As a software developer who once loathed the idea of having to code for multiple browsers, I have now accepted that there will be differences and have learned to deal with it and promise to stop whining.
You have that backwards. You shouldn't have to be writing any browser-specific code. You should be complaining when you find you have to. Just make sure that your complaints go in the right directon - at the non-standards-compliant browser. That means web standards as defined by W3C, not Microsoft.
The final probability with 5 probes is 67%, not 100%. Even with 10 probes it is only 89%.
My previous sloppy math aside, I'm guessing that 89% probability compares favorably with a NASA probe. They have had their share of failures.
Additionally, NASA wouldn't spend $1 billion for this spacecraft. It would be more likely that NASA would spend $200 to $400 million.
Would 10 of the cheapo probes cost 10*65 million to build? I'm guessing much of the cost is R&D, which you only have to do once, rather than unit production and launch cost. Say if half the $65 million were R&D, we're looking at only $357.5 million for 10 probes. This would put the 10 cheapo probe option still within the same ball park as NASA. That's the cost of an 89% success probability - It's likely that you'll be successful before you have to launch that many.
One more point: a failed probe may indicate a common design flaw. It doesn't matter how many times you add zero, you'll still get zero.
Alternatively, if you don't go for simultaneous launches, you have 9 more chances to analyse and correct the flaws and get it right. Of course, if you're in a hurry and need to nail it on that first launch window then yes, I grant you that the expensive probe may be better. But then again, the R&D period for the cheap probe will probably be much shorter and so you may be able to catch an earlier window.
Now I'm no expert, and these figures could be way out (based, as they are, on your plucked-out-of-the-air estimate of 20% success) I'm merely trying to illustrate that the cheap & cheerful approach has it's merits too. What I do know is that while the Russian space program has indeed suffered from chronic underfunding, NASA on the other hand pisses money away like a meth-addled whore. You can't necessarily make direct value comparisons between their expenditure - the Russians do get more for their money. For decades, they've proven their ability to put stuff in orbit for a fraction of NASA costs.
I give this probe a 70% probability of orbiting Mars, a 40% chance of landing and returning data, and a 20% chance of returning a sample.
Let's assume that your probabilities are correct. At 20% success rate, you'll probably need to send five probes to ensure success. At that level, these might-go-wrong $65 million probes still compare favorably to the NASA right-first-time $1 billion probe.
I seem to remember that it was a large sample over many departments in the UK, which would remove much of the bias by virtue of the sample size. I do not know if a study was done which examined the average impact factor of the publications as well. However, I do not find it very hard to believe. I know a few quite senior academics and I have heard many stories of rampant sexism behind closed doors in funding bodies.
Thanks for telling us what you "seem to remember", "do not find very hard to believe" and "have heard many stories of", but here in the world of the hard sciences we prefer cold, hard facts.
Either cite something for us to read (and debunk), or the baselessness of your wooly assertions will become obvious.
You're hardly speaking from an impartial position. Maybe you just weren't very good, and prefer to blame your failures on the "bigotry" of male "gatekeepers" than to face up to your own inadequacy.
My own (completely anecdotal and unscientific) analysis suggests that if anything, the unconscious male bias is to be softer on women.
There are multiple studies that show systemic bias against women in science. Take a paper, put a man's name on it and send it out to half the journals in your field. Send it to the other half with a woman's name on it. Guess which one gets the best reviews and the most offers to publish? If you guessed the woman's name, you got it wrong.
If you are serious about reaching a quota WITHOUT lowering your standards, go fish for candidates in countries where being a female engineer is not stigmatized
Do you mean to imply that being a female engineer is stigmatized in the US? If so, I call bullshit.
I thought the whole point of Constellation was that the shuttle sucks.
Then you thought wrong. The Shuttle Orbiter sucks for various reasons, as does the general concept of bolting your vehicle to the side rather than the top of your launch system. There was never really much wrong with the launch system itself though. The suckiest thing about it was those pesky O-rings, but they wouldn't have failed if PHBs hadn't decided to operate them out of spec, and wouldn't have resulted in tragedy but for the aforementioned side-mounting. (And were re-engineered after Challenger anyway.)
The molecular bond that holds the two hydrogen atoms to the oxygen atom is pretty weak. So weak, in fact, that a small electrical charge is able to separate them. Indeed. A small electrical charge exactly equal to the amount of energy released from burning them back to water again.
I find it interesting that you invoke your friends high status - but neglect to tell us exactly what she uses it for that so pleases her. Are we supposed to accept the OLPC is a Good Thing merely because Somebody Important uses it [for some unspecified purpose]? It's just a variation on the classic "Appeal to Authority" Logical fallacy, with the extra insult that we're not even told the identity of the "serious geek" whose opinion we're supposed to trust.
At best, it's a behavioural disadvantage, but not giving your children antibiotics didn't stop the human species from surviving to the early 20th century, so clearly it won't stop these people from surviving either. Actually, when coupled with the tendency of religious folks to breed like rabbits, it could prove to be an advantage. The genetically stronger genes will survive and predominate.
Ironically, when applied to humans, natural selection favors those who don't believe it. The elightened modern fashion for having few children and expending great resources to keep the weaklings alive is a very poor reproductive strategy from a Darwinian POV.
The GP mis-attributes a load of excrement from the bible-as-history crowd to the ID crowd, then the parent points out what a load of crap this "ID response" is.
Like most people I see criticising ID, both of you are totally fucking ignorant of what ID theory actually states.
I've heard it said that most of the processing of x86 architectures goes to breaking down complex instructions to two or three smaller instructions. That's a lot of overhead over time. You heard wrong, basically.
Right, and the religion on the right is different. Uh, no, it's even more hateful, with evangelists blaming WTC terrorism on gays or social liberalism. They also dance far to the right of reasonable in racist rhetoric, the difference being that rather than promoting some populist idea of reparations among blacks, they incite hatred of all minorities and support Bill O'Reilley's patriarchal white supremacy ideology.
Suggesting that Obama is a puppet of radical black baptist churches is as ridiculous as trying to suggest he's muslim. Er, no, it's completely different. Unlike your vague assertions about what "the right" do, this is not a case of simply trying to taint Obama with the worst excesses of extremists on his side of the political spectrum.
The facts are simple: This is a racially extremist church, and Obama chose to attend it for 20 years. He sang the praises of Jeremiah Wright before it became polically expediant to disown him. This is the equivalent to a republican candidate who had attended one of those loopy "Christian Identity" Aryan/white-power churches - something that would have course immediately ruled out a white candidate as having a racist background.
The right is working hard to do both, while being far more disgusting in their deep rimming of dirty religious assholes.
Pull your tongue out and go brush your teeth. Well, that shows the level of your argument.
The phrase "Typical X person" is not inherently bad, even when X is the color of their skin. It is perfectly valid to talk about the habits, outlook, social status, etc. of the typical example of a particular race. Where it gets offensive is when the stereotype being invoked is negative. So the color of a person's skin is a defining factor in how you expect them to behave? And that's only racist if you expect them to behave badly?
Healing racial wounds? It's a nice thought. If you believe the rhetoric that's been coming from Obama's camp, it may look plausible, At first.
Dig deeper and the situation looks rather worrying - just look at the race baiting rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright. Oh, but he's just some crazy kook at Obama's church, those aren't Obama's views. Then how come the new pastor, Michael Pfleger, came out with similar crap? Turns out this is what the church is all about - "Black Liberation Theology", a racist viewpoint that blames all modern day black problems on historical inequities, and holds whites of today responsible for the sins of their grandfathers. I'm not kidding, these people believe in racial reparations. That's really gonna heal racial wounds.
What good is it for Obama to distance himself from this church now, when for 20 years this is what he chose to go and listen to every Sunday, and what he chose for his children's upbringing? These simple facts speak volumes about the true character of the man. He will be a disaster for America.
Not your bad. Your original post implied no such thing, and Thelasko was wrong to label it "not true". His/her explanation was supplemental, not contradictory, to yours.
Secondly, there is already a free version of Ubuntu, called Gobuntu. gNewSense exists because "pure" isn't good enough for some people. Considering the fact that gNewsSense was created before Gobuntu, that's a crock of shit.
Given that technology experts in most every country where extremely vocally opposed to OOXML to begin with, I'm shocked that ONLY three or four have filed appeals. Most of the commitees that were stacked by Microsoft to approve it remain stacked when it comes to appealing.
Support of subtitles has greatly improved in development version of VLC: 0.9.0. Great! I heard 0.90 is due for public release on the same day as Duke Nukem Forever.
Let the warez kiddies have their 1TB disks then, this thing would be a perfect upgrade for my eee701. Have fun trying to put a 2.5" drive into an eee701.
I would argue that the following is pretty much known:
a)We emit a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere b)If we continue to do so this it will cause significant warming of the planet c)It will likely be a lot easier to reduce emissions that to adapt to changes they could cause a) Define "a lot". What we emit is certainly "a lot" in terms that a human being can easily visualise, but is it "a lot" in relation to the overall amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and their effect on temperature? b) This is not agreed, it is the essence of the debate. c) This hangs on the assumption made in point b.
The way you chose these "pretty much known" points indicates that your mind is completely made up and you sit firmly in the doomsayer camp. You're merely trying to masquerade as moderate to place your agenda as the "middle ground".
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As a software developer who once loathed the idea of having to code for multiple browsers, I have now accepted that there will be differences and have learned to deal with it and promise to stop whining.
You have that backwards. You shouldn't have to be writing any browser-specific code. You should be complaining when you find you have to. Just make sure that your complaints go in the right directon - at the non-standards-compliant browser. That means web standards as defined by W3C, not Microsoft.
The final probability with 5 probes is 67%, not 100%. Even with 10 probes it is only 89%.
My previous sloppy math aside, I'm guessing that 89% probability compares favorably with a NASA probe. They have had their share of failures.
Additionally, NASA wouldn't spend $1 billion for this spacecraft. It would be more likely that NASA would spend $200 to $400 million.
Would 10 of the cheapo probes cost 10*65 million to build? I'm guessing much of the cost is R&D, which you only have to do once, rather than unit production and launch cost. Say if half the $65 million were R&D, we're looking at only $357.5 million for 10 probes. This would put the 10 cheapo probe option still within the same ball park as NASA. That's the cost of an 89% success probability - It's likely that you'll be successful before you have to launch that many.
One more point: a failed probe may indicate a common design flaw. It doesn't matter how many times you add zero, you'll still get zero.
Alternatively, if you don't go for simultaneous launches, you have 9 more chances to analyse and correct the flaws and get it right. Of course, if you're in a hurry and need to nail it on that first launch window then yes, I grant you that the expensive probe may be better. But then again, the R&D period for the cheap probe will probably be much shorter and so you may be able to catch an earlier window.
Now I'm no expert, and these figures could be way out (based, as they are, on your plucked-out-of-the-air estimate of 20% success) I'm merely trying to illustrate that the cheap & cheerful approach has it's merits too. What I do know is that while the Russian space program has indeed suffered from chronic underfunding, NASA on the other hand pisses money away like a meth-addled whore. You can't necessarily make direct value comparisons between their expenditure - the Russians do get more for their money. For decades, they've proven their ability to put stuff in orbit for a fraction of NASA costs.
I give this probe a 70% probability of orbiting Mars, a 40% chance of landing and returning data, and a 20% chance of returning a sample.
Let's assume that your probabilities are correct. At 20% success rate, you'll probably need to send five probes to ensure success. At that level, these might-go-wrong $65 million probes still compare favorably to the NASA right-first-time $1 billion probe.
I seem to remember that it was a large sample over many departments in the UK, which would remove much of the bias by virtue of the sample size. I do not know if a study was done which examined the average impact factor of the publications as well. However, I do not find it very hard to believe. I know a few quite senior academics and I have heard many stories of rampant sexism behind closed doors in funding bodies.
Thanks for telling us what you "seem to remember", "do not find very hard to believe" and "have heard many stories of", but here in the world of the hard sciences we prefer cold, hard facts.
Either cite something for us to read (and debunk), or the baselessness of your wooly assertions will become obvious.
You're hardly speaking from an impartial position. Maybe you just weren't very good, and prefer to blame your failures on the "bigotry" of male "gatekeepers" than to face up to your own inadequacy.
My own (completely anecdotal and unscientific) analysis suggests that if anything, the unconscious male bias is to be softer on women.
There are multiple studies that show systemic bias against women in science. Take a paper, put a man's name on it and send it out to half the journals in your field. Send it to the other half with a woman's name on it. Guess which one gets the best reviews and the most offers to publish? If you guessed the woman's name, you got it wrong.
Citation needed.
If you are serious about reaching a quota WITHOUT lowering your standards, go fish for candidates in countries where being a female engineer is not stigmatized
Do you mean to imply that being a female engineer is stigmatized in the US? If so, I call bullshit.
I thought the whole point of Constellation was that the shuttle sucks.
Then you thought wrong. The Shuttle Orbiter sucks for various reasons, as does the general concept of bolting your vehicle to the side rather than the top of your launch system. There was never really much wrong with the launch system itself though. The suckiest thing about it was those pesky O-rings, but they wouldn't have failed if PHBs hadn't decided to operate them out of spec, and wouldn't have resulted in tragedy but for the aforementioned side-mounting. (And were re-engineered after Challenger anyway.)
I think you're projecting. GP didn't mention anything about falling for such girls. I read it to mean that he was tired of listening to their shit.
Ironically, when applied to humans, natural selection favors those who don't believe it. The elightened modern fashion for having few children and expending great resources to keep the weaklings alive is a very poor reproductive strategy from a Darwinian POV.
The GP mis-attributes a load of excrement from the bible-as-history crowd to the ID crowd, then the parent points out what a load of crap this "ID response" is.
Like most people I see criticising ID, both of you are totally fucking ignorant of what ID theory actually states.
That's not the "Intelligent Design crowd". Those are young-earth creationists who believe Genesis is an actual historical account.
Suggesting that Obama is a puppet of radical black baptist churches is as ridiculous as trying to suggest he's muslim. Er, no, it's completely different. Unlike your vague assertions about what "the right" do, this is not a case of simply trying to taint Obama with the worst excesses of extremists on his side of the political spectrum.
The facts are simple: This is a racially extremist church, and Obama chose to attend it for 20 years. He sang the praises of Jeremiah Wright before it became polically expediant to disown him. This is the equivalent to a republican candidate who had attended one of those loopy "Christian Identity" Aryan/white-power churches - something that would have course immediately ruled out a white candidate as having a racist background.
The right is working hard to do both, while being far more disgusting in their deep rimming of dirty religious assholes.
Pull your tongue out and go brush your teeth. Well, that shows the level of your argument.
Healing racial wounds? It's a nice thought. If you believe the rhetoric that's been coming from Obama's camp, it may look plausible, At first.
Dig deeper and the situation looks rather worrying - just look at the race baiting rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright. Oh, but he's just some crazy kook at Obama's church, those aren't Obama's views. Then how come the new pastor, Michael Pfleger, came out with similar crap? Turns out this is what the church is all about - "Black Liberation Theology", a racist viewpoint that blames all modern day black problems on historical inequities, and holds whites of today responsible for the sins of their grandfathers. I'm not kidding, these people believe in racial reparations. That's really gonna heal racial wounds.
What good is it for Obama to distance himself from this church now, when for 20 years this is what he chose to go and listen to every Sunday, and what he chose for his children's upbringing? These simple facts speak volumes about the true character of the man. He will be a disaster for America.
Not your bad. Your original post implied no such thing, and Thelasko was wrong to label it "not true". His/her explanation was supplemental, not contradictory, to yours.
a)We emit a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
b)If we continue to do so this it will cause significant warming of the planet
c)It will likely be a lot easier to reduce emissions that to adapt to changes they could cause a) Define "a lot". What we emit is certainly "a lot" in terms that a human being can easily visualise, but is it "a lot" in relation to the overall amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and their effect on temperature?
b) This is not agreed, it is the essence of the debate.
c) This hangs on the assumption made in point b.
The way you chose these "pretty much known" points indicates that your mind is completely made up and you sit firmly in the doomsayer camp. You're merely trying to masquerade as moderate to place your agenda as the "middle ground".