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How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

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Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#31

Post by saraid216 »

meric wrote: post #29
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Tribalism is what allowed humans to survive into the modern age, and is a force that in this era of individualism keeps societies from unraveling. Humans will be tribal, it's just a matter of how tribal lines are drawn. In the era of globalization, tribal lines are increasingly being drawn along lines of wealth, class, and education which is in my opinion worse than drawing them along geographica…

Very much agree. Taken to the extreme, complete suppression of tribalism would not only be extremely difficult but also extremely harmful to society, as even the love between children and parents will be destroyed in favor of egalitarian love. Our biological nature causes children to prefer their parents more than any other parents, and in doing so, prefer their siblings (their parent's other children), more than any…

Presentism: making sure one doesn't have to acknowledge history in order to advance one's own tribal ideology. Good job!

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#32

Post by andyjohnson0 »

rayiner wrote: post #22
nitrogen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an aspect of humanity that should be fought, not embraced and exploited.

I strongly disagree. Tribalism is what allowed humans to survive into the modern age, and is a force that in this era of individualism keeps societies from unraveling. Humans will be tribal, it's just a matter of how tribal lines are drawn. In the era of globalization, tribal lines are increasingly being drawn along lines of wealth, class, and education which is in my opinion worse than drawing them along geographica…

I agree that tribalism probably was one factor that allowed humans to survive to reach the modern era. However, that doesn't mean that it is still a desirable survival trait now that we're in that era. The world is vastly more populated than it was 30,000 years, or even 100 years, ago and the tribes are bigger and have more opportunities for conflict now.

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#33

Post by gwern »

natep wrote: post #21
jimktrains2 wrote: post #13

Perhaps I missed it when I read the article: Why did he originally have the hunch that the radio wouldn't work when Doppler shifted? Also, I guess something like Manchester encoding wasn't use because of the data rate limitations? IIRC Manchester encoding is self-clocking, which seemed like the issue here.

He didn't have a hunch, he just knew that the standard comprehensive test was skipped, which is why the standard test procedure only detected a problem, and he had to end early and go off book in order to reveal the doppler problem.

> Fortunately, Claudio Sollazzo, Huygens's ground operations manager at ESA's European Space Operation Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, had a nagging worry about the lack of a full-up communications systems test. Sollazzo knew there was time to run some tests during Cassini's long, uneventful stretches between the planets.

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#34

Post by throwaway7808 »

rayiner wrote: post #22
nitrogen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an aspect of humanity that should be fought, not embraced and exploited.

I strongly disagree. Tribalism is what allowed humans to survive into the modern age, and is a force that in this era of individualism keeps societies from unraveling. Humans will be tribal, it's just a matter of how tribal lines are drawn. In the era of globalization, tribal lines are increasingly being drawn along lines of wealth, class, and education which is in my opinion worse than drawing them along geographica…

I would very much agree. Tribalism should stand alongside the greatest achievements of humanity, like Religion, the discovery of War or "the invention of negroes, or, of the present mode of using them".

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#35

Post by meric »

saraid216 wrote: post #31
meric wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very much agree. Taken to the extreme, complete suppression of tribalism would not only be extremely difficult but also extremely harmful to society, as even the love between children and parents will be destroyed in favor of egalitarian love. Our biological nature causes children to prefer their parents more than any other parents, and in doing so, prefer their siblings (their parent's other children), more than any…

Presentism: making sure one doesn't have to acknowledge history in order to advance one's own tribal ideology. Good job!

You've dismissed someone's carefully thought out reply with not arguments but with a one-liner with a word of jargon, an accusation of someone advancing an ideology through making comments buried many levels deep in random hacker news threads and a dash of sarcasm thrown in for good measure.

Go ahead and feel proud you've defended your mind from reasoning another person's thoughts and thinking up a rebuttal based on reasonable arguments. lol. :)

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#36

Post by lkrubner »

onion2k wrote: post #2

Amazing work by a tenacious and talented engineer. Great story. (Question: What does his nationality have to do with it though? Seems like an odd addition to the headline.)

If this becomes a trend, we will all soon have to identify the full national data for every programmer we talk about on Hacker News. I can imagine the headlines:

Saudi Arabian programmer fixes XSS vulnerability in Rails

German engineer (who also holds a USA passport due to his American mother) finds new algorithm for error-detection of communications over rusty wires

Programmer from Brazil, now a British citizen but also holding a Canadian passport via his wife, discovers method for instant startups of apps on the JVM.

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#37

Post by gshubert17 »

meric wrote: post #29
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Tribalism is what allowed humans to survive into the modern age, and is a force that in this era of individualism keeps societies from unraveling. Humans will be tribal, it's just a matter of how tribal lines are drawn. In the era of globalization, tribal lines are increasingly being drawn along lines of wealth, class, and education which is in my opinion worse than drawing them along geographica…

Very much agree. Taken to the extreme, complete suppression of tribalism would not only be extremely difficult but also extremely harmful to society, as even the love between children and parents will be destroyed in favor of egalitarian love. Our biological nature causes children to prefer their parents more than any other parents, and in doing so, prefer their siblings (their parent's other children), more than any…

> Taken to the extreme, complete suppression of tribalism would not only be extremely difficult but also extremely harmful to society

I see part of the problem as the intensity of tribalism or reactions to it. People getting together because of shared preferences, locations, or ideas seems okay. Getting carried away causes problems.

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#38

Post by BrandonMarc »

lkrubner wrote: post #36
onion2k wrote: post #2

Amazing work by a tenacious and talented engineer. Great story. (Question: What does his nationality have to do with it though? Seems like an odd addition to the headline.)

If this becomes a trend, we will all soon have to identify the full national data for every programmer we talk about on Hacker News. I can imagine the headlines: Saudi Arabian programmer fixes XSS vulnerability in Rails German engineer (who also holds a USA passport due to his American mother) finds new algorithm for error-detection of communications over rusty wires Programmer from Brazil, now a British citizen but…

You're correct about the trend. Find some unrelated aspect of the person's life, and include it in the headline to make the person more interesting.

Randall Munroe has made fun of this and similar headline-writing trends:

http://xkcd.com/1283/

Re: How a Swedish engineer saved a once-in-a-lifetime mission to Titan (2004)

#39

Post by bdamm »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. Tribalism is what allowed humans to survive into the modern age, and is a force that in this era of individualism keeps societies from unraveling. Humans will be tribal, it's just a matter of how tribal lines are drawn. In the era of globalization, tribal lines are increasingly being drawn along lines of wealth, class, and education which is in my opinion worse than drawing them along geographica…

I agree that tribalism probably was one factor that allowed humans to survive to reach the modern era. However, that doesn't mean that it is still a desirable survival trait now that we're in that era. The world is vastly more populated than it was 30,000 years, or even 100 years, ago and the tribes are bigger and have more opportunities for conflict now.

Tribalism is fine. It's nationalism that has proven disastrous.
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