Strong and versatile data typing and range checking is valuable, but it doesn't make code damnfoolproof.
I still shudder when I remember the Pascal programmer in a hydrology department who put his whole database in as an enumerated data type.
Only called us when he ran out of term slots...
...
The crash recorder says the driver pushed the accelerator and was not pushing the brakes, and then the car was hit....
From what source did the crash recorder get its inputs? Perhaps the failed ECU that was registering the accelerator was pushed when it actually wasn't, thus inappropriately opening the throttles?
And he never made that mistake again.
With rare exception, I have found WD-40 to be ineffective as a treatment for software coding errors..
Seems to me reliability in engine control software _is_ doable. Toyota just didn't do it.
Probably some kind of poor management decision that will ultimately be blamed on bad engineering.
Read the links from the summary. It was both crap code and bad management.
Isn't the big issue here that laws aren't stopping anyone. they find a reason around it or to reinterpret it or negate it?
For a law to stop someone, it has to have teeth in it -- penalties that are sufficient to dissuade one from running afoul of it. They have to be real, and personal, and unprotected by bureaucratic insulation.
Do people really fall for this?
Always. There's always more straw to make another straw man.
Printing a metal part can include blind voids that are difficult or impossible to do with a milling machine. And see my post above regarding 3D printing with stainless steel media.
A friend of mine from Monash University told me he attended a demonstration of a 3D printer that used stainless steel as a medium.
This goes a little bit beyond sintered epoxy-bronze powders in terms of strength.
We need a small, portable, dedicated device that performs a bi-directional USB to USB copy. You can remove the insects later.
(And he means that in the nicest possible way!)
Remember why Google took over from Alta Vista as the preferred search engine?
Google was simpler. Think about that for a moment.
Now think about what you're throwing away.
Otherwise known as
"Slashdot Jumps The Shark!"
"That's the second largest duck I've EVER had in my pants."
-- Monkey Island
And turned brass was everywhere. I loved the puzzles, the incredible transport monorails, the sheer quiet brilliance. And quiet it was, and cerebral. Still looking for something quite that good again.
Cherenkov radiation makes the fuel rod containment pools a really pretty shade of blue.
Speaking of CR, I recommend "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" by Larry Niven. He mentions its display in Smallville, and why. Worthy.
How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it."
