Random General Headlines

[theimage13]

Well, but, see, the TSA is paying for that. The individual airlines and jet companies (all over the world, in a combined effort) would have to pay for something you're proposing. Not only would it involve retrofitting all current jets with this technology, it would involve satellite technology that does not yet exist.

I'm lost on the "technology doesn't exist" part. You can make phone calls, get WiFi service, and communicate with air traffic control. Why couldn't you send data packets that held information about the plane's vitals?

As for the cost and whose burden it would be...why not make the TSA/various flight agencies pay for it? It's for making the airways safer, after all.

(Only half kidding. I mean...I do believe that if something's going to be done in the name of safety, you may as well not burden the private sector with it. But I know it doesn't "work that way").

[allegro]

I'm lost on the "technology doesn't exist" part. You can make phone calls, get WiFi service, and communicate with air traffic control. Why couldn't you send data packets that held information about the plane's vitals?

As for the cost and whose burden it would be...why not make the TSA/various flight agencies pay for it? It's for making the airways safer, after all.

(Only half kidding. I mean...I do believe that if something's going to be done in the name of safety, you may as well not burden the private sector with it. But I know it doesn't "work that way").

I asked my ATC husband, he said the technology doesn't exist. He said there are a shit ton of vitals in a plane -- every single little tiny instrumentation in a cockpit -- have you ever seen the inside of a cockpit? Picture of a 777 flight deck (formerly known as cockpit) below -- literally HUNDREDS of pieces of instrumentation -- is reported back to the black box -- and right now there isn't even good enough technology to ensure that cell phone calls get through on a plane even with planes enabled with sat and wifi and even radar isn't reliable data. The cost burden is fine with the current status quo, this doesn't happen enough, plane crashes are still relatively rare for this to be required. This isn't in the name of "safety." Nothing makes this "safer" since this would only matter in finding the plane after it's crashed.

[theimage13]

Well - if it helps figure out why a plane may have exploded, it could add an inspection point to a component that might be more prone to failure. Or in the case of a newer airliner (like the 787), maybe discover a previously unknown flaw. Not saying that these are likely scenarios...mostly just playing Devil's Advocate here.

(And yes, I have seen the cockpits of several different planes before. Flying in the nose of a B-29 bomber was simultaneously the most awe-inspiring and terrifying thing I've ever done.)

[allegro]

Well - if it helps figure out why a plane may have exploded, it could add an inspection point to a component that might be more prone to failure. Or in the case of a newer airliner (like the 787), maybe discover a previously unknown flaw. Not saying that these are likely scenarios...mostly just playing Devil's Advocate here.

(And yes, I have seen the cockpits of several different planes before. Flying in the nose of a B-29 bomber was simultaneously the most awe-inspiring and terrifying thing I've ever done.)

Ain't happening. We can't even get anybody to pay for the new runway configurations at O'Hare. A "flaw" here is not likely. The vast majority of plane crashes are due to pilot error. Sad, but true. When there is a plane crash, 99.9% of the time we recover the black box. The airlines ain't gonna spend billions of dollars on new technology in the event of a sea crash when they're already laying off pilots and they can't afford to serve food and they're making us pay for checked luggage blah blah blah. The industry is already broke. The only airlines left in this country have eaten the other airlines and there's no competition and the remaining airlines are barely staying afloat. Boeing is having trouble and is laying off. And they'd have to get the WORLD to agree to this and pay for it.

I just love that 777, coolest plane ever.

[allegro]

Here, see this.

[marodi]

If you don't know it already, you ladies and gents need to find this series and watch it. I've learned so much about airplanes and airplane safety by watching this. It's absolutely fascinating.

Sorry if I'm derailing the thread a bit.

[allegro]

If you don't know it already, you ladies and gents need to find this series and watch it. I've learned so much about airplanes and airplane safety by watching this. It's absolutely fascinating.

Sorry if I'm derailing the thread a bit.

You know, I think we've seen some of that. My husband usually watches air disaster documentaries just days before we get on a 5-hour flight, then talks about it on the way to the airport. Not kidding. I end up having to tell him STOP STOP STOP!! Our dentist's assistant loves talking about air disasters, she is *obsessed.* So when any plane goes down, she prays for my husband to need a teeth cleaning or something. Have you seen the now-CNN-owned documentary about sole survivors of air disasters? REALLY interesting.

Did your above referenced series include this asshole pilot in the Canary Islands disaster?

[miss k bee]

AF447 & MH370 - Lessons learned, or lost?
http://www.airlineratings.com/news/2...earned-or-lost

[allegro]

This is really interesting:

How Vintage Tech Helped Us Track the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet

[marodi]

@allegro

"Crash of the Century" is the only special episode of the Mayday series. It's the perfect example of how the episodes are made. Regular episodes were made about Air India Flight 182, Pan Am Flight 103 (Lockerbie), Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (shot down after entering the Soviet Union air space), US Airways Flight 1549 (who landed on the Hudson River), SilkAir Flight 185 (in which the captain crash the plane on purpose to commit suicide, killing everyone on board too), American Airlines Flight 191 (Chicago O'Hare, I remember this one like it was yesterday; surely you do too) and Air France Flight 447.

I'll have to track down the CNN documentary; it sounds fascinating.

[allegro]

Ah okay. I'll have to look for those other episodes, I think I may have seen a few.

G says it took two years to find the Air France black box. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to find this one.

[Your Name Here]

The Flight 370 story is bizarre, and tragic but my problem is with the way the media has chose to cover it.
CNN's 24/7 coverage of the story is absolutely ridiculous since they have nothing new to report, so they spend their entire broadcast with anchors and analyst's purely speculating on hypothetical situations, when they have no idea what happened. The thing that pisses me off is, there were stories that needed to be covered since they had nothing new to report on Flight 370. There was the landslide north of Seattle, Russia invading the Ukraine, Russia getting kicked out of the G8 summit now the G7. CNN beating the Flight 370 story to death with nothing new to report and ignoring other stories is unimaginable.
FOX News (or fiction news) is only interested in finding a way to blame Obama for Flight 370.

[Fixer808]

The Flight 370 story is bizarre, and tragic but my problem is with the way the media has chose to cover it.
CNN's 24/7 coverage of the story is absolutely ridiculous since they have nothing new to report, so they spend their entire broadcast with anchors and analyst's purely speculating on hypothetical situations, when they have no idea what happened. The thing that pisses me off is, there were stories that needed to be covered since they had nothing new to report on Flight 370. There was the landslide north of Seattle, Russia invading the Ukraine, Russia getting kicked out of the G8 summit now the G7. CNN beating the Flight 370 story to death with nothing new to report and ignoring other stories is unimaginable.
FOX News (or fiction news) is only interested in finding a way to blame Obama for Flight 370.

You're apparently new to 24hr "news" stations. Here's how they work:
- Weather events
- Wacky weather events
- Animals, WACKY animals!
- SERIOUS NEWS, LISTEN UP!! (20min)
- Speculation on serious news (20hrs)

[allegro]

No, this is different. CNN has been covering NOTHING ELSE. ONLY THIS MISSING PLANE.

G and I were at Carson's eating lunch on Friday and CNN was on the TVs. They had some guy showing ocean wave patterns in the Indian Ocean, complete with animations. The crawls said the same no-info over and over. We were there for about 1.5 hours and they reported absolutely nothing. And they've been doing this 24 hours a day since the plane went missing.

[Your Name Here]

The sad thing is, I have been hoping Justin Bieber would get arrested again just to break the CNN trance and fixation on flight 370. I have extreme hatred for celebutard news being a part of news media, but CNN's eternal speculation coverage of 370 is insane. A country invaded another country doesn't even get the news medias attention anymore.

[Dra508]

Ah okay. I'll have to look for those other episodes, I think I may have seen a few.

G says it took two years to find the Air France black box. Let's hope it doesn't take that long to find this one.

For all those people who said at one time or another "why do I have to take math": math found that Air France plane.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...-missing-plane

Another conspiracy theory I've heard was that the Malaysian government doesn't want to have to pay out anymore then their insurers would.

[marodi]

In other weird news: Historians believe they have identify the Holy Grail.

It's in Spain and it looks like this:



It's not really pretty. Actually, this thing is two different cups joined together by their bottoms (hehehe!) so you can turn it upside down and you have another cup!

But the real question is: how can it help find the missing plane?

[Your Name Here]

"How can it help the missing Plane?"

The Holy Grail can't so that story would get buried by CNN.

I do wonder if flight 370 didn't happen, would CNN be covering the Seattle landslide 24/7 and speculating on it with nothing new to report?

Would they be saying things like, "Was the mud suicidal", "Was it terrorist mud?", "Did the mud have a valid passport?", "Were there lithium batteries inside the mud?", "What was the Muds motive for sliding down the hill?"

[cynicmuse]

I'm thrilled when the TVs at the gym are on some version of ESPN or NFL network, because otherwise, it's CNN and wild theories. They did stop theorizing for an hour on Saturday to replay their sole survivor documentary, but that was only after a 30 minute "special" on the final hours of MA370.

[allegro]

I'm thrilled when the TVs at the gym are on some version of ESPN or NFL network, because otherwise, it's CNN and wild theories. They did stop theorizing for an hour on Saturday to replay their sole survivor documentary, but that was only after a 30 minute "special" on the final hours of MA370.

Re Sole Survivor: it was so nice seeing Cecilia Cichan again, the little girl who survived the Detroit Northwest Airlines crash; I was still living at home in the Detroit burbs, then, and that was really freaky that they found a living little girl among all that carnage.

(As were all the assholes stealing dead peoples' luggage that was strewn for a mile. Some weirdo actually stole a ring from a dismembered hand, wtf.)

[Your Name Here]

I was just channel surfing and went past CNN at 10:10pm pst. CNN reported Chili had an 8.1 earthquake then went right back to speculating on flight 370.

[BenAkenobi]

A country invaded another country doesn't even get the news medias attention anymore.

Because "A country" did not invade "another country". Don't be a moron, please.

[Deepvoid]

US Supreme Court strikes down political donor limit in a 5-4 ruling.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...2-536_e1pf.pdf

[Your Name Here]

Because "A country" did not invade "another country". Don't be a moron, please.

I don't appreciate being called a moron, but what do you call Russia going into the Ukraine, a vacation without a tourist visa? Don't be an asshole, please.

[BenAkenobi]

Invasion means military operation. Which didn't happen. And me calling you whatever didn't happen either (you were just asked to not be one - there's a difference). Peace.

[allegro]

Invasion means military operation. Which didn't happen. And me calling you whatever didn't happen either (you were just asked to not be one - there's a difference). Peace.

Well, we in the U.S. are calling it a country invading another country but we like to call it that because that's what we call it when we do it. Which is quite often, with military, without military, with drones, with cocktails, with strippers, you name it. So you can say you did it without military (even though you had tanks) but, trust us, we're experts at this, we know a lot about it. So much so that it's boring, so all of our news stations focus on a missing plane for over a month, instead. The average U.S. citizen doesn't know how to pronounce "Crimea" and doesn't give a shit, and only cares about this missing plane because they think it may have been intercepted by a UFO or may have disappeared into a black hole.

[allegro]

US Supreme Court strikes down political donor limit in a 5-4 ruling.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...2-536_e1pf.pdf

The bottom line is that you can contribute all you want to a candidate but that doesn't mean that you are purchasing votes. The people still maintain the freedom to vote. We've seen MANY elections in this country where people spent MILLIONS of dollars on an election and lost. So money can't necessarily buy you an election.

[Deepvoid]

The bottom line is that you can contribute all you want to a candidate but that doesn't mean that you are purchasing votes. The people still maintain the freedom to vote. We've seen MANY elections in this country where people spent MILLIONS of dollars on an election and lost. So money can't necessarily buy you an election.

The aggregate limit has been in place since 1976 right. I get that people have been spending millions and not necessarily wining. With that being said, the rules of the game have changed now. There's no denying that money plays an important role in a campaign.
Mid-terms are in 7 months. From what I read, Reps. have a good chance of taking the Senate. Will this bolster their chances? This is interesting from an observer's point of view.

Now, I have to deal with my own elections coming this Monday ...

[allegro]

The aggregate limit has been in place since 1976 right. I get that people have been spending millions and not necessarily wining. With that being said, the rules of the game have changed now. There's no denying that money plays an important role in a campaign.
Mid-terms are in 7 months. From what I read, Reps. have a good chance of taking the Senate. Will this bolster their chances? This is interesting from an observer's point of view.

God, I hope not. But, like we said, money can't buy votes. However, it pisses me off that what it DOES buy is TV ad time. Lots and lots of it. I wish they would change the rules so that the people without money could be on an equal playing field and not only those with huge amounts of money could have a shot at it. And the only way that's possible is by removing the expensive TV ads. Which everybody's REALLY sick of, anyway. Bleh.

[theimage13]

In other weird news: Historians believe they have identify the Holy Grail.

It's in Spain and it looks like this:



It's not really pretty. Actually, this thing is two different cups joined together by their bottoms (hehehe!) so you can turn it upside down and you have another cup!

But the real question is: how can it help find the missing plane?

If Jesus was just a poor carpenter living among his people, why on earth would he have a gold chalice encrusted with precious stones?

(Honest question from someone who is open to, but still not sold on, the whole "God/Jesus" thing)