Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#311

Post by adrianmonk » Thu, May 27, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #303

cedricd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: please go home and I'll call you. 'Head on home' is a real expression. Similar ones are 'head over there', 'head to ...', all of which just mean 'go to'.

I mean more the "Why don't you ..." It's quite obvious that it's rethorical but it seems so nonsensical to put this into a question while camouflaging what is really going on.

I'd say the purpose is more or less to show respect. By phrasing it as an idea or a suggestion, you give them the chance to (appear to) cooperate willingly.

Both people presumably do know what's really happening, and this is exactly why it's seen as unnecessary (and inconsiderate) to actually say it. There's no reason to call extra attention to something unpleasant.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#312

Post by msrenee » Thu, May 27, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #254

msrenee wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's lots of safety mechanisms like this in manufacturing. I've also seen "light curtains" which are essentially 2 bars on either side of a hazard. If anything crosses that plane, the machine stops automatically. There are also pressure pads. For one type, you have to be standing on for the machine to operate so that you are in a safe location when it starts. For the other, the pad covers the danger area and the m…

Another one is machinery where you have to "enter" the machine to do maintenance. Think industrial ovens. You're supposed to turn off the circuit breaker and lock it with your own personal lock that only you have the key to. That way no one can turn it on even if they wanted to. I've heard no one, under any circumstances is allowed to take the lock off. If the person leaves after their shift and forgets to take it of…

As someone else mentioned, that's a lockout-tagout procedure. Very common when doing any kind of maintenance on a machine. You isolate the power sources and place a personal lock on it to which only you have the key. It usually has your name and an ID number written on it. The lock cannot be removed by anyone else. If you, for instance, forget to take your lock off and go home, it's a very long process where they have to get someone high enough up the chain to get in contact with you and either get you to come back or confirm that you're safely a long way away from the machine before they can cut the lock off. This makes your management very unhappy and most places that I've worked will write you up for leaving while the equipment is still locked out if maintenance is finished and it's safe to operate.

It's not only electricity that needs to be isolated and locked out. A lot of machines use air pressure to operate moving parts, so in that case you'd have to isolate all electrical sources as well as the air. The machines I usually mess with require 2 locks. Some of the machines I've seen can require 6 or more locks to be fully locked out and safe to work on.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#313

Post by lcuff » Thu, May 27, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

ArchOversight wrote: post #294

akiselev wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another awesome safety system is the SawStop which uses the conductivity of skin to monitor for contact against the blade in a tablesaw. If it detects contact a small explosive charge goes off, instantly sending a block of aluminum into the path of the blade, stopping it dead. Even a serious accident like leaning with an elbow against a moving blade is likely to result in little more than the scratch from hitting a s…

The biggest problem with the saw stop is that wood when it is even slightly moist can set it off. So on a worksite if you are using lumber that hasn't had adequate time to dry the saw stop would trip even without any limbs being in danger. Each time it would destroy itself, you would have to take the saw apart and change it which would cause a work stoppage. What irks me the most is that the SawStop owner tried to cr…

Current saw stop units do have an over-ride switch so that if you know you're going to cut questionable wood, you can disable the safety mechanism for a series of cuts. (The safety mechanism comes back on if you power the table saw off, then back on.) But of course you don't know advance for sure if the piece of wood in hand will trigger the safety mechanism or not.

Not everybody's cup of tea, but our ability to be 'present' is highly variable, both person-to-person, and one person over time. I'm a somewhat daydreamy sort of person, so I work to bring focus when I'm using power tools. As a hobbyist I walk out of my shop when I get tired, emotional, or otherwise distracted, but that's not an option for everyone.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#314

Post by dentemple » Thu, May 27, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #303

cedricd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: please go home and I'll call you. 'Head on home' is a real expression. Similar ones are 'head over there', 'head to ...', all of which just mean 'go to'.

I mean more the "Why don't you ..." It's quite obvious that it's rethorical but it seems so nonsensical to put this into a question while camouflaging what is really going on.

The "camouflage" here indicates an increase in the speaker's politeness level. Some languages use explicit terms or forms of address to do this; English, however, utilizes indirect phrasing to achieve this effect.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#315

Post by Teknoman117 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:07 PM UTC

Not so much myself physically, but I certainly have written code that destroyed my own projects (hurt my wallet).

Many years ago I was working on a mobile outdoor hobby robotics project (RoboMagellan) and had two glitches in parallel. One was the software controlling the robot, the other was in a microcontroller in the kill switch mechanism.

The main computer was reset by a brown out which also caused the uC listening for inputs from the radio used as the "enable" switch to lock up (with the motors enabled) and I hadn't yet learned about hardware watchdog timers.

Drove straight into a river.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#316

Post by neilv » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #290

isatty wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

Used to work in robotics. The QA folk were obviously very much sticklers for the full process of enabling the hardware interlocks before getting near the moving bits. One time a manager got mad at them for taking so long going through the full interlock process while repeating a failure mode. He therefore went up to the machine saying "look, it failed so it's stopped, that's how the code works!" At that point our bet…

I hope that the arm healed well, and that, after the painful demonstration, everyone in the organization was fully onboard with workplace safety protocol.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#317

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

blablabla123 wrote: post #303

cedricd wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words: please go home and I'll call you. 'Head on home' is a real expression. Similar ones are 'head over there', 'head to ...', all of which just mean 'go to'.

I mean more the "Why don't you ..." It's quite obvious that it's rethorical but it seems so nonsensical to put this into a question while camouflaging what is really going on.

Don't feel bad :-) My 11 year-old son (a native English speaker) said the same thing to me just yesterday.

"Hey, bud. Why don't you pick up those two plastic containers and follow me."

"OK, but dad, it really confuses me when you say that. Can't you just say 'please pick up those containers'? It sounds like you're giving me an option but you're really not."

Until he said that, I had never given it a thought. But he takes things very literally, so I can see how it's confusing even though he knows what I mean.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#318

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

sowbug wrote: post #53

About seven years ago I got a bright idea to build a quadcopter. I had experience with little $25-50 drones that bumped around the house with their fragile one-inch propellers, which obviously qualified me to build and pilot something significantly bigger. Off to Aliexpress and Banggood I went. I ordered a carbon-fiber chassis, big strong motors, ESCs, 3-inch propellers, a FrSky receiver, a Devention transmitter, an…

You learn. Hopefully before someone gets hurt.

I still remember an EE lab professor saying one day "get in the habit of using red wires for Power and black for Ground. That way, when you have your first accident, maybe it won't be too bad."

Or a technician I used to work with who would quote his tech school instructor daily, "NO, no loose conductors on the test bench."

All the nail heads on my work bench are covered with electrical tape. I try to use red wires for + and black or green for - whenever possible. I learned to think about what could happen before I flip the power switch (first power up use the lab supply with current limited to the absolute minimum the circuit needs), or when I hit F5 in the debugger (does anyone have their hands in the machine?).

I've still set things on fire, still broken expensive pieces of equipment because I had the wrong sign on a variable, still made loud banging steel-on-steel noises because I didn't calculate an offset correctly etc.,

At the end of the day, if everyone goes home with all body parts intact, we'll call it good.

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#319

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

VBprogrammer wrote: post #187

sowbug wrote: post #53

About seven years ago I got a bright idea to build a quadcopter. I had experience with little $25-50 drones that bumped around the house with their fragile one-inch propellers, which obviously qualified me to build and pilot something significantly bigger. Off to Aliexpress and Banggood I went. I ordered a carbon-fiber chassis, big strong motors, ESCs, 3-inch propellers, a FrSky receiver, a Devention transmitter, an…

I feel obligated to add my silly mistake here. I was playing with SDR and was soldering together a small antenna for receiving ADS-B signals. I soon realised my electric soldering iron wasn't powerful enough so I nipped out and bought a miniature blow torch. The kind which are basically a big cigarette lighter. Having got it home I tried igniting it a few times and nothing happened. I held it up to my ear to try to h…

Friend of mine did that with his gas furnace after it went out. I think his eyebrows grew back to where you couldn't tell anymore...

Re: Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

#320

Post by driverdan » Thu, May 27, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #109

sowbug wrote: post #53

About seven years ago I got a bright idea to build a quadcopter. I had experience with little $25-50 drones that bumped around the house with their fragile one-inch propellers, which obviously qualified me to build and pilot something significantly bigger. Off to Aliexpress and Banggood I went. I ordered a carbon-fiber chassis, big strong motors, ESCs, 3-inch propellers, a FrSky receiver, a Devention transmitter, an…

tl;dr: Experience makes dangerously careless. Examples: quadcopters, lasercutters. I had a similar scenario with the same preconditions. In this case, one of the propellers came off and barely missed a face. This was a 10 inch hard plastic prop with some sharp edges. It could've taken an eye out. It could've caused serious cuts. It could've been a carbon fiber prop and caused _serious_ cuts. Of course it could also h…

I love laser cutters but all the videos of cheap open frame cutters on YouTube scare the shit out of me. I never want to be around one with an open frame.