The degree isn't about "getting a high-paid job", it's about knowing what the hell you're doing once you get a job. Although, fair enough, it's quite plausible that not many degrees would meet that standard either.

There is a possibility of a short-circuit causing an engine shutdown. Apparently, there is a known fault whereby a short can result in the FADEC "fail-safing" to engine shutdown, and this is one of the competing theories as the wiring apparently runs near a number of points in the aircraft with water (which is a really odd design choice).

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that (a) the wiring actually runs there (the wiring block diagrams are easy to find, but block diagrams don't show actual wiring paths), (b) that there is anything to indicate that water could reach such wiring in a way that could cause a short, or (c) that it actually did so. I don't have that kind of information.

All I can tell you, at this point, is that aviation experts are saying that a short at such a location would cause an engine shutdown and that Boeing was aware of this risk.

I will leave it to the experts to debate why they're using electrical signalling (it's slower than fibre, heavier than fibre, can corrode, and can short) and whether the FADEC fail-safes are all that safe or just plain stupid. For a start, they get paid to shout at each other, and they actually know what specifics to shout at each other about.

But, if the claims are remotely accurate, then there were a number of well-known flaws in the design and I'm sure Boeing will just love to answer questions on why these weren't addressed. The problem being, of course, is that none of us know which of said claims are indeed remotely accurate, and that makes it easy for air crash investigators to go easy on manufacturers.

It's far from indisputable. Indeed, it's hotly disputed within the aviation industry. That does NOT mean that it was a short-circuit (although that is a theory that is under investigation), it merely means that "indisputable" is not the correct term to use here. You can argue probabilities or reasonableness, but you CANNOT argue "indisputable" when specialists in the field in question say that it is, in fact, disputed.

If you were to argue that the most probable cause was manual, then I think I could accept that. If you were to argue that Occam's Razor required that this be considered H0 and therefore a theory that must be falsified before others are considered, I'd not be quite so comfortable but would accept that you've got to have some sort of rigorous methodology and that's probably the sensible one.

But "indisputable"? No, we are not at that stage yet. We might reach that stage, but we're not there yet.

Strangely, all were able to transition to Libre within the time frame.

Let me guess: when push came to shove the users quickly found out that the two programs were similar enough that they could make them work without any extra training.

It doesn't matter if they know about other tools or not because most of the time their work machines are locked down to keep malware off of them so that they're not able to install Libre Office even if they want to. Excel is all they have so they do what they can to make it work, for some minuscule value of "work."

Jewish people do something similar with their youth with bar and bat mitzvahs.

You might want to consider learning something about the subject you're going to rant about before going off half-cocked to avoid shoving both of your feet down your throat. Those two ceremonies are simply symbolic coming of age rituals without any secret sections, and you can find out everything you need about them by asking your Jewish friends, presuming, of course, that you have any.

This in turn strongly suggests they knew how to position themselves in a marketing perspective in a way that shows all the other more venerable distros out there really dropped the ball.

I don't think so. I think it's more a case of Zorin being the only Linux distro that made an effort to have a look and feel that's as close to Windows as possible so as to make it easy for Windows refugees to make the transition.

Personally, I prefer Sam Gross' take on that: An Elephant is soft and mushy.

Thank you. I'll check it out and maybe buy it.

TFA is for subscribers only. Not much good, is it? And, by the way, First Post!

I did it the same way I'd do it on paper, with the first number on top.

No, it's not that those who don't pass will be stuck there, it's that they won't qualify for the elite Green Berets. And that's just being used to illustrate how some people just can't wrap their minds around math.

For example, if I asked you, "what is 98 + 87?" you would probably intuitively subtract 2 from 87 to get 85, then add 100 to get 185.

Now that's a weird, counterintuitive, roundabout trick if I ever saw one. When I saw that question, I simply added the two numbers together in my head and see no reason to do things the hard way as you expect.

Here's another real world example: most adults know that if 100 soldiers try out for the Green Berets, only three will pass, but if you ask them what percentage passes, they'll draw a blank.