Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much... There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do: go through his clothes and look for loose change.
"You were done when the work was done, not when the clock hit five"
Except no, but sorry no.
My contract very well could say so, it's only it doesn't. They put their expectations in writing for a reason. If they lie in writing (to me, or to themselves) it's their problem and their lack of professionalism, not mine.
Whenever they want me to work for the results, not for the hours, I gladly will negotiate conditions (which, more possibly than not, will include percentage on profits, since they are the results or my results, for instance).
"If you're a hard worker who cares about your work, you will work some overtime. It's inevitable."
I want to think about myself I do care about my work up to the point to be considered a true professional.
A true professional respect contracts as they are the true mark of a business relationship.
A contract has two sides.
I respect the value of both of them.
That means, among other things, I don't expect even a dime over what I agreed in contract with my employer, and he should not expect even a minute over what I agreed in contract with my employer. It's not that difficult to understand.
"On the other side of this coin how is it possible after years of swatting action, that it's still really possible to swat anyone?"
Maybe because when something like this happens, it is the stupid kid the one that gets 20 years in prison instead of the cop that out of any real need pulled the trigger.
"Yeah, let's abolish time zones so we have no way of knowing whether the guys in the offices in California, New York, London, and Tokyo are at work or not! That will fix ALL the chaos in our global community!"
I live in Spain, and I've worked at the same time with people in India and Americas. The way to know if my colleagues were working or not has always been the same: ask. It is not only that I should memorize (or look at) about five different timezones but also that the job schedules were not the same: some guys at Argentina went 8AM to 17PM, USA, West Coast, 9-5; Chennai... well, I never knew their exact schedule: some days seemed to work 24 hour, some others, you couldn't find them but at our daily meeting 15:00 Madrid time... and add too that from time to time our shared calendars acted funny with regards to time conversions...
So, yes, having just one timezone would have made things easier: I still would have to ask when they were working, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with translating their local-time answer to my local time request: if they'd say they were working 18-2, I would just have to look at my watch to understand what they meant.
"Imagine that you're driving down the highway, and suddenly your car starts to accelerate out of control. You, of course, scan the dash, see that the check engine light is on, and think to yourself "let me check the manual and see what to do about a check engine light".
That's the kind of thing you're suggesting here...."
Imagine you are a certified commercial pilot instead of a random guy in his car.
Then you don't imagine a shit, you just stick to the procedures which you check in the damn manuals.
Of course, you probably have seen a commercial plane dashboard: you don't have a mere "engine error" light but dozens of them. If you have an "MCAS subsytem failure - contradictory measures from sensors" indicator, you damn sure go to the page of the manual that deals with that. And probably, if there just one and only one thing that can be done, like disabling it, the supporting systems would have already done so, and then you wouldn't have an "MCAS subsytem failure - contradictory measures from sensors" indicator but an "MCAS subsytem failure - subsystem disengaged" one that surely would also have a damn page in the manual to know what to do from them on.
"The Lion Air pilots couldn't figure out why the plane was fucking around on them, and a pilot riding along diagnosed the issue."
From what I read, both the previous day crew that survived and the ones that died diagnosed properly the problem: something is fucking moving the control surfaces. What neither did, was understanding the underlying cause was MCAS command.
The difference is that the previous day's crew misunderstood the root cause and tried the wrong procedure that, by sheer luck, also happened to disengage MCAS.
What I don't get is how in hell was that plane flying the following day after such an undiagnosed and/or undeclared incident, I mean, why the crashed crew didn't know what happened the previous day and how it was "solutioned" (even if wrongly) so they didn't try the same.
"How do you know which one is giving faulty readings?"
Why do you want to know?
"You need three sensors."
For a non-required system, even with "catastrophic" failure mode, two sensors are good enough. You don't *need* to know which one is failing, in that case, you only *need* to know that one of the sensors is failing even if you don't know which one. In that case, you just turn off the system and let the pilot know of that fact... by means of an indicator.
And even then, you may be able not to disengage the system, even with a failing sensor as long as you can check which one fails by another means, either cross-checking with another subsystem that may produce a related measure (i.e.: an hydraulic pressure sensor has gone nuts if it says there's no pressure on a system that moves a flight surface with a movement sensor that indicates it's still responding to commands), or you can check on a known scenario (i.e.: you know an angle of attack sensor has gone nuts if it tells your nose is strongly elevated when you are parked).
"The problem with the MCAS is that it only had two sensor"
No, it had just one. The problem was the subsystem depending on it wasn't behaving the way Boing and FAA thought it was behaving.
"My car has rear/side vehicle detection for example. I can't count the number of times that has prevented a possible issue for me. My wife's car does not."
And then you can't count your wife's number of accidents on that car, or do you? And if you don't, will it be because the number is zero?
I won't say as much as your vehicle sensor is valueless but if it *really* has saved you an uncountable number of times, that's a signal its design has failed miserably: it hasn't make your stance on the road safer, it has turned you into a shitty driver instead.
Because, provided things were made just half-way sanely, one sensor would have been good enough.
The MCAS system was there "just" so the new MAX looked like the old one and, since the MAX was more prone to high speed stall, MCAS was supposedly to "just" throw a hand in case the pilots sidetracked by "just" lower the plane's nose "just" a bit. In case of MCAS malfunction, you just turn it off and pay a little attention, that's all.
But then, what it really happened is that MCAS, because of its reset after pilot acknowledging, gained in practice full authority over control surfaces. IF Boing -or FAA for that matter, had even suspected this "full authority" condition (and that it was indeed a design requirement, which it wasn't), you can be sure things would have been much different (2x or even 3x redundancy, specific training on remediation procedures, etc.)
The question here is much less the accident itself but how in hell did things reach to that utterly fucking point as to allow the planes to flight on these circumstances -and the fact that we are aware of this specific issue... now, but how many more have not been discovered yet?
"However the bigger issue is why are there only two sensors. where a single faulty sensor can cause an issue. There should have been three sensors so a single faulty sensor can be out voted by the remaining two good ones."
No: the bigger problem was that a malfunction in this subsystem was catalogued as "hazardous" because that's how it was design to be and that's what it *should* have been.
Then, the shitty, greed-mediated, certification process failed to discover the failure-mode design changed overnight (unadevertedly and undesiredly, I will suppose) from "hazardous" to "catastrophic" and so failed to provide proper support for that class -not only, nor probably mainly, on making it redundant but also on training procedures to cope with it.
"It's unlikely to have prevented the first accident because the pilots in that crash didn't even know about MCAS"
They didn't know about MCAS because they (supposedly) didn't have to. But if you put a new light on the console, you must train about this light and the correcting actions upon turning it on.
So, yes, it's very likely having that light would have prevented this accident.
"It's unlikely to have prevented the second crash because those pilots reportedly were familiar with MCAS and should immediately have known what was going on regardless of AOA indication."
The knew about the existance of MCAS but they were not trained on its failing modes and recovery procedures -on purpose. Again, a light on the console would have meant associated training and procedures and the accident wouldn't have happened.
Boing did a shit job so the 737MAX was certified on their schedule, and then it was sold as a non-recertification-rquired from the 737NG, which was a nice selling point -and it worked. Here are the results.
"You make some very fine points, on the political pressures/movtives, but the last line, at the same could be said for any politburo 5 year plan getting approved or rubber-stamped"
Maybe similar results and but different forces, or applied differently.
This 737MAX issue presents both similarities and differences to, say, Chernobyl and both are exponents of the failure modes of each system.
"They may have missed it, just like Boeing did. Boeing certainly doesn't want to make planes that crash. That's even worse for business than a delay in certification."
Do you think so? Only time will tell, but probably just current 737MAX signed contracts will outset the penalties, direct and indirect of this scandal.
The problem is not that FAA might have overlooked it (which, theoretically certainly could happen) but that even Boing would have catch it in "normal" circumstances, taking their due time for the assesment.
But since you can't count on a corporation to do the proper thing, even if not doing it goes against the long term perspectives of the company itself, that's why you put regulation agencies in place -letting corporate greed to overpressure the regulator, which is exactly what happened here, fully negates its value, and results like the present one are to be expected.
"Because of the change in the engine configuration it is an aircraft that handles differently."
No, it doesn't. That's exactly the point of MCAS.
""Compensating" so the pilot doesn't know the difference causes confusion"
No, it doesn't. The pilots were not confused about the flight envelope of their planes in the slightest.
"Do they make 747s feel like you're flying a TriStar?"
Was the intention when designing a TriStar that it should behave like a 747? Of course not.
You, of course, understand that these accidents have absolutely nothing to do with pilots being confused on how the flight envelope of these planes look like but because they were not trained on a specific failing scenario that kept moving the plane's control surfaces against the pilot's will, right?
"but I think knowing the root of the design decisions points up another failing -- the company's tendency (or perhaps industry's tendency) to reuse old airframes for new designs."
Only this has nothing to do with current situation. Of course incremental development is inherently cheaper and safer and of course too, when time comes a new development is due, which Boing perfectly knows.
This was just because of time and time only: they wanted to fight in the current wave of companies' renovation against Airbus, which, because of timing too, was on the market with a more modern system (it will probably be the other way around in, say, five years): they couldn't reach the market on time with a new airframe but they could do if they just scratched a bit more from the bottom of the old barrel.
They tried, and it's just OK for them to do so.
But then, all checks and balances were outplaced: instead of letting FAA do their job, more and more parts where self-assessed by Boing itself (what could possible go wrong? duh!): "Good" for Boing, which could reach their goal date, and "good" for the overwhelmed FAA which was strongly pressured to do more with less.
As basically with any other accident, a lot of circumstances need to get aligned for the fatality but then, corporate greed and corporate greed alone put those planes much more near the tragedy line than they should.
* An old airframe design already squeezed. * Pressure for passing approval at speed. * Pressure for more and more processes to be pushed to Boing's side so they can reach their dates * Business interest to offer the new MAX to be just like the old NG so there would be no re-training for pilots (not only cheaper, but also sooner and, you know, time is money) * Moving posts for the approval process (0.6 to 2.5 degrees)
*...and to top it all, the quite minor mistake among all this rush and changes, of forgetting that the final MCAS implementation would end up having full authority instead of just either 0.6 or even 2.5 degrees which in "standard" circumstances wouldn't fly past the first or maybe second reviewer.
So you ended up with a system categorized as non-critical (which it wast, by first draft), with (indirectly) full authority, and that was not even mentioned at least in the first batch of training manuals (because we made the new MAX to feel-fly exactly like the older NG for your convenience).
A magnificent example of the effects of modern capitalism in action.
"That number is hard to comprehend. What would it be in Libraries of Congress per square furlong?"
*Square* furlong? What are you? a Vogon?
Look *around* you: you'll never look "square" you. Therefore, the proper measure would be "Libraries of Congress per round furlong" -Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person!
"I figure a couple bigger players in cloud systems will get hacked or somehow compromised or simply have a major failure losing lot's of client data and that will be the reason many will back away from the cloud."
Ha!, Ha!, and then onether Ha!
Of course a couple big players will get hacked, of course they will lose lots of client data but, no, that won't make business going away from the cloud. There will be, if any, a minor "glitch" on one cloud providers of customers moving to a different one.
On one hand, the very business of cloud is perfect for globalization and economies of scale, so, the poster is right: two/three will cope the business (with, maybe a couple dozen of niche ones). On the other, "security" is an externalized cost, both in terms of deflecting blame (it's not my fault, it's my provider's) and "real" costs (when did a security breach mean a real cost to the one hosting the data?) -too good a proposition for business to reject.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much... There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do: go through his clothes and look for loose change.
"You were done when the work was done, not when the clock hit five"
Except no, but sorry no.
My contract very well could say so, it's only it doesn't. They put their expectations in writing for a reason. If they lie in writing (to me, or to themselves) it's their problem and their lack of professionalism, not mine.
Whenever they want me to work for the results, not for the hours, I gladly will negotiate conditions (which, more possibly than not, will include percentage on profits, since they are the results or my results, for instance).
Also, I said "among other things".
"If you're a hard worker who cares about your work, you will work some overtime. It's inevitable."
I want to think about myself I do care about my work up to the point to be considered a true professional.
A true professional respect contracts as they are the true mark of a business relationship.
A contract has two sides.
I respect the value of both of them.
That means, among other things, I don't expect even a dime over what I agreed in contract with my employer, and he should not expect even a minute over what I agreed in contract with my employer. It's not that difficult to understand.
I once saw an uber-boss who, unadevertly let us see a black window with letters.
It ended up being a vim session from some code she was debugging.
Imagine the tremendous embarrassment: a boss doing something useful!
"On the other side of this coin how is it possible after years of swatting action, that it's still really possible to swat anyone?"
Maybe because when something like this happens, it is the stupid kid the one that gets 20 years in prison instead of the cop that out of any real need pulled the trigger.
"Can't make that work. Unless you can persuade some people to be fine with the fact that it will be twelve noon and pitch black outside for them."
Just tell them is not twelve noon anymore but 19 noon, seven hours more noon than ever. Problem ended.
"Yeah, let's abolish time zones so we have no way of knowing whether the guys in the offices in California, New York, London, and Tokyo are at work or not! That will fix ALL the chaos in our global community!"
I live in Spain, and I've worked at the same time with people in India and Americas. The way to know if my colleagues were working or not has always been the same: ask. It is not only that I should memorize (or look at) about five different timezones but also that the job schedules were not the same: some guys at Argentina went 8AM to 17PM, USA, West Coast, 9-5; Chennai... well, I never knew their exact schedule: some days seemed to work 24 hour, some others, you couldn't find them but at our daily meeting 15:00 Madrid time... and add too that from time to time our shared calendars acted funny with regards to time conversions...
So, yes, having just one timezone would have made things easier: I still would have to ask when they were working, but at least I wouldn't have to deal with translating their local-time answer to my local time request: if they'd say they were working 18-2, I would just have to look at my watch to understand what they meant.
"on the 737 the trim system moves the entire horizontal stab instead of the elevators"
You are right, I forgot when answering this second time.
"To be fair it's not "control surfaces", it's a single control surface. Granted it's a pretty important one."
Well, I counted that my overall tone was a hint that I was not trying to be absolutely technically precise but trying to make my point through.
But then, last I looked most planes used to have two elevators which makes them "control surface*s*" on my book.
"Imagine that you're driving down the highway, and suddenly your car starts to accelerate out of control. You, of course, scan the dash, see that the check engine light is on, and think to yourself "let me check the manual and see what to do about a check engine light".
That's the kind of thing you're suggesting here ...."
Imagine you are a certified commercial pilot instead of a random guy in his car.
Then you don't imagine a shit, you just stick to the procedures which you check in the damn manuals.
Of course, you probably have seen a commercial plane dashboard: you don't have a mere "engine error" light but dozens of them. If you have an "MCAS subsytem failure - contradictory measures from sensors" indicator, you damn sure go to the page of the manual that deals with that. And probably, if there just one and only one thing that can be done, like disabling it, the supporting systems would have already done so, and then you wouldn't have an "MCAS subsytem failure - contradictory measures from sensors" indicator but an "MCAS subsytem failure - subsystem disengaged" one that surely would also have a damn page in the manual to know what to do from them on.
"The Lion Air pilots couldn't figure out why the plane was fucking around on them, and a pilot riding along diagnosed the issue."
From what I read, both the previous day crew that survived and the ones that died diagnosed properly the problem: something is fucking moving the control surfaces. What neither did, was understanding the underlying cause was MCAS command.
The difference is that the previous day's crew misunderstood the root cause and tried the wrong procedure that, by sheer luck, also happened to disengage MCAS.
What I don't get is how in hell was that plane flying the following day after such an undiagnosed and/or undeclared incident, I mean, why the crashed crew didn't know what happened the previous day and how it was "solutioned" (even if wrongly) so they didn't try the same.
"A redundant second sensor is not enough."
It is.
"How do you know which one is giving faulty readings?"
Why do you want to know?
"You need three sensors."
For a non-required system, even with "catastrophic" failure mode, two sensors are good enough. You don't *need* to know which one is failing, in that case, you only *need* to know that one of the sensors is failing even if you don't know which one. In that case, you just turn off the system and let the pilot know of that fact... by means of an indicator.
And even then, you may be able not to disengage the system, even with a failing sensor as long as you can check which one fails by another means, either cross-checking with another subsystem that may produce a related measure (i.e.: an hydraulic pressure sensor has gone nuts if it says there's no pressure on a system that moves a flight surface with a movement sensor that indicates it's still responding to commands), or you can check on a known scenario (i.e.: you know an angle of attack sensor has gone nuts if it tells your nose is strongly elevated when you are parked).
"The problem with the MCAS is that it only had two sensor"
No, it had just one. The problem was the subsystem depending on it wasn't behaving the way Boing and FAA thought it was behaving.
"My car has rear/side vehicle detection for example. I can't count the number of times that has prevented a possible issue for me. My wife's car does not."
And then you can't count your wife's number of accidents on that car, or do you? And if you don't, will it be because the number is zero?
I won't say as much as your vehicle sensor is valueless but if it *really* has saved you an uncountable number of times, that's a signal its design has failed miserably: it hasn't make your stance on the road safer, it has turned you into a shitty driver instead.
"But why only one was used for MCAS?"
Because, provided things were made just half-way sanely, one sensor would have been good enough.
The MCAS system was there "just" so the new MAX looked like the old one and, since the MAX was more prone to high speed stall, MCAS was supposedly to "just" throw a hand in case the pilots sidetracked by "just" lower the plane's nose "just" a bit. In case of MCAS malfunction, you just turn it off and pay a little attention, that's all.
But then, what it really happened is that MCAS, because of its reset after pilot acknowledging, gained in practice full authority over control surfaces. IF Boing -or FAA for that matter, had even suspected this "full authority" condition (and that it was indeed a design requirement, which it wasn't), you can be sure things would have been much different (2x or even 3x redundancy, specific training on remediation procedures, etc.)
The question here is much less the accident itself but how in hell did things reach to that utterly fucking point as to allow the planes to flight on these circumstances -and the fact that we are aware of this specific issue... now, but how many more have not been discovered yet?
"However the bigger issue is why are there only two sensors. where a single faulty sensor can cause an issue. There should have been three sensors so a single faulty sensor can be out voted by the remaining two good ones."
No: the bigger problem was that a malfunction in this subsystem was catalogued as "hazardous" because that's how it was design to be and that's what it *should* have been.
Then, the shitty, greed-mediated, certification process failed to discover the failure-mode design changed overnight (unadevertedly and undesiredly, I will suppose) from "hazardous" to "catastrophic" and so failed to provide proper support for that class -not only, nor probably mainly, on making it redundant but also on training procedures to cope with it.
"It's unlikely to have prevented the first accident because the pilots in that crash didn't even know about MCAS"
They didn't know about MCAS because they (supposedly) didn't have to. But if you put a new light on the console, you must train about this light and the correcting actions upon turning it on.
So, yes, it's very likely having that light would have prevented this accident.
"It's unlikely to have prevented the second crash because those pilots reportedly were familiar with MCAS and should immediately have known what was going on regardless of AOA indication."
The knew about the existance of MCAS but they were not trained on its failing modes and recovery procedures -on purpose. Again, a light on the console would have meant associated training and procedures and the accident wouldn't have happened.
Boing did a shit job so the 737MAX was certified on their schedule, and then it was sold as a non-recertification-rquired from the 737NG, which was a nice selling point -and it worked. Here are the results.
"You make some very fine points, on the political pressures/movtives, but the last line, at the same could be said for any politburo 5 year plan getting approved or rubber-stamped"
Maybe similar results and but different forces, or applied differently.
This 737MAX issue presents both similarities and differences to, say, Chernobyl and both are exponents of the failure modes of each system.
"Not capitalism. Corruption and abandonment of responsibilities in the name of profit"
That *is* capitalism. It has brought us a lot of good things, but let's not forget what it exactly is.
"But you go right ahead and continue to defend Boeing and FAA. Happy trails."
No, I don't. In the slightest. In fact I hope (but I don't expect) both Boing and FAA would suffer a severe corrective.
But miscategorizing what happened, doesn't help, either.
"They may have missed it, just like Boeing did. Boeing certainly doesn't want to make planes that crash. That's even worse for business than a delay in certification."
Do you think so? Only time will tell, but probably just current 737MAX signed contracts will outset the penalties, direct and indirect of this scandal.
The problem is not that FAA might have overlooked it (which, theoretically certainly could happen) but that even Boing would have catch it in "normal" circumstances, taking their due time for the assesment.
But since you can't count on a corporation to do the proper thing, even if not doing it goes against the long term perspectives of the company itself, that's why you put regulation agencies in place -letting corporate greed to overpressure the regulator, which is exactly what happened here, fully negates its value, and results like the present one are to be expected.
"And that's also ridiculous."
No, it isn't.
"Because of the change in the engine configuration it is an aircraft that handles differently."
No, it doesn't. That's exactly the point of MCAS.
""Compensating" so the pilot doesn't know the difference causes confusion"
No, it doesn't. The pilots were not confused about the flight envelope of their planes in the slightest.
"Do they make 747s feel like you're flying a TriStar?"
Was the intention when designing a TriStar that it should behave like a 747? Of course not.
You, of course, understand that these accidents have absolutely nothing to do with pilots being confused on how the flight envelope of these planes look like but because they were not trained on a specific failing scenario that kept moving the plane's control surfaces against the pilot's will, right?
"but I think knowing the root of the design decisions points up another failing -- the company's tendency (or perhaps industry's tendency) to reuse old airframes for new designs."
Only this has nothing to do with current situation. Of course incremental development is inherently cheaper and safer and of course too, when time comes a new development is due, which Boing perfectly knows.
This was just because of time and time only: they wanted to fight in the current wave of companies' renovation against Airbus, which, because of timing too, was on the market with a more modern system (it will probably be the other way around in, say, five years): they couldn't reach the market on time with a new airframe but they could do if they just scratched a bit more from the bottom of the old barrel.
They tried, and it's just OK for them to do so.
But then, all checks and balances were outplaced: instead of letting FAA do their job, more and more parts where self-assessed by Boing itself (what could possible go wrong? duh!): "Good" for Boing, which could reach their goal date, and "good" for the overwhelmed FAA which was strongly pressured to do more with less.
As basically with any other accident, a lot of circumstances need to get aligned for the fatality but then, corporate greed and corporate greed alone put those planes much more near the tragedy line than they should.
* An old airframe design already squeezed.
* Pressure for passing approval at speed.
* Pressure for more and more processes to be pushed to Boing's side so they can reach their dates
* Business interest to offer the new MAX to be just like the old NG so there would be no re-training for pilots (not only cheaper, but also sooner and, you know, time is money)
* Moving posts for the approval process (0.6 to 2.5 degrees)
* ...and to top it all, the quite minor mistake among all this rush and changes, of forgetting that the final MCAS implementation would end up having full authority instead of just either 0.6 or even 2.5 degrees which in "standard" circumstances wouldn't fly past the first or maybe second reviewer.
So you ended up with a system categorized as non-critical (which it wast, by first draft), with (indirectly) full authority, and that was not even mentioned at least in the first batch of training manuals (because we made the new MAX to feel-fly exactly like the older NG for your convenience).
A magnificent example of the effects of modern capitalism in action.
"That number is hard to comprehend. What would it be in Libraries of Congress per square furlong?"
*Square* furlong? What are you? a Vogon?
Look *around* you: you'll never look "square" you. Therefore, the proper measure would be "Libraries of Congress per round furlong" -Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person!
"And, nobody in their right mind uses Alibaba. May as well just give all your money and IP to the Chinese."
Except for a billion of Chineses, that is.
"I figure a couple bigger players in cloud systems will get hacked or somehow compromised or simply have a major failure losing lot's of client data and that will be the reason many will back away from the cloud."
Ha!, Ha!, and then onether Ha!
Of course a couple big players will get hacked, of course they will lose lots of client data but, no, that won't make business going away from the cloud. There will be, if any, a minor "glitch" on one cloud providers of customers moving to a different one.
On one hand, the very business of cloud is perfect for globalization and economies of scale, so, the poster is right: two/three will cope the business (with, maybe a couple dozen of niche ones). On the other, "security" is an externalized cost, both in terms of deflecting blame (it's not my fault, it's my provider's) and "real" costs (when did a security breach mean a real cost to the one hosting the data?) -too good a proposition for business to reject.