I tried to automate mouse moves, keystrokes and screenshots to take a higher-res picture of an area in Google Earth. Something went wrong and it got out of control. My attempts to stop the script were futile as the automated mouse steered me away from the code window. The spinning, gyrating earth rapidly made me seasick - had to close my eyes and fumble my way to the power off button. Stretching 'hurt' but it was a memorable code fail nonetheless :)
Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
121–130 of 432 posts
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#122I was building an underwater mapping GUI, a quick SCUBA dive to do some testing before the weather closed in whilst at sea in the GBR Australia. Dropped to 10 meters, set the datum and started swimming, going well until I crossed into a negative quadrant. My beautiful track went haywire/dead. Then I swam around trying to get back "into" the positive quadrant, I couldn't find it and consequently couldn't get back to t…
The "system doesn't work with negative datum" bug allegedly hit F-16 flight control software, resulting in a plane that would flip upside down on crossing the equator.
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#123Reverse engineered a shock collar's protocol in order to control it via programmable SDR antenna.
Implemented a basic HTTP server that'd dispatch commands with a simple access control and permission system, messed up the rate limiting, big mistake.
PS: I don't have a dog.
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain more about what you did and why?
tl;dr - too much modafinil. Yes, I have Crohn's and I do not like to take the meds or listen to the doctors. This is NOT AT ALL SOMETHING I RECOMMEND, PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT IT. Crohn's is an auto-immune disease and the main class of drugs that is used to treat Crohn's like mine (long term) are called TNF inhibitors or TNF blockers. TNF alpha triggers the production of several immune system molecules, including interl…
> do not manually create my mixtures because I do not want to know which version I am on,
Double blind testing, in the "now unable to see in both eyes" sense?
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ouch... and what are the odds!
What are the odds of being laid off if your boss asks you to write something called a layoff database?
normally I'd think not very high, at least until the first round of layoffs are done and any potential bugs with the database/application have been worked out.
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to do robotics, I can tell you that the fact that it was the cheapest or the most hacky does not matter in the least. Everything can and will go wrong, even the priciest and well documented part. I used to have multiple clamps around the controller, message bus, the firmware and also a physical barrier, and yet would not feel safe with my fingers or person around moving parts.
Not quite robotics, but some of our servers kept powercycling , had to plug in the physical terminal. It was close to lunch, so I kept eating. The finale was a jar of mayo spilled into the guts of a 50k server. Best mayo I ever had.
What kind of server room allows you to bring food?
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#127In the 90s I implemented a PWM motor controller in asm, for a robot with enough power to accelerate hard on soft grass, outside. Robot was rather over engineered by a team mate who previously worked on automated farm machinery. Tested the microcontroller on the breadboard with an oscilloscope, all looked well: nice PWM shapes. For the first integrated test on the robot, I high-centered it on some bricks so the wheels…
Ouch. I'm curious what would cause the PWM output to invert under such condition? Was there a special case built in for <2% that was coded incorrectly, or did it emerge from something else?
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#128I wrote a layoff database for Nortel Networks from ~1998 to 2001. The way I got my notice of termination was while I was running some tests on the production database and needed a "negative" so I searched for a userid that was not present in the database: my own. When I saw my name in the list I called my manager and asked him what was going on. He said "Alex, why don't you head on home for the day and I'll call you…
DELETE FROM LayoffDB WHERE EmployeeName='Alex';
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#129It's extremely easy to hurt yourself with audio, it almost feels like cheating. Just regular audio work provides plenty of opportunities to do that. Here's a random note from Supercollider, a platform for audio synthesis [1]:
> CAUTION: macOS system volume doesn’t effectively limit audio applications’ maximum volume. Extra care has to be put in working on this platform, especially with headphones, because programs can produce unexpectedly loud sounds regardless of system volume settings, potentially causing ear damage.
Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?
#130Oh yeah, plenty of flesh wounds. No serious injuries that I can remember, though. Maybe that means it was a head injury? :-) More importantly, I don't think I've injured anyone else seriously either.
I've worked on embedded software for solar powered race cars, rockets and spacecraft, self driving cars, and most recently UAVs and corresponding high power motorized ground systems.
You gotta take safety procedures seriously when testing out electro-mechanical systems strong enough to injure you. One memorable bug discovered in testing in the last few years I labeled "ninja assassin mode"...