If you read Decline & Fall, then you should also read Rise & Resurrection, where Yourdon analyzes much of the stuff in Rise & Resurrection that did not come true.
Decline & Fall is IMO a more interesting book, but I think Rise & Resurrection is more accurate.
Article thinks that going to the moon would be good to study primordial earth-life that got chucked into the sky during big impacts.
But, if you wait for the earth rocks on the moon to make the return trip on their own, you have a big problem with atmospheric burn-up. Don't forget that returning rocks will be hard to distinguish from the local variety that never made the trip.
I would rather go to the moon to start building a colony. Just think of the amusement rides alone.
There is an important difference though. Scientists ask for billions of dollars from the public sector in order to satisfy their itch for knowledge.
Have past scientific advances resulted in practical societal benefits, only a Luddite would say no.
Will current science yield similar benefits? Regardless of past history, this is a matter of faith. Granted that past discoveries such as lasers, semi-conductors, etc. have not been instant winners, requiring many years for a practical application.
There is a difference in that the energy levels are so far from normal human experience (being very deadly to us, they will remain so) it is reasonable to doubt that there will be an eventual payoff, or at least one that could be useful in a reasonable time frame.
It is reasonable to consider using the money spent to fund this type of research for something more practical in our lifetimes. And yes, I may be biased -- I studied engineering, not physics.
I don't dispute the premise that science and knowledge have intrinsic value. Just a recognition this is not sufficient to justify an infinite stack of research bucks. Have faith in science, just don't expect everyone else to always be ready to fund your faith.
Excellent point in its own way. Perhaps the Slashdot rule should be changed such that comments cannot be posted to an article until the article has itself been posted for 1 hour. Give people change to read article and actually think of somethink useful to say before posting.
The S/N ratio for/. comments is so low that it threatens the value for many of the current dotters.
Apparently, in addition to free sodas, you get free drugs of your choice too.
Re:An indication(not proof) for God
on
Rare Earth
·
· Score: 2
Beats me why anyone believes in theistic evolution. Bible account is very clear, God created animals, man, trees, etc. fully formed. If you don't believe this to be accurate, why believe in the book. Bible refers to creation in many of the books of the old & new testament. Jesus refers to it specifically as a factual account. If he could not get these facts right, why would you dedicate your life to follow him (as he would either be a liar or delusional).
What I thought was interesting was the author's faulty logic in this statement. Additionally, anyone who insists on taking the ideas of this book as a proof for god's existence will also have to accept the authors' prepositions about the age of the universe, the age of planet Earth, and more importantly, the theory of evolution
Totally invalid. Assume as a creationist, I find that the Drake equation gives me a zero (or essentially zero result). On that basis, then the exisintence of God is implied. This does not mean I would then accept evolution as valid, rather that the Drake hypothesis is false.
IF A then B, but B != TRUE, then NOT A is true.
IF A is dependent upon (A1 + A2 + A3) then at least one of A1, A2, or A3 is false. I expect most creationists would argue we are the unique exception to Drake=0, because of cooking the results for the human case by God.
Thus A creationist believing eperiemental value of Drake equation is approximately zero, is a strong argument in favor of creationism. To the suprise of most apparently, the Bible says nothing about ET life or intelligence. Thus Drake > 0 does not disprove the Bible. Bible could be proved by factual errors, etc, but not by Drake > 0.
Although this is probably correct (uranium salts are common in the coal), the coal burning keeps the radioactive uranium nice a dilute.
Nuclear waste tends to be a bit more concentrated.
People also have a unhealthy fear of low-level radiation, based on studies assuming if a melt-down or nukes going off makes lethal radiation. Then radiation at any level is bad.
You need trace amount of many minerals, etc. that will kill you if absent. You are just as dead if you get high (toxic) levels of these same chemicals.
Drinking 2 six-packs a day rots your liver. Drink a glass of alchohol with the evening meal is generally considered beneficial (the alchol itself, not just the stuff in wine).
There are honest scientific studies that show that low-lever radiation has a health benefit. Poliitically, few agree with this. Try here if you are interested.
Given the fact that security experts devote years to harden security to the point that it is usable, and safe enough that the cost of breaking security exceeds the value gained through such a breach. Why would you want to hear a bunch of uniformed nitwits such as Slashdotters to blather on about what we think of perhaps the most important security environment that could be placed on the Internet.
Consider also, that if there were some informed response that could also be written by a slashdotter, there would already be hunders of misinformed and poorly argue response flooding the pipeline before the true gem of wisdom could be composed.
And before everyone points out the security through obscurity is not the answer -- Just think how obscure the well-informed post would be on Slashdot.
This is related to one of one of the few points that I really think was right on the money in the article.
Programmers will almost always program in what the managers tell them to (there are a few exceptions). Managers are not notably technical usually, and even when former techs, they have often lost touch, or did not love the tech in the first case.
I can't count the number of times a manager has required VB because "there are lots of VB programmers", or equally non-technology driven decisions. I'm not even sure the managers were always wrong. But I am certain that MS will do their best to sell C#,.Net, etc. to the managers. Even on Slashdot, few would argue that MS does not have a clue re: marketing. Although they seem as fond as shooting themselves in the foot as most, the have been successful in selling their product to the masses.
IMO, Sun seems to have more trouble marketing their solution than MS. And that is why I believe.NET will grow at the expense of Java based solutions. Kill off Java, not likely. Kill off Java momentum, perhaps, though I have no desire to see it.
On the plus side for Java, it has been Sun's strongest marketing success (in terms of mindshare and branding). But the heady days of "Java uber alles" have gone away and Java in left in a position where a new challenger could be successful
I'm sure the RIAA considers this a major victory. How much of the million bucks will go to the artists? You know, the people they are trying to protect. This has got the be to most expensive CD duplicating machine I have ever heard of.
I noticed that Integrated Information Systems had a dedicated server to serve up MP3's. Would the settlement reached $1M if it had just been some directories on NFS or Samba.
This kind of stuff will scare the business community in a serious way. You can be sure the software police will be given new gestapo powers real soon in a corporation near you.
Have to admit, IIS sounds very stupid in this. But $1M would buy a big stack of CD's (especially considering the discount you could get for volume)
Steven B. Lipner, Microsoft's director of security assurance, responded, saying: "I'd be astonished if the open-source community has in total done as many man-years of computer security code reviews as we have done in the last two months."
You seem to have an odd view of a complete failure. In the first 8 weeks it was available, there were 30,000 subscribers for XM. These people had to pay $300+ for the XM receiver as well as the $10/per month subscription fee. Have no idea of current subscriber base.
Granted, that $300K/month is not even close to enough to keep XM-Radio afloat, this does not imply complete failure of the music-rental business model. In fact, it is direct evidence that it could be successful, provided the economics are right.
You mean XM radio is a complete failure, where users are unwilling to paid for commercial free music feeds? Why would consumer be unwilling to pay for feeds that are commercial free and consumer has complete control over the content?
Consumer is unwilling to pay too much for music rental, not against it in principle. Won't be as popular as Napster used to be because of the difference in price.
Turn off Javascript? Even better would be no javascript, or maybe no Java script, unless specificially turned on, and only for certificate signed mail that has been approved in advance.
RANT MODE=ON Can anyone suggest a good reason to have scripting in email content itself? MS scripting email content is quite possibly the stupidest idea to ever come from Redmond. how could they not have known better considering the earlier Word & Excel macro viruses RAN MODE=OFF
HTML email is harmless in comparison (alhtough there are non-scripting html security breaches), and definite privacy issues (remote URLS used to phone home, etc.).
If you think Google is concerned about the loss of ad revenue from the API format, you have forgotten what Google said about the alternative of "parsing the html".
Don't know about you, but I doubt the ads silently dumped during in the html parser phase are doing the advertiser much good. Google could charge more for their ads since they would know that html parser "ad bypass" would not be occuring en masse, since any intelligent googler would write to the API.
Beside, why shouldn't the API support ads also, think about the API ads being interpreted as quality hits when the API specifically requests the ad content.
Absolutely agreed, I should have been clear that censorware was an optional extra for younger kids.
Many slashdotters remember the "Fuck USA Government" website defacing that hit a lot of web sites. I would not ike to explain that to a 6-six yr old.
Nothing wrong with sex -- "Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled". Sex is and should be an enjoyable part of marriage. If an adult prefers to have sex outside of marriage, that's his right. God's law give adults the right to choose to sin (penalties may apply).
But it's not appropriate for a 6-yr old to learn the F-Word. Historical note: The F-Word was added to English as a clean, clinical word to replace the dirty word equivalent of the day (from a German verb meaning "to penetrate"), it tooks generations for it to become the dirty word. Bastard, Barbarian, bitch, and others have similar histories. So, what's wrong with knowning/using the F-word, answer -- depends on context. But, I don't expect or want a 6-yr old to understand the context. I can and do go for years without swearing and never in my life in front of children. And, I don't want them learning otherwise at tax sponsored libraries.
Since the language you would have you children to avoid can occur in surprising contexts, censorware is just a aid to the parent. When they are 14, they have heard all of the bad words, but hopefully have enough sense not to ask what they mean when company is visiting.
I'm a conservative Christian (Church of Christ, conservative), I'm also well known as the local computer guy at the church.
I've been asked the question re: protecting children from porn, etc. by several church members. Answer is always the same
1) be involved 2) lay day the rules 3) put the PC in a public area, or require leaving the door open 4) install tracking software, not censorware 5) Small kids get a different rule, censorware is ok
Why point 4? It's a feedback loop, see #1
And yes, a clever young person can download more porn than the parents would like, for free, w/o a credit card check. Parents would like no porn for the 10 yr old son, not "just a little"
Constitutionally, free speech does not trump rights of parents to raise their children. It says the government can not suppress free speech, not that the government has to publish speech for free.
I believe strongly in free speech, including porn (because it should not be up to government to decide the limits). But parents should have the right to control access to their children. They can exercise this right by going with their kids to the library, but maybe libraries could apply censorware to minor children without applying it to adults. Free speech would be preserved, as would parental control.
Correct as far as you go, however, for educational purposes you should hae continued to mention why AC won the war (eventually, DC was still in use in NYC as late as 1950).
AC permits the use of transformers to step/down voltage. To keep trasnmission loss small, voltage must be high. To keep from killing consumers in droves, voltage must be low.
Back to NYC, why did DC finally die? Television, which requires a step up transformer to generate the high voltages needed for the CRT.
Even Edison's marketing might could be this advantage of AC power.
United Devices, unlike Kaaza, clearly states the goal of their "parasitic existence", and lots of people have gladly signed up for it with full knowledge of the deal.
I'll let United Devices use my spare cycles much more readily than I will support the Kazaa model.
What I did was simple. I created lists of possible goals, ranked them, submitted them to said manager, and worked on them. As long as now feedback, I worked based on my ranking. If/when I received feedback, I worked based on the new rankings.
Whenever you were getting close to end of projects, warn manager with new possible task list of self-assigned projects.
Managers were always pleased with this approach. YMMV.
Carpal tunnel for keyboards is not even close to the hand cramps you would get from trying the write that much with a stylus.
After about 10 minutes writing (at a much slower rate than I can type), I can feel it it my hand already.
It is obvious that using both hands for data entry is more engaging using one hand for writing. Having a free hand might be useful in some contexts, giving a stylus approach some additional value though.
Give me a keyboard, and reliable voice recognition for small devices as stopgops until I can control via direct neural interface.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read Decline & Fall, then you should also read Rise & Resurrection, where Yourdon analyzes much of the stuff in Rise & Resurrection that did not come true.
Decline & Fall is IMO a more interesting book, but I think Rise & Resurrection is more accurate.
Well, either you are wrong, or NASA is. They seem to think the moon is receding at 3.8 cm per year. Look here if you're interested.
Article thinks that going to the moon would be good to study primordial earth-life that got chucked into the sky during big impacts.
But, if you wait for the earth rocks on the moon to make the return trip on their own, you have a big problem with atmospheric burn-up. Don't forget that returning rocks will be hard to distinguish from the local variety that never made the trip.
I would rather go to the moon to start building a colony. Just think of the amusement rides alone.
Practical applications of Heliocentric science
1) Solar probes that accurately predict when solar storms will hit Earth and disturb communications, etc.
2) Any practical application of space travel. Admittedly we don't much of this yet. Mining asteroids, colonies on moon or other planets, etc.
3) Enabling a basic understanding of gravitation. Commonly used in things such as discovering oil fields to building and maintaining a GPS network.
I'm sure there are many more if I were to take the time to consider.
There is an important difference though. Scientists ask for billions of dollars from the public sector in order to satisfy their itch for knowledge.
Have past scientific advances resulted in practical societal benefits, only a Luddite would say no.
Will current science yield similar benefits? Regardless of past history, this is a matter of faith. Granted that past discoveries such as lasers, semi-conductors, etc. have not been instant winners, requiring many years for a practical application.
There is a difference in that the energy levels are so far from normal human experience (being very deadly to us, they will remain so) it is reasonable to doubt that there will be an eventual payoff, or at least one that could be useful in a reasonable time frame.
It is reasonable to consider using the money spent to fund this type of research for something more practical in our lifetimes. And yes, I may be biased -- I studied engineering, not physics.
I don't dispute the premise that science and knowledge have intrinsic value. Just a recognition this is not sufficient to justify an infinite stack of research bucks. Have faith in science, just don't expect everyone else to always be ready to fund your faith.
Excellent point in its own way. Perhaps the Slashdot rule should be changed such that comments cannot be posted to an article until the article has itself been posted for 1 hour. Give people change to read article and actually think of somethink useful to say before posting.
/. comments is so low that it threatens the value for many of the current dotters.
The S/N ratio for
Sorry that my comment is itself "off-topic"
I wanna work for Microsoft.
Apparently, in addition to free sodas, you get free drugs of your choice too.
Beats me why anyone believes in theistic evolution. Bible account is very clear, God created animals, man, trees, etc. fully formed. If you don't believe this to be accurate, why believe in the book. Bible refers to creation in many of the books of the old & new testament. Jesus refers to it specifically as a factual account. If he could not get these facts right, why would you dedicate your life to follow him (as he would either be a liar or delusional).
What I thought was interesting was the author's faulty logic in this statement. Additionally, anyone who insists on taking the ideas of this book as a proof for god's existence will also have to accept the authors' prepositions about the age of the universe, the age of planet Earth, and more importantly, the theory of evolution
Totally invalid. Assume as a creationist, I find that the Drake equation gives me a zero (or essentially zero result). On that basis, then the exisintence of God is implied. This does not mean I would then accept evolution as valid, rather that the Drake hypothesis is false.
IF A then B, but B != TRUE, then NOT A is true.
IF A is dependent upon (A1 + A2 + A3) then at least one of A1, A2, or A3 is false. I expect most creationists would argue we are the unique exception to Drake=0, because of cooking the results for the human case by God.
Thus A creationist believing eperiemental value of Drake equation is approximately zero, is a strong argument in favor of creationism. To the suprise of most apparently, the Bible says nothing about ET life or intelligence. Thus Drake > 0 does not disprove the Bible. Bible could be proved by factual errors, etc, but not by Drake > 0.
Although this is probably correct (uranium salts are common in the coal), the coal burning keeps the radioactive uranium nice a dilute.
Nuclear waste tends to be a bit more concentrated.
People also have a unhealthy fear of low-level radiation, based on studies assuming if a melt-down or nukes going off makes lethal radiation. Then radiation at any level is bad.
You need trace amount of many minerals, etc. that will kill you if absent. You are just as dead if you get high (toxic) levels of these same chemicals.
Drinking 2 six-packs a day rots your liver. Drink a glass of alchohol with the evening meal is generally considered beneficial (the alchol itself, not just the stuff in wine).
There are honest scientific studies that show that low-lever radiation has a health benefit. Poliitically, few agree with this. Try here if you are interested.
Why ask Slashdot?
Given the fact that security experts devote years to harden security to the point that it is usable, and safe enough that the cost of breaking security exceeds the value gained through such a breach. Why would you want to hear a bunch of uniformed nitwits such as Slashdotters to blather on about what we think of perhaps the most important security environment that could be placed on the Internet.
Consider also, that if there were some informed response that could also be written by a slashdotter, there would already be hunders of misinformed and poorly argue response flooding the pipeline before the true gem of wisdom could be composed.
And before everyone points out the security through obscurity is not the answer -- Just think how obscure the well-informed post would be on Slashdot.
This is related to one of one of the few points that I really think was right on the money in the article.
.Net, etc. to the managers. Even on Slashdot, few would argue that MS does not have a clue re: marketing. Although they seem as fond as shooting themselves in the foot as most, the have been successful in selling their product to the masses.
.NET will grow at the expense of Java based solutions. Kill off Java, not likely. Kill off Java momentum, perhaps, though I have no desire to see it.
Programmers will almost always program in what the managers tell them to (there are a few exceptions). Managers are not notably technical usually, and even when former techs, they have often lost touch, or did not love the tech in the first case.
I can't count the number of times a manager has required VB because "there are lots of VB programmers", or equally non-technology driven decisions. I'm not even sure the managers were always wrong. But I am certain that MS will do their best to sell C#,
IMO, Sun seems to have more trouble marketing their solution than MS. And that is why I believe
On the plus side for Java, it has been Sun's strongest marketing success (in terms of mindshare and branding). But the heady days of "Java uber alles" have gone away and Java in left in a position where a new challenger could be successful
Phfft. None of these are nearly as sexy as a high-credit limit piece of plastic.
I'm sure the RIAA considers this a major victory. How much of the million bucks will go to the artists? You know, the people they are trying to protect. This has got the be to most expensive CD duplicating machine I have ever heard of.
I noticed that Integrated Information Systems had a dedicated server to serve up MP3's. Would the settlement reached $1M if it had just been some directories on NFS or Samba.
This kind of stuff will scare the business community in a serious way. You can be sure the software police will be given new gestapo powers real soon in a corporation near you.
Have to admit, IIS sounds very stupid in this. But $1M would buy a big stack of CD's (especially considering the discount you could get for volume)
Apparentlly you are wrong, Steve wouldn't lie.
Steven B. Lipner, Microsoft's director of security assurance, responded, saying: "I'd be astonished if the open-source community has in total done as many man-years of computer security code reviews as we have done in the last two months."
You seem to have an odd view of a complete failure. In the first 8 weeks it was available, there were 30,000 subscribers for XM. These people had to pay $300+ for the XM receiver as well as the $10/per month subscription fee. Have no idea of current subscriber base.
Granted, that $300K/month is not even close to enough to keep XM-Radio afloat, this does not imply complete failure of the music-rental business model. In fact, it is direct evidence that it could be successful, provided the economics are right.
You mean XM radio is a complete failure, where users are unwilling to paid for commercial free music feeds? Why would consumer be unwilling to pay for feeds that are commercial free and consumer has complete control over the content?
Consumer is unwilling to pay too much for music rental, not against it in principle. Won't be as popular as Napster used to be because of the difference in price.
Turn off Javascript? Even better would be no javascript, or maybe no Java script, unless specificially turned on, and only for certificate signed mail that has been approved in advance.
RANT MODE=ON
Can anyone suggest a good reason to have scripting in email content itself? MS scripting email content is quite possibly the stupidest idea to ever come from Redmond. how could they not have known better considering the earlier Word & Excel macro viruses
RAN MODE=OFF
HTML email is harmless in comparison (alhtough there are non-scripting html security breaches), and definite privacy issues (remote URLS used to phone home, etc.).
If you think Google is concerned about the loss of ad revenue from the API format, you have forgotten what Google said about the alternative of "parsing the html".
Don't know about you, but I doubt the ads silently dumped during in the html parser phase are doing the advertiser much good. Google could charge more for their ads since they would know that html parser "ad bypass" would not be occuring en masse, since any intelligent googler would write to the API.
Beside, why shouldn't the API support ads also, think about the API ads being interpreted as quality hits when the API specifically requests the ad content.
Google should also rack up savings on CPU utilization, especially for Google Games or GoogleWhacking.
Absolutely agreed, I should have been clear that censorware was an optional extra for younger kids.
Many slashdotters remember the "Fuck USA Government" website defacing that hit a lot of web sites. I would not ike to explain that to a 6-six yr old.
Nothing wrong with sex -- "Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled". Sex is and should be an enjoyable part of marriage. If an adult prefers to have sex outside of marriage, that's his right. God's law give adults the right to choose to sin (penalties may apply).
But it's not appropriate for a 6-yr old to learn the F-Word. Historical note: The F-Word was added to English as a clean, clinical word to replace the dirty word equivalent of the day (from a German verb meaning "to penetrate"), it tooks generations for it to become the dirty word. Bastard, Barbarian, bitch, and others have similar histories. So, what's wrong with knowning/using the F-word, answer -- depends on context. But, I don't expect or want a 6-yr old to understand the context. I can and do go for years without swearing and never in my life in front of children. And, I don't want them learning otherwise at tax sponsored libraries.
Since the language you would have you children to avoid can occur in surprising contexts, censorware is just a aid to the parent. When they are 14, they have heard all of the bad words, but hopefully have enough sense not to ask what they mean when company is visiting.
I'm a conservative Christian (Church of Christ, conservative), I'm also well known as the local computer guy at the church.
I've been asked the question re: protecting children from porn, etc. by several church members. Answer is always the same
1) be involved
2) lay day the rules
3) put the PC in a public area, or require leaving the door open
4) install tracking software, not censorware
5) Small kids get a different rule, censorware is ok
Why point 4? It's a feedback loop, see #1
And yes, a clever young person can download more porn than the parents would like, for free, w/o a credit card check. Parents would like no porn for the 10 yr old son, not "just a little"
Constitutionally, free speech does not trump rights of parents to raise their children. It says the government can not suppress free speech, not that the government has to publish speech for free.
I believe strongly in free speech, including porn (because it should not be up to government to decide the limits). But parents should have the right to control access to their children. They can exercise this right by going with their kids to the library, but maybe libraries could apply censorware to minor children without applying it to adults. Free speech would be preserved, as would parental control.
Correct as far as you go, however, for educational purposes you should hae continued to mention why AC won the war (eventually, DC was still in use in NYC as late as 1950).
AC permits the use of transformers to step/down voltage. To keep trasnmission loss small, voltage must be high. To keep from killing consumers in droves, voltage must be low.
Back to NYC, why did DC finally die? Television, which requires a step up transformer to generate the high voltages needed for the CRT.
Even Edison's marketing might could be this advantage of AC power.
Believe it or not, I knew of a case where this occured. The man had 34 kids, and began naming them John-17 and such-like.
United Devices, unlike Kaaza, clearly states the goal of their "parasitic existence", and lots of people have gladly signed up for it with full knowledge of the deal.
I'll let United Devices use my spare cycles much more readily than I will support the Kazaa model.
I've been there on several occasions.
What I did was simple. I created lists of possible goals, ranked them, submitted them to said manager, and worked on them. As long as now feedback, I worked based on my ranking. If/when I received feedback, I worked based on the new rankings.
Whenever you were getting close to end of projects, warn manager with new possible task list of self-assigned projects.
Managers were always pleased with this approach. YMMV.
Carpal tunnel for keyboards is not even close to the hand cramps you would get from trying the write that much with a stylus.
After about 10 minutes writing (at a much slower rate than I can type), I can feel it it my hand already.
It is obvious that using both hands for data entry is more engaging using one hand for writing. Having a free hand might be useful in some contexts, giving a stylus approach some additional value though.
Give me a keyboard, and reliable voice recognition for small devices as stopgops until I can control via direct neural interface.