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All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

wired.com

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Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#111

Post by mturmon »

exelius wrote: post #87
wlesieutre wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see "Check if I left the stove on and turn it off remotely" being a neat thing to have. But not neat enough to let a 10 year old appliance with no software updates and the capability to burn my house down be accessible to the internet.

Yeah, but chances are you won't use the functionality often enough to configure it in the first place. That's the real problem with the Internet of Things: most of the things we own are not all that useful when we're not in close proximity to them. Thus, not only are users and manufacturers unlikely to update them in the future; users are just as unlikely to connect the thing in the first place. Home automation throu…

About home automation of light switches: I put in ~10 X-10 devices, plus the ~20 controllers to activate them, circa 2002. I did it myself (I'm an EE), so the installation cost was 0.

It worked OK for a while, but the setup was not robust and eventually some controllers would not work some devices at some times. The annoyance factor in going from 0 errors to a 1% error rate is HUGE.

Five years passed, and I have been slowly replacing all these X-10 devices with hard-wired switches or with Insteon. Of course, the original 1959 wiring paths (12 gauge Cu FTW) still work fine.

Now, when I see connected/automated homes in design mags, all that tech seems more like a long-term maintenance headache than a desirable feature. If I had an unlimited budget, I would not build those features in, I would just install conduit and run old-school copper wires through it.

My lessons: (1) The design life for a home is decades, the refresh rate for home automation devices is years; (2) Upgrading/tinkering is fun the first time -- but only the first time; (3) Your spouse hates it more than you do; (4) The existing device does one thing without fail, replacing it with a device that does more things but sometimes fails is not a net gain.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#112

Post by alogray »

bitwize wrote: post #56
stcredzero wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge cadence mismatch between software cycles and capital good replacement cycles. How well would you say that Tesla is coping with this as a company? For that matter, what about Apple? I can't even imagine the number of security patches that have gone into the Linux kernel in the last 11 years. Let's take a step back and think about this statement. Isn't this insane? We know enough to be able to build som…

How well would you say that Tesla is coping with this as a company? For that matter, what about Apple? Apple just kind of assumes that you have the latest shiny, because why wouldn't you? This induces a phenomenon I call the Apple Turnover: when a software update aimed at new Apple things comes out and makes your old Apple thing not run so good anymore. Sluggish iPhones are the hallmark example today, but I was bitte…

When updates are free, what are the realistic alternatives? Android devices, for example, just reach end of life much more quickly. Given the option to update at the expense of performance or no option at all, it at least seems the better of the two choices.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#113

Post by clmns »

Interesting. I worked on the support team for the software that creates and files the flightplans for UAL. It was a horrible piece of SW/architecture with many outages. We tested in production daily and had direct access to the databases. I'm pretty sure they never changed their policies.. So yeah, this sounds very much like it!

Edit: Just got confirmation, this software was the root cause. No hacks/whatsoever!

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#114

Post by saryant »

netizzio wrote: post #84

It's interesting that the Wired article mentions the recent controversy about claims that aircraft systems can be hacked, but explicitly ignores the incident last week as having any possible relation to these events, where a bigoted employee denied a Muslim passenger an open can of Diet Coke because it "might be used as a weapon", while giving the passenger in the adjacent seat an open can of beer. The response from…

A few things about that:

1) The beer isn't free, the passenger paid for the entire can or used a 1K drink chit.

2) UA flight attendants are famous for making up rules and many try to avoid handing out entire cans of soda, and this one wasn't even a United flight attendant.

3) What on earth would that have to do with today's event?

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#115

Post by ytdht »

arca_vorago wrote: post #3

From what I understand of the Chris Roberts fiasco, their avionics systems weren't airgapped from the other systems. If that is the case and not just hype, then no fucking wonder shit like this can happen.

that makes me think of my local power plant that just installed valves to remotely control gas pressure in the pipelines ... I hope no-one hacks them.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#116

Post by comex »

sliverstorm wrote: post #63
rcraft wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I prefer buying "dumb" tvs and simply adding chromecast/appletv/firetv, etc. Much better experience.

It doesn't really matter that much if it's dumb or smart. You can use a Chromecast with either, and refusing to buy one kind limits your choices.

Smart TVs tend to have more complex UIs than dumb ones, which are annoying if you don't intend to use the smart functionality, as well as confusing (in terms of duplicated functionality) to less technical users.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#117

Post by rubiquity »

rcraft wrote: post #45
theandrewbailey wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the Achilles heel of the entire Internet of Things and smart appliance trend, and I think this will bite everyone bad. After 50+% of these vendors go out of business in the next decade, their products won't get updated, and people will wonder why their "smart" TV can't watch movies from whatever replaced Netflix/new whizbang video service. They won't be as likely to buy any "smart" thing again.

This is exactly why I prefer buying "dumb" tvs and simply adding chromecast/appletv/firetv, etc. Much better experience.

My wife and I still have our LCD TV from 2005. It's about 5 inches thick but it works great. The TV is even starting to look very cool/retro and we've been complimented on how it completes the look of our living space!

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#118

Post by hullo »

caskance wrote: post #103
wutbrodo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is based on the (very reasonable) assumption that an equivalent quality Smart TV is going to be more expensive, which isn't worth it in general since you're not using the features that cause the difference in cost. There of course may be realities of the market to cause it to not work out this way, but it's a pretty sensible assumption.

That assumption is not reasonable at all. Not only are "dumb" TVs no cheaper, hardly anyone even sells them anymore.

Picking a manufacturer (Samsung) and size (32") at random, I see the smart TV for $499 and non-smart options for 219, 269, 299. http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/all-products

Just for example.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#119

Post by wutbrodo »

caskance wrote: post #103
wutbrodo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is based on the (very reasonable) assumption that an equivalent quality Smart TV is going to be more expensive, which isn't worth it in general since you're not using the features that cause the difference in cost. There of course may be realities of the market to cause it to not work out this way, but it's a pretty sensible assumption.

That assumption is not reasonable at all. Not only are "dumb" TVs no cheaper, hardly anyone even sells them anymore.

I think you're confused about the meaning of the terms "reasonable" and "assumption". An assumption isn't unreasonable just because it turns out to be untrue. As I said, there may be realities of the market that invalidate the assumption (and apparently there are).

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#120

Post by wutbrodo »

dragonwriter wrote: post #100
wutbrodo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is based on the (very reasonable) assumption that an equivalent quality Smart TV is going to be more expensive, which isn't worth it in general since you're not using the features that cause the difference in cost. There of course may be realities of the market to cause it to not work out this way, but it's a pretty sensible assumption.

Otherwise-equivalent Smart TVs are usually less expensive than displays (whether TVs or monitors) without the "Smart" features. This is a matter probably largely of economies of scale -- because that's what manufacturers think the consumer market wants, that's what they make most of and flood consumer channels with, and dumb alternatives are a specialty product.

Good to know, thanks. I haven't bought a TV for about five years and I've never bought (or even been interested in) a Smart TV, for roughly the same reasons described here.

EDIT: hullo's comment below would seem to contradict this; 32" TVs from Samsung seem like a fair data point to look at (albeit just one data pt), since it's a very mainstream manufacturer and a non-niche size.

"Picking a manufacturer (Samsung) and size (32") at random, I see the smart TV for $499 and non-smart options for 219, 269, 299. http://www.samsung.com/us/video/tvs/all-products Just for example."

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