Perhaps Ive been missing out on the 4D gaming revolution but I do not understand what the 4th dimension is here. Feels like I am missing out on a lot of context.
it's a fourth spatial dimension. if you imagine a cube, it has width, height, and depth. a 4d cube would have width, height, depth, and zhlerp, which is its size along a fourth spatial dimension. in three dimensions you can go forward and backward, left and right, up and down. in four dimensions you can go forward and backward, left and right, up and down, and zlep and wizz, moving along the fourth spatial dimension.
> This broken safety culture has been around since the beginning of the Shuttle program.
It's broken everywhere. I have worked in some dysfunctional shops and the problem I see time and time again is the people who make it into management are often egoists who don't care about anything other than the financial compensation and clout the job titles bestows upon them. That or they think management is the same as being a shotgun toting sheriff overseeing a chain gang working in the summer heat in the deep south.
I've worked with managers who would argue with you even if they knew they were wrong because they were incapable of accepting humiliation. I worked with managers who were wall flowers so afraid of confrontation or negative emotions that they covered up every issue they could in order to avoid any potential negative interaction with their superiors. That manager was also bullied by other managers and even some employees.
A lot of it is ego along with a heavy dose of machismo depending. I've seen managers let safety go right down the tubes because "don't be a such a pussy." It's a bad culture that has to go away.
A simplistic answer would be to ensure that incentives are aligned with safety and success. Then that leads to the evergreen problem of Goodhart’s Law (when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure).
Even if it can't ever be truly fixed, at least recognizing the issues and shining daylight on decisions for some form of accountability should be a base-level approach.
Agreed. My point was that it will forever be some kind of moving target and to expect a policy framework to guarantee "good behavior" is a mistake.
I emphatically believe that understanding the incentives of all the players is paramount because that is what will ultimately determine their behavior.
It would be cool if there were ways to have a "Game Theory Toolkit" that could be plugged into an organizations communications that could automate the defining and detecting of those unwanted behaviors.
Doesn't work. Remember the Titanic? Remember the British airship R101 (the "government" ship)? Both had their designers and higher ups perish in the subsequent maiden voyage disasters, right along with many/most of the innocent passengers.
> people who make it into management are often egoists
> they were incapable of accepting humiliation
I agree mostly but here is a different take on it: I think these are normal human feelings and behaviors - not the best of us, but not unusual either. If we want to get good things done, we need to work with and through human nature. Power corrupts everyone and shame is generally the most painful thing for humans.
Putting people in a position where they need to treat their power with absolute humility or accept humiliation (and a major blow to their careers) in order to do the right thing is going to fail 99% of the time. (I'm not saying people can't do those things and that we shouldn't work hard and aspire to them, but it's not going to happen reliably with any but a few people.) That expectation itself is a culture, organizational and managerial failure. If you see a system in which so many fail, then the problem is the system.
And when I say 'managerial' failure, I include leadership by everyone and also 'managing up'. We're all responsible for and agents of the team's results, and whatever our role we need to prevent those situations. One important tactic is to anticipate that problem and get ahead of it, putting the team in a position where the risk is proactively addressed and/or they have the flexibility to change course without 'humiliation'. We're all responsible for the team's culture.
I think many blaming others underestimate their own human nature, the effect of power on them and their willingness to endure things like humiliation. Rather than criticising others, I keep my attention on the one in the mirror and on strategies to avoid situations equally dangerous to my own character; otherwise I'll end up doing the same very human things.
EDIT: While I still agree with everything I wrote above, there is an exceptional cultural problem here, one which you'll recognize and which is common to many SV leaders, the Trump administration, and others you're familiar with (and which needs a name ...). From the document referenced in the OP by "heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering at Johnson Space Center."
"Instead, the meeting started with his [Jared Isaacman, the new NASA Administrator's] declaration that the decision was final. We would launch Artemis II with a crew, even though the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the Moon returned with a seriously damaged heat shield, a failure in my opinion. I was not going to be allowed to present my position on why the decision was flawed. Instead, the public would hear, through the two reporters allowed to attend, the Artemis Program narrative, only one side of the story. They would be bombarded with technical information which they would have very little time to understand ...
Jared could claim transparency because the only thermal protection expert and public dissenter, me, was present. ...
I was allowed only one-day to review some of the technical documents which were not open to the public and which were classified Controlled Unclassified Information/International Traffic and Arms Regulations (CUI/ITAR) prior to the Jan.8th meeting. ..."
> Putting people in a position where they need to treat their power with absolute humility or accept humiliation (and a major blow to their careers) in order to do the right thing is going to fail 99% of the time.
I don't know... we select those people. Usually not for their ability to treat their power with humility, though.
That's my argument in favour of quotas (e.g. for women): the way we select people in power now, we tend to have white old males who have the kind of relationship we know with power.
By deciding to select someone different (e.g. a woman), we may realise that not all humans are... well white old males. Not that we should select someone incompetent! But when we put someone in a position of power, I am convinced that many competitors are competent. We just tend to chose "the most competent" (with some definition of "the most"), which may not mean anything. For those positions, maybe it's more that either you are competent, or you are not.
Say from all the "competent" candidates, we systematically selected women for a while. We would end up with profiles that are not "white old males", and we may realise that it works just as well. Or even better. And that maybe some humans can treat power with humility.
And if that got us to accept that those are desirable traits for people in power, it may serve men as well: plenty of men are generally not selected for positions of power. Forcing us to realise this by having quotas of minorities (say women) may actually help "white old males who can treat their power with humility" get recognised eventually.
I think we already have quotas and affirmative action for white (Christian) males. Not long ago and maybe still true, more Fortune 500 CEOs were named John than were women. Though the policy is sometimes unstated (not always, especially in private, and the current administration is pretty clear about it), I think the data on the outcomes is overwhelming and undeniable.
I think also that gender or skin color doesn't make anyone more or less susceptible to these problems. We will find much better leaders by broadening our search beyond ~25-30% of the population, and we may find them better able to handle the challenges of power, but it won't be because of their gender or skin color.
I didn't mean that it was because of gender or skin colour. What I meant, really, is that we select the people who get power in some way. And then we complain that people in positions of power are like that.
My point was that there are probably a lot of "white old males" that just do not apply for positions of power, because they have learned all their life that they don't have the profile we usually select. And those may actually have qualities (like humility) that would make them better in those positions.
Now, it's difficult to say "this time, we will try to select a white old male who has humility, but first we have to convince him to apply even though he has learned his all career that it's not worth applying". But saying "let's try to hire a woman instead" may be a proxy to that. Sure, some women can be exactly like those people we already select (maybe Margaret Thatcher had a profile of the typical "old white male" that usually got into a position of power).
But I do believe that most women or people from minorities have a profile different from the typical "old white males" who are selected. So it may be a good proxy for "trying a different profile". The idea being that by trying a different profile, we may realise that it actually makes better leaders, and eventually the white old males who do have humility may get selected as well.
I get it. There are a couple of things I think about:
First, things weren't like this even 10 years ago. Humility in power had long been a fundamental American moral before that: All are created equal, the rejection of aristocracy, and the foundation of freedom and self-determination; freedom of religion and speech - nobody else should tell someone what to say or their religion; George Washington refusing to accept more power or a third term; the humility of leaders like Lincoln and Eisenhower and King; the supremacy of civilians over the military; the early New England culture and Henry David Thoreau; the required public humility of almost every president before Trump - nobody talked or behaved like him. I read a ~10 year old New Yorker article recently about the public humility of many Wall Street leaders in the 1980s, at least, who wore more modest clothes, built their houses with low fences, etc. The pioneers of the Internet who believed in openness and end-user control. I read something old about SV - from the early 2000s I think - a conference of CEOs, etc, and someone asked who flew in their own jet; the speaker remarked how embarassed many were to raise their hands.
The good news is, that moral existed for centuries and is part of the American fabric. We just need to be reminded of who we are and of what really made America great. (Yes, there were endless exceptions to it - in every person is good and bad, pride and humility - but today narcissism is embraced.)
> I didn't mean that it was because of gender or skin colour.
> I do believe that most women or people from minorities have a profile different from the typical "old white males" who are selected.
I don't see how those things reconcile. I think people in each group are, on average, just as likely to be corrupted by power, etc.
It's the power that does it; it's the most powerful drug, the Ring - until they have power, you don't know reliably how they will respond. Fewer non-hetero-males and minorities have power, so it may seem like they aren't corrupted by it.
'If you want to see someone's character, don't give them hardship, give them power.' The American elite are failing the country and the world.
For one, and once again: those people spend most of their life knowing they won't access a position of power. White males who don't have the profile of the "dominant white males" are in a different position: they don't grow up knowing it, they have to realise eventually that they are just the kind of white males who gets power. And if they do, the risk is that they fall back to a whole life in a society that did not actively tell them that it wasn't their place, so that's still different from women or minorities.
> Humility in power had long been a fundamental American moral before that
It's not only humility, I thought we were using it as a way to say "the qualities that would make a great leader for the people".
And #metoo showed us pretty clearly that the white males in power decades ago were so often abusive that the only thing we can say is "well but it was a different time".
Today, if I look around me, those who get in positions of power are more often than not toxic. What they are good at is winning against their competitors, not building much. Once they have the power, they can attribute to themselves whatever was built by the people "below" them.
If you are unsure of bhyve's abilities then why not test yourself? Speculation and guessing about stability or testing is useless without seeing if it works in your application.
> If you are unsure of bhyve's abilities then why not test yourself?
It is not possible to come to a conclusion about everything in the world yourself "from scratch". No one has the time to try out everything themselves. Some filteration process needs to be applied to prevent wasting your finite time.
That is why you ask for recommendations of hotels, restaurants, travel destinations, good computer brands, software and so on from friends, relatives or other trusted parties/groups. This does not mean your don't form your opinions. You use the opinions of others as a sort of bootstrap or prior which you can always refine.
HN is actually the perfect place to ask for opinions. Someone just said bhyve does not support nested virtualization (useful input !). Someone else might chime in and say they have run bhyve for a long time and they trust it (and so on...)
I agree with you and do not understand the “I read every manual” and “I test all software” crowd. I play around with A LOT of software but I cannot test it all.
Speculation is not useless if you are saying “the answer I got makes it 99% likely that this solution will not work for me”. Curation has immense value in the world today. I investigate only the options most likely to be useful. And that still takes all my time.
The phrasing of your questions is the problem. They are uninformed, too general, and assuming. The last sentence reads as if you outright dismiss bhyve because YOU can't imagine it was tested thoroughly.
> It is not possible to come to a conclusion about everything in the world yourself "from scratch". No one has the time to try out everything themselves. Some filteration process needs to be applied to prevent wasting your finite time.
It's totally possible when you know what your application requires but you didn't state anything.
> Someone just said bhyve does not support nested virtualization (useful input !).
Ok you have a problem with the way I framed my questions and my (unintentional) tonality. Fair enough. Let's move from critique of the way I asked my questions to what your experience with bhyve has been, if you're willing to share that.
Have you used bhyve ? What has your experience been with it ? Have you used KVM+QEMU -- can you compare your experience between both of them ?
> Map books were no fun but some of the dudes I worked with definitely became route-finding savants.
Similar. I worked doing deliveries for an event company all over the greater NY area, based out of Queens. I usually rode jump-seat and spent a few years with a retired trucker who was such a savant. He could maneuver a truck through any tight/precarious situation with great precision and care. He could visit a location once and recall it next year, every year.
The most impressive was a full day gauntlet starting at 5 AM where he navigated starting in south queens NYC to a stop in Staten Island, then off to Jersey city, then up to Sleepy Hollow NY, then all the way to some Greek church deep in Suffolk county through the winding maze that is the north shore - no map, no gps.
The most scary situation was driving a smaller Isuzu cab-over box truck through Brooklyn on a hot summer day. We had no AC, windows down, headed along a narrow avenue under the elevated train tracks. A passing truck was a little too far - BOOM- a loud shattering glass and bang sound. Turns out that idiot hit his mirror violently into ours so hard it showered him directly in the face with shards of mirror. I only got hit with a few pieces in the arm and a bunch landed on my lap. He didn't flinch. He kept the truck strait while muttering "I've been waiting for that to happen again." He thankfully only had two small cuts on his face, nothing went into his eyes. We lucky passed an auto parts store and he was able to rig up something on the mirror bar, continued on and finished the route.
He was a real character and he always had a lot of fun and crazy road stories. That dude also taught me to drive a truck with air brakes which is also how I learned to drive a manual. In addition to showing me all the secret traffic avoidance and toll beating routes, he was a foodie and showed me a lot of interesting restaurants he'd stop at along our routes. He took me to the famous Wo Hop in Manhttan's China Town when you could just walk in and get a table (late 90's.) He parked the truck at an inactive construction site a block away and moved cones around it so we didn't get a ticket. That character knew all the tricks :-)
> Do you drive an automatic car? Do you use a microwave? Do you buy food from a grocery store? Do you own power tools?
None of these things allow you to turn your brain off while the machine does the work.
I still have to DRIVE the car and all the thinking that goes with that. It's not a robotaxi.
I still have to acquire and prep the food I am microwaving. It's not a replicator.
I still have to know what I want to eat before grocery shopping and prepare the food. It's not a take out restaurant.
I still have to know how to use the power tools to carefully shape something into a fine piece of furniture and not a pile of splintered firewood. Power tools can't operate on their own unless aliens (see Maximum Overdrive.)
These are better analogies:
Do you take a taxi or public transport? Those let you turn your brain off while someone or something does the driving work.
Do you go to a restaurant where you can pick what you want, turn your brain off and wait for a delicious (or not) meal?
Do you order takeout where you can order what you want form the comfort of your home, turn your brain off and enjoy the meal when it arrives? Then reheat the leftovers in the microwave.
Do you use a fabrication service where you send them a drawing, turn your brain off, and they ship you an assembled thing?
All of your examples involve you sitting and waiting. That doesn't seem like an apt analogy for what AI can do. You don't have to sit there and come up with other things to do while the AI does the work.
When AI works (and technology in general) that's kind of what it's like. You'll never perceive that you are not doing the work anymore because you won't perceive the work.
> All of your examples involve you sitting and waiting. That doesn't seem like an apt analogy for what AI can do.
I just read a blog post or comment (honestly cant keep track of all this AI hype) about someone who literally did just that. They told and AI to build an app then went out and painted their fence or something, came back and had an app.
This is what people want from AI. They want take-out software.
reply