71F and damp. Depending on the source, we get rain sometime today. Yesterday ended up being very nice. WAY too damp but still cool. Wind was blowing like crazy.
I’ve got a Dr’s appointment this am, then take a load to the auction, and CPA class this evening. Narcotics and financial crimes tonight.
Bigger picture, the battle lines are being drawn. The Pope is now sending aid and money to the invaders from the south. Countries are apparently repatriating their gold. The volume of remimbi denominated oil deals is increasing.
When times get tough, everything gets local. You have been working on building up your local resources, right??
n
“Human error was ‘most likely’ to blame for Seattle crane collapse: Workers ‘removed pins too early’ while disassembling machine, experts say after reviewing footage of tragedy that killed four people
Crane accident investigator Tom Barth said ‘workers didn’t follow instructions’
Claimed they removed safety bolts holding two sections together at wrong time
Two workers disassembling crane and two civilians killed in Saturday’s tragedy”
–It’s pretty freaking obvious when you know what to look for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cexN2-T6dxY&t=608s for AvE’s explanation with pictures. [language warning]
n
“Crane accident investigator Tom Barth said ‘workers didn’t follow instructions’
Claimed they removed safety bolts holding two sections together at wrong time
Two workers disassembling crane and two civilians killed in Saturday’s tragedy”
At the big tunnel site in the city, we installed treadles (the “hoses” used to detect vehicles) only to have morons roll over them with a steam roller.
Yeah, we detected one big axle and then nothing else.
Treadles are old school tech, but installing/reinstalling is a well paid union gig.
Plus, IIRC, the first Gates/Allen collaboration was doing something with counting vehicles with treadles for a government entity. All things BillG are sacred … like Visual C++ rand().
“SpaceX Gains FCC Approval for Lower Orbit Internet Satellites”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/368067/spacex-gains-fcc-approval-for-lower-orbit-internet-satellite
“After launching a couple of demo satellites, SpaceX revised its plans and wants to fly some Starlink satellites in a much lower orbit. The FCC just agreed to the change.”
“SpaceX’s plan is to develop a satellite constellation that offers a low-cost, high performance solution to providing fast internet access. It’s called Starlink and will consist of close to 12,000 satellites eventually, spread across multiple orbits. Until now, the FCC had approved 4,425 Starlink satellites for deployment in orbits ranging from 1,110 to 1,325 kilometers.”
“As The Verge reports, SpaceX realized the selected range of orbits wasn’t good enough after launching two demo satellites back in February. It was then requested that 1,584 of the satellites be allowed to fly in a much lower orbit at 550 kilometers. The FCC has now approved the change (PDF).”
I am encouraged that Starlink may actually happen. 15 ms latency will be awesome with 100+ mbps bandwidth.
Alley Oop: a really bad idea
https://www.gocomics.com/alley-oop/2019/04/30
Uh, the Professor is totally right here.
BOEING IS LOOKING WORSE AND WORSE
BOEING IS LOOKING WORSE AND WORSE
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/329260/
I am having a real problem with Boeing selling safety systems for extra money.
Automobile manufacturers sell safety systems for extra money also. The difference is that automobiles don’t plunge into the ground or sea at 600 knots.
“Protesters are run over by Maduro’s armoured vehicles as gunfire breaks out, sending civilians running for cover after Juan Guaido calls for military uprising, sparking clashes with pro-regime troops”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6975871/Venezuelas-Juan-Guaido-calls-military-revolt-final-phase-overthrowing-President-Maduro.html
At some point, the troops will cross over to the protestor side. And then it is over.
BOEING IS LOOKING WORSE AND WORSE
The market still believes.
Home for lunch before heading back out. $650 at costco. yikes. and not that much actual food.
n
the difference between boeing doing it and ford, is who is the buyer making the decision, and who has to live with the consequences of the decision.
I can choose not to buy the 17th airbag and just never put anyone I like in the third row seat. Some black hearted penny pincher at Spirit Air will not be harmed by not spending the money. In fact, he’ll be rewarded.
n
BOEING IS LOOKING WORSE AND WORSE
The market still believes.
I dunno. I think there will be sacrifices made. Some executives will be retired, fired, or imprisoned. Some engineers or accountants likely have tales to tell, for a price. But Boeing isn’t going to go anywhere, and in two years we’ll feel about the 737 Max the way my Mom felt about the DC9.
But the problems will be corrected and a generation of engineers at Boeing will have a cautionary tale to tell.
Boeing’s problem could be related to the loss of senior staff as the guys who learned the hard lessons retire. They’ve been moaning about the skill loss for years.
Kids today think everything can be fixed in software.
in other news–
“Worst day of Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo as 27 new cases of killer virus are confirmed in just 24 hours
Some 126 new cases occurred last week; beating the past record of 110
Ongoing Ebola outbreak is the second worst in history, with 957 fatalities to date
Transmission sped up due to repeated military attacks and a mistrust of doctors ”
–um, no. Transmission sped up because that’s what it does naturally, without outside intervention. When you rinse the effluvia off the body, and then anoint yourself with it, no Dr in the world can help. When you burn down clinics, and the Drs and nurses go home, the most natural thing in the world is the exponential progression.
n
I can choose not to buy the 17th airbag and just never put anyone I like in the third row seat. Some black hearted penny pincher at Spirit Air will not be harmed by not spending the money. In fact, he’ll be rewarded.
Spirit Air is exclusively Airbus … or was.
Either way, Spirit would never buy a new 737Max right off the line when there are plenty of older used 737s available on the market.
But Boeing isn’t going to go anywhere, and in two years we’ll feel about the 737 Max the way my Mom felt about the DC9.
I still give it 50/50 chance that the 737 MAX will never fly again. The airframe is inherently unstable. If the FAA forces a re-certification of the airframe then watch out.
Boeing’s problem could be related to the loss of senior staff as the guys who learned the hard lessons retire. They’ve been moaning about the skill loss for years.
Kids today think everything can be fixed in software.
Managers who don’t want to spend money on hardware redesigns think everything can be fixed in software, even violations of the laws of physics. That’s the 737Max problem in a nutshell.
Boeing’s commercial maangers probably come from their military projects where they are used to software tricks to make certain airframes fly.
The F117 started the trend in the 70s. It was more important to have the radar evading shape than be aerodynamic and capable of flying without software.
“Backblaze Hard Drive Stats Q1 2019”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2019/
“As of March 31, 2019, Backblaze had 106,238 spinning hard drives in our cloud storage ecosystem spread across three data centers. Of that number, there were 1,913 boot drives and 104,325 data drives. This review looks at the Q1 2019 and lifetime hard drive failure rates of the data drive models currently in operation in our data centers and provides a handful of insights and observations along the way. In addition, we have a few questions for you to ponder near the end of the post. As always, we look forward to your comments.”
Uh oh, those 12 TB Seagates are trending up. I suspect that they are not helium drives.
I wish that they had more WDC drives but apparently they are driven by economics and WDC drives are definitely more expensive than Seagate drives. I do not think that HGST drives are old WDC drives but I could be wrong.
“Massive police deployment planned for Paris May Day marches”
https://www.france24.com/en/20190430-massive-police-deployment-planned-paris-may-day-marches
“French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Tuesday said more than 7,400 police and security forces would be deployed in Paris for Wednesday’s May Day marches in case of violence by protesters.”
“The government is bracing for a repeat of last year’s May 1 violence, when the government was caught off guard by some 1,200 trouble-makers who ran amok in the capital, vandalising businesses and clashing with police.”
Amok, amok, amok !
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
Last Wednesday @Nick wrote:
In Lawrence Sanders 1975 novel “The Tomorrow File” one of the background issues is that peak oil peaked, and oil was too valuable as feedstock for the chemicals and fertilizers to be burned for transportation.
The book was prescient in many ways, but that one still hasn’t come to pass.
“The Tomorrow File” is one of those books I meant to read when it was originally published, but forgot about with the passage of the years. I purchased a copy from Abebooks which arrived yesterday.
I managed to make it to page 15 before metaphorically throwing the book against the wall. My disgust was not with the lifestyles and government policies described in the book which, as @Nick says, were prescient. Everything goes in Sanders’s universe: Drug abuse, sexual perversion, elites versus the common man, government control of human fertility, etc., etc.
No, my disgust was with Sanders’s writing style, which can be most charitably described as horrible, horrible, horrible. The publishers must have been desperate for product to have unleashed such an abomination on the reading public.
Another book which I purchased after seeing it mentioned here, Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers, while filled with vitriol and bile, at least had the saving grace of being readable.
Amok, amok, amok !
Seattle will get sporty tomorrow … following the afternoon shift change at Starbucks.
@mediumwave, I don’t remember it being horribly written, I remember it being a bit “purple prose” but mainly I remember the decline and fall of the main character. Sanders was really good at writing the slow fall and crash of his characters.
The whole idea of Smack, (or whatever) being known addictive, but because it had no bad effects, it was legal. There are lots of little amusing things, like the main character KNOWING THAT and allowing himself to be hooked anyway just like the plebes.
I wonder how I would rate the writing now? Maybe I’ll find my copy and read it.
n
(there was a great scene where his assistant Paul? wants to start taking things OUT of the Tomorrow File and he resists… because he’s starting to get too old, and too unhip…)
jeez, I’m starting to remember more and more of it. Funny that I remember the ideas and not the execution.
@Nick: If you made it through all 551 pages of Sanders’s leaden prose, then you’re a better man than I (and probably for other reasons as well! 😉 ) Contrast this with Heinlein, who told his stories of the Crazy Years entertainingly.
Sanders’s editors, of this book at least, have a lot to answer for.
Added: I flipped around in the book looking for a paragraph that was representative of the horrible whole, but failed to find one short enough to copy here. It may be just the slow drip, drip, drip of one awful paragraph after another that leads to the cumulative fail.
Now you’ve convinced me I’ve got to go back and reread it . atleast least flip through it.
1Well time to go to learn about narcotics and financial crimes.
N
But Boeing isn’t going to go anywhere, and in two years we’ll feel about the 737 Max the way my Mom felt about the DC9.
Are you sure it was the DC9? The DC10 had spectacular failures. Front page of the newspaper stuff which I remember.
Home.
Had a chance to ask the narcotics detective some questions. Found out who I’ve been listening to on the radio…
Once again was told that I can’t listen to them because they switched to digital. I stayed after to talk to him about it. I may email him some of the recorded audio…
very interesting night, and I learned stuff which is a good thing.
Local local local….
n
From my alumni newsletter, captures perfectly why they aren’t getting a dime of my money….
–it’s a rogue’s gallery of parasites and resource thieves.
n
“Goodbye Handshakes? Some Companies Considering Banning All Physical Contact In Workplace”
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2019/04/29/goodbye-handshakes-some-companies-considering-banning-all-physical-contact-in-workplace/
Wow. Going to the extreme there. I really doubt that they can make that happen.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
–it’s a rogue’s gallery of parasites and resource thieves.
Yes. And I do not know how to stop this nonsense without going through a civil war such as:
http://www.traditionalright.com/victoria/
Did you notice where the engineering school is housed??
n
School of Arts, Media and Engineering
School of Arts, Media and Engineering
They are pushing the STEM to STEAM concept very hard. In some cases, it is true such as my son’s best friend who has a masters in art from SMU and is now the background art manager at one of the major computer game companies in Los Angeles. One wonders how many art majors are working in a technology company though.
They are pushing the STEM to STEAM concept very hard.
Math is hard.
One wonders how many art majors are working in a technology company though.
IIRC, Larry Wall, the Perl creator has a Linguistics degree.
CS is getting watered down to the point where it doesn’t really matter what you learn in class as much as work on campus or internships.
From reading Peter’s blog – which coincides with my (much more limited) experience in Africa: it’s a problem that the local shaman and tribal leaders claim that Ebola (and HIV, and whatever) were invented by the West. And they have pretty convincing proof: if you go to an Ebola center, you tend to die. Instead, take some mumbo-jumbo medicine from the shaman, and otherwise hide your disease. Which means that the outbreak is far, far worse than we know, and there is no longer any realistic chance of containing it.
– – – – –
I think the Boeing problem is a combination of complacency and greed. Complacency: Boeing aircraft don’t crash, no reason this new one should. Greed: making a safety system that warns of failed sensors into an optional component. The intersection of these was fatal: a critical system built to depend on a single sensor (complacent), and no warning when the sensor failed (greed) ==> Dead people.
What is the appropriate punishment? There’s probably no individual decision that caused the mess. OTOH, the top level executives are supposed to be responsible for what the company does. It seems to me that this is one of those cases where an EU-style fine would be appropriate: something like 10% of the company’s global turnover – thus penalizing essentially everyone involved with the company – plus criminal prosecution of high-level managers.
– – – – –
Yellow vests in France: I am impressed that the movement is still going strong. It’s just a shame that movements like this get abused by vandals and troublemakers looking for a good time. We’ll see what happens today. It’s also not clear if they are actually making any real progress – seems more likely that they have become just part of the general background noise, while the French elite continue on their merry way.
– – – – –
Ban handshakes? WTF?
Here, it’s traditional in many middle- and high-schools for students to shake hands with their teachers at the end of class. Some Muslim immigrants complained: physical contact between the sexes, how horrible. They have officially been told to stuff it – it’s part of Swiss culture, and their kids will shake their teachers’ hands. Oh, and their girls also have to go to swim lessons along with the rest of the class.
If someone immigrates to the West, they must be willing to adapt to our culture. If they aren’t willing to adapt, they shouldn’t immigrate. It’s really that simple.
At some point, the troops will cross over to the protestor side. And then it is over.
Hopefully, we are not involved beyond providing food at strategic locations.
The Chavez revolution happened for a reason, and we can’t enable the pinheads who want to rule Venezuea (or anywhere else) from the comfort of their Miami Beach condos.