3 ms·

Lots of things have faulty wiring, but they keep working as long as their power draw is under some limit. Drawing excess power is a common result of software go

by tlb 9y ago

Lots of things have faulty wiring, but they keep working as long as their power draw is under some limit. Drawing excess power is a common result of software going into an infinite loop, which is a possible outcome of security probes. Half the bugs I notice in Chrome, I notice because my laptop fan starts running.

ricardobeat 9y ago
A CPU overheating is still completely different from the wiring or other components heating up. It is entirely monitored, can throttle itself or shut down through OOB controls. It's more likely for your plane to be hit by a falling unicorn than you being able to burn something up just by the power of `while (1)`.
- jordz 9y ago
  This genuinely made me laugh out loud.
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
Sure. Hair dryers draw excess power when you drop them in a bathtub. Ground-fault protection outlets are supposed to prevent that. If they don't, the outlet is faulty. The origin of Murphy's Law was in a rocket sled project. This guy was strapped onto a rocket sled, fired down a track, and then subjected to strong braking forces. "If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong" didn't just mean "stuff happens". It meant, "you have to either make it impossible for it to go wrong, or you have to find a way that, even if it does go wrong, this guy doesn't die". You can't just ignore the problem as unlikely. It will happen sooner or later. You don't get to say "lots of things have faulty wiring". Things that can kill you had better not have faulty wiring, or had better be able to survive it if they do.
- tlb 9y ago
  "More than 21-percent of GFCI circuit breakers and 19-percent of GFCI Receptacles tested did not provide ground fault protection. The failure rate in areas of high-lightening strike was as high as 57 percent ... when a GFCI device fails, it continues to pass electric current but no longer protects the unsuspecting homeowner from ground fault conditions." (From http://www.experts123.com/a/the-national-electrical-code-ground-fault-circuit-interrupter-protection.html http://www.experts123.com/a/the-national-electrical-code-gro...) And read this before dropping your hair dryer in the bathtub: https://iaeimagazine.org/magazine/2010/01/16/the-illusion-of-gfci-protection/ https://iaeimagazine.org/magazine/2010/01/16/the-illusion-of...

by tlb 9y ago

ricardobeat 9y ago

A CPU overheating is still completely different from the wiring or other components heating up. It is entirely monitored, can throttle itself or shut down through OOB controls. It's more likely for your plane to be hit by a falling unicorn than you being able to burn something up just by the power of `while (1)`.

jordz 9y ago
This genuinely made me laugh out loud.

AnimalMuppet 9y ago

Sure. Hair dryers draw excess power when you drop them in a bathtub. Ground-fault protection outlets are supposed to prevent that. If they don't, the outlet is faulty. The origin of Murphy's Law was in a rocket sled project. This guy was strapped onto a rocket sled, fired down a track, and then subjected to strong braking forces. "If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong" didn't just mean "stuff happens". It meant, "you have to either make it impossible for it to go wrong, or you have to find a way that, even if it does go wrong, this guy doesn't die". You can't just ignore the problem as unlikely. It will happen sooner or later. You don't get to say "lots of things have faulty wiring". Things that can kill you had better not have faulty wiring, or had better be able to survive it if they do.

tlb 9y ago
"More than 21-percent of GFCI circuit breakers and 19-percent of GFCI Receptacles tested did not provide ground fault protection. The failure rate in areas of high-lightening strike was as high as 57 percent ... when a GFCI device fails, it continues to pass electric current but no longer protects the unsuspecting homeowner from ground fault conditions." (From http://www.experts123.com/a/the-national-electrical-code-ground-fault-circuit-interrupter-protection.html http://www.experts123.com/a/the-national-electrical-code-gro...) And read this before dropping your hair dryer in the bathtub: https://iaeimagazine.org/magazine/2010/01/16/the-illusion-of-gfci-protection/ https://iaeimagazine.org/magazine/2010/01/16/the-illusion-of...