"Your example of gimp is hilarious, as it demonstrates exactly what the newspaper concluded."
No, it doesn't. By large.
There's a big (unstated) prejudice in this article which is that there's some magic tidbit in licenses such as they affect the technical merits of a software. As if some code lines were forbidden under GPL but allowed under an EULA or the other way around.
The Gimp is either technically sounded or it isn't with it license having nothing to do with it. The technical abilities of some program reside on its source code, not the distribution license!
You can discuss all day long about Photoshop being better fitted to the task than GIMP or the other way around, that Apache is better fitted than IIS or the other way around, without even mentioning their respective distribution licenses.
"Pretty much we're at the point where we either have to legislate against coal and oil, or we have to tax carbon emissions heavily. There's no market incentive to stop with either."
There's a third path: do not legislate against coal or oil but legislate about gas emissions (COx, Nx...). Just don't have favoritisms: all energy should be zero emissions. You can even extrapolate it to *any* kind of emissions (not only gases, but wasted fuel, heated water, etc.). And then let the market forces do their way.
"I didn't say there wasn't an opportunity for any MiM - what I said was - "no man in the middle attacks by government agencies or anybody else who chooses to record the conversations going through the servers.""
OK: if you meant literally that, then I misunderstood you. The *usual* understandment of a phrase built that way, however, is implying that the presumtion is impossible *because* of the conclusion. So I understood that as "there's no way for a MiM *because* there's no server that works as a passthrough for conversations" which is false because there still were a central server (the one for the directory) that certainly can be either compromised or MiM'ed to persuade you to talk to an unintended third party (the very definition of MiM).
"A peer-to-peer architecture would be better for IM [...] no man in the middle attacks [...] The only use of a server in IM should be as a directory and participant availability service"
"But if you cut corners, it will end up being more costly in the long run."
That's only if there's a "long run" *and* the one paying in such a long run will be you. If there's no "long run", then your "quality" is plain old "overburden"; if there's to be "long run" but the ones paying for it are "others" (for a varying definition of "others") then it's "externalities".
"I'm sure the managers aren't thinking about that, though."
Mostly they do. And don't give a damn because that's not what they are being payed for.
Do you want managers to go after the right things? Then pay them for acomplishing the right things.
"It's not short term thinking because they didn't believe they were increasing their risks."
They *wanted* to be blind about the risks: regarding engineering failures it's both guild knowledge and best practices not to ask what will happen *if* it fails but asking what will happen *when* it fails.
"It doesn't relieve any of BP's responsibility, it points to a different systemic problem. Rather than it being optimizing profits from quarter to quarter, it's discounting risks as being unlikely/inconsequential without determining the true costs."
It is exactly the same thing. They discount the risk because, frankly, chances are that it won't happen *this* quarter and that's all I'm interested in, not that it won't happen: Shortsightness at its best.
"BP executives may be responsible for many bad decisions, but I doubt the disaster at Deepwater Horizon is the result of short term thinking."
So risking the big amount of money that the Deepwater Horizon costed just to let it sink down is not a short term thinking result? So expending a lot of millions designing, building and positioning the blowout preventers just to let them fail is not a short term thinking result?
"If those violations didn't result in employee lawsuits then the fines were trivial and not really a risk factor."
It's obvious that a big accident in deept waters will result in life loss not mentioning the financial damage.
There were obvious danger signs; there were millions of already deployed structure at risk; there were oil to be lost in the ocean instead of being pumped out to the oil market; there were human lives at risk. And all that was overlooked so production could start this quarter instead of next one. Tell me *that* is not the result of short term thinking pushed by the most egregious greed.
"Another source is Top Gear 01x07, where Jeremy drives the Lotus Elise [...] During the road test, Jeremy notes some bad understeer through some corners."
And surely, those that made the Elise to understeer were "normal driving conditions", didn't they?
"Too fast" and "normal driving" are clear oposites. "Normal driving" means "at the proper speed for the way and its conditions", not "too fast".
"you are wrong and you really should never speak in absolutes unless you are absolutely sure."
I'm so sure I can even say that it can be taken as an operative definiton: the moment the wheels slip is the moment you know you are beyond normal driving conditions.
"You can understeer and oversteer pretty much at any speed"
Of course you can. Never I said otherwise.
"To say that a couple of thousand kilos of machine with 150bhp can't over/understeer under normal driving conditions (let's say, 110km/hr, the speed limit here in AU) is just pure ignorance of the laws of physics."
No. It's pure common sense and observation. Whenever the tires slide on a road you are well beyond normal driving conditions. There's no way a production car will lose traction at proper speed and proper maneovering on a road. "Ice" is not "road". Taking a corner overspeeded it's not normal driving conditions. Blocking the brakes is not normal driving conditions. Strong wheel movements on wet tarmac is not normal driving conditions.
Whenever you lose traction you were above the proper speed for the way and its current conditions, made a mistake or it was an emergency. Neither of them should be considered "normal driving conditions".
"There are certain maneuvers it can help you with that apply to regular road driving."
"When cars go into either understeer or oversteer"
When cars go into either understeer or oversteer you are under regular road driving no more.
There's no regular road driving conditions that would make any car in the market for the last 40 years to either under or oversteer, so your argument is moot.
"Not surprisingly, manufacturers tend to setup cars from the factory in ways that tend to make it understeer, such as putting on oversized tires in back."
I think that's the literally the stupidest thing I read in years.
"I am a man and I don't belong to your informal use of the word "us." I think cars are ridiculous."
What's ridiculous is thinking that any given generalization is 100% apt for each and every individual within the nominated group.
And then, the fact is that cars powered beyond any legal or reasonably speed limits, with ergonomic conditions quite against the very basics of transportation between point A and B, and at a cost wildly above what is needed for such transportation between A and B are sold in large quantities every year all around the world and that they are mainly sold to and used by males.
"For the pellet firing, it should have had two or more completely independent firing systems, greatly increasing the odds that at least one would fire. However, if it's a faulty design, then I guess the flaw would be duplicated also."
As it's already told, duplicating such a system would probably come at a (prohibitive) payload cost.
Anyway, if the systems were to be duplicated, they both would have been developed by different teams based off different designs in order to avoid your caveat.
"That is my point, when you call Oracle support you do not get a "Menu based monkey reading from boiler plate", you get an oracle Engineer that knows your Oracle Software inside and out."
Maybe...
Once you pay for "premier support". I know that kind of support gives you a warm fuzzy feeling but did you ever considered ROI? I have to admit I never worked for a F-100 but it needs to be a *very* critical system the one that makes Oracle "premier support" a sounded technical decision instead of plain CYA.
"If your mission critical infrastructure suddenly stops working, are you seriously suggesting the best answer is to post a message to a mailing list and hope for a prompt response?"
I do suggest it's usually no worse than take the phone and hope for a clued answer instead of one from a boiler-plated, menu-based monkey's one -but it's always awfully front-cost cheaper.
"It would work, but only in a way which is morally unacceptable to almost everyone: send them back there where there is less infrastructure, and then cut off all non-military aid so they die younger."
No, it wouldn't work even that way. Populations: USA: ~300M South America: ~370M China: ~1300M India: ~1000M Africa: ~1000M
So, mainly, living in a poor country may make life a hell, but doesn't seem to be very effective about reducing population.
Slashdot Mirror
"Your example of gimp is hilarious, as it demonstrates exactly what the newspaper concluded."
No, it doesn't. By large.
There's a big (unstated) prejudice in this article which is that there's some magic tidbit in licenses such as they affect the technical merits of a software. As if some code lines were forbidden under GPL but allowed under an EULA or the other way around.
The Gimp is either technically sounded or it isn't with it license having nothing to do with it. The technical abilities of some program reside on its source code, not the distribution license!
You can discuss all day long about Photoshop being better fitted to the task than GIMP or the other way around, that Apache is better fitted than IIS or the other way around, without even mentioning their respective distribution licenses.
"I'm an IT director at a mid-sized company in the US [...] Our CEO [...] He'd ask me to fix a problem with his machine"
You *think* you are an IT director, but you are the mop guy.
At least that's what your CEO thinks, and that's all that counts.
"And Sappho the Lesbian (prostitute?)"
From Lesbos Island moreso.
"Well, Socrates was executed for being a radical."
Socrates was not executed, you cretin: he suicided.
Of course, the difference is transcendental.
"So why the hell do we still teach them?"
Because they are logic and they are an immense building of Human intelect.
If not by other things, Newton's work should be thought on the same grounds than Fidias or Michelangello.
"Pretty much we're at the point where we either have to legislate against coal and oil, or we have to tax carbon emissions heavily. There's no market incentive to stop with either."
There's a third path: do not legislate against coal or oil but legislate about gas emissions (COx, Nx...). Just don't have favoritisms: all energy should be zero emissions. You can even extrapolate it to *any* kind of emissions (not only gases, but wasted fuel, heated water, etc.). And then let the market forces do their way.
"I didn't say there wasn't an opportunity for any MiM - what I said was -
"no man in the middle attacks by government agencies or anybody else who chooses to record the conversations going through the servers.""
OK: if you meant literally that, then I misunderstood you. The *usual* understandment of a phrase built that way, however, is implying that the presumtion is impossible *because* of the conclusion. So I understood that as "there's no way for a MiM *because* there's no server that works as a passthrough for conversations" which is false because there still were a central server (the one for the directory) that certainly can be either compromised or MiM'ed to persuade you to talk to an unintended third party (the very definition of MiM).
"Does your off-the-shelf package scale to to a cemetery of that size?"
Being that all in all it means less than a million rows I'd bet even an Access "database" would cope with it.
Data is ethics agnostic: that Arlington's list of names and situations pose a big emotional value to you adds nothing to data numbers and complexity.
"Arlington has extraordinary historical significance. The data base needs to be more than a bare list of names and dates."
Even then, that's exactly what Arlington is.
"A peer-to-peer architecture would be better for IM [...] no man in the middle attacks [...] The only use of a server in IM should be as a directory and participant availability service"
And there goes your "no MiM" asumption.
"The "dominance" is the x86 instruction set."
And the "dominance" of the "dominance factor" is that's 30 year old, mature, stablished technology.
Oh, well, why we don't see so much innovation on the VHS world? Companies should be urged! VHS is not only stagnating, is even dispearing!
"But if you cut corners, it will end up being more costly in the long run."
That's only if there's a "long run" *and* the one paying in such a long run will be you. If there's no "long run", then your "quality" is plain old "overburden"; if there's to be "long run" but the ones paying for it are "others" (for a varying definition of "others") then it's "externalities".
"I'm sure the managers aren't thinking about that, though."
Mostly they do. And don't give a damn because that's not what they are being payed for.
Do you want managers to go after the right things? Then pay them for acomplishing the right things.
"It's not short term thinking because they didn't believe they were increasing their risks."
They *wanted* to be blind about the risks: regarding engineering failures it's both guild knowledge and best practices not to ask what will happen *if* it fails but asking what will happen *when* it fails.
"It doesn't relieve any of BP's responsibility, it points to a different systemic problem. Rather than it being optimizing profits from quarter to quarter, it's discounting risks as being unlikely/inconsequential without determining the true costs."
It is exactly the same thing. They discount the risk because, frankly, chances are that it won't happen *this* quarter and that's all I'm interested in, not that it won't happen: Shortsightness at its best.
"BP executives may be responsible for many bad decisions, but I doubt the disaster at Deepwater Horizon is the result of short term thinking."
So risking the big amount of money that the Deepwater Horizon costed just to let it sink down is not a short term thinking result? So expending a lot of millions designing, building and positioning the blowout preventers just to let them fail is not a short term thinking result?
"If those violations didn't result in employee lawsuits then the fines were trivial and not really a risk factor."
It's obvious that a big accident in deept waters will result in life loss not mentioning the financial damage.
There were obvious danger signs; there were millions of already deployed structure at risk; there were oil to be lost in the ocean instead of being pumped out to the oil market; there were human lives at risk. And all that was overlooked so production could start this quarter instead of next one. Tell me *that* is not the result of short term thinking pushed by the most egregious greed.
"Even beancounters should realize it's not a business focused on short-term financial reports..."
Tell that to BP's beancounters.
"Thats not win win is it? Win/win means everyone benefits."
I thought "Win/win" means "Bill Gates/bill gates" benefits.
"What are the normal conditions for driving a Lotus Elise?"
On a public road, Germany Autobahns notwithstanding? Exactly the same as those for a Skoda Fabia.
An you can be sure that those conditions won't let a Skoda Fabia to lose grip, much less an Elise.
"Another source is Top Gear 01x07, where Jeremy drives the Lotus Elise [...] During the road test, Jeremy notes some bad understeer through some corners."
And surely, those that made the Elise to understeer were "normal driving conditions", didn't they?
"but subsequently went into the corner too fast"
"Too fast" and "normal driving" are clear oposites. "Normal driving" means "at the proper speed for the way and its conditions", not "too fast".
"you are wrong and you really should never speak in absolutes unless you are absolutely sure."
I'm so sure I can even say that it can be taken as an operative definiton: the moment the wheels slip is the moment you know you are beyond normal driving conditions.
"You can understeer and oversteer pretty much at any speed"
Of course you can. Never I said otherwise.
"To say that a couple of thousand kilos of machine with 150bhp can't over/understeer under normal driving conditions (let's say, 110km/hr, the speed limit here in AU) is just pure ignorance of the laws of physics."
No. It's pure common sense and observation. Whenever the tires slide on a road you are well beyond normal driving conditions. There's no way a production car will lose traction at proper speed and proper maneovering on a road. "Ice" is not "road". Taking a corner overspeeded it's not normal driving conditions. Blocking the brakes is not normal driving conditions. Strong wheel movements on wet tarmac is not normal driving conditions.
Whenever you lose traction you were above the proper speed for the way and its current conditions, made a mistake or it was an emergency. Neither of them should be considered "normal driving conditions".
"There are certain maneuvers it can help you with that apply to regular road driving."
"When cars go into either understeer or oversteer"
When cars go into either understeer or oversteer you are under regular road driving no more.
There's no regular road driving conditions that would make any car in the market for the last 40 years to either under or oversteer, so your argument is moot.
"Not surprisingly, manufacturers tend to setup cars from the factory in ways that tend to make it understeer, such as putting on oversized tires in back."
I think that's the literally the stupidest thing I read in years.
"I am a man and I don't belong to your informal use of the word "us." I think cars are ridiculous."
What's ridiculous is thinking that any given generalization is 100% apt for each and every individual within the nominated group.
And then, the fact is that cars powered beyond any legal or reasonably speed limits, with ergonomic conditions quite against the very basics of transportation between point A and B, and at a cost wildly above what is needed for such transportation between A and B are sold in large quantities every year all around the world and that they are mainly sold to and used by males.
You can extract your own conclusions.
"For the pellet firing, it should have had two or more completely independent firing systems, greatly increasing the odds that at least one would fire. However, if it's a faulty design, then I guess the flaw would be duplicated also."
As it's already told, duplicating such a system would probably come at a (prohibitive) payload cost.
Anyway, if the systems were to be duplicated, they both would have been developed by different teams based off different designs in order to avoid your caveat.
"That is my point, when you call Oracle support you do not get a "Menu based monkey reading from boiler plate", you get an oracle Engineer that knows your Oracle Software inside and out."
Maybe...
Once you pay for "premier support". I know that kind of support gives you a warm fuzzy feeling but did you ever considered ROI? I have to admit I never worked for a F-100 but it needs to be a *very* critical system the one that makes Oracle "premier support" a sounded technical decision instead of plain CYA.
"If your mission critical infrastructure suddenly stops working, are you seriously suggesting the best answer is to post a message to a mailing list and hope for a prompt response?"
I do suggest it's usually no worse than take the phone and hope for a clued answer instead of one from a boiler-plated, menu-based monkey's one -but it's always awfully front-cost cheaper.
"It would work, but only in a way which is morally unacceptable to almost everyone: send them back there where there is less infrastructure, and then cut off all non-military aid so they die younger."
No, it wouldn't work even that way. Populations:
USA: ~300M
South America: ~370M
China: ~1300M
India: ~1000M
Africa: ~1000M
So, mainly, living in a poor country may make life a hell, but doesn't seem to be very effective about reducing population.