"Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. [...] an independent research institute [...] must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it."
Yes, we should take his opinion with a grain of salt, not because he is a science fiction author, but generally. I like to remind HN of the Royal Society's motto: Nullius in verba.
A more recent story concerning the resignation of a famous climate scientist, Lennart Bengtsson, former director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, from a controversial lobby group due to what Crichton calls "consensus science":
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/climate-scientists...
I don't know the title implies. Just because the production of something is expensive, doesn't mean that you have to charge money for its use (of course, it would be very legitimate to do so).
I think this is another example of the QWERTY effect. Obviously, there are many pieces of word processing software that are superior, but he is so used to his system that, to him, the transaction cost outweighs the opportunity cost.
It seems that all he cares about is writing text, period. A typewriter is not good enough because editing is a pain, but Wordstar 4.0 seems to fit his needs perfectly. How is there anything wrong with that?
A lot of software is novelty-driven, because you need to sell your users on the next version. Sadly, this is often at odds with the goals software should aim to fulfill as a tool. Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?
> Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?
Uh, yeah, both the pencil and the hammer not only have gone through multiple iterations over history, but have a branching family tree with real improvements for specific roles over time.
Sure, there's a lot of fluff in software (and all kinds of other products), but technology actually does bring improved tools.
Some of it is driven by available technology. It would have been very hard to have a great spell-check functionality on early home computers, like my 48k Apple II+, simply because of the hardware.
Did we ever need a v2 for the hammer, or drafting pencil?
Hammers did indeed evolve quite a bit from their stone age original form, though the general shape and principle have remained the same.
There is a modern claw hammer halfway up the left side in this illustration from 1514:
Just to be a dick: yes, drafting pencils that are deliberately shaped to not roll off tables are nice, and probably not the absolute first version produced.
Clearly, innovation is good - the modern (1514) hammer is better than the big stone our Homo Abilis ancestors used. But at some point, you reach an upper bound.
It was a separate innovation, followed soon after by a different innovation to combine a claw tool and a hammer tool into a combined tool.
But there are other things you can put on the other end of a hammer besides a claw, none of which made the original hammer a bad idea if all your problems really are nails that you don't need to claw back out.
There may be instances where people stick with something inferior because of inertia or transaction cost, but QWERTY doesn't really deserve to be the poster child for this phenomenon; the often-cited example of market failure in the Dvorak case is not what most folks assume it to be.
Your comment manages to be on top despite having little content. So?
EDIT: HN is not a journalistic site. So don't worry about the decline of journalism in this context.
Personally, I think it is very legitimate to appeal to sentiments, because of the three means of persuasion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_%28Aristotle%29) pathos foremost agitates people to actions. And sometimes, it is necessary to act (and inform the public). That you disagree with others on this very issue is no reason for insult.
In Rome, do as the Romans. Simias's post has much more content than the video, and makes a self-contained argument. The link submitted presents a page with a video imploring us to... what.. share the video? Because it will make a difference? Why? Also, what are we making a difference in again? Why is the government a dictatorship? When did that happen? (I'm not asking, I'm saying the video doesn't answer any of the above questions, which are critical to the appeal for support)
I thought the introductory statement is ironical, but, apparently, it is not. I don't think this article resounds well within the HN community since it is a "mainstream space" that is being criticized.
However, despite its polemic nature, it is a worthwhile read, a representative neo-Marxist critique, that you won't often find on HN.
In some ways, it's even easier for information to be lost in the digital age; unless it's in regular use, it can end up on crumbling tapes in an obsolete format that cannot be understood. There are various underfunded efforts to recover and transcribe old NASA data that suffer from this.
Apparently so. It's not an article with a response from the government agents responsible or with first-hand detail on why or how the digitisation didn't happen, and why universities or a foundation didn't take on the load, or even the argument about what reasoning led to the closures in the first place, but if even half true, it's severe enough to be worth looking into.
Not all data & information created is meant to be saved till eternity.Plus, some of it comes with privacy implications, even when dealing with documents pertaining to the deceased.
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Yes, we should take his opinion with a grain of salt, not because he is a science fiction author, but generally. I like to remind HN of the Royal Society's motto: Nullius in verba.