When your tax rates get so high you're starting to cause your most productive workers to leave the country?
That's a red herring and you know it. The fact is, the absolute tax rate matters not a whit. What matters is America's relative tax rate as compared with the rest of the industrialized world. And, as far as I can tell, America still has the lowest overall tax rates in the West.
If I'm a worker, and I think America's tax rates are too much, where am I going to emigrate to?
Illegal downloading (i.e. abuse of the internet for the benefit of a selfish minority) is causing laws to be introduced which affect us all.
What the hell?! Internet downloading is not causing anything. I mean, its not even clear that its causing a loss of revenue for the RIAA, given that there have been studies that show that heavy downloaders are also more likely to purchase CDs than the average consumer. No, the only thing that's causing these draconian laws is the fact that Congress is in the RIAA's pocket.
The basic problem is greed. Not by the industry, but by those who want the listen to music or watch a film but do not want to pay for that privilege.
No, the basic problem is that the RIAA is pursuing a business model that was outdated in 1970, and is able and willing to use Congress to earn what is effectively a government subsidy.
In your world, I'd have to sit under a rock with earplugs on to avoid all the RIAA/MPAA crap that's out there. That's not a realistic alternative.
Lets be clear here. The RIAA is the aggressor and the consumer is the victim. By placing the onus of defense on the consumer, you're putting the blame on the victim. Saying, "You justified their actions by downloading from PirateBay," is like saying, "You invited that rape by dressing seductively."
As another poster said, we already tried that. What happened was that the RIAA blamed its declining revenues on "Internet Piracy" and forced ever more draconian laws through Congress to increase its powers to collect.
Boycotts only work when the target doesn't have control of the government.
Much like with Hitler, there was no trial required to decide he was evil (and as far as I know there was never a trial that found him guilty for the things that made him evil....).
There was no trial for Hitler because he committed suicide before the Allies could get to him. If he had not committed suicide, I'm sure he would have been tried at Nuremberg, just like all of his top henchmen (Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, etc.).
Leaving the specific circumstances aside, I still find it disturbing for any one person to make absolute judgments abouts good and evil. It implies a level of omniscience only available to a god.
Yeah, except that society doesn't generally take too kindly to individuals deciding innocence or guilt by themselves. Vigilantism isn't to be tolerated, whether its on your part or Lori Drew's.
While I agree that a certain amount of enthusiasm is necessary for a grand undertaking such as this, it is entirely too easy for a manager to be too enthusiastic, ignoring or minimizing serious issues for the sake of maintaining forward progress.
James R. Chiles, in his book Inviting Disaster spends an entire chapter ("Doubtless") on this. He shows time and again how overconfident managers willingly blinded themselves to serious flaws in their programs, and were then surprised when those same flaws came to endanger human life and property.
If I was an investor in SpaceX, I would be asking some very hard questions right now. I would certainly not be accepting Musk's characterization of this issue as a "quirk" or "small problem". SpaceX has had three real launches, in addition to innumerable hours of simulator and modeling time. Why was a serious issue like this not caught earlier? What other mission ending issues are there with the rocket? How confident are the working engineers' answers to the above two questions?
SpaceX is not NASA. They don't have the luxury of an unlimited budget and governmental mandate. As such, their margin for error is correspondingly slimmer, and the board's tolerance for daredevilry should be correspondingly lower.
What type of sick world do you live in where befriending someone you know is emotionally vulnerable for the express purpose of degrading and humiliating them does not classify as tormenting or cruel?
First, welcome to the Internet. We have trolls here. You should look out for them.
Second, can we really prove that Lori Drew knew this kid was "emotionally vulnerable?" Did she know that her target had been medically diagnosed with depression?
Finally, should we really be enshrining political correctness in law?
Its tragic that this kid killed herself. However, it still remains that the responsibility for her suicide belonged to her and her alone. Calling Lori Drew's antics the cause of the suicide is like calling violent video games the cause of homicide. Its wrong, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent.
Well, at one point, even disclosures to the government (without a warrant or court subpoena, of course) were illegal. However, these days, given the increasing prevalence of things like National Security Letters, who can say?
At the very least, laws give you a form of recourse when the organization you have trusted your data to loses it or gives it away. In fact, the only reason we even know about a lot of these data breaches is because state and federal privacy laws have made it mandatory for companies to report possible breaches of data to the public.
Again, contrast this with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or most other e-mail providers. If they suffered a breach that caused loss of security, they're under no obligation at all to tell you, much less take corrective action.
There's a huge difference. In the case of the bank, I can sue (or even call the police in some cases) if the bank gives away my data in violation of their privacy policy. In the case of Google, I have no recourse.
The bank does have all that information. However, the bank is also covered by federal and state privacy laws that prohibit it from disclosing that information to third parties. Many of these online companies, on the other hand, base their entire business model around disclosing the data that you provide them to affiliates.
Banks are companies, as are brokerages. If you bought a house, there is a stunning amount of personal data stored with your realtor and title agency. Schools contain your entire academic record. Hell, the big 3 credit agencies have records that are very easy to access.
All of these institutions are covered by privacy laws. Example, my school cannot just give my academic record away to anyone that pays. The person asking must either be an employee of the state Department of Education, or a third party that I or my parents have given explicit permission to. Banks, realtors, brokerages, are covered by even stricter laws.
Contrast this with the situation regarding Google, Facebook, et. al. There are no laws covering your personal e-mail. There's no privacy (implied or otherwise) on your Facebook page. If there were, I'm sure that many more of us would be comfortable using these services.
You obviously don't remember the days of Xterms running over 10baseT from a Sun server. Fully graphical workstations playing xtank and so on remotely on less bandwidth than high speed wireless.
You do realize that even 10BaseT is faster than most cable modems in the US, right? In fact, the situation is even worse than you'd expect, seeing as how most Internet connections in the US are set up to give downloads more throughput than uploads. A heavyweight application like Office would require a much more symmetric connection than users have today.
Cites are not required for independently verifiable claims.
What on earth do you mean? Of course citations are needed. Without citation, claims are just that: claims, hearsay, anecdote. Its citation and accountability that makes claims usable as evidence.
This is the difference between faith and science. If you give someone information that they can independently verify, and they base their belief on the results of their independent results, that's science (even if they are wrong, it's still application of the scientific method). If you ask someone to believe something based on the idea that a person who says it is trustworthy, that's faith (although not necessarily religious faith).
That's not the case at all. Providing citation makes it easier for me to falsify your claims, because I can go to the original source and see whether it actually supports your claim or not. I can find other sources that try to contradict that original source. Without citation, I have to start from scratch in trying to falsify your evidence.
There's a reason peer-reviewed journals don't accept papers without citation.
Safety critical systems are modeled all the time, usually by finite state machines. The software engineering academic community has an extensive body of literature about the advantages and limits of trying to represent software with formal models.
Indeed there are languages (like VDMSL and Zed) that were created especially to model software systems, with an eye towards being able to mathematically prove certain properties (like ensuring that a variable never goes beyond certain bounds).
Actually, in a dense metropolis like Manhattan, you're better off building subways or elevated rail systems (like in Chicago). Buses tend to create as much congestion as they remove, as cars will quickly stack up behind a slow moving bus.
None of them suck at math. But that's not the OP's point. A game developer can get away with not knowing about texture models and normal maps because the people at Unreal have done the hard work already. A person who writes Excel scripts for an accounting division can be forgiven for forgetting how to optimally calculate a standard deviation, because the folks have Microsoft has taken care of it.
The OP is not implying that programmers are incompetent at math. He is implying that programmers are able to get away with ignoring the mathematics because the computer scientists that came before them built abstractions.
As for whether Computer Scientists are better at math than programmers, my response is that the average computer scientist is probably better at math than the average programmer, for the simple reason that the average computer scientist has more practice. Its like asking, "Who's better at tennis, the average member of the USTA or the average member of the general public?"
There are innumerable things in mathematics that have no "clean" description. Look at differential equations, for example. The vast majority of all differential equations used have no close form solution - the only way to make use of them is with numerics (like Euler's method).
Inductive reasoning works up from specific example to general properties. The development of the law of gravitation is a classic example. Tycho Brahe took many detailed observations of stars, planets and other celestial bodies. From these, Kepler derived general principles of planetary motion. Newton took Kepler's laws and generalized them one step further, showing that the same principle could explain both the fall of an apple and the orbit of planets. Finally, Einstein (with General Relativity) showed that other phenomena could be attributable to gravity as well (such as light distortions). All throughout, the trend has been from specific to general, starting with individual observations, working up to general principle. Note that at no point is the general principle assumed to be correct. If there are observations that contradict the general principle it is presumed that the general principle needs to be modified, not the observation.
Now contrast this with deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning starts with the general principles (a small set of highly general axioms) and applies them to generate individual proofs. If at any point one of the axioms is violated, it is the proof, not the axiom that is incorrect. Descartes was a master of deductive reasoning, showing how even complex mathematical proofs could be built up by applying a small set of axioms (initial assumptions).
Strangely enough, an inductive proof is a form of deductive reasoning, which is why its taught in math class and not in science class.
Well, that's arguable, though. While its true that the physical manifestation of von Neumann model (i.e. the modern CPU) requires physics, its equally true that the model started out as a mathematical construct, and the physical parts were built to realize the model.
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When your tax rates get so high you're starting to cause your most productive workers to leave the country?
That's a red herring and you know it. The fact is, the absolute tax rate matters not a whit. What matters is America's relative tax rate as compared with the rest of the industrialized world. And, as far as I can tell, America still has the lowest overall tax rates in the West.
If I'm a worker, and I think America's tax rates are too much, where am I going to emigrate to?
Illegal downloading (i.e. abuse of the internet for the benefit of a selfish minority) is causing laws to be introduced which affect us all.
What the hell?! Internet downloading is not causing anything. I mean, its not even clear that its causing a loss of revenue for the RIAA, given that there have been studies that show that heavy downloaders are also more likely to purchase CDs than the average consumer. No, the only thing that's causing these draconian laws is the fact that Congress is in the RIAA's pocket.
The basic problem is greed. Not by the industry, but by those who want the listen to music or watch a film but do not want to pay for that privilege.
No, the basic problem is that the RIAA is pursuing a business model that was outdated in 1970, and is able and willing to use Congress to earn what is effectively a government subsidy.
In your world, I'd have to sit under a rock with earplugs on to avoid all the RIAA/MPAA crap that's out there. That's not a realistic alternative.
Lets be clear here. The RIAA is the aggressor and the consumer is the victim. By placing the onus of defense on the consumer, you're putting the blame on the victim. Saying, "You justified their actions by downloading from PirateBay," is like saying, "You invited that rape by dressing seductively."
As another poster said, we already tried that. What happened was that the RIAA blamed its declining revenues on "Internet Piracy" and forced ever more draconian laws through Congress to increase its powers to collect.
Boycotts only work when the target doesn't have control of the government.
While I fully agree that boycotting doesn't work, it must be noted that proprietary file formats and protocols are often patent encumbered.
Much like with Hitler, there was no trial required to decide he was evil (and as far as I know there was never a trial that found him guilty for the things that made him evil ....).
There was no trial for Hitler because he committed suicide before the Allies could get to him. If he had not committed suicide, I'm sure he would have been tried at Nuremberg, just like all of his top henchmen (Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, etc.).
Leaving the specific circumstances aside, I still find it disturbing for any one person to make absolute judgments abouts good and evil. It implies a level of omniscience only available to a god.
That raises even more questions, then. Why were you changing a fundamental component of a production system?
Yeah, except that society doesn't generally take too kindly to individuals deciding innocence or guilt by themselves. Vigilantism isn't to be tolerated, whether its on your part or Lori Drew's.
No matter how long you humans have been using tricks to reproduce, we virii have been doing it for much longer.
--Influenza
While I agree that a certain amount of enthusiasm is necessary for a grand undertaking such as this, it is entirely too easy for a manager to be too enthusiastic, ignoring or minimizing serious issues for the sake of maintaining forward progress.
James R. Chiles, in his book Inviting Disaster spends an entire chapter ("Doubtless") on this. He shows time and again how overconfident managers willingly blinded themselves to serious flaws in their programs, and were then surprised when those same flaws came to endanger human life and property.
If I was an investor in SpaceX, I would be asking some very hard questions right now. I would certainly not be accepting Musk's characterization of this issue as a "quirk" or "small problem". SpaceX has had three real launches, in addition to innumerable hours of simulator and modeling time. Why was a serious issue like this not caught earlier? What other mission ending issues are there with the rocket? How confident are the working engineers' answers to the above two questions?
SpaceX is not NASA. They don't have the luxury of an unlimited budget and governmental mandate. As such, their margin for error is correspondingly slimmer, and the board's tolerance for daredevilry should be correspondingly lower.
What type of sick world do you live in where befriending someone you know is emotionally vulnerable for the express purpose of degrading and humiliating them does not classify as tormenting or cruel?
First, welcome to the Internet. We have trolls here. You should look out for them.
Second, can we really prove that Lori Drew knew this kid was "emotionally vulnerable?" Did she know that her target had been medically diagnosed with depression?
Finally, should we really be enshrining political correctness in law?
Its tragic that this kid killed herself. However, it still remains that the responsibility for her suicide belonged to her and her alone. Calling Lori Drew's antics the cause of the suicide is like calling violent video games the cause of homicide. Its wrong, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent.
Even if that third party is the government?
Well, at one point, even disclosures to the government (without a warrant or court subpoena, of course) were illegal. However, these days, given the increasing prevalence of things like National Security Letters, who can say?
At the very least, laws give you a form of recourse when the organization you have trusted your data to loses it or gives it away. In fact, the only reason we even know about a lot of these data breaches is because state and federal privacy laws have made it mandatory for companies to report possible breaches of data to the public.
Again, contrast this with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, or most other e-mail providers. If they suffered a breach that caused loss of security, they're under no obligation at all to tell you, much less take corrective action.
There's a huge difference. In the case of the bank, I can sue (or even call the police in some cases) if the bank gives away my data in violation of their privacy policy. In the case of Google, I have no recourse.
The bank does have all that information. However, the bank is also covered by federal and state privacy laws that prohibit it from disclosing that information to third parties. Many of these online companies, on the other hand, base their entire business model around disclosing the data that you provide them to affiliates.
Banks are companies, as are brokerages. If you bought a house, there is a stunning amount of personal data stored with your realtor and title agency. Schools contain your entire academic record. Hell, the big 3 credit agencies have records that are very easy to access.
All of these institutions are covered by privacy laws. Example, my school cannot just give my academic record away to anyone that pays. The person asking must either be an employee of the state Department of Education, or a third party that I or my parents have given explicit permission to. Banks, realtors, brokerages, are covered by even stricter laws.
Contrast this with the situation regarding Google, Facebook, et. al. There are no laws covering your personal e-mail. There's no privacy (implied or otherwise) on your Facebook page. If there were, I'm sure that many more of us would be comfortable using these services.
You obviously don't remember the days of Xterms running over 10baseT from a Sun server. Fully graphical workstations playing xtank and so on remotely on less bandwidth than high speed wireless.
You do realize that even 10BaseT is faster than most cable modems in the US, right? In fact, the situation is even worse than you'd expect, seeing as how most Internet connections in the US are set up to give downloads more throughput than uploads. A heavyweight application like Office would require a much more symmetric connection than users have today.
Cites are not required for independently verifiable claims.
What on earth do you mean? Of course citations are needed. Without citation, claims are just that: claims, hearsay, anecdote. Its citation and accountability that makes claims usable as evidence.
This is the difference between faith and science. If you give someone information that they can independently verify, and they base their belief on the results of their independent results, that's science (even if they are wrong, it's still application of the scientific method). If you ask someone to believe something based on the idea that a person who says it is trustworthy, that's faith (although not necessarily religious faith).
That's not the case at all. Providing citation makes it easier for me to falsify your claims, because I can go to the original source and see whether it actually supports your claim or not. I can find other sources that try to contradict that original source. Without citation, I have to start from scratch in trying to falsify your evidence.
There's a reason peer-reviewed journals don't accept papers without citation.
Safety critical systems are modeled all the time, usually by finite state machines. The software engineering academic community has an extensive body of literature about the advantages and limits of trying to represent software with formal models.
Indeed there are languages (like VDMSL and Zed) that were created especially to model software systems, with an eye towards being able to mathematically prove certain properties (like ensuring that a variable never goes beyond certain bounds).
You're projecting. "Everybody" != Apple "users".
When "Apple users" is the group you're trying to influence, they are everybody.
Actually, in a dense metropolis like Manhattan, you're better off building subways or elevated rail systems (like in Chicago). Buses tend to create as much congestion as they remove, as cars will quickly stack up behind a slow moving bus.
None of them suck at math. But that's not the OP's point. A game developer can get away with not knowing about texture models and normal maps because the people at Unreal have done the hard work already. A person who writes Excel scripts for an accounting division can be forgiven for forgetting how to optimally calculate a standard deviation, because the folks have Microsoft has taken care of it.
The OP is not implying that programmers are incompetent at math. He is implying that programmers are able to get away with ignoring the mathematics because the computer scientists that came before them built abstractions.
As for whether Computer Scientists are better at math than programmers, my response is that the average computer scientist is probably better at math than the average programmer, for the simple reason that the average computer scientist has more practice. Its like asking, "Who's better at tennis, the average member of the USTA or the average member of the general public?"
There are innumerable things in mathematics that have no "clean" description. Look at differential equations, for example. The vast majority of all differential equations used have no close form solution - the only way to make use of them is with numerics (like Euler's method).
Inductive reasoning != inductive proof.
Inductive reasoning works up from specific example to general properties. The development of the law of gravitation is a classic example. Tycho Brahe took many detailed observations of stars, planets and other celestial bodies. From these, Kepler derived general principles of planetary motion. Newton took Kepler's laws and generalized them one step further, showing that the same principle could explain both the fall of an apple and the orbit of planets. Finally, Einstein (with General Relativity) showed that other phenomena could be attributable to gravity as well (such as light distortions). All throughout, the trend has been from specific to general, starting with individual observations, working up to general principle. Note that at no point is the general principle assumed to be correct. If there are observations that contradict the general principle it is presumed that the general principle needs to be modified, not the observation.
Now contrast this with deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning starts with the general principles (a small set of highly general axioms) and applies them to generate individual proofs. If at any point one of the axioms is violated, it is the proof, not the axiom that is incorrect. Descartes was a master of deductive reasoning, showing how even complex mathematical proofs could be built up by applying a small set of axioms (initial assumptions).
Strangely enough, an inductive proof is a form of deductive reasoning, which is why its taught in math class and not in science class.
Well, that's arguable, though. While its true that the physical manifestation of von Neumann model (i.e. the modern CPU) requires physics, its equally true that the model started out as a mathematical construct, and the physical parts were built to realize the model.