4 ms·
I read the gizmodo article when it came out and it really seems that the only reason these machines are still running is because the few remaining users have fo
by pitaa 9y ago
I read the gizmodo article when it came out and it really seems that the only reason these machines are still running is because the few remaining users have found technically-minded friends that can do the tinkering required to keep them running. I wondered at the time if there couldn't be some sort of crowd sourced effort to make replacement parts and help iron lung users find people to service their machines. But the liability associated with doing so seems to be enormous in my mind. I doubt good samaritan laws would protect someone in the slightest if they volunteered to service an iron lung, the user of the iron lung later died, and then the family decided to sue. One would hope that the family would understand the situation enough not to do so, be is there honestly any way to such a situation from happening?
If my grandmother used an iron lung I would absolutely do everything I personally could to keep it running, including servicing it and making replacement parts. But the thought of doing that for a stranger absolutely terrifies me.
- tyingq 9y agoThe link out in the story to the Therac 25 that over irradiated and killed several people with a software bug seems to strengthen your point. https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-therac-25/ https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-ther... I'd heard of it before, but hadn't heard it was controlled by a PDP-11. Apparently running some bare metal ASM, not multics or unix (http://courses.cs.vt.edu/professionalism/Therac_25/Side_bar_1.html http://courses.cs.vt.edu/professionalism/Therac_25/Side_bar_...)
- ashleyn 9y ago"It is clear from the AECL documentation on the modifications that the software allows concurrent access to shared memory, that there is no real synchronization aside from data stored in shared variables, and that the "test" and "set" for such variables are not indivisible operations. Race conditions resulting from this implementation of multitasking played an important part in the accidents." To think all the reasons I ever disliked working with raw threads, could kill someone. I know it was 1984 but if software did this today, the developers would be torn limb to limb as this is practically an interview problem.
- Mz 9y agoAs far as I can tell, this is only an effort to create new parts, not find volunteer service people. If there are zero available parts, it is better to have parts than to not have them. No replacement parts = guaranteed death at some point. So, the way to bet here is to support the creation of replacement parts.