Vaguely. I used to know/care a lot more than I do now. It was up when I wrote that, then down a bit later, now up again. It's worrisome. The loss of even one reader represents about a 50% drop in my traffic!

Can I wave?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0n2vurSBIQ

Anyway, my site (mrlizard.com) is hosted at GoDaddy and seems to still be up, so both my readers can rejoice.

Seriously. Wouldn't it make sense to launch several unmanned "shipping containers" of food and supplies well ahead of the manned craft, set to land near the proposed landing site, and to continue to send such craft during the mission timeline? (I'm aware that Earth and Mars are both in motion and travel times vary, but given the long run-up to a manned mission, there would be a lot of viable windows to launch such "advance craft".) Make plans for at least one, if not more, such launches during the on-ground mission time period. (Also, include the most advanced 3-D printers of the time on the main craft, and backups on the "shipping containers", along with plenty of raw material to feed them. The odds of needing to create a spare part, or a custom tool, to deal with unexpected events are pretty darn good, and it's better to send "tools to make tools" than to try to guess what parts you're most likely to need a spare of.)

(Hell, while we're dreaming.... why not send some kind of self-assembling farm? I'm serious. Robot craft lands. It release a greenhouse-like structure that unfolds and assembles itself. It begins drawing water from the atmosphere -- there's not a LOT, but there's some -- or from the frozen ground (am I wrong, or is there evidence of lots of sub-surface ice locked in the soil? No time to check now...). When enough is gathered, it starts off a hydroponic process. As the plants produce oxygen, it's drawn off and stored, and CO2 is drawn from the surrounding Martian environment. Yes, I know sunlight is much dimmer on Mars. I do not think it's unreasonable that some plants can be found on Earth which can survive on lower levels of sunlight, or at least genetically engineered to do so. Even very simple plants can be processed into something edible, if not necessarily gourmet.)

I'm not claiming this technology exists off-the-shelf today, but nothing strikes me as beyond 10 years or so of focused development efforts. It shouldn't require breaking any laws of physics or lifter/booster technologies orders of magnitude beyond what we currently have. (Regular, incremental improvements in lightweight materials, genetic engineering, and robotics are safe predictions, as such things go. Expecting significant breakthroughs in the cost of getting anything into orbit is probably not a safe prediction, so it's best, to my mind, to think about "What's kind of stuff could we put in a payload in 10 years?" than "How can we lift a bigger payload in 10 years?")

Because there's no difference between protecting a child from the stupidity of their parents, when they are incapable of making the decision for themselves, and altering someone's mind because the government doesn't like what they're thinking, when they haven't committed a crime or been shown to be in the process of actively planning to commit a crime in the near future.

(I have to wonder, though, if there's a way to contain the harm morons do to their children without forced vaccinations. I dislike forced anything, on principle, and the use of force to prevent harm to others should be the last resort. I'm thinking we start with a "No Vaccination" list, like a sex offender list. This at least informs parents, so they can keep their kids away from the children of morons. Businesses should not be forced to deny entrance to unvaccinated children, but they could be required to publicly post a policy stating if they do or do not. This would be especially applicable to restaurants, movie theaters, or any other business where large numbers of children congregate. Most non-moron parents will not patronize businesses that choose to allow unvaccinated children entrance, and the free market does the rest. Of course, this requires some kind of "proof of vaccination" card you can show, but that's relatively trivial. A final option is to require, as part of getting an exemption from vaccination, the purchase of insurance that will pay for the medical care of vaccinated children who nonetheless contract a disease they have been vaccinated against (vaccines aren't perfect, and the more unvaccinated kids are around, the better the odds of a germ slipping past the defenses). The actual mechanics of this will have to worked out based on the number of unvaccinated kids nearby, etc. I leave such matters to the bean counters.)

Some may note this plan is harsh on the kids. Yes. There's this thing called "evolution". If a trait possessed by a parent causes their offspring to be less likely to survive to breeding age, or reduces their ability to breed even if they live, it will be slowly but surely edited from the gene pool. "Bad parenting" is one such trait. Even if the children of morons don't catch anything fatal, they will be psychologically harmed by a childhood of being shunned, and this will reduce their chances of proper socialization, mating, and reproducing. It's cruel, but the long-term effects inflict much greater cruelty on a much larger group of people. There is a right, I think, to raise your children as you see fit; there's no right to be protected from the social consequences of your decisions. It is very likely that the prospect of a child being marked and shunned will, oddly, be more likely to convince a parent to do the smart thing than any amount of scientific evidence, since it's obvious that parents who deny vaccination do not think rationally, but emotionally. Therefore, appeal to their emotions.

If someone else is going to fulfill my "needs and wants" (that latter word is the really key part) without demanding anything in return, I'll spend the rest of my life engaging in activity that is productive and fulfilling for me, but not necessarily of value to anyone else (i.e, I won't be fulfilling anyone else's needs and wants, just my own). Certainly, I could choose to produce things of value to others for purposes of ego gratification and praise, but that's a weak motivation, at best, and it presumes that the things I *want* to produce are of sufficient quality that people will "pay" me for them in the form of praise and respect. This is not guaranteed; the things I'm skilled at (to the point where people would rather have me do them, than do them themselves) and the things I'd prefer to do if I didn't care if I got paid or not are not always the same.

If I can't get my "needs and wants" fulfilled without offering something to someone else in return for their time, labor, or knowledge, then it's still capitalism by another name. If I am told that I will be given 2000 calories a day in the form of processed protein paste, a cot to sleep on, and the most basic of clothing and medical care, thus fulfilling my "needs", but anything beyond that (my "wants") requires me to produce something of value to others, same thing. The more generously you grant my "needs" (better and more varied food, access to entertainment, private living quarters, the resources to pursue hobbies), the more you dissuade me from working for anyone else's benefit. You might argue that with advanced technologies, only a very small minority will be needed to maintain the system, and there will always be those who will choose to be in that role, who will gain enough pleasure from the notion of "service" that this is what they will choose to do so without being compelled. This is almost certainly true. The problem, of course, is that such a structure also attracts those who, by nature, gain pleasure from others serving THEM, and they will then use their elite position as maintainers of utopia for their own benefit.

In any event, it's a foolish notion, because there is no such thing as a post-scarcity society. Scarcity is an ever-moving target. There will always be things where the demand exceeds the supply, whether it's a house with a particular view or in an especially nice location, seating at a live event of any kind, original works of art, or the personal services of skilled professionals whose time and willingness to work is less than the desire of others for their work. The instant you have any kind of scarcity, you need a means of exchange, and the nature of humanity is such that no matter what system of exchange you create, some people will be better at manipulating it than others, and some people will find their greatest skill is the provision of the service of "manipulating the means of exchange" -- that is, middlemen. No amount of declarations that all work is equal will alter the fact that some things will always be more valuable to one person than to another. Thus inequality is inevitable, no matter how egalitarian the starting point. Attempting to prevent the development of markets, however unofficial or called by whatever name, by law or regulation, simply hastens the process, as those most able to manipulate the system become the lawmakers and regulators.

You make a good argument, and I'd believe you... except that an ER visit to the same hospital, which lasted longer (about 6 hours), involved more tests and machines that go "ping", and more interaction with doctors, nurses, etc, cost 800.00. Hardly cheap, of course, and this was when I *didn't* have insurance and I ended up paying it off over the course of a year -- but it's really hard for me to fathom that 15 minutes of lying still while someone rubbed jelly on my chest (at least she was cute...) costs 200.00 more than the full suite of "We have to run this test because if we don't, we get sued for malpractice" at the ER.

Now, if you'd said, "They overcharge on routine medical exams so they can use the surplus to cover things they can't charge as much for or services they have to provide by law", I'd believe you.

A further problem with the idea the price really means something is that I know my insurance company isn't paying that much. I pay ~200.00/month for insurance. That is about equal to the retail (uninsured cost) of the medications I get every month -- said retail price being another number hardly anyone actually pays, of course. So if they pay the same amount I get billed, I'm costing the money just for very basic, very routine, care -- no major surgery, no cancer treatments, no long hospital stays. That there's a "pool" isn't really relevant, because these aren't extraordinary costs; they're month-to-month medical expenses for a reasonably healthy middle ages adult. (I could be a lot healthier, sure, but my actual medical expenses are the kind of routine, run of the mill things even the healthiest people will pay for if they want to keep being healthy. So if the (uninsured) costs for THOSE are roughly equal to what I pay the insurance company month to month, either the insurance company is happy to keep me as a charity case (not likely), my employer is picking up a HUGE part of the tab (also not likely, given the rest of their "benefits" package), or the amount the insurance company actually pays out for these things is a lot less than the bill I see. (This is no great secret; you often see "Amount we billed your insurer: A gazillion dollars. Amount insurer paid: $2.50 and half a doughnut. Amount you owe us: $0.00." on medical bills.)

I am in no way opposed to profits, capitalism, or the idea people should pay for services rendered. Nor do I not understand that there's lots and lots of hidden expenses involved in running anything as complex as a hospital. However, the normal mechanisms that control prices, and the normal ways consumers can act to adjust their spending, are grossly distorted by a mix of factors, and these distortions manifest in both over- and under- paying for services, relative to the costs of providing them, and they're very hard to correct via normal means.

How many Chinese have been killed by other Chinese? (Google "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution")

(Of course, you can point out that Americans kill Americans in mass numbers -- the Civil War,and, of course, the entire process of claiming the continent from the natives.. but then you can also compare Chinese civil wars and various ethnic clashes at those points in history, as well. Pick a century, and line 'em up, and see who is more brutal. (Answer: Probably no one to any meaningful degree, because we're all human, and thus, we all pretty much behave the same way over a span of time. You can always cherry-pick a decade or two where one culture was unusually peaceful, or pick a small or isolated subculture, but the longer you stretch the timescale or widen the definition of 'culture', the more it becomes obvious that we're not a peaceful species.))

For pretty much the same reason that a small piece of soft foam as a filter for my CPAP -- not magic foam made from unicorn testicles, just bog-standard foam, about 2" square -- is billed to my insurance company at 25.00.(Seriously, due to a paperwork snafu, at one point, I got the itemized bill instead of my insurance company getting it, and it's ridiculous what they charge.) Because they can. (My insurance company, I'm sure, just laughs and pays them a buck, at most, but having the item be "worth" 25.00 is probably a lot of use to accountants at every stage in the transaction.)

Why did a simple ultrasound of my heart, performed by a technician who was not a doctor, not a nurse, just someone who'd completed "Be an ultrasound technician!" at night school, and which took about 15 minutes, cost over $1000.00? No reason. It's a random number. They bill the insurance company, or the government, depending on if you have private health insurance or medicare/medicaid, and then the people they bill pay whatever amount THEY decide to pay for an ultrasound. This doesn't work, of course, if the hospital has to bill YOU -- you have to pay what they ask. Sucks to be you. Or me, when I didn't have insurance.

It's because there's no market control; there's no shopping around; there's no way anyone can (legally) just start making hearing aids and having them sold at Wal-Mart. If eyeglasses followed the same rules, you couldn't buy even a pair of reading glasses without going to a licensed optometrist and paying 250.00, minimum. As it is, I can go to the aforementioned Wal-Mart and try on a few quickly, then pick whatever I like best and walk out having paid less than I'd pay to go to the movies.

I lived in the Bay Area from 1995 to 2004.

I read the exact same editorial, with a few proper nouns changed, on average, every 2-3 months.

So, given that...

Either:
a)It's already happened, since people started shrieking it was going to happen at least as far back as 1995, and probably sooner. Get over it.
b)It's never going to happen, because if it hasn't happened since 1995, it never will. Get over it.

There's a difference between "Not knowing the competitor's products and why yours is (hopefully) better" and "Not using the product for your personal use". Likewise, testing for features and functionality, making sure it doesn't crash, making sure all promises are fulfilled -- all of those, to my mind, fall into "QA" and not "using the app". Perhaps I'm over-interpreting, but when I think of "using an app", I am thinking "I would use this app if I wasn't working for the company; if I saw it in the store, I would buy it." There's a lot of reasons for employees of a company to have no personal, out-of-work, interest in an application without the application being poorly designed, broken, etc.

I learned an awful lot about employment agencies when I worked on a product designed for that business. I spent a lot of time talking to potential users, having them test the software, tell me what it did wrong, what features they needed, etc.

However, I didn't run home and fire it up for my own use... because I don't run an employment agency. I couldn't view the product as a user of it.

Further, depending on the size of the company and the division of labor, many employees may have little need to know about the functionality of the final product in order to do their job and do it well. To use a non-programming example, an artist hired to paint an image for a new "Magic" card does not need to know the card's mechanical function or even how to play the game; he needs to know the art style, similar images, and any important themes or iconic imagery to use. Etc. (On the flip side, someone who designs the card's mechanics had better be an active player of the game. There's a lot of grey areas and caveats here, something the Internet, in general, despises; all arguments must be in absolutes, and any exception voids the entire thing.)

Now, of course, since the OP won't tell us the product or the company, I don't know if any of this applies. If the app *is* in a category most of them would use (or use competing apps for, already), and they STILL don't use it... then, yeah, there's a real problem with the app itself. I just don't like to make assumptions.

I see a lot of "If the employees don't use it, it must be crap!" comments here, which makes me wonder a little about what kinds of jobs people hold. Most of my professional career has been spent writing code for products I would never personally use -- vertical market software for large financial institutions, for example, or custom databases for people with very specific needs. To pick something at random, an app which helps people layout and plan gardens is not necessarily an app most of the programmers who work on it will be using themselves, unless you happened to have hired only programmers who are also gardeners. Replace "gardening" with "birdwatching", "tracking blood sugar levels", "scanning postage stamps for your online stamp collection", or a zillion other things which there might be a market for, but which might not be a passion for the people actually developing it. It's really not at all uncommon for the employees of a company to not also be the target market of that company, and not just in software.

Well, I'd say, do this:
Is the app actually any good? Does it do what it's supposed to? Does it have a target audience that would like it, but might not be aware of it?
If so, promote it honestly. Tell the truth:"I work for this company, and I'm proud of the product we make. If you want an app that does blah, you should try this one out. It's nifty, and I stand behind the work my company and my co-workers have done on it."

If not... just look for a new job. If you think your company is making crap, you're probably right, and it's better to get out before they kick you out.

I'm less certain than you, because this presumes that "enemy" craft would be large enough to be easily detected amidst all the myriad space junk in orbit. I'm going on the assumption "future war" would be mostly small unmanned craft sniping each other, not Star Destroyers lumbering around. Of course, anything big enough to drop rocks would probably also be big enough to detect and fry. (Also, how trivial is it to hit something in orbit with a ground based laser, when said something may be moving very fast, tossing out chaff, or otherwise not just sitting there waiting to get blasted? Given Sufficiently Advanced(tm) technology, you can pack a lot of destructive power in something the size of a grapefruit, and if it's detected less than a second from its target, accompanied by a thousand other grapefruits, your ability to lock on, predict its motion, and fire is severely limited.)

I mean, let's face it -- no one's produced a fully reliable laser-based defense against good ol' missiles. I'm not sanguine you can build a ground-based laser defense against the kind of tiny semi-independent craft we'll be able to use in orbit.

Ultimately, I see orbital war as constant clouds of millions of small, highly mobile, vehicles constantly trying to decide which other vehicles are "the enemy" and blow them up, with evolving algorithms that try to trump the other guy's prediction/evasion/detection schemes. Given sufficiently advanced (tm) technology, the vehicles could easily modify their own hardware, cannibalizing enemy "corpses" or each others for raw materials.

I believe it will end up being a lot like that described in Niven's "Protector"... you launch your weapons, and, five years later, you look to see if they hit.

That's for interstellar combat. For orbital combat... a lot would depend on the goal. Are you trying to knock out the enemy's satellites? Drop bombs on his population centers? Stop his transport ships from leaving Earth and getting to their destinations?

The easy answer is "drones, drones, and more drones", but this assumes ECCM will equal ECM well enough to make it at least a tossup that you'll get through the other guy's defenses. I'd also make a guess that we'll never get as much damage potential out of a beam weapon as we will out of an explosive, and the simpler the technology, the less things can go wrong. I'm seeing, basically, drones that get as far as they can from the enemy, analyze their motions, and then launch direct-fire weapons based on prediction algorithms as to where the enemy will be when the projectiles get there. I'd also speculate that anything launched, including the drones, would be absolutely blind to any kind of orders to go home, change targets, respond to IFF, etc, because the chances of being fed false data are too great. This would lead, of course, to the launch of basically uncontrolled weapons armed with considerable destructive power, so, if they were hacked pre-launch... oops...

This, in turn, might lead to remote control, where the drones have no "brains" but are piloted by humans. Of course, this opens the same problem -- if the drones are controlled in any way by an outside signal, an enemy can and will find a way to hijack that signal. So, back to self-guided vehicles with no way to turn them off or shut them down. (And even this leads to problems... if there's a "mission complete, go home" algorithm, you run the risk of someone figuring out what the drone needs to "see" to conclude "mission complete" and finding a way to fake it. So, logically, you just have the drone explode when it's done.

If the general area being fought over is well defined, you might have some kind of minefield, using virtually-inert devices that rely on passive sensors to come to life and go 'boom' when something is near, but I've read a lot of people arguing that nothing is inert enough to not be trivially detected far off.

(Of course, I'm not sure there's anything to fight over in space other than to knock out the other guy's satellites, and there won't be anything else up there for a long, long time... so long that making predictions about the kind of tech used is probably impossible. As for the satellites, it's probably much easier to just fire some ground-based or plane-based missiles at them than to try for any kind of "space war".)

Limits in power are not limits in vileness.

People who exploit ignorance are, pretty much, the sort of people who are most unfit to wield power and the most likely to seek it. It is, simply, the principle of the thing -- what we have here is an opportunistic villain who sees an easy target and a way to paint himself as a moralist and a champion of the underdog. Who could be in favor of bullying and obesity, right? And what kind of greedy, selfish, person, would protest such a tiny little tax to do so much good, right?

Being petty in power as well as petty in soul, he can't do much harm currently, but that doesn't make him any less despicable.