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2190509 story

Mars Phoenix Lander's Ovens Were Destined To Fail 77

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday December 13, 2008 @09:18AM from the double-checking-is-for-wimps dept.

RobertB-DC writes "The Phoenix mission to Mars' frigid polar regions was going to be tricky from the start, with only a few weeks to perform as much science as possible. Success depended on everything working right. But one of the mission's most frustrating glitches — the stuck doors on the TEGA ovens — could have been prevented with basic quality control on Earth. Nature is reporting that bad brackets were replaced by the manufacturer ... with identically bad brackets. The Planetary Society blog sums it up succinctly: 'Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.'"

2532725 comment

Comment What are the error bars? (Score 1) 544

by Wormholio on Monday October 20, 2008 @12:44PM (#25442599) Attached to: Number of ET Civilizations In Our Galaxy Is 37,964

What are the error bars? Don't say 37,000 to 361. That's the variation between different theoretical scenarios. But real results have to be based on experimental inputs, not just theoretical guesswork.

The usual way of computing error bars is to look at the statistical variation of the data, to infer a distribution of likelihood for the results. Problem is, we have only ONE data point (i.e. us), so the variance of the inputs is infinite.

Even if you estimate 37,000 civilizations in our galaxy, how many are within 100 light years of us? Based just on the ONE data point we have, they would have developed radio and TV within the last 100 years, so we could only hope to detect them if they are within about 100 light years. Plus or minus infinity.

95458 submission

Submission + - How to crash an in-flight entertainment system

Submitted by

rabblerouzer

on Tuesday February 20, 2007 @07:18AM

rabblerouzer writes: "Hugh Thompson, who was interviewed by Slashdot on the dangers of e-voting, now has a cool blog entry on how he was able to bring down the gaming/movie console on an airplane. He calls it one of the most interesting examples of a software "abuse case" he has ever seen."

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