dingaling

"An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid," Lord Rutherford of Nelson.

There should be some name for the phenonenom of assigning anything pithy to Einstein.

Was there a general sense that something singularity-like was approaching?

To a degree. There was breathless expectation that this was a turning point for commerce, government and society and that everyone had to stake their claim now. Everything was going to change.

What was it going to change into? Beyond "$OLDTHING but on the Internet!!!", nobody really knew. Those first steps were just webbifying existing processes, stumbling along, refining what was reasonably successful and dumping that which wasn't.

It was like a black hole; from afar we could vaguely see an event horizon, but the people falling into it had no idea what was happening or where they were in the process.

Why are the errors occurring, though? That's what boring analyse-and-fix addresses, through familiarity, recognition of patterns and "hang onnn..." moments.

It's like your AI agent is just plugging the leaks in the dyke each time, instead of fixing the architecture of the dam.

Sounds like the perfect use-case for big-small processors. A power-sipper for routine 99.99% of operations and a more powerful beast for the CPU intensive ops.

You're applying everyday casual risk analysis to the highly-regulated environment of commercial air transport, where the MAX crashes absolutely were out of the norm and well beyond accepted levels.

Bear in mind when the crashes occurred there were fewer than 100 MAX in service.

Tynwald, the Isle of Man's parliament, has operated continuously for over 1000 years

Capital comes through direct investment and public offerings, not the secondary shares market.

I don't think they're opting out of companionship as much as opting out of the brutal game of Top Trumps that is modern dating, where the decks seemed stacked against them.

If they feel they're never going to succeed in that competition, then why put themselves through that heartache and financial burden?

Maybe WOPR was right, the only way to win is not to play.

Separate user accounts are irrelevant when any one user has sudo and can therefore change binaries for everyone.

Yet they're happy to take nuclear-generated electricity from France...

Running is quite meditative when you get in to it

Some people are physiologically suited to running, but many aren't.

I've been running 4-6 times weekly for 28 years and still dread every single run. Every step is a slog and I can't wait until it's over. It never gets easier and in fact I'm getting slower with age, which is even more depressing.

I'm glad it's mediative for you, but please bear in mind that you are exceptional in that regard. I think it's better to be pragmatic and say "try running but maybe it won't click for you, don't feel disheartened if so".

Fan and turbine failures are supposed to be contained by the engine casing - it's part of certification. But as we see here, uncontained failures do occur. In general "airplane builders" do the absolute minimum to meet certification so they're not going to add reinforcement to protect against such an event until they're forced Into doing so by the authorities.

Turboprops can't, of course, contain a propellor failure which is why they have a big slab of armour in line with the prop disk. So in that case, yes, safety wins over cost and weight.

Dropped curbs also make progress more difficult for users using the pavement / sidewalk in a normal manner, since it introduces constrictions and trip hazards - which is a aspect of "curb cut effect" that is glossed over.

Try going for a run along a pavement with frequent curb cuts, it's not pleasant. UK dropped curbs are somewhat less of a trip hazard but are so frequent in towns that you end up running with an ankle at an angle.

More likely omitted for cost associated with regulatory reasons, so they don't have to submit it for emitter approval.

far too many people avoid strength training.

Yes, because it hurts.

Lifting weights is sore and exhausting. You're never going to persuade rhe plurality of people to improve their physical condition by enduring pain, it needs to be engaging and appealing.

you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy?

All physical exertion causes pain and discomfort, otherwise it isn't exertion. That's not ever going to be enjoyable. Tolerable, perhaps, given focus on the goal, but few people would be willing to tolerate it.

Maybe it's a surprise to you but most people's reaction to doing exercise is "when will this end?" rather than "yayy pain and breathlessness!"

In others, it's less important and speed of iteration has more value.

Maybe in some sort of topsy-turvy techbro world.

I've never, in three decades of developing, had a user say "what I want are new features updated frequently and I'm happy to accept sluggish, buggy code".

What they do say is "I want more features, sooner, without bugs".

There are no studies to suggest that "Gell-Mann" is a real phenomenon. It was invented by an author, Michael Crichton, on a whim.

Any rational reader will adjust their faith in a publication based on the identified errors it makes. Too many and they'll reject it as a source for anything beyond "a thing may have happened".

search for a book

They don't have it, because they've limited shelf space and only stock popular books that are on best-seller lists. The History of Scruggs Biplanes 1907-1919 isn't one of them.

At which point I might as well order from the publisher's website instead of having to explain to a shop owner what I want.

Seems odd that, if he has to type parentheses so much, he didn't just map them to their own key instead of keeping them as a shift key code.

By the time FB bought WhatsApp it had nearly a billion users. No need for technology conspiracy nonsense.

Finding fun moments to make a job tolerable is very, very far away from doing a job because they enjoy it.

E-mail, software encryption, HTTP and chat protocols have utterly transformed daily life.

They could register as a corporate developer, but they decline to do so because _"that would effectively seize exclusive distribution rights to those applications."_ But it wouldn't - the course code is still available for anyone who wants to build and distribute the apps themselves.

The ballpoint pen was invented in 1938. It doesn't rely on any arcane manufacturing technology.

The 'new stuff' is split into two categories:

1. Better, real-time atmospheric data that allows use of boom-refraction flight profiles to prevent the boom reaching the ground. This is a trick that Concorde sometimes used when conditions were right, but only works up to about Mach 1.2. This is what Boom used for quieter flights.

2. Crazy 1950s-style airframe shaping with the X-59 that reduces boom but is impractical for an actual commercial transport. This is intended to establish a baseline for tolerable routine boom intensity, but we don't yet know how to make a commercial airframe with the same quietness.

Nothing is really new.

DVD perhaps yes, until the disc degrades.

BluRay no, because your player's keys can be revoked when you pop in a new disc.

Meanwhile Airbus started with Concorde

Oh gracious no, Airbus started with the utilitarian A300 widebody twin[1].

Concorde was Sud Aviation and BAC joint venture, nothing to do with Airbus which didn't even exist at that time.

[1]The original A300A might have been interesting, having a fuselage as wide as the much later 777, but Airbus got cold feet and scaled it down to the dull and worthy A300B. Every Airbus widebody until the A380 was constrained by that decision.

And Iran no longer has any significant naval force, it's all been wiped out.

A naval force isn't required to control the Strait. Artillery, drones and missiles fired from inland can do that quite easily.