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Have you ever hurt yourself from your own code?

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

#341

Post by aoms »

AlexC04 wrote: post #82

I wrote a layoff database for Nortel Networks from ~1998 to 2001. The way I got my notice of termination was while I was running some tests on the production database and needed a "negative" so I searched for a userid that was not present in the database: my own. When I saw my name in the list I called my manager and asked him what was going on. He said "Alex, why don't you head on home for the day and I'll call you…

This is a great example of how companies really are. Nobody is important enough in the end.

Work for a company for what you get from them, not for what you can give them!

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

#342

Post by aoms »

bijant wrote: post #128
AlexC04 wrote: post #82

I wrote a layoff database for Nortel Networks from ~1998 to 2001. The way I got my notice of termination was while I was running some tests on the production database and needed a "negative" so I searched for a userid that was not present in the database: my own. When I saw my name in the list I called my manager and asked him what was going on. He said "Alex, why don't you head on home for the day and I'll call you…

DELETE FROM LayoffDB WHERE EmployeeName='Alex';

BobbyTables would do well here..

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

#344

Post by bacon_waffle »

At a very "lean" company that made power electronics (modular telecoms rectifiers and 1.5-5kW grid-tied solar inverters), I nominally worked as a test engineer but I wound up doing a fair bit of EE/firmware work on the products too. Above my bench was that typical drop ceiling stuff like in offices worldwide, except mine had little singed bits of semiconductor packages stuck in it from where things had gone wrong in testing and blown up transistors and such. All of us who worked with open electronics (often necessary during development, for probing or whatever) had earmuffs and safety glasses at the ready, and a wood stick for pushing the on/off switch. AFAIK there weren't any real injuries, but there certainly was potential.

My favourite near-miss was the result of a dumb EE experiment, not really code: I had built an 8kV surge generator to test against IEC 61000-4-5, and needed to test the generator itself. We spent an afternoon finding interesting components to blow up, at first under a shield, but the good ones would just make a satisfying snap or pop - not too exciting from a kinetic perspective. Then, I noticed a DVD... The surge through the foil in the DVD made one of the loudest bangs I've ever heard - easily louder than a gunshot - the foil vapourised and sent plastic shards all over the office.

The surge generator itself was a glorious hack; it used a neon sign transformer to generate the HV, and the main switch was a trigatron I made from a couple doorknobs from a home recyclers in the same industrial park.

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

#345

Post by mleonhard »

Apple Airpods Pro protect users from over-loudness.

iPhone has an option to enable this protection for all headsets, but it doesn't work properly. For example, when answering a FaceTime Audio call with Bose SoundSport, the "call connected" tone often plays at max volume and is staticky. This is with the latest firmware and iOS.

macOS has no over-loudness protection.

Bose's expensive noise-cancelling headphones do complex audio processing but fail to protect users from over-loudness. I think the company has lost its ability to focus on user needs. Over the last 10 years, only their noise-cancelling function has gotten better, but other aspects of their headphones have gotten worse. Features I want in my next headset:

- active noise cancelling

- loudness protection

- swappable battery

- physical buttons

- mic windguard

- stowable boom mic so I can talk quietly on a call and still be heard

- an option to automatically pause music when I take off the headphones and resume when I put them on

- an option to automatically enable or increase noise cancelling when the environment becomes noisy and disable it again when in a quiet space

- Automatically detect me speaking and pipe my voice through the headset so it feels natural, even when not on a call.

- Work properly in extremely noisy environments. When I wear my Bose QC25 noise-cancelling headphones while riding the BART subway in San Francisco, the headphones emit painful crackling sounds when the train noise is very loud. I don't expect the headphones to block extremely loud sounds. They should not make the noise worse. Bose's headquarters is in downtown SF. I expect some of the firmware engineers ride BART every day. Does anyone know why they haven't fixed this in 7 years?

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

#346

Post by monocasa »

neilv wrote: post #316
monocasa wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, the arm healed great, and whole situation (plus the subsequent "N Days Since a Limb Mangled" sign) contributed greatly to the manager's humility and respect for safety.

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

#347

Post by atatatat »

johnchristopher wrote: post #200
montroser wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And more mystery: Where I'm from, mayonnaise is viscous enough that it doesn't _spill_ out of anything...

Oh, I have to introduce you to some of our finest subway sandwiches prepared by students that have no clue how to make sandwiches that don't spill all their innards as soon as they leave their hands.

Why not choose a sub shop that serves other foodstuffs besides turkey and soy disguised as a bunch of other shit?

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

#348

Post by monocasa »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #338
monocasa wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Out of curiosity, what was that manager's attitude towards safety afterwards? I would assume he'd be the poster-child for following safety protocols after that. But I'm still learning a lot about human nature.

A lot of the toxic pressure that pushed the manager in that direction still existed, but a light hearted floppy arm joke served well to remind everyone relevant of the state space of outcomes.

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

#349

Post by sharedfrog »

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…

> The biggest problem with the saw stop is that wood when it is even slightly moist can set it off.

Is there any proof of this? From my understanding, that's a myth. Demonstrated here at about 3:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6Jhw0hhBI

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

#350

Post by sharedfrog »

akiselev wrote: post #301
ArchOversight wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you know what moisture level sets it off? I didn't even think about that - it's easy to take Southern California's weather for granted. Here it's either pretty much ready from the lumberyard or you got it right off the mill's truck so it has to sit for a few days/weeks. The lobbying is off putting, yes, but at least his greedy self-interest would do some actual good instead of extracting evermore capital from ever…

According to this video[1], moisture setting it off is a myth.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV6Jhw0hhBI (at ~3 min)

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