warner25 (u/warner25)

warner25 commented on Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport mediaite.com/news/breakin... · Posted by u/mzmzmzm

theGnuMe · a year ago

I am appalled with your opinion.

If the system can’t be safely designed with a safe margin of error then it is too dangerous.

There are alternative ways and locations to train.

If there’s a nat sec issue have the planes hold.

warner25 · a year ago

The missions are flown through that airspace multiple times per day, and it's all for national security purposes. You can't put a hold on all commercial air traffic every time, and you need to train the pilots to navigate and communicate through that particular airspace.

Whether the system (i.e. separating rotary-wing and fixed-wing traffic there) can be more safely designed is a question for the FAA. The military aircraft are simply abiding by FAA rules for that airspace. Many more civilian helicopters are doing the same thing.

warner25 commented on Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport mediaite.com/news/breakin... · Posted by u/mzmzmzm

alistairSH · a year ago

Sure, but if they weren’t in use, why mention them?

And I wouldn’t expect them to be training in them in a busy commercial airspace. But that’s just what I’d expect - not based on anything else.

warner25 · a year ago

As defrost said, having goggles would be normal (probably even required by local unit policy) for any night flight. Whether they are helpful or harmful will vary with conditions so, yeah, when transiting through a dense urban area with lots of ambient light you might actually flip them up (i.e. out of the way, above your line of sight) to see better.

Also as defrost said, nobody can know right now if they were actually in-use at the time of the incident. We have to wait for cockpit voice recordings.

Anyway, it's not really significant, though. I think Secretary Hegseth mentioned it because a portion of the public will equate "flying with night vision" to "flying in daylight" (even though it's not even close), so the DoD was taking all appropriate measures to be safe. Or he was just told that the crew was doing a "goggle reset" flight (because crew members need to log at least one hour of flight time with goggles every 60 days to stay current), and he jumped to a conclusion.

warner25 commented on Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport mediaite.com/news/breakin... · Posted by u/mzmzmzm

alistairSH · a year ago

I'm pretty sure "training flight" in this context simply means they weren't actively carrying passengers. And it's not indicative of a junior or unqualified pilot (doesn't rule it out, just can't infer much from the phrase in this context).

At the extreme, fighter pilots fly almost exclusively training flights because we're not actively waging war at the moment.

There are a few military bases in the area - Belvior (Army), Quantico (USMC), Andrews (USAF), Pentagon, and some smaller ones (some of which have helipads, but no helicopters on station). And lots of shuttling of DoD and other government VIPs from location to location across the DC metro area.

warner25 · a year ago

Yes, the public needs to understand this. That unit's [1] task is to provide transportation to senior government officials and security forces around the capital, including to and from that airport. If they didn't train to operate there, then their first time doing so would be with someone like the Secretary of Defense onboard or during some other mission that's critical to national security.

And the aviators assigned to that unit are typically more senior people who've already done a tour or two with more conventional units. Source: I'm a career Army officer and former Black Hawk pilot.

[1] https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/TAAB/

warner25 commented on Commercial jet collides with Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan airport mediaite.com/news/breakin... · Posted by u/mzmzmzm

theGnuMe · a year ago

Maybe the military shouldn’t fly training flights there. Just an idea.

warner25 · a year ago

It's a bad idea. That unit's [1] task is to provide transportation to senior government officials and security forces around the capital, including to and from that airport. If they didn't train to operate there, then their first time doing so would be with someone like the Secretary of Defense onboard or during some other mission that's critical to national security.

"Training" here also doesn't imply some 21 year-old flight school student learning to fly. The aviators assigned to that unit are typically more senior people who've already done a tour or two with more conventional units.

I've lost count of how many times I've heard your sentiment already today, and I'm distraught by the general public's apparent lack of understanding about how things work.

[1] https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/TAAB/

warner25 commented on Ask HN: Why is too much power accumulated in the president? · Posted by u/nothrowaways

warner25 · a year ago

I disagree with the premise that the US will be totally different tomorrow.

One characteristic of the US that differs from most other countries is the degree to which the states retain a lot of power to govern themselves, and states will continue doing what they do mostly independently of things at the Federal level.

The way that most Americans talk about the president also overstates the actual power of the office. I half-joked earlier today that most Americans seem to imagine this country as an autocracy in which they get to vote for a new ruler every four years. But it's not. Congress still has more power than the average person-on-the-street seems to realize. Part of what makes Trump taking office tomorrow a bigger deal is that he's also getting both houses of congress for the next two years, which isn't always the case, but we're seeing flashes of congressional Republicans being unwilling give up their powers to him.

Anyway, I also agree with the other answers about nuclear command and control and the dysfunction in congress, especially in terms of congress exercising its power to declare war.

warner25 commented on TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users nbcnews.com/tech/tech-new... · Posted by u/Leary

khazhoux · a year ago

I've wanted to do this since 2016. It was November of 2015 when I first thought, "How long could I go not knowing if Hillary won or lost?" Eight years later, I've put it into effect, and my mind is so much clearer for it.

My whole life I've believed that "it's important to be informed." I now challenge that. I mean: yes, obviously before the next election I will read up on the candidates and propositions. But apart from that, me being informed has zero effect on the world.

warner25 · a year ago

Another forum that I frequent is bogleheads.org (about investing and personal finance), and one of the rules is that discussing politics and proposed legislation is off-limits. But obviously when a new law (e.g. on taxes) is actually passed then discussion of how we're personally affected becomes appropriate and necessary.

That might be a good model for generally striking an appropriate balance: be informed about new major legislation (or executive orders, court decisions, etc.) when they happen, but skip all the day-to-day drama about who said what on the House or Senate floor, or in an interview, or on X in between such things. I've seen it suggested many times that the Wikipedia current events portal is all that one should look at, and it would probably accomplish this.

warner25 commented on TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users nbcnews.com/tech/tech-new... · Posted by u/Leary

khazhoux · a year ago

After being a non-stop news and politics junkie the last 15+ years, I've gone beyond cold turkey.

I stopped reading all political, U.S., and even world news the day after the election. Zero. Dropped reddit politics. I don't know who are Trump's cabinet picks. I assume Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock will be on the cabinet, but I don't know and don't care.

On Nov 7 when I saw that not only did Trump win, but he won decisively, and I saw this is what the country wants, I decided that since I can't get rid of Trump's bullshit, I actually have full power to keep that bullshit from entering my personal reality. Whatever daily outrage and anger I would have felt since Nov 7, I don't have. My mind is relatively clear, and --surprise, surprise-- my life is unaffected.

I plan to keep this up for 4 years. I assume at some point, I'll go to get a flu shot and be told vaccines are illegal. And if I notice suddenly a bunch of ads for iodine pills, I'll withdraw as much cash I can and get canned food and water and gasoline. I'll deal with it then.

And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth. But I'm powerless until then, except for what I allow into my life.

warner25 · a year ago

I'm debating trying to do this. I've seen it recommended by other people who I think are smart. Honestly, I tuned out most of the 2010s after being a political news junkie in the 2000s, and it was probably good for me. I couldn't sleep or concentrate on work for a couple days after this election.

> And in 2 years and 4 years I will go to the voting booth. But I'm powerless until then

What's really depressing is that I'm already happy with my representation in congress, and they'll probably win again comfortably in 2026 and 2028, but they're powerless too.

warner25 commented on TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users nbcnews.com/tech/tech-new... · Posted by u/Leary

bearcobra · a year ago

Despite my own feelings on the ban, this kind of royal court politics is the worst potential outcome. Disregarding a law that was passed by a bipartisan majority, signed into law by the president and ruled on by the supreme courts feels like the start of a very dangerous path. Not to mention the prosecutorial discretion may be creating massive liability that the new administration could use to extract favors from some of our largest tech companies.

warner25 · a year ago

Yes, and what's even worse to me is Trump's explicit motivation for supporting TikTok now. Like there are some interesting philosophical, moral, and maybe legal arguments against the TikTok ban but what he's seized on is simply that TikTok was a useful tool (as far as he's been told) for gaining votes. Keeping it around just benefits him politically and personally, so that's it.

warner25 commented on Book and Dagger: How scholars and librarians became spies during World War II newrepublic.com/article/1... · Posted by u/samclemens

cushychicken · a year ago

Turns out having firsthand experience living abroad, plus airtight foreign language skills, is quite valuable to intelligence agencies. (The fact that they don’t really drink or do drugs makes them a nice cultural fit, too.)

Paraphrasing a sarcastic comment from Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in Charlie Wilson’s War: “What a wild fucking idea: our spies should probably speak the same language as the people they’re spying on.”

Lest anyone hammer on the LDS for this: missionaries as spies is not a novel concept nor exclusive to Mormons.

warner25 · a year ago

Yes, I don't have a reference immediately available, but I've read that the DoD has studied this and found that LDS kids join the military at a disproportionately high rate and turn out to be better than average troops. Anecdotally, I've found this to be true too. The Utah Army National Guard also has the 300th Military Intelligence Brigade of linguists which is pretty unique.

warner25 commented on TikTok goes dark in the US techcrunch.com/2025/01/18... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

rayiner · a year ago

I think it’s more specific than that. The 2008 surge of young people to democrats was driven by rage at the failures of two institutions: the banks (the Great Recession), and the intelligence apparatus (Iraq war). But those institutions never were reformed, and today the Democratic Party has become the staunchest defenders of the banks and the intelligence apparatus.

warner25 · a year ago

But for Gen Z folks, that stuff is ancient history, isn't it? Even the oldest members (using 1997 as a starting point, but some definitions use 2000) were too young to protest or serve in Iraq[1]. By the time the youngest Gen Z folks were starting school in the mid-2010s, the US stock market and unemployment rate had reached pre-recession levels too.

[1] I mean when people cared about Iraq, 2003 to circa 2008. We still have troops there, but I don't think most of America is even aware of that.