A non-free but worth it tool for making code make sense from https://scitools.com./ I don't work for the company. There is a 15-day free trial. It costs $1K-$2K but if the code is important and you are going to live with it a long time it is worth it.
Because NASA has be largely encouraged to "get stuff from industry" for so long--shrink its workforce and farm out all of the details as much as possible, most everything paid for by the taxpayers is proprietary to the companies to which NASA contracts. Nobody else can use it and we get 30 years of stagnation of space travel. Will we get more of the same with the new proposal?
NASA shouldnt be using commercial spaceflight, they should be making commercial spaceflight companies put in bids for contracts.
This is exactly what NASA already does. They figure out what the requirements for the next big thing and then contract out the details. NASA is on the hook to make sure that the right product is built and that the product is built right. More and more...and more of NASA's work has been outsourced but it has not resulted in the fabulous innovations and cost savings people want. Commercial companies keep all of the intellectual property and have little incentive not to overrun costs because there are only a few with the ability to meet NASA's needs, so new work will have to flow back to them.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital Sciences, and a few others are spending most of the money and working the politicians to keep it flowing.
Other than to identify you as someone who should be touching their computer, I see no value. How about a special badge (if people at your company wear badges) or a jester's hat?;->
Not only are we throwing the word vegetarian around but also the word evolve. The blog and the article it references do not give any basis for evolution. The following concepts are related but far from being the same.
From dictionary.com: evolution: Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.
From dictionary.com: adaptation: Biology. a. any alteration in the structure or function of an organism or any of its parts that results from natural selection and by which the organism becomes better fitted to survive and multiply in its environment.
The spider continues to need protein as its primary diet but found a different source. Other posters recognized similar situations. For example, if a type of dog lives in an area with lots of rabbits it will probably eat rabbits and still be the same type of dog. In the same way, it could be squirrels... or even peanuts!
The more you mix business and government with IT the less fun it will be. Perhaps technology being more widespread gives a similar effect. IT Geeks once were like modern day wizards wielding their craft across the land. We were unique, somewhat scary, and to most, unnecessary. Now IT is everywhere and IT Geeks are probably more like pharmacists. Everybody needs them but they are far from impressive and it is easy enough to find one who will do an adequate job.
I have been using P90X from the same company and it is very good. P90X wants 60-90 minutes a day but the 10 minute trainer sounds more like what the poster wants to fight off weight gain.
The original post is concerned about employees not being able to use instant messaging out to the rest of the world, which implies they are actually networked to the rest of the world. The setup you describe is not that situation. A KVM switch should not be Internet Protocol connection between the isolated and non-isolated PCs you are describing [I know, it is possible to have an IP KVM switch, but if the switch is IP then you have left open an obvious attack vector should the (more directly) Internet connected PC become compromised]. The point in the army lab would be accessibility to outside information on the Internet connected PC without potential threat to sensitive data on the PC not connected to the Internet.
Having a job (much of your time) that requires you to have a negative mindset is likely to affect your life in general unless you combat the negative mindset in the remainder of your time with positive hobbies and relationships with uplifting people, not to mention faith and hope in something greater than the current system that requires you to have to be so negative in the first place. I do IT Security as a part of my job and stay far away when not on the clock whenever possible.
The military is continuing years and years of NASA work on experimental atmospheric and space craft. Many of these concepts were worked and then scrapped because of contractor budget overruns, which can be absorbed by the military and not NASA. The problems that occur in the Constellation program do not say that NASA cannot do it except that any schedule slip or budget overrun is considered ruinous to NASA but is considered the cost of doing business in the military. It is very difficult to build an enormous new system plus do everything that is already being done on a fraction of a fraction of the military (much less the national) budget.
I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes, instead of the enforced homogeneous classes we have nowadays, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to cope with students that move at such different speeds. Exactly...does anyone contemplate why we have different grade levels? It is so that different learning levels can proceed together for effective learning. Perhaps children who happen to be age X do not necessary all fit into "grade level" (X - 5)? Is it not likely that different rates of learning occur and do not necessarily correspond directly to age or that there is a stratification of learning within age bands? Other logical separations exist as well (more and more at more advanced levels). People focus on science or a particular science, engineering, mathematics, music, art, language, etc. There is not one learning track for all interests and professions.
One size fits all...I do not think so.
What makes for good general design? Here are some general bits.
Localization of information--minimize the scope of all identifiers: localize variables, minimize coupling of subroutines.
Descriptiveness or understandability--name identifiers in an intuitive manner, provide comments that explain the purpose of each section of code as well as any tricky constructs.
Defensiveness or robustness--each piece of a design assumes it will be misused and handles misuse gracefully.
Well defined interfaces--each design item has a clearly defined purpose, input and output ranges, pre-conditions and post-conditions, and error states.
Peer review--each bit of design is inspected per some criteria as well as their personal expertise.
I am sure there are more of these...just off the top of my head.
What is most critical here is not that the employee was blogging but that he was engaging in political activity including soliciting donations using taxpayer money. The Hatch Act specifically prohibits federal employees (civil servants) from using taxpayer resources (including their paid time) to advocate for or against political candidates. If this were not the case, then your tax money can be used to further the tenure of politicians. Without the Hatch Act and similar measures, you get:
if (electionWinner == politician) {
while (politician.alive())
{
politician.corruption++;
electionWinner = politician;
} }
The parent is quite right...and then some. Different pieces of the spectrum need different detectors. Further, the more depth or clarity you want for a given observation type the narrower of an area you must observe and the longer you have to observe. There is a lot of universe to view out there and just as taking a glance out the window only gives you a overall idea of what is there, so it is with stellar observations. If you want to see the tiny bugs crawling on a leaf in the tree across the yard, you need to take a close look and cannot see the rest of the yard while you do it. If you want to see those bugs on the backside of the same leaf from the window, you need an infrared detector, for example. The binoculars or microscope will not do the job of an infrared detector and vice versa.
Given the recent conversation on NASA Watch http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/04/stupid_movie_al.html about the 57+ trillion nuclear warheads (each with 100 megatons of explosive power) needed to nudge the moon toward the earth, I wonder just we would do.
There is a lot more than you think going on a Spaceport America. It hosted the 2006 X-Prize Cup as a start. Even though it is still under construction, UP Aerospace and Virgin Galactic have made their home at these facilities and launched a number of suborbital flights as milestones toward viable commercial space transport. Other interesting ideas like the Rocket Racing League are springing up, which are not orbital, but interesting nonetheless. In case you are wondering, I am a New Mexico resident but have no affiliation whatsoever to any of these endeavors.
Slashdot Mirror
A non-free but worth it tool for making code make sense from https://scitools.com./ I don't work for the company. There is a 15-day free trial. It costs $1K-$2K but if the code is important and you are going to live with it a long time it is worth it.
So, let's do some logic here.
U.S.A. citizens get their training at U.S.A. universities.
Countries around the world send their citizens to U.S.A. universities.
Skill mismatch? Where do the foreign folks get their unique skills? Should the U.S.A. be sending folks abroad to universities?
Is the unique skill "low cost"? Are businesses finding it totally unacceptable to train their employees?
Does this mean employees are throwaway after five years since "the next big thing" has come out and it did not exist when they went to school?
Hubble has another 5-10 years depending on built-in engineering margin and good or bad fortune.
So, you would rather that NASA go off and do "whatever" with no input from anyone else?
Because NASA has be largely encouraged to "get stuff from industry" for so long--shrink its workforce and farm out all of the details as much as possible, most everything paid for by the taxpayers is proprietary to the companies to which NASA contracts. Nobody else can use it and we get 30 years of stagnation of space travel. Will we get more of the same with the new proposal?
NASA shouldnt be using commercial spaceflight, they should be making commercial spaceflight companies put in bids for contracts.
This is exactly what NASA already does. They figure out what the requirements for the next big thing and then contract out the details. NASA is on the hook to make sure that the right product is built and that the product is built right. More and more...and more of NASA's work has been outsourced but it has not resulted in the fabulous innovations and cost savings people want. Commercial companies keep all of the intellectual property and have little incentive not to overrun costs because there are only a few with the ability to meet NASA's needs, so new work will have to flow back to them.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital Sciences, and a few others are spending most of the money and working the politicians to keep it flowing.
There are no line of sight problems because the ISS uses TDRSS https://www.spacecomm.nasa.gov/spacecomm/programs/tdrsS/default.cfm, which gives them 24x7x365 global coverage.
Other than to identify you as someone who should be touching their computer, I see no value. How about a special badge (if people at your company wear badges) or a jester's hat? ;->
Not only are we throwing the word vegetarian around but also the word evolve. The blog and the article it references do not give any basis for evolution. The following concepts are related but far from being the same.
From dictionary.com: evolution: Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.
From dictionary.com: adaptation: Biology. a. any alteration in the structure or function of an organism or any of its parts that results from natural selection and by which the organism becomes better fitted to survive and multiply in its environment.
The spider continues to need protein as its primary diet but found a different source. Other posters recognized similar situations. For example, if a type of dog lives in an area with lots of rabbits it will probably eat rabbits and still be the same type of dog. In the same way, it could be squirrels... or even peanuts!
Ah, but if the local wench offers you a magic blue pill...
The more you mix business and government with IT the less fun it will be. Perhaps technology being more widespread gives a similar effect. IT Geeks once were like modern day wizards wielding their craft across the land. We were unique, somewhat scary, and to most, unnecessary. Now IT is everywhere and IT Geeks are probably more like pharmacists. Everybody needs them but they are far from impressive and it is easy enough to find one who will do an adequate job.
I have been using P90X from the same company and it is very good. P90X wants 60-90 minutes a day but the 10 minute trainer sounds more like what the poster wants to fight off weight gain.
Managing Software Development Projects by Neal Whitten is approachable and has been very helpful to me.
The original post is concerned about employees not being able to use instant messaging out to the rest of the world, which implies they are actually networked to the rest of the world. The setup you describe is not that situation. A KVM switch should not be Internet Protocol connection between the isolated and non-isolated PCs you are describing [I know, it is possible to have an IP KVM switch, but if the switch is IP then you have left open an obvious attack vector should the (more directly) Internet connected PC become compromised]. The point in the army lab would be accessibility to outside information on the Internet connected PC without potential threat to sensitive data on the PC not connected to the Internet.
A couple of informative sites on battery recycling and the real good it can do as opposed to stuffing them in the landfill... http://www.batteryrecycling.com/Battery+Recycling+Process http://earth911.org/blog/2007/07/05/how-to-recycle-and-properly-dispose-of-batteries/
Having a job (much of your time) that requires you to have a negative mindset is likely to affect your life in general unless you combat the negative mindset in the remainder of your time with positive hobbies and relationships with uplifting people, not to mention faith and hope in something greater than the current system that requires you to have to be so negative in the first place. I do IT Security as a part of my job and stay far away when not on the clock whenever possible.
The military is continuing years and years of NASA work on experimental atmospheric and space craft. Many of these concepts were worked and then scrapped because of contractor budget overruns, which can be absorbed by the military and not NASA. The problems that occur in the Constellation program do not say that NASA cannot do it except that any schedule slip or budget overrun is considered ruinous to NASA but is considered the cost of doing business in the military. It is very difficult to build an enormous new system plus do everything that is already being done on a fraction of a fraction of the military (much less the national) budget.
I guess we had better use all that time we'll have to start making other planets suitable for habitation!
What makes for good general design? Here are some general bits.
Localization of information--minimize the scope of all identifiers: localize variables, minimize coupling of subroutines.
Descriptiveness or understandability--name identifiers in an intuitive manner, provide comments that explain the purpose of each section of code as well as any tricky constructs.
Defensiveness or robustness--each piece of a design assumes it will be misused and handles misuse gracefully.
Well defined interfaces--each design item has a clearly defined purpose, input and output ranges, pre-conditions and post-conditions, and error states.
Peer review--each bit of design is inspected per some criteria as well as their personal expertise.
I am sure there are more of these...just off the top of my head.
A thorough mapping of the moon is about to be done by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/ in preparation for NASA return to the moon to establish a permanent base via Constellation http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/aresV_orbit.html.
What is most critical here is not that the employee was blogging but that he was engaging in political activity including soliciting donations using taxpayer money. The Hatch Act specifically prohibits federal employees (civil servants) from using taxpayer resources (including their paid time) to advocate for or against political candidates. If this were not the case, then your tax money can be used to further the tenure of politicians. Without the Hatch Act and similar measures, you get:
if (electionWinner == politician)
{
while (politician.alive())
{
politician.corruption++;
electionWinner = politician;
}
}
The parent is quite right...and then some. Different pieces of the spectrum need different detectors. Further, the more depth or clarity you want for a given observation type the narrower of an area you must observe and the longer you have to observe. There is a lot of universe to view out there and just as taking a glance out the window only gives you a overall idea of what is there, so it is with stellar observations. If you want to see the tiny bugs crawling on a leaf in the tree across the yard, you need to take a close look and cannot see the rest of the yard while you do it. If you want to see those bugs on the backside of the same leaf from the window, you need an infrared detector, for example. The binoculars or microscope will not do the job of an infrared detector and vice versa.
Given the recent conversation on NASA Watch http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/04/stupid_movie_al.html about the 57+ trillion nuclear warheads (each with 100 megatons of explosive power) needed to nudge the moon toward the earth, I wonder just we would do.
There is a lot more than you think going on a Spaceport America. It hosted the 2006 X-Prize Cup as a start. Even though it is still under construction, UP Aerospace and Virgin Galactic have made their home at these facilities and launched a number of suborbital flights as milestones toward viable commercial space transport. Other interesting ideas like the Rocket Racing League are springing up, which are not orbital, but interesting nonetheless. In case you are wondering, I am a New Mexico resident but have no affiliation whatsoever to any of these endeavors.