I’m a birder. Lots of birds were named after people…Scott’s Oriole for example. You may think a guy named Scott discovered the bird, but nope, just a friend of the guy that did. Scott wasn’t a good guy according to history (re: killing native Americans), so there’s a big committee that’s going to rename a ton of birds that have eponymous names. The birding community is very split on the topic and it’s interesting to see the drama.
The influences of capital on academia have been disastrous.
That’s why I write my PhD in all lower case.
PhD
🤨
Since covid, the insurance industry has been hemorrhaging people. At my company, most people that 3-4 months before they quit. No one knows what they’re doing because of this and many claims are denied/mishandled.
Why?
A lot of work for “meh” pay. It burns people out, and a lot of people took covid as a chance to change jobs, if not careers. And a lot of companies that put people back in the office lost a ton of people, so if you’re insurance company has done that, there’s a good chance your" insurance professional" is just some guy sitting in a training class.
I currently have 260 claims under my name and I’m not the highest. Customers don’t like you because insurance is the devil (which I agree with), you have to make decisions that don’t feel right because your company is looking for results, and you are harrased via phone, email, and teams. It’s just 8 hours a day (minimum) of just back to back to back nonsense and brow beating. And, in the US, almost every state has their own laws and statutes around auto insurance, so keeping track of every difference is overwhelming. Our resources suck so there’s a lot you just have to memorize. Because they want people to wear every hat, shit gets missed very, very often. I get fucked up claims all the time.
And there’s no “off.” it doesn’t slow down or get easier, because the bosses won’t let it. They want to have as few people do the most and the quality suffers because of it, and it puts a lot of stress in the employees. Whenever we say anything, we get a “Yeah, that’s tough” before they give us more shit.
Feds are loosening up Eagle take and to a lesser extent peregrine take for falconry in the US.
Golden eagles used to be illegal for falconers to take from the wild until a few years ago, now there is a lottery to take problem eagles off of ranches. They used to issue permits for ranchers to shoot them, and wind turbines to hit them, but wouldn’t let falconers take them as hunting partners which was very silly. It’s loosening up a bit now which is good. Less dead eagles this way.
Most states have a lottery system to take peregrines already but their population is thriving. I can see states getting rid of the lottery in the next few years. The 50 or so birds taken by falconers each year across the US would be a rounding error to their population anyway.
A pretty huge proposal to expand the Light Sport rule is in the works.
For those unaware, in 2004 the United States made some pretty sweeping additions to the Federal Aviation Regulations, essentially adding what the rest of the world calls “ultralight aviation.” What Americans had been previously calling “ultralights” were more like the rest of the world’s “microlights.” The Light Sport Rule added the Sport Pilot certificate (lesser privileges than a Private pilot), the Sport Pilot Instructor certificate, two kinds of aircraft repairmen, and two categories of aircraft, Special and Experimental Light Sport.
The rule has been a resounding success, so they’re talking about greatly widening what sport pilots can fly and what can be built and certified as a Light Sport aircraft. They’re talking about adding night flight, allowing controllable pitch propellers, retractable landing gear, 4 seats, higher stall speeds, higher takeoff weights, higher cruise speeds, possibly even eliminating the language that requires single engines or reciprocating engines.
It’s possible there’s a boom time coming for General Aviation.
Ah yes, bacause we didn’t had enough old people crashing already…
Light Sport has proven safer than previous “not actually an ultralight but enforcement is lax” or EAB operations. Having a robust training culture including the creation of a new instructor certificate I think is a major contributor to that safety.
A significant portion of the expansion will be allowing S-LSA airplanes to be used for aerial work such as pipeline patrol or aerial photography. I see no reason whatsoever a Flight Design CT can’t be used for a job a Cessna 152 can do. With a much more modern and efficient engine burning unleaded gasoline.
No, what I’m talking about isn’t steaming bullshit fresh from the bovine’s ass.
What is the major complaint people have about electric cars? Range, right? Because lithium ion or lithium polymer batteries do not have the energy density per unit volume or unit weight of gasoline. Electric cars are often heavier than their ICE counterparts because they’re crammed with so many batteries to make up for the relative lack of energy density, and they benefit from things like regenerative braking. Electric motorcycles often don’t have regenerative braking, which is why Kawasaki is right now advertising a $7000 sport bike with a 55mph top speed (65 if you push the boost button) and a range of 41 miles (if you don’t push the boost button). The Ninja 250 I bought in 2007 could do 120mph and I routinely went 300 miles between fill-ups with it’s ~5 gallon tank.
Meanwhile these folks have a hexacopter that will out-carry and out-run a Robinson R-44 piston-powered helicopter, on Lithium batteries.
Actually just right there, they say a 200 mph cruise speed and a 100 mile range. So that’s a 30 minute endurance. To legally fly cross country in the United States, you need to have enough endurance to make it to your first intended point of landing PLUS 30 minutes, and that’s day VFR minimum fuel when operating under Part 91. Are you telling me it has an hour of battery life but half of that will be in reserve? In something like a Cessna Skyhawk a half hour of fuel is something like 4 gallons of gasoline, or about 24 pounds. How much lithium battery do you need to make ~100 horsepower for half an hour? And mind you, that’s cruise power, NOT takeoff power. Which will be a LOT greater than cruise power especially in a VTOL aircraft. I get that it’s a tiltrotor and would have airplane-like performance in cruise, but it’ll still be more of a bitch to get airborne than a conventional plane.
Anybody want to see me plan a 100 mile flight in a Cessna Skyhawk, figure up how much gas the trip would take, convert that amount of gas to kilowatt-hours and then look up the weight of a Li-Ion battery with that capacity?
I’d also be real interested to know what the secret sauce is to make those propellers that quiet. Yes, electric motors are quieter than gas engines, but the noise from something like an airplane or helicopter is mostly made by the propeller/rotor blades, especially at the tips. By what physics are you going to make something with 6 propellers quieter than something that has one? I bet that thing is going to be louder - and shriller - than an equivalent helicopter. Stand next to a toy drone in flight and explain to me by what magic they’re going to make one that seats four make “a barely perceptible sound.”
If you’re going to tell obvious lies, just say I’m pretty.
The lack of imagination in this post is astounding. In this wall of gibberish you only really made three points: range, excess range, and noise.
Range: evtols are not trying to replace GA aircraft, at least initially. They will start out as air taxis and toys for the ultra rich, but most people dramatically underestimate the rate at which battery technology is improving. Being able to travel 100 miles in 30 minutes without spending an hour on each end dealing with the airport is something unavailable today.
Minimum fuel requirements: rules are meant to serve us, not be handed down from on high. If this does apply to evtols it will be changed. It’s a completely different use case. For example the emergency landing options for an evtol are vastly more available than for a Cessna.
Noise: I mean, agreed overall if not in detail. Realistically these things are going to be quieter than a traditional helicopter for sure, but will be higher pitch and swarming around in greater numbers. Annoying AF.
“evtols” are going to BE General Aviation aircraft, just like helicopters are today. The thing I saw in that article would be certified under the currently very empty Powered Lift category. I would be extremely wary, as in “nail his skull to the pavement just in case” wary, of anyone trying to say these machines are anything different than that and should thus be exempt from any FARs. That’s the attitude Stockton Rush had. Break out the Ouija board and ask his passengers how that shook out.
100 miles in 30 minutes from any random point to any random point is indeed kind of tricky, A Bell Jetranger can do 150 mph if you really push it. A significantly cheaper Robinson R-44 Raven set a record for piston helicopters at 144mph, more typical cruise speed is 130. Still twice what you’ll do in a limousine going down the highway. They still occasionally pound helicopters full of expensive people into hillsides. Break out the Ouija board again and ask Kobe Bryant about his opinions on rotorcraft operations. We’ve got ~75 years of experience flying civilian rotorcraft. I don’t even know how you’d go about getting a powered lift rating on a pilot’s license right now; studying for my ground instructor certificate there wasn’t even a chapter about them. I had to study hot air balloons and gyrocopters but not powered lift tiltrotors.
You’re absolutely right, the rules are meant to serve us. Minimum fuel requirements are one of those rules that keep planes out of neighborhoods when the headwinds are stronger than forecast. I would say they should actually be INCREASED for powered lift or VTOL aircraft because descent and landing is more power intensive than cruise flight as it has to come to a hover under thrust, rather than the gliding flight of a landing airplane. Again, when someone says “These things are full of lots of trendy buzzwords so they shouldn’t be held to basic operational safety standards” I say “I’ll get the nails, you hold his head to the ground.” This is how we end up with a fire in a neighborhood that can’t be put out.
For air taxi or other for-hire operations it’s going to have to be certified under a standard airworthiness certificate and I don’t even know if we have a category for that. I’ll also eat my AOPA hat if you can find me an insurance company that will underwrite the fucking thing.
Let me also ask you this, just…try this sniff test: There’s a lot of steps between the gas/diesel/turbine airplanes and helicopters we have today, and a battery electric tiltrotor VTOL. Where’s the electric helicopter? Where’s the electric airplane? Where’s the fuel burning VTOL? Surely if there’s a market for a machine that can go 100 miles in half an hour with no runway, there’s a market for a machine that can go 500 miles in 2.5 hours with no runway. Why aren’t they building any of that first as a stepping stone?
Because it’s a fucking scam.
Most people are unaware that Google can and has closed accounts without notice or appeal.
A closed account means all your files, photos, passwords, 2fa, are gone.
This is why i have been moving away from google products for storing anything; emails, photos, etc. They are just not a customer focused company, bad to do business with them
Like this father who got his account closed because he took a picture of his toddler penis to send to their pediatrician.
The picture was automatically backed up in Google photo and flagged as child pornography.
Exactly. Even after being investigated by two police departments, Google refused to open the account.
It means all of those if you rely on google for those.
Never have a central point of failure, and have backups.
Hell Yeah
We like to leave Easter Eggs everywhere. Everywhere. Fully aware they may never be noticed.
Uploading receipts associated with your art process, such as progress pictures and files associated with the art program you used to draw the pictures. Not only does this quell accusations of AI being used, it also serves as a means of proving that you are the creator of the artwork.
I made a sub lemmy.mindoki.com/c/aip Art In Progress if anyone would be interested, or maybe you know if a lemmy sub like that that is being more active?
College students fucking LOVE blow-up bounce houses.
As a business investment, what is the long-term outlook for the bouncy house industry? I assume it has its ups and downs.
Your insurance company isn’t just fucking you with premiums, they also expect the guys that come and fix things up after a disaster to lose money doing it, 0 overhead, 0 profit
I’ll go first:
Matte black shower sets and kitchen faucets are the shit now. I’ve installed so many of these during the past year.
Got my bathroom redone last year. Guess which color, lol.
Faucet, sink, tub, shitter, and shower head are all matte black.
To my defense the floor is dark grey and the walls are medium grey. I don’t want it to look like a cheap “fancy” hotel with the white/black contrast I see everywhere.
Mind sharing a picture of your new bathroom? Matte black toilet seat is something I’ve yet to encounter.
Just installed a golden shower though. I’ll never forgive myself for not seeing the joke there before my gf of all people pointed it out.
I would show more, but with 4 kids in the household, it’s an absolute mess in here right now. But this should give you an idea of the general design.
75% of people working shifts around or inside an aircraft are alcoholics. Never before or at work, but days off are a shit show.
That’s true for all industries.
False. In many industries workers also drink before and during work.
Not sure if this is everywhere but I’ve been a software developer for two years almost and I was shocked that when some presses delete on anything we just toggle Archived to true. All hooks that get data exclude archived by default but we can pass a flag to get those too.
The film industry is dead and streaming killed it. Pirate movies over a vpn as much as you want.
Movie studios are now just landlords. They’re run by boards of directors, focused on nothing but number go up. They want money for sitting like a dragon on top of a stockpile of content. Fuck them.
When you say the industry is dead, what exactly do you mean? Like working in the industry is no longer a viable career option, or you think that movies/ shows in general aren’t going to be good anymore?
I’m not trying to argue your point of it’s coming across that way, just not sure exactly what you are saying, I have been loving some recent movies and shows so if something is going to change I will be sad
No new movies and TV shows are being made. I’m a 43 year old industry veteran, forced to look for a new career.
Anecdotally, I used to make $120k/year for the past 10 years like clockwork. The past two years, though: I made $18,00 and $22,000.
This article says 40% but that’s in LA. In other places, production is down 90%.
There’s a lot of buzz going around the UFO community about something BIG coming. I’ve been hearing people talk about 2027 a lot.
Well I do have anal probes on my 2027 bingo card.
Be honest, you have anal probing on your bingo card for every year, right?
😇
