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Comment Re:Why would it be possible (Score 1) 229

That document is about a defective or incorrectly-installed part. Sure, if that's a problem then they should be repaired. It's not clear whether that's related to this crash at all.

You're moving the goalposts from your original suggestion that they shouldn't have a way to shut down the engines in flight at all.

Comment Re:Why would it be possible (Score 1) 229

they aren't well thought out in the configuration present in that aircraft.

That configuration - a switch placed immediately behind each engine's throttle lever - is almost universal in every jet designed since they eliminated the Flight Engineer position.

A320 (basically every Airbus looks similar). 737-300. 747-400. Embraer is weird: they put the start/stop controls immediately in front of the throttles.

I could go on, but the point is: this isn't some poorly-considered design fluke in the 787. This is how it is done, and for a good reason: there are many situations where it's necessary to shut down the engines for safety reasons. Having these controls readily accessible saves lives.

You should write less and read more.

Maybe you should take your own advice.

Comment Re:Why would it be possible (Score 1) 229

To prevent or stop a fire. That needs to be a fast and uncomplicated procedure.

You could add interlock logic: If the aircraft is below $altitude, inhibit the switch. But that ignores use cases like "we're going down and about to crash in a field, let's cut off the engines to reduce the risk of fire."

It's tempting to keep making the logic more complicated: If the aircraft has been airborne for less than $duration and the we're below $altitude, delay shutdown for $x seconds while blaring an alarm, except if this temperature sensor reads high suggesting there's a fire, or excessive fuel flow indicates a leak. This introduces new problems: more bugs due to ever-increasing edge cases; more systemic failures due to a broken sensor; etc. This also means the pilots' mental model is more complicated: you don't want them to flip a switch and then wonder "wait, why didn't that work?", and waste time trying to remember some flowchart from their training.

So the current best-practice solution, used wherever possible, is KISS: Each control does exactly one thing, and it does it in the most immediate and direct way possible. You don't find out about your mistake only after some additional set of conditions are met. It does what the label says, and if you don't like the result, you flip the switch back. It should only be more complicated to prevent a recurring problem.

For the most part, that turns out to be the most safe and reliable design.

Comment Re:Simple... (Score 2) 195

Fortunately, you can usually turn of JUST amber alerts on phones

Unfortunately, they don't have a separate category for "Silver Alerts". Around here they keep sending them as "Extreme Alerts", which ought to be reserved for flash flooding and other things which put large numbers of people in danger, not just one Alzheimer's case.

Comment Re:Add to the power cost of AI (Score 1) 33

You need a problem which is difficult to compute, with predictable difficulty, where the answer can be quickly verified. Few real-world problems meet all of those criteria. Most scientific calculations have to be completely re-run to verify the result, which would make it easy to DoS the server by submitting bogus answers.

Comment Re: Funny how taxes work for people (Score 1) 178

Some measures would be good. These measures are a mess.

We need a coherent, long-term plan to rebuild domestic industry and ensure our independence. Instead, everything is being abruptly disrupted and it's going to throw us into a terrible recession. That's exactly the wrong environment to increase domestic investment.

Comment Re:Remember folks: it's only a problem when (Score 5, Insightful) 110

A great many of us have opposed this kind of surveillance regardless of who is in charge. Yes, including under Clinton and Obama. It doesn't matter who is doing the collecting. Once the database exists, it's inevitable that it will eventually be misused. The problem is fascism, and both the Democrats and Republicans are culpable.

Comment Re:Say what? (Score 2) 40

I get that NASCAR is a modified production car whilst F1 is bespoke...

NASCAR hasn't used production cars in decades. The cars are a single chassis design, made by a single manufacturer. They use decals for the headlights, grilles, etc, to create a superficial resemblance to production models. The mechanical differences are only in minor tuning changes, suspension setup, etc, to meet each driver's preferences. The expensive R&D is long gone.

Comment Re:Poll: Should Slashdot ban 'twitter' links? (Score 0) 56

Can Xwitter posts even been seen without an account?

ANY use of Xitter enables them to retain their position as an irreplaceable platform for breaking news / updates / whatever.

It doesn't matter if I can view it logged out, ads disabled, proxied so they can't track me. Jumping through those hoops would just demonstrate that I'm still dependent.

At this point, anyone who won't at least publish in parallel on another platform is not someone I need to follow.

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