Re:DISGUSTED!
on
Space Tourism?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
What are you smoking? So he pays $20M. That money goes, maybe, to buy boosters, which PEOPLE at some company make. They take home their booster paychecks. Buy clothes and food at the store. Store people have jobs. People who supply the clothes and food have jobs. They buy cars. Car peopl have jobs. And so on.
It's not as if he handed someone a check for $20M and they shredded it right there. Same for ANY luxury item. People make 'em. Others sell 'em. People supply materials to make them and they get paid. Other people supply the suppliers and they get paid.
I suppose you yourself live in a one room hovel, and own no car, computer, cell phone, ipod/cd player, television, books, music, DVDs, extra clothes or shoes. Never eat out. Never see a movie.
If not, then for shame. Why are you spending money on yourself?
All apologies to the "butterfly effect", but small changes tend to be absorbed or subsumed by the existing system dynamics. My driving my car to work tomorrow, or not, is a small change. But my doing so, or not, will have no appreciable effect on climate.
EVERYONE not driving at all tomorrow may have localized effects... but again, in all probability, will have no significant effect when measured on a planetary scale.
A half a degree mean increase in temp may cause a major change, or again, be nothing more than a half a degree increase...
If nobody, and I mean NOBODY has the slightest idea, and climate is inherently unpredictable, then how can you claim that even a small change of mean temperature is [statement of fact] going to cause massive disruptions?
Why does Apple need Tivo? Just add video in/out to a Mac mini and you're good to go. Add a video AirPort to the mix and you're in great shape. They already have Front Row and the remote control...
Anothing thing for the non-Tivo'ites is that they say they'll have THIS season's episodes up the next day. Cool for those who miss a "can't miss" TV show.
Yeah, direct democracy must be the reason the Californian economy is currently in such excellent shape.
Yep, people vote for tax cuts, but vote to increase spending for education and social programs. They want jobs and services, but vote to cut the legs out from under every infrastructure plan (NIMBY). Or to quote RAH...
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'
"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
The problem back then was that you had large segments using IE and NS, both of which supported different flavors of JavaScript and both of which had different object models (remember the LAYER tag?), and neither of which had great (or matching) XML support.
Today, however, we've reached the tipping point where most of the systems out there have browsers that can support the features needed to make developing these types of projects worthwhile. BTW, XMLHttpRequest is supported as of Internet Explorer 5.0+, Safari 1.2, Mozilla 1.0 / Firefox, and Netscape 7, so IE4 doesn't cut the cake AJAX-wise.
Personally, I don't think four years ago I would have wasted my time trying to do advanced cross-platform code the vast majority of people would never see...
The Space Shuttle produces a sonic boom trail every time it comes in to land over California or Florida. Odd how we don't see streets lined with broken glass every time one returns. Or to quote NASA...
"Although the boom may rattle some windows, it has little or no effect on humans, wildlife or property. At peak intensity, the boom is about as loud as the clap of thunder from a lightning strike about a half mile away.... The boom should be barely audible as the orbiter crosses the western part of the state. It will get louder as the space plane drops in altitude, although for much of Central Florida it may be at a level which goes unnoticed by persons indoors."
Actually, something I've never understood is why there are not anti-torpedo torpedoes. Torpedoes are noisy, relatively slow (60kt), have travel times often measured in minutes, and tend to steer directly for the target.
You'd think with today's technology you could home a defensive torpedo in on the incoming sound and, if not hit the silly thing, at least detonate a proximity blast.
Ummm... no. You want cell phones, iPods, and so on with the internal recharging coils designed in from the start, so there ARE no adaptors. No holes in the case. No exposed contacts to short out.
Of course, then you're back to having a separate charger for each device. The main idea here is to do away with a plethora of adaptors, cables, and bricks.
The Concord's cruise alititude was 60,000 feet, nearly twice that of a standard airliner. So, while it is indeed possible to fly an SST supersonic on the deck, they didn't.
So, "supersonic altitudes" was meant to imply the altitudes at which such aircraft (non-military) operate.
There's a top, middle AND bottom to the issue. It's most definitely not just "management".
Just as one example: how many developers do you know who have a one-size-fits-all mentality? How many seem to be wedded to a single technique, language, tool, system, or OS? How many refuse to learn anything else, or will acknowledge that another solution other than their own might be superior?
Of course, this also means you consider your time to be no more valuable than that of the same low-wage clerk you're replacing. There are a LOT of things I know how to do. The question is: Is it worth spending my time on them?
Let's see... waste an hour cutting the grass... or bill $150/hour on a consulting contract and pay the gardener $50/month? Hmmmm...
"The sad fact is that it is Apple, more than any other company, that is responsible for the bloated toolkits and libraries that we see today..."
Oh please. Probably the Apple II or the orginal IBM PC were the last micro's where you could count on knowing the in's and out's of every byte running on the machine. And even those had BIOS's.
Once you get into interactive GUI's, you don't want every single application having to reinvent Quickdraw, or a menuing system, or a windowing system, or a file system, or an event manager, or controls, or printing, or... whatever.
Especially if you want to maintain uniform behaviour, interoperability, and a consistent look and feel across applications.
Of course, today the real problem lies in the fact that too many people refuse to learn all of those "bloated" libraries and toolkits, and instead choose to roll their own incomplete, inconceived, buggy, and totally undocumented solutions to problems that have already been solved.
Insightful my foot. At supersonic altitudes a sonic boom isn't an issue. Way back when, U.S. aircraft manufactuers hammered Congrees with exaggerated horror stories of constant sonic booms shaking the pictures off the walls... while the real issue lay in the fact that nothing they had on the drawing boards would compete with Concorde. So they legislated away almost all of the profitiable routes and left the SST with nothing but transoceanic flights.
BS. The world is full of complex interacting systems. A 777 is a maze of complex interconnecting systems built by hundreds, if not thousands, of vendors. Everything from airframes to engines to controls to avionics. Yet everything manages to work together, and we don't see 777's dropping from the skies daily.
What we need are fewer prima-donna developers loaded with excuses as to why it can't be done, or why they can't take the time to write unit tests, or whatever, and bring in some competent people with the idea that it CAN be done.
Okay, this should have been in the article on software quality, as one of the DUMBEST things a developer can do to ensure a bug-free program.
Great idea. Let's hog a hundred megabytes of system memory, whether we need it or not, and start allocation into our own private heap. Let's also assume that our program is never kept running for long enough such that we overwrite the end of our buffer.
Yeah, you can point the finger at management issues, but I say competency is another. Letting anyone and his cousin's brother develop software is another major cog in the wheel.
Unlike almost every other branch of engineering, software has no accreditation standands or process. Totally unlike, say, those civil engineers who built and designed the bridges we're using as a comparison. You'll notice that the vast majority of those don't fall down after a day's use.
From a certain perspective, this is just a metaphor. Does it matter if the icon on my desktop is a diamond and called an application or rectangular and called paper or a template? Either way, I double click it to get a "new" document of that type.
Besides Word and many other application allow you to save templates, and not all applications fit the template model anyway.
"It's an much small niche market than audio, because unlike music playback, video demands your full attention."
How many people travel, and would like a video player, but don't want yet another device/charger in addition to their notebook, mp3 player, and cell phone? (ME!)
How many people work jobs where nothing is happening at two in the morning and you're stuck there? How many people commute and ride subways, trains, buses, or ferries to work each day? How many people wait in lobbies for appointments? How many parents wait for kids to get done with soccer practice? How many would those same parents buy so their kids won't drive them crazy on trips?
And there are quite a few notebooks out there (my C400, for example) that don't have DVD drives, or, if they do, barely have the power to run a couple of hours of video with the DVD constantly spinning...
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It's not as if he handed someone a check for $20M and they shredded it right there. Same for ANY luxury item. People make 'em. Others sell 'em. People supply materials to make them and they get paid. Other people supply the suppliers and they get paid.
I suppose you yourself live in a one room hovel, and own no car, computer, cell phone, ipod/cd player, television, books, music, DVDs, extra clothes or shoes. Never eat out. Never see a movie.
If not, then for shame. Why are you spending money on yourself?
EVERYONE not driving at all tomorrow may have localized effects... but again, in all probability, will have no significant effect when measured on a planetary scale.
A half a degree mean increase in temp may cause a major change, or again, be nothing more than a half a degree increase...
If nobody, and I mean NOBODY has the slightest idea, and climate is inherently unpredictable, then how can you claim that even a small change of mean temperature is [statement of fact] going to cause massive disruptions?
Why does Apple need Tivo? Just add video in/out to a Mac mini and you're good to go. Add a video AirPort to the mix and you're in great shape. They already have Front Row and the remote control...
Now where is Galactica and 24???
Question: Does a Ruby LAMeR need a xenon flashtube?
Yep, people vote for tax cuts, but vote to increase spending for education and social programs. They want jobs and services, but vote to cut the legs out from under every infrastructure plan (NIMBY). Or to quote RAH...
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'
"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
Today, however, we've reached the tipping point where most of the systems out there have browsers that can support the features needed to make developing these types of projects worthwhile. BTW, XMLHttpRequest is supported as of Internet Explorer 5.0+, Safari 1.2, Mozilla 1.0 / Firefox, and Netscape 7, so IE4 doesn't cut the cake AJAX-wise.
Personally, I don't think four years ago I would have wasted my time trying to do advanced cross-platform code the vast majority of people would never see...
"Although the boom may rattle some windows, it has little or no effect on humans, wildlife or property. At peak intensity, the boom is about as loud as the clap of thunder from a lightning strike about a half mile away. ... The boom should be barely audible as the orbiter crosses the western part of the state. It will get louder as the space plane drops in altitude, although for much of Central Florida it may be at a level which goes unnoticed by persons indoors."
Actually, I don't consider the 20D or the 350D to be professional line cameras. That's what the 1-series is for...
You'd think with today's technology you could home a defensive torpedo in on the incoming sound and, if not hit the silly thing, at least detonate a proximity blast.
Then again, the intense cold and lack of oxygen you find at the bottom of the ocean tends to dramatically slow corrosive effects...
Ummm... no. You want cell phones, iPods, and so on with the internal recharging coils designed in from the start, so there ARE no adaptors. No holes in the case. No exposed contacts to short out.
Of course, then you're back to having a separate charger for each device. The main idea here is to do away with a plethora of adaptors, cables, and bricks.
So, "supersonic altitudes" was meant to imply the altitudes at which such aircraft (non-military) operate.
Just as one example: how many developers do you know who have a one-size-fits-all mentality? How many seem to be wedded to a single technique, language, tool, system, or OS? How many refuse to learn anything else, or will acknowledge that another solution other than their own might be superior?
Most things are trivial except for the "corner" cases.
Let's see... waste an hour cutting the grass... or bill $150/hour on a consulting contract and pay the gardener $50/month? Hmmmm...
Oh please. Probably the Apple II or the orginal IBM PC were the last micro's where you could count on knowing the in's and out's of every byte running on the machine. And even those had BIOS's.
Once you get into interactive GUI's, you don't want every single application having to reinvent Quickdraw, or a menuing system, or a windowing system, or a file system, or an event manager, or controls, or printing, or... whatever.
Especially if you want to maintain uniform behaviour, interoperability, and a consistent look and feel across applications.
Of course, today the real problem lies in the fact that too many people refuse to learn all of those "bloated" libraries and toolkits, and instead choose to roll their own incomplete, inconceived, buggy, and totally undocumented solutions to problems that have already been solved.
Insightful my foot. At supersonic altitudes a sonic boom isn't an issue. Way back when, U.S. aircraft manufactuers hammered Congrees with exaggerated horror stories of constant sonic booms shaking the pictures off the walls... while the real issue lay in the fact that nothing they had on the drawing boards would compete with Concorde. So they legislated away almost all of the profitiable routes and left the SST with nothing but transoceanic flights.
What we need are fewer prima-donna developers loaded with excuses as to why it can't be done, or why they can't take the time to write unit tests, or whatever, and bring in some competent people with the idea that it CAN be done.
Great idea. Let's hog a hundred megabytes of system memory, whether we need it or not, and start allocation into our own private heap. Let's also assume that our program is never kept running for long enough such that we overwrite the end of our buffer.
This HAS to be a joke, right?
Unlike almost every other branch of engineering, software has no accreditation standands or process. Totally unlike, say, those civil engineers who built and designed the bridges we're using as a comparison. You'll notice that the vast majority of those don't fall down after a day's use.
Besides Word and many other application allow you to save templates, and not all applications fit the template model anyway.
How many people travel, and would like a video player, but don't want yet another device/charger in addition to their notebook, mp3 player, and cell phone? (ME!)
How many people work jobs where nothing is happening at two in the morning and you're stuck there? How many people commute and ride subways, trains, buses, or ferries to work each day? How many people wait in lobbies for appointments? How many parents wait for kids to get done with soccer practice? How many would those same parents buy so their kids won't drive them crazy on trips?
And there are quite a few notebooks out there (my C400, for example) that don't have DVD drives, or, if they do, barely have the power to run a couple of hours of video with the DVD constantly spinning...