AlanD2

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• Commented on Announcement time!
  For USAians ... How bad is this? ISTM they are simply trying to completely wreck the elections, rather than win them?? As Howard NYC points out, Republicans have not been able to win on a level playing field for many...
• Commented on Announcement time!
  One sunday he took one of the trainers up in a good wind, throttled way down and flew past the tower. Backwards. Dad not amused when tower complained. Not surprising about the complaint. Most airplanes don't have rear-view-mirrors! 😂 I...
• Commented on Announcement time!
  You can often get around the New York Times paywall by copying a substantial portion of the text from the bit that the Times lets you see, putting it in quotes, and doing a web search. A number of sites...
• Commented on Announcement time!
  https://patabook.com/news/2024/04/08/3-body-problem-what-social-media-reaction-says-about-china/...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Flipside: the United Airlines Flight 232 crash at Sioux City which should have been 100% fatal (the plane had a catastrophic engine failure and lost all hydraulic power to the flight surfaces, but the flight crew basically invented flying with...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  The UK had a similar moment in the British European Airways Flight 548 disaster of 1969 (ex-military captain angry at junior officers due to take strike action the next day created chilly climate in the cockpit then fucked up big-time:...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  "The Tacoma Narrows Bridge has collapsed, therefore is already gone, therefore finding out what happened is pointless as we cannot prevent the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsing" The initial response after the collapse was to rebuild the bridge exactly as the...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Aviate, navigate, communicate. In that order. (I binge-watched Mentour Pilot last year. Highly recommended.) Agreed. He's my favorite on explaining aircraft accidents. Lots of his videos are on YouTube....
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Airplanes go through a check of every system just before take-off, I'm guessing that ships don't - if so, why not? Sadly airplanes still crash these days, despite everything that pilots, airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and regulatory agencies around the world...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  If you look at photographs, there's zero protection round the base of the bridge piers & supports. No doubt this will be fixed when they rebuild the bridge......
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  HERE is a BBC clip of the same event - spectacularly wrong. Also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDeBPuFQS0...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  I dunno where exactly this fits into which thread here within, but for sure there was an epic fail in regulatory oversight leading to (preventable) human error From the N.Y. Times article you mentioned: The crew of a cargo ship...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  You're thinking of a Autogyro / Gyrocopter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kxu543VwlA...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Most likely, he loses both the election and the case, and spends his life on legal delaying actions until his lawyers get sick of getting stiffed. From what I've seen and read, these days Trump's lawyers are demanding their pay...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  Yet ... polling appears to be showing DJT ahead ... Why? How? Poll results in the U.S. are almost meaningless these days. Pollsters have a difficult time contacting people by phone (fewer landlines, people don't answer - and you can...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  worst aspect? Trump is not the disease but an overt symptom, the outcome of a disease that keeps flaring up every 3 or 4 decades Yup. The real problem is not DJT, but the American voters who put him in...
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  if he cannot post the full amount then he cannot file an appeal Not only that, but any of his possessions may be seized and sold to help pay for his civil fraud judgment. Such a sad situation for him......
• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  He [DJT] has almost no ground game / get out the vote in the key states that are expected to be close. And based on what he just did to the RNC, doesn't seem to see the need. And this...
• Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
  ... (or, for that matter, the flatbread from Ethiopia). That's injera you're talking about. A pancake made from teff and cooked only on one side - the other side has bubble holes. It is used instead of silverware to eat...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  The "right to arm bears" is written into the USian Constitution; the right to carry a half-brick in a sock isn't! ;-) Assuming your post was at least half serious, the "right to bear arms" applies only to members of...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  Yeah - I can definitely see why the MAGAs would feel threatened: she seems pretty good at avoiding being scammed, plus has a fairly large fan base. Plus she's pretty much a liberal, and worst of all, she has encouraged...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  The nukes mention in Lee Child's book were Davy Crocketts produced by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (not the actual Illinois facility). The book's version of the nuke was to be backpacked in to the target, rather than being launched by...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  Just finished reading Night School, by Lee Child. (I like his books - so sue me. 😄) Central to the plot is a crate of 10 nuclear weapons, lost or misplaced by the U.S. Army back in the '60s (hard...
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  I should add that all members of our programming team were young and gung-ho. I don't remember management ever pushing us to do these crazy hours......
• Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
  However, it's common for true (computer) geeks and keen researchers to work 60+ hours a week (rarely up to 80) and still remain effective. I used to do it, sometimes, and know a good many others who did. BUT .......
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  Sadly, most House Republicans (and virtually all MAGAts would rather eat babies than compromise with Democrats......
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  (And again, see also "Hun horror" in Belgium in 1914-16, allegations of German soldiers bayoneting babies and nuns. This shit is a standard hot-button and whenever you see/hear it you should assume it's propaganda unless/until you get corroboration.) Yeah, sort...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  ... and then all US guvmint employees gat no pay Interestingly, House representatives (and presumably Senators) will continue to get their pay even if the U.S. government shuts down... 🫤...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  (If you were going to be really pedantic, "car-parking site" or similar would be more technically accurate than "car park", but people would think you were weird, and "car park" is what absolutely everyone calls them.) On the left side...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  ... any better &/or educated guesses as to what the US "House" is actually going to do, please? The GOP is truly f**ked on this issue. My hope is that enough of the few remaining moderate Republicans will eventually give...