The Forgotten Huygens Experiment

jdray writes "An experiment onboard the Huygens probe didn't run as planned because someone forgot to turn it on. The team lead for the experiment has put eighteen years of his life into the project, just to watch it not happen after a seven year ride to its destination on Titan."

Comments

Depression.

[Neuroelectronic]

Sounds like my life.

Re:Depression.

[essreenim]

Officials for the European Space Agency said last week they would investigate to learn what happened. They were not available for comment on Thursday, nor did NASA officials immediately respond to telephone messages...

Yeah, both groups know how to shut up and watch each others backs when it all goes f*@$ ways : )

By the way, I thought they ended up using channel B because they did not take the full effect of the Doppler shift for channel A into account. Can anyine correct me on this? ..

Re:Depression.

[MoonFog]

FTA: The probe was to transmit data on two channels, A and B, Atkinson said. His Doppler wind experiment was to use Channel A, a very stable frequency.

But the order to activate the receiver, or oscillator, for Channel A was never sent, so the entire mission operated through Channel B, which is less stable, Atkinson said.

I guess it makes it even worse that it was purely a human error.

Re: Depression.

[Black Parrot]

> I guess it makes it even worse that it was purely a human error.

Yeah, someone screwed up in converting 'A' to metric.

Re:Depression.

[MikeDX]

Life, dont talk to me about life, here I am, brain the size of a planet and you ask is empty the trash Marvin, open the airlock marvin, clean the ship Marvin.

Re:Depression.

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not even January 24th yet...

Re:Depression.

[dolmen.fr]

The problem with channel A is not related to the Doppler problem but due to a human error as reported in the article.

See also what I reported on saturday.

Re:Depression.

[amabbi]

But the order to activate the receiver, or oscillator, for Channel A was never sent, so the entire mission operated through Channel B, which is less stable, Atkinson said.

I guess it makes it even worse that it was purely a human error.

Who was responsible for the receiver? Was it NASA (running the Cassini project) or ESA (running the Huygens probe)? Does anyone know?

Re:Depression.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig...

Human beings fall into four basic categories: the helpless, the intelligent, the bandit and the stupid

Don't forget the judgmental!

Re:Depression.

[Anonymous Coward]

can someone explain why the guys running these billion dollar, multi-year experiments are so f'ing stupid? Mechanical problems I understand but how many times do I have to read about forgetting to turn on an experiment, or using the wrong measurement system? Is mission control covered with 8 year old sticky notes - "don't forget to turn on the critical experiment that we won't be able repeat for a generation"

Re:Depression.

[crymeph0]

ESA told NASA which bits to flip on Cassini, but left out the channel A bit.

Re:Depression.

[essreenim]

you cant hace one extrme without another:

helpless vs. those in need of know help. intelligent vs. stupid. bandit vs. tamed judgemental vs. open-minded .............

Re:Depression.

[Wandering Wombat]

htank you for shwoing us the errr of our splellings.

Re:Depression.

[__aaclcg7560]

To paraphase Scotty from Star Trek 3: "The more complex the machine, the easier to clog up the plumbing."

Re:Depression.

[Rei]

Please come back and complain when you've launched an incredibly complex piece of machinery to Saturn and had it succesfully make it to the surface without any sort of direct human control.

What they managed to get right was nothing short of miraculous. I find it sad how many people take the incredible magnitude of the problem for granted.

To put it in a programming perspective, to make it easier for people here to understand: picture that all of the mechanical work that went into the project was akin to developing a piece of software. Cassini-Huygens involved several hundred thousand man hours - lets say 400,000. Assume that the average programmer codes and debugs 5 lines per minute on average. That's 2 million lines of code equivalent - about the size of the Linux kernel.

Let me know when you write a piece of code the size of the linux kernel and have everything work flawlessly on its first public release.

Re: Depression.

[Mysticalfruit]

Heh.

My spacecraft gets 20 parsecs to the hogshead and that's the way I like it...

Re:Depression.

[lgw]

Been there, done that (the millions of lines of code project, not the Saturn thing :) ).

No, it wasn't "flawless on first release", in fact there were hundreds of known bugs, but we didn't have *any* problems where we *just forgot to do something*!

This wasn't a case where thousands of possible failure conditions had been tested, and they were nailed by something no one had thought of. Good engineering requires a serious and responsible effort, not perfection. This failure was (to judge from the AP story) a simple lack of professionalism.

Where was the system or process that made human error irrelevent? Looks like a simple failure to communicate requirements from here.

Re:Depression.

[Retric]

At first I went a little bug eyed at the "5 lines per minute on average" but as 2 mil / 5 = 400k I think your either talking about hours or suck at math...

Anyway, the point your missing with your argument is making software is a vary decision intense (yea I made that one up) endeavor where say putting together a solar cell quickly comes down to a few 100 choices made in repetition. And it's not the first probe sent into space, which means that a lot of choices have already been made. I mean the chose to use a rocket type that was already in use so that was one choice that was both easy and created a lot of man hours worth of work people already did.

Think of it this way the first man on the moon took a LOT of work the 7th was not such a big deal. Yea there was a lot of work but most of the decisions had already been made and a lot of those left where more a long the lines of "does this look like that (Y/N)" vs. "What should I do if I get data that is clearly wrong at this point?"

Now I am not saying it's easy but it's a lot simpler than making the modern Linux kernel.

Re:Depression.

[Rei]

A "bug" on a spacecraft genearlly equals the complete or partial failure of a system. Congratulations, your "spacecraft" just lost about a dozen systems.

What do you think causes bugs anyways, if it's not people making oversights or forgetting to do things? In fact, I can only think of two known bugs that occurred during "deployment" phase of Cassini/Huygens: The radio's Doppler shift problem (which they had a workaround for), and the A band loss. Your couple hundred problems to their two problems shows how incredibly well they tested their equipment before launch.

Re:Depression.

[Rei]

Whoops, you're right. I was calculating for 5 lines per hour, not per minute. 5 lines per minute would produce 120 million lines of code ;) We're now looking at the amount of code of an entire modern Windows operating system.

However, even if you assume that software is 50 times harder than engineering (I'll contest that!!!), you're back to looking at something the complexity of the Linux kernel. And when it "goes public" (i.e., when Cassini is launched), it has to be bugfree. How many bugs did we have in the entire Cassini-Huygens mission? I can only name two.

> Think of it this way the first man on the moon took a LOT of work
> the 7th was not such a big deal

Several hundred thousand hours is several hundred thousand hours. That's how many man hours went into Cassini-Huygens. It doesn't matter that people have launched probes before; humans have created airplanes before, but that doesn't mean that Boeing doesn't have to spend billions to create a new aircraft line. And even the most complex aircraft look like a child's toy compared to most spacecraft (and can be tested far more easily) - Cassini/Huygens being one of the most complex spacecraft we've ever launched.

Re:Depression.

[lgw]

None of our hundreds of known errors involved data loss, or a failure to deliver on a promise made to a customer.

There are always problems you can't test for - you test for everything that's ever gone wrong before plus everything else you can imagine going wrong. There are always extreme corner cases that fall through the cracks in any large project.

In contrast, this was a failure to communicate a simple requirement. "The A band is needed for some experiment, be sure to turn it on." A simple checklist item - either it didn't get on the right checklist, or some bozo skipped the item. Either way there should have been a validation process to catch and correct mistakes in the operations process.

I know it's common amoung Slashdotters to become apologists for sexy engineering projects, but (again, going by the AP story) there was no excuse for this mistake. This step was easy to get right.

Just because they solved a hard problem doesn't mean they didn't *also* screw up in some simple avoidable way. The former doesn't excuse the latter.

Re:Depression.

[Rei]

> In contrast, this was a failure to communicate a simple requirement

Once again, I am forced to ask you: What is a bug if not an oversight or something that a programmer forgot? You keep dodging this question, and still asserting the issue for which I was forced to raise it.

> None of our hundreds of known errors involved data loss, or a
> failure to deliver on a promise made to a customer

That's nice. Unfortunately, almost any type of error at all on a probe will result in either diminished capabilities, data loss, or complete system loss. We're not talking about writing a gui here or whatnot.

> I know it's common amoung Slashdotters to become apologists for
> sexy engineering projects

Funny - I find it common here for people to critique others for not being flawless, when they make 50 times the mistakes in their own experience, simply because they have the benefit of foresight and a lack of knowlege of the field.

Re:Depression.

[Rei]

ack... I meant to write "the benefit of hindsight", not "foresight". :)

Re:Depression.

[lgw]

A "bug" is an informal term that means different things to different people.

There is a big difference between the sort of bug that's just too hard to test for (program crashes on an odd-numbered Wednesday on a full moon if the instruction is on a 2K boundry) and simply failing to address a requirement (ooops, we forgot to program line item 23a in the requirements document). It's the sort of differenc that means lawsuits and job loss in a business environment. It's the difference between making a responsible effort to get things right (and perhaps still failing due to circumstances no one could have reasonable anticipated) and not making a responsible effort.

Yes, rocket science is hard. ;) But this mistake seems (based on TFA) like it was quite easy to avoid. Just because you have a hard project with lots of requirements doesn't mean you are excused from doing the easy things right.

Do you see the difference between the kinds of problems that will occur even when a responsible, professional effort has been made to avoid problems, and the kind of problems that occur because no such effort was made?

Systems analysis and project management are mature disciplines. We know how to do these things right. This poor guy's experiment - someone didn't choose to do it right.

Now, for all I know (TFA being pretty one-sided) the experiment in question *wasn't* a priority, and a deliberate decision was made that is was not worth the cost to do it right. Those sorts of decisions are always made in large projects. But if I had 18 years into a project I would be even more upset by that scenario!

>Funny - I find it common here for people to
>critique others for not being flawless, when
>they make 50 times the mistakes in their own
>experience, simply because they have the benefit
>of [hind]sight and a lack of knowlege of the field.

I find it common for people to think a problem is hard simply because they *don't* have the experience in the field to know how easy it really is. ;)

I wrote kernel/driver/other OS-level code for 5 years and *never* had a memory or resource leak - nor did anyone on my team. Not because I'm the world's best coder, or because we had super-expensive QA, but simply because we chose coding practices that insured this would be the case. If avoiding human fallibility is important, you choose a process that doesn't require humans to do things correctly every time.

Re:Depression.

[NanoGator]

"Can anyine correct me on this? .."

Yes: It's anyone, not anyine.

Re:Depression.

[therealbev]

> Yeah, both groups know how to shut up and watch
> each others backs when it all goes f*@$ ways : )

Perhaps, but NASA's policy is generally to look around for the most helpless contractor employee who had anything at all to do with the disaster and blame the whole thing on him.

Yes, I saw it happen.

Re:Depression.

[Retric]

However, even if you assume that software is 50 times harder than engineering (I'll contest that!!!), you're back to looking at something the complexity of the Linux kernel.

OK, now I am back to going bug eyed. 5Lines of code per min is nuts. Now Cassini-Huygens is extreamly complex system but you have to look at what makes it complex. When you stat saying that people create software at say 5 lines of code per unit time you saying "code" has a given complexity which is clearly not the case.

At one point in time NASA was paying 1000$ per line of code. Now the reason for this is that they test there code. As a basic rule of thumb any random coder of any level will be somewhere around 1/10 to 10 times as efecent as a coder of the same background. So take two people with a BS from MIT and give them the same problem and one guy may show up with code in 1/2 the time as the other person and that code will be so much better than the other persons that they would have to spend 5x as long to create code that is as bug free / feature rich.

However, if your juding the value / effert put into coding software then a well tested piece of code will be worth 6-10 times as much as a new pice of code that does the same thing. Now all these ideas are why a most software projects tend to create software closer to 1-5 Lines of Code per hour over there life time than 5 Lines per Min.

2ndly as I said if your taking the full number of man hours for a given project like Cassini-Huygens you have to seperate the construction times from the develepment time and evaluate them sepratly. Afterall building a bridge is not a simple step but there is a lot more posiblity of failure at the design stage than when somone is adding the rivits. Shure they could fuck up but visual inspection makes applying rivits a reasonably safe endever aka you can see if you fucked up by looking at it. Where as a desginer who miscaluclates the harmonic's that are setup by trafic can easly cause the system to fail. Not only that but a lot of there mistakes can be glossed over by building it with 20% overkill over what they think would ever be needed. AKA Max stress is trafic at a sandstill. Max harmonic load is Max stress X 5. Let's build it to take Max stress X 6 and things should be fine. Where there is no whay to do the same thing with software.

Now you can say Cassini-Huygens is a lot more complex than a bridge and I would agree with you but they can still build it with the idea that there going to need X power at max so let's set it up to give 20% more than that to be safe. Now as to power sources there may be a lot of man hours to add the power source but as several space based power sources have been tested in space there is little risk that there idea will not work if they used a slight change to the same basic design. Thus most of the man hours put into the powersource are vary low risk were there is no area in most software projects that are vary low risk.

I would say Cassini-Huygens would be much more complex than Linux if you where starting from scratch say in 1900 and wanted to build it but at this point most of the work is minor changes to extreamly well tested systems. Hell Linux started out as a vertion of UNIX that was not totaly unix compatible. And as such was much less complex than the work NASA(and it's contractors ect.) did just for Cassini-Huygens but right now I would say it's a much more complex system than the new work done just for Cassini-Huygens.

Re:Depression.

[Anonymous Coward]

Weren't you being a grammar Nazi in some other thread not too damn long ago?

Ever hear the old adage about people living in glass houses?

Re:Depression.

[Wandering Wombat]

Weren't you mocking me for being a grammar Nazi in some other thread not too damn long ago?

Only one word can be used to describe this...

[sjrstory]

1. Doh
Doh (d)

Interj.

a) A Gen-X colloquialism conveying an overall feeling of frustration.

b) Used to express a feeling one has after realizing they have been tricked, misled, scammed, swindled, etc..

c) Used to boast or chide the victim of such tomfoolery

d) Coined by the animated sitcom character Homer Simpson in the mid to late eighties, "Doh" is similar to other one word, one syllable explicatives in that it is a quick and succinct summary of one's aggravation, but differs in that it was an accepted substitute to similarly censored words.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[rokzy]

D'oh comes from a Laurel and Hardey character. but Homer's version is a lot quicker because animation time is valuable.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[CottonEyedJoe]

Which helps explain why my friends and I were using "Duh" in middle school (the "duh" years). As a thirtysomething my middle school days predate Homer Simpson. I'm not sure how Homer can lay any claim to the word, except perhaps as the OP's first exposure to it.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[gl4ss]

it says that the guy was over here in europe.

so, he could use 'fuck' just as well.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[bcattwoo]

There is a difference between "duh" and "doh". "Duh" is generally directed at someone else to point out an obvious mistake, such as not knowing the difference between "duh" and "doh". When you realize that you yourself have made such a mistake (or say accidently reboot the server, drop a bowling ball on your foot, etc.), you exclaim "doh!" in frustrated recognition.

Let's practice:

Me: "'Duh' and 'doh' are not the same thing, duh!"

You: "Doh!"

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[NearlyHeadless]

Although it's been mentioned before on Slashdot, it's nice to remember the total data loss that was avoided by averted by Boris Smeds discovering a huge problem early enough to do something about it.

(I was reminded of this by a story on NPR this morning.)

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[elhaf]

You forgot to mention that Dan Castellenata improvised this utterance in replacement for the script line which read (Annoyed Grunt). Which is why the titles of some of the episodes read like: Supercalifragilisticsexpiali(Annoyed Grunt)cious.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[algernon7]

Come on, Mods!
The parent post is so off topic it's ridiculous.
Not one reference to the simpsons - just a link to a dry article about some space probe.
D'oh, indeed.

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[enigmals1]

Actually there's another:

OWNED!

Re:Only one word can be used to describe this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of The Simpsons, this probe was obviously named by Dr. Frink.

"Now at this point, ladies and gentlemen, the Cassini probe releases the HOY-GENZ!!"

Opps

[odioalsoco]

I hate when that happens

Sad :-(

[martingunnarsson]

Damn that's sad. Don't they have checklists for these things??

Re:Sad :-(

[TheLink]

When you have a billion things to do, you split it into smaller lists and pass those lists to others.

Then those others split the lists to even smaller lists and pass them to others.

That increases the number of ways things could go wrong. Even if you have list items on some lists to check that other people are doing stuff on their lists, stuff happens...

Re:Sad :-(

[Yazeran]

I'm sure they did, but as another has already said, it's not a single man job. Besides, not very command to a spacecraft can be simulated and tested in advance. Some commands have to be sent at the exact right moment, not before, in order to make something as comples as the Heugens project work.

It's a pity that the comand to activate channel A on the Cassini spacecraft was not sent as data was lost, but one can only hope that future missions do not make the same mistake.

Incidently this event demonstrate why complex interplanatory / interstellar missions can likely not be sucesfully made without eiter a vastly more advanced artificial inteligence in the on-board compter or a human crew able to make on the spot decisions in order to correct mistakes and / or unanticipated events / discoveries.

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

Re:Sad :-(

[supergiovane]

Damn that's sad. Don't they have checklists for these things??

Sure they have!

1. Spend 18 years planning a space mission.
2. ???
3. Profit!

They just realized what was at point 2.

Re:Sad :-(

[Simon Garlick]

More to the point, this guy spent eighteen years working on something... and he left it to SOMEONE ELSE to turn on?

Re:Sad :-(

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well actually, I used to do software testing. You simply simulate the special conditions when things are supposed to happen. That's generally why satellites cost so damn much. Yes, there are some exotic materials that go into them, but the chief expense is testing.

Re:Sad :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

You're absolutely right. He should have pulled a 50m dish out of his back pocket and sent the commend himself.

What a loser.

Re:Sad :-(

[Martin Blank]

New form of that checklist:

1. Spend 18 years planning a space mission.
2. Lose out because someone missed a command
3. Profit!^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCommit mass murder!

Redundancy...

[Burb]

I understand that half the camera pictures were lost because they were transmitted on channel A. Interestingly enough, an article in New Scientist quoted one of the mission planners as being scathing about the scientists' choice to use the 2 channels for increased bandwidth...

This post is from memory. Please feel free to correct errors and ridicule me for factual inconsistencies.

Re:Redundancy...

[Anonymous Coward]

David Southwood (the ESA head of science) was the one who said so - he said "That's scientists trying to screw the system. We don't have redundant systems to get more data down, we have redundant systems for redundancy." http://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg185248 33.700

Re:Redundancy...

[0123456]

"We don't have redundant systems to get more data down, we have redundant systems for redundancy"

Which just goes to show that he's a retard.

If both channels had worked, we'd have twice as many pictures as we have now. If the same data had been sent on both channels, we'd have precisely the same amount of pictures as we have no.

So we're no worse off than we would have been with redundant channels, and if both channels had worked, we'd have had twice as many images. Equally, while half the pictures were lost, we still got probably 90% of the important data, since anything visible in the lost pictures is probably also visible (though probably with less detail) in the pictures we have... the odds of missing an important science find because of the lost images are small.

Re:Redundancy...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of pictures, the scientists' choice was correct. If both channels work, you get twice the number of pictures, if only one channel works you get the same as if you transmitted the same pictures on both channels because one interleaved set of pictures is as good as the other. (I assume that taking more pictures is relatively cheap.)

Non-substitutable experiments on the other hand...

Re:Redundancy...

[Tethys_was_taken]

If both channels had worked, we'd have twice as many pictures as we have now. If the same data had been sent on both channels, we'd have precisely the same amount of pictures as we have no.

WTF?!
If the same data was sent on both the channels, we(they) would have had all the data, albeit at a slower rate. Now we have only the data which made it through on one channel. The other bunch was lost.

Re:Redundancy...

[Anonymous Coward]

not true, the probe didn't have enough battery power and memory to be able to send all data it collected over one channel.
It would have run out of memory in the descent and if it had had more memory it wouldn't have had enough time to send it all because the probe ran out of power after about 45 min. on the ground. The descent itself took 2 hours so there is no way it could have send all that data over one channel.

Re:Redundancy...

[PyramidHead]

That's not quite true, because there's only a limited amount of time available for transmission. Think of it as having two 56k modems and only one hour to send as much data as you possibly can. If you send the same data on both modems, your chances of getting all data correct are improved. But you can alternatively send different data on each channel, which will let you send double the amount of data if you don't mind the risk of loosing some parts. Even though it went wrong, the *chance* of getting twice as much return data as expected outweighs the loss of single sets of results.

Re:Redundancy...

[freddled]

You are all completely missing the point.

Two channels were provided in case one failed but the imaging team decided to use the two channels to double the number of images that they could return. Southwood's point is that they imaging team used the redundant channel to increase volume. That was wrong. They didn't loose much but they did loose some of the peices of the panoramic picture. Science is about quality not quantity, so they were wrong to do that.

Second. Channel A - the one that was lost - was used to measure the windspeed around the lander by measuring the doppler effects. They couldn't repeat the experiment on channel B because it was less stable. In this case there was no option for redundancy unless they added a second channel A transmitter. Since the reciever was not switched on, that wouldn't have helped. However, the radio telescope network picked up the Channel A transmissions and will be able to recover the doppler information and rescue the wind speed experiment.

Don't be suprised if some boffin manages to extract the data stream too, at some point. That will be quite an achievement.

Re:Redundancy...

[slungsolow]

The probe didn't run out of power. The Cassini Orbiter was no longer within communications range, so it just stopped picking up information to relay to ESA.

From what I understand, Huygens continued to transmit data even after it was "over the horizen". I believe that they were still able to pick up the carrier signal after Cassini was out of relay range.

Re:Redundancy...

[Alan Partridge]

You missed the point. They designed the transmission system with some redundancy which was then lost by sending different data on the two channels. I agree with Southwood - they fucked themselves.

Re:Redundancy...

[IpalindromeI]

Please remember this in the future: "loose" rhymes with "moose". The word you are looking for is "lose".

Re:Redundancy...

[arkanes]

Science is about quality not quantity, so they were wrong to do that.

This is totally false, as an scientist will tell you. Quantity is a characteristic of quality. In this case, splitting the data stream is actually the best choice, because you get both redudency of the communications infrastructure, but you also get redundency of data. The thing to remember is that there was a limited communications window and increasing bandwidth meant that the quality of the data they were going to get back would be greatly increased. They didn't affect redudency because, while they didn't get exactly the same data, they got a working subset of it.

Re:Redundancy...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://looses.org/

Re:Redundancy...

[Class Act Dynamo]

I don't know about that. I went to a seminar in our math department on error correction methods. There are different types that can correct more or less bits. The methods that are able to correct more bits require one to use up more bits for the same message in order to employ the error correction method. In the case of something such as a satelite, one usually employs a more complicated error correction method simply because if there is an error, one cannot simply ask the satellite to resend. The internet is different in that, if an error has been detected, the computer simply requests the incorrect information again. My point is, I do not think they are going to sacrifice the correctness of the information they receive just to get more information in a given amount of time.

Re:Redundancy...

[Tablizer]

Perhaps it could be illustrated as follows:

Assume a probe has the bandwidth to send a total of 8 images on two channels, 4 on each channel, on the way down. Each image will be represented by the digits 1 through 8.

With exact redundancy:

A: 1357
B: 1357

With alternating redundancy:

A: 1357
B: 2468

With exact redundency, if you receive both channels, you only get 4 total images in the end. With alternating redundancy, if both channels work, you get up to 8 images in the end. But if one fails, you still get 4, just like under exact redundancy. Thus, it seems like the better choice because you get twice as many images if both channels happen to work, but both techniques still send only 4 images if one channel fails.

Re:Redundancy...

[arodland]

A spelling lesson targeted at Canadians! I like it!

Re:Redundancy...

[freddled]

I'll try and remember that. Try and remember that telling people to try and remember things is patronising.

Re:Redundancy...

[freddled]

Not correct. My first point was to correct a missrepresentation of what the engineering team leader said. My second point was that quality was lost by using the redundant data channel. Peices of the panoramic mosaic were lost in some sets of pictures because pictures from different cameras went onto different channels. It would seem sensible to group together each triplet of pictures on one channel. That way if you do loose one channel, you get a consistent set of pictures from each altitude.

Re:Redundancy...

[IpalindromeI]

I actually was not trying to be patronizing, though I understand that it can be read that way. I was trying to point out a simple way to remember the pronunciation of "loose" to help you with your communications. Since LoseNotLooseGuy has seemingly gone inactive, I'm trying to help out where I can. I will show more care in the future. Thanks.

In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[WegianWarrior]

I forgot to turn on my cellphone this morning, and missed a call from someone dear to me. Still, reading this makes me realise that somewhere out there, someone is feeling even worse over forgetting to turn something on.

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[chimpo13]

I forgot to put my condom on.

Sincerely,

Your Father

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot to put my sheepgut on.

Sincerely,

Your Grandfather

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[iamthemoog]

I forgot to not sleep with my brother.

Sincerely,

Your Mother

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[krumms]

I am a bastard, you insensitive clod!

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[martingunnarsson]

At least you got turned on...

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[TomorrowPlusX]

Yeah, well, my old man used to call me broken-rubber. Seriously.

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[Paul8069]

And now you know who your father is :)

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[pnutjam]

Not only that, but the best part of you ran down the crack in your mother's ass and got washed out of the sheets.

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[argStyopa]

-signed Mom

Re:In a strange way, it makes me feel better

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot to turn on someone dear to you.

How is this news??????

[Anonymous Coward]

We know this since a fuckin' week!
And it's not the "instrument" that wasn't turned on, it was the communication channel...
Talk about a lame article.

Re:How is this news??????

[Mikmorg]

I didn't 'know this since a fuckin' week.' Don't you realize some of us lazy people wait till it appears on /. to read the news? :)

Re:How is this news??????

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone has time to read every arcticle and every news website. I wish you people would quit your bitching and fuck off.

Re:How is this news??????

[dolmen.fr]

You have no excuse: I wrote it on /. 6 days ago.

Shit happens.

[KiloByte]

... especially in this field of work. If you have a project this big, the chance that nothing will go wrong are simply infinitessimal. Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?

We should really praise the gods that the rest of Huygens mission was a grand success.

Re:Shit happens.

[MoonFog]

Even so, he said the overall space mission was a huge success, and the Europeans in particular were thrilled with the success of their Huygens probe.
Yeah it's a success. Although you cannot guarantee that nothing will go wrong, making precautions to prevent everything from going wrong will add to the overall cost. The had two channels to transmit data, it's not easy to prevent a human error like this. They simply forgot to turn it on.

Re:Shit happens.

[krymsin01]

Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?

Yes.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?"

Yes... I code in HTML! Not one compiler error yet!

Re:Shit happens.

[grozzie2]

Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?

I may not have got it all right on the first go around, but you can rest assured, i got it right after the testing and before it was deployed...

In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen. Every flight has a few phases where even one minor screw up can have serious consequences, so we have checks and balances built into the system to make sure that small screw up does NOT happen.

I know the software folks here on /. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated. complex systems are designed and built every day in the aerospace field, systems that many lives depend on. We take it for granted that they are properly designed with failsafe modes, they can deal with problems on the fly, and they do not puke up and die when things become abnormal. Same goes for our crews, they train extensively to make sure they fully understand all operational modes, and they can deal with them. Once that's all done, we write books full of checklists, to make sure the details do not get missed at a critical time.

'I forgot' or 'shit happens' is just not an excuse. In reality, it's an admission of unprofessional conduct. Billions of euros spent, many many man years of effort, and you want to take 'forgot' or 'shit happens' as an acceptable excuse? there is no acceptable excuse, those are just admissions of shoddy management and operations. Those are terms that are not even in the vocabulary of true professionals.

Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.

Thanks to government regulations, i can only fly 9 days a month, that leaves me with a lot of time to operate my other business. We do software development, embedded systems for mission critical applications. We do deploy equipment into life critical situations, so, for our work, 'shit happens' and 'i forgot' just dont exist in the vocabulary. We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware. for your typical 'desktop' developer, equivalent testing would be along the lines of making sure programs handle gracefully things like having the hard drive removed from it's computer while the program is still running. They may not function at full capacity anymore, but it's not reason enough to have the thing just puke up and crash, it needs to fall into a failsafe mode that's prepared to deal with the detail of 'no local storage available anymore'. the code to handle this scenario will likely not 'get it right' on the first try, but, it'll surely be right before the product goes into release.

Looking at the money spent, and the multitude of man years spent on developing the lander for this mission, to hear that a significant experiment was lost becase somebody forgot to turn it on, is just beyond comprehension. this goes way beyond unprofessional, and well past the line we would draw for 'incompetent'.

Re:Shit happens.

[eric76]

Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?

Just this past week. Actually, it was a little less than 200 lines.

I was kind of surprised it compiled and ran exactly right the very first time.

The only problem was the 9 megabytes of input data contained numerous errors.

Re:Shit happens.

[Viol8]

" about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated. complex systems are designed and built every day in the aerospace field, systems that many lives depend on. We take it for granted that they are properly designed with failsafe modes, they can deal with problems on the fly, and they do not puke up and die when things become abnormal."

Yeah , theres *never* been any inflight problems in aircraft due to the computers or other systems has there. Though a couple of dead airbus pilots might disagree about that but hey, you obviously know best. After release no aircraft EVER needs a software update since the code is obviously 100% perfect from day one. Right?

"We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions"

You cannot forsee all abnormal conditions. If you seriously believe that then you're either arrogant or a fool. Or both.

Re:Shit happens.

[Brento]

In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen.

Oh, so if you don't mind, why exactly do airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people?

Re:Shit happens.

[Jugalator]

I wonder if this mistake is really due to lack of routines. You say "only fly 9 days a month", this was the first construction of its kind ever, probably only with minor similarities to other probes as they're always heavily specialized for their tasks. And they have major projects like this resulting in actual launches (and not being cancelled) just how often? It's not too many times per decade, maybe just a handful.

Re:Shit happens.

[Rakishi]

You can test your applications and guidelines in environments close to their work environment, a probe doesn't have that luxury. In addition, there is no such thing as a "fail safe" because you don't want the probe overriding your commands which are different because something changes. And by the time you hear from the probe it's too late to do anything so there is no point in having it run some internal checklist.
Also, this involved probably hundreds of people working on it and a single chance to send the commands (and everyone is busy because it's so critical). In such environments shit does happen.
You're a pilot so I'm going to ask you: did your only experience before flying a plane alone involve a simulator? Well that is about the experience these people had before sending those commands.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a pilot, what the fuck do you know about programming? Not nearly as much as those who've done it for 10-20 years.

And for your information, it is the multi levels of testing that saves the day many times, not the flawless coding or thorough unit testing (although these also help). If a problem is not found in testing, but still exists (perhaps it was a hole in the requirements).

In fact, the more compilcated a system gets, the harder it becomes to keep mistakes out of it. Additionally, if you're working under a budget (which everyone is) then you will certainly not have the amount of people the project actually requires.

This is why shit happens. Not because of bad coding per se. A coding error or missed requirement or malformed requirement can be the start of it, but if it is not detected in various testing levels, and there are also not enough people to actually test it properly..

I'd say the only difference in the aerospace industry is that the companies aren't willing to open themselves up to billion dollar class action lawsuits over loss of life, so they actually put the number of people on the job that is actually required.

If you think there are programmers out there that never make a mistake, you're a lamer, and you are ill-informed. The good developers just make less mistakes and catch the rest in test.

There can be bugs in failsafe devices too, Mr. Expert. You are naieve because you believe that airplanes are actually safe.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aerospace, schmaerospace.

What about all the software running down the highway every day. When was the last time your fuel injection just halted for no apparent reason? The chassis management software on most modern cars is critical to the safe operation of the vehicle. Tens or hundeds of thousands of each model ply the roadways every day with no evidence of catastrophic software failure. That is not to say that the software is perfect, but it is very robust and resilient.

Cassini/Huygens also had that nasty little radio link problem that they found in transit that required the Cassini orbit to be modified for the Huygens mission. It could have easily been a total loss.....

Re:Shit happens.

[goranb]

Oh, so if you don't mind, why exactly do airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people?

because things do happen that you didn't foresee and didn't include on the checklist... switching on a receiver is not one of those things...

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware.

Ah, but did you test for all the unforeseeable abnormal conditions?

for your typical 'desktop' developer, equivalent testing would be along the lines of making sure programs handle gracefully things like having the hard drive removed from it's computer while the program is still running.

Wow, that would be a truly great and stable application. How long do you think stockholders would be willing to delay profits on commercial products while the next version of 'X' software package was tested to that extend? How long should we wait before shipping the product? How long before customers accept and start using an imperfect product now (because they *don't* yank out their hard drives while the app is running) instead of your perfect product next year? How long before you go out of business?

FireFox developers must be slacking, they didn't test against the condition of someone shooting a round through the motherboard before loading up Yahoo! Games.

There are things like risk-analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and reaching a point of diminishing returns for development costs.

I understand that you work in a high-risk environment, and have book-length checklists of things to do before you wipe your ass. Okay. I get it. You are very professional, and you have a bigger dick than anyone else.

Re:Shit happens.

[JaredOfEuropa]

I know the software folks here on /. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated.
[...]
We do deploy equipment into life critical situations, so, for our work, 'shit happens' and 'i forgot' just dont exist in the vocabulary. We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware.

You're right... up to a point. The amount of robust coding, testing, and many other things like security, are always subject to a balance of costs and benefits. Rigorous testing is expensive, and in many software applications it might be wise to, say, not do a complete regression test on a minor release since the cost of that test outweighs the risk of a bug slipping through.

In your field of business, I imagine you cannot easily deploy quick fixes (to embedded systems), and major bugs in life critical situations are obviously not acceptable. So you do rigorous tests and code reviews. In my line of business however, bugs are acceptable. Sometimes a bug makes it into production... users will moan, and we'll have to spend a bit extra on writing and deploying the fix, but the cost is lower than doing a full test on every release.

I agree with you that software developers should realise the importance of testing, and take a critical look at their own testing and coding procedures... often it isn't that hard or expensive to make real improvements.

Re:Shit happens.

[TheAJofOZ]

I know the software folks here on /. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated. complex systems are designed and built every day in the aerospace field, systems that many lives depend on.

Which is precisely why there has never been a software glitch in a plane system. You know, like the TCAS system which saw ghost planes and told pilots to avoid them (noted in IEEE Spectrum), or any of the cases cited here or here. Nope, aerospace engineers never screw up.

We do deploy equipment into life critical situations, so, for our work, 'shit happens' and 'i forgot' just dont exist in the vocabulary.

Funny you should mention life critical because one well known software glitch was the THERAC-25 which killed 6 people due to 2 software bugs.

We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions, up to and including partial failure of various hardware.

Which means your software barfs in unforeseeable situations and in cases of full hardware failure. Thus, your software is not fail-safe at all. Welcome to the real world - shit happens whether you like it or not. The unforeseeable will eventuate and no matter how much redundancy you have it is still possible for all the systems to fail at once. Denying that that possibility exists is unprofessional and dangerous.

Re:Shit happens.

[Oligonicella]

"If you're a pilot, what the fuck do you know about programming? Not nearly as much as those who've done it for 10-20 years."

Uh, bullshit. Arrogant presumption on your part. You have no idea as to the total experience he has in that area, AND are apparently overrating length of time as a quality indicator.

Re:Shit happens.

[clausiam]

>>"We use checklists to ensure that all testing covers all forseeable abnormal conditions"
>You cannot forsee all abnormal conditions

I think that's why he said all forseeable (sic) abnormal conditions. That subset must by definition be foreseeable :-)

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

"You cannot forsee all abnormal conditions. If you seriously believe that then you're either arrogant or a fool. Or both."

Umm.. Since when was turning something on an "abnormal condition"? "If you seriously believe that then you're either arrogant or a fool. Or both." Indeed.

Re:Shit happens.

[mooingyak]

The obstacle I often run into is not one of difficulty so much as one of budget. I *could* write robust, rock-solid code, but if I want to pick up my paycheck, I've got to have it done by the end of the week and running through all my test cases would push delivery past what we've promised to our clients. So I test as many things as I can and then call it done. No one's life is depending on my code working properly, so as long as my bugs are relatively infrequent or at least not blindingly obvious things that I should have caught when I tested them, nobody bothers me too much.

Re:Shit happens.

[plumby]

I know the software folks here on /. always want to make excuses about 'its hard' and 'its to complicated', but, it's actually not hard, and not to complicated

It's not that it's too complex, it's that it's too costly for most applications. In a system where 1 bug can kill hundreds of people, it's OK to spend huge sums of money on processes, tools, people and time to deliver perfect software, but most people would not be prepared to spend vast amounts more for a version of Word (or whatever) that never crashed.

Re:Shit happens.

[d60b9y]

In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen. Every flight has a few phases where even one minor screw up can have serious consequences, so we have checks and balances built into the system to make sure that small screw up does NOT happen.

You have your pre-flight checklist as a result of previous failures. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of flights taking off and landing every day of the year and all the errors that have ocurred in the past (both large and small) have fed back into the procedures that you now go through to make sure that the same mistakes aren't made again.

In contrast, Huygens is the first of it's kind, mankind has never before put a lander on Titan. I think a better comparison would be between Huygens and a world war two bomber. Yes, similar things have been done before, but it's still basically flying by the seat of your pants into hostile territory and hope that roughly a thousand things don't all go wrong at the same time.

Re:Shit happens.

[HeghmoH]

If "I forgot" or "shit happens" isn't an excuse, why did the Concorde crash just because nobody bothered to remove a bit of metal from the runway? Why did two 747s collide during a takeoff run on Tenerife due to a misunderstanding with ATC? Why did Korean Air 007 get shot down over the USSR after the crew mishandled the autopilot?

Re:Shit happens.

[jbb999]

Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.

Yes it could be made very nearly fault free. But it's expensive and slow to do so. There is a tradeoff between cost/quality and we've found the level that people are willing to pay for. They are willing to accept a certain level of faults for the cost they are paying. The tradeoff in different industries is different.

Re:Shit happens.

[dinadan]

usually airplanes don't crash because someone forgot to push a button...

Re:Shit happens.

[Armchair Dissident]

In my primary field of work, 'shit happens' is just not an acceptable excuse, I'm a pilot. We use checklists precisely for that reason, to make sure that shit doesn't happen.

And yet, despite all that, shit still happens, and "shit happens" seems to be a good reason for that shit happening.

Software uses checklists too. Software is designed, the designs are reviewed, it's coded, the code is reviewed, the software is then tested, and yet - despite all these checklists - shit happens.

I started learning to fly a glider recently, and can you guess what the first thing I learnt was? How to put on and operate a parachute. Why? Because despite the checklists, despite there being two sets of eyes looking out, despite the checks that gliders undergo, despite every possible safety measure taken on the ground and in the air - shit happens.

Re:Shit happens.

[IcePop456]

I agree completely. One minor detail you overlooked is time and money. I have the desire to do all of the above, but our wonderful marketing/leadership team decides the first hint silicon works means release to production.

Why? The quicker we can sell it, the faster our "time to profit" is. Doesn't that just sound like a coporate metric that promotes quality?

Thankfully we do not work on life critical systems.

Re:Shit happens.

[Illserve]

To be fair to the Cassini mission, they only have one trial to test it.

The system of checklists you are using has been finetuned over many decades and probably *millions* of flights. And your operating procedures evolved alongside the hardware.

I'm sure on their millionth flight, the Cassini operation would be just as airtight.

If we were to turn back the clock to the first weeks of commercial airline travel, I imagine things were quite a bit different than the industry you describe.

Re:Shit happens.

[KiloByte]

Sorry, but regardless of how much testing you do, you cannot eliminate the possibility of a bug, you can just decrease the likelihood a bug will slip through. And yes, life critical equipment does fail. And multiple-layer failsave devices fail as well.

The above doesn't mean we should suddenly stop fighting against the shit -- but we can never have a guarantee it won't happen.

Re:Shit happens.

[dfj225]

Engineers of hardware (not just computer hardware, but buildings and that sort of engineering too) can be heard to make jokes about computer systems crashing but their bridges or buildings not falling down. However, I think one of the differences here is the type of testing that can be done. For instance, when you design a bridge you know what loads it should tolerate, what wind speeds to test for, and so on and so on. However, in software, most software fails under malicious attacks. I think this would be the equivalent of someone strapping TNT on the critical points of a bridge. I think thats one way to look at things, but thats only really for finding holes in software. General stability under normal use, should be achievable through good testing.

However, I don't know if I really want software companies making desktop software fault tolerant to things such as the hard drive being removed. If I'm typing a document and my hard drive gets ripped out of my machine or dies, I expect things to fail...my system just doesn't need to be this fault tolerant. It seems to me anyway, that the extra time and money invested in making software this tolerant (which I'm sure would be reflected upon the retail price of the software) is not something most users of desktop software are really looking for. Sure, it would be nice, but I don't think it would be worth the increased prices.

Re:Shit happens.

[rjune]

This was an excellent post. I am a former Navigator (replaced by a set if computers) and your comments were dead on, not only for aviation, but also for work in general. I see in an incredible amount of sloppiness by the IT people at my job, based on the the attitude you describe. By the way, if your post wasn't already at a "5" I would have used one of my moderator points to mod you up.

Re:Shit happens.

[Q Who]

All these are instances of human error.

Re:Shit happens.

[Oxygen99]

Well. Precisely. Coding is hard, but not any more so than designing a building, an aircraft or an automobile. However, neither is it any less hard, so why is software engineering not accorded anything like as much respect as other disciplines? Do you see Airbus outsourcing airtcraft designs to the far east to save a few Euro's? No. Yet for some reason management always believes software can be written cheaper and quicker.

Admittedly lives don't depend on 90% of the software any of us here writes, but that isn't to say it isn't complex or demanding and requires complex, demanding testing to ensure high standards of reliability.

If those resources aren't allocated, then I'm afraid 'Shit Happens' is very definitely an excuse.

Re:Shit happens.

[Twanfox]

No, airplanes crash because a pilot wouldn't trust his sensors, because a sensor malfunctioned, because an autopilot refused to relinquish control of the plane sensing an 'altitude too low' condition, etc.. I watched a report where they went over a plane crash with a fine tooth comb, checking altimeter, warning sensors, warning lights, etc. Turns out that the guy was flying through fog and just must not have trusted his altimeter or artificial horizon, driving his plane at 'climb' speeds into a forest.

Airplanes can and do crash due to pilot error, similar to designer/operator error in failing to turn on the second data stream. We can thank having done plane flights millions of times for having put in place a process that 98% or so flights will come up green.

Re:Shit happens.

[HeghmoH]

So is the article.

Re:Shit happens.

[Kombat]

Oh, so if you don't mind, why exactly do airplanes crash and kill hundreds of people?

I'm going from memory here, but I think it's something like 80% pilot/crew error, 15% weather (which could still be considered pilot error), and 5% mechanical failure. So if those pilots/crew had been following the proper procedure and protocol, then the shit *wouldn't* happen (except in those rare cases where mechanical error is to blame, and even then, most of those cases can be traced back to a mechanic cutting corners and not following said checklists/protocol). The original poster is right. Checklists prevent the shit from happening. When the shit does happen, it's because someone wasn't following the checklists.

Re:Shit happens.

[Kombat]

why did the Concorde crash just because nobody bothered to remove a bit of metal from the runway?

No one removed it because no one knew it was there. It had just appeared moments earlier. The offending strip of metal fell off of the plane that took off immediately before the Concorde. Are you suggesting that airports institute a policy of thoroughly inspecting runways for FOD between every flight landing/departing?

Re:Shit happens.

[Kombat]

I started learning to fly a glider recently, and can you guess what the first thing I learnt was? How to put on and operate a parachute.

BULLSHIT. I'm a glider pilot, and we don't use parachutes. ONLY military fighter jet pilots wear/use parachutes. No other pilots do. Least of all glider pilots. Gliders are the safest planes there are. There's practically nothing that can go wrong. And even if, say, a wing snapped and you were spiralling to the ground, it would be physically impossible for you to unstrap yourself, open the canopy, and jump clear of the aircraft due to the extremely erratic attitude and g-forces as you spiralled to the ground.

I'm a licensed glider and private pilot in Canada, and you're lying. Absolutely no part of the the training to be either a glider or power pilot involves parachutes, ever.

Re:Shit happens.

[deadweight]

Dude: How about wandering over to ScareBus and designing some rudder travel limiting software? I always wanted to teach unusual attitude recovery by starting the lesson with "Don't use the rudder, on this shitty French airplane the tail will fall off" NOT!

Re:Shit happens.

[Dracolytch]

While I agree with the majority of your post, I think some of the expectations you place on ordinary software are a bit unrealistic. That is, in part, why daily use software is written differently than critical-systems software.

It's always a balance between the probability of a given failure, the concequences of a given failure, and the cost of adapting to that error. Different types of projects have different ways of looking at this balance.

What are the chances of a HDD being removed (or totally failing) while Photoshop is being used? Let's say... 1 in 10 million. What is the concequence? Worst case, 8 hours of work. What is the cost of anticipating such a failure, and dealing with it gracefully? Significant (You'd have a better idea of the man-hours involved than I would).

Now, compare that with how it handles a corrupt data file. What are the chances that a file you open isn't properly formatted? Uncommon, but it does happen... 1 in 1000, give or take an order. What is the concequence? Person can't do their job. What are the costs involved for dealing with a bad file? Significant, but not huge. Apparently it was worth it, because PhotoShop can read some non-standard formats, and fails gracefully with all others.

In the case if critical embedded systems, things are quite different. The chances of something going wrong are still fairly small... 1 in 100,000 say. But the concequence is the loss of life, which is very, very important. It becomes easy to justify the extra expense of writing systems that can handle these situations.

Adding fault tolerance for events that occur outside the software can dramatically increase the scope of requirements, and thus increase development time and cost. In most day to day situations, you have to balance your cost and your feature set. In day to day software, the return on investment for this kind of development has a near zero return on investment, and would be a bad business/project management decision.

~D

Re:Shit happens.

[HeghmoH]

Are you suggesting that airports institute a policy of thoroughly inspecting runways for FOD between every flight landing/departing?

Certainly not. I'm merely suggesting that Shit Happens.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

"AND are apparently overrating length of time as a quality indicator"

indeed, at the rate computers change 10 to 20 years of experience in programming doesn't really impress me

Re:Shit happens.

[rapiddescent]

It is very early days for humankind sending instruments to other planetary objects. Much the same as when the New Zealander built the first aircraft, shortly followed by the wright-brothers; there were lots of mistakes and dreadful failures so that today a pilot can jump into his A380 doubledecker super airliner and be rest assured that he has triplex systems to rely on.

The Cassini-Huygens mission has to balance scientific value versus system resilience. Every bit of extra science has a payload, an energy requirement, a bandwidth requirement and so on that usually will deprive something on board of extra resilience.

The team at my company are well pleased that Huygens landed because they also wrote the entry & descent software for Beagle2. They wrote Beagle2 *after* the Huygens project so didn't get the benefit of the Mars experience.

rd

Re:Shit happens.

[Alan Partridge]

"fine TOOTHED comb" you fucking Muppet.

Unless you really believe there is such a thing as a "tooth comb".

Re:Shit happens.

[BlowChunx]

Shenanigans.

The probe is built somewhere and sits in a hangar before launch. The vast majority of the mission time is spent waiting for the probe to arrive. Once it arrives, stuff happens relatively rapidly.

You can easily run through the routine of what happens as the probe approaches, and lands, multiple times. It should not be a mystery as to who turns on a transmitter.

Then after you run the test, you make sure that your checklist of how to recharge the systems is covered and the probe reset for the next test (or the actual flight).

Re:Shit happens.

[Quixote]

Nope, aerospace engineers never screw up.

He said he's a pilot. By pointing out aerospace engineers' faults, you're reinforcing his point.

Re:Shit happens.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

It's never about costs. Mistakes ALWAYS cost more than thorough testing. It's about time constraints. Pure and simple.

You pay to do it right, or you pay to do it wrong, pay to clean it up, and THEN pay to do it right.

Test scripts are your friend. If you haven't been introduced to TCL (Tool Command Language) yet, you should seriously think about it.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

But he specifically asked about the last time you wrote a program of 100 lines. HTML does not produce programs.

Re:Shit happens.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

You seem to be proving the granparent poster's point more than arguing against it.

Each of these cases are filed under the same chapter of "Engineering Disasters" as Galloping Gertie, and the Hyatt Regency balcony collapse.

For the record the THERAC-25 was more about stripping out hardware safety devices in favor an all-digital system, to save costs. It's predicessor worked just fine with the same 2 bugs, because the mechanical safetys would kick in.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course; what else would you use to comb your teeth. Or are you one of those people who only brush their teeth?

Re:Shit happens.

[Sushi_K]

This is getting OT but I couldn't help but say something. I'm a software developer and I don't think it's paticularly hard. But to get a level of fault tolerance and up time like you're talking about takes a large investment (time, money, people, etc.). Now if you're dealing with systems that have lives at stake it's worth the investment, but all the programmers I know work on business applications which don't have such strict requirements for uptime as five nines (99.999%). While all managers would like you to believe that they want five nines and all systems their team deploys have that kind of reliability, most of them have no comprehension of what kind of investment it takes to get there. Most developers (like myself) live by the tyranny of OR: applications can be good (quality), fast (quick to market), and/or cheap (to develop). With most projects you get to pick two and leave the third on the cutting room floor. I find that quality is most often the one sacrificed.

Re:Shit happens.

[dcw3]

BULLSHIT. I'm a glider pilot, and we don't use parachutes.

I beg to differ. I'm also a private pilot, and my only experience in a glider involved strapping on a parachute. The fellow that took me (a friend, coworker, and glider pilot instructor) also wore one.

Re:Shit happens.

[berj]

You can get off your high-horse Mr. Pilot-Man..

http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html

And I quote:

Flight 143's problems began on the ground in Montreal. A computer known as the Fuel Quantity Information System Processor manages the entire 767 fuel loading process. The FQIS controls the fuel pumps and drives all of the 767's fuel gauges. Little is left for crew and refuelers to do but hook up the hoses and dial in the desired fuel load. But the FQIS was not working properly on Flight 143. The fault was later discovered to be a poorly soldered sensor. An improbable sequence of circuit-breaking mistakes made by an Air Canada technician independently investigating the problem defeated several layers of redundancy built into the system. This left Aircraft #604 without working fuel gauges.

[WTF! they flew without working fuel gauges?!?] ....

The flight crew had never been trained how to perform the calculations. To be safe they re-ran the numbers three times to be absolutely, positively sure the refuelers hadn't made any mistakes; each time using 1.77 pounds/liter as the specific gravity factor. This was the factor written on the refueler's slip and used on all of the other planes in Air Canada's fleet. The factor the refuelers and the crew should have used on the brand new, all-metric 767 was .8 kg/liter of kerosene.

[pesky unit conversions] ...

As Pearson began gliding the big bird, Quintal "got busy" in the manuals looking for procedures for dealing with the loss of both engines. There were none.. Neither he nor Pearson nor any other 767 pilot had ever been trained on this contingency.

----

Hmmm. Now.. the crew *was* able to deal with this (and this was really quite a remarkable landing. The flight crew should most definitely be commended).. but *not* because of their training from Air Canada but because of extra-curricular activities.

Berj

Re:Shit happens.

[Kombat]

I beg to differ. I'm also a private pilot, and my only experience in a glider involved strapping on a parachute. The fellow that took me (a friend, coworker, and glider pilot instructor) also wore one.

I suppose maybe it's different where you are, but this is the first I've ever heard of anyone suggesting parachutes for glider pilots. I still question how you'd ever manage to get free of a tumbling plane in free-fall, and what could possibly go wrong in a glider (there's no engine - what could break?), short of a catastrophic structural failure (read: wing collapse, tail falling off). Perhaps you're talking about hang gliders or parasailing?

Re:Shit happens.

[arkanes]

Of course, something like 80% of crashes are due to pilot error....

Shit does happen. People skip over items on checklists every day. Little things break constantly. Usually it's not enough to cause a catastrophic failure. Now, whoever was in charge of the specific checklist DID screw up, and they screwed up hard, and they need to own up to that. But the potential for failure is part of complex systems and the human element is part of that.

The OPs rant about software is just stupid, though. Software is complicated, and it is hard, and one of the ways you battle that is by reducing scope, like he does for his embedded systems. But there's a limit to how much complexity you can toss away, and the more complex your software the harder it is to verify it.

That's totally aside from the other human element involved, which is that people who won't blink twice over having two totally redudant billion dollar datacenters won't authorize 6 months of testing.

Re:Shit happens.

[deadweight]

BULLSHIT to you too dude! Parachutes are REQUIRED to be worn by the FAA when doing any kind of aerobatics. I have worn them many a time while flying a Decathalon or a Pitts. BTW, why don't you look up the accident where a glider in the UK was hit by lightning and fell apart. The pilots are still alive becuae they --- wait for it ---- parachuted to safety.

Re:Shit happens.

[dcw3]

However, I don't know if I really want software companies making desktop software fault tolerant to things such as the hard drive being removed.

Agreed, however I think we're talking primarily about mission critical systems in this case...situations where lives can be lost, or big bucks wasted. Not switching on the system, is pure incompetence...heads should roll (or maybe I need to RTFA).

As a defense contractor, our customers usually have high expectations (and rightfully so), though it may vary depending upon the application. Our bugs reports are prioritized, and some customers demand that we have no Pri-1 or 2 (out of 5) bugs at delivery, which requires alot of testing, time, and budget. The area where I see us getting burned most often is when management wins a contract based upon promises to deliver something way to quickly (but we couldn't have won the contract otherwise)...very common in the industry. It's a constant struggle between engineering and management...we know we need to win the contracts, but we also want to do the job right.

Re:Shit happens.

[kokoloko]

If avaiation accidents never happened you might have a point, but as it is it seems like "Shit Happens" still applies.

Re:Shit happens.

[drew]

and let's not forget about the boeing 767 that ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet because of a faulty fuel gauage and a pilots math mistake.

Re:Shit happens.

[Illserve]

Delicate scientific instruments like this are not meant to be used multiple times as if it were the first trial. You can hit reset on a memory core and reboot the machine, but you can't turn back time in wear and tear on a delicate sensor.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

> ONLY military fighter jet pilots wear/use parachutes.

Wrong.... in the US at least, civil aerobatics pilots where a chute as well.

Re:Shit happens.

[Alan Partridge]

I just lick 'em and leave it at that.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.

You are your own worst enemy in this argument. Mistakes are always a cost/benefit analysis.

It's actually a lot like typos and grammatical errors in a Slashdot post. The cost is low, and therefore the value of fixing them is modest.

That's probably why you consistently said "to" when you meant "too", and said "its to complicated" when you meant "it's too complicated".

That's also why you forgot that most desktop machines would croak when a hard drive is removed even with the best software (hint most consumer machines aren't designed with hot-swappable drives).

The level of engineering that you describe is sometimes required, but often it is not. When it's not, the problems are simple... "time" and "money".

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd really like to lick you.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

How complex are the tasks that the "failproof" software/hardware in aerospace is given to perform? How much money has been spent developing that software/hardware?

You throw enough talent/money at ANY project in ANY field, aerospace or otherwise, and set a simple enough task for them to perform then you can have as much redundancy and failsafe mechanisms built in to your system as you like.

Your post just proves either the tasks being performed in your field are simple and/or a hell of a lot of money/talent has been thrown at them.

Not every company or endeavor has that kind of money/talent or time to throw around, and often very complex tasks have to be performed with very few resources (ie. much of open-source software).

Re:Shit happens.

[dcw3]

Perhaps you're talking about hang gliders or parasailing?

Nope...most definately a glider. I agree though...I don't know the reasoning behind the chutes, just know that I had one on for the only time in my life.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why the space-agencies prefer to send research satellites into space. Researchers do not complain when the space-agencies make mistakes (unlike operational scientific users).

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

His post was modded a 5 because it's flamebait and Slashdot thrives on flamewars (the more flamewars the more advertising gets seen and the more money Slashdot makes).

If you read the replies to his "excellent" post you'll see why he's absolutely clueless about programming, as are you.

Re:Shit happens.

[maxpublic]

You cannot forsee all abnormal conditions.

I suppose if you define "let's make a check-list and do a Santa" as "abnormal", you may be right.

I'm usually willing to cut the space guys some slack, but seriously - this was just fucking stupid any which way you slice it. "Inconceivably incompetent" is perhaps a better way to sum it up. Even more idiotic than forgetting to make a conversion to metric.

Makes me think the space program is in great hands!

Max

Re:Shit happens.

[oliphaunt]

'I forgot' or 'shit happens' is just not an excuse. In reality, it's an admission of unprofessional conduct.

We had an 'accountability moment.' It was called the landing of the probe. It's past us now, and we need to spend our political capital on killing the little green bug-eyed monsters.

Re:Shit happens.

[Reziac]

One of your responses makes the point that if everything was designed to perfection, everything would cost the same fortune that aircraft-related stuff does.

Well, my response is .. not necessarily.

It's okay if stuff fails sometimes -- so long as it fails *gracefully*.

When an aircraft's engine shuts down unexpectedly, it doesn't just fall from the sky and go SPLAT. The pilot has a reasonable chance to set down intact, or restart the engine while still gliding, or if all else fails, eject and use a parachute. Whichever way the flight abends, the most critical data (the pilot and passengers) should not be lost.

Likewise, it's okay if a program abends, so long as it does so in a reasonable fashion. Frex, I use an HTML editor that crashes with some frequency, but it NEVER takes Windows with it, and at worst it only loses the last 30 seconds of your work. Because it preserves my data regardless and doesn't screw up anything else, the fact that it crashes occasionally is not the end of the world.

The equivalent would be an aircraft that occasionally experiences engine failure in flight, but where the engine NEVER fails to restart, and in the meantime, the aircraft NEVER hits the ground. Worst thing that ever happens is that you might have to circle the field once more before coming in for a landing.

So -- design the failsafes and abend procedures in from the beginning. Get those right, so that data (pilots, passengers, whatever) is never lost no matter what "shit happens". Then get rid of the lesser flaws. We don't care so much if the plane is temporarily painted ugly colours or makes funny noises (but not deafening noises!!) if we know it always reaches its destination intact.

Yeah, there are limits as to how much you can protect against Stupid User Tricks (bad data, bomb on board) but ideally, blowing a big hole in the cargo hold still shouldn't crash the plane.

[hears creaking noise, decides analogy is about to abend]

Re:Shit happens.

[Richard_at_work]

There was no misunderstanding between the ATC and the aircraft on the runway at the time. Non at all. There was some communications difficulties, but these were minor and would not have caused the crash. So, what did happen? The KLM Captain got impatient, thats what happened. He had been told the PanAm 747 was taxiing down the runway toward him, and he would be told when the runway was clear for him. Several times he started spooling up the engines, and several times the junior flight officer stopped him from beginning the roll, reminding him that they didnt have clearance. The KLM Captain was KLMs top pilot at the time, but after a divert and stressful manouevers in thick fog, he just become impatient. The final time, he won the arguement with the junior flight officer, who basically had to defer to the most senior pilot in KLM in the end. They started their take off, and struck the PanAm 747 midway down the runway.

KLM didnt believe that such an incident could happen, and called for their most senior pilot to take part in the investigation - who happened to be the pilot incharge of the KLM aircraft.... Basically, people died because the flightcrew were stressed, because the senior pilot bullied the junior pilot into accepting his decision, and because there was no clear method for the junior pilot to overrule the senior pilot on such decisions.

Re:Shit happens.

[Zen Punk]

These sort of things have happened before, and it's always been attributable to human error...

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod parent Troll, Airbus is not French.

Re:Shit happens.

[AJWM]

Never flown aerobatic, have you?

For that matter, you haven't studied the Air Regs very well. They require -- and I'm speaking the CARs here -- parchutes for aerobatic training. (Of course Canada doesn't consider spin training "aerobatic", unlike some places.)

> Gliders are the safest planes there are

Personally I like the option of applying power and going around if something unexpected turns up on final. It's a lot easier to, in flight, convert a powered plane into a glider (with, admittedly, a crappy glide ratio) than vice versa.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

p3wned

Re:Shit happens.

[YouHaveSnail]

Flying a plane is like operating a lawnmower or driving a car. You're operating a machine with well-defined controls within well-defined parameters. You generally know the correct procedure for each phase of the process, and your job is to stick to that procedure as closely as possible. Check lists work well here because the procedures rarely change.

Writing software or building a space probe is more like designing an airplane than flying one. I doubt that there's ever been a case where an aircraft was designed from the ground up without some significant mistakes, defects, or other problems. Indeed, airplanes do crash from time to time, and while pilot error may occasionally be the problem, it seems that mechanical failure or design problems are often the cause of an accident.

In short, if we were sending thousands of identical space probes around the solar system on a daily basis the way we fly thousands of 737's around the USA every day, problems like the one with the Huygens probe probably wouldn't happen very often.

There are certainly methodologies for monitoring development-type processes such as writing software or designing airplanes. And you can bet that NASA and its contractors use every single one of them. I'm dead certain that this problem will be examined from every angle, and it will eventually be traced back to some problem or group of problems in the development and testing process, which will ultimately be changed to prevent this sort of thing in the future.

Re:Shit happens.

[HeghmoH]

Wikipedia disagrees with you. According to their page, "Later investigation showed that there had been misinterpretations and false convictions. Analysis of the CVR transcript shows that the KLM pilot was convinced that he had been cleared for take-off, while the Tenerife control tower was certain that the KLM 747 was stationary at the end of the runway and awaiting takeoff clearance." However, I'm not an expert and they may well be wrong.

Even if you're correct, it just goes to show that Shit Happens and People Die because of it even in the aviation industry.

Re:Shit happens.

[hanshotfirst]

An excellent point! Mod parent up again. My thought is you build a building and it is extremely hard to make any change so you've got no choice but to get it right or have it fall down around you - literally. In programming, changes are *considered* easy ot make, therefore easxy to fix later if there is a problem. Also there is no DIRECT physical threay to people from a computer program failing, but there is direct physical threat to a building structure failing. (ignoring the obvious inderect consequences of some software failure, such as power grids going down, etc.)

Re:Shit happens.

[Paul Jakma]

Turns out that the guy was flying through fog and just must not have trusted his altimeter or artificial horizon, driving his plane at 'climb' speeds into a forest.

This happens all the time. VFR pilots who fly into cloud, become disorientated and then simply refuse to believe their instruments, and end up flying straight into ground or else straight up until they stall and dive into the ground. Iirc, this was the explanation for Kennedy's crash. I'm not sure, but I'll bet this accounts for a large number of crashes amongst non-IFR trained pilots.

Re:Shit happens.

[Buran]

Someone firing a missile at an unarmed passenger aircraft was not human error. Pilots should be trained to be able to ID aircraft and know whether they're military or not. I'm an aviation buff, not a trained pilot, but even I can point to a high-flying 747 and differentiate it from a distant 707. And a military pilot can't do that? Inadequate training. Hopefully, this was rectified shortly after that crash ... but as far as I know, no one ever took responsibility and offered an apology or compensation for the families. (Please, prove me wrong!)

Re:Shit happens.

[Armchair Dissident]

Canada perhaps - not in Britain, and certainly not at Lasham Gliding club. At Lasham parachutes are compulsory.

Check your facts before calling "bullshit".

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't been introduced to TCL (Tool Command Language) yet, you should seriously think about it.

Is this the same TCL of TCL/Tk fame? I'll pass, thanks, in favor of a language with an ounce of debuggability.

Re:Shit happens.

[Dirtside]

The original poster's point is that no matter how much effort you put into it, humans are fallible and things will occasionally slip by. Yes, whoever was responsible should be torn a new asshole, but for everyone to be tearing their hair out and crying lamentations of woe is pointless. Shit does happen. Deal with it. Don't sit there wallowing in pity over it.

Re:Shit happens.

[rob_squared]

I'm pretty sure all aireline pilots have checklists too. And that is exactly why there has never been a single problem with any aireline flight. What *are* you smoking?

Re:Shit happens.

[Tablizer]

I am not sure comparisons with aviation systems are valid. Most planes are heavily tested before being passenger certified, and even then the information from accident investigation is added to the body of knowledge to improve the system or process. It has an iterative process.

You cannot do a full test of space probes, especially two-part systems such as Cassini-Huygens. The Earth's environment and conditions are too different to serve as a full test.

Anyhow, the redundancy built into the mission *mostly* worked.

Re:Shit happens.

[readin]

Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code

So you can write 100 lines of code with no mistakes but you can't write 27 lines of text without misspelling "too"? As you have demonstrated, stuff happens.

Re:Shit happens.

[readin]

As I just demonstrated myself by marking the wrong "to" in bold :P

Re:Shit happens.

[Maltheus]

Do you remember the last time when you wrote a program of 100 lines without doing a single error?

Umm yeah, this morning. I can see if you're talking about a few thousand lines, but a hundred? It's actually pretty easy if it's what you do for a living. Now Huygens is a large project, so yes there will be bugs, but the bug they're talking about is kind of hard to excuse from a professional developer. Actually it sound more like a management problem.

Re:Shit happens.

[deadweight]

"The order follows the Monday crash of American Airlines flight 587 -- an Airbus A300, manufactured in France -- in the Rockaway community in Queens, New York." Mod AC an idiot please. Note shitty French airplane was built in.........France!

Re:Shit happens.

[Q Who]

How is this relevant? The ones who decided to take the 747 down were not the pilots.

You obviously don't know much about the political situation in USSR back then.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no respect simply because anyone can pick up a VB for monkeys book and learn some basics. They can then apply for a job well beyond their skills and understanding, and start generating fluffy programs if there are still skill shortages.

When programmers have real engineering backgrounds, and you'll need them before you can get a job cutting code, respect will follow.

Re:Shit happens.

[ahodgson]

No kidding. I've heard of at least 2 jetliners that ran out of gas. I can only assume that putting gas in the plane is on the checklist?

Re:Shit happens.

[Richard_at_work]

Wikipedia doesnt disagree with me at all (taken from your link):

Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, impatient because the flight had been delayed for hours and thinking that they had permission to take off, applied full power. While the KLM had started its take-off run, the concerned PanAm crew repeated that they were "still taxiing down the runway". On hearing this, the flight engineer expressed his concern about the PanAm not being clear of the runway, but it was overruled by the captain. The flight engineer apparently hesitated to further challenge van Zanten, possibly because he was not only senior in rank but also one of the most able and experienced pilots of the company.

From another source:

Final conclusion found that Jacob Van Zanten was solely responsible for the accident. The fundamental factors in the development of the accident were that van Zanten:

1) Took off without being cleared to do so.
2) Did not heed the ATC controller's instruction to stand by for take off.
3) Did not abandon take off when he knew the Pan Am aircraft was still taxiing.

Something rarely mentioned is that the Pan Am 747 involved wasnt just ANY 747, it was the Clipper Victory - the first commercially delivered 747.

Re:Shit happens.

[Buran]

I do know. But it doesn't stop me from wondering why the pilot didn't hail base and say "Hey, this is a civilian plane!". As the Soviets found out the hard way, you'd better have a DAMN good reason for shooting down a civilian aircraft, and they never had one -- navigation errors are, after all, more common than most people think. The pilot could have tried harder to make sure he was seen from the cockpit, etc. and getting the pilots' attentions -- you don't hear about Cessnas being blown out of the sky; you hear about the fighters getting the pilots' attention and then asking what happened after they land.

It would be interesting to see information about whether the pilot gave any testimony regarding what he did (with a high-profile accident like that I can't imagine there not being an investigation), especially any in which he discusses what measures he took and when.

I would think that IFF training was required then like it is now... it's been a problem for a very long time.

Re:Shit happens.

[lgw]

True enough. But this wasn't a case of multiple-layer failsafes not cathing an extreme corner case. This was a simple failure to communicate requirements.

Re:Shit happens.

[HeghmoH]

You said:

There was no misunderstanding between the ATC and the aircraft on the runway at the time.

Wikipedia says:

Later investigation showed that there had been misinterpretations and false convictions.... [T]he KLM pilot was convinced that he had been cleared for take-off, while the Tenerife control tower was certain that the KLM 747 was stationary at the end of the runway and awaiting takeoff clearance.... [T]he disaster was caused partly by squelched radio messages... partly by non-standard phrases used by the KLM co-pilot ("We're at take off") and the Tenerife control tower ("O.K.")....

Wikipedia of course mentions von Zanten's impatience and improper takeoff as a major factor, but not the only one.

Your quoted final conclusion that places the sole blame on von Zanten would appear to be from the initial investigation, whereas Wikipedia cites "later investigation" for its other conclusions. This is probably the source of the discrepancy.

I didn't know about the Pan Am 747 being the first commercially-delivered 747, that's an interesting tidbit.

Re:Shit happens.

[Q Who]

Well some light plane *almost* got shot down when approaching Dimona area couple of years ago.

I can certainly imagine some mid-range Soviet commander panicking and ordering it down, despite the identification as civilian aircraft, if it flew above some nuclear base, or similar.

Re:Shit happens.

[Buran]

So can I, sadly. There's really no way you can say "I ordered the deaths of several hundred people because they MIGHT have done something I didn't like, even though it wasn't their fault" and not end up with a tarnished image, though. I don't know if there's ever been a fully satisfactory investigation into the entire thing, although there was another look at it a few years ago that brought more info to light. But the amount of coverup was insane and irresponsible, and I would certainly be angry if one of my family members or friends were killed this way and the guilty took years to get around to making it right (not that they ever can... those people are DEAD), communist, paranoid, or not.

That's what's really sad about it. And it reflects on how large bureaucratic institutions seem to so often (invariably?) generate fatal situations like this.

Re:Shit happens.

[Doomdark]

It's never about costs. Mistakes ALWAYS cost more than thorough testing.

Well, that's kind of nitpicking. Although "time is money" is just a slogan, it does point to the fact that both timeline and money are constraints that affect test coverage that can be done. And cost/benefit analysis should be done for testing as well as for implementation: proper amount of testing to do is a compromise based on many things (type of system, expertise of implementers, aggressiveness of implementation/release schedule etc. etc.). So I would argue that it's ALWAYS about cost, in broad sense (delaying a release costs money -- that's the main reason to avoid delays).

And finally, there are cases where defects just are cheaper to have, than doing rigorours testing. Like everything in software engineering, impact of defects is relative; there are no absolute guidelines.

Re:Shit happens.

[bware]

I may not have got it all right on the first go around, but you can rest assured, i got it right after the testing and before it was deployed...

Like you tested this post to make sure you got the grammar correct?

And if you can't test it in a 0-g vacuum, or after 7 years of solar radiation, and you only get one chance to deploy on a mission that no one has ever done before? Or if testing it under those conditions doubles the mission cost, thus meaning that the mission likely won't fly?

Pilots have checklists because pilots before you crashed and died. Investigate and add another item to the checklist.

No one has ever landed a probe on Titan before. Planes still crash into the ground at high rates of speed despite all the checklists.

It is hard, and it is complicated, and it should be easy to see how errors like this can happen, and if, as a "true professional" (compared to all those amateurs who got the probe to Titan after 20 years of planning from pre-phase-A and 7 years of flight to yesterday), you can't see how it can happen, well, I hope those this post flashes across your mind the day that your aircraft goes into that last flat spin.

Can't happen to you, I guess. You're a "true professional". Those guys you know who did screw the pooch? Those guys were just amateurs, by definition.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference I see, is that checklists grow over time, and usually come for experience. I'm sure if they sent a second identical probe, the new checklist would be correct.

But they only had one shot at this, and things got missed. The last thing I'd do is try an be high and mighty about it.

Re:Shit happens.

[dbIII]

software engineering not accorded anything like as much respect as other disciplines

Because, like software architect or guru or grand poobah it is often an empty title that has nothing to do with ability an experience. Acredited engineers study for years, get a certsain amount of work experience, and then a professional organisation decides they can use the title. Architects study for even longer, need more work experience, and have to satisfy an organisation of their peers before they can use that title. Put "software" or "company X acredited" in front of either of those titles and you could either be a really bright recent high school graduate that has done a difficult multi-choice exam. The nature of software production in most cases is such that it is equivalent to individuals weaving their own little complicated baskets with not a great deal of project management - so it usually can't be described as engineering or architecture in any sense. You don't see easter eggs in bridges.

Microsoft sets the pace - a company with huge resources that gets the best computer science graduates available as well as having large numbers of experienced staff as well - but a lot of their products are produced in an ad-hoc manner to get them done quickly which would not be acceptable in any other feild. As a result you end up with idiocy like divide by zero errors in Microsoft software that any high school graduate should know would be a problem. Race conditions, buffer overflows and divide by zero errors were well dealt with in the 1950's - but we still see a lot of them today.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and planes still crash.

Re:Shit happens.

[tricorn]

CFI-G here. In the United States, parachutes are required when doing aerobatics (if anyone other than "required flight crew members" (i.e. the pilot) is on board). In addition, in most glider contests, pilots are required to use parachutes (by contest rules, not Federal Regulations).

The PW-5, a Polish glider, has a requirement in the operating manual that a parachute be worn. The Experimental Type Certificate that it was on in the United States required adherence to the operating manual, thus wearing a parachute is required while flying a PW-5. As far as we can tell, getting it re-certified with a Standard Airworthiness Certificate doesn't change the situation.

Other than that, we never use parachutes (I'm not sure most people would fit in a 2-33 wearing even a chair-style parachute), and of the few other glider operations I've visited, they didn't use parachutes either. It is likely that if you're asked to put on a parachute for a glider ride, they're going to be doing aerobatics.

Re:Shit happens.

[tricorn]

It is not physically impossible to exit a spinning aircraft. Get rid of the canopy first, unstrap, push away. G-force loads are to the side, it might be difficult but you should be able to do something like roll out. I've never done it, but then neither have you.

Re:Shit happens.

[Langolier]

It seems to me that many more Americans know about KAL 007, shot down by the Soviets after a misprogrammed autopilot led it into Soviet airspace, than know about Iran Air 655, a passenger jet on a regularly scheduled flight from Iran to Dubai, shot down by the USS Vincennes. Both of these are clearly mistakes made by faulty military procedures, and by not following correct procedures.

I hope this won't happen again, and that no passenger airliner will be shot down by any country's military by (predictable) accident in the future. Hold people accountable!

Re:Shit happens.

[Buran]

At least I can say I know about IA655. :)

Re:Shit happens.

[Alan Partridge]

Join the queue, bitch.

Re:Shit happens.

[esonik]

That sounds like a good idea! It should be not too difficult to implement an automated solution using cameras and image processing.

Re:Shit happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a great excuse for every failed project! Now every time something goes wrong you can just say: "You didn't throw enough money at it". Soo simple! Nobody is to accuse, except for the buyer himself! A great new principle successfully implemented by the software industry!

Only one thing to say

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the real world.

Re:Only one thing to say

[Everleet]

Welcome to the real world.

Titan isn't in "the" world.

Re:Only one thing to say

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't welcoming the *probe*...

Gah, that sounded bad.

OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

Put this guy on a suicide watch. I'm about as far removed from this as anything, and *I'm* depressed...

Sounds like...

[adlaiff6]

...ED.

"...the Huygens probe didn't run as planned because someone forgot to turn it on...The team lead for the experiment has put eighteen years of his life into the project, just to watch it not happen after a seven year ride to its destination...."

Human error

[Mikmorg]

Lets just hope noone forgets to turn on the anti-missile lasers on the orbiting satellites. Bigger mistakes can happen. :)

Re:Human error

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn how to spell "noone" is not a word idiot! It's not even a compound word. Correct spelling: No One

Re:Human error

[Mikmorg]

Thank God you corrected me on such an important, point decisive grammar error. Please, send me your address so I can mail you compensation for saving my life of using the incorrect spelling of 'noone.'

Please help me with one more word that I use when posting/messaging: Is it spelled 'leet' or 'l33t'? If you help I'd be forever in your debt.

</sarchastic evil reply>
(shoulda posted anonymous on this one, eh?)

Re:Human error

[Mikmorg]

Sorry, almost forgot to be a grammar-nazi myself, in reply to your ironic error.

"Learn how to spell 'noone' is not a word idiot!"

Should be...

"Learn how to spell 'noone.' It is not a word, idiot!"

The student shall surpass the teacher. God knows you fucked that one up.

Re:Human error

[Anonymous Coward]

"Learn how to spell 'noone.' It is not a word, idiot!"

Should be...

"Learn how to spell; 'noone' is not a word, idiot!"

Re:Human error

[Anonymous Coward]

</sarchastic evil reply>

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it."

...and I don't think yours was fooling anyone, which really just makes it annoying.

Re:Human error

[Mikmorg]

1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain

Burned. BTW: might I suggest having the balls to sign on? Or are you too karma-freaked?

Re:Human error

[Anonymous Coward]

Another AC.

You spelled sarcastic incorrectly and continued to blunder on obliviously, telling someone the definition of sarcasm and that he got "burned."

You fail it, unconditionally!

Re:Human error

[Mikmorg]

I don't know why I feel the need to continue this sillyness; I must be bored. I will make my points and finish this crap.

A) My original point remains unaffected by these crazed grammar-nazi issues.
B) I have a reason to continue this, as I'm defending myself (other than boredom). What do you have to gain?
C) Yes I spelled sarcastic incorrectly. Obviously I know this because I looked it up, fool.
D) The definition is accurate, and defends my use of the word, completely.
E) Blundering on obliviously? Maybe if point D weren't true, this would be the case; and point B (defense/boredom) gives reason for me to continue. Not to mention the fact that I find those eager to be biggoted hipocrites by smashing others' appropriate points with arguments completely consisting of logical fallacies, such as personal attacks, and irrelevant counterpoints, a true nuisance to society if you ask me.
F) I find it funny that people choose to post these conversations anonymously. I'm sure you're registered, so why don't you just fess up to your identity at least, so I (and others) can make sure not to read your incoherent posts in the future.

Hopefully someone will read this before they go 'blundering on obliviously,' making grammar/spelling nazi-ish remarks to someone making a completely cogent argument about something, only trying to get themselves heard; not caring for good or worse. Next time you want to make a point/counterpoint, try to at least aim for the point of the argument.

I will not continue this any further. I'm just starting to get too pissed off at people.

P.S. Note this all started with me making a bad joke that wasn't even aimed at anyone. How sad :(

Backup

[DeathByDuke]

I think they should have had this device automated like everything else was, after all, there was a 87 minute time delay on communication. A backup to the system that turns on after a set time if the primary doesn't would be nice too, but I bet weight limits scrapped a backup for most things (one reason why Beagle 2 went missing). Would have been cool to know the wind speeds, the photos showed it being tumbled aound a lot during the descent. At least the rest of mission worked. They managed to get the 50% 'missing' data now from the second transmitter. Radio telescopes picked them up, instead of Cassini. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4193043.stm)

I am looking forward to many more Titan missions. Its certainly more geologically active than Mars.

Re:Backup

[thesp]

Theis was automatic; preprogrammed anyway. Unfortunately, soneone left out the critical command in the script that was executed.

Re:Backup

[stevesliva]

I am looking forward to many more Titan missions. Its certainly more geologically active than Mars.

I hope you're not very old, and patient.

losing data?

[Maegashira]

i spent 23 years of my life to get a girlfriend. i deleted all my pr0n for her. now she is gone. life is truly a misery.

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

You poor bastard - pr0n is almost impossible to get!

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tar, crypt, burn, looser.

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word is loser not "looser"!!! "Looser" is what your girlfriend would be if you had one...

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

or be married to a soulmate for 5 years only to have her drop the D-bomb one fine day. Kinda rips you a new one, IYKWIM. At least pr0n doesn't abandon you.

Re:losing data?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Well, you could always take up another habit.

Like I'm one to talk... I used to write databases to track images by who was on top and cup size. I eventually figured out that I had more fun collecting and organizing porn than actually looking at it.

Of course there are still those sleepless nights sometimes where I rip out the old "systematically rape this site for anything that vaguely resembles a jpg." But I just get bored sloggin through it and throw it all away in the morning.

Ok. I'm just a sick puppy.

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you should share all your pr0n and
movies and mp3's with your friends and neighbours.
That way you can always get an easy back up of the
stuff from someone close.

BTW, that last post might make a nice haiku, if
you structure it a bit. Work on it some more. It's
not like you have anything else to do now, have you?

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

23-years, only porn.
Found a girlfiend, &
deleted - all my porn.
Now she left me, -
but an empty disk.

Re:losing data?

[Anonymous Coward]

brings tears to my eyes

Re:losing data?

[G-funk]

If you like porn, don't date women who don't.

Really, most women don't mind you having porn, and a lot of the girls I know like to watch it too.

These two are facts, if you like porn:

Eventually you'll rebuild your porn collection, and:
Eventually, she'll find it.

There's no arguing with this. If she pulls out the old "aren't I enough for you?" bullshit, give her the "when I want to see some new boobs, I'll look at porn, when you want some new dick, you'll be out getting it from real guys, don't call me the bad guy" or the backup "are you so insecure? you're the only girl I want to be with, but I like watching people fuck" if you can't pull of the first one (not everyone can).

I fuckin love porn. Every time I'm in the ACT (one of two states allowed to sell real pr0n here) I stock up. Dated a woman who hated it once, it's not worth it. In my experience, women who watch porn are better in bed too: they're more willing to do freaky shit for both of your benefits, rather than just as a favour to you which IMNSHO isn't much fun at all.

D'oh

[Hognoxious]

I never understood why the apostrophe is there. What letter has been omitted? Maybe Homer somehow believes that saying "some water" in French is swearing or something.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

water in French is "eau" , unlike English wich is a language rewritten by every corner people , speaking or writing in it ( british , Canadian( wich I am , a real American ) , Austalian, and the Etats-Unians. ) its the same all over the world , since its a real language ...

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

The Apostrophe indicates a pause or breath I thing, to indicate in this case, perhaps the sharp separate pronunciation of the D separate from the Oh

Re:D'oh

[CastrTroy]

You my friend have never been to Quebec. And I'm not talking about Montreal. Try small-town Quebec. That's where real french is spoken.

Re:D'oh

[Luigi30]

French Canada is the best Canada, it's the best Canada of them all!

Re:D'oh

[October_30th]

Spock the second time he saved Kirk's ass

The words "Spock", "Kirk" and "ass" should never be in the same sentence...

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't take this badly. If it was just a typo I wouldn't mention anything, but you did it twice.

It's not wich.

Try to remember the phrase "I don't know which witch is better."

I had the same misconception and that helped me.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Thanks , and sorry ;-)

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Lived in Quebec in a small town all my life , visited many time the provinces and Country ... how d'eau is heard and spoken is not the same as how you write it ...

Re:D'oh

[Hognoxious]

water in French is "eau"

Well yes, I clearly knew that, didn'tI? Just what is your point.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Before you slam on English too hard, perhaps you'd care to learn it? First of all, the phrase 'every corner people' does not make sense. Perhaps you meant 'every corner person'? This still doesn't make any sense, since as far as I know the only 'corner person' is the second ringside assistant to a boxer, but it is at least grammatically correct. Perhaps you really did mean that the people who wipe blood off boxers and force feed them water re-write the English language, in which (not wich, which) case you're simply insane. Of course, as you're from Canadia, that wouldn't surprise me. Now, what about contractions? 'Its' is the possessive form of 'it'. For example, "The door was knocked off its hinges." 'It's' is the contracted form of 'it is'. For example, "Can we leave at four o'clock? It's 3:30 now." A simple test to see if you're using the correct spelling follows: read your sentence and replace either "its" or "it's" with "it is". If the sentence still makes sense, use "it's".
You are incorrect and probably stupid if you think that every French-speaker in the entire world speaks exactly the same language.
The fact that more people speak English than French world-wide indicates to me that English is at least as real a language as French.
Additionally, you may be a North American but you are not a 'Real American'. You guys should have called your country 'Real America' instead of 'Canada'. I blame you completely.

On the subject of Canada and the Simpsons, Homer said it best when he said:
"Canada? Why should we leave America to visit America Junior?"

Hopefully I've been trolled, because if this is an average Canadian, I think I'll have to cancel my summer travel plans.

Re:D'oh

[gborland]

The apostrophe makes it funnier.

Re:D'oh

[El Kevbo]

Try small-town Quebec. That's where real french is spoken.

Uh, wouldn't it be France where real French is spoken?

Re:D'oh

[SamSim]

Roughly five to ten O's have been omitted. Homer's trademark expression was voice actor Dan Castellaneta's interpretation "[ANNOYED GRUNT]" (which is how "D'oh!" has always been written in scripts for Simpsons episodes). It's based on the "Dooooooooooh!" from the Laurel and Hardy routines, only shortened considerably. Source

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I think you'll find the British have *not* rewritten English, what with it being their language in the first place...

Re:D'oh

[Alan Partridge]

Shhh! Let the silly new-worlders play. They have no idea who they are or where they came from.

Re:D'oh

[Alan Partridge]

The character of Homer Simpson is written as a loveable oaf. We do love him, but he REALLY IS an idiot. If you find yourself agreeing with Homer, you admit your own idiocy.

Re:D'oh

[FictionPimp]

well, thats 3 minutes of my life i'll never get back.

Well that and the nightmares.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

The french spoken in France and elsewhere is quite modern...in small town Quebec they speak a 200-year-old variant almost...it's quite unpalatable to the french ear really.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do cancel your travel plans, the less people that make sweeping generalizations and unfounded insults that come to Canada the better!
By the way, it's Canada not Canadia as you typed, fucktard...Don't correct another person's grammar unless yours is absolutely perfect to begin with otherwise you negate anything intelligent you might have been trying to say...which you didn't by the way...

Re:D'oh

[Opie812]

Believe me, you have been trolled.

This guy is an ass. I've never heard anybody in Canada (where I've lived all my life) say that we are "Real Americans" because we live on a continent called "North America". Nor do any Canadians particualarly care that the "United States of America" uses the word America in the name of their country.

It doesn't surprise me that this guy is from Quebec. It's a province full of weirdos, whiners and fascists.

Additionally, it's well known that the people in Quebec speak some kind of pig-french (a little harsh perhaps) that nobody else can understand.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Given my experience with Canadian's, he's not an average one.

Re:D'oh

[tremor_tj]

Interestingly enough, I've never had any ill will towards Canada.

Unfortunately, due to the singular stupidity and misplaced nationalism of one citizen, I now feel compelled to invade Canada with my army of my wife and nine year old son.

We forsee this to be short campaign, as my military VASTLY overpowers Canada's. We will do all we can to limit collateral damage on our deep-strike campaign against the aformentioned idiot

Stand by Canada, liberation is on its way!

(all kidding aside, you sir, are an idiot who's obviously never done much research into history)

Re:D'oh

[rs79]

water in French is "eau"

A reverse osmosis filter will clean that right up. Here's it's more like "ewww" but carbon takes care of that.

Re:D'oh

[operagost]

Wow -- you really are a "killjoy." There's another term coined in my unwashed corner of the world. If the inflexibility of a language is a sign of superiority, then Latin is obviously the winner as it essentially hasn't changed since the Roman Empire fell.

If you're going to critique languages, you should at least learn proper punctuation and grammar. A comma is to be followed but not preceded by a space, and a sentence is to be begun with a capital letter. This is a rule in both French and English.

By the way, citizens of the United States are called "Américains." Don't try to coin a new term and cause offense to your rigid, superior language.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

disclaimer: I'm a French Canadian, AKA Quebecer

Quebec French is simply the result of a different evolution of a common language. When Nouvelle-France was colonized, a language was also brought. But it hasn't evolved quite the same way as France's French. The words are pretty much the same, safe for the fact France tends to add English words faster than we do (ex. parking, shopping, week-end, etc.)

However, France's French evolved in terms of its accents, rhythms much more than Quebec's French. We speak a French that sounds more like French used to sound a few hundred years ago. But even to my ear (i'm 35) French here is changing too, it's less "coarse" than it used to be in the 60's and 70's.

Comparing Quebec French and France's French is similar to comparing British English and US English. They are based on the same language, are written very similarly, yet they sound very different because of how they are spoken.

Salutations de Montréal!

Re:D'oh

[TheoMurpse]

'wich'??
You sure rewrote 'which', thus proving your point! How ingeeeenius!

And to refer to the citizens of the United States, I prefer USians over Etats-Unians, as French is not an official language of the US ;)

Re:D'oh

[UWC]

An amusing result of the "annoyed grunt" convention is that the official title of the Mary Poppins parody episode is "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious"

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

The apostrophe indicates a micro-pause in the enunciation of the vowel sound... this is what gives it the irritable quality.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

There are More people who speak french then there are people who speak english

Then go post your crap in French you Troll.

Re:D'oh

[Reziac]

Not really. As I understand it, the French in Quebec is more "pure", that is, more *historically correct*, than the French now spoken in France.

Re:D'oh

[DarkMantle]

Interesting... especially as a Canadian who was taught "Canadian" french, which has alot of english words, or variants, mixed in. While if we found a European French-English dictionary it was a totally different word. (Lost a few marks on tests for that one.)

Re:D'oh

[Better.Safe.Than.Sor]

Pure Wool Alert !!! Bill 101 Alert !!!

Re:D'oh

[cyberon22]

>> You are incorrect and probably stupid if you think that every French-speaker in the entire world speaks exactly the same language.

The person whose English you've taken the time to criticise is a French Canadian. He is probably also a bit more authoritative than you on worldwide differences in French, even if he does say courielle instead of email. ;)

Live and let live. Peace.

Re:D'oh

[Reziac]

I'm sure it depends (as the original post implied) on where you learned it, too. Montreal French probably doesn't much resemble the French spoken in the far reaches of northern Quebec.

Re:D'oh

[Scrameustache]

Comparing Quebec French and France's French is similar to comparing British English and US English. They are based on the same language, are written very similarly, yet they sound very different because of how they are spoken.

Salutations de Montréal!

Anonymous...

Pas de username, ou t'as compris que le français fait perdre du Karma? : )

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

ahah :)

Non, la paresse :) J'ai jamais créé de compte Slashdot même si je le lis presque chaque jour depuis deux ans. Faut croire que le Karma c'est pas pour moi.

Ciao Scrameustache

Re:D'oh

[Anne Honime]

French is not an official language of the US ;) I thought that the official version of the Civil code of Louisina is the 1875 (if I remember well) french version ; there is an english translation for day to day use, but whenever versions differs, the Judge should apply the french one. Therefore, french is still an official language for some purposes in the US. Disclaimer : I'm not an US lawyer.

Re:D'oh

[Martin Blank]

I've never heard anybody in Canada (where I've lived all my life) say that we are "Real Americans" because we live on a continent called "North America". Nor do any Canadians particualarly care that the "United States of America" uses the word America in the name of their country.

Just hang around the Slashdot political rants for a while, and you'll see plenty of people -- Canadians included -- who will eagerly share their opinion about the definition and use of the word "American." They're easy to find. Just look for the references to "USians."

Re:D'oh

[Martin Blank]

Train on New Zealand first. I think they're down to two chefs and a burly janitor as their army.

Re:D'oh

[Elwood P Dowd]

Your sig is gramatically incorrect. A comma between "country" and "self" might make it a little easier to understand, as well. I spent two minutes trying to figure out wtf you thought a "country self" was.

Re:D'oh

[Afrosheen]

Louisiana is a curiously French influenced state that doesn't really count towards the whole of US policy.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you ask the Quebeçois, it isn't.

(Amusingly, I have. In France. In fact, I stood with a buddy of mine from Quebec in the midst of a bunch of Frenchmen in southeastern France and listened to him explain why the French he spoke was so superior to the French they spoke. Not recommended.)

Re:D'oh

[smnoel]

Actually the french from Quebec could be refered as Royal French from the King's Court.

When France colonized North-America several folks from across France spoke french but a different dialect. (ex: southern france, northern france etc..etc)

In order for these colonizers to speak to each other the King decreed that the French spoken in the Royal Court will be used to communicate in New France so that everyone could understand each other.

France abandonned the colonies in North America to the english or sold land to the USA. (louisianne)

We all know the rest. Off with their heads in France.
The Bourgeoisie (spelling?) rose to the top of the food chain in France and of course established different laws. The French from France is Bourgeois. (Common french)

Meanwhile in Canada little has changed the french is derived from the Royal Court.

Which one is the correct french? They are both different and rich in expressions.

As people saying that the people in Quebec use more english words than in france, that is pure bullshit.

quick example:
Someone from France will say "Bon week-end"
Weekend is an english term.

It is used commonly in France.

Most Quebecers will say "Bonne fin de semaine".

As you can see, the French from France are getting lazy thru the years just like some terms in the French Canadian language. The advantage in Quebec is that people there can write laws that promote the correct use of the language and also on immigration so that they do not lose "la langue francaise".

on this note,

Passez une belle fin de semaine!

P.S. Sorry from grammar and spelling.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Apostrophies indicated contractions.

"Damn oh" becomes "D'oh"

It's from a TV show, a long time ago, when it wasn't polite to say damn.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Even that source has it with an apostrophe: "D'oooooooohhh". So it remains a mystery.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

And that other song, too.

Annoyed grunt, a deer, a female deer...

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

>Latin is obviously the winner as it essentially hasn't changed since the Roman Empire fell.

Peccatum est.

Church latin and classic latin are not only pronounced differently, they are written differently.

Maybe you should pick a different "dead" language to make your point.

Re:D'oh

[spaceyhackerlady]

Uh, wouldn't it be France where real French is spoken?

I've heard at least three claims to be the "best" French:

Quebec, because they use the fewest anglicismes (thanks in part to the Office quebecois de la langue francaise), though their French maintains features that are archaic in France.

Liege, where les Liegeois universally claim they speak the best French.

The Loire Valley, where la Touraine is supposedly the best dialect of the bunch.

Moi? J'sais pas...(Me? Dunno...)

...laura

Re:D'oh

[Penguinshit]

Dude, if you spent more than 30 seconds there... well...



D'oh!

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

Re:D'oh

[sadomikeyism]

I never understood why the apostrophe is there.

D'oh, it's for abrupt breaking from the D, spoken in the front of the mouth, to the 'oh', spoken at the back of the mouth, rather than allowing the pronounciation to proceed calmly from front to back as in "Dough", it is meant to convey a jump from point A to B with no dallying in between.

BTW: It is apostrophed because it is a contraction of DOPE!!!!!

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Actually, Homer's set up as a lovable oaf so that most of what he says is dumb. That way, there's more effect when he says something insightful. I'm truly sorry for you that you weren't able to figure that out on your own.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Hey guy, cool down, guy, eh. I spelled it Canadia because you call yourselves Canadians, not Canadans. Sorry it went over your head, with its giant flapping mouth and beady little eyes. Also, the ironic part about travel plans also went over your moose-humping, molson-swilling head. I did not actually have any intention of visiting. I'm sure your blatant lack of humor and anti-Americanism will convince me to visit your "lovely" country. (The previous sentence is sarcastic.) Have a nice day! (Is the previous sentence sarcastic as well? It's a reader excercise. What have you learned?)

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

- Real American never lost a war !

Yeah, if not for Canada, 20 or 30 nazis would have survived the war. Whoop de fucking do.

- Real American live in a democratic country !

Yeah, whatever. Not only does your government cave like a milk carton under a jackboot to America's least whim, you still pay tribute to a fucking monarch. Yet, you call yourself democratic. You're either ignorant or dumb.

- Real American fight for freedom to the death !

Yeah, what is your country fighting? Moose? Elk? Lumberjacks?

- Real American Liberated Europe from the Nazi by fighting the war from end to finish, both time!

Yeah, I'm sure all 15 of you were a big contribution to the war effort. You know, you hitched rides over there on our vehicles. But, like, live the dream, dude.

- Real American are Noble

I've seen no evidence for this assertion.

- Real American are defender of Americas

Again, from whom? It's real fucking difficult to defend against invisible fucking nonexistent enemies. Good job!

- Real American live in america

There's North America, Central America, and South America. Then there's The United States of America. Basically, either you're lumping yourself in with over 1/3 of the world's population, in which case big fucking deal, or you're excluding everyone who's not in America, such as you. Either way, is that something to be proud of, taking a shitload of time to think up all the words to fit your inane acronym?

- Real American earned there Country

Real American earned there Country? That sentence is so fucked up it makes my inner child cry. First of all, you meant 'Real Americans earned their country'. Second of all, how the fuck did Canada earn shit? You got a country without doing a fucking thing. Good job, that takes a lot of doing. This again makes it look like you're referring to Americans, both because you capitalized it and because we fought a fucking war with the country whose monarch you still honor for our fucking country.

- Real American are not afraid of terrorist

This one is so obvious as to defy comprehension. I don't know a single person who's afraid of terrorists. Besides, your damn country does whatever it can to placate terrorists. If not from fear, why?

Well, this was fun. I know that, like my last post, you'll be unable to comprehend most of what I said. That's ok. You'll always be our wacky, lovable screwball neighbor upstairs. Oh, Canada.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Um...I don't give a fuck if he's on the fucking French Fascist Language Committee. If he thinks that every single person on the planet who speaks French speaks it exactly the same way, he's incorrect. Anyone saying a completely insanely ridiculous thing such as that is probably stupid. I'm not mad at him or anything. I'm just making observations. It isn't like I claimed to know more French than him, or something like that where his 'authority' on the French language would actually come into play, anyhow.
Also, I didn't criticise it. I'm not British. I criticized it.
I'm living and letting live. If words on a screen typed by a stranger actually affect your life, you have MUCH bigger problems than my critique. (note: hopefully you do anyway, because if some random grammar Nazi correcting your use of the English language actually causes you a problem in the slightest, you should seek counseling. Immediately.)

Re:D'oh

[Hognoxious]

- Real American never lost a war !

By definition, some of them must have lost this one.

Re:D'oh

[Anonymous Coward]

What if it was a tie?

Re:D'oh

[Hognoxious]

There are More people who speak french then there are people who speak english

Wrong. Surprised to see English behind Spanish, but there you go.

( all of europe second or third or fourth language is French and the Chinese and Indians also learn and use it ...

There was an article in The Economist last year which said it's English, except where it's German - especially so in "new Europe".

As english is like Chinese many form and diferrent way to speak and write it.

And other languages aren't the same? Ever heard German spoken by Austrians or, Lord forbid, the Swiss? Last week I asked for "chicons" in Paris and the waitress hadn't a clue what I meant (it's what the Belgians call endives) - the chek knew though. That's only a few hundred Km away - God alone knows what they sound like out in the dom-tom.

Re:D'oh

[Reziac]

Wow, thanks for the history. Yes, that all fits with what little I knew about it. Is French your first language?

People in America, where everyone speaks reasonably similar English (at least sufficiently alike to understand one another), tend to forget that every region in Europe (and in some areas, every village) developed its own distinct dialect, often quite different from its own mother tongue. That's a natural side effect of a society that doesn't travel much. Whereas in America, right from the beinning people traveled long distances and our society became mixed rather than villaged (so to speak). Hence we have several regional accents, but very few true regional dialects.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

"Yeah, if not for Canada, 20 or 30 nazis would have survived the war. Whoop de fucking do."

No , Canada as part of the Ally won the war from participatin in it from start to finish, The US came after they got there ass handed to them at Pearl Harbor and the ensuing rebuilding when the German where on the run ... Canada Also invented the Tank that the US where using , they just "stole" the design for the sherman , yes the US add tank but not a third generation battle ready tank it whas a piss porr model witch whas more apropriately called death trap , whe also invented the airplane fighter and bomber that you again stole the design of , it all as something to do with the fact that the war as been going on since 1939 and we where improving our stuff ...

" Yeah, whatever. Not only does your government cave like a milk carton under a jackboot to America's least whim"

Yeah right , they said your also French too surender then whe burned your white house , you then said be fucking moron like us and whe said no where considered nice and whe stayed that way , you said come to Irak we whant there oil whe said no its illegal and the UN agree with us.

"you still pay tribute to a fucking monarch."

For the moment its a Queen , but yes , and yes whe respect her she GAVE US our own country after we earned it , thats what honest people do they earn there stuff they dont steal it.

"Yet, you call yourself democratic. "

Yes in Canada the real American elect there governement , in a democracy people elect there government , in the US 80% of the people can vote for someone else and if the states dont agree its the other guy who win , because its the states who elect the government not the people its called a republic. The US is a republic.

"You're either ignorant or dumb."

Both and in many subject I dont falsely think I am God like you do , but as usual when I open my mouth when I am 90% sure , I can be wrong it happened before in the past and I have apologized for it but not on this.

"Yeah, what is your country fighting? Moose? Elk? Lumberjacks?"

http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/flash/default-en.asp?t=1&R T= &Num=&SID=

As winner of world war 1 and world war 2 , winner of the Korean war , and Golf war 1 and all the war we where in I don think we have anything to learn from the coward of both world war , the looser of vietnam , the looser of more then 160 war since world war 2 and the looser of Irak. Proove me wrong and attack us . come on chicken shit , you cant even beat a country we as part of the UN force , almost enterily destroyed in GW 1 and completely anihilated there armed forces, and you think you can Pick on US the clear and decisive winner of the 8 war we add togheter ? The best armed force in the world with zero lost ever.

I will add somethin I answered to another US Kid like you when I whas about 7 when he said something about our emblems and animal :

" Its always funny to see you make fun of our nationnal emblems and that you also forget whe have more then two or three animals you know of what about the : ARCTIC FOX , ARCTIC HARE ,BADGER, BEAVER , BISON , BLACK BEAR ,BOBCAT ,BROWN BAT ,CANADA LYNX,CARIBOU,
COUGAR (Mountain Lion),COYOTE,DEER (Mule Deer),
DEER (White-Tailed),ELK (Wapiti),FOX (Red Fox),
LEMMING , MEADOW MICE,MOOSE ,MUSK OX,MUSKRAT,
POLAR BEAR ,PORCUPINE ,PRAIRIE DOG ,PRONGHORN ,
RACCOON ,SEALS ,SKUNK ,SNOWSHOE HARE,WALRUS,
WEASEL ,WHALES (ARCTIC),WOLVERINE.

Yes I guess for you they dont count , ho and btw how is your so caled American Eagle ? still extinct ?" he then tried to punch me , because he add no answer and reply for that one , just like your nonsense ,

Re:D'oh

[Moderatbastard]

Maybe Homer somehow believes that saying "some water" in French is swearing or something.

If you drink as much beer has Homer does, water probably is a swear-word.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

I don't know what would be more amusing to me: that a troll would spend so much time and effort, or that someone could actually be this stupid. Either way, it's clear that I win. Please, post another 50,000 word retort. I can always use a good laugh.
As for our country invading yours...well, I'm sure some Saturday when a National Guard post doesn't have anything else to do, it'll happen. Then we can make it a crime to say 'aboot'. Oh, no, eh? What'll you guys do then, eh?

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Like I said chicken shit , try and fail at invading us , it will be a reminder of who is the Real American and why where stil there.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Okay, Mr. Brave. Why does the US have to invade the "Real America"? Why don't you take your big talk and invade *my* country with it? Perhaps because for all your bravado, you realize that your country would be even more my country's bitch if you tried it. I know, I know, it's hard to believe that Canada could be even more America's bitch, but that's what would happen. As for me being chicken shit, let me know the next time you plan on visiting Houston, Texas. I won't go out of my way to kick your ass, but if you're in the area I'd be delighted to perform that public service. You can meet me in the heart of the fifth ward, fool.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

You falsely claim that the US as a better armed force , when your history and recent event show you as down right wrong , you even say that we could be invaded by your National Guards, you offer absolutely nothing to back up your arguments , you make ridiculous claims based of your myths that where some kind of weak nation because most of the time we let you say every stupid thing you whant , will we do the real job without claiming it for ourself ,when its us that come to your help every time you put yourself again and again and again in trouble over the same stupid things all the time , It would not be so pathetic if you would have at least won once against our armed force , but you never ever did do so , and you never will , your even downplaying your participation in some events where we have cemetary providing proof that we killed your forces. Your also exagerating your participation in conflicts to make yourself look better when the recorded history show us as doing the job you claim you did.

I would go as far as saying that if the monarch of Britain at the time would have let the armed force of the Canadian colony engage your pathetic army , instead of beeing afraid we would colaborate with you ( which we did by the way ) then your Country would never have existed.

Like I said chicken shit , try and fail at invading us , it will be a reminder of who is the Real American and why where stil there.

And as I and everyone can see your too coward to come here , and do what you claim would be so easy , no problem provide me your full name and adress , I dont whant to hurt an innocent.

I will send you some legal paper first for you to sign , That you authorise me to destroy your house ( if you own one )and kill you, they will just say that your a terrorist who think Canada should not exist, with any military mean at my disposal , dont worry about your Country authorising a Canadian military vehicule into your airspace and own soil , since 9/11 where authorised to enter your country if we see it under attack without asking , dont worry you will know the exact date and time so your familly and neighboors and any bystander will not be hurt. after destroying your house, Then I will land, and then I will kill you , invite some of your friends who think like you and have them sign the papers too. I will be back in Canada in time for breakfest.

Na , some of your pathetics warrior owe me a real lunch , real Texas steak as they say anyway, its funny they always have the best wich is better then the place next door, for saving there pathetic life , just have to choose where :

Brooks Air Force Base, Dyess Air Force Base ,
Goodfellow Air Force Base, Kelly Air Force Base ,
Lackland Air Force Base ,Laughlin Air Force Base,
Randolph Air Force Base,Sheppard Air Force Base, Fort Bliss , Fort Sam Houston , Fort Wolter Army Airfield , Fort Hood , Mabry Army Heliport , Martindale Army Airfield , Red River Army Heliport , Robert Gray Army Airfield , Truax Field.

Or you can appologize , and save face and your life , just say , "ok , ok , my words whent too far , and I appologize."

Its your choice.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Real men don't get legal disclaimers. Pussy. Come on down. I live right at the corner of Sawyer St. and Washington Ave. About 1 block away from Dopehouse Records. It's a disheveled brown house, right on the corner. You can't miss it. Just knock on the door and ask for 'Philly'. Of course, since you're all talk, I don't have to worry about some drunk mongoloid actually showing up at my place. I told you where. The when is up to you. Bitch.

Re:D'oh

[FictionPimp]

It was more like 15 seconds looking 2:45 seconds crying in the corner.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Real man have an adress not general direction.
You must be a little kid who still live at mommy houses ... Sorry I dont go after unarmed mouthy potty kid , I aint in the US armed forces.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

I gave you an address. I assumed you were intelligent enough to use Mapquest or Yahoo Maps. My mistake. 600 Sawyer St., Houston Tx, 77007. Bitch.

Oh yeah, as for your 'glorious military', your country doesn't even have any way to transfer its disaster relief team to southeast asia...so you're not sending anyone for help with the tsunami cleanup. Here's some proof. Dickless wonder, it appears all your talk is just that.
Here.

Now I know the other reason Canada will never invade the US: they couldn't transport their military here, unless we lent some of our vehicles to them again like we usually do. The main reason, of course, is that Canadians are afraid of Americans, as your refusal to meet with me after YOU asked ME for an address shows. Well, it's apparent that the word of a Canadian wannabe-"Real American" is worth exactly what the person is: nothing.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Whatever kid ...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/01/1 0/ dart-tsunami-disaster050110.html

try a real news source sometime.

we walked there the last time we invaded your country , where just above you on a world map , you would know that if you knew anything ...

"as your refusal to meet with me after YOU asked ME for an address shows. "

I dont take the word of a snotty US kid too serioulsy no.

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

Yes, being afraid of a 'snotty US kid' doesn't reflect too well on you, does it?

How hilarious is it that the cbc is having server problems so I can't read the article you linked? Well, pretty damn hilarious from this end. It's good to know that you think armies walk places in this day and time. I keep waiting for you to correct my assessment of you as a spineless moron, and you keep failing. If you're the cream of the Canadian crop (which I heartily hope is not true), I'd hate to see the dregs.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

I aint afraid of a snotty kid , I know better ...

CBC work fine from here , both the site and the link.

Yes armies still walk in this day and age , nothing new ...

Forgive me I tought I whas talking to an adult , now I see that it whas just a kid ...
come see me when your old enough to legally vote and drink in your Country ... if your still as clueless ...

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

I'm sure the US Army had a fun time walking to Iraq.
You keep making jokes...you're a funny guy. If you ever decide to stick to your word (of course you won't because your bravado is as false as your 'real america') I'll buy you a beer after I beat the shit out of you. That's because I'm a gracious winner. You wouldn't know anything about that, not just because you're Canadian, but also because I seriously doubt you've ever won anything. *Maybe* a 'biggest loser' contest, although you're such a loser you might not even be able to win one of those. You'd get my vote, though.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Off course kid , Irak is so much fun for the army , why arent you there yet ? thats right your not even old enough to be able to join the army ...

You cant even read properly , I said every army walks its normal there the army , not they walked to Irak ... not everyone gets to drive a tank or humvey , or fly in a cobra helicopter or get to fly an apache , you dont even get a ride in Blackhawk most of the time , you would know this if you actually talked to your own US army. You like to rewrite my writing so that it fits the stupid answer you whant to give. You rewrite your own history ... and you have absolutely no clue about ours ...

If by not going to the US and kick the ass of a snotty US kid who is out of line make me a looser then so be it ...

Re:D'oh

[untaken_name]

I didn't call you a 'looser'. I called you a 'loser'. They aren't the same. A looser is one who looses. A loser is you.
You asked me for my address, so you could come show me what a 'real american' does to people who don't agree with him. Then, when I provided one, you backed out. I guess that's what 'real americans' do. You keep proving over and over that you are a spineless pussy. I wouldn't have called you a loser for not coming here to back your threat up....if you hadn't made the empty threat to begin with. I'm still waiting. Come on down. Remember, you're the one who said you would. I never 'rewrote' that. You challenged me, I accepted, then you backed out like the little bitch that you are. I'm done with you. You have no balls. You wouldn't last two seconds in my hood, homie. Of course, you know that. That's why your sudden backpedaling. You didn't expect me to actually come through with the address, but I threw a wrench into your little plans. Whatever. Until you demonstrate some courage or commitment to your word, bye. Yap all you want, puppy. Your master's done paying attention to you until you stop barking and start biting.

Re:D'oh

[Moulinneuf]

Now your rewriting your own dictionnary , nice ... looser , loser , pick one or the other it dont mather.

Real American , dont attack kids , because kids like you dont know shit. Real American dont attack unless attacked first. You would know this if you where one. Only morons first strike others.

I never make empty threat , I asked for you full name and adress and for you to sign some papers , I tought you where a real adult , you said no. END game for me. I am a real American I know words cant hurt me. And I can decide to change my mind when your shown to be no real threat and full of shit.

I dont have to demonstrate anything to you , and I dont have to commit any action towards you , thats how powerful real American are , you cant understand you aint one.

your not even master of yourself and your own things ...

somebody send him...

[worf_mo]

... a link to today's /. poll

Re:somebody send him...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Write in option: I flushed the better part of someone's career down the crapper.

The funny part is, it happens more often than one would think.

Ouch...

[Jaysyn]

Damn the bad luck....

Jaysyn

Re:Ouch...

[grozzie2]

Damn the bad luck....

You are confusing bad luck with incomptence. it would be bad luck if the system failed when told to activate. It's incomptence if they left the activation codes out of the system. This is a case of the latter, not the former.

Grand success?

[tgd]

The point is, the radio channel that was never turned on was human error that caused the loss of half of all of the data from the probe. People's hard work functioned perfectly. Pictures were taken, data sampled, lander functioned correctly, no metric numbers were mistaken for imperial units, and they still lost half the data because someone screwed up.

Thats not a grand success. Compared to crashing a lander into Mars, losing everything? Yeah, its probably a grand success. But thats a pretty low standard.

Re:Grand success?

[10Ghz]

The point is, the radio channel that was never turned on was human error that caused the loss of half of all of the data from the probe.

You are wrong

Re:Grand success?

[tgd]

Um, no I'm quite correct. Adequate to fulfill all the mission objectives is not the same as having all the data.

Someone screwed up. Like the doppler screw up on the way out there, they cobbled together a fix for it, but it doesn't change the fact that a mistake was made, and the mission lost a significant amount of data. The fact that they claim to have gotten out of it what they wanted is meaningless, particularly since the probe survived more than an order of magnitude longer than they expected. The experiments were designed to work with 1/30th the amount of time they actually had. That, too, doesn't change the fact that vast amounts of data were lost, and information that could've provided further insight the scientists were not expecting was lost with it.

Nothing was lost, all data is safe

[thesp]

The article isn't quite correct. A fuller description would take a while to type, so I summarise:

Two redundant radio channels were used to get data from the lander to the orbiter, which relays the data to earth. The signal for the orbiter to start listening on the high-sensitivity channel, channel A, was never given. The data was transmitted redundantly on both channels, except for images and the output of the Doppler wind speed experiment. Fortunately, all was not lost, as scientists donated radio telescope time around the earth to search directly for the A signal, despite it not being relayed via the orbiter. Thanks to this increase in sensitivity, the data acquired was good enough to fulfill all objectives of all experiments.

So everyone can relax and get one with the analysis...

Re:Nothing was lost, all data is safe

[IdahoEv]

So everyone can relax and get one with the analysis...

Good point, Zen science is the best kind. Less stressful.

Now, if only I could really become one with my thesis and finish writing the damn thing...

Re:Nothing was lost, all data is safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if only I could really become one with my thesis and finish writing the damn thing...

Don't worry, even if you don't finish your thesis you'll get to see and hopefully grope them titties as well, you live in I-da-ho, after all. :)

Don't worry

[Illserve]

I'm sure they'll have plenty of time to try again.

They send these missions all the time don't they?

For God's sake don't let garcia see this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do not let garcia see this, he's sick and tired of all these depressing news articles and I'm not the only one who noticed this...

Re:For God's sake don't let garcia see this!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always put him as your foe and set it to -6. Presto, no more garcia for you. Quit whining, I can't stand your complains anymore.

And no, it's not funny anymore.

Doppler Wind Experiment: "I'm not dead yet!"

[slinted]

The Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) has reported that the Huygens signal has been picked up by several Radio Telescopes on the ground. There was already a plan in place to investigate the Doppler on the signal to learn about Huygens' descent profile.
Also, the most recent ESA press conference on Huygens stated that they are trying to recover data from the ground telescopes (which they are now referring to as Channel C), although it was unclear if this would be just the signal's Doppler or actually decoding some of the lost data stream.

Re:Doppler Wind Experiment: "I'm not dead yet!"

[slinted]

oops, the link to the ground based experiment should have been : http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/newsi-r.htm?id=1 849

What about the grad students?

[Jonathan]

I assume (like practically all scientific projects) grad students were involved in the design. While the failure to turn on the experiment may be an embarrassment to the primary investigator, how does it affect the grad students? Do they just leave the "results" section of their dissertations blank? Do they need to restart their graduate research with another project?

Re:What about the grad students?

[imsabbel]

This probe lauchned years ago. Every grad student involved in building/designing would long now have his PhD...

Re:What about the grad students?

[NoData]

Hah! Speak for yourself, buddy. The probe was launched in 97? I started grad school in 97. Guess where I still am.

Now excuse me while I have my morning cry over the pages of my unfinished dissertation....

Re:What about the grad students?

[Politburo]

This isn't insightful. Some people take well over 10 years to get a PhD, for various reasons.

Re:What about the grad students?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I started in grad school in '83. Guess where I am now?

Re:What about the grad students?

[imsabbel]

those prople dont have a carreer to lose, either.
Because they already fucked up theirs, so such a little error wouldnt matter.
I dont know, but here if you dont suck, you can get your doctor 8-9 years after STARTING to study without problems.

Jackpot!

[Flyboy Connor]

The guy should be happy!

Everybody knows the Huygens probe. Nobody knows any of the scientists who worked on the probe.

Now, David Atkinson has become a name.

Granted, he's that-guy-of-the-Huygens-mission-who-was-screwed- out-of-his-experimental-results-due-to-a-stupid- mistake-on-the-part-of-a-programmer, but at least people know him!

He can write a book! He can go on talkshows!

He can even use the fact that he is now a name to get more funding!

After the initial feeling of depression, he should realise how lucky he is.

And think of it, are you still interested in the things you thought up eighteen years ago (apart from screwing eighteen-year-olds)?

Re:Jackpot!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, David Atkinson has become a name.

http://www.davidatkinsoncars.co.uk/

What we're all REALLY thinking..

[Anonymous Coward]

This picture pretty much sums it up!

Clueless journalists

[Toby The Economist]

That article is written by someone who has *no clue* as to what it is they're writing about. It makes no sense and is self-contradictory.

--
Toby

The Bureaucrats Ruined Your Project -- A Haiku

[Anonymous Coward]

They ruined your project
Oh how it sucks to be you
Now work at Wendy's

* "ruined" can be one syllable so LAY OFF

If that happened in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

He'd be suing like there's no tomorrow!

Scheduled tasks

[Anonymous Coward]

...and that, kids, is why we have cron.

project management

[jeffs72]

I guess project managers aren't worthless individuals after all.

Re:project management

[ThJ]

"Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum."

This is latin for "garbage in, garbage out", right?

No problem...

[Gallowsgod]

Find the person who was responsible for this, send him or her up there to turn it on, and tell them not to expect any overtime for it. In fact, the costs for sending them up should be taken out of their salary.

Might sound a bit hard, but it's the only way they'll learn.

Re:CRAPNeal

[FinestLittleSpace]

They dont check the accuracy of any posts, which, in my view is a bit lazy, but whatever... there's only 10-20 stories a day...... yet they cant read the blurb? Bah.

Re:CRAPNeal

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? Smells more like a troll to me.

Latest results from analysis

[zrq]

The Huygens team held a press conference this morning and presented some of the results of their analysis so far.

The first scientific assessments of Huygens' data were presented during a press conference at ESA head office in Paris on 21 January.

Results include:

• Geological evidence for precipitation, erosion, mechanical abrasion and other fluvial activity says that the physical processes shaping Titan are much the same as those shaping Earth
• Huygens' data provide strong evidence for liquids flowing on Titan. However, the fluid involved is methane.
• ... while many of Earth's familiar geophysical processes occur on Titan, the chemistry involved is quite different. Instead of liquid water, Titan has liquid methane. Instead of silicate rocks, Titan has frozen water ice. Instead of dirt, Titan has hydrocarbon particles settling out of the atmosphere, and instead of lava, Titanian volcanoes spew very cold ice ...

Re:Latest results from analysis

[Boronx]

So, how much more difficult would a manned Titan mission be than a manned Mars mission?

I know it's a heck of alot further up the Sun's gravity well, and there might be some harsh radiation near Saturn.

Is it doable?

Re:Latest results from analysis

[zrq]

They would have to have very very good thermal insulation.

... the fluid involved is methane, a simple organic compound that can exist as a liquid or gas at Titan's sub-170C temperatures ..

From what I have heard, this is one of the reasons the probe had such a short lifespan, batteries don't last long at these kind of temperatures.
I suspect that this would make even a rover type robot quite a difficult challenge.

Re:Latest results from analysis

[Kombat]

So, how much more difficult would a manned Titan mission be than a manned Mars mission?

It would take about 6 months of travel time to get to Mars. It took Cassini 7 years to get to Saturn. That's a lot of oxygen, water, and food packets to bring with them.

Granted, Cassini took the 7 year route to save fuel (read: money), and a more expensive, manned mission could probably get there considerably faster. But it would still be at least a year of in-space travel time.

Re:Latest results from analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

No, RTG, based on radioactive decay of Pu, would work extremely well, especially since the cold side would easily be kept very cold by the dense (5 times the earth's atmosphere in molecules per unit volume) atmosphere.

Now, given atmospheric density, I believe that balloons or even planes would be a more clever way of exploring Titan.

And before you ask, I am a scientist who worked 20 years ago on the analysis of infrared spectra of Titan taken by Voyager.

Re:Latest results from analysis

[bill_mcgonigle]

That's a lot of oxygen, water, and food packets to bring with them.

But lots of fuel once we get there. The methane and ice can be harvested and made into CO2 and water to feed the plant food on board.

You'd probably want to send a robotic factory ahead to get things ready for the humans. With nuclear heaters, no doubt (oooh, scary!).

Re:Latest results from analysis

[bill_mcgonigle]

And before you ask, I am a scientist who worked 20 years ago on the analysis of infrared spectra of Titan taken by Voyager.

Well, at least get an account so I can add you to my friends list!

NITPICK Re:D'oh

[OrangeSpyderMan]

And French for some water would be "de l'eau", not "d'eau". "D'eau" would be used to mean "of water" - "une bouteille d'eau" == "a bottle of water".

Re:NITPICK Re:D'oh

[Dashing Leech]

""D'eau" would be used to mean "of water" - "une bouteille d'eau" == "a bottle of water"."

Yes, and I'm not sure why we'd have to go to French to get a meaning for D'oh. Homer is English-speaking and "dough" is an English word. Plus it it what doughnuts are made from. I figure since Americans shortened "doughnuts" to "donuts", and Homer is lazy and likes donuts, he just shortened it to "D'oh". (=

It also could be a contraction for "damn, oh!" or preferably "oh damn".

Re:NITPICK Re:D'oh

[Alan Partridge]

Homer speaks AMERICAN.

Why does the "how" matter?

[potus98]

Isn't it wierd how bad an event is can depend so heavily on how it happened? I mean, I'd be pissed if this happened to me but I think I would be less pissed if it was due to component failure rather than human error (actually, sounds more like process or Q/A error, but I digress). And even if it was component failure, couldn't that (often) be ultimately traced back to human failure somewhere further up the line.

I dunno, we humans are strange.

Re:Why does the "how" matter?

[Sethosayher]

Agreed. People like scapegoats. Or to at least find the source of the problem.

Re:woo hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Huygens,
Did you finally managed to launch this FP experience from Titan ?
Despite the fact it's a failure I can assure you it otherwise went expectedly.

Shame they were only black and white.

[Viol8]

You spend all that money on spacecraft whose,
lets face it, main reason was to take pictures of
the surface and you only fit a black and white camera. Wtf!?? And before anyone says "but I saw the orange picture of the surface" , it was an artificially coloured B&W picture. I realise colour takes more bandwidth but you can always process the colour pictures into B&W onboard and transmit those , say have 9 B&W , one colour. Their logic is a mystery to me.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it was coloured correctly using data from the spectrograph on board the probe... so the colours you see in that picture aren't "artificial" - they're real, accurate, and correct, just collected in a different way to most cameras.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[KontinMonet]

It's done that way specifically so that post processing gets the colour balance right. Other info is used to balance the colour. Hence the raw images are greyscale.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Speare]

Black and white sensors have higher resolution, just as black and white film has higher resolution. Resolution is more than the number of pixels, it's the valuable ability to resolve actual data with those photosensors.

Your little consumer digicam that did not cost a hundred thousand dollars is arranged with cheap little colored filters, cutting out over half of the photons that arrive in the camera, just so you can get the right shade of pink on your girlfriend's tummy. Scientists would rather collect all the photons they can, thanks.

Scientists do use filters now and then. Spirit and Opportunity use black and white cameras, but they can use something like NINE different filters to block out all frequencies except certain bands of interest. They don't just select Red, Green, Blue, but also various bands of near and far Infrared and Ultraviolet too. Those probes were designed later, and were going to be used on a longer mission, where power and available light energy would be greater. Huygens was built earlier, and going to a distant and dark moon where they'd be lucky if the probe lasted a couple of hours.

Is their logic still a mystery to you?

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Anonymous Coward]

Main reason was to take pictures?

No-no-no.

The reason pictures were received first and are getting most of the attention is because it's good PR. A lot of scientific data isn't pretty things you can oogle at, but just some measured numbers at chart. Describing atmospheric composition, pressure, and so on. ...but you probably won't understand those if you really think they send the expensive probe half way across the solar system just to take some snapshots.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[mikael]

They use monochrome images for a very good reason.

To capture a colour image using CCD arrays, there are the cheap, the expensive and economic ways. The cheap way (consumer cameras) is to place itty-bitty colour filters over the entire CCD array. In this way each cell captures either red,green,blue or white.
The expensive way is to have separate CCD chips for every wavelength of light you want to capture.

However, when an image is captured by a CCD array, there is a very small amount of bleed from one CCD pixel into it's neighbours. You can compensate for this by making use of image process techniques like convolution/sharpening. But these methods are completely useless with the cheap way of capturing colour images (each of RGBW will have blended with its neighbours of a different colour).

This can be done with the expensive way (professional digital cameras), but you are restricted to three wavelengths of light.

Alternatively, you can have one CCD chip, and a series of calibrated colour filters that can be swapped over. In that way you, have a low energy budget of one CCD chip, and the flexbility of analysing a scene in multiple light wavelengths, each of which can be processed separately.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Kombat]

black and white film has higher resolution

Myth.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[BigYawn]

Black and white sensors have higher resolution, just as black and white film has higher resolution.

Sorry, but where did you read this??? I'm a photographer myself and this statement is simply not true.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[crayz]

Perhaps not higher resolution, but when you're on a planet with 1/100th the amount of sunlight as the earth, you'd probably be wise not to be filtering any more of it out trying to get color pics.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[cruelworld]

Kodak Techpan.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Speare]

What part of "resolution is not just how many pixels" escaped you? Signal is the actual photon counts given, the charge built from all the incoming light energy. You want the strongest signal possible. Noise is the level of spurious charge buildup from heat or transistor variations. You can't get rid of this noise in the system. You can try to minimize it in the design, but you still have to deal with some. If you're filtering out any photons, the signal-to-noise ratio falls. Subtle details just above the floor of noise for an unfiltered sensor would be far below the noise for a filtered sensor. Thus, those details are lost. Just being a photographer isn't enough. Have you actually used an electronic camera that has a sensor without color filters?

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[jotok]

You may be technically correct, but what I wonder is, has NASA just given up on trying to fire people's imagination? Would ONE full-color shot to replicate what the surface would look like if you were standing on it hurt? Would it have been so bad to have a microphone that didn't record everything as "SHHHHHHHHH?"

I was not disappointed in their achievements, but they just completely blew ANOTHER chance to get people interested in space. Way to go :(

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Viol8]

>Main reason was to take pictures?
>
>No-no-no.

Oh yes. The scietific data is all well and good but theres a reason that almost ALL space probes have had cameras - thats how we explore the world , by sight. No one apart from a few scientists gives a rats bottom about a screen full of figures but show people a picture and it makes all the difference. Besides, you can have all the measurements of wind speed, temp, acidity etc you want , but you still won't know what its like there without a picture.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[DroopyStonx]

Wow, you're a smug, unhappy little fucker, aren't you?

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[BigYawn]

You are now confusing "sensibility" and "resolution". The "resolution" of a digital camera describes simply the number of photo-sensitive receptors per surface unit. What you are describing as nothing to do with sensor resolution.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Tablizer]

There is another issue to perhaps consider. Earth-bound studies found only one narrow frequency that seemed to penetrate the haze layers of Titan. If you have one narrow frequency that works, you are generally not going to be able to get usable color images.

For example, if only green light penetrated fog, then any other color than green would just show amorphous haze. It would not add any useful information to the image (other than varify that only green works).

I am not sure whether they used this frequency on Huygens or not. Anybody know?

By the way, it is not a frequency that human eyes see. Cassini's (orbiter) cameras were specially fitted with filters for this special frequency. The Voyager probes were launched before the discovery of this frequency, and thus could not see the dark splotches that Cassini sees on Titan.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Afrosheen]

Wow, props to the insightful, well-written post, low user number, and relevancy.

There may be hope for Slashdot after all.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Aardpig]

To capture a colour image using CCD arrays, there are the cheap, the expensive and economic ways. The cheap way (consumer cameras) is to place itty-bitty colour filters over the entire CCD array. In this way each cell captures either red,green,blue or white. The expensive way is to have separate CCD chips for every wavelength of light you want to capture.

For X-rays, there is an even better method. In a typical exposure of astronomical sources at X-ray wavelengths, there will be at most one photon hitting each pixel during the exposure (X-rays are pretty scarce things). Now, the charge on a CCD pixel is proportional to the energy deposited in the pixel. If you know (or can assume) that the energy deposited comes from a single photon, then you know immediately from the pixel charge what the energy of the photon was. And, via de Broglie's relation, you therefore know the wavelength of the photon.

This principle is use in the ACIS camera onboard the Chandra X-ray space telescope. ACIS imagas contain not only spatial information, but also spectral information, albeit at low resolution. Which is pretty neat!

Unfortunately, the same principle won't work for visible light, unless you can get the exposure times (including CCD readout time) to be short enough so that each pixel is hit by at most one photon. Which ain't going to happen soon.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[rk]

Scientists do use filters now and then.

I think you misspelled "most of the time", at least from a remote sensing perspective. Landsat's Thematic Mapper, MOC on Mars Global Surveyor, THEMIS on Odyssey, the Viking orbiters ...all their camera systems used/uses filters and there are many more I am less familiar with that also use filters. The old Mariner missions used unfiltered vidicons (and I think 9 [Mars] and 10 [Venus, Mercury] did have filters, but I don't recall), but I'm hard pressed to think of many systems built since the 70s that don't use filters on their optical instruments. I will caveat by admitting my knowledge is very Mars-centric (or 'areocentric' if you prefer) and I don't know much about how the star cameras used for navigation are put together.

Collecting all the photons you can is a good thing, but knowing the wavelength of those photons is pretty darned useful too.

Re:Shame they were only black and white.

[Anonymous Coward]

has NASA just given up on trying to fire people's imagination?

This is getting boring by now:
The Huygens probe was designed, built, paid and operated by ESA, not NASA.

Re:CRAPNeal

[hattig]

I can only agree with this comment. For a late 90's style weblog, Slashdot is okay, but in the end it is merely a popular geeky blog that directly reproduces submissions from readers without any consideration for ensuring it is accurate, or useful.

For a site that publishes a story once every hour or two, I don't see how it isn't possible to write it so that each story is (1) accurate, (2) grammatically correct and (3) useful (i.e., explaining acronyms, what something is instead of "Today sees the release of Heraclion. Get it now!").

Its NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that someone at Nasa is the culprit. ESA was very caucious not to blame the Americans for this...

Re:Its NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

ESA says that it's definitely their own fault. AFAIK ESA was responsible for the whole communication thingy, including the part on Cassini.

Re:Its NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

It was an ESA responsibility," ESA Science Director said at Huygens mission control here. "We should have redundancy at all levels [of the mission], including the ability to send commands."

The communications failure occurred on Cassini, not Huygens, and was caused by an error "as simple as throwing a switch to, 'On.' We did not set the Cassini software to 'On' and it's our fault," said Jacques Louet, head of science projects at ESA. "Space does not forgive stupid mistakes, and we made a stupid mistake. I take full responsibility."

Louet said a Huygens Mission Operations Plan sent by ESA to Cassini managers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory contained improperly written and confusing information. "JPL executed the instructions we gave them," Louet said. "One lesson we hopefully will draw from this is that you need independent reviews of all systems. It's a classic example of the most-simple things escaping review because they are simple."

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/huygens_upd at e_050115.html

Recovering lost data..

[adeyadey]

It would be fantastic if they could, but I think they are only talking about using the phase/doppler shift of the carrier signal to infer something about the location/movement of the probe. The high frequency data channel is probably lost in the noise.

As someone who has been involved in large coding projects (100,000 lines +) while I understand how easy it is for bugs to creep in, I do think the programming bug that effectively did not switch on the second channel should have been picked up on a project of this size/budget. Sadly, too often, the bigger the bureaucracy, the more mistakes like this you have - small keen teams often do better.

Regarding image quality on Huygens - in hindsight could that have been done better?

I realise there are constraints - 80's hardware, limited batteries, 8k bit channel, etc, but here are my casual observations..

Much higher resolution CCD's were available at the time - Cassini had a 1 megapixel unit. Low res data could have been transmitted during descent, but hi-res data could have been stored & broadcast after landing. As it is, the radio spent a lot of time sending identical images of the landing site. Another idea that gets a lot more out of a video data stream is variable jpg compression & only transmitting the signal difference between certain frames. That way you can use hi res CCDs then compress-until-it-fits the 8K data channel. When there is a lot of data/change in the pictures you compress a lot, but if certain cameras are not returning any or little change in the pictures, or if the picture has no detail, more channel space is available to send either hi-resolution or even pre-recorded data.

Furthermore, why the assumption that the probe will be destroyed on landing? Why not switch off Huygens when Cassini dissapears below the horizon, and switch it on for the next day? (titan's day is 16 days long..) The batteries lasted many hours after the landing, and the craft did cruise in standby mode for 16 days, so this might have been possible.

I think they could have returned all the data we got anyway up to the landing, and designed a 2nd phase with more data being sent, with little change to mission profile/weight/etc..

One thing I dont understand - why are the triplets out of sequence? The early pictures show the landing site! Is this just some artifact of the transmission process?

If I didnt know any better, I would say that final picture of the rocks was just a "joke" by the programmer, a frame to put in when the data/checksum fails for that camera.. :-)

Re:Recovering lost data..

[Hal_Porter]

One thing I dont understand - why are the triplets out of sequence? The early pictures show the landing site! Is this just some artifact of the transmission process?

Artifact of the transmission process my ass. When will you space guys admit the truth

Re:Recovering lost data..

[witte]

Why not switch off Huygens when Cassini dissapears below the horizon, and switch it on for the next day? (titan's day is 16 days long..) The batteries lasted many hours after the landing, and the craft did cruise in standby mode for 16 days, so this might have been possible.

Perhaps that wasn't an option : Cassini went in orbit around Saturn, not Titan. I presume the Cassini probe would have been out of range of the Huygens probe after it buzzed by Titan to drop Huygens.

Also, I don't know how long it takes for Cassini to orbit around Saturn on it's current trajectory, but it probably does not coincide with Titan's 16 earthdays to do a 360 (let's say it has around 50% chance of getting line-of-sight with the Huygens landing site, and an much smaller chance of having line-of-sight AND getting within communication range.

(Plus, they changed Cassini trajectory to compensate for the doppler-bug in the communication equipment, further complicating things.)

But, this is a great idea otherwise. Maybe they could do something like this on future missions... I bet a small onboard reactor could live long enough to power a heater for several weeks, so the batteries don't freeze empty.

But.... it is probably against ESA/NASA policy to put nuclear reactors in probes that could impact at high velocity with other celestial bodies. Prime Directive ;-)

Re:Recovering lost data..

[Xyrus]

The images of the landing site were not repeated. They are different images.

Put them in a movie and you'll see what I'm talking about. There's also some sort of 'fat snowflakes" that are falling at the landing site. One of them even hits the camera and then blows off.

I don't really know what they are, but "fat snowflakes" is what they look like.

~X~

Re:Recovering lost data..

[adityapk]

but hi-res data could have been stored & broadcast after landing
The scientists had no idea if the probe would even land. Heck, they didn't even know if it would land on solid mass or in a lava pool.
It is easy to criticize such things in hindsight. You need some respect for the efforts of all these people and the fantastic results they have produced

Re:Recovering lost data..

[Anonymous Coward]

A movie like this?

Re:Recovering lost data..

[Kombat]

Why not switch off Huygens when Cassini dissapears below the horizon, and switch it on for the next day? (titan's day is 16 days long..)

Several reasons. Huygens didn't have a receiver. It only had a transmitter. Once Huygens separated from Cassini on Dec. 25, there was no way for Cassini to communicate with it. In fact, if the separation hadn't gone perfect, and Huygens had been kicked off a little harder than planned, it would have plummeted to Titan and been destroyed before it even woke up, as Cassini had no way to send commands to it.

Secondly, sure, Titan's day may be 16 days long, but Cassini isn't orbiting Titan. It's orbiting Saturn. And Cassini won't be returning to Titan for more than a month (Feb. 25, if I'm not mistaken). Huygens would have to sleep in the freezing cold for over a month. Its batteries could barely last a few hours in that cold, let alone a month. It's not an issue of going into "standby" mode and saving power, it's an issue of the electrolytes in the cells literally freezing solid.

Re:Recovering lost data..

[DerekLyons]

Furthermore, why the assumption that the probe will be destroyed on landing?

There wasn't such an assumption. Huygens was prepared for any reasonable surface condition, to the (extremely limited) extent of our knowledge. And there's the rub... Not only did we know (cersnored)-all about Titan's surface, we couldn't target the probe to a precise location anyhow. Thus an atmosphere probe to lead the way for landers later.

Why not switch off Huygens when Cassini dissapears below the horizon, and switch it on for the next day? (titan's day is 16 days long..)

Cassini is in orbit around *Saturn*, not around *Titan*. Thus it was only in range (and at the proper angle) to relay Huygens data to Earth for a short period. Huygens is too small to transmit with enough power in order to be able to be heard on Earth.

Re:Recovering lost data..

[nilptr46]

Furthermore, why the assumption that the probe will be destroyed on landing? Why not switch off Huygens when Cassini dissapears below the horizon, and switch it on for the next day? (titan's day is 16 days long..) The batteries lasted many hours after the landing, and the craft did cruise in standby mode for 16 days, so this might have been possible.

On Jan 14, 11:05UTC the landing time of Huygens:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-82 &vbody=1001&month=1&day=14&year=2005&hour=11&minut e=05&fovmul=1&rfov=30&bfov=90&porbs=1&showsc=1/

On Jan 14, 13:05UTC the expected life of Huygens:
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-82 &vbody=1001&month=1&day=14&year=2005&hour=13&minut e=05&fovmul=1&rfov=30&bfov=90&porbs=1&showsc=1/

16 days later, 11:05UTC
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-82 &vbody=1001&month=1&day=30&year=2005&hour=11&minut e=05&fovmul=1&rfov=30&bfov=90&porbs=1&showsc=1/

Oh my gentle Jesus.

[priestx]

Even so, he said the overall space mission was a huge success, and the Europeans in particular were thrilled with the success of their Huygens probe. Let's let the real scientists do the scoring ;)

Re:Nothing was lost, all data is safe - ARGH!

[Anonymous Coward]

So everyone can relax and get one with the analysis...

Damn you for bursting my bubble, I just worked up a nice depression and you just had to come and tell us we have no reason to be depressed because the data was recovered after all! I feel cheated and abused! Damn you to Titan!

What about using the audio?

[syntap]

Many of us downloaded and listened to the audio of the probe falling through Titan's atmosphere... could it be possible that processing the audio with known things such as downward velocity of the probe and assuming what it was flying through was methane (or whatever hypothesized atmospheric makeup), etc could yield similar wind speed estimates?

Ouch

[digitalhermit]

Reminds me of this story, probably apocryphal, that said that Daniel Webster of "Webster's Dictionary" once had his life's work destroyed by an angry wife. Immediately after she'd burned (??) his work in the fireplace, he took out a pen, walked to his desk, then started again from the beginning.

Re:Ouch

[Dougie Cool]

You're thinking of Black Adder. It was actually Baldrick that burned it, and it wasn't the dictionary after all, it was Edmond's novel.

Re:Ouch

[gkuz]

Reminds me of this story, probably apocryphal, that said that Daniel Webster of "Webster's Dictionary"

Not apocryphal, wrong. The Webster of dictionary fame was Noah, not Daniel. Daniel was a congressman from New Hampshire, then from Massachusetts, then Senator from Massachusetts, and later Secretary of State for both (W.H.) Harrison and Fillmore. He was a noted orator, but never wrote a dictionary. Noah was from Connecticut. But "Webster's" as a name in the dictionary sense has long since lost trademark protection, so we can start a flame war about copyrights and trademarks and the RIAA and all that good stuff now.

Some Precedents

[fuzzybunny]

This isn't the first or the last time this sort of thing has happened. A minor issue about metric vs. imperial comes to mind, and didn't someone forget to remove a lens cap from the Hubble space telescope before it launched?

"Hey, perfessor, lookit, we got us a high resolution image of the 'REMOVE BEFORE LAUNCH' galaxy!'

Suddenly Heard on Channel A...

[Ogman]

...DOH!

These things keep happening, it seems...

[Jugalator]

It's kind of funny that these big mistakes can still happen, even after unit miscalculations causing Mars lander crashes and other embarrassing things. You'd expect they'd try to simulate as much as possible before launching it? In the former case with the Polar Lander (?), simulating the software, and in this case simply trying to get readings from the instruments? But since I'm literally not a rocket scientist, there just has to be some severe difficulties in making checklists by routine and simply trying the various features out?

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[digitalhermit]

I've wondered exactly the same thing. I don't know if it's possible to build an identical test satellite, but for a project of this duration, you'd think that some sort of full run-through testing would be done. Now it may be cost prohibitive to test the physical pieces (i.e., does a sensor deploy at 100mph when upside down, etc.), but the inputs to software can be simulated easily. Maybe this is why we pin our hopes on Spaceship One projects rather than NASA.

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[mi]

Brains are different. A "rocket scientist", able to concentrate on and solve one big problem, is usually unable to keep track of many small tasks.

This is what secretaries are usually for. They take care of LOTS of small things, the sheer number of which would've swamped the other kind of brain with their boring mundaneness...

But the single-task brains tend to be found in males, while the multi-tasking breadth is usually found in females. An evolutionary thing, I guess -- hunting and fighting vs. household chores and child-rearing.

I don't think, a modern government agency (nor even a private corporation) can afford the implications of hiring different sexes to different positions...

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[maxpublic]

An evolutionary thing, I guess -- hunting and fighting vs. household chores and child-rearing.

For 99% of human history there were no "household chores", since there were no households. Humans lived in small nomadic groups.

As for hunting, 80-90% of all nutrition came from fruits and vegetables, depending on location. Only 10-20% came from meat. Humans were, by and large, terrible hunters.

Guess who did most of the gathering of the fruits and vegetables? Women, that's who. So women were the primary 'hunters' of these societies, not men.

If women multitask better than men - and it appears that they do - then it is no way connected to hunting, gathering, or "household chores". It could just be luck of the genetic draw.

Max

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[mi]

For 99% of human history there were no "household chores", since there were no households. Humans lived in small nomadic groups.

The small nomadic groups had the same chores -- from firewood-gathering (once they got fire) to food preparation (if any) to child-rearing.

As for hunting, 80-90% of all nutrition came from fruits and vegetables, depending on location. Only 10-20% came from meat. Humans were, by and large, terrible hunters.

May be, but they still tried -- hard and often. And those men, who were better at it, had better chance of procreating.

Guess who did most of the gathering of the fruits and vegetables? Women, that's who. So women were the primary 'hunters' of these societies, not men.

Well, that's a novel idea of "hunting" :-)

Gathering is multi-tasking -- lots of reliable root, fruits, and veggies instead of hunting for a few occasional chunks of meat. Right here, you seem to agree with my hypothesis.

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[maxpublic]

May be, but they still tried -- hard and often. And those men, who were better at it, had better chance of procreating.

That's an assumption I don't see backed by any solid evidence. Why would a woman waste her time with a man who can only bring home the bacon on rare occasions, when another man who learns to gather fruits and vegetables (doing some REAL work) is available - and clearly more useful? Logic tells us that the woman will choose the man with the better genes, which in this case is clearly the guy who does gathering instead of hunting.

And you'll note: for that 99% of human history *humans didn't get any better at hunting*. This only occurred when technology started to improve, making it easier. That points to the idea that women *didn't* choose better hunters, else future generations would be more likely to be better hunters, who in turn would be chosen, etc. Genetic selection should've resulted in an increased efficiency in hunting, but it didn't.

Current thought is that *both* sexes spent most of their food-collection time gathering, not hunting (although women did more gathering than men, for reasons unknown - perhaps the men were too busy sucking down beers and playing tag football?). When humans did acquire meat they mostly did it through trapping or scavenging (neither activity favors either sex; both can do it equally well). Actual hunting was a rare activity since it usually didn't pay off. The only branch of humanity that we know for a fact was any good at all at it was the Neanderthals; every other branch of humanity seems to have pretty much sucked at the activity.

If this is true, gathering also doesn't have anything to do with multi-tasking. And right now nobody has any idea why women developed this trait and not men, but it could simply be a sex-linked random mutation that proved useful. A "shit happens" mutation that resulted in a corpus callosum in women roughly four times larger than that of men.

It's a fallacy that humans were mighty hunters, or that men did all the hunting and women all the gathering, child-rearing, etc. It appeals to quite a few men for obvious reasons, but it just isn't based on any real facts. We know now that humans didn't hunt very often, that they were most likely scavengers when it came to meat, and that meat was only a fraction of their diet. We also know that the supposed differentiation in gender roles is a wholesale construction without any empirical support (which, not surprisingly, mimic the morals of folks who happen to like women in the subservient role and would dearly love to use the argument "it's always been this way" to justify their position).

There's far too much of this stuff being passed off as fact even though there's no evidence to back any of it up. It pollutes the collective consciousness with crap that has no business being presented as 'science', and was initially promoted for political or social reasons.

Max

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[mi]

Why would a woman waste her time with a man who can only bring home the bacon on rare occasions, when another man who learns to gather fruits and vegetables (doing some REAL work) is available - and clearly more useful?

Oh, just look around in todays life :-) Or open a female magazine. Or watch "Sex and the City" for 30 minutes.

In the past, those few men, who did get the meat were able to get more than one female. Those few, who were better at it (on average) got more action -- on average.

In addition to hunting, there was also fighting -- inter- and intratribal... Again, the winner got to mate more (often the main purpose of the fighting in the first place).

(which, not surprisingly, mimic the morals of folks who happen to like women in the subservient role and would dearly love to use the argument "it's always been this way" to justify their position).

Well, there, there. We are going into gender politics. I have equal reasons to suspect, you are objecting to my hypothesis not so much on its merit, but to defend the contemporary women from these dreadful folks.

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[maxpublic]

I have equal reasons to suspect, you are objecting to my hypothesis not so much on its merit, but to defend the contemporary women from these dreadful folks.

Then I'll make it crystal. Please provide a link or cite to an empirical study published in an accredited scientific journal that supports either of these two statements:

"In the past, those few men, who did get the meat were able to get more than one female. Those few, who were better at it (on average) got more action -- on average."

"In addition to hunting, there was also fighting -- inter- and intratribal... Again, the winner got to mate more (often the main purpose of the fighting in the first place)."

You will never find such a study. This is nothing more than your personal opinion being passed off as fact, when it's nothing of the sort.

Max

Re:These things keep happening, it seems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, meat eating was essential for the development of larger brains. Saw it on the discovery channel just the other day. If early humans had been vegetarians, we never would have evolved this far.

Well

[nate nice]

It probably wasn't very important in the grand scheme of things,like most things. He has a good atitude about it but it must hurt in many ways. That's life I guess. Not everything was meant to be and this is one thing. I guess the speed of the winds on some moon of Saturn are not very important in the eyes of a greater power, if such a power exists. Else, someone's head has got to roll.

Of all the .....!

[ajs318]

Why don't we just send up a staffed mission, and have done with it once and for all?

Obviously, this would have to be a kamikaze mission. But is that such a bad thing anyway? Throughout history, explorers on Earth have set out knowing they might not return -- and many did not return. Even Christopher Columbus knew there was a risk that he could be wrong about the Earth being round. Of course it's best if you can be a living legend, but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody. That is the spirit of adventure, and it's ultimately why we climbed down from the trees and started walking around on two legs. Not to carry it on now is a mark of disrespect to all those brave people who traded their lives for the advancement of science.

So why not a one-way ticket to space? People have given their lives for much, much less than priceless insights into the cosmos.

Re:Of all the .....!

[Big_Al_B]

Why don't we just send up a staffed mission, and have done with it once and for all?

How would that have solved this problem? A person screwed this experiment up from here by "forgetting". How does putting them in closer proximity to the probe make them less fallable?

Throughout history, explorers on Earth have set out knowing they might not return -- and many did not return.

There's a massively important gap between "knowing they might not return" and "knowing the won't return."

Even Christopher Columbus knew there was a risk that he could be wrong about the Earth being round.

Yes, but he also believed there would be a massive rewards for finding a shorter trade route to India.

Of course it's best if you can be a living legend, but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody

Surely? No. I don't think most people would define themselves this way.

So why not a one-way ticket to space?

Because our reasons for discovery and exploration are hardly ever altruistic pursuits of knowledge. They are self-interested pursuits of knowledge for personal, usually economic, gain. If there is no tangible benefit, most people aren't willing to risk their lives. It's a self-preservational instinct thing, I think.

Re:Of all the .....!

[maxpublic]

but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody.

Riiight. I think I'll pass, Achilles. I'd much rather live another 40 years drinking, smoking, and wenching than make it into some git's history text.

Max

three words for you...

[Suchetha]

off. site. backup.

women come, women go, but pr0n is forever

Suchetha

Re:three words for you...

[kid-noodle]

Ye gods...

There are just so many jokes to make on the women come, women go - /. crowd connection that I'm just going to sit here and snigger instead of getting around to cooking breakfast.

Re:three words for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

>> i spent 23 years of my life to get a girlfriend. i deleted all my
>>pr0n for her. now she is gone. life is truly a misery.
> off. site. backup.

Uh; the Internet *is* an offsite backup. If you delete such-and-such pr0n image from your HDD, what are the chances that it isn't out there somewhere?

Re:three words for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorta brings a whole new perspective to disaster recovery plans doesn't it?

Re:three words for you...

[karniv0re]

Reasons pr0n is better than real women:

• pr0n will always be there for you.
• pr0n will never make you cuddle afterwards, when all you really want to do is play UT2K4 or read Slashdot.
• pr0n is ready to go when you are! No warm up, no waiting, and no "once a month" off-time.
• pr0n doesn't insult you or say mean things (unless of course you're into that).
• You don't have to buy pr0n presents. You just buy pr0n.
• pr0n won't care if you watch the game and pr0n at the same time (hey - it's called multi-tasking).
• And finally:
• pr0n will never make you delete pr0n!

Re:three words for you...

[eshan]

Man, this post and its parent are just about the funniest crap I have ever read on Slashdot.

Too bad it's at some poor bastard's expense...

Re:three words for you...

[Suchetha]

well i AM looking for this rasheen kareem karzi movie (the one with her and the two others dressed as a bride and groom) lost it in a hard drive crash, and p2p doesn't seem to have it..

ideas??

Suchetha

Murphy's Law

[mkop]

At it's best. Now can he be sued for not completing his work?

Ouch!

[Anonymous Coward]

prospective client (pc) "So why is your quote is three times that of the competition?"

"Oh that's easy. We code defensively and spend as much time testing as developing to ensure you get the product you asked for bug free. This thing just isn't going to fall over and die on you."

pc - "WOW - we'll deffinitely choose you because you seem like you'll get it right! It will certainly be worth the investment for a robust system!"

Maybe I'm just chasing the wrong clients but most of mine would just take the cheaper offer...

Most expensive hardware you've wrecked?

[kaos.geo]

Doesnt this get automatically entered in slashdot's latest poll?
(If it were a contest, this would win it by a landslide) :P

Should have given him that raise he wanted! /nod

[iXiXi]

I feel sorry for the outcome of that root cause analysis. Would love to have been a fly on the wall when all that went down.

grad students

[Shooter6947]

Grad students involved in the building are now either professors or burger engineers, depending on how good they were. There are grad students that got involved in the process later (like me), but we haven't invested NEARLY the time and effort as those that have been working on this stuff since I was in Jr. High school.

Yeah, bummer

[Linker3000]

I've got to drive 40 miles on Monday to kick the ass of a broadband router that won't connect so I know how this guy feels.

Re:Yeah, bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

Wahhhhhh....

I drive 50 miles TO WORK every day.

I maintain sites that are 100 miles away from my site. and I drive there at least each week.

wah, you are too fricking LAZY to get off your arse and do it right now?

Wahhhh....

oh and next time tell your employer to stop being a cheap asshome and buy a powerstone and a phone line. remote power cycle can be added easily.

Re:Yeah, bummer

[Linker3000]

Why am I not doing it now - well, I'm lying in bed with flu and can barely stand up without falling over - let alone drive - so there!

As a gesture of non-laziness, I have two wireless laptops on the bed with me and one's doing this message while the other's hooked up to configure the replacement router.

Drive 50 miles to work - man that's crazy - I have a 6 mile, seafront drive to the office that takes 15 minutes and the sunrise across the water looks beautiful.

PS: The on-site router's well and truly screwed and no amount of power cycling will bring it back to life. - it's an SMC barricade too which means it should have been trashed long ago as they seem to be no end of trouble (replacement is a Draytek Vigor 2600+).

All may not be lost.

[b00le]

According to a report here:

Scientists have also recovered much data from Huygens that had been thought lost due to a communications failure...

Scientists revealed that missing data could be recovered via a network of radio telescopes that listened for Huygens' signals as it plunged through Titan's atmosphere and settled on the surface on 14 January.

So far neither ESA nor NASA/JPL have anything to say about this, but I would assume this information came from the press conference that was scheduled for today.

Fuck Him

[Anonymous Coward]

Hand him a noose

How much success does NASA have?

[shish]

It seems that every couple of weeks we hear that NASA or one of the other space organisations has managed to screw something up -- one wonders; is this because they have so many other successes that they're not news worthy, or because they have no successes at all?

Re:How much success does NASA have?

[shish]

Oh gawd, mods on crack again 9_9

I'm actually curious, and this is an actual question (not a troll), so I'll ask again: is the reason that we don't hear so much of nasa's successes because they're so common that they're not news worthy, or because there aren't any?

Re:How much success does NASA have?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, this mission was an overwhelming success! Check out http://sci.esa.org/ for some of the exciting facts.

2 links

[cyberfunk2]

Well, I look at it this way:

They chose to use 2 links, thus increasing bandwidth, and the probability that one of them would fail. HOWEVER, is it not better to have had channel B work than A alone , but not at all ?

Then everyone would be screwed.

You Think

[nightsweat]

You think they'd put a software on/off switch on that thing.

I guess it'll be there for the next mission...

Must have been a Union guy

[Anonymous Coward]

We got stuck with Union guys putting in a lot of our electronics. They always fucked up the wiring so they could get more hours out of us. Finally we ended up sending in non-union guys at night to rewire anything those assholes did. The union guys knew we did it, but they didn't file a formal complaint since they were fucking it up in the first place. Those assholes cost us a bundle. Oh well, what was another corporate bankruptcy and a bunch of personal ones from the employees. Union guys are suck fucking pricks.

Anyway, will they all get to do it again now? That was a great chance that was lost.

Sympathy...

[twoes00]

Wow, I feel bad for this guy...

Re:Sympathy...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Wow, I feel bad for this guy...

Why? He's a tenured professor with the kind of clout needed to get an experiment on a space probe (but not the kind of clout to be an important item with a double check on the checklist).

How does your career stack up?

eighteen years

[multi io]

When it is stated that the guy "put eighteen years of his life into the project", does that really mean that, for 18 years, he spent all his workdays (or at least all his research time, considering he is a University professor) doing nothing else but designing and building the hardware for this experiment?

Re:eighteen years

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, kind of like majoring in Computer Science and then realizing that most of the jobs will be offshored. Somebody forgot to turn off the "greedy globalization" switch......and worse of all, the errorist is still in office.

Corrected by radio telescopes

[j_heisenberg]

This error was discovered at the last minute. What I heard was that they managed to measure it anyway with an array of radio telescopes. So the damage (apart from that to the researcher) was small. See also a link about this international effort.

Re:CRAPNeal

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only agree with this comment. For a late 90's style weblog, Slashdot is okay, but in the end it is merely a popular geeky blog that directly reproduces submissions from readers without any consideration for ensuring it is accurate, or useful.

I much prefer CowboyNeal's sloppy reporting to Michael's political rants, so don't complain so much.

-- Blargh -- NASA, ESA and Slashdot screw up - a lot - It's Stugeon's law - here's my corollary - 95% of comments posted on Slashdot aren't worth moderating at all!

Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D'oh

[Hognoxious]

Je n'ai pas besion du ton 'correction', connard. C'est evident que j'ai parlé du pronunciation.

Toilet water

[AtariAmarok]

"water in French is "eau" "

This explains the phrase "eau de toilette", which translates as toilet water. Some French people use this as perfume. Usually, there is no second date when this is done.

Re:Toilet water

[Moulinneuf]

not that you care ...

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030226.html

Sniffing around for "types of perfume" turned up the sweet smell of eau de toilette and eau de parfum, as well as other versions of scented luxury.
Most perfumes are complex combinations of natural materials, such as essential oils from plants, and synthetic products that increase the lasting power and heighten the smell. Alcohol is used as a liquid base for perfume, and the ratio of alcohol to scented perfume concentrates determines what the final concoction is labeled.

From highest concentration to least, the different forms of perfume are:

Perfume, also called extract or extrait perfume, can include 15-40% perfume concentrates. This is the purest form of scented product and is the most expensive as a result.

Eau de parfum contains about 7-15% perfume concentrates. This is the most popular and common form of perfume. It provides a long-lasting fragrance and generally doesn't cost as much as extract perfume.

Eau de toilette has around 1-6% perfume concentrates. This makes for a light scent that doesn't linger as long as the more intense versions. It was originally intended to be a refreshing body splash to help people wake up in the morning.

Eau de cologne is sometimes used interchangeably with the term eau de toilette. However, the concoction began as the name of a light, fresh fragrance mixed with citrus oils and was made popular by Napoleon. Some perfumers today have a version of this called eau fraiche.

While these are the main classes of perfume, other products are frequently scented with perfume concentrates too. Lotions, creams, powders, body splashes, aftershaves, soaps, and other cosmetic products may contain variable (though usually small) amounts of fragrance.
Now that you have your scents straight, we're sure you'll smell like a rose all day!

Re:Toilet water

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, it's pretty obvious you're new here. So let me be the first to tell you:

You are a fucking faggot.

Re:Toilet water

[McNihil]

hm... that explains a lot.... tks!

Oh no!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

first post?

You forgot to turn on the submit button on time! All the time wasted!!!

Previous Employer

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet your a dollar his previous employer was Microsoft.

This article was written

[guet]

self-contradictory
Nice tautology, Toby.

Sounds like a bad Sci-Fi movie

[NerdHead]

I thought that only a screen writer would use a plot that would have the 'channel B' have a less stable oscillator than 'channel A.' Then someone forgets to turn on channel A.

It looks like this experiment was doomed before the craft ever left the ground.

Blackadder did it too..

[adeyadey]

Edmund Blackadder: Right, let's get the book. Now; Baldrick, where's the manuscript?

Baldrick: You mean the big papery thing tied up with string?

E: Yes, Baldrick -- the manuscript belonging to Dr. Johnson.

B: You mean the baity fellow in the black coat who just left?

E: Yes, Baldrick -- Dr. Johnson.

B: So you're asking where the big papery thing tied up with string belonging
to the baity fellow in the black coat who just left is.

E: Yes, Baldrick, I am, and if you don't answer, then the booted bony thing
with five toes at the end of my leg will soon connect sharply with the
soft dangly collection of objects in your trousers. For the last time,
Baldrick: Where is Dr. Johnson's manuscript?

B: On the fire.

E: (shocked) On the *what*?

B: The hot orangy thing under the stony mantlepiece.

E: You *burned* the Dictionary?

B: Yup.

Already done it

[Pan T. Hose]

Speaking as someone who have already done this experiment countless times, I can confirm that it indeed rarely run as planned, mostly because-- What? Huygens? Oh, I thought you said hygienes... Now, seriously. Needless to say, as many of you I have been looking forward to see the results of this experiment for quite a few years. Could someone please tell me who exactly was responsible for that mistake? Was that person fired instantly? Will that person face criminal charges and prosecution? Or will we just use euphemisms and say that it was another "glitch" and pretend nothing happened, silently approving this kind of inexcusable incompetence ruining the most important scientific projects, not to even mention all the money and other costs involved? Can we afford giving such a strong argument in the hands of our opponents? And there are people who say: "See? Scientists can only waste money. Let's give it to Vatican instead." What will we answer? That it was "just" two decade, "just" few billions, "just" a small mistake? I don't think so. We need to act and show that we will not tolerate such mistakes any more.

Re:Already done it

[Da Fokka]

You assume that heavily penalizing the person responsible will actually prevent these errors. If this were true, your comment would have some merit. But I believe such a measure would actually be counter-effective. Since the person responsible quite likely did not *plan* this to go wrong, he did not actively deliberate the pro's and con's of such a failure. Therefore the only effect will be even more pressure, with an even larger chance of failure.

He's taking it well

[Badgerman]

"In total, the core of our team has invested something like 80 man years on this experiment, 18 of which are mine," Atkinson wrote. "I think right now the key lesson is this -- if you're looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn't it."

It sounds like some of his work will continue at least. Got to admire his attitude and perspective.

Re:He's taking it well

[SteveAstro]

Just emailed him my own commiserations, and he replied. He is inundated with similar emails to mine, and appreciates the international concern with his plight !

Steve

Mod parent up! +5, Funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good one. On topic. Funny! :)

Re:Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D

[Anonymous Coward]

ahah :) When you are going to "correct" the corrector, at least make sure you get it right!
Let's see...

besion => besoin
du ton correction => de ta correction
evident => évident
du pronunciation => de la prononciation

Actually, he was just explaining that "d'eau" (D'oh) and "de l'eau" were two different things.

Since you have some knowledge in French, you should have appreciated.

Keep learning, we all should.

Peace

18 years of his life?

[MidnightBrewer]

You know, if I were this guy, I would have been calling them once every five minutes saying, "Hey, did you remember to get my experiment going?" If it's really that important, why let someone else screw it up for you? It's your baby, your responsibility.

Slashdot post is wrong

[Anonymous Writer]

This is what the slashdot post says...

An experiment onboard the Huygens probe didn't run as planned because someone forgot to turn it on.

But I got this out of your linked article...

Huygens was programmed to transmit telemetry and scientific data to NASA's Cassini Saturn orbiter for relay to Earth using two redundant S-band radio systems. Channel A was the sole path for an experiment to measure wind speeds by studying tiny frequency changes caused by Huygens' motion. In one other deliberate departure from full redundancy, pictures from Tomasko's descent imager were split up, with each channel carrying 350 pictures.

As it turned out, Cassini never listened to channel A because of a software commanding error. The receiver on the orbiter was never commanded to turn on, according to officials with the European Space Agency.
...
Even the lost wind measurement data will be made up, thanks to a remarkable effort on the ground to monitor a faint carrier signal broadcast by Huygens - the equivalent of a cell phone call at a distance of 751 million miles - using a network of 18 radio telescopes around the world. That data, which not as precise as the Doppler information that was lost, should fill in the blanks.

And I also found this article online. Here's an excerpt...

Atkinson had a Doppler wind experiment onboard the probe which landed on Saturn's moon Titan after dropping from the Cassini spacecraft. Atkinson and other team members estimate they had put in nearly eighty- man years to bring that experiment to a conclusion this past weekend.

However, a command to turn on the instrument being used by Atkinson's team was not in the command sequence. The entire experiment was lost. There is some hope that some transmitted data was picked up by radio telescopes back here on earth, and if so, then an Earth- based version of the Doppler experiment may still be possible. ...
The Cassini mission, he says, has been incredibly successful, and he says eventually they'll get the wind measurements they needed, but definitely not how they planned, and he says it will take a long, long time.

The reports are confusing and I can't tell what happened. Was there a measurement device onboard the Huygens probe gathering data and transmitting it (like the Slashdot story suggests), or was the data supposed to come from the measurement of the signal from the Huygens probe in relation to the Cassini orbiter?

If it was the former, is the data not as good because the Earth radio telescopes didn't pick up the entire signal, because there was signal degradation, or because they have to piece all the data together from all the different radio telescopes? If it was the latter, is the data not as precise because of the proximity from the transmitter to the receiver?

Either way, the Slashdot post is wrong. If it was a measurement device solely on the Huygens probe, it was turned on- it was the relay onboard the Cassini orbiter that wasn't turned on. If the data was meant to be gathered from the proximity of the transmitter to the receiver, then the experiment wasn't onboard the Huygens probe but was actually meant to be a collaboration between the probe and the orbiter.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[thesp]

The former. Using the radio telescopes bypassed the Cassini uplink, which was not listening. So we got (on Earth) the signal intended for the Cassini probe, by listening *very very hard*. The experiments, on the lander, were working and transmitting fine.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Reziac]

Having RTFA (I know, how embarrassing!) ... my first thought was... when their data failed to come in, why the hell didn't they *contact* NASA and ASK what happened to it??

I swear, that's a quintessential geek failing -- expecting everyone else to be the one who calls YOU when something doesn't happen on schedule, even if it's YOUR baby. WTF would be wrong with making your own damned inquiries in a timely manner, instead of waiting until it's too late and then being upset about it?

(Excuse the rant, but I've seen this sort of thing over and over, in geeks and kids. Draw your own conclusions.)

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Tablizer]

My understanding is that the second channel had three purposes:

1. To be used for doppler-shift analysis
2. As a redundant backup signal for some of the science data
3. To provide more images

#2 turned out to not be needed because they got all the science data from the channel that worked.

#1 Can be mostly recreated by the signals that were received by earth radio telescopes (but intended for Cassini). I guess one does not need a fully "clean" signal for this. One can get a pretty idea of the frequency shifts by analysing intermittent chunks. After all, a wave oscilates a jillion times a second, but the probe is not going to shift around that much in a given second. Maybe they will lose higher-frequency specifics such as vibrations, but still get the general movements.

#3 The images sent from Huygens were alternated between each channel. The theory was that if both signals worked, they could send twice the number of images than what they would get from simple exact duplication. They didn't need alteration for most of the other non-imaging instruments because their messages didn't take up that much bandwidth. So exact duplication was used for those. The extra images are probably a lost cause. The earth-received signals are probably not strong enough, filled with noise and gaps. Due to the haze, the contrast is generally low on Titan to begin with. Signal noise and gaps would just make it worse. Plus, I beleive the images were sent compressed (but have not verified this), and compression is more sensative to gaps.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Anonymous Writer]

Someone submitted a comment with a link to an article in Nature that says it is the latter. The Doppler Wind Experiment is described at the bottom of the page as measurements of variations in the microwave signal between the Huygens probe and Cassini orbiter. Too bad. If it was the former, this guys 18 years of work could still have been salvaged.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Anonymous Writer]

The unfortunate thing is David Atkinson spent 18 years of his life on #1, which is what the article was mainly about. And from what I gather the information for it would have been more accurate if Cassini had measured the doppler shift rather than the Earth radio telescopes. Hopefully his work also involved the telescopes and signal analysis, rather than just the Huygens-Cassini link, so his work would not have been in vain. And perhaps there is a chance that the telescopes could have been just as accurate, despite the distance.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[nexthec]

Brutal, I feel bad for the guy. I took a signals and systems from him, he has spent a lot of time (sometimes at the expense of class time) the last couple of years getting things going. He was expecting to spend the next couple of years analyze the details. If someone has to reconstruct the data from this lost experiment, he's well qualified to do it.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Tablizer]

The unfortunate thing is David Atkinson spent 18 years of his life on #1, which is what the article was mainly about. And from what I gather the information for it would have been more accurate if Cassini had measured the doppler shift rather than the Earth radio telescopes.

Well, some data is better than no data. I am sure the imaging team would be happier if they got the "odd set" of images also.

It was a complex, risky mission and they should generally be glad they got some info when the whole thing could have just plain entirely failed.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Anonymous Writer]

the whole thing could have just plain entirely failed

True. The glass is half full.

Re:Slashdot post is wrong

[Anonymous Writer]

He was expecting to spend the next couple of years analyze the details.

In that case, he can still do it with the Earth radio telescope data. If most of his work involved how to analyse the data, then it is still applicable, just with a different data set and more of a challenge. He's not out of the race yet and he can still cross the finish line.

Mission Control?

[Fringex]

Oops....

Re:Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D

[Hognoxious]

nique ta mere

Re:Shit DOES happen...and HAS happened.

[penguinsula]

Complex system interactivity and tight coupling have caused accidents in many industries and in the transport sector.

Charles Perrow has an excellent analysis of those type of accidents in Nuclear Plants, Petrochemical industries, Aircraft & Airways, Dams etc.

(Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies, by Charles Perrow, Basic Books, NY, 1984.) http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~piccard/entropy/perrow. html

Most of these accidents and failures were not the result of lack of money or due to operator error. In this case, I doubt it was a simple as forgetting to push a button on a control panel. This is not an excuse, but a reasonable explanation for a whole range of accidents involving complex systems.

News for Nerds? Not likely!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can no one else have picked up on this nitpick:

THE SIMPSONS STARTED IN 1989!

"Mid to late eighties," my ass.

Re:News for Nerds? Not likely!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you're wrong.
The Simpsons, created by cartoonist Matt Groening (and named for the members of his immediate family except for Bart, which is an anagram for Brat), first appeared in 1987 as a series of 30-second spots produced for the Emmy Award-winning variety series The Tracey Ullman Show.

http://www.snpp.com/other/articles/briefhistory.ht ml/

cron

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of cron?

Re:Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D

[Anonymous Coward]

Je ne comprends toujours pas ta réaction. J'ai consulté plusieurs de tes messages et d'ordinaire ils sont constructifs et intéressants.

Where did it go wrong? Quand quelqu'un te reprend tu deviens tout défensif et arrogant ?

Tu n'as pas droit à l'erreur, toi ?

12 years for 1/20 second

[Easy2RememberNick]

I saw an interview on the Canadian Discovery Channel, they interviewed the guy who made the probe that would determine what the surface texture was like. He spent 12 years making it and it did its job in 1/20 of a second. He laughed, nice to see he has a sense of humour. He said the surface was like Creme Brule.

Be an equal-opportunity opportunist

[squarooticus]

When the ESA does something stupid, please remember to ridicule it as much as you do NASA's dumb mistakes.

Aren't they pre-programmed?

[adeydas]

Aren't these mechanisms supposed to be pre-programmed?

It's so the Simpsons don't get sued...

[Gadgetfreak]

by the makers of Play Doh for copyright infringement.

Personally, I thought the apostrophe was for a brief pause, so there's more emphasis on the D phoneme.

He should visit slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should tell him to come post in the /. poll...

You must be joking...

[toggles]

Beer the cause of and solution to all life's problems - Homer J. Simpson

There hasn't been a truer word said... ;-)

Heh...

[pyro jackelope]

Now that's what you call the start of a very bad day.

Parental Units

[pisdtal]

Now they feel like many of the parental units of the /.ers :)

haiku :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

To the fellow whose 18 years of hard work was thrown down the toilet:

Your project busted
By European weenies
Go work at Wendy's

Re:haiku :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Well aren't I a big dumb-dumb

I thought my old haiku was deleted but it's still there

LMAO MARK THIS AS -1: REDUNDANT PLZ KTHX LOLOCAUST

More info...

[Liquid Len]

You can find more detailed information about this sad story in Nature.

Oh, really?

[Pan T. Hose]

Since the person responsible quite likely did not *plan* this to go wrong, he did not actively deliberate the pro's and con's of such a failure. [emphasis added]

And how can you possibly tell that was not a sabotage before the investigation? I'm sorry but I don't believe that making it yet another "glitch" swept under the carpet and turning blind eye is a better idea than actually finding out what really happened.

Let me see here...

[fizban]

The guy spent 18 years of his life for a wind measurement??? That man must really love wind.

Re:Let me see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

> The guy spent 18 years of his life for a wind
>measurement?

To be the first and only scientist to measure wind on this specific moon, not to mention the most distant wind measurement ever made? Sure. Why not. What sort of "first and only" science is in YOUR CV?

No Cassini Sim?

[sscanf]

One of the articles, I can't recall which, stated that NASA executed the package (whatever that is) delivered to them by ESA. It seems like there should have been a Cassini simulator to test these packages on. That, plus a checklist with an entry like "Receiver A on".

I would have run it on a sim at ESA and on a sim at NASA (the package should come with a checklist) and with independant review and verification to boot.

Checklist.

[TapeCutter]

Who in aerospace makes the checklist for all the unknown errors, say, like a cosmic ray taking out a random flag bit in a register. I would like to know since if IRC, NASA and ESA projects are CMM level 5. As far as I know even CMM level 5 projects, that have checklists up to thier eyeballs, still can't find those pesky unknown problems. Human error is probably at the top of the unkown error list but even knowing that, it still persists. Checklists are essential and also doomed to always be incomplete, like every other system they can and will fail. Any honest quality expert will tell you the same thing, "there are no absolutes, shit can happen, a good QA system will minimse the chance of shit happening to your project".

Maybe your customers belive your "pilots are infallible because of checklists" theory, but it's been my experience that after the "shit happens" a book full of cross checked checklists will only help you to repeat the shit in exactly the same way (learn where you went wrong). This is what happened here, they will learn something from this dissapointing hiccup in thier extremely accururate data collection and navigation system that will keep operating for years. They will go back to thier libraries of checklist and find out why thier system partially failed in this instance.

Considering your job, it kinda scares me that you think "it's not hard", but with all due respect, writing embeded software in an environment refined by many plane crashes over many years is nothing like shooting a bus through the rings of Saturn for the first time.

Systems are created and operated by humans and every human makes mistakes, even perfectly regimented pilots. The person, people or team(s) that made this mistake will feel bad enough without a pompous pilot telling them they are incompetent.

Or in your own words... "We take it for granted that they are properly designed with failsafe modes"..."those are just admissions of shoddy management and operations"

Re:Should have given him that raise he wanted! /no

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Would love to have been a fly on the wall when all that went down.

I dunno, I think they would be putting the beatdown on every bug in sight at that meeting...

Don't feed the trolls

[EvilTwinSkippy]

He, according to these creeps every piece of equipment should repell bullets, and the failure to survive an indirect nuclear blast is a sign of negligence... or worse ... WEAKNESS.

Ignore 'em.

Don't drive to work, personally. Trashed too many cars commuting. I take the bus.

same error caused 50% image loss too

[peter303]

By not turning on both transmission channels only 370 pictures were transmitted out of 700 expected if the experiement ran to completion. Still the 370 were fabulous.

European socialism at its finest!

[Anonymous Coward]

As per usual, the dumbass socialists in Europe couldn't tie their shoelaces properly without calling NASA for help.

Then Prof. Frink chimes in

[truthsearch]

Professor Frink: "The Huygens glavin with the switching and the OH NO not working..."

Re:Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D

[Hognoxious]

Desolé, je suis vachement pressé, je ne peu pas perdre le temps à bavarder avec un lâche inconnu.

Aussi, mon clavier n'a pas les accents (et aussi il est foutu, l'espace march 1 fois sur 4) donc je dois faire les "ampersand-eacute" conneries. Putain de merde, c'est chiant.

There and Their

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you must have copied and pasted this from somewhere retarded...

Whats a real American ?

- Real American never lost a war!
- Real American live in a democratic country!
- Real American fight for freedom to the death!
- Real American Liberated Europe from the Nazi by fighting the war from end to finish, both time!
- Real American are Noble
- Real American are defender of Americas
- Real American live in america
- Real American earned there Country
- Real American are not afraid of terrorist

What is a real American ?

- Real Americans have never lost a war !
- Real Americans live in a democratic country !
- Real Americans fight for freedom, to the death !
- Real Americans liberated Europe from the Nazi by fighting the war from start to finish, both times!
- Real Americans are noble.
- Real Americans are defenders of the Americas.
- Real Americans live in America.
- Real Americans earned their country.
- Real Americans are not afraid of terrorists.

What's wrong with these people!?

[groupthink]

"I think right now the key lesson is this -- if you're looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn't it."

What's wrong with these people!? First they don't fully test their equipment, and it takes a determined man to show them if they don't correct for the doppler shift, they'll loose everything. Then they forget to turn on a second channel.

I'm not specially trained, I'm not a scientist, and I don't know anything about how to run their experiments, but the fuckin' Stooges could do a better job than this! Ever fly a small plane? They have a checklist for a reason... so you don't "forget" that all important step! My god, these people need to take a class: "How not to fuck up - 101". /rant

Obligatory South Park reference

[smithmc]

You my friend have never been to Quebec. And I'm not talking about Montreal. Try small-town Quebec. That's where real french is spoken.

There's no Canada like French Canada,
It's zee best Canada in zee land,
Zee other Canada is a bullshit Canada,
If you lived here for a day you'd understand!

Dude

[Anonymous Coward]

... just buy pr0n.

If you are paying for it, you are doing it wrong.

Napoleon?

[AtariAmarok]

"was made popular by Napoleon"

Who met his defeat at Water Loo. Which, of course, is a slightly redundant-sounding British term for toilet. Puts us right back on topic!

How apropos to today's poll....

[FuzzyDaddy]

Which is, what's the most expensive hardware you've ever ruined?

Re:How apropos to today's poll....

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody I know ruined a research Laser. It costed about $250000. Fortunately the insurance company coverd it...but he and his fellows still lost half a year for rebuilding everything.

What the French think about French speakers

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a French company and I work with French people. I have asked them language questions and learned many interesting things.
1) They look down their noses big time at Canadian French. They understand it, but they accuse them of unnecessarily using words that no one else in the French speaking world uses.
2) Cajun French is understandable, but the big gripe is that they borrowed too many words from English.
3) I've never heard any disparaging comments about people speaking French from the former French colonies in Africa. Well, I can say that about the black colonies like the Ivory Coast. I don't know what they think about Algerians or Moroccans who speak French because I work in America and we don't have anyone here from those places. The black Africans here all speak proper French.
4) They regard French speakers in Belgium and Switzerland as people who speak it correctly, but they also tell jokes about these people and generally consider them to be morons.
5) They consider Haitian French, also known as Haitian Creole, to be a different language from French, although they understand some words. Linguicists feel the same.

Danger Will Robinson

[xactuary]

Wasn't it this mission that carried a nuclear reactor that used plutonium? And to get to Saturn, NASA swung the craft in a near earth slingshot effect? I remember being stunned to learn after the fact that a wrong calculation would have led to a disasterous burn-up in earth's atmosphere. Articles at the time were saying that these guys are good and miscalulations just don't happen at this level of engineering excellence... Yeah, right. I, for one, do not welcome our glow-in-the-dark overlords.

Don't worry!

[Spy der Mann]

We'll send an astronaut in cryo so he can turn the switch back on :)

Re:**censored** happens.

[templest]

Every time I read here on /. about how 'professional' programmers seem to think that it's to hard to actually take the time and effort to write failsafe code, and test it as such, I ask myself how many people would die if thier attitudes were used developing the flight management systems in our aircraft.

You have two "typos" in that sentence. Oh well, sh!t happens.

Yes, the real question is how much A did they get?

[SuperKendall]

I read that also, and it seemed like they might not have all of channel A - but I was wondering how much they did get, and can't find any good reports on that.

I guess they are probably doing a lot of signal processing work right about now to coerce more A data from incredibly faint signals...

I wonder also if this will mean more pictures later on.

Checklists are your friends

[plopez]

Pilots use them.

Submariners use them.

Good software testers use them.

When you absolutely have to get it right the first time, build a check list. No matter how boring it is. They may prevent you from wasting 18 years of your life, or dying.

Didn't "Forget" to turn it on

[waldoiverson]

From everything I've read at Space.com. Nobody forgot to turn on this experiment. The problems was that ESA sent NASA poor specs that didn't include the proper instructions. Things went up as they were described in the manual which meant the experiment was not turned on. That said, nobody forgot they just didn't document it correctly.

And he still hasn't learned his lesson!!!!

[EraserMouseMan]

The scientist who's got nothing to show for the last 18 years of his life said, "I think right now the key lesson is this -- if you're looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn't it." No, sir. Acutally the lesson is much simpler - USE A CHECKLIST! Besides, what's "instant" about 18 years? And what's "guaranteed" about NASA? This guy just has a problem with the Obvious things in life.

Re:And he still hasn't learned his lesson!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it wasn't HIS fault that the communication channel wasn't turned on.

Re:**censored** happens.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF?

This thread is full with SHIT in the subjectline, so what do you think is gained by replacing one instance with "**censored**".

I really don't get it. Where you live, is shit considered something abnormal? Don't you have a dump everyday? Isn't this the most natural thing in the world, even more natural than fucking?

(Completely puzzled as to why one would censor the word "shit". But then not living in backwards america.)

Looks like they've recovered the data

[rpjs]

According to this BBC report they've recovered most of the lost data by receiving it directly from the Huygens lander using radio telescopes.

The absolutely, positively WORST part of all is:

[The_REAL_DZA]

on the NEXT mission there'll be about a zillion "don't forget to turn on MY experiment!" e-mails, very likely with each one followed by several "me too!" e-mails.

BUt what happens if

[geekoid]

someone sends you an incorrect checklist?
In essences, this is what happend.

So it Goes

[Shafe]

Mishaps like these are what make me grind my teeth when thinking about NASA and the space program. I've always been a staunch supporter of the space program, but failures like these make me question their value. How could however many dozen PhD's who spent 18 years FORGET to turn on an experiment like this? You'd think there'd be an if (module.enabled) {} check somewhere in the code that would throw a master alarm in the else {} clause.

This is why Burt Rutan et al. will continue to succeed: failure is not an option! If you forget to enable a system that cost millions of dollars, you're out of business.

Not that the mission is a total loss. But I'm still baffled by how NASA can make these mistakes. They're the type of mistakes that give some credibility to the conspiracy theorists, arguing that NASA didn't really lose the Mars Observer, the Polar Lander, or the Mars Climate Orbiter. Rather, NASA found evidence of extraterrestrial life and is covering it up. We probably won't know until the second space race heats up, with China, India and perhaps Brazil, but also Rutan, Branson, Bezos, et al. gunning for the moon and Mars. Onward!

Re:So it Goes

[DerekLyons]

This is why Burt Rutan et al. will continue to succeed: failure is not an option!

Huh? Simply because failure is not an option does not mean that failure will not occur. (And note that on three out of three high altitude flights SS1 had significant problems.)

Not that the mission is a total loss. But I'm still baffled by how NASA can make these mistakes.

NASA didn't make the mistake... The ESA did. The ESA screwed up the command sequences they gave to to NASA to transmit. (The Huygens reciever onboard Cassini was provided and controlled by the ESA.)

Re:So it Goes

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it was ESA, idiot! And then, why don't you join NASA, given you're so smart? Oh, because you're full of shit and they wouldn't take you. Moron.

Re:So it Goes

[Anonymous Coward]

"How could however many dozen PhD's who spent 18 years FORGET to turn on an experiment like this?"

They had a lot going on at the time. Perhaps there wasn't as good communication as there could have been, and perhaps the prof responsible for the experiment assumed that, because it's all-important to *him*, that it should be just as important to everyone.

As long as

[geekoid]

you have an internet connection, you do have an offsite backup of all the porn.

Re:As long as

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember to backup the pictures of your exgirlfriend on my machine.

Oops...

[Anonymous Coward]

HahahaAHAHAHAH!

and... HAH! :D

Gendered language

[DreadPiratePizz]

would long now have his PhD...

You ass. Women grad students worked on the program too.

Re:Gendered language

[imsabbel]

Yeah. And WHAT?
Look, here is the internet, please shove this PC crap up your ass.

Wow, too bad

[dodgy_knickers]

David Atkinson was my Professor at University of Idaho for Fields & Waves. He's a seriously bright guy, possibly the best professor I had (and there were a number of very good teachers at UI during the 90s).

I'm sure he's taking it with grace, but frankly I'd say we should take up a collection so he can get wasted and trash an extravagant hotel room. I hear that's therapeutic.

-kev

Re:Yes, the real question is how much A did they g

[laing]

I doubt that the channel A data recovered via radiotelescope will be of much value to the doppler wind experiment. Consider that the recovered signal will be doppler shifted by:
1) The rotation of Titan
2) The orbit of Titan around Saturn
3) The orbit of saturn around Sol
4) The rotation of Earth
5) The orbit of Earth around Sol

I'm not saying it's an impossible task, but it certainly is a challenging one. If Cassini did not process the Huygens probe data (but simply recorded it and played it back during transmission to earth), and the radiotelescopes recovered channel B data as well, it might be possible to correlate the RT channel B data with that downlinked from the repeater on board Cassini. Then they could apply the difference to the channel A RT data and recover the original. Lots of assumptions on my part here.

I haven't read anywhere about the quality of the recovered RT signal but I also doubt that anyone will be able to decode much of the modulated data on it.

--
sigs are a waste of space

no password protected directory or burned DVD?

[Anonymous Coward]

man, you WERE whipped.

yow

[comet69]

sucks for that dood... i would of punched atleast one person in the face..

Space terrorism by geeks.

[inteller]

I have this theory. If Titan is made of methane and no oxygen....what is preventing someone from lobbing essentially what would be a Molotov Cocktail at the moon and blowing that fucker up? I mean this is pretty simple. Send probe with a canister of oxygen with it, descend into the atmosphere, and issue a detonate command. Personally, I think that would be really fucking cool.

The more things change...

[Old Man Kensey]

As related by Carl Sagan in one of his books, there was a very elegant experiment designed by a scientist named Wolf Vishniac for the Viking lander. He had done a lot of research into the survival of life in extreme environments like Mars'. His experiment was simple: mix Martian soil samples with a nutrient solution and see what happened. He was looking for changes in clarity or acidity, either of which could indicate active biology; these were much more general criteria than the life-detection experiments that were included.

Results in Vishniac's experiment would have indicated the possible presence of a broad spectrum of life, but might not have been absolutely conclusive; positive results from the included experiments, it was thought, would definitively indicate the presence of some form of life. (As it turns out, depending on who you ask, that wasn't as hard-and-fast as the team would have liked: clays found on earth will duplicate the "life" indications of the Viking experiments, and the Viking data indicate the possible presence of such soil on Mars.)

Due to space constraints, Vishniac's experiment was dropped from the lander. He continued his research on extreme environments in Antarctica, where he met his death by falling into a crevasse while hiking from one of his sample stations to another.

Sagan's opinion was that Vishniac's experiment should have been the one included.

Conversation

[Tablizer]

Mike: "Bob, this is so great! We are about to receive data from Titan. I feel better that we have our two channels on."

Bob: "Two.....channels? Ugh....I gotta go use the....rest....room..."

You wouldn't see the fireball even from Saturn

[Anders Andersson]

Send probe with a canister of oxygen with it, descend into the atmosphere, and issue a detonate command.

What would happen? Probably about the same as if you dropped a canister of methane into Earth's atmosphere and detonated it. A big fireball, yes, but a canister of methane isn't going to consume all the oxygen on Earth. Nor will that canister of oxygen consume all the methane on Titan.

On Titan, warning signs reading "flammable" are posted in the oxygen mines (they extract small amounts of oxygen from solid-rock water), not around the natural methane lakes.

Canadian are reaL Americans

[Moulinneuf]

Actually your comment is sad , I have lived in Canada all my life , you lived in the Country but rejected most of its values , history , and quality ...

Canadian are Real Americans , and no its not because "Opie812" aka the coward who dont use is real name and who dont know the values of is own country and his own history say otherwise that its going to change , even someone from the US of A cant do anything about it , even I cant change it even if I wanted to. Believe me they tried but we ( well not you , I guess ) have beaten the crap out of them in every way , Military , financialy , politically , morality , freedom ...

Do I and other Real Americans from Canada care about the atrocity commited by the US and the use of our good name deteriorated by there actions , yes we do.

I would normally take offense at the fact that some coward insulted my province and answer back but you insulted , My Country , My Prime Minister , My values , My ancestor actions and there learnings.

This can only mean that your leaving us soon for the United-States since you dont enjoy living in Canada and being a Real American , unlike the Etats-Unians who would tell you good ridance its sad to see you havent learned anything at all by Living in one of the best Free Country in the world. And that you feel you would be better with them as what you add all your life and with one another Real American from Canada ...

I certainly hope you like living there.

Re:Canadian are reaL Americans

[Opie812]

Actually your comment is sad , I have lived in Canada all my life , you lived in the Country but rejected most of its values , history , and quality ...>

How exactly do you get this from reading my post? I simply stated that you are an idiot. I know my history....Coureurs de Bois and all.

Canadian are Real Americans , and no its not because "Opie812" aka the coward who dont use is real name and who dont know the values of is own country and his own history say otherwise

First, who says Opie isn't my real name ? Secondly we're Real Americans because *you* say we are? I see, what I say is invalid because I say it, and what you say is valid because you say it. Gotcha'.
I could go on, but reading your incomprehensible drivel is making my eyes bleed.

In summary, you're nothing but a worthless french scumbag.

Your province supports fascism: http://www.qesnrecit.qc.ca/socialsciences/cycles45 /history/lessons/m7u1l3.htm ,
and you're heartless bastards: http://www.vibe985.com/content/cp_article.asp?id=/ global_feeds/CanadianPress/NationalNews/n010435A.h tm

Re:Canadian are reaL Americans

[Moulinneuf]

No you stated :

"I know my history....Coureurs de Bois and all"

Whe discovered ( rediscovered ) America ...

and

"It doesn't surprise me that this guy is from Quebec. It's a province full of weirdos, whiners and fascists"

Wich show that you dont know your history at all neither past , recent and even now.

"who says Opie isn't my real name "

I said Opie812 isnt your real name , if Opie is your real name ( wich I have serious doubt about , Opie are usualy great Canadian ) then I apologize for somewhat insulting your family name and ancestors for your personnal stupids clueless comments.

"Secondly we're Real Americans because *you* say we are?"

No because of what our ancestor did , because of what our parents did , because of what our armed force did , because of what whe are , because of where whe live. And because finnaly of what I did.

"Your province supports fascism"

Off course , thats why my province in world war 1 and world war 2 and the war in korea and in the first Gulf war , and as currently the highest contingent in Afghanistan, as part of Canada armed forces , and also the UN contingent , as the highest number of dead soldier , the most soldiers postumely decorated with the highest honors and the greatest numbers of veteran decorated for highest honors , most of the great battle we ( Quebecer regiment only ) fought and won your hidding ( because whe won and almost nobody whas left standing on our group for celebrations , but at such a cost in man life , it whont bring back the dead , and it would be a total direspect of there act and the act of there brothers in arms to recall those infamous moments where whe where used as cannon fodder , when you go 2000 against 80 000 and come out the winner , there is nothing to be ashamed of , (I know about that battle because my Great great grand father in world war 1 died in it ), my great Grand father died in WW2, will my grand father whas in charge of supporting the troop from here ( I found out a couple years back after I add to take care of is stuff ( after is death ) that he whas pretty high up ( on the civilian side ) and decorated , I asked my mom why he never spoke of this and she said , he would not tarnish the memory and death of is father , simply put he whas no hero because unlike his father he never faced combat directly and did not die defending is country values) , even do is direct action where responsible for the safty of his country and his soldier in his armed forces as my other grand father whas part of the resistance in France , As I said you dont know your own history ...

Out of the 480 000 who died in WW1 279 000 where from the province of Quebec. 2000 where of my direct familly , Canadian side.

out of the 65 000 who died in ww2 32 000 where from the province of Quebec. 500 where from my direct familly Canadian side.

Care to meet me in person and tell this to my face ? That we are facist ?

So far the Quebec government as donated 35 million in aids of first need support ( food , drug supply , shelters ) , but hey its no worth mentionning because our governemt gave 100 000 cash "this far" , also not worth mentionning is the 70 million of personnal donation the Quebecer have donated ( 5k from me personnaly and my companies numbers is mostly the work of my employee wich I matched , lets say that they almost all beat the donation "so far" of the Quebec government , and the why only 100 000 at this time of the year: It as nothing to do with the relief effort in Haiti ( whe footed a 80 milion bill ) , California ( another 45 million after the hurican and tornado and the fire season ), not even the US gov gave as much directly ) , Africa 15 million , Columbia 10 million, etc ...

Lets not forget the help whe constantly give to the rest of Canada when every disaster hit OUR ( well not yours since your so ashamed of part of it ) country. Toronto , Vancouver , etc ,

great ball of...

[Anonymous Coward]

they now say that titan is made of lots of liquid methane below the surface. they said earlier that the probe sunk into the planet's surface. wonder what the chances are that some circuit will get exposed and ignite the moon into a great ball of fire...

Re:great ball of...

[Anonymous Coward]

How dumb are you?

You need elementary oxygen to burn methane. Shut up and read a book for a change.

Re:Shit DOES happen...and HAS happened.

[wjwlsn]

... but robust, high reliability systems should keep the shit from hitting the fan.

Perrow's a pessimist. His theory's good up to a point, but it ignores robustness. Look up "high reliability organization" and you'll find a wealth of information contradicting Perrow's main premise (i.e., that it's impossible to manage a system that exhibits both high connectivity and high interactive complexity).

Sure, my editor is "cat"

[peter303]

I dont even bother with editors and debuggers.
I write a program by typing into
cat > prog.java
I even pried off the backspace key off my keyboard because it was unnecessary.

Maybe a misinterpreted statement?

[Anders Andersson]

I would assume this information came from the press conference that was scheduled for today.

It did; I watched the press conference on NASA webcast and I wonder if it's a misinterpretation of what Jean-Pierre Lebreton (Huygens mission manager) briefly tried to explain. He seemed to refer to the direct Huygens-Earth signal as "Channel C" and said they were still busy analyzing the recorded signal, but he didn't go into detail on whether the "missing data" referred to the lost pictures or to the failed doppler wind experiment.

As I understand it, both the doppler wind experiment on Cassini and the very long baseline interferometry experiment on Earth aimed at tracing the descent path of Huygens in Titan's atmosphere, though from different points of view (maybe either experiment had other aims as well).

It has been said that the signal from Huygens was much too faint for any data to be extracted from it here on Earth, only the carrier could supposedly be detected. I guess it's like listening on the shortwave band using a regular radio and noticing the presence of a weak transmitter, while the signal is so blurred you can't possibly make out what they are saying. But if aliens 60 light-years away are supposed to hear WWII radio broadcasts from Earth now, maybe it's technically possible for us to pick up a mobile phone call from Saturn orbit?

here is another word

[jonhuang]

ohnoes!

Contraction of duhhhhh... oh!

[istartedi]

I always assumed it was a contraction of "duhhhh... oh!".

Like trying to call-in to a recorded telethon

[Anders Andersson]

when their data failed to come in, why the hell didn't they *contact* NASA and ASK what happened to it??

You seem to suggest they would have been able to correct the problem, once they learned about it. They weren't. Cassini is built with a minimum of moving parts (for robustness, I guess), and the whole vehicle has to be turned around for every operation that requires aiming at a target, such as Earth or some Saturnian moon. The entire list of operations to be performed for an event has to be uploaded to Cassini well in advance of execution.

Therefore, Cassini couldn't begin transmitting to (or listening for new commands from) Earth until it had finished listening to Huygens. When the first playback of Channel B arrived at Earth more than one hour later, not accompanied by Channel A, Cassini was already below Titan's horizon as seen from Huygens' landing site.

This is why radio telescopes on Earth were able to report a successful landing on Titan several hours before ESA had any data even from the early stages of the descent. When Huygens continued transmitting far longer than expected, and Saturn was about to disappear below the horizon to radio telescopes in Australia, ESA was engaging additional telescopes in Europe to continue listening. They may have been investigating the Channel A problem simultaneously, but there was nothing NASA could have done about it at that time.

Re:Like trying to call-in to a recorded telethon

[Reziac]

Ah, okay, thanks for the explanation. From TFA, all I got was that they "waited and waited, and nothing happened".

I gather these expeditions aren't big on multitasking :)

This was not "forgotten"

[Anonymous Coward]

It was stashing SCO's super secret and ultra unique and efficient source code. The penalty for trespassing on Titan now is 12 consecutive life sentences!

Re:Va te faire voir chez les grecs Re:NITPICK Re:D

[Dahan]

suce ma queue

Not enough responsibility

[skybuck]

It's his experiment... etc Take more responsibility for it ! Make sure what needs to be done gets done ! Reminds me of two things: Ariene 5 rocket which blew up because Ariane 4 software was installed instead of 5. Buildings which get build be construction workers. A good architect will visit the site everyday to make sure everything gets done right and mistakes get corrected before it gets worse etc ;)

Simulation

[Anders Andersson]

You simply simulate the special conditions when things are supposed to happen.

Simulation was also used by Boris Smeds for his elaborate testing of the Huygens-Cassini communications link in 2000. While he were to test the actual receivers on Cassini, he used the Huygens copy left on Earth to generate and record a sample data stream in the proper format. He then simulated the effects of Huygens descending along an irregular path, taking atmospheric interference into account, by carefully tweaking both the frequency and the power of the Deep Space Network transmitter used for the test. When Cassini returned perfectly clear garbage instead of the expected test data, he reworked his experiment until it became clear that Doppler shift was a major problem to Cassini.

That simulation covered only a specific component of the Cassini-Huygens mission, and I'm not sure the exact command sequence sent to Cassini in preparation for the landing had even been written at that time, so nobody may have been able to test it in a complete simulator of the entire system. Since the mission schedule was altered to deal with the Doppler shift problem, the command sequence would probably have required modification anyway, but the more you can simulate in advance, the better.

Rather than spend extra time writing a simulator from scratch, wouldn't it be better if the design process included simulation by default? I'm not familiar with how these systems are designed, but I suppose you could integrate simulation parameters with the technical documentation. Ideally, you should be able to execute the documentation and have the whole system begin operating virtually on your screen. Manual checklists are necessary as well, but you shouldn't have to rely on a checklist to make sure that all the different software components (and maybe even some in hardware) will cooperate nicely.

As the Channel A failure wasn't due to some unexpected natural phenomenon, but rather a glitch in the program, it would most likely have been detected by simulation. If a human is supposed to press a particular button at a particular time, you can simulate that too, or even find out what happens if the operator has gone fishing.

three words for you...Soiled.

[Anonymous Coward]

"women come, women go, but pr0n is forever"

Apparently, so are the stains.

He didn't forget to turn it on.

[Buzzo]

He didn't forget to turn it on. It must have been running WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow.

[Grendel Drago]

That's impressive. Space programs need people like him. You get the feeling that if there had been a Boris Smeds around before the Challenger incident, things would have gone a bit differently.

Ah well.

--grendel drago

Just a minor point

[einhverfr]

I do a lot of database development with a real database manager (PostgreSQL). One thing to understand here is that the accepted behavior of the database when asked to do something wrong is to "puke" and abort the entire transaction. If you try to handle things too gracefully, you get something like MySQL where what you put in is not necessarily what you get out. And if the hard drive is removed and the data can't be written, it is better to let the app know that nothing is being written or fail horribly rather than give the illusion that things are still partly functioning.

I think, however, you are right about your points, as long as I take it to mean that failure circumstances should be handled according to spec and what is the desired response to the failure.

Let me give you a story about bad QA which I was involved in. I lost pretty much all faith in large companies QA departments after this. This is when I worked at Microsoft....

I was helping to debug a failed application as part of compatability testing for server 2003. The issue was that Websphere 5 would crash on install (and would install properly on 2000 Server). I probably spent 2-3 hrs in front of a debugger trying to determine what went wrong-- what had changed between versions so that I could write it up and send it to the people who could fix it before the product was released. The issue isn;t that it is hard or that it is complicated. The issue is one of management priorities.

It turns out that the problem has to do with the way Websphere 5 installs its own JRE. It reads the current JAVA_HOME environment variable, resets it, installs the IBM JRE, and then sets it back to what it was originally. It then repeats this process later. This works fine in Windows 2000.

In Server 2003, if you don't have the environment variable set at the start of the installation, it tries to read the non-existant variable, and like in Windows 2000, this returns an empty, null-terminated string. It then sets the environment variable, installs the JRE, and then returns it to the cached old value, an empty, null-terminated string. Unlike with Server 2000, 2003 Server actually leaves the enviromnet variable set, but empty. When it goes to repeat this process later, it crashes on a system call trying to convert the empty string from Unicode to ANSI.

So this is what I tell the developers. I say that this is what causes the crash, and they promptly blame the program and IBM. I point out that this is crashing on a system call, and that the two API's for handling the environemnt variables don't work well together and that one should be changed, or at least the problem documented. And they refuse to do this. So this is where "professional" developers stand.

Looking at the money spent, and the multitude of man years spent on developing the lander for this mission, to hear that a significant experiment was lost becase somebody forgot to turn it on, is just beyond comprehension. this goes way beyond unprofessional, and well past the line we would draw for 'incompetent'.

Makes you wonder where the problem occurred though. Who forgot what? When was it forgotten? Was it some guy who forgot to turn it on, or was it some guy who forgot to include it in the agenda early on? I assume this is why they are investigating.

The good news is, not all data was lost, though.

Seconded.

[Grendel Drago]

Seconded, most definitely. Girls who hate porn tend to be the type that would even consider having sex to humor someone. Yech. I collect pornography from the vasty wastelands of TGPs (mainly from sources like AskJolene and Tiava, which include a great deal of crap that I wade through) and send it forth to my beloved, who shows her appreciation via a hacked Dakota that I sent her. (There, I have dork credibility. Nyah.)

I went through a lot of my first girlfriend telling me I was "sick, disgusting and wrong" (that's a direct quote) before I found out that not all girls do that, and that I'm not, in fact, sick, disgusting and wrong. A lesson well learned---I shall never date another non-perv, ever again.

By the way, what's the 'ACT'? What country are you posting from, and what do you mean by 'real porn'?

--grendel drago

Re:Seconded.

[G-funk]

Australian Capital Territory. Technically, no states are allowed to sell real pr0n, just the territories (and no, apart from that I don't know the difference between a state and a territory here, since I don't really care). And the difference is here it's basically women posing, fron the waist up. They can't show penetration, cumshots, spread photos, or (not so sure about this one) an erect penis in porn you buy in Queensland (where I'm from these days). In the rest of the states it's simply no penetration and no spread shots I believe.

Honest?

[Grendel Drago]

This is the same country where the age of consent for being in porn is sixteen, leading to an admonition I've seen in various places not to trust the United States-legality of anything you download from Australia?

Man, that's weird. And it'd be something of a bother, too, if porn came from porn stores and not too-trusting tennaged girls on the internet.

--grendel drago

Re:Honest?

[Grendel Drago]

Teenaged. Not tennaged. Tennaging probably isn't legal in Australia. They probably have Anti-Tennagement Squads around every corner, ready to leap out and detain any deviant tennagers.

Once upon a time, I could spell...

--grendel drago

Re:Honest?

[G-funk]

Erm, no. You have to be 18 to be in porn here (and it can't be filmed in queensland), and I'm pretty sure it's against the law to pretend your 18 yo model is anything less than 18- you can't get a 19yearold with no tits and pretend she's "sweet 16"

Settle for a Master's

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively, if they are like my dad, then when the PhD experiment fails they are just given a masters degree as their consolation prize and told to go start over from scratch somewhere else.

Shit happens, no?