Just two points. 1. Wasn't it a spreadsheet model that told NASA that the probability of a piece of insulation foam causing damage to the space shuttle was negligible? Misuse of spreadsheets CAN and has cost lives. 2. Not all that long ago, at my former employer, there were accountants assigned to take standard accounting reports produced by the financial system and key those reports into a spreadsheet. They did not do ANY calculations and never used the sheets for anything. They just copied them -- manually -- into a spreadsheet! And yes it was a Government operation! We thought of them as our own Bartlebys.
The best Alarm system I ever built was in a small basement apartment back in the 1970's.
Down a long dark hall leading to the bedroom I had a cassette recorder that was triggered to play by a simple IR beam break near the entrance.
All that was on the tape that played was the sound of the hammers of a 12 gauge double barrel shotgun being cocked. -- A very distinctive sound...
Just stay away from anything chlorinated. About 10 years ago I worked on a cordless phone that had been dropped in a swimming pool and dried out a couple of weeks before I got it.
When I opened it the circuit boards were covered with what looked like fine white whiskers. I am presuming this was some kind of tin or lead whisker growth from reacting with the chlorine in the pool water.
I washed everything first in tap water (we have very soft tap water here) and scrubbed all the growth off with a tooth brush. Then I rinsed in distilled water and after blotting off as much water as possible dried it for 20 or 30 minutes with a hair dryer on low. Then I let it sit in a dry warm place for a week and put it back together. Worked fine for several years until it was replaced.
I think this change happened in 2006 when I was looking for a router. All I could find locally were the WRT54G's that did NOT run Linux. I ordered a WRT54GL off the net -- it cost about $25 more at the time -- but it has been rock solid stable. Of course I locked down access, turned of UPnp etc. , but I was a paranoid Network Security Officer in my former life.
The EU Lead regulations came about when the CRT was king and the glass screen in front of the CRT was made of heavily leaded GLASS -- yep similar to the heavily leaded glass "crystal" that some EU countries are so proud of for wine glasses!
The amount of lead in the electronics was minimal compared to the lead in this glass, which was usually broken up and sent to the land fill.
Of course the problem is going away pretty fast since the CRT is going away! LCD displays don't have or need the leaded glass -- they are not first cousins to an X-Ray tube!
Oh, the single BIGGEST source of Lead getting into the environment is automobile batteries -- and no they don't have lead free versions of those (well they do, but the cadmium is worse!).
There is a saying among Rocket Scientists -- you only learn from failures. Critical thinking comes from failures and there is too much stigma attached to failure today for people to really develop good critical thinking skills.
However there are two good books that might help. One is "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow and another is "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. Learning from other's failure is preferable to learning from one's own.
Since you post this question on Slashdot you might pay particular attention to how unskeptical some engineers were during the transition from slide rules to computers. I have been lied to more times by my computer than I ever was by my slide rule, but then the computer can do things that I would never have asked the slide rule to do...
My first programming language WAS solder! I have been doing electronics for 50 years and programming for 40 so I have lived in both worlds.
There are two relatively new books that I would recommend that tie these two worlds together better than any I have seen before.
The first is "Physical Computing" by Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe, and the second is "Making Things Talk" by Tom Igoe. I had been out of touch with the hardware side for a couple of years and bought these books and it is amazing what has happened.
Good luck!
Perhaps WE are the von Neumann probe of which you speak. We seem to fit the criteria.
Also, it is very difficult to have a perfect filter or perhaps a perfect probe. If there is a series of less than perfect filters and less than perfect probes then perhaps less "developed" life forms have evolved on other planets. In that case it may be the case that there is no future GREAT FILTER, but only a continuous series of minor ones that act together to prevent the malignant spread of one space faring specie throughout the galaxy -- much as we have done to our home planet.
The Department of Homeland Security has spread more fear in this country than anything SINCE 9/11.
It is time we called on congress to abolish or at least curtail the powers of this monster. They are crying wolf at every shadow and have in my opinion done more real damage to this country than any terrorist would have. Americans have never been a fearful people, why does DHS, the media and especially the current administration insist on fear mongering as a political tool! Yes terrorism exists, yes bad things happen, for the last 6 years this country has in effect GIVEN IN to the terrorists by changing our behavior to restrict our liberty and freedom. Perhaps a movement to have a no fly week soon in protest of the abuses of TSA and the DHS masters would wake up business (who actually seems to be running this country now) to the fact the the American People are tired of being told to be afraid of every shadow!!!
Unless this is the start of another Maunder minimum or Younger Dryas!
--Of course we have secret ballots in Georgia
we use only Dibold machines. You never really
know who you voted for.
Slashdot Mirror
Just two points. 1. Wasn't it a spreadsheet model that told NASA that the probability of a piece of insulation foam causing damage to the space shuttle was negligible? Misuse of spreadsheets CAN and has cost lives. 2. Not all that long ago, at my former employer, there were accountants assigned to take standard accounting reports produced by the financial system and key those reports into a spreadsheet. They did not do ANY calculations and never used the sheets for anything. They just copied them -- manually -- into a spreadsheet! And yes it was a Government operation! We thought of them as our own Bartlebys.
The best Alarm system I ever built was in a small basement apartment back in the 1970's. Down a long dark hall leading to the bedroom I had a cassette recorder that was triggered to play by a simple IR beam break near the entrance. All that was on the tape that played was the sound of the hammers of a 12 gauge double barrel shotgun being cocked. -- A very distinctive sound...
Just stay away from anything chlorinated. About 10 years ago I worked on a cordless phone that had been dropped in a swimming pool and dried out a couple of weeks before I got it. When I opened it the circuit boards were covered with what looked like fine white whiskers. I am presuming this was some kind of tin or lead whisker growth from reacting with the chlorine in the pool water. I washed everything first in tap water (we have very soft tap water here) and scrubbed all the growth off with a tooth brush. Then I rinsed in distilled water and after blotting off as much water as possible dried it for 20 or 30 minutes with a hair dryer on low. Then I let it sit in a dry warm place for a week and put it back together. Worked fine for several years until it was replaced.
I think this change happened in 2006 when I was looking for a router. All I could find locally were the WRT54G's that did NOT run Linux. I ordered a WRT54GL off the net -- it cost about $25 more at the time -- but it has been rock solid stable. Of course I locked down access, turned of UPnp etc. , but I was a paranoid Network Security Officer in my former life.
The EU Lead regulations came about when the CRT was king and the glass screen in front of the CRT was made of heavily leaded GLASS -- yep similar to the heavily leaded glass "crystal" that some EU countries are so proud of for wine glasses! The amount of lead in the electronics was minimal compared to the lead in this glass, which was usually broken up and sent to the land fill. Of course the problem is going away pretty fast since the CRT is going away! LCD displays don't have or need the leaded glass -- they are not first cousins to an X-Ray tube! Oh, the single BIGGEST source of Lead getting into the environment is automobile batteries -- and no they don't have lead free versions of those (well they do, but the cadmium is worse!).
There is a saying among Rocket Scientists -- you only learn from failures. Critical thinking comes from failures and there is too much stigma attached to failure today for people to really develop good critical thinking skills. However there are two good books that might help. One is "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow and another is "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dorner. Learning from other's failure is preferable to learning from one's own. Since you post this question on Slashdot you might pay particular attention to how unskeptical some engineers were during the transition from slide rules to computers. I have been lied to more times by my computer than I ever was by my slide rule, but then the computer can do things that I would never have asked the slide rule to do...
My first programming language WAS solder! I have been doing electronics for 50 years and programming for 40 so I have lived in both worlds. There are two relatively new books that I would recommend that tie these two worlds together better than any I have seen before. The first is "Physical Computing" by Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe, and the second is "Making Things Talk" by Tom Igoe. I had been out of touch with the hardware side for a couple of years and bought these books and it is amazing what has happened. Good luck!
Perhaps WE are the von Neumann probe of which you speak. We seem to fit the criteria. Also, it is very difficult to have a perfect filter or perhaps a perfect probe. If there is a series of less than perfect filters and less than perfect probes then perhaps less "developed" life forms have evolved on other planets. In that case it may be the case that there is no future GREAT FILTER, but only a continuous series of minor ones that act together to prevent the malignant spread of one space faring specie throughout the galaxy -- much as we have done to our home planet.
The Department of Homeland Security has spread more fear in this country than anything SINCE 9/11. It is time we called on congress to abolish or at least curtail the powers of this monster. They are crying wolf at every shadow and have in my opinion done more real damage to this country than any terrorist would have. Americans have never been a fearful people, why does DHS, the media and especially the current administration insist on fear mongering as a political tool! Yes terrorism exists, yes bad things happen, for the last 6 years this country has in effect GIVEN IN to the terrorists by changing our behavior to restrict our liberty and freedom. Perhaps a movement to have a no fly week soon in protest of the abuses of TSA and the DHS masters would wake up business (who actually seems to be running this country now) to the fact the the American People are tired of being told to be afraid of every shadow!!!
Unless this is the start of another Maunder minimum or Younger Dryas! --Of course we have secret ballots in Georgia we use only Dibold machines. You never really know who you voted for.
True, but the new @ is longer in morse than spelling out "at" !
New @ di-dah-dah-di-dah-dit
the word AT di-dah dah
I knew the end was near when sun hired former Georgia CIO Larry Singer. He destroyed IT in Georgia and now he is doing the same to Sun.