Progressive voter alert!

Progressive voter alert!  Via reader Simi L....

Are psychological science studies reproducible?

Are psychological science studies reproducible?  Reproducibility is a key aspect of the scientific method – if a scientist discovers something experimentally, then other scientists should be able to run the same experiment and get the same results.  In recent years, many irreproducible psychological studies have been in the news, and in response over 250 psychologists made a concerted effort to reproduce studies – most especially, those studies that have been often cited.  The first results are coming in.  How do they look?  Not so good...

Benchmark...

Benchmark...  The U.S. Geological Survey marker at right is on our property, just north of our driveway, about halfway between the canal and the highway.  It appears on USGS topological maps, but not in the Geodetic Survey's online database.  I'm not sure why that's the case.  The marker is still in great shape, with the following inscriptions:

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BENCH MARK
FOR INFORMATION WRITE DIRECTOR WASHINGTON D.C.
COOPERATION WITH THE STATE
ELEVATION ABOVE SEA LEVEL 4840 FEET
31 WF 1954

This is the sort of marker used by the Geological Survey to make an altitude benchmark – a reference for local surveyors.

It must be a Seattle thing...

It must be a Seattle thing...  I'm sure most of my readers are intimately familiar with that most annoying CTL-ALT-DEL fix for anything that goes wrong with Windows.  “Did you reboot?” is the first question any help desk will ask when you report a Windows problem.  Microsoft is, of course, based near Seattle.

Today comes the news that Boeing is advising all owners of 787 Dreamliners to “reboot” their aircraft at least once every 248 days – power it down and back up.  I don't think they have a CTL-ALT-DEL function on those planes ... but it sounds like maybe they need one!  Oh, and Boeing is also based near Seattle.

Dang.

For the geeks: the problem was traced to a 32-bit integer overflow.  There's a counter that tracks 1/100ths of a second since power up, and 2^31 1/100ths of a second is ... ta da! ... about 248 days.

One wonders whether the programmer was simply ignorant about integer overflow (unfortunately, a common issue) or whether they simply didn't think it was possible an aircraft could be powered up that long.  Boeing noted that this hasn't actually occurred to any aircraft – they caught it in testing...