The laws appear to be vague such that somebody has to make a judgment call over what suspicious activity to inspect further. If anybody has an idea for making those judgements more objective and/or fair, please speak up.
And it may require more staff and resources. You can't have good & fair auditing on the cheap; pony up the taxes or stop complaining when one low-level person has "too much power" to make such decisions.
Earlier testimony by the IRS indicated that it would take.....Now they are saying...
I don't think you ever worked for a bureaucracy before. It often takes a good while for the right hand to figure out what the left hand is doing or did. People leave, move, or are promoted, and the new staff often do not know the history of what, where, how, why, and when past actions were done. It takes digging in old emails, papers, and making phone calls to prior staff to gradually put the history of Humpty back together again by combining the clues.
Lead A leads to lead B, which leads to lead C, etc. It's detective work, essentially.
I'm not surprised NASA lost the original Apollo 11 moon landing tapes. Disappointed, but not surprised. (They are probably next to the Arc of the Convenient in a giant warehouse.) Hell, if Roswell is true, I bet they lost the pickled aliens too. Misfiled under Jimmy Hoffa?
New Horizons did get a gravity boost by passing near Jupiter, but Saturn wasn't in the vicinity like it was during Voyager's time. One of the motivations for the Voyager missions was to take advantage of the coincidental alignment of the 4 gas giants at the time so that probe(s) could visit one after the other (without large expensive boosters).
Voyager 1 didn't attempt Uranus and Neptune because it would mean sacrificing a close Titan pass. Thus, that was left to Voyager 2. Plus, there were concerns about Saturn's rings damaging a probe aimed Uranus's way. But Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 ring analysis made the mission planners more confident. (Pioneer 11 was truly a pioneer in that it scouted the area in preparation for bigger probes.)
New Horizons is facing similar ring concerns, being that Pluto has enough moons to suggest a debris field or ring from prior collisions. They will probably fly through an orbit area that is in theory cleared out by Charon, but there are no guarantees. Since New Horizons mostly records first and sends later, because unlike Voyager it doesn't have independent instrument booms, if it's smashed by debris, we'll only have preliminary photos and analysis in pocket.
Advocacy is not a scientist's job. Scientists are to describe or model reality as best they can, not attempt to change it. Changing things with technology is "engineering", and changing people's opinions with technology is "social engineering".
Scientists should be careful not to taint their reputation for objective analysis.
You average GOP voter strongly values privacy and will not look kindly at this kind of targeted approach.
Only half true. They didn't give a flying fudge until a Democrat was in office, then it became a "big gov't conspiracy". I don't think a single Republican representative voted against the Patriot Act. (To be fair, Dems also put up very little resistance.)
That's not spoiled, that's being a discerning user.
I mean "spoiled" in the sense that they expect desktop-like GUI behavior for web apps. They don't understand that such an expectation is somewhat unrealistic, or at least economically costlier to deliver well on a browser. From their perspective, they are getting ripped off. I'm not pointing fingers, just trying to explain the mismatch of expectations created by web standards (or lack of).
Applets and Flash both suffer from the problem of continually downloading code over the Internet
Part of this is because they pretty much have to download the entire app to display even one page. A better design would be to allow independent page downloads only when needed, like HTML.
Browsers suck for running applications because they're for displaying web pages, not for running interactive UI's.
As they currently are, yes. But I see no inherent law of the universe that prevents extending or tweaking the HTML standard to include more desktop GUI idioms so that one doesn't have to download an entire GUI engine (built in JavaScript usually) to get common and expected GUI behavior that's been around since the 80's. It's not like it's a moving target, at least not on "large" mouse-based screens. Mobile UI's are a moving target such that I can understand standards indigestion there, but not work-intensive desktop GUI's.
(Touchscreen may change some of that, but most work-related processes are still done with a keyboard and mouse. Touch-screens are pretty much GUI's with bigger controls so that fat fingers can use it. They are kind of like designing for original Mac or Windows 3.1 era with its tiny screen, but magnified so that the controls are big enough for fingers.)
1. Reinvent desktop application concept in a new language 2. Give it a funny name like "Long-Term Cached Web Application" to disguise it from the clueless 3. Patent it 4. Sue existing desktop companies like Microsoft for royalties 5. Profit!
This happens because the desktop UI has "spoiled" users and application requesters. We as developers cannot say "it can't be done" because it can be done and they've seen web applications or demos that do make their browser act like a desktop GUI.
However, the web standards are poorly fitted for desktop-style GUI's such that we have to "force it" with tricks and micromanaging low-level details with kludges, including dealing with browser-version-specific differences.
But forcing it results in a web application that is expensive to build and especially difficult to maintain. The result is that the requester balks at the initial cost, and then balks again when maintenance is an even bigger expensive headache. Thus, the requester is double pissed.
I believe it's time to rethink how web-served UI's are done. A new "GUI markup language" perhaps should be invented that does most of the common desktop-like GUI idioms declaratively (as markup) to reduce the need for direct GUI coding in JavaScript or whatnot.
Java applets and Flash gave of a taste of GUI-centric engines. But applets have awkward API's and don't integrate well with existing HTML browsers. Flash provided decent GUI's and API's, but Flash is proprietary, limiting its reach, and also suffers from the HTML integration problem.
A key lesson from Java and Flash is that a new GUI markup standard is probably going to have to be a super-set of HTML so that the HTML content and the GUI content don't have to run on different engines or panels. Hopefully it will also have an open-source version.
A given intelligent being is most likely to be alive during the most populous times of the species. My existence here and now thus suggests were are near the maximum and it's down-hill from here, I'm afraid to say.
or almost all the civilizations the aliens know about formed around red dwarf stars. It's nice and stable there for very long periods of time.
Red dwarfs tend to spew a lot of radiation in their habitable zone, and probably tidally-lock the planets there also. However, it's hard to say if non-microscopic life can work around those obstacles.
The US launched a captured V-2 into space (but not orbit) in 1946 with a camera. Perhaps there were USAF-built rocket space missions after these V-2 experiments, but I am not aware of any until the "Sputnik scare" pushed military rockets into space use for a brief time until NASA took that over.
I generally meant space missions. Perhaps they made great rockets, but there is more to space exploration than rockets. Military projects usually get deeper pockets than civilian projects, I would note. Civilian programs tend to get more scrutiny, in part because the military understandably has to keep most things secret, and second because Republicans are more critical of civilian projects than military ones for some reason.
and Russia whose deputy prime minister recently suggested that U.S. astronauts use a trampoline if they want to get into orbit. Aiding in the push for more research is the development of two-way cargo ships by SpaceX...
What about aiding the push for better trampolines?
Slashdot Mirror
The laws appear to be vague such that somebody has to make a judgment call over what suspicious activity to inspect further. If anybody has an idea for making those judgements more objective and/or fair, please speak up.
And it may require more staff and resources. You can't have good & fair auditing on the cheap; pony up the taxes or stop complaining when one low-level person has "too much power" to make such decisions.
There is no free lunch.
I don't think you ever worked for a bureaucracy before. It often takes a good while for the right hand to figure out what the left hand is doing or did. People leave, move, or are promoted, and the new staff often do not know the history of what, where, how, why, and when past actions were done. It takes digging in old emails, papers, and making phone calls to prior staff to gradually put the history of Humpty back together again by combining the clues.
Lead A leads to lead B, which leads to lead C, etc. It's detective work, essentially.
I'm not surprised NASA lost the original Apollo 11 moon landing tapes. Disappointed, but not surprised. (They are probably next to the Arc of the Convenient in a giant warehouse.) Hell, if Roswell is true, I bet they lost the pickled aliens too. Misfiled under Jimmy Hoffa?
New Horizons did get a gravity boost by passing near Jupiter, but Saturn wasn't in the vicinity like it was during Voyager's time. One of the motivations for the Voyager missions was to take advantage of the coincidental alignment of the 4 gas giants at the time so that probe(s) could visit one after the other (without large expensive boosters).
Voyager 1 didn't attempt Uranus and Neptune because it would mean sacrificing a close Titan pass. Thus, that was left to Voyager 2. Plus, there were concerns about Saturn's rings damaging a probe aimed Uranus's way. But Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 ring analysis made the mission planners more confident. (Pioneer 11 was truly a pioneer in that it scouted the area in preparation for bigger probes.)
New Horizons is facing similar ring concerns, being that Pluto has enough moons to suggest a debris field or ring from prior collisions. They will probably fly through an orbit area that is in theory cleared out by Charon, but there are no guarantees. Since New Horizons mostly records first and sends later, because unlike Voyager it doesn't have independent instrument booms, if it's smashed by debris, we'll only have preliminary photos and analysis in pocket.
Good, the doctors can take my vitals while waiting in the waiting-room to cut time.
Careful there, this is a family website.
"Statistical Analyst" would be a better term, but maybe convention has set in.
The bigger crime was exposing W's horrid art to the world.
Some vending machines have the best impressions of women: take your money for nothing in return and then pretend like nothing happened ;-)
Advocacy is not a scientist's job. Scientists are to describe or model reality as best they can, not attempt to change it. Changing things with technology is "engineering", and changing people's opinions with technology is "social engineering".
Scientists should be careful not to taint their reputation for objective analysis.
Only half true. They didn't give a flying fudge until a Democrat was in office, then it became a "big gov't conspiracy". I don't think a single Republican representative voted against the Patriot Act. (To be fair, Dems also put up very little resistance.)
I mean "spoiled" in the sense that they expect desktop-like GUI behavior for web apps. They don't understand that such an expectation is somewhat unrealistic, or at least economically costlier to deliver well on a browser. From their perspective, they are getting ripped off. I'm not pointing fingers, just trying to explain the mismatch of expectations created by web standards (or lack of).
Part of this is because they pretty much have to download the entire app to display even one page. A better design would be to allow independent page downloads only when needed, like HTML.
As they currently are, yes. But I see no inherent law of the universe that prevents extending or tweaking the HTML standard to include more desktop GUI idioms so that one doesn't have to download an entire GUI engine (built in JavaScript usually) to get common and expected GUI behavior that's been around since the 80's. It's not like it's a moving target, at least not on "large" mouse-based screens. Mobile UI's are a moving target such that I can understand standards indigestion there, but not work-intensive desktop GUI's.
(Touchscreen may change some of that, but most work-related processes are still done with a keyboard and mouse. Touch-screens are pretty much GUI's with bigger controls so that fat fingers can use it. They are kind of like designing for original Mac or Windows 3.1 era with its tiny screen, but magnified so that the controls are big enough for fingers.)
No wonder Clippy just tried to kill me
1. Reinvent desktop application concept in a new language
2. Give it a funny name like "Long-Term Cached Web Application" to disguise it from the clueless
3. Patent it
4. Sue existing desktop companies like Microsoft for royalties
5. Profit!
This happens because the desktop UI has "spoiled" users and application requesters. We as developers cannot say "it can't be done" because it can be done and they've seen web applications or demos that do make their browser act like a desktop GUI.
However, the web standards are poorly fitted for desktop-style GUI's such that we have to "force it" with tricks and micromanaging low-level details with kludges, including dealing with browser-version-specific differences.
But forcing it results in a web application that is expensive to build and especially difficult to maintain. The result is that the requester balks at the initial cost, and then balks again when maintenance is an even bigger expensive headache. Thus, the requester is double pissed.
I believe it's time to rethink how web-served UI's are done. A new "GUI markup language" perhaps should be invented that does most of the common desktop-like GUI idioms declaratively (as markup) to reduce the need for direct GUI coding in JavaScript or whatnot.
Java applets and Flash gave of a taste of GUI-centric engines. But applets have awkward API's and don't integrate well with existing HTML browsers. Flash provided decent GUI's and API's, but Flash is proprietary, limiting its reach, and also suffers from the HTML integration problem.
A key lesson from Java and Flash is that a new GUI markup standard is probably going to have to be a super-set of HTML so that the HTML content and the GUI content don't have to run on different engines or panels. Hopefully it will also have an open-source version.
It appears their species arrived in the 80's with Michael Jackson (replaced body) and Prince.
A given intelligent being is most likely to be alive during the most populous times of the species. My existence here and now thus suggests were are near the maximum and it's down-hill from here, I'm afraid to say.
Red dwarfs tend to spew a lot of radiation in their habitable zone, and probably tidally-lock the planets there also. However, it's hard to say if non-microscopic life can work around those obstacles.
Lady Gaga is the evidence. She is not from this planet.
Target store is going to change its name to Kick Me.
The US launched a captured V-2 into space (but not orbit) in 1946 with a camera. Perhaps there were USAF-built rocket space missions after these V-2 experiments, but I am not aware of any until the "Sputnik scare" pushed military rockets into space use for a brief time until NASA took that over.
I generally meant space missions. Perhaps they made great rockets, but there is more to space exploration than rockets. Military projects usually get deeper pockets than civilian projects, I would note. Civilian programs tend to get more scrutiny, in part because the military understandably has to keep most things secret, and second because Republicans are more critical of civilian projects than military ones for some reason.
What about aiding the push for better trampolines?
Uh, what great successes did AF have before the "late 50's"? Launching captured existing German rockets?
Weasels absorb radiation
Lobbyists from Hell's Hell.