Can Bitcoin Replace PayPal? - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/10/business/will-bitcoin-replace-paypal/index.html?eref=edition

<comment><USER2> >>The added bonus? No middlemen taking a cut from the transaction, he says. While low, there are actually transaction fees.

Bitcoin payment has already been used on many websites and seems to work well for them. PayPal offers much more than just payment processing however (there are refunds for example).

Bitcoin is just a medium of exchange, better question is, which payment process will be able to match PayPal in terms of features first.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surely most of Paypal's real work is around fraud and disputes. Bitcoin might help reduce their transaction costs though, ideally some of that would flow back to its customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's too slow, needs to constantly download that huge blockchain, and it's too unstable, so probably no.

<comment><USER5> You are talking about one specific -- granted canonical -- wallet implementation; there are plenty of others including thin clients: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Clients](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Clients)

<comment><USER4> How is that going to solve the blockchain update when you send money or receive money taking forever? People aren't going to want to wait that long for transactions to occur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> yes, and it will unless paypal figures out how to work with bitcoin and not against it.</comment>


Facebook doesn't want you to deactivate your account. - <AUTHOR> http://collison.ie/blog/2009/07/facebook-doesnt-want-you-to-deactivate-your-account

<comment><USER2> Of course they don't want you to deactivate your account. It's their business to try to retain their members/customers, just like every other company in the world. Now if they are pretending to deactivate your account but leaving it accessible to others, or other shenanigans, then we've something to talk about. But this? Big deal.

<comment><USER3> Not only is it their business to retain customers, I think they are also trying to retain your personal data.

I don't really know what their business plan will be, but I'm sure it won't involve normal users paying any money. So they have to make money off of me somehow, whether it is through targeted advertising or selling information to marketers. The current privacy policy allows them to give information from your profile to third parties as long as you cannot be personally identified.

So while I'm not saying they will do anything unethical, an inactive account is probably worth a lot more than a deactivated account.

<comment><USER4> They seem to already have a business plan that works pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's a really good way of empathising with your users. I've seen "sitename will miss you!" type messages, getting social connections involved would be a hell of a lot more persuasive.

<comment><USER6> That is, unless your Facebook "friends" are actual friends with whom you have many channels of communication...it just seems tacky and manipulative to me.

<comment><USER7> Manipulative? Yes. Tacky? No.

They're reminding you that you have friends on Facebook. Tacky would be them telling your friends to convince you not to abandon your account.

<comment><USER6> It's tacky because the psychology they're attempting is disingenuous. It attempts to form an association between their self-serving message and your friends' pictures.

<comment><USER7> But your friends all use their service too. What's to say Facebook doesn't have a good reason to remind you of them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can't see the small print on the deactivation screen in the photo, but here it is:

 _Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications from your friends._

It's a bit unclear in what sense your account is actually deactivated.

</comment><comment><USER9> It bothers me that they won't let you actually _delete_ your account.

<comment><USER10> This URL may only be visible to Facebook users, but please let me know if this helps.

[http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=16929680703&...](http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=16929680703&ref=share)

<comment><USER11> This is the first link on google for "delete facebook account"

It works. They deactivate your account for 2 weeks and then permanently delete it. Worked for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if it wasn't a coincidence that all the people who Facebook says will miss him are girls (well, and one restaurant)

<comment><USER13> Facebook is probably using an algorithm that picks from among the friends that the user has interacted the most with. At least that's what I would do if I were implementing it. They already use such an algorithm internally to detect if your account is compromised (i.e., if the set of friends with whom you communicate changes sharply at some point.)

Given that Facebook might be doing this, it is likely that the top few friends would be of the opposite gender, in a heteronormative context. This intuitive expectation has been confirmed in research studies of social networks. e.g., <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jure/pubs/msn-www08.pdf> ("people tend to converse more frequently and with longer durations with the opposite gender").

Perhaps pc can confirm/refute whether this is true in his case?

<comment><USER12> We can try it ourselves. Just log in and go to <http://www.facebook.com/deactivate.php>

The 5 that show up for me are people I recently friended (unfortunately all dudes)

<comment><USER14> Random selection of people I've been in pictures with.

edit: they've tagged me in their photo, or i've tagged them in mine. age of picture is all over the place, so not just recent ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Claiming "_______ will miss you" is not always a safe assumption...and at worst is a lie:)

</comment><comment><USER16> World of Warcraft does something similar: <http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6985/wowcancel.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER17> I had my account "deleted" over two years ago. I went through the email back and forth with the customer service representative who confirmed my acount was deleted. Unfortunately I just received a legitimate friend request from a college friend. Looks like it wasn't deleted after all.

<comment><USER7> You can send friend requests directly to email addresses. My middle school brother just found me on Facebook that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I accidentally "disappeared" my first FB account by creating a new account and unwittingly using the same email address as the existing one.

No warning, nothing. But I could no longer sign into the first account.

When I realized what had happened, I went looking for signs of the that first account. I had been the sole admin of a group; now, that group listed no admin at all; I seized admin rights with my new account.

So perhaps that's the best way to deactivate: exploit bad code.

</comment><comment><USER19> I just tried this, and for me at went as far as selecting pictures that have both me and the other person in them. Really trying hard for that personal touch.

</comment><comment><USER20> Evil with style.

<comment><USER21> I'm curious, what about this do you find evil?

<comment><USER20> Imagine the following more dramatic version:

"If you deactivate your account, we'll kill this kitten."

Same essential principle.

If you want a detailed ethical analysis, it would have something to do with saying that your friends will miss you, as though they're asking you to stay, when they said no such thing.

<comment><USER7> _"If you deactivate your account, we'll kill this kitten."_

Actively threatening a life.

 _"Your friends will no longer be able to keep in touch with you."_

Suggesting there might be passive harm caused directly by a user's action.

Yeah, those two are ethically correlated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Most Developers Make Lousy Developer Managers - <AUTHOR> https://www.7pace.com/blog/developers-vs-managers <comment><USER2> "Maybe those who can do shouldn't teach–or manage, as it were." Yes.</comment>


A330 flight control laws saved Voyager, inquiry finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/a330-flight-control-laws-saved-voyager-inquiry-find-410491/ <comment><USER2> From the headline, I could not figure out how an A330s flight control system could have any influence on spacecraft launched in 1977. Surely there would be no way to port the code and the storage on the Voyagers is tiny... at least until the V'ger Mk. I upgrade.

<comment><USER3> Voyager is the name RAF use: [http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/voyager.cfm](http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/voyager.cfm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The next step up is auto-GCAS. That system, which started going into USAF F-16s in 2014, has already saved four planes and pilots. Here's a video of the cockpit view. The pilot had briefly lost consciousness during a high-G maneuver, and the auto-GCAS system rolled the plane wings-level and pulled it out of a dive and into a mild climb.[1]

Work is going on to develop auto-GCAS for aircraft without the maneuverability of a fighter.

[1] [http://aviationweek.com/air-combat-safety/auto-gcas-saves- un...](http://aviationweek.com/air-combat-safety/auto-gcas-saves- unconscious-f-16-pilot-declassified-usaf-footage)

<comment><USER5> The Garmin G1000 "glass cockpit" offers a blue straight-and-level button even for small general aviation planes, such as the Cirrus: if you get disoriented or into an upset, just press it (whether the autopilot is on or off), and the autopilot will level the plane and hold altitude. However, AFAIK it's not an automatic envelope protection, though I'd think that it would be feasible.

[http://www.whycirrus.com/advancements/Cirrus-perspective- coc...](http://www.whycirrus.com/advancements/Cirrus-perspective-cockpit.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" seven dented ceiling panels, 50 damaged in-flight entertainment sockets"_

The article doesn't state it, but that's because the passengers, like the co- pilot, fell towards the ceiling of the airplane during this episode. Apparently, the headphone cables are stronger than those sockets.

<comment><USER7> It's a safety concern that at least 50 passengers didn't have their seat-belts on!

<comment><USER8> Is it me or has seat-belt-sign discipline gone out the window?

Over my December travels, dozens of passengers on all 4 segments I flew openly flaunted the seat-belt sign, getting up to go to the bathroom and standing in the aisle waiting for it in full view of flight attendants, who didn't say anything. I broke down and did so myself, as the seat belt sign was on for the vast majority of the flight and I was getting desperate.

In the years prior, I've been sternly commanded to get fuck back to my seat when queueing for the bathroom, even with the seat belt sign off. Never observed anyone out and about while it was on. Maybe the only care in the front of the plane, since you might be preparing to rush the flight deck or something?

Any frequent fliers notice this change?

<comment><USER9> I've noticed that too. I used to do that myself, until I hit some of the worst turbulence of my life flying in to Denver a couple years ago. Whacked my head pretty hard on main cabin ceiling (the plane dropped ~20ft without warning and I didn't). Ever since then I've worn my seat belt for as much of the flight as possible.

<comment><USER10> During flight, you can set the belt a bit looser. For cases like this it's more important to keep you in your seat, than to keep you there as tight as possible, which is more important in case of a crash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The link I posted is the only good technical summary, but there are plenty of others about the pilot's ongoing military trial, eg: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/bored-raf- pilot-s...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/06/bored-raf-pilot- sent-187-passengers-nosedive-playing-camera/) _' Bored' RAF pilot sent 187 passengers into a nosedive 'while playing with his camera'_

<comment><USER11> > The link I posted is the only good technical summary

Agreed, except for...

> Its automatic high-speed protection system was triggered 3s later, with a > maximum indicated air speed of 358kt (662km/h), or Mach 0.9, recorded.

<comment><USER12> There is another thread on exactly what you've perceived as an error, because that statement is, in fact, accurate, counterintuitive to a physics education.

<comment><USER11> Damnit. My initial thought is that I didn't take into account air pressure. Now I feel like an idiot, time to research...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After reading the summary it sounds like a "CAPTAIN HAD A MASSIVE HEART FAILURE AND SLUMPED FORWARD ON THE CONTROLS DO NOT CRASH AIRPLANE FROM CRUISE ALTITUDE IF POSSIBLE" which might sound pretty obvious but, uhh, that's some nice code work. That's why there are two (2) pilots in theory/practice, because human redundancy is a valuable asset.

I can't help but think if there was a video camera in the cockpit it might have looked a lot like that scene in "The Big Lebowski" where he drops his joint between his legs while driving and then loses control and hits a dumpster. Shit tends to domino from time to time lol.

<comment><USER14> Remember that most of the sources of typical crashes or problems have been eliminated. Which means that accidents happen they're always freak accidents.

<comment><USER13> Not really, that recent crash in San Francisco had alarms going off like crazy and the idiot pilot still managed to crash the plane. Once you read enough NTSB reports / bulletins about General Aviation accidents (usually only big stuff makes the news) it becomes very clear that accidents happen and bad decisions happen. Like turning off the wrong engine...

<comment><USER15> Was this the Korean (whichever of the companies) airlines crash? I didn't read up too much into it after the fact.

<comment><USER16> Taipai, Taiwan. I believe it had trouble in one engine briefly after takeoff, and the pilots tried turning it on and off again. Unfortunately they turned off the still-functioning engine and it plummeted into a river.

You might remember the shot of it flying over a bridge, rolled 90 degrees and so close to the ground that the wing partly sheared off.

<comment><USER5> You're referring to the Transasia in Taiwan.

GP probably was about the Asiana 214 into SFO, RW 28 L, where the ILS was inoperative, so it was a bog standard visual approach into a nice long runway in beautiful weather in a flawless Boeing 777 that the crew botched. (First fatal crash of a 777 - great plane!)

However, the 777 supports the point made way above: the planes and systems are so good these days that most accidents are freak accidents.

Let's look at 777 hull losses:

* 2008, BA 38 into LHR: weird problem with frozen fuel filter (no fatalities)

* 2011, EgyptAir 667 on the ground in Cairo: fire (no fatalities)

* 2013, Asiana 214 into SFO: inop ILS, suboptimal crew resource management (a few fatalities, one run over by fire truck)

* 2014, MH 370: freak freak freak freaky

* 2014, MH 17: shot down over Ukraine

* 2015, BA 2276 in Las Vegas: uncontained engine failure (no fatalities)

* 2016, Emirates 521 in Dubai: crash on botched go-around (one fatality, fire fighter)

So, I'd say there were some crew problems, some design problems (hopefully fixed), and many really freaky confluences of unfortunate circumstances...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Register has another take on this, including the court martial results:

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/07/raf_voyager_zz333_f...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/07/raf_voyager_zz333_flt_lt_andrew_townshend_court_martial/)

<comment><USER18> The linked article states that the trial of the pilot is continuing, not that a verdict had been handed down. He is being accused of two counts of perjury and one of making a false record. He has plead not guility to all charges but does admit that a camera did become wedged behind the stick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Title needs to updated: 1) Published in 2015 2) Clarify that Voyager is military designation for A330

<comment><USER20> > Clarify that Voyager is military designation for A330

AFAIK, Voyager is only the RAF designation for the A330 MRTT. As far as I'm aware, the other airforces that operate it largely don't have any specific designations.

</comment></comment><comment> awinter-py not sure it's legit for airbus to be declaring a win for their automation. sounds like the copilot dogpaddled back to the cockpit through freefall and batted at his controls from the ceiling until the computer got confused and resumed level flight.

If any safety technology deserves credit here it's seatbelts. From the sound of it, nobody who was belted in was injured.

<comment><USER12> The computer worked to prevent the aircraft from entering an overspeed condition by pitching up and attempting to recover from the dive even before that dual stick input was an issue. It was intervening 13 seconds into the incident, as the aircraft threatened to exceed safety tolerances. The dual stick input created _another_ issue after that intervention began.

The automation very possibly saved lives here. The overspeed protection is good because had that not happened, there's a real possibility that significant sections of the airplane would have sheared off, or the airplane could have rapidly drifted further out of control as it accelerated quickly through 365 knots indicated. Big, heavy, thrusting things gain airspeed _rapidly_ when you pitch them down 18 degrees at cruise power, and the margin of recoverability is very minimal. There are arguments that humans are unable to prevent some scenarios in that situation because by the time higher-order thinking on decisions has happened, it's too late. See, for example, the surprisingly lengthy duration of time between the incident and setting for idle, which probably should have been among the first things done in response. Brains are slow when things happen fast, and a symphony of alarms and whoops (undoubtedly in progress) does not help.

A Boeing would not have intervened in the situation at all and would have allowed the aircraft to go overspeed, risking serious airframe damage. If you crash dive an airliner at cruising speed, very, very bad things happen. At cruising altitude safety envelopes are very small. The paragraph talking about direct law is, roughly speaking, what would have happened had this been a Boeing aircraft. (This isn't bad, it's just different philosophies of pilot responsibility. I'm not partisan on the difference like some pilots and am willing to acknowledge the benefits of both approaches; this one is an Airbus advantage.)

<comment><USER21> Nope, it wouldn't happen in a Boeing aircraft. This is a well-known Airbus defect that was a contributing factor to the crash of Air France Flight 447.

Boeing uses traditional controls. It's like a race car steering wheel on a big movable stick. It is really easy to see how the control is positioned.

Airbus uses a small joystick off to the side. It is force-based like a Thinkpad pointing stick, so it barely moves when you push on it. It isn't easy to see if the device is being pushed.

Here, a camera got jammed against the joystick. The pilot nearly made things worse by putting the aircraft in "direct law" mode because he couldn't tell that his own control was causing the problem. In the case of Air France Flight 447, the pilot's idiotic control input was not visible to the two other people in the cockpit.

Airbus will obviously brush this one under the carpet as well, because admitting that the side-stick control is hazardous would cause a need for drastic retrofit of all Airbus aircraft cockpits.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Sidestick_control)

<comment><USER12> This is the partisanship I'm talking about, for what it's worth.

I've flown an A320 in a full-size simulator and my experience with its sidestick, even in that simulator environment, does not match what you are describing. The sidestick moves quite far and quite noticeably[0], and does not behave like a ThinkPad. The aircraft simply _ignores_ drastic input, which might be what you're thinking of with that assessment?

Anyway, I'd imagine if I were PIC of this flight and my aircraft suddenly pitched down 18 degrees, the sidestick would be the first thing I'd look at in about the first 750 milliseconds. Not sure why that didn't happen here, but I tend not to judge pilots from accident reports, so I have't put a lot of thought into it. I can't imagine a scenario where any camera could conceal itself in that arrangement, unless the A330 has huge voids under the stick that the A320 does not. Even stopping short of judging the PIC, I have a hard time imagining an outcome where this is an Airbus control flaw, no matter the (as one can see, passionate) opinions on sidestick.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zBsxJdI5JI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zBsxJdI5JI)

<comment><USER22> I don't think the sidestick is the problem, it's the lack of feedback and the fact that the system ignores conflicting input.

Boeing undoubtedly does that one aspect correctly: Regardless of the type of stick the two inputs are linked so if the captain is giving strange input it would be <i>immediately</i> obvious to the copilot. There is no reason Airbus couldn't implement the same system on their sidesticks.

The fact that conflicting input causes the system to ignore both seems like downright insanity and based on the assumption of one input being defective, rather than conflict between pilots. A simple fix might be to include a hand detection mechanism and ignore input from the stick that doesn't have a hand present unless it is the only input and is not overridden.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Modern technology may be capable of reducing crew workload to historic lows"

It's stated as benefit, but is this the reason pilots get bored perhaps?

<comment><USER24> Exactly. This is why level 2-4 automated cars scare the hell out of me.

<comment><USER25> The autopilot, carefully designed to handle all situations the engineers have imagined, suddenly throws hands up "you human handle this!". You, having let the car drive itself all the time have 0 hours hands-on driving time. You are now put in a fast-evolving situation too complicated for computers and are expected to do the right thing.

This how AF447 happened.

<comment><USER26> The commander of AF447 did know exactly the right thing to do, though. (Aside from maybe knocking the copilot out)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I do not understand, it took only one input to put it in a dive with auto pilot engaged but two inputs to cancel auto pilot to get it out of the dive?

<comment><USER28> I have an A320 type so let me try to guess what happened in the A330. The airbus is... different. You can displace the stick 100% in any direction and it wont bank beyond 67 degrees, pitch up more than 30, or pitch down more than 15. It wont overstress because the stick controls G-forces through a closed feedback loop. It also has high-speed protections where it will automatically apply positive G-force to pitch up in order to slow down. The pilot cannot override these protections. You can do whatever you want with the stick and as long as the computers are working and getting good data the aircraft will not stall, overspeed, overstress, or roll upside down. If you get too careless it will even run the engines up to full takeoff thrust and microblog it to you. These protections were working the whole time the captains stick was deflected 100% nose down. The system isn't perfect and it allows some overshoot, as you can see, but at least the protections kept it within 17 degrees nose down and mach 0.9.

Now to the story at hand, the captain probably didn't realize his camera was wedged between the seat's armrest and the control stick as he moved the seat forward. I can only guess that he assumed the strange attitude was the result of a computer malfunction because he considered turning off the computers that provide many of the protections I mentioned. Good thing he didn't. Now the first officer gets into the cockpit and probably tosses a wtf glance at the captain but upon getting one right back he decides to use his own stick. The sticks in the bus aren't mechanically connected but, just like with mechanically connected sticks in antique Boeing aircraft, their force inputs are mathematically summed. Yet unlike mechanically connected sticks, displacement isn't transmitted across the cockpit so the first officer wouldn't be wise to the fact that the captain's stick was full forward. Luckily the bus engineers thought of this. When the first officer pulled his stick back the computer would have noticed both sticks moving and it would have announced "dual input". This isn't a microblog or a gentle woman's voice. It's a pissed off dude trying to talk some sense into you. At that point the captain probably looked at the palms of his hands to make sure they weren't on the stick. He probably showed his palms to the first officer too. At that point they had two heads working on the problem and it wouldn't have taken them too long to find the camera.

<comment><USER29> > If you get too careless it will even run the engines up to full takeoff > thrust and microblog it to you.

What does "microblog" mean in this context? I assume it doesn't mean that the A330 isn't posting about its engine thrust on Twitter. (Yet.)

<comment><USER28> The thrust FMA (flight mode annunciator) will show "A. FLOOR" alpha floor or "TOGA LK" (takeoff/go-around thrust lock). The former means Fifi just took over and is applying full thrust for an immediate high AoA situation. The latter means the emergency is over but Fifi is so white knuckled and panting that she's ignoring lever position and keeping full thrust. I say microblog because you have to make a conscious effort to read these things. I just got curious and did some googling and it I'm not the only one who can be confused... The aural warning for low speed is the last thing you hear and unless you actually see TOGA LK and turn off autothrust you'll be overspeeding soon. With flaps down (lower max speed) this happens pretty fast. [https://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/12/21/loss-of- airspeed...](https://news.aviation-safety.net/2013/12/21/loss-of-airspeed-on- approach-incident-shows-pilots-lack-of-comprehension-of-automatic-systems/)

<comment><USER30> When thrust is applied by the computer, do the throttle levers move on their own or stay in their original positions ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The Register article has this:

"Flt Lt Nathan Jones, the co-pilot, suffered a cut to the head, a fractured back, a prolapsed disc and nerve damage, the court martial heard."

</comment><comment><USER32> From the article: _They then set the thrust levers to idle and raised the aircraft's nose, before selecting take-off and go-around power and regaining straight and level flight at 31,000ft._

Can anyone familiar with these aircraft opine on why the pilot decided to select TOGA in order to complete recovery? They were at perhaps 28,500 feet at the time. Seems like a a panic reaction.

<comment><USER33> Not familiar but TOGA is just the aircraft-idiomatic version of "maximum power", no?

<comment><USER34> Yes, and it wears the engines out much faster than any lower setting would. Grandparent post has a point, though it probably does have to do with recovering as quickly as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> That will likely cut down on flight deck videos on youtube.

<comment><USER30> Thats what came to my mind too. Which is sad. I definitely dont want passengers exposed to more risk, but I'm also against "its policy" kind of rules that squelch people from having fun and exposing more people to aviation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > with a maximum indicated air speed of 358kt (662km/h), or Mach 0.9, recorded

What? 358 knots is much closer to mach 0.5 in air. 358 meters/second is close... 662 mph is close.

<comment><USER37> Indicated airspeed is based on the force of the oncoming air, and decreases as air gets less dense. There's some altitude where 358kt indicated is Mach 0.9.

Edit: before I get more replies attempting to lecture me on how wrong I am, please look up the difference between true airspeed (how fast the air is moving past the airplane) and indicated airspeed (a measurement derived from the difference between static and dynamic pressure on the aircraft that only matches how fast the air is moving when you're at sea level).

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the clarification. Is it normal to refer to kts with the assumption this is related to pressure on the airframe and not actual airspeed?

The reference to the 365KIAS rating later in the article provides only a clue IMO.

<comment><USER37> It literally says "indicated air speed." There's no need for interpretation or assumption.

If I saw a raw airspeed without and qualifier, I'd probably assume it meant indicated speed. But I fly small planes where that's the only airspeed available. If you want true airspeed, you have to take what's indicated and convert manually.

<comment><USER38> When coining new terms at my day job (software engineer) I try to avoid terms like "indicated air speed" for the reason that part of the term – "indicated" in this case – is easily ignored by those less familiar with the terminology, because it seems superfluous. (In this case, "indicated" to a layperson simply means "it was shown on a dial". In that interpretation, it carries little information and hence gets ignored.)

We had a similar problem at my day job (a storage company) – there were two kinds of entities, one called a "volume" and one called a "storage volume". The were related (hence the similar names) but not the same thing. Of course, those less familiar with the difference kept dropping "storage" from "storage volume" to cause all sorts of confusion.

My solution? Eradicate "storage volume" from our vocabulary and replace it with the pseudo-acronym "SV", which stood for nothing. Confusion ended.

<comment><USER39> Those less familiar with the terminology generally don't fly aeroplanes. Indicated air speed is different from true air speed and ground speed, but this is essential complexity - pilots need to know it.

Indicated air speed is determined by measuring pressure in the pitot tube ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube)) and is shown on the air speed indicator, which on an A330 is on the Primary Flight Display ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_flight_display](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_flight_display)). Important speeds such as stall speed ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(fluid_mechanics)#Speed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_\(fluid_mechanics\)#Speed)) and never exceed speed have constant values of indicated air speed.

True air speed can be calculated if you know the air pressure, which depends on the altitude and outside air temperature. Altimeters work by measuring air pressure.

It's a good idea when reporting something to take into account the readership, and to a lay audience explain things which are counter-intuitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> "Within 10s of the forward stick input, the A330 had reached a 17˚ nose-down attitude. Its automatic high-speed protection system was triggered 3s later"

What exactly did this 'automatic high-speed protection system ' do?

"As the aircraft pitched down, the aircraft's captain – who was alone in the cockpit – attempted to disengage the autopilot and pull back on his sidestick"

Surly the autopilot would have disengaged when the pilot moved his seat forward and pushed the sidestick forward at the same time?

"With dual inputs being delivered, the A330's flight protection system was automatically engaged"

I thought the 'flight protection system' was already engaged. Why would dual imputs trigger the ' flight protection system'

"The initial recovery from the dive was the result of the aircraft's own protection measures, and not the product of pilot inputs."

What exactly did the computer do to initiate 'initial recovery'?

</comment><comment><USER41> I was curious, so I found a picture of an A330-200 cockpit here:

[http://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/251517/cs-tom-tap- por...](http://www.airplane-pictures.net/photo/251517/cs-tom-tap-portugal- airbus-a330-200/)

I'd like to know what kind of camera is going to fall against the pilot's stick and jam it forward!

<comment><USER42> Judging by the perspective, the seats are all the way back. When occupied, the end of the armrest should be somewhere close to the sidestick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Shouldn't there be an override switch to tell the plane to only accept one of the two control inputs, for situations like this where one of the inputs suffers some physical damage or jam? None of the hundreds of cockpit switches does that?

What happens if one pilot dumps their entire cup of coffee onto their controls and it malfunctions causing erroneous input? Is it basically game over?

<comment><USER44> There is. Google "sidestick priority".

<comment><USER43> Thanks! That is reassuring to know. Shouldn't they have used it in this case when they knew an input was jammed? Obviously it worked out when the computer decided to ignore them, but just curious what the correct procedure should have been here.

<comment><USER45> > "With his feet on the flight deck roof, the co-pilot reached down and > attempted to disengage the autopilot by pulling back on his sidestick,"

In this case I don't think they really knew that the issue was the jammed stick before the co-pilot pulling back on his stick gave the flight computer priority. It's hard to really say from the information given exactly when they discovered the camera was jammed and removed it vs when the plane was getting itself back under control.

<comment><USER46> They also said the captain was pulling back on the stick as well.. or at least ATTEMPTING to. Maybe they're indicating that the stuck camera (which seems to have come unstuck before recovery was complete?) prevented him from doing so.

It would be really weird for both pilots pulling back on the stick to result in a dual input error situation.

<comment><USER45> Not that weird I think the net force on the Captain's stick was probably still forward with the camera jammed there with him trying to pull back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Damn.

This reminds me a lot of a fantastic podcast episode on the pros and cons of automation: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the- magent...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magenta- automation-paradox-pt-1/)

</comment><comment><USER48> What this proves is that no matter how much you test and plan and design for things people can always find some way to screw things up you never imagined. I always keep that in mind when writing software for people.

</comment><comment><USER49> > "Up to 24% of the aircraft occupants were rendered temporarily unfit for > duties following the incident"

Gotta love the officialese for 'people puked everywhere'....

<comment><USER50> Or flung into the ceiling headfirst at 0.5g and then back to the floor at 2g. Presumably that could cause injuries other than motion sickness.

<comment><USER51> Indeed. From the Telegraph article linked in another comment:

> Flt Lt Nathan Jones, the co-pilot, suffered a cut to the head, a fractured > back, a prolapsed disc and nerve damage.

> The court heard 14 passengers were so badly hurt they were unable to fly > back to the UK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> PPrune discussion on the issue, after the cause was found to be the stuck camera:

[http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/533921-voyager- plumm...](http://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/533921-voyager-plummets- merged-14.html)

</comment><comment><USER46> Surely this can't be right:

>Its automatic high-speed protection system was triggered 3s later, with a maximum indicated air speed of 358kt (662km/h), or Mach 0.9, recorded.

Wikipedia says Mach 1 at sea level is 1225kph and 1091kph at 30,000ft. Not sure what temperature they assume though.

<comment><USER53> Indicated airspeed measures the dynamic pressure exerted on the aircraft by the motion of the surrounding fluid, not the velocity relative to the ground. Airspeed indicators are calibrated at sea level so you need more information in order to get the calibrated airspeed for your altitude and you still need more data + error correction to turn that into true airspeed, which is the actual velocity of the plane relative to the air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why was captain playing around with his camera when you are in charge of 200 lives?

<comment><USER55> Autopilot.</comment></comment>


Oregon has first confirmed Covid-19 case - <AUTHOR> https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/DISEASESCONDITIONS/DISEASESAZ/Pages/emerging-respiratory-infections.aspx <comment><USER2> And two presumptive cases in Washington (Snohomish and King counties) just announced at an 8pm press briefing. One a high schooler with unknown origin. The other a person returning from Korea on Tuesday.

[https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2020/02/2-new- coronavirus-...](https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2020/02/2-new-coronavirus- cases-in-washington-state.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> My son attends that school. We literally got the call while hosting an evening party for him and several friends. Gonna be a rough week.

<comment><USER4> You and your immediate family should be okay, but maybe don't visit grandparents if you have them nearby.

<comment><USER5> The same is true for a normal flu. It seems the incubation time is rather long with this virus which is why you might want to wait before visiting them again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think pretty much anyone that's not living in an isolated part of the us should assume that it's spreading near where you are.

The only reason we haven't found cases in the us is that we haven't been testing. There's probably 100 people for every person that they've tested positive at this point, maybe more.

<comment><USER7> I think this is 100% true for the west coast. We know this virus has been in the wild for at least two weeks, likely more. It's more likely than not that most large cities nationwide have been exposed at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does testing and quarantine work for people in the US who are not insured?

I am seeing stories around the web of people having to pay 2-3.000 USD for a test and also facing major bills for hospital quarantine?

<comment><USER9> If you make a working-class wage in the USA and you don't have health insurance, it's pretty unlikely you'll check in to a hospital for any reason that doesn't scare the hell out of you.

In addition to being expensive, medical costs in the USA vary wildly between different hospitals, cannot be predicted based on symptoms alone, and are essentially not discoverable during an emergency. Even if you have insurance, some parts of the medical attention you receive will be covered but others may not. For example, you may have a procedure that is covered by your insurance company, but the diagnostics needed to address an urgent complication of that procedure may not be covered.

More specifically to the present viral outbreak...imagine paying $3k for a test just to find out that the result is negative. That happened to this guy in Florida: [https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health- care/article24047680...](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/health- care/article240476806.html)

<comment><USER8> Given that. I don't understand how the US can fight a viral epidemic.

You have the best medical services in the world; but if a significant part of the population is not going to use that because of the threat of financial ruin, then you are never going to get on top of an epidemic.

<comment><USER10> We don't have the best medical in the world. That's just marketing.

A doctor in the US can prescribe an expensive medication or a generic, but they are completely unable to inform you of the price difference. And their employer is contractually prevented from posting the prices that an insured patient would pay. American patients probably suffer as much from dealing with errors in hospital bills, debt collections, insurance companies denying claims, etc as they do from disease. And our health care system is entirely fee-for-service rather than optimized for outcomes. Doctors may be idealistic, but I don't see how they can do more good than harm in our current parasitic industry.

<comment><USER11> Depends on how you grade "best medical in the world." If it's how many people are covered and how easy it is to access healthcare, it's pretty low. If it's access the specialists and quality care, regardless of cost, it's top of the world easily. Problem is that only makes a difference for rich people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With now 3 cases of unknown origin, it's pretty obvious that widespread community transmission is inevitable - because it's already happening.

SXSW is scheduled to start in Austin in 2 weeks. There will be tens of thousands of people flying into Austin, many of whom will be coming from places where coronavirus is circulating in the community. They will hang out with tens of thousands of _other_ people from around the world, often in packed-to-the-gills music venues where they are at various levels of intoxication. They will all fly home to their places of origin a week later.

<comment><USER13> I haven't been in ages, but the "SXSW Crud" used to be a common concept. Too much booze, lack of sleep, lots of handshaking, + cold and flu. It knocked me out hard 2 years in a row. After that I started getting the flu shot yearly and avoiding physical touching at events. Hosting SXSW during this inevitable pandemic is a terrible terrible idea.

<comment><USER14> We generically refer to this in the security community as "ConFlu," because it happens at every conference.

<comment><USER15> At fan conventions (gaming, anime, etc), "Con Crud".

<comment><USER16> "PAX Plague" is a common one for PAX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Some in WA too.

If you're a hot news junkie Reddit has a dedicated sub

[https://www.reddit.com/r/coronavirus/](https://www.reddit.com/r/coronavirus/)

<comment><USER18> Can you link to a piece about WA? I'm in Washington.

Edit: I found this:

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/2-new-coronavirus-cases- co...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/2-new-coronavirus-cases-confirmed-in- washington/ar-BB10xIwv?PC=EMMX20)

<comment><USER19> Recent link (as of this time): [https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/health/2-new-coron...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/health/2-new-coronavirus-cases-emerge-in-washington-in-king-county-and- snohomish-county/?amp=1&??twitter?impression=true)

<comment><USER18> Thank you to everyone replying to me.

For those (like me) not super familiar with Washington:

The two reported cases are in King County and Snohomish County. King County is where Seattle is. Snohomish is the county bordering it to the north.

So this is basically "in and around the Seattle area."

I'm around two hours or so by car from there. We get a lot of weekend vacationer traffic from that general region. This is not comforting news for me.

Edit: as of about twenty minutes ago, I have an email from Washington Department of Health saying in part:

 _Two people from Washington state treated for COVID-19 at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane have been discharged and are now resting at home._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Live in the Portland area and am coming down with a bad cold that started this morning and is getting progressively worse. I know I'm in a state of paranoia, from checking the news too often, but I can't help but to have fears of the worst.

<comment><USER21> Over here in Norway, people who suspect Covid-19 are urged to call the doctor instead of visiting the emergency room. If there are any local phone numbers for information, I'd call those first. They'll give you a check-list of stuff to verify if you're even a candidate. And if you are, then most likely a health crew will come and visit you with tests. Note: How they go about this may be different depending on your local area's response plan for the disease, though, so listen to local media, or official announcements, or find official information online if you know where. Anyway, if you haven't visited areas known for having outbreaks, then you're most likely just suffering a regular flu. Media coverage of this thing really spreads more anxiety than it's worth. Even in China there's only cases in the tens of thousands, and China has a total population of 1.4 _billion_ people, so the chance of you actually having it is still pretty small. ^^

<comment><USER22> > I live in the Portland area [U.S.]

> most likely a health crew will come and visit you with tests

Pahahahahahahahaha

I'm sorry, but that's not how things work here. A man in Miami had to _pay_ $3000 for being administered a Coronavirus test. At a hospital he'd driven himself to.

<comment><USER23> Sounds like he is in a communist medical system. Pandemic prevention is something each person should price in, paying to test themselves individually, in a free market. Externalities are really just regulatory capture from being communist in one way or another, and don't exist once truly free as in Ayn Rand. /s

<comment><USER21> Dude! I live in Norway! Bernie speaks highly of my country _all the time!_ xD

On the other hand, even in the USA, it is in the interest of the state, and not least your many _companies,_ to defend against this epidemic. Without workers, or much less _customers,_ then I'm afraid a lot of companies are going to go bankrupt. Moreover, supply chains may break down, and you might see shortages. The implications are pretty serious, and so testing shouldn't be a matter of who can afford it. With such a disease, it's _everyone 's_ business.

<comment><USER23> /s is meant to indicate sarcasm

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So far it seems to be isolated to the west coast. Unfortunately I don't expect it to stay there. At some point (if not already happened), somebody will get on a plane headed to the midwest, south, or east coast and spread it.

<comment><USER25> In this case the person was showing symptoms back on the 19th - 9 days ago. They could have been exposed up to 2 weeks before that. No way this is isolated to the West Coast now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I really don't get why people get so worried about this. Especially on a science oriented forum like HN.

 _At this moment_ , even if we assume that there are 100 times more unreported cases than reported cases, the odds are so low that there is simply no reason to be worried, even if attending an international conference. It's true that people do get sick, and die, and it can happen to anyone. But people also get into all types of unlikely accidents, and we don't let this affect our daily life. Besides, symptoms are mild for most people. We're not talking about Ebola here.

I'm blaming the media. They make a "good" job at reporting each new individual case, making you feel that "this could be you" but IMHO this is noise. What I want to know is, how are countries prepared, what steps will be followed if this gets out of control, what is currently the probability of catching the virus, what do we know about the virus, how could the situation evolve in one week, one month and so on....

There are effective ways to mitigate the virus propagation other than canceling all events and stopping our economy, with all the adverse consequences we can imagine. For instance, starting by following the recommendations from health organisations. Such as stay home when showing symptoms, washing hands and so on. This is _not_ followed by most people in Europe (and I suspect the US too). I see people coughing all the time in public transportation (compared with Asia where people wear masks).

EDIT: I'm not saying that we shouldn't be concerned or prepared, but I wouldn't go beyond the recommendations from the CDC, and I think that catching the virus _now_ is extremely unlikely.

<comment><USER27> Go check out the case fatality rate and estimated r0 for the Spanish Flu of 1918-the deadliest pandemic of the past several centuries. You'll note that its characteristics are fairly similar to what we know of Covid-19. The only break we get is that young adults don't seem nearly as susceptible to Covid-19 as they were to Spanish Flu. But everything else points to the possibility of a pandemic along the lines of Spanish Flu. _That 's_ why we are so concerned.

Media aside, the CDC isn't prime to exaggeration, and China isn't prone to completely shutting down the economy of entire provinces of millions of people without dire need.

And there's every reason to believe we will have a similar experience to China's.

<comment><USER28> Everything else doesn't point to that. Media FUD points to that.

If we have a similar experience to that of China it seems like it won't be a big deal.

In 2018-2019 80,000 people died from the flu in the United States. 80,000. No one really cared.

The death rate for the current coronavirus seems to be about 2%, but it's likely even lower than that since so many cases are going unreported since the symptoms are so mild in most people.

I see this whole thing as some kind of bizarre media externality. The disease here is a social one. It's like the media has evolved in such a way that FUD has manifested into something that is almost tangible.

It's not the coronavirus you need be worried about, but the meta-coronavirus. It's making people crazy.

<comment><USER29> Agree with you 100%. I have a family member that specializes in communicable disease - she's got 25+ years of experience working on the front lines specializing in responding to disease outbreaks like this. She literally writes the policies and training material for professionals in this area. She's absolutely livid at the way the media and politicians are dealing with this. The CDC and WHO are being forced to respond the way they are because of the political and social pressure. They're trying to keep people from panicking but they just get accused of trying to cover up 'the truth' if they try to downplay the media driven frenzy.

<comment><USER30> I've never really been worried about disease outbreaks in the past but this is different.

> she's got 25+ years of experience working on the front lines specializing in > responding to disease outbreaks like this. She literally writes the policies > and training material for professionals in this area.

This isn't the right set of qualifications when it comes to understanding the total impact. Aside from the front line staff often not having a high-level understanding of epidemiology, I also don't think she understands the economic costs of containment.

Early on, there was a huge amount of complacency because we've been successful in the past and nothing like this ever came to pass. Expertise in some narrow field can only go so far - unless they are familiar with this particular case, how different it is from other pathogens they have experience and sufficiently mathematically inclined to be able to extrapolate beyond the existing data. We have a once-in-a-life type of pathogen IMO and 25-years of experience may not matter much if they are merely looking back in their experience to find similar situations.

> She's absolutely livid at the way the media and politicians are dealing with > this. The CDC and WHO are being forced to respond the way they are because > of the political and social pressure. They're trying to keep people from > panicking but they just get accused of trying to cover up 'the truth' if > they try to downplay the media driven frenzy.

How people tend to respond to events like this is part of the reality of the situation. You can't simply hand-wave away the social, political and economic consequences of the expected responses and how that affects the disease- fighting efforts.

This reminds me of the financial crisis - if you did a top-down analysis, it pointed to an unprecedented situation and it was easy to see how the market actors would response in a way that would compound the crisis but but most experts had never seen something like this, didn't have a comprehensive understanding of how things work, had never seen true panic and had some flawed models telling them that in some perfect world, things are fine and some of the earlier market movements were irrational overreactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wash your hands often, don't touch your face, and carry alcohol sanitizer. Maintain your mental health as well. Remember you have _far_ less chance of catching this than the common flu, and most people will recover from both.

<comment><USER32> You have a much lower chance of catching in _right now_. Wait a few weeks and that might change.

<comment><USER31> Most likely you'll be aware of any increased risk, from reports like this, before you come near it.

Control the things you can, wash your hands and keep a healthy mental state.

<comment><USER32> I'm a lot more worried about the economic effects of the pandemic than about the actual disease as I'm young and healthy. But I think now is the time to buy a big sack of rice and beans, just in case.

<comment><USER31> If your portfolio is diversified, e.g. via an index following the S&P 500, I don't see a reason to worry. Trying to time the whole market with short-term bets is a gamble, not a long-term strategy.

<comment><USER33> The stock market is not the economy. Many businesses and schools will be closed down. That massively impacts people who often don't even have a few hundred dollars on hand for an emergency.

<comment><USER31> > Many businesses and schools will be closed down

Nobody can predict the future. As of right now, the risk to Americans remains low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know what the official criteria is for Pandemic classification?

<comment><USER35> Read the Risk Assessment part [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I live in the Portland area and I'm doing my very best to not panic. My family has stocked up on a couple weeks worth of food and medicine gradually over the last few weeks and we have an "earthquake kit" that we already had in place. I feel like we're relatively prepared for a quarantine situation if it comes down to it.

The main reason I'm anxious, however, is that I have asthma and one of my biggest fears is suffocating to death. I remember going to the ER as a kid and blacking out because I basically stopped breathing. I still have nightmares about it.

This is not a great time for someone with anxiety. If you're like me, please remember to take deep breaths, get enough sleep, and remember that in the vast majority of cases things will be okay.

But also please, please, please wash your hands.

<comment><USER37> Wash your hands for 20 seconds*!

<comment><USER38> I read that somewhere (couple weeks before the first reports from Wuhan actually, a toilet in our office building in Germany had it on a poster) but I don't know why this works. Why isn't it sufficient to rub over every part (between fingers, back of your hand, etc.)? Soap isn't anti-viral, what does longer exposure do? Am I supposed to just rub over every part of my hand N times until 20-30s have passed or does it just need to sit there for the time?

<comment><USER39> Soap is mechanical. So you need to rub every part of surface it's not about time.

<comment><USER33> The soap also takes time to work. Soap binds to or encapsulates nonpolar molecules in a polar envelope, allowing nonpolar things to be washed away by water. That encapsulation takes a little bit of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> And, at the present time:

76 under monitoring (people who may have been exposed)

2 under investigation (similar symptoms but unconfirmed)

</comment><comment><USER41> [removed due to state change]

<comment><USER40> No, it's confirmed.

[https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/DISEASESCONDITIONS/DISEASESAZ/...](https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/DISEASESCONDITIONS/DISEASESAZ/Pages/emerging- respiratory-infections.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I have a feeling that at this point more people have put more time into planning for zombie virus attacks than real actual virus attacks ... it may be we have to study zombie attack plans to figure out what to do next .....

In related news, apparently I don't have enough shotguns

</comment><comment><USER43> At this point I wonder why won't the government mail everyone a N95 mask to slow down the spread. I mean IRS knows everyone address with the price of each mask of 65 cents it would be few million buck at the most. But would raise awareness across the US.

<comment><USER44> Because they don't have 370 million N95 masks.

<comment><USER45> They actually do.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your- health/wp/2018/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your- health/wp/2018/04/24/inside-the-secret-u-s-stockpile-meant-to-save-us-all-in- a-bioterror-attack/)

<comment><USER44> The US Strategic National Stockpile currently has 12 million N95 masks and 30 M surgical masks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DoD and HHS team up to deliver half a billion injection devices by 2021 - <AUTHOR> https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2184808/dod-awards-138-million-contract-enabling-prefilled-syringes-for-future-covid-19/source/GovDelivery/ <comment><AUTHOR> What could possibly go wrong?</comment>