Nope; what's conserved is your time. You can spend it on new lines or fixing old ones, but you lose it at a rate of one second per second, regardless.
If we plot 'dev time per line of code' against project size, the small project will be quicker in a less stringent language, the large project relatively quicker in a stricter one. (Assuming in both cases the object is to get the program working correctly (as reasonable), not just working.)
Also, I am inclined to disagree with your 'conservation of bugs' argument in that I think fewer vectors means fewer bugs get in. If we allow that a more structured language will tend to be more verbose (defining things, explicitly converting types, etc), we might end up with fewer _ways_ for bugs to enter but more lines of code in total, so more lines that might be wrong -- but I don't think this will entirely cancel out the benefit of fewer types of error being possible/likely.
I'm old and dumb. I can only keep so many things in my head, so I like static typing. There's enough to keep track of without that extra layer of variability. Each to their own. I've mostly written numerical methods and modelling code, where logic errors are really important, and can be insidious. They can be there in any type of language, and I find static typing helps me discard one class of problems and focus on the important but subtle ones.
I'm currently working as an editor. Word is my main tool. And, I gotta say, Word's pile of crap, cloud or otherwise. It's crufty, it falls over, it's still lacking basic functionality like reveal codes and non-breaking character strings (\mbox{} if you know LaTeX). But since it is so embedded in the workflows of major organisations, it would take a nuclear crowbar to rip it out. For example, publication departments invest a lot of time and therefore money in developing pathways to take 'ing Word docs into 'ing InDesign with maximum preserved tagging. Their whole publications division centres on Word -- documents are prepared using custom styles (Word templates), proofed and collaborated over using Track Changes, checked using tools like Grammerly and PerfectIt. Equations are added in using MathType, and so on. Govt depts, businesses of all sizes, they've bought into the proprietary software toolchain from one end to the other. Microsoft and Adobe are the unholy duality. Word and InDesign. The clever thing is that 98% of users don't need 98% of what Word can do, and yet M$ has got them to buy it.
For 20 years, eternity in IT, the biggest competitor for Office has been previous versions of Office. M$ knew they had to move their customers onto a subscription model while they were still so dominant in the market, and they've done it.
Plenty of tools can do what Office does, sure. WordPerfect is still a great product; but nobody in business or govt (unless an OS enthusiast) is going to learn anything they don't have to. M$ relies on that inertia, and the investment already made in Word, and it's going to be a solid tactic for some time to come.
Not that many kids use laptops in class now. That's very 2005. Mostly they sit there snapchatting and facebooking on their phones, often with a blank paper notebook in front of them. Quite a few pretend to take notes on a Surface or something similar. No point removing laptops and keeping tablets and/or phones. You can see it. They're physically in the class but they're not 'there'. Of course, this is not true for all students, just a significant fraction; say a third to a half.
The idea of using a Surface to annotate notes downloaded from the LMS is nice, but in practice too many students lack the discipline to leave their messages alone while they do it. Divided attention is little better than inattention. I would love to run one physics tutorial group with latest tech and a second one with paper and basic scientific calculators only, and see what happens. Ah well. Ethics approval...
I have downloaded music I haven't paid for when creators put it up on their websites themselves. Otherwise, no. I'm not a thief. I think there's a bit of ethical relativism going on here. I have done some creative work so I can see the other side of the coin -- namely, expecting people to work for nothing is just greedy. Which is not to say that they can't choose to work for nothing. I've contributed in a small way to some open source stuff and I don't expect pay. I _choose_. But if I spend hours making something, say a creative work like a novel, where the time to write it is time I could be doing something else, time away from my family, time I value, then what right have others got to distribute it without my permission? If I've got a taxpayer fellowship to do the work, then it should be widely available. Mind you, do authors who get arts funding have to give their novels away for free? No! But if I do a work in my own time and at my own expense, I have the right to decide what happens to it, whether I am an individual or a corporation. I might be foolish not to give my permission, but I have the right to be foolish. Theft is theft. Just 'cos it's easy, just 'cos it's from a big corporation, just cos you're online and no one can 'see' you does not make it right. Might be a bit uncomfortable for you to have to think about that, but try. If nobody's looking and it's from a big department store that's making huge profits and 'nobody gets hurt', do you shoplift as well?
And calling me names 'cos you don't agree with me makes you sound like a child.
And non-public funded research is a real thing, especially in medicine. Public-private partnerships are a real thing. May not be ideal, but not all bad. Really, no need to be rude. I guess this is what I get for disagreeing with the duckspeaking hive mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So it's nice that we can get at paywalled stuff for free. But it's not as simple as it seems. What we really need is consortia of research labs, professional societies like the American Physical Society and Universities running the equivalent of a properly peer reviewed layer on top of arXiv and similar sites, removing the need for journals entirely. The current open access universe is so crufted up with crappy open access journals everywhere now, asking a few bucks to put your work on some Indian server or whatever. So it's broken, just as broken as the old subscription model. Need to redesign for 21C distribution channels. Not likely, but...
A lot of journals allow self-archiving, sometimes of published, sometimes of 'author's last' version. It's an underused mechanism.
Until then...As for Sci Hub...it's a response to the idiocies of the current system and the amazing costs of the established journals, and it is right that more publicly funded research gets to more people. It is a blunt instrument, though, with drawbacks:
(1) Not all the research is taxpayer funded. This is a crude instrument. Even if you accept the 'taxpayer funded' argument as a basis for considering this behaviour ethical, if they put out anything that was privately funded, that is still ethically theft.
(2) The 'it's taxpayer funded' argument is nice, but at least logically, the conclusion is that US taxpayer funded research should be available to US taxpayers, UK to UK taxpayers, etc. The argument is really not logically valid as it stands. You still need to invoke altruism (US funds it and gives to the world). Science needs to be globally available, not just to the country where it was done.
(3) Giving away other people's stuff is all well and good until you run out of other people's work to publish. Elsevier and and those, yes, they make a lot of money where they really shouldn't. But these papers _are_ peer reviewed through the Elsevier mechanism. So Elsevier _do_ add some value over and above what the scientists and taxpayers provide. Not as much as they charge for it via subscriptions, but some. So until Sci Hub are paying for some of the cost of managing the peer review they _are_ thieves.
(4) Pragmatism does not make it right. Desirable does not make it right. 'Cos I want it' does not make it right. 'Cos I like free stuff' does not make it right. Just makes it pragmatic and desirable. Buying goods you know to be stolen is still dodgy.
It's nice that such organisations as the ACCC are taking on the international behemoths. It's a good example of how government regulation needs to be tuned so that markets are open and competition exists, and poor corporate behaviour is brought to light.
Gnome2 -> Gnome3
Windows XP -> Vista
Windows7 -> 8/10
the ribbon in M$ Office
Every update of iTunes
Half the updates of Firefox
Speaking as a mere user, we're just sick of things we're told are better but that just put us back to having to learn stuff instead of getting on with our jobs. It's a cost/benefit thing. I know there are often 'under the hood' benefits, but what I see is an interface and the functions it provides. If the benefit is not real and immediate, it won't help me hit a deadline that is real and immediate and expensive if I miss it. A technical advance may not be a (readily apparent) productivity advance, and in the end it's productivity and security that I want.
I use MATE on Debian 8 on a six-year-old atom-powered netbook, and it's snappy and reliable. Unity was a case of 'we have to do something different. This is different, so we'll do it.' MATE continues the style of UI that many of us first encountered on the desktop, so it's more intuitive for us. You can't force intuition into a new shape, you can just wait for a new generation with a new set of muscle memories comes along.
There's an interesting side angle to this. Australia has a strong public health system, so a lot of unvaxed people end up in public hospitals being fixed at public expense. Therefore, it is very reasonable that the state (ie, the other taxpayers) ask someone to take reasonable precautions; if they expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab, they should expect to be asked to take care. I kind of have the same feeling about things like bike helmets and seat belts. I object to my taxes paying for brain surgery on someone who was too stupid to wear a helmet. Put it another way: If you don't wear a helmet you're opting out of public health system... I don't think I'd implement that, but it kind of argues towards the point that if the state is bearing the cost of fixing the results of stupidity, then it has the obligation to encourage people away from stupidity. The question is -- how forcibly? Otherwise you ban smokes, you ban booze, you ban... where does it end?
What they want is properties that are already familiar. It's not ideas that are the problem, it's that they want something with a name that is already familiar before you even start advertising. Hence movies based on board games, computer games, old plotless cartoons (Speedracer) and so on and so on. Oh, and the Matrix ain't so grate anyway. That bit where 'we're batteries'. Man, that just deflated the whole film it is so stupid. I was sitting there going 'really? Really? That's the big reveal?'
What Hollywood wants is a name that you know before they even advertise.
I have a netbook, an Acer Aspire One from about 5 years ago. 1GB RAM, 250 GB HD (not SSD), atom N550. Hardly up spec. 10.1" screen. It runs Debian. It runs LibreOffice, gnumeric, LaTeX, and not too sluggishly (okay, LibreOffice takes a little while to start up, but then it's fine). I can prototype code, write papers, all that actual work stuff. The non-flexible keyboard means I can use it in my lap, I don't need a table or anything. I can type on it damn near as fast as on a full size keyboard. It fits in a backpack or briefcase along with all my other stuff (does not need its own bag) and it's a real computer. One of my best value-for-money IT purchases ever.
What projects would we lose without a decent Linux desktop market share? Sure, you can count everything using the kernel as a 'win' for Linux (seems a bit juvenile, but OK), but installs on phone, routers, IoT, etc are not going to encourage teams of people to work on projects like LibreOffice and Inkscape and Audacity and [[insert productivity software here]]. Linux on the desktop is crucial for the ecosystem.
The people who pay to make it get to choose who to sell it to. Your 'excuse to pirate it' is just the classic internet meme where the consumer thinks they have the right to decide how the creator/distributor should run their business. You don't. If they are foregoing income that's THEIR choice, not yours. They might be stupid, narrow-minded avaricious dick heads, but it's their business, not yours. 'Artificially limiting human creations' is the choice of the humans that created it, not the consumers. If there's a concert in a 5000 seat venue but they only put 2000 seats up for sale, have you got the right to print 3000 tickets just 'cos there was an 'artificial limit'? No, you don't.
And there _is_ potentially a moral objection -- because people have the right to NOT distribute their work.
Let's say I wrote a book. Let's say I was young and stupid and it says things I no longer believe in. Let's say I own the copyright on the book, and I've decided I don't want it reprinted because it does not represent me any more and its presence in the market will just misrepresent me, damage my reputation, and ultimately cost me sales of other books (not that money is the only thing here, something that seems to get forgotten). Do you have the right to start selling that book because I'm unwilling to?
No. Because I have copyright. An no, because morally you ought to show some respect for the poor bastard who spent his time writing a book while he could have been doing something else.
Now, the Top Gear case is a huge corporation instead of a poor underpaid writer slaving away in a room. It can afford the losses, and yeah, 'nobody gets hurt'. But the 'moral objection' is the same. Just 'cos it's easy to get something for free, just 'cos it's a big business that has some pretty terrible practices and doesn't deserve your trust, doesn't make it right. Just 'cos you think the creator ought to be selling it to you does not mean they have to. That's just some kind of egocentric nonsense.
I teach at a university. As many students are carrying Surfaces around now as are carrying Macbooks. They are very good for using the LMS (learning management system) where the kids can download the notes, annotate with a stylus, or type stuff up if they want. The tablet form factor works well for them, better than a conventional laptop. I doubt M$ is selling huge numbers of them, or they would quote the numbers, but there is some real market penetration going on.
Windows costs a lot more in terms of downloads. I'm not in a big city, I'm relying on satellite and similar technologies, and in a digitally backward country (Australia) and the extra many GB that Win downloads/uploads every month adds real money to my internet bill. And my computer is a box assembled to spec, and windows would have cost me extra. So you're wrong.
You live in your parents' (note position of apostrophe, although it could be just the one parent, I guess) basement and don't pay your own bills, or something?
It's not apples with apples to judge LO by how well it imports MSO files. That's like saying _you're_ illiterate if you can't read _my_ terrible handwriting. How well would that spreadsheet have run had it been developed in LO from the beginning? Can LO do all the calculations required? _That_ is a fair comparison. Yes, ability to import MSO files is important for LO to gain market share, and yes it is important if it's to be useful every day because of the vast number of MSO files out there (and often you can't reliably take them from one version of MSO to another!) but it should not be used as a criterion for judging the capability of the office suite. It may well be able to do every calculation you need. How well does MSO import LO files? Badly? Oh, it must be broken.
Highly fundamental physics tends to rely on government granting bodies for funding. Since a lot of their outputs are not of immediate technological relevance (tell me one real impact of showing that the universe expansion is accelerating), they have to talk about the almost religious aspects of the work -- finding 'the truth', the ultimate fate of the universe, whatever. So of course the advocates of a point of view overstate its worth; because the value is almost intangible at this early stage of understanding. Add to that the way in which for a lot of these very smart people these fundamental questions are more like a cool mathematical game, where the underlying 'correctness' of the theory plays a distant third to (1) this is some cool, beautiful mathematics and (2) look how clever I am. Any number of coherent mathematical structures can be built up; the question is, do they agree with observation, and I think it is true that some of the theories put forward don't have enough points of contact with reality. It is important that we have a few smart humans investigating these questions. Part of the problem is that it really should be just a very few, insightful people, pushing those boundaries, not whole rafts of grad students that will have nowhere to go once their dissertations are done. So you add all that up and what you get is pretty theories that are not grounded but can't be, but which _should_ be being looked at but which (to fund the excessive numbers of people studying them) have to make claims that are unrealistic.Then they are viewed as genuine attempts to explain the universe rather than the mathematical games that they really are, and they lose whatever cred they might have had.
I am a working Physicist, by the way, though not a particle physicist or cosmologist. I do condensed matter physics, the field that gave us useless things like silicon chips and superconductors and never appears on TV documentaries. Yes I have an ax to grind.
I mean, with all the practice they've had with Curiosity and now a virtual reality -- it anyone does ever get there, the conspiracy fruitloops will be positive it's Capricorn Two.
Slashdot Mirror
Never seen it; just going on the title.
Nope; what's conserved is your time. You can spend it on new lines or fixing old ones, but you lose it at a rate of one second per second, regardless.
If we plot 'dev time per line of code' against project size, the small project will be quicker in a less stringent language, the large project relatively quicker in a stricter one. (Assuming in both cases the object is to get the program working correctly (as reasonable), not just working.)
Also, I am inclined to disagree with your 'conservation of bugs' argument in that I think fewer vectors means fewer bugs get in. If we allow that a more structured language will tend to be more verbose (defining things, explicitly converting types, etc), we might end up with fewer _ways_ for bugs to enter but more lines of code in total, so more lines that might be wrong -- but I don't think this will entirely cancel out the benefit of fewer types of error being possible/likely.
I'm old and dumb. I can only keep so many things in my head, so I like static typing. There's enough to keep track of without that extra layer of variability. Each to their own. I've mostly written numerical methods and modelling code, where logic errors are really important, and can be insidious. They can be there in any type of language, and I find static typing helps me discard one class of problems and focus on the important but subtle ones.
I'm currently working as an editor. Word is my main tool. And, I gotta say, Word's pile of crap, cloud or otherwise. It's crufty, it falls over, it's still lacking basic functionality like reveal codes and non-breaking character strings (\mbox{} if you know LaTeX). But since it is so embedded in the workflows of major organisations, it would take a nuclear crowbar to rip it out. For example, publication departments invest a lot of time and therefore money in developing pathways to take 'ing Word docs into 'ing InDesign with maximum preserved tagging. Their whole publications division centres on Word -- documents are prepared using custom styles (Word templates), proofed and collaborated over using Track Changes, checked using tools like Grammerly and PerfectIt. Equations are added in using MathType, and so on. Govt depts, businesses of all sizes, they've bought into the proprietary software toolchain from one end to the other. Microsoft and Adobe are the unholy duality. Word and InDesign. The clever thing is that 98% of users don't need 98% of what Word can do, and yet M$ has got them to buy it.
For 20 years, eternity in IT, the biggest competitor for Office has been previous versions of Office. M$ knew they had to move their customers onto a subscription model while they were still so dominant in the market, and they've done it.
Plenty of tools can do what Office does, sure. WordPerfect is still a great product; but nobody in business or govt (unless an OS enthusiast) is going to learn anything they don't have to. M$ relies on that inertia, and the investment already made in Word, and it's going to be a solid tactic for some time to come.
The idea of using a Surface to annotate notes downloaded from the LMS is nice, but in practice too many students lack the discipline to leave their messages alone while they do it. Divided attention is little better than inattention. I would love to run one physics tutorial group with latest tech and a second one with paper and basic scientific calculators only, and see what happens. Ah well. Ethics approval...
And calling me names 'cos you don't agree with me makes you sound like a child.
And non-public funded research is a real thing, especially in medicine. Public-private partnerships are a real thing. May not be ideal, but not all bad. Really, no need to be rude. I guess this is what I get for disagreeing with the duckspeaking hive mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
A lot of journals allow self-archiving, sometimes of published, sometimes of 'author's last' version. It's an underused mechanism.
Until then...As for Sci Hub...it's a response to the idiocies of the current system and the amazing costs of the established journals, and it is right that more publicly funded research gets to more people. It is a blunt instrument, though, with drawbacks:
(1) Not all the research is taxpayer funded. This is a crude instrument. Even if you accept the 'taxpayer funded' argument as a basis for considering this behaviour ethical, if they put out anything that was privately funded, that is still ethically theft.
(2) The 'it's taxpayer funded' argument is nice, but at least logically, the conclusion is that US taxpayer funded research should be available to US taxpayers, UK to UK taxpayers, etc. The argument is really not logically valid as it stands. You still need to invoke altruism (US funds it and gives to the world). Science needs to be globally available, not just to the country where it was done.
(3) Giving away other people's stuff is all well and good until you run out of other people's work to publish. Elsevier and and those, yes, they make a lot of money where they really shouldn't. But these papers _are_ peer reviewed through the Elsevier mechanism. So Elsevier _do_ add some value over and above what the scientists and taxpayers provide. Not as much as they charge for it via subscriptions, but some. So until Sci Hub are paying for some of the cost of managing the peer review they _are_ thieves.
(4) Pragmatism does not make it right. Desirable does not make it right. 'Cos I want it' does not make it right. 'Cos I like free stuff' does not make it right. Just makes it pragmatic and desirable. Buying goods you know to be stolen is still dodgy.
It's nice that such organisations as the ACCC are taking on the international behemoths. It's a good example of how government regulation needs to be tuned so that markets are open and competition exists, and poor corporate behaviour is brought to light.
Gnome2 -> Gnome3
Windows XP -> Vista
Windows7 -> 8/10
the ribbon in M$ Office
Every update of iTunes
Half the updates of Firefox
Speaking as a mere user, we're just sick of things we're told are better but that just put us back to having to learn stuff instead of getting on with our jobs. It's a cost/benefit thing. I know there are often 'under the hood' benefits, but what I see is an interface and the functions it provides. If the benefit is not real and immediate, it won't help me hit a deadline that is real and immediate and expensive if I miss it. A technical advance may not be a (readily apparent) productivity advance, and in the end it's productivity and security that I want.
Another reason to break my kids' addictions.
I use MATE on Debian 8 on a six-year-old atom-powered netbook, and it's snappy and reliable. Unity was a case of 'we have to do something different. This is different, so we'll do it.' MATE continues the style of UI that many of us first encountered on the desktop, so it's more intuitive for us. You can't force intuition into a new shape, you can just wait for a new generation with a new set of muscle memories comes along.
There's an interesting side angle to this. Australia has a strong public health system, so a lot of unvaxed people end up in public hospitals being fixed at public expense. Therefore, it is very reasonable that the state (ie, the other taxpayers) ask someone to take reasonable precautions; if they expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab, they should expect to be asked to take care. I kind of have the same feeling about things like bike helmets and seat belts. I object to my taxes paying for brain surgery on someone who was too stupid to wear a helmet. Put it another way: If you don't wear a helmet you're opting out of public health system... I don't think I'd implement that, but it kind of argues towards the point that if the state is bearing the cost of fixing the results of stupidity, then it has the obligation to encourage people away from stupidity. The question is -- how forcibly? Otherwise you ban smokes, you ban booze, you ban ... where does it end?
What they want is properties that are already familiar. It's not ideas that are the problem, it's that they want something with a name that is already familiar before you even start advertising. Hence movies based on board games, computer games, old plotless cartoons (Speedracer) and so on and so on. Oh, and the Matrix ain't so grate anyway. That bit where 'we're batteries'. Man, that just deflated the whole film it is so stupid. I was sitting there going 'really? Really? That's the big reveal?' What Hollywood wants is a name that you know before they even advertise.
I have a netbook, an Acer Aspire One from about 5 years ago. 1GB RAM, 250 GB HD (not SSD), atom N550. Hardly up spec. 10.1" screen. It runs Debian. It runs LibreOffice, gnumeric, LaTeX, and not too sluggishly (okay, LibreOffice takes a little while to start up, but then it's fine). I can prototype code, write papers, all that actual work stuff. The non-flexible keyboard means I can use it in my lap, I don't need a table or anything. I can type on it damn near as fast as on a full size keyboard. It fits in a backpack or briefcase along with all my other stuff (does not need its own bag) and it's a real computer. One of my best value-for-money IT purchases ever.
Correlation is not causality.
What projects would we lose without a decent Linux desktop market share? Sure, you can count everything using the kernel as a 'win' for Linux (seems a bit juvenile, but OK), but installs on phone, routers, IoT, etc are not going to encourage teams of people to work on projects like LibreOffice and Inkscape and Audacity and [[insert productivity software here]]. Linux on the desktop is crucial for the ecosystem.
The people who pay to make it get to choose who to sell it to. Your 'excuse to pirate it' is just the classic internet meme where the consumer thinks they have the right to decide how the creator/distributor should run their business. You don't. If they are foregoing income that's THEIR choice, not yours. They might be stupid, narrow-minded avaricious dick heads, but it's their business, not yours. 'Artificially limiting human creations' is the choice of the humans that created it, not the consumers. If there's a concert in a 5000 seat venue but they only put 2000 seats up for sale, have you got the right to print 3000 tickets just 'cos there was an 'artificial limit'? No, you don't. And there _is_ potentially a moral objection -- because people have the right to NOT distribute their work. Let's say I wrote a book. Let's say I was young and stupid and it says things I no longer believe in. Let's say I own the copyright on the book, and I've decided I don't want it reprinted because it does not represent me any more and its presence in the market will just misrepresent me, damage my reputation, and ultimately cost me sales of other books (not that money is the only thing here, something that seems to get forgotten). Do you have the right to start selling that book because I'm unwilling to? No. Because I have copyright. An no, because morally you ought to show some respect for the poor bastard who spent his time writing a book while he could have been doing something else. Now, the Top Gear case is a huge corporation instead of a poor underpaid writer slaving away in a room. It can afford the losses, and yeah, 'nobody gets hurt'. But the 'moral objection' is the same. Just 'cos it's easy to get something for free, just 'cos it's a big business that has some pretty terrible practices and doesn't deserve your trust, doesn't make it right. Just 'cos you think the creator ought to be selling it to you does not mean they have to. That's just some kind of egocentric nonsense.
I teach at a university. As many students are carrying Surfaces around now as are carrying Macbooks. They are very good for using the LMS (learning management system) where the kids can download the notes, annotate with a stylus, or type stuff up if they want. The tablet form factor works well for them, better than a conventional laptop. I doubt M$ is selling huge numbers of them, or they would quote the numbers, but there is some real market penetration going on.
And he's operating the computer for you. And you pass bits of paper back and forth, Go read up on how Compaq created the IBM compatible computer.
Do you live in parent's basement or something?
Windows costs a lot more in terms of downloads. I'm not in a big city, I'm relying on satellite and similar technologies, and in a digitally backward country (Australia) and the extra many GB that Win downloads/uploads every month adds real money to my internet bill. And my computer is a box assembled to spec, and windows would have cost me extra. So you're wrong. You live in your parents' (note position of apostrophe, although it could be just the one parent, I guess) basement and don't pay your own bills, or something?
It's not apples with apples to judge LO by how well it imports MSO files. That's like saying _you're_ illiterate if you can't read _my_ terrible handwriting. How well would that spreadsheet have run had it been developed in LO from the beginning? Can LO do all the calculations required? _That_ is a fair comparison. Yes, ability to import MSO files is important for LO to gain market share, and yes it is important if it's to be useful every day because of the vast number of MSO files out there (and often you can't reliably take them from one version of MSO to another!) but it should not be used as a criterion for judging the capability of the office suite. It may well be able to do every calculation you need. How well does MSO import LO files? Badly? Oh, it must be broken.
Reflective stuff in the atmosphere, something like that.
Highly fundamental physics tends to rely on government granting bodies for funding. Since a lot of their outputs are not of immediate technological relevance (tell me one real impact of showing that the universe expansion is accelerating), they have to talk about the almost religious aspects of the work -- finding 'the truth', the ultimate fate of the universe, whatever. So of course the advocates of a point of view overstate its worth; because the value is almost intangible at this early stage of understanding. Add to that the way in which for a lot of these very smart people these fundamental questions are more like a cool mathematical game, where the underlying 'correctness' of the theory plays a distant third to (1) this is some cool, beautiful mathematics and (2) look how clever I am. Any number of coherent mathematical structures can be built up; the question is, do they agree with observation, and I think it is true that some of the theories put forward don't have enough points of contact with reality. It is important that we have a few smart humans investigating these questions. Part of the problem is that it really should be just a very few, insightful people, pushing those boundaries, not whole rafts of grad students that will have nowhere to go once their dissertations are done. So you add all that up and what you get is pretty theories that are not grounded but can't be, but which _should_ be being looked at but which (to fund the excessive numbers of people studying them) have to make claims that are unrealistic.Then they are viewed as genuine attempts to explain the universe rather than the mathematical games that they really are, and they lose whatever cred they might have had.
I am a working Physicist, by the way, though not a particle physicist or cosmologist. I do condensed matter physics, the field that gave us useless things like silicon chips and superconductors and never appears on TV documentaries. Yes I have an ax to grind.
Wires are so 20th century anyway.
I mean, with all the practice they've had with Curiosity and now a virtual reality -- it anyone does ever get there, the conspiracy fruitloops will be positive it's Capricorn Two.
http://www.sharpmz.org/mz-700/... My kids still use it -- seriously!