To sum it up, if you don't realize that backups are needed...

He's saying that he realizes that backups are needed, but a core backup program has had the inability to restore from incremental backups for over 2 years, and no-one is screaming about it. So he's asking if everyone else is ignoring their backups.

I fly between 4 and 6 sectors per month, on average. I can practically recite the various safety briefings for two different airlines, across 5 different aircraft types. Yes, I've heard them. Yes, I find it ridiculous that after 30 years of flying, I still have to listen to them telling people how to put on their seatbelt. And I'm certainly not a fan of blind adherance to authoritarian protocols.

However, I have had experience in designing risk minimisation procedures, and safety/security system design. And over the many flights I've been on, I've frequently thought about how I would re-design the process, if I was appointed benevolent dictator over the aviation industry.

Ultimately, the question is: what process will increase the chance that the average person on the average flight will do the right thing under emergency conditions? (With the secondary goal of providing the least annoyance to regular customers.)

* Some sort of opt-out for those who fly frequently on the same service? How would you record/manage it?

* Only taking new customers through the briefing? Now you have to do the spiel 25 times for 25 different passengers in different parts of the plane, rather than once for all 190 passengers.

* Pre-flight training? On that scale?

* Better designed spiels? What would need to be included? What could we take out?

* More detailed instructions? Then they'd be longer and even less interesting than at present...

* Humour? (Like the Independence Air celebrity safety briefings?)

And when I think through the options and all the implications, the best thing I can come up with amounts to little more than minor tweaking to the existing safety demonstration.

Nothing I said is limited to landings on runways (other than my use of the phrase "touches down"). Yeah, my wording was a little sloppy, which made it sound like I was talking about a "taxiway fender-bender", but I meant in any situation where the pilot makes an unexpected landing, whether on land or water.

If the plane lands in a way which leads to the plane disintegrating, nothing will save you.

If the plane lands in a way which is unusual, but leaves large chunks of the plane undestroyed, following simple safety procedures will significantly reduce the amount of physical injury you experience.

The safety instructions contemplate the latter situation, not the former.

It's not like you're missing anything, if the plane comes crashing down having your tray table up won't safe you...

This is an example of where a lack of understanding of the risks involved leads to a lack of appreciation of the safety requirement.

You're right: in a "falling out of the air" crash where the aircraft is destroyed, having the tray table secured won't save you.

However, the vast majority of aircraft don't fall out of the sky.

Let's consider the real likely outcomes:

The plane touches down a little too fast, and decelerates particularly hard. Almost certainly all the passengers will survive. Having your tray table down allows it to fly upwards as a result of the braking force, hitting your chin on the way through and giving you either severe whiplash, a broken jaw, or a concussion. Having your tray table secured will ensure that none of those happen, and the worst possible outcome is moderate whiplash.

Similarly with having the seat back upright vs reclined: a passenger thrown forward as a result of the rapid deceleration is more likely to hit a reclined seat (which is thus closer to them) than an upright one.

Being in the brace position means that your body is as far forward as it physically can go, which reduces the likelihood that your head or arms are thrown forward into the seat in front.

The safety instructions are not there to help you survive a destructive crash, they're there to reduce the number of injuries you receive in a non-fatal crash.

Touchscreen in the mid-80's? Even if so, how does that relate to the positioning of a keyboard and trackball/trackpad?

By "touchscreen" he means trackpad...

Although I'll never be satisfied until my laptop charges from USB.

HP Chromebook?

... you will get to the backdoor and it will be wide open.

/me sees what you did there...

I really don't know the indie game industry very well so I don't know what constitutes "mildly successful", but based on the numbers given, the break-even point is $5m-$10m (so that 5% is $250k-$500k)... So if your expected gross income from the game is less than $5 million, then this is a good deal, and if not, it's a bad deal.

Even if your expected gross is $10 million over the life of the game, if that's made up of $2 million a year for 5 years, this might be an attractive option given the following choices:

• Spend $250,000 now, hope and pray that you make some money, gross $2 million in the first year (so that costed you 12.5%!!!!), then recoup the expense over the next few years, or
• Spend $20 now, gross $2 million each year, then from that income spend $100,000 each year.

You end up spending more in the second situation, but you spend it after you've earned it, with the risk transferred to the vendor. Not always the right option, but often worth considering even if it's not the chosen path.

..." as long as I'm doing SOMETHING, I'm saving the planet" ...

I recently heard the phrase "politician's syllogism" to refer to this statement...

Low power? Is this really an issue for children...

Given the OLPC's target market, developing countries, yes, this is an issue. There isn't a stable grid, so you can only get electricity a few hours a day, at most, and there is not much of it...