You think having the part designed to handle five times the load it actually experienced to not be "with sufficient margin"? How much of a margin do you want them to put, 100x?

RTFA. They were doing statistical-sampling quality control testing of struts. The problem was that most of them were just fine, but there were a very small number which were totally defective and broke at a tiny fraction of their rated value. And no, SpaceX did not make the parts, it was an outside supplier. And yes, SpaceX A) will now be testing 100% of them, and B) is ditching the supplier.

It's not just about the cost of a failed launch, there's also a huge cost to a company's reputation if a rocket fails. And to their schedule.

Out of curiosity, is there any lightweight way to sense how close a part is to failure *in use*? I mean, finding defects on the ground is great, no question. But what if something would doom a mission not due to a part having a manufacturing defect, but due to an oversight somewhere in the rocket design process, or assembly, or transportation, or launch setup, or unexpected weather conditions, or whatnot? It seems to me it could be a massive boost to launch reliability if one knew that a part was about to fail - for example, in this case, the computers could automatically have throttled back to the rocket to reduce stresses, at the cost of expending more propellant, and possibly been able to salvage the mission. And then the problem could be remedied for future missions, without having to have a launch failure first.

To pick a random, for example, would there potentially be a change in resistance or capacitance or other electrical properties when a strut nears its breaking point?

Obviously, though, if adding sensing hardware would add a high weight or cost penalty, that would be unrealistic.

Funny ;) But the main point is that its surface is high radiation and very oxidizing; and as far as we know there's no liquids anywhere on Mars except for possible transients or extremely perchlorate-rich brines (aka, something you'd use to sterilize a rock of life).

On the other hand, subsurface water oceans are common elsewhere in the solar system, and colder bodies are known and/or theorized to have a wide range of alternative liquids.

Also, maybe it's just because I've never worked in that industry before, maybe it's common practice in rocketry, but is anyone else impressed with the use of sound triangulation to figure out which part broke? I've never heard of that being done before.

Sad that the Falcon Heavy won't be launched until next spring, I've been really looking forward to that. Oh well...

Elon is surely really fuming about this one, as I know from past interviews with him that he really doesn't like having to source hardware from outside suppliers. He has the old "robber baron" mindset of wanting to get the whole production chain start-to-finish in house, and it's one of the things that really frustrated him when he started Tesla: at the time of the last interview I read on the subject (something like 3 or 4 years ago), he had gotten SpaceX up to 80% in-house, but Tesla was only up to 20% in-house. Car manufacture has long been all about sourcing parts from a wide range of outside suppliers.

But even at 80% in-house at SpaceX, looks like that remaining 20% still bit them : Seriously, failing at 1/5th the rated failure value? The vendor might as well have given them a cardboard cutout with the word "strut" written on it in sharpie.

If you can encourage others by honestly explaining the benefits of your life experience, please do so!

I try to do so. I write software I hope people will get good use out of; I write about social issues, superstition, AI issues and more. I keep an oar in around here most of the time as well, as you'll see if you navigate my comment history.

I'm old and creaky now, so these are the things I can realistically do.

Ok, then and users bitten by new OS versions that break the user's software have no right to complain either, amirite?

"no right"... don't think that means what you think it means.

OS X has changed very little since 10.0, at the most basic level.

Yeah... no. They broke cron, they inflicted that insane "app nap" nonsense on us (broke damned near every real-time application out there... I spend a *lot* of time explaining to OS X users that it needs to be turned off or OS X will summarily stop giving the required amount of CPU time to the app) there's sand-boxing, the changes in spaces functionality, they utterly broke UTF-8 console printing (and didn't fix it... just left it broken unless you upgraded -- and yes, they knew about it in time, I talked to "Mr. CUPS himself about it), dropped PPC emulation, moved image support from apps to OS (which broke the dickens out of Aperture upgrades, among other things), they broke getting to local websites on your LAN, and they quit giving us actual media, which I simply find annoying and short-sighted. And they still haven't fixed many of the OS bugs, for instance, you still can't have more than one app listening to a UDP broadcast reception port as far as I know. I don't have any idea whose brilliant think it was to decide that "broadcast" meant only one app can listen, but there you go.

Definitely quite a few reasons to be reticent about moving to a new version of OSX. These things matter.

Anyone familiar with OS X 10.5 would be right at home with 10.10 Yosemite.

Sure -- if you don't mind a good deal of your stuff breaking. Inconveniently enough, I do mind. Hence, 10.6.8, and staying there as long as possible, too.

Did you even read what I wrote? Or was that just a convenient place to hang your remark? If that's the case, never mind, carry on. :)

I welcome change and advance, I think it does us all good in the long run. That doesn't mean I will choose to partake in same.

What's the point of this conversation?

Some things interest some people; other things interest other people. Sometimes there is overlap. Here on slashdot, considering the age, stability, and desirability of one OS version as related to another is quite topical in terms of the issues the site generally is understood to cover.

Perhaps you should wander off and find a story you are interested in. No need to read the ones that don't provoke an interest, you know. You do know that, right?

Still running OSX 10.6.8 -- an OS version ca. July 2011

Isn't broken in the sense that anything about it significantly impedes what I use the computer for; anything that was really crappy -- like Safari -- has been replaced with something that worked better.

Ergo, no need to "fix" it.

I have more interesting things to do with my time than adopt change for the sake of change.

There's a great deal positive that can be said for a stable OS environment, not the least of which is that software which I develop for it will work for more people than software that utilizes functionality only available from a later version of the OS. Speaking for myself, I view a statement about any application of the general form "requires late version of/latest OS" as an abject failure of the developer to think of the users.

That's not to say that others aren't, or shouldn't be interested in the latest OS version-- it's just that I am not, and that addresses the question that was asked.

You need to actually read the messages you reply to, and then think about what was actually said so you can respond intelligently, instead of erecting a series of straw men and then setting them on fire.

Cheers. :)

Yes, that's why we all use megaphones in public so only our own voice can be distinguished.

Oh, wait.

Turns out, we don't do that.

Who woulda thunk it?

Not you, apparently...

Modern marketing techniques are designed for people like you. They're specifically made for people who don't pay attention to ads.

So? Doesn't matter who they are designed for. What matters is if they work on me. They don't.

Nobody who lives in any community more dense than the human population of Kobuk Valley National Park is immune from the impact of modern marketing techniques.

Yes, I live in a very rural area, and further, I keep to my own property as much as possible and have done so for just a little short of thirty years now.

And I find it's the people who believe they are immune from advertising who are least prepared to defend themselves from its effects.

What you have "found" about W, X and Y doesn't mean that you will find the same about Z. You're falling into the trap of assuming everyone is gullible to the degree you are arguing, based on the evidence that that a lot of people are.

Consider for a moment why we have atheists and skeptics as well as the religious. The social pressure to "be" religious, at least here in the US, is considerable. Yet atheists don't buy in. If everyone is equally affected by propaganda and the various levels of social influence, how then can atheism and skepticism exist? It is quite clear that some people tend to follow the narratives they are presented with, while others tend to not do so. Denying that -- which is essentially what you are doing -- is a bankrupt POV, and appropriately enough, I find it insufficient to your argument, which is to say I am quite skeptical that you understand the issue you're so passionately trying to describe.

Wow, is that really what you think?

I looked at your search, and it made me laugh. Yes, that's precisely what I think. That stuff is almost entirely G-rated pap; not sexy at all. with the exception of one image that came up showing a very good-looking woman in stockings and garters, the rest left me cold. And that image, or anything like it, isn't going to appear in product advertisements for those things which I am interested in buying. So yes, sex is not being used in by far the majority of all advertising -- even if it would then work on me, which I assure you, it would not. I am well aware that I am not the actor (and they are actors) in the fictional situation presented by ads. Not only does the fictional depiction not represent my life or lifestyle, the actual ad itself is constructed of illusion -- actors, scripts, etc. To me, this is wholly obvious. To you, apparently not. The error you're making here is assuming others are like you. As per the bard, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "

Also: When I say sex, I mean sex. I don't mean bikinis or pretty faces. When I say "sexy", I mean, sex is used to sell the product. The amount of advertising for which that is the case is miniscule. Even when it occurs, and I am exposed, and the sex gets me to look, it won't get me to buy. I am not them; they are not me; the depiction is fiction, or in the even rarer case where it might not be, I am still not them, nor do I have any urge to be them.

Then how the fuck would you know about the "industry's kowtowing to political correctness" causing them to divest themselves of sexy women in ads? Were you lying then or are you lying now?

Primarily, I am aware of the current state of affairs because relevant material is discussed quite often in the communities that I frequent, including this one. How many articles and associated commentary have you seen here that delve into issues like "booth babes" and "objectifying women" and the argument that physical beauty is a justifiably monetized resource just as athleticism and intelligence are -- and so on -- just on slashdot alone? I am also aware that there are whales in the sea, but that doesn't mean I've ever seen one. You present a decidedly shortsighted view of information gathering, I'm afraid. If you want to reason well about this issue, you're going to have to wrap your head around the idea that knowledge gathering is not constrained by personal engagement.

Did you even know that Ridged Tools still publishes it's calendar of sexy ladies every year?

No, I don't even know who they are. But assuming for the sake of your argument that said calender would get me to take an interest if I ran into it, it does not follow that I would ever lift a finger to buy a Ridged Tool. Because the things others do do not form the basis for my evaluation of my needs, nor does a fiction serve to affect my self-image in any significant way.

Sports Illustrated still makes with the camel toe every February.

There are only two sports of more than academic interest to me. Sex, and martial arts. Sports illustrated covers neither to any meaningful degree -- yes, I've seen the magazine -- and so lies totally outside my range of interests. And "camel toe", frankly, is not something I find sexy at all. You're clearly confusing what you think is sexy with what others think is sexy, and assuming therefore that you know how all others will react. You're wrong on every count. You don't know your subject here, and the surface-level, presumption-riddled arguments you are making are wholly insufficient to make your case.

I just watched a few minutes of the British Open on CBS and there was an ad for Mercedes with an entire line of supermodels in skimpy outfits.

That's you. I didn't. I wouldn't. I don't think "supermodels in skimpy outfits" are sexy. I don't care about the British open. I don't watch broadcast television. Catching on yet? These things are essentially irrelevant to the case you're trying to make. They're based on your mode of interacting with the world and how you think about it. Not mine. Your attempt to assign your reactions to me completely fails.

Friend, instead of imagining what the "PC Police" are doing to your eye-candy, you might want to take some time out to evaluate your strategy for "ignoring" advertising, because the people who are involved with modern advertising techniques are smarter than you and me and Neil Degrasse Tyson when it comes to getting people who "don't watch broadcast TV" to respond to their campaigns. They know what they're doing and they know that it works.

I am not making the case that advertising doesn't work. I am only making the case that it doesn't work on me. As a tech guy, you should have at least a basic grasp of statistics; as a member of society, you should understand that people differ; as a slashdotter, I suspect you've seen at least some evidence that some people don't buy into religion; As someone who spends their time watching television, but knowing others do not, you should be able to grasp the idea that someone who does not so do is going to be far less exposed to, and therefore influenced by, whatever goes on within the context of the medium. Even if you've convinced yourself that the actors in commercials and dramas represent something worthwhile to emulate or some kind of worthwhile depiction of reality, that does not mean that everyone else has done so. Finally, I am telling you straight out that I am not so convinced, nor do I indulge in imagining that to be the case. Fiction presents an entirely different use case as compared to fact for me. I'm fairly clear on how to treat them both, and I can assure you, those treatments are not even remotely like each other.

You'd be better off accepting the effect that advertising is having on you, being aware of it, and actively subverting it. Adbusters is a good place to start. Otherwise, you'll still be reaching for the brand name and not knowing why.

Brand names, eh? So you assume I gravitate towards products by brand now? Could you be any more presumptuous? Do you also assume I am Christian? That I buy clothing? That I think spectator sports are of interest? That I am Democrat? Republican? You would be wrong in every case.

Horatio, indeed. Wake up and smell the variety of the human experience. We are not all instances of you with minor differences. Some of us are really unlike you, and won't fit into your cognitive model of "other people" worth a tinker's damn.