3 ms·

From your linked definition, it is a word "coined by Thomas More (and used as title of his book, 1516, about an imaginary island enjoying the utmost perfection

by wenc 8y ago

From your linked definition, it is a word "coined by Thomas More (and used as title of his book, 1516, about an imaginary island enjoying the utmost perfection in legal, social, and political systems" Taken metaphorically, a utopia is a idealized state of affairs where perfection (optimality) is reached. This state of affairs is imaginary however, because the world in which such a perfection is attained is also imaginary. Attempts to achieve it in our reality (communism, etc.) ends up running up against a complex system of nonlinear tradeoffs, which is what I imagine the OP is alluding to.

GauntletWizard 8y ago
There was a discussion of the SR-71 a few months ago that I found excellent. One of the comments took the opposition approach - The SR-71 was an engineering failure, because it leaked fuel, it required tight tolerances and most of the parts were thrown out because of it, etc [1]. I think it's a correct view. I think they're absolutely right about the SR-71. I posted a comment arguing they're wrong, because I think my comment is also a correct view. The SR-71 is the wrong plane for many, many applications. For the few that needed it, it was an absolutely vital tradeoff. Engineering isn't just about optimizing a metric. It's about optimizing many metrics, and finding a set of tradeoffs that fits. It's about finding the point on the line where people are satisfied. Perhaps - Engineering is about finding the proper fitness functions, and then finding the optimal solution from there. Both are hard problems. Having the right fitness function/requirements gathering is the most screwed up stage of any development, and software developers are no exception, but I feel our industry has gotten away with a lot. Optimizing globally is often an unbounded problem, so finding efficient approximations (like evolutionary algorithms or hill climbing functions) is often the right approach - But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try for the correct one. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675996
- Spooky23 8y ago
  What does correct mean? Engineering is about solving problems. Ultimately it was the right solution for a very specific scope and time. The knowledge gained helped avoid nuclear conflict — an extreme benefit worth a lot of cost. Once satellites matured, it’s utility was reduced. Once drones were a thing, it’s utility went to zero. Top-secret state of the art stuff in 1990 is on the deck of a mueseum today.
  - zepto 8y ago
    Are drones being used to spy on military facilities?

by wenc 8y ago

GauntletWizard 8y ago

There was a discussion of the SR-71 a few months ago that I found excellent. One of the comments took the opposition approach - The SR-71 was an engineering failure, because it leaked fuel, it required tight tolerances and most of the parts were thrown out because of it, etc [1]. I think it's a correct view. I think they're absolutely right about the SR-71. I posted a comment arguing they're wrong, because I think my comment is also a correct view. The SR-71 is the wrong plane for many, many applications. For the few that needed it, it was an absolutely vital tradeoff. Engineering isn't just about optimizing a metric. It's about optimizing many metrics, and finding a set of tradeoffs that fits. It's about finding the point on the line where people are satisfied. Perhaps - Engineering is about finding the proper fitness functions, and then finding the optimal solution from there. Both are hard problems. Having the right fitness function/requirements gathering is the most screwed up stage of any development, and software developers are no exception, but I feel our industry has gotten away with a lot. Optimizing globally is often an unbounded problem, so finding efficient approximations (like evolutionary algorithms or hill climbing functions) is often the right approach - But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try for the correct one. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17675996

Spooky23 8y ago
What does correct mean? Engineering is about solving problems. Ultimately it was the right solution for a very specific scope and time. The knowledge gained helped avoid nuclear conflict — an extreme benefit worth a lot of cost. Once satellites matured, it’s utility was reduced. Once drones were a thing, it’s utility went to zero. Top-secret state of the art stuff in 1990 is on the deck of a mueseum today.
- zepto 8y ago
  Are drones being used to spy on military facilities?