"governments spend a lot of money on renting all those locations and hiring the people to handle the counting. "
Don't mistake USA with "governments": other countries manage to not pay a rent (i.e.: using public schools or other public buildings) nor hires (levvy, just like being part of a jury), so there it goes your argument.
"So, you're absolutely certain that your truck liner has no micro defects in it that aren't immediately obvious?"
Of course he can't. But he can be sure there are no micro defects that will break the truck liner within the warranty period or the repair will go on the part of the vendor.
Now, please tell me how this can be applied to software development. Zeroes and Ones don't wear out.
"those are more of the type of bugs that would ship in software that's impossible to fix all of them."
Do you mean they can't be fixed once they reveal themselves? Because if they can be fixed it means they could be not there from the starting point, right?
In physical world, pieces wear out and break appart. In a software, defects don't appear themselves but get exposed, they are there from the begining because you introduce them. It's only natural to ask you to remove them since you introduced them to start with.
"Would I, as a programmer, be expected to go back 15 years and fix a bug in a piece of software I wrote"
Certainly not. Only if you introduced the defect yourself 15 years before.
"For "free""
Of course, not for free: you already got payed *in advance* for the product 15 years ago, so you have already taken advantage for 15 years of that money for an unfinished work.
"The contract should specify a "warranties" period for items like this"
But of course yes. It not only should but must be a warranty period for all the portions of your product that will wear out with use. Can you please tell exactly what zeroes and ones are subjected to wearing out in your code?
"When you understand the Halting Problem, and you understand what that has to do with bugs, THEN you will have a right to critique programming as a profession."
When a computer has effectively infinite RAM and infinite time *then* you can get back talking about the halting problem to hide your unprofessional attitude.
"Why should I correct those bugs for free?" Well, because you introduced them for free too.
"So, I have to support my software forever?" No, only till it has zero defects. The sooner you get to that point, the sooner you can go after other issue.
"The only argument I have against this is that it's in Northern Ontario"
Yes, I took it into account. Weggener was slightly wrong: Ontario was in Minnesota 1.5B years ago (or the other way around, not completly sure about that)
"For every OpenStack there are craploads of half-finished projects that are basically in a perpetual beta stage. Documentation is spotty, features are spotty"
What makes you think that OpenStack is -as of now at least, any different?
"You've stated the conclusion as a premise ("evolution works just the other side around")"
Nope. I didn't set conclusion as premise, evolution *does* in fact works the other way around, it is a premise (under this conversation constrains): random mutations happen all the time, if they produce a better fit, they get selected by means of higher offspring, if they are deletereal they get off the pool and if they are neutral, they simply accumulate. It's believed -and supported by experimentation, that random mutations on functional DNA tends to be bad more often than good. So when a mutation happens in a non-functional section it usually won't be deletereal, so it's going to be accumulated above the average for functional DNA, hence a testable prediction: intra-species DNA variation within non-functional sections of DNA will be higher than within functional segments.
"so even if it's correct it's not really science"
It is: I sustain an hypothesis (evolution goes from genes to phenotypes, not the other way around) and offer a prediction deducted from it (junk DNA will show higher random wandering than functional DNA). What's your hypothesis that: a) better explains why junk DNA wanders away more than known to be functional. b) offers an experiment that will render different results under your hypothesis than mine.
"Supposing there are additional functions of DNA other than coding proteins is a much simpler explanation"
No, it isn't, since it requieres a magic wand. Here, the null hypothesis is that DNA that after roughly 60 years of scrutiny seems to do nothing, in a way that perfectly fits into current theory, does in fact nothing. You prefer to think that something that seemingly does nothing, does nevertheless do something, your turn.
"it's never wise to create dogmas that blockade avenues for research"
That *is* phylosophy, I also read Khun or Feyerabend. But one thing is being open to criticise a theory (of course we can bet, and we should, that there are some functionality hidden in at least part of the so known junk DNA, and in fact we already give epygenetic/regulatory value to quite a lot of what was thought as junk DNA just a decade ago) and another quite different is ignoring the value of any given current theory without proper instrumentation -what else do you offer to your argument which basically can be simplified to "nature is wise and that looks like an unwise waste of effort, so there must be something else going there" that looks better than current knowledge and can be falsified?
"Bednorz and Muller [...] won the Nobel Prize and made a lot of money by keeping both their minds and their options open."
Nope. They won Prize and money because they offered an alternate theory supported by experimental results, not just because their open mindness, or else The Office of the Nobel Laureates would be requiered to give the Prize to those that support Area 51 aliens or the Armstrong Never Reached the Moon too.
"Absent a really strongly supported, well understood mechanism it's illogical to suppose that natural selection would overwhelmingly favor massive storage abuse."
It's only evolution works just the other side around. Absent a really strongly unfitting characteristic of the junk DNA, it's not going to go anywhere. And, as an information scientist you already have the tools to discriminate one from the other: random wandering. You expect higher stability on pieces of DNA that do something useful than on those that are just junk left there... exactly as it seems to happen.
The problem is marketing full knows price doesn't depend on cost and, for the most part, contracts without subsidized phone are basically priced the same so they end up being even more expensive than those with a mobile included.
"no, software companies that write medical software QA products in their QA Departments"
That explains why no medical software had ever a single bug when on the while... oh, wait!
Anyway, that was not my point. Regarding internal (usually white box) QA, what would be the difference if instead of looking for customers after the fact they reached an agreement with a medical association before start working?
"Dream on, eye doctors don't have time to manage and QA an open source project."
They already do... for the software they buy. But the internal QA will be done by the people they hire, just as in the case of the closed product.
"and to think they'd risk money on a multi-year project with uncertain outcome is ridiculous"
Not my problem. But then, they are not entitled for whinning because they have to pay 10.000 for their piece of software. You can't take your cake and eat it too.
Yes, something can be done about it. Not overnight, but it can be done.
What?
Use Open Source.
Your either need to pay 10.000 because it really costs 10.000 in which case you wouldn't be making a case out of it, you would just pay for it as part as your making business costs, or it doesn't costs 10.000 but you end paying 10.000 because third parties controlling your business instead of you.
If you think you are in the second case, just ally with other "eye doctors" and make a software factory to produce the software in your behalf as open sourced. On one hand, you'll pay the real cost; on the other, the old producers will be forced to either down their prices to the new market standard or fold down. Any case, a win-win situation.
"Very few current articles in biology have been written by one or two people."
My experience shows the opposite: most articles are written by one or two people... signed, on the other hand, is a very different issue.
Re:That's the inconvenient truth of "the simple li
on
Iceman Had Bad Teeth
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You have a nice hypothesis. Now go for the hard data: look for countries with better life indexes and higher life expectancy than USA (yes, there's quite a lot of them). Now note down which one of them has NOT socialized medicine.
Slashdot Mirror
"It reduces the equipment costs by an order or two of magnitude since only standard computers would be required to make a 'voting booth'."
And that's cheaper than a transparent plastic box and some pieces of paper exactly how?
"it would boost voter participation by making it convenient via one's home computer or phone."
And there it goes your ability to vote anonymously and out of your free will.
"governments spend a lot of money on renting all those locations and hiring the people to handle the counting. "
Don't mistake USA with "governments": other countries manage to not pay a rent (i.e.: using public schools or other public buildings) nor hires (levvy, just like being part of a jury), so there it goes your argument.
"It might be cheaper just to build to lower quality standards, and buy insurance."
Yes. Paying for your burial is cheaper than paying for your shelter.
"Historically you might have the occasional huge tornado every few years"
So why to protect against them? It is not as in OK you weren't already accustomed to be killed -if it's only every few years!
"People that over promise and under deliver typically aren't around too long."
You are kidding, ain't you?
"So, you're absolutely certain that your truck liner has no micro defects in it that aren't immediately obvious?"
Of course he can't. But he can be sure there are no micro defects that will break the truck liner within the warranty period or the repair will go on the part of the vendor.
Now, please tell me how this can be applied to software development. Zeroes and Ones don't wear out.
"those are more of the type of bugs that would ship in software that's impossible to fix all of them."
Do you mean they can't be fixed once they reveal themselves? Because if they can be fixed it means they could be not there from the starting point, right?
In physical world, pieces wear out and break appart. In a software, defects don't appear themselves but get exposed, they are there from the begining because you introduce them. It's only natural to ask you to remove them since you introduced them to start with.
"Would I, as a programmer, be expected to go back 15 years and fix a bug in a piece of software I wrote"
Certainly not. Only if you introduced the defect yourself 15 years before.
"For "free""
Of course, not for free: you already got payed *in advance* for the product 15 years ago, so you have already taken advantage for 15 years of that money for an unfinished work.
"The contract should specify a "warranties" period for items like this"
But of course yes. It not only should but must be a warranty period for all the portions of your product that will wear out with use. Can you please tell exactly what zeroes and ones are subjected to wearing out in your code?
"When you understand the Halting Problem, and you understand what that has to do with bugs, THEN you will have a right to critique programming as a profession."
When a computer has effectively infinite RAM and infinite time *then* you can get back talking about the halting problem to hide your unprofessional attitude.
"Why should I correct those bugs for free?" Well, because you introduced them for free too.
"So, I have to support my software forever?" No, only till it has zero defects. The sooner you get to that point, the sooner you can go after other issue.
"All guarantees have limits. With cars, it's a set number of miles or months, whatever is reached first."
Oh, c'mon, not again...
Please do NOT compare physical goods to immaterial ones.
You can come back with your car analogy the day your code wears out and it fails because too many zeroes have thinned out into ones.
"Brain and brain! What is BRAIN?"
Now, Pinky... it's what we do every night... -try to take over the world!
"I agree that a distro using Debian packages and APT really ought to be dist-upgradeable. It's lame that it's not."
You should understand that it is not the use of deb/apt what makes Debian dist-upgradeable, it is Debian's focus on being so.
"The only argument I have against this is that it's in Northern Ontario"
Yes, I took it into account. Weggener was slightly wrong: Ontario was in Minnesota 1.5B years ago (or the other way around, not completly sure about that)
Deep water? 1.5 billion years? And you think it's not something worrisome!?
Cthuluh, I claim, nothing but Cthuluh!
This means it will be plenty successful. Thanks for point it up.
"For every OpenStack there are craploads of half-finished projects that are basically in a perpetual beta stage. Documentation is spotty, features are spotty"
What makes you think that OpenStack is -as of now at least, any different?
"You've stated the conclusion as a premise ("evolution works just the other side around")"
Nope. I didn't set conclusion as premise, evolution *does* in fact works the other way around, it is a premise (under this conversation constrains): random mutations happen all the time, if they produce a better fit, they get selected by means of higher offspring, if they are deletereal they get off the pool and if they are neutral, they simply accumulate. It's believed -and supported by experimentation, that random mutations on functional DNA tends to be bad more often than good. So when a mutation happens in a non-functional section it usually won't be deletereal, so it's going to be accumulated above the average for functional DNA, hence a testable prediction: intra-species DNA variation within non-functional sections of DNA will be higher than within functional segments.
"so even if it's correct it's not really science"
It is: I sustain an hypothesis (evolution goes from genes to phenotypes, not the other way around) and offer a prediction deducted from it (junk DNA will show higher random wandering than functional DNA). What's your hypothesis that:
a) better explains why junk DNA wanders away more than known to be functional.
b) offers an experiment that will render different results under your hypothesis than mine.
"Supposing there are additional functions of DNA other than coding proteins is a much simpler explanation"
No, it isn't, since it requieres a magic wand. Here, the null hypothesis is that DNA that after roughly 60 years of scrutiny seems to do nothing, in a way that perfectly fits into current theory, does in fact nothing. You prefer to think that something that seemingly does nothing, does nevertheless do something, your turn.
"it's never wise to create dogmas that blockade avenues for research"
That *is* phylosophy, I also read Khun or Feyerabend. But one thing is being open to criticise a theory (of course we can bet, and we should, that there are some functionality hidden in at least part of the so known junk DNA, and in fact we already give epygenetic/regulatory value to quite a lot of what was thought as junk DNA just a decade ago) and another quite different is ignoring the value of any given current theory without proper instrumentation -what else do you offer to your argument which basically can be simplified to "nature is wise and that looks like an unwise waste of effort, so there must be something else going there" that looks better than current knowledge and can be falsified?
"Bednorz and Muller [...] won the Nobel Prize and made a lot of money by keeping both their minds and their options open."
Nope. They won Prize and money because they offered an alternate theory supported by experimental results, not just because their open mindness, or else The Office of the Nobel Laureates would be requiered to give the Prize to those that support Area 51 aliens or the Armstrong Never Reached the Moon too.
"Absent a really strongly supported, well understood mechanism it's illogical to suppose that natural selection would overwhelmingly favor massive storage abuse."
It's only evolution works just the other side around. Absent a really strongly unfitting characteristic of the junk DNA, it's not going to go anywhere. And, as an information scientist you already have the tools to discriminate one from the other: random wandering. You expect higher stability on pieces of DNA that do something useful than on those that are just junk left there... exactly as it seems to happen.
The problem is marketing full knows price doesn't depend on cost and, for the most part, contracts without subsidized phone are basically priced the same so they end up being even more expensive than those with a mobile included.
"No DRM means no income for the artist"
During, what, 99,9%? of humankind history there has been no DRM. I didn't know artists haven't had incomes for that long.
"No income for the artist, no new art"
Are you REALLY trying to
say that there has been no art till the coming of the DRM thingie?
"I am not happy with DRM â" but I canâ(TM)t figure out a better idea."
Simplest explanation is that you are a freaking moron
"no, software companies that write medical software QA products in their QA Departments"
That explains why no medical software had ever a single bug when on the while... oh, wait!
Anyway, that was not my point. Regarding internal (usually white box) QA, what would be the difference if instead of looking for customers after the fact they reached an agreement with a medical association before start working?
"Dream on, eye doctors don't have time to manage and QA an open source project."
They already do... for the software they buy. But the internal QA will be done by the people they hire, just as in the case of the closed product.
"and to think they'd risk money on a multi-year project with uncertain outcome is ridiculous"
Not my problem. But then, they are not entitled for whinning because they have to pay 10.000 for their piece of software. You can't take your cake and eat it too.
Yes, something can be done about it. Not overnight, but it can be done.
What?
Use Open Source.
Your either need to pay 10.000 because it really costs 10.000 in which case you wouldn't be making a case out of it, you would just pay for it as part as your making business costs, or it doesn't costs 10.000 but you end paying 10.000 because third parties controlling your business instead of you.
If you think you are in the second case, just ally with other "eye doctors" and make a software factory to produce the software in your behalf as open sourced. On one hand, you'll pay the real cost; on the other, the old producers will be forced to either down their prices to the new market standard or fold down. Any case, a win-win situation.
"Very few current articles in biology have been written by one or two people."
My experience shows the opposite: most articles are written by one or two people... signed, on the other hand, is a very different issue.
You have a nice hypothesis. Now go for the hard data: look for countries with better life indexes and higher life expectancy than USA (yes, there's quite a lot of them). Now note down which one of them has NOT socialized medicine.
HINT: no one of them, not a single one.
So crowfounding a company is stupid? How do work most companies then but by crowdfounding?