Should be, of course: "If there is no other male, a female dog of any variety will mate with a male of any variety."
There is simply no question. Dogs recognize they are the same species, and breed accordingly, unlike the animals mentioned in some of the comments in this thread.
"... does a light dimmer use something like a potentiometer?"
A light dimmer uses a Triac, a semiconductor device that can be turned on at
some point during one half-cycle of alternating current. If it is turned on
late, the light is dim. If it is turned on earlier, the light is brighter.
When the alternating current passes through zero voltage, the
device turns itself off.
"... C is the closest high level language to how a processor actually operates."
C was meant to be equivalent to a high-level assembly language. Someone told me that he was worried about coding in assembly language for a particular part of a video driver, but he discovered that, in that case, his C compiler wrote perfect assembly language.
Excellent comment. To dogs, smell is very important.
The article is an example of the pseudo-science to which Slashdot
editors often link. Those who play video games when they could be learning
about the world cause themselves to live in ignorance.
The article says, "... the only shot a male Chihuahua has with a
female Mastiff involves..."
The male Chihuahua would like to mate with the female Mastiff, but the
female won't let him. Only that. The female will show that she recognizes that
the Chihuahua is a dog. She just doesn't want to mate with him. They easily
recognize that they are the same species. It's only the author who
wrote the article to which Slashdot linked, and the Slashdot editor, who don't
realize that.
You said, "How do -we- determine if a manager/administrator is good
technically, since we aren't aerospace engineers ourselves? The answer is that
we determine this the same way a manager would determine if their staff is
technically astute, by looking at their education backgrounds, their track
records, and how well regarded they are by experts in the field."
Being a design engineer might be considered a different kind of
culture. Those who aren't members of that culture can't judge a member of that
culture accurately. It's somewhat like judging whether someone is a native
speaker of Italian. Does that person use Italian colloquial expressions
correctly? Only someone who is a native speaker can judge.
Educational background tends to be somewhat irrelevant because a
competent engineer taught himself most of what he knows. How could someone who
is not a design engineer know someone's track record? How could someone who is
not a design engineer know who is an expert in the field, except in rare cases
of very public accomplishments?
My original comment is moderated to -1, Troll, at present,
after being moderated up. But there is simply no doubt: Being a design
engineer is a culture of its own. It's a very intellectually demanding
culture. It's a culture that is so unappreciated that people think that
someone who has been a test pilot all his life can lead teams of engineers.
People who know that only an unusual person can be a successful artist
believe that just any "good" manager can appreciate engineering enough to
manage teams of engineers. They think that it is not necessary for a manager
to understand what the people he manages are doing. That's a wildly illogical
but widely held belief. An that's one reason why NASA has gotten such
bad results in recent years.
It's difficult to find someone who is both a good manager and a
creative engineer, but that is what is needed to head NASA. Otherwise, the
pretenders rise to the top, and those with true ability are disregarded.
Pretenders in positions of power are what people call "bureaucracy".
You said, "A good manager can make up for gaps in their technical knowledge by appointing a good technical staff and setting up an environment in which they can give quality advice."
The problem is this: If the good manager doesn't know a huge amount about technology and design, he or she cannot know who is good technically, and therefore cannot appoint a good technical staff. He or she will instead appoint those who are politically attractive.
Serious engineers often say things that non-technical managers don't want to hear, and couldn't evaluate even if they were willing to listen.
That's a very knowledgeable reply, in my opinion.
Your last paragraph: "While technical proficiency is nice, it's not the most important thing in a manager of a program like NASA. Far more important is the ability to judge things in an unbiased manner, and being able to listen to your subordinates when they voice concerns."
What is absolutely necessary is both technical proficiency and managerial ability. If NASA cannot find a leader with both, it would be better to minimize NASA projects until one could be found.
The director of engineering of an electronics engineering company (who hired
me) said that fewer than 1 in 20 people who have engineering degrees and call
themselves engineers actually have much technical knowledge. More than 95% of
electronics engineers are not able to create simple electronic designs.
It is more reasonable to guess that the new NASA head has no design
experience at all. The careful thinking required of a successful design
engineer does not mix well with a test pilot's taking severe chances with his
health.
That does not imply that he is a design engineer, which is what is required. The head of NASA does not need to do design himself, but he needs to think like a designer, and recognize the likely limitations of every design and of every test of every design.
What's uncertain is how well an experienced pilot with very little technical knowledge can run a huge agency that has extremely complicated technical problems.
Why do people think that managers with little technical knowledge can run technological organizations?
That's another excuse for the list. Yours is number 21.
Note that, for several years, Google has been paying more than $50 million per year to the company that makes Firefox, so that Google will be Firefox's default search engine. It seems reasonable to suppose that $50 million per year is enough to allow Mozilla Foundation to fix the major bugs.
Most software that has been written is now not used. When Google's well-designed Chrome browser has enough extensions, why would anyone use Firefox? That is especially true because the CPU hogging bug sometimes locks a computer so completely that the only way to recover is to turn off the power, which means that other work is lost. Also, CPU hogging causes processors to run hotter, which causes the CPU fan to run more. CPU fan failure is the biggest cause of laptop failure.
Google waited until 2 months before its agreement ended to renew it. Perhaps the agreement will not be renewed again, and Mozilla Foundation will lose most of its funding.
Firefox developer top 21 excuses
for not fixing the Firefox CPU hogging bug
after more than 7 years and hundreds of reports
These are actual excuses given at one time or
another.
Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build. [The same memory and CPU
hogging bug has been reported many, many times over a period of seven
years.]
Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important. [The bug
eventually takes 100% of CPU power, and makes Windows XP unusable, even after
Firefox is killed. The bug affects the heaviest users of Firefox.]
Yes, this bug exists, but it is not a common occurrence. [Numerous users
have reported the bug. See the links.]
Works for me. [The bug is complicated to reproduce, so the developers did
a simplified test, which didn't show the bug.]
No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report,
they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes
TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated. TalkBack does not
generate a report if Firefox is hogging the CPU. TalkBack cannot generate a
report if the bug takes 100% of the CPU time.]
If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. [They
didn't bother to reproduce the bug using the detailed information
provided.]
This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is
invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the
same use does not crash any version of Opera.]
I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, he didn't read it or
think about it.]
You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself.
[Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem,
and we may fix it.]
Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be
trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instability is
beginning to be reported in media such as Information Week. See the links to
magazine articles in this Slashdot comment: Firefox is the most unstable program in common
use.]
Your problem is probably caused by using extensions. [These are extensions
advertised on the Firefox and Mozilla web site, and recommended.]
Your problem is probably caused by a corrupt profile. [The same bug has
been reported many times over a period of five years. One of the reports
discusses an extensive test in both Linux and Windows that used a completely
clean installation of the operating systems, not just a clean profile. The CPU
hogging bug and instability was just as severe.]
If you are technically knowledgeable, you can spend several hours (or
days) trying to disc
An equipment buyer for a corporation, for example, will open a window and some tabs for a product, and then open another window and some tabs about another product because no decision has been made yet about the first.
More than 200 CPU and memory hogging bugs in Firefox
Mozilla Labs seems a little like Microsoft: They want to change things
that don't matter, rather than fix the huge, serious bugs, like the CPU and
memory hogging bug. There are more than 200 CPU and memory hogging bugs
listed in Bugzilla. There are more than 200 CPU hogging bugs, but Mozilla Labs only allows you to see the first 200.
If Mozilla doesn't allow visitors coming from Slashdot to see the bug list directly, put this URL into your browser:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org, simply enter CPU into the "Find a bug" field, and click on "Find".
Yesterday I had a few Windows and tabs open, but my computer seemed very slow. I discovered that Firefox was taking 89% of the CPU, doing nothing! I first reported the CPU hogging bug in version 1.9, perhaps 7 years ago. My experience is that CPU hogging in Firefox has become much worse since version 3.0.5, and worse than that in version 3.0.10.
Firefox, the laptop killer
The first component in a laptop to fail is often the fan. Usually a replacement fan is expensive to buy and install. Firefox's CPU hogging causes laptop fans to run much more often, and thus reach their end of life sooner.
In my experience with hundreds of programs, Firefox is the only one that consistently hogs the CPU.
First sensible comment. The state and federal governments have been doing NOTHING, for YEARS, about this scam. When I tried to report the scam, someone in the Oregon state government just laughed, happily telling me that the attorney general's office had gotten many, many complaints.
During the years of the Bush administration, the government became extremely disfunctional, in my opinion.
MOD PARENT UP! '... the problem is "ethical" in a sense.'
Processes that run all the time make computer administration more
complicated. The issue is not just one process; many, many companies want
control over user's computers and believe that a system process is the way to
achieve that.
Google Updater should run only when a program supplied by Google is
running. Unnecessary control is always a reason for criticism, not just
unnecessary control over other people's computers. Google managers must weigh
whatever hidden benefits they hope to get with the widespread bad public
relations that comes from being discussed on Slashdot for doing something many
people don't like.
The problem is fundamentally social. Companies, and social groups in general,
are always both growing socially and dying socially. In a company as
well-established as Google, the challenge is to keep the processes of growth
stronger than the processes of death.
More and more, Google seems to be out of control. There seems to be
insufficient friendly oversight of the many initiatives inside the company.
That typically occurs because everyone is busy, and because there is no one
inside the company who both understands particular social processes and has
the power and insight to influence them. Friendly, creative management is a
lot more difficult than the average person realizes.
Of course, Google started from a very high level of excellent
management. Google's management ability was initially not only in providing an
excellent search engine, but also in being able to build the infrastructure
necessary to serving billions of queries of a database, each in less than a
second.
Thanks for the advice about FXAll.com. Often we would not be transferring large amounts, just several thousand dollars. We have accounts with HSBC, one of the partner banks.
Would FXAll do business with us?
The web site says "Institutional clients who have a relationship with an FXall liquidity provider, a prime broker or a broker-dealer may be eligible to trade over FXall."
Is a corporation an "institutional client"? Is HSBC an "FXall liquidity provider"? The web site is written with a lot of jargon, and assumes that readers already know a lot about the business of foreign exchange.
Thanks for the clarification. However, the Federal Reserve does, basically, decide the interest rate that will be offered by banks. Many banks are offering less than 1% interest, below the rate of inflation, encouraged by the actions of the Federal Reserve.
Slashdot Mirror
Should be, of course: "If there is no other male, a female dog of any variety will mate with a male of any variety."
There is simply no question. Dogs recognize they are the same species, and breed accordingly, unlike the animals mentioned in some of the comments in this thread.
"You would be *very* surprised about what a male Chihuaha would be able to do." Exactly.
If there is no other male, a female dog of any species will mate with a male of any species.
I think the article was VERY poorly written.
"... does a light dimmer use something like a potentiometer?"
A light dimmer uses a Triac, a semiconductor device that can be turned on at some point during one half-cycle of alternating current. If it is turned on late, the light is dim. If it is turned on earlier, the light is brighter. When the alternating current passes through zero voltage, the device turns itself off.
A Triac is a kind of Thyristor.
"... C is the closest high level language to how a processor actually operates."
C was meant to be equivalent to a high-level assembly language. Someone told me that he was worried about coding in assembly language for a particular part of a video driver, but he discovered that, in that case, his C compiler wrote perfect assembly language.
Excellent comment. To dogs, smell is very important.
The article is an example of the pseudo-science to which Slashdot editors often link. Those who play video games when they could be learning about the world cause themselves to live in ignorance.
The article says, "... the only shot a male Chihuahua has with a female Mastiff involves..."
The male Chihuahua would like to mate with the female Mastiff, but the female won't let him. Only that. The female will show that she recognizes that the Chihuahua is a dog. She just doesn't want to mate with him. They easily recognize that they are the same species. It's only the author who wrote the article to which Slashdot linked, and the Slashdot editor, who don't realize that.
You said, "How do -we- determine if a manager/administrator is good technically, since we aren't aerospace engineers ourselves? The answer is that we determine this the same way a manager would determine if their staff is technically astute, by looking at their education backgrounds, their track records, and how well regarded they are by experts in the field."
Being a design engineer might be considered a different kind of culture. Those who aren't members of that culture can't judge a member of that culture accurately. It's somewhat like judging whether someone is a native speaker of Italian. Does that person use Italian colloquial expressions correctly? Only someone who is a native speaker can judge.
Educational background tends to be somewhat irrelevant because a competent engineer taught himself most of what he knows. How could someone who is not a design engineer know someone's track record? How could someone who is not a design engineer know who is an expert in the field, except in rare cases of very public accomplishments?
My original comment is moderated to -1, Troll, at present, after being moderated up. But there is simply no doubt: Being a design engineer is a culture of its own. It's a very intellectually demanding culture. It's a culture that is so unappreciated that people think that someone who has been a test pilot all his life can lead teams of engineers.
People who know that only an unusual person can be a successful artist believe that just any "good" manager can appreciate engineering enough to manage teams of engineers. They think that it is not necessary for a manager to understand what the people he manages are doing. That's a wildly illogical but widely held belief. An that's one reason why NASA has gotten such bad results in recent years.
It's difficult to find someone who is both a good manager and a creative engineer, but that is what is needed to head NASA. Otherwise, the pretenders rise to the top, and those with true ability are disregarded. Pretenders in positions of power are what people call "bureaucracy".
You said, "A good manager can make up for gaps in their technical knowledge by appointing a good technical staff and setting up an environment in which they can give quality advice."
The problem is this: If the good manager doesn't know a huge amount about technology and design, he or she cannot know who is good technically, and therefore cannot appoint a good technical staff. He or she will instead appoint those who are politically attractive.
Serious engineers often say things that non-technical managers don't want to hear, and couldn't evaluate even if they were willing to listen.
That's a very knowledgeable reply, in my opinion. Your last paragraph: "While technical proficiency is nice, it's not the most important thing in a manager of a program like NASA. Far more important is the ability to judge things in an unbiased manner, and being able to listen to your subordinates when they voice concerns."
What is absolutely necessary is both technical proficiency and managerial ability. If NASA cannot find a leader with both, it would be better to minimize NASA projects until one could be found.
The director of engineering of an electronics engineering company (who hired me) said that fewer than 1 in 20 people who have engineering degrees and call themselves engineers actually have much technical knowledge. More than 95% of electronics engineers are not able to create simple electronic designs.
It is more reasonable to guess that the new NASA head has no design experience at all. The careful thinking required of a successful design engineer does not mix well with a test pilot's taking severe chances with his health.
He's been a test pilot, and all that implies.
That does not imply that he is a design engineer, which is what is required. The head of NASA does not need to do design himself, but he needs to think like a designer, and recognize the likely limitations of every design and of every test of every design.
What's uncertain is how well an experienced pilot with very little technical knowledge can run a huge agency that has extremely complicated technical problems.
Why do people think that managers with little technical knowledge can run technological organizations?
I've written some articles about that issue.
Note that, for several years, Google has been paying more than $50 million per year to the company that makes Firefox, so that Google will be Firefox's default search engine. It seems reasonable to suppose that $50 million per year is enough to allow Mozilla Foundation to fix the major bugs.
Most software that has been written is now not used. When Google's well-designed Chrome browser has enough extensions, why would anyone use Firefox? That is especially true because the CPU hogging bug sometimes locks a computer so completely that the only way to recover is to turn off the power, which means that other work is lost. Also, CPU hogging causes processors to run hotter, which causes the CPU fan to run more. CPU fan failure is the biggest cause of laptop failure.
Google waited until 2 months before its agreement ended to renew it. Perhaps the agreement will not be renewed again, and Mozilla Foundation will lose most of its funding.
Firefox developer top 21 excuses
for not fixing the Firefox CPU hogging bug
after more than 7 years and hundreds of reports
These are actual excuses given at one time or another.
What seems relevant here is that Google seems to have much better management than Mozilla Foundation: Firefox, the laptop killer: 200 CPU hogging bugs.
Once there are plug-ins for Google's browser, it seems likely that Firefox will die.
An equipment buyer for a corporation, for example, will open a window and some tabs for a product, and then open another window and some tabs about another product because no decision has been made yet about the first.
I use Tab Mix Plus and Colorful Tabs.
More than 200 CPU and memory hogging bugs in Firefox
Mozilla Labs seems a little like Microsoft: They want to change things that don't matter, rather than fix the huge, serious bugs, like the CPU and memory hogging bug. There are more than 200 CPU and memory hogging bugs listed in Bugzilla. There are more than 200 CPU hogging bugs, but Mozilla Labs only allows you to see the first 200.
If Mozilla doesn't allow visitors coming from Slashdot to see the bug list directly, put this URL into your browser: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org, simply enter CPU into the "Find a bug" field, and click on "Find".
Yesterday I had a few Windows and tabs open, but my computer seemed very slow. I discovered that Firefox was taking 89% of the CPU, doing nothing! I first reported the CPU hogging bug in version 1.9, perhaps 7 years ago. My experience is that CPU hogging in Firefox has become much worse since version 3.0.5, and worse than that in version 3.0.10.
Firefox, the laptop killer
The first component in a laptop to fail is often the fan. Usually a replacement fan is expensive to buy and install. Firefox's CPU hogging causes laptop fans to run much more often, and thus reach their end of life sooner.
In my experience with hundreds of programs, Firefox is the only one that consistently hogs the CPU.
MOD PARENT UP!
First sensible comment. The state and federal governments have been doing NOTHING, for YEARS, about this scam. When I tried to report the scam, someone in the Oregon state government just laughed, happily telling me that the attorney general's office had gotten many, many complaints.
During the years of the Bush administration, the government became extremely disfunctional, in my opinion.
Should be, of course, "... fully loaded."
The answer is to do the updating before the application is fully loading.
Yes, but how does a company continue to achieve excellent engineering? There is, perhaps surprisingly, a large social component to that achievement.
MOD PARENT UP! '... the problem is "ethical" in a sense.'
Processes that run all the time make computer administration more complicated. The issue is not just one process; many, many companies want control over user's computers and believe that a system process is the way to achieve that.
Google Updater should run only when a program supplied by Google is running. Unnecessary control is always a reason for criticism, not just unnecessary control over other people's computers. Google managers must weigh whatever hidden benefits they hope to get with the widespread bad public relations that comes from being discussed on Slashdot for doing something many people don't like.
The problem is fundamentally social. Companies, and social groups in general, are always both growing socially and dying socially. In a company as well-established as Google, the challenge is to keep the processes of growth stronger than the processes of death.
More and more, Google seems to be out of control. There seems to be insufficient friendly oversight of the many initiatives inside the company. That typically occurs because everyone is busy, and because there is no one inside the company who both understands particular social processes and has the power and insight to influence them. Friendly, creative management is a lot more difficult than the average person realizes.
Of course, Google started from a very high level of excellent management. Google's management ability was initially not only in providing an excellent search engine, but also in being able to build the infrastructure necessary to serving billions of queries of a database, each in less than a second.
I'm very interested in such issues: Futurepower®.
More to the point: Why Microsoft has been making such a habit of changing its mind
I guess that the good, capable people long ago left Microsoft for more friendly surroundings.
Thanks for the advice about FXAll.com. Often we would not be transferring large amounts, just several thousand dollars. We have accounts with HSBC, one of the partner banks.
Would FXAll do business with us?
The web site says "Institutional clients who have a relationship with an FXall liquidity provider, a prime broker or a broker-dealer may be eligible to trade over FXall."
Is a corporation an "institutional client"? Is HSBC an "FXall liquidity provider"? The web site is written with a lot of jargon, and assumes that readers already know a lot about the business of foreign exchange.
Thanks for the clarification. However, the Federal Reserve does, basically, decide the interest rate that will be offered by banks. Many banks are offering less than 1% interest, below the rate of inflation, encouraged by the actions of the Federal Reserve.