Pangloss

The only problem I have with the above is "executing him". We've done worse, perhaps, but we did not do that.

Here's another one of Google's more amusing pranks today: Adsense for Conversations: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/04/introducing-adsense-for-conversations.html

Dang I missed that. Anybody get a screen shot?

It's just morning sickness. It'll pass!

Some fun stuff in honor of April 1st: Old Google Gags: http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html http://www.google.com/intl/en/mentalplex/ Slate's April Fool's Defense Kit: http://www.slate.com/id/2187681/

Hardware fails, yes, but interestingly you typically have a useful number on how often the hardware fails, such as the Mean Time Between Failures rating for hard drives. I don't know what "large" is, but at this point you probably don't know either -- what constitutes "large" is going to be loosely defined as something like "what makes me add another person to the payroll", and that's a variable that you'd have to puzzle out and nail down. Bear in mind, by the way, that writing software that's not running off an OS is extremely time-consuming and problematic -- not for novices. You'll have to write all your own networking code, too. I don't know what your experience level is but I thought it worth mentioning. Well this one is simple enough: Real estate ownership is a matter of public record, and computers can't own buildings.

Well this is perfectly valid structural thinking and you should embrace your ideas and keep thinking about them. The main problem is maintenance, which mandates a certain level of human interaction, ramping up in a fairly linear fashion according to how many computers you have and what their hardware utilization rate is. Web Server farms are a fairly typical scenario that you could study for existing data. They have a very high ratio of computers to service personnel, and a built-in incentive to eliminate as many human beings as possible. You could also look at Data Centers in general, perhaps, or (just for grins and giggles) you might ponder MMO clusters or supercomputer networks. (MMOs are typically quiet about their infrastructures, but that's been changing in recent years as the tech matures, and they're interesting because they have high responsiveness requirements compared with business networks.) But note that the incentive for no-human clustering is already there, and yet it doesn't exist. There are obviously reasons for that, and the best thing you can do to further your idea is to study what those reasons are. Look into hardware failure rates, for example, and try to figure out a rating of man-hours per type of software/task/application being run, etc. I would say that your problem area revolves around the linear escalation of human personnel to increased machinery (i.e. the more machines you add, the more human beings you need, and the number of machines to humans appears to be a fixed ratio). If you can break that chain (reduce that number or eliminate the "fixed" nature of that variable), you might be able to find something there worth investigating/developing/publishing. A literature survey at the IEEE or ACM portals would be a good place to start. Look at the publication journals, build a good set of keywords, and be sure to narrow your results to, say, 2002 or later. Good luck.

The problem with all those congressional statements is that they were based on the faulty intelligence that was passed along. All intelligence was, as is always the case, funneled through the administration. The administration decides what anybody outside the executive branch gets to see, INCLUDING congress. It HAS to be that way, otherwise you'll never protect undercover sources, for example, or manage the intelligence community sensibly. But in this case it allowed the administration to pre-determine a course of action and then cherry-pick the intelligence to support that choice. The administration appears to have done its analysis with a jaundiced eye, overlooking more than just logical disagreement -- they actually discounted clear evidence that directly refuted what they believed. And I don't mean to put too highbrow a point on what may go down in history as one of the most colossal blunders ever, but the evidence that this is the case is not only overwhelming, it's more or less acknowledged by the Bush administration on several key fronts, ranging from direct statements on certain specifics, to choices of access for interviews, to outright changes in policy. To put it succinctly, the only people defending and rationalizing the Iraq decision at this point are right-side partisans worried about the possibility of a Democrat in the White House next year. And they're preaching to the converted anyway. Now don't get me wrong, there's no evidence that this was a conspiracy over oil or Halliburton or any other nonsense you typically hear from the loony left. That stuff doesn't even pass the stink test in the modern age of access and exposure -- it just isn't logical. But I think at this point several things must be clear from an objective, historical perspective: 1) Given the ultimate cost in lives and money, the Iraq War will likely go down as one of the worst blunders of the post-Cold War American solo-superpower era. 2) Given the nature of the intelligence community and the current political climate of the country, it's difficult to lay the Iraq War at anybody else's feet. If you'd asked me eight years ago I would have said it impossible, but it appears that one man has produced this situation, all by himself. One man. 3) It appears to be the single most defining event of the Bush administration. How could it not be, by any objective measure? So while I can't stand the idiots running around screaming "I told you so" or trying to rate the Bush administration as the "worst president ever", and while I want to instruct them to be careful what they wish for, or point out the bright spots in the Bush years (and there are many), the simple fact of the matter is.... they're basically right. At the root level, all hyperbole aside, when all's said and done, you just can't logically argue that they're wrong. Much though it pains me to admit it.

I'm glad I'm not a politician. I don't know how real those stories are, but they're not very pleasant scenarios.

That's interesting, I hadn't heard that one.

It's been interesting to watch what's been happening in Iraq this week, in part because what's mainly been happening is actually Shi'a versus Shi'a, with Sunni (relatively) quietly watching from the sidelines. The al-Maliki government is mostly Shi'a, but it's been demanding that the militias in the South step down and turn in their weapons, which local leaders like Moqtada al-Sadr don't want to do. Interestingly, today al-Sadr told his forces to stand down and cease fire. This may have something to do with the fact that Iran has apparently closed its border, which may indicate support for the government over groups like al-Sadr's. In a funny sort of way this may actually represent political progress. Not the violence earlier in the week, mind you, but the Iranian support for the government and al-Sadr appearing to, once again, see the larger benefits of Shi'a control and step back from the brink. On the other hand, the violence has threatened to undermine the progress in other areas, and al-Sadr's new cease fire may not extend to an agreement to actually work with the government. What do you all think?

Your dissertation has a word count?

Turns out Hillary wasn't lying at all. Newly discovered video tells the real tale of that day in the Balkans.

I guess they're called "compensatory" damages for a reason, but what's frustrating here is that the award was apparently not enough to cover both her medical care and her long-term needs, especially after "legal fees" were extracted. I think you're boycotting the wrong set of greedy bastards. Let's find out what happened to the $583,000!

What is this, the school yard? Knock it off. You set yourself up for reasonable criticisms by turning this into a straw man in the OP:

Ah, so that's what "coming together" means -- showing up at the last minute and asking for top billing! Why, I remember that session like it was yesterday... when we signed that legislation under sniper fire and everyone just kept their heads down and ran over to the press corps bunker for the laurels! (hehe)

An interesting alternative that's getting some buzz around the Web is the idea of boycotting Olympic sponsors instead. Coca-Cola, Budweiser, McDonalds, etc. I think that might be a lot more productive than a general boycott.

I read an interesting op/ed in the Chicago Tribute today that had a very different take on Rev. Wright. It was written by a member of the same church, but his story has a rather unique twist. He's a white man, and 26 years ago he married a black woman whom he met at that church. When he asked her to marry him, she apparently hesitated for reasons having to do with race. Rev. Wright, knowing both of them, talked her into reconsidering those reasons. Not exactly the profile of Wright that we've been hearing recently, is it? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0326trinitymar26,0,2414760.story

That was interesting, thanks.

No, they all do stupid things from time to time, I agree. But that's why we need that pressure cooker, so that we can analyze those stupid things for signs of deeper problems. In this case a willingness to subvert the truth for the sake of partisanship is indicated. The degree to which that is a fair assessment of her character is a different question, but each voter can make up their own mind about it, I suppose. But I don't disagree with what you're saying.

(mod post content removed, since doG got the link fixed, thanks dog)

Nothing. What's bad is suggesting that the offending party should be harmed in retribution, or that the retribution that was exacted is justified.

I don't. When conservatives whine about creationism we don't talk about "the root of those concerns being true", we talk about lack of education and support for science in the Bush administration. But when Rev. Wright talks about AIDS being manufactured to kill black people or 9/11 being an inside job, we talk about "the root of those concerns being true"? I don't think so. Two wrongs don't make a right just because you're left. (Hey, that's clever!) None of that has anything to do with Barrack Obama, though.

There are a number of authors from the SFWA Grand Master list that are still around, and many of the old guard of first- or second-generation SF authors, but the old convention was that there were three grand masters in the first generation of SF authors -- Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov -- because each of those three had such a profound influence on the genre. The list was never considered thorough and it's always been recognized that it wasn't really fair, and the authors themselves often called it silly and pointless. I mainly mentioned it just because it's such a familiar cliche with people in my generation. I can't for the life of me remember where this unofficial bestowment originated from. John W. Campbell may be the culprit here -- I believe he published the first (or some of the first) stories of all three authors (in Astounding).

I'm not convinced that there is ever anything wrong with outsourcing outside of cost-vs-benefit business reasons. But that might be more of a subject for the Politics board.