The web page for the Solo Trek XFV says it has been "... engineered to deliver 100% fail-safe efficient performance." Nothing is 100% fail-safe, and, so far, nothing is 100% efficient. If this first paragraph is any indication of their credibility, I'm not going to look for a dealer near me any time soon.
Their FAQ is full of inconsistencies. It doesn't list any pre-flight check for water in the fuel... a regular part of every pilot's pre-flight. They think that making everything "three times stronger" makes it "fail safe". They rely on "sensors" to tell the pilot of a problem (like, presumably, the sensor that tells if the pilot has not programmed in his/her correct weight; the question that springs to mind is "why program it in when there is a sensor that can detect it?). According to the FAQ, the SoloTrek "can be flown and landed in the event of a complete electrical system malfunction". So what fires its spark plugs and the "electronic timing" and fuel injection mentioned in the second point of the FAQ? And it doesn't take much imagination to consider the dramatic consequences of an automatic deployment of their ballistic parachute when one is, for instance, over water. (Or maybe they have a sensor for this).
While helicopters can, theoretically, "auto-rotate" to a safe landing in the event of power failure, they often fail to do so. Even in the hands of professional operators with thousands of hours of experience. And with deadly results. This ducted-fan device doesn't have anywhere close to the wing area of a helicopter blade. It seems to me that it would have the glide-angle of a brick.
Flying machines are terribly intolerant of incompetence; the one thing we seem to be overloaded with in this world lately. This is what is likely to make the operators of these things road-kill in the backyards of homes under their flight paths. Imagine the same mentality as the people who operate jet-skiis applied to this contraption and remember that you can at least stop a jet-ski and think it over for a while.
Flying to work isn't a matter of just strapping in and taking off. Remember all the times you drove to work in nice weather and drove home in almost zero-visibility? Visit the web site of this outfit and try to find an instrument cluster. Now try to imagine just how difficult it would be to fly one on instruments even if they had them. Finally, consider that the FAA doesn't just let you fly on instruments whenever you like... you need licenses and clearances and transponders and... well, you get the idea.
The FAA (and other agencies in other countries) have rules for aircraft based mostly on the fact that an amazing number of idiots think they can just climb in and take off. ("Hey! How hard can it be?") These rules apply most stringently in the very areas (congested cities) where these devices would be most useful. Rules like staying 1,000 feet above populated areas, like not flying in less than 3 miles of visibility (remember JFK Jr?), and staying clear - way clear - of clouds.
Their FAQ also seems to imply that anything over 100 feet above the ground (and how would this system know it was more than 100 feet "above the ground"?) is less safe... fully 400 feet below the minimum altitude the FAA requires over unpopulated areas.
I have flown airplanes and gliders (if you want to forget your problems, just try keeping a heavier-than-air vehicle aloft for a few hours with nothing more powerful than "up drafts") since 1970 and can remember seeing literally dozens of these ideas come and go, from the "air-car" of the 1950s to this. Some of them had prototypes and many of these flew. But the realities of flying rendered them impractical in the marketplace.
So far, most of the comments on this thread have been from younger workers. One effect of bringing in foreign workers to solve a "shortage" is that programmers and systems people over 40 are let go. Part of it is that older American workers often have families and responsibilities outside the workplace. Part of it is that if an older worker has been at the same company, he (or she) may have a higher salary than a foreign (and younger) worker would demand.
I'm 56 years old and grew up with computers and electronics; I have every license and endorsement the FCC can issue. I passed the commercial FCC test at age 17 when applicants had to draw schematics in front of the Regional Engineer. My first operating system was RT-11 and I migrated to Unix early. I've worked with boxes that had to be hand-programmed. I've adminned BSD, Solaris, Linux and NT machines. I was an electronics engineer for a company that made discrete control systems, worked in the field installing and reparing them, and wrote the technical manuals for them. I can even spell without a spell-checker and write reasonably coherant paragraphs.
Yet I am not employable! No company wants anyone they consider "over the hill"
Thanks to some lucky investments back in the 80's, I could move to a rural area of the USA where I rent our land to local farmers to make my home self-supporting. I started the first ISP in my area and sold it 2 years later. I designed the network for the local school district and I keep my hand in by doing their more exacting 'puter jobs (routers, etc).
Nevertheless... no company would hire me. When we lived in the Seattle area I bombarded the companies there (including MS) with resumes when I knew they had openings that fit me exactly. I never even got one interview!
Think of what this means to you as a young systems engineer or programmer. Not only do *you* face exactly the same problem (you can escape it only if you die young), but you also are denied the opportunity to work with people who lived through the history of your industry. People who can explain why certain things were done in certain ways and give you a breadth of knowledge not available from other sources.
American firms are displacing their older workers, workers who are reliable and knowledgable, with cheap foreign workers. It's as though General Motors built a compound and imported cheap labor from third-world countries in order to fire all their American workers. If this happened, there would be an uproar. But they do it to us under the guise of a "technical shortage".
I don't blame the foreign workers. They are only taking advantage of a situation that can help them grow. And certainly their contributions to US culture are worthwhile. But look around your company... how many people over 50 are there? Or over 40? My guess is that maybe 1 out of 5 at best; simple demographics say that there should be more than this.
I think you guys are all great... don't get me wrong. But there should be room for those of us who built the foundations you are helping to expand.
Yes, Linux has ipv6 applications (although the article didn't mention applications... just browsers and routers). In fact there is a how-to for getting your Linux box to speak ipv6 (however limited it may be).
In order to use ipv6 you will need to add libraries, upgrade to glibc 2.1 and upgrade your BIND, telnet, and finger daemons. There are also patches available to INN.
You can see the how-to (written by Eric Osborne) at http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/ipv6/faq/.
I don't know of any browsers now available for ipv6 but I bet Netscape and MS will be racing to provide them. Cisco allegedly has router OS upgrades that will allow their boxes to be used on an ipv6 network.
Todd Burgess' article has some food for thought but my concern is that he (and perhaps many others) underestimate the ability of the public to focus on a technology and learn it when they need it. I'm pretty sure that only giving them one choice is not the way we want to go (unless you're a major stockholder in the company that produces that single choice.
What happens when, for instance, a new Linux user is presented with a "no choices" user-friendly Linux distribution (there will be only one in the Burgess scenario)? After a week of surfing this user hears from a Linux guru that Linux will gateway his entire office to the internet on one line. Unfortunately for him, his choice-less distribution won't let him do this because it's too complicated for the average person. So this user becomes frustrated and angry; exactly the emotions Burgess doesn't want.
Regarding the idea that programmers shouldn't do the interfaces, who else is going to do it? Designers? They can draw pictures of what they want but someone has to actually code them into reality. Who else but programmers? You might argue that more thought needs to be put into the GUIs offered via XWindows and I'd agree... but we seem to be making some big strides in this area as it is.
Linux can't be the "new Macintosh", offering only one way to do everything, and still be rich and useful to power users. You might be able to code a GUI that restricts users - at first - and allows them to grow their interface along with their skills. But denying choice to users based on some simplistic idea of what people need and want is like designing a freeway with no off-ramps until the destination is reached.
I'm aware of the difficulties a new Linux user has installing this OS and, believe me, I've struggled to introduce it to even relatively sophisticated users. I'm not sure it will ever be ready for "prime time" and not sure we want it to. However, I'm adamantly against dumbing-down this superb creation in order to get it on a few more desktops. We already have enough "no choice" operating systems... I think it's time to let people have enough choices and challenge themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
The web page for the Solo Trek XFV says it has been "... engineered to deliver 100% fail-safe efficient performance." Nothing is 100% fail-safe, and, so far, nothing is 100% efficient. If this first paragraph is any indication of their credibility, I'm not going to look for a dealer near me any time soon.
Their FAQ is full of inconsistencies. It doesn't list any pre-flight check for water in the fuel... a regular part of every pilot's pre-flight. They think that making everything "three times stronger" makes it "fail safe". They rely on "sensors" to tell the pilot of a problem (like, presumably, the sensor that tells if the pilot has not programmed in his/her correct weight; the question that springs to mind is "why program it in when there is a sensor that can detect it?). According to the FAQ, the SoloTrek "can be flown and landed in the event of a complete electrical system malfunction". So what fires its spark plugs and the "electronic timing" and fuel injection mentioned in the second point of the FAQ? And it doesn't take much imagination to consider the dramatic consequences of an automatic deployment of their ballistic parachute when one is, for instance, over water. (Or maybe they have a sensor for this).
While helicopters can, theoretically, "auto-rotate" to a safe landing in the event of power failure, they often fail to do so. Even in the hands of professional operators with thousands of hours of experience. And with deadly results. This ducted-fan device doesn't have anywhere close to the wing area of a helicopter blade. It seems to me that it would have the glide-angle of a brick.
Flying machines are terribly intolerant of incompetence; the one thing we seem to be overloaded with in this world lately. This is what is likely to make the operators of these things road-kill in the backyards of homes under their flight paths. Imagine the same mentality as the people who operate jet-skiis applied to this contraption and remember that you can at least stop a jet-ski and think it over for a while.
Flying to work isn't a matter of just strapping in and taking off. Remember all the times you drove to work in nice weather and drove home in almost zero-visibility? Visit the web site of this outfit and try to find an instrument cluster. Now try to imagine just how difficult it would be to fly one on instruments even if they had them. Finally, consider that the FAA doesn't just let you fly on instruments whenever you like... you need licenses and clearances and transponders and... well, you get the idea.
The FAA (and other agencies in other countries) have rules for aircraft based mostly on the fact that an amazing number of idiots think they can just climb in and take off. ("Hey! How hard can it be?") These rules apply most stringently in the very areas (congested cities) where these devices would be most useful. Rules like staying 1,000 feet above populated areas, like not flying in less than 3 miles of visibility (remember JFK Jr?), and staying clear - way clear - of clouds.
Their FAQ also seems to imply that anything over 100 feet above the ground (and how would this system know it was more than 100 feet "above the ground"?) is less safe... fully 400 feet below the minimum altitude the FAA requires over unpopulated areas.
I have flown airplanes and gliders (if you want to forget your problems, just try keeping a heavier-than-air vehicle aloft for a few hours with nothing more powerful than "up drafts") since 1970 and can remember seeing literally dozens of these ideas come and go, from the "air-car" of the 1950s to this. Some of them had prototypes and many of these flew. But the realities of flying rendered them impractical in the marketplace.
So far, most of the comments on this thread have been from younger workers. One effect of bringing in foreign workers to solve a "shortage" is that programmers and systems people over 40 are let go. Part of it is that older American workers often have families and responsibilities outside the workplace. Part of it is that if an older worker has been at the same company, he (or she) may have a higher salary than a foreign (and younger) worker would demand.
I'm 56 years old and grew up with computers and electronics; I have every license and endorsement the FCC can issue. I passed the commercial FCC test at age 17 when applicants had to draw schematics in front of the Regional Engineer. My first operating system was RT-11 and I migrated to Unix early. I've worked with boxes that had to be hand-programmed. I've adminned BSD, Solaris, Linux and NT machines. I was an electronics engineer for a company that made discrete control systems, worked in the field installing and reparing them, and wrote the technical manuals for them. I can even spell without a spell-checker and write reasonably coherant paragraphs.
Yet I am not employable! No company wants anyone they consider "over the hill"
Thanks to some lucky investments back in the 80's, I could move to a rural area of the USA where I rent our land to local farmers to make my home self-supporting. I started the first ISP in my area and sold it 2 years later. I designed the network for the local school district and I keep my hand in by doing their more exacting 'puter jobs (routers, etc).
Nevertheless... no company would hire me. When we lived in the Seattle area I bombarded the companies there (including MS) with resumes when I knew they had openings that fit me exactly. I never even got one interview!
Think of what this means to you as a young systems engineer or programmer. Not only do *you* face exactly the same problem (you can escape it only if you die young), but you also are denied the opportunity to work with people who lived through the history of your industry. People who can explain why certain things were done in certain ways and give you a breadth of knowledge not available from other sources.
American firms are displacing their older workers, workers who are reliable and knowledgable, with cheap foreign workers. It's as though General Motors built a compound and imported cheap labor from third-world countries in order to fire all their American workers. If this happened, there would be an uproar. But they do it to us under the guise of a "technical shortage".
I don't blame the foreign workers. They are only taking advantage of a situation that can help them grow. And certainly their contributions to US culture are worthwhile. But look around your company... how many people over 50 are there? Or over 40? My guess is that maybe 1 out of 5 at best; simple demographics say that there should be more than this.
I think you guys are all great... don't get me wrong. But there should be room for those of us who built the foundations you are helping to expand.
Yes, Linux has ipv6 applications (although the article didn't mention applications... just browsers and routers). In fact there is a how-to for getting your Linux box to speak ipv6 (however limited it may be).
In order to use ipv6 you will need to add libraries, upgrade to glibc 2.1 and upgrade your BIND, telnet, and finger daemons. There are also patches available to INN.
You can see the how-to (written by Eric Osborne) at http://www.wcug.wwu.edu/ipv6/faq/.
I don't know of any browsers now available for ipv6 but I bet Netscape and MS will be racing to provide them. Cisco allegedly has router OS upgrades that will allow their boxes to be used on an ipv6 network.
Todd Burgess' article has some food for thought but my concern is that he (and perhaps many others) underestimate the ability of the public to focus on a technology and learn it when they need it. I'm pretty sure that only giving them one choice is not the way we want to go (unless you're a major stockholder in the company that produces that single choice.
What happens when, for instance, a new Linux user is presented with a "no choices" user-friendly Linux distribution (there will be only one in the Burgess scenario)? After a week of surfing this user hears from a Linux guru that Linux will gateway his entire office to the internet on one line. Unfortunately for him, his choice-less distribution won't let him do this because it's too complicated for the average person. So this user becomes frustrated and angry; exactly the emotions Burgess doesn't want.
Regarding the idea that programmers shouldn't do the interfaces, who else is going to do it? Designers? They can draw pictures of what they want but someone has to actually code them into reality. Who else but programmers? You might argue that more thought needs to be put into the GUIs offered via XWindows and I'd agree... but we seem to be making some big strides in this area as it is.
Linux can't be the "new Macintosh", offering only one way to do everything, and still be rich and useful to power users. You might be able to code a GUI that restricts users - at first - and allows them to grow their interface along with their skills. But denying choice to users based on some simplistic idea of what people need and want is like designing a freeway with no off-ramps until the destination is reached.
I'm aware of the difficulties a new Linux user has installing this OS and, believe me, I've struggled to introduce it to even relatively sophisticated users. I'm not sure it will ever be ready for "prime time" and not sure we want it to. However, I'm adamantly against dumbing-down this superb creation in order to get it on a few more desktops. We already have enough "no choice" operating systems... I think it's time to let people have enough choices and challenge themselves.