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Comment Re:No Cartwheeling (Score 1) 506

The term "cartwheel" has different meanings to different people.

I don't know about you, but I've just never seen a cart rolling along on a wall. They function optimally in the upright orientation, perpendicular to the ground. Let's not unnecessarily add meanings to words. The guy can be excused for being excited, or for misusing a word for that matter, but that's still what happened.

Comment Re:Open airplanes (Score 2) 506

It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors.

I presume you are counting avians as weather.

But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case.

So, you're assuming an incompetent conspiracy of idiots. Now, I'm not asserting that this conspiracy exists, I've never even thought about it and I'm still not, but obviously you'd have trouble covering up some flaws, so you'd admit to them, and you might admit to some minor flaws that won't get you in very much trouble as well, just to hide the fact that you're also hiding facts.

Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw.

Most cars really suck. They don't fail well; even low-speed collisions can impair their operation. And they don't handle idiots well, either, because they don't handle. Last-second maneuvers are ill-advised. So while the direct cause of most car accidents is some form of driver failure, perhaps more of them could be avoided if more care went into the design of more cars. Or at least, if the care were applied to making a better car, rather than a more profitable one.

Comment Re:Actually Protest This Shit (Score 2) 181

Within the last year or so I told my Postmaster that all mail was scanned and the data saved. He tried to tell me that they just threw it away after it's used for routing, and wasn't interested in why that was a stupid idea. If I ever see him peek over the counter again, I will get to roll my eyes at him.

Comment Re:Beyond unions to a basic income (Score 1) 432

Union proponents will tell you that they are part of a national effort for __________. For example, the minimum wage. Many unions have some kind of position statement saying that it should be raised. But they're not actually doing anything about it, because none of their members are paid that little.

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