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Confirmed! Newfound Particle Is the Higgs

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  • #46
    Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat View Post
    I don't think you're either. But I do think, whoever chose to first publicize that particular study, out of everything that goes on in government at a much, much larger scale, had an agenda to pick a trivial cost item that would push some buttons.

    As far as the obesity study, there are dozens in public and private sectors on-going. Even though lesbians are a small minority, they cross every ethnic and racial boundary, so there is an interesting bit there about lesbians being outliers in one direction and gay men in another. It may partly be behavioral, but there may also be hormonal or genetic expression differences. That's the whole point of the study. You don't "trust" the conclusions of any scientific study. Find an apparent result, and that's the next thing you try to do - repeat it and/or break it.
    See...there is good reason to not comment when you have read just a little about something. If this is truly a worthwhile study and not just a waste of money (ex: Years ago Federal Government studied the mating habits of the snail darter in the Little Tennesse River because they were endangered...problem was they had already been transplanted and were thriving in other rivers...study cost several million dollars) Every since then, I have been skeptical of most studies that seem to involve invalid samples. This, on the surface, appeared to be one of those. Thanks for setting me straight!

    There's an old Chinese saying (there really is ) quoted in Seven Samurai, but indirectly attributed by some sources to Ssu Ma I: "You don't worry about your beard when your head is about to be taken."

    When I worked for USG in 2004-2005, I learned, among other things, that there were cost plus contracts from the Carter administration that hadn't been closed out. Nowadays, we've finally got those done, but there are still contracts from the first Reagan administration not closed out. Why? Well, to do a contract closeout, you have to get final data from the contractor, AND when Reagan came into office, as a "cost cutting" measure, he started reducing the number of warranted Contract Officers in USG service. Most of what a CO does is legally an "inherently governmental function" so by law, the really high-value stuff is reserved to the CO, not to contracted staff. You also need auditors to do cost plus closeouts, and the USG has about half the number of contract auditors it had during Reagan's tenure. Agency IG staffs have been hit just as hard, so there's no capacity to provide effective oversight. When I was in USG, I worked with one other CO, and a contracted administrated staffer, and we oversaw a book of just under 10 billion in existing procurements. With three people. How many purchasing and audit staff does a private sector company have for 10 billion in active contracts?

    The ultimate reasons closeouts aren't done on cost plus contracts (what a coincidence, they're not an issue on T&M or fixed price) is because the contractors receive forward year cost adjustments based on projections of what their incurred direct and indirect costs will be. Then they get the "plus" portion allocated on top. So if you don't close it out, you don't have to worry about paying back all that money to the government once your "real" costs (inflated to the extent justifiable) are determined vis-a-vis your forward year adjusted cost claims (inflated more aggressively).

    So looking at "fat lesbian studies" is just one big red herring to get people to jump all over it, while the real spending problems get ignored. It's like tossing a couple of pieces of kibble to a dawg so you can eat your Porterhouse steak without being bothered.

    So I'm just tellin' you dawg, ignore the kibble and jump up on the procurement reform table - there's good eatin' to be had.
    I want my steak AND kibble too! I do agree that there are many bigger fish to fry. Still, if the steak isn't leaving the fridge, I would at least like some kibble.
    "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." - Hillary Clinton, 2003

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    • #47
      Originally posted by Sava View Post
      I JUST WANT HOLODECK PORN OKAY
      Don't we all?
      "I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." - Hillary Clinton, 2003

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      • #48
        Originally posted by regexcellent View Post
        If "discovering" a particle which scientists predicted the existence of requires building a $9 billion ****ing hula hoop then there cannot be any practical application to this knowledge. If at some point we do find a practical application then I guarantee it will be cheaper and more useful, and it would have the extra benefit of also confirming the existence of the Higgs boson.

        Think about what this discovery means for science. It means that every particle in the standard model has been observed. That's not more useful to us than having observed all but one of them. Anything useful that we could possibly do that would depend on the existence of that one particle would result in its observation.
        counter example: Anti-matter.

        There are many many examples of things which we discovered some way to use them after basic science had put the effort into discovering them. We would never have discovered the use by saying 'we have this need'.

        JM
        Jon Miller-
        I AM.CANADIAN
        GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

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        • #49
          Originally posted by Sava View Post
          you dont need to disagree with me for me to insult you

          cumsack

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          • #50
            Originally posted by Jon Miller View Post
            counter example: Anti-matter.

            There are many many examples of things which we discovered some way to use them after basic science had put the effort into discovering them. We would never have discovered the use by saying 'we have this need'.

            JM
            Other examples include Buckyballs, nanotubes, certain superlight materials.
            When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."

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            • #51
              Originally posted by Sava View Post
              I JUST WANT HOLODECK PORN OKAY
              how long until that?
              now we're talking, why don't scientists do interesting stuff like that?
              Any views I may express here are personal and certainly do not in any way reflect the views of my employer. Tis the rising of the moon..

              Look, I just don't anymore, okay?

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              • #52
                Originally posted by self biased View Post
                also confirmed: water wet, and damn it feels good to be a gangster.
                Is pimping still not easy?
                I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
                For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

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