Therein lies the great racing divide: vehicles that are essentially identical and thus, in theory, the driver is the difference versus real manufacturer's vehicles so the driver / car combination becomes more important. NASCAR, for example, uses the former model and thus a good driver combined with effective cheating is the route to success. Endurance racing tends to the latter along with having various classes so cars of equal capability race against each other.

In the pilot's case it may not have been the fear of unemployment as much as concern that he would never be able to fly again. Even if he kept his job he would never set goot in a cockpit again and for a pilot that is a significant loss. Failing a physical means not hetting to something you love that transcends being a job and ghus the temptation to hide something if it meant not flying would be great.

No, but my point was that my comments were based on a real professional's opionion, not the usual /. legal advice. While I realize many people could not afford a lawyer there are avenues for free legal aid available as well.

Unfortunately, while that would have possibly prevented this event it opens the door to other problems because now you always have an access path to the cockpit. The problem was not the door, but the ability of a pilot to cover up medical issues and keep flying along with a single failure point (1 pilot) in the cockpit.

While I agree a video would be useful in some cases I do agree with pilots there needs to be a balance between having information in a crash and creating a permeant record of what happens in the cockpit. Something similar to the flight data recorder where data is overwritten on a periodic basis might be a good compromise. Even so, a video record probably won't add that much information since things such as switch positions, throttle settings, instrument readings etc are already being recorded. Unless something unusual happened, such as with Germanwings, you'll basically just have a video record of who did what your audio and telemetry already says. One question is the cost worth it? Adding a few pounds of weight costs a lot of money over the life of a plane and that also needs to be factored into the equation as well.

As for preventing the Germanwings crash, how would technology such as a streaming videocamera prevent that? The pilot clearly trusted the copilot enough to leave the cockpit so all you have that that point is a video of what is going on but no way to prevent it. The type of technology that might have prevented it, an electronic medical record with automatic notification of employers when a doctor prescribes something that may indicate a lack of fitness for duty or deems a patient unfit for duty might have worked; but that would add its own set of problems nit the least of which is people would stop seeking treatment for conditions that they think could cost them their job.

So a program designed to write fake papers to unmask sham journals and conferences gets used to write fake papers to prop up sham degrees? Some what ironic; although in fairness to the authors of the paper writing program they never intended it to be used in such a manner. It would seem, as Springer acknowledged, that they should do a good peer review; which would eliminate the need to run paper through a hoax detector unless they started getting so many fake papers that their peer review process was overwhelmed. In that case, a first run through a program would be justified. A more subtle point in the article is that claimed publications from some countries, such as China, should be viewed with suspicion.

As a side note, the sham conference industry is interesting. I periodically get, via LinkedIn, invite stop attend an "important conference" and speak and get a "prestigious award" based on my "outstanding accomplishments and renowned expertise" in my field. Funny how, when I send them my speaking fee requirements they never get back to me nor mail me the award as I request if I am unable to make the conference.

Exactly. When I left a job I had my lawyer review the non-compete. His response: "Ignore it. It's unenforceable and the chances of them trying to stop you in court are nil." He said that the law is constantly changing and what is enforceable today may not be tomorrow, and unless you are senior enough or worked on a very sensitive area it's not worth the trouble to sue you; and if you were in those situations you should have a very specific non-compete, with compensation for the time you can't compete to ensure it is enforceable. The general rule is if they try to prevent you from working in an area where you have experience it will be unenforceable unless they pay you to not compete and even then it has to be for a reasonable period. Of course, IANAL and YMMV depending on jurisdiction. HAND

Actually, it's more of a signaling argument where a college degree indicates a willingness to put in effort and learn and thus will probably apply those characteristics in the job. It's not a perfect signal as there are plenty of educated derelicts and smart, talent people without a degree but as a first cut it is easy and thus used.

You have hit on one of the key reasons why trying to implement human reasoning in an emergency; especially since it's usually a subconscious reaction to avoid hitting the bigger, scarier thing. yo can train people to make calm decisions in an emergency situation but that takes a lot of simulator time and practice; something most drivers sorely lack before getting a license. If you wanted to follow the human reasoning it would simply be "CRAAAP.... AVOID HITTING THE BIG THING...DAMN... A PEDESTRIAN ... OH WELL IT ISN'T THE BIG THING...."

They can and will. The issue is not the current ability to keep track of things but having to update the electronic records once the system is back. The electronic record is used to compile transcript, verify required attendance, select valedictorians, etc. Depending on how long it takes to restore from a backup it will take a while to catchup. Now, if the system lost the master records then they have a much bigger problem but even then a proper backup scheme would minimize the impact of such a loss.

Excellant point. The question to me is how long do you retain the data? At some point where does the potential value of having the record cease to exceed the potential damage from privacy concerns?

While I appreciate your point of view I also think that having drivers maintain some sembelance of situational awareness is worthwhile. I can fairly accurately guage my speed and inly occasionally need to look at the speedometer to validate my assessment. However, as drivers turn over more functions to automation they become less aware of what is happening around them as the come to rely on the automation to take care of things. As a result when things go wrong they may not realize it in time to take effective corrective action. In essence, automation can lull them into a sense that all is well when in reality it is not. Automation should assist, not replace, human actions.

They'd like a few thousand installed in all their employees' homes. Fon't worry about after install support we'll take care of that.

Some really nice photos. Hard to believe their still was an A4 on a stand in 1996; it looks like it was kept up as a display. This also brings up my frustration with Kickstarter. There a lot of cool projects I'd back if only I could find out about them in time; usually I find out about them when I read a 'Kickstarter funded" tag line in an article and the funding period is over.

Yea, I realized after I hit submit I should have used Mirror Spock and Khan or the Borg and Doomsday machine...