* Posts by e_is_real_i_isnt

43 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Dec 2014

Russia spoofed AIS data to fake British warship's course days before Crimea guns showdown

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Just a FYI

The present situation only tangentially involves the take-over of Crimea and mainly involves that Russia has been infiltrating military and political operatives into Ukraine to build a "grass roots"-in-appearance violent civil war which Russia will then "mediate" by steam-rolling across all of Ukraine and declaring that a truce is announced after the Ukraine government is put against the wall.

This is because Putin hates the idea that Ukraine could be admitted to NATO where NATO countries would immediately cover the border with Russia and start ejecting the Russian military and political assets back to Russia.

Recall that these same infiltrated assets blew a civilian airliner out of the sky as they had been itching to take out a Ukraine military flight and blame it on Ukraine military.

There's money to be made by Putin taking control of Ukraine and money to be lost if Ukraine is accepted by NATO.

The playbook is clear - infiltrate with adversarial forces, create structural problems, suggest that war will devastate civilian populations and then move massive military assets in to "stabilize" the situation. If NATO membership happens then none of that works, so it's likely we will see Russia trying to step up the timetable.

Bad software crashed Boeings. Now it appears the company lacked a singular software supremo

e_is_real_i_isnt

The bean counters did not screw up. It was systems engineering architects that are responsible for this.

Another rewrite for 737 Max software as cosmic bit-flipping tests glitch out systems – report

e_is_real_i_isnt

Yes. Because after getting the AD, Ethiopian Air did nothing to ensure their pilots knew about the AD or had any training at all to handle what was correctable with the thumb trim switch. Instead, those pilots let an easily surmountable situation devolve into a deadly crash. But if they can wash their hands of it by saying that the AD did not require that training and therefore there's nothing they needed to do but bin it, then it looks good for Ethiopian pride.

Ethiopia sits on 737 Max report but says pilots followed Boeing drills

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Liability

Oddly, had MCAS been given less authority it's action would be even less noticeable, allowing the error to accumulate over a longer period of time instead of basically giving a yank on the controls. Because the condition MCAS was responding to was unaffected by MCAS the input error continuously called for a trim change and so it would just extend the time before the pilots were overtaken. As it was, in the Lion Air, the PIC essentially countered every MCAS input, sometimes during it. It looked like he would have done that all day. When he turned it to the SIC, they just gave quick, ineffective blips on the switch even as the controls rapidly got heavier, and it was all over in 30 seconds. With the original rating that might have extended a full 2 minutes with a boiled-frog component.

e_is_real_i_isnt

The procedure is to set appropriate trim using the yoke switches before cutting power to the stab trim motors. In the Ethiopian flight they sort of poked the switch a bit and left the plane with significant nose down trim when they pulled the plug. This left them to struggle with pulling the elevators up. Eventually they got tire and then they reconnected the motors. They again gave the trim switch a jab, but not enough to eliminate yoke forces and then waited for the MCAS to give another nose-down increment. All the while the plane was accelerating due to maintaining take-off power. http://www.ecaa.gov.et/documents/20435/0/Preliminary+Report+B737-800MAX+%2C%28ET-AVJ%29.pdf/4c65422d-5e4f-4689-9c58-d7af1ee17f3e It seemed like they had never flown with manual trim and did not know what it was supposed to do.

Boeing... Boeing... Gone: Canada, America finally ground 737 Max jets as they await anti-death-crash software patches

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Negligent certification

The engines are not "cranked up," at least the angle relative to the fuselage is about the same. The nose gear was lengthened to produce more clearance so the angle to the pavement changed, but that difference makes no difference to flying characteristics.

The main change is the projected area at high angles of attack is larger and farther forward so the pitch moment is a bit softer than previous planes at those high angles of attack. The software was to linearize the feel of the yoke so the plane handled the same. There's no thrust component to MCAS because the thrust has a constant pitch moment contribution regardless of pitch. It isn't anti-stall, it just so that simulators didn't need to be reprogrammed for the high angle case and the pilots didn't need to be recertified on high angle cases.

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Negligent certification

MCAS is not a magic device, it operates by using the stabilizer trim system. There is training in place for handling unexpected stabilizer trim changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pPRuFHR1co&t=155s That sound of a twig dragging on a pot lid is from the stabilizer trim system with a fault condition. It is clearly audible over the accurately simulated sound level in the cockpit. Doesn't matter what the fault condition that starts it, the required response is the same, turn the motors off. As mentioned in the comments the only thing the instructor missed is that there are flip-out handles on the trim wheels to make cranking the wheels go faster.

Boeing 737 pilots battled confused safety system that plunged aircraft to their deaths – black box

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Hey software, get the fuck out of the way!

The worst part was that the Airbus also silenced the stall warning when the AoA was out of range high - this caused the co-pilot to pull back on the stick whenever the nose came down, because that shut off the stall warning that would return when the AoA came back within range.

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Really?

Do you press a button on the steering wheel for each splash of fuel in each cylinder and then press another button for each cylinder to fire a spark?

In any case Boeing provided about 4 ways to over ride this -

1) It cuts out if any flap is deployed

2) It cuts out if the trim button on the control wheel is tapped

3) It is offset if the trim wheel is manually turned

4) It is entirely disabled if the trim motors are turn off with switches that are right there.

e_is_real_i_isnt

Landing gear is not a flight surface.

e_is_real_i_isnt

They didn't need to disable MCAS - they needed to disable the stabilizer trim motors - which is done with the two switches. The stabilizer trim is set via wheels that are right alongside the pilots, wheels that are marked in black and white stripes to make any motion readily visible. Wheels the pilots can manually overpower to overcome the motors by brute force if required.

These pilots seem not to have known about one of the major control surfaces:

Rudder, Elevator, Stabilizer, Ailerons, Flaps, Spoilers. That's it. Six things to know about.

This suggests that Lion Air has really poor training for its pilots. Of course, they are the same people who put the plane back in the air without finding out what went wrong when the exact same thing happened to the trim on at least three previous flights or leaving a sticky-note on the control panel to warn that the stab trim motors should be shut off.

Brit boffins build 'quantum compass'... say goodbye to those old GPS gizmos, possibly

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: It's not a compass.

They need to subtract out the rotation of the Earth around its axis, the movement of the Earth around the center of mass between the Earth and the Moon, the movement of the Earth around the Sun, and the Sun around the galaxy. It should be easy.

Relax, Amazon workers – OpenAI-trained robo hand isn't much use (well, not right now)

e_is_real_i_isnt

Gravity is a local constant, but acceleration as the summation of gravity and other motions is not, as can be experienced in sipping from an open cup while riding in a car over a potholed road.

US Supreme Court blocks internet's escape from state sales taxes

e_is_real_i_isnt

The Truth

In many US states the payment of sales tax for mail order or internet purchases is supposed to be paid by the buyer. It is only a pragmatic convenience that stores collect the sales tax at the time of sale, but it is still required for all sales. There is a place on the state income tax form to include such payments as should have been made.

I feel no sympathy for the likes of states that rely solely on sales tax - it is a regressive tax on the poor to the relative benefit of the wealthy.

Want to fix something - place the purchase of stocks and bonds under sales tax law.

How a tax form kludge gifted the world 25 joyous years of PDF

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: PDF is clunky.

You are right - Omnipage has always sucked. Blaming PDF for the problem is like blaming cars for crashing. The "F" is for format - a format that allows a huge flexibility to the user of same, including making it difficult to extract information if they so choose. If your organization had a tough time extracting the info, then it's your organization that was at fault for making extraction difficult.

EmDrive? More like BS drive: Physics-defying space engine flunks out

e_is_real_i_isnt

The device is very light.

The device is light, but the power supply is similar to that required to run a single family house hold with all the appliances on. For that they were getting a thrust that would counterbalance a desicated flea.

Net neutrality nonsense: Can we, please, just not all lose our minds?

e_is_real_i_isnt

Winning which argument?

Every major ISP has been proven again and again to be basically liars at any number of scales. These are the people Pai is handing control of content availability over to. For decades AT&T has taken Federal funds to build out it's network to underserved areas and instead used it to build a more limited, more profitable network in areas already served. To make it work they, like other telcos, let their older networks rot or even sabotage them in order to force people to higher priced accounts.

I am not in favor of allowing these same people have the option to cut off or cripple whatever they like. And I say that having experienced having ads being injected that create new browser tabs by my current ISP. Who also informed me they lost control of data via equifax based on my home account information.

Wi-Fi for audiophiles: Alliance preps TimeSync certification program

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Amazed that this stuff is so difficult

That's not true of film. The sound pickup is not next to the projected frame, and can't be. The audio has to be in the section of film that is moving uniformly, while the frame section stops for display.

In school I was exposed to dozens of occasions of 'If you heard the beep before you saw the flash, make the bottom loop longer..."

£1m military drone crashed in Wales after crew disabled anti-crash systems – report

e_is_real_i_isnt

Right - the static port reports the current pressure altitude, which is compared to the dynamic pressure from the pitot tube. By itself, the static port is sufficient for pressure altitude, which needs a correction to account for surface pressure altitude in order to determine an actual altitude measurement.

The author is not confused; without the static port the pitot tube is inconclusive about the dynamic pressure. It's just a contraction of pitot-static tube that makes it unclear.

IBM scraps loyal staffer gifts in favour of... a congratulatory social page

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Fiscal rewards

At one company I was at some executives got laptops. The laptops were eventually promoted from lower level positions to HR positions for which they were basically unqualified, except for the positions they could take. On HR career person mentioned her unhappiness with the alternative laptop promotion scheme. Was immediately fired for not being a team player.

Philando Castile death-by-cop vid mysteriously vanishes from Facebook

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Procedure for a CCW holder

The Driver probably did. The CCW holder was a passenger. There was no reason beyond fishing for an excuse there would be no reason for the cop to say anything to the passenger. The car was supposed to have a bad tail light, so write a ticket, have driver sign, run the plate and driver's license just because, and let everyone go.

Also watch "Breakfast in Collinsville" on Youtube for similar cops messing with people, except white, so no shooting.

Just the facts, STT-MRAM: Your DRAM replacement's on its way

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Call me jaded...

I felt that after bubble memory vanished in a puff of smoke. Rotating rust has a long, if increasingly unappreciated life ahead of it.

Adobe...sigh...issues critical patch...sigh...for Flash Player zero day

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Amazing

Before it was a crashing pile of bovine excretment, Flash was updated so often that I spent more time downloading (56k all the way) the player than watching the related video. It's been the nexus of bad experiences since Macromedia first built the pile.

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: WTH

Porn companies are flexible and will use HTML5 to gain customers. It's big companies with policies set in concrete who can't move from Flash. They don't make money with their videos they don't care if the customers are exposed.

If you work on Seagate's performance drives, time to find another job

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: A death and decline so easily forseen...

The problem is that the people actually designing and fabricating hard drives are not going to become SSD developers and technicians. All that would happen with the transition from one to the other is to keep the company name and a few top execs; all the rest will be discarded anyway.

In Kodak's case, whether the name is still on the stock exchange only matters to shareholders and some retirees. The makers of their film products were never going to be fabricating image sensors and circuit boards.

Intel literally decimates workforce: 12,000 will be axed, CFO shifts to sales

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Makes one wonder...

One thing that would be different is they way Microsoft developed. Intel had the concept to never obsolete instructions/compatibility and kept to that for a very long time. Unlike Motorola that created generally superior chips that were sufficiently incompatible that drop-in operations were difficult. Want to run that OS on the new Moto chip? Better recompile. On Intel? Just load it up. Not saying the incompatibility was 100% but Moto changed enough things that hanging on was more expensive.

What this means to Microsoft would be that they would have had much more difficulty in pushing their OS and may have been more like Apple (in the Moto house) where every few years they cut off their developers and buyers and pushing them to an entirely new ecosystem.

I think it would have been a better world where the best of computing could be migrated from the top down instead of trying to grow an OS running on junk into an enterprise solution. Why am I still stuck with letter names for network links/drives?

Hey Windows 10, weren't you supposed to help PC sales?

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Improve PC Specs

Unless someone got to it - AFAIK the new CPUs will have instructions that require Win 10+ and won't run without it. Think of it as Intel's insurance policy against being left behind. So don't think of moving your Win 7 to the new CPU.

US DoJ files motion to compel Apple to obey FBI iPhone crack order

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Time

The password to the iCloud account was changed. This is not the password for the phone. Since the phone doesn't have the iCloud password anymore, it cannot upload a back-up.

I think even if they had the back-up to hand over, it would still need decryption, but at least there would be a copy the FBI, et al, could play with endlessly.

Hackers exploit fresh PC hijack bug in Adobe Flash Player, the internet's screen door

e_is_real_i_isnt

The problem is a little farther up the foodchain

It's really MS that should be fixing their OS to sandbox the applications more than Adobe being responsible for the effectiveness of attacks built on the OS.

I have no love for Flash, going back to the 56k dialup and having to download a new Flash version practically every time a new animation or video came out. I wonder if the Macromedia guys are still involved.

Config file wipe blunder caused deadly Airbus A400M crash – claim

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: The investigation should center on...

Typical Airbus - use software to cripple perfectly capable hardware resulting in a deadly crash. I'm don't recall a single simple hardware failure leading to a crash of an Airbus plane. At least when a Boeing jet crashes there is usually something seriously wrong with it, even if it's a manufacturing problem.

Macroviruses are BACK and are the future of malware, says Microsoft

e_is_real_i_isnt

Unless something changed in the latest version of Office, there were only two options. Keep the macros turned off or let them run. There was no option to open the macro and see what it did without also allowing to run. And there certainly no option to prevent macros from reaching anything they wanted to. For example, a switch that prevented direct access to dlls or to files, but only those features available using the menus of the application.

Too bad Open Office automation is an even worse cluster. I don't care to learn 3 levels of software abstractions to add a formula to a cell.That's just nuts.

US Congress promises death to patent trolls in bipartisan law scribbling

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: peer review?

I believe there is already a similar plan in place that allows ordinary people to challenge patent applications. I haven't tried it myself, and it may have lapsed, but apparently it is/was fairly effective and relatively cheap.

The mentioned bill sound like what the courts have been asking for. After Congress and a former Administration broke the longstanding tradition of using the USPTO to do decent searches and weed out bad patent applications, the outcome fell to the Courts, who weren't pleased that the Legislative and Administrative branches were dumping their obligations.

The USPTO is/was trying crowd sourcing to do the weeding, but this takes care of the stuff that gets through.

Maybe if the rewards of crap patents drop off in the Courts, the rate of applying for them will also drop off and this particular feed-back cycle will get snuffed out.

SECRET PROTOTYPE iPAD 'stolen from RANDY Apple employee'

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Legalise Prostitution

He made a purchase earlier in the day and had only a $10,000 bill. So they broke it and the $7,500 was the change. Happens all the time, usually on a smaller scale.

Microsoft: Profit DECIMATED because you people aren't buying PCs

e_is_real_i_isnt

Easy - Microsoft is settling towards a realistic value that represents their actual worth after riding a monopoly bubble buoyed by mostly legal, but also mostly unethical treatment of their competitors.

Too many times they pre-announced unavailable products to cut off competitors that could have added some valuable features to software, but instead crippled their sales efforts out front, while being slow or misleading when providing support to developers of competing products. Look at the spark that is left in Quantrix as compared with the complicated heap of Excel.

I look back at what the computer industry was like before MS was moved into a dominant position by a very ignorant and essentially stupid IBM's approval and am saddened by the sudden crippling of the pace. If this was aviation we'd have DC-3s with turbojet engines, but no pressurized cabins.

LA schools want multi-million Apple refund after kids hack iPads

e_is_real_i_isnt

Good for them

Being unable to access Pearson content is a win all its own.

Pro-tip: Steal a TARDIS to survive Windows Server preview death

e_is_real_i_isnt

Future plans?

It is to wonder if the reason for not releasing an update is because there is some very large change that's been made an it isn't ready. Which would in turn mean that all the work done to characterize the current version is worthless as it won't represent what is eventually shipped, hence the lack of interest at MS at filling the gap.

Or MS has just fouled up again, what with all the confusion with not getting chairs thrown at them in the planning meetings.

Diablo fingered in offensive ASCII art trial doc shock

e_is_real_i_isnt

A key element of redaction is Adobe makes a tool specifically for that purpose that really does wipe the text out. Often people think drawing a black box is sufficient. In real documents, blacking out is followed by making a photocopy; otherwise the original is still legible by the difference in shininess, or bleaching (toner is plastic and doesn't bleach.)

MEGA PATENT DUMP! Ericsson, Smartflash blitz Apple: iPhone, iPad menaced by sales block

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: Check out the innovation

This was issued at a time the USPTO was dialed back on the theory that there was no point in having the USPTO do work that would only really be decided in court. This is exactly the outcome that was desired - the USPTO is a cash source and the patent attorneys get some business. Win-Win. At the time someone could probably have gotten a patent on the wheel.

Smartphone NOT INCLUDED: Google plays with Mattel – plugs VR into retro toy

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: used to have a Viewmaster when I was small

One of the original uses was teaching anatomy to medical students. See http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/bkn-atlas.html for a description of a book that catalogs the effort. It only became cartoony later. "221 View-Master Reels with 1,547 color stereo views of dissections of every body region"

It's not the cloud: The problem lies between the chair and the computer – Gartner

e_is_real_i_isnt

Re: I read that as.

At Christmas every shop needs to scale up at the same time and all the students and others are traveling, so what levels that demand the rest of the time? Not Apple product announcements.

It's like power plants and air conditioning - there's a peak demand to support, but there's no off-peak use for it. Unlike power plants the Cloud providers won't pay to have excess capacity. They may charge as if they are, but they won't deliver.

What the Cloud providers are doing is build to meet the average demand, and since they haven't sold it all yet, they will have some scaling flexibility for the early adopters. Later, when the crunch hits and all the subscriptions are sold, they will slow to a crawl and miss their targets and apologize profusely.

FLASH! Aaa-aaah. 3D NAND will save every one of us

e_is_real_i_isnt

Half a century is a long time to be #1 in computing

First came magnetic core storage and rotating media was not impressed.

Then came Bubble memory and rotating media was not impressed.

Then came EEPROM and rotating media was not impressed.

Then came Static, battery backed RAM and rotating media was not impressed.

Then came Flash and rotating media was not impressed.

I wonder if rotating media will be impressed by this upstart or if they will do what they always do, and increase the density and decrease the price and continue to hold out against a total takeover by the those who would take the throne away.

I'm still waiting multiple heads per side to increase throughput, but maybe it's not time yet.

Rosetta beams back colour pics: 67P shades of grey are SO HOT right now

e_is_real_i_isnt

Someone is sending us a coal-colored comet for Christmas. Hopefully they aren't stalking us.

EU Google-bashing is making us look really bad, say Google bashers

e_is_real_i_isnt

Microsoft has a long term plan

It certainly seems from looking at the ICOMP website their primary concern is stirring the pot of discontent with Google. No doubt this is backed by lobbying efforts directly from Microsoft.

They had a good plan too. Start off ICOMP with tangential interests like copyright to gain trust and access, then bring it to a new heading to fire broadside at Google. The vendetta looks to originate from Microsoft.