Stargate Physics 101: A comedy about the importance of software testing
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An allusion to the accumulated rounding bug that caused the Patriot missile incident in 1991? That system was likewise intended to operate for only short periods.
From https://autarkaw.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/round-off-errors-a...
In the Patriot missile, time was saved in a fixed point register that had a length of 24 bits. Since the internal clock of the system is measured every one-tenth of a second, 1/10 expressed in a 24 bit fixed point register is 0.0001100110011001100110011 (the exact value is 209715/2097152).
On the day of the mishap, the battery on the Patriot missile was left on for 100 consecutive hours, hence causing an inaccuracy of 9.5E-8x10x60x60x100=0.34 seconds.
The shift calculated in the range gate due to the error of 0.342 seconds was calculated as 687m. The shift of larger than 137m resulted in the Scud not being targeted and hence killing 28 Americans in the barracks of Saudi Arabia.
But, more likely, it's just a play on a reason a Stargate (when unaided by some hostile energy source or time dilation field) just shuts off after 38 minutes with no explanation.
However in Stargate the actual 38 minutes thing isn't a computer limitation it is a physical one. In the original show (i.e. SG1) Carter said it is "impossible" due to physics for it to stay open longer, and they also established that with enough raw power (e.g. blackhole, ancient device, etc) it could be kept open longer or near indefinitely, it just wasn't possible with the normal power the Stargate needs to operate.
Keep in mind they did exceed 38 minutes many times with different explanations each time[0] none of which were computer related. It is also worth noting that earth in the show built their own DHD which presumably would have different computer limitations than the ancient built DHD (and as they established when all DHDs in the universe died except theirs due to the malware).
In a show like Stargate, "impossible" is really just another way of saying "It would require overcoming a series of increasingly unlikely and insurmountable problems for that to be possible." Which, of course, they then use for a plot device in later (or the same!) episodes as they blow past those increasingly unlikely and insurmountable problems. :)
At the beginning of the story it's implied that things like that are why Carter would be upset. Because the physics they had thought they had learned from the stargate hardware turned out to be software limitations instead. It's not like humans are ever capable of creating a wormhole to test for themselves.
The gate itself has control crystals as you can dial out without a DHD if you just give it power and some elbow grease. The 38 minute cutoff is probably in that code.
They must have run out of code space in the gate and had to offload some of the code to the DHD. :D The correlative update routine for the coordinate system is in the DHD for example so the earth gate could originally only dial Abydos until they added that to their homebrew DHD.
Assumes facts not in evidence. That could easily be a firmware (on-gate) vs. software (DHD) argument.
Carter said it is "impossible" due to physics
Potentially unreliable narrator.
also established that with enough raw power (e.g. blackhole, ancient device, etc) it could be kept open longer
Yup, cited above.
built their own DHD which presumably would have different computer limitations
firmware vs. software
when all DHDs in the universe died except theirs due to the malware
you're not doing devops unless you have one button that can destroy your entire infrastructure
Anyhow, one minor issue: the gates were thought of by a guy named Amelius the night before they left the Alteran Home Galaxy, long before they ever reached Earth. :)
Any sufficiently advanced QA department is indistinguishable from ascension.
> for his ability
Stop misgendering my werewolves. >:(
> Anyhow, one minor issue: the gates were thought of by a guy named Amelius the night before they left the Alteran Home Galaxy, long before they ever reached Earth. :)
Yeah, I had the timeline slightly wrong for how long it took them to get to earth. In my defence there's no evidence of them making Stargates pre Milky Way (he came up with the idea in the Ori home galaxy but they then spent a few thousand years looking for somewhere to settle), and we don't know how long the Alterrans lived, so it's just about plausible, but it's a bit of a reach.
But, um, honestly I hated Universe and didn't watch much of it, so it's not very surprising that this doesn't manage to be compliant with it.
No, that's just an idea from one of the characters. (Re-used in a "what-if thought bubble.")
Nobody really knows.
It was a riff on the idea that everyone assumed they were furry when nothing was known about them other than their existence.
However, to a question "When are we going to see the Furlings", one of the producers answers "Who says we haven't?"
It's OK, we don't know what this error means. We'll override it.
Hilarious stuff.
...well, not the bits about planets exploding. I've never written code which did that. Yet. I did once write a program which summoned demons, but never made it work.
That's what they want you to believe.
Ha! Gold.
Our best stab was handwaving frantically and uttering something about a Hilbert curve [1][2].
But that still doesn't really explain anything about why the ancients would pull the equivalent of going from IPv6 to v4 by dropping the number of coordinates in the Milky Way gates.... or, anything else, really.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-filling_curve [2] a la https://xkcd.com/195/
Never gets old, and I wish we'd find out how Universe ends already.
Looking forward for the reboot triology of the original movie though :)
(Apologies in advance for the shitpost)
Probably McKay.
There was a strong technical slant in that show.
EDIT:
> For instance, he knew that when Carter got the Stargate working with three supercomputers, they ignored 220 of the 400 feedback signals the Stargate can emit during any given dialing sequence.
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Meredith_Rodney_McKay
I miss stargate so much.
My own supposition is that it's the standard rights-squatting thing a studio does when they're done producing a given work and don't want to compete against 'their' IP being used by someone that actually has a good story to tell.
All of them failed. I really don't know why MGM didn't gave it to a AAA studio, such shame...
In one of his first appearances on SG1, he invites Carter to the cafeteria, mentioning that they have lemon chicken, with excitement. If I'm not mistaken, it's not until the SGA fork that he seems to be allergic to citrus.
...I'm really embarrassed that I know that from memory.
https://springrts.com/phpbb/download/file.php?id=9695
Brilliant show. Strong science attitude of anything goes, if you put your mind to it. Also actual c++ code when "Hacking" was done.
That is only going to be correct if you disregard the whole "Universe" series. Otherwise, the chronology is wrong. And can't be just about the movie, otherwise there are no "ancients".
All in all, an excellent read. This was almost certainly written by a software engineer, or two.
I need to watch this show again.
Much of our fundamental problems with software seciruty stems from the fact that people don't think of software as of something particularily dangerous.