Aloha

I've always called this radio or dispatcher ear.

You see it in industry that uses radio too.

109m is a perfectly sensible measurement

We would all have been better off if Boeing had replaced the 737 with the 757 as intended. Its quieter, more comfortable, and a better aircraft all around.

Arizona Iced Tea at least nominally includes ‘tea’

https://historicaerials.com/ is also good too.

Another thing I'd point out is how often planes regularly fell out of the sky as recently as 40 years ago - my first flight 32 years ago or so, they still had kiosks in the airport to sell you life insurance.

Even with the MAX and the recent (last ~2 years) spate of incidents, flying is safer now than it ever has been, and certainly safer than it has been over its lifetime.

Yes, and you can buy a new e-reader and read all those same books.

A kindle is more like a bookshelf from IKEA, it has a finite lifetime.

I dont think they read any of the parallel posts.

For (others) reference the oldest bits of code in our software are from the mid-late 90’s and the oldest systems still paying for support rely on parts to build that is not available at any price, its all just made of unobtainium, whereas I can sell them a brand news that does everything they have today and more.

It is, but I cant build them spares (not even thru broker bought parts) anymore. At some point you have to force the customer to say goodbye.

You try building software with a version of Delphi that wont run on something newer than windows 7 and tell me how well that works out for you.

Some of those customers cannot be upgraded without hardware replacement, we can sell them a brand new system that will do everything (and more) their old one will, but they dont want to spend the money, and we are happy to take the money for support (the old CAPEX vs OPEX argument).

Some of this is sorta easy, its COTS hardware, but we also have much older systems that due to component obsolescence I simply cannot build replacements anymore. 10+ years of support ought to be enough for 90% of the products out there, at some point the answer really is “upgrade your hardware” - we didn’t sign up to indefinitely support not just hardware (much of which we cannot build spares for) much less the software ecosystem around the hardware.

Long term I plan on increasing support renewal costs for systems that are older than 10 years old to encourage hardware refreshes.

Like I still have to have XP VM’s to build firmware for older products, when is it reasonable to cut off service and support?

They changed how they make chewing tobacco (aka moist snuff) about 20 years ago and it has less of the cancer causing stuff (Nitrosamines) in it, its now closer chemically to snus - I’ll point out that Scandinavian countries have some of the highest use of oral tobacco in the world, yet last I looked some of the lowest incidences of oral cancer per capita.

The function of if tobacco causes cancer has as much to do with processing (it used to be cured by wood fire at a higher temperature which is where much of the carcinogenic properties came from) and the byproducts that processing creates, particularly Nitrosamine, its now cured differently in a process which is closer to snus, and somewhat safer.

Nicotine addiction (which I have) should be about harm reduction first, cigarettes are the only product that I can think of if used as commonly used will kill you or dramatically shorten your life, and it probably wont be cancer, it’ll be COPD, heart disease, or other cardiovascular issues - which are the same issues firefighters get from repeated smoke exposure. Breathing the byproducts of combustion is what’s really awful (and deadly).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrosamine

Really inhaling something burning is bad.

Pretty much every other form of tobacco that is not cigarettes is less bad.

Grew up there, the plant wasn't there first, probably around the same age.

How long should a hardware and software product be expected to last?

Try estimating doing win11 updates on a 20 year old piece of delphi spftware with hardware full go custom ASICs be expected to lsat?

I'm supporting a 30 year old product, the oldest one in the field are 20+ years old, we still support them.

I'm just in the process of developing a lifecycle policy, being able to cut off support for a 12 year systems would make my life much more full of joy.

14 years of support for a device is pretty incredible.

The actual site of the tank is 33.78356416377991, -117.99993897629278 [1] - its in an industrial park, and its not a large scale chemical manufacturing facility.

Its 'light manufacturing' for a company that makes custom formed acrylics for aerospace.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/33°47'00.8%22N+117°59'59.8...

I could also just go buy VueScan, which is cross platform and great.

They could also just not care too much about compiler optimizations etc.

yes, largely - even if its just pin headers adding a detect line which shows a resistance between it and ground would be an improvement.

In my working life I've seen -

at least 3 different ways to do RS-232 on 8p8c

DTE-DCE is always an issue on standard 232, otherwise I wouldn't have so many null modem cables

232 and 3.3v TTL on the same board or assembly

3.3v and 5v TTL on the same board or assembly

Inconsistent labelling.

I'm in my mid 40's and I think there is a reasonable chance something with RS-232 serial timings will outlast me, it'd be nice to make it more foolproof, as its one of a very few interfaces that will work without drivers.

I do think as a matter of standard good design practice we should be putting clamping diodes on debug ports to prevent blowing things up if hit with the wrong voltage,

I'm open to other options, the biggest things is DTE-DCE auto detection

Depends on what you make the default as.

I would tell anyone who is doing a new traditional serial connector/cable to add the following -

1. Automatic DCE-DTE detection and an interface which will rewire itself as needed to be the correct way, or you automatically know DCE vs DTE by connector gender.

2. Automatic Voltage Detection - 232 levels, TTL 5v, TTL 3v - and interfaces that are isolated enough to deal with the wrong voltage (clamping diodes or whatever), or different cable sizes for each.

3. Automatic type detection - TTL/RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, or different connector types by each.

Ideally I'd do this on a 8p8c or 10p10c connector, because of ease of making cables, with various resistance values across pins 1-8, or 1-10 to tell you what kind of interface it was.

Indeed, occasionally hammers do find nails to hit.

webOS was a bit ahead of its time - it does live on in LG TV's where its done quite well.

Windows Phone was so so good - it was THE phone I recommended to users who were on feature phones/non-smart phones because the UX was so simple and clean (and obvious) - with a side effect that if you HAD a smart phone before (Palm, Apple, Android, BlackBerry, the UX was contrary to what you were used to).

Windows Phone died because MS didnt do enough to build the app ecosystem, and bailed out too soon. I also feel webOS was a lost opportunity too - in some ways it was just too ambitious for the hardware of its time.

it goes back even further - LiveJournal, which was a social network like any other - more importantly without algorithmic optimization.

Benzos do the same thing for me, they slow the brain enough so you’re not overthinking everything.

I like AI Music, there is some great all instrumental stuff out there.

Also, if you dont think Apollo had pork in it, you're not aware enough of the history, the various assembly plants were placed mostly for political support, the shuttle and now SLS follows the same pattern.