Yeah, I got a laugh out of it. But it's kind of depressing to think about, and all too common - too many people would rather blame the tool (in this case a computer) than admit that their spouse/child/dog/whatever has done something wrong. It's sad to think that this woman might truly believe that a machine somehow corrupted her poor innocent husband and turned him to a live of evil.
The program started in the late 1960s and has dominated NASA's manned operations since the mid-1970s.
While I don't disagree that driving the Soviets bankrupt with envy is a plausible political goal of the shuttle program, you won't win anyone over by blaming or praising (depending on your POV on the situation) Reagan for the whole thing.
You're right - the shuttle wasn't Reagan's idea. Shoveling money at NASA was part of his overall strategy, though. The shuttle almost certainly would have flown without that, but a tighter budget would probably have meant fewer flights, and other lower-profile programs might have gotten cut to make room for it.
You'll have to decide for yourself whether Reagan's role in all this is blame- or praise-worthy.:-)
No, you give it a rest. Not everyone who happens to mention a MS product is blaming them for global warming, world hunger, and AIDS. PowerPoint is so widely used that "PowerPoint Presentation" has become a more or less generic expression that people tend to use even when (as in this case) we have no clue what's used inside NASA. The point of the post you're complaining about is the over-reliance on bullet-point style presentations, and it's a valid point whether they're made with PowerPoint or with Sharpies.
Exactly so. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were no exceptions. They were essentially ballistic missile development programs with a very thin layer of space exploration paint applied over them. The moon landing itself was a demonstration of aeronautics and missile technology, and the political message was crystal clear: "We can specify a small target a bajillion miles away, and hit it with a missile." The implication being, of course, that hitting a city-sized target that's only a few thousand miles away would present no difficulties whatsoever.
The shuttle was part of Reagan's gambit to goad the Soviets into bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with our military spending in the 80s. That's why high-tech and expensive was chosen over cheap and reliable. Essentially, it was a weapon for economic warfare. Problem is, the war it was designed to fight has been over for a couple of decades, so we should have went back to cheap and reliable a long time ago.
From what I hear, the actual astronauts are much, much more accepting of risk than the engineers or management.
Yes - it takes a certain daredevil mentality to go sit on top a barely-controlled bomb. Most of them also have an engineering, physics, or other technical background too, and stay closely involved with every step of the planning and preparation. They're very well informed about the exact level of risk they're taking. Actually, I think I do remember something about the astronauts being able to stop the launch on their own say-so at any time - the idea being that since they're right there on the spot, they may recognize a problem and react to it far faster than Ground Control could.
I figured someone could find a better number - I just surfed around IMDB for a few minutes. I followed John Rhys-Davies first because I knew he'd been in a *ton* of movies. He's even busier than Kevin Bacon. That "Oracle of Bacon" is pretty funny though. Isn't that cheating?:-)
Wonderful, that's just what the NSA needs, a cheaper more efficient way to spy on us.
This is one of the most pro-privacy forums I'm aware of. Every time some new revelation is made about NSA spying on us, a whole new raft of comments follows decrying the loss of civil liberties and personal privacy rights. Those comments are consistently modded up - so why was the quoted comment modded into trollsville for saying the same thing? Redundant I could understand - it's not very original. But troll?
I'm not complaining - seriously. I don't really give a damn about karma. Not understanding something bugs the hell out me though, and this leaves me baffled.
So, if I go back in time and shoot your grandfather before you were born... what happens, exactly?
Why, he'll go back and knock up his grandmother himself, of course, which would give him an unusual brainwave pattern that would make him the only person on Earth able to resist the invading brain creatures. Haven't you seen Futurama?
There is no rationale behind it whatsoever and having a pedigree to show that say, (for the most common example) a white supremacist and Martin Luther King Jr. share common ancestors 60 or so generations back would not change their attitudes.
You're right, it wouldn't change any attitudes. But it would get you a beating from a bunch of pissed-off skinheads.
I've never been able to trace back any further than 1650 or so. Not that I've tried all that hard - it's at that point where I have to leave the US and travel to England to find more, and that's way beyond my budget. My ancestor arrived in the US not only broke, but in debt - he had to pay for his passage with several years of indentured servitude. Not much has changed...
There are a lot lower profile and safer ways to do that. Ie, strenuous object and then cease to make waves once you've acquired enough protection.
I was referring to the two engineers who recently did just that. They objected, they were overruled, then they issued a statement saying that their concern was potential loss of the shuttle if it had to be flown by remote on re-entry, and agreed with the boss that there very little risk to human lives. If it really hits the fan, it wouldn't surprise me all that much if those two produced evidence that the press release was something their boss pressured them into doing.
The Chief Safety Officer apparently has protested for the past few months and still hasn't let up.
I didn't know that.
Re:It's a very silly way to do things.
on
Shuttle Launch Delayed
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Why say "no go" in the first place? Why worry about foam damage if you know that you ultimately won't care?
Government bureaucrats invented and perfected it office politics. Imagine the nastiest most political back-stabbing corporate environment you've ever been in - that's kindergarten compared to even the most laid-back government office.
So I figure the "no go" was a combination of CYA and posturing for influence. The chance of a failure is miniscule, but if something does happen to go wrong, their asses are covered by being on the record as objecting to the launch. Also, if a failure does happen, there's a good chance that someone will need to fill the vacant offices of the folks who overruled them.
We have already established that Blu-Ray READERS are to be boycotted for the general public good.
I believe that has more to do with DRM-infested commercial releases than with the readers themselves.
Why post an article about a BURNER
Backups, distribution of free software, etc. There are plenty of uses for a new recordable optical media type that don't involve buying commercial DRM-infested discs.
Oh hell, who am I kidding? The real reason is right here.
Dotted-quad notation of IP addresses is for human consumption only. Networking equipment treats them as 32-bit values. Or maybe it's four 8-bit values - I forget, and I'm too lazy to look it up. The point is, it's not a string at the network stack level, so simply appending another number isn't possible.
What part of "I'm referring to the implementation details here, not to packaging and marketing arrangements" did you not understand? IE is a component. KHTML is a component. The implementations are very similar, in that neither one is part of the OS kernel. That's a fact, and no amount of complaining about MS's business practices or lack of choices will change it.
I'm done with this - I feel like I'm trying to discuss science with a fundamentalist.
Slashdot Mirror
Are we offshoring identity theft to India too?
Yeah, I got a laugh out of it. But it's kind of depressing to think about, and all too common - too many people would rather blame the tool (in this case a computer) than admit that their spouse/child/dog/whatever has done something wrong. It's sad to think that this woman might truly believe that a machine somehow corrupted her poor innocent husband and turned him to a live of evil.
You'll have to decide for yourself whether Reagan's role in all this is blame- or praise-worthy.
No, you give it a rest. Not everyone who happens to mention a MS product is blaming them for global warming, world hunger, and AIDS. PowerPoint is so widely used that "PowerPoint Presentation" has become a more or less generic expression that people tend to use even when (as in this case) we have no clue what's used inside NASA. The point of the post you're complaining about is the over-reliance on bullet-point style presentations, and it's a valid point whether they're made with PowerPoint or with Sharpies.
Exactly so. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were no exceptions. They were essentially ballistic missile development programs with a very thin layer of space exploration paint applied over them. The moon landing itself was a demonstration of aeronautics and missile technology, and the political message was crystal clear: "We can specify a small target a bajillion miles away, and hit it with a missile." The implication being, of course, that hitting a city-sized target that's only a few thousand miles away would present no difficulties whatsoever.
The shuttle was part of Reagan's gambit to goad the Soviets into bankrupting themselves trying to keep up with our military spending in the 80s. That's why high-tech and expensive was chosen over cheap and reliable. Essentially, it was a weapon for economic warfare. Problem is, the war it was designed to fight has been over for a couple of decades, so we should have went back to cheap and reliable a long time ago.
I figured someone could find a better number - I just surfed around IMDB for a few minutes. I followed John Rhys-Davies first because I knew he'd been in a *ton* of movies. He's even busier than Kevin Bacon. That "Oracle of Bacon" is pretty funny though. Isn't that cheating? :-)
I'm not complaining - seriously. I don't really give a damn about karma. Not understanding something bugs the hell out me though, and this leaves me baffled.
I've never been able to trace back any further than 1650 or so. Not that I've tried all that hard - it's at that point where I have to leave the US and travel to England to find more, and that's way beyond my budget. My ancestor arrived in the US not only broke, but in debt - he had to pay for his passage with several years of indentured servitude. Not much has changed...
I didn't know that.
So I figure the "no go" was a combination of CYA and posturing for influence. The chance of a failure is miniscule, but if something does happen to go wrong, their asses are covered by being on the record as objecting to the launch. Also, if a failure does happen, there's a good chance that someone will need to fill the vacant offices of the folks who overruled them.
Backups, distribution of free software, etc. There are plenty of uses for a new recordable optical media type that don't involve buying commercial DRM-infested discs.
Oh hell, who am I kidding? The real reason is right here.
Damn. Oh well, I guess we'll just never know.
- Write inflammatory Mac-related story.
- Hordes of Mac fans visit the site to post angry comments.
- Hordes of Mac bashers visit the site to post "I told you so" comments.
- Profit.
See also: Any Mac-related article written by John C. Dvorak.Dotted-quad notation of IP addresses is for human consumption only. Networking equipment treats them as 32-bit values. Or maybe it's four 8-bit values - I forget, and I'm too lazy to look it up. The point is, it's not a string at the network stack level, so simply appending another number isn't possible.
What part of "I'm referring to the implementation details here, not to packaging and marketing arrangements" did you not understand? IE is a component. KHTML is a component. The implementations are very similar, in that neither one is part of the OS kernel. That's a fact, and no amount of complaining about MS's business practices or lack of choices will change it.
I'm done with this - I feel like I'm trying to discuss science with a fundamentalist.