c0rtex

Also reviewed by Cory Doctorow: https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/22/vinges-bastards/#cyberpun...

I'm looking to do exactly this. I'm currently doing embedded software for aerospace, so somewhat similar with regards to documentation and standards (it's critical software, just not human safety related). Can you share how you found the work?

I'm also curious to know how you can do small quantities of hourly work in this field rather than take on projects that would require much larger time commitments. Are you just consulting as a domain expert or something?

Here's a great talk that addresses style vs. standards in the context of NASA and space flight software.

https://www.usenix.org/conference/hotdep12/workshop-program/...

He presents a compelling case for why you should use automated tools to check compliance against coding standards (the standards don't do you any good otherwise).

As far as style goes, pipe your code through indent if you have hangups about formatting. That way you can spend your time on issues that are known to be correlated with risk.

In that case, check this out - the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook. It's an impressive beast (only tangentially software-related though).

http://www.acq.osd.mil/se/docs/NASA-SP-2007-6105-Rev-1-Final...

With respect to his point that Uber requires passengers to identify themselves, I think a completely anonymous transportation system is not what is needed. Why do conventional taxi services and public transit systems have cameras? The answer is ostensibly to provide safety not only to the rider but also to the driver and other passengers [1]. But I'm sure Stallman would say "ban the cameras everywhere, Big Brother has no business tracking us!" If I were a cab driver though, I would feel safer knowing that a video of the transaction was at least being captured. And as a passenger I would feel less violated if I knew that the video was stored offline and took some amount of effort to retrieve, could only by accessed by certain individuals, and even then only with proper oversight.

What is needed is a balance between privacy and safety. Uber violates user's privacy, but fully anonymous transportation, especially in a one-on-one ridesharing situation, is unsafe for both parties. Law enforcement should be hard, not impossible.

[1]: http://taxi.vic.gov.au/drivers/taxi-drivers/driver-safety/sa...

Same thing on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3bzHk_6yHM For those who like to watch at 2x.