If you built a car engine that delivered power by causing fuel to explode, you'd change the world. Car engines work through deflagration, not detonation. Detonation releases way, way more power. It's hoped that it will be the replacement for scramjet engines... envision a jet being driven by a series of explosions. No one has admitted to successfully making one, though. I've spent years doodling different ideas about how you might make one if we had the materials necessary, but it's like building a space elevator... fun to think about, but you'd need materials far stronger than anything we have available.

Car engines run on boring old combustion. The difference in scale between combustion and detonation is not dissimilar to the difference between a compost heap and a bonfire.

If it was pointed out to you that thermoelectrics operate anywhere there is a heat differential, and that you could technically "fuel" your car by pouring liquid nitrogen into the tank and have the thermoelectrics exploit the heat differential between the liquid nitrogen and the ambient temperature to generate work over time, aka power, would that be enough for you to concede that thermoelectrics are indeed what is generating the power?

So you're say that when I, as a (professional ;-) programmer, create a chunk of code that tests for something, you don't think I should get any credit for what it discovers, because it's the code that discovered it, not me. This pretty much shoots down the value of nearly everything I do, because like most programmers, I spend most of my time writing and running my test suites; the actual product itself usually takes only a small percent of my work time.

Maybe I'm overly arrogant, but I disagree with this. I think that whatever a chunk of code does, the credit (or blame ;-) should go to the programmer, not the code or the cpu.

By similar reasoning, we might argue that the "many eyes" never actually discover any bugs at all, because the real work is done by the brain behind the eyes, not the eyes themselves. And with computer bugs, the human brain almost never figures out the bugs; it merely writes code that does appropriate testing, providing the brain with information that it could never have figured out by itself.

This is sorta the inverse of the old saw that guns don't kill people; it's saying that the human that pulled the trigger should get no blame for a killing, because it was the bullet (or maybe the trigger mechanism) that actually did the job.

Happy workers are good workers, but proud employees are bad employees.

Huh? The quote is "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." That's a clear admission that open software, like all other software, contains bugs; that's why you want the many eyeballs. Any claim otherwise is a symptom of not understanding plain English. Eric's whole point was that the bugs in open software will be found and fixed faster than the bugs in other software, due to the population of interested people who will study it, looking for the bugs. Nothing in that quote implies (to anyone with reasonable understanding of English and basic logic) that open software doesn't have bugs. I expect Eric would just chuckle at the very idea of software without bugs.

(Actually, someone near him should ask him. Tell us whether he chuckles, or snickers, or just gets a sad look on his face. Or maybe he'll say "Well, there is a conjecture that bug-free software exists, but in has never been observed in the field by reliable observers." ;-)

A much more useful conclusion from this story (if you're serious about computer security) is that this bug has been found and fixed in OpenSSL, but with its proprietary competitors, we have no way of knowing what horrible exploits they may be hiding. And you'd be a dummy to think they don't have exploits; every chunk of security-related software has exploits. The meaningful question is whether they can be found and fixed by the people using the software. If not, you'd be a fool to use that software.

True, but the main lesson to learn from it can be summarized by the old cliche saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". The warning about a "monoculture" also applies here. If one specific piece of software is universally used, even a minor bug in it can be a widespread disaster. If people had any sense, the very fact that something is so popular and widespread would be a strong argument for duplicating its functionality with independently-developed code.

Of course, in reality we humans tend to act like herds of sheep ("sheeple", to coin a term ;-), and we tend to think that if everyone is buying X, then X must be a good thing to buy. With software, this is a major failure of logic that should stand out in the current story. If everyone is using X, then all it takes is one exploit to take down everyone's favorite toys.

But history teaches us that, no matter how many times we warn people about a single basket, people in general don't learn.

(Actually, I've long thought that this was a major explanation of why computer geeks tend to have such a wide variety of systems, with different release levels from their neighbors and friends. They're usually not much impressed by popularity. But the geeks are a tiny minority of humanity.)

Yeah, that's what I thought. I've been leading people on some level or another since I was 8 years old. But you go ahead and keep talking trash...

No, I believe it will take another decade to reach the point of collapse.

Sixteen people can carry a coffin with such ease that half of them can sit around and chat while half of them take a shift.

Four people can carry a coffin, but they cannot do it in shifts, or forward motion stops.

Three people can carry a coffin, but they will suffer greatly for the effort. Those things are heavy.

Two people cannot carry a coffin. They do not have the strength necessary.

Like you say, it's only a 1.5 fold decrease from 3 to 2. But it's a 1.5 fold decrease that we cannot afford.

Maybe if we offer the coffin enough fiat currency, it will grow legs!

That's true, but again, you're looking on too short a time scale and missing the pattern. We're having children at a rate that exceeds that necessary to replace members of the "Great" generation, that came before the boomers. They're still around, and the Boomers are beginning to retire.

From the study I posted above by Dr. Jost Lottes:

Worker-to-beneficiary ratio in the US:
  16 workers to 1 beneficiary in 1950
  3.3 workers per beneficiary in 2003
  2.1 workers per beneficiary in 2033 (projected)

You do understand that this is real, right? This is all based on hard data and real world facts; I'm not making this shit up as I go along.

Here, have some data to substantiate my claims.

Changes in Workforce: Demographics and the Future of Work and Retirement
Dr. Jost Lottes
Institute on Aging
Portland State University

http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/researc...

The Western world decided to shift from a growth system, where women bear and raise children and the able bodied population slowly increases, to a system where the women enter the work force and children are few in number. If you measure it in years, they did this quite a long time ago. If you measure it in generations, it's only been a couple.

This had the consequence of dramatically reducing the number of "dependents" and increasing the percentage of people doing "productive work" as an economist would measure it. But, that only lasts till the generation that started the ball rolling retire and become dependents themselves. Then the spiral to oblivion starts, and you can't reverse it without death and destruction.

The women in the work force are no longer "bonus productivity", now they're essential resources to care for the dependent elderly. You can't even acknowledge and the situation and correct it at this point, unless you want to leave your senior citizens to die of neglect. But the longer it continues, the worse it gets, until eventually the people are so few in number that economies of scale break down and we regress to the lifestyle of primitives.

You don't need to have a PhD in Mathematics to understand this. Just a willingness to accept that everything you've been raised to believe was wrong.

Everything is in decline. It's going to continue this way for the rest of our lives. People will continue to refuse to accept the truth of what I've just said, and they'll point at a million different symptoms and call them causes, and we will go into further and further into decline until it collapses. Only at that point will there be people ready to start over.

I had a brief period in my youth where I worked as a life insurance agent, and got to see the proprietary data that makes up their actuary tables of life and death. I saw all this coming, spent my whole life trying to oppose it because I care too much about people to just ignore it, but all I ever got was sophistry, anger and people telling me how intolerant and stupid I was. But everything I saw has come to pass, and this is just another part of it.

Sometimes being a visionary means begging your foolish fellows to stop dancing and get the fuck off the train tracks, and getting run down by the train because you don't have the heart to let go.

I pity the younger generation. At least I got to spend the first half of my life in the shiny happy part. You young guys are in for a rough life. You get to try to measure up to a time of abundance that you will never experience for yourselves, and fail. That it will make it all the more painful, I expect.

Do you have any real world experience doing so?

This. But we're talking about a deep understanding of agriculture and plant biology, not modern farming with GPS-guided combines and Monsanto round-up seeds.One would need to know how farming was done in ages past.

And also since we're assuming a post-apocalyptic world in which computer programmers are useless due to a lack of electricity, I'd say even more important than farming knowledge is fighting knowledge. Having guns and ammo (LOTS of ammo) and knowing how to use them. Shooting a gun accurately may seem simple to the uninitiated, but it takes considerable training and practice. Also knowing how to fix guns (gunsmithing) will be an important skill.

The holy grail in this world would be having the chemistry knowledge and experience to make your own gunpowder and ammo. If you could do that, you'd become THE most important person a local warlord could have in his court.

I'm in the same boat. Not a whole lot of demand for IT professionals, but I can design and run a permaculture style farm, build a stone house, cast scrap aluminum into a metal working shop, build sterling engines and steam turbines, deliver the level of medical care you'd expect of a combat medic, manufacture rudimentary chemicals from raw materials for use in peace and in war, hunt with a bow and arrow, trap game, fish, track and fight hand to hand. Among other things.

And, I can use rhetoric to inspire men to follow my leadership and organize them effectively when they do.

I think I'd do quite well.

I have been a staunch supporter of Firefox for many years.

However, I cannot continue to use their browser in good conscience.

I believe that it is of vital importance to humanity that we continue to subsidize and support the nuclear family.

I recognize that the purpose of marriage is to support nuclear families.

Marriage is not a contract between two people. Marriage is a contract that a man and a woman make with their community.

The man and woman agree that they will be loyal to each other and in exchange, society creates structures to support their union.

In this way, resources are dedicated to funding the future of the human race.

I have always been a supporter of the rights of the GLBT community to have sexual relations with whomever they wish, and to live without fear as they do so. I continue to support such rights.

I also have always been happy to support the multitude of tax breaks and other social benefits granted married couples, and shoulder a greater burden. I recognize that one day, I will wish to retire, and the children they raise will be the ones caring for me in my old age.

I discovered, in my experience as a financial adviser, that these tax breaks are often exploited by married couples who do not and never intend to have children, allowing them to live more decadent lifestyles.

I consider this to be a great crime against us all. Those resources have an important purpose. I expect a return from the money I invest in married couples, and that return is children.

I have believed for a long time that married couples who do not have children within a certain reasonable period of time should have their marriage annulled as a non-fruitful union, as was been done for hundreds of years of our history.

I believe that couples with children who get divorced before those children are adult members of society should be forced to repay society for breach of contract. Their children end up with significantly higher levels of social and psychological impairment, and drag society down.

I consider marriage of homosexuals to be tantamount to theft. They are stealing resources that were intended for young families, resources that are in part mine.

If you reject the position that marriage has a purpose and generates a return for society in exchange for services rendered, you must then acknowledge that marriage is prejudicial against single people.

It is not right that I should live in a two bedroom apartment with my male roommate, and shoulder a greater tax burden than a gay couple across the hall, simply because they have formalized their sexual union.

Marriage is not about love. People do not need to be married to be in love. This is about resource allocation.

And so, after the dramatic statement that Mozilla has made as an organisation in their treatment of Brendan Eich, I have decided that I will no longer use their browser or endorse it to others.

Also, I will no longer test the software I develop with their browser. In this way, I will contribute to making Firefox deliver a substandard user experience to those who do choose to support them.

When homosexuals get married, they cross the line from outsiders who do no harm to aggressors who must be defended against, and Mozilla are also on the other side of that line.

I consider this to be a reasonable position.