[Info-vax] Intel junk...Kernel-memory-leaking Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Thursday, 11 January 2018 05:33:24 UTC, DaveFroble  wrote:
> JF Mezei wrote:
> >> Tim Streater wrote:
> >>
> >>> If the Japanese panicked and made a mess of the unnecessary evacuation
> >>> that's hardly the fault of nuclear power. The problem is that people
> >>> have been lied to about the scale of the danger.
> > 
> > The biggest error was to shut down the reactor, with expectation that
> > external power would continue to allow the shutdown and cooling of
> > reactor. Had the reactor not shut down, they would have had internal
> > power to continue to run the reactor safely even if disconnected from
> > the rest of the grid and external diseel generators inop due to flood.
> 
> I'm going to go out on a limb here.  Not claiming I'm correct.
> 
> I have a suspicion that the plant operators didn't request help in a timely 
> manner.  Possibly not wanting to "lose face"?  I've got to believe that if the 
> plant management called the government and said they needed generators right now 
> that the government could have gotten them the needed generators.
> 
> As far as that goes, companies and countries that have nuclear plants should 
> have contingency plans, and equipment that could be moved where needed quickly. 
>   Obviously, this didn't happen.  And obviously this is hindsight.
> 
> New plants are designed to have gravity alone deliver water when needed.
> 
> -- 
> David Froble                       Tel: 724-529-0450
> Dave Froble Enterprises, Inc.      E-Mail: davef at tsoft-inc.com
> DFE Ultralights, Inc.
> 170 Grimplin Road
> Vanderbilt, PA  15486

There may be potentially be a cultural factor involved at
Fukushima, I don't remember specifically right now. I do 
recollect that cultural factors relating to "loss of face"(?)
have historically been a factor in *some* aircraft incidents, 
but can't bring specific ones to mind right now.

I do remember that as with many significant failures, the
Fukushima incident involved a whole string of engineering, 
management, and regulatory foulups over a number of years. 

If a significant proportion of those had been addressed, 
things might have turned out different. But too many weren't
addressed.

Further Fukushima-preventability reading includes:
http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable-pub-47361

In a different context, the chain of issues which caused 
the total loss of Air France Flight AF447 were also relatively
well known and understood on an individual basis. But they hadn't
been taken seriously enough by management, individually or
collectively. It's a surprisingly common situation when the 
probabilities are small and decreasing, but the impact if 
Something Bad does happen is high. Which is why some #
safety-conscious organisations encourage reporting "near
misses" as well as actual incidents. Statistics can lie,
but they can also inform.

Here's a recent AF447-prompted article about the impact of 
automation and the resultant decline of understanding and 
skill in modern cockpits:
https://hbr.org/2017/09/the-tragic-crash-of-flight-af447-shows-the-unlikely-but-catastrophic-consequences-of-automation 

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was another incident where lack
of basic understanding, combined with failures in critical
cockpit communication, caused a problem, albeit not on the
scale of AF447.

AF447 and Asiana 214 are widely documented.


Now obviously a decline of understanding and skill 
couldn't have similar impact elsewhere, could it
Well, not until it becomes interesting to the media
anyway... 

The Raspberry Pi exists because one of the founders,
Eben Upton, who at the time was teaching at Cambridge 
University, got seriously concerned about the lack of
understanding shown by his undergraduate intake. This 
too is widely documented, e.g. Eben Upton's IET Young 
Professionals lecture from 2012 (around 45 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P46sRDDONI

By all means keep things as simple as possible. But
someone somewhere needs to understand what's behind
the curtain, and more importantly the bean counters
need to trust these people, or Bad Things will be
on the way.

Have a lot of fun.