Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing oxygen levels by 30%

Re:Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing ox... by camccann on Sunday May 16, 2010 @11:09PM (#1353404)

It's a well known principle that, given a brief problem description, the less a software engineer knows about the problem domain, the easier they will judge the solution to be.

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Re:Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing ox... by mkramlich on Sunday May 16, 2010 @11:16PM (#1353426)

funny! :)

however, being a software engineer doesn't preclude one from being right or having useful insight within any other realm of human activity.

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Re:Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing ox... by nostrademons on Sunday May 16, 2010 @11:31PM (#1353459)

It's a general rule about most people. Almost all problems look simple from 5000 feet up; it's only when you try and work out the details and get it actually working that the difficulty becomes obvious.

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Re:Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf, decreasing ox... by mkramlich on Monday May 17, 2010 @01:56AM (#1353689)

Yep but it's another general rule that many problems look insurmountable when there has been insufficient analysis, brainstorming, experimentation, testing, and time/energy/money spent on trying to solve that problem. I for one have gotten the impression from this BP incident, and from everything I've read, that that is what happened in this case. There was even an interview with a so-called expert who helped work on the Exxon Valdez cleanup who said he's been shocked at how little has changed since then in terms of advancement in technology, process, etc.

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