Airbus vs. The Sun
Search around a bit. Look for the terms “Airbus 320” and “radiation” and “grounding”.
What you’ll find in most cases is a pseudo-technical summary of the so called “root cause” of the problem that led to the recent emergency Airbus 320 recall. It’s the sun, you see — solar radiation corrupted the flight computers. But search a bit more. What’s the prescribed fix? It’s to revert to the previous version of the flight software.
Wait. What?
Reverting the software eliminates solar radiation corrupting the avionics!? Of course not. Reverting the software restores a capability that the avionics previously had: to be resilient to bad data.
And so, it seems, it was not the sun. Not the radiation. Not corrupted data. These are proximate causes. The problem stemmed from a software update. Yet even that is a proximate cause. Don’t blame the update. Software mistakes happen.
No, this was a faulty update to critical flight software that didn’t get caught during testing. And so the root cause was a breakdown in the testing process.
The sun is off the hook.
3 Ottos
“Let me tell you how my day started, Mr. Hasan,” Matt said.
He was fidgeting in his chair, something he doesn’t usually do. He was particularly animated, waving his hands around with a huge smile on his face. And he wasn’t waiting for me to ask him how it started.
“My dad and I went to Taco Deli,” he said. “We go there in the mornings.”
“Mmm…Taco Deli,” I mused.
“Let me tell you what I had…”
“An Otto,” I said, imagining the refried black beans, the bacon, the avocado, the cheese…
“That’s right!” he said. “But, let me tell you the best part.”
I was thinking chips. Coffee. Maybe another Otto.
“Three Ottos,” he exclaimed rather loudly. The students around him were listening intently. “My dad said I could have three. And I added an egg to each one! And that was just the beginning of…”
The bell rang. It was time to pass out the Unit 3 test.
Classroom Music
Is there music coming from the classroom next door?
I can barely hear it. Wait. Can I? A high voice that periodically gets drowned out by the chit-chat in class (some of which is related to the test review they’re supposed to be doing, some of which is … not). There it is again. I don’t recognize the tune. It sounds classical. Or operatic.
I walk over to the wall to see if I can hear it better.
Andy looks up at me, waves his funny wave and points to the Sara sitting next to him. She’s looking down at her desk where there’s sheet music laid out with the test review is peeking out from behind.
She’s quietly singing. Reading the music and singing. Practicing for a competition.
She’s a top-notch singer — likely going to state this year. And she’s quite good at math. With that review hidden behind the music, I guess we’ll see how things go with her test in a couple days.
Corn Snake
It was first period. It’s a luxuriously small class. The kids all get along well. For the most part, they get their work done. Emma, who a master at math, sometimes brings in a snake. Today she had a corn snake.
As we derived the quadratic formula, Cornelius slithered around her arms and neck.
Yesss, studentsss. Ssso nice to sssee you again. Now, sssolve these quadratic equationsss.
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