Talk about a hysterical (not related to humor) viewpoint.
Talk about quoting out of context. I said that was the "worst case scenario". I don't know what you think
"worst case" means in this context,
but I don't think catastrophic meltdown is unduly hysterical for a reactor, anymore than "fall from the sky, all lives lost" is unrealistic in the case of an airliner.
The key words here are "worst case".
Now the odds of that happening may be vanishing small, but that doesn't mean the worst case gets any better.
Which leaves you standing in front of Joe Sixpack and family saying "that isn't going to happen - trust me".
I don't think you're going to get very far with that approach, both because that worst case is so horrific and because (unlike an an airline flight) the reactor can affect people whether they consent to it or not.
And if the best solution you've got is public accountability, then I think you're going to face continued and considerable opposition to nuclear power.
You don't need transparency so much as accountability.
In general, yes I might sympathise with that point of view. In the highly specific case of nuclear reactors, I don't think I can.
If someone has access to public funds and embezzles millions earmarked for, say, education, then I might take some comfort from accountability. But the worst case scenario here involves the death of my wife and family. The knowledge that we can find out who is to blame doesn't halp much because there's no way the consequences of the culprit's actions can possible be commensurate with my loss, and that of everyone else involved.
Accountability encourages doing the job well.
It might just as easily encourage the bad guys to make sure that the scapegoats are lined up in advance, and that the defects won't emerge till ten years after they've moved on. I'm sorry but that sounds more like an article of faith than anyhting else.
This is the first time I have ever heard this idea. If you have a source, I am keen to learn from it. It will modify my opinion.
That was according to a colleague when we were investigating flash as a candidate for a rolling network recovery buffer. I just asked him about the source, and he says it came from
an intel or possible microsoft research paper.
Sadly he couldn't find the link, and nor could I after a half hour of googling, which is all I can really allocate out of work time.
I might have another look tonight. I must admit, I'd like to read this paper myself.
Wear leveling algorithms can make the write limit of flash irrelevant.
Well, probably not if you have a file system that records access times. Of course you can turn that off.
On the other hand, doesn't flash burn out much faster if it's being constantly written to? It'd make a bad coice for log and swap files, wear leveling or no.
It's an exciting area, but I doubt I'll be an early adopter for the first wave of flash notebooks
It can be argued that people who don't want to have their conversations monitored will not use keywords such as these that tip off the eavesdroppers or technology that recognizes them.
So terrorists will refer to "the season" and couch their plans in sporting metaphors (for instance) while fans of Frank Herbert's Dune universe discuss the Butlerian Jihad at their peril...
That's officially the weirdest idea I've come across all day
you have set up
conditions where whatever you want to believe to be will never be able
to be shown wrong.
That wasn't the intention. My point wasn't so much "you can never
convince me because nuclear power is evil" as "what can we do to estalish
enough transparency in the industry that people can sensibly
support a nuclear program?"
that lack of trust is silly
Given the degree that corporations and politicans have misused the
public's trust over the last couple of decades, I don't think that
lack of trust is silly at all. I think a healthy skepticism is
sensible in most areas of life, let alone one with the potential
for nuclear disaster.
there are plenty of reliable people out
there that have no real political agenda.
mmm... but who are they? One person's fair and unbiased commentator is
another man's shill. I can't see any appeal to trust being effective here.
People perception has shown it to be bad, but that perception is
incorrect. If this were all just done from models I would tend to agree
and be skeptical - you can really fool yourself with models.
But this is from many years of testing with real
live equipment during production - if it were as dangerous as many say
we would all be dead.
And as I said earlier, reactors could be *much* safer than the
general perception and still be unacceptably dangerous. The record
shows two major incidents over twenty-five years for a relatively
modest nuclear deployment. That's not a failure rate I'd be comfortable
with for a widespread roll out.
I belive you when you say things are better - the question is
have they improved enough?
There are people who believe that the govt is watching you through your
monitor... They dismiss anyone who knows anything
about computers because you are involved and part of the problem. Since
you are posting here I assume you know something about comptuers, how
silly that is.
Nice example that:) Still, the situation isn't quite analagous.
For instance, nuclear technology is a lot less accessible than
computer tech. I can take my old monitor out into the back, break it
up with a sledgehammer and then pick through the remnants
(carefully! big caps there) looking for the camera.
Try doing that with a reactor:)
More importantly, I don't know of anyone who belives the govt. have
deliberately sabotaged reactor design - they just lack
confidence that the plants will be as reliable as claimed.
How many people do you know who have that problem with their
computers?
And it's not a if you take the reactor back to the shop the next morning
and say "this sucker melted down on me and we only had it fifteen
years! I want my money back!"
The other problem is that there is such a large amount of people involved
the Truth would be out there, and like the Nuclear stuff it is - just
the NIMBY's don't want to hear it and cite thier "facts".
Sorry: NIMBY == Not In My Back Yard. I'm referring to the camp
that, like me, are guardedly pro-nuclear, but would fight tooth
and nail to stop a reactor being built anywhere near their house.
As for the x-files reference, I think we can agree that
were there an evil conspiracy to destroy us all by building sub-standard
reactors, then someone would surely have blown the whistle by now.
What worries me isn't so much malice as misplaced optimism, cost cutting
contractors, human error, and Murphy's Law.
It's not even so much that reactors are much safer now (true none the less), but that reactors were *never* as dangerous as public opnion has them.
I believe you. There are a few problems however.
The first problem is that a planet relying on nuclear power for its long term energy needs is going to need a large number of reactors for a long time. The more reactors, the more chances for the odds to come up; the longer we use them, the more likely a failure. Reactors could be much safer than ever before and still be unacceptably dangerous over time and widespread deployment.
The second problem is that the consequences of failure are so severe. A bad reactor incident could render some european nations uninhabitable in their entirity. With stakes like that, some people are disinclined to roll the dice at all.
The thrid one is that, as already observed, there is a perceived shortage of trustworthy information. Salemen are, of course, going to say the risk is vanishingly small, politicians have a tendancy to to present as facts anything they think will serve their political ends and scientific reports that don't report the results desireced by those who commissioned them rarely see light of day. It seems as if the only way any of us can ever really have any confidence in reactor design would be to get a PhD and a job working on reactor design. Sadly, that's not an option for most of the populace, while those that do are contractually prohibited from sharing their findings.
The lack of trust is, assuming the figures add up, the showstopper. It's hard to see how we can have confidence in any design review, to say nothing of operational procedure after a plant is commissioned. Come up with an answer to that - and I don't mean a bug ad campaign - and we might get somewhere. In the meantime, I can't help sympathising with the NIMBYs
"The evidence is compelling that body-on-frame light trucks cannot safely
coexist with passenger cars "
The author of the study is making the mistake that safety is a boolean,
and that things are either safe or unsafe.
I can sympathise with the complaint about people miscasting relative
values as absolutes, mainly because I'm use to seeing it in the form:
"Granted, Microsoft Internet Explorer has problems with the recent
exploits allowing arbitary execution of code from malicious websites.
However, Mozilla Firefox also has exploits allowing malicious websites
to crash the borwser. Since Firefox has an exploit, it is not secure,
which means in turn that Firefox is no better than IE, so there is
no benefit to be gained from switching browsers".
The fallacy here lies in using a false absolute to hide a very real
discrepancy in the level of threat posed.
In TFA However, I'm having difficulty seeing any comparison, and so I'm not convinced of any logical fallacy.
His point would appear to be that SUVs pose a disproportionate danger to
conventional vehicles in the event of a collision, not least be cause
where most cars have crumple zones, these things have a great rigid
battering ram of a steel frame, inconveniently high.
And really, the fact that DUI poses a danger to others does nothing
to diminish his point.
To say that "light trucks cannot safely coexist with passenger cars "
is purest nonsense. We've had light trucks coexisting with passenger
cars for 70 years
I believe the vehicles under discussion are "body-on-frame light
trucks". The idea being that the frame is the part that does the damage.
As I understand it, these are a relatively recent design, so your
statistic probably isn't much help here.
mmm... I think that in order for that to be true, you'd need to be using supercondicting water.
Probably it's more akin to the way the ice stays at or below freezing point until it all melts. In that case, as you say adding heat only makes the ice melt faster.
So, assuming that the sun never melts all the nitrogen ice on pluto, the surface temp isn't going to rise much above the freezing point of nitrogen, on account of all tht frozen N2 sucking up all the excess heat.
Which means you're quite right in terms of effect, just that the explanation is a bit wobbly. Of course, it could just be me being needlessly pedantic.
I think it makes sense that government would try and stay away from proprietary
things.
When you say "things", it's not clear whether you mean "standards" or
"products",
at not least in the context of the remainder of your post.
For instance:
Take the military for example: the government hires out everything to
be made proprietarily (of course there aren't really that many open
options either).
You see, when you talk about things being "made" that suggests
products rather than standards. What we want is for things that
are made to conform to open standards. Then we don't care so much
if the product is "open" (whatever that means when applied to products)
so long as the standard is independant, unencumbered and freely available.
Keep that distinction clearly in mind.
Then with technology, us techies critisize the government for using what many ot
hers are using and for doing what they always do.
A little bit of a non-sequiteur there, perhaps? I don't see how that follows
at all. Also, I'm not clear on what "us" techies are apparently
criticising the government for doing; nor on what it is that many others
are supposedly using; on who it is that is doing what they always do;
and on what it is that is being done.
One of the paradoxes of information and language sciences is that any means of communication is valued by humans as much for its ability to hide or withold infromation as to share and navigate it.
Well, hiding information is easy - you just don't publish it. Harder is restricting access to published information, although encryption seems to suffice for most purposes. The problem doesn't really get interesting until you need to hide the fact that the data exists at all. This is the Filesharer's Dilemma: how to make the latest Britney available to everyone, whist nevertheless keeping the RIAA from finding out.
But having identified the problem, it would be hard to make the case that such data hiding is more important than making the data available in the first place. It's an interesting question certainly, but it doesn't even arise until the communication channel exists. Therefore, I'd have to consider it as of secondary importance.
As for cliques and data hiding, I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Cliques, as I see it, depend upon a shared recognition signal; a combination of ways of dressing, habits of speech and other cues that we use to signal our support for the shared memeset that ultimately defines the clique. In this sense, a clique is created by publishing information - the recognition signal rather than by hiding it.
1337 speak is a perfect example. Granted, the form began life as an attempted solution to the Filesharer's Dilemma, but that usage is easily countered by adding the 1337-forms of keywords to the searchers lexicons. Nowadays, I'd hazard that 1337 is a clique recognition signal, generally indicating that the writer wishes to be considered as part of the data underground subculture, whatever that might mean to them.
By most I meant that it would be just like it is today. Not all drugs that go through FDA approval require prescriptions.
Granted. However, I'd still be concerned lest the proportion of greviously flawed non-perscription drugs increase dramatically. For that matter who decides if a drug is to be perscription-only in the first place? That's a genuine request for information. It sounds like a role for the FDA, but if they're going to be purely advisory...
Sometimes when addressing one problem you end up making another one worse. It's just a matter of determining which is the lesser of two evils.
I see this one a lot on slashdot and I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just plain silly. I mean, suppose I was to offer you a choice between an environmental temperature of 5 degrees kelvin or else a one of 5000 degrees kelvin. You could debate the leser of the two evils all you like, but at the end of the day, the choice is still between swimming in liquid nitrogen or being dropped into a blast furnace.
Neither is going to be survivable
On the other hand, if you go for a trade-off between the two extremes, you might find that 300 degrees kelvin is prefectly survivable, possibly quite pleasant. The trick lies in finding the trade-off with the maximum benefit.
The question there, of course, is benefit for whom? I can see how your suggestion benefits the drug cartels, and it has obvious appeals to the recreational chemistry enthusiasts, but I don't see it improving matters for most of us.
First, for most of these drugs a doctor's prescription would still be required as a buffer to these kinds of tactics.
mmm... an interesting point, but not necesssarily a sufficent one. For one thing, I'm worried about the "most" in that statement. Percentages can shift fast when corporations see a new market opening up. Or an old one being de-regulated for that matter.
Second, this happens already. A lot of the drugs you see featured in ads everyday are either marginally effective or have serious side effects that are glossed over during the ad.
Well, you're probably right. I'm not US resident, so I don't know how these things happen in the States. All the same, I'm not convinced by the line of argument. It's a bit like being at the seige of Helm's Deep and saying "hell, we're already under attack - let's open the gates and let all them orcs in. I mean there are a couple over the walls already..."
Or, to switch metaphors, If you're adrift in the middle of the Pacific, you don't necessarily abandon your liferaft just because it has a leak. And if the leak is bad enough to warrant swimming for it, that doesn't discredit the idea of liferafts in general, although it does suggest that an inquiry into quality control procedures at the liferaft manuafacturers may well be in order.
This drug is still pending FDA approval, but I have little doubt that it's ineffectiveness will have any affect on that approval process.
See, I can't envision a relaxation of the regulations improving that situation. But I can easily imagine how it might make matters worse.
Suppose we go with your idea. A drug developer could market a drug with serious known side-effects because, you know, they spent a lot on the development process and they want to recoup some of the money. Maybe they'll put a little "please consult the FDA advisories before use" sticker in small type on the packaging to protect them against lawsuits.
Now, the question is, who has the more money to spend on communicating the risks to the public? Is it a government agency with a limited budget earmarked for research and testing, or is it a multinational parmaceuitcal corporation which figures it can recoup 80% of the developmnt costs for this turkey before word of mouth spreads and they have to rebrand it as ratpoison?
I don't disagree with your overall aim, I think the potential for willful and systematic abuse is too high under the scheme you propose.
You're referencing the rest of your comment, right?
Now, now. Be nice.
The major difference between telecoms and the companies who keep
PC/soda/clothing prices down is that the latter are commodities
that can be sourced from anywhere. The telecoms feed however is
pretty much dependant on your geographic location. If your local
shirt company tries to gouge you for 300 bucks an item, you can always
get cheap imports from overseas.
On the other hand, if your local phone cartel gouges you
for connectivity, then there's not a lot you can do.
Korean ISPs may be offering 50Mbs ADSL for 10 cents a century
but that doesn't help much if if your local exchange is on a different
continent.
Maybe total deregulation is no more a unversal panacea than total
regulation? Certainly both are open to abuse.
In MA's case, they have every right to choose an open file format, but they must define the policy narrowly enough to justify why MS Office's XML formats are not acceptable but ODF and PDF are
They chose OpenDocument becuase it was an open format, under the control of an independant standards body free of licencing issues and with an unambiguous and inclusive patent grant from the corporation that could claim IP in the format.
Those were the stated criteria, and MS-XML didn't come cose at the time. Even now after all the shenannigans MS have orchestrated, thier XML format doesn't qualify, although they've worked hard to attach similar sounding labels to their product.
OpenOffice is a red herring; it combines a mature implementation of the format with optimal pricing. Are they going to sue MA for choosing a product both because it was cheap and because it worked well? I'd love to read PJ's analysis of that one, over on Groklaw...
You act as if Microsoft is so anti competition but then you have all heard of macs and linux so apparently they aren't perfect because most the world now at least knows there is an alternative...
So you're suggesting that we should infer goodwill from Microsoft's imperfections? That they could have destroyed Linux and Apple any time they liked, but they withheld their hand becuase they're nice people?
I have to say that doesn't sound like the Microsoft I've come to know and loathe. Should we also infer that they put all those bugs in on purpose so other OSes won't feel bad abut themselves?
Seriously if people continue to just bash microsoft hear then it shows they are no better then the funded surveys that microsoft does to prove they are better except you guys
So like, if I criticise Microsoft, I'm just as bad as they are, yeah? So if I say, Microsoft are untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, that means that I am also untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, made so purely by the act of saying so. Is that right?
Wow.
So, presumably, if I say the Pope is a catholic, that would make me a catholic too.
Maybe I should stop using the toiletary habits of bears for emphatic confirmation. I mean, it's not as if there's a decent sized wood anywhere near where I live. Talk about getting caught short...
Exactly. It would take a very sharply designed policy to include ODF and exclude MSOffice XML.
Indeed. However, and this is important point, Microsoft are not being excluded. They are just as free to use the document format as anyone else.
Furthermore, why should it even be actionable? It wouldn't be a matter for the courts if they'd awarded sole supplier status to Sun Microsystems and Star Office. Why should it be a concern if they choose a format that lets everyone compete on a fair basis?
picked ODF as the winner. Without the policy rationale, the courts would have likely overturned it, and that's why they changed their mind about MSO XML.
Have they changed their minds? May I ask according to whom? And who is it that changed their minds for that matter?
With the thWith the threat to switch to OpenOffice (rather than using a ODF filter), it was clear this was all about the vendor and not the format.reat to switch to OpenOffice (rather than using a ODF filter), it was clear this was all about the vendor and not the format.
The filter wasn't available when the format was chosen, MS have only themseleves to blame if they lose sales since they said they wouldn't use it whatever happened. If this is about the vendor, it is only to the extent of opening a field to fair competition that MS has had locked down as its private preserve for years.
All they have to do, once they stop throwing chairs around that is, is to write better software than that of their competitors and they will still get the sales. However it's is going to have to be rather better than it is now to justify a 75% profit margin when faced with fair competition.
From the sounds of it, the whole policy process was done in an extremely hamhanded fashion by a guy who didn't have the clout or executive backing to make such a decision.
Do you mind if I ask how you came to that conclusion? I don't read anything in TFA ti suggest that, at all. That's certainly the spin being put on it by MS, but I'd appreciate a souce.
He might understand the technology, but he failed to understand the process, and thus he came away looking like he was being arbietrary.
I can't see why - it's within his remit to decide what file formats MS should use internally, and there are valid reasons for this change.
Which just would have gotten MA into a lawsuit that they likely would have lost.
They might have done if it could be demonstrated that he'd favoured one vendor over another for no reason. But, lest we forget, MS are just as free to use OpenDocument as anyone else, and there are factors which make it the superior choice.
Gee, where I come from an IT professional is anyone who works in IT.
Are you really suuggesting that IT decisions be only made by people with no qualifications or experience in the field. That would seem to to rule you yourself out judging from your post.
Perhaps we should similarly stop doctors from making medical decisions, or architects from designing buildings?
It's trying to say that regardless of the merits of OpenDocument and of the folly of remaining tied to a proprietory file format, it is nevertheless foolish to remove the power to make IT decisions from someone recruited because of his understanding of the field, and to place it the hands of a committee of political appointees and industry reps.
This is based both on Quinn being better qualified to make the such decisons than most of the comittee, and
on the inefficiency and potential dangers involved in delaying critical actions until an eight body committee can all clear a slot in their schedules and debate the issue. Especially bearing in mind that these people all
have other full time jobs. For the detailed arguments, you'll need to read Linda Hamel's brief, linked to from TFA.
Finally, uopdegrove questions the sanity of implementing such a system. And I have to say that so do I
If Peter Quin was just interested in getting a discount on MS software, I think the deal would have been done by now. If he was interested in a little private graft, ditto.
Think of how much it must have cost MS to "influence" all the people needed so that restructuring a state legislature isn't dismissed out of hand. To say nothing of the PR groups, the pay-for-pay reporting (mentioning no names, Boston Globe) and all the rest of it.
Anything Quinn might have wanted - it would have been cheaper to just give it to him. The fact that this wrangle is still going on suggests that this isn't about negotiated discounts or personal profit. Especially since Microsoft's preserving their highly lucrative office software monopoly with its 75% profit margins remains a far more plausible explanation.
Oh, and speaking of the Boston Globe, did you know they printed complete retraction of the smear job they did on Qinn? Right in the back where no-one would see it, but printed nevertheless. With all the current attempts to smear Quinn, I think any genuine dirt would have surfaced by now.
Lacking any actual wrongdoing, the best they can manage is cheap innuendo
Slashdot Mirror
Mutt is just about tolerable, but an attachment friendly version of mailx...
You never know, maybe when I next get some free time. After all, I can probably lift most of the code from Mutt. How hard can it be?
Talk about quoting out of context. I said that was the "worst case scenario". I don't know what you think "worst case" means in this context, but I don't think catastrophic meltdown is unduly hysterical for a reactor, anymore than "fall from the sky, all lives lost" is unrealistic in the case of an airliner.
The key words here are "worst case".
Now the odds of that happening may be vanishing small, but that doesn't mean the worst case gets any better. Which leaves you standing in front of Joe Sixpack and family saying "that isn't going to happen - trust me".
I don't think you're going to get very far with that approach, both because that worst case is so horrific and because (unlike an an airline flight) the reactor can affect people whether they consent to it or not.
And if the best solution you've got is public accountability, then I think you're going to face continued and considerable opposition to nuclear power.
In general, yes I might sympathise with that point of view. In the highly specific case of nuclear reactors, I don't think I can.
If someone has access to public funds and embezzles millions earmarked for, say, education, then I might take some comfort from accountability. But the worst case scenario here involves the death of my wife and family. The knowledge that we can find out who is to blame doesn't halp much because there's no way the consequences of the culprit's actions can possible be commensurate with my loss, and that of everyone else involved.
Accountability encourages doing the job well.
It might just as easily encourage the bad guys to make sure that the scapegoats are lined up in advance, and that the defects won't emerge till ten years after they've moved on. I'm sorry but that sounds more like an article of faith than anyhting else.
Once you decode the spin, the rest is easy
That was according to a colleague when we were investigating flash as a candidate for a rolling network recovery buffer. I just asked him about the source, and he says it came from an intel or possible microsoft research paper.
Sadly he couldn't find the link, and nor could I after a half hour of googling, which is all I can really allocate out of work time.
I might have another look tonight. I must admit, I'd like to read this paper myself.
Well, probably not if you have a file system that records access times. Of course you can turn that off.
On the other hand, doesn't flash burn out much faster if it's being constantly written to? It'd make a bad coice for log and swap files, wear leveling or no.
It's an exciting area, but I doubt I'll be an early adopter for the first wave of flash notebooks
Yep. Thet get around to addressing that too. Well, kind of. You'll see...
So terrorists will refer to "the season" and couch their plans in sporting metaphors (for instance) while fans of Frank Herbert's Dune universe discuss the Butlerian Jihad at their peril...
That's officially the weirdest idea I've come across all day
That wasn't the intention. My point wasn't so much "you can never convince me because nuclear power is evil" as "what can we do to estalish enough transparency in the industry that people can sensibly support a nuclear program?"
that lack of trust is silly
Given the degree that corporations and politicans have misused the public's trust over the last couple of decades, I don't think that lack of trust is silly at all. I think a healthy skepticism is sensible in most areas of life, let alone one with the potential for nuclear disaster.
there are plenty of reliable people out there that have no real political agenda.
mmm... but who are they? One person's fair and unbiased commentator is another man's shill. I can't see any appeal to trust being effective here.
People perception has shown it to be bad, but that perception is incorrect. If this were all just done from models I would tend to agree and be skeptical - you can really fool yourself with models. But this is from many years of testing with real live equipment during production - if it were as dangerous as many say we would all be dead.
And as I said earlier, reactors could be *much* safer than the general perception and still be unacceptably dangerous. The record shows two major incidents over twenty-five years for a relatively modest nuclear deployment. That's not a failure rate I'd be comfortable with for a widespread roll out.
I belive you when you say things are better - the question is have they improved enough?
There are people who believe that the govt is watching you through your monitor ... They dismiss anyone who knows anything
about computers because you are involved and part of the problem. Since
you are posting here I assume you know something about comptuers, how
silly that is.
Nice example that :) Still, the situation isn't quite analagous.
For instance, nuclear technology is a lot less accessible than
computer tech. I can take my old monitor out into the back, break it
up with a sledgehammer and then pick through the remnants
(carefully! big caps there) looking for the camera.
Try doing that with a reactor:)
More importantly, I don't know of anyone who belives the govt. have deliberately sabotaged reactor design - they just lack confidence that the plants will be as reliable as claimed. How many people do you know who have that problem with their computers? And it's not a if you take the reactor back to the shop the next morning and say "this sucker melted down on me and we only had it fifteen years! I want my money back!"
The other problem is that there is such a large amount of people involved the Truth would be out there, and like the Nuclear stuff it is - just the NIMBY's don't want to hear it and cite thier "facts".
Sorry: NIMBY == Not In My Back Yard. I'm referring to the camp that, like me, are guardedly pro-nuclear, but would fight tooth and nail to stop a reactor being built anywhere near their house.
As for the x-files reference, I think we can agree that were there an evil conspiracy to destroy us all by building sub-standard reactors, then someone would surely have blown the whistle by now. What worries me isn't so much malice as misplaced optimism, cost cutting contractors, human error, and Murphy's Law.
I believe you. There are a few problems however.
The first problem is that a planet relying on nuclear power for its long term energy needs is going to need a large number of reactors for a long time. The more reactors, the more chances for the odds to come up; the longer we use them, the more likely a failure. Reactors could be much safer than ever before and still be unacceptably dangerous over time and widespread deployment.
The second problem is that the consequences of failure are so severe. A bad reactor incident could render some european nations uninhabitable in their entirity. With stakes like that, some people are disinclined to roll the dice at all.
The thrid one is that, as already observed, there is a perceived shortage of trustworthy information. Salemen are, of course, going to say the risk is vanishingly small, politicians have a tendancy to to present as facts anything they think will serve their political ends and scientific reports that don't report the results desireced by those who commissioned them rarely see light of day. It seems as if the only way any of us can ever really have any confidence in reactor design would be to get a PhD and a job working on reactor design. Sadly, that's not an option for most of the populace, while those that do are contractually prohibited from sharing their findings.
The lack of trust is, assuming the figures add up, the showstopper. It's hard to see how we can have confidence in any design review, to say nothing of operational procedure after a plant is commissioned. Come up with an answer to that - and I don't mean a bug ad campaign - and we might get somewhere. In the meantime, I can't help sympathising with the NIMBYs
I can sympathise with the complaint about people miscasting relative values as absolutes, mainly because I'm use to seeing it in the form:
The fallacy here lies in using a false absolute to hide a very real discrepancy in the level of threat posed.In TFA However, I'm having difficulty seeing any comparison, and so I'm not convinced of any logical fallacy. His point would appear to be that SUVs pose a disproportionate danger to conventional vehicles in the event of a collision, not least be cause where most cars have crumple zones, these things have a great rigid battering ram of a steel frame, inconveniently high.
And really, the fact that DUI poses a danger to others does nothing to diminish his point.
I believe the vehicles under discussion are "body-on-frame light trucks". The idea being that the frame is the part that does the damage. As I understand it, these are a relatively recent design, so your statistic probably isn't much help here.
Probably it's more akin to the way the ice stays at or below freezing point until it all melts. In that case, as you say adding heat only makes the ice melt faster.
So, assuming that the sun never melts all the nitrogen ice on pluto, the surface temp isn't going to rise much above the freezing point of nitrogen, on account of all tht frozen N2 sucking up all the excess heat.
Which means you're quite right in terms of effect, just that the explanation is a bit wobbly. Of course, it could just be me being needlessly pedantic.
Good, good. Glad to hear it.
I think it makes sense that government would try and stay away from proprietary things.
When you say "things", it's not clear whether you mean "standards" or "products", at not least in the context of the remainder of your post.
For instance:
Take the military for example: the government hires out everything to be made proprietarily (of course there aren't really that many open options either).
You see, when you talk about things being "made" that suggests products rather than standards. What we want is for things that are made to conform to open standards. Then we don't care so much if the product is "open" (whatever that means when applied to products) so long as the standard is independant, unencumbered and freely available.
Keep that distinction clearly in mind.
Then with technology, us techies critisize the government for using what many ot hers are using and for doing what they always do.
A little bit of a non-sequiteur there, perhaps? I don't see how that follows at all. Also, I'm not clear on what "us" techies are apparently criticising the government for doing; nor on what it is that many others are supposedly using; on who it is that is doing what they always do; and on what it is that is being done.
Perhaps you'd like to flesh that last bit out?
Well, hiding information is easy - you just don't publish it. Harder is restricting access to published information, although encryption seems to suffice for most purposes. The problem doesn't really get interesting until you need to hide the fact that the data exists at all. This is the Filesharer's Dilemma: how to make the latest Britney available to everyone, whist nevertheless keeping the RIAA from finding out.
But having identified the problem, it would be hard to make the case that such data hiding is more important than making the data available in the first place. It's an interesting question certainly, but it doesn't even arise until the communication channel exists. Therefore, I'd have to consider it as of secondary importance.
As for cliques and data hiding, I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Cliques, as I see it, depend upon a shared recognition signal; a combination of ways of dressing, habits of speech and other cues that we use to signal our support for the shared memeset that ultimately defines the clique. In this sense, a clique is created by publishing information - the recognition signal rather than by hiding it.
1337 speak is a perfect example. Granted, the form began life as an attempted solution to the Filesharer's Dilemma, but that usage is easily countered by adding the 1337-forms of keywords to the searchers lexicons. Nowadays, I'd hazard that 1337 is a clique recognition signal, generally indicating that the writer wishes to be considered as part of the data underground subculture, whatever that might mean to them.
Granted. However, I'd still be concerned lest the proportion of greviously flawed non-perscription drugs increase dramatically. For that matter who decides if a drug is to be perscription-only in the first place? That's a genuine request for information. It sounds like a role for the FDA, but if they're going to be purely advisory...
Sometimes when addressing one problem you end up making another one worse. It's just a matter of determining which is the lesser of two evils.
I see this one a lot on slashdot and I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just plain silly. I mean, suppose I was to offer you a choice between an environmental temperature of 5 degrees kelvin or else a one of 5000 degrees kelvin. You could debate the leser of the two evils all you like, but at the end of the day, the choice is still between swimming in liquid nitrogen or being dropped into a blast furnace. Neither is going to be survivable
On the other hand, if you go for a trade-off between the two extremes, you might find that 300 degrees kelvin is prefectly survivable, possibly quite pleasant. The trick lies in finding the trade-off with the maximum benefit.
The question there, of course, is benefit for whom? I can see how your suggestion benefits the drug cartels, and it has obvious appeals to the recreational chemistry enthusiasts, but I don't see it improving matters for most of us.
mmm... an interesting point, but not necesssarily a sufficent one. For one thing, I'm worried about the "most" in that statement. Percentages can shift fast when corporations see a new market opening up. Or an old one being de-regulated for that matter.
Second, this happens already. A lot of the drugs you see featured in ads everyday are either marginally effective or have serious side effects that are glossed over during the ad.
Well, you're probably right. I'm not US resident, so I don't know how these things happen in the States. All the same, I'm not convinced by the line of argument. It's a bit like being at the seige of Helm's Deep and saying "hell, we're already under attack - let's open the gates and let all them orcs in. I mean there are a couple over the walls already..."
Or, to switch metaphors, If you're adrift in the middle of the Pacific, you don't necessarily abandon your liferaft just because it has a leak. And if the leak is bad enough to warrant swimming for it, that doesn't discredit the idea of liferafts in general, although it does suggest that an inquiry into quality control procedures at the liferaft manuafacturers may well be in order.
This drug is still pending FDA approval, but I have little doubt that it's ineffectiveness will have any affect on that approval process.
See, I can't envision a relaxation of the regulations improving that situation. But I can easily imagine how it might make matters worse.
Now, the question is, who has the more money to spend on communicating the risks to the public? Is it a government agency with a limited budget earmarked for research and testing, or is it a multinational parmaceuitcal corporation which figures it can recoup 80% of the developmnt costs for this turkey before word of mouth spreads and they have to rebrand it as ratpoison?
I don't disagree with your overall aim, I think the potential for willful and systematic abuse is too high under the scheme you propose.
The major difference between telecoms and the companies who keep PC/soda/clothing prices down is that the latter are commodities that can be sourced from anywhere. The telecoms feed however is pretty much dependant on your geographic location. If your local shirt company tries to gouge you for 300 bucks an item, you can always get cheap imports from overseas.
On the other hand, if your local phone cartel gouges you for connectivity, then there's not a lot you can do. Korean ISPs may be offering 50Mbs ADSL for 10 cents a century but that doesn't help much if if your local exchange is on a different continent.
Maybe total deregulation is no more a unversal panacea than total regulation? Certainly both are open to abuse.
They chose OpenDocument becuase it was an open format, under the control of an independant standards body free of licencing issues and with an unambiguous and inclusive patent grant from the corporation that could claim IP in the format.
Those were the stated criteria, and MS-XML didn't come cose at the time. Even now after all the shenannigans MS have orchestrated, thier XML format doesn't qualify, although they've worked hard to attach similar sounding labels to their product.
OpenOffice is a red herring; it combines a mature implementation of the format with optimal pricing. Are they going to sue MA for choosing a product both because it was cheap and because it worked well? I'd love to read PJ's analysis of that one, over on Groklaw...
So you're suggesting that we should infer goodwill from Microsoft's imperfections? That they could have destroyed Linux and Apple any time they liked, but they withheld their hand becuase they're nice people?
I have to say that doesn't sound like the Microsoft I've come to know and loathe. Should we also infer that they put all those bugs in on purpose so other OSes won't feel bad abut themselves?
Seriously if people continue to just bash microsoft hear then it shows they are no better then the funded surveys that microsoft does to prove they are better except you guys
So like, if I criticise Microsoft, I'm just as bad as they are, yeah? So if I say, Microsoft are untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, that means that I am also untrustworthy hypocritical greedy grasping anti-competitive and morally bankrupt, made so purely by the act of saying so. Is that right?
Wow.
So, presumably, if I say the Pope is a catholic, that would make me a catholic too.
Maybe I should stop using the toiletary habits of bears for emphatic confirmation. I mean, it's not as if there's a decent sized wood anywhere near where I live. Talk about getting caught short...
Indeed. However, and this is important point, Microsoft are not being excluded. They are just as free to use the document format as anyone else.
Furthermore, why should it even be actionable? It wouldn't be a matter for the courts if they'd awarded sole supplier status to Sun Microsystems and Star Office. Why should it be a concern if they choose a format that lets everyone compete on a fair basis?
picked ODF as the winner. Without the policy rationale, the courts would have likely overturned it, and that's why they changed their mind about MSO XML.
Have they changed their minds? May I ask according to whom? And who is it that changed their minds for that matter?
With the thWith the threat to switch to OpenOffice (rather than using a ODF filter), it was clear this was all about the vendor and not the format.reat to switch to OpenOffice (rather than using a ODF filter), it was clear this was all about the vendor and not the format.
The filter wasn't available when the format was chosen, MS have only themseleves to blame if they lose sales since they said they wouldn't use it whatever happened. If this is about the vendor, it is only to the extent of opening a field to fair competition that MS has had locked down as its private preserve for years.
All they have to do, once they stop throwing chairs around that is, is to write better software than that of their competitors and they will still get the sales. However it's is going to have to be rather better than it is now to justify a 75% profit margin when faced with fair competition.
Do you mind if I ask how you came to that conclusion? I don't read anything in TFA ti suggest that, at all. That's certainly the spin being put on it by MS, but I'd appreciate a souce.
He might understand the technology, but he failed to understand the process, and thus he came away looking like he was being arbietrary.
I can't see why - it's within his remit to decide what file formats MS should use internally, and there are valid reasons for this change.
Which just would have gotten MA into a lawsuit that they likely would have lost.
They might have done if it could be demonstrated that he'd favoured one vendor over another for no reason. But, lest we forget, MS are just as free to use OpenDocument as anyone else, and there are factors which make it the superior choice.
I don't think there is any danger from lawsuits
Are you really suuggesting that IT decisions be only made by people with no qualifications or experience in the field. That would seem to to rule you yourself out judging from your post.
Perhaps we should similarly stop doctors from making medical decisions, or architects from designing buildings?
This is based both on Quinn being better qualified to make the such decisons than most of the comittee, and on the inefficiency and potential dangers involved in delaying critical actions until an eight body committee can all clear a slot in their schedules and debate the issue. Especially bearing in mind that these people all have other full time jobs. For the detailed arguments, you'll need to read Linda Hamel's brief, linked to from TFA.
Finally, uopdegrove questions the sanity of implementing such a system. And I have to say that so do I
Think of how much it must have cost MS to "influence" all the people needed so that restructuring a state legislature isn't dismissed out of hand. To say nothing of the PR groups, the pay-for-pay reporting (mentioning no names, Boston Globe) and all the rest of it.
Anything Quinn might have wanted - it would have been cheaper to just give it to him. The fact that this wrangle is still going on suggests that this isn't about negotiated discounts or personal profit. Especially since Microsoft's preserving their highly lucrative office software monopoly with its 75% profit margins remains a far more plausible explanation.
Oh, and speaking of the Boston Globe, did you know they printed complete retraction of the smear job they did on Qinn? Right in the back where no-one would see it, but printed nevertheless. With all the current attempts to smear Quinn, I think any genuine dirt would have surfaced by now.
Lacking any actual wrongdoing, the best they can manage is cheap innuendo