"Although my original statement wasn't too accurate, any properly-understanding (not your case right?) person with a basic knowledge (neither) should be able to get my intention right. Logically, the associated mass has lots to say there. I meant under equivalent conditions: same mass via fusion requiring a much higher temperature would generated much more energy/heat than the same mass under the conventional 100 temperatures."
Which, again, shows how really, really, really far from your comfort zone you are. You don't even know what's in your sentence above so ludicrous, right?
Hint: your "conventional 100 temperatures" are managing a chemical reaction; fusion is a nuclear reaction. Now: how does this affect the involved masses' magnitudes? In case you still don't get it: Hiroshima atomic bomb involved the transformation of about 1 gram of matter; the equivalent TNT bomb would have involved about 10.000.000.000.000 grams of explosive. There is no "given the same mass..." involved here and, so, "temperature being so high that it can't be confined because it would melt everything around" is *not* the problem. The problem is, quite on the contrary, "mass being so low, the difficult part is for the mass not to immediately cold back, much before it has the chance to start a fusion reaction, by sharing its minuscle amount of heat to its sorroundings" just like introducing a red hot metal into the sea is not going to be a problem for the sea because the metal is so hot but to the metal which will cold back immediately because the sea is so big.
"Are you saying that the heat generated by millions of degree temperature is the same than the one generated by about 100 degree?! Evidently, they are not."
Evidently they are simply non comparable. The heat stored on sea is orders upon orders of magnitude bigger than that of a burning match despite its much lower temperature so, your point is?
"The heat (= energy) generated by a plasma at millions of degrees is much higher than what would be generated by the heat source of a conventional power plant (around 100 degrees);"
That's so obviously false it hurts. I can produce plasma in my backyard using, say, a Fansworth fusor but you can bet I can't produce a Terawatt by boiling water as lots of power plants can.
"Nobody knows the electricity/electrical power that a fusion reaction might generate because nobody has ever created such a thing"
Sorry, man, but after reading some of your messages on this thread and despite you not being conscious of it, you are talking about things that are miles above your head.
"Here's a way to get better estimates: Instead of asking Bob "How long will it take for you to complete this?", ask Fred "How long will it take Bob to complete this?". By asking a 3rd party, you take away the hubris factor."
That *is* exactly how it's done, which is proof it doesn't work either.
Usually the estimate doesn't come from asking Bob how long it will take to him, but some third party (a sales manager, Bob's technical manager...).
"1) The overwhelming majority of the time, the programmer is not in control of key aspects of the development process, all of which cause bugs. Examples include determining the deadlines (rushed code = buggy code), determining the required hours (overworked programmer = buggy code), determining the right amount of QA resources (too little investment in QA = buggy code), and enforcing requirement stability (changing requirements during development = buggy code)."
And that's they lie developers tell to themselves that executives love the most: that somebody setting a deadline somehow makes it a law in stone. You promised it for tomorrow? You code it, or else, it'll be done when it's done, and not a minute earlier.
"a simple rsync job offers an actual offsite backup"
You don't understand what a back up is.
Hint: if it is not fully decoupled from the original source (as in "air gap") is not a backup. So an off-site rsync is not a backup; an off-site rsync and tarring the result from time to time to an external device, *may* be a backup.
You are probably in the league of those that think RAID5 is also a backup strategy ("sure, not always, not perfect, but in some simple cases...").
"Only recently has the 'malicious modification of files' rocketed to the top of the list"
The "my dog ate my homework aka I mistakenly deleted a file can you recover it?" has *always* been the number one cause of checking out a restore, closely followed by "damn! all our boxes are infected by a virus/our main server has BSOD'ed, let's reinstall and recover from backups" in windows-land. Ransomware is -alike those "evolution clocks", a 23:59:59 event.
"This is among the least expensive in terms of storage and in terms of time."
No, it isn't. In terms of time is much quicker to backup to/dev/null, and even backups to/dev/null get surpassed both in time and storage by not doing backup at all.
And, in this case, it seems they offer exactly the same result so, why don't they make it clear -and cheaper, what are they really acomplishing?
"On the other hand, having a few people involved like Musk are very sane and wealthy enough that Trump will listen to them"
It might be the case.
However, the article states "Musk is betting that job creation is more important to the new President than simply satisfying the oil industry". There has been quite a lot of fanfare about the "Trump's tycoons council" but, nothing abut representatives of the other side, you know, the labour mass. Why is it so? I mean, while job creation is surely important, the quality of that job is also important: USA had a civil war on labour issues, after all.
"Science-based beliefs are the new bible. One is either a Darwinist [...] There is no longer room for discussion or dissent."
About species evolution by means of natural selection? No, certainly there's no longer room for discussion or dissent. Just like it's the case about thermodynamics or, say, special relativity. No, ignoramus douchebags' rants don't count.
"the only way to combat it is by some incorruptible authority guarding against it with an eagle eye, and taking relentless vengeance against it when it does occur."
Exactly. The only problem being that such an "incorruptible authority" neither exists nor can exist, therefore we need a different system, one that understands that corruption is part of human nature and doesn't requires a subset of humans in specific positions to be incorruptible to work.
"Ideally, democracy would be the mediating factor, ensuring that government limited capitalism to the extent that such limits benefited the majority of people, resisting both the tyranny of government and the tyranny of monopoly capitalism and oligarchy"
But then, specially from Goebbels onwards, we have marketing. "Pure" capitalism/liberalism sits on three basic assumptions in order to work: 1) Hobbes' "man is wolf to man". Any political system we want to design need to take this into account or will fail. And this capitalism seems to be quite spot on or else basically anything would be better than capitalistic democracies, be it communism or anarchism or even dictatorship. 2) Agents within the system act (on their own selfishness, see point above) rationally and are perfectly informed. Here start the problems. While "people" are more or less the way we have always been, marketing as a science has successfully evolved with the explicit goal of understanding and manipulating people for a particular gain and now can quite effectively make masses to act irrationally and on biased information. 3) Despite point one, capitalism expects that those in command are somehow different in that both they are incorruptible and what they have (power) is not to be put in the marketplace just like anything else. And that's what is utterly wrong. USA's founding fathers more or less saw this, therefore the "checks and balances" trying to make their corruptibility as ineffective as possible but it becomes obvious they came sadly short.
So, in the end, capitalism/liberalism as a socio-political system has shown itself to be better fitted for the advancement of society to what we, humans, really are than other theoretical frameworks but it's still too short to cope with the task: "better fitted" still doesn't equates to "good enough". The faster we understand this, the sooner we can start looking for better alternatives.
"Umm, it's NOT "unfettered capitalism" if you can buy governments."
Yeah... because you say so. Any system goes the way it goes even if you try to put unreasonable limits to it. Capitalism is rightly based on the observed fact that we all are egotistic and takes that to the advantage of the common good (let's allow everyone to work for their own egotistic profit and the invisible hand will make that into the advancement of society as a whole). But then, you go with "hey! but this system we already understood as being composed of egotistic and corruptible individuals will only work if a subset of them, those making the rules, are *not* egotistic and corruptible". Surprise, surprise, those in command are moved by the same interests and profit motives as anyone else.
"the kind of government you can buy monopolies and such from is strong enough that capitalism is pretty much automatically fettered by the government."
And then remember that when the government is not strong enough for that, power ends up concentrating in other individuals/organizations that make their strength to be the rule of the land -go, i.e. to Somalia to see how well the "not strong enough government" works.
"So what you're describing as "unfettered capitalism" is actually "corrupt government" pointing fingers away from themselves..."
No: just the natural and unavoidable evolution of capitalism to its last consequences.
Yes, you are right. English is not my mother language and I made that mistake. Sorry.
"And neither capitalism nor communism is what corruption comes from. Corruption comes from human nature"
Yes, that's true. But, supposedly, "ideal" capitalism works *because* it takes into account that fact: it based on the notion that somehow, individual selfishness can be made to work for the common good.
"the only way to combat it is by some incorruptible authority guarding against it with an eagle eye"
Exactly that: the "ideal" free market (more or less the Adam Smith way) hits the bull eye in the "hey! let's take into account that man is wolf to man, so let's see what can we do with that" but then it commits the stupid mistake of forgetting that and setting the system in a way that, well, everybody is corruptible and egotistic *but* those making the rules: you can buy this and that at "its market value" except politicians. Ha!
"Right now the US has a huge crony capitalism problem"
Back in the tycoon days you had basically unfettered capitalism. Because of that, big tycoons were able to set their way even to buy government -and that's how you got today's "crony capitalism problem".
Now: is there a way unfettered capitalism doesn't evolution into crony capitalism? I don't think so.
"Yes, I get what you're trying to say, but it's a philosophical point only, which is another way of saying it's no bloody point at all."
It's philosophical only since it obviously is a mind experiment, but it wouldn't be philosophical at all for the astronauts: for the first one the Earth would expend millions and the astronaut would survive; the second one would die alone (without costing a dime) and the difference between both cases would certainly be our knowledge of (special) relativity and what "when" means within its frame.
Yes: it is "philosophical" what happens out of the light cone of an event; no, it doesn't mean we can't make meaningful assertions about events at relativistic distances/speeds.
"Anyway, adding a radio into the mix is pure fluff, and so is the notion of precision. Neither say anything about when it is meaningful to say "Z happened" according to any particular "reference frame.""
So, say, the astronaut is at Mars and suddenly he says to himself "Damn! I have food for only four (earth) years and I'll starve after that" and then he immediately presses the big red button that will summon the cavalry to the rescue back from Earth.
Now, on the other hand, our hero is on a planet orbiting Alfa Centaury when the same situation happens.
Now, tell me again there's anything meaningful to say about when "Z happened" for both scenarios from Earth's particular reference frame.
"Move far enough from earth and you can follow WW2 radio traffic live and relive Hiroshiima as if you were there.."
Except, of course, you can't.
Which is exactly the point.
On top of that, I can ASSURE you that no, an hypothetical observer far enough to still knowing nothing about Hiroshima won't experience it as the unlucky ones that were in fact there.
"If they would come up with solid math taking into consideration the projected indirect effects on future sales and brand, then maybe I'd give them a pass."
I, of course, see your point, but playing devil's advocate, see what you do: you ask for a financial analysis (that you yourself accepted to be very difficult to do, if not impossible) on a non-expenditure while you don't ask for it on an expenditure. Does it even make sense?
I mean, you didn't ask for an investment analysis on security (adding controls, procedures and products) and still you ask for "solid math" on "doing nothing"?
And then, an important part of executive board's job is taking strategic decisions that are not fully backed by data but gut feelings -or else, the best CEO would be a junior accountant!
"This is a perfect example of management having their heads up their asses."
Yes, it probably is.
"As someone from a management background education-wise I believe this is incredibly incompetent leadership"
Humm... but not so sure about that.
On one hand, from a purely business PoV, maybe having their proverbial IT asses wide open has been a net positive given what they have saved all this time in both direct and indirect costs and also costs of opportunity. What if I lose 100000$ to a hacker if all this time I haven't been hacked I save 1M$? Security costs -a lot, and its cost is from money of today, while loses are money of tomorrow. You say you have management background... what do they say? a buck today is worth more than a hundred tomorrow, or something?
On the other, from a psychological one, you may think they are there for the money when most of them are mostly to feel the powah! Micromanaging, feeling over their "minions" and, in fact, being able to make a mess and still get away with it is *exactly* the kind of leadership they want to push over... why do you think this manager is on good friendship with the company owner but because they both are birds of a feather?
What you think the legal definition of a contractor given USA laws has nothing to do with whatever the UK definition is -which is relevant since this is about a UK case.
"Uber drivers are contractors."
Sure. That's why Uber lost the case and the tribunal told they are *not* contractors. So much for you comprehension of what "legal" means.
Slashdot Mirror
"Although my original statement wasn't too accurate, any properly-understanding (not your case right?) person with a basic knowledge (neither) should be able to get my intention right. Logically, the associated mass has lots to say there. I meant under equivalent conditions: same mass via fusion requiring a much higher temperature would generated much more energy/heat than the same mass under the conventional 100 temperatures."
Which, again, shows how really, really, really far from your comfort zone you are. You don't even know what's in your sentence above so ludicrous, right?
Hint: your "conventional 100 temperatures" are managing a chemical reaction; fusion is a nuclear reaction. Now: how does this affect the involved masses' magnitudes? In case you still don't get it: Hiroshima atomic bomb involved the transformation of about 1 gram of matter; the equivalent TNT bomb would have involved about 10.000.000.000.000 grams of explosive. There is no "given the same mass..." involved here and, so, "temperature being so high that it can't be confined because it would melt everything around" is *not* the problem. The problem is, quite on the contrary, "mass being so low, the difficult part is for the mass not to immediately cold back, much before it has the chance to start a fusion reaction, by sharing its minuscle amount of heat to its sorroundings" just like introducing a red hot metal into the sea is not going to be a problem for the sea because the metal is so hot but to the metal which will cold back immediately because the sea is so big.
"Are you saying that the heat generated by millions of degree temperature is the same than the one generated by about 100 degree?! Evidently, they are not."
Evidently they are simply non comparable. The heat stored on sea is orders upon orders of magnitude bigger than that of a burning match despite its much lower temperature so, your point is?
"The heat (= energy) generated by a plasma at millions of degrees is much higher than what would be generated by the heat source of a conventional power plant (around 100 degrees);"
That's so obviously false it hurts. I can produce plasma in my backyard using, say, a Fansworth fusor but you can bet I can't produce a Terawatt by boiling water as lots of power plants can.
"Nobody knows the electricity/electrical power that a fusion reaction might generate because nobody has ever created such a thing"
Sorry, man, but after reading some of your messages on this thread and despite you not being conscious of it, you are talking about things that are miles above your head.
"Here's a way to get better estimates: Instead of asking Bob "How long will it take for you to complete this?", ask Fred "How long will it take Bob to complete this?". By asking a 3rd party, you take away the hubris factor."
That *is* exactly how it's done, which is proof it doesn't work either.
Usually the estimate doesn't come from asking Bob how long it will take to him, but some third party (a sales manager, Bob's technical manager...).
"1) The overwhelming majority of the time, the programmer is not in control of key aspects of the development process, all of which cause bugs. Examples include determining the deadlines (rushed code = buggy code), determining the required hours (overworked programmer = buggy code), determining the right amount of QA resources (too little investment in QA = buggy code), and enforcing requirement stability (changing requirements during development = buggy code)."
And that's they lie developers tell to themselves that executives love the most: that somebody setting a deadline somehow makes it a law in stone. You promised it for tomorrow? You code it, or else, it'll be done when it's done, and not a minute earlier.
"So, we should see advertising billboards along roads removed because they are specifically designed to grab peoples attention."
Well, I don't know if it comes from an European-level regulation, but that's certainly the case here in Spain.
"a simple rsync job offers an actual offsite backup"
You don't understand what a back up is.
Hint: if it is not fully decoupled from the original source (as in "air gap") is not a backup. So an off-site rsync is not a backup; an off-site rsync and tarring the result from time to time to an external device, *may* be a backup.
You are probably in the league of those that think RAID5 is also a backup strategy ("sure, not always, not perfect, but in some simple cases...").
"Only recently has the 'malicious modification of files' rocketed to the top of the list"
The "my dog ate my homework aka I mistakenly deleted a file can you recover it?" has *always* been the number one cause of checking out a restore, closely followed by "damn! all our boxes are infected by a virus/our main server has BSOD'ed, let's reinstall and recover from backups" in windows-land. Ransomware is -alike those "evolution clocks", a 23:59:59 event.
"This is among the least expensive in terms of storage and in terms of time."
No, it isn't. In terms of time is much quicker to backup to /dev/null, and even backups to /dev/null get surpassed both in time and storage by not doing backup at all.
And, in this case, it seems they offer exactly the same result so, why don't they make it clear -and cheaper, what are they really acomplishing?
"Except if your salary is so low, the salary + bonus is the actual realistic baseline, and bonuses lost are actually penalties incurred."
And that's exactly why I said "that's part of the problem": bonus should never be counted as part of a baseline -because it isn't.
"bonuses lost are actually penalties incurred."
Only by the same logic than me copying a Sony film becomes lost revenue for them.
"On the other hand, having a few people involved like Musk are very sane and wealthy enough that Trump will listen to them"
It might be the case.
However, the article states "Musk is betting that job creation is more important to the new President than simply satisfying the oil industry". There has been quite a lot of fanfare about the "Trump's tycoons council" but, nothing abut representatives of the other side, you know, the labour mass. Why is it so? I mean, while job creation is surely important, the quality of that job is also important: USA had a civil war on labour issues, after all.
"it cost me over $3500 in lost bonuses."
That's part of the problem. Bonuses, by its very definition, can't be lost, only earned.
"Science-based beliefs are the new bible. One is either a Darwinist [...] There is no longer room for discussion or dissent."
About species evolution by means of natural selection? No, certainly there's no longer room for discussion or dissent. Just like it's the case about thermodynamics or, say, special relativity. No, ignoramus douchebags' rants don't count.
"the only way to combat it is by some incorruptible authority guarding against it with an eagle eye, and taking relentless vengeance against it when it does occur."
Exactly. The only problem being that such an "incorruptible authority" neither exists nor can exist, therefore we need a different system, one that understands that corruption is part of human nature and doesn't requires a subset of humans in specific positions to be incorruptible to work.
"Ideally, democracy would be the mediating factor, ensuring that government limited capitalism to the extent that such limits benefited the majority of people, resisting both the tyranny of government and the tyranny of monopoly capitalism and oligarchy"
But then, specially from Goebbels onwards, we have marketing. "Pure" capitalism/liberalism sits on three basic assumptions in order to work:
1) Hobbes' "man is wolf to man". Any political system we want to design need to take this into account or will fail. And this capitalism seems to be quite spot on or else basically anything would be better than capitalistic democracies, be it communism or anarchism or even dictatorship.
2) Agents within the system act (on their own selfishness, see point above) rationally and are perfectly informed. Here start the problems. While "people" are more or less the way we have always been, marketing as a science has successfully evolved with the explicit goal of understanding and manipulating people for a particular gain and now can quite effectively make masses to act irrationally and on biased information.
3) Despite point one, capitalism expects that those in command are somehow different in that both they are incorruptible and what they have (power) is not to be put in the marketplace just like anything else. And that's what is utterly wrong. USA's founding fathers more or less saw this, therefore the "checks and balances" trying to make their corruptibility as ineffective as possible but it becomes obvious they came sadly short.
So, in the end, capitalism/liberalism as a socio-political system has shown itself to be better fitted for the advancement of society to what we, humans, really are than other theoretical frameworks but it's still too short to cope with the task: "better fitted" still doesn't equates to "good enough". The faster we understand this, the sooner we can start looking for better alternatives.
"Umm, it's NOT "unfettered capitalism" if you can buy governments."
Yeah... because you say so. Any system goes the way it goes even if you try to put unreasonable limits to it. Capitalism is rightly based on the observed fact that we all are egotistic and takes that to the advantage of the common good (let's allow everyone to work for their own egotistic profit and the invisible hand will make that into the advancement of society as a whole). But then, you go with "hey! but this system we already understood as being composed of egotistic and corruptible individuals will only work if a subset of them, those making the rules, are *not* egotistic and corruptible". Surprise, surprise, those in command are moved by the same interests and profit motives as anyone else.
"the kind of government you can buy monopolies and such from is strong enough that capitalism is pretty much automatically fettered by the government."
And then remember that when the government is not strong enough for that, power ends up concentrating in other individuals/organizations that make their strength to be the rule of the land -go, i.e. to Somalia to see how well the "not strong enough government" works.
"So what you're describing as "unfettered capitalism" is actually "corrupt government" pointing fingers away from themselves..."
No: just the natural and unavoidable evolution of capitalism to its last consequences.
"The word is evolve, not evolution."
Yes, you are right. English is not my mother language and I made that mistake. Sorry.
"And neither capitalism nor communism is what corruption comes from. Corruption comes from human nature"
Yes, that's true. But, supposedly, "ideal" capitalism works *because* it takes into account that fact: it based on the notion that somehow, individual selfishness can be made to work for the common good.
"the only way to combat it is by some incorruptible authority guarding against it with an eagle eye"
Exactly that: the "ideal" free market (more or less the Adam Smith way) hits the bull eye in the "hey! let's take into account that man is wolf to man, so let's see what can we do with that" but then it commits the stupid mistake of forgetting that and setting the system in a way that, well, everybody is corruptible and egotistic *but* those making the rules: you can buy this and that at "its market value" except politicians. Ha!
"Right now the US has a huge crony capitalism problem"
Back in the tycoon days you had basically unfettered capitalism. Because of that, big tycoons were able to set their way even to buy government -and that's how you got today's "crony capitalism problem".
Now: is there a way unfettered capitalism doesn't evolution into crony capitalism? I don't think so.
...eeerrrr...
Burma Shave?
"Yes, I get what you're trying to say, but it's a philosophical point only, which is another way of saying it's no bloody point at all."
It's philosophical only since it obviously is a mind experiment, but it wouldn't be philosophical at all for the astronauts: for the first one the Earth would expend millions and the astronaut would survive; the second one would die alone (without costing a dime) and the difference between both cases would certainly be our knowledge of (special) relativity and what "when" means within its frame.
Yes: it is "philosophical" what happens out of the light cone of an event; no, it doesn't mean we can't make meaningful assertions about events at relativistic distances/speeds.
"Anyway, adding a radio into the mix is pure fluff, and so is the notion of precision. Neither say anything about when it is meaningful to say "Z happened" according to any particular "reference frame.""
So, say, the astronaut is at Mars and suddenly he says to himself "Damn! I have food for only four (earth) years and I'll starve after that" and then he immediately presses the big red button that will summon the cavalry to the rescue back from Earth.
Now, on the other hand, our hero is on a planet orbiting Alfa Centaury when the same situation happens.
Now, tell me again there's anything meaningful to say about when "Z happened" for both scenarios from Earth's particular reference frame.
"Move far enough from earth and you can follow WW2 radio traffic live and relive Hiroshiima as if you were there.."
Except, of course, you can't.
Which is exactly the point.
On top of that, I can ASSURE you that no, an hypothetical observer far enough to still knowing nothing about Hiroshima won't experience it as the unlucky ones that were in fact there.
"If they would come up with solid math taking into consideration the projected indirect effects on future sales and brand, then maybe I'd give them a pass."
I, of course, see your point, but playing devil's advocate, see what you do: you ask for a financial analysis (that you yourself accepted to be very difficult to do, if not impossible) on a non-expenditure while you don't ask for it on an expenditure. Does it even make sense?
I mean, you didn't ask for an investment analysis on security (adding controls, procedures and products) and still you ask for "solid math" on "doing nothing"?
And then, an important part of executive board's job is taking strategic decisions that are not fully backed by data but gut feelings -or else, the best CEO would be a junior accountant!
"This is a perfect example of management having their heads up their asses."
Yes, it probably is.
"As someone from a management background education-wise I believe this is incredibly incompetent leadership"
Humm... but not so sure about that.
On one hand, from a purely business PoV, maybe having their proverbial IT asses wide open has been a net positive given what they have saved all this time in both direct and indirect costs and also costs of opportunity. What if I lose 100000$ to a hacker if all this time I haven't been hacked I save 1M$? Security costs -a lot, and its cost is from money of today, while loses are money of tomorrow. You say you have management background... what do they say? a buck today is worth more than a hundred tomorrow, or something?
On the other, from a psychological one, you may think they are there for the money when most of them are mostly to feel the powah! Micromanaging, feeling over their "minions" and, in fact, being able to make a mess and still get away with it is *exactly* the kind of leadership they want to push over... why do you think this manager is on good friendship with the company owner but because they both are birds of a feather?
"You guys are the ones "retarded"."
Or is it Mr 110010001000 the retarded one?
"The legal definition of a contractor"
What you think the legal definition of a contractor given USA laws has nothing to do with whatever the UK definition is -which is relevant since this is about a UK case.
"Uber drivers are contractors."
Sure. That's why Uber lost the case and the tribunal told they are *not* contractors. So much for you comprehension of what "legal" means.
Now, I think we all know who the retarded one is.
"So governmental contractors who take a contract that pays X are employees? Doesn't work that way."
I know a few governmental contractors that ended up suing the agency under the case that they were in fact employees -and won.
So, well, sometimes it *does* work that way.
...don't have a backup regimen, and use Microsoft Operating Systems.
Perfect storm.