Considering that this is one of those things that are virtually perfect for computer automation, how do you know that "real CPAs" won't actually be computers in ten to twenty years?
"Real CPA's" already use computers and programs not so different from TurboTax. The difference is that a "Real CPA" is liable for his mistakes and will stand beside you during an audit (he signs the tax return and is required to do so by law) - Intuit is not liable and will just laugh and say "sucker!".
Even without accounting for proper disposal of nuclear waste, renewable energy already got cheaper than your favorite nuclear power plant.
It didn't however get any more reliable - and that's the long term problem with renewables, not their cost per kw/h. So, even if renewable power were free, we'd still need to burn carbon and split atoms until we figure out how to store terawatts of energy.
Yep. Unless a person listened to very loud music over an extended period of time or worked near power tools on a daily basis year in and year out... 43 is too young to start seeing much damage.
I used to take apart my TVs to put baffling in to cancel out that sound. I am 43 now and I can still hear past 17.5KHz. Why?
Because you can hear higher pitched sounds than the average human. Diligence with hearing protecting has very little to do with it. I have the same range, am almost a decade older than you, and have never been particularly careful about hearing protection - and I can still here those transformers as well.
We can say pretty assuredly say that it got to its final landing stage, was slowly lowering itself to the deck... and then "something" went wrong.
Well, no - we can't say that. Why? Because we don't know that it was slowly lowering itself to the deck. It impacted at 12/ms, but that low speed could have been the result of a long deceleration burn *or* a last second suicide burn. (And in many ways, the second is often a better strategy.)
But you'd have to actually know something about the problem rather than being a drooling fanboi to appreciate that.
I am glad that it was not a total success, otherwise people might get into lazy thinking and not look for bugs. I believe (not sure, cannot cite sources on this), but some airplane was not tested enough because everything happened perfect on testing, it was placed into production (1950's). Over the course of a year or 2, the planes were having issues and a few crashed. And they had to stop production. Some sort of fault in the structure.
You're probably thinking of the Comet - the problems were less ones of insufficient testing than ones of not knowing how to build such an aircraft and what to test for in the first place. Comet was the first jet airliner, and entered service when there wasn't a lot of experience with large jets of any kind.
Either way, no booster is tested in any way close to as much as a typical... well, pretty much anything else is tested. It's not at all unusual for rockets to carry actual payloads on their first launch, and to be declared fully operational after less than a handful.
Exactly. The fact that it landed well enough that they're reporting the "ship itself is fine" means that it was a success. It doesn't take much to damage a rocket/module/anything that flies into space beyond use.
That they landed "well enough" to report the ship is fine means... well, pretty much nothing. It doesn't take much to damage the rocket, but it does takes a great deal to significantly damage a steel barge. (Think hitting a chunk of granite with a wineglass.)
Bah, do what people have been doing for centuries... have kids and make them get up and do it.
When my kids stayed with their grandparents for a month, my electric bill dropped by more than half. You are delusional if you think kids will make your home more efficient.
Really? Because nothing you said supports that notion - because it's inevitable that having fewer people in a house will lead to lower energy consumption regardless of total efficiency. (Fewer loads of laundry, less hot water consumption, rooms unused, etc...)
Or we can remember the Net's original and true essence: it is a set of connections open to anyone.
Um... no. The 'net was originally the ultimate walled garden. Then some squatters snuck over the wall and banded together with some residents and other people lucky enough to gain admittance created a few illicit hangout spots in unused corners... The garden has opened up a bit since those days, but it's still walled and gated just as it's always been.
today, its hard to find things built to last, but it USED to be the norm "before your mother was born", so to speak.
Well, no. While it's true that the race to the bottom has increased over the last few decades - things pretty much have always been "built to sell", and if they lasted that was a bonus rather than a design feature.
Both Uber and the city confirmed that Uber only checks the national requirements, i.e. the driver's credentials. Uber doesn't check that the vehicle is licensed to transport. To be fair, Uber apparently goes above and beyond the minimum checks regarding the driver, doing deeper background checks etc
How is something completely irrelevant to the question at hand "fair"? Why is "fairness" even a question here?
It's pretty much a black and white question, either they ensure their drivers comply with the law, or they don't. Anything else is just smoke and spin.
They sent man to the moon on less CPU horsepower than my Nexus 6.
I wouldn't be too sure of that. While the Apollo guidance computer didn't have much horsepower, it didn't *need* much horsepower... it was mostly a crude control system that performed only very basic calculations. All of the heavy number crunching was done by multiple mainframes on the ground and the results uploaded to the vehicle. Or, to put it another way... the CSM and LM computers were basically peripherals.
If it ain't broke, why fix it?
Because "not broke" doesn't mean "works well". It also doesn't mean "cost efficient". Etc... etc...
There's a book by David Macaulay called City, about ancient Roman cities and their water systems. You should read it.
Yes, I read that kid's book - thirty years ago. Since then, I've read actual history books and actual engineering books.
Mountain springs are not required. A river will do.
Learn to read jackass - I wrote " mountain springs or other sources of water". (But I really shouldn't expect much more from somebody who uses a kids book as a reference.)
The upper limit on capacity as designed by Romans was typically about 50,000.
That's no much as by design as it is the natural limit of what an unpressurized, gravity flow system can provide. The same system would provide for much fewer people nowadays, as our sanitation standards are considerably higher. (Among other things, the Romans didn't shower or bathe as we do today.)
Get back to me when you've at least graduated middle school.
It was quite impolite of you to change my text and write it as if it were a quote.
It's long been a standard practice on Slashdot.
You are doing much worse than arguing against a strawman, you are lying about what I said, and then arguing against that lie.
If you had an IQ anywhere above freezing, you'd realize I put the changed text in italics specifically to set it off from your text. Again, standard practice.
I do not respect the integrity of people who do that.
I don't exactly care about the "respect" of clueless idiots.
And the ancient Romans figured this out, and solved it.
Not really. Water supply was a major problem throughout the Roman period and a major limit on the growth of cities.
It does not require the massive infrastructure that starts with Western toilets to solve this problem. It can be done with wood and stone and gravity, assembled using nothing more than muscle power.
Presuming you have mountain springs or other sources of water at a higher altitude than your city - many places don't. A steady supply of slaves helps too.
The fact that 2 billion people (with far more muscle power at their disposal than the ancient Romans ever had) haven't speaks volumes about the 2 billion people.
No, it's that you completely fail to grasp the limited circumstances under which the aqueduct system work and the very real limits on their capacity.
OTOH, if you expect Science Fiction to be prediction, you're looking in the wrong place. That's not what it's about. What it's about is the author asking himself "what can I write which will sell?".
TFTFY. Yes, some SF is written for prediction or to answer theoretical questions, or some other minded purpose but it's only published if in the publisher's opinion it will sell in sufficient numbers.
There are quite a few orders of Concorde lined up, it was only when some US airports decided to ban it that they dried up. Had they not done that there would have been regular flights to the Middle East and Far East, as well as over the Atlantic.
Huh? American airports didn't prevent flights to the Middle and Far East... The lack of destinations with sufficient traffic put paid to any flights to the Middle East. The enormous logistics costs (due to the fact it couldn't fly non stop) killed flights to the Far East.
In the same vein, it wasn't noise bans which killed the 2707... it still could have flown transoceanic. It was the ever spiraling costs, dodgy performance, and the ever receding delivery dates.
This centuries motto wouldn't be a problem if idiots didn't expect us to Boldly Go - at Bargain Basement prices. And without losing any vehicles. And especially without loosing any lives.
Could you remind me when, say, the Shuttle ever had, say, a countdown terminated after engine fire during holddown, a defective part replaced, and then a launch just a couple hours late?
If the Shuttle were the only other launch vehicle out there, that would be a valid question. Instead, it just exposes you as an ignorant jackass.
Their turnaround is impressive by anybody's standards.
No, it's only impressive if you're completely and utterly ignorant of the launch industry. (Which is essentially the level of knowledge among the members of Drooling Fanboi club.) Otherwise, it's just another fast turnaround, barely worth mentioning at all.
The pro-space camp is a group, I presume, supports evidence-based policy making... except when it comes to their favorite pet projects, then they will concoct any argument they can to convince themselves that their programs have merit.
The pro-space camp often seem like compulsive gamblers to me... we put a couple of nickels in a slot machine back in the 60's and hit the jackpot (weather and communications birds), and they continue to use that to justify pumping in dollars today.
Google is one of the few companies that invests in products that might become useless.
Google is one of the few companies that's rolling around in buckets of cash, and one of the even smaller number of companies whose annual income far exceeds it's annual outlay on it's core products. (In 2013 they spent a hair under a quarter of their income on operations.)
Maybe they should be aware of how much they got back from the investment. Just going to orbit, not landing elsewhere, the impact on everyone's life is all around, from weather/climate prediction to GPSs on phones.
Sure, we invested money back (in unmanned programs) in the 60's, and we're getting major returns from it... but money spent since then? Not so much. (And GPS is a military program, not a NASA program. And the weather birds are a NOAA program, not a NASA program.) Your argument is essentially: "Look at how Kodak's stock performed fifty years ago! That totally means we should invest in Kodak today!".
Slashdot Mirror
"Real CPA's" already use computers and programs not so different from TurboTax. The difference is that a "Real CPA" is liable for his mistakes and will stand beside you during an audit (he signs the tax return and is required to do so by law) - Intuit is not liable and will just laugh and say "sucker!".
As the grandparent said... I'll never understand the logic of Android fanboys.
It doesn't matter that someone else may or may not push the patch - it matters that Google categorically refuses to fix a flaw.
It didn't however get any more reliable - and that's the long term problem with renewables, not their cost per kw/h. So, even if renewable power were free, we'd still need to burn carbon and split atoms until we figure out how to store terawatts of energy.
With everything coming through a cable box... the sound of static on a dead channel.
Yep. Unless a person listened to very loud music over an extended period of time or worked near power tools on a daily basis year in and year out... 43 is too young to start seeing much damage.
Because you can hear higher pitched sounds than the average human. Diligence with hearing protecting has very little to do with it. I have the same range, am almost a decade older than you, and have never been particularly careful about hearing protection - and I can still here those transformers as well.
Well, no - we can't say that. Why? Because we don't know that it was slowly lowering itself to the deck. It impacted at 12/ms, but that low speed could have been the result of a long deceleration burn *or* a last second suicide burn. (And in many ways, the second is often a better strategy.)
But you'd have to actually know something about the problem rather than being a drooling fanboi to appreciate that.
You're probably thinking of the Comet - the problems were less ones of insufficient testing than ones of not knowing how to build such an aircraft and what to test for in the first place. Comet was the first jet airliner, and entered service when there wasn't a lot of experience with large jets of any kind.
Either way, no booster is tested in any way close to as much as a typical... well, pretty much anything else is tested. It's not at all unusual for rockets to carry actual payloads on their first launch, and to be declared fully operational after less than a handful.
That they landed "well enough" to report the ship is fine means... well, pretty much nothing. It doesn't take much to damage the rocket, but it does takes a great deal to significantly damage a steel barge. (Think hitting a chunk of granite with a wineglass.)
Really? Because nothing you said supports that notion - because it's inevitable that having fewer people in a house will lead to lower energy consumption regardless of total efficiency. (Fewer loads of laundry, less hot water consumption, rooms unused, etc...)
Um... no. The 'net was originally the ultimate walled garden. Then some squatters snuck over the wall and banded together with some residents and other people lucky enough to gain admittance created a few illicit hangout spots in unused corners... The garden has opened up a bit since those days, but it's still walled and gated just as it's always been.
Well, no. While it's true that the race to the bottom has increased over the last few decades - things pretty much have always been "built to sell", and if they lasted that was a bonus rather than a design feature.
How is something completely irrelevant to the question at hand "fair"? Why is "fairness" even a question here?
It's pretty much a black and white question, either they ensure their drivers comply with the law, or they don't. Anything else is just smoke and spin.
I wouldn't be too sure of that. While the Apollo guidance computer didn't have much horsepower, it didn't *need* much horsepower... it was mostly a crude control system that performed only very basic calculations. All of the heavy number crunching was done by multiple mainframes on the ground and the results uploaded to the vehicle. Or, to put it another way... the CSM and LM computers were basically peripherals.
Because "not broke" doesn't mean "works well". It also doesn't mean "cost efficient". Etc... etc...
Yes, I read that kid's book - thirty years ago. Since then, I've read actual history books and actual engineering books.
Learn to read jackass - I wrote " mountain springs or other sources of water". (But I really shouldn't expect much more from somebody who uses a kids book as a reference.)
That's no much as by design as it is the natural limit of what an unpressurized, gravity flow system can provide. The same system would provide for much fewer people nowadays, as our sanitation standards are considerably higher. (Among other things, the Romans didn't shower or bathe as we do today.)
Get back to me when you've at least graduated middle school.
It's long been a standard practice on Slashdot.
If you had an IQ anywhere above freezing, you'd realize I put the changed text in italics specifically to set it off from your text. Again, standard practice.
I don't exactly care about the "respect" of clueless idiots.
Not really. Water supply was a major problem throughout the Roman period and a major limit on the growth of cities.
Presuming you have mountain springs or other sources of water at a higher altitude than your city - many places don't. A steady supply of slaves helps too.
No, it's that you completely fail to grasp the limited circumstances under which the aqueduct system work and the very real limits on their capacity.
TFTFY. Yes, some SF is written for prediction or to answer theoretical questions, or some other minded purpose but it's only published if in the publisher's opinion it will sell in sufficient numbers.
Huh? American airports didn't prevent flights to the Middle and Far East... The lack of destinations with sufficient traffic put paid to any flights to the Middle East. The enormous logistics costs (due to the fact it couldn't fly non stop) killed flights to the Far East.
In the same vein, it wasn't noise bans which killed the 2707... it still could have flown transoceanic. It was the ever spiraling costs, dodgy performance, and the ever receding delivery dates.
This centuries motto wouldn't be a problem if idiots didn't expect us to Boldly Go - at Bargain Basement prices. And without losing any vehicles. And especially without loosing any lives.
If the Shuttle were the only other launch vehicle out there, that would be a valid question. Instead, it just exposes you as an ignorant jackass.
No, it's only impressive if you're completely and utterly ignorant of the launch industry. (Which is essentially the level of knowledge among the members of Drooling Fanboi club.) Otherwise, it's just another fast turnaround, barely worth mentioning at all.
As the subject line says.
The pro-space camp often seem like compulsive gamblers to me... we put a couple of nickels in a slot machine back in the 60's and hit the jackpot (weather and communications birds), and they continue to use that to justify pumping in dollars today.
Google is one of the few companies that's rolling around in buckets of cash, and one of the even smaller number of companies whose annual income far exceeds it's annual outlay on it's core products. (In 2013 they spent a hair under a quarter of their income on operations.)
Sure, we invested money back (in unmanned programs) in the 60's, and we're getting major returns from it... but money spent since then? Not so much. (And GPS is a military program, not a NASA program. And the weather birds are a NOAA program, not a NASA program.) Your argument is essentially: "Look at how Kodak's stock performed fifty years ago! That totally means we should invest in Kodak today!".