Mechanized Stephen

@gak_pdx @aakashgupta Ah, I was looking at the blinking yellow lights, I see the correct ones now.

@MechaSteve @aakashgupta In the video, the RELs cycle off about 3 seconds before impact, as they should. Truck 1 enters Runway 4 *while the lights are on*. No NOTAMS about the system not working, and it appears in the video to be functioning 100%.

The air traffic controller cleared the fire truck onto the runway. Seconds later, the same controller screamed “stop, stop, stop.” The plane was doing 93 to 105 mph. Both pilots are dead. Everyone will frame this as controller error. One controller was simultaneously managing a United flight that aborted takeoff after an anti-ice warning, dispatching a fire truck across an active runway, and sequencing an inbound Air Canada landing at highway speed. At 11:40 PM. On a mandatory overtime shift at a facility that has been understaffed for years. A system that assigns one person that workload will produce exactly this outcome. The only variable is when. The FAA is short approximately 3,000 controllers. The headcount dropped 13% from 2010 to 2024 while flight volume rose 10%. Over 40% of the FAA’s 290 terminal facilities are understaffed. The New York TRACON, which manages the most congested airspace in America across LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark, has been chronically below target. Newark was operating at 59% of its staffing goal. LaGuardia handles 900 flights a day. The hiring pipeline is broken at every stage. Only 2% of applicants complete the full process. Training takes up to 6 years. The FAA Academy in Oklahoma City is a bottleneck, with roughly 35% of trainees washing out. Congress blocked legislation to build a second academy. In one recent hiring cycle, the FAA brought on 1,512 candidates and lost 1,300 in the same window. Net gain: around 160 controllers for an entire country. Three things need to happen and everyone who can make them happen has known for years. Congress needs to fund and authorize a second FAA training academy. One facility in Oklahoma City cannot produce enough controllers for 900 million annual passengers. Members of Congress from Oklahoma have actively blocked this. That needs to end yesterday. The FAA needs to cut certification time. Six years from application to fully certified controller is absurd. The agency’s own data shows tower simulators reduce certification time by 27%. They’ve installed them at 95 facilities. That should be every facility, and the simulated hours should count toward more of the certification requirement. The FAA needs to stop plugging staffing gaps with mandatory overtime. Controllers at understaffed facilities are working six-day weeks rotating between morning, mid, and night shifts. The NTSB has flagged fatigue repeatedly. The controller last night was managing overlapping emergencies during a nighttime operation. Overtime is not a staffing plan. It’s a countdown to the next runway collision. The controller said “I messed up” to a Frontier pilot who watched the whole thing. The pilot responded “No man, you did the best you could.” One of them is right. The answer determines whether this happens again.

@MatthewCappucci @NWS The cloud cloud is just clouds in someone else’s computer.

@NWS Can we call it the cloud cloud?

The National Weather Service is modernizing operations and moving to the cloud! This will greatly improve our mission to provide weather, water and climate data, forecasts, warnings, and impact-based decision support services for the protection of life and property and enhancement of the national economy. Learn more: noaa.gov/news-release/n…

@Sadie_NC Oh, I have a good explanation! The clouds of yellow fog in this video:

Yes, it is that bad. I can't even explain it to those who do not live down here. 😕

@zanehengsperger @JulianFried Getting there.

from instant quote to cut to shipped to customer in 7.5 hours

@gak_pdx @aakashgupta Aren’t the entrance lights supposed to sequence off when the aircraft passes? The fact that they stay on would suggest that the light system may not have been sequencing properly. It is also very common to see these lights noted as inop on NOTAMS.

@aakashgupta That is a lot of words to totally ignore that Truck 1 violated the rules and entered the runway at Delta despite the Runway Entrance Lights being on, as is clear in the full video.

@atlurbanist LOL, LMAO even.

"Few people have probably heard of Atlantic Station, GA, but this neighborhood in Atlanta is one of the top spots to live...Atlantic Station offers a dense, walkable setting where residents can live, work, and socialize without relying on a car." 😶 travelandleisure.com/best-place-to-…

@JasonPremoMFG @60Minutes Hire productive workers, pay them well, and drive your competitors out of business. Aspire to corner the market on good employees.

@60Minutes There is no labor shortage. There is a good salary shortage.

Shipyards desperately need welders, pipefitters, and other skilled workers. But this work is grueling and dangerous. cbsn.ws/4bIyP6O

@emm0sh @_adumbo_ @gabednconfused Cotter pin and castle nut used on a bolt serving as an axis of rotation.

@_adumbo_ @gabednconfused what joint doesn’t need preload?

oh you’re the technical co-founder? find the required preload in this bolted joint

@suchnerve @femmethylamine “Well surely” is the thought behind many foreseeable tragedies.

@femmethylamine Presumably the 100kWh battery would have comprehensive safety precautions installed along with it + lithium iron phosphate batteries are much safer than the usual lithium ion batteries

Crazy how large batteries - as in, big enough to run an entire house for multiple days during a hurricane-induced power outage - are only ludicrously expensive if you buy flagship name-brand products. I’m finding 100 kilowatt-hour (!!!!!) batteries for under $4 thousand. Omfg

@JasonPremoMFG Oh, sure it can; but the good ones are worth as much as most graduates anywhere else. 25% dud rate is unfortunate, but more than balanced out by the 15% chance of a 10x co-op.

@MechaSteve Can't go wrong!

Actual interview with typical "machinist" job candidate (reality: 10 years experience loading material and pressing green button 🟢)

@ITARviolation The wooorst.

Yesterday at work I was actually given real tasking for the first time in months everyone pray for me I don’t wanna actually have to do my job

@FifteenCharacto @willreil Bad for cutters, worse for lungs.

@willreil MDF just isn't great tbh, better dodged. It's bad for cutters and whatever you make is still MDF.

Buying wood for learning how to use the CNC, they only had big sheets of MDF and I don’t have a saw to cut it (yet) so I got these little boards instead. Should be good enough to test with for now. I need a table saw or something.

@SeedOilDsrspctr Painted blind rivet for non-structural applications. They can get much fancier.

+10 Man Points if you know what this is right away

But if @zanehengsperger tells me my machine shop needs to be buying at least $1MM of aluminum per year, I will agree.

@Zona_maeee @zonamaeeee “Shameless plug”

Like this if you like my outfit 👀

@MCCCANM Oh good, I’m not the only one remembering it that way.

The way I remember it is that Red on the Right wing would be two R’s & easy to remember, so it’s definitely not that.

@p0lar_fawn A tree, you are thinking of a tree.

A 3D printer but for wood

@dmbkparker No, based on the stories I have heard, hovering is a low level coordination skill like riding a bike. Not inherently very difficult with practice, but essentially impossible without.

Do you think if I put you in a helicopter you could successfully takeoff and land? No instruction. You can watch as many YouTube videos as you want before we go.

@zanehengsperger Just get a decent Bridgeport manual knee mill with a DRO. The difficulties a CNC has with sloppy blanks will be felt in a manual mill setup too.

if I had to buy 1 single cnc machine what would you recommend? the purpose is the get our team trained up on CNC machining so that we know how to cut metal for our customers better