Pilot's recent activity

  1. Comment on Diversity in the skies: US FAA’s controversial shift in air traffic controller hiring in ~transport

    Pilot
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    I'm very frustrated with the focus the Bio-Q has been getting recently. It partially stems from general controller anger at the agency for ignoring the staffing level problems and partially from...

    I'm very frustrated with the focus the Bio-Q has been getting recently. It partially stems from general controller anger at the agency for ignoring the staffing level problems and partially from the right's current "anti-DEI" focus.

    The bottom line is that nothing about the Bio-Q or the hiring practices affected air traffic safety. The real takeaway should be that increasing diversity is not as simple as screening for it, that it's a systemic issue that has to be concurrently addressed at its roots and within orgs as an effort to eliminate biases holistically instead of by countering with a different set of biases.

    3 votes
  2. Comment on Capital One to buy Discover Financial in $35.3 billion all-stock deal in ~finance

    Pilot
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    I'm getting 5.5% on Marcus, which is a Goldman Sachs product. It's close to what "simple" was, an online-only savings account with a high yield.

    I'm getting 5.5% on Marcus, which is a Goldman Sachs product. It's close to what "simple" was, an online-only savings account with a high yield.

    3 votes
  3. Comment on The carry-on-baggage bubble is about to pop in ~travel

    Pilot
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    Sure, but you can also just rotate someone's horizontal bag and then put your own in.

    Sure, but you can also just rotate someone's horizontal bag and then put your own in.

    8 votes
  4. Comment on Apple announces changes to iOS, Safari, and the App Store in the European Union in ~tech

    Pilot
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    https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-calculator-for-apps-in-the-eu/ Apple has a fee calculator to do this exact math. The only thing it doesn't take into account is how much some third-party...

    https://developer.apple.com/support/fee-calculator-for-apps-in-the-eu/

    Apple has a fee calculator to do this exact math. The only thing it doesn't take into account is how much some third-party app store will charge you to be in it (or how much it will cost to run your own if you are, say, Epic).

    Call me an corporate shill, but I honestly think this is bad for users. Developers may get something, but developers are the only ones I ever see complain about this stuff. Apple users are far better off and better protected in the iOS App Store. If you want to install funky stuff get an Android. The better protected my parents are from bloatware and gambling the better (and they're already at risk from existing and approved apps in the store).

    3 votes
  5. Comment on Advice for returning to a frozen car at long term airport parking in ~travel

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    Take a cab/uber/lyft/friend home and then return to your car the next day with the appropriate toolset and attire. Otherwise see if the appropriate toolset is available commonly at airports or...

    Take a cab/uber/lyft/friend home and then return to your car the next day with the appropriate toolset and attire. Otherwise see if the appropriate toolset is available commonly at airports or something you can get before you board. You can try calling the airport you're arriving at (or the company who runs the parking lot) and see if they have assistance. You can call AAA if you have that.

    EDIT: I see you're already at the airport. Well, if you find yourself situated like this again try to do what you can prior to getting on a plane. My advice about calling AAA or the parking lot operator and simply going home to return the next day still apply.

    34 votes
  6. Comment on Tom Cruise signs deal with Warner Bros. to develop and produce original and franchise films in ~movies

    Pilot
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    Presumably a ton of money. I think WB smartly took advantage of Cruise's obvious frustration with Paramount, who were pushing for Top Gun 2 to go to streaming during the pandemic and who bungled...

    Presumably a ton of money.

    I think WB smartly took advantage of Cruise's obvious frustration with Paramount, who were pushing for Top Gun 2 to go to streaming during the pandemic and who bungled the IMAX release of the new Mission: Impossible movie by not securing the screens for long enough (Nolan's Oppenheimer took over only a week or two into M:I's run). Arguably the latter isn't Paramount's fault, Cruise is heavily involved, but I imagine if you offer him more control and more ownership while Paramount itself is looking to be sold off in the next year or two, it's a compelling offer to jump ship.

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Why do hardly any straight men write about sex and dating? in ~life.men

    Pilot
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    The fundamental misunderstanding men who are worried about this have is that the places you listed have explicit purposes for existing that aren't dating. Particularly gym and yoga are places...

    gym/work/yoga/etc. or you're a creep!".

    The fundamental misunderstanding men who are worried about this have is that the places you listed have explicit purposes for existing that aren't dating. Particularly gym and yoga are places women get hit on a lot and most of them time all they, like everyone else there, want to do is complete a work out. Same goes for people whose job it is to be nice to you like retail workers and the coffee shop employees. They aren't there looking for romance, they're there to serve you a coffee or help you pick out a shirt and get paid. So when women (or people generally) write about how they hate getting hit on in these circumstances it's because the initiator has misunderstood the social context and broadly what's being written about is an annoyance at how someone could so easily miss those cues or otherwise be so entitled they ignore them.

    27 votes
  8. Comment on Planes collide and catch fire at Japan’s busy Haneda airport, killing five. Hundreds evacuated safely. in ~transport

    Pilot
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    Important to note that all passenger airplanes certified for use in the United States and throughout most nations who are party to ICAO treaties have to demonstrate an ability to fully evacuate...

    Important to note that all passenger airplanes certified for use in the United States and throughout most nations who are party to ICAO treaties have to demonstrate an ability to fully evacuate the airplane quickly. I believe in as little as 120 seconds. It's a test case in that one of these kinds of airplanes hasn't had an accident like this, but it's also worth noting that everybody on the Japan Airlines jet survived. Most only has minor injuries (if any) related to the violence of evacuating the airplane.

    12 votes
  9. Comment on The Hyperloop was always a scam in ~transport

    Pilot
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    You need safety backups and better train monitoring, both of which are difficult to implement on lines built in the early 1900s that can't be shut down for extended periods. Considering the number...

    (I also wonder why more subways aren’t driverless?)

    You need safety backups and better train monitoring, both of which are difficult to implement on lines built in the early 1900s that can't be shut down for extended periods. Considering the number of people and line length, most Metro's operate with at least one engineer/conductor regardless.

    The BART in the Bay Area was purpose built in the late 60s to be computer controlled, and it is. The trains are staffed by a single operator for emergency reasons. Airport people movers are built regularly that can be operated remotely. In New York City they're slowly retrofitting existing subway lines to be computer controlled as well, for example the "L" is now fully computer-based with a single train operator.

    Moreover, new construction can be, and often is, driverless. Old construction is hard to retrofit but they're doing it anyway. An operator is often present for safety reasons. An additional example is old systems don't have platform doors, so an operator ensure the doors have fully closed and nobody is on the tracks.

    12 votes
  10. Comment on Introducing Beeper Mini - get blue bubbles on Android in ~tech

    Pilot
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    Apple has said they intend to implement the carrier-standard RCS, which makes sense. Apple is replacing SMS with RCS, not iMessage. Part of the confusion from the general public over this is that...

    Apple has said they intend to implement the carrier-standard RCS, which makes sense. Apple is replacing SMS with RCS, not iMessage. Part of the confusion from the general public over this is that SMS and iMessage live in the same app for iOS users. A big part of the draw early on was that you didn't need a second app, you would get all the iMessage benefits (encryption, rich messages, better multimedia support, free) to any other iOS user automatically. You just send a message and everything else is figured out for you; it sends and SMS but if it finds out the person you're talking to has iMessage on, it subsequently sends iMessages. It's the origin of the blue bubbles, in fact. Everything was green on iOS, blue was added to show the message was an iMessage, and when iMessages fail it falls back to SMS.

    Anyway, all of that to say Apple has no intention of adopting Google's version of this, but they are onboard with updating a carrier standard and replacing the SMS fallback with what amounts to "SMS 2."

    8 votes
  11. Comment on Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year in ~tech

    Pilot
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    Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court...

    Your article cites sources who mention iOS as a whole not messaging specifically, and so we can't draw any inference there. The more applicable Apple related news story would be its ongoing court battles to prevent sideloading on iOS, which civil courts have so far mostly preserved.

    Honestly based on how Apple behaves most of the time, I'd wager a fair amount that they simply found a way to implement RCS in a way they think benefits them and their users. In fact it's a direct response to your claim that by not improving SMS they are making everything "worse." With USB-C Apple was involved the whole time and broadly committed to the port. The only reason they didn't move sooner was the sheer backlash they got from moving away from the 30-pin connector. I imagine Apple see's an opportunity to influence the RCS standard and is taking it. Win for Apple, win for users.

    3 votes
  12. Comment on Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year in ~tech

    Pilot
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    I don't think it has anything to do with regulatory pressure. The EU "gatekeeper" laws would be about making iMessage, the internet-based E2EE protocol, interoperable. "Messages," the app that...

    I don't think it has anything to do with regulatory pressure. The EU "gatekeeper" laws would be about making iMessage, the internet-based E2EE protocol, interoperable. "Messages," the app that contains iMessage, is already interoperable and supports the SMS Standard. In fact that's why the "blue bubbles" exist. The original Messages app only supported SMS (and MMS), and everything was green. Blue showed up with iMessage to inform the user that the message had been sent using that protocol. Received messages are grey regardless of protocol.

    So if the gatekeeper law were about the app, then Messages is already compliant. If it's about the protocol, iMessage isn't compliant, may not be able to even be complaint and retain E2EE, and is likely not even eligible under the law as it's EU market share is minuscule compared to WhatsApp. It's one of those EU tech laws that sounds nice but has a lot of potential drawbacks since it's fundamentally at odds with encrypted messaging (and from my personal POV a useless overreach since the SMS standard already exists).

    I suspect RCS will join SMS and MMS in the single messages app and remain green, with RCS being the standard Apple assumes with actually wholly replace SMS.

    7 votes
  13. Comment on Outrage grows after ‘chilling call for genocide’ by Florida Republican in ~misc

    Pilot
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    Something I've seen lost in the discourse online (rhetoric aside) is that there seems to be a desire from more even-keeled minds to return to the status quo as a starting point, but Israel...

    Something I've seen lost in the discourse online (rhetoric aside) is that there seems to be a desire from more even-keeled minds to return to the status quo as a starting point, but Israel fundamentally can not do that and does not seems to have a great idea of what it should do instead. Internally there is rage at Netanyahu and there is rage at Hamas and there is a a seemingly contradictory desire to achieve both peace and security.

    10 votes
  14. Comment on Cogs in the machine: The crash of Colgan Air flight 3407 and its legacy in ~transport

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    The state of the industry pre-Colgan is why I didn't end up following the dream to being an airline pilot, so it's been quite fascinating to watch my friends from that time who did stick with it...

    The state of the industry pre-Colgan is why I didn't end up following the dream to being an airline pilot, so it's been quite fascinating to watch my friends from that time who did stick with it experience the industry.

    The article's history is sound, and you could write a 10 hour documentary on the full wide ranging effects of what the response to Colgan did to the industry, but you can not deny the incredible post-accident safety record nor can you den the massive increase in both salary and quality of life for "bottom rung" pilots.

    What I've personally seen when people argue against "the 1500 hour rule" (notably as the article thankfully points out, actually a rule about having an ATP) are two things:

    1. Regional airlines, as touched on in the article, trying to lobby their way into reducing overhead and labor costs.
    2. New pilots frustrated that they "have to CFI (teach)," often combined with some sort of Libertarians viewpoint on labor.

    The first is predictable. Regionals live and die on the margins of flat-rate contracts and "essential air service" government subsidies. They are at the mercy of their partner "mainline" carrier, and the mainline carriers are currently in a great position. In fact, regionals are having no trouble at all hiring pilots, they are having trouble retaining them for long enough that they become Captains. (There's a whole other article you could write about the diminished safety standard that might arise from this dynamic).

    Regionals could increase pay, and many have, to keep pilots from trying to get hired at larger carriers who have better pay and benefits, but it's difficult to compete with Delta, especially when you realize that regional flying means 6 to 8 legs per day with short flights, whereas a mainline pilot could fly as little as 1 leg. It's also hard for them to just straight up stay in business, which frankly isn't the worst thing.

    The actual issue and concern I and my friends have is that post-Colgan pilots, people who started after the legislation, have no internalized or institutional knowledge of how bad the industry used to be. It was never common knowledge to the public that your pilots may have slept on a couch in the airport and were afraid to call out sick before, it was hardly common knowledge that the airplane with the United logo on the side wasn't actually United. It's why the legislation forced the disclosure. So if the public hardly had any idea, it's no wonder that pilots getting their ratings after many of those issues got resolved have no idea how good they actually have it.

    The worry, and why you see this blog talking about the rule in the first place, is that with enough pressure from regionals and the right amount of pilots who are frustrated with needing to gain hours, the good working conditions and pay the ATP rule created will be eroded. When new union members have no knowledge, no understanding of just what was fought for and how tough it was to eek out the gains currently enjoy, those gains are at significant risk.

    For the traveling public it's simple, a repeal of the ATP rule would mean creating the conditions such that the pilots of your flight will cut corners, fly tired, and be subject to scummy managers who see dollars not people.

    9 votes
  15. Comment on Why is the iOS dialer so terrible? in ~tech

    Pilot
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    FYI, in iOS settings under "Sounds & Haptics" there is an option to have the keyboard provide haptic feedback ("vibrate") when you tap it.

    FYI, in iOS settings under "Sounds & Haptics" there is an option to have the keyboard provide haptic feedback ("vibrate") when you tap it.

    10 votes
  16. Comment on Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 available in US for free in ~tv

    Pilot
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    Totally, people just don't like Peanut Hamper because they are an unlikable character haha.

    Totally, people just don't like Peanut Hamper because they are an unlikable character haha.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 available in US for free in ~tv

    Pilot
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    S3E7 is weak overall but tied into the overall arc of the series, and at 25min of actual runtime it's enjoyable enough that it's worth it. I think it gets a low rating because the protagonist is...

    S3E7 is weak overall but tied into the overall arc of the series, and at 25min of actual runtime it's enjoyable enough that it's worth it. I think it gets a low rating because the protagonist is intentionally annoying.

    3 votes
  18. Comment on Paul Simon: Homeward Bound the Farewell Tour a Discussion in ~music

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    Mostly an excuse to post a really great version of The Obvious Child that I had the chance to see during his farewell tour. I'm curious about people's opinions on the evolution of recorded music...

    Mostly an excuse to post a really great version of The Obvious Child that I had the chance to see during his farewell tour. I'm curious about people's opinions on the evolution of recorded music as it's played live throughout the years, and how meanings change and adapt with time or if they do at all.

    This version of the song is much larger and louder than the studio version (which has more instruments on it), but this tour also features rearrangements of other songs in his catalogue that I think do a good job of making one reconsider the music. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7R5Y9nXvoU)

    Is live music just a tool to sell the songs and merch, or can it have artistic merit while also being a commercial enterprise? Are there concerts or live versions of songs in your life that have really affected you or changed your perception about the song itself or even life in general?

    Feeling a bit wistful.

  19. Comment on US judge orders former Donald Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort to be jailed on witness tampering charges in ~news

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    Trump continues to dangle pardons in front of those who are going to jail for crimes during his campaign. It's crazy how Mafia-like it is: "do your time and we'll take care of you but you have to...

    Trump continues to dangle pardons in front of those who are going to jail for crimes during his campaign. It's crazy how Mafia-like it is: "do your time and we'll take care of you but you have to stay quiet!"

    2 votes