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#511
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"Peter Stickney" wrote in message ... Zeta Reticulan Flying Disks. They were scheduled to land months ago- why don't we ask them about their safety records? |
#512
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Edward Wright wrote:
Herb Schaltegger lid wrote in message ... Have either of you done an Environmental Impact Statement on the effect of dumping 17 tons of extremely toxic chemicals in the South Pacific? Have you looked at the MSDS's and other reference material to determine how much of your "17 tons of extremely toxic chemicals" will survive entry? Have you examined entry plans to determine how much of your "17 tons" will even remain aboard when entry starts? I thought not . . . You want me to do your Environmental Impact Statement for you? It's not mine to create. It's debatable whether NASA is required to do one at all, even presuming (which you're far too guilty of doing in every thread you take part in) that any debris survives an intentially-destructive entry. Cite me the section of the Environmental Protection Act that requires an Environmental Impact Statement from NASA for a destructive entry - if you can. Are you offering to pay me for it? *You* are the one suggesting there is a hazard from "17 tons of extremely toxic chemicals", a contention unsupported by anything but your own posts. Do you know if those toxins would even be aboard following an intentionally-destructive deorbit burn, considering how much of consists of propellants which will be expended? I thought not... You're the one who suggests such a statement is required. Prove it. -- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. Reformed Aerospace Engineer Remove invalid nonsense for email. |
#513
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"Scott Hedrick" wrote in message ... "Mary Shafer" wrote in message news There were probably Roman engineers saying the same thing, only in Latin. Shades of "History of the World, Part I." I always preferred Life of Brian for my Latin. |
#515
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In article ,
says... However, the one big driving factor was the horribly low turnout. Think of that as the closest the electorate has to voting "neither of the above". I think the (limited) success of the third party candidates often is another way of saying "neither of the above". An argument can be made that Bush-43 should thank Ralph Nader and that Clinton should thank Ross Perot. -- Kevin Willoughby lid Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work for test pilots. -- Mike Collins |
#516
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In article ,
says... I think the whole electronic voting machine idea is an invitation to electoral fraud, and out to be scrapped. No, done correctly it has the potential to be more trustworthy than current paper ballots. (Remember the stories about LBJ winning elections in Texas because certain ballot boxes seemed to be mysteriously delayed during the vote counting process?) I don't know that it is necessary, however. Canada, e.g., seems to do quite well with paper ballots. A system that doesn't generate some sort of reviewable back-up is very easy to screw with right from the word go. Yep. Some kind of tamper-evident audit trail is part of what it means to be "correctly designed". -- Kevin Willoughby lid Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work for test pilots. -- Mike Collins |
#517
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In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says... rk wrote: The numbers of bugs and glitches in these machines is alarming. No paper audit trail is inexcusable as the entire voting process becomes unverifiable; the people would be down to just listening to the machine as opposed to the machine being a tool However, that's becoming more general in society than many people might be comfortable with. So long as the computer gives a seemingly reasonable result, people tend to believe it without actually performing independent verification. All too true. But that doesn't mean that eVoting can't be done, just that there is a requirement for a tamper-visible audit trail. (I.E. the attitude that one does not need to learn math because we know have calculators.) Or that we need not proof-read because we have spelling checkers? (I now duck&cover, realizing that I have just thrown a stone while living in a glass house.) -- Kevin Willoughby lid Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work for test pilots. -- Mike Collins |
#518
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"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
... Peter Stickney wrote: The airplane was also rather dangerous to fly, as well, and losses were high. - by 1960, when it had been in service for 5 years, more than 500 had been totally destroyed in flying accidents. I knew about the roll coupling problem due to the undersized vertical fin, but didn't know the attrition rate was quite that appalling. this may be urban myth, but a long time ago I read that part of the "Saber Dance" thing was because a specific old-timer at the McDonnell plant was supposed to be installing nuts upside down for some reason, but he'd been there twenty years and he knew damn well you don't install nuts back'ards. So under certain flight profiles an aileron would get hung up on the "properly" installed nut. Apparently they never told the poor schlub how many pilots he'd killed. -- Terrell Miller "It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to install plumbing" -PJ O'Rourke |
#519
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On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:49:12 -0500, Kevin Willoughby wrote:
No, done correctly it has the potential to be more trustworthy than current paper ballots. (Remember the stories about LBJ winning elections in Texas because certain ballot boxes seemed to be mysteriously delayed during the vote counting process?) But the problem with electronic voting is that the tampering can be done without the need for visible tinkering such as delaying the count. Some might be old enough to remember Ken Thompson's classic Turing Award Lecture "Reflections on Trusting Trust" http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ Even if the source code is available, you can't trust it. |
#520
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Charles Buckley wrote:
Derek Lyons wrote: rk wrote: And even in engineering, with the advent of computer tools to do the analysis and even the design work, engineers are starting to be push button operators and do not understand the fundamental concepts and so can not tell when the software tools are in error (which is not infrequent, it's all proprietary code that you are not allowed to see, examine, and verify). I'm not certain that Open Source code would change the situation any. I don't think an engineer is going to open the code to verify, so who does the verification? The companies that will pay for the verification (in house or consultant) are already (AIUI) paying for their own code. That leaves us with the moral equivalent of slashdot ratings, which are informal popularity ratings, not formal evaluations. All Open Source means is that the people programming the thing will have access and means to understand the program. Completely different skill set from the users. Sorry, no. Open Source means the code is open and available to verification. D. -- The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found at the following URLs: Text-Only Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html Enhanced HTML Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html Corrections, comments, and additions should be e-mailed to , as well as posted to sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for discussion. |
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