Because scientific research usually costs more than most individuals can afford, yet doesn't always offer the immediate financial rewards necessary for companies to pursue it.
Fortunately for you (assuming you're American), there is a major political party out there which shares your anti-science, anti-tax values. They'll gladly gut our nation's R&D labs and throw away our future to save you a few pennies on your tax returns. Enjoy!
Conservatives tapped your phone without a warrant, got rid of habeas corpus, threw away proper rules of evidence, tortured, murdered, and generally wiped their ass with the Constitution... that's all good with you.
Liberals haven't even made the slightest move to take away your guns, and you're screaming about your rights being violated. Disproportionate much?
(Sometimes I wish there were no conservatives... we'd have a lot less shit to clean up.)
Also, how on earth can we tell what the actual error rate is without a paper trail? The only errors in electronic voting that you could catch without a paper trail are the blaringly obvious ones, like a machine with an improperly calibrated screen, or negative numbers for a candidate.
It's the invisible errors that concern me; a bug in the code or a malicious program could silently throw an election, and without a paper trail a "recount" would basically be nothing more than "look again at the numbers the machine gave us".
In Canada we live in a paradise in comparison. Here's what my paper ballot looked like:
Put an X in the circle beside the candidate you want
Candidate A O party A
Candidate B O party B
etc...
I voted half an hour after the polls opened, with zero wait time. My wife voted after work during the peak hours, and waited only five minutes. We knew the results of the election before going to bed that night.
As much as I like technology, voting is something where I feel that more and more complex technology is not the answer. Keep it simple and, most importantly, verifiable.
They must be anticipating the demise of the human race really soon. So far I've outlived every hard drive I've ever owned... and all of those weren't exposed to hard radiation.
On a more abstract level, I doubt you'd be able to reconstruct any living creature using its DNA only. From what I understand of biology (which is rather limited), the DNA itself only contains the blueprints for how to create proteins, but the how, when, and how much is controlled by RNA, which previously had been overlooked as "just a carrier molecule". To put it in computer terms, the DNA is the processor, while the RNA is the operating system. You'd have a tough time re-creating Linux/Windows/Mac OS X based solely on the circuit diagram of a processor.
Fair enough, just as talented workers don't have an obligation to continue working for a company that promises affordable childcare and then changes the rules mid-game.
It's not that Google should be required to accomodate families; it just makes business sense to do so. I wonder how many competent and experienced workers Google will lose before they realize that most 20-something whiz-kids will eventually turn into 30-something family guys.
0.000(recurring)1 is equal to zero, if you define it as 1 - 0.999(recurring). (Technically the notation you used isn't actually valid, but we get the idea that you're trying to express.)
The formal proof has slipped my mind at the moment, so here's an informal demonstration instead: 1/9 = 0.111111(recurring) 2/9 = 0.222222(recurring)... 8/9 = 0.888888(recurring) 9/9 = 0.999999(recurring) = 1
Your idea is essentially the old "white man's burden" concept from a century ago: justifying colonization based on the idea that the subject peoples get better infrastructure, better culture, and a better religion out of the deal. If you overlook the racist implications, it sounds good in theory, but in practice the results are a mixed bag. This is because what really drives colonialism isn't some sense of altruism, but solely the material benefits of the colonizing power; any benefits derived by the colonies from the process is accidental.
A good example of this is the Belgian colonization of the Congo. Yes, the Congo got railroads out of the deal (set up not for the Congolese, mind you, but for the exploitation of ivory), but the costs were horrific. Millions of natives were murdered, millions more killed through disease, starvation, and over-work in forced labor camps; hostage-taking and rape became institutionalized forms of "persuation"; severed hands became a sort of currency. The area's natural resources were plundered to exhaustion, all in order to make one man in Europe very wealthy.
I'm not suggesting that China would descend to the same depths if it were in control of Africa, but make no mistake: colonialism is by its nature a fundamentally unequal relationship, and colonizers expect very large returns on investment. (Look up "Boston Tea Party" if you're curious why America is no longer Britian's colony, despite all the supposed benefits of colonization). Far better for these countries to run their own affairs, and concentrate on the things that will make a real difference: better government, better education, stable finances. That way the profits of whatever investments they make will go towards improving their own country, instead of some rich colonizer.
Do you use "liberal" as a sort of knee-jerk reaction, short-hand for "beaucratic", "wasteful", "inefficient", or is there something more substantial to it? I ask because the old platitudes are wearing awfully thin these days: while Clinton oversaw an era of balanced budgets, Bush has presided over an explosion of the deficit. The Republican congress was responsible for an unprecedented avalanche of earmarks, which is only now ceing curtailed (by the Democratic majority).
As an economic conservative, I am rooting for the Democrats in this election.
Now I'm curious... the wikipedia article only says that he managed to generate a large amount of radioactivity, but could not achieve critical mass. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't exceeding critical mass result in a runaway reaction?) Does anyone have more detail on what he was aiming to do, and what he achieved?
Here in Canada, time-sensitive treatments are bumped forward to ensure things like cancer get tackled in time. The wait-times for less-urgent treatments tend to be very long as a consequence, but I'd argue that this is still superior to the US model, where the uninsured simply end up untreated until they end up in the emergency room.
I can't resist taking a jab at your signature, by the way. Obama's tax plan involves an additional tax _cut_ for the vast majority of Americans; only those making more than $250,000 a year will see their Bush tax-cuts rolled back. Just thought I'd bring that up, in case you're interested in the candidate's actual policy proposals, rather than just a mindless talking-point.
I really should know better than reply to this, but hell, I'll go for it.
Let's list all the things Bush has "accomplished" by going into Iraq: - Left Afghanistan half-finished; the Taliban could have been wiped out, but instead they've been left to regroup - Let Bin Laden get off scott free instead of hanging him like a dog - Created a new haven and training ground for extremists. There wasn't an "Al Qaeda in Iraq" group before the invasion - Wasted America's credibility, billions of taxpayer dollars, and thousands of American lives in the pursuit of imaginary WMD - Stained America's reputation and provided the terrorists with an invaluable recruitement tool through the use of torture, abusive prisons, and mindless destruction of lives and property.
George W. Bush has been the gift that just keeps on giving... to the terrorists. I like to believe that Bush was merely stupid and incompetent, rather than evil.
Funny, I thought an attack on Iran in the waning days of the Bush administration would do exactly the opposite: ensure that the Republican brand would be radioactive for decades.
Americans are already sick of the death rate in Iraq, and angry about oil prices. Iran could be relied upon to increase both dramatically in the event of an attack. Naturally Iran's military is not as advanced as ours, but they have a big advantage in numbers and a willingness to use guerilla tactics. Even just a verbal threat of attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz would be enough to oil prices flying upwards. The only reason I don't rule out an attack on Iran is because the Bush administration has a proven record of stategic idoicy.
You make good points. I was not trying to trivialize the challenge of expanding the electricity grid, nor the challenge of creating better batteries. My salient point is that the path towards an all-electric replacement of our current petrol-driven system can be phased in gradually via plug-in hybrids, allowing time for technologies to improve, for demand to grow naturally, and for extra capacity to be installed as in pace with the demand. The same cannot be said for "all-or-nothing" conversions like switching to a hydrogen economy, which is of dubious environmental benefit at enormous cost anyway.
Incidentally, I should point out that the electricity grid has largely kept pace with population growth in North America, so the grid, for all its shortcomings, demonstrates a remarkable degree of flexibility. I doubt everyone is going to abandon their current vehicles and buy plugins all at once anyway, so the growth of demand will be at worst large but smooth.
As for battery technologies, you are correct that this is not a trivial problem to solve. However, I disagree that future advances will necessarily be only incremental. One exciting area of research is in ultracapacitors, which can behave like both conventional batteries and capacitors. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10601407 I suspect that with enough bright minds focused on the challenge, the problem of electrical energy storage is ultimately solveable.
I was furious at the environmentalists who praised the far-off "hydrogen economy" plan while ignoring the axing of the here-and-now hybrid plans. Aside from the many and major unsolved technical problems, the biggest stumbling block for hydrogen is the issue of critical mass. No-one is going to invest trillions in building a hydrogen distribution network in every city until there is a critical mass of hydrogen vehicles to justify it, and obviously hydrogen vehicles will be impractical if there are too few filling stations. (Also, since most of our hydrogen is generated from fossil fuels anyway, one might ask what is the point of the expensive conversion anyway. Using electricity to electrolyze water on a large enough scale would be a collasal waste of energy).
The fact is, we already have an extremely modern and efficient system of transferring energy practically anywhere which could replace the petrol distribution network: our electricity grid. All we need is to develop good-enough battery technology for the cars... and hybrids are providing the impetus for those better batteries! Not only do hybrids provide the immediate benefits of reducing consumption and emmissions *right now*, they provide the real-world testbed for creating the better batteries and electrical systems that all-electric cars will need tomorrow. Plug-in hybrids are especially exciting: all-electric commutes within the city, while still offering the opportunity to go on long trips without lengthy recharging times.
I should note that GM seems to have learned from its mistakes in the 90s. The Chevy Volt (assuming it ever sees the light of day) will arguably be the first mass-production plugin hybrid, beating even Toyota to the field. I wish GM the best of luck!
Really? I guess I just don't know too many vegans, and tend not to ask obese people "what have you been eating?" Nevertheless, all of the vegans I *do* know have tended to range from "somewhat skinny" to "nightmarish-walking-skeleton skinny".
Mind giving some examples of Obama's poor judgement? I am genuinely interested in the answer, because I support Obama precisely because I think he has demonstrated better judgement than other candidates.
Did McCain (or Hillary Clinton, for that matter) show good judgement in authorizing the attack on Iraq? In the Keating Five affair? In joking about bombing Iran (a country with a half-million strong military, sitting beside a major oil route and next door to Iraq, where our forces already have their hands full)? In embracing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while the deficit is soaring? In flip-flopping on the question of turture?
Obama's career in the Senate has been brief, but he's shown a knack for working with Republicans on major issues that matter: worked with Richard Lugar on extending the nuclear proliferation framework, with Coburn on government transparency, and McCain (yes, that's right) on ethics reform. On many issues (Iraq, haebis corpus rights, torture) I feel he's shown much better judgement than the Republicans.
Most of the only "poor judgement" claims I've heard so far involve some variant of "he picks poor company" (i.e. Rev Wright, et al.) Fair enough, but I suspect this is true to some degree of any sufficiently well-connected person. In Wright's defence, he's done a hell of a lot of good in his life outside of making inflamatory sermons: helped the homeless and the poor, served in the Marines, etc. Most of us can feel superior in knowing we don't believe in the obviously idiotic things Wright believes, but on the flip side I suspect few of us have done as much good as he has.
I suppose it has something to do with our natural aversion as a species to injury and death. Most apes aren't really predators by nature (many are omnivorous, but mostly vegetarian), so usually any blood they happen to see would be their own.
Some other choice quotes from the discussion prompted by that first spam:
THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN. Great! Now we'll never have to worry about this issue ever again.
There are many companies in the U.S. and abroad that would like to have access to the Arpanet. Naturally all of them cannot have this access. Naturally... there are still areas of the Sahara without internet access, right? Right?
I shudder to think about it, but I can envision junk mail being sent to people who implement Dialnet, and no way it could be prevented or stopped. I guess the ultimate solution is the command in your mail reading subsystem which deletes an unwanted message. Hey, it works for Strong Bad.
And now, for the win:
The amount of harm done by any of the cited "unfair" things the net has been used for is clearly very small.... By the suggested reasoning, we should always follow the political views that we don't believe in, and especially those of terrorists, in anticipation of their attempts to impose them on us. Good to see that spam had its defenders back in the day. Does bringing up terrorism count as a Godwin nowadays?
Revoking so many licenses wouldn't reduce the number of people on the road; it would just result in more people taking the bus. Bonus!
Seriously, though, without knowing more details I doubt the kid had malicious intent. Sure, trains weigh a lot, but I myself am surprised that the train derailed. We're not talking about high-speed trains here, I would have assumed (as the kid might have) that the switching mechanism was designed with a gentle-enough curve to avoid derailment at speeds higher than procedure calls for.
A very basic concept in engineering design is "factor of safety". Take whatever parameter you expect a system will have to handle (speed, load, temperature, whatever) and multiply it by the FOS, and design your system to be able to handle that higher parameter. At the very minimum, the speed FOS for the switching mechanism should have been high enough to avoid derailment should someone make a mistake and approach the switch without reducing speed. The engineers who designed this switch were grossly incompetent, and not just for failing to design security into the controls.
I've never understood the current mania of increased government powers with less accountability. I'm all for increasing the powers of the spooks to spy, just so long as it is balanced by increased accountability and oversight.
Increasing power while decreasing the oversight consistently gives bad results: at best we see this kind of sloppiness on the part of the FBI; at worst we get the kinds of abuses that have blackened America's reputation around the world.
Absolutely correct. One of the reasons I didn't buy a Prius, despite my love of hybrids, was Toyota's decision to route everything through a central LCD touchscreen. Turning on something as simple as the air conditioning involves navigating menus with multiple touches, and the lack of tactile feedback forces you to take your eyes off the road while doing so. It looks futuristic, but there is something to be said for old-fashioned buttons, switches, and dials.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. You and I have no choice but to live in the suburbs far from everywhere. Sacrifice is something other people should do.
Because scientific research usually costs more than most individuals can afford, yet doesn't always offer the immediate financial rewards necessary for companies to pursue it.
Fortunately for you (assuming you're American), there is a major political party out there which shares your anti-science, anti-tax values. They'll gladly gut our nation's R&D labs and throw away our future to save you a few pennies on your tax returns. Enjoy!
Conservatives tapped your phone without a warrant, got rid of habeas corpus, threw away proper rules of evidence, tortured, murdered, and generally wiped their ass with the Constitution... that's all good with you.
Liberals haven't even made the slightest move to take away your guns, and you're screaming about your rights being violated. Disproportionate much?
(Sometimes I wish there were no conservatives... we'd have a lot less shit to clean up.)
The first Copy's first words were: "This is like being buried alive. I've changed my mind. Get me out of here."
I voted half an hour after the polls opened, with zero wait time. My wife voted after work during the peak hours, and waited only five minutes. We knew the results of the election before going to bed that night. As much as I like technology, voting is something where I feel that more and more complex technology is not the answer. Keep it simple and, most importantly, verifiable.
They must be anticipating the demise of the human race really soon. So far I've outlived every hard drive I've ever owned... and all of those weren't exposed to hard radiation.
On a more abstract level, I doubt you'd be able to reconstruct any living creature using its DNA only. From what I understand of biology (which is rather limited), the DNA itself only contains the blueprints for how to create proteins, but the how, when, and how much is controlled by RNA, which previously had been overlooked as "just a carrier molecule". To put it in computer terms, the DNA is the processor, while the RNA is the operating system. You'd have a tough time re-creating Linux/Windows/Mac OS X based solely on the circuit diagram of a processor.
Fair enough, just as talented workers don't have an obligation to continue working for a company that promises affordable childcare and then changes the rules mid-game.
It's not that Google should be required to accomodate families; it just makes business sense to do so. I wonder how many competent and experienced workers Google will lose before they realize that most 20-something whiz-kids will eventually turn into 30-something family guys.
Minor math quibble:
0.000(recurring)1 is equal to zero, if you define it as 1 - 0.999(recurring). (Technically the notation you used isn't actually valid, but we get the idea that you're trying to express.)
The formal proof has slipped my mind at the moment, so here's an informal demonstration instead: ...
1/9 = 0.111111(recurring)
2/9 = 0.222222(recurring)
8/9 = 0.888888(recurring)
9/9 = 0.999999(recurring) = 1
I'll bite.
Your idea is essentially the old "white man's burden" concept from a century ago: justifying colonization based on the idea that the subject peoples get better infrastructure, better culture, and a better religion out of the deal. If you overlook the racist implications, it sounds good in theory, but in practice the results are a mixed bag. This is because what really drives colonialism isn't some sense of altruism, but solely the material benefits of the colonizing power; any benefits derived by the colonies from the process is accidental.
A good example of this is the Belgian colonization of the Congo. Yes, the Congo got railroads out of the deal (set up not for the Congolese, mind you, but for the exploitation of ivory), but the costs were horrific. Millions of natives were murdered, millions more killed through disease, starvation, and over-work in forced labor camps; hostage-taking and rape became institutionalized forms of "persuation"; severed hands became a sort of currency. The area's natural resources were plundered to exhaustion, all in order to make one man in Europe very wealthy.
I'm not suggesting that China would descend to the same depths if it were in control of Africa, but make no mistake: colonialism is by its nature a fundamentally unequal relationship, and colonizers expect very large returns on investment. (Look up "Boston Tea Party" if you're curious why America is no longer Britian's colony, despite all the supposed benefits of colonization). Far better for these countries to run their own affairs, and concentrate on the things that will make a real difference: better government, better education, stable finances. That way the profits of whatever investments they make will go towards improving their own country, instead of some rich colonizer.
Do you use "liberal" as a sort of knee-jerk reaction, short-hand for "beaucratic", "wasteful", "inefficient", or is there something more substantial to it? I ask because the old platitudes are wearing awfully thin these days: while Clinton oversaw an era of balanced budgets, Bush has presided over an explosion of the deficit. The Republican congress was responsible for an unprecedented avalanche of earmarks, which is only now ceing curtailed (by the Democratic majority).
As an economic conservative, I am rooting for the Democrats in this election.
Now I'm curious... the wikipedia article only says that he managed to generate a large amount of radioactivity, but could not achieve critical mass. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't exceeding critical mass result in a runaway reaction?) Does anyone have more detail on what he was aiming to do, and what he achieved?
Here in Canada, time-sensitive treatments are bumped forward to ensure things like cancer get tackled in time. The wait-times for less-urgent treatments tend to be very long as a consequence, but I'd argue that this is still superior to the US model, where the uninsured simply end up untreated until they end up in the emergency room.
I can't resist taking a jab at your signature, by the way. Obama's tax plan involves an additional tax _cut_ for the vast majority of Americans; only those making more than $250,000 a year will see their Bush tax-cuts rolled back. Just thought I'd bring that up, in case you're interested in the candidate's actual policy proposals, rather than just a mindless talking-point.
I really should know better than reply to this, but hell, I'll go for it.
Let's list all the things Bush has "accomplished" by going into Iraq:
- Left Afghanistan half-finished; the Taliban could have been wiped out, but instead they've been left to regroup
- Let Bin Laden get off scott free instead of hanging him like a dog
- Created a new haven and training ground for extremists. There wasn't an "Al Qaeda in Iraq" group before the invasion
- Wasted America's credibility, billions of taxpayer dollars, and thousands of American lives in the pursuit of imaginary WMD
- Stained America's reputation and provided the terrorists with an invaluable recruitement tool through the use of torture, abusive prisons, and mindless destruction of lives and property.
George W. Bush has been the gift that just keeps on giving... to the terrorists. I like to believe that Bush was merely stupid and incompetent, rather than evil.
Funny, I thought an attack on Iran in the waning days of the Bush administration would do exactly the opposite: ensure that the Republican brand would be radioactive for decades.
Americans are already sick of the death rate in Iraq, and angry about oil prices. Iran could be relied upon to increase both dramatically in the event of an attack. Naturally Iran's military is not as advanced as ours, but they have a big advantage in numbers and a willingness to use guerilla tactics. Even just a verbal threat of attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz would be enough to oil prices flying upwards. The only reason I don't rule out an attack on Iran is because the Bush administration has a proven record of stategic idoicy.
You make good points. I was not trying to trivialize the challenge of expanding the electricity grid, nor the challenge of creating better batteries. My salient point is that the path towards an all-electric replacement of our current petrol-driven system can be phased in gradually via plug-in hybrids, allowing time for technologies to improve, for demand to grow naturally, and for extra capacity to be installed as in pace with the demand. The same cannot be said for "all-or-nothing" conversions like switching to a hydrogen economy, which is of dubious environmental benefit at enormous cost anyway.
Incidentally, I should point out that the electricity grid has largely kept pace with population growth in North America, so the grid, for all its shortcomings, demonstrates a remarkable degree of flexibility. I doubt everyone is going to abandon their current vehicles and buy plugins all at once anyway, so the growth of demand will be at worst large but smooth.
As for battery technologies, you are correct that this is not a trivial problem to solve. However, I disagree that future advances will necessarily be only incremental. One exciting area of research is in ultracapacitors, which can behave like both conventional batteries and capacitors. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10601407 I suspect that with enough bright minds focused on the challenge, the problem of electrical energy storage is ultimately solveable.
Awesome post! It captures my sentiments exactly.
I was furious at the environmentalists who praised the far-off "hydrogen economy" plan while ignoring the axing of the here-and-now hybrid plans. Aside from the many and major unsolved technical problems, the biggest stumbling block for hydrogen is the issue of critical mass. No-one is going to invest trillions in building a hydrogen distribution network in every city until there is a critical mass of hydrogen vehicles to justify it, and obviously hydrogen vehicles will be impractical if there are too few filling stations. (Also, since most of our hydrogen is generated from fossil fuels anyway, one might ask what is the point of the expensive conversion anyway. Using electricity to electrolyze water on a large enough scale would be a collasal waste of energy).
The fact is, we already have an extremely modern and efficient system of transferring energy practically anywhere which could replace the petrol distribution network: our electricity grid. All we need is to develop good-enough battery technology for the cars... and hybrids are providing the impetus for those better batteries! Not only do hybrids provide the immediate benefits of reducing consumption and emmissions *right now*, they provide the real-world testbed for creating the better batteries and electrical systems that all-electric cars will need tomorrow. Plug-in hybrids are especially exciting: all-electric commutes within the city, while still offering the opportunity to go on long trips without lengthy recharging times.
I should note that GM seems to have learned from its mistakes in the 90s. The Chevy Volt (assuming it ever sees the light of day) will arguably be the first mass-production plugin hybrid, beating even Toyota to the field. I wish GM the best of luck!
Really? I guess I just don't know too many vegans, and tend not to ask obese people "what have you been eating?" Nevertheless, all of the vegans I *do* know have tended to range from "somewhat skinny" to "nightmarish-walking-skeleton skinny".
in conjunction with a good blow job and
Yes, a good blow job is a great way to improve almost any situation.
Mind giving some examples of Obama's poor judgement? I am genuinely interested in the answer, because I support Obama precisely because I think he has demonstrated better judgement than other candidates.
Did McCain (or Hillary Clinton, for that matter) show good judgement in authorizing the attack on Iraq? In the Keating Five affair? In joking about bombing Iran (a country with a half-million strong military, sitting beside a major oil route and next door to Iraq, where our forces already have their hands full)? In embracing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while the deficit is soaring? In flip-flopping on the question of turture?
Obama's career in the Senate has been brief, but he's shown a knack for working with Republicans on major issues that matter: worked with Richard Lugar on extending the nuclear proliferation framework, with Coburn on government transparency, and McCain (yes, that's right) on ethics reform. On many issues (Iraq, haebis corpus rights, torture) I feel he's shown much better judgement than the Republicans.
Most of the only "poor judgement" claims I've heard so far involve some variant of "he picks poor company" (i.e. Rev Wright, et al.) Fair enough, but I suspect this is true to some degree of any sufficiently well-connected person. In Wright's defence, he's done a hell of a lot of good in his life outside of making inflamatory sermons: helped the homeless and the poor, served in the Marines, etc. Most of us can feel superior in knowing we don't believe in the obviously idiotic things Wright believes, but on the flip side I suspect few of us have done as much good as he has.
I suppose it has something to do with our natural aversion as a species to injury and death. Most apes aren't really predators by nature (many are omnivorous, but mostly vegetarian), so usually any blood they happen to see would be their own.
She does. Unfortunately, she doesn't think of it as a prefix, but as something that follows "iPod".
And now, for the win: The amount of harm done by any of the cited "unfair" things the net has been used for is clearly very small.
Revoking so many licenses wouldn't reduce the number of people on the road; it would just result in more people taking the bus. Bonus!
Seriously, though, without knowing more details I doubt the kid had malicious intent. Sure, trains weigh a lot, but I myself am surprised that the train derailed. We're not talking about high-speed trains here, I would have assumed (as the kid might have) that the switching mechanism was designed with a gentle-enough curve to avoid derailment at speeds higher than procedure calls for.
A very basic concept in engineering design is "factor of safety". Take whatever parameter you expect a system will have to handle (speed, load, temperature, whatever) and multiply it by the FOS, and design your system to be able to handle that higher parameter. At the very minimum, the speed FOS for the switching mechanism should have been high enough to avoid derailment should someone make a mistake and approach the switch without reducing speed. The engineers who designed this switch were grossly incompetent, and not just for failing to design security into the controls.
I've never understood the current mania of increased government powers with less accountability. I'm all for increasing the powers of the spooks to spy, just so long as it is balanced by increased accountability and oversight.
Increasing power while decreasing the oversight consistently gives bad results: at best we see this kind of sloppiness on the part of the FBI; at worst we get the kinds of abuses that have blackened America's reputation around the world.
Absolutely correct. One of the reasons I didn't buy a Prius, despite my love of hybrids, was Toyota's decision to route everything through a central LCD touchscreen. Turning on something as simple as the air conditioning involves navigating menus with multiple touches, and the lack of tactile feedback forces you to take your eyes off the road while doing so. It looks futuristic, but there is something to be said for old-fashioned buttons, switches, and dials.