3 ms·

See also: engineers of the B-52 bomber. It first flew 71 years ago and is expected to have another 30 years left.

KineticLensman 3y ago
There is at least one family that has three generations of B52 pilot (grandfather, father, son) [0]. Imagine being a coder who maintained code written by your grandfather and father... [0] https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580/three-generations-of-b-52-airmen/ https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580...
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Well, my grandpa didn’t know jack about computers, so I very well could have maintained code he’s written based on the disquality of stuff I’ve had to work on in the past. But yeah. In “A Fire Upon the Deep”, Vinge talked about archaeological programmers. There’s no doubt in my mind we’ll reach that point. “Tell me again why time_t is only 64 bits?” “Pull up a chair while I dig out the LKML archive. You know, this was originally stored in electric fields, if you can believe it!”
  - acheron 3y ago
    Fire up the subspace ansible and create a holodeck room for us to talk about it. You can't name the holodeck program "CON", "LPT1", "PRN", or "AUX", though, because those are MS-DOS device names. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37076523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37076523 )
    - myself248 3y ago
      To this day, I use COPY CON FILENAME.TXT to make a quick-n-dirty note of something without leaving the terminal.
      - kstrauser 3y ago
        I use `cat > foo.txt` all the time for the same reason.
    - Arrath 3y ago
      There's an idea for another holodeck mishap episode right there. The ship's replicators start spitting out PacMan ghosts which quickly overrun the passageways ala Tribbles, in the end it turns out Ensign Crusher attempted to pipe his holodeck game to PRN and the Ship's computer mistook that as a command to begin (3d) printing.
bee_rider 3y ago
I bet they’ve replaced most of the computers by now, though.
- kstrauser 3y ago
  Probably, but why’s that spar here? Why did they route that wire around the screw, and why doesn’t the 1960s bomb sight work right if the wire’s only twisted 3 times instead of 4?
  - jamesy0ung 3y ago
    Bomb sights aren’t used anymore. The weapons used by the B-52 are all gps guided and the computer on board simply gives a timer for the pilot to press the pickle button. The weapon then self guides to the target.
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      That sounds believable, but I bet they still have lots of surprisingly old equipment that works too well to bother replacing.

There is at least one family that has three generations of B52 pilot (grandfather, father, son) [0]. Imagine being a coder who maintained code written by your grandfather and father... [0] https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580/three-generations-of-b-52-airmen/ https://www.minot.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/264580...

kstrauser 3y ago
Well, my grandpa didn’t know jack about computers, so I very well could have maintained code he’s written based on the disquality of stuff I’ve had to work on in the past. But yeah. In “A Fire Upon the Deep”, Vinge talked about archaeological programmers. There’s no doubt in my mind we’ll reach that point. “Tell me again why time_t is only 64 bits?” “Pull up a chair while I dig out the LKML archive. You know, this was originally stored in electric fields, if you can believe it!”
- acheron 3y ago
  Fire up the subspace ansible and create a holodeck room for us to talk about it. You can't name the holodeck program "CON", "LPT1", "PRN", or "AUX", though, because those are MS-DOS device names. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37076523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37076523 )
  - myself248 3y ago
    To this day, I use COPY CON FILENAME.TXT to make a quick-n-dirty note of something without leaving the terminal.
    - kstrauser 3y ago
      I use `cat > foo.txt` all the time for the same reason.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    There's an idea for another holodeck mishap episode right there. The ship's replicators start spitting out PacMan ghosts which quickly overrun the passageways ala Tribbles, in the end it turns out Ensign Crusher attempted to pipe his holodeck game to PRN and the Ship's computer mistook that as a command to begin (3d) printing.

bee_rider 3y ago

I bet they’ve replaced most of the computers by now, though.

kstrauser 3y ago
Probably, but why’s that spar here? Why did they route that wire around the screw, and why doesn’t the 1960s bomb sight work right if the wire’s only twisted 3 times instead of 4?
- jamesy0ung 3y ago
  Bomb sights aren’t used anymore. The weapons used by the B-52 are all gps guided and the computer on board simply gives a timer for the pilot to press the pickle button. The weapon then self guides to the target.
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    That sounds believable, but I bet they still have lots of surprisingly old equipment that works too well to bother replacing.