-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Faustine wrote: Jim wrote:
> Ha! How would any of us mere mortals know, since some of the very most arcane, > sophisticated and advanced work done in simulation today is 100% classified > DARPA research. >>It isn't a question of the mechanical 'simulation', it's a question of >>having a model and the data. Neither the model or the data is there. I've >>spent the majority of my life (not just adult) dealing with computational >>ecology and computational history (ie Cliology). They are vast problems >>that have been ignored for the most part. ...by the people you know about. >>You are welcome to your belief in faries and master wizards. (shrug) A pleasant metaphor, nothing more. > And by the way, if you assume they have bottom-quartile > donutchompers doing that sort of work at Sandia and elsewhere, you've got > another thing coming. >>Hardly. Having worked for the government (DoD in particular on a couple of >>occasions) So you're saying they shunted you off to working with the bottom-quartile donutchompers, eh? >> it isn't the brain power that limits what they can do. It's the >>managers and budgets. Instead of sitting around hoping they really are >>that good sit down and figure out what something like that would cost both >>in time to develop and execute. Neither the time or the bucks are there. Great point. But it depends entirely on where you are. >>In addition, the VAST(!!!!) majority of the projects are geared toward >>specific short term strategic goals. Such models offer little insight into >>solutions for the current strategic problems. If that's what you were able to deduce from your specific experiences, fine. They just aren't mine. Anyway, I never said I was interested claiming anything about "the majority". >I've lived long enough to know that however smart somebody is, it don't >make 'em a superman, ever. They stumble and fall just like the rest. There >are no angels among men. Intelligence isn't what it's cracked up to be. There's nothing in this paragraph I didn't already know. What part of my oft-repeated credo "nobody gets a free pass" do you find ambiguous. It's just that if you're of a misanthropic cast of mind and you happen to find a quality in people you can actually respect and value, you have to find a way to take pleasure from it when and where you find it, that's all. I happen to value intelligence and cunning, so sue me. >But you're welcome to keep hoping. "Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey." ~Ouida > My god, when I think of the sheer brainpower of some of the amazing old > wizards I've come across in this field, it's so truly and deeply > humbling I can hardly stand it. I start humming Willy Wonka in spite of > myself... >>You're easily impressed that's for sure, You don't know who I know. > I'd be so forward as to observe you don't have much self-confidence either. Why should I have if it's not my primary field and I'm just starting to get my feet wet? Man, I'm not so far gone that I can't recognize that a good dose of realistic appraisal is a healthy thing. Hubris is a handicap. > Okay Jim, I'll grant you that I (and the current state of my puny tools) am > probably not up to the task, but that's no reason not to hold out hope > elsewhere! >>What the hell are you talking about? Hope for what? That somebody found >>the 'master' model of terran ecology and are running it in some secret >>DoD lab all sitting around chuckling at what automatons we (and they) are? Not at all. I prefer to hope that someone could overcome the problems people like you think are insurmountable. ~Faustine. *** He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - --Thomas Paine -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBPFMtV/g5Tuca7bfvEQKR3QCfW07Z3OIaB3O9ePZLPIoc/t9vkbQAoMEv 7Te09NFc+yLdRTnqGtOyUt0S =PfRr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
