Respectfully, I think they had the wrong type of education.

I don't care how awesome an engineer you are, if you have never taken and understood a philosophy course or an ethics course, you have probably never seriously and critically examined the things you were brought up to believe, or tried to follow the reasoning of someone else's beliefs.

Hell, even a proper, proof based, mathematics course will have you identifying logical inconsistencies in various lines of reasoning by the time you take your mid-term. Other good choices are history, psychology and anthropology. Oh and definitely, absolutely, a first year literature course, where you have to learn to think critically about what you see, hear and read, then form a supported opinion, and then express it coherently, to other smart people.

Not to say that there aren't people out there that can instinctively and naturally think in both a rigorous and a compassionate manner (and I am definitely not trying to imply anything personal, Sir), but if you've ever read English papers written by first year engineers, you can probably see where I'm coming from. Most people need to be taught these kinds of things, if only to jump start their own awareness of just how diverse and wonderful the wider world really is. It's called "The Big Picture" for good reason.

I think you have accidentally posted this piece to the wrong site, sir. There are too many people here who have a clue for your tactic to work. I suggest you try "SeekingAlpha" or "Forbes", if you want to manipulate a market more effectively.

Google isn't a person.

Oh my God. I just had a huge metaphorical insight into the whole Star Wars story, with Han as the Chinese, and Greedo as the Americans. I have to go think about this now...

There must be some truly incredible skies there for stargazing. I would think looking up and seeing that every night for your entire life would instill a sense of humility and scale or something.

They're running the same flight software, but the parameters are different. (A parameter might say, for example, how far to drive between autonomous visual odometry updates, or how big the bounding boxes around the arm should be when computing ChemCam laser safety.) There are thousands of these parameters, and they're not routinely kept up to date on the non-prime side (which has historically been the B side).

And while the computers are identical, the non-cross-strapped equipment isn't. For example, the B-side rear HAZCAMs are exposed to more radiation, because of the DAN instrument, than the A-side rear HAZCAMs, and are therefore expected to degrade faster. Switching back to the A side is, generally, switching back to slightly better equipment.

Actually, you could only back up (30/1024)*100% = ~3% of your TB HD every month.

^this. The bug is in the assert() statement itself, not in the program logic. Assuming that input validation code exists and was already run before this point, the purpose of this assert() seems to be to make sure the validator is actually doing its job properly. However, the test in the assert() itself is incorrect, since it disallows mixed case file URLs, which are valid, according to spec. Of course, if this assert() statement is his validator, then he's doing it wrong. Big time.

This is exactly what North Korea is trying to suggest , with all their sabre rattling. Somebody needs to say to them, "okay, I guess you should do what you think you need to do, but we're not giving you any more free food just because you might cause some shit if we don't. We have our own problems to deal with, thank you very much."

What is Kim Jong-Un, like 25 years old? I have underwear older than that. You have to expect a certain lack of foresight from a young, inexperienced ruler whose advisors are used to dealing with the world in a paranoid fashion. The poor kid probably hasn't ever really lived in a society where he actually has to interact with people in a normal social dynamic like we are used to doing, so it's no wonder his perception of how to get along with other nations is all bent up. I pity him that lack of human connection.

I think, all the slapstick stuff with Han Solo (which was great stuff, BTW) aside, the Star Wars universe has a sense of gravity and realism that the Star Trek universe has always lacked. I think this has a lot to do with the differences between the cinema and television media, and the associated differences between the two cultures. Abrams is definitely a television person, and there will always be that "campy" element to his work (inside jokes, flashy camera effects, etc), regardless of how entertaining it might be to watch. His take on Star Trek was a lot of fun, and visually, it was really great, but you never forget that you are in a theatre, watching a movie. Star Wars, on the other hand, (at least the original ones) transported me into their world in a way that few films have done for me since then. There is a term: "willing suspension of disbelief", which applies here. I have that for Abrams' Star Trek, but I didn't need it for Star Wars or Empire; it was almost unconscious there. I got a similar feeling of that gravity with Dark Horse's original "Tales of the Jedi" series, but things that work in one medium don't always translate to another medium. I guess what I'm saying is that atmosphere is a hard thing to get right, and I don't think Abrams is going to be able to capture it properly. I'm sure it'll be entertaining, but it won't have the depth we all want it to have.

Very subtle, sir. You make a keen observation on the insular nature of our society, but I think your point will go unnoticed by most of the people you are targeting, which is a shame.

Well, technically, I did the other arm work for the sol (the MAHLI and APXS placements) so that Joe and Diana could focus on the DRT.

Nothing to add, really, just bragging. :-) Thanks for the continued interest in MSL, Slashdot!