goates

A European safety organization is starting to push back against the trend to move all controls into a touchscreen. Would be better if regulators did too, but this is a start. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/03/carmakers-must-bring-back-buttons-to-get-good-safety-scores-in-europe/

Iceland had plenty of trees when the Vikings first arrived, but almost all of it was cut down for fuel, building and to make way for crops and pastures.

There seems to be an issue with loose switches, and it doesn't need to be held down to continue moving.

There's also a MSFS add-on for the old air mail route across the US. https://msfsaddons.com/2024/01/17/arrows-across-america-for-msfs-fly-the-historic-us-air-mail-routes-from-the-gold-age-of-aviation/ Lots of other historical add-ons popping up on FlightSim.to as well.

They had a successful first flight of the Talon-A a couple days ago. https://www.twz.com/air/stratolaunchs-hypersonic-talon-a-makes-first-powered-flight

They were both designed and built by Scaled Composites for similar purposes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_Stratolaunch?oldformat=true

I thought the article was pretty clear that the Roc aircraft in the photo above with the 400' wingspan was the carrier/launch aircraft for the Talon hypersonic vehicle (the one intended to reach Mach 5). With the 6 engines and twin fuselages, I could see it having an odd sound as it flew over.

You probably shared the official link that has region restrictions, and the ones charlie found are videos someone else re-uploaded to YouTube.

Not available here it seems.

Sounds fine to me. Don't know about anyone else, but it can be nice to lay down and take a nap after a long flight.

That YouTube channel has plenty more videos. https://youtu.be/LhKv8oMXdyA?si=feKo4dStIqrM8M55

Wendover put out a video covering the background that lead to Boeing's troubles.

No, it isn't simple, but I think the beginning of part 2 of the article you linked has a good line at the start. Are we truly able to discern everything about our brains yet? The author explains how difficult it is to properly measure brain activity and how recent some of the techniques are. It seems like maybe we need more data before really drawing any solid conclusions. As martin points out with our DNA, just because we don't currently know what it does doesn't mean it isn't doing something useful and necessary. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/your-internet-brain/202102/you-cant-use-100-your-brain-and-s-good-thing-0

Our brains are already fully activated and we use pretty much of it everyday. The 10% and 35% myths are just that, myths. https://www.thoughtco.com/percentage-of-human-brain-used-4159438

Boeing launched the MAX program in 2011, a few years after the CSeries launched in 2008. I wasn't suggesting Boeing buy the CSeries from the start as no one knew at that time how Bombardier's design was going to work out, if it worked out at all. Boeing tried to kill it with the anti-dumping claims in 2016 when it was clear that the CSeries was a strong competitor. Bombardier, however, wasn't doing very well financially having sunk a lot of money into a brand new airliner design and likely would have been open to a deal of some kind, especially as Boeing didn't actually have a competitor to the smaller CSeries model. This would have been a better opportunity for Boeing to pick up a new clean sheet design that they could use in the long run to replace the 737 series. Keep building out the 737s they sold, including the then existing MAX models, but start nudging airlines to the new design. As it stands, those A220s are building up a good base of pilots and support for the new plane that other airlines could draw on to switch, if Airbus decides to go that way. And those airlines are going to have to make the change sooner or later, unless they're hanging on for pilotless aircraft. It's looking like the real world is starting to say going with the bean counters was not a great long term plan given the many, many issues that keep coming up at Boeing across several of their products (including the MAX, Starliner, and KC-46). So maybe this is a great argument for the CSeries being better off under Airbus's wings.

Which could have been a great way for Boeing to get their hands on a new design to replace the 737 with, if they hadn't been so shortsighted and tried to kill it. Now Airbus owns it and has the option to use it to replace the A320, which is getting old itself, if they choose to.

It was -45C in Banff last week, and -35C to -40C elsewhere across Western Canada. It's a nice balmy -8C here now.

Doesn't look like it will make it to the moon at all, or at least not with power. https://nitter.net/astrobotic/status/1744543629392134194?s=20

Hypersonic missiles are just another step in the constant cat and mouse game between militaries. The US, and allies, developed air defences, both ground and air, capable of stopping everything the Soviets/Russians, Chinese and others had, so those capable of it went and came up with something to break through. Though, as mentioned above, not all of those hypersonic missiles are actually unstoppable, and I'm sure the US and allies will come up with ways to stop the ones they currently can't.

Santa taking the new sleigh for a spin.

What exactly do you mean by airbase simulator? Something like managing an airbase rather than a flight sim?

I would take a flight on New Shepard over Virgin Galactic's space planes.

They do still need to work out things like error correcting first, which is slowly happening. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/quantum-computer-performs-error-resistant-operations-with-logical-qubits/

That is one issue cropping up with AI, though I think it's getting a bit off the original quantum computing topic.

New technologies being hyped up by inventors, companies and the media is nothing new as it has been happening for decades, if not centuries. Of the latest new technologies, I suspect that quantum computing and LLM/AI will be here to stay. Some of the more fanciful uses people imagine for them won't happen, but people are finding them useful for some tasks already (at least when it comes to AI/LLM).