WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
We have a mixed bag for you this week: The F-35 stealth fighter’s software, Paul Kantner dies, programming and science research, alcohol fixes, drilling through to the Earth’s mantle, Star Wars Buddhist screens, and London’s biggest robberies. URLs cover the FCC vs the Cable lobby, true choice in broadband, Twitter and Trump, IoT security, and Bluesmart.
Hope you enjoy it! Incidentally, there will be no Winding Down next week, it’s time for our monthly break. We’ll be back on 14 February.
Shorts:
An interesting memo has recently been released on the US Dept of Defense’s F-35 stealth multi-role fighter. It’s from the Department’s director for Operational Test and Evaluation. It seems that in order to keep the whole program (costing roughly a third of a trillion US dollars, including the cost of the delivered planes) on ‘schedule’ the powers that be are skipping the fixing and re-testing of software bugs, at least for the initial deliveries.
Given that programming professionals typically make between 15 and 20 errors per thousand lines of code, this doesn’t sound too good to me. The powers that be are arguing that it’s a waste to fix the current problems, because there will be a new version of the software out in due course. However, I honestly doubt whether the programmers will write new software from scratch – especially since it’s already way behind the original schedule. No. The programmers will take the current buggy and not fully tested version as a starting point, and go on from there, adding, inevitably, new bugs (or as the DoD calls them ‘defects’) as they go along.
They’re planning to fly some of these aircraft at international air shows this summer. Somehow, I suspect that I’m not going to be at this year’s Farnborough International Air Show in the UK...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/f-35-software-overrun-with-bugs-dod-testing-chief-warns/
Rock stars have been having a bad time of it since Christmas. The latest to die was Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane. RIP. I wonder who’s next?
http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/Jefferson-Airplane-s-Paul-Kantner-dies-at-74-6791483.php
Homework:
I mentioned in the shorts section that professional programmers make, on average, about 15 to 20 errors per thousand lines of software. Those of us who program professionally are aware of this and have developed methods of testing. The 15 to 20 errors are what remains after we have tested it! So what of code written by people who aren’t professional programmers?
The reason I raise the issue is because of a piece on the ‘techdirt’ website pointing out that much reported scientific research may be compromised by the use of badly written software. A scientist may be very good at his or her chosen skill, but that doesn’t make them qualified programmers. I’ve had occasion in my somewhat chequered career to be responsible for looking over the code from scientists who are trying to make the move into programming.
It’s grim.
Usually they’ve got the syntax right, but they have no idea of the concepts and structuring that go to make up safe and debuggable programs. Consequently their programs are like a tangle of spaghetti, and it’s impossible to figure out whether it is doing what they are intended. These people aren’t stupid, they just don’t have the training or experience to know how to write programs. The problem is that since they are competent in one branch of science, they tend to consider themselves competent in what they consider to be ‘lesser’ or ‘auxiliary’ branches.
When they publish peer reviewed reports of their work, scientists are usually expected to provide an estimate of the probability of error. I doubt that it occurs to any of them to include the likelihood of errors in the software they or their research students wrote for the project!
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151118/09213232856/frequent-errors-scientific-software-may-undermine-many-published-results.shtml
Oh, and talking of scientific research, the UK government recently launched a report on health and drinking. Shortly afterwards, the government’s Chief Medical Offer, one Sally Davis, claimed that there was “no safe level” of alcohol drinking.”
As a result, the UK’s Royal Statistical Society’s president and president elect got together and pointed out that that the report was unbalanced (this is a word used in polite English society to mean ‘biased’, and other phrases not suitable for use in a family publication such as Winding Down). Indeed, Ms Davis’s view completely contradicts the evidence, which is that teetotallers are at higher risk than moderate drinkers, and drinking after middle age correlates with a substantially lower level of risk of heart disease and strokes.
The best quote in this little spat comes from David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory at Cambridge University, who noted, “An hour of TV watching a day, or a bacon sandwich a couple of times a week, is more dangerous to your long-term health,”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/22/stats_gurus_open_fire_on_bogus_booze_guidelines/
The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting piece on the decades long quest to drill into the Earth’s mantle. In the US they started in 1961, but suffered budget cuts as the race to the moon sucked up all the available funds. They’ve being trying ever since, and now they are drilling at the bottom of the sea, where the crust is thinner. Well worth a read. URLs are also provided for some interesting material on Russian achievements in this field, and a piece on an early Dr Who episode about deep drilling. Science fiction has featured unforeseen effects of deep drilling since very early on, so I’m also including the URL for a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called ‘When the World Screamed”, on just this subject...
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/decades-long-quest-drill-earths-mantle-may-soon-hit-pay-dirt-180957908/?no-ist
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-deepest-hole/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Doctor_Who)
http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/scottish-authors/arthur-conan-doyle/when-the-world-screamed/
Geek Stuff:
Still hankering after cool Star Wars stuff? The take a look at these beautiful 17th Century Style Buddhist Folding Screens recreated in a Star Wars Theme. The inspiration for the screens was taken from Tawaraya Sotatsu’s ‘Fujin Raijin-zu byobu’ (translates as Wind God and Thunder God screens). There’s a picture of the unveiling of the screens in the article. What better way to keep an eye on the proceeding than a pair of stormtroopers!
http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/12/09/17th-century-buddhist-folding-screens-recreated-in-star-wars-theme/
London:
The Londonist has a little map that visitors might be interested in. It’s a map of locations of the biggest robberies committed. You can drink and plan what you are going to do in the Star Tavern which hosted all the planning for the Great Train Robbery, or maybe wander down the diamond area of Hatton Garden, where last year the decade’s biggest robbery took place. Or how about the scene of the 1971 raid on the Safe Deposit boxes of the Lloyds Bank in Baker Street? In that one the thieves used walkie-talkies, and were heard by a ham radio operator – while the raid was in progress! The police didn’t believe him when he tried to tell them...
http://londonist.com/2016/01/mapped-london-s-most-audacious-crimes
Scanner:
Cable lobby is really mad about FCC’s set-top box competition plan
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/01/cable-lobby-is-really-mad-about-fccs-set-top-box-competition-plan/
Good news: True choice is emerging in broadband
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3027575/broadband/good-news-true-choice-emerging-in-broadband.html
Why does Twitter refuse to shut down Donald Trump?
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001150.html
Lenovo’s file-sharing app uses hardwired password ‘12345678’ ... or no password at all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/worlds_worst_passwords_hardcoded_into_lenovo_shareit/
“Internet of Things” security is hilariously broken and getting worse
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/how-to-search-the-internet-of-things-for-photos-of-sleeping-babies/
Bluesmart: The world’s first smart suitcase
http://www.firebox.com/product/7420/Bluesmart-The-Worlds-First-Smart-Suitcase
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
31 January 2016
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
