Interesting, I never heard about the south atlantic anomaly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to feel that way; but yeah most software I see come out of Japan scares me. Outside of legally-critical software, such as automotive control systems: it doesn't seem that there is much focus on quality. I suspect it has to do with the scale of integrators in the country being much smaller, and lacking in terms of B2B collaboration. There are some jewels here and there, though. It's probably just a matter of cu…
Software isn't valued as much in Japan, and the pay isn't that high.
This. A programmer at a big Japanese company has about the same status as the guy on the loading dock. It's something you do when you're fresh out of school and only as long as you have to.
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11603023 and marked it off-topic.
Agreed! Political discussion regarding any topic is definitely off-topic. Lets go ahead and flag this as off-topic! Great job Dan! Tangentially related(or maybe directly related): would you find it off-topic if I were to openly support Donald Trump? That said(directly related to the above) If you do indeed think that nationalism is a bad thing can you please let us HN reader know why? As a White Male you're saying th…
I'll bite.
It's not political. In fact, it has nothing to do with this.
You're free to support Donald Trump, but it has nothing to do with the failure of Japanese satellites. Personally, I don't want to hear about the presidential election right now. I didn't come here for that.
So I assume the downvotes are because you're way off topic and because your comments are barely coherent.
You think people here are "triggered" or something... You're the only one making a big deal out of a single off topic comment. We can still see your comments. Moving you to the bottom of a thread isn't quite censorship.
Do what you want. Just don't act so surprised when people don't take you seriously.
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#44This is the key passage: The spacecraft then automatically switched into a safe mode and, at about 4:10 a.m., fired thrusters to try to stop the rotation. But because the wrong command had been uploaded, the firing caused the spacecraft to accelerate further. (The improper command had been uploaded to the satellite weeks earlier without proper testing; JAXA says that it is investigating what happened.) Going into saf…
I would not want to be in that PR.
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nintendo seems to care quite a lot (I worked at Opera when the two companies built the Wii browser together. Wow. They were incredibly brutally perfectionist, in a painful but somehow admirable way. I've never seen a company doing so many iterations of some particular detail before that.) But yeah, I agree, whenever a large Japanese company that is not Nintendo does software (at least for consumers), you can pretty m…
I think there is an interview where Steve Jobs said as much in regards to Sony and why they didn't own the market before the iPod.
Maybe the reason we think of asian hardware companies unable to build good software is tainted by the fact that one big american hardware company (Apple) managed to do so (build good software, I mean).
I mean, which other large american hardware-centric companies have managed the transition to software well?
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#46This is the key passage: The spacecraft then automatically switched into a safe mode and, at about 4:10 a.m., fired thrusters to try to stop the rotation. But because the wrong command had been uploaded, the firing caused the spacecraft to accelerate further. (The improper command had been uploaded to the satellite weeks earlier without proper testing; JAXA says that it is investigating what happened.) Going into saf…
The more striking thing to me is the long failure cascade before that, mostly hardware failures: the star tracker that glitched over the South Atlantic Anomaly, the gyro that reported a nonexistent spin, and the reaction wheel that didn't spin down properly.
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is an interview where Steve Jobs said as much in regards to Sony and why they didn't own the market before the iPod.
Maybe the reason we think of asian hardware companies unable to build good software is tainted by the fact that one big american hardware company (Apple) managed to do so (build good software, I mean). I mean, which other large american hardware-centric companies have managed the transition to software well?
I don't disagree, but I would imagine most base their view on the titans of each country. Apple and Sony got a lot easier to compare in the 2000's and Sony really did have bad software (friggin e-reader). Steve Jobs talked about Sony a lot in interviews. I would bet if we talk South Korean products, Samsung would be the archetype. Microsoft for their part makes nice hardware with pretty good software to back it up.
I haven't used a PlayStation in a long time so I don't know the current state, and I would guess Nest is not helping the US side of the equation. Apple isn't exactly covering itself in glory in the last couple of iOS releases (never mind the "California" series of OS X releases).
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#48It seems very strange that the 3 missions that would deploy an X-ray calorimeter have all failed. I feel sad for the scientists who have been hoping to get a working one into space for what sounds like over 16 years now (based on the article).
Someone traveled from the future doesn't want those calorimeters up there?
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the reason we think of asian hardware companies unable to build good software is tainted by the fact that one big american hardware company (Apple) managed to do so (build good software, I mean). I mean, which other large american hardware-centric companies have managed the transition to software well?
I don't disagree, but I would imagine most base their view on the titans of each country. Apple and Sony got a lot easier to compare in the 2000's and Sony really did have bad software (friggin e-reader). Steve Jobs talked about Sony a lot in interviews. I would bet if we talk South Korean products, Samsung would be the archetype. Microsoft for their part makes nice hardware with pretty good software to back it up. I…
The PS3 software (based on FreeBSD) had quite nice usability but horrible system level performance, particularly when it came to disk/filesystems. You'd end up watching software update install progress bars more than play actual games.
The PS4 has a weird UI that feels oddly half-finished, but does okay on system level performance. It's sort of where the Xbox 360 was in 2005.
Re: Software error doomed Japanese Hitomi spacecraft
#50This is the key passage: The spacecraft then automatically switched into a safe mode and, at about 4:10 a.m., fired thrusters to try to stop the rotation. But because the wrong command had been uploaded, the firing caused the spacecraft to accelerate further. (The improper command had been uploaded to the satellite weeks earlier without proper testing; JAXA says that it is investigating what happened.) Going into saf…
Isn't there a parallel simulator on the ground to try out the commands to see the effect before hand?