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That was far from the only thing that led to its cancellation; another was that there simply wasn't a need to launch enough to prove the launch vehicle. FWIW, t

That was far from the only thing that led to its cancellation; another was that there simply wasn't a need to launch enough to prove the launch vehicle. FWIW, the report that led to its cancellation was written by William Penney, who had led the British nuclear programme.

gaius 8y ago
the report that led to its cancellation was written by William Penney Civil Servants often get it badly wrong, Beeching for example. Or who was that other bungler that killed off AI? The U.K. could have been leading the world in both aerospace and computing today if it wasn’t for those Latin-verb-conjugating clowns.
- gsnedders 8y ago
  If someone else had been given Beeching's job (make British Rail stop losing money, hand-over-fist), what would they have recommended instead of mass closures? While they might have differed in what they suggested closing, I don't think the outcome would've been all that different.
  - Lio 8y ago
    They could have kept the land the routes ran over though. One of the reasons Beaching gets so much blame is that not only did he close lines he sold parts of them off for little return so that they couldn’t be reopened without compulsory purchase orders because they've been built on. Today we could massively improve our transport infrastructure if that hadn’t happened.
- ggm 8y ago
  The Lighthill report was not a bungle: it was an honest and dispassionate review which showed how massively overstated the UK A.I. claims were. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthill_report https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthill_report (I'm biased. Sue me)
  - gaius 8y ago
    Here’s the funny thing tho’ we can contrast AI with nuclear fusion. No one questioned that fusion would be a decades-long effort. Now in the present day AI is starting to pay off big time, and fusion is as far out of reach as ever. One had its funding slashed, the other didn’t. If it wasn’t a bungle it was remarkably short-sighted. It just infuriates me how much U.K. engineers could accomplish if we weren’t fighting with our own government bureaucracies the whole time and could concentrate on the work

gaius 8y ago

the report that led to its cancellation was written by William Penney Civil Servants often get it badly wrong, Beeching for example. Or who was that other bungler that killed off AI? The U.K. could have been leading the world in both aerospace and computing today if it wasn’t for those Latin-verb-conjugating clowns.

gsnedders 8y ago
If someone else had been given Beeching's job (make British Rail stop losing money, hand-over-fist), what would they have recommended instead of mass closures? While they might have differed in what they suggested closing, I don't think the outcome would've been all that different.
- Lio 8y ago
  They could have kept the land the routes ran over though. One of the reasons Beaching gets so much blame is that not only did he close lines he sold parts of them off for little return so that they couldn’t be reopened without compulsory purchase orders because they've been built on. Today we could massively improve our transport infrastructure if that hadn’t happened.
ggm 8y ago
The Lighthill report was not a bungle: it was an honest and dispassionate review which showed how massively overstated the UK A.I. claims were. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthill_report https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthill_report (I'm biased. Sue me)
- gaius 8y ago
  Here’s the funny thing tho’ we can contrast AI with nuclear fusion. No one questioned that fusion would be a decades-long effort. Now in the present day AI is starting to pay off big time, and fusion is as far out of reach as ever. One had its funding slashed, the other didn’t. If it wasn’t a bungle it was remarkably short-sighted. It just infuriates me how much U.K. engineers could accomplish if we weren’t fighting with our own government bureaucracies the whole time and could concentrate on the work