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Boeing's 737 MAX software outsourced to $12.80-an-hour engineers
by Giacomo Tesio July 2, 2019

July 2, 2019

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsour… Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors. The MAX software -- plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after US regulators this week revealed a new flaw -- was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs. Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $US9 ($12.80) an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace -- notably India. [...] In one post, an HCL employee summarised his duties with a reference to the now-infamous model, which started flight tests in January 2016: "Provided quick workaround to resolve production issue which resulted in not delaying flight test of 737-MAX (delay in each flight test will cost very big amount for Boeing)." [...] "Boeing was doing all kinds of things, everything you can imagine, to reduce cost, including moving work from Puget Sound, because we'd become very expensive here," said Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing flight controls engineer laid off in 2017. "All that's very understandable if you think of it from a business perspective. Slowly over time it appears that's eroded the ability for Puget Sound designers to design." [...] Sales are another reason to send the work overseas. In exchange for an $US11 billion order in 2005 from Air India, Boeing promised to invest $US1.7 billion in Indian companies. That was a boon for HCL and other software developers from India, such as Cyient, whose engineers were widely used in computer-services industries but not yet prominent in aerospace. [...] "Engineering started becoming a commodity," said Vance Hilderman, who co-founded a company called TekSci that supplied aerospace contract engineers and began losing work to overseas competitors in the early 2000s. US-based avionics companies in particular moved aggressively, shifting more than 30 per cent of their software engineering offshore versus 10 per cent for European-based firms in recent years, said Hilderman, an avionics safety consultant with three decades of experience whose recent clients include most of the major Boeing suppliers. With a strong US dollar, a big part of the attraction was price. Engineers in India made around $US5 an hour; it's now $US9 or $US10, compared with $US35 to $US40 for those in the US on an H1B visa, he said. But he'd tell clients the cheaper hourly wage equated to more like $US80 because of the need for supervision, and he said his firm won back some business to fix mistakes. [...] The MAX became Boeing's top seller soon after it was offered in 2011. But for ambitious engineers, it was something of a "backwater," said Peter Lemme, who designed the 767's automated flight controls and is now a consultant. [...] "It was a stunning fail," he said. "A lot of people should have thought of this problem – not one person – and asked about it." Boeing also has disclosed that it learned soon after MAX deliveries began in 2017 that a warning light that might have alerted crews to the issue with the sensor wasn't installed correctly in the flight-display software. A Boeing statement in May, explaining why the company didn't inform regulators at the time, said engineers had determined it wasn't a safety issue. "Senior company leadership," the statement added, "was not involved in the review."

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Google's Mysterious Fuchsia OS Developer Site Debuts With New Fascinating Details
by Giacomo Tesio July 2, 2019

July 2, 2019

Anche Forbes si è accorta di Fucshia e riesce a scrivere un intero articolo in proposito senza citare le ovvie ragioni per cui Google investe tanti soldi in un sistema operativo basato su un microkernel per rimpiazzare Linux: 1. avere il controllo di fatto dello sviluppo (come per Chrome) 2. evitare i vincoli di reciprocità della GPLv2 3. fare a meno di leader come Linus https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2019/06/30/googles-mysterious-fu… Giacomo

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ICANN ignores community input and agrees to lift price restrictions on .org domains.
by Giacomo Tesio July 2, 2019

July 2, 2019

https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/30/domain-overseer-lifts-all-price-caps-… As many feared, the comment period was just a formality. ICANN has agreed to remove price restrictions on .org domain names, letting the domain’s manager, Public Interest Registry, charge as much as it wants for the domains. (It also agreed to let .info manager Afilias charge whatever it wants for .info.) This is despite only six out of over 3,000 comments being in favor of removing price caps. You can blame two things: ICANN wanting to make its life easier with a misguided attempt to make its registry agreements similar, and regulatory capture. ICANN’s decision foreshadows that the organization will agree to .com price increases. Eventually, caps on .com domains could disappear. 10 million .org domains are currently registered and were registered under a system in which Public Interest Registry could not increase prices at will. Now, non-profits and other organizations that have been using these domains for years could face steep price increases. The good news is that Public Interest Registry’s management is competent and well-guided. They will likely wait a while before making any major changes to avoid comments of “we told you so”. But management changes. Boards change. And one day, it could get ugly. It will be interesting to see if any parties consider antitrust challenges.

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Re: [nexa] The day the e-books stopped working
by M. Fioretti July 2, 2019

July 2, 2019

On Tue, Jul 02, 2019 09:24:40 AM +0200, don Luca Peyron wrote: > Consumers who bought ebooks via Microsoft's online store are losing > access to their libraries. > > Quei cari vecchi libri di carta con dentro le cartoline che mio nonno > mandava a mia nonna... o no? no, nel senso che qui il problema vero non c'entra proprio niente con carta vs bit. E un passaggio di quell'articolo lo dice chiaramente: > a reminder that you do not actually own a copy of most digital > purchases outright but rather have purchased a licence that can > expire. Anche se alla riga dopo tollera senza ridicolizzarla una castroneria linguistica che nemmeno la neolingua di Orwell: "you don't own e-books when you buy them with DRM..> non puoi dire "compri" e "non possiedi" riferendoti allo stesso oggetto. "non possiedi va" con "noleggi" o "affitti", non con "compri". Che poi è la stessa castroneria della citazione iniziale: > Consumers who bought ebooks via Microsoft's online store are losing > access to their libraries. se hai "perso accesso" è o perché te li hanno rubati, i libri, o perché non li avevi mai comprati inizialmente. Una copia digitale di un romanzo si può possedere tanto quanto un libro (cioè una copia cartacea) di quello stesso romanzo. Che poi non siano perfettamente equivalenti, e che la copia digitale possa essere MOLTO più permanente di quella cartacea, è un altro discorso, da fare dopo. Ma finchè i media non fanno del "NON hai mai comprato questo libro" il tema principale degli articoli su questo tema, stroncando senza appello l'uso sbagliato di certi termini, non se ne esce. Marco

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The day the e-books stopped working
by don Luca Peyron July 2, 2019

July 2, 2019

Consumers who bought ebooks via Microsoft's online store are losing access to their libraries. Quei cari vecchi libri di carta con dentro le cartoline che mio nonno mandava a mia nonna... o no? Buona lettura dl https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48829661?fbclid=IwAR252Ro-cYSWQ0SjYtqo8… _________________________ www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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indagine conoscitiva sull''attuazione dell'agenda digitale negli enti territoriali
by Mauro Alovisio July 1, 2019

July 1, 2019

Gent.me/mi segnalo e vi riporto iniziativa di interesse dal sito della corte dei Conti http://www.corteconti.it/stampa_media/comunicati_stampa/dettaglio.html?reso… Cordiali saluti Mauro Alovisio Questionario della Sezione Autonomie su 8mila Amministrazioni Da oggi, *1° luglio 2019* è disponibile nell’area Servizi del sito istituzionale della *Corte dei conti*, al link https://questionariotd.corteconti.it/ un questionario per l’acquisizione delle informazioni sullo *stato di attuazione dell’Agenda digitale da parte delle Amministrazioni territoriali* (Comuni, Province, Città metropolitane, Regioni e Province autonome), elaborato dalla Sezione delle autonomie con il contributo tecnico del Team per la Trasformazione Digitale, nell’ambito del Protocollo d’intesa stipulato dalla Corte con il Commissario per l’a ttuazione dell’Agenda digitale. L’indagine conoscitiva riguarderà oltre *8mila enti* che saranno tenuti alla compilazione del questionario *entro il 30 settembre 2019*. *“La realizzazione dell’Agenda digitale italiana -* osserva la Corte *- è un obiettivo strategico per l’intero Paese, considerato che il fine ultimo è quello di migliorare la qualità e la quantità dei servizi resi al cittadino, con maggiore efficienza a fronte di risparmi di spesa. E’ pertanto rilevante che tutte le Amministrazioni procedano alla compilazione del questionario entro il termine assegnato”.* Con quest’attività la Corte dei conti si propone di fornire al Parlamento una fotografia sullo stato di informatizzazione degli enti territoriali, richiamando, nello stesso tempo, l’a ttenzione di tutte le Amministrazioni coinvolte sulla necessità di portare a compimento le attività operative indicate nel piano triennale per l’informatica nella Pubblica Amministrazione 2017-2019. Corte dei conti Ufficio stampa

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David Kaye: “A New Constitution for Content Moderation” – OneZero
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 1, 2019

July 1, 2019

https://onezero.medium.com/a-new-constitution-for-content-moderation-6249af… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Amazon Is Watching – OneZero
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 1, 2019

July 1, 2019

https://onezero.medium.com/amazon-is-watching-d51b20f1668a Amazon Is Watching The Internet giant is wiring homes, neighborhoods, and cities with cameras and microphones, and powering the nation’s intelligence services. Are we sure we can trust it? (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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FSFE: Tre conclusioni da trarre dal caso Google-Huawei
by J.C. DE MARTIN June 30, 2019

June 30, 2019

https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190520-01.it.html (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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Engineering standards have long supported the world economy. But future challenges abound. | MIT Sloan
by J.C. DE MARTIN June 30, 2019

June 30, 2019

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/engineering-standards-have-lo… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

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