when has the gov't taken over a previously private role and done a better job?
Public transport. In fact, most cases where you get an effective monopoly.
Actually, no. Government control of public transport has simply allowed hiding the true cost behind a tax structure - it's great for those that make use of it to not have to bear the full costs - but rather unfair to all those who have no choice in the matter to foot the bill regardless. Contrarily, a privately funded system has to pay its own way, and be paid by the actual users - which is why so few such efforts are started and even fewer work.
The reason most people don't commit murder is because they realize the penalty for doing so.
If the people of a society act only because of a fear of getting caught then that society is lost, as people will always find ways around the law, and privelege will become the deciding factor on who must follow the law and who need not. Only within a society of which the people believe in moral principles ("morailty is what you do when no one is watching") will advance.
Creating "bad" laws - that is laws which the majority do not desire to follow and appear to only serve as a source of revenue - only cheapens the "good" laws - those that advance the freedom of people.
There's really only one thing for a married couple (or any couple, for that matter) to do when they're confined in a small space for several months at a time...
There's just not that many sports channels to choose from...
Under pressure to make the next quarter's earnings numbers, I doubt they'll stay that way.
Why on earth would they change something that is working well? If google thought it would maximize their earning to have gaudy ads then they'd already have them - they don't because they have been smart enough to stick to what works and to introduce change after careful analysis.
Google going public and gaining access to significant cash while the present proven managment and relationship to the public is allowed to remain will give the company great maneuvering room to make the search engine that much better.
This is a good thing for the company and for their users - the people that worked hard will be well rewarded - the users of the search engine are more than likely to see more improvements in the future.
remember that each NASA lander costs $545m, whereas beagle 2 cost a mere $35m. EU should have thrown 31 Beagles at Mars and some of them would have worked!
So it's better to spend $35 MM a few dozen times for something known to fail than $545 MM once for something known to work?
But what does the air marshal do when the terrorist has his box cutter to another passengers throat? In that situation the only way out which keeps the passenger alive is to give up your gun. The ideal option would be to shoot the terrorist anyway as one dead passenger is better than hundreds, but few people would be able to make that choice.
Those unable to make that sort of decision should not go into the Air Marshal business.
So next time before you do some arm chair piloting get your facts straight.
Yeah, I guess 3000 hours of flight time with 500 hours in combat including more emergencies from engine failures due to fire to hydraulic failures to electrical failures to lightning strikes to... than I can count doesn't mean shit on slashdot.
How do you think the pilot knows of bad weather... oh thats right he gets ground reports through his computer
Well, he could always look out the window... perhaps a difficult concept to comprehend for those that believe that the pilot should only do what's been preallowed by some programmer who is completely unaware of the particulars of the situation that may occur.
Further more how do you know which engine is out without the computer
There's a significant change in thrust from one side of the aircraft when an engine has failed. Turning into a dead engine, especially with a heavy fuel load, is usually not the smart thing to do because of the greater difficulty of turning back - but if the pilot makes a concious decision to turn in a particular direction then a computer should not attempt to override it for reasons that are less critical than safety of flight (such as some BS no-fly zone).
99% of the time you are in the air the FMC is guiding the plane including *gasp* your headings out of turns
Sigh. An autopilot system is an aid for the pilot - it's not a substitute. A system that calculates the headings and lead points is fine for rolling out on a certain course, but is irrelevant to the situation of a pilot flying the aircraft where he wants it to be, vice some erroneous decision made by software.
FMC is going to be able to calculate out how fast you can and can't climb a hell of alot better than any human
No it can't. It can calulate the optimum climb rate to get to some altitude using the least fuel or least time or least distance - but that is not definitely better - the system doesn't know what may be most important at any given moment. That's the job of the pilot. People that advocate being able to hinder the pilot's options are doing no favors to either the pilots or the passengers they are responsible for.
Responsibility for the lives of hundreds of others is a big deal. Maybe you've never been there.
assuming that the end-user is in complete control of the machine at every time is a mistake. Grandma is not in control of her new Windows XP box. Joe P. Capitain is not in control of his plane when there is a gun to his head.
Wrong. This is not a situation where a BSOD is acceptable. Grandma might be appreciative of Clippy helping her out, but the last thing a pilot in an airline full of passengers needs is some "oops" in the programming preventing him from turning when he wants because it might overfly Barbara Streisand's house. The pilot is the one to decide what is smart to do - if he needs help, then give him a partner. If terrorism is the concern, give him an armed guard.
Why wasn't this been implemented before?...Why don't our planes avoid mountains automatically?
Because it's a stupid idea.
A computer can't know the myriad of decision factors that the pilot does. There's a lot more to safe flight operations, especially during an emergency, than simply pointing the airplane in the right direction. There's considerations of how bad the weather may be in one direction, which engine may have failed causing difficulty in turning in one direction, which heading the aircraft needs to be on after completing a turn to line up with the desired runway so as to make a landing the first time (because there might not be a second time), how critical is it to get to a certain altitude rapidly, and hundreds of other factors that might (or might not) be important. The pilot is the one best to rapidly rank order what's important and what's not given the particular situation he's found himself and those several hundred passengers in.
Just what computer program could decide that it's a better decision to allow the plane to fly close to a mountain (how close? 1000 feet? 2000 feet? 50 feet?) in order to meet some criteria the pilot (you know, the person deemed competent to make such decisions) has decided is most critical.
Aids that assist in flying are wonderful - keep bureauacracy and "for the children" politics out of the cockpit though.
You make good points, but these psychopaths would be playing by the same rules as you if the speed limits were a physical law.
You miss the point - the guy merging at your speed and oblivious to you is going to impact you unless *you* get out of the way - if *you* feel it's unsafe to slow down because the guy behind is driving far too closely and *you* no longer have an option of increasing your speed to keep yourself (and everyone else around) safe then what do you think is going to happen?
if this technology is sufficient to write good term papers based on online information, what is the point of learning to write term papers... teachers ought to be teaching students how to get such software to produce the effect they want on the audience.
Since it's so comfortable one wonders why the baby ever leaves the womb.
Lotteries are simply a tax on working people - you might as well throw a few bucks at it to have a chance of recovering your unvolunteered tax money.
Too many times have I stood in line at some quikstop while the person in front of me cashes a government-subsistence check and then proceeds to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets... here I am paying for their bad habits without getting to enjoy any of 'em myself.
Meanwhile, on topic, I know someone that has fallen for this very scam - an old retired person that will never recover from his stupidity. Unfortunately, it becomes his family's problem to care for him now - scams (and lotteries - redundant I s'pose) affect much more than just the person losing the money.
Every 3 years I buy the latest largest screen Thinkpad and set it up to dual boot whatever version of Windows it comes with (which I admittedly only keep for my kids to play games on when travelling) and use Debian on it myself - I've been doing this for over a decade and am delighted with it, other than weight, but the quality of the display more than makes up for it to me.
I then give the 3-yr-old system to a family member, earning many kudos ('sides, that's when the warranty runs out).
I still consider it absolutely absurd that we would favor Japan over France not for any legitimate reason, but actually admit that we favor Japan because Chirac wouldn't play Cowboys & Indians with the US.
You seem to be reading even more into the BBC article than what wasn't there. It's bad enough that this formerly excellent news organization has become so biased in its "reporting", but even in their article it didn't say that the US was stating the reason was because they were mad at France - it's only the BBC saying that's why the US favors Japan. The article only casually mentions that all the other members of the group prefer Japan over France too.
So the question returns: How did someone who couldn't give a rat's ass about "techical details" get to be in charge of a project that is ALL "technical details?"
Because in a world where the people are promoted to fill some perceived need other than proven technical competence (eg, "balance" in the workforce, plays a good game of golf, sucks up to the boss, etc.), then little effort is made to find those dedicated to really understanding a problem before acting on it. Instead, those who are able to look good in the shower vice those who are actually able to fly the jet / build the rocket / analyze complex data are the ones that are promoted and given executive level pay and perks.
Whenever I see a PPT presentation that has anything that moves, I realize the presenter probably doesn't know shit about his subject. The templates and gee-whiz gizmos of PPT encourage that sort of thing - se we end up with multimegabyte presentations (because of the gee-whizness thingies) that get read to us - if the information was important it should be presented in a research report with appropriate detail and actually read by those that need to make decisions.
We no longer teach that sort of thing - we encourage kids now from an early age to make PPT presentations of minimal facts - the famous bullet points - and such an approach to providing knowledge to others means more time is spent on seeing eye candy than on data collection, theory presentation, statistical analysis, historical references and professional-judgement recommendations.
They were not arming to invade but to defend. Given what the US was up to I think it was the prudent thing to do.
The Soviet Union must have had all those mobile tanks, mobile SAM systems, mobile troop carriers, and long-range Bear bombers just for show, I guess, since they were only going to defend a static area.
That's the only way e-voting should work. No bugs, no problems, just hardware.
How about this? The hardware is really simple - you have a piece or thin cardboard that has these spots that are easy to punch out - you provide a simple jig that lines this card up with a printed list of names - you take the simplest of tools - a sharp object - and poke a hole in the cardboard next to the name you want. When you're done, you look at the piece of cardboard and if it looks ok you put it into a box where another simple machine is used to count it.
Why, these actions are so simple I believe a monkey could do them, being simple tool users themselves. Anyone who can't probably shouldn't be casting a vote in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
The greater the deficit the less that future taxes will go for bullshit.
Public transport. In fact, most cases where you get an effective monopoly.
Actually, no. Government control of public transport has simply allowed hiding the true cost behind a tax structure - it's great for those that make use of it to not have to bear the full costs - but rather unfair to all those who have no choice in the matter to foot the bill regardless. Contrarily, a privately funded system has to pay its own way, and be paid by the actual users - which is why so few such efforts are started and even fewer work.
If the people of a society act only because of a fear of getting caught then that society is lost, as people will always find ways around the law, and privelege will become the deciding factor on who must follow the law and who need not. Only within a society of which the people believe in moral principles ("morailty is what you do when no one is watching") will advance.
Creating "bad" laws - that is laws which the majority do not desire to follow and appear to only serve as a source of revenue - only cheapens the "good" laws - those that advance the freedom of people.
All the money would be diverted to social programs if there weren't military threats driving the advancement of technology.
No but once they get embedded Emacs working ...
... and wired ethernet in a notebook is simply unacceptable now.
There's just not that many sports channels to choose from ...
Why on earth would they change something that is working well? If google thought it would maximize their earning to have gaudy ads then they'd already have them - they don't because they have been smart enough to stick to what works and to introduce change after careful analysis.
Google going public and gaining access to significant cash while the present proven managment and relationship to the public is allowed to remain will give the company great maneuvering room to make the search engine that much better.
This is a good thing for the company and for their users - the people that worked hard will be well rewarded - the users of the search engine are more than likely to see more improvements in the future.
When you're in a room of long-legged women wearing mini-skirts?
So it's better to spend $35 MM a few dozen times for something known to fail than $545 MM once for something known to work?
Those unable to make that sort of decision should not go into the Air Marshal business.
Yeah, I guess 3000 hours of flight time with 500 hours in combat including more emergencies from engine failures due to fire to hydraulic failures to electrical failures to lightning strikes to ... than I can count doesn't mean shit on slashdot.
How do you think the pilot knows of bad weather ... oh thats right he gets ground reports through his computer
Well, he could always look out the window ... perhaps a difficult concept to comprehend for those that believe that the pilot should only do what's been preallowed by some programmer who is completely unaware of the particulars of the situation that may occur.
Further more how do you know which engine is out without the computer
There's a significant change in thrust from one side of the aircraft when an engine has failed. Turning into a dead engine, especially with a heavy fuel load, is usually not the smart thing to do because of the greater difficulty of turning back - but if the pilot makes a concious decision to turn in a particular direction then a computer should not attempt to override it for reasons that are less critical than safety of flight (such as some BS no-fly zone).
99% of the time you are in the air the FMC is guiding the plane including *gasp* your headings out of turns
Sigh. An autopilot system is an aid for the pilot - it's not a substitute. A system that calculates the headings and lead points is fine for rolling out on a certain course, but is irrelevant to the situation of a pilot flying the aircraft where he wants it to be, vice some erroneous decision made by software.
FMC is going to be able to calculate out how fast you can and can't climb a hell of alot better than any human
No it can't. It can calulate the optimum climb rate to get to some altitude using the least fuel or least time or least distance - but that is not definitely better - the system doesn't know what may be most important at any given moment. That's the job of the pilot. People that advocate being able to hinder the pilot's options are doing no favors to either the pilots or the passengers they are responsible for.
Responsibility for the lives of hundreds of others is a big deal. Maybe you've never been there.
Wrong. This is not a situation where a BSOD is acceptable. Grandma might be appreciative of Clippy helping her out, but the last thing a pilot in an airline full of passengers needs is some "oops" in the programming preventing him from turning when he wants because it might overfly Barbara Streisand's house. The pilot is the one to decide what is smart to do - if he needs help, then give him a partner. If terrorism is the concern, give him an armed guard.
Because it's a stupid idea.
A computer can't know the myriad of decision factors that the pilot does. There's a lot more to safe flight operations, especially during an emergency, than simply pointing the airplane in the right direction. There's considerations of how bad the weather may be in one direction, which engine may have failed causing difficulty in turning in one direction, which heading the aircraft needs to be on after completing a turn to line up with the desired runway so as to make a landing the first time (because there might not be a second time), how critical is it to get to a certain altitude rapidly, and hundreds of other factors that might (or might not) be important. The pilot is the one best to rapidly rank order what's important and what's not given the particular situation he's found himself and those several hundred passengers in.
Just what computer program could decide that it's a better decision to allow the plane to fly close to a mountain (how close? 1000 feet? 2000 feet? 50 feet?) in order to meet some criteria the pilot (you know, the person deemed competent to make such decisions) has decided is most critical.
Aids that assist in flying are wonderful - keep bureauacracy and "for the children" politics out of the cockpit though.
You miss the point - the guy merging at your speed and oblivious to you is going to impact you unless *you* get out of the way - if *you* feel it's unsafe to slow down because the guy behind is driving far too closely and *you* no longer have an option of increasing your speed to keep yourself (and everyone else around) safe then what do you think is going to happen?
Jane Fonda must have read the same article.
Maybe you could look at using different software.
Since it's so comfortable one wonders why the baby ever leaves the womb.
Lotteries are simply a tax on working people - you might as well throw a few bucks at it to have a chance of recovering your unvolunteered tax money.
Too many times have I stood in line at some quikstop while the person in front of me cashes a government-subsistence check and then proceeds to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets ... here I am paying for their bad habits without getting to enjoy any of 'em myself.
Meanwhile, on topic, I know someone that has fallen for this very scam - an old retired person that will never recover from his stupidity. Unfortunately, it becomes his family's problem to care for him now - scams (and lotteries - redundant I s'pose) affect much more than just the person losing the money.
I then give the 3-yr-old system to a family member, earning many kudos ('sides, that's when the warranty runs out).
You seem to be reading even more into the BBC article than what wasn't there. It's bad enough that this formerly excellent news organization has become so biased in its "reporting", but even in their article it didn't say that the US was stating the reason was because they were mad at France - it's only the BBC saying that's why the US favors Japan. The article only casually mentions that all the other members of the group prefer Japan over France too.
Because in a world where the people are promoted to fill some perceived need other than proven technical competence (eg, "balance" in the workforce, plays a good game of golf, sucks up to the boss, etc.), then little effort is made to find those dedicated to really understanding a problem before acting on it. Instead, those who are able to look good in the shower vice those who are actually able to fly the jet / build the rocket / analyze complex data are the ones that are promoted and given executive level pay and perks.
Whenever I see a PPT presentation that has anything that moves, I realize the presenter probably doesn't know shit about his subject. The templates and gee-whiz gizmos of PPT encourage that sort of thing - se we end up with multimegabyte presentations (because of the gee-whizness thingies) that get read to us - if the information was important it should be presented in a research report with appropriate detail and actually read by those that need to make decisions.
We no longer teach that sort of thing - we encourage kids now from an early age to make PPT presentations of minimal facts - the famous bullet points - and such an approach to providing knowledge to others means more time is spent on seeing eye candy than on data collection, theory presentation, statistical analysis, historical references and professional-judgement recommendations.
The Soviet Union must have had all those mobile tanks, mobile SAM systems, mobile troop carriers, and long-range Bear bombers just for show, I guess, since they were only going to defend a static area.
How about this? The hardware is really simple - you have a piece or thin cardboard that has these spots that are easy to punch out - you provide a simple jig that lines this card up with a printed list of names - you take the simplest of tools - a sharp object - and poke a hole in the cardboard next to the name you want. When you're done, you look at the piece of cardboard and if it looks ok you put it into a box where another simple machine is used to count it.
Why, these actions are so simple I believe a monkey could do them, being simple tool users themselves. Anyone who can't probably shouldn't be casting a vote in the first place.
I'm pretty sure it was chosen for the people and not by the people.