The problem with Airbus, as you can find on several online pilots' forums, is that when there is a catastrophic computer error it takes too long to disable the computers and put the plane in "direct law" mode. By the time they accomplish that, as often as not they're toast.
Regardless of whether it would normally be possible to fly without computer airspeed data, a number of Airbuses have suffered catastrophes related to malfunctioning air speed (ADIRU, in this case) units, and the Air France plane had already signaled that its unit was malfunctioning, making it just be one incident among many. The only thing unusual about it was that it was a 330, not a 320.
Further, for your information, a number of Airbus catastrophes have been caused by malfunctioning Air Data Inertial Reference Units, leading FAA to issue an "unsafe condition" warning for Airbus 319, 320, and 321 models. (If the "mechanical backups" were adequate, why did these disasters occur?) And "coincidentally", before it went down Air France 447 had been transmitting that its ADIRU was malfunctioning.
Maybe if you actually read what I wrote, you could come up with some real objections, rather than your own uninformed bullshit.
The 777 has a mechanical backup system, exactly as I stated. Look it up, bozo. All Boeings to date have.
I did not state that Boeings were not "fly by wire", I said they had MECHANICAL BACKUPS. I meant as opposed to entirely (or nearly entirely) fly-by-wire only. It's right there in my comment, in plain English. Further, despite what I stated earlier, even the 787 has electrical/mechanical manual backup in case of computer failure. Of course, if you suffer a complete loss of electrical power (including even the turbine generator), you are SOL either way.
And if you dispute that Airbus has been prone to crash due to computer failure, I invite you to look that up, too.
If you look up the Airbus laws yourself, you will see that the only manual control for pitch, for example, is the trim wheel. This is going to do you very little good unless your plane is already in stable horizontal flight... seldom the case when catastrophic failure occurs.
But the main thing -- one I didn't see the point of going into until you decided to butt in -- is that in order to go into "Direct Law" in an Airbus, which is what you might consider your main "manual backup", you have to jump through a lot of hoops, which (as it turns out) pilots just do not have time to do in an emergency.
It still amounts to the pilots not being able to control their aircraft when the computer fails.
There is likely a bandwidth problem. Near-earth objects like Hubble and others can send us high-speed data streams. But while a distant telescope might see more, we would probably not be able to receive anywhere near the same data rate as for a closer object.
So... super-high resolution images at maybe one per day?
Maybe I have that wrong, but I don't think so. Higher-frequency (and therefore higher bandwidth) signals tend to attenuate more rapidly than lower-frequency signals do.
"There will already be stuff 10x better here. Just because one war is over doesn't mean it's time to start spending like fools again."
Again? They never stopped! Their much-ballyhooed "cuts" are nothing but smaller increases than they had planned. The expected expenditures for 2012 and 2013 are LARGER than for 2011. And 2011 was a bad year, indeed.
I would not blame Quantas. They didn't build the plane.
Airbus, with its fly-entirely-by-wire system is known for such failures. Boeing on the other hand had MECHANICAL backup systems built into all their planes, so even if the computer totally crapped out, there was still a workable (if difficult) manual system the pilots could use to fly the plane. (The very newest Boeing jet, just now starting to roll off the production line, is their first entirely fly-by-wire plane.)
Time after time after time, Airbus planes crashed because of "computer" (maybe software, maybe not) errors, and the pilots could do nothing but sit there and watch.
I am not saying that it was that particular situation that caused their worse safety record, but I do believe it contributed significantly. Even that famous "missing" flight off of South America that crashed a few years ago now appears to have done so due to a computer error that the pilots could not correct.
Is fly-by-wire a bad idea? I don't necessarily think so. But it certainly WAS a bad idea, given the state of the art.
If you want an example of how a polygraph operator affects the outcome (i.e., the "intimidation" part that several people have mentioned), watch that episode of Bullshit as I originally recommended. Watch a polygraph operator ruin an upcoming marriage over what was really pretty much nothing, by the way he interrogated and insinuated.
These are precisely the techniques known to be used by government agencies, law enforcement, and the military.
Any "statistical correlation" that really meant anything would require objectivity on the part of the operator. But in the real world, at least in the case of the agencies that routinely use them, that's not the way it happens at all.
"The person who wrote that appears to have a bias. Polygraphs have statistical correlation with lie detection."
The person who wrote THIS appears to have a bias.
That's the kind of statistic that many people will accept on its face without digging any deeper.
Yes, there is a statistical correlation with detection of lies. But that correlation is not a very good one. In tests, the polygraph did approximately as well as having a stranger trained in body language watch you while you answered the same questions. And when compared to an actual friend who knows you watching you answer the questions, the polygraph was a very big loser.
The point being that if it can't do better than someone just watching your face, why bother? The fact is that the illusion of objectivity here (there really is none; it all depends on the polygraph operator), has ruined many lives and careers.
Also, you have to keep in mind that it is a statistic. A correlation says absolutely nothing about any given individual who is being tested. We know for a fact that many people can tell outrageous lies and pass a polygraph (intentionally or otherwise), while there are others who will fail even though they told the truth.
A statistic that said (hypothetical example) that a polygraph can tell if a person is lying 70% of the time, has no relationship at all to whether it can catch me in one.
So, yeah. There is a statistical correlation. Which in practice means next to nothing.
By the time you get to the point of doing anything advanced, you should be competent enough to do your own wiring. There should be no need to rely on flaky connections. (But I admit that this is something the company should address; it has been that way for far too long.)
I repeat, however, that it is used by universities throughout the U.S. in their robotics and industrial control classes. While it may not be perfect, I don't know of any other actual construction sets (as opposed to "robotics kits") that come even close. Certainly not Lego.
I will tell you up front that this is a bit on the pricier side, but for construction sets nothing in the world beats Fischertechnik. It is used by everyone from small children making toy houses and trucks, to universities in their robotics courses.
Fischertechnik was designed from the ground for making robust but easy-to-build precision constructs. While I admit that with the more recent Lego stuff one can build very complex and even impressive "machinery", Lego pales in comparison to the engineering, quality, and precision of Fischertechnik.
30 kids is one out of every TEN MILLION people in the U.S.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that parents should not pay attention to this issue, but 30 kids a year is NOTHING. Far far more die of bathtub accidents, but you don't see people making a big deal out of bathtubs.
It is 1,000 or more times more likely that the kid will get struck by lightning. Should you, therefore, force kids to carry around a lightning rod everywhere they go?
This is one of those "mis-perception of risk" things that you read about. There are much more important things in this world that need your attention.
If you read about the actual history and accuracy of polygraphs, you will find that they are not "lie detectors" at all, but merely tools of intimidation. (I could cite many, many sources. While not authoritative, the Penn & Teller show "Bullshit" has a very informative episode on the matter. And yes, the show is called "Bullshit" for a reason. Polygraphs are bullshit.)
Polygraphs are used as tools for intimidation in order to interrogate. By themselves, they are worthless. They are security theater, much like the TSA. I really hate to see our country run by people who believe in (or pull) this kind of BS.
"This finding is important because methane is estimated to be 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and it could indicate that global warming is about to accelerate dramatically."
Hahaha. Not exactly. These things didn't start doing that yesterday. Which means they have been part of the EXISTING climate for a long time. They are not about to make things worse just because they were discovered. That's not the way it works.
"In a slightly more general case, this case probably never would have made it to court"
I am not so sure I agree. The government has already tried to have blogs taken down for bogus reasons, in ways that infringe speech. It *has* been happening. Whether those cases will stand up when they make it to court remains to be seen.
Well, you may have a point considering that it was called Help Anne Johnson... I agree that in this case, it does seem to be that harassment was his whole point.
But if it were even a slightly more general case, it would have sent up big red flags.
I think a blogger should be treated like any other kind of speech or printing press. If the guy published a newspaper, a judge might order him to stop writing nasty editorials about his ex, but he wouldn't (likely couldn't) order the newspaper to shut down.
Honestly, these recent court cases involving things like speech have been disturbing. Courts have been setting some very bad precedent in recent years, and I think we'd better watch our asses. I mean things like on the one hand, curtailing the speech of this blogger (although I think we can agree that harassing speech can be curtailed, his whole blog did not need to be shut down). And on the other hand, saying that corporations are "people" and can spend whatever campaign money they want, as a matter of free "speech".
I was wondering if somebody was going to mention this.
The fact is, when you walk into a new room you are seriously distracted. You are taking in the new sights, furniture arrangements, etc... As you say, it requires quite a bit of processing. I am not in the least surprised that they would temporarily "forget" something else.
I bet the would get exactly the same results if they sneakily popped a balloon or dropped a metal pan right behind the subject, creating a loud noise, and tested them immediately afterward.
I'd file this "research" under "Duh, what did you expect?"
Here is a problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet:
The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
[Added later:] I read a bit further and saw that others have in fact brought the subject up, but not quite in the same way.
Here is the problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet:
The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
I am not concerned for a couple of reasons. First, I am on a dynamic IP. It has sometimes stayed the same for nearly a year. Then it might change a couple of times in a week. There's now way to tell in advance. It might have even changed several times without my noticing.
Also, I keep my router open intentionally, so neighbors can use it if they want. And I have the strongest router signal in the neighborhood.
I don't give a damn if they download something once in a while, as long as they don't interfere with my own use.
Wait... my apologies. I had misread your comment when I replied. I read it again and see that I jumped the gun. Mea culpa.
Yes, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. While their actual customers are the advertisers, they still need a customer base to sell, and I argue that (1) their customer base will not continue at its past growth rate, and (2) there are only so many ways they can milk their user's data.
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The problem with Airbus, as you can find on several online pilots' forums, is that when there is a catastrophic computer error it takes too long to disable the computers and put the plane in "direct law" mode. By the time they accomplish that, as often as not they're toast.
Regardless of whether it would normally be possible to fly without computer airspeed data, a number of Airbuses have suffered catastrophes related to malfunctioning air speed (ADIRU, in this case) units, and the Air France plane had already signaled that its unit was malfunctioning, making it just be one incident among many. The only thing unusual about it was that it was a 330, not a 320.
Further, for your information, a number of Airbus catastrophes have been caused by malfunctioning Air Data Inertial Reference Units, leading FAA to issue an "unsafe condition" warning for Airbus 319, 320, and 321 models. (If the "mechanical backups" were adequate, why did these disasters occur?) And "coincidentally", before it went down Air France 447 had been transmitting that its ADIRU was malfunctioning.
Maybe if you actually read what I wrote, you could come up with some real objections, rather than your own uninformed bullshit.
The 777 has a mechanical backup system, exactly as I stated. Look it up, bozo. All Boeings to date have.
I did not state that Boeings were not "fly by wire", I said they had MECHANICAL BACKUPS. I meant as opposed to entirely (or nearly entirely) fly-by-wire only. It's right there in my comment, in plain English. Further, despite what I stated earlier, even the 787 has electrical/mechanical manual backup in case of computer failure. Of course, if you suffer a complete loss of electrical power (including even the turbine generator), you are SOL either way.
And if you dispute that Airbus has been prone to crash due to computer failure, I invite you to look that up, too.
If you look up the Airbus laws yourself, you will see that the only manual control for pitch, for example, is the trim wheel. This is going to do you very little good unless your plane is already in stable horizontal flight... seldom the case when catastrophic failure occurs.
But the main thing -- one I didn't see the point of going into until you decided to butt in -- is that in order to go into "Direct Law" in an Airbus, which is what you might consider your main "manual backup", you have to jump through a lot of hoops, which (as it turns out) pilots just do not have time to do in an emergency.
It still amounts to the pilots not being able to control their aircraft when the computer fails.
There is likely a bandwidth problem. Near-earth objects like Hubble and others can send us high-speed data streams. But while a distant telescope might see more, we would probably not be able to receive anywhere near the same data rate as for a closer object.
So... super-high resolution images at maybe one per day?
Maybe I have that wrong, but I don't think so. Higher-frequency (and therefore higher bandwidth) signals tend to attenuate more rapidly than lower-frequency signals do.
"There will already be stuff 10x better here. Just because one war is over doesn't mean it's time to start spending like fools again."
Again? They never stopped! Their much-ballyhooed "cuts" are nothing but smaller increases than they had planned. The expected expenditures for 2012 and 2013 are LARGER than for 2011. And 2011 was a bad year, indeed.
I would not blame Quantas. They didn't build the plane.
Airbus, with its fly-entirely-by-wire system is known for such failures. Boeing on the other hand had MECHANICAL backup systems built into all their planes, so even if the computer totally crapped out, there was still a workable (if difficult) manual system the pilots could use to fly the plane. (The very newest Boeing jet, just now starting to roll off the production line, is their first entirely fly-by-wire plane.)
Time after time after time, Airbus planes crashed because of "computer" (maybe software, maybe not) errors, and the pilots could do nothing but sit there and watch.
I am not saying that it was that particular situation that caused their worse safety record, but I do believe it contributed significantly. Even that famous "missing" flight off of South America that crashed a few years ago now appears to have done so due to a computer error that the pilots could not correct.
Is fly-by-wire a bad idea? I don't necessarily think so. But it certainly WAS a bad idea, given the state of the art.
If you want an example of how a polygraph operator affects the outcome (i.e., the "intimidation" part that several people have mentioned), watch that episode of Bullshit as I originally recommended. Watch a polygraph operator ruin an upcoming marriage over what was really pretty much nothing, by the way he interrogated and insinuated.
These are precisely the techniques known to be used by government agencies, law enforcement, and the military.
Any "statistical correlation" that really meant anything would require objectivity on the part of the operator. But in the real world, at least in the case of the agencies that routinely use them, that's not the way it happens at all.
"The person who wrote that appears to have a bias. Polygraphs have statistical correlation with lie detection."
The person who wrote THIS appears to have a bias.
That's the kind of statistic that many people will accept on its face without digging any deeper.
Yes, there is a statistical correlation with detection of lies. But that correlation is not a very good one. In tests, the polygraph did approximately as well as having a stranger trained in body language watch you while you answered the same questions. And when compared to an actual friend who knows you watching you answer the questions, the polygraph was a very big loser.
The point being that if it can't do better than someone just watching your face, why bother? The fact is that the illusion of objectivity here (there really is none; it all depends on the polygraph operator), has ruined many lives and careers.
Also, you have to keep in mind that it is a statistic. A correlation says absolutely nothing about any given individual who is being tested. We know for a fact that many people can tell outrageous lies and pass a polygraph (intentionally or otherwise), while there are others who will fail even though they told the truth.
A statistic that said (hypothetical example) that a polygraph can tell if a person is lying 70% of the time, has no relationship at all to whether it can catch me in one.
So, yeah. There is a statistical correlation. Which in practice means next to nothing.
By the time you get to the point of doing anything advanced, you should be competent enough to do your own wiring. There should be no need to rely on flaky connections. (But I admit that this is something the company should address; it has been that way for far too long.)
I repeat, however, that it is used by universities throughout the U.S. in their robotics and industrial control classes. While it may not be perfect, I don't know of any other actual construction sets (as opposed to "robotics kits") that come even close. Certainly not Lego.
I will tell you up front that this is a bit on the pricier side, but for construction sets nothing in the world beats Fischertechnik. It is used by everyone from small children making toy houses and trucks, to universities in their robotics courses.
Fischertechnik was designed from the ground for making robust but easy-to-build precision constructs. While I admit that with the more recent Lego stuff one can build very complex and even impressive "machinery", Lego pales in comparison to the engineering, quality, and precision of Fischertechnik.
30 kids is one out of every TEN MILLION people in the U.S.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that parents should not pay attention to this issue, but 30 kids a year is NOTHING. Far far more die of bathtub accidents, but you don't see people making a big deal out of bathtubs.
It is 1,000 or more times more likely that the kid will get struck by lightning. Should you, therefore, force kids to carry around a lightning rod everywhere they go?
This is one of those "mis-perception of risk" things that you read about. There are much more important things in this world that need your attention.
If you read about the actual history and accuracy of polygraphs, you will find that they are not "lie detectors" at all, but merely tools of intimidation. (I could cite many, many sources. While not authoritative, the Penn & Teller show "Bullshit" has a very informative episode on the matter. And yes, the show is called "Bullshit" for a reason. Polygraphs are bullshit.)
Polygraphs are used as tools for intimidation in order to interrogate. By themselves, they are worthless. They are security theater, much like the TSA. I really hate to see our country run by people who believe in (or pull) this kind of BS.
"This finding is important because methane is estimated to be 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and it could indicate that global warming is about to accelerate dramatically."
Hahaha. Not exactly. These things didn't start doing that yesterday. Which means they have been part of the EXISTING climate for a long time. They are not about to make things worse just because they were discovered. That's not the way it works.
"In a slightly more general case, this case probably never would have made it to court"
I am not so sure I agree. The government has already tried to have blogs taken down for bogus reasons, in ways that infringe speech. It *has* been happening. Whether those cases will stand up when they make it to court remains to be seen.
Well, the story said Air Force. Or at least from an Air Force Base. So it strongly implied that it was military.
Well, you may have a point considering that it was called Help Anne Johnson... I agree that in this case, it does seem to be that harassment was his whole point.
But if it were even a slightly more general case, it would have sent up big red flags.
I think the judge was out of line.
I think a blogger should be treated like any other kind of speech or printing press. If the guy published a newspaper, a judge might order him to stop writing nasty editorials about his ex, but he wouldn't (likely couldn't) order the newspaper to shut down.
Honestly, these recent court cases involving things like speech have been disturbing. Courts have been setting some very bad precedent in recent years, and I think we'd better watch our asses. I mean things like on the one hand, curtailing the speech of this blogger (although I think we can agree that harassing speech can be curtailed, his whole blog did not need to be shut down). And on the other hand, saying that corporations are "people" and can spend whatever campaign money they want, as a matter of free "speech".
Does anyone besides me see a pattern here?
I was wondering if somebody was going to mention this.
The fact is, when you walk into a new room you are seriously distracted. You are taking in the new sights, furniture arrangements, etc... As you say, it requires quite a bit of processing. I am not in the least surprised that they would temporarily "forget" something else.
I bet the would get exactly the same results if they sneakily popped a balloon or dropped a metal pan right behind the subject, creating a loud noise, and tested them immediately afterward.
I'd file this "research" under "Duh, what did you expect?"
I realized that I had misread what he wrote, so I apologized. There is nothing wrong with that.
What business is it of yours, anyway?
Here is a problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet:
The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
[Added later:] I read a bit further and saw that others have in fact brought the subject up, but not quite in the same way.
Here is the problem that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet:
The problem is that it is military personnel and equipment that are helping local law enforcement. If law enforcement wants to get their own drones, that's a different matter. But the military has absolutely no place getting involved in civilian law enforcement affairs, even to offer "innocent" help.
If there was ever something that could be called a genuine slippery slope, this is it.
I am not concerned for a couple of reasons. First, I am on a dynamic IP. It has sometimes stayed the same for nearly a year. Then it might change a couple of times in a week. There's now way to tell in advance. It might have even changed several times without my noticing.
Also, I keep my router open intentionally, so neighbors can use it if they want. And I have the strongest router signal in the neighborhood.
I don't give a damn if they download something once in a while, as long as they don't interfere with my own use.
By "customer base" I actually meant "user base". I did not mean to muddy the waters.
Wait... my apologies. I had misread your comment when I replied. I read it again and see that I jumped the gun. Mea culpa.
Yes, that is exactly the point I was trying to make. While their actual customers are the advertisers, they still need a customer base to sell, and I argue that (1) their customer base will not continue at its past growth rate, and (2) there are only so many ways they can milk their user's data.
"The users of FB are the _product_ and not customers. The customers are the advertisers."
No shit, Sherlock. That's what I'm talking about.