Interesting Links for 30-06-2019

[andrewducker]

Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

(tags:engineering design software outsourcing airplanes )

The Conservatives are suffering entryism from Brexit extremists

(tags:UK Europe conservatives doom )

Stonewall was not the start - it took a decade of resistance to reach that point

(tags:lgbt transgender history protests viaLilysea )

Babylon 5 Is the Greatest, Most Terrible SF Series

(tags:tv Babylon5 review )

Are the Brits at it again?

(tags:UK funny )

Researchers model how octopus arms make decisions (and talk to each other without informing the brain)

(tags:octopus communication nerves neuroscience )

Britain: Ruined since the 5th century

(tags:history uk )

Scotland's only breast milk bank is looking for volunteers

(tags:milk breastfeeding scotland )

German far-right group used police data to compile death list

(tags:fascism police germany )

Stonewall's CEO Reveals Why She Decided To Fight For Transgender Rights

(tags:Transgender LGBT uk )

Have some relationship advice

Some great comments too
(tags:relationships advice )

The computer games industry is renowned for terrible jobs. This is worst than most

(tags:Jobs games OhForFucksSake )

Three Halflings in a Trenchcoat: a homebrew fighter class for D&D

(tags:dungeonsanddragons funny )

Ray Harryhausen | Titan of Cinema | National Galleries of Scotland (next year)

(tags:scotland specialeffects movies )

How tea killed the fairies

(tags:tea myths )

UK to deport aspiring astrophysicist, 23, to Pakistan where she faces death or forced marriage to cousin

(tags:UK pakistan OhForFucksSake )

100% renewable energy without blackouts (by 2050)

(tags:renewables electricity thefuture )

Comments

[dewline]

1. Horrific.

3. There's always precursor events before anything like the Stonewall (Uprising/Riots), isn't there?

9. I read about that. I'm sure the Reich-wingers' counterparts in other countries are working up their own versions of those lists. Such ambitions on their parts must be crushed.

[momentsmusicaux]

> including the departure of the show’s leading man at the end of Season 1.

I actually think the departure of Sinclair vastly improved the story. Not because of the actor, but because of the whole Valen storyline that then came about.

I am curious though as to what shape the Valen story would have taken had Sinclair not left.

[melchar]

I think the Valen storyline would still have played out - but I admire JMS for having actively planned for the loss of major actors in the show & having entire new story-loops for the replacement characters.

[momentsmusicaux]

Yes, but WHO would have taken Babylon 4 into the past and transformed into Valen?

I read something once where JMS said he had what he called a trapdoor for every character -- a plan in case the actor died / left / whatever.

[melchar]

My guess is that it would've still been Sinclair. The Sheridan-is-a-boyscout-NOT character arc is just too good to -not- use. It's just he came in a season or 2 earlier than planned.

[jducoeur]

Don't know about the plans for Valen, but remember: Babylon 5 was always intended to be only the first half of the story. In the original plan, the second series took place a little while later, with Babylon 4 being shanghaied into the *future* to fight the next Great War. (IIRC, the series hewed fairly closely to the original plan for the first few seasons, and then went *way* off-course during the last two.)

So that scene with Sinclair looking 25 years older? I'm pretty sure it that the original intent was that it simply took place 25 years later, in a series where Sinclair was a secondary character and his son was the lead...

Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

[jack]

It's terrifying. I don't know enough about reliability engineering -- I want to know what actually happened: I thought aerospace had a LOT of standards for testing and similar, how did this bypass all of them. The article mentioned having a principle of redundancy, of never relying on a single sensor. But I don't know, is that on a checklist somewhere, or was it understood by the engineering people but not part of a formal process, or what?

Re: Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

[nancylebov]

There's a book called To Engineer is Human with the theory that new tech tends to be over-engineered, and as time goes on, people prune back on what they think is excessive caution until something goes badly wrong.

Re: Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

[jack]

Ouch, that sounds plausible. But in this case I'd expect something like, "after much review, regulations were relaxed when it was decided that they were too conservative" or something, like happened with banking regulations. I don't know if that happened and just wasn't clear from the summary I read, or things followed a different path.

Re: Boeing's 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers

[andrewducker]

Normalisation of deviance.

There's a lot of it about.

https://danluu.com/wat/

[skington]

There's a revised version of the three-halflings-in-a-trenchcoat fighter archetype.

As a rule of thumb, I tend to find that linking straight to Reddit, rather than someone's write-up of a Reddit thread, is nearly always better. Assuming you're linking to the good Reddit, of course, not the cesspool that is e.g. /r/The_Donald.