I had a chance to visit ISRO and DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) as a high school student (won some competition), and the difference in the approach was night and day. There are smart people in each organization, but the ISRO people seem to take pride in their work, and are very ambitious to succeed from the top down. They have a very efficient chain of command, and not much politics. They all work towards a common goal - there isn't the head of one lab pitching a mission to Pluto, while another one tries to demand a mission to Mercury.

On the other hand, the DRDO organization is messed up at the top - there are several people desperate to become directors of a lab, and the infighting often results in splintering. There is a 3 mile road where you can drive by six or seven different labs operating independently. While they do some good work, there are a lot of different projects that each lab tries to pitch.

Really? You had to get into aliens/human voyages scenarios for f*ck ups? I'm sure the US' refusal to adopt the SI system (along with illustrious company in the form of Burma and Libera) would burn everyone to a crisp before they got out of the atmosphere. (NASA - Needs Another Seven Astronauts).

No one was paying them extra to deliver on Saturdays. Now, Amazon is footing (a part?) of the bill, and USPS can make money off it. Cognitive dissonance or comprehension-fail?

Also, the proposal to end Saturday delivery failed (first line of the article). And they already (apparently) deliver a some packages on Sundays and holidays for a fee. This just helps them make get a bigger piece of the e-commerce pie.

Actually, India has a very capable transportation network. Their railways are pretty good. Sure, you have the cheap seats that are not clean, but I've traveled a lot on their higher-class compartments, and they were clean and comfortable (air-conditioned sleepers).

The US has one of the worst PUBLIC transportation systems for a western country. Even air transport is horrible for an economy passenger. Frankly, the railway and bus network of India puts the US' public transport network to shame.

There are two ways to improve security - lock out the user, or educate them.

Locking out the user is great - but it only works on NEW products, and if you don't have competitors. The reason it works well on NEW products is that the user isn't conditioned on what to expect. Remember, trying to change how people use their computer is an uphill battle. It works well when the do not believe they have alternatives.

Educating the user is harder, but that is the real fix. You aren't improving security by saying 'As responsible devs, our software won't do what you want'. Instead, make a two minute video showing them how $technology is flawed, and make them watch it ONCE. Then, let the choose whether to block $technology or live with it. Because right now they get fed up with Firefox (NOT Java), and click the little blue e.

And yes, it isn't a great hassle to keep using FF when you allow users to "click to allow $applet". But the pain is that I need to look at the little red icon in the address bar to permanently enable something. You might say that if I can't handle this additional step, I shouldn't be making a choice on whether to run an applet or not (but that is a bad road to head down). You could have just made a popup when I run an applet that says "Do you want to remember this setting?" - it doesn't fix the security problem, but the current solution doesn't either. At least this way, I don't feel frustrated at my browser for someone else's (Oracle, in this case) screw ups.

I'd like to ask - what am I missing?

Until recently, I hadn't programmed in anything apart from Matlab in Linux (which has a crappy "IDE") in over ten years (the last version of VS I ever used in any way was VS6.0). Anyway, I started to work on Python and C++, and have so far found a lot of positives with the IDE (Ultimate VS2012 - free from my organization).

VsVim and PTVS let me use a vim like editing features, and Python Tools for VS has also performed well (interactive debugging, autcomplete and command help). On the C++ side, the debugger (for simple code at least) is straightforward. The Git integration could be a better, but I can quite easily drop into the command line and sync with GitHub.

Since I am still learning the tools (and I have used Linux a lot over the last five years, so I am OS agnostic) and the language, I'd like to know what I am likely to miss out by using VS over say Eclipse (or other tools). I tried Eclipse for about half a day, but I had a bit of problem getting the debugger to work for C++. Again, since I am just starting out, I like the convenience of an IDE, rather than using vim+gcc at the command line - I'm not even sure how I'd do a command line debug.

I'd say it is a fairly good assumption that at some point in their lives (from birth, immunization, etc.). they have been a part of the health care system. In fact, the argument could be made that everyone benefits from the healthcare system even though some people might not see a health care professional (herd immunity - if everyone around a person is immunized, that reduces the risk of an individual who isn't immunized). When you take into account the economic and social benefits accrued by a person indirectly, I don't think it can be said that a person who doesn't go to a doctor isn't a part of the healthcare system.

Obviously, very little is universally true - and the very nature of taxes (in todays society) is that I pay for things I don't believe I benefit from (or I'm not getting my moneys worth). But you don't pick and choose your taxes. I can find a lot of other ways my tax dollars are spent that I don't care for. A tax for healthcare is something that I doubt many people can honestly claim is unfair.

No, the ACA is a tax on those who take part in the healthcare system (hint: by being alive in the US, you do take part in the US healthcare system). Don't like it? Stop being a part of the system.

In an academic conference the purpose is entertainment. The purpose is to get people excited by your work, and want to know more about it. True, you want to communicate the reasons your work is important, and what is great about your work. But the main goal is to get the audience to go home and read your full paper. The paper is the communication medium. The presentation is more about selling the paper.

"The value is in the halls, not in the presentations" - this was a comment in an article on academic conferences (Let there be stoning!, pdf link). Unfortunately, the article hits the nail on the head - most academic talks are atrocious.

And mingling in the halls is still a human activity - you really don't like to do it virtually. It's like going to a virtual bar with your friends. Even if you have the best cocktail at home, the crowd, the sounds, etc. all play a role in keeping you in the mood.

The only advantage I see is in reducing some of the ridiculous conference registration rates I have seen (I'm looking at you IEEE - student registration of $400?). But I don't expect this to take off.

I'd say the US elected whom they did because too many people didn't consider third party (and the second party didn't offer a credible alternative). Not to suggest that the current guy is doing a great job, but the US had a choice between him and a 72 year old with a Labrador for a running mate (the first time around). The second time around, the challenger's platform was "Don't ask about the specifics about our plans, you peasant! Just hear my rhetoric and grandstanding, and I'll say everything so just hear what you want to hear.". Unfortunately, all politicians tell you what they think the majority want to hear. Romney wanted to also say (in quick succession) what the minority wanted to hear.

Hell, I think the US should get Bill Clinton back (even if under a Hillary disguise) - he seems to be the best you've had in a while, and the current crop of hopefuls are a joke.

As a counter measure, I was wondering: can this be stopped by designing the right wall?

If you make a wall that scatters a lot back due to a non-homogenous constitution or imperfections, will there be enough reflections to make the system useless? And is that a universal flaw (i.e no matter what type of radar you build, a single "well designed" wall can thwart all such systems)? Or does the wall need to be designed specific to the frequency/design of the detector?

The reason I ask is that I consider this is likely to be an invasion of privacy - "we didn't need a warrant to track the subject, the neighbor was a perv. who had the scanner, and came forward (and we aren't filing charges against him for $unrelated_crime)." It would be nice if a low-tech solution can thwart this.

Funny. If I read just this part of your comment, I wouldn't know whether you are criticizing Windows or Linux. This whole article is about hardware drivers affecting user experience!!

While I agree with you on some aspects, you seem to miss out in that (in theory) other people can call upon those priests to verify their miracles. True, most people never do it. The scientific method requires that there are people to verify claims and catch mistakes. For most important problems, however, there are enough of people to catch mistakes sooner rather than later.

Losing faith in science would be like losing faith in open source because most people aren't educated enough to view the source and verify the code. What matters is that you trust that enough smart people have viewed it and validated the results. My obscure open source project might have a backdoor, but Firefox is unlikely to have one. The problem isn't with open source or the priests, it is that the method assumes enough of resources, which isn't likely for unimportant projects.

In some fields where computers are being used for huge simulations, the problem gets worse. I've known lots of papers that get accepted based on models that were flawed (in Engineering) because there was a sign change in a 20,000 line code. The problem is very hard to catch. However, if it is important enough (or enough eyeballs are looking at it), it will get caught.

I'm not sure what you mean by better at engineering but worse at knowledge.