Exactly - all the anti-Boeing sentiment in the comments here (while deserved) should also be directing some ire at the funding and contract structures being used for these projects (I.e. “cost-plus” contracts).

They’re just bad policy if you want the _nominal objectives_ of the project delivered on time and on budget; they have structural incentives for contractors to go over.

(It’s pretty clear that delivering the nominal objectives is not what the relevant policy-makers are actually aiming for, though. The cost overruns are the real goal for them, as it’s a kind of pork to steer regional funding)

This is fascinating, thankyou!

That may be true, but having customers who want to only use products from one company doesn’t make that company a monopoly, which is the topic sitting behind this article.

So then we agreed that final paragraph is irrelevant to the arguments of a monopoly. It’s misdirection from the fact that no one can build a competing quality product on their locked down platform. It has nothing to do with consumer choice because there is no choice. That is the monopoly, lack of ability to fairly build on their platform.

You act like Android doesn't exist. Consumers have chosen the Apple ecosystem and all that entails.

I’m not sure what Android has to do with consumers that limit themselves to the Apple ecosystem, based on the enforced belief that only Apple products work together. Of course you can switch to the Android ecosystem but how easy is it to do that and transfer everything over? You act like there aren’t huge limitations to what you’re suggesting a consumer should do.

But in many cases people, myself included, swapped to using Apple products because Android and Windows Phone were so much worse and had peripherals that interfaced way worse. I spent most of a decade on Android, paying essentially the same price as I would have on Apple, to get products that worked worse, lasted less time before losing official support, and interoperated worse even within the Google, LG, or Samsung ecosystems.

I ate the cost to swap off of Android (which also doesn't make it easy to get off of it, though maybe better than Apple) because I got value out of it.

And you have freedom to do that from Android. Now try to swap out of Apple, if you thought leaving Android was tough…

I did. I totally abandoned Apple once before, and I moved out of it for laptops in the last two years with no real disruption. I use almost no Apple services on my phone in a way that locks me into them. Most of the apps I use on iOS, I have subscriptions to some apps outside of Apple where they would transfer to Android just fine. I'd have to get a different fitness tracker, but I'd probably just not use one because all the Android ones I've used have been terrible.

By contrast, I still have 4 major Google services from my time in Android that I have yet to work out of my life - Maps, Gmail, Photos, and Calendar.

Parent post said putting people into orbit. Those companies do short suborbital flights.

You’re right I missed that.

They didn’t say more old people were _entering_ the work force. People already in the work force are aging.

That sounds more like coil whine, which is “normal” sound (i.e. moving air) from components vibrating rapidly. That’s not what this paper covers (= more like people’s brains “imagining” sound due to RF triggers)

The reason you remember adults not hearing it is because there is a well-documented loss of high-frequency hearing as people age.

(Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shoppers)

> Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shopper

Yeah, they should only work for teenagers. Except for when you are visually impaired like me. I'm almost 35 now and still hear those high frequency noise. It is extremely annoying and even borderline painful. Last year I even got the cops involved when a parked car in front of my apartment constantly emitted a high frequency noise for deterring stone marten and I didn't know who the car belonged to. It was a pretty funny interaction in the end because none of the parties involved (except for me) could even hear the noise. But the car owner admitted they had such a device installed. Resulting in them just moving their car.

I've heard these sounds all my life, as recently as a few years ago. I'll be 50 next year.

The ability to perceive high frequency sounds decreases statistically with age -- but that certainly doesn't mean that all people lose the ability to hear them when they're older (and it also doesn't mean that all people can hear them when they're younger).

It's a distribution. Probably a normal distribution, but I don't know that for certain.

There’s also a history of using ‘X’ as the designation for eXperimental planes, e.g the X-15.

I always assumed that was the inspiration for the use in tech branding like Google X - conjuring up images of skunkworks, etc.

I always felt that the DS9 relationships between Cardassians & Bajorans was a product of the time when the show was written, and had stronger overtones of the 1990s Balkans conflicts and Israel/Palestine than anything else. (Though it’s far from a direct allegory for either)

You also had The Troubles in Northern-Ireland at the time, and that's not a huge leap either.

I've also seen people describe the Bajorans as an analogue for the Jewish diaspora.

You can fit many real-life events, even more if you try hard enough.

Yup — as someone who grew up with Wipeout and lots of d&b/electronica album art, these are giving me strong nostalgia pangs.

I assume in this case it’s “Out (of) The Box”