michael_miller

To give a specific example in this case.. a type rating to fly a Gulfstream business jet is on the order of $100,000. If a pilot works for a few months and quits, the employer is out a pretty significant chunk of change.

An alternative arrangement to direct employment is that the pilot could pay for his/her own type rating, and work as a contract pilot. But that requires having $100k to plunk down, and taking the risk that the job market will be strong after the type rating.

In this case, the employee may prefer the "indentured servitude" route versus having to front 6 figures to get their own type rating.

I took my Cirrus SR22 airplane across the pond and back a few months ago [KFRG CYHU CYZV CYYR CYKL CYFB BGSF BIRK EGPC]. Two things surprised me: the manner people live up North, and how modernized technology is changing the risk profile of the flight.

People up north (well, native people anyway) live a sustenance lifestyle of of necessity. Far from being a "cultural attraction," for them, it's a choice between a $20 stick of butter and a free whale from the ocean. When you're living on government subsidies in a town plagued by joblessness, there's not much of a choice.

The economic condition up in arctic Canada was saddening in other ways. Imagine living in -40F climates, and not having a place to stay. There are often 15-20 people per tiny house, with children's mattresses strewn across the ground of the living room. On top of the living quarters, the communications infrastructure was horrendous - a satellite backbone for internet that was next to useless for getting a weather briefing.

While the situation on the ground was... enlightening, from the air, things are becoming immensely more modern. Historically dangerous aspects to ferry flights are now void: communication, navigation, and rescue are all radically transformed.

Communication used to be a huge challenge (think clunky HF radio with a 25 foot trailing link antenna), but is now a non-event with a satellite phone. My Iridium candy-bar phone, while expensive, now gives me the ability to call ATC worldwide and let them know my exact position. By next year, ATC will automatically get real-time position updates from any ADS-B equipped aircraft: https://aireon.com/.

Navigation used to be a combination of LORAN, NDBs, and looking at the stars (no joke). Now, it's GPS direct. You know exactly where you are at all times, with 0 ambiguity. And you have an iPhone in your pocket as a backup, even if your plane goes totally dark.

Rescue is now a matter of hours instead of days. I carried a PLB with me. If I pressed a button, satellites would be pinged with an SOS signal and my exact GPS location. Rescue aircraft could be dispatched immediately and on-site within hours.

For anyone thinking about this trip, do it! The adventure will give you an appreciation for the frontiers of technology.

Thanks to Elon Musk, we have real-time tracking for modern airplanes! Iridium NEXT has ADS-B receivers on each of their satellites which can see all ADS-B equipped airplanes around the entire globe. It's mostly up-and-running, you can follow the progress at: https://www.iridiumnext.com/

Background on the system for tracking: https://aireon.com/

Any idea if you can configure the page DPI with this API?

IMHO, the commercial vs. private distinction doesn't make sense when applied to drones. For airplanes, the logic is that paying passengers expect a certain level of safety which cannot be provided by someone with 40 hours of flight time. In essence, the FAA is shielding paying customers from the risks of low-time pilots. For drones, this logic doesn't follow. A private operation inherently has the same risks as a commercial operation. There's no passengers to kill - only people on the ground to hurt. The people are there regardless of whether you're flying for hire or not, and have no say on your flight.

I do think drones pose a significant risk to the NAS (National Airspace System) unless regulated correctly. To me this doesn't mean that we need to start fining people who post YouTube videos. I believe a pragmatic approach is best - people are going to be dumb and use drones for illegal / dangerous things. The best action the FAA can take to mitigate this is to require manufacturers to include an ADS-B transponder to broadcast the drone's GPS position at all times. At least then, pilots can safely avoid reckless drone pilots.

I fear the stupidity and ignorance of inexperienced drone operators. Our airspace is complex with lots of rules and regulations to ensure safe separation of aircraft. Trained pilots have enough trouble obeying the rules and being safe, so I question whether someone who has no formal training is capable of doing so. What happens if an inexperienced drone operator is going down the Hudson River corridor without reading up on the radio procedures, while I'm barreling down at 140 knots? Pilots are trained to look up special airspace before doing a flight, but how would someone who just bought a drone off the shelf be familiar with these practices? There's no inherent reason that drones can't follow the same procedures and be just as safe as airplanes today, but it's dangerous to have the attitude of "buy it off the shelf and go fly it with no training."

The privacy issue doesn't concern me as much, since it's already possible to rent a helicopter and follow someone around all day. The only attribute that's changing is the cost: rather than paying $300/h for a helicopter, you can pay a couple bucks an hour for constant surveillance.

I have a somewhat off topic question about airplane companies' attitude towards engines. As a private pilot who flies Cirruses, it's always baffled me that a FADEC is not standard equipment. For non-pilots, starting a plane requires priming the engine by injecting fuel into the lines, and fiddling with the fuel/air mixture until the engine fires. Totally different from a modern car where a computer electronically controls the injection to get the engine started almost immediately. Is the attitude in the industry still that FADECs are dangerous because of bugs/malfunctions? Or is it more of a certification issue?

One potential solution could be to adopt a UK-esque legal process whereby the loser of a tort suit pays the legal fees. If you risk paying huge legal bills by filing a lawsuit, you'll be less likely to do so unless the case is a slam dunk.

As an NYC resident, I feel that Bloomberg has made the city a remarkably better place. Probably the most transformative effect of Bloomberg's initiatives has been making the outer boroughs appealing. Young people who might have otherwise lived elsewhere because of ridiculous Manhattan rents (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) are now flocking to neighborhoods like Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. These young people with disposable income create demand for more great restaurants, shops, and venues like the Barclay's center, all of which make the city a much more fun place to be.

It isn't all roses. The poorer residents in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant are being forced to move elsewhere as their neighborhood gentrifies. However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. Bloomberg has simply accelerated the trend of creating more upscale neighborhoods. I can understand how someone in a less fortunate socioeconomic situation might feel differently, but it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective.

My guess is that it's because browser support is inconsistent, and Apple needs to have a 100% flawless experience on ahem less-well-engineered browsers. Positioning the SVG elements precisely ensures that nothing is cut off, and there aren't any visual oddities. Writing your own layout engine is a great way to ensure a consistent experience across multiple rendering engines.

Sorry, I should have been more clear - I meant the maintinence would be inexpensive compared to a gasoline piston helicopter. Given the requirement for safety in aviation, piston engines have to be inspected (and rebuilt, at a cost of ~$50k) every ~2000 hours the aircraft is flown. This cost essentially goes away with an electric engine, partially because they last 10x as long, and partially because they cost significantly less than a piston engine.

To me, this is really cool, since presumably it means the materials have gotten light enough for an electric helicopter to become a reality (beyond the crappy Firefly project). Imagine what it would be like if you could commute from the suburbs of NY to the downtown heliport without paying for fuel or expensive maintenance. It could transform the way people commute to work, eliminating traffic and the effect of accidents.

One caveat I'd add is that in NY, finance might pay the bills, but it doesn't dominate the city. There are plenty of other industries which play significant roles in the city: fashion, publishing, filmmaking, etc. In SF, tech dominates the culture of the city. Countless times, I've gone to bars and heard pitches about startups, or discussions about some new technology. In NY, I've seldom heard people talk about i-banking, or anything finance related. It just feels way less like a monoculture.

The schools in Palo Alto itself are very good. Palo Alto HS has an excellent reputation amongst people I know. It's a bit of a pressure cooker, as everyone in the school has parents in the tech industry who care about education, but the quality of teaching is great.

The cost of living is another matter. A very basic starter home will in Palo Alto will run $1-2 million. Not unattainable for an engineer, but it will require some sacrifices.

What forces do you see bringing together SF as a melting pot? I've only spent a small amount of time there, and with a very small subset of people, but my experience has been that there is a large group of people from very similar backgrounds (20-something from Stanford/MIT/CMU in the tech industry).

I absolutely agree about the motivated, friendly people part. There's definitely a "pay it forward" culture in the tech community which you can feel in the atmosphere.

I know you meant well with your comment, but in general, it's best to avoid well-actually comments. This is one of Hacker School's core rules; they elaborate on why it's a good idea to avoid these types of comments at https://www.hackerschool.com/manual.

Do you know the cause of the 3k requests which Vista made? Do you have a sane theory why these were occurring? Also, do you have any suggestions for better clients to use?

A false positive is expensive for more than just litigious reasons. Hiring a bad apple can destroy the culture of a small company. As Steve Jobs said, "It’s too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players."

An online PhD would be much harder to do in a large scale. The first part of a PhD is (essentially) a masters degree. That part, as evidenced by the article, could be provided in a MOOC-style format. The second part of a PhD is doing research with an advisor. You meet with your advisor every week, and he guides you through a research project. Unfortunately, this type of 1-1 interaction doesn't scale, so doing an online version of a PhD would offer comparatively few benefits compared to doing it in-person.