Month: March 2022

Madonna’s Instagram ban back-tested

by philg

We visited Madame Tussauds Orlando earlier this month and learned that Madonna might not be the best celebrity advocate for years of lockdowns, mask orders, and school closures: “It’s better to live one year as a tiger, than one hundred as a sheep.”

This inspired a search that turned up “Madonna’s Instagram account flagged for spreading misinformation” (BBC, July 2020):

Pop star Madonna has been censured by Instagram after sharing a video about a coronavirus conspiracy theory to her 15 million followers.

In her post, the singer claimed a vaccine for Covid-19 had already been found, but was being hidden to “let the rich get richer”.

Instagram blurred out the video with a caption saying: “False Information”.

It also directed users to a page debunking the claims in the video, noting there is no coronavirus vaccine.

Facebook and Twitter had previously removed the video, flagging it as misinformation; while Donald Trump Jr. was banned from tweeting for 12 hours as a penalty for sharing the clip.

What about the absurd “vaccine for Covid-19 had already been found” claim? From December 2020, “We Had the Vaccine the Whole Time” (New York Magazine):

You may be surprised to learn that of the trio of long-awaited coronavirus vaccines, the most promising, Moderna’s mRNA-1273, which reported a 94.5 percent efficacy rate on November 16, had been designed by January 13.

And the “let the rich get richer” calumny against Science? From October 2021, “The richest Americans became 40% richer during the pandemic” (Guardian):

The 400 richest Americans added $4.5tn to their wealth last year, a 40% rise, even as the pandemic shuttered large parts of the US, according to Forbes magazine’s latest tally of the country’s richest people.

“World’s richest become wealthier during Covid pandemic as inequality grows” (NBC, January 2021):

Almost every country in the world is likely to see an increase in inequality because of the pandemic, according to a new report.

“Wealth of world’s 10 richest men doubled in pandemic, Oxfam says” (BBC, January 2022):

Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB’s chief executive, said the charity timed the report each year to coincide with Davos to attract the attention of economic, business and political elites.

“This year, what’s happening is off the scale,” he said. “There’s been a new billionaire created almost every day during this pandemic, meanwhile 99% of the world’s population are worse off because of lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.”

“Something is deeply flawed with our economic system,” he added.

Separately, on the subject of inequality, Madame Tussauds invites visitors to compare their achievements to some Americans who were selected at random:

(Elvis, Oprah, and Dan Marino)

Regarding the rich trying to become richer, here’s child support plaintiff Angeline Jolie and the cash source that she has been tapping:

The best part of visiting Madame Tussauds was hearing our 8-year-old ask, after seeing a realistic sculpture of the King of Pop, “Was Michael Jackson a boy or a girl?”

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Boeing 737 crash in China

by philg

Friends have been asking about China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735, the Boeing 737 (non-MAX) that departed Kunming and crashed nose-down near Wuzhou yesterday.

Without the flight data recorder it will be tough to determine what happened, but what I’ve been telling friends is that there are a variety of ways that an airplane can end up in an uncontrollable nose-down attitude.

In a conventional airplane, the wings lift up from just behind the center of gravity (CG) and the tail pushes down. If the horizontal stabilizer, which looks like a small wing near the tail, were to break off in flight, for example, thus resulting in a “no tail” situation, the airplane would nose-dive because the wings are lifting from behind the CG. See the following force diagram (source):

There is a substantial amount of overdesign in an aircraft and thus extreme maneuvers may result in a component getting stressed or cracked, but it is almost impossible for the horizontal stabilizer to come off. In the comments section below, a reader highlighted Japan Air Lines Flight 123, a Boeing 747 whose tail, and, more seriously, hydraulic systems, were damaged by the failure of a 7-year-old patch to the pressure vessel.

Is it possible to lose the downforce from the tail without parts of the tail becoming detached? Yes. This can happen due to ice accumulation (see NASA videos below). It seems unlikely that the accident Boeing got into severe icing at 29,000′ (where the steep descent began), however, because the air at that altitude is extremely cold and simply cannot hold much moisture. For the tail to stall while the wings were still lifting powerfully would likely require an unusual failure of the pneumatics, which take hot compressed air from the engines to melt ice off the wing and tail surfaces leading edges.

The horizontal stabilizer’s angle relative to the fuselage can be adjusted via the airplane’s trim mechanism. The runaway-trim-by-design is what brought down the Boeing 737 Max airplanes, but runaway trim can also occur in the non-Max 737, as in other planes. There are a variety of safeguards intended to prevent runaway trim (except in the Max where the computer actually held its finger on the “trim down” button in response to absurd data from a failed sensor), but if those safeguards fail somehow and the airplane is trimmed full nose down it might not be possible to recover.

An easy-to-understand cause of a nosedive is movement of the standard flight control surfaces, in particular, the elevator (just behind the horizontal stabilizer). This can be seen at airshows, e.g., in this video of Mike Goulian at Sun ‘n Fun (I’ll be there this year on Saturday and Sunday if you want to meet). Of course, Goulian pulls out of the dive by pulling back on the stick as he gets closer to the ground. If the elevator was stuck in the “stick forward” position does that mean that the pilots of the accident Boeing had the stick full forward? (i.e., the pilot suicide theory) No. Unlike in a lightweight family airplane, the flight control surfaces of a heavy jet are not directly connected to the pilots’ yokes/control columns. No human is strong enough to overcome the air loads of the wind rushing over the control surfaces. What drives the flight controls is 3,000 psi of hydraulic pressure generated by engine-driven and electric pumps (source):

(See also this thorough video explanation.)

How do the pilots of a heavy jet (or “pilot” if one is in the restroom) move a flight control surface then? Ignoring the modern fly-by-wire systems of the Airbuses, the standard technique is a cable that goes from the control column to a power control unit (PCU) next to the aileron, elevator, or rudder. The PCU uses the position of the cable to modulate the application of hydraulic pressure and it is the hydraulic pump that actually moves the surface. (more) Like everything else in aviation, these PCUs are almost perfectly reliable, but if one were to fail/stick it could lead to an impossible-to-control airplane. Here’s an NTSB report regarding an elevator PCU that got stuck in 2009:

On June 14, 2009, a Boeing 737-400, registration number TC-TLA, operated as Tailwind Airlines flight OHY036, experienced an uncommanded pitch-up event at 20 feet above the ground during approach to Diyarbakir Airport (DIY), Turkey. The flight crew performed a go-around maneuver and controlled the airplane’s pitch with significant column force, full nose-down stabilizer trim, and thrust. During the second approach, the flight crew controlled the airplane and landed by inputting very forceful control column inputs to maintain pitch control. Both crewmembers sustained injuries during the go-around maneuver; none of the 159 passengers or cabin crewmembers reported injuries. The airplane was undamaged during the scheduled commercial passenger flight.

An investigation found that the incident was caused by an uncommanded elevator deflection as a result of a left elevator power control unit (PCU) jam due to foreign object debris (FOD). The FOD was a metal roller element (about 0.2 inches long and 0.14 inches in diameter) from an elevator bearing. During its investigation of this incident, the NTSB identified safety issues relating to the protection of the elevator PCU input arm assembly, design of the 737 elevator control system, guidance and training for 737 flight crews on a jammed elevator control system, and upset recovery training.

See also this Wikipedia page on problems with B737 rudder and B747 elevator control due to PCU malfunctions.

So that’s everything that I know, which is to say… almost nothing relevant or helpful, unfortunately, just like everyone else on Planet Earth until and unless the flight data recorder and, perhaps, cockpit voice recorder, are recovered.

More on tailplane icing can be found in these NASA videos…

an older version…

Related:

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Medical waiver for tinted windows in Massachusetts

by philg

A friend is a tinted window enthusiast and mentioned in a chat group that he was having some trouble getting his doctor in Maskachusetts to sign documents that will satisfy the bureaucracy that runs the tint waiver program:

Apparently this should not be too challenging. The tint enthusiast knows of some people who were approved due to doctors using “dry skin” as a justification.

A response from a Californian in the chat group:

Get medicinal marijuana doc to say u r too stoned to put sunglasses on

Separately, is tinted glass necessary on any modern car? For roughly 20 years, at least mid-trim cars have come from the factory with heat-rejecting (sometimes called “solar absorbing”) glass, right?

(Where is aftermarket tint necessary? Airplane windows! Unfortunately, they are plastic and can be destroyed by standard automotive products. Small planes typically have no air-conditioning (costs $30,000 and reduces payload by 10 percent) and the factory windows are greatly inferior in heat-rejection to what’s in a Toyota Corolla (one of which passed us on Florida’s Turnpike the other day going at least 90 mph!). Plane Tint sells a specially formulated product that we applied to our 2005 SR20 before making the Florida move. It has held up well so far.)

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Why does Twitter make thoughtcriminals delete their own thoughtcrimes?

by philg

“Twitter suspends Babylon Bee for naming Rachel Levine ‘Man of the Year’” (New York Post):

Twitter locked the account of a right-leaning parody site, The Babylon Bee, after it awarded Rachel Levine, the transgender Biden administration official, the title of “man of the year.”

The Babylon Bee story was a reaction to USA Today’s naming of Levine, who is US assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services, as one of its “women of the year” last week.

Twitter says it will restore the account, which has more than 1.3 million followers, if the Bee deletes the tweet, but CEO Seth Dillon says he has no intention of doing so.

Apparently, Mr. Dillon was not unpersoned and could still tweet:

My question concerns the requirement that the Babylon Bee heretics delete their own tweet. Why didn’t Twitter’s orthodoxy enforcers delete it once they noticed the thoughtcrime?

A Facebook friend’s take on the original story:

it’s a meta-joke. The joke isn’t that he’s a man, the joke is that saying so is such a transgression of the orthodoxy that everyone immediately reacts, “omg, I can’t believe they said that” and bans them from social media

Is it an important part of the healing process for a thoughtcriminal to delete his/her/zir/their own tweet?

Related:

  • “Facebook and Twitter restrict controversial New York Post story on Joe Biden” (Guardian, October 14, 2020): Twitter said it was limiting the article’s spread due to questions about “the origins of the materials” included in the article, which contained material supposedly pulled from a computer that had been left by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019. … Facebook, meanwhile, placed restrictions on linking to the article, saying there were questions about its validity. “This is part of our standard process to reduce the spread of misinformation,” said a Facebook spokesperson, Andy Stone.
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Public health expert predictions vs. The Curve

by philg

Here’s an annotated chart from a tweet:

The CNN article cited seems to be “The Omicron surge hasn’t peaked nationwide, and ‘the next few weeks will be tough,’ US surgeon general says” (updated Jan 18). The February 23 interview with Dr. Biden’s colleague Dr. Fauci can be found on MSN.

(I’m not convinced that the above chart proves Dr. Fauci wrong, at least in the eyes of those who Follow Science. The masks won’t come off in Los Angeles until March 23 (ABC). For the Mask Believers (against the evidence), if there is another case surge this summer they could easily attribute it to the late March Unmasking.)

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Department of Poor Timing: Flying Across Russia cover story

by philg

Cover story in the March 2022 issue of a printed-and-mailed magazine for Cirrus pilots: “Flying Across Russia”.

Here’s the route that John R. Bone, a Florida-based pilot retired from Delta Airlines, took in July 2021:

(the trip from Florida to Iqaluit and Iceland was a mere prelude) The SR22 has enough range that there was no need to install ferry tanks for the over-water legs.

Captain Bone describes a Russian general aviation community that is well-integrated with the rest of the world and where everyone is friendly to Americans.

At press time, the author/editor added “given the current situation in the Ukraine, you should consult with the U.S. State Department for any trip in the region.”

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Asset price inflation + inflation = demotivation for successful people?

by philg

Although quite a few people of modest means enjoy aviation as a hobby, those of us who fly small aircraft often encounter the financially comfortable ($10-100 million in savings; when a house in Palm Beach costs $210 million, a centimillionaire can’t be considered “rich”). U.S. government coronapanic policies made these folks quite a bit wealthier, sometimes doubling their net worth in nominal dollars. At the same time, what they’re able to charge for working hasn’t changed too much and the Trump tax law changes caused their marginal tax rate to go up (state income tax no longer deductible from federal).

All of these people have enough savings to retire, but many continued to work when a year of hard work could increase their net worth by 5 percent. Quite a few of them have said that they’ve scaled back their efforts ever since asset prices took off. A year of hard work will now bump the net worth by only 2 percent and the typical person I’m writing about is in his 50s or early 60s. He might have only 10 more years of reliably good health. Why spend that final decade of vigor at a desk and starting at a computer if it won’t move the wealth needle significantly? These people already own a house, a vacation house, and a reasonably new fleet of vehicles. They don’t have a landlord demanding a 40 percent rent increase. Why not play tennis, kiteboard, hit the golf course, ski every day, or travel?

Does it matter to an economy when more of the most successful people retire younger? If we assume that their financial success can be attributed to luck, then it might be good. More positions will be open at the top of various enterprises, which will motivate people in their 40s to work harder. If, on the other hand, we assume that hard work, skill, and intelligence were primarily responsible for success, the American workforce is losing a lot of its best people.

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Refugees from Justin Trudeau’s Canada staying in Florida

by philg

We’ve been seeing cars with Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick license plates here in Florida. A surprising number say that they won’t be going back to Canada unless forced to. They cite the Canadian government’s lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine coercion, and dissent suppression as reasons for staying in the Florida Free State. As with the Science-following states of the Northeast, Canada made it easy for taxpayers to leave. It was illegal to work or study in person, for example, and every possible activity that could be moved to Zoom was moved to Zoom. This allowed a Canadian we met to enroll in an athletic training program here in Florida while simultaneously continuing his Canadian college education via Zoom. His parents followed him to Florida so now they’ll all here, paying Florida’s 6 percent sales tax instead of Canada’s 15 percent and, indirectly (via rent), paying Florida property tax.

This is straight out of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970):

The basic concept is as follows: members of an organization, whether a business, a nation or any other form of human grouping, have essentially two possible responses when they perceive that the organization is demonstrating a decrease in quality or benefit to the member: they can exit (withdraw from the relationship); or, they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint, grievance or proposal for change). For example, the citizens of a country may respond to increasing political repression in two ways: emigrate or protest.

If the northern border were as open as the southern border and Canadians could therefore migrate freely, I wonder how many would choose the comparative freedom of the U.S. states that remained mostly free during coronapanic (ranking).

Loosely related, some beachgoers on Sanibel Island who are as free as birds…

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Porn for Californians

by philg

From Lost River Road in Stuart, Florida:

(the “lost river” runs right along Interstate 95 and features a Marriott as well as a Cracker Barrel)

The $4.20 price for gasoline is actually not the lowest that we’ve recently seen in Florida. One station had it for $3.98. By contrast, the Google shows that the Chevron gas station where I used to fill up near HP Labs in Palo Alto is at $6.16.

Related:

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