It's not just government that does this.
I believe many large corporations buy software
they don't need. A good salesman can do amazing
things. I wrote an
article about this on K5. The poll there
indicates other people have observed the same
phenomenon.
Granted, $95 million is a lot of money. Too
bad for the California taxpayers.
Re:Hello? Fermi Paradox!
on
Rare Earth
·
· Score: 1
It's too bad this is called the Fermi
Paradox, because it's not really a
paradox. It's just a good argument that
intelligent life is rare.
I will add one more counter-possibility:
interstellar travel may just be a lot
harder than we think. I recall being intrigued
by the experiment of the "Biosphere 2" in
Arizona. They had 8 people in a sealed
environment for two years, and ran into lots
of unexpected problems. Clearly we would need
to solve these problems before we can go
colonizing the galaxy. Unfortunately, the
human habitation part of Biosphere 2 has been
abandoned.
I firmly believe that good software is
possible. A key ingredient is tying the income
of the programmer to the quality of his software.
I wrote an
article about this on K5.
>That's a bitter indictment of a nation that purports to be advancing democracy
I cringe whenever I hear someone say that the US is a democracy, or that it advances democracy. Politicians say it a lot, but it is not true. The US is a republic.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the difference, in a democracy, people vote on laws directly. In a republic, people elect representatives, and those representatives vote on laws.
This is not an idle semantic distinction. A republic is more vulnerable to political action groups who "buy" representatives with "soft" money. In a democracy, those groups would have to "buy" a majority of the people, which would be much more difficult.
I don't know of any actual democracies today, but there is no reason in principle why the US could not be one, especially with the Internet. Of course, senators don't like to dwell on the fact that the US is not a democracy -- they would be out of their six figure jobs if it were.
I've often wondered what foreigners think of our two major political parties. Perhaps some might naively assume that the Democratic Party seeks to overthrow the republic and replace it with a democracy, while the Republican Party seeks to preserve the status quo.
Anyway, whenever someone uses the word democracy incorrectly, I feel the urge to set them straight.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just government that does this. I believe many large corporations buy software they don't need. A good salesman can do amazing things. I wrote an article about this on K5. The poll there indicates other people have observed the same phenomenon.
Granted, $95 million is a lot of money. Too bad for the California taxpayers.
It's too bad this is called the Fermi Paradox, because it's not really a paradox. It's just a good argument that intelligent life is rare.
I will add one more counter-possibility: interstellar travel may just be a lot harder than we think. I recall being intrigued by the experiment of the "Biosphere 2" in Arizona. They had 8 people in a sealed environment for two years, and ran into lots of unexpected problems. Clearly we would need to solve these problems before we can go colonizing the galaxy. Unfortunately, the human habitation part of Biosphere 2 has been abandoned.
I wrote an article on K5 that takes the idea of buying senators to its logical extreme. You may find it interesting.
I firmly believe that good software is possible. A key ingredient is tying the income of the programmer to the quality of his software. I wrote an article about this on K5.
>That's a bitter indictment of a nation that purports to be advancing democracy
I cringe whenever I hear someone say that the US is a democracy, or that it advances democracy. Politicians say it a lot, but it is not true. The US is a republic.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the difference, in a democracy, people vote on laws directly. In a republic, people elect representatives, and those representatives vote on laws.
This is not an idle semantic distinction. A republic is more vulnerable to political action groups who "buy" representatives with "soft" money. In a democracy, those groups would have to "buy" a majority of the people, which would be much more difficult.
I don't know of any actual democracies today, but there is no reason in principle why the US could not be one, especially with the Internet. Of course, senators don't like to dwell on the fact that the US is not a democracy -- they would be out of their six figure jobs if it were.
I've often wondered what foreigners think of our two major political parties. Perhaps some might naively assume that the Democratic Party seeks to overthrow the republic and replace it with a democracy, while the Republican Party seeks to preserve the status quo.
Anyway, whenever someone uses the word democracy incorrectly, I feel the urge to set them straight.