So, they can't afford a few grand for proper backups, but they can afford six (or seven) figures in legal fees?

That probably makes sense to them.

We're witnessing how it works, with a single copy of critical backups in the hands of a third party that is now defunct. Which is to say, it works . . . poorly.

The legal fees to get a usable copy of their backups is going to cost them orders of magnitude more than keeping proper backups would have. But apparently, their main plan was to use cinnamon flavored unicorn farts for backups.

What an idiotic thing to say. No one with any real IT experience could possibly keep a straight face if you said that to them.

Having a local backup is part of the 3-2-1 process that is proven, for decades, to be the right way. If your IT people don't keep multiple backups in at least two separate locations, they're incompetent and shouldn't be trusted with a pencil sharpener.

Having one backup of critical data in the hands of a third party is a single point of failure that isn't under your control.

Yeah, the cloud service is at fault for their failure, but whoever at the station who decided on a single point of failure is far, far more at fault for making a stupid, incompetent, lazy decision to rely on something that any competent IT person would (and probably did) tell them isn't, and inherently can't be reliable enough for the task.

Contracts only help if both parties still exist. If one doesn't, it gets complicated, with many lawyers involved.

And only damn fool only has one copy of important data.

If he's not careful, the only conversation he's going to start is who knocks the soap out of his hand in the shower, and who gets to stand behind him when he bends over to pick it up.

At best, it would count as ex-parte communications, which isn't as serious as bribery, but is grounds for sanctions.

If, that is, the court used AI for anything, which they apparently do not.

In reality, it was childish and stupid, but the guy is representing himself, so childish and stupid is a given.

Don't taunt the sock puppet. He has sex with himself all the time. And I mean, literally, all the time.

No employment at all. I suspect the only thing he'd find acceptable would be if they just go away somewhere he doesn't have to look at them and die quietly.

We tend to see in others what we see in ourselves. And he sees worthless losers everywhere he looks.

Also, one human air traffic controller is one of many thousands. If they screw up, they screw up, but all the rest are unaffaced. You remove that person from the job during the investigation and life (and air traffic) goes on.

If the AI controller screws up, all air traffic controller must be shut down immediately until the cause is identified and remediated.

More and more production has been moving out the US entirely, to countries that absolutely love all those US dollars. Been going on for decades, and will continue to accelerate.

Except that California has been bankrupt for years, and every penny makes it harder to hide.

And take all those tax dollars with you! Especially all the income tax your employees pay!

I suggest you have a grown up read it, and explain the long words to you.

But it does mean nobody is required to help. And the Coast Guard determined in real time, talking to the boat, that it was a request for assistance, not a distress call.

Both terms have a specific legal meaning. One requires assistance, the other does not.

Zuklerburg wasn't on board at the time, and really doesn't know much more than what his captain told him. The captain's excuses do seem flimsy, and Zuck himself is a disgusting slime mold, but no laws were broken. Get over it.