Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a truly stellar wit. But in all honesty, how would an internet across the solar system work?
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NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
171–180 of 333 posts
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Debugging on a computer that is down is not a very exciting process.
No, but "Debugging on a computer that is down... in space," does sound more interesting, right? You have a computer that you can only interact with over a radio link, and need to make it start working again with only what you know about how the system is built and a limited set of remote commands. Sounds like something I'd get obsessed with solving.
There is a game in here, somewhere, somehow.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#173I know that, at different times, NASA has used Forth[1] and Lisp[2] in some of their space applications. Both of these languages offer REPLs that generally accelerate the debugging process, and while your "average" Lisp might be unsuitable for hard real-time applications (due to the presence of a garbage collector, usually without the hard real-time constraints that you can get out of garbage collectors with extreme…
> while your "average" Lisp might be unsuitable for hard real-time applications (due to the presence of a garbage collector, usually without the hard real-time constraints that you can get out of garbage collectors with extreme effort), I wonder if they have some equivalently interactive system on-board the while your "average" Lisp might be unsuitable for hard real-time applications (due to the presence of a garbage…
Not exactly real time (as in proven bounded response time), but a noteworthy effort: https://franz.com/services/conferences_seminars/jlugm00/conf...
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#174pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
I dunno. That sort of thing is exactly my job, except the remote devices are still on earth somewheres. What you'd see is me sitting in a library drinking coffee and looking at source code and schematics until I had an answer that matched the evidence.
Satisfying, but not exactly must watch tv.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#175pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
This would be cool for earth satellites. On the other hand watching a stream involving something on Mars, let alone voyager, would be pretty boring! Send: ls Ok let's take a 20 minute break.
If you ever worked on a busy mainframe your compile jobs could easily be queued for 20-30 minutes. Made you much more careful to check for typos and do test runs of the code "in your head" before submitting.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#176Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while your "average" Lisp might be unsuitable for hard real-time applications (due to the presence of a garbage collector, usually without the hard real-time constraints that you can get out of garbage collectors with extreme effort), I wonder if they have some equivalently interactive system on-board the while your "average" Lisp might be unsuitable for hard real-time applications (due to the presence of a garbage…
How about a Lisp without the need for garbage collection at all? http://web.archive.org/web/20020331165324/http://home.pipeli...
This is also fascinating. Thank you! :)
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#178I wonder if NASA would welcome a live worldwide collaboration to try solve this problem.
The probably 5 people in the world who are domain experts in the Hubble's control system don't really need a hundred backseat drivers, that won't help any.
And as someone who has been invited into "war rooms" by managers who do the "you're smart so of course you can help these other smart people stuck on a hard problem" there's a real skill to being able to read the room and know when to back the fuck out of it or just shut the fuck up -- which most intellectuals don't have. Sit and listen for awhile and take it in. Then maybe take your best idea and ask a very toned down question. If the person who seems to be leading the troubleshooting instructs you on why that's wrong, throws in 3 neighboring ideas that also don't work, with 5 reasons you haven't considered for why that's the entirely wrong path, then just nod in agreement and be quiet and see what you can learn from the domain experts.
Peppering that team with a dozen outside "experts" is going to be useless because they'll just start getting really defensive after awhile, and even if someone winds up throwing out the right solution they'll probably reflexively reject it.
OTOH if that team ASKS for someone who has expertise the team lacks and needs, then go assemble a team skilled at the use of cellphones and the internet to hunt that person down and drag them into the conversation.
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I wasn't joking: https://www.quantamagazine.org/vint-cerfs-plan-for-building-...
Re: NASA can't figure out what's causing computer issues on the Hubble telescope
#180pushes up glasses I would watch the heck out of a Twitch stream of their debugging/brainstorming sessions. I always loved the movie Apollo 13 , especially the technical troubleshooting parts.
I dunno. That sort of thing is exactly my job, except the remote devices are still on earth somewheres. What you'd see is me sitting in a library drinking coffee and looking at source code and schematics until I had an answer that matched the evidence. Satisfying, but not exactly must watch tv.
you just killed any future dramatic space troubleshooting film scenes for me