Posts by Yag 853 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Oct 2010
"In real science, hypothese are based on the best available data. If the data changes then so does the hypothesis."
Indeed. But the issue is not the switch from a cooling trend to a warming trend, but the switch from "Ice age incoming" to "we'll all drown".
"This is how science works - any scientist that never changes their mind based on new evidence is not really a scientist."
Exactly. This is why sentences like "the science is settled" does not sounds right.
An almost 60 years old book, still useful and accurate as hell.
The final chapter, giving some giveaway methods, tells that...
"the method may be direct misstatement or it may be ambiguous" -> anonymous studios...
"selection of favourable data and suppression of unfavourable" -> Only two studio, and physical media sales labelled as "not relevant"
"practice of using one year for one comparison and sliding over to a more favorable year for another" -> again, depend of what was out of those 2 studios.
"Use of OK names" : Carnegie Mellon University.
"A correlation given without a measure of reliability (probable error, standard error) is not to be taken very seriously" -> To be confirmed, can't check the paper from my office...
"Given percentages and missing raw figures" -> checked again.
And so on...
A very interesting read if you're into manipulation - even if most examples are a bit outdated.
Perhaps they should also discover a link between megaupload and the unemployment rate, or between abortion and criminality... (yes, it's a deliberate poke)
I can't even figure the point of having long-secure-with-freaking-special-characters-and-extra-onions-and-number-on-top as everyone and its mother use the facepalming "password recording" option in navigators and OSes.
Recording password is as stupid as the Ident-I-Eze card...
"Also my major worry with any online game, is what if I spend ages on my city, then EA go bust? I can't play my game that I have brought!"
You didn't bought a game.
You bought a license to use a game, which is revokable and modifiable at any time by the seller.
And that you accepted the terms.
Terms that were told to you only after you bought the software.
And you can't be refunded if you refuse those terms.
Worse is... I'm sure that a cracked version with an included server-side will be out in a few monthes - one year top.
And will be far more functional than the official bought for version.
EA can rot in hell, I'll just build my own city in Minecraft.
Beside, "Flight hours" doesn't mean much nowadays. Planes are used as much as possible (rotating the crew as needed) and often kept powered until the scheduled maintenance calls. Actually, it's not that a bad thing, as it means that critical problems may appears while safely landed instead of during flight.
For the record, I already had to investigate a bug that appeared only after a display unit was on for a whole *week*. Yes, it was reported by an airline, and yes it was a coding error from someone who thought "hey, she will only fly for a few hours however, so why bother".
And yes, it was a pain to reproduce...
Yes, it is valid.
This section of code :
if(error_occured = MyFunction())
{
// Error management
}
else
{
// Nominal case
}
is equivalent to :
error_occured = MyFunction();
if(error_occured == true)
{
// Error management
}
else
{
// Nominal case
}
Both are valid, and have the same functional behaviour as long as MyFunction() returns a boolean. (unless I forgot a semicolon somewhere, it's getting late...)
The first one is often prefered by some people because it looks smarter and may be a bit more optimized depending of your compiler.
I find the second one better because it's easier to understand, reuse, maintain and debug.
However, the use of one form or the other is not even a personnal choice, but mostly a matter of the purpose of the code. For large projects spanning years and dozen of people, the second version is strongly recommanded. The first version might even be forbidden by corporate coding standards.
No, no, don't go that far... K&R was indeed quite messy, but ANSI made a (mostly) fine job in 89 and 99, despite a few oddities.
And ol' C89 is still well loved in aeronautical embedded systems.
Speaking about ANSI C89 & 99, there is a nice trivia question to ask to computer programmers : "What is the range of a signed char as defined by the standard?" I surprised a lot of people with this one...
Unfortunately, Shoemaker-Levy can easily be dismissed by naysayer : "Jupiter is so big, it's no surprise comets falls on it. Earth is too small for this to happens"
At least, if it happens on Mars, it will be far more significant , and probably very impressive. Especially if the rovers manage to send some pictures of the blast front before being blasted into oblivion...
I heard that Nuclear Thermal Engines were functional, but were abandonned due to the atmospheric nuclear test ban and further treaties... Am I wrong?
PS : If you want to learn more on those stuff, the old book "Ignition!" is very interesting - even if sometime heavy on the science side. The horror stories are still something anyone can enjoy.
Matter of taste, personal point of view and local culture... And also the actual type of transit.
I prefer to hitch a ride and enjoy a nice book during the waiting period than to get stressed by city rush hour traffic.
I still have a car however, it is far more convenient for short distance out of town trips..
And I'll switch to train for medium/long distance (over 500 km - European "long distance" is quite relative, y'know...)
Furthermore, most of the time, the mass transit is actually faster than the personnal car.
- Busses sometime use dedicated ways on major lines, I won't even start to argue for tramway and metro speed. And you don't have to spend 10 minutes to find a park place.
- Trains for long distance... I'm 3 hours away from the capital by train, 5-6 by car.
Finally, the idea of being independent via over reliance on a single device seems a bit odd to me...
Did you consider all the certification constraints for autonomous/semi autonomous light UAV systems?
I had to take a look at the Stanag 4703 a few monthes ago, and it's quite beefy.
It's a military standard (as the now ubiquitous DO-178B used to be) but I doubt the civilian regulations will be more lenient...
Don't forget that taking into account an eventual catapult fitting was in the freakin' statement of work.
Don't forget that the initial costs of the TWO carriers was initially estimated at 3.9 billion. (I wonder how much the costs have ballooned since...)
Such a price quote looks like a breach of contract actually (It looks like BAE DID NOT took into account the fitting of the catapult and need to redesign almost all the ship.)
The recent "Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty" between UK and France include a part about carrier sharing...
I think the french will feel a bit tricked if UK carriers won't be able to accomodate the Rafale-M, but they still have to respect the agreement on the CdG...
Maybe the fact that this decision was made so close to the french presidential elections and the change of government was not a coincidence.
Heck, i've just finished Baldur's Gate I, time to travel to Amn...
However, for now, Blizzard is quite consistent on the server side : Diablo II is still going strong more than 10 years after its release.
Still, needing an internet connexion for a solo campaign is stupid. i guess i'll wait for the "patched" version before buying this game...
Not in the immediate vicinity of this exuberant couple at least...
Actually, this explain a bit why we're in a cozy outer arm of the galaxy instead of in a more central place... In the galactic center, a planet would be constantly sterilized due to the various partying neighbours.
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