>> "You'll be eating those words when China unveils their brand new designed-in-secret anti-ICBM system."
China doesn't have to engage us in war. If they ever get pissed at the U.S., all they have to do is stop investing in our economy and call in all our notes.
We won't be able to buy ammo or fuel to attack or defend against anything, then. Instant capitulation.
>> "So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
Aw, you were so close, but missed the mark. There are many other examples that you could have used and kept with the car theme. For instance,
"So the spark plug could soon join the (carburator | solenoid | manual clutch | cassette player) in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
I did. Some of my core programming classes included the implementation of some higher level functions and data structures exposed in the standard C library. This was followed by the introduction of said higher-level functions and data structures and their applications to academic examples.
Introduction to computer systems and programming taught us low level concepts, not BASIC.
Of course, one of the courses in the curriculum included Assembly Language (x86), and Operating Systems (with the Tanenbaum book and Minix).
If the lowest level you got in your programming classes was merely how to call STDIO functions, then your curriculum sucked.
The point is for you to learn how it works internally and understand the system. This is why it is called "programming class".
Just as in culinary school you must make all your sauces and prepare all ingredients from scratch; reheating a frozen meal does not teach you how to cook.
Once you're in the real world, you can use any of a myriad libraries and pre-packaged read-to-heat ingredients, that's your judgement call.
Why is it so terrible? I find it exceedingly smart and useful. Back when I used Windows, my preferred mail clients were Eudora Pro, then followed by The Bat!. It may have taken me a few days to get used to Mail.app, but I think it is superior to those.
"They've almost certainly had [insert convenient predicate here]..."
Ah, the I'm-sure-they've-done-their-homework-and-thought-of-everything-for-my-safety-and-convenience argument. After all, they wouldn't do it if it was not safe and The Right Thing to do, would they?
>> The opposite knee-jerk straw man to yours is that humanity should never attempt anything in case there is some unforeseen downside.
Yes, that would be an opposite "knee-jerk" straw man argument. However, my argument is not that we should never attempt anything, but that we should at least acknowledge and attempt to understand the risks, not just implement untested technology for the sake of "doing something, anything".
>> "don't you think the designers of such a system would have considered that possibility and made damn sure to design it so that "frying people" can't possibly happen?"
Don't you think it is equally possible that somewhere along the implementation of this system, some bean-counter may have decided to cut costs in certain parts or procedures which, in isolation, seem unimportant and inconsequential, but which may have unintended and unknown repercussions in the system?
People die all the time as a result of the incompetence and negligence of others; people die also as a result of unforeseen consequences of a manufactured product, designed in good faith to function properly. Such is life.
>> "You're assuming the system safeguards would be implemented in software -- that would be an insanely poor design."
Perhaps that would be an insanely poor design, as you say, but it seems to be the currently preferred--and certainly prevailing--technique of cybernetics: build the entire control system in software, sometimes even with off-the-shelf components. This is mostly due to cost considerations: it is definitely cheaper and faster to implement in software than to custom design the hardware to perform the tasks; even though, as you say, this may not be the best design.
This new technology may not fry people as some fear, but its large-scale and long-term effects and risks may not be properly understood. A bit of scepticism and perhaps even apprehension at its wholesale acceptance and premature implementation is therefore warranted.
Ah, because we all know that an untested new technology that appears safe in theory must be safe in practice, since we understand every single factor that comprises or affects it. Nothing can go wrong, of course. It's not like we are still researching the effects of electromagnetic radiation on children from local power stations using technology over one-hundred years old, or anything like that.
Perhaps electricity beamed from solar powered satellites will be safe, as you imply, but I'm not ready to make that assumption for any unproven technology before the risks are better understood--or in this case, at least acknowledged. "What could possibly go wrong?" is not a valid argument, in my view.
RTFA. Or for that matter, RT-previous-FA regarding the missing tapes. They are not claiming that these tapes are high-resolution or higher quality than current TV signals. They are claiming that they are higher quality than the images broadcast 40 years ago, and replayed often since.
The reason is that forty years ago these (slow-scan, lower resolution) tapes were broadcast by pointing a television camera to a display monitor, which was itself a television set. This greatly degraded the picture; but what made it worse was that this was then recorded into videotape through kinescope, losing even more quality in the process. The resulting tapes were all we had, since nobody has been able to see the originals for the last 40 years.
No, these are just the "Special Edition" version of the faked moon landing tapes. It was "produced" by Lucas Films, in collaboration with NASA, and contain newly added footage and CGI-enhanced visuals.
They look great, but some have already complained that the new tapes show Buzz Aldrin touching the surface first, which completely changes the character and motivation of the scene.
That clause is predicated on your good faith intention of actually keeping the item until, for some reason, you decide it did not meet your expectations and so you return it. If you intention from the start was to take advantage of this clause by using the item and returning it before the deadline, you are not acting in good faith; your intent is to defraud the company.
It would have been an easy case for AT&T to make, given the guy's confession and all.
>> It's like that with every generation. My dad rode a mule to school, I had a school bus. Today's kids (some of them anyway) have air conditioning in the classrooms.
You had a school bus?! I had to wait for the district's bus to pick me up. Man, I wish I had my own school bus then. That would have been fun.
Take a look at Mac OS X. The Finder allows you to add comments to file properties. These are then indexed by the underlying search engine (Spotlight). You can use these to add "tags" or "keywords" or whatever you want, and then search for them with those. You can even save your searches as "virtual folders" (they call it a "saved search" or something like that).
These folders are completely dynamic and updated in real-time, so adding or changing tags will cause the folders to update immediately.
But if you trully hate all manners of folders, then just don't save your searches; just search for everything whenever you want by using the handy-dandy Spotlight interface.
I personally like folders; I like things in order, and for it to be predictable and static. Perhaps I'm getting old, but that's me. However, I still find the "saved searches" convenient for many things.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe that's because we have a more stable and amicable relationship with Japan and Britain.
-dZ.
Now, that's a scenario that we should fear.
There, fixed that for me.
Damn typos. Doh!
>> "You'll be eating those words when China unveils their brand new designed-in-secret anti-ICBM system."
China doesn't have to engage us in war. If they ever get pissed at the U.S., all they have to do is stop investing in our economy and call in all our notes.
We won't be able to buy ammo or fuel to attack or defend against anything, then. Instant capitulation.
Now, that's a scenario that we should be fear.
-dZ.
No, it's called PMS.
-dZ.
>> "So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
Aw, you were so close, but missed the mark. There are many other examples that you could have used and kept with the car theme. For instance,
I did. Some of my core programming classes included the implementation of some higher level functions and data structures exposed in the standard C library. This was followed by the introduction of said higher-level functions and data structures and their applications to academic examples.
Introduction to computer systems and programming taught us low level concepts, not BASIC.
Of course, one of the courses in the curriculum included Assembly Language (x86), and Operating Systems (with the Tanenbaum book and Minix).
If the lowest level you got in your programming classes was merely how to call STDIO functions, then your curriculum sucked.
-dZ.
The point is for you to learn how it works internally and understand the system. This is why it is called "programming class".
Just as in culinary school you must make all your sauces and prepare all ingredients from scratch; reheating a frozen meal does not teach you how to cook.
Once you're in the real world, you can use any of a myriad libraries and pre-packaged read-to-heat ingredients, that's your judgement call.
-dZ.
>> "I can't imagine any other platform where the platform author can get away with this much restriction and control."
Nintendo (SNES, GameCube, DS, Wii)?
Electronic Arts (on game publishing)?
I'm sure there are others.
-dZ.
Why is it so terrible? I find it exceedingly smart and useful. Back when I used Windows, my preferred mail clients were Eudora Pro, then followed by The Bat!. It may have taken me a few days to get used to Mail.app, but I think it is superior to those.
-dZ.
"They've almost certainly had [insert convenient predicate here]..."
Ah, the I'm-sure-they've-done-their-homework-and-thought-of-everything-for-my-safety-and-convenience argument. After all, they wouldn't do it if it was not safe and The Right Thing to do, would they?
-dZ.
I haven't seen the new footage, but are there really fish on the moon?
-dZ.
>> The opposite knee-jerk straw man to yours is that humanity should never attempt anything in case there is some unforeseen downside.
Yes, that would be an opposite "knee-jerk" straw man argument. However, my argument is not that we should never attempt anything, but that we should at least acknowledge and attempt to understand the risks, not just implement untested technology for the sake of "doing something, anything".
-dZ.
>> "don't you think the designers of such a system would have considered that possibility and made damn sure to design it so that "frying people" can't possibly happen?"
Don't you think it is equally possible that somewhere along the implementation of this system, some bean-counter may have decided to cut costs in certain parts or procedures which, in isolation, seem unimportant and inconsequential, but which may have unintended and unknown repercussions in the system?
People die all the time as a result of the incompetence and negligence of others; people die also as a result of unforeseen consequences of a manufactured product, designed in good faith to function properly. Such is life.
>> "You're assuming the system safeguards would be implemented in software -- that would be an insanely poor design."
Perhaps that would be an insanely poor design, as you say, but it seems to be the currently preferred--and certainly prevailing--technique of cybernetics: build the entire control system in software, sometimes even with off-the-shelf components. This is mostly due to cost considerations: it is definitely cheaper and faster to implement in software than to custom design the hardware to perform the tasks; even though, as you say, this may not be the best design.
This new technology may not fry people as some fear, but its large-scale and long-term effects and risks may not be properly understood. A bit of scepticism and perhaps even apprehension at its wholesale acceptance and premature implementation is therefore warranted.
-dZ.
Ah, because we all know that an untested new technology that appears safe in theory must be safe in practice, since we understand every single factor that comprises or affects it. Nothing can go wrong, of course. It's not like we are still researching the effects of electromagnetic radiation on children from local power stations using technology over one-hundred years old, or anything like that.
Perhaps electricity beamed from solar powered satellites will be safe, as you imply, but I'm not ready to make that assumption for any unproven technology before the risks are better understood--or in this case, at least acknowledged. "What could possibly go wrong?" is not a valid argument, in my view.
-dZ.
But, of course, that is what he intended all along; he just didn't have the money or the time to do it "right" in 1969.
-dZ.
"I bet there are dozens of tapes that are lost because nobody knows their location but these tapes are not it."
There, fixed that for you.
-dZ.
RTFA. Or for that matter, RT-previous-FA regarding the missing tapes. They are not claiming that these tapes are high-resolution or higher quality than current TV signals. They are claiming that they are higher quality than the images broadcast 40 years ago, and replayed often since.
The reason is that forty years ago these (slow-scan, lower resolution) tapes were broadcast by pointing a television camera to a display monitor, which was itself a television set. This greatly degraded the picture; but what made it worse was that this was then recorded into videotape through kinescope, losing even more quality in the process. The resulting tapes were all we had, since nobody has been able to see the originals for the last 40 years.
-dZ.
No, these are just the "Special Edition" version of the faked moon landing tapes. It was "produced" by Lucas Films, in collaboration with NASA, and contain newly added footage and CGI-enhanced visuals.
They look great, but some have already complained that the new tapes show Buzz Aldrin touching the surface first, which completely changes the character and motivation of the scene.
-dZ.
That clause is predicated on your good faith intention of actually keeping the item until, for some reason, you decide it did not meet your expectations and so you return it. If you intention from the start was to take advantage of this clause by using the item and returning it before the deadline, you are not acting in good faith; your intent is to defraud the company.
It would have been an easy case for AT&T to make, given the guy's confession and all.
Check out "Wardrobing" or "renting":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_fraud
-dZ.
>> It's like that with every generation. My dad rode a mule to school, I had a school bus. Today's kids (some of them anyway) have air conditioning in the classrooms.
You had a school bus?! I had to wait for the district's bus to pick me up. Man, I wish I had my own school bus then. That would have been fun.
-dZ.
For a similar analysis, see The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/google_microsoft_phony_chrome_war/
-dZ.
Take a look at Mac OS X. The Finder allows you to add comments to file properties. These are then indexed by the underlying search engine (Spotlight). You can use these to add "tags" or "keywords" or whatever you want, and then search for them with those. You can even save your searches as "virtual folders" (they call it a "saved search" or something like that).
These folders are completely dynamic and updated in real-time, so adding or changing tags will cause the folders to update immediately.
But if you trully hate all manners of folders, then just don't save your searches; just search for everything whenever you want by using the handy-dandy Spotlight interface.
I personally like folders; I like things in order, and for it to be predictable and static. Perhaps I'm getting old, but that's me. However, I still find the "saved searches" convenient for many things.
-dZ.
Gawd, how I hate my state.
-dZ.
"Electronics-oriented flea market"..? Just where do you live?
-dZ.
You had schools? In my day, we had to build our own schools, out of sticks and stones (bullies were readily available).
-dZ.