Is $4 Trillion the present value of all future cash flows that the US represents? If so, the US should buy this bargain basement deal and then tax Rest-of-World into oblivion. The world's last remaining engine of innovation -- driven by champion of individualism -- is priceless. The global ecosystem needs a driver, and for better or worse it's the USA. Don't worry, folks, the USA is in slow decline... it's likely that someday soon we'll all enjoy the pleasure of being equally poor in the fairest of all global societies. Extraction of bullshit penalties like this would certainly hasten the socialist, commie-bastard fantasies that illustrate man's fatal flaw: the combination of a sense of superiority, entitlement, jealousy, and sloth that subverts individualism and champions equality. Fuck if these mythical agrarian societies have been so wronged, tell them to turn in their cell phones, learn to speak Japanese, German, Chinese or Russian, decimate their populations, and we'll talk about the balance of their account. Bite me.
No need to add to the anxiety. Give them a comp day (of their choice) and back off. If you've been doing your job correctly they'll want to stay and they'll know that you will make it up to them. Hey, this is part of the world we live in. Keep the faith and you won't have a problem.
Bletchley Park, which has gotten plenty of Slashdot coverage over the years, is a must. It's just an hour north on the train and a short walk from the train station. Go to Euston Station for the ride north.
The Faraday Museum http://www.londondrum.com/cityguide/faraday-museum.php is worth the trip.
Greenwich Observatory and the National Maritime Museum are musts, as well. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/ You may want to read Dava Sobel's book about John Harrison before you go, if you haven't already. See the real H* clocks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
Take the laptop.
"New breed of contractors"?
on
NASA May Outsource
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"Best of breed", no doubt.
Private industry has done so well in the US: telcos, airlines, utilities, "contractors" in Iraq, not to mention the entire financial sector. Deregulation and privatization in the US has shown that private industry has difficulty regulating itself or indeed acting in a responsible manner. Oversight with accountability is absolutely essential to success.
Hate to be so negative but I don't see anything good in this whatsoever. There are some things that are too important to be left to private industry. Building is one thing, running a program is quite another.
I'm about as free-market and capitalist as you can get, but there is a time and a place for government regulation.
Maginot Line, folks. Point-to-point encryption is one (important) element of a business network, but it's not sufficient to secure the business network. As such, its implementation would need to be assessed with respect to the total network security budget.
We've already visited one former Surveyor site: Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visited the Surveyor 3 spacecraft in November of 1969 -- check out the stereo picture:
will be tough but I speak from experience with a couple of nonagenerians (grandmother and great aunt) and a couple of septagenerians (aunts both) -- they will do things in Windows... things that will be difficult for you to figure out on the telephone. You need to be able to get to their desktop if you're going to have a chance at all (e.g. some flavor of VNC). The most important thing I learned during the many hours I've spent over the years supporting family members: mouse usage basically becomes a random variable with seniors as their motor control declines. So a) they have no idea where and what they clicked and b) they will frequently do things that produce inexplicable results. An example: a family member called one day to describe a gray screen covering about 90% of the display. Turned out that my grandmother had (somehow) unlocked the toolbar in Windows and dragged it all the way to the top of the screen, rendering the machine useless. Try figuring that out on the telephone. I've never found a tool that would allow me to freeze the desktop and menu items so that they didn't get scrambled... just plan on periodically having a UI puzzle on your hands. Having remote desktop access will help but the only problem there is that you may not be trusted to take remote control, i.e. privacy is an issue. Sigh. Seniors really need only a couple of apps: web, email, and Solitare. Windows is overkill and will be the pebble in your shoe.
First, of course proofs are fair game for Wikipedia -- a proof is like the source code for a statement that is purported to be true.
I've seen a few nibbles around the edge with some of the answers but I think this topic leads to more fundamental questions, like "what things require proving" and "when is a thing proved", the latter of which sometims boils down to "to whose satisfaction must a thing be shown before it is accepted as proven"? The answer to these questions has driven a lot of the development of mathematics itself (as well as philosophy and the natural sciences), as things that were once accepted as axiomatic, after critical examination, have themselves been shown to be consequences of more fundamental axioms (or assumptions).
One could argue that it's the lone ranger that is responsible for real progress in the arts and sciences -- it's always been that way. I think the commercial payoff track record is not as impressive, however. There is no substitute for the focus and drive that an individual can bring to bear on a problem. I only wish that I could be one of the folks that lights the way. Rock on, lone programmer!
Points well taken, though I seem to recall that Newton's predictions for Mercury's orbit didn't really fit until Einstein's G.R. accounted for the difference, and the solution did not involve matter, "dark" or "missing".
Someone had to ask: wonder if anyone's simulated the universe using MOND. How did the researchers account for all this dark matter that's supposed to be around? It's far more likely that we got the force law wrong. Do these dark matter guys still believe in Santa Claus? BTW has anyone successfully simulated a galaxy and produced results that correspond to observations? I think this problem is still open...
Unfortunately, the tools for helping us to specify what we want/need are woefully inadequate. Hence, software development is both art and science. If I see any clear trend over the last fifteen years, it's that we're getting worse at *thinking* about what we want and "better" at creating vast amounts of code. Oh we're better at diagramming, syntax-error catching, etc., but the ideas are what's important, and there are no tools that can help us think through what we need. There is no substitute for intelligence.
Agree with your comment re: pencil and paper. Some folks have mentioned that slide rules require
an order-of-magnitude-awareness to be developed
by users and I agree completely. Understanding the size of the numbers with which you're working is important, and comes in handy during day-to-day life.
There are other advantages to slide rules, too.
For instance, the slide rule introduced students
to logarithms, usually around 7th grade or so here
in the US. Nowadays the first exposure that
students have to logarithms comes in their second
semester of calculus, when they're learning how to
do definite integrals of x^{-1} w.r.t. x. *If* they take Calculus, and *if* they learn how to integrate at all. So students are often tasked with learning some skills with logarithms at the same time they're learning calculus, which tends to steepen the learning curve a bit. For me, when I finally learned the definition of the logarithm base E, it was something of a religious experience, since I'd been blindly using logs for years before. I understood the *algebra* of logarithms through
constant use, but being able to use the definition to prove all the rules was just awesome. Today this is probably a rare, if not extinct, experience. For engineers, they may
coast right by the calculus stuff but later on, if they work with something like Laplace or Fourier Transforms, they'll encounter the same logarithmic algebra all over again. And I've seen students struggle with this while wondering if things would'nt be much easier if they'd
chucked the calculators in favor of the old slide rule long ago.
There may be some debate over whether having the skills that a slide rule (or pencil and paper) teaches is important. Or whether the preparation for further education that it provides is
something that we need today. Call me old-fashioned, but it's a matter of education, and I think we've lost something valuable in the switch from the slide rule to the calcualtor. One wonders if the Mars Climate Orbiter mission would have succeeded if the contractors had been
using slide rules. Did they push the wrong conversion button on their calculator? Had someone had an order-of-magnitude idea about the numbers they should have gotten, perhaps they'd have caught the error in time...
Slashdot Mirror
Is $4 Trillion the present value of all future cash flows that the US represents? If so, the US should buy this bargain basement deal and then tax Rest-of-World into oblivion. The world's last remaining engine of innovation -- driven by champion of individualism -- is priceless. The global ecosystem needs a driver, and for better or worse it's the USA. Don't worry, folks, the USA is in slow decline... it's likely that someday soon we'll all enjoy the pleasure of being equally poor in the fairest of all global societies. Extraction of bullshit penalties like this would certainly hasten the socialist, commie-bastard fantasies that illustrate man's fatal flaw: the combination of a sense of superiority, entitlement, jealousy, and sloth that subverts individualism and champions equality. Fuck if these mythical agrarian societies have been so wronged, tell them to turn in their cell phones, learn to speak Japanese, German, Chinese or Russian, decimate their populations, and we'll talk about the balance of their account. Bite me.
No need to add to the anxiety. Give them a comp day (of their choice) and back off. If you've been doing your job correctly they'll want to stay and they'll know that you will make it up to them. Hey, this is part of the world we live in. Keep the faith and you won't have a problem.
Bletchley Park, which has gotten plenty of Slashdot coverage over the years, is a must. It's just an hour north on the train and a short walk from the train station. Go to Euston Station for the ride north.
The Faraday Museum http://www.londondrum.com/cityguide/faraday-museum.php is worth the trip.
Greenwich Observatory and the National Maritime Museum are musts, as well. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/
You may want to read Dava Sobel's book about John Harrison before you go, if you haven't already. See the real H* clocks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
Take the laptop.
"Best of breed", no doubt.
Private industry has done so well in the US: telcos, airlines, utilities, "contractors" in Iraq, not to mention the entire financial sector. Deregulation and privatization in the US has shown that private industry has difficulty regulating itself or indeed acting in a responsible manner. Oversight with accountability is absolutely essential to success.
Hate to be so negative but I don't see anything good in this whatsoever. There are some things that are too important to be left to private industry. Building is one thing, running a program is quite another.
I'm about as free-market and capitalist as you can get, but there is a time and a place for government regulation.
Maginot Line, folks. Point-to-point encryption is one (important) element of a business network, but it's not sufficient to secure the business network. As such, its implementation would need to be assessed with respect to the total network security budget.
Hey all,
We've already visited one former Surveyor site: Apollo 12 astronaut Pete Conrad visited the Surveyor 3 spacecraft in November of 1969 -- check out the stereo picture:
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/NVA2~4~4~4237~104763:Apollo---Surveyor-Stereo-View
will be tough but I speak from experience with a couple of nonagenerians (grandmother and great aunt) and a couple of septagenerians (aunts both) -- they will do things in Windows... things that will be difficult for you to figure out on the telephone. You need to be able to get to their desktop if you're going to have a chance at all (e.g. some flavor of VNC). The most important thing I learned during the many hours I've spent over the years supporting family members: mouse usage basically becomes a random variable with seniors as their motor control declines. So a) they have no idea where and what they clicked and b) they will frequently do things that produce inexplicable results. An example: a family member called one day to describe a gray screen covering about 90% of the display. Turned out that my grandmother had (somehow) unlocked the toolbar in Windows and dragged it all the way to the top of the screen, rendering the machine useless. Try figuring that out on the telephone. I've never found a tool that would allow me to freeze the desktop and menu items so that they didn't get scrambled... just plan on periodically having a UI puzzle on your hands. Having remote desktop access will help but the only problem there is that you may not be trusted to take remote control, i.e. privacy is an issue. Sigh. Seniors really need only a couple of apps: web, email, and Solitare. Windows is overkill and will be the pebble in your shoe.
First, of course proofs are fair game for Wikipedia -- a proof is like the source code for a statement that is purported to be true.
I've seen a few nibbles around the edge with some of the answers but I think this topic leads to more fundamental questions, like "what things require proving" and "when is a thing proved", the latter of which sometims boils down to "to whose satisfaction must a thing be shown before it is accepted as proven"? The answer to these questions has driven a lot of the development of mathematics itself (as well as philosophy and the natural sciences), as things that were once accepted as axiomatic, after critical examination, have themselves been shown to be consequences of more fundamental axioms (or assumptions).
One could argue that it's the lone ranger that is responsible for real progress in the arts and sciences -- it's always been that way. I think the commercial payoff track record is not as impressive, however. There is no substitute for the focus and drive that an individual can bring to bear on a problem. I only wish that I could be one of the folks that lights the way. Rock on, lone programmer!
Points well taken, though I seem to recall that Newton's predictions for Mercury's orbit didn't really fit until Einstein's G.R. accounted for the difference, and the solution did not involve matter, "dark" or "missing".
Someone had to ask: wonder if anyone's simulated the universe using MOND. How did the researchers account for all this dark matter that's supposed to be around? It's far more likely that we got the force law wrong. Do these dark matter guys still believe in Santa Claus? BTW has anyone successfully simulated a galaxy and produced results that correspond to observations? I think this problem is still open...
Unfortunately, the tools for helping us to specify what we want/need are woefully inadequate. Hence, software development is both art and science. If I see any clear trend over the last fifteen years, it's that we're getting worse at *thinking* about what we want and "better" at creating vast amounts of code. Oh we're better at diagramming, syntax-error catching, etc., but the ideas are what's important, and there are no tools that can help us think through what we need. There is no substitute for intelligence.
Agree with your comment re: pencil and paper. Some folks have mentioned that slide rules require an order-of-magnitude-awareness to be developed by users and I agree completely. Understanding the size of the numbers with which you're working is important, and comes in handy during day-to-day life. There are other advantages to slide rules, too. For instance, the slide rule introduced students to logarithms, usually around 7th grade or so here in the US. Nowadays the first exposure that students have to logarithms comes in their second semester of calculus, when they're learning how to do definite integrals of x^{-1} w.r.t. x. *If* they take Calculus, and *if* they learn how to integrate at all. So students are often tasked with learning some skills with logarithms at the same time they're learning calculus, which tends to steepen the learning curve a bit. For me, when I finally learned the definition of the logarithm base E, it was something of a religious experience, since I'd been blindly using logs for years before. I understood the *algebra* of logarithms through constant use, but being able to use the definition to prove all the rules was just awesome. Today this is probably a rare, if not extinct, experience. For engineers, they may coast right by the calculus stuff but later on, if they work with something like Laplace or Fourier Transforms, they'll encounter the same logarithmic algebra all over again. And I've seen students struggle with this while wondering if things would'nt be much easier if they'd chucked the calculators in favor of the old slide rule long ago. There may be some debate over whether having the skills that a slide rule (or pencil and paper) teaches is important. Or whether the preparation for further education that it provides is something that we need today. Call me old-fashioned, but it's a matter of education, and I think we've lost something valuable in the switch from the slide rule to the calcualtor. One wonders if the Mars Climate Orbiter mission would have succeeded if the contractors had been using slide rules. Did they push the wrong conversion button on their calculator? Had someone had an order-of-magnitude idea about the numbers they should have gotten, perhaps they'd have caught the error in time...