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The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

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Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#331

Post by dmix »

berdario wrote: post #230
peppermint_gum wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has declassified documents that confirm what the GP said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#So... > It's actually astonishing that anyone who's been on this planet for more than a couple decades can take any of these narratives seriously. The only astonishing thing is that you reflexively rushed to Russia's defense instead of looking up the facts.

These are two separate incidents, with similarities but also important differences. We don't know how the US military would've reacted if Iran Air 655 would've overflown restricted airspace above the US. For sure the Soviets fucked up by not trying to call on 121.5 MHz, but is that worse than the US fucking up by being so close (arguably intruding) another country space, and yet not having equipment to monitor civili…

> and yet not having equipment to monitor civilian air traffic control in the area? I'm not sure.

Did you not read the linked article in the thread you’re replying to? The US did have an IFF detection system, it was a core part of how it worked. The issue was a UI failure which confused identification by mixing up two different (real) IFF indicators one from military and one from civilian and made it seem to the captain that the military one was flying towards them. That’s a legit honest mistake.

They had 4 minutes from the “take off” to when it was almost overhead. Navigating Iranian air traffic control radio isn’t exactly a solution in tense situations.

> We don't know how the US military would've reacted if Iran Air 655 would've overflown restricted airspace above the US.

Restricted US airspace has been violated many times in history. As have Russians. And many other countries.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#332

Post by waihtis »

subroutine wrote: post #160

Interesting to see this on HN. I currently work for the company that redesigned the HMI/UI following this incident. Or rather, it's how my company was founded. In the aftermath, the US Navy Command in San Diego contacted several UCSD professors in the Cognitive Science and Psychology department who specialized in high-impact decision making under stress and cognitive load. The Navy was apparently impressed with the d…

Any good reading on this? Might be some interesting learning opportunities for (cyber)security monitoring, which is a total mess right now. Stakes are a bit less severe, but still.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#333

Post by InsomniacL »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #306
m463 wrote: post #94

I wonder when a tesla will show up in a courtroom with a situation like this. I'm not talking about autopilot. I'm talking about the continuous (past ridiculous) removal of physical controls from their vehicles. For example, the original model S/X had dedicated controls for lots of functions - turn signals, gear shift, wipers, autopilot, steering wheel tilt, etc. On the steering wheel, there were two buttons and a sc…

> shifter? nope - it guesses what direction you want to go. I honestly thought you were making this up, or at the very least exaggerating. I can't believe it's true. It just makes no sense.

Tesla have a habit of doing things that make no sense and making a success out of it regardless.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#334

Post by naasking »

nova22033 wrote: post #325
naasking wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, so if a Iranian helicopter carrier parked itself in international waters near New York City, everyone would be totally chill with that right?

international waters near New York City, everyone would be totally chill with that right? I don't know why you think this is a gotcha...The USN would probably sniff around but that's it..They're international waters

Yes, but it's also Iran. What you're not getting is the "mortal enemy moving a war machine right at your gates" bit.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#335

Post by sitkack »

cies wrote: post #228
ben0x539 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After having become an expert on the incident from having skimmed half of the wikipedia article, I note that it mentions both Reagan considering his letter an apology and the US government not having made a formal apology, so I imagine there is some clever political distinction between the two.

There also has been no apology for US' use of agent orange in Vietnam, nor has there been a payment of compensation. Why not formally apologize for such a fuck up (Iran aircraft), except for arrogance/exceptionalism?

The US is still pressuring Vietnam to “pay it back for the Vietnam war“.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#336

Post by tpm »

cies wrote: post #237
peppermint_gum wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you watch combat footage from eastern Ukraine, you will learn that many frontline towns and villages have been completely leveled by artillery. See for example[1]. And I don't have to mention Bucha[2] and other war crimes. The relatively low civilian casualty count isn't because "Russians are so noble", but because: 1. Frontlines are static, giving civilians plenty of time to evacuate 2. Civilians actually have wh…

Villages being leveled is different from genocide. And Ukraine screeming genocide is also different from actual genocide. Genocide needs numbers and the number are not there in Ukraine's case. > The relatively low civilian casualty count isn't because "Russians are so noble" I was not arguing their nobility, I was saying the word genocide may have been to easily used in Ukraine's case.

> Genocide needs numbers

Genocide does not need numbers, genocide is defined in international law and that definition has to be met. It's currently being investigated by a number of organizations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukr...

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#337

Post by dontlaugh »

thereddaikon wrote: post #320
dontlaugh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, what was the US navy even doing there? The Persian Gulf is nowhere near the US. It's as if Iran had their navy parked on the US east coast, it would be seen as an outrage immediately.

One of the main jobs of the USN is to protect commercial shipping lanes. This is of US national interest because a lot of commerce flows through international shipping lanes. Its not unique to the US either. Its a historical duty of most nation's blue water navies. The persian gulf does not belong to Iran. Its international waters. But they have a history of using piracy in the persian gulf as a tool of the state and…

Maybe the US shouldn't have invaded several countries in the region and encircled Iran.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#338

Post by paledot »

gosub100 wrote: post #255
moritz64 wrote: post #209

A quite recent UX disaster at Paypal. The Paypal iOS app used to behave strange with numbers. The interface was designed that you had to type in the amount you wanted to send in cents. If you wanted to send USD 50, you had to type 5000. Paypal then would add a comma after the second digit from the right. What made it even stranger: The numbers were aligned right, so it had the feeling of typing backwards. I never rea…

I dont know what you mean by aligned right (if it aligned left it would have to know how much you intended to transfer before you started), but wells fargo web (and I think app) uses this, and I prefer it for making small payments. They know you're going to type the decimal anyway, so they save you a step. I get mildly annoyed that other banking sites make me type it. If I'm paying $83.21 I still have to type 4 digit…

When I've encountered it, the interface has looked like this (as I'm in the process of filling it in):

    $_.__
    $_._1
    $_.12
    $1.23
    $12.34
Typically it also rejects non-numeral inputs, so if you muscle-memory a decimal point it gets ignored and your input (hopefully) proceeds normally. Whereas a "left-aligned" input would be the style that we're accustomed to from general text input:

    $
    $1
    $12
    $12.
    $12.3
    $12.34

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#339

Post by areyousure »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #263
formerly_proven wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A not so subtle difference is that the pilot shooting down KAL 007 identified it as a civilian airliner and proceeded to shoot it down anyway. Another more subtle difference is that in the Iranian Airlines shootdown, the US took responsibility and at least apologized. Meanwhile the Soviets denied anything happening until they couldn't and then claimed it was a spy plane (legitimate target).

No. The shootdown of KAL 007 took place at night. There was no possible way to identify the aircraft other than via the lights coming out of the windows. A militarized 747 is called an E-4[0]. A militarized 707 is variously called an E-3 (some are AWACS) [1], KC-135 (a now-retired refueling aircraft) [2], or an EC-135 (electronic warfare equipped 707) [3]. The wikipedia page for the shootdown incident [4] lists the t…

> The wikipedia page for the shootdown incident [4] lists the time as 1349 GMT.

In case anyone is curious, the Wikipedia page mention of this time is as follows: "at 13:49 UTC (49 minutes after take-off), KAL 007 reported that it had reached its Bethel waypoint". Bethel is a city in the U.S. state of Alaska.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#340

Post by klibertp »

dataworm wrote: post #318
klibertp wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where did you get this unicorns pooping rainbows bullshit? It's called "humanism," and it's not bullshit. It mostly says that killing people is wrong. Of course, you think otherwise, so it might seem like bullshit to you. EDIT: > So Nazi Germany was fiction? No. The notion that all soldiers fighting on the Germany side in WW2 were monsters is, however. If the world subscribed to your ideology, there'd be a catacomb…

> The notion that all soldiers fighting on the Germany side in WW2 were monsters is, however. If the world subscribed to your ideology, there'd be a catacomb of millions buried under Nurnberg (there's no such thing, if you wondered). Where did I say that all soldiers fighting for Germany in WW2 were monsters? I invoked Nazi Germany because you said there are no nazis and monsters and everyone is a regular human.

Somehow, not all soldiers fighting for Germany were monsters, but

> russian soldiers are evil nazis, not normal people.

Russian soldiers are. These are your words from upthread. Why is Russian army staffed by "evil nazis" exclusively, while actual Nazi army... wasn't?

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