I spent a couple hours over a couple of days monitoring and fixing the Kerry entry. I got tired of the vandalism and let someone else take over, but it could have been a part-time job. That was in May 2004, so i can imagine the vandalism happening later was much more fast and furious.
I called the Chicago Kerry campaign HQ to alert them of the need for someone to do this, but the luddite answering the phone was unimpressed with the need to do this work. Alas.
Engineering has a principle of 'characterization'. You characterize a part by determining what it does under all the circumstances you can think of. You end up knowing exactly how/when/where it fails with good statistical accuracy.
NASA needs to order raw materials and pay by the pound C.O.D. (Cash On Delivery), auctioned off to lowest bidder.
For person-rated craft, NASA needs to choose the reliabilty of the craft they're willing to pay for, and publish it. Yes, cold hearted. But yes, necessary. That puts firm dollar figures in front of the vehicle manufacturers. That allows them to characterize every component of the craft and go through successive iterations of design to improve the reliability.
I believe P&W, Allis, Boeing, MD, et al have well-characterized engines now, but they don't have the volume necessary or the incentive to deliver the goods. We can do better with competitive bidding, newer vehicle design, and less political input into NASA technical decisions (egad the Shuttle is old, let it retire).
Pay for delivery, let the private sector drive the process.
Anyone who believes that the mainstream media lean to the right is either a complete fucking moron or a Communist.
Although flamebait, this is an interesting response - it indicates several things to me:
the lack of acceptance that Fox "news" is in a sense "mainstream"; as much as I disgree with them, I accept the fact that they reach a large percentage of the U.S. and British population, and therefore deserve 'mainstream' status;
there is a presumption that it is even Possible to classify mainstream media as being on the right or left;
the complete acceptance put forth by the conservative / neoconservative / Republican / right that most media editors are to the left of center;
the absence of people on the left making the assertion that the media is biased to the right (thus the strong, contemptous language;
the misunderstanding of the term 'Communist', most probably confusing it with 'socialist', though the term 'liberal' (even someone only slightly left of center) would probably qualifiy in this author's mind as perjorative (an insult).
Flamebait is sometimes useful in what it does NOT say as well as the presumptions it seems to make.
The "biased media" card plays both ways. Despite my fervent belief that there are far more neoconservative biases in major news stories than liberal biases, but my view itself is influenced by reading these biased stories in the Chicago Tribune (a rather conservative but mostly balanced paper).
reliable Iraqi civilians feeding them information...
I would ask, who better to ask? If you're in Iraq, and you want unbiased information about who is dead, you have to ask the people who were there... Iraqis. Asking military folk will probably get you only a limited perspective.
Reality even locally in Chicago is in the eye of the beholder. Some facts can be checked, though. Iraqbodycount.org is counting actual names of people killed in Iraq as well as verified news reports. Poll after poll of people in other countries show they hate our policies of go-it-alone empire building, stomping on downtrodden peoples and blowing up civilians. When will it stop? When we do something about it. Vote, please?
Poor government and corporate transparency (enables wise investments), leads to poor use of capital;
poor court systems - rapid growth in new commercial lawsuits, no infrastructure;
vast environmental damage that won't really hit for 20 years but when it does it will be very, very bad;
poor roads and rails infrastructure (political not market driven locations/sizes);
little democratic traditions on local levels (feeding county/state/federal governmental structures' elected officials)
history of totalitarian regimes - "never underestimate the ability of a country to act the same as it has in the past";
strong pressure to limit political change ("those that disallow little peaceful revolutions invite big violent revolutions")
unstable authoritarian bordering regimes (North Korea and others);
educational systems based on rote learning instead of independent questioning;
increasing instability in currency markets from rapid growth & partial convertability of Won to Euro/Dollar/etc.
Internet technolgies uncapping info wall keeping electorate in dark about bad government actions without allowing corresponding social networks of interested reformers to push for change legitimately
Just a couple of items on China's plate right now. Of course, a space program gains prestige. But it also takes the minds of your citizens off the fact that their lives are rapidly changing, and too-rapid change coupled with social dislocation breeds for backlash (examples abound).
And you wondered about the role of China in the world economy. Their space program is a (possibly helpful) diversion and may be worth the money even if the only thing it does is inspire the kids of 1.x billion people to think about tech change in the engineering terms of 'gradually building on the shoulders of giants' instead of 'fearsome magic wrought at our expense'.
And all I know is what I read in the Economist. Just think what the World Bank's experts know. Let's hope they know enough to help. -- Kevin J. Rice
There should be some simple rules to reduce or eliminate conflicts of interest when it comes to voter registration and elimination:
the Secretary of State for a State should be required by law to publish the names of anyone convicted of a felony (this is public knowledge anyway) on a website and in a set of major newspapers, once per year only, in June before a November election.
The list should include their full name and voter registration number (on their voter registration card).
The voter registration numbers and social security numbers of the felons, as well as contact information, must be verified by two major accounting firms to be equal.
Any challenge to that list by the person on it should red-flag it
Any red-flagged entries must be proven to be correct to a judge using documentary evidence from the department of corrections.
As I mentioned above in a reply to that post, the varying depth of tabs can really get you in trouble.
My editor (http://ultraedit.com/, when I hit the tab key, insert 4 spaces. Thus the ease of tabbing over to column 20 is indeed 4 keypresses. However, if my coworker does the same thing with his tab settings at 8, he hits tab twice and then puts in 4 spaces to align it. Ug. Or, hits tab 10 times if he's using a tabsize of 2. Yuck again.
Emperically, you want a study that says that mixed use wastes time vs. just paying attention. I think that's a good idea for a study at CMU, but I already have experinced the massive sucking sound of my time being wasted cleaning up and aligning code so it looks clean and straight (yah, being a little anal retentive, but it actaully saves time in the long run).
I believe this to be a RELIGIOUS issue and thus we'll never convert each other. I apologize if I've offended your God; I recognize he exists but chose not to worship him, I've got my own.
-- Kevin
Re:some comments
on
Optimizing Perl
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· Score: 4, Insightful
4. Tabs: Tab is a nasty character that is not visibly different from x number of spaces. Lots of people like tabs. That's fine. Lots of people don't. That's fine, too. But, when 2 people work on the same code, bad stuff happens. Spaces ALWAYS get mixed in. This is bad. The easiest method to elim this prob is No Tab Chars. This can get religious, but BADLY ALIGNED CODE LEADS TO CODING ERRORS! This is a frequent mistake and costs time (and therefore money and anger).
6. The "bullshit... personal taste" aspect of brace alignment is both true and misleading. Really, it doesn't matter which way you do it, as long as you're consistent. But, with multiple people working on the same code, consistency is difficult. I've always done it with left brace on the left margin so I could easily see what lined up where. If your rule is opposite, fine, but USE ONLY ONE and code looks much nicer.
13. UNLESS (pardon my french) = stronzino (a little piece of shit). It's in the language to assist removal of a single ! 'not'. This can really confuse people. I'm not the smartest guy, nor the dumbest, but sometimes I see it and just go, "huh?". I'm not used to it. Neither have been many other Perl coders I know when we've spoken about it.
14. I take it by "Bah" you don't like scripts to log their actions. I've fought this recently with a 'know-it-all' type who wanted to build something fancy to do logging "when I get around to it". Yuck. Keep it simple, log what's going on so you can trace it later. Simple text files with "just did this, value=12" can help tremendously in debugging production problems. Users never know what they did; error messages never can contain enough info about what happened before.
16. GOTOs are evil. I admit to some brainwashing by CS profs on this, but have dealt with enough spaghetti code to agree with it. Yes, there are times when it's good. But, in my last 100,000 lines of Perl, I haven't had to use it yet. So, it must not be vital. My goal is simplicity of code, not speed, since who cares about speed most of the time anyway, unless it's really bad, in which case there's probably somethign you're doing wrong otherwise.
18. $_ is valuable only until you need to know what's in it. Then, you need a real variable name. You also may need that var to stick around past the next function call. I say, use 'my $request = $_; ' or something to grab $_ and make it obvious.
21. Declaring vars near use is good ONLY in subs. If you have:
exit(main()); sub main {
do_jack($GV_DEF_ONE); } my $GV_DEF_ONE = 12; sub do_jack { .... }
you'll get an error during parsing due to GV_DEF_ONE not being declared yet.
Regardless, Global vars are hard enough to spot and should be rare, declare them all at the top of the module to make it bloody obvious you're using one.
22. I can sometimes agree to my ($a, $b) = split(',',@inlist); but not disparate vars all crammed together on one line, it's not readable, the vars are hidden, not aligned and initialized, etc.
29. Lines of hashes visually indicate end of file. I can always tell I have the last page of a printout when all my files end with 5 or so rows of hashes. Just convention and a good idea, not a hard-fast rule.
Here's My Style Guide
on
Optimizing Perl
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· Score: 5, Informative
I know, many people means many styles. Here's my style guide, something I developed using Perl for over 5 years now.
Pardon the length, it's unavoidable.
Perl Coding Conventions and Style Guide By Kevin J. Rice, Kevin@justanyone.com
General conventions:
Read the Perl style guide (http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/perl/pod/perlst yle.html), and follow the conventions therein, especially the following:
4-column indent
Blank lines between chunks that do different things.
Use mnemonic variables- the names must mean something useful. No one character names!
Variable naming conventions: $ALL_CAPS_HERE constants only (beware clashes with perl vars!); $Some_Caps_Here package-wide global/static (also prefix 'gv_', see below); $no_caps_here function scope my() or local() variables;
Be consistent.
Be nice.
Specific Coding Practices:
1. Always do a 'use strict;' at the beginning of every module and script. This catches both subtle errors and bad coding practices.
2. Programs should pass 'use warnings;' with a minimum of warnings before going into production. Note: turning off warnings in production is sometimes required for security or stability purposes. Solve root cause for all warnings if possible; don't just eliminate immediate cause.
3. Turn on Taint checking for all cgi / web enabled scripts. Invoke with "perl -T" or "#!/usr/bin/perl -T".
4. Use spaces for indenting, not tab characters. No file should contain any tab characters. These display differently in various terminals/editors, and mixing spaces and tabs makes code very messy. Most modern editors can be set to automatically insert spaces in place of tabs.
5. Each subroutine should perform one distinct task. Feel free to break down lengthy (i.e., more than 1-2 screenfuls of code) subs. This means almost all subroutines should be 120 lines or less; longer ones should be justified in code review.
6. Code blocks, when more than 1 or 2 lines, should have the block { } at the same indentation level to aid visual clarity of where that block starts/stops. Example:
7. Fully parenthesize stuff like "if ($a >= 5 || $b > 4)" into "if (($a >= 5) || ($b > 4))" so the user has no need to know/get wrong the order-of-operations. This includes one line conditionals like, "if (a) {}" - don't do: "if a {}".
8. Evals: Always use evals when doing system calls. If otherwise using them, always comment/explain why. If you know something might 'die', explain it specifically, since it probably isn't obvious.
9. Explicitly 'return' values at the end of every sub. Don't EVER use the last statement's value as a default return value; someone modifying the code later might not know you're depending on that value.
10. All modules must explicitly end with '1;' to provide a return value for the module.
11. Minimize the use of map() due to its confusing nature.
12. Use parentheses around all function calls, such as sort($a, $b) instead of "sort $a $b;" to make it obvious a function call is occurring. Prefer not to use the Perl subroutine operator, as in "&subroutinename($arg1, $arg2);" just do "subroutinename($arg1, $arg2);".
13. Don't use the 'unless' verb. Instead of, "unless($foo) {...}", code: "if (!$foo) {...}". The 'unless' verb is plenty confusing due to its uniqueness to Perl.
14. Modules and scripts, when over 200 or so lines, should have a logMessage() subroutine that allows for various levels of logging (0=silent, 1=minimal, 4=normal, 8=verbose): logMessage(1, "message");
15. Use a main() sub for all scripts, and include an explicit exit with an exit code appropriate to the platform you're on. Do not
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOUNG PROGRAMMERS TO LEARN IS READABILITY.
Yes, code must work, it must error check and be stable. Good design is an obvious requirement. But, too many young programmers don't know the true value to business of code readability. I'm a 15-year veteran primarily in C, C++, Perl, Java, and alas, Cobol. I've seen crappy code for years as a contractor, coming in to fix problems or add features.
The statistics on business costs bear me out. Nearly 50% of the cost of a program is incurred during the long in-use / maintenance phase. There are definite rules for making code readable and they should be taught early.
Practice during programming classes should include: * Code reviews - other people looking at your code; * Code reviews - reviewing other people's code and asking lots of questions; * Style guides - rules re: what coding style (where to put curly braces, for one) to use on a project are common, be prepared for them; * Simplification paradigms - stuff like avoid do_while loops since they're seldom used and often just confuse people; * Reliability lessons - lessons like don't use while(1) loops with breaks, rather for(1..n) with an overlarge n and subsequent test if N got big to know if things failed; * Max Subroutine sizes - too often violated but a bigger deal than you think; * Global variable minimization - sometimes it does make it simpler to use a global variable, just keep it to a minimum;
Lots of these rules apply. SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY! It speeds up everyone's life.
I read the Chicago Tribune every (95%+) morning. I don't generally miss anything in section 1, but I skim stuff in sections 2 (our Metro-area news).
Frankly, I would not even get close to seeing a full page advert in any section besides 1. Does this project seek to put the page in a leading section or in one of those 'Tempo', 'Sports', 'LifeStyles', or 'Living' sections? If so, what is the projected viewership?
Not to be casting aspersions on people my parent's age, but: Of those reading papers at all, which of them surf commonly, or even know how to download and install a program?
Significant challenges for our children's generation will include:
loss of biodiversity, especially oceanic
at least one more large-scale nuclear "meltdown" (my suspicion, given current trends);
Complications of Global warming
Shifting from petroleum-based energy to other sources (inevitable) causing (yet) more instability in arab socio-political structures
U.S. Social Security baby-boom-bubble shifting demographics placing a very, very high tax burden;
increasing speed and longevity of communications means a silly photo at a high-school or college party or an ill-thought-out possibly-anti-(insert-minority-group-here) comment posted on a newsgroup can last until your first senate candidacy;
Inability or reduced ability to 'reinvent' oneself after a life change due to increasing availability of personal info;
possible deflation in U.S./world due to U.S. trade imbalance and rise of EU and China as global powers;
economic and geographic dislocation if a bioweapon or other epidemic causes mass evacuations near population centers;
Rising pro-"American Empire" (neoconservatism) causing wars that kill them;
Rising religious fundamentalism (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Seikh, etc.) again causing inter-religion and intra-religion wars as there were in the 1600's and 1700's;
Yah, this list is kind of scarey, but I'm sure you can think of others more and less likely.
I see a series of technical problems with this propulsion method. To summarize, the method is a variation on ground-laser-assisted flight. It envisions a space station shooting a beam of magnetized particles towards the ship, which are caught by a sail and used to boost the ship's velocity.
1. NO ACCELERATION TOWARDS THE STATION. This only works in one direction, it will not help the astronauts REETURN HOME. 2. No Acceleration during critical orbital adjustment maneuvers. This includes slingshot trajectories behind another body in space like a planet. 3. No mention of effects of beamed particles on astronauts on the ship. Is this beam a significant plasma stream? If so, when it hits the spaceship, it will kick out some nasty E-M (gamma, Xrays), heat up the ship perhaps radiologically, and do ugly things to any electronics that are hanging off the side of the ship. 4. If the beam is magnetic particles, this would have to be Iron, right? Tell me you're going to boost IRON into orbit to propel a ship. MV^2 says that's a bad bang for your buck, methinks. 5. If the beam is statically charged particles, are you going to accumulate a static charge on the ship? Won't that do nasty things to the electronics and possibly kill people who accidentally remain ungrounded for a time period?
Call me and tell me if they actually put this charged-particle gun on a moving surface to use the mv^2 for propulsion instead of Grand Space Gun theatrics instead of solidly reliable engine designs that start, restart, re-re-start (ad infinitium), when, where, how, you need them, with a variable thrust vector.
Please cite any source that claims a 30 minute-long fatal exposure dose for any near-Earth location.
As I understand things, from (among other books) Zubrin's "The Case For Mars" as well as ample proof from the ISS and our own Apollo moon missions, merely being in space does not mean fatal radiation doses are inevitable.
Rather, space travel does involve higher doses than one would receive on the ground, or (say) in a mineshaft. But that doesn't mean these doses are fatal, or even that they significantly impact long term health.
I remain interested if ANYONE can cite specific data (hopefully from a reputable source) saying that radiation doses in space are near fatal in the time frame envisioned for a Mars mission or, or any other popularly conceived-of mission aside from a manned mission to Jupiter, which does have significant radiation belts.
Methods for doing this; Russia good as any place
on
Russian Mock Mars Mission
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've thought about this concept for a while.
It seems likely that a significant fraction of a prolonged Mars mission would be spent inside a habitat building. That building would be functionally isolated from the outside. Also, simulating the trip there and back would also be valuable.
I would like to suggest a mineshaft. Several parallel shafts could be used to monitor the progress of the team and provide emergency egress (exits).
If the shaft were dug in a suitably solid rock, it could be sprayed with concrete, then some kind of waterproofing plastic compound. This would seal it and allow good simulation of water and air consumption. Other options, like "sealed" metal containers, might be more expensive to construct, but it's another option.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
Just some ideas. Biodome was obviously a learning process from the "sealed in" perspective and from the biodiversity perspective as well. I just wonder if there's a lower tech method for doing this experiment, and if so, I have confidence that the "plucky" Russian improvisational character stereotype is up to the challenge.
Many other nations make Election day a holiday. We should have election day as a Work & School holiday.It would solve problems:
with too-few people voting since there's far more time to do it and less hassle;
evening news coverage couldn't influence the election since most people would have voted by then;
It would reinforce the idea that democracy requires attention and is important;
people attempting to vote at the wrong precinct would have time to get to the right one;
More professionals could volunteer to work at polling stations, which would speed vote counting and allow for disabled people to be assisted by people of both parties;
We would get another vacation day;
A better-educated cross section of college students and "slacker-class" (Jon Stewart's term) would vote since the ones too drunk from "no-class-tommorrow" syndrome would have too big a hangover to vote, while the nerdier non-drinkers would vote more reliably.
when the next shuttle explodes we can have the radioactive material distrubuted higher in the atmosphere?
I AGREE, THE SHUTTLE SUCKS. (go ScaledComposites!) I was speaking of space vehicles availble to my grandchildren (presuming, again God Willing, that the humanity doesn't suffer another dark age from some catastrophe or another).
Taking a 4 hour automobile trip has a small but finite chance of destroying the car and its contents. As soon as our record for getting things out of Earth's gravity well is as good, let's consider using that method to push some waste off-planet.
By the way, by 'Off Planet', I mean completely - not just off Earth, but plummeting into the sun or something. Obviously, the sun puts out more nasty radiation in 10^-8th of a second than in all the world's nuclear waste piles .
IMHO, this indicates that airborne radiation levels only are declining. Data from the artic would not seemingly have anything to say about the contaminated soil and water in the polluted areas of the Ukraine.
Since the Chernobyl plant exploded and burned for days, large amounts of radioactive material was spread over a broad surrounding area, borne aloft by wind currents. The highly contaminated radioactive smoke that poured out of the plant may have now settled out of the planet-wide atmosphere, but that still leaves a lot of radioactive waste embedded in the soil and water surrounding the plant for (tens of? hundreds of?) miles.
I do not object to nuclear power generation. It does not generate CO2, NO2, SO2, or other nasty pollutants that are spread widely and cause other effects. Rather, it concentrates the waste in a nasty form that we then have to safely cope with. I believe the best place for this stuff is probably off-planet, but until we get that capability, let's put it in a well-guarded, well-controlled area.
I also am willing to help pay for the cleanup of Soviet-era radioactive waste - it may affect my children.
The LONG TERM SOLUTION would seem to be SOLAR or aneutronic (non-neutron-emitting) Fusion. I will vote for a candidate who has solid development of those. My great great grandchildren (God willing) will thank me for saving the planet for them.
Several Questions: 1. Translucent? 2. Melting point? 3. Stable at STP ? 4. Does It Burn if I touch a match to it? Explode? 5. Does it resemble N2, which is stable, or not? 6. What is the hardness level (Mohr's scale) ? 7. Will it degrade over time under exposure to water? 8. Is the method for creating it highly expensive or could this be scaled up? 9. If it is explosive, how do we store it safely? 10. What are the mechanical properties? If it's stable and otherwise useful, will it vibrate with a piezoelectric effect? 11. Is it a semiconductor, conductor, or insulator? 12. Does it lase (can we use it as a pump medium for a laser) ?
MWMV (married white male voter) iso any mediocre-looking, charismatic uberbrain presidential candidates who understand my long term needs. Should have complex worldview, speak multiple languages, have deep policymaking experience and like kittens. No fearmongering alarmists need call. Should be pro-space but anti-NASA bureacracy; anti-shuttle and pro-X-prize. Should enjoy long hours, few vacations, and tolerate lack of privacy without being an exhibitionist. Ability to not vomit on Japanese prime ministers a plus, Pro-solar/wind a plus. MUST HAVE EXCELLENT GRAMMAR AND VOCAB. Should be treehugger but understand natural role of forest fires. Interested? Apply by starting campaign for city council or school board, I'll watch the papers for your picture! Kisses in advance if you're female. --Yours, John Quepooblic.
I took this test two weeks ago. IT IS HEAVILY BIASED TOWARDS BUSH. The test is a push poll, a type of poll that askes biased questions in the hopes of directing people in one direction or another.
Specifically, the test's first set of questions dealt with taxes. The question was something like "Are you in favor of more taxes or fewer taxes?" and gave the nod to Bush for being for lower taxes.
This hides the true position of both candidates. Bush and the Republican congress have passed the tax cuts that gave most of the benefits to the richest 1 percent, and barely anything to the middle class or working-class poor.
Kerry has proposed repealing the tax cut (also known as "raising taxes") on the richest 1% in order to pay for important social spending (medicare = healthcare so the very poor and children don't die). Do you want to pay less taxes so children die from not having immunizations, antibiotics when they're sick, fixed broken bones, etc.?
SelectSmart has a good set of polls for other things, but I found this poll to be VERY VERY BIASED and would challenge anyone taking it to consider the way the questions are asked.
Slashdot Mirror
I spent a couple hours over a couple of days monitoring and fixing the Kerry entry. I got tired of the vandalism and let someone else take over, but it could have been a part-time job. That was in May 2004, so i can imagine the vandalism happening later was much more fast and furious.
I called the Chicago Kerry campaign HQ to alert them of the need for someone to do this, but the luddite answering the phone was unimpressed with the need to do this work. Alas.
--Kevin
Enough for now...
Until Microsoft slides more money under the door...
"Old == Good" only if "old == well-used".
Engineering has a principle of 'characterization'. You characterize a part by determining what it does under all the circumstances you can think of. You end up knowing exactly how/when/where it fails with good statistical accuracy.
NASA needs to order raw materials and pay by the pound C.O.D. (Cash On Delivery), auctioned off to lowest bidder.
For person-rated craft, NASA needs to choose the reliabilty of the craft they're willing to pay for, and publish it. Yes, cold hearted. But yes, necessary. That puts firm dollar figures in front of the vehicle manufacturers. That allows them to characterize every component of the craft and go through successive iterations of design to improve the reliability.
I believe P&W, Allis, Boeing, MD, et al have well-characterized engines now, but they don't have the volume necessary or the incentive to deliver the goods. We can do better with competitive bidding, newer vehicle design, and less political input into NASA technical decisions (egad the Shuttle is old, let it retire).
Pay for delivery, let the private sector drive the process.
-- Kevin
Anyone who believes that the mainstream media lean to the right is either a complete fucking moron or a Communist.
Although flamebait, this is an interesting response - it indicates several things to me:
- the lack of acceptance that Fox "news" is in a sense "mainstream"; as much as I disgree with them, I accept the fact that they reach a large percentage of the U.S. and British population, and therefore deserve 'mainstream' status;
- there is a presumption that it is even Possible to classify mainstream media as being on the right or left;
- the complete acceptance put forth by the conservative / neoconservative / Republican / right that most media editors are to the left of center;
- the absence of people on the left making the assertion that the media is biased to the right (thus the strong, contemptous language;
- the misunderstanding of the term 'Communist', most probably confusing it with 'socialist', though the term 'liberal' (even someone only slightly left of center) would probably qualifiy in this author's mind as perjorative (an insult).
Flamebait is sometimes useful in what it does NOT say as well as the presumptions it seems to make.-- Kevin
The "biased media" card plays both ways. Despite my fervent belief that there are far more neoconservative biases in major news stories than liberal biases, but my view itself is influenced by reading these biased stories in the Chicago Tribune (a rather conservative but mostly balanced paper).
reliable Iraqi civilians feeding them information...
I would ask, who better to ask? If you're in Iraq, and you want unbiased information about who is dead, you have to ask the people who were there... Iraqis. Asking military folk will probably get you only a limited perspective.
Reality even locally in Chicago is in the eye of the beholder. Some facts can be checked, though. Iraqbodycount.org is counting actual names of people killed in Iraq as well as verified news reports. Poll after poll of people in other countries show they hate our policies of go-it-alone empire building, stomping on downtrodden peoples and blowing up civilians. When will it stop? When we do something about it. Vote, please?
Forces on China include:
- Very rapid urbanization from population migration;
- Rapid economic growth
- Poor banking & financials regulations & enforcement
- Poor government and corporate transparency (enables wise investments), leads to poor use of capital;
- poor court systems - rapid growth in new commercial lawsuits, no infrastructure;
- vast environmental damage that won't really hit for 20 years but when it does it will be very, very bad;
- poor roads and rails infrastructure (political not market driven locations/sizes);
- little democratic traditions on local levels (feeding county/state/federal governmental structures' elected officials)
- history of totalitarian regimes - "never underestimate the ability of a country to act the same as it has in the past";
- strong pressure to limit political change ("those that disallow little peaceful revolutions invite big violent revolutions")
- unstable authoritarian bordering regimes (North Korea and others);
- educational systems based on rote learning instead of independent questioning;
- increasing instability in currency markets from rapid growth & partial convertability of Won to Euro/Dollar/etc.
- Internet technolgies uncapping info wall keeping electorate in dark about bad government actions without allowing corresponding social networks of interested reformers to push for change legitimately
Just a couple of items on China's plate right now. Of course, a space program gains prestige. But it also takes the minds of your citizens off the fact that their lives are rapidly changing, and too-rapid change coupled with social dislocation breeds for backlash (examples abound).And you wondered about the role of China in the world economy. Their space program is a (possibly helpful) diversion and may be worth the money even if the only thing it does is inspire the kids of 1.x billion people to think about tech change in the engineering terms of 'gradually building on the shoulders of giants' instead of 'fearsome magic wrought at our expense'.
And all I know is what I read in the Economist. Just think what the World Bank's experts know. Let's hope they know enough to help.
-- Kevin J. Rice
Doug:
As I mentioned above in a reply to that post, the varying depth of tabs can really get you in trouble.
My editor (http://ultraedit.com/, when I hit the tab key, insert 4 spaces. Thus the ease of tabbing over to column 20 is indeed 4 keypresses. However, if my coworker does the same thing with his tab settings at 8, he hits tab twice and then puts in 4 spaces to align it. Ug. Or, hits tab 10 times if he's using a tabsize of 2. Yuck again.
Emperically, you want a study that says that mixed use wastes time vs. just paying attention. I think that's a good idea for a study at CMU, but I already have experinced the massive sucking sound of my time being wasted cleaning up and aligning code so it looks clean and straight (yah, being a little anal retentive, but it actaully saves time in the long run).
I believe this to be a RELIGIOUS issue and thus we'll never convert each other. I apologize if I've offended your God; I recognize he exists but chose not to worship him, I've got my own.
-- Kevin
6. The "bullshit... personal taste" aspect of brace alignment is both true and misleading. Really, it doesn't matter which way you do it, as long as you're consistent. But, with multiple people working on the same code, consistency is difficult. I've always done it with left brace on the left margin so I could easily see what lined up where. If your rule is opposite, fine, but USE ONLY ONE and code looks much nicer.
13. UNLESS (pardon my french) = stronzino (a little piece of shit). It's in the language to assist removal of a single ! 'not'. This can really confuse people. I'm not the smartest guy, nor the dumbest, but sometimes I see it and just go, "huh?". I'm not used to it. Neither have been many other Perl coders I know when we've spoken about it.
14. I take it by "Bah" you don't like scripts to log their actions. I've fought this recently with a 'know-it-all' type who wanted to build something fancy to do logging "when I get around to it". Yuck. Keep it simple, log what's going on so you can trace it later. Simple text files with "just did this, value=12" can help tremendously in debugging production problems. Users never know what they did; error messages never can contain enough info about what happened before.
16. GOTOs are evil. I admit to some brainwashing by CS profs on this, but have dealt with enough spaghetti code to agree with it. Yes, there are times when it's good. But, in my last 100,000 lines of Perl, I haven't had to use it yet. So, it must not be vital. My goal is simplicity of code, not speed, since who cares about speed most of the time anyway, unless it's really bad, in which case there's probably somethign you're doing wrong otherwise.
18. $_ is valuable only until you need to know what's in it. Then, you need a real variable name. You also may need that var to stick around past the next function call. I say, use 'my $request = $_; ' or something to grab $_ and make it obvious.
21. Declaring vars near use is good ONLY in subs. If you have:you'll get an error during parsing due to GV_DEF_ONE not being declared yet.
Regardless, Global vars are hard enough to spot and should be rare, declare them all at the top of the module to make it bloody obvious you're using one.
22. I can sometimes agree to my ($a, $b) = split(',',@inlist); but not disparate vars all crammed together on one line, it's not readable, the vars are hidden, not aligned and initialized, etc.
29. Lines of hashes visually indicate end of file. I can always tell I have the last page of a printout when all my files end with 5 or so rows of hashes. Just convention and a good idea, not a hard-fast rule.
Here's my style guide, something I developed using Perl for over 5 years now.
Pardon the length, it's unavoidable.
Perl Coding Conventions and Style Guide
By Kevin J. Rice, Kevin@justanyone.com
General conventions:
Read the Perl style guide (http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/CPAN/perl/pod/perlst yle.html), and follow the conventions therein, especially the following:
4-column indent
Blank lines between chunks that do different things.
Use mnemonic variables- the names must mean something useful. No one character names!
Variable naming conventions:
$ALL_CAPS_HERE constants only (beware clashes with perl vars!);
$Some_Caps_Here package-wide global/static (also prefix 'gv_', see below);
$no_caps_here function scope my() or local() variables;
Be consistent.
Be nice.
Specific Coding Practices:
1. Always do a 'use strict;' at the beginning of every module and script. This catches both subtle errors and bad coding practices.
2. Programs should pass 'use warnings;' with a minimum of warnings before going into production. Note: turning off warnings in production is sometimes required for security or stability purposes. Solve root cause for all warnings if possible; don't just eliminate immediate cause.
3. Turn on Taint checking for all cgi / web enabled scripts. Invoke with "perl -T" or "#!/usr/bin/perl -T".
4. Use spaces for indenting, not tab characters. No file should contain any tab characters. These display differently in various terminals/editors, and mixing spaces and tabs makes code very messy. Most modern editors can be set to automatically insert spaces in place of tabs.
5. Each subroutine should perform one distinct task. Feel free to break down lengthy (i.e., more than 1-2 screenfuls of code) subs. This means almost all subroutines should be 120 lines or less; longer ones should be justified in code review.
6. Code blocks, when more than 1 or 2 lines, should have the block { } at the same indentation level to aid visual clarity of where that block starts/stops. Example:
7. Fully parenthesize stuff like "if ($a >= 5 || $b > 4)" into "if (($a >= 5) || ($b > 4))" so the user has no need to know/get wrong the order-of-operations. This includes one line conditionals like, "if (a) {}" - don't do: "if a {}".
8. Evals: Always use evals when doing system calls. If otherwise using them, always comment/explain why. If you know something might 'die', explain it specifically, since it probably isn't obvious.
9. Explicitly 'return' values at the end of every sub. Don't EVER use the last statement's value as a default return value; someone modifying the code later might not know you're depending on that value.
10. All modules must explicitly end with '1;' to provide a return value for the module.
11. Minimize the use of map() due to its confusing nature.
12. Use parentheses around all function calls, such as sort($a, $b) instead of "sort $a $b;" to make it obvious a function call is occurring. Prefer not to use the Perl subroutine operator, as in "&subroutinename($arg1, $arg2);" just do "subroutinename($arg1, $arg2);".
13. Don't use the 'unless' verb. Instead of, "unless($foo) {...}", code: "if (!$foo) {...}". The 'unless' verb is plenty confusing due to its uniqueness to Perl.
14. Modules and scripts, when over 200 or so lines, should have a logMessage() subroutine that allows for various levels of logging (0=silent, 1=minimal, 4=normal, 8=verbose): logMessage(1, "message");
15. Use a main() sub for all scripts, and include an explicit exit with an exit code appropriate to the platform you're on. Do not
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR YOUNG PROGRAMMERS TO LEARN IS READABILITY.
Yes, code must work, it must error check and be stable. Good design is an obvious requirement. But, too many young programmers don't know the true value to business of code readability. I'm a 15-year veteran primarily in C, C++, Perl, Java, and alas, Cobol. I've seen crappy code for years as a contractor, coming in to fix problems or add features.
The statistics on business costs bear me out. Nearly 50% of the cost of a program is incurred during the long in-use / maintenance phase. There are definite rules for making code readable and they should be taught early.
Practice during programming classes should include:
* Code reviews - other people looking at your code;
* Code reviews - reviewing other people's code and asking lots of questions;
* Style guides - rules re: what coding style (where to put curly braces, for one) to use on a project are common, be prepared for them;
* Simplification paradigms - stuff like avoid do_while loops since they're seldom used and often just confuse people;
* Reliability lessons - lessons like don't use while(1) loops with breaks, rather for(1..n) with an overlarge n and subsequent test if N got big to know if things failed;
* Max Subroutine sizes - too often violated but a bigger deal than you think;
* Global variable minimization - sometimes it does make it simpler to use a global variable, just keep it to a minimum;
Lots of these rules apply. SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY!
It speeds up everyone's life.
--Kevin
I read the Chicago Tribune every (95%+) morning. I don't generally miss anything in section 1, but I skim stuff in sections 2 (our Metro-area news).
Frankly, I would not even get close to seeing a full page advert in any section besides 1. Does this project seek to put the page in a leading section or in one of those 'Tempo', 'Sports', 'LifeStyles', or 'Living' sections? If so, what is the projected viewership?
Not to be casting aspersions on people my parent's age, but: Of those reading papers at all, which of them surf commonly, or even know how to download and install a program?
Yuhhh, wehl dare, Uhh. I, uh. wanna git me summa dem dare "new math" book larnin. Gunna have it?
An, all y'all gonna do summtin 'bout how them smart guys work on dem rockits and back-teeria stuff too?
- loss of biodiversity, especially oceanic
- at least one more large-scale nuclear "meltdown" (my suspicion, given current trends);
- Complications of Global warming
- Shifting from petroleum-based energy to other sources (inevitable) causing (yet) more instability in arab socio-political structures
- U.S. Social Security baby-boom-bubble shifting demographics placing a very, very high tax burden;
- increasing speed and longevity of communications means a silly photo at a high-school or college party or an ill-thought-out possibly-anti-(insert-minority-group-here) comment posted on a newsgroup can last until your first senate candidacy;
- Inability or reduced ability to 'reinvent' oneself after a life change due to increasing availability of personal info;
- possible deflation in U.S./world due to U.S. trade imbalance and rise of EU and China as global powers;
- economic and geographic dislocation if a bioweapon or other epidemic causes mass evacuations near population centers;
- Rising pro-"American Empire" (neoconservatism) causing wars that kill them;
- Rising religious fundamentalism (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Seikh, etc.) again causing inter-religion and intra-religion wars as there were in the 1600's and 1700's;
Yah, this list is kind of scarey, but I'm sure you can think of others more and less likely.I see a series of technical problems with this propulsion method. To summarize, the method is a variation on ground-laser-assisted flight. It envisions a space station shooting a beam of magnetized particles towards the ship, which are caught by a sail and used to boost the ship's velocity.
1. NO ACCELERATION TOWARDS THE STATION. This only works in one direction, it will not help the astronauts REETURN HOME.
2. No Acceleration during critical orbital adjustment maneuvers. This includes slingshot trajectories behind another body in space like a planet.
3. No mention of effects of beamed particles on astronauts on the ship. Is this beam a significant plasma stream? If so, when it hits the spaceship, it will kick out some nasty E-M (gamma, Xrays), heat up the ship perhaps radiologically, and do ugly things to any electronics that are hanging off the side of the ship.
4. If the beam is magnetic particles, this would have to be Iron, right? Tell me you're going to boost IRON into orbit to propel a ship. MV^2 says that's a bad bang for your buck, methinks.
5. If the beam is statically charged particles, are you going to accumulate a static charge on the ship? Won't that do nasty things to the electronics and possibly kill people who accidentally remain ungrounded for a time period?
Call me and tell me if they actually put this charged-particle gun on a moving surface to use the mv^2 for propulsion instead of Grand Space Gun theatrics instead of solidly reliable engine designs that start, restart, re-re-start (ad infinitium), when, where, how, you need them, with a variable thrust vector.
Please cite any source that claims a 30 minute-long fatal exposure dose for any near-Earth location.
As I understand things, from (among other books) Zubrin's "The Case For Mars" as well as ample proof from the ISS and our own Apollo moon missions, merely being in space does not mean fatal radiation doses are inevitable.
Rather, space travel does involve higher doses than one would receive on the ground, or (say) in a mineshaft. But that doesn't mean these doses are fatal, or even that they significantly impact long term health.
I remain interested if ANYONE can cite specific data (hopefully from a reputable source) saying that radiation doses in space are near fatal in the time frame envisioned for a Mars mission or, or any other popularly conceived-of mission aside from a manned mission to Jupiter, which does have significant radiation belts.
I've thought about this concept for a while.
It seems likely that a significant fraction of a prolonged Mars mission would be spent inside a habitat building. That building would be functionally isolated from the outside. Also, simulating the trip there and back would also be valuable.
I would like to suggest a mineshaft. Several parallel shafts could be used to monitor the progress of the team and provide emergency egress (exits).
If the shaft were dug in a suitably solid rock, it could be sprayed with concrete, then some kind of waterproofing plastic compound. This would seal it and allow good simulation of water and air consumption. Other options, like "sealed" metal containers, might be more expensive to construct, but it's another option.
Food, other consumables, oxygen, water, yes, these are valid simulations. I'd also like to see what the options are for running a hydroponics lab to oxygenate the air and cleanse sewer waste, though not to eat necessarily since this would involve a fair amount of work.
Just some ideas. Biodome was obviously a learning process from the "sealed in" perspective and from the biodiversity perspective as well. I just wonder if there's a lower tech method for doing this experiment, and if so, I have confidence that the "plucky" Russian improvisational character stereotype is up to the challenge.
Many other nations make Election day a holiday. We should have election day as a Work & School holiday.It would solve problems:
when the next shuttle explodes we can have the radioactive material distrubuted higher in the atmosphere?
I AGREE, THE SHUTTLE SUCKS. (go ScaledComposites!) I was speaking of space vehicles availble to my grandchildren (presuming, again God Willing, that the humanity doesn't suffer another dark age from some catastrophe or another).
Taking a 4 hour automobile trip has a small but finite chance of destroying the car and its contents. As soon as our record for getting things out of Earth's gravity well is as good, let's consider using that method to push some waste off-planet.
By the way, by 'Off Planet', I mean completely - not just off Earth, but plummeting into the sun or something. Obviously, the sun puts out more nasty radiation in 10^-8th of a second than in all the world's nuclear waste piles .
IMHO, this indicates that airborne radiation levels only are declining. Data from the artic would not seemingly have anything to say about the contaminated soil and water in the polluted areas of the Ukraine.
Since the Chernobyl plant exploded and burned for days, large amounts of radioactive material was spread over a broad surrounding area, borne aloft by wind currents. The highly contaminated radioactive smoke that poured out of the plant may have now settled out of the planet-wide atmosphere, but that still leaves a lot of radioactive waste embedded in the soil and water surrounding the plant for (tens of? hundreds of?) miles.
I do not object to nuclear power generation. It does not generate CO2, NO2, SO2, or other nasty pollutants that are spread widely and cause other effects. Rather, it concentrates the waste in a nasty form that we then have to safely cope with. I believe the best place for this stuff is probably off-planet, but until we get that capability, let's put it in a well-guarded, well-controlled area.
I also am willing to help pay for the cleanup of Soviet-era radioactive waste - it may affect my children.
The LONG TERM SOLUTION would seem to be SOLAR or aneutronic (non-neutron-emitting) Fusion. I will vote for a candidate who has solid development of those. My great great grandchildren (God willing) will thank me for saving the planet for them.
Do Not Taunt Super-Happy-Fun-sodiumazide.
Several Questions:
1. Translucent?
2. Melting point?
3. Stable at STP ?
4. Does It Burn if I touch a match to it? Explode?
5. Does it resemble N2, which is stable, or not?
6. What is the hardness level (Mohr's scale) ?
7. Will it degrade over time under exposure to water?
8. Is the method for creating it highly expensive or could this be scaled up?
9. If it is explosive, how do we store it safely?
10. What are the mechanical properties? If it's stable and otherwise useful, will it vibrate with a piezoelectric effect?
11. Is it a semiconductor, conductor, or insulator?
12. Does it lase (can we use it as a pump medium for a laser) ?
Hey, I've covered this. My slashdot journal "What Makes a Good President" summarizes attributes needed in a president. You decide if you like them.
Slashdot Journal is here: Justanyone's journal
MWMV (married white male voter) iso any mediocre-looking, charismatic uberbrain presidential candidates who understand my long term needs. Should have complex worldview, speak multiple languages, have deep policymaking experience and like kittens. No fearmongering alarmists need call. Should be pro-space but anti-NASA bureacracy; anti-shuttle and pro-X-prize. Should enjoy long hours, few vacations, and tolerate lack of privacy without being an exhibitionist. Ability to not vomit on Japanese prime ministers a plus, Pro-solar/wind a plus. MUST HAVE EXCELLENT GRAMMAR AND VOCAB. Should be treehugger but understand natural role of forest fires. Interested? Apply by starting campaign for city council or school board, I'll watch the papers for your picture! Kisses in advance if you're female. --Yours, John Quepooblic.
I took this test two weeks ago. IT IS HEAVILY BIASED TOWARDS BUSH. The test is a push poll, a type of poll that askes biased questions in the hopes of directing people in one direction or another.
Specifically, the test's first set of questions dealt with taxes. The question was something like "Are you in favor of more taxes or fewer taxes?" and gave the nod to Bush for being for lower taxes.
This hides the true position of both candidates. Bush and the Republican congress have passed the tax cuts that gave most of the benefits to the richest 1 percent, and barely anything to the middle class or working-class poor.
Kerry has proposed repealing the tax cut (also known as "raising taxes") on the richest 1% in order to pay for important social spending (medicare = healthcare so the very poor and children don't die). Do you want to pay less taxes so children die from not having immunizations, antibiotics when they're sick, fixed broken bones, etc.?
SelectSmart has a good set of polls for other things, but I found this poll to be VERY VERY BIASED and would challenge anyone taking it to consider the way the questions are asked.