(Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")
Great link, but be sure to read the whole article. At the end of the second page:
President Bush is right. The space shuttle and the space station deserve termination. The true heart of his proposal is the elimination of these programs, and the substitution of robotic exploration. We will look before we leap--that is, fly telescopes built for visible, infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, x-ray, and gamma ray wavelengths--to see what we can see from Earth orbit. Then we will send robots to explore whatever robots can explore. Hold back on the astronauts until we have goals that need them. Let science be the guide, rather than a presumed human need to step off the surface of the Earth.
Some people will say I am too optimistic, that I am reading too much in between the lines. I think I am just ignoring the headlines to read the actual lines themselves. President Bush gave us a great plan. Let's recognize that and go with it. But let's be careful to make sure that politicians and bureaucrats do not hijack President Bush's wonderful vision of robotic space exploration and degrade it into a listless program that merely launches astronauts to places where telescopes and probes could do a safer, quicker, better, and cheaper job.
Finally! Somebody gets it! Heaving humans into the heavens is mostly vanity. Instead, let's use the tools that we've created and explore every possible corner of this solar system as quickly, safely, and cheaply as possible!
Agreed, of course - neither that nor any other corrective to the voting process will ever occur... until, perhaps, it is far too late. The only "realistic" hope that I see for this nation - and it's a long shot - would be the election of a true independent to the office of President. Someone with no ties whatsoever to either party, and no wish to engage in party politics. Such a person might be able to shift the focus from needlessly divisive bickering (which only benefits the parties) to the "elephants in the sitting room" issues. A few relative outsiders have been elected to lesser office in recent years, so there is an outside chance...
Well, yes, I was joking. No doubt things would have been somewhat different under either man, but not significantly so.
There's so much I could say here... but really, it's all pointless quibbling. So instead, here's one of my favorite quotes:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.
Alexander Tyler, 1787
I believe that this effect swaps whatever partisan differences may lie between the two parties, their candidates, and their policies.
Well, judging from the other responses, everybody hates you. Not me, tho - I agree with you, more or less. That's why I voted for Ross Perot both times he ran. Not because I thought he would win, nor even that I wanted him to win. But I did want to help give the ideas he expressed - controlling spending, paying down the debt, not exporting jobs via NAFTA - some currency in Washington. I hoped that, if he made a decent showing, whoever did get elected would at least honor the fact that some of us held those opinions.
Of course, now that I think about it, that didn't work at all. The deficient declined, but that was only because the economy grew at such freakish rates for a while. Spending was barely controlled, and factory jobs have been disappearing for almost a decade. Never mind what I just said - I should have voted for George Bush and Bob Dole!
Oh come on! Remember Florida? People can't operate the current voting system!
Besides, if there were really going to be a change like that, it should simply be the addition of:
[] None of the above
If "None of the above" won, then everybody on the ballot would be disqualified for one election cycle, and a new ballot (with new candidates) would have to be offered.
First, living paycheck-to-paycheck has little to do with the rest of it. A number of my co-workers live p2p, and I'm sure they each earn more than 100k. P2P is more a problem of uncontrolled spending than limited earning or poor math skills.
Second, everywhere that I've lived "real banking" was easily "in the reach" of anyone. Credit unions are an especially good option, and you can often join a local CU even if you don't work for a participating employer. In my opinion, the real obstacle for many in the "underclass" is unfamiliarity, plus maybe a bit of paranoid fear of "the Man". How to fix that, I don't know. But trying to regulate out the services that do work for that part of the population is probably not a viable option.
Not that it would matter, even if it did work as you suggest. Without a magnetosphere like earth's to protect it, any atmosphere would soon be stripped away by the solar winds.
My definition of "Secure Programming"...
on
Secure Programming
·
· Score: 3, Funny
... is any programming job that can't be exported to India!
(are there any comparable books by other authors?)
I couldn't really say, as I haven't read Forward. I remember a friend claiming that H. Beam Piper wrote the most believable aliens she'd ever encountered. Personally, I think Stanislaw Lem's depictions of aliens are the most likely - completely unknowable, and unavoidably (and usually fatally) incompatible.
Don't the English have to pay an annual license for their television sets? Doesn't that pay for the BBC programming?
If the BBC put all of it's programming on the Internet for free, wouldn't some people - maybe a lot of people - ditch their TVs and just watch stuff using their computer?
Of course, there might be some delay between broadcast and release on the Internet, so maybe that's enough to keep the English license system in place. But what about the money from foreign sales, like to PBS in the US? Those programs are already old - how much will they be hurting demand if the same programs are already legally available in high-guality from a reliable source on the Internet?
Even more OT, but hey, it's slashdot...
When you said Wouldn't you be upset if your government had several trillion dollars in debt and an interest rate less than two percent? Oh, wait..., you were presumably poking fun at the current administration.
Fine, but in fact, the failure of the Japanese government isn't the low interest rate or the debt. The failure is that they didn't lower the rates or run up their debt fast enough. As their economy slowed, they half-measured their way to complete stagnation.
That, IMHO, is the lesson that both the Federal Reserve and the current administration learned from the Japanese. When the Bushies arrived in office, the US economic bubble had already burst, and they wisely acted right away to stimulate the economy. Similiarly, the Fed acted quickly and consistently to start loosening the money supply.
People at the time (and some people still!) complained about the tax cuts, but without that stimulation, or even with half-measure stimulation, the recent economic trough would have been as bad as Japan's has been... or even worse!
I think it's an attempt at subliminal suggestion: Netscape Won, Sun Won, Palm Won.
I'm mostly kidding, but I really think Microsoft did the same thing. During the Windows 3.x years, before Windows was an established winner, you started windows by typing "win" on the command line.
Here's a thought: get really sick once. Or maybe suffer a terrible injury. I've done both. 3000 years ago, I'd have been dead at 9 y.o. If I'd avoided that injury, I'd have died in horrible pain about 3 years ago.
That said, I don't disagree with some of your quality of life issues. But before you get too worked up, read "Guns, Germs, and Steel", a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on, for lack of a better description, the evolution of human civilizations. Apparently, as civilizations expand, they tend toward "kleptocracies", where those closest to the ruler benefit from the work of the mass of people further away. Dang, you think, how awful! But it has to be that way, because kleptocracies promote specialization, which promotes effiency, which steal the lunch for any less efficient civilization. That's just reality, dude, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
Ah, but you are wrong.:-) Anyone can predict the direction of the computer industry... and almost everyone does!
Of course, no prediction will be perfectly accurate, but some will be accurate enough to make their predictors very rich, very influential, or both.
My point here isn't to bust your chops... but, really, throwing your hands up in the air isn't the answer. Every time you buy new hardware, install a new software package, or learn a new language, you are at least placing a bet on someone else's prediction. Years ago I saw a lot of very talented entrepreneurs pour their hearts and souls out, betting on the wrong horse, and losing everything. That's when I realized, the first thing you need to do is predict the way the industry is going to go.
I would think software would evolve in such a way that stuff gets better, not stuff added on and and the old stuff worse.
You have never developed software yourself, have you? Not breaking existing functionality is the second-hardest problem in software development - the hardest problem being estimating an accurate schedule. IMHO, of course.
Hamvention® is the world's largest amateur radio gathering and trade show. I'm not a ham, so I just go to shop for computer junk... but the folks at this show are *so* geeky that its fun to just watch them.
Dayton has the best museum of aircraft in the world. The 2003 Dayton Air Show just ended, along with the "Inventing Flight" centenial celebration, so everything should in top shape. Really, it's a must-see!
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, of course - neither that nor any other corrective to the voting process will ever occur... until, perhaps, it is far too late. The only "realistic" hope that I see for this nation - and it's a long shot - would be the election of a true independent to the office of President. Someone with no ties whatsoever to either party, and no wish to engage in party politics. Such a person might be able to shift the focus from needlessly divisive bickering (which only benefits the parties) to the "elephants in the sitting room" issues. A few relative outsiders have been elected to lesser office in recent years, so there is an outside chance...
There's so much I could say here... but really, it's all pointless quibbling. So instead, here's one of my favorite quotes:
I believe that this effect swaps whatever partisan differences may lie between the two parties, their candidates, and their policies.Of course, now that I think about it, that didn't work at all. The deficient declined, but that was only because the economy grew at such freakish rates for a while. Spending was barely controlled, and factory jobs have been disappearing for almost a decade. Never mind what I just said - I should have voted for George Bush and Bob Dole!
Besides, if there were really going to be a change like that, it should simply be the addition of:
If "None of the above" won, then everybody on the ballot would be disqualified for one election cycle, and a new ballot (with new candidates) would have to be offered.Maybe they use you are fuel? But a scam is a lot more likely: safe and easy. What, are you going to go up and check?
Man, that is ironic. After all, if census workers don't count, who does?...
First, living paycheck-to-paycheck has little to do with the rest of it. A number of my co-workers live p2p, and I'm sure they each earn more than 100k. P2P is more a problem of uncontrolled spending than limited earning or poor math skills.
Second, everywhere that I've lived "real banking" was easily "in the reach" of anyone. Credit unions are an especially good option, and you can often join a local CU even if you don't work for a participating employer. In my opinion, the real obstacle for many in the "underclass" is unfamiliarity, plus maybe a bit of paranoid fear of "the Man". How to fix that, I don't know. But trying to regulate out the services that do work for that part of the population is probably not a viable option.
Not that it would matter, even if it did work as you suggest. Without a magnetosphere like earth's to protect it, any atmosphere would soon be stripped away by the solar winds.
... is any programming job that can't be exported to India!
See, you're reading it! Now that's marketing!
I couldn't really say, as I haven't read Forward. I remember a friend claiming that H. Beam Piper wrote the most believable aliens she'd ever encountered. Personally, I think Stanislaw Lem's depictions of aliens are the most likely - completely unknowable, and unavoidably (and usually fatally) incompatible.
So that's why Gore beat Bush in California. Those damn Democrats tried to steal the election there too!
If the BBC put all of it's programming on the Internet for free, wouldn't some people - maybe a lot of people - ditch their TVs and just watch stuff using their computer?
Of course, there might be some delay between broadcast and release on the Internet, so maybe that's enough to keep the English license system in place. But what about the money from foreign sales, like to PBS in the US? Those programs are already old - how much will they be hurting demand if the same programs are already legally available in high-guality from a reliable source on the Internet?
A social-skills robot? All extroverted and everything? I think the cost to geeks like me ought to be covered by insurance!
Fine, but in fact, the failure of the Japanese government isn't the low interest rate or the debt. The failure is that they didn't lower the rates or run up their debt fast enough. As their economy slowed, they half-measured their way to complete stagnation.
That, IMHO, is the lesson that both the Federal Reserve and the current administration learned from the Japanese. When the Bushies arrived in office, the US economic bubble had already burst, and they wisely acted right away to stimulate the economy. Similiarly, the Fed acted quickly and consistently to start loosening the money supply.
People at the time (and some people still!) complained about the tax cuts, but without that stimulation, or even with half-measure stimulation, the recent economic trough would have been as bad as Japan's has been... or even worse!
We don't even have a Big Guy to go with him!
I think it's an attempt at subliminal suggestion: Netscape Won, Sun Won, Palm Won. I'm mostly kidding, but I really think Microsoft did the same thing. During the Windows 3.x years, before Windows was an established winner, you started windows by typing "win" on the command line.
That said, I don't disagree with some of your quality of life issues. But before you get too worked up, read "Guns, Germs, and Steel", a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on, for lack of a better description, the evolution of human civilizations. Apparently, as civilizations expand, they tend toward "kleptocracies", where those closest to the ruler benefit from the work of the mass of people further away. Dang, you think, how awful! But it has to be that way, because kleptocracies promote specialization, which promotes effiency, which steal the lunch for any less efficient civilization. That's just reality, dude, and no amount of wishful thinking will change it.
Of course, no prediction will be perfectly accurate, but some will be accurate enough to make their predictors very rich, very influential, or both.
My point here isn't to bust your chops... but, really, throwing your hands up in the air isn't the answer. Every time you buy new hardware, install a new software package, or learn a new language, you are at least placing a bet on someone else's prediction. Years ago I saw a lot of very talented entrepreneurs pour their hearts and souls out, betting on the wrong horse, and losing everything. That's when I realized, the first thing you need to do is predict the way the industry is going to go.
In this one, he's a smart criminal.
You have never developed software yourself, have you? Not breaking existing functionality is the second-hardest problem in software development - the hardest problem being estimating an accurate schedule. IMHO, of course.
Hamvention® is the world's largest amateur radio gathering and trade show. I'm not a ham, so I just go to shop for computer junk... but the folks at this show are *so* geeky that its fun to just watch them.
Dayton has the best museum of aircraft in the world. The 2003 Dayton Air Show just ended, along with the "Inventing Flight" centenial celebration, so everything should in top shape. Really, it's a must-see!