Agreed. If he wants to make flying more accessible, they need to figure out how to reduce the cost of designing, prototyping, certifying, manufacturing, and maintaining airplanes. If you have a wife and kids, and make less that $200k a year, it's doubtful you own an airplane. That's what makes it in-accessible.

I am not real sure why that would be common here on /.? Anyways, I don't think you've learned to fly yet, have you? The complicated controls are there because flying a plane is complicated. And while there is software/systems to ease these processes, the still exist. And when you have a complicated system defying gravity, I want the smartest, most knowledgeable person in the controls as possible.

Sure, there are fuel injection systems that have replaced the carbs and take most of the work of fuel/air mixture off the pilot, but they are not even certified in most applications. The bigger planes have autopilot and various computer controls that take worrying about coordinated turns out of the process. But I want a pilot to understand icing issues with carbs, that you have to change the fuel/air mixture as the air changes at altitude, and I certainly want one that understand basic physics and how the plane has force applied on it and it's reaction to those forces.

More and more the pilots are going to be there for the exception. But when that happens, he damn sure better know how to control an airplane, not run a flight simulator (most of which suck).

Learning Dvorak is completely dissimilar. That would be more like saying every Light Sport pilot has to learn the layout of the Boeing 737 cockpit before their intro flight. Learning to use a keyboard (any layout) would be a much better comparison to having to learn flight controls.

For what it's worth, I found navigation to be far harder to learn that the physical airplane flight controls. Now as for helicopter flight controls.... that's another story!

The amount the SLA covers is pathetic to the actual harm downtime can cause. Even with a industry leading SLA if you are spending $10k a month and get less than 99%, you might get that full $10k back. Too bad you lost $100k (or more) thanks to that downtime. Good luck getting that additional $90k back.

So yes, it is nice that they will offer a refund for performance under a certain level, but when you expect a high, usually VERY HIGH, profit margin on this process, recouping costs is nice but far from an insurance policy. SLA = false sense of security.

But it can be a CYA for the CIO/IT Manager.

Service Provider. That's what they are. I used to call them Application Service Providers, but Microsoft swallowed that acronym.

From TFA:

So out of 7 subjects, 6 with flight experience, 1 was able to follow course headings with an error of 10 degrees. That's pathetic. It's the difference between Baltimore and Washington D.C. (or worse).

Then one was able to land within a "few meters" of the centerline... and that is touted as success? So that means most of the others couldn't hit the runway.

GPS controls would have done better. So basically success to these guys is "subject turns head left + plane turns some direction left = success".

It's going to be a long time before I board a 737 with this crap on the pilot's head.

Is there a black-or-white fallacy... where you make it so things are only good or only bad, only right or only wrong? That's the stupid thing here. It is not a travesty to state that one is doing better than others at a desirable outcome. It is bad to justify slowing progress due to a penultimate position.

To be honest, since most all of us started by treating women in a way modern western societies find disgusting, showing that we have improved faster than other cultures is something to be proud of. Again, it is simply not an excuse to stop moving to a society that is better than yesterday, and closer to ideal.

Wow, FUD much? The bus was already engulfed in flames... so "lethal flame thrower" only applies to humans stupid enough to venture within 15 feet of the flaming mess. The second video shows that something was obviously going wrong, most likely the driver somehow allowed the tank to be overfilled. He quickly reached for the hose just before it blew up. But the video, nor did you, care to investigate why that happened. The third is blocked by our content filter and I don't care enough to allow the domain based on the utter lack of credibility I gave the first two.

I fear you are guilty of buyer's Stockholm syndrome. You have a Tesla, so you can justify it with things that others would not consider justification. Should we post the videos of Tesla's on fire as a response?

Apple and it's users said the same thing when they were getting their ass handed to them in the PC market. Microsoft is the low end crap. It's fragmented over tons of hardware. It has security issues. Apple has a vertical structure that will win in the end.

It's hilarious for those of us who suffered through the Apple of the late 90's to read this regurgitation of talking points... well, hilarious for those of us that use Android. Two to five more years and Apple will be hitting lows like they did in the PC market. It's only a matter of time before the C-level guys figure out Apple isn't a status symbol anymore. That's when it tanks.

I heard that is required in the banking industry... to ensure someone isn't doing some cooking of the books. I like the idea for both reason. You force the department to handle a "hit by truck" incident once a year and you get to see all the dirty laundry.

I maintained my role as IT Manager, with full responsibility, the entire time. But you shouldn't. Senior Mgmt + IT - Proper Support = job sucks. It does sound like you will have the proper support... we never replaced my position in the IT department.

I would however, keep the title. You need it to keep the passwords and system access. Maybe in that small of a company it won't be a problem. If you are like me, then you probably don't feel you are the best manager in the world, but you have the ability to access data better, faster, and more aptly than your manager counterparts. You do not want to lose this edge. You want to be able to run a quick query to pull: all component items from all 123ABC parts produced in the past 6 months with a serial number that starts with 2, of class 43, and started on second shift. That's impressive, but when you combine it with the inspection system to determine which ones had a hole that was reported as less than .252, you are really cooking. Now you have all the non-conforming parts. Took about 15 minutes. Knocking out queries like that made people around me think I was some sort of genius. Yes you can do that in Excel if you can get the component items in the time frame, but it's not as easy. You know your company and the business processes, the data structures, the nuances of the data, etc. Your new guy won't get that for at least a year.

Also, you want to be in on the projects going on in the company. You have no idea how much insight you gain into the various departments because IT reaches all departments and those projects that cross departments are a great place to find poor processes and figure out what's really wrong with the department. Also people talk to the IT guy (even manager) much different than the other managers/bosses.

There is quite a bit of precedence for you climb. There will only be more in the future for the reasons stated above. It used to be the CFO that was involved in every department and was a shoe in for CEO. It's now the CIO that is the shoe in.

If the term "CaneBall" means anything to you, then we know each other. I know there is at least one of my former co-workers on this site!

They don't use the floppies for data storage. This isn't a data storage system, it's a communication system. The floppies are used to update the code, not much else. The messages sent are nearly so tiny as to probably fit on one of these disks. It doesn't take many packets to say "bomb the bastards at x99.999999 y88.888888" or some such.

The most devastating thing that could happen is a message is spoofed. Closely followed by a message not being delivered.

I used to work for SAC, specifically on SACDIN. I was a programmer for the system, but turned into network admin when they told us to complete the air gap and setup an offline network just for the source code, testing and administration of the system. I am not sure how much I am allowed to say, as my security clearance restricts me for like 75 years or something. But since most of what I will tell you can already be found here: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/..., I figure I won't get a knock on the door.

SACCS and SACDIN are nearly the same, often interchanged in terminology. Most of us called it SACCS. We were the BALLS. That kind of stuff went on and on... it never got old.

The systems are not nearly as outdated as you think. The endpoints are old, but the stuff in the middle is much newer. The code is reviewed every 6 months. There is probably code in there from the 60's, but it has been reviewed hundreds of times. There is new stuff and changes all the time.

There are modern computers that the programmers code with. There are modern computers in the links from SAC to silo. They are hardended and locked down, but let's be honest, the airmen have physical access. That's why you need a clearance just to touch the computers that make the code that runs the network.

That's all I have to say about that.

I do not have a problem with anyone making $150k. I have a problem with journalist and manufacturers claiming they have to pay $150k for a welder. As many have stated, this isn't a guy sticking two pieces of metal together. It's much more skilled than that.

This is the same thing in IT. The badass programmer that could develop his own data structures makes /really/ good money. But not every kid with an A+ does.

I am pissed because they are going out of their way to misrepresent the economy and marketplace. They have some agenda to manipulate it.

You tried to sound authoritative as well, but did not notice that I said repeatability of 25um. Which is likely for a machine of that costs (but you are right, not with that many joints - I was thinking more traditional CNC mills and lathes). You can buy machines for much less than a million with repeatability in the millionths of an inch.