He's as socialist as any Russian, but he wouldn't admit that.
Sorry to interrupt that entertaining pie fight you are having, but could you please answer this: do you think Russia is having a socialist government at the moment? If you say yes, could you please explain what you think `socialist' means?
Actually, could you please explain what you think `socialist' means anyway? In US english it seems to be a dirty word, but concrete examples of `US socialism' seem to have little to do with what we mean with the term in Europe. The best definition I have been able to distill is `any government act that benefits other people instead of me'.
I'm not a developer, and I don't know what the "App Store approval process" is like. However, I'm not happy that an "App Store approval process" is required to get an application installed on my iPad.
That's a pretty uninformed opinion then. Isn't it more rational to reserve your approval and disapproval to things you know more about?
That's because Apple tightly controls the application marketplace before you can even get in. Google lets basically anyone in so I'm not surprised that they had to use this feature while Apple does not.
Sure, but ``but nuking an applications without asking first is what Steve Jobs does'', as the GP post said, is simply not true. Of course the reason why this is not true makes Apple even more evil for some people, but to me it shows that Apple is wise to check the applications before they are published.
I don't agree with the advice of "find a favorite comp sci prof" as your collaborator -- if your idea has merit, you should be able to just publish it as sole author (if you are indeed the sole contributor).
As much as I would like to agree with you, without any experience in writing and publishing an academic paper you have an extra hill to struggle up, and no guide to show you the best paths. Finding the right tone for the paper, deciding what to say and not to say, and deciding where to publish, all take some judgement and feeling of the field. Sure, it can be done, but you are likely to waste a lot of energy or end up in a less than desirable venue.
I'm fine with repositories and security updates, but nuking an applications without asking first is what Steve Jobs does and that Google is not supposed to do.
Actually, Apple has never done this until now. Yes, they have the infrastructure to do so, but so far they have never used it.
I would say your best bet would be to contact your favorite comp. sci. college professor and ask him to sponsor your paper, before submission. First, it is good to publish with other people and second it more likely to be reviewed and get published. I am a biologist, but my understanding is that computer science publications are mainly submissions to large conferences. So, you may want to submit your paper to a conference.
No offense, but your paper won't get into science unless to at least 10-fold improvement or something really earth shattering. My guess is that most algorithms would go to a specific journal like the Journal of GPS Algorithms.
As an academic in computer science, and having both written and reviewed a quite a number of papers, I have to agree here. There are definitely venues to publish a truly novel algorithm. However:
(1) Frankly, I would be surprised if you have been able to come up with something radically different from existing algorithms. I am sure that any reviewer of your paper will be equally suspicious, so you better back up that claim thoroughly. Do not assume that the reviewers know what is and isn't out there as related work, but show that you know what you are talking about, and in particular that YOU know what is out there as related work. Clearly explain why your work is different and superior. This is the hardest part of the paper to write. Doubly so in your case, since this is not a field where reviewers will expect that new things can be discovered.
(2) Keep in mind that if you submit your paper to a conference, you are expected to present it there. You'll have to travel there, and pay the conference fee and living costs. Yes, the conference fee applies even if you present a paper there. A university group might be willing to pay all this for you in return for a co-authorship and the right to claim it as 'output' of that group. Journals are cheaper to publish in, although some ask for money per page. Also, their turnaround time can be maddening.
(3) Picking the right venue for your paper can be tricky. Simply looking at the call for papers for the conference or journal may give you the impression that your subject fits well, but in reality they all have their own culture, and tend to concentrate on more specific subjects. The good news is that there are so many small and good-but-obscure journals out there, in particular in the more algorithmic side of computer science, that there surely will be a journal that is willing to publish good novel research. Try to find one where your paper is as on-topic as possible, because you'll have the greatest chances of getting reviewers who can properly evaluate your paper.
(4) Write clearly. Reviewers nowadays don't have time to wrestle with muddled thinking, incoherent explanations, and glaring omissions of information, even if an obvious genius has written the paper. Not every reviewer will know what is novel in your approach if you don't point it out, and many will only bother to read the entire paper if you have motivated them enough in your abstract and summary (yes, many skip to the summary at first read.)
Since there is more to learn, I have to repeat that hooking up with a research group is a very, very good idea.
Getting a paper accepted is a lot of fun, though, and at least for me it compensates for all the grief that is part of the peer-review process.
I'm just eternally grateful for these BP heroes that have worked so many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. No one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
Yes, I'm being facetious.
I'm sure a lot of BP personnel (and yes, a lot of non-BP personnel) have indeed worked many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. And you are right that no one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
So despite everything I think all these people have more than earned a massive THANK YOU and WELL DONE. I even think that they deserve to be called heroes. (Especially because the people that did all this probably had nothing to do with causing the disaster in the first place.)
Why should Apple second guess the user? If someone wants to install a battery hogging app, let them.
Apple has decided not to allow that, mainly to avoid degrading the user experience of the entire phone/ipad/ipod. You may disagree with that trade-off, but it is certainly a rational design decision.
And good generated code can still beat a lot of human written code, so that's not a good argument.
I think you're being very optimistic here. Perhaps in some limited circumstances it is easy to generate readable code, but automatically translating one high-level programming language to another one is hard, and generating readable code in the process is even harder.
In any case, my argument stands: Apple's restrictions are rational on technical grounds. Therefore I would be very surprised if a judge would want to second-guess Apple in this.
I don't think the problem is "supporting all languages", the Objective-C / C++ / Javascript IMHO isn't action worthy.
The problem is that the code must ORIGINALLY be written in those languages, no tool generating the code allowed.
So why should it be action-worthy that they do not allow generated code?
A debate on the technical merits of that restriction seems reasonable to me, because there are a couple of strong pros and cons.
I do not see at all why is this should be a legal matter.
People on slashdot tend to forget that we're talking about mobile platforms here, including mobile phones. That means that the battery usage must be restricted, applications should not be allowed unrestricted access to communication functions, in particular phone functions, and there are also important user-interface problems that must be solved. Some restrictions on the software that can run on these things are therefore eminently reasonable. Thus, if Apple considers it wise to disallow generated code as part of these restrictions, I would be very surprised if a judge would object to that. Why would s/he be in a position to second-guess Apple in this?
And iPhone users (including children) don't have access to porn? Last time I checked (guilty as charged!) there are iPhone specific streaming sites for porn. Instead of going to the app store all they have to open up Safari and google for the goodies.
But Safari can be disabled through a parental control. Any other app that can access the internet, usenet, or any other potential source of adult content is rated as 17+ or something like that, and of course access to those apps can be disabled through parental control. Even travel guides are rated if they discuss to the seedier side of towns.
Like it or not, Apple are making a very serious attempt to plug all the holes, and as far as I can tell they haven't overlooked anything.
As a Unix geek for over twenty five years I think I'm qualified enough to say that OSX is the dumbest, most irritating, most badly designed and unstable *nix ever thrust upon the world. That would be my explanation at least.
Oh, I also have a mac mini, a mac book pro, a time capsule and two iPhones so I don't think I suffer from Apple envy.
Surely you are going for a funny moderation with that one. Right? Right?!?
Your OS should return the message. If it doesn't have this feature, a brief "Hard drive full, could not save file" should suffice, and the program should not exit and the data should not be lost.
Why do you think that's the only reasonable behavior? Perhaps I'm sick of this program, and I don't care that my data is lost. Also, some OS offer to empty the trashcan to make room, which is very helpful in the circumstances.
Warning: This will reformat your hard drive. Are you sure?
Why would any application reformat the hard drive? This is a function of the OS. If your program can reformat the hard drive and is NOT part of the OS, your program is crap of the worst sort.
That's just evading the issue. Some people have to write formatters for their OS, and some programs have to do things that are just as destructive as formatting.
Incomplete file transfer.
No message, keep retrying unless the user presses "esc".
You'll have to tell the user something or he'll assume the program hangs.
A file by that name already exists.
This is actually a design flaw in every OS I've seen. There is a time stamp, there should be no reason why I can't have two files with the same name.
... except that it is mighty confusing (''you mean there is more than one file with this name?!?") and potentially wasteful ("you mean the disk is full because it didn't delete all those versions?!?"). I know of only one OS that supported this: VMS. There must be a reason it didn't catch on.
Your battery is low.
The hardware/OS combo should handle this and it should have no bearing on your application whatever.
It's still an error message the OS cannot (well, in a sane OS should not) avoid showing to the user. Similar for out-of-paper for printer drivers, out-of-tape for red-tape spewer drivers, or out-of-malt for brewery controllers, or whatever. Sometimes a program, part of the OS or not, just has to tell the users at least some of the facts of life. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
New updates have been installed. [Reboot new] [Reboot later]
No message; the system will be rebooted at some point anyway. Assume "reboot later". The only time you should have to reboot for any kind of update is an update to the kernel or file system.
You still have to tell the user that it's a good idea to do a reboot. While you're at it, you might as well offer the option to do it right now.
That's why the iPad's an overgrown ipod touch, to avoid having to either do the research or be sucky.
What do you mean, avoid do[ing] the research? What do you think Apple has been doing before they launched the iPod touch? And do you really think the iPad UI didn't require a lot of research, even above the research for the iPod touch? It's very easy to make a UI that you have to fight all the time, it's very hard to make a UI that is so smooth you don't even notice it.
Nope, terrorists are NECESSARILY stupid, otherwise they would be negotiators. What did Bin Laden achieve by 9/11?
With the expenditure of just a few thousand dollars and a few men he inflicted enormous damage in the US (buildings, economy), he dragged the US into a war in Afghanistan (plus a bonus war in Iraq), made himself world-famous, and he drew thousands to his cause.
Not bad for such a small-scale guerilla attack.
We went from hands-off approach to Taliban to toppling the government of what he considered to be the only true Islamic country. You just don't stop the country with one of the world's largest armies by hijacking airplanes or even detonating a couple of dirty bombs.
The Taliban is certainly not defeated. And of course he didn't expect to defeat the enemy with just a single guerilla attack.
Wait, wait, wait. Exactly HOW did Obama want to prevent cost overruns ? Because there's (of course) a catch. All snake oil salesmen have catches. Big catches. So what's the catch ?
Well, I'm just an outsider, but the catch seems to be that the medical sector (insurers, doctors, pharmaceutical industry, etc.) will make less profit. And yes, that seems to be a big catch. Oddly, most handwringing doesn't seem to be about that. Well, at least not openly.
Regarding those `death panels', that is so obviously a non-starter for any politician who wants to be reelected (or has a hart), I am surprised any people fall for that propaganda. Political discussions in the USA are often not very subtle, but really. Aren't the people that bring up that kind of nonsense just laughed away?
First, please turn down the anger, proof by shouting is not very effective.
They showed in a pretty solid experiment that two average persons degrade their driving skills as much by talking on the phone as by drinking alcohol. In 2008 that is not the fore-front of science, but it is just as educational as the experiments your teacher did in school (although they hide it well, Mythbusters is an educational program, and an effective one).
At a certain point in time it would have been an interesting result, which is science speak for something you can get published or at least use to motivate a follow-up experiment (yes, one with a larger sample size.)
Your hypothesis that some people would not be as badly affected is interesting, although it lacks proof (science speak for: you better back this up with at least one or two cases).
However, for road safety regulations this hypothesis is not the most interesting one, because the danger is not determined by the most immune persons, but by the most susceptible persons. A more interesting hypothesis would therefore be something like `angry persons lose driving skills, talking on the phone can make you angry, therefore the danger of phoning while driving will be under-estimated unless this effect is taken into account.'
My personal hypothesis is that a similar effect will be observed when reading/. while driving.
Although not everything on Mythbusters is a useful experiment, this particular one was good. They did have a control (they did three runs!), they measured driving skills (what else would you measure?), and intoxication is a good measure of unacceptable risk, so they effectively had two controls.
The fact that the experiments were done for entertainment instead of science is irrelevant.
Safely assume? You mean like we can safely assume metric-to-imperial units conversions will be done properly?
Yes, safely assume! These two things are not at all comparable. Designing a reliable power supply is a core task for a mission like the rover. Ensuring that two teams use the same units is boring bureaucracy. (Which still doesn't excuse the error, of course, because both are essential for a viable mission).
Apart from that, the design team has explained why they didn't use active means to clean the panels. Just Google for it, or follow the pointers given in other messages.
Seriously. Lack of a dusting mechanism was a pretty egregious oversight in my opinion. This is not the first time power loss from dust has been a threat to the Mars probes.
That always comes up a number of times in each/. thread on the rovers. That very fact suggests that the idea is obvious, so we can safely assume that the design team have considered it, and rejected it.
Before I could be convinced to vote for a project like that, it would be necessary to show me that carbon dioxide is, in fact, responsible for global warming.
Actually, this scheme is totally independent of the exact cause or causes of global warming, it is just a way to reduce the impact of one of the causes: the sun.
If we took this money and invested it into researching and implementing green alternatives to our current fossil-fuel infrastructure instead, more progress would be made in the long run.
Yeah, how about China and India do their part, too? Why is the onus on the West to cut back on greenhouse emissions while the Far East countries accelerate their output?
Why do you think that `we' and `our' didn't include China and India?
Slashdot Mirror
He's as socialist as any Russian, but he wouldn't admit that.
Sorry to interrupt that entertaining pie fight you are having, but could you please answer this: do you think Russia is having a socialist government at the moment? If you say yes, could you please explain what you think `socialist' means?
Actually, could you please explain what you think `socialist' means anyway? In US english it seems to be a dirty word, but concrete examples of `US socialism' seem to have little to do with what we mean with the term in Europe. The best definition I have been able to distill is `any government act that benefits other people instead of me'.
I'm not a developer, and I don't know what the "App Store approval process" is like. However, I'm not happy that an "App Store approval process" is required to get an application installed on my iPad.
That's a pretty uninformed opinion then. Isn't it more rational to reserve your approval and disapproval to things you know more about?
That's because Apple tightly controls the application marketplace before you can even get in. Google lets basically anyone in so I'm not surprised that they had to use this feature while Apple does not.
Sure, but ``but nuking an applications without asking first is what Steve Jobs does'', as the GP post said, is simply not true. Of course the reason why this is not true makes Apple even more evil for some people, but to me it shows that Apple is wise to check the applications before they are published.
I don't agree with the advice of "find a favorite comp sci prof" as your collaborator -- if your idea has merit, you should be able to just publish it as sole author (if you are indeed the sole contributor).
As much as I would like to agree with you, without any experience in writing and publishing an academic paper you have an extra hill to struggle up, and no guide to show you the best paths. Finding the right tone for the paper, deciding what to say and not to say, and deciding where to publish, all take some judgement and feeling of the field. Sure, it can be done, but you are likely to waste a lot of energy or end up in a less than desirable venue.
I'm fine with repositories and security updates, but nuking an applications without asking first is what Steve Jobs does and that Google is not supposed to do.
Actually, Apple has never done this until now. Yes, they have the infrastructure to do so, but so far they have never used it.
I would say your best bet would be to contact your favorite comp. sci. college professor and ask him to sponsor your paper, before submission. First, it is good to publish with other people and second it more likely to be reviewed and get published. I am a biologist, but my understanding is that computer science publications are mainly submissions to large conferences. So, you may want to submit your paper to a conference.
No offense, but your paper won't get into science unless to at least 10-fold improvement or something really earth shattering. My guess is that most algorithms would go to a specific journal like the Journal of GPS Algorithms.
As an academic in computer science, and having both written and reviewed a quite a number of papers, I have to agree here. There are definitely venues to publish a truly novel algorithm. However:
(1) Frankly, I would be surprised if you have been able to come up with something radically different from existing algorithms. I am sure that any reviewer of your paper will be equally suspicious, so you better back up that claim thoroughly. Do not assume that the reviewers know what is and isn't out there as related work, but show that you know what you are talking about, and in particular that YOU know what is out there as related work. Clearly explain why your work is different and superior. This is the hardest part of the paper to write. Doubly so in your case, since this is not a field where reviewers will expect that new things can be discovered.
(2) Keep in mind that if you submit your paper to a conference, you are expected to present it there. You'll have to travel there, and pay the conference fee and living costs. Yes, the conference fee applies even if you present a paper there. A university group might be willing to pay all this for you in return for a co-authorship and the right to claim it as 'output' of that group. Journals are cheaper to publish in, although some ask for money per page. Also, their turnaround time can be maddening.
(3) Picking the right venue for your paper can be tricky. Simply looking at the call for papers for the conference or journal may give you the impression that your subject fits well, but in reality they all have their own culture, and tend to concentrate on more specific subjects. The good news is that there are so many small and good-but-obscure journals out there, in particular in the more algorithmic side of computer science, that there surely will be a journal that is willing to publish good novel research. Try to find one where your paper is as on-topic as possible, because you'll have the greatest chances of getting reviewers who can properly evaluate your paper.
(4) Write clearly. Reviewers nowadays don't have time to wrestle with muddled thinking, incoherent explanations, and glaring omissions of information, even if an obvious genius has written the paper. Not every reviewer will know what is novel in your approach if you don't point it out, and many will only bother to read the entire paper if you have motivated them enough in your abstract and summary (yes, many skip to the summary at first read.)
Since there is more to learn, I have to repeat that hooking up with a research group is a very, very good idea.
Getting a paper accepted is a lot of fun, though, and at least for me it compensates for all the grief that is part of the peer-review process.
I'm just eternally grateful for these BP heroes that have worked so many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. No one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat. Yes, I'm being facetious.
I'm sure a lot of BP personnel (and yes, a lot of non-BP personnel) have indeed worked many sleepless nights since this began in order to wrestle this thing under control. And you are right that no one has ever had to deal with something like this before and by using their ingenuity and ability to adapt and innovate, they were able to accomplish a herculean feat.
So despite everything I think all these people have more than earned a massive THANK YOU and WELL DONE. I even think that they deserve to be called heroes. (Especially because the people that did all this probably had nothing to do with causing the disaster in the first place.)
Why should Apple second guess the user? If someone wants to install a battery hogging app, let them.
Apple has decided not to allow that, mainly to avoid degrading the user experience of the entire phone/ipad/ipod. You may disagree with that trade-off, but it is certainly a rational design decision.
And good generated code can still beat a lot of human written code, so that's not a good argument.
I think you're being very optimistic here. Perhaps in some limited circumstances it is easy to generate readable code, but automatically translating one high-level programming language to another one is hard, and generating readable code in the process is even harder.
In any case, my argument stands: Apple's restrictions are rational on technical grounds. Therefore I would be very surprised if a judge would want to second-guess Apple in this.
I don't think the problem is "supporting all languages", the Objective-C / C++ / Javascript IMHO isn't action worthy.
The problem is that the code must ORIGINALLY be written in those languages, no tool generating the code allowed.
So why should it be action-worthy that they do not allow generated code?
A debate on the technical merits of that restriction seems reasonable to me, because there are a couple of strong pros and cons. I do not see at all why is this should be a legal matter.
People on slashdot tend to forget that we're talking about mobile platforms here, including mobile phones. That means that the battery usage must be restricted, applications should not be allowed unrestricted access to communication functions, in particular phone functions, and there are also important user-interface problems that must be solved. Some restrictions on the software that can run on these things are therefore eminently reasonable. Thus, if Apple considers it wise to disallow generated code as part of these restrictions, I would be very surprised if a judge would object to that. Why would s/he be in a position to second-guess Apple in this?
And iPhone users (including children) don't have access to porn? Last time I checked (guilty as charged!) there are iPhone specific streaming sites for porn. Instead of going to the app store all they have to open up Safari and google for the goodies.
But Safari can be disabled through a parental control. Any other app that can access the internet, usenet, or any other potential source of adult content is rated as 17+ or something like that, and of course access to those apps can be disabled through parental control. Even travel guides are rated if they discuss to the seedier side of towns.
Like it or not, Apple are making a very serious attempt to plug all the holes, and as far as I can tell they haven't overlooked anything.
As a Unix geek for over twenty five years I think I'm qualified enough to say that OSX is the dumbest, most irritating, most badly designed and unstable *nix ever thrust upon the world. That would be my explanation at least.
Oh, I also have a mac mini, a mac book pro, a time capsule and two iPhones so I don't think I suffer from Apple envy.
Surely you are going for a funny moderation with that one. Right? Right?!?
Your drive is full.
Your OS should return the message. If it doesn't have this feature, a brief "Hard drive full, could not save file" should suffice, and the program should not exit and the data should not be lost.
Why do you think that's the only reasonable behavior? Perhaps I'm sick of this program, and I don't care that my data is lost. Also, some OS offer to empty the trashcan to make room, which is very helpful in the circumstances.
Warning: This will reformat your hard drive. Are you sure?
Why would any application reformat the hard drive? This is a function of the OS. If your program can reformat the hard drive and is NOT part of the OS, your program is crap of the worst sort.
That's just evading the issue. Some people have to write formatters for their OS, and some programs have to do things that are just as destructive as formatting.
Incomplete file transfer.
No message, keep retrying unless the user presses "esc".
You'll have to tell the user something or he'll assume the program hangs.
A file by that name already exists.
This is actually a design flaw in every OS I've seen. There is a time stamp, there should be no reason why I can't have two files with the same name.
Your battery is low.
The hardware/OS combo should handle this and it should have no bearing on your application whatever.
It's still an error message the OS cannot (well, in a sane OS should not) avoid showing to the user. Similar for out-of-paper for printer drivers, out-of-tape for red-tape spewer drivers, or out-of-malt for brewery controllers, or whatever. Sometimes a program, part of the OS or not, just has to tell the users at least some of the facts of life. It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
New updates have been installed. [Reboot new] [Reboot later]
No message; the system will be rebooted at some point anyway. Assume "reboot later". The only time you should have to reboot for any kind of update is an update to the kernel or file system.
You still have to tell the user that it's a good idea to do a reboot. While you're at it, you might as well offer the option to do it right now.
That's why the iPad's an overgrown ipod touch, to avoid having to either do the research or be sucky.
What do you mean, avoid do[ing] the research? What do you think Apple has been doing before they launched the iPod touch? And do you really think the iPad UI didn't require a lot of research, even above the research for the iPod touch? It's very easy to make a UI that you have to fight all the time, it's very hard to make a UI that is so smooth you don't even notice it.
Nope, terrorists are NECESSARILY stupid, otherwise they would be negotiators. What did Bin Laden achieve by 9/11?
With the expenditure of just a few thousand dollars and a few men he inflicted enormous damage in the US (buildings, economy), he dragged the US into a war in Afghanistan (plus a bonus war in Iraq), made himself world-famous, and he drew thousands to his cause.
Not bad for such a small-scale guerilla attack.
We went from hands-off approach to Taliban to toppling the government of what he considered to be the only true Islamic country. You just don't stop the country with one of the world's largest armies by hijacking airplanes or even detonating a couple of dirty bombs.
The Taliban is certainly not defeated. And of course he didn't expect to defeat the enemy with just a single guerilla attack.
Wait, wait, wait. Exactly HOW did Obama want to prevent cost overruns ? Because there's (of course) a catch. All snake oil salesmen have catches. Big catches. So what's the catch ?
Well, I'm just an outsider, but the catch seems to be that the medical sector (insurers, doctors, pharmaceutical industry, etc.) will make less profit. And yes, that seems to be a big catch. Oddly, most handwringing doesn't seem to be about that. Well, at least not openly.
Regarding those `death panels', that is so obviously a non-starter for any politician who wants to be reelected (or has a hart), I am surprised any people fall for that propaganda. Political discussions in the USA are often not very subtle, but really. Aren't the people that bring up that kind of nonsense just laughed away?
Isabella Bird, in her book The Englishwoman in America (1856) mention this copying causally, as something everyone knows.
Cisco is where they are because they monetize everything.
And where they are is with a customer base that is reluctant to fix security holes...
What sort of lame criminals go to the store and *purchase* SIM cards?
The ones that don't want to attract attention before it's too late?
They showed in a pretty solid experiment that two average persons degrade their driving skills as much by talking on the phone as by drinking alcohol. In 2008 that is not the fore-front of science, but it is just as educational as the experiments your teacher did in school (although they hide it well, Mythbusters is an educational program, and an effective one). At a certain point in time it would have been an interesting result, which is science speak for something you can get published or at least use to motivate a follow-up experiment (yes, one with a larger sample size.)
Your hypothesis that some people would not be as badly affected is interesting, although it lacks proof (science speak for: you better back this up with at least one or two cases). However, for road safety regulations this hypothesis is not the most interesting one, because the danger is not determined by the most immune persons, but by the most susceptible persons. A more interesting hypothesis would therefore be something like `angry persons lose driving skills, talking on the phone can make you angry, therefore the danger of phoning while driving will be under-estimated unless this effect is taken into account.' My personal hypothesis is that a similar effect will be observed when reading /. while driving.
The fact that the experiments were done for entertainment instead of science is irrelevant.
Safely assume? You mean like we can safely assume metric-to-imperial units conversions will be done properly?
Yes, safely assume! These two things are not at all comparable. Designing a reliable power supply is a core task for a mission like the rover. Ensuring that two teams use the same units is boring bureaucracy. (Which still doesn't excuse the error, of course, because both are essential for a viable mission).
Apart from that, the design team has explained why they didn't use active means to clean the panels. Just Google for it, or follow the pointers given in other messages.
Seriously. Lack of a dusting mechanism was a pretty egregious oversight in my opinion. This is not the first time power loss from dust has been a threat to the Mars probes.
That always comes up a number of times in each /. thread on the rovers. That very fact suggests that the idea is obvious, so we can safely assume that the design team have considered it, and rejected it.
Might that be because infinite data structures don't often exist in mainstream and/or commercial software applications?
Might that be because mainstream programming languages don't support infinite data structures?
Before I could be convinced to vote for a project like that, it would be necessary to show me that carbon dioxide is, in fact, responsible for global warming.
Actually, this scheme is totally independent of the exact cause or causes of global warming, it is just a way to reduce the impact of one of the causes: the sun.
Yeah, how about China and India do their part, too? Why is the onus on the West to cut back on greenhouse emissions while the Far East countries accelerate their output?
Why do you think that `we' and `our' didn't include China and India?