Another nasty holiday season on RBT

On 1/25/2019 1:12 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 6:15:22 PM UTC-8, Ralph Barone wrote:
AMuzi wrote:
On 1/24/2019 7:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 5:00:50 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/24/2019 6:30 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 17:38:39 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/24/2019 5:13 PM, wrote:


You with your Cobol who doesn't seem to know that all of those cobol
systems were replaced by full systems written by Oracle and the like, ...
Cobol was used to write business systems and those were almost
entirely replaced with large company systems written by major corporations.

I'm not an expert on computer languages, but I remember reading this not
long ago in some liberal rag or another: "Indeed, despite its advanced
age, Cobol is still the most prevalent programming language in the
financial-services industry world-wide."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-you-...you-1537550913

What does WSJ stand for again?

I don't know whether Cobol is still the most prevalent language in the
financial services but a few years ago my boat was parked next to a
guy's who worked for IBM on a project to replace the computers and
design a totally new software system for a major bank here.

The testing of each portion of the new system took in the neighborhood
of 6 months and IBM was committed to have several of their people
assigned at the bank for a number of years after the system was
completed in case of any problems.

Given the time lost and problems that might be encountered I would
think that changing an operational Cobol system over to a different
language might not be exactly what a bank or large financial house
might want to do.

Like so many things, it probably comes down to benefits vs. detriments.
You've described some detriments of migrating from a working COBOL
system to something more modern. What would be the benefits of investing
that time?

Or flipping the coin: What are the detriments of continuing to run a
COBOL system that's performing well?

In case anyone takes this wrong (hey, it's Usenet), I'm asking serious
questions. I really want to know.

(I do know one guy who, after retiring from his normal job, got several
years of good freelance work because he was good at COBOL.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

I bought a new 64 bit 4 core HP desktop. I got a light line instead of a
phone connection. I went from being in the bottom 5% of computer speed
to the top 10% in the entire world. My system boots so fast you don't
even notice it. The screen takes more time to come up than the computer
to boot and stabilize.

With large scale systems this is a relatively minor upgrade. Do you
suppose a large banking system would worry about changing from an old
system if they could get a performance upgrade that substantial?


Large firms generally, especially banks and financial firms,
still do, in fact, run vintage mainframes with Cobol.

http://cobolcowboys.com/cobol-today/

Being 'old' is not a critical factor for things which work
well, for example my Corvair or the meat motor on my 1953
bicycle.


If you have a small clean system with well documented interfaces and
functions and you want to ditch COBOL, it's a piece of cake. However, if
you have a 50 year old accretion of code, string and barnacles that nobody
knows what it does (although they all agree it currently works), there may
be better things to do with your money until the day that you absolutely
HAVE to replace it.

I would think that the most important point is 1. The cost to repair an existing problem and 2. The cost of replacing the whole damn thing so that it is updateable by the company that sells it to you. Then all of your worries are gone.


Worries are never gone.

As an outside observer periodically noting Oracle and IBM
earnings statements, it seems that ongoing service charges
are an important revenue source.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Evans

Mt. Evans has a road to near the summit with a very short hike to the summit.

On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 2:26:03 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 8:43:46 AM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/18/2019 8:02 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 5:31:41 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
For Heaven's sake! Tom is an old man, who is in ill health and suffers
from brain damage. The thought that he is going to beat anyone up is
just another one of his fantasies, like flying around in the bomb bay
of airplanes at 5,000 feet over Vietnam.

And yet that is what happened. But then since you've done so little you wouldn't understand that life is strange and wonderful. The tail gunner in a B52D is actually in the tail. The way to get from the back pressurized compartment to the front is via a very narrow 6" wide shelf. The only way to do this is to put one knee in front of the other and scoot along while holding yourself on the shelf by slipping two fingers per hand between the gap in the vertical and horizontal ribs of the aircraft. On the ground this is scary since you're at least 10' above the bottom of the bomb bays. Because of the curvature of the hull you have to lean your body out over the bays so not many people would do that.

The A/C asked me to go to the gunner's position to find out what the heck was wrong with him since he sounded like he was going nuts. It turned out to be nothing since he was just watching the SAMs bursting around us.

So I went back there before the bomb run and came back after the bomb run. You cannot breath the air above 10,000 feet and remain conscious.

Funny that I've done it at least six times on a bicycle. Is it when you
don't have a bicycle handy that you lose consciousness?

Mark J.

If you live at altitude you can adapt to as high as 20,000 feet. But aircraft are pressurized at altitudes above 10,000. So movements between the pressurized compartments had to occur below that altitude.

I would be interested in knowing where you found a mountain in the USA above 10,000 that had a road to the top. While there are a lot of 10,000 ft high mountains in the USA the only one I can think of with a road above 10,000 ft is Pike's Peak. That's a little over 14,000 and the annual bike ride normally has a lot of people dropping out on the verge of fainting for lack of O2. The timberline is at something like 12,000 feet and the base where you start is something like 7,000 ft. There used to be a "cog train" that went to the top and bicyclists would take the train to the top and ride down.. I was a year in Denver with is down around 5,200 ft and they still had people growing faint there.

If a tree can't grow above 12,000 ft what would make you think that you could crawl through the bomb bays of a aircraft at 10,000 feet safely?

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 11:53:51 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
On 1/25/2019 1:12 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 6:15:22 PM UTC-8, Ralph Barone wrote:
AMuzi wrote:
On 1/24/2019 7:32 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 5:00:50 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/24/2019 6:30 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 17:38:39 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 1/24/2019 5:13 PM, wrote:


You with your Cobol who doesn't seem to know that all of those cobol
systems were replaced by full systems written by Oracle and the like, ...
Cobol was used to write business systems and those were almost
entirely replaced with large company systems written by major corporations.

I'm not an expert on computer languages, but I remember reading this not
long ago in some liberal rag or another: "Indeed, despite its advanced
age, Cobol is still the most prevalent programming language in the
financial-services industry world-wide."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-you-...you-1537550913

What does WSJ stand for again?

I don't know whether Cobol is still the most prevalent language in the
financial services but a few years ago my boat was parked next to a
guy's who worked for IBM on a project to replace the computers and
design a totally new software system for a major bank here.

The testing of each portion of the new system took in the neighborhood
of 6 months and IBM was committed to have several of their people
assigned at the bank for a number of years after the system was
completed in case of any problems.

Given the time lost and problems that might be encountered I would
think that changing an operational Cobol system over to a different
language might not be exactly what a bank or large financial house
might want to do.

Like so many things, it probably comes down to benefits vs. detriments.
You've described some detriments of migrating from a working COBOL
system to something more modern. What would be the benefits of investing
that time?

Or flipping the coin: What are the detriments of continuing to run a
COBOL system that's performing well?

In case anyone takes this wrong (hey, it's Usenet), I'm asking serious
questions. I really want to know.

(I do know one guy who, after retiring from his normal job, got several
years of good freelance work because he was good at COBOL.)

--
- Frank Krygowski

I bought a new 64 bit 4 core HP desktop. I got a light line instead of a
phone connection. I went from being in the bottom 5% of computer speed
to the top 10% in the entire world. My system boots so fast you don't
even notice it. The screen takes more time to come up than the computer
to boot and stabilize.

With large scale systems this is a relatively minor upgrade. Do you
suppose a large banking system would worry about changing from an old
system if they could get a performance upgrade that substantial?


Large firms generally, especially banks and financial firms,
still do, in fact, run vintage mainframes with Cobol.

http://cobolcowboys.com/cobol-today/

Being 'old' is not a critical factor for things which work
well, for example my Corvair or the meat motor on my 1953
bicycle.


If you have a small clean system with well documented interfaces and
functions and you want to ditch COBOL, it's a piece of cake. However, if
you have a 50 year old accretion of code, string and barnacles that nobody
knows what it does (although they all agree it currently works), there may
be better things to do with your money until the day that you absolutely
HAVE to replace it.

I would think that the most important point is 1. The cost to repair an existing problem and 2. The cost of replacing the whole damn thing so that it is updateable by the company that sells it to you. Then all of your worries are gone.


Worries are never gone.

As an outside observer periodically noting Oracle and IBM
earnings statements, it seems that ongoing service charges
are an important revenue source.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Because Oracle has a very large and growing competition. Because these total systems are so profitable competition appears. Even Google is trying to get into the business.

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 6:46:58 PM UTC, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 2:44:23 AM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 4:38:56 AM UTC, jbeattie wrote:
In 50 miles, the Ronde PDX does 7,300 feet of climbing. https://ridewithgps.com/ambassador_r...an-west-portla

Bunch of flagellants in Portlandia.

The deal with a near-home climb-a-thon is that it is too easy for me to just go "meh, I'm going home." Take the next turn and roll a few miles back into my neighborhood. I really have to be a flagellant to do the whole ride -- which I have done but with friends and not as part of the official unofficial ride. You just follow the lions of Flanders: https://tinyurl.com/y8fr8wx7

Sponsored by Peugeot (either the bike or the motor company)?

It's also nicer in a small bunch so you're not that guy stalling out on the hill and creating a clot in the pack. https://bikeportland.org/wp-content/...roth_bryn2.jpg

Ouch. I know how he feels. It happened to me when I first started cycling, on the ride over the spine on the Durrus Peninsula. In an effort to keep up, I rose up on the pedals on the first steep hill and fell over backwards. I decided the idiot leading the tour would soon create a very bad atmosphere and turned back; all the women in the party joined me (something that became an established pattern -- they wouldn't speak out if idiots led the party, but the minute there was leadership, they'd drop idiots like stones and cut away with me; of course, when one is hillwalking up some pretty stiff mountains, which we did much more often than cycling, idiots get to be considerably more dangerous). We had a lovely time lying on the lawn under a monument making up limericks, drinking in the pubs, eating an extended lunch in a surprisingly good restaurant, borrowing a guitar and holding a singsong with a choir waiting to give a concert in a church. When the others returned, none of them were speaking to each other, and the customary dinner was cancelled apparently by mutual consent.

Andre Jute
Group dynamics

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12:11:00 PM UTC-8, Mike A Schwab wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Evans

Mt. Evans has a road to near the summit with a very short hike to the summit.

On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 2:26:03 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 8:43:46 AM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/18/2019 8:02 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 5:31:41 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
For Heaven's sake! Tom is an old man, who is in ill health and suffers
from brain damage. The thought that he is going to beat anyone up is
just another one of his fantasies, like flying around in the bomb bay
of airplanes at 5,000 feet over Vietnam.

And yet that is what happened. But then since you've done so little you wouldn't understand that life is strange and wonderful. The tail gunner in a B52D is actually in the tail. The way to get from the back pressurized compartment to the front is via a very narrow 6" wide shelf. The only way to do this is to put one knee in front of the other and scoot along while holding yourself on the shelf by slipping two fingers per hand between the gap in the vertical and horizontal ribs of the aircraft. On the ground this is scary since you're at least 10' above the bottom of the bomb bays. Because of the curvature of the hull you have to lean your body out over the bays so not many people would do that.

The A/C asked me to go to the gunner's position to find out what the heck was wrong with him since he sounded like he was going nuts. It turned out to be nothing since he was just watching the SAMs bursting around us.

So I went back there before the bomb run and came back after the bomb run. You cannot breath the air above 10,000 feet and remain conscious.

Funny that I've done it at least six times on a bicycle. Is it when you
don't have a bicycle handy that you lose consciousness?

Mark J.

If you live at altitude you can adapt to as high as 20,000 feet. But aircraft are pressurized at altitudes above 10,000. So movements between the pressurized compartments had to occur below that altitude.

I would be interested in knowing where you found a mountain in the USA above 10,000 that had a road to the top. While there are a lot of 10,000 ft high mountains in the USA the only one I can think of with a road above 10,000 ft is Pike's Peak. That's a little over 14,000 and the annual bike ride normally has a lot of people dropping out on the verge of fainting for lack of O2. The timberline is at something like 12,000 feet and the base where you start is something like 7,000 ft. There used to be a "cog train" that went to the top and bicyclists would take the train to the top and ride down. I was a year in Denver with is down around 5,200 ft and they still had people growing faint there.

If a tree can't grow above 12,000 ft what would make you think that you could crawl through the bomb bays of a aircraft at 10,000 feet safely?

"Mountain medicine recognizes three altitude regions that reflect the lowered amount of oxygen in the atmosphe

High altitude = 1,500–3,500 metres (4,900–11,500 ft)
Very high altitude = 3,500–5,500 metres (11,500–18,000 ft)
Extreme altitude = above 5,500 metres (18,000 ft)

Travel to each of these altitude regions can lead to medical problems, from the mild symptoms of acute mountain sickness to the potentially fatal high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE). The higher the altitude, the greater the risk. Research also indicates elevated risk of permanent brain damage in people climbing to extreme altitudes.[11] Expedition doctors commonly stock a supply of dexamethasone, or "dex," to treat these conditions on site.

Humans have survived for two years at 5,950 m (19,520 ft, 475 millibars of atmospheric pressure), which is the highest recorded permanently tolerable altitude; the highest permanent settlement known, La Rinconada, is at 5,100 m (16,700 ft).

At extreme altitudes, above 7,500 m (24,600 ft, 383 millibars of atmospheric pressure), sleeping becomes very difficult, digesting food is near-impossible, and the risk of HAPE or HACE increases greatly."

The FAA regulations that last time I heard limited cabin pressure to partial pressures in commercial aircraft to never be lower than that of 8,000 ft.

Since this is lower pressure that is recommended by many medical authorities since it can harm infants, pregnant women and anyone with cardio vascular problems commercial aircraft tend to keep the effective altitude in the cabin below 5,000 ft.

But everyone on you seems to think that you are supermen and haven't the least problem with riding a bike or even hiking above those altitudes.

Well, I did the Death Ride several times and the max altitude of that is almost 9,000 ft. There is a reason they call it the death ride and there is a reason that they have so many drop outs and it isn't because of the distance.

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/24/2019 9:15 PM, Ralph Barone wrote:
John B. Slocomb wrote:

Given the time lost and problems that might be encountered I would
think that changing an operational Cobol system over to a different
language might not be exactly what a bank or large financial house
might want to do.


Cheers,
John B.

It's like road disc brakes or 12 speed cassettes. You know that eventually
you're going to have to convert, but it may be a good business decision to
postpone the conversion as long as possible.

On my favorite bike, I'm still postponing the switch away from a 5 speed
freewheel! :-)

(It's only 33 years old.)


I guess that makes you the COBOL of cyclists.

On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 3:33:02 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12:11:00 PM UTC-8, Mike A Schwab wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Evans

Mt. Evans has a road to near the summit with a very short hike to the summit.

On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 2:26:03 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 8:43:46 AM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/18/2019 8:02 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 5:31:41 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
For Heaven's sake! Tom is an old man, who is in ill health and suffers
from brain damage. The thought that he is going to beat anyone up is
just another one of his fantasies, like flying around in the bomb bay
of airplanes at 5,000 feet over Vietnam.

And yet that is what happened. But then since you've done so little you wouldn't understand that life is strange and wonderful. The tail gunner in a B52D is actually in the tail. The way to get from the back pressurized compartment to the front is via a very narrow 6" wide shelf. The only way to do this is to put one knee in front of the other and scoot along while holding yourself on the shelf by slipping two fingers per hand between the gap in the vertical and horizontal ribs of the aircraft. On the ground this is scary since you're at least 10' above the bottom of the bomb bays. Because of the curvature of the hull you have to lean your body out over the bays so not many people would do that.

The A/C asked me to go to the gunner's position to find out what the heck was wrong with him since he sounded like he was going nuts. It turned out to be nothing since he was just watching the SAMs bursting around us.

So I went back there before the bomb run and came back after the bomb run. You cannot breath the air above 10,000 feet and remain conscious.

Funny that I've done it at least six times on a bicycle. Is it when you
don't have a bicycle handy that you lose consciousness?

Mark J.

If you live at altitude you can adapt to as high as 20,000 feet. But aircraft are pressurized at altitudes above 10,000. So movements between the pressurized compartments had to occur below that altitude.

I would be interested in knowing where you found a mountain in the USA above 10,000 that had a road to the top. While there are a lot of 10,000 ft high mountains in the USA the only one I can think of with a road above 10,000 ft is Pike's Peak. That's a little over 14,000 and the annual bike ride normally has a lot of people dropping out on the verge of fainting for lack of O2. The timberline is at something like 12,000 feet and the base where you start is something like 7,000 ft. There used to be a "cog train" that went to the top and bicyclists would take the train to the top and ride down. I was a year in Denver with is down around 5,200 ft and they still had people growing faint there.

If a tree can't grow above 12,000 ft what would make you think that you could crawl through the bomb bays of a aircraft at 10,000 feet safely?

"Mountain medicine recognizes three altitude regions that reflect the lowered amount of oxygen in the atmosphe

High altitude = 1,500–3,500 metres (4,900–11,500 ft)
Very high altitude = 3,500–5,500 metres (11,500–18,000 ft)
Extreme altitude = above 5,500 metres (18,000 ft)

Travel to each of these altitude regions can lead to medical problems, from the mild symptoms of acute mountain sickness to the potentially fatal high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE). The higher the altitude, the greater the risk. Research also indicates elevated risk of permanent brain damage in people climbing to extreme altitudes.[11] Expedition doctors commonly stock a supply of dexamethasone, or "dex," to treat these conditions on site.

Humans have survived for two years at 5,950 m (19,520 ft, 475 millibars of atmospheric pressure), which is the highest recorded permanently tolerable altitude; the highest permanent settlement known, La Rinconada, is at 5,100 m (16,700 ft).

At extreme altitudes, above 7,500 m (24,600 ft, 383 millibars of atmospheric pressure), sleeping becomes very difficult, digesting food is near-impossible, and the risk of HAPE or HACE increases greatly."

The FAA regulations that last time I heard limited cabin pressure to partial pressures in commercial aircraft to never be lower than that of 8,000 ft.

On 1/25/2019 2:38 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 9:41:04 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/24/2019 8:20 PM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 2:38:43 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/24/2019 5:13 PM, wrote:


You with your Cobol who doesn't seem to know that all of those cobol systems were replaced by full systems written by Oracle and the like, ...
Cobol was used to write business systems and those were almost entirely replaced with large company systems written by major corporations.

I'm not an expert on computer languages, but I remember reading this not
long ago in some liberal rag or another: "Indeed, despite its advanced
age, Cobol is still the most prevalent programming language in the
financial-services industry world-wide."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-you-...you-1537550913

What does WSJ stand for again?

--
- Frank Krygowski

Tell us where these Cobol Programs are still being used.

Don't argue with me, Tom; argue with the Wall Street Journal. Those
socialist liberals that publish it certainly need your wisdom and advice.

Hey, maybe they'll give you a job! You'd get out of that hell hole you
live in! ;-)

--
- Frank Krygowski

YOU are the one presenting a Wall Street Journal article written by some journalist who isn't working in the business of IT as your "expert witness".

You're right, I did give a link to an article that seemed to say you
were wrong, that all those COBOL systems were NOT replaced. And Andrew
gave this link http://cobolcowboys.com/cobol-today/ which claims COBOL
is still very common.

As usual, you give no links to support your position.

But there's also this:
https://thenewstack.io/cobol-everywhere-will-maintain/ "Think COBOL is
dead? About 95 percent of ATM swipes use COBOL code, Reuters reported in
April, and the 58-year-old language even powers 80 percent of in-person
transactions. In fact, Reuters calculates that there’s still 220 billion
lines of COBOL code currently being used in production today, and that
every day, COBOL systems handle $3 trillion in commerce."

and this:
https://freedomafterthesharks.com/20...anguage-in-it/
that claims "COBOL still accounts for more than 70 percent of the
business transactions that take place in the world today."

and this:
https://thenextweb.com/finance/2017/...ank-literally/
"The problem is there’s not enough people to maintain the current
COBOL-based systems.

Re-read that last sentence, Tom. Learn COBOL, (finally) get a job, and
move to somewhere nice!

(I know, I know... it's time for you to change the subject again!)

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 1/25/2019 6:33 PM, wrote:
On Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12:11:00 PM UTC-8, Mike A Schwab wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Evans

Mt. Evans has a road to near the summit with a very short hike to the summit.

On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 2:26:03 PM UTC-6, wrote:
On Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 8:43:46 AM UTC-8, Mark J. wrote:
On 1/18/2019 8:02 AM, wrote:
On Thursday, January 17, 2019 at 5:31:41 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote:
For Heaven's sake! Tom is an old man, who is in ill health and suffers
from brain damage. The thought that he is going to beat anyone up is
just another one of his fantasies, like flying around in the bomb bay
of airplanes at 5,000 feet over Vietnam.

And yet that is what happened. But then since you've done so little you wouldn't understand that life is strange and wonderful. The tail gunner in a B52D is actually in the tail. The way to get from the back pressurized compartment to the front is via a very narrow 6" wide shelf. The only way to do this is to put one knee in front of the other and scoot along while holding yourself on the shelf by slipping two fingers per hand between the gap in the vertical and horizontal ribs of the aircraft. On the ground this is scary since you're at least 10' above the bottom of the bomb bays. Because of the curvature of the hull you have to lean your body out over the bays so not many people would do that.

The A/C asked me to go to the gunner's position to find out what the heck was wrong with him since he sounded like he was going nuts. It turned out to be nothing since he was just watching the SAMs bursting around us.

So I went back there before the bomb run and came back after the bomb run. You cannot breath the air above 10,000 feet and remain conscious.

Funny that I've done it at least six times on a bicycle. Is it when you
don't have a bicycle handy that you lose consciousness?

Mark J.

If you live at altitude you can adapt to as high as 20,000 feet. But aircraft are pressurized at altitudes above 10,000. So movements between the pressurized compartments had to occur below that altitude.

I would be interested in knowing where you found a mountain in the USA above 10,000 that had a road to the top. While there are a lot of 10,000 ft high mountains in the USA the only one I can think of with a road above 10,000 ft is Pike's Peak. That's a little over 14,000 and the annual bike ride normally has a lot of people dropping out on the verge of fainting for lack of O2. The timberline is at something like 12,000 feet and the base where you start is something like 7,000 ft. There used to be a "cog train" that went to the top and bicyclists would take the train to the top and ride down. I was a year in Denver with is down around 5,200 ft and they still had people growing faint there.

If a tree can't grow above 12,000 ft what would make you think that you could crawl through the bomb bays of a aircraft at 10,000 feet safely?

"Mountain medicine recognizes three altitude regions that reflect the lowered amount of oxygen in the atmosphe

High altitude = 1,500–3,500 metres (4,900–11,500 ft)
Very high altitude = 3,500–5,500 metres (11,500–18,000 ft)
Extreme altitude = above 5,500 metres (18,000 ft)

Travel to each of these altitude regions can lead to medical problems, from the mild symptoms of acute mountain sickness to the potentially fatal high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE). The higher the altitude, the greater the risk. Research also indicates elevated risk of permanent brain damage in people climbing to extreme altitudes.[11] Expedition doctors commonly stock a supply of dexamethasone, or "dex," to treat these conditions on site.

Humans have survived for two years at 5,950 m (19,520 ft, 475 millibars of atmospheric pressure), which is the highest recorded permanently tolerable altitude; the highest permanent settlement known, La Rinconada, is at 5,100 m (16,700 ft).

At extreme altitudes, above 7,500 m (24,600 ft, 383 millibars of atmospheric pressure), sleeping becomes very difficult, digesting food is near-impossible, and the risk of HAPE or HACE increases greatly."

The FAA regulations that last time I heard limited cabin pressure to partial pressures in commercial aircraft to never be lower than that of 8,000 ft.

Since this is lower pressure that is recommended by many medical authorities since it can harm infants, pregnant women and anyone with cardio vascular problems commercial aircraft tend to keep the effective altitude in the cabin below 5,000 ft.

But everyone on you seems to think that you are supermen and haven't the least problem with riding a bike or even hiking above those altitudes.

That's not what people were saying. Instead, people were saying you were
wrong when you posted "You cannot breath the air above 10,000 feet and
remain conscious."

It's pretty simple, really. You goofed yet again, and you're doing
everything you can to avoid acknowledging it. Yet again.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Fri, 25 Jan 2019 12:28:43 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 1/25/2019 9:25 AM, Ralph Barone wrote:

Yes, that's the other half of the equation. There's "how hard is it to
change", and "how badly do you need to charge".

I'm also curious about what's being done now to prevent multiple
recurrences of this problem down the road. Back in the day, almost every
programmer worked in either COBOL or Fortran, yet apparently there's
tons code that's now not understood.

I assume that you are talking about C.
If the code for Cobol, fortran and others was properlyu documented and
the source code kept, there shouldn't be any problem with other languges.


Today we have dozens of languages, splintering the programming pool. Who
will maintain today's code in, say, 2070?

It doesn't even happen no. Look at the number of dodo programs under the
Linux umbrella. Maintain it? you're joking, it is easier to write a new
one rather than beat your brain trying to work out what the original
programmer intended from what the program is suppossedly doing.