Actually, something like a Borg Cube would be most appropriate. Us humans tend to build things with the expectation of flat sides and right angles. If the ship were modular, component cubes could be moved anywhere on the ship. If one design needed a single engine to fire from the center mass, it would be put on the center of which ever face was to be the "rear". If the design had two, three, or four engines, the ship design wouldn't limit it. I know scifi shows a lot of hex shaped containers as optimal, but that is less than ideal considering we have a lot of square objects, and the need for various sizes. A spare engine would need a lot more space than pens, paper, and procedure manuals.
The Millennium Falcon was a neat design, but based on the flying saucer idea. We easily recognized it as a spaceship that could fly long distances, because decades of science fiction had already taught us that it was the correct design. That's the same reason We knew the X-Wing Fighter was a combat craft. It needed no explanation, we already had decades of military aircraft. The Tie Fighter looks like a bi-plane on it's side. It gives the impression of older technology, not as fast or fancy as the X-wing.
In reality, objects in space have very little reason for being aerodynamic. If it were large enough, solar winds may help or hinder its performance. There is free hydrogen floating around, but it would take a huge craft to require aerodynamics to allow it to make a difference. The shape may allow micrometeorites to deflect better, but that would be contingent on the craft pointing straight at where it's coming from, and align the impact to make a glancing blow. As they can come from any direction, and rotating for anything that may be out there would only serve to give the crew motion sickness.
The general idea of a long tube with rings is likely to be most efficient. The body of the ship only needs to be a structure to hold the rings together, and an attachment point for thrust. Overall, it would need to have symmetric mass, so centered thrust would push it straight. Otherwise, offset mass or offset thrust would make a lovely pinwheel, until the forces ripped it apart.
Dude, why did you post anonymous. You would have had a great moderation war.
Those who see the humor (and fact) in wrote you wrote would mod you up.
Those see Spielberg as a deity and will do anything to appease him, and mod you down.
Those who the virgin comment hits just a little too close to home would mod you down.
My gut instinct is that you would have had at least a couple dozen moderations, and landed at a nice solid "+4 troll" moderation
I still like the idea I saw a while back about wireless network via lasers. It was basically a laser diode and sensor on each end. they had to be perfectly aligned, and unobstructed. I don't know what kind of throughput they got, but I'd have to guess with the right diodes and drivers, they could probably manage 10Gb/s. Of course, it's a lot easier to just run the fiber, and not suffer from interference when someone put their hand in the data stream.:)
I'll probably never try it though, because I haven't qualified in the "virgin" category for decades, and reaffirm it regularly.
When's the last time you've flown? I haven't seen those vending machines in years, at any of the dozens of airports I've been through. I'm pretty sure they died off with the cigarette vending machines.
I think what he (hopefully) intended to say was something like dumb thief steals your stuff. The pawn shop or new owner wipes it.
Organized thieves with a plan would instruct the people stealing it to remove the battery. Then they'd deliver it to someone to sanitize it before selling it.
Not all that many thieves are well organized though. They just know "I can grab a laptop and pawn it for $100".
Actually, there have been many reports of someone "accidentally" walking off with someone elses stuff. Laptops are easy. Pick it up, slip it in your bag, and keep moving. A quick Google search shows all kinds of numbers being thrown around. It's more than 1, less than 1 million.
When I refuse to go through the "microwave" (as the GP said), they pull me aside for the patdown. I keep an eye on my stuff until they're finally ready for me. I've had to ask security on multiple instances to secure *my* property, so no one else "accidentally" takes it. On very rare occasions did they guess what all of my property was.
I think it's nuts. They pretend it's a high security environment, where anyone (and everyone) might be a terrorist. Yet, they go with the honor system for collecting your property from the x-ray conveyor belt, and at baggage claim. I've only been through a few airports (Las Vegas, and a few international destinations) that check the baggage claim ticket to the baggage you're taking. I don't even know if they do it as policy, or because someone was bored and wanted to harass travelers.
The good ones do. The bad ones promise the product in exactly the estimated time, and come in late when there are any unforeseen circumstances.
I always set my estimates liberally, and then double them. If it looks like it could be banged out quick and dirty in a week, or properly in 2 weeks, give the estimate of 4 weeks. It will usually be done and tested in 3 weeks. But never, ever, turn it in until the end of the 4th week unless the Klingons are attacking.:)
For some reason, bosses will always demand it be done in less time anyways, even though there is no practical deadline or other pending projects. It's no wonder there is so much kludgy code out there.
Unfortunately, I have seen businesses who believe it to be true. They don't live by the ideas of equal pay for the same position, and appropriately adjusted yearly increases. They'll keep an employee at their starting pay, and give token increases if the employee isn't completely burnt out but threatens to move on.
I watched at one place, where a 5 year employee was still making his starting salary (approx $40k/yr), although he had increased responsibility significantly. New hires for the same role were being brought in much higher (approx $75k/yr). There was a contractual obligation to not discuss salaries, although it did happen.
They worked him til he burnt out, then terminated him on fictional grounds. My state allows termination of an employee for anything, or as joked, you can be fired because the boss doesn't like your shoes.
The new hires in that situation won't last long. I didn't keep up with them, so I don't know if they're still working with that company. I know their 40 hour week became a minimum 60 hours, and on a whim senior management would demand people work "until it's done", even if it resulted in people sleepily typing the wrong things and making bigger mistakes. Like, "oops, I meant fsck, not mkfs".
Most likely, the new hires at $75k will be laid off for another fictional reason, when they find some others willing to do the job for less money.
Parking lots after hours are a choice with no witnesses.
If he stops at a store on a regular basis on the way home, that works too. A smash and grab takes seconds, while a trip into any store takes minutes. No one cares about car alarms, you can trigger it and walk away, and no one will notice, as long as you aren't wearing a ski mask and looking totally suspicious. I doubt he carries his gear into every store he goes to.
Most people's driveways feel safe, but are anything but. In most communities, people are inside, and wouldn't hear a thing. If there is security, their job is to observe, not confront. At best, they'll patrol a specific segment of the community every hour. At worst, once a night.
His home itself if fair game. A bump key or lockpick gun will get you through virtually any residential doors with minimal hassle. 3am when everyone is sound asleep is the riskiest time. The door can even be locked on the way out to add to the confusion.
For 4 grand cash (assuming it can all be converted to cash quickly), a stolen car and a staged traffic accident will stop the vehicle and get him out of the car with his doors unlocked.
You aren't truly safe anywhere. You feel safe. A determined attacker will exploit any time he can.
The best thing to do is, don't say you're carrying thousands of dollars of gear around. Don't look like you're worth attacking. I frequently travel in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a ratty backpack. Sometimes it'll have some books. Sometimes it'll have electronics. Sometimes I have enough firepower to pick a fight with a street gang (when going to the shooting range).
I never look like I have anything worth stealing. When I am dressed to impress, with the necessary accessories, I'm traveling directly from point A to point B, where both locations are relatively secure.
Once we can get the governments of the world to cooperate with each other, the world wide resources put into the art of killing each other can be put continuity of the species through expansion to other worlds. Heck, there would be a budget surplus, the guy could see his life size sci-fi model flying around, but it would only be one of a fleet of ships that we'd have going in all directions. It would be a nice sci-fi nerd's space tourist destination, right along with a 2001 Discovery One, and a few monoliths.
I see nothing wrong with tributes to dreamers. They can't be the primary goal though.
If you're in the US, you've probably noticed the news that we're rapidly becoming a theocracy. A degree from the Universal Life Church is probably your fastest and cheapest route.:)
But the serious answer is, we don't know. None of us really know what market segment is going to do particularly well. We're still pretty well down in the recession to make any sort of guesses on what line of work to switch to. If we found out that ditch digging was the new golden field, I'd be out practicing my shovel techniques right now.
As I've noticed over the years, it doesn't really matter to many corps *what* your degree is in, as long as you have one. For example, my sister was an English lit major. She's been doing accounting for several years. Along the way, she's picked up job specific certs.
You may be better off getting some respected certs in roles that you are interested in. If you do networking, a couple good Cisco certs are always impressive. You'd just need to find out what the respective certs in the field you chose are, and go for them.
why on earth would you want to build a spaceship shaped like the Enterprise?
Exactly. The Enterprise was a neat spacecraft for a campy 1960's space cowboy TV show. (sorry, but that's what it was). It wasn't designed by scientists to fulfill a need. It was a prop guy who said "How about this?"
I agree with the idea that we *should* build something. A spacecraft to test and implement new thrust technologies, that can get us around the solar system until we have learned enough about traveling in space to venture farther is definitely the direction we should be headed. A trillion dollar mockup of a TV show prop isn't it. There *are* experts in the field, who *do* know what it would take, and *have* drawn up ideas. They work with places like NASA, ESA, and JAXA. If they've ever drawn up anything that even resembled a ship from Star Trek, it was a joke or a silly idea to say "Hey, look, we could build the Enterprise. Now lets get back to real work."
The only somewhat reasonable idea for building a full scale Enterprise, was the one they were planning for Vegas.
I believe what he's suggesting is an equal percentage rate
If Person A is making $50,000, and he has to pay 30% in taxes, that's $15,000
If Person B is making $50,000,000, he should have to pay at the same percentage rate, or $15,000,000.
Rather, Person B has a percentage rate of 14%, or $7,000,000.
There's more to it though. Through proper investments and tax shelters, the actual amount paid can be closer to the amount that Person A pays. Person B doesn't necessarily get "paid" the full $50M. In the end, Person B may pay less than Person A in taxes, or even receive money back due to losses.
Person B may receive incentives, such as homes, cars, and residential staff paid for entirely by his employer. Vacation travel may be provided free of charge on the company's jet, or as a favor by another company.
There are plenty of off-shore tax havens also. He may make a taxable $200,000 in the US. Shell corporations in a number of countries may receive his reimbursements for services rendered, that were little more than notations on the paperwork.
I'm sure you've heard of CEO's that publicly say that they only make $1/yr. That is a token payment which signifies that they are employees of the company. They don't accept that because they are independently wealthy, nor because the feel they can support themselves with that $1/yr. It sounds good that they only take a $1 salary, but that isn't the only cost to the company. All of their expenses are paid for by the company, partner companies, and various shell companies.
When I first heard of such things, I thought it was a bunch of conspiracy noise. Over the 15 years, I have worked for and with many millionaires, and have carefully observed how it works. One paid out 50% of his income to the IRS, "just to be safe". It avoided various penalties and ensured that there would always be a refund. That was 50% of his taxable income, which was a small fraction of his actual income. The remainder went to various partner companies world wide, for services that were frequently only on the paperwork.
I did work for a company who's CEO and CFO ignored the laws though. They created millions of dollars of imaginary money by floating invoices and payments. They convinced investors to buy in their company that was hugely profitable. On the books, it looked like millions. In reality, the company revenue was in the thousands. Investments made up the rest, and they did very well for themselves. Because they committed so many violations of state and federal law, they were caught. One is looking at months in prison. The other is still in court.
Now back to Person A.. They can't afford to do any of that. They work hard every day to pay their bills and other financial responsibilities. If they fail to pay even a few dollars on their federal taxes, they are penalized heavily. If the IRS decides that a deduction is improper, they will fine heavily. In the 2005 tax year (I believe) I had two cars, and drove a total of approximately 12,000 miles for work. I drove both vehicles equally, and divided the total mileage between them. The deduction was small, but I wanted to be truthful. I did drive two cars. If they compared the odometer reading from when I purchased them, to the current odometer reading, and I claimed I only drove on car, they would see the claim was wrong. In 2009 (I believe), the IRS garnered my wages for $3,000. That was the error they calculated because they denied the deduction for the second car. The error was only a few hundred dollars. The remainder was a penalty. My pay dropped to $300/mo, because the IRS was taking the rest directly from me.
Those who don't have the money, really need it. That now reduced pay rate did not cover my essential costs. Food, shelter, utilities, and fuel to get to work. I had
... and yours never failed, sending you crashing into a mountain. Things happen, equipment malfunctions, and those are the cases we hear about.
Aviation is generally safe, and there are an awful lot of things flying around, from private pilots in barely legally maintained aircraft, to shiny new airliners. We don't see the stories on those, because they performed as expected.
I'd be suspect of the equipment because it is something very new. For all we really know, some other malfunction happened (wire harness rubbing, software malfunction, or pilot error). We won't know until the investigation is completed.
This is a tragic loss, and my condolences go out to the friends and relatives of the passengers and crew.
I think that's the most relevant thing, that all of us are feeling.
I hate that people tend to convict the pilot in the media before the evidence is available. Obviously something happened, or we wouldn't be discussing it.
A one engine failure is suppose to be a survivable event. Especially on a flight like that, where they only had 50 passengers, no cargo, and probably need+reserve fuel.
All I was trying to say is, he reported "the", not "both", but most people can't tell the difference. Either way, it should have had no problem flying on one engine.
Looking at the rest of the switches, it appears that the aircraft is shut down. The position of the switches with master off is irrelevant. They'd reset everything during pre-flight.
Normal procedure (in all the commercial aircraft that I know of) in the event of a decompression is to don oxygen masks, and descend no lower than 10 000 feet. No need to descend to 6000. Bear in mind that most aircraft cabins are pressurised to the equivalent of 8000 feet, so descending below this would be a waste of time.
I'm not sure where you got "no lower than 10,000 feet". It should be "no higher than 10,000 feet". You want to increase the cabin pressure closer to sea level. People with health problems can have problems over 5,000 feet or so. Oxygen masks don't last forever. They're only intended to give you time to descend.
Do you know that the aircraft was equipped with EGPWS?
I would expect that ATC would have given them instructions also. They generally won't let you descend into a mountain. As others have said, the weather was poor, so they wouldn't have been flying VFR.
As you said, we'll know more when the equipment is recovered. Until then we can only speculate. I'd still lean towards mechanical problems, which lead to pilot error.
I would assume the pilot would have familiarized himself with the terrain, since that helps to know where to fly to.
Impressing the passengers... well... That was probably lost somewhere between "look at the view" and [smack into the mountain]. It'll probably significantly impede their chances of getting a signed contract, since the signers were on board.
I think that's one of those unspoken rules of business. "Don't kill your customers before they pay."
The initial reports I saw on this stated they requested an immediate descent from 10k feet to 6k feet moments before they disappeared from radar.
One news report stated a farmer saw the plane fly low above him with "the engine" running. It could have been a single engine failure, which should not have been catastrophic. He may have only said "the engine" because he couldn't tell from the sound if it were one or two engines running.
I'm sure the pilots must have known the terrain.
Since they were suppose to be out on a 50 minute flight, they should have still been climbing.
I would suspect the possibility of a loss of cabin pressure. Procedure for that is to put on oxygen masks, and immediately descend.
Some people don't handle the air above 6,800 feet very well.
If their altimeter wasn't accurate, they could have been much higher,and began suffering symptoms of hypoxia faster. The immediate descent could have done exactly what you said, controlled flight into terrain.
We'll learn more from the flight data recorders, when they're recovered and analyzed. It may have been pilot error, equipment malfunction, or both.
I don't get why they're accessible to **ANYONE**. Hell, on my personal servers, if they need to be reached by port 80, so be it. For machines that I do my own stuff on, they're locked down to specific IPs on an as-needed basis. If I need someone else on one, I open it up to their IP only.
I'm switching my stuff up, so you simply can't log into anything not specifically authorized. You can VPN in, but that list is strict (me and a couple friends).
I cringe every time I hear that someone broke into some critical infrastructure system. It's like they treat them like a hobby that no one is interested in, and it doesn't really matter if someone gets in.
I used to laugh when some TV show or movie would show someone hacking in to shut down power to a block or a city. "That'd never happen, they have people like me working it, they must have serious restrictions". Then another news story like this comes out.
I was always told that when critical infrastructure organizations needed data between locations, they operated on their own leased circuits, that weren't accessible from other networks. I have to wonder if the ever were, or if they've gotten cheap and lazy and just get lowest bidder Internet service.
Critical systems shouldn't have public IPs, or be attached to the public Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, something like a Borg Cube would be most appropriate. Us humans tend to build things with the expectation of flat sides and right angles. If the ship were modular, component cubes could be moved anywhere on the ship. If one design needed a single engine to fire from the center mass, it would be put on the center of which ever face was to be the "rear". If the design had two, three, or four engines, the ship design wouldn't limit it. I know scifi shows a lot of hex shaped containers as optimal, but that is less than ideal considering we have a lot of square objects, and the need for various sizes. A spare engine would need a lot more space than pens, paper, and procedure manuals.
The Millennium Falcon was a neat design, but based on the flying saucer idea. We easily recognized it as a spaceship that could fly long distances, because decades of science fiction had already taught us that it was the correct design. That's the same reason We knew the X-Wing Fighter was a combat craft. It needed no explanation, we already had decades of military aircraft. The Tie Fighter looks like a bi-plane on it's side. It gives the impression of older technology, not as fast or fancy as the X-wing.
In reality, objects in space have very little reason for being aerodynamic. If it were large enough, solar winds may help or hinder its performance. There is free hydrogen floating around, but it would take a huge craft to require aerodynamics to allow it to make a difference. The shape may allow micrometeorites to deflect better, but that would be contingent on the craft pointing straight at where it's coming from, and align the impact to make a glancing blow. As they can come from any direction, and rotating for anything that may be out there would only serve to give the crew motion sickness.
The general idea of a long tube with rings is likely to be most efficient. The body of the ship only needs to be a structure to hold the rings together, and an attachment point for thrust. Overall, it would need to have symmetric mass, so centered thrust would push it straight. Otherwise, offset mass or offset thrust would make a lovely pinwheel, until the forces ripped it apart.
I never claimed they ever did anything that made a lot of sense, nor were they consistent other than in screwing up.
Dude, why did you post anonymous. You would have had a great moderation war.
Those who see the humor (and fact) in wrote you wrote would mod you up.
Those see Spielberg as a deity and will do anything to appease him, and mod you down.
Those who the virgin comment hits just a little too close to home would mod you down.
My gut instinct is that you would have had at least a couple dozen moderations, and landed at a nice solid "+4 troll" moderation
I still like the idea I saw a while back about wireless network via lasers. It was basically a laser diode and sensor on each end. they had to be perfectly aligned, and unobstructed. I don't know what kind of throughput they got, but I'd have to guess with the right diodes and drivers, they could probably manage 10Gb/s. Of course, it's a lot easier to just run the fiber, and not suffer from interference when someone put their hand in the data stream. :)
I'll probably never try it though, because I haven't qualified in the "virgin" category for decades, and reaffirm it regularly.
When's the last time you've flown? I haven't seen those vending machines in years, at any of the dozens of airports I've been through. I'm pretty sure they died off with the cigarette vending machines.
Nope, that made two of us. :)
I think what he (hopefully) intended to say was something like dumb thief steals your stuff. The pawn shop or new owner wipes it.
Organized thieves with a plan would instruct the people stealing it to remove the battery. Then they'd deliver it to someone to sanitize it before selling it.
Not all that many thieves are well organized though. They just know "I can grab a laptop and pawn it for $100".
Actually, there have been many reports of someone "accidentally" walking off with someone elses stuff. Laptops are easy. Pick it up, slip it in your bag, and keep moving. A quick Google search shows all kinds of numbers being thrown around. It's more than 1, less than 1 million.
When I refuse to go through the "microwave" (as the GP said), they pull me aside for the patdown. I keep an eye on my stuff until they're finally ready for me. I've had to ask security on multiple instances to secure *my* property, so no one else "accidentally" takes it. On very rare occasions did they guess what all of my property was.
I think it's nuts. They pretend it's a high security environment, where anyone (and everyone) might be a terrorist. Yet, they go with the honor system for collecting your property from the x-ray conveyor belt, and at baggage claim. I've only been through a few airports (Las Vegas, and a few international destinations) that check the baggage claim ticket to the baggage you're taking. I don't even know if they do it as policy, or because someone was bored and wanted to harass travelers.
The good ones do. The bad ones promise the product in exactly the estimated time, and come in late when there are any unforeseen circumstances.
I always set my estimates liberally, and then double them. If it looks like it could be banged out quick and dirty in a week, or properly in 2 weeks, give the estimate of 4 weeks. It will usually be done and tested in 3 weeks. But never, ever, turn it in until the end of the 4th week unless the Klingons are attacking. :)
For some reason, bosses will always demand it be done in less time anyways, even though there is no practical deadline or other pending projects. It's no wonder there is so much kludgy code out there.
I'm pretty sure his statement was sarcasm.
Unfortunately, I have seen businesses who believe it to be true. They don't live by the ideas of equal pay for the same position, and appropriately adjusted yearly increases. They'll keep an employee at their starting pay, and give token increases if the employee isn't completely burnt out but threatens to move on.
I watched at one place, where a 5 year employee was still making his starting salary (approx $40k/yr), although he had increased responsibility significantly. New hires for the same role were being brought in much higher (approx $75k/yr). There was a contractual obligation to not discuss salaries, although it did happen.
They worked him til he burnt out, then terminated him on fictional grounds. My state allows termination of an employee for anything, or as joked, you can be fired because the boss doesn't like your shoes.
The new hires in that situation won't last long. I didn't keep up with them, so I don't know if they're still working with that company. I know their 40 hour week became a minimum 60 hours, and on a whim senior management would demand people work "until it's done", even if it resulted in people sleepily typing the wrong things and making bigger mistakes. Like, "oops, I meant fsck, not mkfs".
Most likely, the new hires at $75k will be laid off for another fictional reason, when they find some others willing to do the job for less money.
Parking lots after hours are a choice with no witnesses.
If he stops at a store on a regular basis on the way home, that works too. A smash and grab takes seconds, while a trip into any store takes minutes. No one cares about car alarms, you can trigger it and walk away, and no one will notice, as long as you aren't wearing a ski mask and looking totally suspicious. I doubt he carries his gear into every store he goes to.
Most people's driveways feel safe, but are anything but. In most communities, people are inside, and wouldn't hear a thing. If there is security, their job is to observe, not confront. At best, they'll patrol a specific segment of the community every hour. At worst, once a night.
His home itself if fair game. A bump key or lockpick gun will get you through virtually any residential doors with minimal hassle. 3am when everyone is sound asleep is the riskiest time. The door can even be locked on the way out to add to the confusion.
For 4 grand cash (assuming it can all be converted to cash quickly), a stolen car and a staged traffic accident will stop the vehicle and get him out of the car with his doors unlocked.
You aren't truly safe anywhere. You feel safe. A determined attacker will exploit any time he can.
The best thing to do is, don't say you're carrying thousands of dollars of gear around. Don't look like you're worth attacking. I frequently travel in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a ratty backpack. Sometimes it'll have some books. Sometimes it'll have electronics. Sometimes I have enough firepower to pick a fight with a street gang (when going to the shooting range).
I never look like I have anything worth stealing. When I am dressed to impress, with the necessary accessories, I'm traveling directly from point A to point B, where both locations are relatively secure.
I love these contests. Whip it out, and we'll see who's is bigger.
Once we can get the governments of the world to cooperate with each other, the world wide resources put into the art of killing each other can be put continuity of the species through expansion to other worlds. Heck, there would be a budget surplus, the guy could see his life size sci-fi model flying around, but it would only be one of a fleet of ships that we'd have going in all directions. It would be a nice sci-fi nerd's space tourist destination, right along with a 2001 Discovery One, and a few monoliths.
I see nothing wrong with tributes to dreamers. They can't be the primary goal though.
If you're in the US, you've probably noticed the news that we're rapidly becoming a theocracy. A degree from the Universal Life Church is probably your fastest and cheapest route. :)
But the serious answer is, we don't know. None of us really know what market segment is going to do particularly well. We're still pretty well down in the recession to make any sort of guesses on what line of work to switch to. If we found out that ditch digging was the new golden field, I'd be out practicing my shovel techniques right now.
As I've noticed over the years, it doesn't really matter to many corps *what* your degree is in, as long as you have one. For example, my sister was an English lit major. She's been doing accounting for several years. Along the way, she's picked up job specific certs.
You may be better off getting some respected certs in roles that you are interested in. If you do networking, a couple good Cisco certs are always impressive. You'd just need to find out what the respective certs in the field you chose are, and go for them.
What are you rambling about, troll?
"The first and most important rule ... Never get [killed] with your own merchandise"
- Yuri Orlov
- Lord of War (2005)
Slightly out of context, but absolutely applicable. I guess it may be very applicable, as it was built by a Russian combat aircraft company.
Oh, if I hadn't already posted, I'd mod you up.
Exactly. The Enterprise was a neat spacecraft for a campy 1960's space cowboy TV show. (sorry, but that's what it was). It wasn't designed by scientists to fulfill a need. It was a prop guy who said "How about this?"
I agree with the idea that we *should* build something. A spacecraft to test and implement new thrust technologies, that can get us around the solar system until we have learned enough about traveling in space to venture farther is definitely the direction we should be headed. A trillion dollar mockup of a TV show prop isn't it. There *are* experts in the field, who *do* know what it would take, and *have* drawn up ideas. They work with places like NASA, ESA, and JAXA. If they've ever drawn up anything that even resembled a ship from Star Trek, it was a joke or a silly idea to say "Hey, look, we could build the Enterprise. Now lets get back to real work."
The only somewhat reasonable idea for building a full scale Enterprise, was the one they were planning for Vegas.
I believe what he's suggesting is an equal percentage rate
If Person A is making $50,000, and he has to pay 30% in taxes, that's $15,000
If Person B is making $50,000,000, he should have to pay at the same percentage rate, or $15,000,000.
Rather, Person B has a percentage rate of 14%, or $7,000,000.
There's more to it though. Through proper investments and tax shelters, the actual amount paid can be closer to the amount that Person A pays. Person B doesn't necessarily get "paid" the full $50M. In the end, Person B may pay less than Person A in taxes, or even receive money back due to losses.
Person B may receive incentives, such as homes, cars, and residential staff paid for entirely by his employer. Vacation travel may be provided free of charge on the company's jet, or as a favor by another company.
There are plenty of off-shore tax havens also. He may make a taxable $200,000 in the US. Shell corporations in a number of countries may receive his reimbursements for services rendered, that were little more than notations on the paperwork.
I'm sure you've heard of CEO's that publicly say that they only make $1/yr. That is a token payment which signifies that they are employees of the company. They don't accept that because they are independently wealthy, nor because the feel they can support themselves with that $1/yr. It sounds good that they only take a $1 salary, but that isn't the only cost to the company. All of their expenses are paid for by the company, partner companies, and various shell companies.
When I first heard of such things, I thought it was a bunch of conspiracy noise. Over the 15 years, I have worked for and with many millionaires, and have carefully observed how it works. One paid out 50% of his income to the IRS, "just to be safe". It avoided various penalties and ensured that there would always be a refund. That was 50% of his taxable income, which was a small fraction of his actual income. The remainder went to various partner companies world wide, for services that were frequently only on the paperwork.
I did work for a company who's CEO and CFO ignored the laws though. They created millions of dollars of imaginary money by floating invoices and payments. They convinced investors to buy in their company that was hugely profitable. On the books, it looked like millions. In reality, the company revenue was in the thousands. Investments made up the rest, and they did very well for themselves. Because they committed so many violations of state and federal law, they were caught. One is looking at months in prison. The other is still in court.
Now back to Person A.. They can't afford to do any of that. They work hard every day to pay their bills and other financial responsibilities. If they fail to pay even a few dollars on their federal taxes, they are penalized heavily. If the IRS decides that a deduction is improper, they will fine heavily. In the 2005 tax year (I believe) I had two cars, and drove a total of approximately 12,000 miles for work. I drove both vehicles equally, and divided the total mileage between them. The deduction was small, but I wanted to be truthful. I did drive two cars. If they compared the odometer reading from when I purchased them, to the current odometer reading, and I claimed I only drove on car, they would see the claim was wrong. In 2009 (I believe), the IRS garnered my wages for $3,000. That was the error they calculated because they denied the deduction for the second car. The error was only a few hundred dollars. The remainder was a penalty. My pay dropped to $300/mo, because the IRS was taking the rest directly from me.
Those who don't have the money, really need it. That now reduced pay rate did not cover my essential costs. Food, shelter, utilities, and fuel to get to work. I had
Aviation is generally safe, and there are an awful lot of things flying around, from private pilots in barely legally maintained aircraft, to shiny new airliners. We don't see the stories on those, because they performed as expected.
I'd be suspect of the equipment because it is something very new. For all we really know, some other malfunction happened (wire harness rubbing, software malfunction, or pilot error). We won't know until the investigation is completed.
I think that's the most relevant thing, that all of us are feeling.
I hate that people tend to convict the pilot in the media before the evidence is available. Obviously something happened, or we wouldn't be discussing it.
A one engine failure is suppose to be a survivable event. Especially on a flight like that, where they only had 50 passengers, no cargo, and probably need+reserve fuel.
All I was trying to say is, he reported "the", not "both", but most people can't tell the difference. Either way, it should have had no problem flying on one engine.
Looking at the rest of the switches, it appears that the aircraft is shut down. The position of the switches with master off is irrelevant. They'd reset everything during pre-flight.
I'm not sure where you got "no lower than 10,000 feet". It should be "no higher than 10,000 feet". You want to increase the cabin pressure closer to sea level. People with health problems can have problems over 5,000 feet or so. Oxygen masks don't last forever. They're only intended to give you time to descend.
Do you know that the aircraft was equipped with EGPWS?
I would expect that ATC would have given them instructions also. They generally won't let you descend into a mountain. As others have said, the weather was poor, so they wouldn't have been flying VFR.
As you said, we'll know more when the equipment is recovered. Until then we can only speculate. I'd still lean towards mechanical problems, which lead to pilot error.
I would assume the pilot would have familiarized himself with the terrain, since that helps to know where to fly to.
Impressing the passengers ... well ... That was probably lost somewhere between "look at the view" and [smack into the mountain]. It'll probably significantly impede their chances of getting a signed contract, since the signers were on board.
I think that's one of those unspoken rules of business. "Don't kill your customers before they pay."
The initial reports I saw on this stated they requested an immediate descent from 10k feet to 6k feet moments before they disappeared from radar.
One news report stated a farmer saw the plane fly low above him with "the engine" running. It could have been a single engine failure, which should not have been catastrophic. He may have only said "the engine" because he couldn't tell from the sound if it were one or two engines running.
I'm sure the pilots must have known the terrain.
Since they were suppose to be out on a 50 minute flight, they should have still been climbing.
I would suspect the possibility of a loss of cabin pressure. Procedure for that is to put on oxygen masks, and immediately descend.
Some people don't handle the air above 6,800 feet very well.
If their altimeter wasn't accurate, they could have been much higher,and began suffering symptoms of hypoxia faster. The immediate descent could have done exactly what you said, controlled flight into terrain.
We'll learn more from the flight data recorders, when they're recovered and analyzed. It may have been pilot error, equipment malfunction, or both.
I lost count on the zeroes. You may be closer. :)
I don't get why they're accessible to **ANYONE**. Hell, on my personal servers, if they need to be reached by port 80, so be it. For machines that I do my own stuff on, they're locked down to specific IPs on an as-needed basis. If I need someone else on one, I open it up to their IP only.
I'm switching my stuff up, so you simply can't log into anything not specifically authorized. You can VPN in, but that list is strict (me and a couple friends).
I cringe every time I hear that someone broke into some critical infrastructure system. It's like they treat them like a hobby that no one is interested in, and it doesn't really matter if someone gets in.
I used to laugh when some TV show or movie would show someone hacking in to shut down power to a block or a city. "That'd never happen, they have people like me working it, they must have serious restrictions". Then another news story like this comes out.
I was always told that when critical infrastructure organizations needed data between locations, they operated on their own leased circuits, that weren't accessible from other networks. I have to wonder if the ever were, or if they've gotten cheap and lazy and just get lowest bidder Internet service.
Critical systems shouldn't have public IPs, or be attached to the public Internet.
But, I'm preaching to the choir.