>. Unless Larry took features away

The first thing decided about Perl6 was that some things would go away, meaning you wouldn't have automatic full backward compatibility. Certain constructs that result in a dense line of punctuation marks were an early example.

To be clear, you can now do those things in a more clear, consistent, general and intuitive way - the power wasn't removed, rather special cases and sparse syntax were replaced with concepts that are more generally applicable, using a more clear syntax.

Perl6 began July 19, 2000, announced by Larry Wall in his State of the Onion address.

Yes, it will indeed include the feature you requested, via this new operator, which looks much like Perl's other operators: :O ==8

There's actually a lot of truth in that joke. It's been fifteen years not because nothing was being done, but because a lot was done, and done very thoughtfully, after thorough analysis. The goal was not to get it to market quickly (ala Java) or to solve a pressing business need right now (Google's assorted languages and tools). The goal was to do it RIGHT, really right. Based on the Perl idea of right, of course. Perl6 is like Pavarotti - neither everyone's favorite nor appropriate for all occasions, but damn good at what it does.

From a decade ago until now, the Perl devs have spent those ten years improving upon what you either misunderstood or are exaggerating for comedic effect.

Java was rushed out quickly, and early versions of Java made that obvious. Perl6 is the opposite - they've taken all the time needed to perfectly implement their vision, to make it exactly what it's supposed to be. Not everything is nail, so a hammer isn't the right tool for every job, but Perl6 is a mighty fine hammer. If you have a task well suited to what Perl6 is made for, it's a fine tool for the job.

As you noted, the altitude of the locker room is effectively the same as the field, so altitude would not be a factor. You made me curious about barometric pressure, so I looked it up. The highest-ever recorded pressure was less than 1 PSI above standard pressure, so even a record-breaking barometer reading wouldn't explain it.

Others have already pointed out two reasons. One, making it a billion times safer than carrots also makes it cost a million times as much as it already does, and two, if it's more costly than coal, people will just burn coal instead. I'd like to point out two more reasons.

Suppose you make $60,000. You can only spend that $60,000 once. If you pay $100 more on your electric bill to make your power even more safe, that's $100 you don't have to spend on having your car a bit safer - two more airbags, perhaps. Spending your safety budget on the wrong things gets people killed, because any money from your pay check that ends up paying for safer energy is money that can't be used for traffic safety, food safety, etc. So the way to have the safest LIFE is to spend your safety budget where it does the most good, which probably isn't energy related.

Secondly, have you ever worked at a place that makes you change your password monthly? Pretty much everyone there increments their password, so all passwords end with two digits. Ever seen a highway with a speed limit posted that's clearly much too low? Everyone ends up speeding, but by vastly varying amounts since there's no reasonable guidance on how fast you should be going. Excessive rules are counterproductive because they just get people in the habit of ignoring the rules. If you wnt people to follow the rules, you need a) rules that are reasonable and b) people who understand why the rules they are handed are reasonable.

So the proper set of safety rules, the most effective are:
Carefully selected for maximum effect per cost, keeping the safety budget in mind.
Reasonable to follow.
Well explained, so people understand WHY they are reasonable rules that should be followed.

It's too bad that neither mdsolar's summary nor the article he linked to mention what change was proposed. Some changes may be good, others bad. No way to know about this one without knowing just what is was that someone wanted to change.

You know, mdsolar, you'd probably sell more by engaging in discussions on forums more targeted to your market and just answering questions people have have solar power systems. That would include forums that have a lot of people who want to be "off the grid" or less reliant on the grid, prepper forums for example. Also certain home renovation forums would have people who might be interested in buying. Pitching the general concept here, especially through negative FUD about your competitors, is kind of a waste of your time.

Agreed. Anyone can put a football out in the cold, or in a refrigerator, and see what happens. Columbia's role is credibility, to authoratively say how much pressure drop is attributable to temperature.

From someone actively involved with trying maintain a federal grant at work, you're simply mistaken on both counts. The federal grant covers the salaries of the people involved with that project. No grant means no project. No project means the jobs go away.

The grant is for renewable terms. WithIN the current term, continued funding is dependant on hitting certain specified targets, as measured by the officials at federal agency making the grant. At renewal time, renewal is 100% at the discretion of the federal officials. They can cancel our team and send the grant money elsewhere at their complete discretion.

I never understood why people completing make stuff up, fabricating it out of whole cloth, and post it as if it were fact. Go ahead AMD do it again, if you must, and when I'm in the office on Monday I'll post the grant documents, "at sole discretion" wording and all, and you'll just look like an utter fool.

Agreed. I want to know if my servers' keys have changed unexpectedly. You can set UpdateHostkeys No to turn this off; I'd like the option of UpdateHostkeys Prompt.

I do understand that having Prompt as the default would undermine the intended use case somewhat, but I think it would be good to have the option.

> maximum final Delta V from source of circa 58,000 ft/sec

Einstein would like to have a word with you. That word is "relative". Suppose there is a planet traveling away from the earth at at 50,000 ft/sec. An alien on that planet can fire a rocket, which can travel away from that planet at 50,000 ft/s, meaning 100,000 ft/s relative to earth. As it catches up to another planet, it might photograph some other aliens launching their own rocket at 50,000 ft/s, which is 150,000 ft/s relative to earth.

In fact, the SAME rocket could from earth to the first planet, then be launched from that planet, then stop at the next planet and be launched at 50,000.

Come to think of it, stopping at each planet doesn't change anything. It's ALWAYS standing still relative to something, and can launch away from that something to 50,000 ft/s. The gas leaves nozzle at 58,000 RELATIVE TO THE COMBUSTION CHAMBER. In other words, it can always go 58,000 faster, as long as it can fire it's engine. 58,000 is the limit for a BALLISTIC projectile, one that is fired from a gun and doesn't carry a working engine with which to keep accelerating. The limit is 58,000 RELATIVE TO the chamber in which the gas is burned. By carrying the combustion chamber within the craft, it can accelerate until it approaches C.

I didn't know Elon Musk was even selling cars in the 1940s and 1950s, when franchise laws were passed to prevent the two big bad corporations, GM and Ford, from competing unfairly with small dealerships.

Oh, did you think Tesla was the first car company who wanted to sell direct? You're off by about a hundred years.

Well, we know that the US had nuclear-armed B-52s and nuclear xommamd and control EC-135s airborne 24/7 until at least 1992. That led to a couple of scary accidents. Google "Chrome Dome" for more information. That was one leg of the nuclear triad - subs, missiles, and bombers on alert 24/7. The bombers periodically received a "do not attack" signal.

What the strategic command has been up to since 1992 we don't know. They keep such things secret when possible, for obvious reasons.

There was, and probably still is, far more nuclear material airborne 24/7 in standby aircraft. That's in actual bombs, too, with all the many other components assembled to cause it to explode, whereas the thruster would be contained to provide protection as used in currently launched devices.

What you said is certainly true, and has been for a long time. Now, psyops is even more important. The US and UK could have turned Iraqi cities into glass parking lots very quickly, if they decided to do mass bombings like WWII. Germany had serious air defenses, yet the allies utterly destroyed large sections of major cities. Undefended Iraqi cities would be like bombing fish in a barrel. Destroying the enemy is no longer considered an allowable goal, though. The new goal is to persuade the general population to see things our way.

You don't win friends by exploding them. Hardware can remove the existing leadership, but the rest is PR.