waster

Looking for a transcript of the NTSB statement at the press conference around 4:30 PDT today, but here are a few data points I recall (subject to my faulty memory; if anyone can find a link or remembers better, please do correct me):

Voice recordings for the 2 hours prior to impact revealed no discussion or other indicator of mechanical problems. After being cleared for landing, the crew voiced a target final approach speed. [I forget the number... maybe 142 knots?] At 7 seconds before impact, voice recordings include a crew request for more power. 6 seconds before impact, the pilot added power. 3 seconds before impact, the stick shaker engaged, indicating imminent stall. 1.5 seconds before impact, voice recordings include a crew request for a go-around. This was all what the NTSB calls an "audition" (preliminary review) of the voice recordings.

The flight data recorder included data from the entire 24-hour period before the impact; thus, the whole flight. Preliminary review indicated no evidence of any mechanical problem. Engine output was normal.

And this was in an answer to one of the questions from reporters present: On final approach, the approach speed was substantially below the voiced target final approach speed -- not just a few knots below.

Anyone have other recollections of the data shared, or a transcript?

Edit: At http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sf-plane-crash-t... found a correction to the target speed; it was 137 knots.

Possibly like just hanging in the air; the rate of change would be so gradual. And I imagine it's immensely quiet in the cockpit, too, with just the sound of the wind, if any.

NTSB investigation chairman (may have her title incorrect) shared auditioned & preliminary summary info from their review of the data. No mechanical problems indicated. Throttles were at idle on the approach; speed dropped below target speed; someone in the cockpit requested increased speed six seconds before the crash; speed increased three seconds before the crash; voice request for go-around made at 1.5 seconds before the crash.

My read based on the facts shared at this point: Pilot error, but the NTSB said they do not have all the facts yet, and are not yet ruling anything out.

Multiple factors need to be present for me: Fun to build, satisfies a need, currently ignored market (also part of satisfying a need), has personal import for me of some kind, will eventually in theory allow me to earn at least a living off of it.

I have friends who publish periodically through publishers, and those who self-publish. As lifeguard mentions, publishers tend to require tremendous resources from authors, by way of huge marketing pushes/travel, blogging, promotion, marketing, etc. I'm not so well informed about the cost of production via publishers, nor the buy-back of unpurchased books from B&M stores.

For those who self-publish, they still do their own marketing. E-published people invest the least cost (i.e., no printing), and perhaps equal time on marketing/promotion. Paper-published people invest more up front because of printing, but perhaps reach a wider audience if they can get their books into B&M stores and because like it or not, many people still prefer paper.

This is admittedly unscientific; my sample size is about 20, though some of them blog about their experiences, and refer to their own circles of authors and their experiences, as well.

As for your proposed book topic, sounds like a wonderful idea to me.

Not thrilled about putting financial data on a web app. Excel is a very useful (private) way to figure out red vs. green. Just my $.02!

Also, kudos to the tower. It is seriously an amazing thing they do, and to stay cool and calm and efficient all during a crash, to keep the rest of the traffic clear and headed in the right direction.

Apparently I was doing this simultaneously with you; oops.

Edit: I was transcribing this when you were, apparently; but here's mine, in case we caught different things.

1:23 Tower: tells a departing helicopter to depart 2 mi straight out, turn right, squawk a certain signifier on its altimeter (standard practice), and approves a frequency change (also standard practice);

1:28 Tower: cuts out briefly and then says "..is closed, San Francisco Tower."

1:31 Tower: silence, then starts to tell a Horizon flight something and the Asiana pilot cuts in with [hard to hear, best guess]"San Francisco?" Also, Sounds to me like they put Asiana 214 on a priority channel over other flight traffic, or that the tower cut itself/other pilots off when they saw/heard Asiana 214 was speaking.

1:36 Tower: Asiana 214 Heavy, San Francisco Tower

1:37 Asiana 214: [unintelligible, but my best guess: This, uh..., how much is this, uh, where is, uh,... uh,..."]

1:42 Horizon 635: 635 is going around

1:43 Tower: Horizon 635, fly heading 265, maintain 3100

1:46 Horizon 635: 265, 3100, Horizon 635

1:49: Asiana 214 [garbled]: San Francisco?

1:52 Tower: Asiana 214 Heavy, emergency vehicles are responding; they have everyone on their way.

1:56 Asiana 214: [garbled, definitely a few words and then a static burst]

1:58 Tower: Skywest 5452, San Francisco Tower, go around.

2:00 Skywest 5452: Go around, Skywest 5452

2:30 Tower: Skywest 5452, fly heading 280, maintain 3000.

2:07 Skywest 5452: 280 at 3000, Skywest 5452

2:10 Tower: Horizon 635, fly heading 265, maintain 3100.

2:14 Horizon 635: Yessir, 265, 3100, Horizon 635.

2:17 Tower: Contract North Cal departure 135.1.

2:19 Horizon 635: 35.1, Horizon 635.

2:22 Tower: Skywest 5452, contact North Cal departure 135.1.

2:26 Skywest 5452: 35 1.

2:28 Skywest 6389: 6389 We'll go to San Jose.

2:30 Tower: Skywest 6389, Roger. And, uh, contact North Cal departure.

2:34 Skywest 6389 [garbled]: What's the... frequency for that?

2:36 Tower [garbled at start]: [garbled] point 1, Skywest 6389.

2:39 Tower [garbled at start]: Rescue three three, San Francisco Tower, proceed to the scene, cross runway; [garbled, maybe "Rescue"] eleven, San Francisco Tower, proceed as requested, cross all [garbled, "runways"?]

2:46 Rescue 11: San Francisco Tower, [garbled, maybe "Rescue 33"] and Rescue 11, cleared to one.

2:50 Tower: Rescue 33, Rescue 11, roger.

2:54 Tower: [garbled] Foxtrot, San Francisco Tower

[end transcript]

I'm with those who said it's in the market, for various reasons. In pretty much all respects, it's about the numbers. Is there a big enough existing market/potential market for your product as it is? Are there borderline cases that might be sold on your product if they had a free trial? Is there a bigger market if you shift to another variant like the web-based alternatives penologist mentioned? What's your margin for any of this? Are you deterring people with a long domain/name?

I realize I'm restating what other people said, but with many things, I think the math speaks for itself, or at least, it should. Run the numbers as ruthlessly and exactly as you can. Then make your decision based on that.

If your heart is in this, maybe you can adapt it somehow so that the numbers are more promising. But let the numbers speak.

While we're at it, electricity is deadly. http://www.esfi.org/index.cfm/page/Injury-and-Fatality-Stati... has a list of ways in which; and http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-131/pdfs/98-131.pdf says an average of 411 deaths (occupational) occur annually.

In looking this up, I was struck by the avoidance of data that just says X people die annually by electrocution (of any kind), although I freely admit that perhaps my search terms were faulty. Maybe it was that time I was almost died by electrocution.

Some people do, but most are worried they'll be blamed for either the fact that the problem exists in the first place (complainers, criticizers), for rocking the boat (whistleblowers, trouble-makers), or for fixing it wrong (stupid, careless). Our system, or many, for that matter, isn't set up to reward people who find and fix holes.

That all said, there are exceptions. But pettiness and self-centeredness can so often wreck it, or at least deter people from being bold enough to face judgment or possible error in order to do the right thing.

Upvote for dinosaur lasers alone.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. If you're an investor, and you want a given company to be healthy (and thus produce the best return over time for your investment), provide prompt support and let them do their jobs. If you think they can't, don't invest. If you think they can, but with help, help them... but promptly. Go, PG.

As someone who has a similar experience to yours, I say go for it. I have found coding to be tremendously transformative and empowering.

Has been for me, for advocacy for a charitable cause.

Yes, pretty much 7 days/wk, coding a startup.

I can't point firmly to a specific example without spending some time re-researching it, but I know I've read of certain products -- mosquito nets, more efficient little stoves for cooking, solar cookers, etc. -- that are adapted culturally to specific markets in Africa, among other places, and which the (government, researcher, or nonprofit/charity) makers of such products found people won't use if they're donated or freely given. Instead, small amounts of money need to be charged for them. When people feel they're buying them for an amount that holds value for them, they value the item more, and trust it more.

So I'd say your concept is sound. But there must be some scale to it to actually make any kind of margin, and you'd have to research the numbers to see if it could work.

Seconded!

Until you're traveling at freeway speeds, in cold weather.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the...

So I'm not sure even 3 hr 50 m would do it?

I am no expert, but if I understand correctly, a blog can generate passive income from archives, although this requires that you steadily update the current content (to retain and/or increase site traffic). Not sure this would meet your needs, though, because maintaining a blog can require a lot of work.

In addition to oaxacamatt's excellent advice, you can use Excel or create a Google spreadsheet to track your expenses over the course of a month, or even a week; make budget categories, write everything down, and then start by using a week's or month's (or whatever period's) worth of data to formulate a target budget.

Then create a budget-vs-actuals version of your spreadsheet. When you have a periods worth of data, see if you need to adjust your budget (hopefully downwards, but you don't want to be shooting for some unrealistic numbers, so do adjust categories upwards if you need to do so to be realistic), and then continue to compare periods of actuals-vs-budget.

I also find it motivating to keep a list of "Yay!" and "Boo!" items, completely informally/separately from my spreadsheet. It's just a thing where I can write down things like, "Yay! Brought my own coffee to work instead of buying out" or other such little victories. The Yays can be more motivating to me than the Boos, but it might help to track both to see where you think you're breaking your own budget.

And this can all be adapted very easily to a work budget, startup or even an established business.

Take a quick look at the news (in your sector/from your competitors), and then take a walk. It's amazing what will mix around in your head while you're out doing something else, away from a screen.

@BadAstronomer | Phil Plait has excellent astronomy posts @TechCrunch can keep you up on tech news @@umairh | umair haque frequently impresses me

Think I'm a hybrid vs. pure technical founder, though I am doing all the frontend and in theory will be doing some of the backend too. I spend 90% of my day coding.

What I'd like to see is a review of his plans, i.e., is this truly feasible?

And also, I'd like to see the critique balanced against that of windmills: Is the noise comparable? (Sounds like this design would have a greater noise factor because of the hydraulics.) Is the threat to wildlife comparable? (Sounds on the face of it like birds would see the moving sails more easily than the thinner sails of Altamont Pass-style windmill sails, but I'm no expert.) For the hydraulics, what's the cost/distance effectiveness ratio?

If I were Tesla, I'd do both.

If I understand the idea correctly, you'd be swapping out your (depleted from a road trip) battery for someone else's (or Tesla's, if they shifted to a model where they provide some of the batteries at the swap-out stations), and then next time you wanted to swap again, you'd get another one. Doesn't seem to me to be a factor for resale. Seems like they're pitching it instead as a way to increase the range of a car while on the road, though I'm willing to say I've misunderstood based on my (twice) read of the article.

If they are planning to release further detail Thursday, though, that'll presumably clarify.

Yeah, it seems to me there is some tradeoff that could likely be expressed in a mathematical equation between distracting the public and therefore in theory not jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering, and the cost of a too-large distraction. Not that it would necessarily be a simple equation (what's the cost of jeopardizing the status quo of intelligence gathering? No clear way to say for certain that a specific capability would necessarily head off future calamity, with the possible exception of really clear cases, which I think must exist at times. And what's the true cost of, say, military action? There's the direct. There's the fallout (literal and figurative - benefit to weapons manufacturing, damage/benefit to trade, injured veterans, reduced/increased spending from a scared public...)). But I think I would love to see that equation.

Edit: Closed parentheses.

Though I'll believe it when I see it in (user) action, this would make a huge difference, IMHO, in the usability of the car. It would make it truly feasible to drive to Tahoe from the Bay Area, for example. That's something I'd pay for.