Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Global warming, painstakingly illustrated
Japanese Diarists have chronicled the arrival of cherry blossoms each year since A.D. 812
The 20-year average is on the steepest decline since records began 1,200 years ago, with the drop accelerating since we started burning fossil fuels
https://buff.ly/YTPdBEJ
Chart source: https://buff.ly/sbl4s9c
Twain - travel as antidote to prejudice
https://youtu.be/Yr8qPKTo8yA?si=V_Mvj7iPbME9Yz02
1:50 Twain circled the globe, and he wrote: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."
Friday, March 28, 2025
Salmon-killer from tires
https://youtu.be/RESCG-4SYpw?si=nW8iIjFC6xs4iEuQ
A soil mix containing sand, coconut fiber, biochar effectively filters out a poison from car tires, preventing it from reaching rivers where it kills Coho salmon.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
A Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di
"....then one day, about 10 years into the marriage, when Les was 31, he came home, and strangely, Joy says, he smelled different. "His lovely male musk smell had got this overpowering sort of nasty yeast smell," she says...Kunath asked one group of people who had Parkinson's and another group of people who didn't have Parkinson's to take home white T-shirts, wear them overnight and then return them. Then Kunath gave the T-shirts to Joy to smell. "They were all given randomized numbers and put in a box, and then she was asked to take each one out and give it a score," he says...In fact, out of all the samples, Joy made only one mistake. She identified a man in the control group...as having the disease. But many months later...that man actually approached him at an event and said, "Tilo, you're going to have to put me in the Parkinson's pile because I've just been diagnosed."
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Avoiding a simple but catastrophic error.
The key finding here was an error that resulted because "Conducting pre‑flight activities out of sequence increases the risk of missing critical steps and should be avoided." In the operating room, a similar condition occurs when the order of surgical patients is switched, as staff may have subconsciously prepared mental steps for the originally intended operation.
An ATSB occurrence brief details a flight preparation event involving an ATR-72 turboprop airliner at Kalgoorlie Airport, WA.
--What happened--
On the afternoon of 29 January 2025 a [regional jet] was being prepared for an air transport... weather was clear with a temperature of around 38°C. The aircraft had been parked since its arrival that morning at about 0900 local time and the flight crew had fitted the engine air intake covers in anticipation of an extended stop.
The flight crew returned to the aircraft at about 1500 and started preparing for the upcoming flight. The operator had recently emphasized the risk of high cabin temperatures to the passengers, so the flight crew was focused on cooling down the heat-soaked aircraft. As [it was] not equipped with an auxiliary power unit [for weight saving] the use of the air-conditioning packs required starting the number 2 engine in hotel mode.*
After the pilots boarded the aircraft, the first officer started to prepare the flight deck for engine start. The captain disembarked and walked toward the rear of the aircraft to check the airport windsock which was not visible from the cockpit to ensure the correct orientation.[3] The captain then reboarded and joined the first officer for the engine start.
A ground handler was in attendance to make sure the exclusion area around the engine was cleared. After they gave the 'start-engine' hand signal, the flight crew started the number 2 engine with the air bleed valve selected 'off'.[4] The engine start proceeded normally, but when the engine bleed was set to 'on' the crew noticed an immediate rise of the inter-turbine temperature. Closing the bleed valve resulted in the temperature dropping back to normal, but another attempt to open the bleed valve saw the temperature rise again. At this point, the first officer realised that the intake covers had not been removed (Figure 1) and they immediately shut down the engine.
The flight crew then disembarked and found that the engine air intake covers had not been removed from either engine. Additionally, the foam insert from the right-side intake cover had separated and was lodged in the intake. They informed the company operations department and after consultation with the approved maintenance organisation, it was decided that the aircraft should not be flown until an engineer could inspect and test run the engine.
Engineers of the operator's part 145 maintenance organisation attended the aircraft and conducted an inspection of the number 2 engine, followed by a test run at idle and 90% torque. They did not identify any abnormalities, and the aircraft was subsequently released to service.
Further inspection of the covers found that neither had a 'remove before flight' streamer attached and that the stitching on both the number 2 and number 1 cover was in poor condition (Figure 2) and partly loose, which allowed the foam insert to separate from the cover.
--Safety action--
The operator's internal investigation report recommended fitting warning flags to the intake covers of the incident aircraft and that all intake covers across its fleet be checked to further avoid intake cover internal foam ingestion into engines.
The internal report also recommended that involved pilots are reminded of operator's external inspection procedures and receive training in human factors.
--Safety message--
This incident highlights the importance of preparing the aircraft for flight in accordance with the company and manufacturer's procedures, even when competing priorities exist. Conducting pre‑flight activities out of sequence increases the risk of missing critical steps and should be avoided.
Intake and pitot covers may be hard to see due to their location, lighting and weather conditions. To reduce the risk of them being missed during a pre-flight inspection, they should have a contrasting colour and 'remove before flight' flags. Operators should make sure they are periodically inspected as part of their maintenance system, so they remain fit for purpose.
--About this report--
Decisions regarding whether to conduct an investigation, and the scope of an investigation, are based on many factors, including the level of safety benefit likely to be obtained from an investigation. For this occurrence, no investigation has been conducted and the ATSB did not verify the accuracy of the information. A brief description has been written using information supplied in the notification and any follow-up information in order to produce a short summary report, and allow for greater industry awareness of potential safety issues and possible safety actions.
[1] The auxiliary power unit (APU) is a small gas turbine engine mounted in the tail cone of some larger aircraft to provide autonomous electrical and mechanical power without the use of the engines.
[2] Hotel mode engages the hydraulic propeller brake and allows the turbine to be run to provide auxiliary power and compressed air to the aircraft without the propeller spinning. Compressed air is used to drive the air-conditioning packs which provide cooling to the cabin and cockpit.
[3] The manufacturer's documentation warns against starting the engine in hotel mode with a significant tailwind, as exhaust gasses being blown back into the engine casing may trigger a (false) fire alarm.
[4] Pressurised air diverted from the engine's compressor stage is delivered through the bleed valves for air conditioning and pressurisation as well as de-icing.
**Hotel mode is a feature on ATR 42/72 turboprops replacing an APU by locking the right-hand #2 engine with a 'propeller brake' while allowing the turbine, and therefore also the generator, to run, providing electrical power and bleed air...Hotel Mode seems to be generally disliked for a number of reasons:
- It's very loud, especially if you're lifting baggage next to it
- It consumes a lot of fuel, since you're running a full engine.
- It could be dangerous if the propeller brake is in poor condition and suddenly loses its grip.
This configuration is rare, if not unique amongst aircraft.
Monday, March 24, 2025
10 myths about US tax system
Interesting podcast dispelling myths about US taxation.
44:27 "Elon Musk and his merry band of budget cutters seem to be focusing on symbolic things like DEI contracts, political subscriptions, federal employment that serve a culture war purpose for MAGA warriors. But in terms of the budget deficit, they're not even a rounding error." *
26:56 Myth one is that tax cuts pay for themselves. Tax cuts can bring some extra revenue. They almost never pay for themselves.
Myth two is that tax cuts will starve the beast by forcing Congress to cut spending, but historically it's the opposite. When we cut taxes, Congress increases spending, and when we raise taxes, Congress cut spending.
Myth three is that the middle class pays higher tax rates than the rich. This is not true. If you take a look at all combined federal taxes, the top 1% pays 33%. The middle class pays 12. The bottom pays roughly zero.
Myth four is that those old 91% tax rates in the 1950s produced all this new revenue. The reality is nobody actually paid the 91% tax rates back then. In fact, virtually nobody paid over 50% in a tax bracket and those tax brackets raised virtually no revenue.
Myth five is that Europe funds its bigger governments by taxing the rich more. In reality, they tax the rich about the same as the United States and the entire overage in tax revenue for Europe is the result of value added taxes, which are essentially national sales taxes that hit the middle class.
Myth six is that tax cuts for the rich are the reason we have large budget deficits. The reality is that since 2000, we've cut taxes by 2% of GDP, of which maybe 0.6% of GDP is on the rich, but we've increased spending by 6% of GDP, much bigger driver.
Myth seven asserts that taxing corporations and millionaires can eliminate the deficit. You could tax 'em at a hundred percent and seize all their wealth. It doesn't come close.
Myth eight is that most of the 2017 tax cuts went to corporations and the wealthy. The reality is while they received bigger tax cuts in terms of pure dollars as a share of the taxes they were paying, it was a roughly proportional income tax cut. Everybody got their tax rate dropped by about one percentage point.
Myth nine is that if we go back to the 1980 tax code, essentially repealing the Reagan bush and Trump tax cuts will have painless deficit reduction. In reality, if we did that, the tax burden on the middle class would go through the roof, not just the rich but the middle class to unacceptably high levels.
Myth 10 is that America's corporate taxes are far below international standards. The reality is we had the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world until 2017, and even right now after the 2017 corporate tax cuts, our statutory and effective corporate tax rate is still in the top one. Third. We also collect slightly more than other countries and business taxes when you include pass through corporations.
* DOGE claims $115 billion in savings — but its own 'wall of receipts' shows just $35 billion.
[This is 0.05% of the total budget of 6.9 trillion.]
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Trader Joe's Freakonomics
35:20 A larger at of choices created more interest, but a smaller range of choices created more action (sales.)
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Clarion-Clipperton zone
While Norway investigates the risks and zinc/copper/cobalt assets near Svalbard Island, multiple nations are 4:46 vying for lucrative contracts (none yet granted) in the Clarion-Clipperton zone between Hawaii and Guatemala.
Why are millions of Chinese kids raising themselves?
Such a sad, sad story - young kids raising each other at boarding school while impoverished illiterate parents live too far away to visit regularly, earning meager wages that barely support their family.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
High audit rates for the wealthy
"tax returns of the affluent are generally more complex—and therefore more likely to contain red flags for the IRS"
Fiber-optic unscrambling
This is exactly what I envisioned 20 years ago to make endoscopes much more efficient to manufacture - have a computer unscramble the giver arrangement rather than having to nearly bundle every single fiber in order.
Tedious video, but you'll get the idea at the end.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Sunday, March 16, 2025
World's largest electric ferry
4:50 surprisingly, 280 tons of batteries are actually lighter than the equivalent diesel engine.
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