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I love the phrasing in “… is now operating with all four active instruments collecting science.” Reminds me of strategy games where feeding enough “science uni

I love the phrasing in “… is now operating with all four active instruments collecting science.” Reminds me of strategy games where feeding enough “science units” into opaque “research labs” unlocks branches of the technology tree.

actually_a_dog 5y ago
Hah! You make it sound like they said "You must construct additional pylons," or something. :) What's the proper unit of measurement to quantify how much "science" they've collected, anyway? Bits?
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Data or analytics instead of “science”
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  It only takes 300 units of science to research Nuclear Propulsion and 10,000 kerbucks to unlock the LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor. I say go for it. :)
beefok 5y ago
cough Factorio cough :)
- tschwimmer 5y ago
  After all, we all know scientific progress can literally be distilled down into various colored liquid and poured into an erlenmeyer flask for easy consumption.
- iggldiggl 5y ago
  … or Kerbal Space Program
- wan23 5y ago
  Factorio science packs kind of make sense though. E.g. military science packs are made of bullets, grenades and walls, and you spend them to get better bullets and grenades and such. It's like an abstraction of spending some capacity to experiment on improving designs.
VWWHFSfQ 5y ago
Amazon just had an outage on their computers localized to a 3 mile region in Virginia and they still haven't fixed it. NASA had an outage 350 miles above the surface of the Earth and managed to fix it. There's a difference in software reliability priorities and operations here. [0] https://softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/sscl/moglen-software_in_everything-transcript.html https://softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/sscl/moglen-software...
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  I wonder if one can compare the two directly though. Also Amazon's whole infrastructure is probably built with a lot of third party tools?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Hubble was also out for over a month; I don't think anyone expects the AWS outage to last anywhere near that long.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
They're collecting observational data, not science. I wouldn't normally be bitter about it, but the Trust The Science™ religion already has a terrible struggle with the basics so we shouldn't make it any harder for them. My back yard rain gauge is not sciencing either.
- Eelongate 5y ago
  Making 'science' a fungible unit allows scientists in one domain to leach off the reputation earned by scientists in another domain. Accomplishments in physics lend credibility to accomplishments in social science, due to the commonality of both using the scientific method, even though the scientific method is not uniformly effective across all domains of inquiry.
- fghorow 5y ago
  "They're collecting observational data, not science." I suspect that pretty much everybody who does experimental physics, a whole lot of astronomers, and a multitude of other observational scientists might like to have a word with you regarding the scientific method. But that could just be me.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Do you have any other words for me beyond what you just wrote, or was that it?
    - sennight 5y ago
      Whoa there quickdraw, when somebody suspects "pretty much" - they can't be challenged. Everybody who matters knows that. Also, it was obviously Neil deGrasse Tyson being alluded to, the scientist that would want to dress you down... so have some respect.
    - fghorow 5y ago
      Just one: troll.
- 5y ago
bitwize 5y ago
But research labs would consume raw materials like wood, metal, Vespene gas, etc., and produce science units that could then be spent to climb the tech tree, no? It also makes me think of Portal: "And the science gets done, and we built a neat gu--er, telescope..."
tablespoon 5y ago
> Reminds me of strategy games where feeding enough “science units” into opaque “research labs” unlocks branches of the technology tree. Or Scully babbling on about "the science", referring to some MacGuffin or other during the later seasons of the X-Files.
bongoman37 5y ago
Maybe what we need is a scienceCoin that is backed by NFTs made out of Hubble images.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Hah! You make it sound like they said "You must construct additional pylons," or something. :) What's the proper unit of measurement to quantify how much "science" they've collected, anyway? Bits?

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Data or analytics instead of “science”
fennecfoxen 5y ago
It only takes 300 units of science to research Nuclear Propulsion and 10,000 kerbucks to unlock the LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor. I say go for it. :)

beefok 5y ago

cough Factorio cough :)

tschwimmer 5y ago
After all, we all know scientific progress can literally be distilled down into various colored liquid and poured into an erlenmeyer flask for easy consumption.
iggldiggl 5y ago
… or Kerbal Space Program
wan23 5y ago
Factorio science packs kind of make sense though. E.g. military science packs are made of bullets, grenades and walls, and you spend them to get better bullets and grenades and such. It's like an abstraction of spending some capacity to experiment on improving designs.

VWWHFSfQ 5y ago

Amazon just had an outage on their computers localized to a 3 mile region in Virginia and they still haven't fixed it. NASA had an outage 350 miles above the surface of the Earth and managed to fix it. There's a difference in software reliability priorities and operations here. [0] https://softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/sscl/moglen-software_in_everything-transcript.html https://softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/sscl/moglen-software...

markus_zhang 5y ago
I wonder if one can compare the two directly though. Also Amazon's whole infrastructure is probably built with a lot of third party tools?
ceejayoz 5y ago
Hubble was also out for over a month; I don't think anyone expects the AWS outage to last anywhere near that long.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

They're collecting observational data, not science. I wouldn't normally be bitter about it, but the Trust The Science™ religion already has a terrible struggle with the basics so we shouldn't make it any harder for them. My back yard rain gauge is not sciencing either.

Eelongate 5y ago
Making 'science' a fungible unit allows scientists in one domain to leach off the reputation earned by scientists in another domain. Accomplishments in physics lend credibility to accomplishments in social science, due to the commonality of both using the scientific method, even though the scientific method is not uniformly effective across all domains of inquiry.
fghorow 5y ago
"They're collecting observational data, not science." I suspect that pretty much everybody who does experimental physics, a whole lot of astronomers, and a multitude of other observational scientists might like to have a word with you regarding the scientific method. But that could just be me.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Do you have any other words for me beyond what you just wrote, or was that it?
  - sennight 5y ago
    Whoa there quickdraw, when somebody suspects "pretty much" - they can't be challenged. Everybody who matters knows that. Also, it was obviously Neil deGrasse Tyson being alluded to, the scientist that would want to dress you down... so have some respect.
  - fghorow 5y ago
    Just one: troll.
5y ago

bitwize 5y ago

But research labs would consume raw materials like wood, metal, Vespene gas, etc., and produce science units that could then be spent to climb the tech tree, no? It also makes me think of Portal: "And the science gets done, and we built a neat gu--er, telescope..."

tablespoon 5y ago

> Reminds me of strategy games where feeding enough “science units” into opaque “research labs” unlocks branches of the technology tree. Or Scully babbling on about "the science", referring to some MacGuffin or other during the later seasons of the X-Files.

bongoman37 5y ago

Maybe what we need is a scienceCoin that is backed by NFTs made out of Hubble images.