The Shuttle was Truly Amazing (the most complex device ever devised by man). But it wasn't a good idea because it was too expensive and too complicated.
Sometimes you just want to meet your military objectives, not amaze your friends and enemies.
The BIG problem with the F22 and F35 is the military is putting the cart before the horse. They design an aircraft that has never flown and pushes the technical envelope in dozens of different ways and then try to come in on a budget. They NEVER, EVER get even close to budget. Never.
Why they think it will be different this time I don't know.
What they SHOULD be doing is giving the advanced designs over to the various skunk works. Let them come up with the tech. When it's mature enough for production, then put it in line of battle machinery. Not before. Yes, that means you have to fund R&D better, but that's what you're doing anyway, just doing a half assed job of it. The advantage there is you aren't hosed if one of the high tech gizmos doesn't turn out the way you want it - you just design the device around another tech. Once you freeze the design, it's much harder to change.
What I don't get is this: They could make equal money building out a fleet of say, 1000 F16 / F18 Superwhaterver BlockZ aircraft. Scary enough and potent enough to deal with any adversary in the next several decades. Cheap enough for generic use.
Something else is going on, maybe military penis size or something.
Much of DaVinci's artwork (most of it) is of people. One of his incredible talents was the ability to draw people in a lifelike pose. That requires a keen eye, good eye / hand coordination and an understanding of anatomical function. I'm not so sure that it was his 'engineer's eye' more than his 'artist's eye'. Of course, we're making an artificial distinction here - art and engineering don't have to be separate and many humans appreciate the intersection of the two concepts.
But I see those drawings as an attempt by DaVinci to understand how the human body works so he can express his vision of human form / function in his art.
He still was a friggin genius, no matter what he was thinking or doing or smoking....
Yes, in the Wild Wild West, everybody could do whatever the hell they wanted in the privacy of their own automobile while driving down the public roads. However, in the real world, we should probably think this through a little bit.
But I'm not sure that an article whose first paragraph contained the phrase 'Smartphone-centric in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems are the next step in mobile convenience' is the place to start.
Nobody sane is suggesting that EVs entirely replace IC engine vehicles in the near term. There are too many edge cases that make EVs impractical for all uses while at the same time making perfect sense for many. We're talking multiple decades, perhaps generations to change off everything.
There is plenty of oil for that - we just have to start somewhere, somehow as there isn't enough (cheap) oil to last for multiple generations.
Perhaps your kids will be taking a driverless electric bus up from a transfer point on the highway, dropping off their gear and hiking over to another bus, transferring down to the main highway and picking up their EV which drove itself to the new spot.
Or maybe they'll be hunkered down in their bunker playing with an old Xbox run off a 12 v battery. Who knows?
I usually disagree with you as a matter of course, but I believe that you've stated the core issue.
The only real question is whether or not humans can significantly mitigate their environmental footprint in a matter that doesn't cause massive, rapid die offs of human populations. That is, can we use negative population growth to more or less gently drop human population down to a sustainable level (somewhere on the order of a billion or so - remember we're apex predators, not plankton).
Probably not given our inability to solve much easier problems. But always look on the bright side....
Our chief weapon is surprise!... Excessive paperwork and fear... fear and excessive paperwork... Our two weapons are excessive paperwork and surprise... and ruthless inefficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Sierra Club... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Hmf... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, excessive... I'll come in again.
but one has to wonder what the best market for this kind of live 3D videoconferecing would be - perhaps getting feedback on your golf swing or dance steps by a remote coach?
I'm thinking a different kind of dance step here.
Hint: What social phenomena has tended to drive consumer electronics like VHS tapes, DVDs and the Internet?
So, you can make that argument about pretty much everything. Judges and juries don't understand programming, material sciences, biological sciences, physics, chemistry, electronics, avionics, Bernoulli's principle and pretty much anything beyond lunch time.
That's what experts are for. The bigger problem is that legislators don't understand that stuff either so they make batshit stupid laws. Don't know how you're going to get around that except perhaps nuke the place back into the 16th Century.
The FBI operates on the "stupid crook theory," which basically states that there are no criminal masterminds out there, just idiots who will use systems with widely publicized law enforcement back doors.
Or, if you can't beat them at their own game, make them play yours.
True, it's RAND Paul, but he seems to be following in his father's footsteps - do something dramatic, but totally unfeasible (shut down the TSA).
Now, if he had just suggested that we take all the TSA staff and make them dress up like actors in 'Pirates of the Penzance' or something, then we could have some real Security Theater. I could fly with that....
Actually, I think you meant to reply to another post I made about a 'bizarre Photoshop plugin'. And, in fact, I'm pretty sure I tried PSPI or something like it. But it was a pretty odd little plugin and, in point of fact, the world is better off with it remaining obscure and unused. I told the budding artiste that I did give it a try and no, she couldn't 'borrow' my copy of Photoshop.
Photoshop is actually a nightmare for a beginner. It is a hodgepodge of the old and new. The advantage for professionals is that most things still work The Way They Always Have. So if you have a workflow that your fingers dance around, you can upgrade (which Adobe gratefully makes incredibly easy by dropping support at the drop of a hat) and still charge along. Hell you can even used 'Indexed Color' and a bunch of formats and file structures that are tiny edge cases.
That's incredibly important to people who make their living. Productivity is important and spending hours reworking things isn't very functional. But if you're plunked down in Photoshop CS5 for the first time, it's pretty daunting.
For some reason, my paper recycle bin is 5 times the volume of plastics / aluminum and glass combined. When I go to work, I see piles of the stuff on my desk. All manner of professionally done color glossy things attempting to entice me to purchase any one of millions of expensive objects (for the good of mankind, of course).
Converting between RGB and CMYK (or the more general question of how do you commercially print an computer generated image) is non trivial.
If you don't do enough to know what you're doing, it's best to send the file in RGB to someone who does and pay them to make it their headache. Some for most folks, RGB is just fine.
If you do CMYK, then you probably make enough money or spend enough time at it to justify PS.
Not sure who 'they' are but lots of businesses care. You don't want to go downloading warez copies of PS on a business network. Nice way to get you in trouble. There is Paint.Net for Windows - that's really basic (which is good), but not much else in between.
There is Corel Paint - for $400, probably a few others. But there is not much in the mid range.
I've specifically NOT suggested GIMP to co workers because of the name. We just don't need the hassle. As somebody else pointed out, in the real world you have to pick your battles.
As a practical matter, if they want people to adopt their application in serious work environments, they should probably change the name. If they don't care whether people use their application, then good for them, they can name it whatever they like.
This.
Every once in awhile this comes up.
"I need Photoshop." "No you don't, you just want to crop that picture and brighten up a bit." "But I need Photoshop." "No you don't, I'm not pulling $600 out of the budget for that - here have GIMP."
Yes, there are other Windows-based pixel editiors. I think we got our budding digital artistes Paint.Net. Which of course didn't work with some bizarre plug in el Artiste wanted to use but that's another story.
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Why is my dog barking at my laptop?
The Shuttle was Truly Amazing (the most complex device ever devised by man). But it wasn't a good idea because it was too expensive and too complicated.
Sometimes you just want to meet your military objectives, not amaze your friends and enemies.
The BIG problem with the F22 and F35 is the military is putting the cart before the horse. They design an aircraft that has never flown and pushes the technical envelope in dozens of different ways and then try to come in on a budget. They NEVER, EVER get even close to budget. Never.
Why they think it will be different this time I don't know.
What they SHOULD be doing is giving the advanced designs over to the various skunk works. Let them come up with the tech. When it's mature enough for production, then put it in line of battle machinery. Not before. Yes, that means you have to fund R&D better, but that's what you're doing anyway, just doing a half assed job of it. The advantage there is you aren't hosed if one of the high tech gizmos doesn't turn out the way you want it - you just design the device around another tech. Once you freeze the design, it's much harder to change.
What I don't get is this: They could make equal money building out a fleet of say, 1000 F16 / F18 Superwhaterver BlockZ aircraft. Scary enough and potent enough to deal with any adversary in the next several decades. Cheap enough for generic use.
Something else is going on, maybe military penis size or something.
Ok, if you want to make that argument, you take an F16, skin it to look like an F22, make hundreds of them and fly'em around and look scary.
Would work for about a month until the paint fell off. I'm all for shock and awe, but spending 80+ billion on a bluff is just batshit stupid.
Much of DaVinci's artwork (most of it) is of people. One of his incredible talents was the ability to draw people in a lifelike pose. That requires a keen eye, good eye / hand coordination and an understanding of anatomical function. I'm not so sure that it was his 'engineer's eye' more than his 'artist's eye'. Of course, we're making an artificial distinction here - art and engineering don't have to be separate and many humans appreciate the intersection of the two concepts.
But I see those drawings as an attempt by DaVinci to understand how the human body works so he can express his vision of human form / function in his art.
He still was a friggin genius, no matter what he was thinking or doing or smoking....
Too late. The psychopaths have been driving the bus for most of the latter 20th century.
What planet do you get your history lessons from?
On Earth, it's psychopaths all the way down.
"some incorrectly thought he possessed"
Someone has a bright future in crafting political 'apologies'.
English, not so much.
Where would the police come in here?
Yes, in the Wild Wild West, everybody could do whatever the hell they wanted in the privacy of their own automobile while driving down the public roads. However, in the real world, we should probably think this through a little bit.
But I'm not sure that an article whose first paragraph contained the phrase 'Smartphone-centric in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems are the next step in mobile convenience' is the place to start.
OK, I'll go for that. A box is closer to the real world than a jar.
Not much, but closer....
Nobody sane is suggesting that EVs entirely replace IC engine vehicles in the near term. There are too many edge cases that make EVs impractical for all uses while at the same time making perfect sense for many. We're talking multiple decades, perhaps generations to change off everything.
There is plenty of oil for that - we just have to start somewhere, somehow as there isn't enough (cheap) oil to last for multiple generations.
Perhaps your kids will be taking a driverless electric bus up from a transfer point on the highway, dropping off their gear and hiking over to another bus, transferring down to the main highway and picking up their EV which drove itself to the new spot.
Or maybe they'll be hunkered down in their bunker playing with an old Xbox run off a 12 v battery. Who knows?
You're really trying to say that an entire planet's climate system can be reduced to a simple glass box?
Most people think it's just a bit more complex.
I usually disagree with you as a matter of course, but I believe that you've stated the core issue.
The only real question is whether or not humans can significantly mitigate their environmental footprint in a matter that doesn't cause massive, rapid die offs of human populations. That is, can we use negative population growth to more or less gently drop human population down to a sustainable level (somewhere on the order of a billion or so - remember we're apex predators, not plankton).
Probably not given our inability to solve much easier problems. But always look on the bright side ....
Our chief weapon is surprise!... Excessive paperwork and fear... fear and excessive paperwork... Our two weapons are excessive paperwork and surprise... and ruthless inefficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Sierra Club... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Hmf... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, excessive... I'll come in again.
but one has to wonder what the best market for this kind of live 3D videoconferecing would be - perhaps getting feedback on your golf swing or dance steps by a remote coach?
I'm thinking a different kind of dance step here.
Hint: What social phenomena has tended to drive consumer electronics like VHS tapes, DVDs and the Internet?
So, you can make that argument about pretty much everything. Judges and juries don't understand programming, material sciences, biological sciences, physics, chemistry, electronics, avionics, Bernoulli's principle and pretty much anything beyond lunch time.
That's what experts are for. The bigger problem is that legislators don't understand that stuff either so they make batshit stupid laws. Don't know how you're going to get around that except perhaps nuke the place back into the 16th Century.
It's the only way to be sure.
The FBI operates on the "stupid crook theory," which basically states that there are no criminal masterminds out there, just idiots who will use systems with widely publicized law enforcement back doors.
Or, if you can't beat them at their own game, make them play yours.
True, it's RAND Paul, but he seems to be following in his father's footsteps - do something dramatic, but totally unfeasible (shut down the TSA).
Now, if he had just suggested that we take all the TSA staff and make them dress up like actors in 'Pirates of the Penzance' or something, then we could have some real Security Theater. I could fly with that....
Ron Paul is too old to be digital.
Actually, I think you meant to reply to another post I made about a 'bizarre Photoshop plugin'. And, in fact, I'm pretty sure I tried PSPI or something like it. But it was a pretty odd little plugin and, in point of fact, the world is better off with it remaining obscure and unused. I told the budding artiste that I did give it a try and no, she couldn't 'borrow' my copy of Photoshop.
But thanks.
Photoshop is actually a nightmare for a beginner. It is a hodgepodge of the old and new. The advantage for professionals is that most things still work The Way They Always Have. So if you have a workflow that your fingers dance around, you can upgrade (which Adobe gratefully makes incredibly easy by dropping support at the drop of a hat) and still charge along. Hell you can even used 'Indexed Color' and a bunch of formats and file structures that are tiny edge cases.
That's incredibly important to people who make their living. Productivity is important and spending hours reworking things isn't very functional. But if you're plunked down in Photoshop CS5 for the first time, it's pretty daunting.
Who the hell still does Print?
The rest of the world?
For some reason, my paper recycle bin is 5 times the volume of plastics / aluminum and glass combined. When I go to work, I see piles of the stuff on my desk. All manner of professionally done color glossy things attempting to entice me to purchase any one of millions of expensive objects (for the good of mankind, of course).
And 99% of that stuff came from Photoshop.
Converting between RGB and CMYK (or the more general question of how do you commercially print an computer generated image) is non trivial.
If you don't do enough to know what you're doing, it's best to send the file in RGB to someone who does and pay them to make it their headache. Some for most folks, RGB is just fine.
If you do CMYK, then you probably make enough money or spend enough time at it to justify PS.
Not sure who 'they' are but lots of businesses care. You don't want to go downloading warez copies of PS on a business network. Nice way to get you in trouble. There is Paint.Net for Windows - that's really basic (which is good), but not much else in between.
There is Corel Paint - for $400, probably a few others. But there is not much in the mid range.
I've specifically NOT suggested GIMP to co workers because of the name. We just don't need the hassle. As somebody else pointed out, in the real world you have to pick your battles.
As a practical matter, if they want people to adopt their application in serious work environments, they should probably change the name. If they don't care whether people use their application, then good for them, they can name it whatever they like.
This.
Every once in awhile this comes up.
"I need Photoshop."
"No you don't, you just want to crop that picture and brighten up a bit."
"But I need Photoshop."
"No you don't, I'm not pulling $600 out of the budget for that - here have GIMP."
Yes, there are other Windows-based pixel editiors. I think we got our budding digital artistes Paint.Net. Which of course didn't work with some bizarre plug in el Artiste wanted to use but that's another story.