A good point. However, you're missing something. At that point in time, you didn't need Windows to view a web page. You could use almost anything that managed a 'net connection and run a browser. There's nothing magic about Win95 there (with the exception that it was used to drive cheap(er) hardware).
As for moving away from plain gray backgrounds - credit Netscape for that.
Re:It's easier to tear something down than to buil
on
Thebroken Videos
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Eh - I'll take a swing at this one.
First off, I'd like to thank you for your work and extend that thanks to thebroken. It's been entertaining. There would probably be a lot less vitriol about if people maintained the perspective of this being entertainment first. However, this leads in to my intial point...
People lose their sense of entertainment when they are fed a constant stream of gross distortions of what they are familiar with. Keep in mind that you are following in the rather gigantic footsteps of Hollywood. And Hollywood has had a rather dismal track record when it comes to hackers (in any sense of the word).
Quite a few years ago, I had a hobby-job at my local ISP covering the evening shift. We ended up with a couple young entry-level helpdesk techs to train. During one of the evening's training the movie Hackers was mentioned. Us seasoned techies classified the movie as a comedy (albiet unintentional). One of our young charges listed it as inspirational.
Our young techie-in-training ended up following a continued pattern. She was really "in" to the "hacker scene". She liked the whole counter-culture / underground idea. She had her hair done in braids and wore counter-culture clothes. She had a certain facination with the concept of being feared by those outside her peer group. In short, she was all set to don the mantle of hacker as imaged by the movie Hackers.
Except for when it came to technical ability.
Our hacker-to-be had no real ability to pick up technical issues. Heck. She didn't even show any interest in actually learning more than the basics needed to do her job. She seemed to lack any resemblance of interest that would otherwise put her on a hacker's path.
But she could dress the part. Or at least, the part as defined in Hackers.
And this is likely the source of people's agrivation. Sure - this stuff is entertaining. But it is more often than not completely mistreated by Hollywood. And then to rub salt in to wound, one runs in to waves of wanna-bes that faithfully emulate that completely distorted image.
I understand how that could grate on one's nerves. Heck. I've seen it first hand. But I don't get upset over this kind of stuff. Even now that I find Hackers a little less funny all things considered.
I agree. I was working a string of late nights that week so I was missing the show. Didn't even know Wil was guest-hosting. Managed to get home at a decent hour Friday and caught 3/4 of Wil and Kevin hosting. Good stuff. They should have Wil on more often.
The figures you quoted admit that NASA's current budget is still about 60% as much as it was during Apollo in constant dollars, and that is ignoring the fact that a dollar buys one hell of a lot more technology today than it did then (the CPU that runs the dashboard of your new car has hundreds of times as much computing horsepower as the entire Apollo 11 vehicle).
The dollar may buy more technology - but at the same time, it buys less materials and labor. Again - you've missed a very important piece in that run of numbers... the comparitive buying power of past and current budgets.
Furthermore, space technology isn't all pushing bits. So while there is a proliferation of microcomputers within the Agency... it doesn't mean anybody is going to be pushing out spacecraft according to Moore's Law.
Not that I mind seeing things like the X-Prize try to prove differently.
Let's tell the government toadies and rent-seekers to fuck off and see what that money will buy when we apply all of it to the goals we really want. I'm sure that those of us who actually care about space would be thrilled by the answer.
Indeed. From the Report:
EARMARKS
Pressure on NASA's budget has come not only from the White House, but also from the Congress. In recent years there has been an increasing tendency for the Congress to add "earmarks" - congressional additions to the NASA budget request that reflect targeted Members' interests. These earmarks come out of already-appropriated funds, reducing the amounts available for the original tasks. For example, as Congress considered NASA's Fiscal Year 2002 appropriation, the NASA Administrator told the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the NASA budget that the agency was "extremely concerned regarding the magnitude and number of congressional earmarks" in the House and Senate versions of the NASA appropriations bill.
He noted "the total number of House and Senate earmarks... is approximately 140 separate items, an increase of nearly 50 percent over FY 2001." These earmarks reflected "an increasing fraction of items that circumvent the peer review process, or involve construction or other objectives that have no relation to NASA mission objectives." The potential Fiscal Year 2002 earmarks represented "a net total of $540 million in reductions to ongoing NASA programs to fund this extremely large number of earmarks."
NASA a change. That change begins with proper support from Congress. And a real budget.
I would like to stress that the figures I provided from the CAIB Report were teasers. They were not the whole story. Go - download the PDF I linked to. Read what the Report has to say. You might even want to hunt down the source material it references.
While your figures are doubtlessly accurate they are premised on some misguided notion that the costs of launching small crews of 4-5 people into space is somehow related to the national budget, GDP or someother economic indicator.
Sure - the GDP is not the whole storey. But then, it's not the only thing I provieded. I included real and adjusted budget dollars.
Also consider that while inflation did occur between 1965 and today, the inflation rate of a niche market like the aerospace industry is likely different (not sure if it would be higher or lower) then the average inflation rate posted. The posted inflation rate is for common goods like food, clothes, cars, etc.
If you would like to hash out yourself whether these figures are accurate, take a look at the source. You'll find it listed as footnote 19 on page 119 of Chapter 5 (the linked PDF).
For instance the average desktop PC cost from the 80's until now has dropped while it's speed has increased, I think that goods like a PC are more related to the aerospace industry then many of the items considered for the national inflation rate calculation.
Meanwhile car prices have gone up drastically. But then neither have much to do with airospace. And neither have the same market restraints as airospace for space exploration. You don't get economies of scale seen in microcomputers and consumer automobiles with spacecraft.
I for one am certainly convinced that NASA could accomplish a LOT more with the budget it does have if it made better decisions. focused on clear achievable goals and wasn't afraid to make hard choices. Further I think that spending it's money wisely and delivering on it's commitiments is a faster track to an increased budget then the current technique of "fail and whine".
Do some research. Start with the linked CAIB Report chapter. Then decide if there is too much whining and not enough efficiency.
Meanwhile, the post that you recommend mod'ing up essentially claims that $4/day was fine back then and should be fine today. This while completely ignoring the accompanied information that shows 5 cents doesn't buy the same Coke today.
First, in 1965 the national budget did not include much money for certain programs which have exploded since then (for example, most of the Great Society stuff like Medicare). Comparing fractions of the budget without adjusting for huge changes in the portion of GNP which goes through the government makes any comparison suspect.
Second, the economy is several times as big now as it was then. Is something less important if you allocate 1% of 4*x to it instead of 4% of x?
Note that the statistics I provided are not limited to percentage of budget. They include real dollar amounts - and those amounts adjusted to reflect buying power over the years. It's much closer to an oranges-to-oranges comparison than you make it sound.
Third, we have already solved many of the technical and engineering problems required to do the things we want to do in space (I think we should put a permanent population on Mars, others may differ). For instance, we already know how to maintain people in space for months at a time. We know how to handle ultra-cryogens such as liquid hydrogen; we now use them routinely in rocket boosters and other applications. We don't need to spend money to re-invent these wheels.
We may not be re-inventing the wheel - but we are working at improving it. Even pieces of technology we are pretty comfortable with are being improved (other pieces we have a handle on, but involve considerable risk). To do otherwise would be akin to sitting back at the turn of the century and claim that we know all we need to know about combustion engines.
What NASA really needs is a mission and a reform of its bureaucratic mentality so that it can pursue it properly. It doesn't need more money, it needs to shed the albatross of the enormously expensive and obsolete Shuttle program so that the money can do something more useful than paying for an army of government contractors.
NASA needs a major overhall. Its culture does not reflect either its past glories nor the high standard some still hold for the agency today. And I agree that it is time to move on from the Shuttle (the "army of contractors" exist because of out-sourcing).
However, this change doesn't come at a discount.
One side point - read the CAIB report. The statistics I quoted are just a part of it. There is a lot more detail and additional interesting points (such as ear-marking) within the report.
Maybe now NASA will stop dilly-dallying around and get some new technology other than the outdated space shuttle. We've really been slacking ever since we stopped going to the moon, and maybe international involvement will help us get back on track.
Great. Perhapse you can help ensure NASA gets a budget that matches its former glory?
Take a look at the CAIB report. Pay attention to Volume I, Chapter 5. Read over section 5.3 An Agency Trying To Do Too Much With Too Little. Along with some very interesting text is some telling charts. NASA's funding in 1965 was a little under 4% of the national budget or $5,250 million (the equiv. of $24,696 million in 2002). Meanwhile, FY 2002 saw a budget of $14,868 million - less than 1% of the national budget.
Russians, having had more budgetry constraints that the Americans, always had to do things more efficiently than the Americans.
This is the same Russian space agency who had to rely on additional US funding to meet their lesser commitments to the ISS, right?
The Russian space agency is certainly capable when properly funded (a simular point can be made of NASA). And they are a very important part of the ISS. However, let's not forget that they face their own problems.
Sure. But also keep in mind that Soyuz spacecraft have always been a part of the overall strategy for the ISS. Without Russian craft, the NASA administration would have to cross their fingers and take the risks needed to bring home their people (whether the ISS would have been re-manned would be in question). As it is, they can fall back on their international partners. Who, incidently, are currently orbiting in a structure funded and built primarily by NASA.
Russians still send humans into space. Americans don't.
Which, if course, ignores the current and previous ISS crews - all including US astronauts.
Nice try, trollboy.
Re:I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO.
on
SCO Aims For The Feds
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· Score: 1
I wouldn't think that federal agencies would be necessarily ahead or behind the forefront of IT. It depends on what area of IT you're talking about.
Thanks for keeping me honest. I agree - there are certainly areas where US Fed agencies are doing some pretty amazing things. Although if you trace this through the Fed agency in question I'm willing to bet one will find a disconnect with mainstream IT management for that agency.
Going even more OT....
My statement is more influenced by my experience with a large Fed agency and information security. It was odd to watch how big a deal someone would make when some random host was compromised somewhere within the agency. I knew darned well that these were easy targets - that the agency just didn't put the resources behind properly managing and securing these hosts. Whats more, the major effort in "security" tended to be towards prosecuring after the fact. Not anywhere near the leader in infosec; but darned handy with the law.
That's not to say there aren't Fed agencies with really nice, and amazingly advanced, secure systems.
Re:I think this is actually a shrewd move by SCO.
on
SCO Aims For The Feds
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Of course, if they can get federal agencies (who aren't playing with their own money anyway) to pay them to shut up and go away, so much the better! I'm suprised that they haven't thought of this earlier.
That's a mischaracterization. Feds tend to be aware that they are playing with tax-payer money. But even more imporantly, they tend to view the tax-payer money alotted to their budgets as THEIR money. And limited money, at that. I've yet to see a Fed agency that didn't have more to do than their IT budget will allow (which isn't to say IT managers don't ever make bad decissions with the funds they have available).
The only variation to this is within the budget structure itself. There are often pools of funds that get ear-marked for certain activities. One may be unable to fund a certain project even though there is a nice fat pool of money available for another kind of activity. Which leads in to my last point...
Folks, the US Government is law. Fed agencies may not always be on the forefront of IT. But they do know law. They have access to legal devices unique to them and lawyers, paid from different pools of money than their IT budgets, who know how to make use of those legal devices to full effect.
So while it may be possible that a Fed agency would throw money at a situation like this... I would suggest its very unlikely. In the civilian sector, throwing money at an issue is the easier tactic. In the Fed sector, pushing the problem off to legal resources (funded through a different budget) is the quick fix.
Anything anyone can say is offensive to someone. Expect to see this used against all sorts of things that no sane person would think of as 'profane'.
The other day I was watching some political talk show. There was a libral advocate discussing the current political environment. He claimed to have been deeply offended by several statements made by the President during various public addresses.
You don't suppose Bush is in trouble, do you? Maybe the President will soon be facing one of those infamously new, tougher fines.
The Parent poster made an Insightful quip - pointing out that Microsoft's advancement will no doubt draw Linux-Zealots crying foul.
Despite the fact that first bunch of posts to this thread HAVE BEEN Linux-Zealots crying foul, the parent poster gets modded down.
Where? Perhapse you'd like to post links to the "first bunch" of crying-foul posts? And keep a close eye out for claims of monopolistic or anit-competative behavior. After all, that's what the "insightful" post claimed would be the complaint (I think).
What I've seen are quips about translating clippy and the infamous BSOD. I've seen claims that this "advancement" is a reaction to Linux's current abilities. And I've seen the question of whether this kind of community effort / pro-bono work should be done for commercial software with premium fees.
So here's the counter-issue for you. The "problem" being highlighted here doesn't exist. It was a knee-jerk reaction to criticism often generated by a company who, frankly, deserves criticism.
Now - I will agree there are complaints I disagree with. Heck - there are compliments I disagree with. But please. Do us all a favor. Attack the issue at hand. Avoid sounding like the zealots you decry.
Actually customizing their products to different markets. UN FRICKIN BELIEVABLE.
Wait a minute. You didn't say "anti-competative". You didn't say "monopolistic". You said "antimonopolistic". Huh.
Wow. You're right. Microsoft competing in a market by delivering features to match their competition. The Microsoftie/trolls must be foaming at the mouth; this isn't proper behavior for Microsoft at all.
Slashdot Mirror
A good point. However, you're missing something. At that point in time, you didn't need Windows to view a web page. You could use almost anything that managed a 'net connection and run a browser. There's nothing magic about Win95 there (with the exception that it was used to drive cheap(er) hardware).
As for moving away from plain gray backgrounds - credit Netscape for that.
Eh - I'll take a swing at this one.
First off, I'd like to thank you for your work and extend that thanks to thebroken. It's been entertaining. There would probably be a lot less vitriol about if people maintained the perspective of this being entertainment first. However, this leads in to my intial point...
People lose their sense of entertainment when they are fed a constant stream of gross distortions of what they are familiar with. Keep in mind that you are following in the rather gigantic footsteps of Hollywood. And Hollywood has had a rather dismal track record when it comes to hackers (in any sense of the word).
Quite a few years ago, I had a hobby-job at my local ISP covering the evening shift. We ended up with a couple young entry-level helpdesk techs to train. During one of the evening's training the movie Hackers was mentioned. Us seasoned techies classified the movie as a comedy (albiet unintentional). One of our young charges listed it as inspirational.
Our young techie-in-training ended up following a continued pattern. She was really "in" to the "hacker scene". She liked the whole counter-culture / underground idea. She had her hair done in braids and wore counter-culture clothes. She had a certain facination with the concept of being feared by those outside her peer group. In short, she was all set to don the mantle of hacker as imaged by the movie Hackers.
Except for when it came to technical ability.
Our hacker-to-be had no real ability to pick up technical issues. Heck. She didn't even show any interest in actually learning more than the basics needed to do her job. She seemed to lack any resemblance of interest that would otherwise put her on a hacker's path.
But she could dress the part. Or at least, the part as defined in Hackers.
And this is likely the source of people's agrivation. Sure - this stuff is entertaining. But it is more often than not completely mistreated by Hollywood. And then to rub salt in to wound, one runs in to waves of wanna-bes that faithfully emulate that completely distorted image.
I understand how that could grate on one's nerves. Heck. I've seen it first hand. But I don't get upset over this kind of stuff. Even now that I find Hackers a little less funny all things considered.
There's a snide remark about "MCSE" to be had here, but I'm not going to touch it.
You're baiting for one of those offshore coding flames, aren't you?
I agree. I was working a string of late nights that week so I was missing the show. Didn't even know Wil was guest-hosting. Managed to get home at a decent hour Friday and caught 3/4 of Wil and Kevin hosting. Good stuff. They should have Wil on more often.
I think what he means is that Microsoft has been better at marketing (or leveraging their dominance in other areas - much the same thing).
Yeah. I saw that ad for IT Technical Institute too.
This is why there isn't a "+1 Homer" option.
Not funny as in a rubber chicken. Funny as in rubbing a chicken.
The dollar may buy more technology - but at the same time, it buys less materials and labor. Again - you've missed a very important piece in that run of numbers... the comparitive buying power of past and current budgets.
Furthermore, space technology isn't all pushing bits. So while there is a proliferation of microcomputers within the Agency... it doesn't mean anybody is going to be pushing out spacecraft according to Moore's Law.
Not that I mind seeing things like the X-Prize try to prove differently.
Indeed. From the Report:
NASA a change. That change begins with proper support from Congress. And a real budget.
Sure - the GDP is not the whole storey. But then, it's not the only thing I provieded. I included real and adjusted budget dollars.
If you would like to hash out yourself whether these figures are accurate, take a look at the source. You'll find it listed as footnote 19 on page 119 of Chapter 5 (the linked PDF).
Meanwhile car prices have gone up drastically. But then neither have much to do with airospace. And neither have the same market restraints as airospace for space exploration. You don't get economies of scale seen in microcomputers and consumer automobiles with spacecraft.
Do some research. Start with the linked CAIB Report chapter. Then decide if there is too much whining and not enough efficiency.
Meanwhile, the post that you recommend mod'ing up essentially claims that $4/day was fine back then and should be fine today. This while completely ignoring the accompanied information that shows 5 cents doesn't buy the same Coke today.
Note that the statistics I provided are not limited to percentage of budget. They include real dollar amounts - and those amounts adjusted to reflect buying power over the years. It's much closer to an oranges-to-oranges comparison than you make it sound.
We may not be re-inventing the wheel - but we are working at improving it. Even pieces of technology we are pretty comfortable with are being improved (other pieces we have a handle on, but involve considerable risk). To do otherwise would be akin to sitting back at the turn of the century and claim that we know all we need to know about combustion engines.
NASA needs a major overhall. Its culture does not reflect either its past glories nor the high standard some still hold for the agency today. And I agree that it is time to move on from the Shuttle (the "army of contractors" exist because of out-sourcing).
However, this change doesn't come at a discount.
One side point - read the CAIB report. The statistics I quoted are just a part of it. There is a lot more detail and additional interesting points (such as ear-marking) within the report.
Great. Perhapse you can help ensure NASA gets a budget that matches its former glory?
Take a look at the CAIB report. Pay attention to Volume I, Chapter 5. Read over section 5.3 An Agency Trying To Do Too Much With Too Little. Along with some very interesting text is some telling charts. NASA's funding in 1965 was a little under 4% of the national budget or $5,250 million (the equiv. of $24,696 million in 2002). Meanwhile, FY 2002 saw a budget of $14,868 million - less than 1% of the national budget.
This is the same Russian space agency who had to rely on additional US funding to meet their lesser commitments to the ISS, right?
The Russian space agency is certainly capable when properly funded (a simular point can be made of NASA). And they are a very important part of the ISS. However, let's not forget that they face their own problems.
Sure. But also keep in mind that Soyuz spacecraft have always been a part of the overall strategy for the ISS. Without Russian craft, the NASA administration would have to cross their fingers and take the risks needed to bring home their people (whether the ISS would have been re-manned would be in question). As it is, they can fall back on their international partners. Who, incidently, are currently orbiting in a structure funded and built primarily by NASA.
Which, if course, ignores the current and previous ISS crews - all including US astronauts.
Nice try, trollboy.
Thanks for keeping me honest. I agree - there are certainly areas where US Fed agencies are doing some pretty amazing things. Although if you trace this through the Fed agency in question I'm willing to bet one will find a disconnect with mainstream IT management for that agency.
Going even more OT....
My statement is more influenced by my experience with a large Fed agency and information security. It was odd to watch how big a deal someone would make when some random host was compromised somewhere within the agency. I knew darned well that these were easy targets - that the agency just didn't put the resources behind properly managing and securing these hosts. Whats more, the major effort in "security" tended to be towards prosecuring after the fact. Not anywhere near the leader in infosec; but darned handy with the law.
That's not to say there aren't Fed agencies with really nice, and amazingly advanced, secure systems.
That's a mischaracterization. Feds tend to be aware that they are playing with tax-payer money. But even more imporantly, they tend to view the tax-payer money alotted to their budgets as THEIR money. And limited money, at that. I've yet to see a Fed agency that didn't have more to do than their IT budget will allow (which isn't to say IT managers don't ever make bad decissions with the funds they have available).
The only variation to this is within the budget structure itself. There are often pools of funds that get ear-marked for certain activities. One may be unable to fund a certain project even though there is a nice fat pool of money available for another kind of activity. Which leads in to my last point...
Folks, the US Government is law. Fed agencies may not always be on the forefront of IT. But they do know law. They have access to legal devices unique to them and lawyers, paid from different pools of money than their IT budgets, who know how to make use of those legal devices to full effect.
So while it may be possible that a Fed agency would throw money at a situation like this... I would suggest its very unlikely. In the civilian sector, throwing money at an issue is the easier tactic. In the Fed sector, pushing the problem off to legal resources (funded through a different budget) is the quick fix.
I'm glad the point wasn't too subtle for you.
Hmmm. SCO... "sko". FCC... huh. Yea. I could see that.
(assuming, of course, you don't pronounce SCO as "litigious bastards").
The other day I was watching some political talk show. There was a libral advocate discussing the current political environment. He claimed to have been deeply offended by several statements made by the President during various public addresses.
You don't suppose Bush is in trouble, do you? Maybe the President will soon be facing one of those infamously new, tougher fines.
Naw - me either.
What IS the license for those code snippets?
Where? Perhapse you'd like to post links to the "first bunch" of crying-foul posts? And keep a close eye out for claims of monopolistic or anit-competative behavior. After all, that's what the "insightful" post claimed would be the complaint (I think).
What I've seen are quips about translating clippy and the infamous BSOD. I've seen claims that this "advancement" is a reaction to Linux's current abilities. And I've seen the question of whether this kind of community effort / pro-bono work should be done for commercial software with premium fees.
So here's the counter-issue for you. The "problem" being highlighted here doesn't exist. It was a knee-jerk reaction to criticism often generated by a company who, frankly, deserves criticism.
Now - I will agree there are complaints I disagree with. Heck - there are compliments I disagree with. But please. Do us all a favor. Attack the issue at hand. Avoid sounding like the zealots you decry.
Even when you use small words.
Wait a minute. You didn't say "anti-competative". You didn't say "monopolistic". You said "antimonopolistic". Huh.
Wow. You're right. Microsoft competing in a market by delivering features to match their competition. The Microsoftie/trolls must be foaming at the mouth; this isn't proper behavior for Microsoft at all.