Full or at typical capacity? Lots of bus routes around here average a low single-digit number of passengers for much of the route. Even single-passenger cars compare favorably to that. Assuming a diesel bus at an average of 3 MPG, you need a minimum of 15 passengers on average to break even with driving single-passenger hybrids. And that's not factoring in how much dirtier a gallon of diesel fuel is compared with a gallon of gasoline.

Office wall Plinko with push pins.

Hmm. Lost the end of my sentence there somehow:

And, of course, the companies that are going out of business are also the ones who are least likely to spend time filing out a survey

The BLS monthly numbers are always off when the underlying economy is changing rapidly, because of the "birth death problem", meaning that when large numbers of companies are being created or closed (born or died), the surveys that provide the quick data are guaranteed to be quite far off because the surveys go to companies that are already establish, i.e. those that weren't just born and didn't just die. So when there's a lot of market change, they're sampling the part of the market that is changing less. This means the estimates are off, and the faster the economy is changing the further off they are.

A related issue is that the survey results are only a sample, but BLS needs to extrapolate to the entire population of businesses -- but they don't actually know how many businesses there are in the country, much less how many fit into each of the size / revenue / industry buckets. So their extrapolation necessarily involves some systematic guesswork. In normal, stable economic times good guesses are easy because it's not going to be that much different from the prior year and will likely have followed a consistent trend. But when the economy is changing rapidly, that's not true, so the guesses end up being further off the mark.

Second, it's worse when things are turning for the worse, because of something kind of like "survey fatigue", but not. The problem is that when lots of the surveyed companies are struggling, they're focused on fighting for their existence and don't have time to bother filling out voluntary government reporting forms. It's not that they're tired of surveys, but that they just don't have the time and energy to spare. And, of course, the companies that are going out of business are also the ones w

The phone thing is a red herring, because these BLS surveys are not conducted over the phone.

A new issue compounding the above is that the BLS was hit hard by DOGE cuts and early retirements. They've lost over 20% of their staff, and the loss in experience and institutional knowledge is far larger than that, because the people who were fired and the people who took the buyouts tended to be very senior. So a lot of the experience that would be used to improve the estimates has walked out the door.

Anyway, the core problem is that the economy is going into the toilet, really fast. The BLS didn't break out how much of the 911,000 fewer new jobs were added 2024 vs 2025, but I'll bet a big percentage were after Trump started bludgeoning American businesses with tariffs. Most of that pain won't really be known until the 12-month report next year, because the monthly reports are going to continue underestimating the rate of change. Well, assuming the BLS staff isn't forced to cook the books, in which case we'll just never know.

I kind of automatically assume that any company that can successfully replace a third of their workforce with AI is not doing anything meaningful. I mean, a company that does nothing but write crappy rehashed product reviews could pull it off, or a company that has no plans to innovate or grow could maybe do it by laying off all the sales/advertising people, but otherwise, it seems like a stretch.

So the question, then, is whether this company is genuinely circling the drain with nothing to lose or just has leadership who have no idea what any of their employees actually do.

Ostensibly, yes, I could. I could even use an ancient Mac Mini with a built-in FireWire port to do that. But at some point, the level of hackiness becomes high enough that you're spending all your time dealing with things not working, and that's almost worse than it not working at all. :-)

M1 Max MacBook Pro. The setup involves a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter chained to a Thunderbolt 2 to FireWire 800 adapter, which in turn is chained to a FireWire 800 to 400 adapter, which is then connected by a cable to the device. It's dongles all the way down.

Getting Thunderbolt ports isn't the problem; Apple's Thunderbolt-to-FireWire hardware does that, too. Without FireWire device family support in the kernel, FireWire hardware can't be used, period.

You're missing that both a bleed air system AND poor maintenance are required for this problem to manifest.

Presumably the other planes with a bleed air system are getting better maintenance, so haven't been a problem. No idea how the 787's maintenance is, but since it doesn't have a bleed air system, the problem of dangerously contaminated cabin air hasn't manifested.

More specifically, this happens when engine oil or hydraulic fluid leak into the engine while bleed air is being drawn.

I depend on FireWire audio interfaces, so everything from Tahoe on is dead to me for the foreseeable future.

My problem is that I don't do audio recording often enough to justify spending the thousands of dollars it would cost to buy all new hardware, but I do it often enough that I can't upgrade my operating system and lose the capability. It's that really annoying middle ground that Apple really doesn't support well, though to be fair, I've gotten thirteen years out of it after Apple stopped shipping built-in FireWire ports, so I guess that's not too horrible. :-)

I tried getting off of FireWire a long time ago, precisely because I suspected that this would eventually happen. But to keep costs down, my plan was to buy a MOTU LP32 ADAT-to-AVB bridge so that I could keep using 16 inputs from my existing interfaces and supplement that with a MOTU Stage-B16. The problem is, the LP32 has been on permanent back-order for about two years now, with no sign of things improving.

I'm also a late adopter after lots of bad experiences, so I just downloaded Sequoia so that at least I won't be stuck on Sonoma forever. I'm hoping that by the time they stop shipping security updates for Sequoia, either MOTU will have the LP32 available again, someone will have figured out a way to get IOFireWireFamily to build and run on later OSes, or I will have found some other low-cost solution for a large number of inputs. Not holding my breath, though, on any of the above.

In my day, to plug in a mouse: We took the box apart, installed a proprietary bus card, and then tried to figure out non-conflicting spots for the I/O and IRQ jumpers. Then we typed a bunch of gibberish into AUTOEXEC.BAT. And we liked it!

Both mice and headsets exist that use Bluetooth, eliminating the need for dongles. Seems like an easy solution if you aren't wedded to using older devices.

Well in the UK the left lane can be used for straight forward too and it's not uncommon for a driver in the left lane to continue past an exit, whilst an impatient driver who is overtaking on the roundabout then tries to come off the roundabout into the other driver.

I don't think many US people know the sheer scale of roundabouts in the UK. They aren't rare. They aren't just common. They're everywhere. You won't pass your driving test in most areas without going on several. Larger or busier roundabouts have a lot of driver assistance (lane markings and lights) that assist drivers to get to their exit (a common layout is the lane markings spiral out to the exit lanes, so you don't need to change lane once you enter the roundabout on the correct lane.

But they're simple - they're one-way roads you are joining (so don't join if there's traffic) and equally leave for your exit (so indicate and get in the correct position).

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.