histriosum (u/histriosum)

histriosum commented on Ground stop at JFK due to staffing fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_other... · Posted by u/akersten

evilduck · 2 months ago

Nothing happens to them. They can't be jailed for taking their PTO or sick leave, they are free to quit and there are not enough recruits in the pipeline to backfill them en masse. They could be put on a PIP, or fired for not showing up, or some other retaliatory and childish Trump action, but what is the government realistically going to do to fix this? Fire them for poor performance and make sure that a short term shortage becomes permanent? How do you even recruit backfills when the entire world knows you fucked over the previous crew and promise to do it to the next batch too?

histriosum · 2 months ago

On the other hand, if privatizing ATC is one of your goals, this is probably an effective way to force the issue.

(Current Airline Pilot here, definitely NOT in favor of privatizing ATC, but historically breaking things on purpose is the usual path politicians take to privatize)

histriosum commented on Preliminary report into Air India crash released bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx20p... · Posted by u/cjr

noqc · 5 months ago

> one second delay

did the report say a one second delay or that the two switches were turned off at consecutive seconds? The latter is what I remembered, but I'll check again.

histriosum · 5 months ago

The report can be found here: https://aaib.gov.in/What's%20New%20Assets/Preliminary%20Repo...

> did the report say a one second delay or that the two switches were turned off at consecutive seconds?

The report states, on page 14: The aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec.

"with a time gap of 01 sec" seems fairly clear. The final report will have more granularity, but I don't think that's very ambiguous.

histriosum commented on Preliminary report into Air India crash released bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx20p... · Posted by u/cjr

noqc · 5 months ago

The murder suicide angle isn't particularly worthy of assumption yet. Have you ever put your phone in the fridge?

Pilots deactivate the fuel cutoff at the end of the final taxi to the gate. This makes flipping these switches a practiced maneuver, capable of being performed without conscious thought, regardless of whether they came with safety locks installed.

Brain farts are a real phenomenon, and an accidental fuel cutoff most closely resembles the transcript from within the cockpit.

The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional. Until I receive a more direct confirmation that the switches were installed with their full safety features, I will assume that it is more likely for the plane to have had improperly installed switches than not, given that the shutoff was the reason for the crash, and if they turn out to have been installed, I will assume that simple pilot error is responsible until a motive for murder is found. The pilots lives are under quite a lot of scrutiny, and I do not believe that a motive for murder is likely to be found.

histriosum · 5 months ago

> The report is actually a little cagey about whether the locks were properly installed on these switches. Said locks are supposedly optional.

The locks/gates on the switches are definitely NOT optional. There was an SAIB about some switches that may have been installed improperly. It didn't result in an AD, which likely means the extent was limited or potentially even nil.

The switches were moved to cutoff with a one second delay between the first and second switch. That's pretty suggestive of deliberate movement. I've flown a Max9 simulator, which has the same switches. Moving one of them by accident would be impossible, let alone two of them.

I agree with not jumping to conclusions about the pilots and possible motives or circumstances, but I will bet a lot of money that the switches were just fine.

The CVR will likely have audio of the switch movement to confirm as well.

histriosum commented on TSA to end shoes-off policy for airport security screening abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-end... · Posted by u/avonmach

0cf8612b2e1e · 5 months ago

I have always opted out of the full body scanner and always had to go through the metal detector followed by pat down.

histriosum · 5 months ago

Genuine question not from a judgy space but from an interested one.. what motivates you to do this? I feel like I would find the pat down far more invasive than someone seeing a sort of nude picture of my body.. again, I’m asking because I would like to understand, not because I’m judging the choice. Appreciate your insight!

histriosum commented on Ask HN: Laid-off devs who left tech? · Posted by u/phendrenad2

gcheong · 6 months ago

That's interesting. How long have you been flying?

histriosum · 6 months ago

I did a chunk of my primary training back when I was 21, but as often happens, I got to around the cross country solo portion and ran out of money and life priorities changed.. unfortunately, I then set it down for a really long time; sort of forgot that I actually really loved it, I guess.

Came back to flying in 2019 and finished up my private certificate, with no particular intention other than I wanted to fly because I enjoyed it, and perhaps instruct because I do enjoy teaching. Went on to get my instrument and commercial, and around the time I got my commercial certificate, I started toying with the idea of pursuing it as a possible career change. Went on to get my multi-engine add on, which kind of cemented the idea of trying it for a living. CFI and CFII after that, and between doing some instructing and flying a lot just because I liked flying, I started applying at airlines around December of last year and I crossed the 1500hr mark in March of this year. Interviewed at my first choice regional in May, they gave me a CJO, and training class date in mid July.

Pilot hiring right now is pretty tight, so I've been pretty fortunate to get the regional I wanted right out of the gate, and to not have a long delay for a class date. As with anything involving timing in life, I definitely timed it wrong -- my earning potential and qualify of life outlook would've been vastly improved if I'd been ready to make this jump 2 to 3 years ago, but what can you do :-D

histriosum commented on Ask HN: Laid-off devs who left tech? · Posted by u/phendrenad2

histriosum · 6 months ago

I've been without an IT gig for the last year, though it had nothing to do with the overall tech market tightening.

Prior to my gig ending, I'd already made the decision to change careers (at least for a while), so I haven't really looked for anything new, I've been focusing on the career change. At 46, I just wasn't really looking forward to starting to experience the tech ageism; and, the AI craziness is really grating to me. It's feels like the seagulls from Finding Nemo except instead of "Mine Mine Mine" it's "AI AI AI". :-D

I'm about two weeks away from leaving for pilot training at a regional airline, so hopefully in a few months I'll be just another cog in a machine for a while, flying people around on jet powered busses. If the airline life turns out to be my speed for the long haul, then the goal would be to get over to a mainline carrier ASAP; if not, I can always fall back to tech later, and for now I'll enjoy the office view from 34k ft.

I'm aware that I've traded upcoming implicit ageism for explicitly regulated ageism, but if I am lucky enough to stay healthy I don't have to worry about that kicking in until I'm 65.

histriosum commented on Large language models often know when they are being evaluated arxiv.org/abs/2505.23836... · Posted by u/jonbaer

mistrial9 · 6 months ago

> prompted "make me money" and will start a company that makes money

Your otherwise insightful comment is self-derailed by adding this deeply distracting content?

histriosum · 6 months ago

I'm not sure why you find it distracting, it's an on point extension of the scenario. There are rules by which companies are supposed to operate, and evaluations (audits, for example) intended to ensure compliance with those rules. That an LLM may react differently when being evaluated (audited) than when in normal operation means that it may be quite happy to lie to auditors while making money illegally.

Seemed a clear extension what-if to me.

histriosum commented on Ask HN: What is your fallback job if AI takes away your career? · Posted by u/7402

histriosum · 6 months ago

I'm just about to start my new job as an airline pilot at 46. I didn't primarily decide to career shift away from IT because of AI, but it was definitely a consideration.

histriosum commented on Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups thriftytraveler.com/news/... · Posted by u/_tqr3

avidiax · 7 months ago

I had this a year ago on ZRH->SFO.

One way business 6,032 Swiss francs.

Round trip business (with a return 6 months later) was 2,530 Swiss francs. So I screenshotted the horrible one-way price to go in my expense report, and then booked the round trip ticket.

histriosum · 7 months ago

> So I screenshotted the horrible one-way price to go in my expense report, and then booked the round trip ticket.

So… you committed fraud? Cool?

I’m all for sticking it to the corporate overlords, but careful how far out you stick your neck.