Nobody ever won a race by doing the same as the guy in front. If you want to win races, you have to do something the guy in front isn't doing. And, ideally, you chase after goals your opponents haven't yet seen.

Linux is the stuff of innovation and invention, but in terms of desktop-ness, it's going backwards. There is also no serious likelihood of innovative GUI work on Linux, the IBMers and Microsofters are working far too hard at dragging Linux into the 1980s.

Forget the desktop. Create new niches and new markets, and get Linux into those first.

I'd posted a related story describing a second jet from the same airline that failed in the same way on the same day. Please could you add the link to that as an addendum to this, as it seems a very important part of events. You can then junk my submission as we don't really need two discussions about this.

Possble, certainly. A few reports are saying the reversers were deployed, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were functional. That bit isn't mentioned at all, and as only some reports mention the reversers, it's not certain that those reports are accurate.

Same airline had a second Boeing 737-800 report a hydraulic failure the same day, which is why they're inspecting all planes of this type in South Korea. But it surprises me that no other country or airline is conducting any kind of safety check, even on a small sample of aircraft.

The sequence of events seems to be roughly this:

1. Hydraulic power was lost.
2. One aircraft made a successful emergency landing. The jet that crashed failed on first attempt.
3. On second attempt, all power was lost, resulting in no capacity to deploy flaps. Thus suggests the power loss is a result of slow damage caused by hydraulic loss, but we won't be sure until investigation is done.
4. Plane landed third of the way down runway and skidded into concrete radio beacon and mound.
5. Black boxes severely damaged by crash and explosion.

The black boxes are in an unknown state, as they're going to be electronic and there was no power. We have no guarantee that they will reveal anything after that power loss, even if the data survived.

My guess is that the investigators will find more on the plane that survived. There's not much info on it, but if the power lines were damaged when the hydraulic system failed, that might tell us a lot more than the exploded plane can.

But because it didn't explode or crash, I'm not sure if it'll be part of the investigation or merely repaired. I'm firmly convinced that the decision on this aircraft will prove critical.

The concreted radio beacon is considered safe, as that's the wrong way to land on that runway, but I'm unclear from the reports what, precisely, it is an aid for. If you just want a radio beacon, place the circuit below ground in a concrete box and have just the aerial on the surface. Colliding with an aerial is less likely to be dangerous and underground circuits will be easier to reach and subjected to fewer climate stresses.

I don't think they could have easily stopped the plane, but I'm unaware of any effort to dump fuel or otherwise lessen the risk of fire. If such measures were taken, they're not being reported.

The failure of two different systems also tells me that there's no redundancy and that both systems occupy the same space in at least one point, possibly along the same ducts. There's just about no other way the failure of one could cause the failure of the other.

The pilots did not follow the recommended remedial procedures for electrical failure, according to aviation reports, which might suggest they knew the system was fubar, but they might also have been too busy.

We will know more later, obviously, but I would be very cautious of Boeing 737-800s if they're not being inspected anywhere else. Until we know what the fault actually is, assuming it is local to one carrier in one country, where said country is good on aircraft safety checks, is probably risky.

No, most big government systems prohibit everything you're talking about. It's mostly small governments that are a problem.

Absolutely true. We choose those who reflect us. The politicians are the reflection of the voters.

There's nothing illegal about "illegal immigrants". Under treaties signed by the US and put into law, anyone may enter the country undocumented and through unofficial means if they have reasonable concern for safety.

That is the law. What is illegal is the deportation.

If you don't like the law, then change the law. But as long as it stands, the law should be respected.

The US ranks as one of the most corrupt of all of the advanced nations, with an obvious desire to increase that level of corruption.

So, to be blunt, it doesn't shock me.

What does shock me is that there are more actual "mysterious deaths" of whistleblowers in the US with no obvious reaction by the public than you get in either US or Korean mafia-based drama.

This is deeply disturbing. If fiction writers are unable to keep up with current affairs, we've a problem. But if Joe and Jane Public consider said problem perfectly acceptable, we've a terrifying nightmare.

The US government ends up compensating the bank for the loans that aren't paid off, which is essentially all of them. The bank ends up collecting from the US government pretty much what the US government would gave paid originally if they'd given a grant, if not more, due to the high interest rates. The bank, meanwhile, has already collected a fair bit from the former students.

And this makes more economic sense than just giving everyone a grant in the first place?

Well, it does to the bank, who is now wildly wealthy having had to do nothing.

It also does to the university, who can now charge excessive uncompetitive fees because gouging a market in coordination with a loan shark is trivial.

But to the student? To the taxpayers? To the government, who gave to keep track of all this because there's restrictions on hiring people not paying loans?

The system, by its very nature, suffers from a reversal of the usual market rules - the price isn't capped by what the market can bear, and we can see that by the fact that loans aren't paid off. Rather, prices are unbounded because high price means high prestige. The market will bear anything to get that prestige.

Agree that banks can withdraw from stress-testing on agreement that they and their deposits are no longer insured, that they contractually agree to no bailouts or support in any future crisis, and that they agree that both the bank and all employees voluntarily waive any and all relief on taxes.

In other words, you're exempt from rules in exchange for being exempt from what those rules ultimately back. Both sides of the coin or neither, you never get to have just one.

AI works by dividing the entire problem space into cells, one cell corresponding to one action.

If you cannot put things like detecting traction issues and compensating into such a grid, and the implication is that you can't, then AI cannot handle this problem.

There seem to be three standard rules.

1. Anything that is not demonstrably impossible is technically possible.

2. Within the set of what is technically possible, we need only look at the subset of simplest explanations.

3. Within the subset of simplest explanations, we need only consider those for which the level of evidence equals or exceeds the improbability of correctness.

A brain microbiome is technically possible, but it is not in the subset of simplest explanations, nor is the level of evidence sufficient. As such, It fails both the second and third tests.

To me, this does not mean we reject it outright, it means we simply don't consider it at all for right now. We neither accept nor reject, we simply put it to one side and see what scientists find in future. It's not a model we can usefully explore or make predictions with that would permit falsification.

Scientists are finding all kinds of new communications channels and behaviours within the brain. Clearly, our knowledge is nowhere near adequate to determine what is required. Let's get that sorted first, and then decide if there is anything left that needs a microbiome explanation.