I don't know. The first article I read quoted some scientist saying something to the effect of, "The effect is consistent with what we might possibly see if it were a warp drive, according to what we guess a warp drive might possibly do, which is all kind of cool. But I don't actually know what's going on here." I thought that's where all the talk of warp drives came from.

But it didn't sound to me at the time like the guy who said it, whoever that was, was even really positing that it was a warp drive. Just more like, "Well the whole thing is kind of neat. We don't really know how warp drives would work, if we assume they're possible, and we also don't know how this thing is working, if we assume it's not experimental error. However, with as little as we know about warp drives and as little as we know about this thing, this thing could technically be a warp drive. It's total bullshit speculation, but fun to think about."

I guess you're right in the sense that if we don't know what's generating the thrust, it's premature to declare it to be *not* much of anything. It's premature to declare it not-a-time-machine or not-a-perpetual-motion-machine. It might be premature to declare that it's not witchcraft. But on the other hand, it's a pretty safe bet that it's none of those things. If it really does work, it probably works via some very reasonable mechanism.

The author is right: we should reserve judgment until there's something more substantial. From what I've read so far, it sounds more like a couple of scientists played with it and said, "Huh, this is actually pretty cool. It does seem to generate thrust, and we're not sure how. Wouldn't it be cool if it was a primative warp drive? Yeah, that'd be cool. Oh well, we need to test it more before we're even sure that it's generating thrust." The whole warp-drive thing is wild speculation, picked up by fanboys who desperately want it to be true.

What exactly are you saying here? Are you saying that this article is silly because nobody really thinks this is a warp drive? Because get ready: this discussion is about to get flooded with people who think that this is a warp drive.

Not sure why you're being dense. Both managers and project managers "manage", and so there's going to be some overlap in what they do. The biggest difference between a project manager and a manager in that a project manager has specific projects, with specific scopes of work, and essentially only has purview over those specific projects.

A manager may also manage projects. That doesn't mean it's the same job. If you treat them like the same job, you're going to do a very bad job at one of them, if not both.

And I'm saying it's very easy to be a bad manager. It's even easier to be a "bad manager" in the sense that those who work for you think you're a bad manager.

I've worked for one company that I thought did a rather smart thing: They separated out the "manager" and "boss" roles.

So they had one person, a "manager", keep an eye on people, keep an eye on projects, allocate resources, and basically manage the group. The "boss" was a rather technical guy who was not good at managing, and did not want to manage, and who mostly worked as part of the team. The "manager" was treated more as a resource to keep the group working effectively, and really wasn't "in charge". For any substantial decisions, the manager would discuss it with the boss, and the boss would make a decision.

Admittedly, it was a small company doing a rather niche set of work, but it worked really well. There seemed to be something to the idea.

But according to that logic, you'd need techs all the way up.

Yeah. I've been a manager before, and if I'm being honest, I think I did a pretty good job at it. Relatively. Mostly.

But the guy who said, "It's too easy NOT to be." doesn't know what he's talking about. It's really easy to make a dumb managerial decision. It's really hard to be a good manager. For example, he says;

So great, now instead of being the absentee manager who doesn't know what's going on, you're the micromanaging asshole who calls constant meetings. As a result, you remember all the reasons why your project is delayed, but what are you going to do about it? Do you let the project be late? Do you cut back on the project goals? Can you throw more resources into the project to meet deadlines? Sometimes more resources don't work.

Sometimes you can push your people harder and get more work out of them. You don't want to do that all the time, because it has diminishing returns, and your people might hate you for it. They probably will hate you for it, but in doing so, you might be saving their jobs.

Now upper management calls you in. They're upset that the project is going wrong. You know it's because little bubble-headed Billy screwed up again. Billy is bad at his job. How much do you protect Billy, knowing that he really ought to be fired. Maybe you could throw him under the bus and get everyone else out of a jam, but that seems like a shitty thing to do. You prefer to be the type of manager that says, "This is my responsibility. The buck stops here."

But does Billy need to be fired? If you want to fire him, you're going to need reasons, and this could be one. He's a nice guy, and people like him. You're afraid of ruining the guy's life. You'd like to see him do well. Maybe you could sit down and have a talk with him, give him some help, and get him on the right track. That sounds great to you. You'd be a little bit of a hero, if you took this guy who's a bit of a fuck-up and helped him become a big success. You have a little fantasy about the whole thing: Someday, Billy is a big-shot millionaire, but he owes it all to you. That's a nice thought. Of course, you've tried the same thing with Peter last year, before eventually firing him. You really should have just cut your losses earlier, because everything you did to try to help Peter just fell flat. Ultimately, he wasn't motivated. Maybe Billy will be like that too, and you'll look back and say, "I wish I'd fired Billy earlier."

.... and Sorry about that. I went down a rabbit hole there, but I wanted to try to illustrate that these decisions aren't particularly easy. There are a bunch of competing interests, and there's not a clear "correct" answer. You can read books about management, with all their trite aphorisms. They might give some good examples of where other managers succeeded or failed, but the reality is that those examples worked because of context and chance. Often, the real lesson is that you have to be aware of all of the details and subtleties of your situation, sometimes ignoring conventional wisdom, try to find a solution that works in that exact, particular context, and hope for the best.

No, I think that's insufficient. The real issue here is that we need real, fast, high quality, unfettered telecommunications infrastructure. It's an economic issue, an issue of technological development, and First Amendment issue. There can be no compromise there.

Unfortunately, infrastructure development can only be left to the "free market" in limited ways. We can't have businesses developing completely independent roadways. Cities can't have a bunch of different electrical companies all laying down cables. We can't have a free market for water, with many different companies laying independent pipe networks throughout our cities. It's not practical and it doesn't make a bit of sense.

Companies like Verizon and TWC keep trying to re-frame the whole thing as though the Internet is an entertainment service, and we shouldn't regulate it any more than we regulate companies that make socks. They keep trying to re-frame it, and we keep letting them. They pay corrupt morons like Rand Paul to champion their causes, and we vote people like him into office. We should stop doing that.

The Internet is telecommunications infrastructure. We need it. We can't allow businesses to control and subvert out ability to communicate for their own short-term business goals. Net neutrality is not like telling a sock manufacturer how to set their prices. Net neutrality is like telling a company, "You're not allowed to own all the ink and paper in the world, and then decide which news stories get printed, and which personal letters get sent." It's like saying, "We can't let a company buy all of our roads, and then decide who gets to drive where, when, and in which car."

Honestly, I think games are a bit of a stretch. Maybe I'm just a stupid old man, but I kind of feel like smart-watches should do very little, but everything they do, they should do in a simple, obvious, transparent manner. If you want to play games, just pull out your phone.

Now of course someone is going to say, "What's wrong with extra functionality? If you don't want it, just don't use it." All I would say is, if I had my say in the design, I'd make the UI as simple as possible, and make the battery last as long as possible. Adding a bunch of unnecessary features and games that require a bunch of processing power are likely to run contrary to both of those goals. If you gave me the choice of being able to play Angry Birds on my watch, or shaving off a couple of ounces while extending battery life for 5 hours, I'd definitely choose the latter.

Nobody is saying the survey conclusively proves that nobody approves of Snowden's actions. That's not how these things work. The summary says:

So even if this survey is accurate, that still leaves a significant percentage of people in those age ranges who do have positive attitudes. In that context, it doesn't really make sense to say, "Well I'm in that age group and I have positive attitudes, so this survey must not be accurate." Maybe you're just part of the minority.

Of course, the survey could be inaccurate or misleading. Most polls are.

Good point. And then someone is going to say, "Well why don't we just change the laws that allow incumbants to redraw district lines to improve their reelection prospects?" It's the same catch-22 problem. The people who have the power to make it illegal are the same people redrawing the lines.

And note that this kind of thing isn't new. The Ancient Greeks complained about the same kinds of catch-22 problems regarding politics.

How would you suggest we create a government without the power to "meddle"? Or are you an anarchist?

But is the problem that we can't identify what's wrong, or is the problem that we're powerless to do anything about it?

My understanding is that you could find plenty of people with enough expertise to lay out exactly what the problem is, but the problem is essentially, "There are a bunch of legal loopholes that effectively make bribery legal, thereby handing control of our government over to those who can pay the most."

You might ask, "Well if we know what the problem is, we can fix it! Why not close the loopholes?" The fundamental problem there is that the people in position to close the loopholes are the ones receiving the bribes, and they want the bribes to keep coming. The only thing that could get them to change the law would be if their corporate overlords, i.e. those providing the bribes, bribed them to make it illegal. The problem with that is that the corporate overlords also want the bribes to remain legal, so that they can influence public officials.

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

It's just a catch-22 situation. The only solution would be for voters to somehow elect someone who they've never heard of, who basically can't campaign, and just hope that that new elected official is both honest and effective. And then that has to happen in a couple hundred other elections at roughly the same time.