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Captainant

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by Captainant

  1. I disagree, the Boeing leadership was pretty candid about the need to make an air gap between business leadership and engineering. From the excellent 2021 Seattle Times reporting: It was the kind of big-picture planning Condit relished. General Electric famously had its headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut, separate from the diverse businesses it owned. As he and Hall talked, Condit became convinced that Boeing needed a similar structure. “Headquarters is supposed to be thinking longer-term: Where are markets going, have we positioned the company correctly, are we developing the right people, what’s the compensation structure that we have? The kind of things that are not how-do-you-design-an-airplane stuff,” as Condit later recalled. “How do you avoid getting deeply engaged in the day-to-day activity, and ignoring those strategic things?” Satisfying customers that wanted... Hmmm what was it? Oh yeah, lower costs. SWA wanted a plane with the performance of an A320 neo without needing to train on an entirely new type. Boeing was able to make that plane, but it did not have the same flight profile as the old 737 - that was the entire reason for the MCAS device. It wasn't that the plane was unsafe to fly, it just HAD to handle the EXACT same as the old planes. Because if it didn't handle the same, they'd have to retrain the pilots and that would cost more. It's a cop out and playing "hide the weasel" to say that Boeing was simply trying to satisfy its customer. Nobody was holding a gun to their collective heads and forcing them to hide critical flight systems and actively block any mention of the system from the flight manual except for a single time in the glossary (Seattle Times on that reporting too). The only reason Boeing made the choice to conceal those changes and ultimately kill several hundred passengers was to protect the low cost for production for the 737MAX, and thus, low cost of procurement for their customers.
  2. I mean, Paul Atreides is the product of centuries of eugenics attempting to bring about a messiah figure to lead humanity on the golden path... So that doesn't seem all that out of line with elmos brand of crazy? Boy, will we look stupid if X turns out to be a charismatic leader that starts a jihad
  3. May not be your cup of tea, but Squire did his usual lampooning bit on if there was a german "Masters of the Air". Lots of history jokes and a few shots at some of the show pacing lol
  4. In fairness, the shit birds were flying in America then too. The nazis had a rally at MSG for chrissakes! There were loads of folks that wanted "America first" and hated the idea of providing material support for allies defending their homeland. It's pretty crazy how history sometimes rhymes, and sometimes repeats itself.
  5. By the time they get to book 6, the series will have gone PLAID - straight past ludicrous
  6. It's not near to this depth, but I recently came into possession of my late great uncle's folio from his USAAF service and it is remarkable! It has some original marked restricted documents from 1944 for his ferry missions taking B24's to Europe, and then getting his type certification on B29s and flying copilot in Europe in 1945. His record didn't indicate any combat missions but its humbling to hold onto history like that. I've got it another couple of weeks before I'm handing off to his daughter that teaches at a university here in Houston, it's been a treat to look through it
  7. IMO, if you're buying new and plan to keep the car past the age of it's note it's usually worth it to spring for the extended warranty. In my experience, cars start to get gremlins around 70k miles and a transmission repair on a "non wearable part" like the chain is usually covered (read your Ts and Cs though). Have you driven a CVT car yet? It's a different experience behind the wheel, and I found that I preferred a stepped transmission to a CVT. The biggest reason they're so efficient is that they're tuned to always be on the power curve of your engine, but that also means it doesn't really like to go high RPM for a punch of speed like you get from downshifting a gear or two
  8. IIRC the main problem is that the chain that's the primary means of converting RPM's is quite prone to stretching over time and reaches the limits of the tensioners, causing a major service to replace the chain
  9. /r/atetheonion material right there. Except he's one of the most powerful and wealthy individuals on the planet
  10. I certainly can't disagree with your assessment lol, but it's ridiculous to try and hold this incident in a vacuum. In 2017 the FAA was stripped of a bunch of it's power and directed to give more leeway to aircraft manufacturers to "find new efficiencies" and "reduce time to certification". Jump ahead a few years a Boeing is killing people by the hundreds because they programmed their airplanes to lawndart, and they were allowed to do so because of regulatory capture. There's a reason we have rules and laws in place to compel for profit entities to do the right thing. Otherwise they'll start cutting corners and incurring grester and greater risk for lower costs, exactly like how Boeing got themselves into this mess.
  11. Hah and like clockwork my YouTube recs popped this up It seems like it's likely a mechanical failure in the rocker switch and/or cover for the pilots seat in a 787. The video also includes a clip from a latin pilot demonstrating the failure while the plane is on the ground. Basically the rocker switch actuates and sticks in the "on" position and moves until it's all the way forwards. This commercial pilots best guess is that the autopilot resisted the nose down input from the pilot seat moving forwards into the yoke until it finally disengaged and dumped ALL the nose down pressure at once resulting in the violent negative G maneuver for the passengers. So yeah looking like less electrical, but the cockpit glass going dark is a major thing if that's actually what happened. I'm assuming it did because the pilot in command said, but the investigation will (hopefully) find the truth
  12. Electrical failures can happen such that power is applied when it should not be. It just seems like an exceptionally unusual coincidence that the cockpit glass would go dark and the seat moves "uncommanded" at the same time, and that the two are completely unrelated
  13. man I really didn't need to know what her "O" face looked like
  14. [WARNING: SPECULATION] It is consistent with an electrical control system failure that all the panels would black out and then the electronic seat starts sliding itself forward unprompted. It seems like a pretty important datapoint that the fly by wire plane was having electrical gremlins
  15. The FAA's comprehensive audit identified a ton of unapproved and unsafe techniques used in their factories, including using dawn dish soap as a gasket lube on untested materials and shimming panels with fuckin hotel room key cards. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-faa-says-boeing-737-max-production-audit-found-compliance-issues-2024-03-04/ Small issues like that add up and compound until a door blows off an in flight airplane. It is absolutely something that would qualify shutting down a production line. Profitability should never come ahead of safety for critical products like aircraft fuselages. Give me a fucking break.
  16. So in response to asking about a stock or precious metal that has been as volatile as BTC, you choose natgas as your example. Natgas has historically been extremely price volatile, thanks in large part to speculation, but it's ALWAYS been volatile. You're not really proving a good thing to say that BTC is safe because it's only as volatile as natural gas futures prices. That's gambling and speculation, not investing. And that's ok! Gambling and speculating is fine. But be honest about what you're doing, because presenting BTC as an ETF is laundering its credibility - despite the acknowledged risks of fraud for people who """invest""" in them.
  17. Barnett apparently told his family that "if anything happens, it's not suicide" JFC.
  18. I can't imagine that more people are coming in at a higher interest rate than a lower one lol, but also the inflated home values from the 2020->2023 run up are what's really making the monthly payments out to reach for hourly wage earners. It's wild that pretty much the entire market shot up 50% or more, for really no reason aside from speculation. Every attractive house my wife and I have looked at (we would love a yard and not 3 stories) is $700k-$900k in 2024 but had a market value in the $400-500s pre-COIVD. Heck, my parents sold their old house in NE San Antonio for $175k in 2017. Last year it was on the market and sold for $300k, and judging from the listing photos of the flooring I installed, they didn't put money into the property to improve things THAT much. That ain't inflation, that's gouging.
  19. Wow what a fucking finale. From the horrors of the nazi war machine and the Holocaust to the thrill of freedom and victory. Goddamn it's good to see Americans killing a fuck load of fascists.
  20. Historically speaking 7% is pretty low. My folks first mortgage back in the 80s was at 9.5%, but their principle amount was less than most pickup trucks nowadays. Interest rates and principle amounts this high don't really jibe with a national median income of $41k, but the free market will adjust or something. Just like after the 2008 black swan event lol
  21. And let the private equity firm thats partially owned by the donors for the fuckers killing our school system collect the rent on teaching our children. Monetize everything. Everything should be ran like a business right??? Profit is always more important than education.
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