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David Hammen

 Discussion on question by katut: Use …

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David Hammen
Jan 12 18:16
@ Starship No, it is not. The only "opinion-based' aspecst of the question are "What do you think about it in practice?" and "Looking forward to hearing your thoughts." Just ignore that (or in your mind, replace with a slightly different phrasing) and the question is not opinion-based at all. I upvoted and voted to leave the question open.
David Hammen
Jan 12 18:16
For the downvoters and for those who voted to close: XTCE is a "Recommended Standard" from the Consultative Committee for pace Data Systems (CCSDS), and the OP did link to the standard.
David Hammen
Jan 12 18:16
@katut While there isn't a whole lot of different between "what were your thoughts" and "what were your experiences", there is a difference. The first is framed as asking for opinions while the latter is asking for a summary of impacts.
 

 Discussion on question by Miss Unders…

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David Hammen
Dec 8, 2024 07:57
"If we had it to do over again, would we beef up Voyager's power from the start?" If by that you mean, if money was no object, if very limited resources were no object, if increased mass was not an object, and if foresight was perfect, would we do it better this time around? Sure! However, money, limited resources, and mass are always objects that get in the way of doing better, and foresight is an even more limited resource. The correct answer is a resounding NO! What the Voyager engineers and scientists accomplished was absolutely amazing.
 

 Discussion on answer by David Hammen:…

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David Hammen
Nov 13, 2024 09:15
@JoeW The issue is the use of the word "elected" as opposed to some other word such as "serving". In particular, the 22nd Amendment only prevents someone who has already been elected twice from being elected a third time.
David Hammen
Nov 13, 2024 09:15
@JoeW Are you sure of that? The 22nd Amendment prevents people elected as President from being elected a third time. It does not say anything about being appointed as President for the third time due to being in the proper place in the line of succession. If the 22nd Amendment was repealed, the repeal could easily be written to allow a President who had already been elected twice to run once again.
David Hammen
Nov 13, 2024 09:15
@Bobson What Wilson planned to do was to make Hughes become President prior to March 4 should Hughes win the election, and it was not to create a problem. It was to solve the problem of a very long lame duck session during which Wilson perceived might well be very rough times ahead. When the vote counting finally finished in California (California has always been notoriously slow), Wilson won the 1916 election in an Electoral College squeaker (but a landslide win in the popular vote). The plan was never put into play.
David Hammen
Nov 13, 2024 09:15
@Darren Not unless Congress passes a law with some kind of sanctions. I could not find such a law. We're trusting officials who have sworn an oath to the Constitution. Those officials might well might lose their jobs for breaking that oath. But AFICT they will not be subject to jail time or financial penalties.
 

 Discussion on question by Colin Tan: …

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David Hammen
Oct 14, 2024 14:07
That bipolar disorder is incurable but manageable is what every reliable medical organization states. Why are you skeptical about this claim?
 

 Discussion on question by user4951: D…

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David Hammen
Oct 13, 2024 07:29
@user76284 Not word salad. Intentionally answering a question other than the question that was asked, perhaps, but not word salad. Answering a question other than the question that was asked is standard fare for politicians, especially when faced with a question along the lines of "when did you stop beating your wife???" Editing an interview to fit the allotted time is standard fare for both radio and TV interviews. This imbroglio is a big fat nothing burger.
David Hammen
Oct 13, 2024 07:29
This question would have been far better if the 9gag link was replaced with anything else. The comments in that link range from absolutely disgusting to mildly revolting. There are lots of other references that claim the interview on 60 Minutes was edited.
 

 Discussion on answer by Oddthinking: …

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David Hammen
Feb 29, 2024 03:45
You just violated your own rules here by closing this question. Any public statement made by any sitting US President since the 1940s is notable, by any notably meaningful definition of "notable". A notably ludicrous statement made by a sitting President is doubly notable.
 

 Discussion on answer by Esther: Job o…

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David Hammen
Nov 10, 2023 09:35
@Donald Super easy. I once received an email purported from [email protected], telling me to stop what I was doing. Having read how easy it was, I taught myself about spoofing. I was the one who sent that email message to myself. The raw header showed that the email did not come from heaven.org.
David Hammen
Nov 10, 2023 09:35
@RobertF It is much more likely that the person behind the phishing attack looked for a recruiter at Alimentiv and used part of that name in the attack, as opposed to creating a fake LinkedIn profile.
 

 Discussion on answer by naturallyInco…

Imported from a comment discussion on physics.stackexchange.co...
David Hammen
Oct 19, 2023 03:12
Gravitational acceleration increases with increasing depth if the local density is less than 2/3 of the mean density of all of the matter closer to the center. Given the makeup of the Earth, with a very dense iron-nickel core a much less dense rocky mantle and crust, the density inside the Earth crosses this 2/3 threshold at the CMB.
David Hammen
Oct 19, 2023 03:12
Theorem XXXIII does not apply to the Earth. From the surface down to the core-mantle boundary (CMB), gravitational acceleration increases with increasing depth inside the Earth. Gravitational acceleration is greatest at the CMB, over $10 \text{m}/\text{s}^2$. It's fairly easy to show using calculus (which Newton did not use in his Principia) that gravitational acceleration inside a sphere with a radial mass distribution decreases with increasing depth if the local density at a given depth is more than 2/3 of the mean density of all the stuff at greater depths.
David Hammen
Oct 19, 2023 03:12
The density of surface rock is about 2.6 g/cc while the density at the very center of the Earth is about 13.1 g/cc. That's a factor of over five rather than "almost double".
 

 Discussion on question by Corbin: May…

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David Hammen
Jul 1, 2023 21:25
Instead of Satanism, I suggest you use an extreme form of Atheism. Some Atheists strongly believe that all forms of religion are evil. You'll have to make the case that your beliefs are deeply held. Don't just ban Christian symbols; refuse to portray any religious symbol in your artwork -- including Pastafarian symbols. The legal question is whether that is legal.
 

 Discussion on question by The Rocket …

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David Hammen
Apr 30, 2023 14:00
@TheRocketfan I have explicitly voted to close this question using "Other". By the time the answer is known, which will takes months of people time, it will either be all over the internet (in which case this becomes an irrelevant question), or it will be known only to people who have "need to know" (in which case this will remain an unanswerable question) with the official explanation being a bit fuzzy. Either way, asking for an explanation of a failure less than an hour after the failure occurred is premature.
David Hammen
Apr 30, 2023 14:00
I’m voting to close this question because the cause is currently unknown. By the time the cause becomes known the question will become pointless as the answer will be all over the internet.
David Hammen
Apr 30, 2023 14:00
To everyone: Please, please, please stop asking about causes of failures immediately after they happen.
 

 Discussion on answer by computercargu…

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David Hammen
Mar 6, 2023 14:25
@CarlBerger There is no infringement on a patent that has no claims. All of the claims were cancelled upon reexamination, so this essentially became a non-patent. There would have been no point for the inventor to pay the renewal fee for this non-patent, so it expired. That there is no infringement on an expired patent is a side point. A patent that has no claims effectively is a non-patent. The patent is still on the books as a patent because patent history is not erased, even after they have expired.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ertai87: Do R…

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David Hammen
Feb 8, 2023 09:07
The third point on the laptop is misleading. The laptop was not discovered in October 2020. It was left behind in April 2019 and turned over to the FBI in November or December 2019. Apparently Republican operatives knew about it shortly after that -- and camped on it for an October surprise. The second point is mostly baloney. Every family has a black sheep somewhere, and oftentimes it's a fairly close relative. When people become adults they are responsible for their own choices and actions. Some people, despite the best upbringing, are very good at making the wrong choices.
 

 Discussion on answer by Laurel: Does …

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David Hammen
Feb 5, 2023 01:59
@reirab Terminology varied where I grew up (rural). During the school year, we would it lunch at the school cafeteria. It would have been demeaning to call that slop dinner. On weekends and during the summer, we ate breakfast, dinner, and supper. My mother would call outside "who wants dinner!" around noon -- unless an hour or so beforehand she saw that we were playing mumblety-peg instead of doing chores. (She hated that game.) Then it was "who wants lunch". It was my father who taught us that game; we played the stretch version with a K-bar. He got even more grief than we kids did.
David Hammen
Feb 5, 2023 01:59
A lot of farmers, particularly dairy farmers who work over a 14 hour span of time (or longer), eat breakfast very early, a hefty dinner at midday (perhaps with a nap afterwards), and finally a light supper. There is no "lunch".
 

 Discussion on answer by Machavity: Wh…

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David Hammen
Feb 1, 2023 21:51
@user4012 Going on strike is one of the key powers unions have. That said, unions for US federal government civil servants cannot strike. The air traffic controllers went on strike early in Reagan's first term. He fired all of the striking controllers, something a President normally can't do. Presidents nominally can only fire the people they appointed, and not even all of them. By going on strike those air traffic controllers broke the law and this enabled Reagan to fire them, which he did.
David Hammen
Feb 1, 2023 21:51
@JohnBollinger The history behind the NLRA is that it was a bit of a compromise. Due to that act, workers could be punished for sabotaging employers' equipment during a strike, which they did do prior to the act. Also due to that act, employers could be punished for having thugs (the police or private organizations such as the Pinkertons) attack union activists / strikers, which they did do prior to the act. The country could have gone the way of socialism or even worse in the 1930s had it not been for Roosevelt's multiple compromises.
David Hammen
Feb 1, 2023 21:51
@JohnBollinger The way I read that official stance is that the Libertarian Party is staunchly anti-union, but that's just my opinion. (BTW, I have never been a union member.) Okay, they just don't like the NRLA. Without it, unions wouldn't be able to exist (again my opinion). Hire scabs to break a strike? No problem. Call in the Pinkertons to guard the scabs, and maybe beat union members to death? No problem. You might read it otherwise, which is also okay. That's your opinion, to which you are entitled. I agree with the foreshortened "less labor unions" summarization.
David Hammen
Feb 1, 2023 21:51
@JohnBollinger The author of this post linked to the Libertarian stance on the issue. That's the party's official stance, pure and simple. As a party, the Libertarians are clearly anti-union, at least in the way it is set up in many of the states in the US. As with all political organizations, some self-proclaimed Libertarians will disagree with this official stance but remain Libertarian. This is not unique. There are some Democrats who are anti-abortion (sometimes strongly so), but they remain Democrats despite the party's official stance on that topic.
David Hammen
Feb 1, 2023 21:51
@JohnBollinger The "less labor unions" is easy to explain. I suspect there are a lot more small business owners who are very anti-union and who affiliate themselves with the Libertarian party than there are union organizers who affiliate themselves with the Libertarian party. Moreover, some union members who do affiliate themselves with the Libertarian party are only members because the union contract at least in some places has made it so that those employees have to be union members.
 

 Discussion on answer by Oddthinking: …

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David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 13:48
Since you appear to be in academia teaching CS, I thought that you might find that interesting, @Oddthinking
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 13:46
Obligatory "Ooops, I forgot to tag you", @Oddthinking
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 13:45
Regarding gnashing of teeth, ChatGPT is causing a lot of gnashing, here at StackExchange and in academia. NPR recently did a report on ChatGPT. Some educators are trying to ban it. (I suspect that that will not work.) On the other hand, NPR reported that at one college (I don't remember which one), an instructor is explicitly requiring students to use ChatGPT.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:32
A lot of undefined behavior exists because getting rid of that nasty undefined behavior would be equivalent to solving the halting problem.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:30
That said, I do still use C on occasion, and definitely use C++, all the time. References passed to a function in C++ are pointers by another name, except null references are undefined behavior. Understanding why undefined behavior must exist is essential to being a competent software developer or being a competent computer scientist. Every computer scientist should know about the halting problem.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:26
Tagging you, @Oddthinking
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:26
The four or five years I spent professionally programming in Lisp in the mid 1980s completely changed how I viewed programming.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:21
Lisp doesn't have pointers. I don't know how one can be a competent computer scientist without grokking Lisp.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 03:18
@Oddthinking I've done okay with my life, probably better than if I had taken that PhD program. I would probably be the stereotypical underemployed PhD physicist Uber driver.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 14:14
"Revenge is a dish best served cold."
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 14:11
That college was not good enough for him. (I could have retaken Psych 101. The Shakespeare course I took wasn't good enough?) I did get my diploma; it took going over the department head's head. I have sent the school photocopies of the donation checks I've sent to other Ivy League schools.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 14:09
I had been accepted to a physics PhD program. A friend at the wedding said he could help me get a job on Tuesday. (Monday was a holiday.) I took him up on that offer. I merely had to finish my degree ASAP. I took a senior level, English majors only class at University of Maryland. A-. (Weed out classes are much more interesting.)
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 14:06
In fact, it took an extra two years. I received a phone call two days before graduation when I was 150 miles from school as a best man for a wedding. "Hammen! You're not graduating!" I had taken five liberal arts classes as a freshman and sophomore, three as a junior and senior. Apparently there was an arcane rule that implied four and four.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 13:57
It took me an extra year to recover from those two Fs. (I was "asked" to take a one semester break.) Other than those two classes, I got almost all As.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 13:56
Except for one class, I found the weed-out courses to be easier than the mere attendance gets you at least a C classes. Just showing up rankled me. I got an F in the only one of those I took (Psych 101). The one exception was European Intellectual History, aka Communism 310. I stupidly wrote a term paper that strongly argued against communism. I got an F. I thought it was a good term paper. The instructor thought otherwise. (That was a weed-out course for history majors.)
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 13:42
So yes, some of it is whining. But some of it is intentional, particularly so at high tier schools. I attended a high tier school decades ago. (I'm a month or two from retirement.) In the start of freshman year meeting, the school actually brought out the "look to your left, look to your right. One of you won't be here on graduation" trope.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 13:38
As every non-A grade that pre-med students receive reduces their chances of getting accepted into med school, pre-med students tend to whine incessantly regarding Organic Chem. Making these classes hard is at least partly intentional on the part of colleges. It's not necessarily nefarious. Colleges do not want the future doctor who botches operations or misdiagnoses patients traced back to said college.
David Hammen
Jan 29, 2023 13:33
Lately, there's been a huge uproar over Harold Donnelly at Purdue University, who was teaching a weed-out math course at Purdue. The school is alleged to have used the bad ratings he received to set his salary to zero. Instructors of weed out courses inevitably get bad ratings, which might just be whining.
 

 Discussion on answer by Boba Fit: Why…

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David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 09:50
While the Democrat Party has shifted to the left, at least a bit, the Republican Party has not shifted to the left. It has shifted to the right.
David Hammen
Jan 30, 2023 09:50
I have not seen any signs that the Republican Party has shifted to the left. They have shifted to the grift, not the left. Note well: Democrats have shifted to the grift in the past. It's nowhere close to a one-sided shift over time, but lately, it is.