It's because they're so small as to be unmeasurable. There are lots of good targets for regulations to reduce CO2 output (and other pollutants), but space travel isn't one of them. Someday that might change, but, for now, the focus needs to be on electricity production, ground transportation, manufacturing, and farming. When those are squared away, then we can talk about things like air and space travel.

I used to think this too, that nuclear was unprofitable just because we'd regulated it to death. But then I looked at other countries that are pretty lax about regulations, and they're building coal, not nuclear. The truth is that we've designed these things to be ridiculously expensive. I think we need a "nuclear SpaceX" to study the problem from a perspective of doing it cheaply, safely, and at scale. But it's very true that what we've got right now just isn't cost-effective, and it's not cost-effective for *anyone*.

This just in: http://www.democracynow.org/20...

I voted. I attended. I read all the submissions before I voted. I was really shocked by how bad most of the Puppy-nominated works were. Several of them were so bad I couldn't believe they got published in the first place--never mind nominated for awards. I did vote for two of their nominees above no-award though--the two that I genuinely believed to be award worthy. One other one I debated about--it was well-written and I liked it, but it seemed to have too little content for the category.

To illustrate some of the problems: 1) several of the works were incomplete. They were part of larger stories, apparently, but simply ended abruptly. 2) A couple of them actually seemed to tell no story--they just preached. WTF?! 3) Some were just really, really dumb. E.g. imagine a planet whose magnetic field is so strong it captures people's souls when they die. 4) One big rule that beginner writers have to learn is not to give "infodumps." About half the puppy nominees never learned this rule.

If the puppy dogs really want to have an impact in 2016, they really, really need to focus on nominating genuinely good works. It's hard to give NA to a deserving work. It's really, really easy to give it to trash.

As a kid, I saw this summarized in the World Book Encyclopedia, but this is a much more grown-up explanation for it. By all accounts, Nixon was flabbergasted by the cost, and that's what really killed it. The shuttle was part of the plan, and it's all that got built, which explains why it seemed to have no purpose. http://www.wired.com/2012/06/t...

Yeah, everyone likes "invisibility cloak," but I don't see it.

--Greg :-)

Won the Hugo in its day. Left teenage me depressed for days. Still topical, I think.

The Amazon Review describes it better than I could.

--Greg

Not quite true. I was at Microsoft 14+ years (ending 2008), and we did indeed read (and talk about) Slashdot. However, the rules not to reply to posts about MS were very strict, and I don't know of anyone who broke them. I actually had permission to post as "MSN Dude" for Microsoft on web search-related sites for a while, but I had to do it openly. So if someone from Microsoft were posting here, I expect that he/she would say so.

Of course, things might have changed . . .

--Greg

The key issue seems to be that a number of stations had hardware upgrades over the past 30 years or so. Many of the new instruments give lower readings than the older ones did. (Didn't dig deep enough to figure out why though.) Any research needs to adjust the data to cope with this problem. Watts just ignores it, and it cancels out half the effect of the warming measured in the US over the last 30 years. He needs to correct for this and rerun his numbers.

Note that the BEST study uses data from all over the world (including satellite data, which is immune from the effect Watts is studying) over a 250-year period. So it's hard to say that Watts' result really amounts to much even if he does correct it.

--Greg

I switched to using my real name a long time ago. I do find that it makes me a bit more cautious about what I say and how I say it. As others have mentioned, there does seem to be considerably less flaming on Facebook than in forums that permit (much less are dominated by) anonymous posts. I've even heard it said that Facebook's #1 innovation was producing a system that actually encouraged people to use their real names.

That's the crux of it, though; people use their real names on Facebook because it is in their own best interests. Yes, I'm sure Facebook has a policy, but I'm equally sure that the 99% compliance is not the result of Facebook's (no doubt) excellent enforcement mechanisms. To get people to comply with a real-names policy, you have to give them a proper incentive. For most sites, I'm not quite sure what that would be.

--Greg

"The problem with learning everything about a system is that once that system becomes obsolete, all that work was wasted. After doing that a few times, we all drift toward learning the minimum required for the immediate problem. When that's not enough, we're grateful to have young folks around who still want to learn every little detail."

I was 20 when a 40-something programmer told me this. I told him I hoped nothing like that ever happened to me, but he just chuckled. I'm 53 now, and something much worse happened: I became a manager! :-)

My advice: do it while you enjoy it, and take pride in it while you can. Try not to rub it in when you manage to save the day; be modest and people will shower you with praise.

--Greg

This is only weakly true. The quiet overachiever always gets rewarded, unless he/she is "overachieving" on the wrong project. (Very important to work on important stuff--not just stuff you think is cool.) The toxic personality who gets a lot done but alienates everyone he/she works with--that's the one who gets screwed.

--Greg

Doesn't sound like you work for a great place. However, even if pay increases are small, the other thing that performance reviews usually drive is promotions. When your name comes up for promotion, the first question people ask is "what were his/her last few performance reviews like?" So there is still a reason to strive for good reviews--and they should be easier to get if most other people are thinking it's pointless.

--Greg

Sometime before my career is over (35+ years now) I hope to actually manage a team with no poorly-performing people.

--Greg

The suggestion of sending your people to represent you in meetings is an excellent one. Note, however, that there are probably only two or three people in your team (assuming 6 to 8) whom you would trust to do that. Every manager already has a ranking of his/her team, even if they don't like to talk about it.

I'm surprised you worked at a place that protected unproductive long-time employees. At Microsoft, we dumped them into the bottom bucket unceremoniously. That didn't get them fired, but it meant they didn't get raises or stock. (I suspect most of them didn't care.) But I sure can't remember anyone trying to defend one.

Likewise, if you had 8 people, you could get two in the top group without fighting and wouldn't be forced to put more than two in the bottom group. With good arguments, you might get three into the top group and limit the bottom group to just one. (I usually had one person I WANTED to put into the bottom group.) But the idea of having to fight for ALL of your good people is very strange to me.

--Greg