The rest of the world would probably take all these alarmists a lot more seriously, if they would just get together, and all tell a co-ordinated story. But, let me quote from tfm
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The stratosphere, where the ozone layer lies, has seen its coldest winter for 50 years; there have also been an unusually large number of clouds.
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There is a simple cure for this ozone problem, lets just heat the planet up a little bit. umm, wait, that'll piss off all the global warming types.
Dunno who to believe anymore, think I'll just head out and shoot a spotted owl, I've heard they roast up pretty tasty....
This is all just part of the big 'government funding' game, totally expected. Beaurocrats at Nasa are worried about one thing, maintaining the budget. If they lose another shuttle, the program will end, pure and simple, and that's the end of the vast majority of thier budget. Since the Columbia incident, they have realized an interesting detail, they can maintain the budget, without flying shuttles, and that's a zero risk proposition. The real issue now becomes one of risk management, the longer they go on sucking up the public funds, without actually launching a shuttle, the more risk that the program gets cancelled, and they lose thier precious budget. The key is to find balance in the management of risk. Launching a shuttle involves a 2% chance of mission failure, so to actually launch it, means a 2% chance of losing the entire budget moving forward. The key now then is to manage the 'reasons' for not launching, in such a manner, that there is less risk of program cancellation from not launching, than there is from launching. There will come a time when the risk of program cancellation due to not launching is greater than the risk of a launch. Then and only then, will they finally put the push on, and attempt to launch a shuttle.
These reports of more insulation problems today are feelers going out into the political community, to see what kind of backlash they are going to get from not launching in May as they currently plan. If the feedback shows the risk of program cancellation due to non launch is greater than the 2% chance of losing the shuttle (historical figures on loss rates), then the launch will proceed. If not, they will delay. they will continue to delay until the risk of program cancellation due to non launch is greater than the risk of actually losing the shuttle during a mission (which will in itself cause program cancellation).
We are dealing with risk adverse government critters here, this is very predictable. You are going to hear more about problems, and inevitable delays, right up until you hear whispers out of congress to the effect of 'if they dont launch shuttles, why are we giving them all the money for shuttles'. That'll be the day they cast in stone a launch date, and the engineers can say whatever they want, it'll go ahead.
You are confusing bad luck with incomptence. it would be bad luck if the system failed when told to activate. It's incomptence if they left the activation codes out of the system. This is a case of the latter, not the former.
Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?
I may not have got it all right on the first go around, but you can rest assured, i got it right after the testing and before it was deployed...
In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen. Every flight has a few phases where even one minor screw up can have serious consequences, so we have checks and balances built into the system to make sure that small screw up does NOT happen.
I know the software folks here on/. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated. complex systems are designed and built every day in the aerospace field, systems that many lives depend on. We take it for granted that they are properly designed with failsafe modes, they can deal with problems on the fly, and they do not puke up and die when things become abnormal. Same goes for our crews, they train extensively to make sure they fully understand all operational modes, and they can deal with them. Once that's all done, we write books full of checklists, to make sure the details do not get missed at a critical time.
'I forgot' or 'shit happens' is just not an excuse. In reality, it's an admission of unprofessional conduct. Billions of euros spent, many many man years of effort, and you want to take 'forgot' or 'shit happens' as an acceptable excuse? there is no acceptable excuse, those are just admissions of shoddy management and operations. Those are terms that are not even in the vocabulary of true professionals.
Every time I read here on/. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.
Thanks to government regulations, i can only fly 9 days a month, that leaves me with a lot of time to operate my other business. We do software development, embedded systems for mission critical applications. We do deploy equipment into life critical situations, so, for our work, 'shit happens' and 'i forgot' just dont exist in the vocabulary. We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware. for your typical 'desktop' developer, equivalent testing would be along the lines of making sure programs handle gracefully things like having the hard drive removed from it's computer while the program is still running. They may not function at full capacity anymore, but it's not reason enough to have the thing just puke up and crash, it needs to fall into a failsafe mode that's prepared to deal with the detail of 'no local storage available anymore'. the code to handle this scenario will likely not 'get it right' on the first try, but, it'll surely be right before the product goes into release.
Looking at the money spent, and the multitude of man years spent on developing the lander for this mission, to hear that a significant experiment was lost becase somebody forgot to turn it on, is just beyond comprehension. this goes way beyond unprofessional, and well past the line we would draw for 'incompetent'.
The excitement of the moment, the actual landing, and data return, is a culmination of years of effort. I'd be shocked if they were NOT working long hours right now.
The real test, is to go back there in 6 months, and see if they are all back to a 9-5 workstyle, or if they are still pulling 18 hour stints between occaisional naps.
That's like saying, "I don't understand the worker types in their desire to 'be paid' for their work."
Dont lose sight of the fact, the scientists are 'just employees' of the general public, with thier snouts planted firmly in the public trough every time they go to collect thier pay. They have already been compensated for thier time/effort in planning and executing the mission. in return for all the hard work, they collected years of salaries. In the meantime, the data actually collected is owned outright by those who paid the salaries, and provided the equipment to do the job, in this case, the general public.
This is the problem with most of the scientific community, and a large portion of academia in general. they somehow feel that the public owes them a livelihood, and yet they have all the rights to the data/knowledge they have gained at public expense.
The reality is, these scientists are 'hired help' working on publicly funded projects. If they want to claim rights to anything on a project like this, let them go buy thier own rockets, and fly the mission out of thier own pocket, then they can claim it all. Until that happens, a scientist working on various portions of the instrumentation package has no more rights to the data than the janitor that cleans the lab floors every night. They sold those rights in return for a steady government income with a full set of benefits. The taxpaying public that funded the operation owns the data, the scientist is merely hired help, tasked with gathering and analyzing the data. If the public chooses to analyze the data at the same time, that is thier perogative, they paid for it.
If the scientists dont like that concept, and want to have exclusive access to the data, well, it's a free world. Let them go out and buy thier own rocket, and fly thier own mission. then they can have exclusive access to all the data it collects, in perpetuity.
The reality is, those scientists have no rights to the data whatsoever. Thier employer paid a salary for them to do the work, and funded the equipment required to send those probes off into space to gather the data. The employer has all rights to the data, the scientists are just employees of the corporation.
In this case, the corporations involved happen to be a unique form of corporation, commonly called government agencies. They are responsible to, and owned by shareholders (otherwise known as taxpayers). Those shareholders collectively hold ALL rights to ALL data from the missions. In this special case of a government agency, the public is the shareholders, and the public has all rights to all of the data. The scientists themselves sold any rights they had when they cashed the cheques paid by the public to support the work. It's really no different than working for a private corporation, but instead of developing scientific data for commercial application, these folks are doing it to increase the knowledge well of the population in general. The fact remains, the population is providing the resources to do the job, and the population as a whole owns the results, the scientists are merely 'hired help' tasked with aquireing the data in the first place.
It never ceases to amaze me how quick many members of the scientific community are to jump up on the bandwagon and try claim ownership for various things they deal with. They forget one very important detail, they are just employees of the general public, with thier snouts planted firmly in the public trough, living off the sweat of those who actually produce the real stuff that makes this economy run with enough surplus to support them. Our economy is productive enough we can afford the luxury of investing in 'pure science', but never lose sight of the hard fact, it is a luxury, and not part of the basic necessities of life.
When these scientists plan and fund an entire mission out of thier own pocket, on thier own time, they can have all the rights/glory they want with the data it collects. As long as thier work involves collecting a government paycheque, along with things like retirement benefits etc, then they better not lose sight of one hard fact of reality, they are just employees of the public, with no special rights of any kind to the work they do on the employers time/nickel.
The general public is rapidly becoming much more sophisticated with regard to processing raw data, and they are rapidly making it very clear to the agencies they support financially. We paid for the data, so let us have access to it. The availibility of mass produced computer equipment has made it within the reach of the hobbiest to do processing on raw data themselves, and do it they will.
What the folks within the agencies should be noting with a big smile these days, is the zeal with which the public grabs at the data when it becomes available. The zeal with which the public grabs for the probe data is direct positive feedback from the owners of the data as to it's value, and the desire to continue with programs collecting this type of data. There is a direct cause/effect relationship here, that will ultimately drive further funding for future missions. If there was NOT a mad grab for raw data, and a mad flurry of folks starting to work with that data to do various things with it (purely scientific or otherwise), then everybody involved in the program better start having serious thoughts about career choices, because a lack of shareholder (public) interest will definitely have a dramatic effect on funding for future missions.
This is/., they are all concerned about ping times and arp tables, hoping to spoof ethernet macs, and get bogus 'good latency' reports from games. They dont actually even understand basic ip networking (ip can run on a lot more physical carriers than just the ethernet to your cable modem), never mind the issues of switching from dedicated up/downlinks thru dumb transponders, to placing the digital smarts up in orbit so that routing can actually be done up there, reducing one full space/earth/space round trip from the full route.
Overall, this is an inevitable development, the amateur oscars have been doing this type of stuff for a decade. The only surprising thing about this type of architectural change, is that it took so long for systems to head this direction. But, one thing we can rest assured on, with a Boeing/Military relationship, the 'study' phase alone is going to cost more than a truely inspired private company would spend putting the entire constellation into orbit:)
I'd like to know where you are putting this thing, so that it produces at full capacity 24 hours a day. Assuming it doesn't require the energy expenditure of an orbital launch to get there, this will dramatically change the economics of solar power.
Cause last time I looked both sides took money from
The key word there, BOTH. In a free country, when 'both' sides get as similar as they are in the usa, natural forces bring more parties to the table, more names on the ballot, and tides swing with the new names. Then again, that would require a free country, where natural forces can sprout up and swing the system. Will never happen when you can only have 2 parties in the system, and both are equally corrupted by the finances.
The reality is, you want somebody to blame, so you can pass the buck. If you were truely interested in a cost effective solution, you would take 1/3 of the monthly support payments you send to peoplesoft, and use it to support folks on the open source projects. No more reading mailing lists, and no more begging for help in irc channels, you have knowledgable, expert support, merely a phone call or email away. When there is a problem, you'll probably get a fix slipstreamed within 24 hours, vs what you get from ps, a series of meetings, evaluation, and then a decision if they will bother to fix or not, and if they do, a schedule for deployment sometime in the next quarter.
Never ceases to amaze me how many folks want commercial grade support, for open source products, but, want it for free. Folks serious about using open source, pay monthly retainers to open source developers. For that, they get industrial grade software, with lots of input to the development direction, and in general, support is only a phone call or email away.
Those troops will find they are a lot less welcome here than they are in Iraq. I've got a couple of 30-30's that'll be happy to help explain it to them too.
With 3 antennas, you can phase the array to create directional lobes on the fly, and the 'appearance' of a stronger signal in a specific direction. It also means with almost certainty, that you cant swap the antennas on board for offboard higher gain antennas, as the entire package is tuned to the antenna geometry.
Canadians are not stupid, if we really need a military, we'll do like the Saudi's, and rent the american one. it's much cheaper than having your own, much better for morale at home, and the american soldiers aren't bright enough to know the difference between defending thier own country or somebody elses anyways. Hell, they cant even tell the difference between invading another country, and defending the usa. See them every day on the tv, proud to 'defend america', dont have the heart to tell them that america is thousands of miles away, and what they are really doing is invading iraq. I do somewhat understand the mentality of the folks running the show tho, if my kids were that dumb, I wouldn't want to let them grow old enough to reproduce either.
You have to take a step back and look at the big picture. First off, cbc and profit, two diametrically opposed concepts, do not belong in the same sentence without a negative modifier:)
CBC is a corporation, even if it's owned by the crown, it still operates as a corporation, one that's been around for a VERY long time. That means they have all the trappings of a large corp, nasty little things like a legal department, accounting department, etc etc. CBC has been around since 1936, that makes them a rather old corporation, with 68 years of baggage and tradition when it comes to policies and operations. It's not going to change overnite, but change it will, and has over the years.
Zed is a step toward a more open system, a recognition of a new concept. But, in particular in the case of broadcast content, when the cbc broadcasts content, they take more than credit for it, they also accept liability for that content. For the legal department, this is easy to deal with when the production is 'in house', they know all the issues, and know how to deal with them. Then along comes this new upstart program, who is going to broadcast 'not invented here' kind of stuff, and the legal department has a bit of a problem, they dont know how to deal with it initially, and it's going to take them years to figure it out. How to deal with the liability involved for broadcasting independantly created media, particularily when its coming from sources that are not in a position to handle any liability should the process end up in those stupid litigations about 'somebody hurt my feelings with what they said'. Ultimatley, liability will stop at the CBC because they broadcast it.
So, compromises were made, and a manner of allowing this new experiment was created, to 'test the waters' so to speak. The legal folks determined that if the producers of Zed assumed all rights and liabilities for the content, then it could all be treated as 'in house' stuff, all the old rules apply, and the show can go on. If the experiment works, the concept can be re-visited by legal, and then they'll invest the time/effort/money in better ways of dealing with the situation.
Zed has been a success, and more baby steps are being taken. A content management system has been 'opened' now. Sure, it's easy for folks here on/. to criticize it, maybe it's not really that good, I dont know. the important thing is the concept, the next step toward a truely open system has been taken. Remember, we are talking about a large corporation, rooted in 60 years of 'media' tradition. CBC execs play in the same business circles as RIAA and MPAA execs, yet they are hosting a show that is rattling the tree in a different direction. that in itself is a big step.
Yesterday/. had a link to a great article about bittorent and the concept of 'peercasting'. That's huge fear for the traditional media outlets, thier investment is in a distribution infrastructure. CBC is different, they have a huge and expensive distribution infrastructure due to thier mandate to bring broadcast media to ALL canadians, even those in the remote areas. They recieve government funding to cover the costs of bringing thier content to isolated communities all over. With CBC the infrastructure to do the broadcast is NOT thier primary business investment, it's a sink hole for money.
The economics of distribution are what have american entertainment industry in total fear of bitorrent and the concept of the 'peercast'. It makes the outcome inevitable, the current distribution model is doomed, its no longer economically viable. CBC on the other hand is economically doomed to become a peercast content producer, ultimately it is inevitable. They have a government sponsored mandate to produce and distribute content Canadians. The old boys network caught up in the traditional media model within the corporation will fight this till the day they retire, but, that day is on the near horizon. In the long ru
The comments from the uninformed do not describe it well, they leave out the most important detail. CBC is mandated to provide broadcast service to the ENTIRE country. That includes all the sparsely populated areas in the high north, as well as the densly populated areas in the south, and everything in between.
The government funding of the CBC is intended to offset the cost of operating a broadcast infrastructure into areas where there is no possibility of commercial revenues to offset it's costs. This is viewed by the government as an investment in creating an informed and educated society with equal access to news and entertainment for all. In essence, the funding is intended to level the playing field, creating a broadcast infrstructure that has the same operating cost per viewer to deliver content to folks in the big cities, and folks living in tiny communities in the high north. It has nothing to do with 'national control' of the content, and has everything to do with 'equal access' to that content for all canadians.
As a crown corporation, cbc was created with a charter. If you go read the actual charter, you will discover, that 'the government' is specifically excluded from providing influence or guidance to the content, in particular the news portion of that content. The cbc is mandated to provide reporting from an objective viewpoint. This was graphically demonstrated when cbc reporters (not of the embedded kind) were expelled from Iraq after they refused to submit to censorship by the us military. It became an issue of principle, and the cbc properly decided that if you cannot report the news objectively, it's better not to report at all. this is quite visible even today, there is a strong lack of reports from iraq on cbc, due to the corporate policy that they will not carry reports from a news agency which have been passed thru a censor. That excludes the use of most american syndications producing content over there.
With that said, there is yet another branch of our federal government that asserts a form of control over all broadcasters, the CRTC. It was determined a long time ago, that the large economic block to the south of us could easily influence broadcast content within our country. It was also determined that content pervading from the south is anything but objective, and has a dramatic negative effect on the local economy, hence the creation of canadian content rules for broadcast licenses. Similar to the cbc charter, the canadian content rules are intended to be 'opinion/content neutral', but to ensure that an appropriate percentage of content is 'locally produced'. To get a broadcast license in this country, you gotta broadcast 'local content'. Doesn't matter what the content is, just as long as its there. Zed is an example of 'canadian content', that would not have happened without those rules in place. The assumption is, ensure the broadcast slots are availble for local content, and the market will determine what actually fills those slots.
Overall, this is an immensly difficult concept to explain to our brethern to the south. They just dont get it. They like to talk a lot about freedom and equality, using buzzwords like 'equal access' etc etc. But, they dont actually do much about it other than talk about it. Up here to the north, it's not something we talk about much, because we take it for granted, it's a given, a right due all citizens of our country. Instead of talking about it, we invest in it, and then get on with life. CBC led the world in using satellites to deliver television and radio into the remote areas of the high north. It wasn't a cheap undertaking, but an investment considered 'worthwhile' because it was an investment in equality for all of our citizens. That investment continues today, as government funds are used to offset the high cost of broadcast infrastructure into remote areas, so that all of our citizens can have access to the broadcast content.
For all you american consumers, look at the bright side. CBC d
Can't less than $154 millions hire people who would happily sign a responsability waiver for NASA, board the oh-now-so-deadly shuttle and go fix Hubble personally?
It may hire some people to ride the thing, but, it wont come near filling it up with fuel and getting it out to the pad, never mind an actual launch. Prior to all the new safety rules, that cost 500 million a trip. All the new rules probably pushing that up to nearly a billion dollars per flight now.
A p2p app is a tool, which has multiple uses. Maybe one use should be banned, but there are plenty of uses for which its perfectly acceptable.
By your logic, not only would manufacturing illegal drugs be illegal, but so would the manufacture of any of the materials (hoses, buckets, beakers, stoves) used in the process of makeing the illegal drugs.
I just find it strange that people like to bash the US so much when it is the sole source of freedom on the planet.
Wow, I always thought americans had horrible tunnel vision, but I really didn't give them credit for total delusion.
Take a good look around the world, concentrate on the 'free countries' out there. You will find a lot of them that quietly practise the types of freedoms that america talks about, but quietly ignores internally.
How dare they lecture *anyone* about something being "safe" when they disregard safety like that.
Sorta reminds me of Nasa launching a shuttle when the ambient temps were well below the rated range for the SRB, only cost 7 lives, but they had a launch schedule to keep. As for the unmanned tests, I am trying to remember when a fully integrated shuttle stack was launched unmanned for testing purposes. Oh wait, that's never been done. The first time Nasa built one, they strapped 2 guys in the cockpit, lit the fires, and launched it into orbit.
On the bright side, Nasa has _finally_ figured out how to make the shuttle stack safe. Keep it chained to the ground, and spend the entire budget writing reports as to why it cant be flown yet, and generate excuses to keep pushing back the 'return to flight'. Very sound strategy for a risk adverse management team, but really lousy bang for the tax dollar.
Not to mention, NASA engineers are pretty damn near the smartest beings you'll find on the planet.
The primary attraction to nasa for engineers is a secure government job, with pension and health benefits, and zero reliance on 'performance' and 'bottom line' for job security. If you are highly risk adverse, honestly believe that 50% of your 'working time' should be spent in status meetings, and filling out reports in triplicate, then nasa has a work environment for you.
On the other hand, if you want to do real challenging work, looking to other places is probably a much better idea. There are a few places that do a lot of work under contract to Nasa, JPL comes to mind. They had a _little_ to do with the Mars rovers program, and still do. The real contribution from Nasa, signing the cheques, so that the JPL folks can get on with the real work.
About the only thing Nasa actually does 'in house' is the shuttle program. The results, or lack thereof, from that program speak for themselves...
Boeing was paid 140+ million to do a TEST LAUNCH with no payload, a test that failed to reach its desired orbit. That's not producing a product, that's doing 'r&d'. Put any face you like on it, it's a subsidy. In the longer term, it creates an interesting accounting game too, as all future launches of this vehicle will be reported as costing less than the real cost, for the simple reason, boeing doesn't have to recover r&d costs when they start doing commercial launches. Vehicle development will not be amortized over the production of vehicles, Uncle Sam has already picked up the tab for that. It'll make the final bill on commercial launches about 10-20 million less. Oh, and if you go check, by any definition of economics, in particular those used in world finance today, that's called a subsidy.
The follow on to this is deciding, is this form of subsidy a good thing, or a bad thing? Depends on if you view the military need as real, and wether you believe in free markets. Those are discussions that belong over in the politics threads.
Slashdot Mirror
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The stratosphere, where the ozone layer lies, has seen its coldest winter for 50 years; there have also been an unusually large number of clouds.
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There is a simple cure for this ozone problem, lets just heat the planet up a little bit. umm, wait, that'll piss off all the global warming types.
Dunno who to believe anymore, think I'll just head out and shoot a spotted owl, I've heard they roast up pretty tasty....
They need something more heat resistant than that. /. skulls tend to need tin foil for shielding when it gets even slightly warm...
These reports of more insulation problems today are feelers going out into the political community, to see what kind of backlash they are going to get from not launching in May as they currently plan. If the feedback shows the risk of program cancellation due to non launch is greater than the 2% chance of losing the shuttle (historical figures on loss rates), then the launch will proceed. If not, they will delay. they will continue to delay until the risk of program cancellation due to non launch is greater than the risk of actually losing the shuttle during a mission (which will in itself cause program cancellation).
We are dealing with risk adverse government critters here, this is very predictable. You are going to hear more about problems, and inevitable delays, right up until you hear whispers out of congress to the effect of 'if they dont launch shuttles, why are we giving them all the money for shuttles'. That'll be the day they cast in stone a launch date, and the engineers can say whatever they want, it'll go ahead.
You are confusing bad luck with incomptence. it would be bad luck if the system failed when told to activate. It's incomptence if they left the activation codes out of the system. This is a case of the latter, not the former.
I may not have got it all right on the first go around, but you can rest assured, i got it right after the testing and before it was deployed...
In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen. Every flight has a few phases where even one minor screw up can have serious consequences, so we have checks and balances built into the system to make sure that small screw up does NOT happen.
I know the software folks here on /. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated. complex systems are designed and built every day in the aerospace field, systems that many lives depend on. We take it for granted that they are properly designed with failsafe modes, they can deal with problems on the fly, and they do not puke up and die when things become abnormal. Same goes for our crews, they train extensively to make sure they fully understand all operational modes, and they can deal with them. Once that's all done, we write books full of checklists, to make sure the details do not get missed at a critical time.
'I forgot' or 'shit happens' is just not an excuse. In reality, it's an admission of unprofessional conduct. Billions of euros spent, many many man years of effort, and you want to take 'forgot' or 'shit happens' as an acceptable excuse? there is no acceptable excuse, those are just admissions of shoddy management and operations. Those are terms that are not even in the vocabulary of true professionals.
Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.
Thanks to government regulations, i can only fly 9 days a month, that leaves me with a lot of time to operate my other business. We do software development, embedded systems for mission critical applications. We do deploy equipment into life critical situations, so, for our work, 'shit happens' and 'i forgot' just dont exist in the vocabulary. We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware. for your typical 'desktop' developer, equivalent testing would be along the lines of making sure programs handle gracefully things like having the hard drive removed from it's computer while the program is still running. They may not function at full capacity anymore, but it's not reason enough to have the thing just puke up and crash, it needs to fall into a failsafe mode that's prepared to deal with the detail of 'no local storage available anymore'. the code to handle this scenario will likely not 'get it right' on the first try, but, it'll surely be right before the product goes into release.
Looking at the money spent, and the multitude of man years spent on developing the lander for this mission, to hear that a significant experiment was lost becase somebody forgot to turn it on, is just beyond comprehension. this goes way beyond unprofessional, and well past the line we would draw for 'incompetent'.
The real test, is to go back there in 6 months, and see if they are all back to a 9-5 workstyle, or if they are still pulling 18 hour stints between occaisional naps.
Dont lose sight of the fact, the scientists are 'just employees' of the general public, with thier snouts planted firmly in the public trough every time they go to collect thier pay. They have already been compensated for thier time/effort in planning and executing the mission. in return for all the hard work, they collected years of salaries. In the meantime, the data actually collected is owned outright by those who paid the salaries, and provided the equipment to do the job, in this case, the general public.
This is the problem with most of the scientific community, and a large portion of academia in general. they somehow feel that the public owes them a livelihood, and yet they have all the rights to the data/knowledge they have gained at public expense.
The reality is, these scientists are 'hired help' working on publicly funded projects. If they want to claim rights to anything on a project like this, let them go buy thier own rockets, and fly the mission out of thier own pocket, then they can claim it all. Until that happens, a scientist working on various portions of the instrumentation package has no more rights to the data than the janitor that cleans the lab floors every night. They sold those rights in return for a steady government income with a full set of benefits. The taxpaying public that funded the operation owns the data, the scientist is merely hired help, tasked with gathering and analyzing the data. If the public chooses to analyze the data at the same time, that is thier perogative, they paid for it.
If the scientists dont like that concept, and want to have exclusive access to the data, well, it's a free world. Let them go out and buy thier own rocket, and fly thier own mission. then they can have exclusive access to all the data it collects, in perpetuity.
In this case, the corporations involved happen to be a unique form of corporation, commonly called government agencies. They are responsible to, and owned by shareholders (otherwise known as taxpayers). Those shareholders collectively hold ALL rights to ALL data from the missions. In this special case of a government agency, the public is the shareholders, and the public has all rights to all of the data. The scientists themselves sold any rights they had when they cashed the cheques paid by the public to support the work. It's really no different than working for a private corporation, but instead of developing scientific data for commercial application, these folks are doing it to increase the knowledge well of the population in general. The fact remains, the population is providing the resources to do the job, and the population as a whole owns the results, the scientists are merely 'hired help' tasked with aquireing the data in the first place.
It never ceases to amaze me how quick many members of the scientific community are to jump up on the bandwagon and try claim ownership for various things they deal with. They forget one very important detail, they are just employees of the general public, with thier snouts planted firmly in the public trough, living off the sweat of those who actually produce the real stuff that makes this economy run with enough surplus to support them. Our economy is productive enough we can afford the luxury of investing in 'pure science', but never lose sight of the hard fact, it is a luxury, and not part of the basic necessities of life.
When these scientists plan and fund an entire mission out of thier own pocket, on thier own time, they can have all the rights/glory they want with the data it collects. As long as thier work involves collecting a government paycheque, along with things like retirement benefits etc, then they better not lose sight of one hard fact of reality, they are just employees of the public, with no special rights of any kind to the work they do on the employers time/nickel.
The general public is rapidly becoming much more sophisticated with regard to processing raw data, and they are rapidly making it very clear to the agencies they support financially. We paid for the data, so let us have access to it. The availibility of mass produced computer equipment has made it within the reach of the hobbiest to do processing on raw data themselves, and do it they will.
What the folks within the agencies should be noting with a big smile these days, is the zeal with which the public grabs at the data when it becomes available. The zeal with which the public grabs for the probe data is direct positive feedback from the owners of the data as to it's value, and the desire to continue with programs collecting this type of data. There is a direct cause/effect relationship here, that will ultimately drive further funding for future missions. If there was NOT a mad grab for raw data, and a mad flurry of folks starting to work with that data to do various things with it (purely scientific or otherwise), then everybody involved in the program better start having serious thoughts about career choices, because a lack of shareholder (public) interest will definitely have a dramatic effect on funding for future missions.
Overall, this is an inevitable development, the amateur oscars have been doing this type of stuff for a decade. The only surprising thing about this type of architectural change, is that it took so long for systems to head this direction. But, one thing we can rest assured on, with a Boeing/Military relationship, the 'study' phase alone is going to cost more than a truely inspired private company would spend putting the entire constellation into orbit :)
I'd like to know where you are putting this thing, so that it produces at full capacity 24 hours a day. Assuming it doesn't require the energy expenditure of an orbital launch to get there, this will dramatically change the economics of solar power.
The key word there, BOTH. In a free country, when 'both' sides get as similar as they are in the usa, natural forces bring more parties to the table, more names on the ballot, and tides swing with the new names. Then again, that would require a free country, where natural forces can sprout up and swing the system. Will never happen when you can only have 2 parties in the system, and both are equally corrupted by the finances.
Never ceases to amaze me how many folks want commercial grade support, for open source products, but, want it for free. Folks serious about using open source, pay monthly retainers to open source developers. For that, they get industrial grade software, with lots of input to the development direction, and in general, support is only a phone call or email away.
Only if you are intending to export your lawnmower to the usa.
Those troops will find they are a lot less welcome here than they are in Iraq. I've got a couple of 30-30's that'll be happy to help explain it to them too.
With 3 antennas, you can phase the array to create directional lobes on the fly, and the 'appearance' of a stronger signal in a specific direction. It also means with almost certainty, that you cant swap the antennas on board for offboard higher gain antennas, as the entire package is tuned to the antenna geometry.
The US Navy only approaches the arctic in submarines, probably because the primary food source for polar bears is the seal.
Canadians are not stupid, if we really need a military, we'll do like the Saudi's, and rent the american one. it's much cheaper than having your own, much better for morale at home, and the american soldiers aren't bright enough to know the difference between defending thier own country or somebody elses anyways. Hell, they cant even tell the difference between invading another country, and defending the usa. See them every day on the tv, proud to 'defend america', dont have the heart to tell them that america is thousands of miles away, and what they are really doing is invading iraq. I do somewhat understand the mentality of the folks running the show tho, if my kids were that dumb, I wouldn't want to let them grow old enough to reproduce either.
CBC is a corporation, even if it's owned by the crown, it still operates as a corporation, one that's been around for a VERY long time. That means they have all the trappings of a large corp, nasty little things like a legal department, accounting department, etc etc. CBC has been around since 1936, that makes them a rather old corporation, with 68 years of baggage and tradition when it comes to policies and operations. It's not going to change overnite, but change it will, and has over the years.
Zed is a step toward a more open system, a recognition of a new concept. But, in particular in the case of broadcast content, when the cbc broadcasts content, they take more than credit for it, they also accept liability for that content. For the legal department, this is easy to deal with when the production is 'in house', they know all the issues, and know how to deal with them. Then along comes this new upstart program, who is going to broadcast 'not invented here' kind of stuff, and the legal department has a bit of a problem, they dont know how to deal with it initially, and it's going to take them years to figure it out. How to deal with the liability involved for broadcasting independantly created media, particularily when its coming from sources that are not in a position to handle any liability should the process end up in those stupid litigations about 'somebody hurt my feelings with what they said'. Ultimatley, liability will stop at the CBC because they broadcast it.
So, compromises were made, and a manner of allowing this new experiment was created, to 'test the waters' so to speak. The legal folks determined that if the producers of Zed assumed all rights and liabilities for the content, then it could all be treated as 'in house' stuff, all the old rules apply, and the show can go on. If the experiment works, the concept can be re-visited by legal, and then they'll invest the time/effort/money in better ways of dealing with the situation.
Zed has been a success, and more baby steps are being taken. A content management system has been 'opened' now. Sure, it's easy for folks here on /. to criticize it, maybe it's not really that good, I dont know. the important thing is the concept, the next step toward a truely open system has been taken. Remember, we are talking about a large corporation, rooted in 60 years of 'media' tradition. CBC execs play in the same business circles as RIAA and MPAA execs, yet they are hosting a show that is rattling the tree in a different direction. that in itself is a big step.
Yesterday /. had a link to a great article about bittorent and the concept of 'peercasting'. That's huge fear for the traditional media outlets, thier investment is in a distribution infrastructure. CBC is different, they have a huge and expensive distribution infrastructure due to thier mandate to bring broadcast media to ALL canadians, even those in the remote areas. They recieve government funding to cover the costs of bringing thier content to isolated communities all over. With CBC the infrastructure to do the broadcast is NOT thier primary business investment, it's a sink hole for money.
The economics of distribution are what have american entertainment industry in total fear of bitorrent and the concept of the 'peercast'. It makes the outcome inevitable, the current distribution model is doomed, its no longer economically viable. CBC on the other hand is economically doomed to become a peercast content producer, ultimately it is inevitable. They have a government sponsored mandate to produce and distribute content Canadians. The old boys network caught up in the traditional media model within the corporation will fight this till the day they retire, but, that day is on the near horizon. In the long ru
The government funding of the CBC is intended to offset the cost of operating a broadcast infrastructure into areas where there is no possibility of commercial revenues to offset it's costs. This is viewed by the government as an investment in creating an informed and educated society with equal access to news and entertainment for all. In essence, the funding is intended to level the playing field, creating a broadcast infrstructure that has the same operating cost per viewer to deliver content to folks in the big cities, and folks living in tiny communities in the high north. It has nothing to do with 'national control' of the content, and has everything to do with 'equal access' to that content for all canadians.
As a crown corporation, cbc was created with a charter. If you go read the actual charter, you will discover, that 'the government' is specifically excluded from providing influence or guidance to the content, in particular the news portion of that content. The cbc is mandated to provide reporting from an objective viewpoint. This was graphically demonstrated when cbc reporters (not of the embedded kind) were expelled from Iraq after they refused to submit to censorship by the us military. It became an issue of principle, and the cbc properly decided that if you cannot report the news objectively, it's better not to report at all. this is quite visible even today, there is a strong lack of reports from iraq on cbc, due to the corporate policy that they will not carry reports from a news agency which have been passed thru a censor. That excludes the use of most american syndications producing content over there.
With that said, there is yet another branch of our federal government that asserts a form of control over all broadcasters, the CRTC. It was determined a long time ago, that the large economic block to the south of us could easily influence broadcast content within our country. It was also determined that content pervading from the south is anything but objective, and has a dramatic negative effect on the local economy, hence the creation of canadian content rules for broadcast licenses. Similar to the cbc charter, the canadian content rules are intended to be 'opinion/content neutral', but to ensure that an appropriate percentage of content is 'locally produced'. To get a broadcast license in this country, you gotta broadcast 'local content'. Doesn't matter what the content is, just as long as its there. Zed is an example of 'canadian content', that would not have happened without those rules in place. The assumption is, ensure the broadcast slots are availble for local content, and the market will determine what actually fills those slots.
Overall, this is an immensly difficult concept to explain to our brethern to the south. They just dont get it. They like to talk a lot about freedom and equality, using buzzwords like 'equal access' etc etc. But, they dont actually do much about it other than talk about it. Up here to the north, it's not something we talk about much, because we take it for granted, it's a given, a right due all citizens of our country. Instead of talking about it, we invest in it, and then get on with life. CBC led the world in using satellites to deliver television and radio into the remote areas of the high north. It wasn't a cheap undertaking, but an investment considered 'worthwhile' because it was an investment in equality for all of our citizens. That investment continues today, as government funds are used to offset the high cost of broadcast infrastructure into remote areas, so that all of our citizens can have access to the broadcast content.
For all you american consumers, look at the bright side. CBC d
It may hire some people to ride the thing, but, it wont come near filling it up with fuel and getting it out to the pad, never mind an actual launch. Prior to all the new safety rules, that cost 500 million a trip. All the new rules probably pushing that up to nearly a billion dollars per flight now.
By your logic, not only would manufacturing illegal drugs be illegal, but so would the manufacture of any of the materials (hoses, buckets, beakers, stoves) used in the process of makeing the illegal drugs.
Wow, I always thought americans had horrible tunnel vision, but I really didn't give them credit for total delusion.
Take a good look around the world, concentrate on the 'free countries' out there. You will find a lot of them that quietly practise the types of freedoms that america talks about, but quietly ignores internally.
Sorta reminds me of Nasa launching a shuttle when the ambient temps were well below the rated range for the SRB, only cost 7 lives, but they had a launch schedule to keep. As for the unmanned tests, I am trying to remember when a fully integrated shuttle stack was launched unmanned for testing purposes. Oh wait, that's never been done. The first time Nasa built one, they strapped 2 guys in the cockpit, lit the fires, and launched it into orbit.
On the bright side, Nasa has _finally_ figured out how to make the shuttle stack safe. Keep it chained to the ground, and spend the entire budget writing reports as to why it cant be flown yet, and generate excuses to keep pushing back the 'return to flight'. Very sound strategy for a risk adverse management team, but really lousy bang for the tax dollar.
The primary attraction to nasa for engineers is a secure government job, with pension and health benefits, and zero reliance on 'performance' and 'bottom line' for job security. If you are highly risk adverse, honestly believe that 50% of your 'working time' should be spent in status meetings, and filling out reports in triplicate, then nasa has a work environment for you.
On the other hand, if you want to do real challenging work, looking to other places is probably a much better idea. There are a few places that do a lot of work under contract to Nasa, JPL comes to mind. They had a _little_ to do with the Mars rovers program, and still do. The real contribution from Nasa, signing the cheques, so that the JPL folks can get on with the real work.
About the only thing Nasa actually does 'in house' is the shuttle program. The results, or lack thereof, from that program speak for themselves...
The follow on to this is deciding, is this form of subsidy a good thing, or a bad thing? Depends on if you view the military need as real, and wether you believe in free markets. Those are discussions that belong over in the politics threads.