Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

John Glenn has died

dispatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 161 posts

Re: John Glenn has died

#151

Post by jakebasile »

tnecniv wrote: post #49
benjohnson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the best thing about ham radio are the connections you make with people - in that ham radio enthusiasts are self selected. They seem to be an eclectic bunch of resourceful, witty, kind, and clever people.

I've always wanted to know what they talk about via radio.

You can listen to amateur radio without a license, you just can't transmit. Pick up a Baofeng 2 meter unit from Amazon and find your local repeater. Or, find a local Ham club and I'm sure they'll talk to you for hours about it! :-)

Re: John Glenn has died

#152

Post by squarefoot »

tzakrajs wrote: post #6
thearn4 wrote: post #2

I'm saddened to hear this, but it's also not exactly out of the blue given his age. Godspeed, Sen. (Col.) Glenn. It's an honor to work at your namesake NASA facility.

As a Cleveland-native, I will never forget John Glenn and how his legacy brought honor to the area.

As a Earth-native living half a planet away, I also will never forget what him and other great people have done.

Re: John Glenn has died

#153

Post by wallace_f »

WalterBright wrote: post #111
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very surprised if _any_ astronaut feels assured they will come home. I'm sure they don't talk about it much, but there's got to be that little voice telling them there's a chance... And yet, they still go.

History is full of people knowingly taking such risks. For example, my father was a B17 navigator. 80% of the group he went to England with became casualties. He was convinced he would not survive his tour due to the inevitable mathematics of the B-17 loss rate. But he went anyway.

That is an interesting thing to think about. By contrast, I witnessed a young person who was afraid to pull over to the side of the road to help a stranger with a broken down car. I know these two are not a perfect comparison, but I can't help but think our culture has changed since then. That's just intuition -- could be right or wrong.

Re: John Glenn has died

#154

Post by cs02rm0 »

Sad news. My dad (a fast jet pilot) took us to Florida, from the UK, to watch him go up in 1998.

I didn't really know who he was at the time but it's not often I've seen my dad look up (no pun intended) to someone. Left an impression on me and is probably no small part of the reason my own 4 year old son was running round with a rocket and a model astronaut ("Tim Peake") this morning.

RIP.

Re: John Glenn has died

#155

Post by d_e_solomon »

kumarski wrote: post #133
theoh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, "In order to be an engineer, it is not enough to be an engineer." Jose Ortega y Gasset. No profession has a monopoly on competence.

He made a monstrously inaccurate statement about the area of a solar panel and the power output of an area equivalent with the surface area of a nuclear power plant. I thought he was well versed in how utilities and energy work, but this made me see him in a different light. https://youtu.be/UKT2tKmVk6g?t=16m52s I at one time thought Elon Musk was monstrously good engineer, but I found out he was a physicist recently…

> but I found out he was a physicist recently

The horror.

Re: John Glenn has died

#157

Post by rubicon33 »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #149
rubicon33 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vision greater than self driving cars?

Self-driving vehicles are a cool and novel goal, but it's just not inspirational. I saw the first prototype on campus 17-18 years ago. Honestly, my thoughts on them are similar to those on nuclear fusion...basically like "Shit man, they're not ubiquitous yet." in that it always seemed more of an eventuality, not a bold, unexpected step forward. Inspirational things are usually illogical and are more rooted in emotion…

While I do see what you're saying, I still have my doubts as to the root cause of society's apathy. In my opinion, it's not a lack of inspirational work being done, it's a narcissism and detachment from community, that drives the attention towards personal goals rather that the goals of the community.

I think self driving cars are a MAJOR leap forward for man kind, and something we all SHOULD be having parades for. If it reaches the market, it will be the most widespread, and profound application of artificial intelligence that mankind has developed yet. Without argument, it will be the first time a machine learning application has saved lives on a grand scale. It may well mark the dawn of the Machine Learning age, welcoming in a new era where software transcends the trivial 'app' in a big, practical way. Think about that.

We can argue all day about why people aren't inspired by self driving cars. In truth, there are probably hundreds of reasons. But, if you ask me they are extremely exciting and invigorating. Uber's PA event was one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Re: John Glenn has died

#158

Post by viewer5 »

photogrammetry wrote: post #40
viewer5 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind talking about your passion for radio? It's not something I've really thought about (beyond a general, taking-it-for-granted "hey this is handy, I'm glad we have this in our repertoire of technology"), so I'd love to hear about your love.

Kind of a weird comment. Is this a writing prompt, or do you really talk to people in the "I'd love to hear about your love" manner? Radio is awesome because of how awesome it is. Check out the new startup, google.com, if you want to find some more material about why.

Your first line is basically the same as my motivation--"Why on earth would you be interested in that?" I want to understand people and the world around me better. There's a lot out there that I know nothing about, and I like hearing about passionate peoples' interests. I love it when people get excited about the things they love, because they're also often excited to share that joy with others.

Re: John Glenn has died

#159

Post by FullMtlAlcoholc »

rubicon33 wrote: post #157
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving vehicles are a cool and novel goal, but it's just not inspirational. I saw the first prototype on campus 17-18 years ago. Honestly, my thoughts on them are similar to those on nuclear fusion...basically like "Shit man, they're not ubiquitous yet." in that it always seemed more of an eventuality, not a bold, unexpected step forward. Inspirational things are usually illogical and are more rooted in emotion…

While I do see what you're saying, I still have my doubts as to the root cause of society's apathy. In my opinion, it's not a lack of inspirational work being done, it's a narcissism and detachment from community, that drives the attention towards personal goals rather that the goals of the community. I think self driving cars are a MAJOR leap forward for man kind, and something we all SHOULD be having parades for. I…

> I think self driving cars are a MAJOR leap forward for man kind, and something we all SHOULD be having parades for. If it reaches the market, it will be the most widespread, and profound application of artificial intelligence that mankind has developed yet. Without argument, it will be the first time a machine learning application has saved lives on a grand scale. It may well mark the dawn of the Machine Learning age, welcoming in a new era where software transcends the trivial 'app' in a big, practical way. Think about that

I agree completely with this line of thought, but humans aren't wired that way. The rise in ubiquity of machine-learning powered software will improve our lives greatly....and do so mostly behind the scenes while the average person isn't giving it much thought. In fact, unfortunately, eventually and inevitably, even with self-driving cars, people will still find new reason for road rage.

> We can argue all day about why people aren't inspired by self driving cars. In truth, there are probably hundreds of reasons.

There's really just one. People aren't interested in watching machines execute code. For example, would you really want to watch two AI's play LoL, DotA2, or chess against each other. Many kids aren't going to watch. Similarly, I've learned this the hard way. Perhaps 95-98% of users will not care about how you implemented an app even if you revolutionize the field of Algo's and Data Structures. They will just look at it and say, I guess it's pretty fast, but I really like this parallax when you scroll down.

Even though I found it hugely inspirational that we made an object that has now left the solar system (and it was created 40 years ago with all the processing power a modern, ChiFi pedometer), most people are only going to find it inspirational if a human leaves the solar system.

For better or worse, that's what we prioritize.

Re: John Glenn has died

#160

Post by kumarski »

d_e_solomon wrote: post #155
kumarski wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made a monstrously inaccurate statement about the area of a solar panel and the power output of an area equivalent with the surface area of a nuclear power plant. I thought he was well versed in how utilities and energy work, but this made me see him in a different light. https://youtu.be/UKT2tKmVk6g?t=16m52s I at one time thought Elon Musk was monstrously good engineer, but I found out he was a physicist recently…

> but I found out he was a physicist recently The horror.

I get upvoted for being an engineer, but downvoted for pointing out an actual inaccuracy. Go figure.
Post reply on HN