I find your view somewhat naive. I've been involved in multiple space projects (some very big ones), although never with NASA. But through my interactions with NASA and JPL scientists and engineer, I doubt that the situation there is any different than the one with the agencies I work with.
We are speaking of purchasing organizations run by politicians. Not scientists. How often have I seen scientists and engineer sake their heads on the attribution of a contract or selection of a mission? I stopped counting when I ran out of fingers to count on.
The attribution of the contracts is highly dependent on geographical distribution rather than on expertise. The selection of wrong contractors, based on geopolitical motive, costs years in delays and millions in over costs. It magnitude over the interaction you describe. If only that was the only source of higher costs... The selection of the projects or mission that get financing is even worse. It became a real political farce, and is undermined by political marketing (eg. what sells well to the people financing the agencies) and by the true role of these agencies: financing the aerospace industry.
I would answer in short that people who assert things like you do haven't been in the business long enough or have been doing so with their eyes and ears closed. What you describe is entirely correct, but accounts only for a minute fraction of the cause of the high costs found in the space industry.
Of course they know how. But they are not allowed to... or more accurately they do not allow themselves to do cheap.
But that is the first part of the price equation... equally strong is the polical part. A lot of decision are based on politcal decision rather than engineering choices or, even, common sense. Those decision often drive the prices to new hights.
I had at first trouble as well understanding the concern, which I have initially related back to me not being a physician. But if I put my engineer hat back on, I start to understand what the issue is (I deal all the time with people having issues, they can't correctly describe or explain). My believe, and I hope someone here can confirm or infirm this, is that the potency is not that much the issue, but rather the variance of the potency. In order word how different is the potency of the drug for different patients, which make dosage very difficult. Albeit this view might be biased, then it is the only logical explanation I personally can find for having an issue with the approval of this drug.
When I read the article, I have the impression that the a lot of different half-arguments are put fore in attempt to convince the reader, through which the real arguments gets diluted and lost.
I'm sure you'd get bonus points at the game for posting fake material about posting fake material to manipulate public opinion in order to manipulate public opinion on the material published.
How is that irony? And, much more important question, how would you come to think that it is any different in the USA, UK or any other western countries? Whats the point of trying to change the focuse of the discussion towards Russia? They all have been doing that since even before the Internet existed. I can't see how things could have been any different in the Internet Era.
I believe you missunderstood me or read only half of what I wrote - or I expressed myself poorly (or both). Your are basically saying the same thing as I do! A map can't tell you where a flooding will occure for sure, but you can say where the probability a flood will occur are higher, especially in the context of sea level rise. Combining elevation information with current flooding probability maps is a brilland idea to extrapolate the potential effects of sea level rise.
My comment was in response to the not-so-insightful comment "oh no, according to the map Niederland is completely flooded. The map must be wrong. The science must be wrong."
It is not wrong. It shows probabilites, just like I said in my first post and just as you mentionned in as well.
No map or prediction can't tell you where there is going to be flooding or not. Even without sea level rise. This is espcially true with heavy human intervention, like in the Netherlands. You can simply identify regions at risk and attemp to evaluate the flooding probabilties.
But is that really so surprising and unrealistic? It's not like floods are something unheard of in the Netherlands.
I consider someone turning to ridicule an action or person based on a obviously and willingly flawed logic a troll, that especially when it is wirtten in a tone like the one you use.
I tried to illustrate how flawed your logic is. I do not care about your opinion and I will never comment or judge an opinion here. But a flawed logic of false statement, I will. If I believe the facts your state are false, I will comment on it. And that is what I did.
Not being able to post on what I believe is a flawed statement and moderate at the same time, I allowed myself to express my opinion on my perception of your comment (seen as a troll comment), while still make a remark on the content of your post. From the moderation my comment got, I believe this approach did not come across well and I will refrain of doing it in the future.
The thing that makes a smartphone is not calculator and PDA facilities. It's the ability to run third party apps as "first class citizens". i.e. downloadable software that has the same possibilities and UI as the built in apps (so featurephone stuff such as WAP and J2ME doesn't qualify.)
So surely a smartwatch should have the same qualification. Show me a watch that has an app store with full featured apps, and I'll accept it's a smartwatch. Show me a Casio calculator watch and I'll just laugh.
I don't know where your are pulling these definitions out. Did you come with those up yourself? Where's that normativ commity that qualifies what is a smartphone and not? Because last time I checked, the accepted understanding of what a smartphone (or smartwactch) are, are quite a bit broader. And if your think that the smart watches available in the last two decades limit themselfs to have PDA and calculators funktionalities, which were funcitonalities found in the '80, as I clearly mentionned I believe, you should go an read a bit about the history of smart watches.
Everyone jumped on the smartwatch game...and then Apple followed.
That's absurd. Watch with higher funktionalities like calculator, PDA or so exist since the '80. There have been multiple models form a lot of different sources that have been released on regular basis. Some companies released a new model a year since 2000. For some reason there has been a recent hype on smart watches, mostly driven by rumors on nonexistent Apple products and by the Samsung Gear release. I wouldn't qualify a media hype on something that has already been there for decades and is well implanted as "everyone jumped on the smartwatch game". Especially when the overhyped media fail completely to talk about those models of smartwatches that are actually useful or inovative.
Apple is doing what they have been doing with the ipod, the iphone and many other product. They don't jump on the bandwagon just like you suggest it. They watch every one doing it, look where they fail (because they do) and see how they can market such a product in a way to be succesful. A lot of the inovation is more on the maketing and market study side than on the actual technique itself. And it works.
But for some reasons, people (you) seem to expect that Apple should make such breakthrough with every product release. Mind you, its mostly Apple's fault and their marketing approach that leads to this.
Ah yes! I had one of those. I loved my Casio calculator watch with biomedical sensoric, music and player and communication capabilties.(!) Apple should also be ashamed to have released a cellphone 2007. Didn't Motorola already make cellphones like in the '70 and '80? I remember frying parts of my brain with one of those. There was Apple little late to the game as well it seems.
The total lack of inovation and success of Apple in the mobile industry and the currently brillant success of Motorola in this branch is true mirror of this I guess. Gosh, I bet things would be different if they had been the first ever to make mobile telephones. Then they would surely be at the top of the marked with their true innovation.
By the way, are your having fun with your Samsung phone today? oh, what do I hear? your were too busy trolling? Carry on.
My understanding was that there was no charge (or accusation) filed in Sweden. A compaint has been filed and he was wanted for interrogation over the filed complaint. Considering the deeper implications of travelling into Sweeden, I can understand his reluctance to do so, especially if he believes the complaint as no bases.
Under the circumstances, en interrogation in England is the best solution for every parties. If, following the interrogation, formal charges are layed and is is accused of rape, his situation will change anyway and probably won't have the choice to face the charges there, regardless where he is.
If new wolves to not appear, or all of the current wolves lead, the moose would end up destroying the native Fir population. The wildlife service is considering introducing new wolves as part of a genetic rescue, or reintroducing wolves should the population reach zero on its own.
Quite honestly, my English is awful. But given that it is my third language, I do not feel bad about it. I would neverthless feel very bad about it if I was an Editor on a supposedly reputable site like Slashdot.
Obviously. You have so much of it, that you can completely disregard obvious facts. That must be convenient.
WTF does this have to do with the original article?
It has a lot to do with the original article, which is unfortunately somewhat off track. The subject tackled are the important investments to ensure proper conditions for the winter competition. Sadly the article and the title used by slashdot are missleading, as they suggest these investements are made to transform a sub-tropical climate into a winter paradise. What so many people fail to understand is that the climate up in the mountains IS NOT the same as the one near the sea in the city of Sochi.
So what does it have to do with it? A lot.
What the poster of this article understood but you - and most likely the journalist behind the article - failed to understand is that the a large part of the investments are made to ensure that the proper conditions are met in the competition sites in the mountains (not in the sub-tropical paradise, mind you). The risk of having non-adequate conditions, and thus require the equipement and huge investment behind it - is obviously linked to the climate.
I do not believe Sochi - and the sites in the mountains in the direct neighbourhood - could ever garantee the right conditions, regardless of the outcome of the winter. Hence the large investements. The interesting catch is that many of the past Winter Olympic sites, which could garantee for those conditions, fall in the same category as Sochi due to climate change. This means that these sites would also need similar investments to hold such competition in the future.
But stick to your common sense, widely feed by ignorance and closed mindset.
How did Garmin avoid the loss of a good client (and the multiple other I discouraged to buy their products) with such a politic? Although I agree with the idea of loss aversion, I think that believing such a move will avoid loss is flawed. It's even more flawed considering the fact that most of the people breaking copyright on an ebook, film, music or piece of software wouldn't have payed for it if it wasn't made available through piracy. So, in fact, by using DRM you not only loose real paying customers for piracy, you gain back very few from those who use pirated products anyway. How does that help mitigating loss?
It's not quantum computing. Some decision maker must have made this observation at some point in the decision process.
I'm having a hard time following the train of though behind such moves. What do they expect the people will do once they are not able to buy ebooks and read them on their device. Worse, what do they expect people will do once they actually buy ebooks and then notice they can't read them on their device due to DRM?
It almost feels like dark scheme to push people towards piracy and undermine the profit of the compagnies. It somewhat reminded me of how Garmin handles its customer with its mapping product. I had a map installed on a handeld device and on old car device. After I bought a brand new device from that exact same company, I couldn't install the map on that new device as it was already installed on two device, one being the old car GPS replaced by the new one. The officiel support answer was "sorry, we can't help you. You can buy a new copy of the map _here_". With such a policy, they lost a good customer that was happy up to that point. I expect the ebook users to experience about the same kind of feeling being put in the situation that lays before them.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought he was quite font of his spelling.
I find your view somewhat naive. I've been involved in multiple space projects (some very big ones), although never with NASA. But through my interactions with NASA and JPL scientists and engineer, I doubt that the situation there is any different than the one with the agencies I work with.
We are speaking of purchasing organizations run by politicians. Not scientists. How often have I seen scientists and engineer sake their heads on the attribution of a contract or selection of a mission? I stopped counting when I ran out of fingers to count on.
The attribution of the contracts is highly dependent on geographical distribution rather than on expertise. The selection of wrong contractors, based on geopolitical motive, costs years in delays and millions in over costs. It magnitude over the interaction you describe. If only that was the only source of higher costs...
The selection of the projects or mission that get financing is even worse. It became a real political farce, and is undermined by political marketing (eg. what sells well to the people financing the agencies) and by the true role of these agencies: financing the aerospace industry.
I would answer in short that people who assert things like you do haven't been in the business long enough or have been doing so with their eyes and ears closed. What you describe is entirely correct, but accounts only for a minute fraction of the cause of the high costs found in the space industry.
wooooosh, makes the shooting star.
Of course they know how. But they are not allowed to... or more accurately they do not allow themselves to do cheap.
But that is the first part of the price equation... equally strong is the polical part. A lot of decision are based on politcal decision rather than engineering choices or, even, common sense. Those decision often drive the prices to new hights.
I had at first trouble as well understanding the concern, which I have initially related back to me not being a physician. But if I put my engineer hat back on, I start to understand what the issue is (I deal all the time with people having issues, they can't correctly describe or explain). My believe, and I hope someone here can confirm or infirm this, is that the potency is not that much the issue, but rather the variance of the potency. In order word how different is the potency of the drug for different patients, which make dosage very difficult. Albeit this view might be biased, then it is the only logical explanation I personally can find for having an issue with the approval of this drug.
When I read the article, I have the impression that the a lot of different half-arguments are put fore in attempt to convince the reader, through which the real arguments gets diluted and lost.
I'm sure you'd get bonus points at the game for posting fake material about posting fake material to manipulate public opinion in order to manipulate public opinion on the material published.
How is that irony? And, much more important question, how would you come to think that it is any different in the USA, UK or any other western countries? Whats the point of trying to change the focuse of the discussion towards Russia? They all have been doing that since even before the Internet existed. I can't see how things could have been any different in the Internet Era.
I believe you missunderstood me or read only half of what I wrote - or I expressed myself poorly (or both). Your are basically saying the same thing as I do! A map can't tell you where a flooding will occure for sure, but you can say where the probability a flood will occur are higher, especially in the context of sea level rise. Combining elevation information with current flooding probability maps is a brilland idea to extrapolate the potential effects of sea level rise.
My comment was in response to the not-so-insightful comment "oh no, according to the map Niederland is completely flooded. The map must be wrong. The science must be wrong."
It is not wrong. It shows probabilites, just like I said in my first post and just as you mentionned in as well.
*you* (i give up - if at least beta had comment editing possibility... not even that.)
No map or prediction can tell your... (sorry for the poor proofreading. It's early -_-)
No map or prediction can't tell you where there is going to be flooding or not. Even without sea level rise. This is espcially true with heavy human intervention, like in the Netherlands. You can simply identify regions at risk and attemp to evaluate the flooding probabilties.
But is that really so surprising and unrealistic? It's not like floods are something unheard of in the Netherlands.
I consider someone turning to ridicule an action or person based on a obviously and willingly flawed logic a troll, that especially when it is wirtten in a tone like the one you use.
I tried to illustrate how flawed your logic is. I do not care about your opinion and I will never comment or judge an opinion here. But a flawed logic of false statement, I will. If I believe the facts your state are false, I will comment on it. And that is what I did.
Not being able to post on what I believe is a flawed statement and moderate at the same time, I allowed myself to express my opinion on my perception of your comment (seen as a troll comment), while still make a remark on the content of your post. From the moderation my comment got, I believe this approach did not come across well and I will refrain of doing it in the future.
know -_- *sigh*
No. That answer we already now... we're obviously modelling the question.
The thing that makes a smartphone is not calculator and PDA facilities. It's the ability to run third party apps as "first class citizens". i.e. downloadable software that has the same possibilities and UI as the built in apps (so featurephone stuff such as WAP and J2ME doesn't qualify.)
So surely a smartwatch should have the same qualification. Show me a watch that has an app store with full featured apps, and I'll accept it's a smartwatch. Show me a Casio calculator watch and I'll just laugh.
I don't know where your are pulling these definitions out. Did you come with those up yourself? Where's that normativ commity that qualifies what is a smartphone and not? Because last time I checked, the accepted understanding of what a smartphone (or smartwactch) are, are quite a bit broader. And if your think that the smart watches available in the last two decades limit themselfs to have PDA and calculators funktionalities, which were funcitonalities found in the '80, as I clearly mentionned I believe, you should go an read a bit about the history of smart watches.
Everyone jumped on the smartwatch game...and then Apple followed.
That's absurd. Watch with higher funktionalities like calculator, PDA or so exist since the '80. There have been multiple models form a lot of different sources that have been released on regular basis. Some companies released a new model a year since 2000. For some reason there has been a recent hype on smart watches, mostly driven by rumors on nonexistent Apple products and by the Samsung Gear release. I wouldn't qualify a media hype on something that has already been there for decades and is well implanted as "everyone jumped on the smartwatch game". Especially when the overhyped media fail completely to talk about those models of smartwatches that are actually useful or inovative.
Apple is doing what they have been doing with the ipod, the iphone and many other product. They don't jump on the bandwagon just like you suggest it. They watch every one doing it, look where they fail (because they do) and see how they can market such a product in a way to be succesful. A lot of the inovation is more on the maketing and market study side than on the actual technique itself. And it works.
But for some reasons, people (you) seem to expect that Apple should make such breakthrough with every product release. Mind you, its mostly Apple's fault and their marketing approach that leads to this.
Ah yes! I had one of those. I loved my Casio calculator watch with biomedical sensoric, music and player and communication capabilties.(!)
Apple should also be ashamed to have released a cellphone 2007. Didn't Motorola already make cellphones like in the '70 and '80? I remember frying parts of my brain with one of those. There was Apple little late to the game as well it seems.
The total lack of inovation and success of Apple in the mobile industry and the currently brillant success of Motorola in this branch is true mirror of this I guess. Gosh, I bet things would be different if they had been the first ever to make mobile telephones. Then they would surely be at the top of the marked with their true innovation.
By the way, are your having fun with your Samsung phone today? oh, what do I hear? your were too busy trolling? Carry on.
My understanding was that there was no charge (or accusation) filed in Sweden. A compaint has been filed and he was wanted for interrogation over the filed complaint. Considering the deeper implications of travelling into Sweeden, I can understand his reluctance to do so, especially if he believes the complaint as no bases.
Under the circumstances, en interrogation in England is the best solution for every parties. If, following the interrogation, formal charges are layed and is is accused of rape, his situation will change anyway and probably won't have the choice to face the charges there, regardless where he is.
On the other hand, perhaps the users would start to read TFA submitted.
If new wolves to not appear, or all of the current wolves lead, the moose would end up destroying the native Fir population. The wildlife service is considering introducing new wolves as part of a genetic rescue, or reintroducing wolves should the population reach zero on its own.
Quite honestly, my English is awful. But given that it is my third language, I do not feel bad about it. I would neverthless feel very bad about it if I was an Editor on a supposedly reputable site like Slashdot.
Have you a better source than the daily mail for that one?
Common sense I do have.
Obviously. You have so much of it, that you can completely disregard obvious facts. That must be convenient.
WTF does this have to do with the original article?
It has a lot to do with the original article, which is unfortunately somewhat off track. The subject tackled are the important investments to ensure proper conditions for the winter competition. Sadly the article and the title used by slashdot are missleading, as they suggest these investements are made to transform a sub-tropical climate into a winter paradise. What so many people fail to understand is that the climate up in the mountains IS NOT the same as the one near the sea in the city of Sochi.
So what does it have to do with it? A lot.
What the poster of this article understood but you - and most likely the journalist behind the article - failed to understand is that the a large part of the investments are made to ensure that the proper conditions are met in the competition sites in the mountains (not in the sub-tropical paradise, mind you). The risk of having non-adequate conditions, and thus require the equipement and huge investment behind it - is obviously linked to the climate.
I do not believe Sochi - and the sites in the mountains in the direct neighbourhood - could ever garantee the right conditions, regardless of the outcome of the winter. Hence the large investements. The interesting catch is that many of the past Winter Olympic sites, which could garantee for those conditions, fall in the same category as Sochi due to climate change. This means that these sites would also need similar investments to hold such competition in the future.
But stick to your common sense, widely feed by ignorance and closed mindset.
How did Garmin avoid the loss of a good client (and the multiple other I discouraged to buy their products) with such a politic? Although I agree with the idea of loss aversion, I think that believing such a move will avoid loss is flawed. It's even more flawed considering the fact that most of the people breaking copyright on an ebook, film, music or piece of software wouldn't have payed for it if it wasn't made available through piracy. So, in fact, by using DRM you not only loose real paying customers for piracy, you gain back very few from those who use pirated products anyway. How does that help mitigating loss?
It's not quantum computing. Some decision maker must have made this observation at some point in the decision process.
I'm having a hard time following the train of though behind such moves. What do they expect the people will do once they are not able to buy ebooks and read them on their device. Worse, what do they expect people will do once they actually buy ebooks and then notice they can't read them on their device due to DRM?
It almost feels like dark scheme to push people towards piracy and undermine the profit of the compagnies. It somewhat reminded me of how Garmin handles its customer with its mapping product. I had a map installed on a handeld device and on old car device. After I bought a brand new device from that exact same company, I couldn't install the map on that new device as it was already installed on two device, one being the old car GPS replaced by the new one. The officiel support answer was "sorry, we can't help you. You can buy a new copy of the map _here_". With such a policy, they lost a good customer that was happy up to that point. I expect the ebook users to experience about the same kind of feeling being put in the situation that lays before them.
every one knows that powerfull lasers' place is on board a B-1