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Comment: Let's try this on for size... (Score 1) 586

by Rob Riggs (#47415005) Attached to: Normal Humans Effectively Excluded From Developing Software

The bigger injustice is that mathematics has become an elite: a vocation requiring rare talents, grueling training, and total dedication. The way things are today if you want to be a mathematician you had best be someone like me on the autism spectrum who has spent their entire life mastering vast realms of arcane knowledge — and enjoys it. Normal humans are effectively excluded from contributing to the field of mathematics. The real injustice of mathematics inequality is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Yeah... that feels about right.

Comment: There are no complelling arguments... (Score 4, Insightful) 142

Emerging? They were emerging a decade ago. They have emerged. Look, if the company is, as you say, "set in its ways", that is a cultural problem. Unless you are an executive that gets to set goals and compensation, you have very little influence over it. If that is not you, either stay and live with what you have, or leave for greener pastures. The basic question you have to ask yourself is "how will staying here using these outdated tools affect my lifetime earnings potential?" Put another way: "are they paying me enough to put up with this shit?" That is my prime criteria for deciding whether to stay at any job. Your job is to make recommendations. I assume you have already done that and been shot down. Decision time: should I stay or should I go.

Comment: Re:Oh please please please (Score 4, Funny) 220

by Rob Riggs (#47273971) Attached to: US Supreme Court Invalidates Patent For Being Software Patent

Nope. That was on the Internet. That is completely different.

How about "on a smartphone"? Surely I'm the first person to ever think of that.

Or "on a plane", "in a car", "just like that, but yellow", "at the beach", "indoors", "during a snowstorm", or "while watching Pigs in Space"?


The Andromeda Galaxy Just Had a Bright Gamma Ray Event 129

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the alien-super-weapon dept.

Comment: Re:Endorse James Webb. Do NOT even mention Sptizer (Score 1) 107

by Rob Riggs (#47088793) Attached to: NASA Money Crunch Means Trouble For Spitzer Space Telescope

It was determined that a single anthrax spore that took to the wind in DC traveled to Baltimore and killed an elederly woman during the attack by that nut-job using weaponized anthrax from one of our defense labs. The stuff is absolutely, stunningly deadly.

And, this, my fellow nerds, is why we are at war with science in this country.

Yes, it is to prevent the next anthrax attack. Because what else could we possibly do to combat terrorist attacks by our very own scientists? Nothing, I say. It is war, or we just surrender. You wouldn't want to surrender, would you? Why, then we'd be no better than the damned French!

Me? I'm going to DARPA to get some funding so we can win this war! The first thing I need is a telescope -- to show the people just how wrong these "astronomers" really are...

Comment: Re:Trains? (Score 1) 301

So, essentially we have not only a human operator issue, we have a human/systemic maintenance issue, too? I gotta wonder how that will play out with driver-less cars. "Sorry, I won't start because your tires are bald." Or will we here something along the lines of "I'm sorry, Dave. The brakes have just failed" while driving on the highway. Some of the beaters I see on the road would not qualify as safe. What is this going to do, in the long term, to the ability of poor people to get from point A to point B in a car that only a poor person would be desperate enough to drive?

My bet is that more automation will solve the problem at the expense of the poor by refusing to go anywhere if critical safety equipment is damaged or inoperable.

Comment: Trains? (Score 1) 301

Why are there still drivers on trains? (See the latest "L" crash at O'Hare airport in Chicago for examples of "human error".) If a computer can navigate a highway with human drivers, surely it can navigate a very simple rail system like the one operated by the CTA. Why are there humans controlling speed and braking on these things?

A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.