throwaway5752

2. The 737 MAX was unstable because Boeing wanted to milk the 737 airframe further than it should have been for financial reasons and oversized engines were mounted forward on the wings.

3. Since the plane was unstable in this way, it would pitch up when climbing. MCAS would detect this through the angle of attack (AoA sensors) and automatically engage, forcing the nose down.

4. When the single, nonredundant AoA sensor failed, MCAS would misinterpret this and try to continuously force the nose down in normal operations. Or more plainly, it would fly the plane into the ground for no reason.

5. This happened at least 3 times. In two cases, it caused crashes, killing everyone - almost 350 men, women, and children - aboard.

6. Boeing strenuously blamed the crew in the first crash, and did not ground the planes.

7. Boeing did not ground the 737 MAXes after the second crash, either. The FAA only grounded the aircraft after much of the rest of the world already had.

As you noted previously, MCAS existed to make the 737 MAX fly like prior versions of the plane. Boeing, in fact, lobbied for this outcome so it would not affect certification or require separate pilot training, which would have cost time and money. So while MCAS was documented, pilots were not required to be trained on the system, because of Boeings efforts.

One cannot put a "don't crash the plane button" on a plane, even if it is well documented. It is particularly disgraceful if the "don't crash the plane" button only exists because the plane's manufacturer added the button to increase their own profits.

I have to admit, you have made me lose my composure here a bit. I thought anyone this knowledgable about flying would not blame pilot error in the 737 MAX crashes. The plane was grounded for almost 2 years, this was arguably the greatest scandal in the production and regulation of commercial aircraft in history. Boeing paid $20 billion in fines and restitution, and pled guilty to criminal charges.

For the benefit of anyone else curious about this, good starting points are

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings

"hours after the approval for MCAS's redesign was granted, Boeing sought, and the FAA approved, the removal of references to MCAS from Boeing's flight crew operations manual (FCOM)"

"Boeing wanted the FAA to certify the airplane as another version of the long-established 737; this would limit the need for additional training of pilots, a major cost saving for airline customers. During flight tests, however, Boeing discovered that the position and larger size of the engines tended to push up the airplane nose during certain maneuvers. To counter that tendency and ensure fleet commonality with the 737 family, Boeing added MCAS so the MAX would handle similar to earlier 737 versions."

"The MAX was exempted from certain newer safety requirements, saving Boeing billions of dollars in development costs."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_groundi...

https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Blind-Tragedy-Fall-Boeing/dp/0...

The aircraft should have never been declared airworthy. There should have been no need for an EAD in the first place. There is no excuse for putting a control system that flies the craft into the ground when there is a failure in a nonredundant sensor on a commercial aircraft.

The high standards required for pilots, like Amelia Earhart, do not obviate the even higher standards for quality and safety from manufacturers.

Nothing is worse for a dilettantish ideologue than to have their ideas put into practice and have to face reality with scrutiny.

It was a very interesting piece, and something to be proud of. So far nobody has figured out the TOE so they are in good company. On the other hand I see no reason for them to believe they are in a position to be as dismissive as they are of existing theory.

I'm not saying it is wrong, either. But it's not quantitative and makes weak predictions with very little work into the roadmap to experimentally validate the ideas.

This is the biggest reach in your entire essay, that black wholes create new universes. The event horizon is complete cut off from this universe and speculating that generations upon generations of universes are created from black holes is fanciful. Your just shoehorn what is basically a massive anthropic principle onto an interesting cosmology theory unnecessarily.

But buying more lottery tickets does in fact improve your odds of winning. So your comparison breaks down because it undercuts your point.

The fact that you have no a priori knowledge of what is a winning ticket is not the case with college admissions. It's actually the complete opposite! You have a great deal of prior knowledge and odds of academic success. So, the lottery is a poor comparison in that regard.

Further, the lottery will always bankrupt you because the tickets have overwhelmingly negative expected value. In the case of education, every single study on it indicates extremely positive outcomes. So in fact, adding more seats and getting more students in college, all else being equal, is likely to have a positive economic outcome. If $1 dollar lottery tickets paid out $3 on average, the more you buy, the richer you would be. So again, the lottery is a poor comparison.

I don't think I'll convince you otherwise, but those interested can read this counterpoint to the Reason link with more background and detail: https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-ally-steph...

It wasn't a mechanism called the Chevron deference, it was law, as determined by the Supreme Court in "Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council".

The deference was on the part of the courts deferring to executive regulators when there was ambiguity, since the regulators were experts in a given field and the courts were generally legal experts. Not Congress.

That was overturned in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

"non-elected, life-long positioned government employees" so, you mean, federal employees. Nothing about it is "life-long", you made that up. They could quit, change jobs, or be fired.

And "criminals" is false. It applied to civil statutes, not criminal ones. It goes on.

It's an concerted attempted authoritarian takeover through bureaucratic methods. When they exhaust this, you'll see them frustrated and declare states of emergencies. The founders wrote about this in the Federalist Papers, people like this have always existed.

He also did awful things in the business world when he was younger. He's no saint, either, he is just a normal, messy person. But he's done more for the poorest and neediest people in the world than most countries.

Gates is thousands of times better than most. He and Melinda have done more good for the world than all but a few handfuls of individuals. I've heard estimates his original MSFT stake would be worth over a trillion dollars now.

The article mentions an emerging view it is about "precocity" - larger and better developed babies, and extra yolk being able to provide nutrition to the baby for longer.

That is an extremely important distinction. Further, there are legitimate actions by the FBI in the cases of real judges and representatives in their public corruption prosecutions (see Kids for Cash). In this case, though, the charges are intended to intimidate. That is exactly what the director's tweet communicated and why it was deleted.

I didn't say to sell all belongings and move. I said to have a way out if it becomes necessary. The FBI is being weaponized against judges, right now, and this without any modern precedent.

If you are tempted to downvote, you could make a better point by finding comparable examples under any other modern president.

I have seen estimates that dissolving USAID has caused 10,000 excess deaths, so far.

They threatened three countries with military invasion.

They placed real punitive tariffs on most of the world besides Russia.

They began abducting legal foreign residents and sending some to a foreign prison camp, and not complying with legal orders to return them.

They are responsible for a surge of detained foreign visitors at the border in prison like conditions, sometimes with limited access to their embassies.

They disavowed NATO, saying Europe would have to be responsible for its own security.

I could go on, but China is in fact a more reliable and a more responsible world actor than the US now.

A title like "I wish I had enough attention to get through the boring parts of high school biology, I now find pop biology interesting" may have had less impact, though.

Computer scientists and programmers are very intelligent people who often have grossly unrealistic projections of their competency in other fields, and this is a fine example of the phenomenon.

Regardless of what else I do, when I comment, I want people to not feel isolate or only in their views. The administration is working hard to create a climate of fear and intimidation and it is important to resist it in multiple ways.

I agree commenting in isolation is less valuable. Voting, calling representatives, going to town halls, and running for office are all more valuable.

If the President thinks a crime was committed let him bring it and lose in court. This is un-American chicken shit tin-pot dictator behavior.