> What does it say about a guy when I read that sentence and remember the Challenger? Hmm......hopefully nothing about age....
Amen, bro.
In 1986, it was -1, Tasteless. In 2003, it's +1, Informative. When we lose another Orbiter in a few years, it'll be +1, "NASA's Bold Vision of the Future - Rebuilding the Shuttle Fleet"
No disrespect intended to the crew of either vehicle, nor to the engineers who keep 'em flying against all odds and against an army of NASA bureaucrats, but it's time for the Shuttle to go.
That's the best summary of the problem I've seen yet. I'm also glad to see you cover the "telnet to the workstation and kill the process that ate X" solution. The fact that (unlike Windows) the underlying OS remains up and running is irrelevant -- if the end user doesn't have another workstation and a LAN handy, they still have to reboot, just like in Windows.
That the user ends up having to reboot because they mouse-clicked elsewhere on the screen, with a drop-down Bookmarks menu present, while Netscape 4.x was trying to render a gobby page of HTML with too many layers of nested tables does not mean that web designers who code for IE are "evil", or that Mozilla is better than Netscape and they should be using it instead. It means that end users will go back to Windows and IE.
> Not really, because they're not "bidding" every individual space launch. They have the shuttle and infrastructure and their just using it. The only way for a bid to come about would be if NASA were to decide that the shuttle isn't working out and open an RFP process for a replacement (Which they've basically said they won't do for the next 20 years or so). > > Unfortunately, even in that case it's likely that they would submit specifications for what they want and people could bid on building it. So if you had a cheap idea that wasn't quite the same, they can ignore you. > > Also, most government contracts are worded in such a way that any bid considerably lower than the rest can be thrown out on the expectation that "they couldn't possibly do it for that much if no-one else can".
Argh.
Thanks for saying it way better than I did, just a few minutes ago.
If NASA comes to its senses and ditches the Shuttle/ISS pork factory, I'll gladly retire my tinfoil pork-conspiracy hat forever.
Unfortunately, everything I've heard emanating from NASA and Congress over the past couple of weeks tells me that the only thing we're likely to see come of the Columbia disaster is the apportioning of another couple of billion dollars... to build another Orbiter to replace the one that was lost.
I want to live in a world where "NASA - Need Another Seven Astronauts" can be modded as (-1, Tasteless), not (+1, Informative).
> Doesn't NASA, as a governmental organization, have the same requirement to accept the lowest bid on contracts as every other organization?
NASA only has to accept bids from suppliers that it deems credible.
Who, in NASA, decides which suppliers are "credible" or not?
As much as I lambaste NASA - there's actually a good reason for this; it weeds out the crackpots. Carmack's not a crackpot, and he's a hell of a lot more likely to launch something for $1M, than I am for $500K, or JoJo's Psychic Levitation Hotline's offer for $3.99/minute/pound to orbit. But if it were just the lowest bidder, they'd have to go with the psychics.
Unfortunately, this has a bad drawback - something has to determine whether a contractor is "for real" or not, and more often than not, what determines it is a combination of "track record" (good) and "network of political contacts" (not-so-good). At the moment, Carmack has neither, but even if he pulls off 100 perfect launches at $1M apiece, he still won't have the latter.
Unfortunately, in some industries (and IMNSHO government-paid-for aerospace is such an industry), political connections may still be a determining factor.
By government policy, every government launch - military as well as scientific - was supposed to have been done on the Shuttle. The fact that it cost two, three, four times as much as using expendable launch vehicles didn't change the policy. (Costs didn't matter; it just meant more pr0k for all involved!) Thay policy was only changed after the Challenger disaster gave everyone involved a reality check. National security may not be threatened if a NASA probe sits in a warehouse for 6 years waiting for a new launch window after a Shuttle delay, but sometimes a spy satellite needs to go up now.
> Paranoid rubbish. > >For starters, they'd have off-site backups.
Off-site backups which would conveniently be unreadable. "Whoops, the tape heads were misaligned when the tape got written. Aaw, shucks!"
More to the point - while having an "accident" is unlikely - in that the PR costs would be enormous, and no CEO would want to sign off on it, the takeover and burial of the technology is pretty easy.
If the success of a competitor's tech means the loss of 90% of your margins, you buy the competitor.
If the success of a campaign contributor's competitor means the loss of 90% of the pork you can distribute to your Congressional district, and thus, the loss of jobs in your constituency, you make damn sure the FTC ignores antitrust concerns when analyzing the takeover of said competitor.
This isn't really about Armadillo, it's about Shuttle/ISS, and why DC-X, X-33, the frickin' Shuttle "C" heavy lift vehicle, and everything else that could cut the cost to orbit, never makes it off the ground.
I've watched it happen, over and over again, and the only conclusion I can draw is that there's too much money to be made by recipients of pork, and too many votes to be had by spreading said pork around, to ever allow the development of cheap access to space.
Asking Congress, Boeing, and NASA in charge of putting stuff cheaply and reliably in space, is like putting Fritz Hollings, Britney Spears, and RIAA in charge of reducing the cost of CDs. Anyone who threatens the RIAA business model, gets stomped on (Napster) or sued into oblivion and bought out (mp3.com).
(If that analogy strikes you as too karma-whorish, then fine - it's also how Valenti and Rosen would react to putting Rep. Rick Boucher, Napster and Kazaa in charge of the committee to mandate a DRM solution in every set-top box.:-)
The problem is the current NASA/government-contractor setup would just respond with "Why the fuck should we build a low-cost launch vehicle when we're getting $6B/year for Shuttle/ISS indefinitely?"
Or to be even more cynical, it violates something I consider to be one of Life's Universal Rules, which is this: You should never threaten to cost someone more money than it would cost them to have you killed.
For instance, suppose there's a market need for 20 commercial/military/ISS flights per year, and the government's willing to pay $500M per launch. That's $500M x 20 = $10B a year in pork to use the shuttle and our current unmanned vehicle capabilities. Against that, nobody is gonna build cheap launch capability, because it'll soon be a better business strategy to simply eliminate anyone who comes close.
For instance, suppose Armadillo Aerospace develops tech that enables them to launch a satellite for $1M. With reduced costs, there might be a market for 100 launches a year versus 20. NASA space scientists are elated, because they can finally send an army of cheap probes to every planet, comet, and moon that tickles their fancy. And geeks (myself included!) will rejoice because we can finally read about all the cool science while we're vacationing at the Space Hilton.
The big problem with this lovely picture is that as soon as Armadillo announces its $1M-to-orbit vehicle, $BIG_CONTRACTOR realizes that even if they buy Armadillo outright, the $10B/year gravy train (20 comm/spy satellites at $500M each) is gonna come up $9.9B short (20 comm/spysats, plus 80 space probes and Space Hilton modules, at $1M per launch). Someone will realize that you can hire a lot of assassins and saboteurs for $9.9B.
Congressmen, upon realizing that Armadillo's success will soon mean $9.9B less pork to distribute to their districts, will conclude that a major campaign contributor has discovered an "intriguing" solution to both their respective problems.
Both groups will publicly lament the "accident" at Armadillo that resulted in the flash-combustion of all personnel, and bemoan their sysadmins for the fact that all the offsite backup tapes containing design and technical data were unreadable, and use the "accident" to remind the voting and taxpaying public that space still isn't quite ready for private sector involvement.
I wish Carmack and anyone else trying to provide cheap access to space the best of luck, but I fear for anyone who comes close to achieving the dream.
> the X-30 space plane is the proof of concept for all the tech needed for a maned space plane....we will have a working machine in about 5 years.
No you won't. In 5 years, the X-30 will have been cancelled to free up the budget to build a replacement Shuttle.
There's no market for 100 launches a year. Any technology that would cost less than Shuttle, means less dollars for the Congressional districts that hold the contractors who get the NASA p0rk. Therefore, any tech that would lower the cost of orbit and/or make the Shuttle pork obsolete, will be cancelled before it becomes a threat. Bank on it.
> Your reply to the guy about the polynomial regressions is a *great* explanation of the problem. I'd ask you this by e-mail but your address isn't public. Can I quote you on my website?
Totally - thanks for asking, BTW. But yeah, go ahead and cut-and-paste all ya want.
> JV: I think lobbying is really an honest profession. Lobbying means trying to persuade Congress to accept your point of view. Sometimes you can give them a lot of facts they didn't have before.
Now now, it's all a question of what the meaning of the word "facts" is. You know, how a 48x CD burner is "equivalent" to 2.4 regular CD burners?
Turns out that a $100 bill is equivalent to one fact. A $100 bill wrapped into a round tube, is equivalent to two facts. That same $100 bill, wrapped into a round tube, with one end placed near a line of cocaine on a Hollywood fuckgoblet's silicone implant, and the other end placed near a Senator's nose, is equivalent to several hundred facts.
> Yes, Lobbying turns Capitol hill into Capitalism... every dollar has a vote! YAY!
That ain't Capitalism. That ain't even a free market. Hint: If your business model requires that you lobby Congressmen to pass laws that allow people with guns to preserve your business model, what you're doing is so far away from capitalism that it can no longer see capitalism without the help of very-long baseline interferometry.
> Yeah, or his prized DVD collection gets scratches, or won't play at all 'cuz he is in the wrong region, or...
...the media format changes from 78s to vinyl to CDs to DVD-audio, or film to 8mm to Beta to VHS to SVHS to DVD?
You buy it again! I mean, duh.
Why would anyone want backups of stuff they paid for when they could simply pay for the same content all over again!
Look, let me put it in terms even a Slashdotter can understand. If people could have backups, how would Jack make more money? Next thing you know, people will start thinking movies are about "watching photons bounced off or emitted from a screen and being entertained". Sure, there's that "acting" and "direction" and "plot" and "special effects", but, please, people, don't lose sight of the important part, namely the part about Jack making money.
> What's even scarier is if Joe Sixpack knows what a polynomial regression is and I don't. And I can bootstrap Gentoo perfectly from a Stage 1 tarball in my sleep!
Joe Sixpack might not - but Joe Ph.Dpack might.
Problem is, in terms of their ability to bootstrap Gentoo, both Joe Sixpack and the Ph.D. candidate - are end-lusers. Non-developers. Users of turnkey applications, not maintainers of packages and dependencies. Or, to paraphrase the words of more than one Slashdot flamer, worthless leeching scum who aren't worthy of using the glorious code they're given for free.
The guy with the Ph.D. sees the computer as a very sophisticated calculator. Instead of Excel, he uses Mathematica. Or a specialized CAD/CAM program.
Unfortunately for Linux, in none of these cases does he give a wet slap about window managers, or access to the source code. He wants to get his application of choice up and running so he can get his job done. And if Win2K lets him do that, without having to switch window managers whenever he wants to switch applications (because only barbarians use FooDE, why would he want to use a FooDE application, doesn't he realize my app for BarNome, even though it does only half of what that FooDE app does, uses BarNome, which is by far the superior toolkit for developing graphical applications!), then he throws up his hands and says "Fuck it, I'll use Windoze. It sucks, it's expensive, but at least it runs the applications I need to do my job."
> Dude, no offense, but that is awful, awful advice. Just terrible. You should never give anyone financial planning advice.
Totally - what I wrote was not intended as advice.
Socking away $1000-2000/month and having $150K in your bank after 10 years doesn't mean you can retire in Montana or anywhere else. It means you can move to Montana and not starve to death for a few years - which was something I picked out of thin air to contrast it with the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle that most folks live.
As for it being an incredible amount of savings per month, not really. Even in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, a $60K income (not unreasonable for 4-5 years experience - and we're sketching out a 10-year career) works out to $40K after tax. That's $3000/month - and if you're renting at $1500/month (typical for Kalifornistan), but otherwise living frugally (say, monthly $100 for crappy used car, $200 for DIY food, $200 for toys), putting away $1000/mo isn't that tough.
After saving your $1K/mo, move somewhere sensible, earn $50K, and save 10% in income taxes, and instead of renting at $1500, rent at $500. Or buy a house.
> Get married. Just marry someone who prefers to feel productive (i.e., wants to work/have a career), and who doesn't want kids anytime soon. 2 people can live far more cost-effectively than 1.
And for those who don't want/need a spouse (and/or the financial risks associated with divorce), there's always roommates. All the financial advantages of marriage, with virtually none of the risks, provided you can put up with sharing your space with each other.
> ABSOLUTELY BUY A HOUSE! Stop renting as soon as you can afford to!
Another good reason to avoid Kalifornistan. *g* $500K for a starter home here, versus $150K for a good home anywhere else.:)
> I spent years working for small, fun companies that went bankrupt. I'm now work for the State, 9:00 to 5:30. It allows me to do important stuff, like raise a family. As a bonus, I end up supporting programs with socially redeeming value.
Bully for you.
I spent years working for small, fun companies that didn't go bankrupt. I'm now work for the State, 9:00 to 12:30. It allows you to do important stuff, like raise a family. As a bonus, I end up supporting programs whose only socially redeeming purpose seems to be to ensure that next year, I'll be work for the State 9:00 to 13:00.
> Perhaps if you think that "success" and "happiness" means making $200k/year. I think a lot of people who have wealth will tell you that while you can buy a lot for $200k, you can't buy happiness.
Tell you what. Gimme $200K/year and I'll take my chances.
> It seems everybody's goal is to be ultra-rich and successful. I've always just wanted to be financially secure. Not having to be worried about upcoming rent or electric bill. And work as little as possible doing it. Since I don't plan on having kids or getting married anytime soon, I won't have to make much money to achieve those goals. Most people tell me I will want kids later in life. I am so set on not having them I don't think it'll change
BTW, you're ahead of 90% of the population.
The key to financial security is to be able to live beneath your means. I had to laugh at the post about the guy talking (hypothetically) about 10 years at the $200K job, house/wife/3kids/car, and "getting hit by a layoff and having to give it all up for $50K in Montana". Well, duh, whether he enjoys it or not, he needs $200K just to keep running in place.
Skip the fancy house/car/wife/kids, and it's real easy to accumulate enough savings that you can bail to Montana. (And if you've made it out of college without a wife, skipping the wife/kids crap should be automatic from that point on!:)
Even in the Bay Area, a single with no dependents can live there for $2000/month, including a car. Cut that in half if you're in Montana.
How? Little things - say, start with a $3000 used car that you own, rather than a $30,000 SUV that you owe payments on. You'll get to work in the same amount of time. (Got $1M in the bank? Same deal - go with a $50K Boxster instead of a $250K Ferrari).
Instead of eating out ($5/meal at McDonald's x 3 meals a day), learn to cook - start with the Ars Technica "Bachelor Chow" cookbook and work your way up to Cordon Bleu. You can buy a frickin' 8-oz filet mignon for $5, and cook it in less than 30 minutes. Imagine - you can chow down on filet mignon with sauteed onions and mushrooms, every day, while your cow orkers spend 15 minutes driving to McDonald's, 10 minutes waiting at the drive-thru, and 15 minutes driving back home for a Big Mac.
No kids? Dude, at least you realize that's not a bug, it's a feature! Most of the marrieds-with-children that I know are harried out of their wits, and have no time for their kids or themselves. Having kids meant they had to get a house in the "right" neighborhood with the "right" schools, and that means a longer commute, and that means - tada - less time for the family in the first place.
Sock away $1000-2000 a month in savings (a little harder in the Bay Area than Montana), and within 10 years, you'll have enough money saved to tide you over for 10+ years. (10 years x 1500 = $150K, and at $1000/month living in Montana, that's a 10-year cushion. Use that time to hunt for a decent $50K job, or use that money to start your own business. Your choice.)
Contrast that with the 20something who bogs himself down with a wife (a breakeven if she works, a big drain if she doesn't), kids ($BIGNUM, plus $BIGGERNUM in college expenses down the road, oh, and the odds that your wife will want to continue working drop pretty significantly when she breeds:-), and mortgage payments (to house the aforementioned wife/kids), who's put himself on the treadmill of wage slavery for life.
Partnering with a childfree female is a decent option - you get to split living costs, and there's a high probability that she, like you, will be cash flow positive. That'll put both of you on track to early retirement sooner than either of you could have hacked it by yourselves.
Of course, evolution has tweaked things so that childfree females are as rare as hen's teeth. Don't knock it if one falls into your lap, but I wouldn't waste any time looking for one either. YMMV.
> > I work because I have a family and obligations. > > This is the strongest argument I've seen against starting a family or taking on obligations. YMMV.
Amen, amen, amen.
Gentoo may not be the right answer for everyone, but the right answer to the question "What operating system should I run on my computer?" is probably not "The one that comes from a high-cost vendor, purchased with a minimum 20-year commitment, and a EULA that involves half your net worth should you decide this OS doesn't meet your needs and you want to switch to a competing vendor."
I'd argue the same thought processes should apply to "What should I do with my life".
> Do what you love. No one wants to breathe their last with a sigh of wasted days. Live life fully daily. Life's too short to waste an entire day with a hangover. I have never heard anyone lament on their deathbed "I never should have bought that nice stereo".
This had to be said.
Choose no life. Choose sysadminning. Choose no career. Choose no family. Choose a fucking big computer, choose hard disks the size of washing machines, old cars, CD ROM writers and electrical coffee makers. Choose no sleep, high caffeine and mental insurance. Choose fixed interest car loans. Choose a rented shoebox. Choose no friends. Choose black jeans and matching combat boots. Choose a swivel chair for your office in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose NNTP and wondering why the fuck you're logged on on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting in that chair looking at mind-numbing, spirit-crushing web sites, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last on some miserable newsgroup, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up lusers Gates spawned to replace the computer-literate.
Choose your future. Choose sysadmining[1].
[1] It might fuck you up a little less than heroin[2]. [2] ObFootnote.
> >...hence the reason my shelves are not filled with Japanese literature. > Not to mention that your shelves are filled with Dr. Suess.
"writing that is too explicit is not valued."
Am I the only one who put these three ideas together and (upon realizing that Westerners typically don't read manga for the words) ended up with a vision of "Horton Tentacle-Rapes A Who"
> In order to make an operating hard drive crash it's heads with the vibration of a fan, you'll have to attach it to the equipment tie down point of an industrial cement kiln fan, and attach a 50lb weight to one of the blades at the edge.
Attention case modders: I believe we have a challenge. *g*
Oh yeah - something else to chip in here - another gifts from the telemarketing industry, namely charity fraud!
When Joe Scumweazel calls you on behalf of The Friends Of $CITY Police/Fire association, or whatever, odds are very good that for every $100 "donated", $90 is kept by Joe Scumweasel.
Suppose you pay your property taxes to "XYZ Municipal Treasury". There's often very little the City can do to prevent Joe Scumweasel from setting up a "charity" calling itself "XYZ Civic Treasury", or "Treasury Services of XYZ". He can then, without ever claiming to actually represent your city (which would be fraud) - mislead you into thinking that he's part of your local government anyways.
As long as Joe Scumweasel gives a (small) percentage to the "cause" (and the "cause" is often a police/fire or other authority-figure - hey, who wants the cops to think you don't like 'em? What if your house burned down and the Fire department knew you hung up on 'em when they asked for a donation?), he can call himself a charitable organization, dodge the anti-telemarketing laws, and keep the proceeds for himself.
The saddest part is that some police/fire departments, particularly in smaller towns, quietly tolerate the practice. Because the scam costs them nothing, they view it as better to get 10% of the proceeds from Joe Scumweasel (for no effort on their part) than to get nothing at all (without Mr. Scumweasel) or to conduct a legitimate fundrasing effort (for which they may lack the resources) of their own.
The scam is particularly effective against senior citizens and others who have been trained to be polite on the phone, especially to perceived civic authorities or police/fire benevolent organizations.
> Was watching one of the Talking Head programs last night. The head of one of the telemarketing associations was claiming that some absurdly high percentage of those that want a no-call-list would actually buy from a telemarketer.
Like most con men, the DMA uses misdirection and creative redefinitions of words.
To everyone but the DMA, "telemarketer" means "that annoying fucknozzle who calls you during dinner". That is, "outbound call centers".
When someone in the DMA says "telemarketer", he means "the fucknozzles who call you and the people who answer the phone when you call to order something over the phone." That is, "inbound and outbound call centers".
So the DMA can say with a straight face that "telemarketers" (including inbound call centers) make $BIGNUM dollars from people who want do-not-call lists. Classic misdirection tactic.
The sad thing is that politicians and journalists are sufficiently gullible to fall for it.
> Frankly, your acquaintence is an idiot and a moron. He's using telephone numbers of people who have explicitly said "I won't buy from you" as "verified numbers"? That's called wasting money - and it's his own money, not his client's money, because he can't charge significantly more for telemarketing services than his competitors.
Not necessarily. Try this on for size:
1) SmegCo, the telemarketing company, promises to market your product or service for $0.20 per completed call. (As opposed to ForeskinJuiceMarketing, the "reputable" telemarketer that observes the DNC lists and charges $1.00 per call for scum like AT&T.)
2) Trailer Trash LLC, some dirtball in a trailer park in Floriduh, reads about SmegCo and says "Dayam! That's whut ah needz to permote my timeshare scam!! Ah kin reach five times as many suckers with SmegCo than with ForeskinJuice, and besides, ForeskinJuice guys called me a scammer and hung up on me. The SmegCo salesman I talked to understands me, that I'm just an honest small bidnizman!"
3) Trailer Trash LLC, cuts a check for $1000 to SmegCo.
4) SmegCo takes $1000, makes 5000 calls to "verified" numbers, all of which tell SmegCo's reps to fuck themselves in various bodily orifices.
5) Trailer Trash LLC doesn't make any money. But SmegCo's not about making money for Trailer Trash LLC - they're about making mone for SmegCo.
The aforementioned scenario is played out all the time in the email spam world. Bigtime Spammer sells spamware, and sells "spam runs" to local losers trying to run their scams. Bigtime Spammer makes money whether the local losers make cash or not.
The numbers and breakeven points are certainly different in telemarketing, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that (deliberately) ignoring DNC lists is profitable business for at least some telemarketing firms.
> I proceeded to explain that if I was on *ANY* DCL, I probably did not want their damn calls. Especially from a total pile of steaming excrement like MCI.
The marketing "mind" never ceases to amaze me. What part of "Fuck off, telemarketer, I don't give a rat's fried patoot what you're selling" do they not understand?
Now that that's out of the way, just what did you mean by "a total pile of steaming excrement like MCI"?
I think the TPOSEADL (Total Pile Of Steaming Excrement Anti-Defamation League) would like a word with you.
Slashdot Mirror
>
>"UNIX: It sure beats drinking a glass of water while standing on your head!"
$ vi nohup.c
Hey, what did my illicit affair with your wife have anything to do with... oh, "itch". Nevermind. :)
Amen, bro.
In 1986, it was -1, Tasteless. In 2003, it's +1, Informative. When we lose another Orbiter in a few years, it'll be +1, "NASA's Bold Vision of the Future - Rebuilding the Shuttle Fleet"
No disrespect intended to the crew of either vehicle, nor to the engineers who keep 'em flying against all odds and against an army of NASA bureaucrats, but it's time for the Shuttle to go.
w00t.
That's the best summary of the problem I've seen yet. I'm also glad to see you cover the "telnet to the workstation and kill the process that ate X" solution. The fact that (unlike Windows) the underlying OS remains up and running is irrelevant -- if the end user doesn't have another workstation and a LAN handy, they still have to reboot, just like in Windows.
That the user ends up having to reboot because they mouse-clicked elsewhere on the screen, with a drop-down Bookmarks menu present, while Netscape 4.x was trying to render a gobby page of HTML with too many layers of nested tables does not mean that web designers who code for IE are "evil", or that Mozilla is better than Netscape and they should be using it instead. It means that end users will go back to Windows and IE.
>
> Unfortunately, even in that case it's likely that they would submit specifications for what they want and people could bid on building it. So if you had a cheap idea that wasn't quite the same, they can ignore you.
>
> Also, most government contracts are worded in such a way that any bid considerably lower than the rest can be thrown out on the expectation that "they couldn't possibly do it for that much if no-one else can".
Argh.
Thanks for saying it way better than I did, just a few minutes ago.
If NASA comes to its senses and ditches the Shuttle/ISS pork factory, I'll gladly retire my tinfoil pork-conspiracy hat forever.
Unfortunately, everything I've heard emanating from NASA and Congress over the past couple of weeks tells me that the only thing we're likely to see come of the Columbia disaster is the apportioning of another couple of billion dollars... to build another Orbiter to replace the one that was lost.
I want to live in a world where "NASA - Need Another Seven Astronauts" can be modded as (-1, Tasteless), not (+1, Informative).
NASA only has to accept bids from suppliers that it deems credible.
Who, in NASA, decides which suppliers are "credible" or not?
As much as I lambaste NASA - there's actually a good reason for this; it weeds out the crackpots. Carmack's not a crackpot, and he's a hell of a lot more likely to launch something for $1M, than I am for $500K, or JoJo's Psychic Levitation Hotline's offer for $3.99/minute/pound to orbit. But if it were just the lowest bidder, they'd have to go with the psychics.
Unfortunately, this has a bad drawback - something has to determine whether a contractor is "for real" or not, and more often than not, what determines it is a combination of "track record" (good) and "network of political contacts" (not-so-good). At the moment, Carmack has neither, but even if he pulls off 100 perfect launches at $1M apiece, he still won't have the latter.
Unfortunately, in some industries (and IMNSHO government-paid-for aerospace is such an industry), political connections may still be a determining factor.
By government policy, every government launch - military as well as scientific - was supposed to have been done on the Shuttle. The fact that it cost two, three, four times as much as using expendable launch vehicles didn't change the policy. (Costs didn't matter; it just meant more pr0k for all involved!) Thay policy was only changed after the Challenger disaster gave everyone involved a reality check. National security may not be threatened if a NASA probe sits in a warehouse for 6 years waiting for a new launch window after a Shuttle delay, but sometimes a spy satellite needs to go up now.
>
>For starters, they'd have off-site backups.
Off-site backups which would conveniently be unreadable. "Whoops, the tape heads were misaligned when the tape got written. Aaw, shucks!"
More to the point - while having an "accident" is unlikely - in that the PR costs would be enormous, and no CEO would want to sign off on it, the takeover and burial of the technology is pretty easy.
If the success of a competitor's tech means the loss of 90% of your margins, you buy the competitor.
If the success of a campaign contributor's competitor means the loss of 90% of the pork you can distribute to your Congressional district, and thus, the loss of jobs in your constituency, you make damn sure the FTC ignores antitrust concerns when analyzing the takeover of said competitor.
This isn't really about Armadillo, it's about Shuttle/ISS, and why DC-X, X-33, the frickin' Shuttle "C" heavy lift vehicle, and everything else that could cut the cost to orbit, never makes it off the ground.
I've watched it happen, over and over again, and the only conclusion I can draw is that there's too much money to be made by recipients of pork, and too many votes to be had by spreading said pork around, to ever allow the development of cheap access to space.
Asking Congress, Boeing, and NASA in charge of putting stuff cheaply and reliably in space, is like putting Fritz Hollings, Britney Spears, and RIAA in charge of reducing the cost of CDs. Anyone who threatens the RIAA business model, gets stomped on (Napster) or sued into oblivion and bought out (mp3.com).
(If that analogy strikes you as too karma-whorish, then fine - it's also how Valenti and Rosen would react to putting Rep. Rick Boucher, Napster and Kazaa in charge of the committee to mandate a DRM solution in every set-top box. :-)
Or to be even more cynical, it violates something I consider to be one of Life's Universal Rules, which is this: You should never threaten to cost someone more money than it would cost them to have you killed.
For instance, suppose there's a market need for 20 commercial/military/ISS flights per year, and the government's willing to pay $500M per launch. That's $500M x 20 = $10B a year in pork to use the shuttle and our current unmanned vehicle capabilities. Against that, nobody is gonna build cheap launch capability, because it'll soon be a better business strategy to simply eliminate anyone who comes close.
For instance, suppose Armadillo Aerospace develops tech that enables them to launch a satellite for $1M. With reduced costs, there might be a market for 100 launches a year versus 20. NASA space scientists are elated, because they can finally send an army of cheap probes to every planet, comet, and moon that tickles their fancy. And geeks (myself included!) will rejoice because we can finally read about all the cool science while we're vacationing at the Space Hilton.
The big problem with this lovely picture is that as soon as Armadillo announces its $1M-to-orbit vehicle, $BIG_CONTRACTOR realizes that even if they buy Armadillo outright, the $10B/year gravy train (20 comm/spy satellites at $500M each) is gonna come up $9.9B short (20 comm/spysats, plus 80 space probes and Space Hilton modules, at $1M per launch). Someone will realize that you can hire a lot of assassins and saboteurs for $9.9B.
Congressmen, upon realizing that Armadillo's success will soon mean $9.9B less pork to distribute to their districts, will conclude that a major campaign contributor has discovered an "intriguing" solution to both their respective problems.
Both groups will publicly lament the "accident" at Armadillo that resulted in the flash-combustion of all personnel, and bemoan their sysadmins for the fact that all the offsite backup tapes containing design and technical data were unreadable, and use the "accident" to remind the voting and taxpaying public that space still isn't quite ready for private sector involvement.
I wish Carmack and anyone else trying to provide cheap access to space the best of luck, but I fear for anyone who comes close to achieving the dream.
No you won't. In 5 years, the X-30 will have been cancelled to free up the budget to build a replacement Shuttle.
There's no market for 100 launches a year. Any technology that would cost less than Shuttle, means less dollars for the Congressional districts that hold the contractors who get the NASA p0rk. Therefore, any tech that would lower the cost of orbit and/or make the Shuttle pork obsolete, will be cancelled before it becomes a threat. Bank on it.
Totally - thanks for asking, BTW. But yeah, go ahead and cut-and-paste all ya want.
Now now, it's all a question of what the meaning of the word "facts" is. You know, how a 48x CD burner is "equivalent" to 2.4 regular CD burners?
Turns out that a $100 bill is equivalent to one fact. A $100 bill wrapped into a round tube, is equivalent to two facts. That same $100 bill, wrapped into a round tube, with one end placed near a line of cocaine on a Hollywood fuckgoblet's silicone implant, and the other end placed near a Senator's nose, is equivalent to several hundred facts.
> Yes, Lobbying turns Capitol hill into Capitalism... every dollar has a vote! YAY!
That ain't Capitalism. That ain't even a free market. Hint: If your business model requires that you lobby Congressmen to pass laws that allow people with guns to preserve your business model, what you're doing is so far away from capitalism that it can no longer see capitalism without the help of very-long baseline interferometry.
You buy it again! I mean, duh.
Why would anyone want backups of stuff they paid for when they could simply pay for the same content all over again!
Look, let me put it in terms even a Slashdotter can understand. If people could have backups, how would Jack make more money? Next thing you know, people will start thinking movies are about "watching photons bounced off or emitted from a screen and being entertained". Sure, there's that "acting" and "direction" and "plot" and "special effects", but, please, people, don't lose sight of the important part, namely the part about Jack making money.
Joe Sixpack might not - but Joe Ph.Dpack might.
Problem is, in terms of their ability to bootstrap Gentoo, both Joe Sixpack and the Ph.D. candidate - are end-lusers. Non-developers. Users of turnkey applications, not maintainers of packages and dependencies. Or, to paraphrase the words of more than one Slashdot flamer, worthless leeching scum who aren't worthy of using the glorious code they're given for free.
The guy with the Ph.D. sees the computer as a very sophisticated calculator. Instead of Excel, he uses Mathematica. Or a specialized CAD/CAM program.
Unfortunately for Linux, in none of these cases does he give a wet slap about window managers, or access to the source code. He wants to get his application of choice up and running so he can get his job done. And if Win2K lets him do that, without having to switch window managers whenever he wants to switch applications (because only barbarians use FooDE, why would he want to use a FooDE application, doesn't he realize my app for BarNome, even though it does only half of what that FooDE app does, uses BarNome, which is by far the superior toolkit for developing graphical applications!), then he throws up his hands and says "Fuck it, I'll use Windoze. It sucks, it's expensive, but at least it runs the applications I need to do my job."
Totally - what I wrote was not intended as advice.
Socking away $1000-2000/month and having $150K in your bank after 10 years doesn't mean you can retire in Montana or anywhere else. It means you can move to Montana and not starve to death for a few years - which was something I picked out of thin air to contrast it with the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle that most folks live.
As for it being an incredible amount of savings per month, not really. Even in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, a $60K income (not unreasonable for 4-5 years experience - and we're sketching out a 10-year career) works out to $40K after tax. That's $3000/month - and if you're renting at $1500/month (typical for Kalifornistan), but otherwise living frugally (say, monthly $100 for crappy used car, $200 for DIY food, $200 for toys), putting away $1000/mo isn't that tough.
After saving your $1K/mo, move somewhere sensible, earn $50K, and save 10% in income taxes, and instead of renting at $1500, rent at $500. Or buy a house.
> Get married. Just marry someone who prefers to feel productive (i.e., wants to work/have a career), and who doesn't want kids anytime soon. 2 people can live far more cost-effectively than 1.
And for those who don't want/need a spouse (and/or the financial risks associated with divorce), there's always roommates. All the financial advantages of marriage, with virtually none of the risks, provided you can put up with sharing your space with each other.
> ABSOLUTELY BUY A HOUSE! Stop renting as soon as you can afford to!
Another good reason to avoid Kalifornistan. *g* $500K for a starter home here, versus $150K for a good home anywhere else. :)
Bully for you.
I spent years working for small, fun companies that didn't go bankrupt. I'm now work for the State, 9:00 to 12:30. It allows you to do important stuff, like raise a family. As a bonus, I end up supporting programs whose only socially redeeming purpose seems to be to ensure that next year, I'll be work for the State 9:00 to 13:00.
Tell you what. Gimme $200K/year and I'll take my chances.
BTW, you're ahead of 90% of the population.
The key to financial security is to be able to live beneath your means. I had to laugh at the post about the guy talking (hypothetically) about 10 years at the $200K job, house/wife/3kids/car, and "getting hit by a layoff and having to give it all up for $50K in Montana". Well, duh, whether he enjoys it or not, he needs $200K just to keep running in place.
Skip the fancy house/car/wife/kids, and it's real easy to accumulate enough savings that you can bail to Montana. (And if you've made it out of college without a wife, skipping the wife/kids crap should be automatic from that point on! :)
Even in the Bay Area, a single with no dependents can live there for $2000/month, including a car. Cut that in half if you're in Montana.
How? Little things - say, start with a $3000 used car that you own, rather than a $30,000 SUV that you owe payments on. You'll get to work in the same amount of time. (Got $1M in the bank? Same deal - go with a $50K Boxster instead of a $250K Ferrari).
Instead of eating out ($5/meal at McDonald's x 3 meals a day), learn to cook - start with the Ars Technica "Bachelor Chow" cookbook and work your way up to Cordon Bleu. You can buy a frickin' 8-oz filet mignon for $5, and cook it in less than 30 minutes. Imagine - you can chow down on filet mignon with sauteed onions and mushrooms, every day, while your cow orkers spend 15 minutes driving to McDonald's, 10 minutes waiting at the drive-thru, and 15 minutes driving back home for a Big Mac.
No kids? Dude, at least you realize that's not a bug, it's a feature! Most of the marrieds-with-children that I know are harried out of their wits, and have no time for their kids or themselves. Having kids meant they had to get a house in the "right" neighborhood with the "right" schools, and that means a longer commute, and that means - tada - less time for the family in the first place.
Sock away $1000-2000 a month in savings (a little harder in the Bay Area than Montana), and within 10 years, you'll have enough money saved to tide you over for 10+ years. (10 years x 1500 = $150K, and at $1000/month living in Montana, that's a 10-year cushion. Use that time to hunt for a decent $50K job, or use that money to start your own business. Your choice.)
Contrast that with the 20something who bogs himself down with a wife (a breakeven if she works, a big drain if she doesn't), kids ($BIGNUM, plus $BIGGERNUM in college expenses down the road, oh, and the odds that your wife will want to continue working drop pretty significantly when she breeds :-), and mortgage payments (to house the aforementioned wife/kids), who's put himself on the treadmill of wage slavery for life.
Partnering with a childfree female is a decent option - you get to split living costs, and there's a high probability that she, like you, will be cash flow positive. That'll put both of you on track to early retirement sooner than either of you could have hacked it by yourselves.
Of course, evolution has tweaked things so that childfree females are as rare as hen's teeth. Don't knock it if one falls into your lap, but I wouldn't waste any time looking for one either. YMMV.
>
> This is the strongest argument I've seen against starting a family or taking on obligations. YMMV.
Amen, amen, amen.
Gentoo may not be the right answer for everyone, but the right answer to the question "What operating system should I run on my computer?" is probably not "The one that comes from a high-cost vendor, purchased with a minimum 20-year commitment, and a EULA that involves half your net worth should you decide this OS doesn't meet your needs and you want to switch to a competing vendor."
I'd argue the same thought processes should apply to "What should I do with my life".
This had to be said.
- http://www.adminspotting.org/> Not to mention that your shelves are filled with Dr. Suess.
"writing that is too explicit is not valued."
Am I the only one who put these three ideas together and (upon realizing that Westerners typically don't read manga for the words) ended up with a vision of "Horton Tentacle-Rapes A Who"
Attention case modders: I believe we have a challenge. *g*
Oh yeah - something else to chip in here - another gifts from the telemarketing industry, namely charity fraud!
When Joe Scumweazel calls you on behalf of The Friends Of $CITY Police/Fire association, or whatever, odds are very good that for every $100 "donated", $90 is kept by Joe Scumweasel.
Suppose you pay your property taxes to "XYZ Municipal Treasury". There's often very little the City can do to prevent Joe Scumweasel from setting up a "charity" calling itself "XYZ Civic Treasury", or "Treasury Services of XYZ". He can then, without ever claiming to actually represent your city (which would be fraud) - mislead you into thinking that he's part of your local government anyways.
As long as Joe Scumweasel gives a (small) percentage to the "cause" (and the "cause" is often a police/fire or other authority-figure - hey, who wants the cops to think you don't like 'em? What if your house burned down and the Fire department knew you hung up on 'em when they asked for a donation?), he can call himself a charitable organization, dodge the anti-telemarketing laws, and keep the proceeds for himself.
The saddest part is that some police/fire departments, particularly in smaller towns, quietly tolerate the practice. Because the scam costs them nothing, they view it as better to get 10% of the proceeds from Joe Scumweasel (for no effort on their part) than to get nothing at all (without Mr. Scumweasel) or to conduct a legitimate fundrasing effort (for which they may lack the resources) of their own.
The scam is particularly effective against senior citizens and others who have been trained to be polite on the phone, especially to perceived civic authorities or police/fire benevolent organizations.
God, how I hate telemarketers.
Like most con men, the DMA uses misdirection and creative redefinitions of words.
To everyone but the DMA, "telemarketer" means "that annoying fucknozzle who calls you during dinner". That is, "outbound call centers".
When someone in the DMA says "telemarketer", he means "the fucknozzles who call you and the people who answer the phone when you call to order something over the phone." That is, "inbound and outbound call centers".
So the DMA can say with a straight face that "telemarketers" (including inbound call centers) make $BIGNUM dollars from people who want do-not-call lists. Classic misdirection tactic. The sad thing is that politicians and journalists are sufficiently gullible to fall for it.
Not necessarily. Try this on for size:
1) SmegCo, the telemarketing company, promises to market your product or service for $0.20 per completed call. (As opposed to ForeskinJuiceMarketing, the "reputable" telemarketer that observes the DNC lists and charges $1.00 per call for scum like AT&T.)
2) Trailer Trash LLC, some dirtball in a trailer park in Floriduh, reads about SmegCo and says "Dayam! That's whut ah needz to permote my timeshare scam!! Ah kin reach five times as many suckers with SmegCo than with ForeskinJuice, and besides, ForeskinJuice guys called me a scammer and hung up on me. The SmegCo salesman I talked to understands me, that I'm just an honest small bidnizman!"
3) Trailer Trash LLC, cuts a check for $1000 to SmegCo.
4) SmegCo takes $1000, makes 5000 calls to "verified" numbers, all of which tell SmegCo's reps to fuck themselves in various bodily orifices.
5) Trailer Trash LLC doesn't make any money. But SmegCo's not about making money for Trailer Trash LLC - they're about making mone for SmegCo.
The aforementioned scenario is played out all the time in the email spam world. Bigtime Spammer sells spamware, and sells "spam runs" to local losers trying to run their scams. Bigtime Spammer makes money whether the local losers make cash or not.
The numbers and breakeven points are certainly different in telemarketing, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that (deliberately) ignoring DNC lists is profitable business for at least some telemarketing firms.
The marketing "mind" never ceases to amaze me. What part of "Fuck off, telemarketer, I don't give a rat's fried patoot what you're selling" do they not understand?
Now that that's out of the way, just what did you mean by "a total pile of steaming excrement like MCI"?
I think the TPOSEADL (Total Pile Of Steaming Excrement Anti-Defamation League) would like a word with you.