embarrassing.
More pure FUD - because having a high tech navigation system is no proof against crashing into things. Witness the recent grounding of USS San Francisco - caused by a combination of operator error and a bit of seafloor being less than accurately mapped. (Much of the Earth's water is poorly mapped by modern standards - including harbors!) Equally, consider the hundreds of times a year the RN *does* move in and out of harbor without crashing into things.
I could go on - but I can summarize fairly succinctly; The author of the Register article not only appears to know very little about Naval matters, but he appears to have learned what he does know from USENET trolls and Slashdot. The biography appended to the article indicates he spent his time in EOD - not someone I would expect to be knowledgeable about ship operations. It also reveals he wrote a book detailing the problems with the procurement system - whose Amazon reviews show to contain a systemic bias againt BAE.
My qualifications? (Since the question will come up.) 10 years in the USN Submarine Service working with the MK88 and MK 98 Trident Fire Control Systems, as well as 30 odd years of studying naval technology and issues.
If you had a child who, after seeing this ad, decided to run out and take off in your SUV, and was able to get away with it, there are problems with your parenting so deep and serious that it doesn't matter how many commercials you manage to have banned; your kids are fucked.
A typical slashdot response to a position or statement that they cannot discuss rationally - throw FUD and accusations against the parents. It plays well to the audience and gets you nearly automatic karma.
responsible parenting has gone somewhere; in the process, it also grabbed hold of some of our liberties and took off with them.
Responible parenting means taking responability for parenting your child. It does not mean having the Government step in and do it for you.
Had the goverment stepped in - you'd have a point. But it didn't. The goverment responded to concerns, which is very different from 'stepping in'. (I shouldn't have to point out that responding to the concerns of its citizens is one of the basic functions of goverment.)
The Bismarck battleship had a bug also: when the main turrets would fire, the aiming radars would be disabled. That's no joke when you're in the midst of a battle and everyone of those large caliber shells counts. As I understand, the radars would be disabled by the vibrations of the turret cannons firing. Not a software bug, but bug nonetheless, and you do wonder how did this battleship pass testing.
Why would you wonder? The radar was an experimental _backup_ system for aiming.
Dell used to have a Linux laptop. They discontinued it. Wal-Mart used to have a Linux laptop. They discontinued it. HP used to have a Linux laptop. They discontinued it.
Did you ever think the reason they discountinued it was there was no demand?
You forget one of the Linux Zealots articles of faith - there is a massive demand for Linux on the desktop, and any evidence to the contrary is nothing but corporate FUD. A collary to this belief seems to be that large corporations (supposedly interested in nothing but profit according to another Article Of Faith) will willingly ignore a (supposedly) large market in order to maintain that facade. (That these two articles are mutually exclusive seems to escape them.)
Dell and HP I can see caving to Microsoft - but WalMart? Failure of Linux at Wal-Mart is unequivocal proof that there *isn't* a massive non-geek demand for Linux.
The ad aired late in the evening (8:30 pm or later), but it was pulled due to concern from parents about the copycat risk. What I want to know is, where has the responsibility of parents gone?
Where has the responsibility of parents gone? Nowhere. Responsible parents were concerned about the ad - and voiced their concerns. The Advertising Standards Board responded to those concerns by pulling the ad.
I wish Slashdot reader would grow the hell up and realize parental responsibility covers a lot more ground than blindfolding little Stevie and locking him in his room, or handcuffing little Susie to the parent's hand.
Picture in TFA shows a trailer which you would presumably tow through the streets of Baghdad zapping potential IED's but the opposition in that country have shown that they have the ability to adapt to changed conditions. So the bombs they plant will be in places you can't tow a huge trailer,
You say that like it's a bad thing. The reality in military operations is that limiting the options available to the other side is a good thing.
...have been around for 100's of thousands of years and they are not stupid. Who is to say that 60000 years ago somebody from Indonesia could not possibly have seen most of the world in a lifetime, if they had so desired?
Who is to say? Anyone who has actually studied the matter. Sailing across the ocean is hard - and unpredictable. Walking across an unknown continent equally so.
It's silly because the cost of a battery is more than the cost of running power to each desk.
I take it you've never actually paid a professional to install (and wire) a distribution center, then run the wire to each desk, then to wire an outlet at each desk?
Not to mention that doing so locks the classroom into a single configuration.
I'm equally baffled by the reviewer saying "players must wade through a lot of content." isn't content rather than grind what everyone wants?
It's the eternal paradox of MMO's - the customers want more content in game, but they don't actually want to encounter the content. All they want is the next level easily and painlessly. (Then when they've gotten to the top of the ladder - they whine because there wasn't enough content.)
Or as was recently posted by a player after a round of particularly ludicrous complaints* on the boards of a game I play: The devs should be praised for listening to us at all - I wouldn't.
* An object was recently added to the game that pays homage to an eighties cartoon character. One poster complained that this 'desecrated' her childhood memories 'just as if the devs had poured paint on a picture of Jesus'. (I kid you not - I saw it with my own eyes.)
Forcing him to be the scapegoat? Strange to call someone who committed a crime a scapegoat. Scapegoat (n) "One that is made to bear the blame of others",
Indeed - she is shifting all the blame for his behavior onto him, and absolving herself of all blame. Read her letter, where she describes the discipline imposed on him at great length, but scarcely mentions positive reinforcement or interaction - and mentions love and caring not at all.
You seemed to indicate in your comment that you were inclined to believe the killer more than the step-mother's email. You are free to make your own conclusions of course, but I would generally put more trust in those who have not committed serious crimes than those who have.
I would ask you to consider how many parents/relatives/friends of killers have appeared on national TV insisting, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that it's just not possible that Little Johhny committed those crimes. Then consider how much weight you should give to the contents of her letter.
Thus, I tend to agree with the step-mother's assertion that he is more than likely just bringing up this game-related argument to try to gain sympathy and attention. Also she knows him much better than either of us.
She is biased against him from the start - her inclination is to avoid any situation where a) the blame might come back to her, and b) where he might be treated sympathetically. She is also not a professional psychologist or therapist.
And, if you think about it logically, if she was less concerned with the truth, she could very easily AGREE vocally that video games helped cause her step son's condition. Then she could go after game manufacturers for potential profit.
In world where everyone's sole motivation was money - you'd have a point. This world is not that world. Thus, thinking about it logically _and rationally_ - you do not reach such a conclusion. In fact, from the evidence in her letter - she wishes to cast all the blame on him and to avoid any further examination of her role. And central to any suit against the game manufacturers won't be just his behavior - but hers as well.
It all comes down to this: I think she is being honest.
I see no support for that assumption - if she hates him as much as she professes to, then she has no motivation to be honest.
(Reply entered a second time because I hit 'submit' rather than 'preview'.)
The same thought occurred to me - Gabe plays the "blame the parents" card (a popular meme, sometimes even true), and here she comes along and explains how much she hated him and wanted him gone. Because she plays the don't blame the videogames" card (another popular meme, sometimes even true) - Gabe accepts her letter uncritically at face value.
Huh? Why precisely should we ignore *his* statement, yet accept the statement of someone who is openly antagonistic to him? (Mostly I suspect because it plays to the bias of the PA and/. crowd.)
I don't entirely trust the word of criminals. But I don't trust their relatives either. I've seen too many parents of killers loudly insist that their child couldn't possibly be a killer. This situation, while from the opposite end of the spectrum seems too pat. She doesn't want the child in the first place - and doesn't want any shred of sympathy to be directed towards him.
Aside from that I don't buy her claim that someone with his behavior pattern is intelligent enough to know that he can manipulate the media. And no, that someone can manipulate the cops that easily (if she is to be believed) is not evidence of being intelligent enough to perform such manipulation on a meta level. *Especially* when such low level manipulation of individuals and the police is routinely shown in the media. Widely enough that I've seen it shown on King of the Hill... Heck, I've seen it as far back as Our Gang (Little Rascals).
The same thought occurred to me - Gabe plays the "blame the parents" card (a popular meme, sometimes even true), and here she comes along and explains how much she hated him and wanted him gone.
That claim was made by the stepmother - but reading her writing she seems more concerned with distancing herself from him and forcing him to be the scapegoat. I don't trust the relatives of killers any more than I do killers.
On the gripping hand - I saw an interview where the teen stated quite clearly "when it all started it was just like we were playing a video game". Thus, in his mind at least, there was some connection.
Now, I'm not going to lay all the blame on video games - but to pretend that they have no influence at all is ludicrous.
The story does say that he embedded his trojan program into "several usenet groups used by pedophiles". This may not be the only place he hid the thing to be downloaded, the story's unclear there, but I think that could be considered "reasonable search and seizure".
The problem is that "reasonable search and seizure" does not apply to private citizens - they are not allowed to search and sieze evidence. They are allowed to detain an individual who is in the process of committing a crime (citizen's arrest) - but the same right does not extend to property.
The "news story" is a bit light on content and heavy on hagiography, but he may have legitimately have been trying to catch bad guys here.
His motivations don't matter, actions do. Breaking multiple laws (and each one multiple times) is not excused by the fact that he caught a bad guy.
you're fixated on the destination - sure they are different. Surface activities are only a small fraction of a mission timeline. The environments during the voyage itself are nearly identical (Earth-Moon and Earth-Mars).
They are not identical in any useful sense of the word. Insolation, for example, drops off by (IIRC) 50% between Earth and Mars - so right out of the box there is vast difference in an important design parameter. Then there is the difference between voyage lengths - stuff designed for use on a trip to Mars won't even get a good warmup on a trip to the Moon. (And the stuff that needs to tested in space, like life support equipment, can't usefully be tested on the Lunar surface.) That's just the engineering problems - then there are effects like the steadily increasing communications delay. Then there is the physiological and psychological differences on the crew...
Except that no record of such political pressure exists - an all the evidence tells a consistent story that the idea for Apollo 8 originated within NASA.
(For example - if you wear a spacesuit designed for the Moon on Mars, you'll die. Period. The two suits, among many other things, require very different insulation, joint design, and cooling methods.)
What? Let's see some backup on this claim.
Consider the differences in atmosphere and insolation (temperature) just for starters. No backup is needed - just a few moments thinking about the two enviroments. (Or search sci.space.policy on Google Groups - it's been quite often discussed there.)
They use both suits on the earth in testing, so I'd have to see some hard info.
They use versions of the suits suitably modified for use on Earth - they don't use actual suits. Among other things, lunar (and orbital) suits depend on water sublimination for cooling - impossible in Earth's atmosphere, and difficult in the Martian atmosphere.
You also might want to ring up NASA and tell them their people are apparently spouting nonsense that's 180 degrees from what you believe is needed.
Many thoughtful people in the space community have pointed out the problems with attempting to transfer technology from Lunar exploration to Martian exploration. It isn't what I believe, it's stone cold facts.
the biggest boondoggle in history is that piece of crap that was supposed to replace the space shuttle that cost billions and is sitting unfinished. the idiots chose something that was an idea only over the working prototype.
I've been following the space program for decades - and I have no idea what you are talking about. No Shuttle replacement has gotten so far as a working prototype. X-33 had a few scale models and a full size version under construction - but the full size version was never completed. DC-X/Y was no more a prototype for a Shuttle replacement than a Estes rocket would be.
Slashdot Mirror
Mathematicians who produce work that is actually somehow related to the real world. So much of mathematics is mathematics for mathematics sake. Even the more arcane and esoteric branches of physics and cosmology tell us something about our physical world - their mathematic equivalents seem to largely serve as continued employment programs for mathematicians.
The problem is - this theory isn't supported by facts. The military was training people on [user] interfaces for decades before the general public knew what an [user] interface was - without suffering from efficiency or safety problems. The military *continues* to train recruits on those interfaces today - again without suffering from efficiency or safety problems.
This suggests that the military should stay it's course - working on interfaces optimized to it's needs rather than to the bias of the general public.
Actually - it could be argued that replacing the specialized systems with systems identical to that used in simulation and debugging is a smart move. Any experienced programmer or engineer knows that testing what you deploy, and deploying what you test is usually the best way to go.
Actually, when you look at all WWII ship losses, rather than cherrypicking - you find multiple cases of ships being lost because a single critical system crashing/faling/being damaged. (Bismark and her rudder, Prince of Wales and her screw, and Hood all come to mind.) Consider the loss of Thresher caused by the cascading effects of a single small leak!
[Snippage the familiar story of Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway.]
The thing you fail to mention (or understand) is this: Yorktown's example is a rare one - well out at the end of the bell curve. Ships like her (and Franklin or Puffer) are the exception, not the rule.
Every failure in battle invariably leads to another one - especially if the failure is caused by damage. (Yet nations with ships that suffer so (Hood, Lexington, multiple British BC's at Jutland) do continue on to win the war.
And the 98/1 is incapable of running Windows without a ground up rewrite - it's a (IIRC) 24 bit machine with an architecture that is (to put it mildly) wildly different from a PC.
The line "We're starting to search really hard for things to panic about here." from TFA could more accurately be written "We're writing nonsense here without actually having a clue" - which makes one wonder about the veracity of the remainder of the article. Especially since on a mailing list for sailors and naval professionals (of many nations) I am on, many things about US and UK kit are discussed - but the massive reliability issues TFA brings up (handwaves) are notable by their absence.
The bit in TFA about paper charts is especially telling - because any experienced and knowledgable sailor knows those charts have been retained on purpose. Charts don't crash - and the vast majority of the time they are more than sufficient to the task.
From TFA:
More pure FUD - because having a high tech navigation system is no proof against crashing into things. Witness the recent grounding of USS San Francisco - caused by a combination of operator error and a bit of seafloor being less than accurately mapped. (Much of the Earth's water is poorly mapped by modern standards - including harbors!) Equally, consider the hundreds of times a year the RN *does* move in and out of harbor without crashing into things.
I could go on - but I can summarize fairly succinctly; The author of the Register article not only appears to know very little about Naval matters, but he appears to have learned what he does know from USENET trolls and Slashdot. The biography appended to the article indicates he spent his time in EOD - not someone I would expect to be knowledgeable about ship operations. It also reveals he wrote a book detailing the problems with the procurement system - whose Amazon reviews show to contain a systemic bias againt BAE.
My qualifications? (Since the question will come up.) 10 years in the USN Submarine Service working with the MK88 and MK 98 Trident Fire Control Systems, as well as 30 odd years of studying naval technology and issues.
A typical slashdot response to a position or statement that they cannot discuss rationally - throw FUD and accusations against the parents. It plays well to the audience and gets you nearly automatic karma.
More of the same.
Had the goverment stepped in - you'd have a point. But it didn't. The goverment responded to concerns, which is very different from 'stepping in'. (I shouldn't have to point out that responding to the concerns of its citizens is one of the basic functions of goverment.)
Why would you wonder? The radar was an experimental _backup_ system for aiming.
You forget one of the Linux Zealots articles of faith - there is a massive demand for Linux on the desktop, and any evidence to the contrary is nothing but corporate FUD. A collary to this belief seems to be that large corporations (supposedly interested in nothing but profit according to another Article Of Faith) will willingly ignore a (supposedly) large market in order to maintain that facade. (That these two articles are mutually exclusive seems to escape them.)
Dell and HP I can see caving to Microsoft - but WalMart? Failure of Linux at Wal-Mart is unequivocal proof that there *isn't* a massive non-geek demand for Linux.
Where has the responsibility of parents gone? Nowhere. Responsible parents were concerned about the ad - and voiced their concerns. The Advertising Standards Board responded to those concerns by pulling the ad.
I wish Slashdot reader would grow the hell up and realize parental responsibility covers a lot more ground than blindfolding little Stevie and locking him in his room, or handcuffing little Susie to the parent's hand.
You say that like it's a bad thing. The reality in military operations is that limiting the options available to the other side is a good thing.
Who is to say? Anyone who has actually studied the matter. Sailing across the ocean is hard - and unpredictable. Walking across an unknown continent equally so.
I take it you've never actually paid a professional to install (and wire) a distribution center, then run the wire to each desk, then to wire an outlet at each desk?
Not to mention that doing so locks the classroom into a single configuration.
It's the eternal paradox of MMO's - the customers want more content in game, but they don't actually want to encounter the content. All they want is the next level easily and painlessly. (Then when they've gotten to the top of the ladder - they whine because there wasn't enough content.)
Or as was recently posted by a player after a round of particularly ludicrous complaints* on the boards of a game I play: The devs should be praised for listening to us at all - I wouldn't.
* An object was recently added to the game that pays homage to an eighties cartoon character. One poster complained that this 'desecrated' her childhood memories 'just as if the devs had poured paint on a picture of Jesus'. (I kid you not - I saw it with my own eyes.)
Indeed - she is shifting all the blame for his behavior onto him, and absolving herself of all blame. Read her letter, where she describes the discipline imposed on him at great length, but scarcely mentions positive reinforcement or interaction - and mentions love and caring not at all.
I would ask you to consider how many parents/relatives/friends of killers have appeared on national TV insisting, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that it's just not possible that Little Johhny committed those crimes. Then consider how much weight you should give to the contents of her letter.
She is biased against him from the start - her inclination is to avoid any situation where a) the blame might come back to her, and b) where he might be treated sympathetically. She is also not a professional psychologist or therapist.
In world where everyone's sole motivation was money - you'd have a point. This world is not that world. Thus, thinking about it logically _and rationally_ - you do not reach such a conclusion. In fact, from the evidence in her letter - she wishes to cast all the blame on him and to avoid any further examination of her role. And central to any suit against the game manufacturers won't be just his behavior - but hers as well.
I see no support for that assumption - if she hates him as much as she professes to, then she has no motivation to be honest.
(Reply entered a second time because I hit 'submit' rather than 'preview'.)
/. crowd.)
The same thought occurred to me - Gabe plays the "blame the parents" card (a popular meme, sometimes even true), and here she comes along and explains how much she hated him and wanted him gone. Because she plays the don't blame the videogames" card (another popular meme, sometimes even true) - Gabe accepts her letter uncritically at face value.
Huh? Why precisely should we ignore *his* statement, yet accept the statement of someone who is openly antagonistic to him? (Mostly I suspect because it plays to the bias of the PA and
I don't entirely trust the word of criminals. But I don't trust their relatives either. I've seen too many parents of killers loudly insist that their child couldn't possibly be a killer. This situation, while from the opposite end of the spectrum seems too pat. She doesn't want the child in the first place - and doesn't want any shred of sympathy to be directed towards him.
Aside from that I don't buy her claim that someone with his behavior pattern is intelligent enough to know that he can manipulate the media. And no, that someone can manipulate the cops that easily (if she is to be believed) is not evidence of being intelligent enough to perform such manipulation on a meta level. *Especially* when such low level manipulation of individuals and the police is routinely shown in the media. Widely enough that I've seen it shown on King of the Hill... Heck, I've seen it as far back as Our Gang (Little Rascals).
The same thought occurred to me - Gabe plays the "blame the parents" card (a popular meme, sometimes even true), and here she comes along and explains how much she hated him and wanted him gone.
She plays the don't blame the videogames" card -
That claim was made by the stepmother - but reading her writing she seems more concerned with distancing herself from him and forcing him to be the scapegoat. I don't trust the relatives of killers any more than I do killers.
On the gripping hand - I saw an interview where the teen stated quite clearly "when it all started it was just like we were playing a video game". Thus, in his mind at least, there was some connection.
Now, I'm not going to lay all the blame on video games - but to pretend that they have no influence at all is ludicrous.
The problem is that "reasonable search and seizure" does not apply to private citizens - they are not allowed to search and sieze evidence. They are allowed to detain an individual who is in the process of committing a crime (citizen's arrest) - but the same right does not extend to property.
His motivations don't matter, actions do. Breaking multiple laws (and each one multiple times) is not excused by the fact that he caught a bad guy.
They are not identical in any useful sense of the word. Insolation, for example, drops off by (IIRC) 50% between Earth and Mars - so right out of the box there is vast difference in an important design parameter. Then there is the difference between voyage lengths - stuff designed for use on a trip to Mars won't even get a good warmup on a trip to the Moon. (And the stuff that needs to tested in space, like life support equipment, can't usefully be tested on the Lunar surface.) That's just the engineering problems - then there are effects like the steadily increasing communications delay. Then there is the physiological and psychological differences on the crew...
What transforms it into laziness on your part is when you start to blame to technology for your own failing - I.E. loss of memory.
Except that no record of such political pressure exists - an all the evidence tells a consistent story that the idea for Apollo 8 originated within NASA.
Consider the differences in atmosphere and insolation (temperature) just for starters. No backup is needed - just a few moments thinking about the two enviroments. (Or search sci.space.policy on Google Groups - it's been quite often discussed there.)
They use versions of the suits suitably modified for use on Earth - they don't use actual suits. Among other things, lunar (and orbital) suits depend on water sublimination for cooling - impossible in Earth's atmosphere, and difficult in the Martian atmosphere.
Many thoughtful people in the space community have pointed out the problems with attempting to transfer technology from Lunar exploration to Martian exploration. It isn't what I believe, it's stone cold facts.
I've been following the space program for decades - and I have no idea what you are talking about. No Shuttle replacement has gotten so far as a working prototype. X-33 had a few scale models and a full size version under construction - but the full size version was never completed. DC-X/Y was no more a prototype for a Shuttle replacement than a Estes rocket would be.