5 ms·

Did you read the article? It's about the inflight entertainment system, and has nothing to do with the flight recorders.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
joegreen 11y ago
Thus the "Fast-forward 20 years" part :-)
- stevebygane 11y ago
  What makes you think anyone is planning to use NodeJS in avionics in 20 years? Where have you got that information, and how is it relevant to this discussion?
  - nerdstep 11y ago
    Where's your sense of humor? It was a funny stab at JavaScript. I for one got a chuckle out of it.
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      we don't do joke threads well here on purpose
  - solids 11y ago
    Relax
  - repop 11y ago
    never change, HN.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Perhaps you missed the whole obvious joke thing? What makes the joke relevant to the discussion is that this is the first thought on lots of people's mind: "gee, I hope they don't ever use it for the actual flying system". It sure was the first thought I had, even before seeing the parent's joke.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > What makes the joke relevant to the discussion is that this is the first thought on lots of people's mind: "gee, I hope they don't ever use it for the actual flying system". That's the second thought for me. The first was "thank goodness the airline I'm flying intercontinental with next week uses Boeing planes at that route".
      - SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
        Hopefully not a 737 though, hey? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11611058/Cybersecurity-researcher-made-plane-climb-after-hacking-in-flight-entertainment-system.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      >>Perhaps you missed the whole obvious joke thing? What's remarkable about HN is that most jokes are heavily voted down with responses like "go back to reddit", and jokers regularly complain that HN has no sense of humor. And yet every now and then a joke gets voted to the top. I've yet to wrap my mind around this phenomenon, personally...
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        Perhaps it means that HN's cumulative sense of humor differs in some respect from your own?
        enraged_camel 11y ago
        I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor" or be offended by the implied suggestion that my sense of humor matches that of Reddit's.
        coldtea 11y ago
        >I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor" People overestimate how different they are from the average person all the time, but regression to the mean is a thing. That's how we get a general culture (in the broad sense) -- even if there are subcultures within it. Besides, how diverse is HN? If anything it's one of the more targeted communities -- most people here already are focused in programming and startups, and have a same-ish background even when from different countries. Contrast with something like YouTube or Reddit (general channels), where people are from all walks of life. If 9gag, which also gets people from all around the world and with all kinds of interests and ages, can develop a "cumulative sense of humor" (and it has) then surely HN can too. This doesn't mean that everyone on HN will agree on some funny thing -- just that a large percentage will.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 11y ago
  Yes, it's clever because it implies how entertainment slowly but inexorably manages to take insinuate itself into and corrupt every essential application.
verelo 11y ago
In flight entertainment systems have certainly been the cause of crashes in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 "the crash was generally believed to have been caused by faulty wiring in the cockpit after the entertainment system in the plane started to overheat" It's not too far fetched to think you could end up with an infinite loop (or other random issue) in some inflight entertainment system code, causing it to overhead and potentially ignite. I'm sure there are plenty of safeguards, but they too could fail...and this is why we still have circuit breakers and a master switch in planes that a human can control. Sadly humans too can (and often do...) fail to make the right decision. Any system other than flight surfaces, avionics and the source of propulsion to an aircraft add some degree of risk that we could otherwise fly without. Edits: Spelling and general sillyness.
- dominotw 11y ago
  To be fair, that had nothing to do with software running inflight entertainment.
  - verelo 11y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. While its possible the overheating was due to a failed fan or something physical, but its also very possible that the software running on this hardware caused it to overheat.
- pkaye 11y ago
  This seems to be a hardware issue.
  - verelo 11y ago
    People seem to be missing my point. To be clear, i'm trying to suggest that there is a high chance that the hardware fault that was triggered by overheating, was potentially caused by a software fault.
    - 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

joegreen 11y ago

Thus the "Fast-forward 20 years" part :-)

stevebygane 11y ago
What makes you think anyone is planning to use NodeJS in avionics in 20 years? Where have you got that information, and how is it relevant to this discussion?
- nerdstep 11y ago
  Where's your sense of humor? It was a funny stab at JavaScript. I for one got a chuckle out of it.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    we don't do joke threads well here on purpose
- solids 11y ago
  Relax
- repop 11y ago
  never change, HN.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Perhaps you missed the whole obvious joke thing? What makes the joke relevant to the discussion is that this is the first thought on lots of people's mind: "gee, I hope they don't ever use it for the actual flying system". It sure was the first thought I had, even before seeing the parent's joke.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > What makes the joke relevant to the discussion is that this is the first thought on lots of people's mind: "gee, I hope they don't ever use it for the actual flying system". That's the second thought for me. The first was "thank goodness the airline I'm flying intercontinental with next week uses Boeing planes at that route".
    - SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
      Hopefully not a 737 though, hey? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11611058/Cybersecurity-researcher-made-plane-climb-after-hacking-in-flight-entertainment-system.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    >>Perhaps you missed the whole obvious joke thing? What's remarkable about HN is that most jokes are heavily voted down with responses like "go back to reddit", and jokers regularly complain that HN has no sense of humor. And yet every now and then a joke gets voted to the top. I've yet to wrap my mind around this phenomenon, personally...
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Perhaps it means that HN's cumulative sense of humor differs in some respect from your own?
      - enraged_camel 11y ago
        I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor" or be offended by the implied suggestion that my sense of humor matches that of Reddit's.
        coldtea 11y ago
        >I don't know whether to laugh at the suggestion that a crowd as diverse as HN has a "cumulative sense of humor" People overestimate how different they are from the average person all the time, but regression to the mean is a thing. That's how we get a general culture (in the broad sense) -- even if there are subcultures within it. Besides, how diverse is HN? If anything it's one of the more targeted communities -- most people here already are focused in programming and startups, and have a same-ish background even when from different countries. Contrast with something like YouTube or Reddit (general channels), where people are from all walks of life. If 9gag, which also gets people from all around the world and with all kinds of interests and ages, can develop a "cumulative sense of humor" (and it has) then surely HN can too. This doesn't mean that everyone on HN will agree on some funny thing -- just that a large percentage will.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
bryanrasmussen 11y ago
Yes, it's clever because it implies how entertainment slowly but inexorably manages to take insinuate itself into and corrupt every essential application.

verelo 11y ago

In flight entertainment systems have certainly been the cause of crashes in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 "the crash was generally believed to have been caused by faulty wiring in the cockpit after the entertainment system in the plane started to overheat" It's not too far fetched to think you could end up with an infinite loop (or other random issue) in some inflight entertainment system code, causing it to overhead and potentially ignite. I'm sure there are plenty of safeguards, but they too could fail...and this is why we still have circuit breakers and a master switch in planes that a human can control. Sadly humans too can (and often do...) fail to make the right decision. Any system other than flight surfaces, avionics and the source of propulsion to an aircraft add some degree of risk that we could otherwise fly without. Edits: Spelling and general sillyness.

dominotw 11y ago
To be fair, that had nothing to do with software running inflight entertainment.
- verelo 11y ago
  I'm not sure I agree. While its possible the overheating was due to a failed fan or something physical, but its also very possible that the software running on this hardware caused it to overheat.
pkaye 11y ago
This seems to be a hardware issue.
- verelo 11y ago
  People seem to be missing my point. To be clear, i'm trying to suggest that there is a high chance that the hardware fault that was triggered by overheating, was potentially caused by a software fault.
  - 11y ago