For at least a decade I have RAILED against every unnecessary change in software systems (Windows, etc, etc) that makes upgrading (say from Win 7 to Win 10) an unecessary nightmare.
Twenty and third-something software enginees, with little life experience, are continually seeking to "one up one another" and making computer systems more and more complex. Its a minor annoyance when you have to re-learn how to run all of your PC programs - its something far, far, worse when something like the air speed/stall indicator software systems glitch, override the pilots and force the plane to fly into the ground.
G-D to he** the software "newer is always better" geeks!!!!!!!!!!!!
There. I needed to get that off my chest. Its something that has been obvious for a long, long time, BUT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT!!!!!!!!
Waiting until the cause of the crash is known before speaking would be a good idea.
Right. Rue the day they invented the dial telephone.
LMAO.
I'm assuming Trump knows a lot more about this Boeing situation than what is being reported in the news media.
Heh. was just overflown by a USMC V-22 Osprey.
The very definition of complexity ...
Amen Mr President.
Whow as a physicist, former submariner, involved in advanced technology all of my life, Trump drove this nail in with one hammer blow.
The behavior of complex systems is not predicated by an analysis of each step in a process because it is all too complex for such an analysis. I have seen project after project go disastersouly awry because of this.
And of course we all see this in software that started as a simple workable program (now called an app) that is in an endless do-loop of patches and upgrades because some kid decided to add one more really awesome feature.
Public washrooms: we used to have simple sink taps that you could open with a handle.
Now you’ve got some high-tech gizmo that’s supposed to detect your hands waving around and automatically turn on the water ... but half the time it doesn’t work
What was wrong with simple taps?
We don’t have the people or the skill sets to run without more automation.
Or rather, the wages needed to have those people do those jobs are above what the industry (any industry) can support.
So we are headed to the coffin corner where the skill sets needed to make and design products cost more than they can be sold for, because we have cut margins so much.
And before you say” then pay more”, that will mean massive inflation and the cost of goods rising to the point many can’t afford them.
I deal with automation every day. There will be a crash, and soon, as we have automated so much experience out of the workforce that it will not be able to be replaced.
To put it another way, Rome’s aqueducts were built so well that everyone who knew how to do it died out without teaching the next generation how. A few hundred years later, they were viewed as magic and impossible to recreate.
An associate of mine predicts that our grandchildren will be in the dusk of a dark age. He also works on automation.
I think he is correct. The K.I.S.S. principle (keep it simple stupid) first mentioned I believe by Skunkworks’ Kelly Johnson. Make something as simple as possible, but not simpler. Less to break. Less to go wrong. Very good engineering principle.
It’s not just airplanes. Automobiles have so many overpriced features on them that new cars cost twice as much as my first home and people are financing them for 6-10 years and many can’t afford to repair them.
They have to justify their jobs, make something new, complicated.
From someone who is supposed to know.....
Apparently an erroneous Angle of Attack sensor causes the computer to think the angle is too steep and starts dialing in down trim. The pilot tries to compensate but safeties in the software refuse to let him. The plane porpoises up down up down then down. (pundit on TV said that also yesterday)
This is happening in ‘manual’ control, not auto-pilot.
All controls are computer driven, even ‘manual’ control. Fly-by-Wire.
There is a workaround IF the pilot is trained to use it. Flipping some switches.
I tried to change the bulb in my 2016 Ford Fusion Headlight and found it had been over engineered, so that I have to take the front bumper off to get to the lights....
“Everything should be made as simple as possible. But no simpler.”...................Albert Einstein...............
Absolutely right !
Only a fool would value complexity for its own sake.
It is difficult enough to properly test the simplest system, even if you are testing incremental changes to an existing system.
Complex and completely new systems with massive complications are really untestable. You learn their failure modes the hard way.
Unfortunately there is an engineering/tech mentality that a “better” product has to to be cool, and new, and complex, and woke, and modern and hi-tech and progressive, and disruptive, and transformative... rather than simple and reliable and durable and robust.
They are designing to impress other techies and prove they are the world’s “greatest” engineers.
Instead they prove the exact opposite. And it has infected every product, software hardware, cars, airplanes, bridges buildings...
The simple stuff is much less likely to catastrophically fail. And when it does you can easily turn it off. Contrast that with, for example, a Lexus with a malfunctioning drive by wire, that the driver couldn’t figure out the engine turn off sequence under stress, because it didn’t have a key.
I presume then that Mr. Trump is not a fan of autonomous self-driving vehicles.
Well said.
Old software engineer. 30+ years
These new kids are so eager to Put their Stamp of ownership no matter the cost on new designs.
Keep It Simple Stupid still works today.
I am a software geek and I am ALWAYS arguing that simpler is better.
I usually get things done in half the time as all the rest of the people who think they such brilliant software gurus...
And my code works (on the first try is always my goal) and you can read it.
For about fifteen years now airlines have had flights on total autopilot while pilots sit there soiling there shorts. Now the roads are to be inundated with self-driving trucks putting about a million people out of work. If we don’t keep an eye on it “Terminator” SkyNet WILL happen and we won’t have a damn thing to save us. It’s not the plane, it’s the artificial intelligence.
Ditto automobiles.
