6 ms·

It's one of those fixes where they add up the value of human life if something goes wrong and say 'OK we can handle that, ship it"

by xvf22 7y ago

alexis_fr 7y ago
I wonder if the human life calculation worked well this time. As far as I see, Boeing lost more than the sum of the human lives; they also lost reputation for everything new they’ve designed in the last 7 years being corrupted, and they also engulfed the reputation of FAA with them, whose agents would fit the definition of “corrupted” by any people’s definition (I know, they are not, they just used agents of Boeing to inspect Boeing because they were understaffed), and the FAA showed the last step of failure by not admitting that the plane had to be stopped until a few days after the European agencies. In other words, even in financial terms, it cost more than damages. It may have cost the entire company. They “DeHavailland”’ed their company. Ever heard of DeHavailland? No? That’s probably to do with their 4 successive deintegrating planes that “CEOs have complete trust in.” It just died, as a name. The risk is high.
- lizmat 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
- iguy 7y ago
  Except that, unlike de Havailland, Boeing is too big to fail. There's just no way the US will allow it to keel over, and leave Airbus the sole supplier. And as with the banks, you can bet that this implicit guarantee gets figured into what decisions people take.
- jacobush 7y ago
  There is so much of U.K. which is incredible and depressing at the same time. Completely pummelled by war, (receiving no aid like West Germany did) they managed to, in 1949, release a Space Age passenger commercial airliner, defining the genre. It looks modern even today. Yet, fumbled the ball. They also had a space program, closed it down after their first satellite, which was a success. Concorde! (With France.) It goes on an on, I'm sure you have favourite examples. It's heart wrenching.
  - the-dude 7y ago
    The U.K. had an educational computer initiative with the BBC and Acorn. Worked wonders. Then they discontinued the effort.
    - mattlondon 7y ago
      Yes, although ARM came out of that and now look at that (...or your smartphone) so its not all a disaster. The Raspberry Pi is a spiritual successor which I am generally pleased to see. The RPi was I think partly responsible for a real Computer Science curriculum getting back into schools ... I hate to say it but I think it was Michael Gove that made this happen!
      - cstross 7y ago
        Arm Holdings is now owned by Japan's Softbank, because a Conservative (business-first) administration thought selling off the family silver was a fine idea. This is pretty typical of the UK government's approach to the computer hardware/software industry. Had the first business computer industry in Europe (anyone else remember the LEO line of mainframes?) and a promising software biz, of which only bits remain. (The gaming industry is thriving, but the rest mostly ended up being absorbed by US multinationals. I could speculate that having a common language, in combination with a series of governments who believed in leaving things to the Invisible Hand, and a business culture dominated by accountants, were at the root of the problem ...)
        ethbro 7y ago
        Coemergence of government competence in invention and supporting application seems almost as rare as companies delivering on a second blockbuster idea. Which kind of speaks to the prevalence of luck over design in favorable outcomes at any macro level. Too many small, randomly whirling bits, and they all need to line up just so.
  - mattlondon 7y ago
    Generally short-sighted politics gets in the way in the UK based on my own opinion. Support/budgets/etc get withdrawn at precisely the wrong moment (and usually for some petty point-scoring or if ministers are running scared from the media/opposition) Its happening right now too with electric cars and solar electricity - solar has generally been seen as a success with a lot of installations taking us to 3rd place in Europe for solar megawatts despite there being essentially no sun (1), and EV cars are starting to become something actually viable for most people's lives. The government has just announced that the UK is now legally bound to be carbon neutral by 2050... yet the government chose also to revoke funding and support for both solar and EVs and so subsequently update has plummeted (2, 3) right at this vital point. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy_in_the_European_U... 2 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/08/solar-installation-in-british-homes-falls-by-three-quarters-after-subsidy-cuts https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/08/solar-in... 3 - https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/new-car-sales-fall-april-plug-hybrids-hardest-hit https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/new-car-sales-fa...
- tolien 7y ago
  DeHavilland didn’t do that badly - the last Nimrod (based on the Comet) was retired in 2011. The name disappeared because, like a whole host of British aviation manufacturers (English Electric, Folland, Vickers, Supermarine, Hawker-Siddeley, Bristol, Hunting, Avro), they successively merged together until all that was left was a name you probably are familiar with - BAE Systems.
markdown 7y ago
Well so far they've been lucky because they only killed brown people in a far away country. Those don't count for much.
- Yajirobe 7y ago
  Excuse you?? I've just reported you for this despicable comment.
  - jakecopp 7y ago
    I don't agree with how they phrased it, but I think they are sarcastically referring to how the media treats disasters in third world countries and doesn't actually believe that. If the accidents happened in the US I imagine there would be a lot more media and legal scrutiny.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  Unacceptable - please don't bring those sort of views to HN.
- dingo_bat 7y ago
  Exactly. Imagine those 2 downed jets were full of Americans or Europeans. The governments would have hit Boeing so hard people would remember that for a century.

It's one of those fixes where they add up the value of human life if something goes wrong and say 'OK we can handle that, ship it"

by xvf22 7y ago

It's one of those fixes where they add up the value of human life if something goes wrong and say 'OK we can handle that, ship it"

alexis_fr 7y ago

I wonder if the human life calculation worked well this time. As far as I see, Boeing lost more than the sum of the human lives; they also lost reputation for everything new they’ve designed in the last 7 years being corrupted, and they also engulfed the reputation of FAA with them, whose agents would fit the definition of “corrupted” by any people’s definition (I know, they are not, they just used agents of Boeing to inspect Boeing because they were understaffed), and the FAA showed the last step of failure by not admitting that the plane had to be stopped until a few days after the European agencies. In other words, even in financial terms, it cost more than damages. It may have cost the entire company. They “DeHavailland”’ed their company. Ever heard of DeHavailland? No? That’s probably to do with their 4 successive deintegrating planes that “CEOs have complete trust in.” It just died, as a name. The risk is high.

lizmat 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
iguy 7y ago
Except that, unlike de Havailland, Boeing is too big to fail. There's just no way the US will allow it to keel over, and leave Airbus the sole supplier. And as with the banks, you can bet that this implicit guarantee gets figured into what decisions people take.
jacobush 7y ago
There is so much of U.K. which is incredible and depressing at the same time. Completely pummelled by war, (receiving no aid like West Germany did) they managed to, in 1949, release a Space Age passenger commercial airliner, defining the genre. It looks modern even today. Yet, fumbled the ball. They also had a space program, closed it down after their first satellite, which was a success. Concorde! (With France.) It goes on an on, I'm sure you have favourite examples. It's heart wrenching.
- the-dude 7y ago
  The U.K. had an educational computer initiative with the BBC and Acorn. Worked wonders. Then they discontinued the effort.
  - mattlondon 7y ago
    Yes, although ARM came out of that and now look at that (...or your smartphone) so its not all a disaster. The Raspberry Pi is a spiritual successor which I am generally pleased to see. The RPi was I think partly responsible for a real Computer Science curriculum getting back into schools ... I hate to say it but I think it was Michael Gove that made this happen!
    - cstross 7y ago
      Arm Holdings is now owned by Japan's Softbank, because a Conservative (business-first) administration thought selling off the family silver was a fine idea. This is pretty typical of the UK government's approach to the computer hardware/software industry. Had the first business computer industry in Europe (anyone else remember the LEO line of mainframes?) and a promising software biz, of which only bits remain. (The gaming industry is thriving, but the rest mostly ended up being absorbed by US multinationals. I could speculate that having a common language, in combination with a series of governments who believed in leaving things to the Invisible Hand, and a business culture dominated by accountants, were at the root of the problem ...)
      - ethbro 7y ago
        Coemergence of government competence in invention and supporting application seems almost as rare as companies delivering on a second blockbuster idea. Which kind of speaks to the prevalence of luck over design in favorable outcomes at any macro level. Too many small, randomly whirling bits, and they all need to line up just so.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  Generally short-sighted politics gets in the way in the UK based on my own opinion. Support/budgets/etc get withdrawn at precisely the wrong moment (and usually for some petty point-scoring or if ministers are running scared from the media/opposition) Its happening right now too with electric cars and solar electricity - solar has generally been seen as a success with a lot of installations taking us to 3rd place in Europe for solar megawatts despite there being essentially no sun (1), and EV cars are starting to become something actually viable for most people's lives. The government has just announced that the UK is now legally bound to be carbon neutral by 2050... yet the government chose also to revoke funding and support for both solar and EVs and so subsequently update has plummeted (2, 3) right at this vital point. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy_in_the_European_U... 2 - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/08/solar-installation-in-british-homes-falls-by-three-quarters-after-subsidy-cuts https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/08/solar-in... 3 - https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/new-car-sales-fall-april-plug-hybrids-hardest-hit https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/new-car-sales-fa...
tolien 7y ago
DeHavilland didn’t do that badly - the last Nimrod (based on the Comet) was retired in 2011. The name disappeared because, like a whole host of British aviation manufacturers (English Electric, Folland, Vickers, Supermarine, Hawker-Siddeley, Bristol, Hunting, Avro), they successively merged together until all that was left was a name you probably are familiar with - BAE Systems.

markdown 7y ago

Well so far they've been lucky because they only killed brown people in a far away country. Those don't count for much.

Yajirobe 7y ago
Excuse you?? I've just reported you for this despicable comment.
- jakecopp 7y ago
  I don't agree with how they phrased it, but I think they are sarcastically referring to how the media treats disasters in third world countries and doesn't actually believe that. If the accidents happened in the US I imagine there would be a lot more media and legal scrutiny.
mattlondon 7y ago
Unacceptable - please don't bring those sort of views to HN.
dingo_bat 7y ago
Exactly. Imagine those 2 downed jets were full of Americans or Europeans. The governments would have hit Boeing so hard people would remember that for a century.