Posts by Boris the Cockroach

Re: Not really the brightest bulb, was he?

But just like F1 suspension structs , they are very storng and very rigid in the direction the forces are ment to go. in other directions... not so much.

for example, take the blade edge.... its not designed to go through anything but air, put a drone in the way and.... who knows.... once you've got a crack forming in the blade from slicing the drone in 1/2, its very easy to see that crack spreading across the blade due to the action of the blade during flight... and oh look 4 mins after impact the end 15 feet of the blade goes off for a wander by itself.... at which point gravity takes a very great interest in the chopper (gravity gets scared away from choppers by the noise.. thats how they fly.. any less noise and gravity comes back)

Re: To quote someone I know

Quote:

"I wonder what would happen if modern "developers" were put on 1970's / 1980's (or even 1990's) systems and told to write a stock control application (or a spaceship flight control program). You only have 1MHz of CPU, 128K or RAM and a 20Mb hard disk. Users are connected via RS232 terminals of a variety of types and in a variety of locations and you can't claim FrAgile development methodologies and you can't access the Internet to research things. The space spec would be far lower."

Seems a pretty easy challenge , I'll do the low level RS232 comms section first since thats what I'm good at heh.

Although considering your idea to be a valid one, I think it would be better if the application under development should be motion control of large bits of machinery, or critical flight or nuclear plant control stuff.

Write bad code here and you will kill people, that will teach 'coders' to do stuff right, and then make manglement personally liable for any bad code that gets through QC as well.

might make people sit up and pay attention, but then it all falls back to cost.... bid to build a website, sub it out to the cheapest coders you can find, pocket the money and move on.

Re: Not just money

The original idea of the EU was the european Iron and coal confederation

A plan put forward in 1948-49 to tie french coal/iron ore production to germany's steel production, binding the french and german economies so tightly together that any attempt at war would destroy their own country first.

Because europe had been trashed twice in 30 years at that point by french/german rivalries (and thats not including the wars in the 1800's too ......)

Trade yes... but political union without the consent of the governed....no

Re: 20 year old tech...

Quote:

"you couldn't have free trade with the EU unless you conformed with the EU's laws"

Funnily enough, the stuff we send abroad has to comply with US* regs.... or it does'nt go

we have no say on what those regulations are, nor any vote on who gets to set the regulations in the first place, and yet we trade with the US very successfully

We make the product(well part of it) it gets assembled, tested, exported. And hopefully money comes back.

If the product goes into the EU (which it does), then it has to comply with EU rules, if they change the rules to specifically exclude the product, then they will be excluding 2 or 3 rival US products as well....

*insert any number of countries here

Re: 3

Its when you find 11 in the machine/network...

But then everything is better when it goes to 11 ... right?

Re: Not long to wait

Quote

"I can't believe the large-mass, high-capability Ariane rockets would also be used for nuclear ICBM rockets. Not only are they hugely over-capable, most liquid fuels, even if not cryogenic, are highly-corrosive, can't be stored for long periods in regular tanks. Solid rocket fuel is much better for ICBMs."

In the first days of ICBMs it could take 20hrs to fill and prep a missile to launch with liquid fuels ... which is fine if you want to fire at the enemy 1 day after you've said "stop within 24hrs or you'll die"

Sadly it came to notice that you could secretly fill your rockets up, fire them at the enemy and he gets 8-10 mins warning before his rockets get blown up... hence the need for solid fuel rockets that could launch the instant the pyrotechnic ignition charges go off inside the thing.

Arriance rockets as ICBMs? only if you're aiming at the alien moonbase on the far side and they've got laser guns to shoot down incoming rockets

Re: we'll be ejecting his slimey kiester out

I think that the secret service will carry him out of the white house at 12.01 just after Biden starts his term, as trump will have returned to being a private citizen and therefore not authorised to be on US government property

Of course he can kick and scream like a 3 yr old.... but once Biden is sworn in, the US military aint gonna listen to trump.

I think in 4 yrs time , its going to be amazing how many republicans will being saying "trump? I never supported him"

Re: Think about how this was created

Unlikely, the lectures on DB security will still be ringing in our students ears.

More likely a dodgey design sent to the cheapest outsource they could find, then run without any QC checks.... thus proving you get what you pay for.

"we need to make a profit"

"But QC"

"get it running, we need to make a profit"

"The design is flawed"

"Who cares... we need a profit"

I think a nice fine would be about £1000 per record exposed.. fat chance of that though

Re: That's nothing

I dont want the vaccine if its been produced using eggs

Because I dont want chicken DNA ending up in side me and mutating me into a chicken.(being a cockroach is bad enough)

However there would be a silver lining to being a chicken, I could have my head cut off and be a senior member of the government

Re: Software Bugs

Quote:

"one of the exercises was to make a steel die (as in 'dice')."

been there done that, then had to make a cube on a milling machine, then another cube on the lathe.

However the OP is right, theres a world of difference between software created to run your glitzy website, and the software created to run a criticial application.

In one case , you website goes down and cant process orders/bank details, in the other, people die as a result.

Even the likes of me have to be careful programming robots/lathes, one false data entry and I could be looking at several hundred pounds of metal being rammed into another large chuck of metal that spinning at 2500rpm... which is extremely loud.. and you go straight to brown alert without any intermediate stages....

But the difference is lost on beancounters who only see the cost of the software and look at ways to get it done cheaper.

And always remember the buyers creed. you can have 2 of the 3 following things , cost, delivery, quality

Re: Yes, but ...

We're in the business of buying this sort of computery stuff... final end user of various bits of CNC motion control stuff (lathes + robot loaders mostly).

My boss has already spoken about 'upgrading' the base models we have for the ones with the extra bells and whistles, however pointing out if he turns on the extra memory option, the m/board may not HAVE the ram installed to use..... in which case it throws a mighty hissy fit and refuses to boot at all, or the seensors/motion encoders may not be fitted to the machine to enable certain 'extra cost' functions.

The result could be a complete parameter wipe, which is very expensive.. or the machine itself doing illegal motion because its not checking the PLAs for the safety cutouts.... which is even more expensive than the first option.

However I'm talking about very expensive industrial equipment here rather than the consumer grade stuff under discussion..... and lets face it.... illegal to replace the DVD drive.... bollocks.

Quote:

"And if he/she keeps doing the same mistake thing, then he/she will get a board membership during retirement."

What actually happens is that the person takes early retirement with full pension plus lump sum, then after 6 months, gets re-hired as a 'consultant' on twice the hourly rate they were before, then when that gig is up (usually after the press get hold of it) do they move to 'advisor' to the tendering company

We

had the plank award

As in "plank of the week"

Sadly long since retired... along with the guy who won it 5 weeks in a row thus owning it forever, and the bast took it with him when he was finally and rightfully fired.

Quote:

Oxbridge being the exception, but not everyone can attend Oxbridge and those who do are not very likely to end up in lowly technical positions.

Yes Oxbridge churns out a very different kind of person.

Just look at the current government for prime examples of oxbridge education....... also the previous government............... and the one before that........... and the one before that ............ and the one before that....... and the one before that.... hmmm I'm beginning to see a pattern here...

Wheres the lying 2 faced self obsessed scumbag icon ?

Re: They should have gone with the James bond scoop design

Trouble is... material cost is bugger all

We made some frame parts for <cough cough splutter splutter>, the raw material (aerospace grade alluminium) cost us about $100 each.

The cost in machining/plating/remachining /replating it to space specifications was about $1000 each, followed by the inspections/reports/certificates etc etc which added another $500.

Then off to the customer to be assembled/baked/shaked/frozen/ and vibrated to death before being lobbed in the ocean because the rocket failed on lift off (yes we had to do it all again).

When NASA/SpaceX says the cost of a space craft is 500 million, you'll find the actual materials used will be way less than a million and the cost is all in building the damned thing... so its pretty much scrap value only...

PS I suspect someone at ESA has been playing kerbal space program again, because theres a module in ther called 'the claw' used for grabbing other space ships...

Re: MP3?

Yupp

Found a website a few years ago containing audiofiles for the memotech MTX ... bunch of games, turbo pascal stuff like that.

Plug your audio output into the audio in on the MTX and hey.... no problem loading the games/other stuff (unlike the cassette deck I had to use when young'ish and stupid )

Had to fiddle with the settings and make a lead up, even managed to output a program via the audio into the PC and convert it to mp3.

Well it was a rainy afternoon and I was fed up with killing kerbals :)

Depends

DC-10? cargo doors fall off, even after door manufacturer said "hey these doors are too weak and can fall off"

DC-10 again.... quicker to take the whole engine/mount off than engine, then mount.. result.. engines fall off in flight

747 : cargo doors fall off when hammered into place by inexperienced ground staff.

737 : rudders go hard right when hot fluid enters cold steering mechinism.

MD-80 : tailplane tends to fall off when controlling jackscrew is not greased according to schedule

Airbus 300 : vertical stablizer falls off if rudder used too hard (although to be fair most planes do that too)

You still sure about those older planes?

Most crashes/accidents are pilot error though

Re: Good question!

Whats the wafer thin mint that finally causes windows to explode?

Well it just shows how f***ed up US elections are when trumpy can 'win' the presidents job even though his opponent had 3 million more votes, and that Biden has just about scraped it home with 5 miilion+ more votes than trumpy.

But then to sort things out would be changing the constitution and you'd get all the 'you cant change the constitution" types out of the woodwork, spouting on about how they're ready to use their 2 admendment rights to stop changes to the constitution while being unaware that the 2nd admendment IS a change to the constitution......

Anyways.. so long as the adults have taken away trumpy's big red button, its time for the popcorn and see what he does next...

Re: Only a 4 lb lump hammer?

Trouble with the larger hammers is that its very difficult to explain "Well his hand was in the way when I put the hammer on my desk" type events when you've got a 14lb sledge hammer and used it to encourage the person to go back to work.

Incidentaly, I've just been informed by the manglement that when I screw an employees boots to the floor so he stays by his machine I'm suppossed to let them take their feet out first...

Quote

"Outsourcing can work if your only intention is to offload the burden of doing a task onto a 3rd party, "

What outsourcing also does it allows you to fire your expensive internal staff and replace them with cheaper workers, hence the rush to 3rd world call centers, however if you are in high value work, the worst thing to do is outsourcing because all that expensive technical knowledge flows away from your company into the hands of the outsourcers.... who dont care .. and then the knowledge is lost

Look at the history of railtrack when they outsourced all of british rails engineering expertise into the private sector..... then it turned out after the Hatfield and potter's bar crashes that railtrack manglement had no rail engineering experience to call on when making decisions such as 'how often should rails on high speed lines be ground?' and then made the call looking at the expense of replacing them instead of how long until the surface cracks would cause the rail to fail.....