Posts by Rich Lock
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Hard News: Heads Up, in reply to Richard Aston,
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Cracker: Stoned in Charge, in reply to Sacha,
The people who coded the flight control software, less so.
The acceptance testing on software like that would be brutal, however.
This crash was a result of the fly-by-wire not reacting in the manner the piot’s expected (warning: link is vid of plane crashing).
The crew applied full power and the pilot attempted to climb. However, the elevators did not respond to the pilot’s commands, because the A320 computer system engaged its ‘alpha protection’ mode (meant to prevent the aircraft entering a stall.)……normally, a pilot would not attempt to fly an aircraft so close to stalling with the engines at Flight Idle (minimum thrust). But in this instance, the pilots involved did not hesitate to fly the aircraft below its normal minimum flying speed because the whole purpose of the flyover was to demonstrate that the aircraft’s computer systems would ensure lift would always be available regardless of how the pilots handle the controls.
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In Australian states such as Victoria and Queensland, they’ve moved away from random testing towards an intelligence-based approach, pinpointing neighbourhoods and locations where drug use is more likely.
This seems a little too much like ‘stop and search’ to me. ‘We’ll concentrate on the poor areas cos there’s more stoners there, and they’re less likely to be as well-connected as those stoned kids in Epsom or students’.
It’s really going to have to come back to good investigative Police work
And this. How much resource (person-hours) is going to be put into grinding out ‘good’ results for fairly minor cases? And how much of that is going to be wasted if the extra couple of hours that weren’t put in (because of resource overstretch) results in cases getting thrown out on a technicality?
Not suggesting that they should or shouldn’t either way, just that this has the potential to turn into a clusterfuck.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
I’ve learnt a hell of a lot by listening to the women who hang out here, and I really appreciate it, not least because I’m trying to raise a daughter.
+1
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
You argue that we shut down discussion, well I’d argue the reverse, there was far more discussion of what rape-culture actually is because of the boycott, certainly in our tea room and in the media I saw.
But what was the audience for that discussion? Was it people who listened to Willie and JT interview Amy?
I’ve been involved in some culture-change implemetation for large organistations, and one of the rules-of-thumb was that when implementing change, the percentages in the organisation within which change was being implemented would nearly always break down at roughly 20-60-20 (20% strongly for, 60% neutral, 20% strongly resistant). There was never any point talking to the two 20% groups at the ends of the bell curve, because you’d either be preaching to the choir or wasting your breath. However, getting the 60% on board gave you an 80% majority, and then it didn’t matter whether the 20% still strongly opposed the changes or not, because the tide would sweep them with it regardless.
Given that, which group here is the better group to be the audience for this discussion? Willie and JT’s core audience, or the entire rest of the country? Which one is more likely to facilitate a shift in culture?
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My grandfather was in the British Army for WW2, and was evacuated from Dunkirk the same day that my grandmother was giving birth to my dad. He told me about it in detail once when I was around 10-11. I always meant to get him on film talking about it, but never got round to it before he died – one of my greatest regrets.
He did leave four typed up pages that he obviously thought were sufficient to fully describe the entirety of his adult life, but they are full of phrases like “my experiences at this time were almost identical to theose of Ernie Martin”, before he moves on to another time and place: ‘I was posted to Old Delhi, and frequently visited Chawri Bazaaar, where I had a close shave during the Ghandi troubles [and that’s clearly all that needs saying on that point, so I’ll move on to talk about Germany now]’.
Personally, I've kept a bunch of letters and journals that I wrote 20-odd years ago in my teens and 20's, but can't bear to re-read them. Just this week my wife ambushed me with the first love letter I ever wrote her, and forced me to re-read it (the hot coals would have been preferable). I keep them for the same reasons as Emma talks about - my children might one day want a glimpse of my past life. And I might return to them when I'm older.
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For those who are interested, the 'mutiny' is quite well detailed in John McLeod's book 'myth and reality - the New Zealand soldier in WW2'.
From the relevant section of the book, the text of a letter given to a Major A. S. Playle in Hamilton reads as follows:
"Sir,
We have paraded here as ordered. We now respectfully request that arrangements be made to place us on leave without pay until such time as every Grade One man in New Zealand has done his duty overseas.
Our slogan is: 'Every man once, before volunteers are called upon twice.'
Please convey this message to the Ministry of Defence and Members of the War Cabinet that we now desire to change places with the Grade One men in industry and to enjoy the many privileges of the Home Front.
Thanking you,
From 'other ranks only'
Furlough Draft" -
Hard News: Cannabis: The Experiment is Real, in reply to Simon Wood,
hey presto
Just like that. Because there are, obviously, no possible implications to this type of genetic testing ever, espcially in a society with semi- or fully privatised health insurance, and where acceptance or rejection of applications for various other types of thing such as life insurance may depend on providing honest answers to various questions about your genetic susceptibility to a whole range of things.
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Hard News: How do you sleep?, in reply to TracyMac,
The Manifesto is not in copyright
One would be rather surprised if it was, property being theft and all that.
A friend says BBC is good
The shipping forecast is oddly soporific
I sleep very well, but my wife does the whole 'wake up at anywhere between 4.30 and 6.00 and not get back to sleep' thing. More advice on that would be much appreciated.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Dismal Soyanz,
Once you accept that rapists do not wander around with horns and 666 tattooed on their foreheads, you realise that they are a product of their social environment. This in turn implies the social norms need adjusting. For many, especially the privileged males, this is a challenge to their orthodoxy and position.
Good old psychological 'othering' rears it's head again. 'I am a good person. My firends are good people and my friends of friends - my wider community - are also good people. As they are all good, they can never do evil. Therefore, those who do are monstrous abberations rather than a product of the environment. Our efforts must therefore be put into casting them out and shunning them rather than examining the environment, because it goes without saying that it doesn't need changing. Because we're all good people.'
social norms or cultural narratives sometimes take generations to ” adjust”
Well, um....yes? Martin Luther King to Obama was merely a few decades, and now that Obama is president, that struggle is done and dusted, right? Stonewall to gay marriage across the entire western world? Pay and representation parity for women in boardrooms and government?