How about a walking license with points? You lose a point whenever you do something stupid like crossing a street with iPod earphones in. When you have lost all your points, you are not allowed to walk the streets anymore. You can then only drive your car, like most americans do anyway.
Take it from a pilot: an automatic landing actually gives us MORE work than a normal one. Imagine programming you car's GPS to drive to a destination automatically, only having to constantly monitor whether it's going the right way, not violating any traffic rules, constantly being ready to take over control if the car suddenly swerves off the road because of some malfunction (GPS'es never make mistakes, right?) or another car does something stupid,... Isn't it a lot easier to just have the steering wheel in your hands and drive the car yourself? Well, it's the same in an airplane. Which is why we almost always land manually, except in very bad visibility.
Cockpit crews have already been reduced in the past. Navigators and flight mechanics have been eliminated (and yes, people warned it was unsafe). However, unlike trains, airplanes still need a LOT of input from pilots, and mistakes can have deadly consequences. As a copilot, I regularly have to point out mistakes made by the captain, and vice versa. Pilot error is cited as the reason for an enormous number of accidents, imagine what that would be if there wasn't a second pilot to point out the other's mistakes. And then I'm not even talking about abnormal situations with equipment malfunctioning, and one pilot trying to handle the emergency while the other is flying the crippled airplane manually, because the autopilot is not available when you need it most...
No, there's no comparison with boats, trains or cars.
Can you teach a flight attendant to land a plane if the captain has a heart attack? Sure. If he/she knows how to program the autopilot, and gets a lot of help from the ground, I don't see why not. Maybe not at the intended destination (not all airports have the necessary equipment for automatic landings), but usually there will be a big airport nearby where the automatic landing can be made. You'll have to train those flight attendants very regularly, of course, because they'll forget how to do it after a month or two (anyone would, without practice, it's a quite a bit more difficult and less intuitive than programming a GPS), but it would be possible.
However, that's not really the point. People seem to think that all a pilot has to do, is fly the airplane (or even easier, make the autopilot fly the airplane) pretty much like a bus driver. If they saw us "work" during cruise flight, they would probably see this suspicion confirmed. However, as a copilot, I quite frequently have to point out minor and sometimes even major mistakes of the captain, that might have resulted in serious incidents. And the same happens in the other direction when I'm flying (both pilots fly just as often). Misunderstood instructions from air traffic control, finger trouble with the autopilot, missing a level off altitude on a procedure, etc... Lots of accidents are blamed on pilot error, imagine what that rate would be if there wasn't a second pilot to catch the first one's mistakes. Times ten would be a conservative estimate.
And then we're just talking about normal operations. We get simulator training every six months, and you should see how high the workload is then. Engine failures, electrical problems, bad weather, lots of checklists to do, judging the situation and the best course of action while one pilot has to manually fly a crippled airplane with a third of the instruments still working... there's absolutely no way you could let just one pilot do this kind of thing safely.
O'Leary is not that stupid. He's just getting free publicity, spreading the word how relentlessly he's cutting costs to keep ticket prices low. And they're not even that low if you miss out on the few promotional tickets that are advertised everywhere. The rest of the passengers often end up spending more than on a real airline.
We have this kind of system in Belgium. Our parliament contains 12 different parties. We have had situations where a radical party got more than 20% of the votes, so pretty much all the big parties had to work together to have a minority. Liberals, socialists, even the green party. Not exactly ideal for getting things done...
The threshold is a bit lower than 8%, I think it's 5% in its language group (French or Dutch speaking).
Even better would be a system where you could not only vote for certain candidates, but also against them. For example, the same system with 6 votes, but you could choose to give 4 votes to a certain candidate, and 2 votes against another. This could serve to keep racist and other undesirable candidates out.
Maybe divide the negative votes by half, though, so you don't get a situation where 49% vote for A and against B, 49% for B against A, and C wins with 2% of the votes. This would also limit tactical abuse of the system, since a vote for a candidate is more productive than a vote against his opponent.
If you steal a pickpockets wallet, you're still going to jail for being a pickpocket.
If you steal your own wallet back from a pickpocket, you're not going to jail.
Depends on the country. In quite a few places this would actually be illegal. I heard of someone whose car was stolen, he found it, called the police, and they said he was not allowed to take it. He had to wait several months for all the legal paperwork etc. Laws can be weird sometimes.
Tell that to Gentoo Linux and their default WIPE/tmp ON BOOT option! Perhaps my own fault for keeping stuff i need in/tmp, but still no excuse.
I wish I had mod points, that was a hilarious comment, I wonder why so many people apparently didn't get it. What's the term for that, ironically challenged?
Most airplanes (A320, 737,...) still use a floppy drive to update the Flight Management System database (waypoints, routes,...). These updates are done twice a month. The data fits on about ten floppies, I think, it's just text and numbers. Some newer types use CD-Rom drives, but technology moves slowly in the airline world. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially if it costs lots of money for certification just because it happens to be for an airplane.
At least if the official version is the same as the pirated one, most people will feel good about buying the official one, support the others, not be a criminal, etc.
When the pirated version is only slightly better (enabling certain cheats, etc...), some people may actually download the pirated version and still buy the official version too.
But when the official version is intentionally crippled, all my good intentions go out the door. If they want to punish me for buying their game, I'll just take the pirated game and feel that my action is completely justified.
So basically, they are pushing away exactly those people that still used to buy games even though they were illegally available for free.
Legally bought: can only play it at home or wherever I manage to find a free and reliable internet connection that does not suck (which is a minority of them)
Cracked: can play it at home, in the backseat of a car, on the bus, on the train, on the plane, in the park, at the airport, ANYWHERE.
And the best part is that the cracked version is free! Why waste money on an inferior product, then?
The only downside is that the cracked version is only released about a week after the official version.
Or you're in bed making love, the phone rings "would you like a penis extension?", while at the same time you get a text message about v1agr@, and all of a sudden the mood goes down, and an important bodily function goes down with it... in fact, this might make spam a lot more effective!
From our point of view, they take an infinite amount of time to actually merge, since time around them slows down to pretty much a standstill due to the huge gravitational time dilation. So I guess there's nothing to worry about. In fact, even the black holes themselves don't really exist yet, they will forever be "almost" black holes (though admittedly very, very close). Unless you fall into one. But that would take an infinite amount of time from an outside observer's point of view, too.
Funny how everybody is always talking about all those black holes in the universe while, in fact, none currently exist. Sure, there are objects that are very, very close to becoming a black hole, and for all practical intents and purposes they can be pretty much considered as such, but in our reference frame it will still take an infinite amount of time before that last bit of matter falling in makes it an actual black hole, with event horizon and all. That's because the intense field of gravity slows down time to an asymptotic halt, so the approaching last bit of matter required for the true black hole will pretty much stop before it gets far enough (from our point of view). The only person who will ever be able to say that black holes exist, is someone who is actually falling into one (which, from an outside observer's point of view, would take an infinite amount of time even though the person himself will experience the event in finite time).
What's more interesting, is that probably thousands of rumor site addicts are now checking out iBart (I know I just did). That's the real news in this story: a lot of iPhone programmers are now going to let their app phone home with as many details about the device as possible hoping to get a scoop out with their app's name!
I could pretend I misspelled "adds" on purpose, of course, saying I was going for the "funny" mod points. Would that work?;-)
Embarrassing indeed, now I just hope I did'nt make any spelling errors in this post... d'oh!
Which is exactly why those people who do take the vaccine (i.e. people with weak immune systems, old people,...) have a higher risk of getting swine flu. The healthy ones simply don't bother to get vaccinated.
Classic example of backwards statistics: all it says is that people who are less susceptible to swine flu are also less likely to take the vaccine against seasonal flu.
you do X, Y follows, you think maybe Y might have something to do with X,
Right, so experimentation IS how science is done. Thx for clarifying what everyone knows.
Nope, saying "Y might have something to do with X" is common to science, religion, astrology, alchemy, creationism, etc...
What sets science apart is the bit that you cut away from my message, you insensitive clod.
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How about a walking license with points? You lose a point whenever you do something stupid like crossing a street with iPod earphones in. When you have lost all your points, you are not allowed to walk the streets anymore. You can then only drive your car, like most americans do anyway.
Take it from a pilot: an automatic landing actually gives us MORE work than a normal one. Imagine programming you car's GPS to drive to a destination automatically, only having to constantly monitor whether it's going the right way, not violating any traffic rules, constantly being ready to take over control if the car suddenly swerves off the road because of some malfunction (GPS'es never make mistakes, right?) or another car does something stupid,... Isn't it a lot easier to just have the steering wheel in your hands and drive the car yourself? Well, it's the same in an airplane. Which is why we almost always land manually, except in very bad visibility.
Cockpit crews have already been reduced in the past. Navigators and flight mechanics have been eliminated (and yes, people warned it was unsafe). However, unlike trains, airplanes still need a LOT of input from pilots, and mistakes can have deadly consequences. As a copilot, I regularly have to point out mistakes made by the captain, and vice versa. Pilot error is cited as the reason for an enormous number of accidents, imagine what that would be if there wasn't a second pilot to point out the other's mistakes. And then I'm not even talking about abnormal situations with equipment malfunctioning, and one pilot trying to handle the emergency while the other is flying the crippled airplane manually, because the autopilot is not available when you need it most... No, there's no comparison with boats, trains or cars.
Can you teach a flight attendant to land a plane if the captain has a heart attack? Sure. If he/she knows how to program the autopilot, and gets a lot of help from the ground, I don't see why not. Maybe not at the intended destination (not all airports have the necessary equipment for automatic landings), but usually there will be a big airport nearby where the automatic landing can be made. You'll have to train those flight attendants very regularly, of course, because they'll forget how to do it after a month or two (anyone would, without practice, it's a quite a bit more difficult and less intuitive than programming a GPS), but it would be possible.
However, that's not really the point. People seem to think that all a pilot has to do, is fly the airplane (or even easier, make the autopilot fly the airplane) pretty much like a bus driver. If they saw us "work" during cruise flight, they would probably see this suspicion confirmed. However, as a copilot, I quite frequently have to point out minor and sometimes even major mistakes of the captain, that might have resulted in serious incidents. And the same happens in the other direction when I'm flying (both pilots fly just as often). Misunderstood instructions from air traffic control, finger trouble with the autopilot, missing a level off altitude on a procedure, etc... Lots of accidents are blamed on pilot error, imagine what that rate would be if there wasn't a second pilot to catch the first one's mistakes. Times ten would be a conservative estimate.
And then we're just talking about normal operations. We get simulator training every six months, and you should see how high the workload is then. Engine failures, electrical problems, bad weather, lots of checklists to do, judging the situation and the best course of action while one pilot has to manually fly a crippled airplane with a third of the instruments still working... there's absolutely no way you could let just one pilot do this kind of thing safely.
O'Leary is not that stupid. He's just getting free publicity, spreading the word how relentlessly he's cutting costs to keep ticket prices low. And they're not even that low if you miss out on the few promotional tickets that are advertised everywhere. The rest of the passengers often end up spending more than on a real airline.
We have this kind of system in Belgium. Our parliament contains 12 different parties. We have had situations where a radical party got more than 20% of the votes, so pretty much all the big parties had to work together to have a minority. Liberals, socialists, even the green party. Not exactly ideal for getting things done... The threshold is a bit lower than 8%, I think it's 5% in its language group (French or Dutch speaking).
Even better would be a system where you could not only vote for certain candidates, but also against them. For example, the same system with 6 votes, but you could choose to give 4 votes to a certain candidate, and 2 votes against another. This could serve to keep racist and other undesirable candidates out. Maybe divide the negative votes by half, though, so you don't get a situation where 49% vote for A and against B, 49% for B against A, and C wins with 2% of the votes. This would also limit tactical abuse of the system, since a vote for a candidate is more productive than a vote against his opponent.
If you steal your own wallet back from a pickpocket, you're not going to jail.
Depends on the country. In quite a few places this would actually be illegal. I heard of someone whose car was stolen, he found it, called the police, and they said he was not allowed to take it. He had to wait several months for all the legal paperwork etc. Laws can be weird sometimes.
Tell that to Gentoo Linux and their default WIPE /tmp ON BOOT option! Perhaps my own fault for keeping stuff i need in /tmp, but still no excuse.
I wish I had mod points, that was a hilarious comment, I wonder why so many people apparently didn't get it. What's the term for that, ironically challenged?
Most airplanes (A320, 737,...) still use a floppy drive to update the Flight Management System database (waypoints, routes,...). These updates are done twice a month. The data fits on about ten floppies, I think, it's just text and numbers. Some newer types use CD-Rom drives, but technology moves slowly in the airline world. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially if it costs lots of money for certification just because it happens to be for an airplane.
At least if the official version is the same as the pirated one, most people will feel good about buying the official one, support the others, not be a criminal, etc. When the pirated version is only slightly better (enabling certain cheats, etc...), some people may actually download the pirated version and still buy the official version too. But when the official version is intentionally crippled, all my good intentions go out the door. If they want to punish me for buying their game, I'll just take the pirated game and feel that my action is completely justified. So basically, they are pushing away exactly those people that still used to buy games even though they were illegally available for free.
Let's see...
Legally bought: can only play it at home or wherever I manage to find a free and reliable internet connection that does not suck (which is a minority of them)
Cracked: can play it at home, in the backseat of a car, on the bus, on the train, on the plane, in the park, at the airport, ANYWHERE.
And the best part is that the cracked version is free! Why waste money on an inferior product, then?
The only downside is that the cracked version is only released about a week after the official version.
What if some hypothetical person was to threaten he would blow Slashdot sky high? Just a second, there's someone at the door...
Or you're in bed making love, the phone rings "would you like a penis extension?", while at the same time you get a text message about v1agr@, and all of a sudden the mood goes down, and an important bodily function goes down with it... in fact, this might make spam a lot more effective!
Great, then spammers only need one number to send you all sorts of spam in all kinds of different ways. And even better, they can try random numbers!
From our point of view, they take an infinite amount of time to actually merge, since time around them slows down to pretty much a standstill due to the huge gravitational time dilation. So I guess there's nothing to worry about. In fact, even the black holes themselves don't really exist yet, they will forever be "almost" black holes (though admittedly very, very close). Unless you fall into one. But that would take an infinite amount of time from an outside observer's point of view, too.
Funny how everybody is always talking about all those black holes in the universe while, in fact, none currently exist. Sure, there are objects that are very, very close to becoming a black hole, and for all practical intents and purposes they can be pretty much considered as such, but in our reference frame it will still take an infinite amount of time before that last bit of matter falling in makes it an actual black hole, with event horizon and all. That's because the intense field of gravity slows down time to an asymptotic halt, so the approaching last bit of matter required for the true black hole will pretty much stop before it gets far enough (from our point of view). The only person who will ever be able to say that black holes exist, is someone who is actually falling into one (which, from an outside observer's point of view, would take an infinite amount of time even though the person himself will experience the event in finite time).
What's more interesting, is that probably thousands of rumor site addicts are now checking out iBart (I know I just did). That's the real news in this story: a lot of iPhone programmers are now going to let their app phone home with as many details about the device as possible hoping to get a scoop out with their app's name!
So actually, you are saying it's the cows' fault?
Insouciance: Not giving a dam?
Too bad I can't use my mod points here, since I participated in this discussion. Definitely deserves a "funny" :-)
Maybe that's why they were not wearing their glasses.
In my opinion, it wasn't just myopia and shortsightedness, but nearsightedness as well!
I could pretend I misspelled "adds" on purpose, of course, saying I was going for the "funny" mod points. Would that work? ;-)
Embarrassing indeed, now I just hope I did'nt make any spelling errors in this post... d'oh!
It would alter "it's" adds?!
Which is exactly why those people who do take the vaccine (i.e. people with weak immune systems, old people,...) have a higher risk of getting swine flu. The healthy ones simply don't bother to get vaccinated. Classic example of backwards statistics: all it says is that people who are less susceptible to swine flu are also less likely to take the vaccine against seasonal flu.
Right, so experimentation IS how science is done. Thx for clarifying what everyone knows.
Nope, saying "Y might have something to do with X" is common to science, religion, astrology, alchemy, creationism, etc... What sets science apart is the bit that you cut away from my message, you insensitive clod.