[24807] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 6961 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sat Sep 4 18:11:14 2004
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 15:10:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Sat, 4 Sep 2004 Volume: 10 Number: 6961
Today's topics:
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <dietz@dls.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <davids@webmaster.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <lynn@garlic.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <cbeck@mercury.bc.ca>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <jwkenne@attglobal.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <prep@prep.synonet.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <davids@webmaster.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <john.thingstad@chello.no>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 08:40:16 -0500
From: "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@dls.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <2L2dnfkB4NTaWKTcRVn-ow@dls.net>
CBFalconer wrote:
> I know nothing about those stories, but it seems reasonable to me
> that the boosters would have been designed to be transportable by
> railroad, which ties their dimensions to track gauge.
That's the nature of urban legends -- they seem reasonable.
Paul
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:47:15 -0700
From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <chae7j$rgl$1@nntp.webmaster.com>
"Alan Balmer" <albalmer@att.net> wrote in message
news:3vahj09m887i64osgm65bhhh6l9tl6j38a@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 16:12:52 GMT, "John W. Kennedy"
> <jwkenne@attglobal.net> wrote:
>>Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>>> i have some recollection of competing bids building single unit
>>> assemblies at sea coast sites allowing them to be barged to
>>> florida. supposedly the shuttle boosters were sectioned specifically
>>> because they were being fabricated in utah and there were
>>> transportation constraints.
>>Yes. A vastly inferior design was used, which ended up killing seven
>>astronauts, because Orrin Hatch had to be appeased with boodle for Utah.
> The first disaster was due to (possibly inferior) gaskets and inferior
> judgment on launch day. The second was falling foam, and inferior
> realization of the gravity of the problem. I'm not clear on what
> either had to do with Utah.
These are the proximate causes. However, had almost anything been done
differently, these precise accidents would not have occured the way they
did. This provides the rhetorical oppurtunity to blame the disasters on any
particular decision one does not like, regardless of how remote its
connection to the actual failures.
DS
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 08:58:06 -0600
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <uy8jqozcx.fsf@mail.comcast.net>
jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
> That was my next question :-). How did you manage?
the first i remember was two story with steep roof. i got to demolish
the brick chimmny in the middle of the house... and remove the bricks
... lifting the house for the timbers to go under and move, there
wouldn't be anything to support the chimney. when the house came to
the wires, i went up thru the hole in the roof where the chimney had
been; walk out to the edge and gather the wires and lift them above
the peek ... and walk with them as the house moved under the wires. i
was 12. several years later, one of my uncles fell off the roof of a
house being moved and died.
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 15:46:22 GMT
From: "Coby Beck" <cbeck@mercury.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <irl_c.67482$jZ5.60995@clgrps13>
"Rupert Pigott" <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote in
message news:1094285694.404322@teapot.planet.gong...
> Larry Elmore wrote:
> > Rupert Pigott wrote:
>
> [SNIP]
>
> > http://www.ae.utexas.edu/~lehmanj/ethics/srb.htm
> >
> > "Competition for the SRB Contract"
> >
> > "Four companies bid for the contract to design and manufacture the solid
> > rocket boosters (SRBs). Aerojet Solid bid the program at $655 million,
> > United Technologies at $710 million, Morton Thiokol at $710 million, and
> > Lockheed at $714 million. All the bids were relatively similar in both
> > price and technology. Based on cost, the NASA advisory panel recommended
> > that the contract be awarded to Aerojet; they believed that money could
> > be saved without sacrificing technical quality by choosing the lowest
> > bid. NASA administrator Dr. James Fletcher overruled this recommendation
>
> [SNIP]
>
> Even if hypothetically superior Aerojet boosters were used I would
> bet a life's salary that mismanagement would nail them in the end...
You will never understand past mistakes with an attitude like that.."Oh
well, who knows? It could have been worse!"
> Consider this : If the tables were turned and an Aerojet booster
> exploded in the sky I'll bet the armchair QBs would be asking why
> were Aerojet chosen over Morton-Thiokol who had more experience of
> building large solid-fuel rockets.
And there would have been a clear answer: they had the lowest bid and a
committee responsible for technical evaluation approved them.
--
Coby Beck
(remove #\Space "coby 101 @ big pond . com")
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 17:40:39 +0100
From: Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1094316038.770020@teapot.planet.gong>
Coby Beck wrote:
> "Rupert Pigott" <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote in
> message news:1094285694.404322@teapot.planet.gong...
>
>>Larry Elmore wrote:
>>
>>>Rupert Pigott wrote:
>>
>>[SNIP]
>>
>>
>>>http://www.ae.utexas.edu/~lehmanj/ethics/srb.htm
>>>
>>>"Competition for the SRB Contract"
>>>
>>>"Four companies bid for the contract to design and manufacture the solid
>>>rocket boosters (SRBs). Aerojet Solid bid the program at $655 million,
>>>United Technologies at $710 million, Morton Thiokol at $710 million, and
>>>Lockheed at $714 million. All the bids were relatively similar in both
>>>price and technology. Based on cost, the NASA advisory panel recommended
>>>that the contract be awarded to Aerojet; they believed that money could
>>>be saved without sacrificing technical quality by choosing the lowest
>>>bid. NASA administrator Dr. James Fletcher overruled this recommendation
>>
>>[SNIP]
>>
>>Even if hypothetically superior Aerojet boosters were used I would
>>bet a life's salary that mismanagement would nail them in the end...
>
>
> You will never understand past mistakes with an attitude like that.."Oh
> well, who knows? It could have been worse!"
That's not it at all : It's a recognition of the sickness in the
safety culture that existed.
>>Consider this : If the tables were turned and an Aerojet booster
>>exploded in the sky I'll bet the armchair QBs would be asking why
>>were Aerojet chosen over Morton-Thiokol who had more experience of
>>building large solid-fuel rockets.
>
>
> And there would have been a clear answer: they had the lowest bid and a
> committee responsible for technical evaluation approved them.
You would get accusations that the tech.eval was approving them
to cut corners in the budget... AFAICT MT had more experience
of building that kind of gadget at the time.
Don't get me wrong : M-T & NASA fucked up, I'm not defending
them. I'm just a bit wary of pinning it on the choice of maker
when in fact it seems to be a cultural sickness that eventually
led to a *predictable* and *preventable* catastrophic failure.
Cheers,
Rupert
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:41:49 GMT
From: CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <4139C335.3444372C@yahoo.com>
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
> Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> wrote:
>> Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> writes:
>>
>>> if you choose your road routes carefully enuf ... you can miss
>>> a lot of the problems that you would run into moving by train.
>>> we had one route where i was on the peak of the house and had
>>> to grab wires over the side .... lift the wires up to clear the
>>> peak and walk the wires back as the house moved under.
>>
>> oh ... and people have died doing that ...
>
> That was my next question :-). How did you manage?
He didn't. You missed the funeral.
--
Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 17:47:20 GMT
From: "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@attglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <Icn_c.9228$lv3.4077523@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>
Rupert Pigott wrote:
> I would hope that Morton Thiokol's experience at building a diverse
> range of rockets might have been a factor in the decision too.
I would hope so too, but that isn't how it happened. In history as it
actually went, the Morton-Thiokol design came in a distant fourth, and
the White House ordered NASA to try again, but this time come up with
the "right" answer.
--
John W. Kennedy
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have
always objected to being governed at all."
-- G. K. Chesterton. "The Man Who Was Thursday"
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2004 01:24:10 +0800
From: Paul Repacholi <prep@prep.synonet.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <87vfeut0at.fsf@k9.prep.synonet.com>
jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
> In article <87d613mckn.fsf@k9.prep.synonet.com>,
> Paul Repacholi <prep@prep.synonet.com> wrote:
>>All of them where in the 4.x monitir I used. many of the 427 source
>>file are on Tim's site, so you can have a look in COMTAB and see.
> huh..The why did I have to do TTY:_DT0:/L or LPT:_DT0:/L to get
> directories? And to print a file on the line printer required the
> PIP command LPT:_DSK:FOO.FOR
My bad... I claim bit rot of the grey stuff...
Yes DIR and friends came later, post or part of(?) COMPIL.
--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.
------------------------------
Date: 04 Sep 2004 13:25:41 -0600
From: Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1bpt51alai.fsf@cs.nmsu.edu>
> "Rupert Pigott" <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote in
> message news:1094285694.404322@teapot.planet.gong...
>
> > Consider this : If the tables were turned and an Aerojet booster
> > exploded in the sky I'll bet the armchair QBs would be asking why
> > were Aerojet chosen over Morton-Thiokol who had more experience of
> > building large solid-fuel rockets.
However, it would certainly not have failed at the segment joints.
The more I read sci.space.tech the more convinced I am that the whole
shuttle concept was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. Putting
the orbiter next to (rather than on top of) the huge tank of high
explosive is not a good idea. Reentry from orbit is not the same as
flying an airplane; ablative heat shields work and work well.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 21:17:33 +0100
From: Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1094329053.514935@teapot.planet.gong>
Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>"Rupert Pigott" <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote in
>>message news:1094285694.404322@teapot.planet.gong...
>>
>>
>>>Consider this : If the tables were turned and an Aerojet booster
>>>exploded in the sky I'll bet the armchair QBs would be asking why
>>>were Aerojet chosen over Morton-Thiokol who had more experience of
>>>building large solid-fuel rockets.
>
>
> However, it would certainly not have failed at the segment joints.#
Indeed, it could have failed in a way entirely unique to itself... :)
The O-Ring thing had been identified, was preventable and should have
been prevented. Sure, perhaps the design did suck, but the point is
the whole disaster was trivially avoidable if the people running the
show were willing to grasp the nettle.
> The more I read sci.space.tech the more convinced I am that the whole
> shuttle concept was fundamentally flawed from the beginning. Putting
> the orbiter next to (rather than on top of) the huge tank of high
> explosive is not a good idea. Reentry from orbit is not the same as
> flying an airplane; ablative heat shields work and work well.
It does seem silly, but it is a glorious piece of brute force design
in the face of impossible odds none the less.
Cheers,
Rupert
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 18:12:49 -0700
From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <chb4qh$92j$1@nntp.webmaster.com>
"Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <lynn@garlic.com> wrote in message
news:u8ybrrzqd.fsf@mail.comcast.net...
> at the time of the 1st disaster ... the claim was that the utah bid
> was the only solution that required manufactoring the boosters in
> sections for transportion and the subsequent re-assembly in florida
> with gaskets. the assertion was that none of the other solutions could
> have had a failure because of gaskets ... because they didn't have
> gaskets (having been manufactored as a single unit).
>
> so the failure cause scenario went (compared to solutions that didn't
> require gaskets and manufactoring in sections)
>
> disaster because of inferior(?) gaskets
> inferior(?) gaskets because of gaskets
> gaskets because of transportion sectioning requirement
> transportation sectioning requirement because the sections
> were manufactored in utah
True, but totally irrelevent. Had they gone with any other design, they
could not have had a disaster due to any defect in the design they wouldn't
have chosen.
DS
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 23:37:11 +0200
From: "John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <opsdtnn9zgpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On 04 Sep 2004 13:25:41 -0600, Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>> "Rupert Pigott" <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote in
>> message news:1094285694.404322@teapot.planet.gong...
>>
>> > Consider this : If the tables were turned and an Aerojet booster
>> > exploded in the sky I'll bet the armchair QBs would be asking why
>> > were Aerojet chosen over Morton-Thiokol who had more experience of
>> > building large solid-fuel rockets.
>
> However, it would certainly not have failed at the segment joints.
>
> The more I read sci.space.tech the more convinced I am that the whole
> shuttle concept was fundamentally flawed from the beginnin g.Putting
> the orbiter next to (rather than on top of) the huge tank of high
> explosive is not a good idea. Reentry from orbit is not the same as
> flying an airplane; ablative heat shields work and work well.
I second that.
Making a space veicle look like a plane is a lame idea.
It makes launch more complicated because the lift of the wings
gives force and this has to be continously compenated for by rotating the
veicle.
(Does "roger, roll" ring a bell)
During reentry the wing surfaces and other protruding objects adds to the
heat signature
and adds to the risc. (I think the Columia disaster illustrates this.)
The only time the plane shape makes sense is for the last 4 last minutes
of a
mission. For this I think parachutes would be a better option.
In short it adds risk for very little gain.
The real reason NASA thought a plane would be great is because all
the astronaughts are previous test pilots. And, well, they like planes.
Ideally a space reentry veicle should look as much as a drop as possible
and should enter with the butt end. (Minimum air drag.)
Instead of fighting nature they should be using it..
This minimizes risc.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
------------------------------
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 6961
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