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We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

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Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#171

Post by ErroneousBosh »

wat10000 wrote: post #114
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting from the first test pilots, a lot of people died for us to get to the point to launch that flight. So while no one died on the flight, lots of people died just getting us there. If I recall, in The Right Stuff, it's mentioned that those early test pilots had something like a 25% mortality rate.

The early jet age was pretty nuts. Check the Wikipedia page for a random fighter from the era and you'll see figures like, 1,300 built, 50 lost in combat, 1,100 lost in accidents. And that's operational aircraft. Test pilots were in even more danger.

Have you ever listened to Robert Calvert's "Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters"?

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#172

Post by ErroneousBosh »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #109
wat10000 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a miracle nobody died in flight during the program. Exploding oxygen tank, rockets shaking themselves to pieces during launch, getting hit by lightning on top of a flying skyscraper full of kerosene and liquid oxygen....

Starting from the first test pilots, a lot of people died for us to get to the point to launch that flight. So while no one died on the flight, lots of people died just getting us there. If I recall, in The Right Stuff, it's mentioned that those early test pilots had something like a 25% mortality rate.

Think about the "failure mode" of the aircraft that won World War II, the Supermarine Spitfire.

There was a fuel tank mounted between the engine and cockpit so if it took enough of a hit to puncture right through (not hard, in practice) the failure mode was that the cockpit was now full of a 350mph jet of burning petrol.

Still, it did the job.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#173

Post by jcalvinowens »

djmips wrote: post #145

I think it's interesting that they found what seems to be a real bug (should be independantly verified by experts). However I find their story mode, dramatization of how it could have happened to be poorly researched and fully in the realm of fiction. An elbow bumping a switch, the command module astronaut unable to handle the issue with only a faux nod to the fact that a reset would have cleared up the problem and i…

> An elbow bumping a switch [..] really just building tension and storytelling to make the whole post more edgy.

A guarded switch, no less.

But personally I'm trying to be more generous about this sort of thing: it is very very difficult to explain subtle bugs like this to non-technical people. If you don't give them a story for how it can actually happen, they tend to just assume it's not real. But then when you tell a nice story, all us dry aged curmudgeons tut tut about how irreverent and over the top it is :)

Finding the middle ground between a dry technical analysis and dramatization can be really hard when your audience is the entire internet.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#174

Post by TylerE »

kenjackson wrote: post #50
monooso wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an alternative way of thinking about this... Someone probably expended a lot of time and effort planning, thinking about, and writing an interesting article, and then you stroll by and casually accuse them of being a bone idle cheat, with no supporting evidence other than your "sensitive detector" and a bunch of hand-wavy nonsense that adds up to naught.

While I agree with the sentiment, using AI to write the final draft of the article isn’t cheating. People may not like it, but it’s more a stylistic preference.

Using AI and a human byline is 100% cheating.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#175

Post by iJohnDoe »

josephg wrote: post #2

Super interesting. I wish this article wasn’t written by an LLM though. It feels soulless and plastic.

I did not get any “written by LLM vibes”. I enjoyed it and it pulled me in to keep reading.

Who gives a crap if it was written by an LLM. Read it or don’t read it. Your choice.

If it conveys the idea and your learn something new, then it’s mission accomplished.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#176

Post by bakugo »

NiloCK wrote: post #132
bakugo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site guidelines were written pre-AI and stop making sense when you add AI-generated content into the equation. Consider that by submitting AI generated content for humans to read, the statement you're making is "I did not consider this worth my time to write, but I believe it's worth your time to read, because your time is worth less than mine". It's an inherently arrogant and unbalanced exchange.

> The site guidelines were written pre-AI and stop making sense when you add AI-generated content into the equation. Note: the guidelines are a living document that contain references to current AI tools. > Consider that by submitting AI generated content for humans to read, the statement you're making is "I did not consider this worth my time to write, but I believe it's worth your time to read, because your time is…

We wouldn't need any personal AI detection algorithm flags if the authors simply stated up front that their content is AI generated.

But they won't do that, because deep down they feel shameful about it (as they should).

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#177

Post by malcolmjuxt »

Gigachad wrote: post #57
rudhdb773b wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to single out your comment, but it feels like it's gotten to the point where HN could use a rule against complaining about AI generated content. It seems like almost every discussion has at least someone complaining about "AI slop" in either the original post or the comments.

HN has gotten to the point where it’s not even worth clicking the link because of course it’s ai slop. There is some real content in the haystack, but we almost need some kind of curator to find and display it rather than a vote system where most people vote on the title alone.

I know the author personally. He's hardly the type of person to publish AI slop. Read his other articles and watch his talks, this is very much Henry's literary style.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#178

Post by ErroneousBosh »

croemer wrote: post #137

I've had a look at the (vibe coded) repro linked in the article to see if it holds up: https://github.com/juxt/agc-lgyro-lock-leak-bug/blob/c378438... The repro runs on my computer, that's positive. However, Phase 5 (deadlock demonstration) is entirely faked. The script just prints what it _thinks_ would happen. It doesn't actually use the emulator to prove that its thinking is right. Classic Claude being lazy (and t…

> However, Phase 5 (deadlock demonstration) is entirely faked. The script just prints what it _thinks_ would happen.

I see this a lot in AI slop, which I mostly get exposed to in the form of shitty pull requests.

You know when you're trying to explain Test-Driven Development to people and you want to explain how you write the simplest thing that passes the test and then improve the test, right? So you say "I want a routine that adds VAT onto a price, so I write a test that says £20+VAT is £24, and the simplest thing that can pass that test is just returning 24". Now you know and I know that the routine and its test will break if you feed it any value except £20, but we've proved we can write a routine and its test, and now we can make it more general.

Or maybe we don't care and we slap a big TODO: make this actually work on there because we don't need it to work properly now, we've got other things to do first, and every price coming up as £20+VAT is a useful indicator that we still have to make other bits work. It doesn't matter.

The problem is that AI slop code "generators" will just stop at that point and go "THERE LOOK IT'S DONE AND IT'S PERFECT!" and the people who believe in the usefulness of AI will just ship it.

Re: We found an undocumented bug in the Apollo 11 guidance computer code

#180

Post by bookofjoe »

mpalmer wrote: post #119
NetMageSCW wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So LLMs write effectively and when people do you accuse them of using an LLM?

No, they don't. They use short sentences in weird, stilted ways.

But you have the ability to detect those "weird, stilted ways." Impressive.
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