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Comment Re:US Only (Score 1) 241

Of couse it is a disaster. The store is US only for starters. Android developers have a hard enough time making money without purposefully isolating yourself to some 5% or 10% of the global Android market. I don't know why anyone would publish anything exclusively on the Amazon appstore. They better bet getting huge payoffs from Amazon to do s.

So "the rest of the world" would amount to 5 or 10% of the whole Android ecosystem ?? That would be a reason to laugh seeing the way they're sold in Europe and east-Asia. I wouldn't say the US market amounts to 10% of the global android market but certainly not 90%

Comment Re:I don't care what they run now, (Score 2, Insightful) 156

So click decline on the EULA screen. Part of the EULA says that if you decline the manufacturer is responsible for giving you a refund.

Indeed, and in some countries (Europe mainly, I don't know much about the situation overseas) there's been several court cases where the guy declining the EULA and wanting a refund won against the retailer who denied it to them.

Refund ranged from the retail price of Windows Home edition to a flat amount (100$ or so) to 1/4th or 1/5th of the total price of the computer on which the software was installed. This refund was not limited to Windows per se but also included all the preinstalled software that the retailer paid.

Comment Re:Conservative Tech (Score 1) 266

What I actually meant is that the backup power for flight controls is no longer hydraulic but electric and supplied by RAT. Electrical actuators are used instead., which simplifies the hydraulic system tremenduously since only two independant networks are required. So the RAT actually powers that flight controls elec backup. fly by wire (the command un control, not the actuators) is a given here and not at all concerned by this topic.
You DON'T have to have hydraulic to control modern planes. (A380 and after, B737-800 and after, although Boeing is known to be a little conservative (i.e. late) in that area.

Comment Re:Conservative Tech (Score 2, Informative) 266

No. (although you answer completely beside the point, we're talking about the safety of buzzword external means of recording)

On modern airplanes, the RAT (ram air turbine) is an electrical generator not hydraulic). It supplies DC emergency electrical network and a few flight control power.

It's not at all academic. The RAT helped save many aircrafts from crash.

(pneumatic is the air intake at engine level that supplies part of air conditionning and pressurization systems)

Comment Re:Conservative Tech (Score 1) 266

Except it's not the FAA or JAA's job to design & contract for those black boxes. It's Boeing and Airbus that have to do that. And yes, they do research a lot.

As you said, it's a matter of conservative tech more than cloudy Union protests.
Tech for DFDRs VDRs are supposed to still be working when almost everything else has failed. When engines, elec generators, hydrolics and pneumatics power have all failed, you don't have much left, and your sattelite uplink has very LOW priority among things that still need to be powered in emergency condition. Not to mention that uplink above the South Pole IS tricky.

Emergency conditions like that are supposed to happen somthing like 1 time every 10 or 100 million flight hours. What is the failure rate of sattelite uplinks ? of Sattelites ? what is the probablity of not beeing in sight of a sattelite ? what is the chance that the sattelite network you want to use won't be in use in 30 years when your plane finally needs it ?

Basically the recording systems have to be designed to that no matter the external conditions, it should work with the highest possible certainty. This pretty much rules out everything outside the aircraft

Why do you think GPS is still not the primary means of Navigation ? because it's UNSAFE. It's failure rate is not disclosed with enough certainty, it's reliance on government systems is unacceptable. (__foreign__ government, for 90% of the usefull world), the continuous maintenance of this network is not garanteed. It's exactly the same for Data Recorders. You just cannot trust the kind of technology enough for it to be the basis of your recording tools.

Airlines and governments are welcome to use any modern means of navigation, maintenance communication,... whatever, as __additionnal__ means of safety, but all this goes pretty much out of the window when serious problems arise aboard planes.

Comment Re:Dammit (Score 1) 336

The summarry fails at more than basic science, it also fails at basic wine science. The year written on the label in very often **not** the year the grape actually grew but the year the wine was bottled. Wich can be anywhere between a few weeks to many years later. I'm a little worried nobody mentioned that before.

Comment Re:Good, if it's accurate (Score 0) 206

Most parts of middle east have had feodal structure for thousands of years. Yes, thousands. long before these religions were born. That means kings, chiefs, lords, ... yet, when they get conquered, they're told to build a democracy which they are not culturally prepared to. Then they're told that the most extremist aspect of their religion is a bad thing that must be erased (as much as I'd like to, I don't think we'll see someone telling a US extremist to forget about creationism).

Comment Re:Good, if it's accurate (Score 1) 206

And this prejudiced comment gets modded "Insightful"? I would have understood "funny", even though I don't think it is, but absolutely not insightful.

That's the beauty of managing a country-centric website. You would like to believe it's pretty much international, untouched by national bias...

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