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jimkiler

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Posts posted by jimkiler

  3. Posted

    10 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

    Don't tell June but our Air Traffic Control system as a whole is deeply fucked. It's apparently outdated, understaffed, and underfunded. Many employees have been fired and it's only gotten worse since the pandemic. I read this truly terrifying blog post that was written last year during the shutdown of last year when LaGuardia shut down because people called out sick in protest. Here are some of the highlights (aka the moments when I wondered if i should ever fly which is something I love. I honestly feel safer and happier in a plane than in a car which I'm terrified of.) 

    "You see, the ATC is a bit of a mess. Underfunded and at times badly managed, the FAA's NextGen air traffic control began replacing older systems more than 10 years ago in 2007. It's not scheduled to be completed until 2025, and that was before Trump's fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, which includes a 2 percent FAA's budget reduction.

    At the same time, Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS), which has been in the works since 2000, is slowly completing its rollout. It's scheduled to finally be in place at the end of the year. Then, and only then, will the US finally have a single national software and hardware ATC system." 

     

    "As for those TV shows and movies showing advanced equipment suited for a starship? That's fantasy. So are -- fortunately -- death-defying crashes, as a controller dies at the mic and planes collide in mid-air.  

    Air traffic control, especially at the airport level, is still very low-tech. Nothing beats the good old, mark-one eyeball when a plane is within visual range of a runway.

    This, of course, requires bright, alert workers with their wits focused on their job, rather than, say, how they'll make their next mortgage payment. There are currently about 14,000 FAA air traffic controllers. But, with their great responsibility and the sheer scale of their work, it only takes having a few not at work to cripple the country's air traffic."

    Knowing the crashes are not something that happens often made me feel better but I'm still not sure how I feel knowing that it's all pretty much manual eyeball work ! I like the comfort of thinking it's Star Trek up there. Give me this false sense of safety please. I read several other articles a while ago about how the TSA actually hasn't done much of anything to improve our safety and is also a security blanket that just makes us FEEL safer but that's another story for another time. 

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-air-traffic-control-system-works-and-fails/

     

    Here are a few older articles on how deeply fucked we all are:

    How we are understaffed: https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/14/news/economy/air-traffic-controllers/index.html apparently at their lowest in 27 years at the time of this article but that was 2015. I imagine it's only worse now. 

    https://www.economist.com/international/2019/06/15/air-traffic-control-is-a-mess a really interesting looking article from the Economist that I can't read because I refuse to give them my email. But if one of you jerks is fancy and smart and have access somehow and would be so kind as to copy and paste it to me in a dm I would love you forever as only a nerd who loves free articles can! Is this ethical? no. Do I have a bone to pick with the Economist for being to expensive for me to ever afford a subscription after my uncle told me to get one to help me with my ACT's? Yes. 

     

    You do not go far enough back, they tried to upgrade the systems in the 90's as confirmed by this article:  

     

    https://reason.org/commentary/time-to-get-u-s-air-traffic-control-out-of-the-1960s/

     

    So we are still stuck in 1960's tech despite other countries having working systems.  I remember news stories on this failure to convert to modern technology in the 90's.

    • Like 4
    • Hedgehog 1

  4. Posted

    On 8/30/2020 at 9:05 PM, Bat Facts said:

    The average annual salary for an air traffic controller was $118,430 as of May 2012, according to the Bureau or Labor Statistics. The top 10 percent earned more than $171,340 per year. The federal government paid air traffic controllers an average of $121,470.

    According to Glass Door the average income for pilot: $78,566/yr

    Assuming these figures are accurate, and they probably vary a bit, that’s a $40k pay cut, with a LOT of traveling. Probably not the best choice choice for a new father. 

     

    You are assuming he wants to be with Sarah.  If he feels trapped and realized that he made a horrible decision but cannot actually divorce/leave her he could become a pilot in order to cheat on her when he is away.

    • Sad 1
    • Hedgehog 1

  5. Posted

    1 minute ago, DannytheWall said:

    I'm surprised Paul and Jason didn't connect 2:22 to the comicbook heroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl. These two characters have had many incarnations-- as space alien war heroes for their home planet, as star-crossed lovers from different castes in ancient Egypt, to archeologists during World War II. The throughline that connects all these iterations is that they are doomed to reincarnate, be drawn to each other, and to die tragically because of their similarly reincarnated rival who cursed them in the first place. (Jeez, just typing it all out reminds me that comics are weird and I love them.) Maybe because of that, I didn't find the central conceit that difficult to buy into, or maybe I'm just crazy and seeing patterns all over the place. 

    D

    Or even compare this to Hancock in that sense.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    How could Jason, Paul, and June not realize the twist in the plot? I love you guys but i was surprised none of you three figured it out.

     

    Here are the clues i picked up on:

    1. the beginning we see the murder in Grand Central Station but never see faces only bodies and the gun.  Clearly they wanted us to not know who those people were.  (Which turne dout to be a red herring since it was not the same actors playing those three characters.)
    2. Dylan and Sarah have the same birthday in 1987.
    3. Sarah and Jonas were previously a couple.
    4. When Dylan visits the sister who explains the murder love triangle happened 30 years ago it became obvious to me what the twist would be.  At that point the little interest i had in the film was gone and I started playing on my phone while watching the movie.

     

    @Cameron H. i love that you keep the Jason twitter joke going. I wish they would occasionally bring it up in the show.

    • Like 5

  7. Posted

    Did anyone else notice when Dylan first walks up to Sarah in the bar, she asks if he wants to get out of here.  He says yes.  Cut scene to a bar.  But weren't they just at a bar?  If I say i want to get out of here it is because i need a change of scenery but they simply switched bars.   Maybe the first place was a restaurant but it definitely had a full bar and therefore i was confounded on their choice. I was expecting them to go to a park or someones apartment, not another bar.

     

    Second did anyone else notice that the police did not give a f*** about Dylan when he was dying on the floor of Grand Central Station.  Only two cops were shown hovering over Jonas but they were no longer securing the scene, they instead appeared to be talking oblivious to the dying person.  Does this mean the final scene of Dylan as a pilot never happened because Dylan bleed out ( not from a gun shot wound but) from the apathy of first responders.

    • Like 8

  10. Posted

    On 8/22/2014 at 6:55 PM, ill Neal said:

    HOLY SHIT THIS MOVIE IS GODDAMN INCREDIBLE!!!!!!

     

    it's presently streaming on netflix. i just stumbled across it on netflix and decided to give it a watch.

     

    it starts off so cheezy. joe piscopo and treat williams? 15 minutes in you think it's going to be a real stinker.

     

    but holy shit, it turns out to be an awesome fucking movie. and even joe piscopo! he was charming. he got to deliver some of the best throwaway lines, like "i gotta piss so bad my teeth are starting to float". although the best throwaway line is during the final fight scene when what's-his-face shouts "shut up, ya old fart!" at vincent price.

     

    honestly, this movie is incredible. it's... so fucking weird... there were so many incredible throw away lines...

     

    for those of you who've seen it, i have to talk about my favorite scene. not sure if it was a gag as written or what, but i really got a kick out of when zombie treat williams is invading the lab at the end (just blasting away mortal security guards with no reservation i might add), and he encounters that other zombie, and they just stand there blasting each other with uzis, and then zombie treat wililams gets the other zombie in the ASPHYXIATION CHAMBER (who knew that would come back a second time?!?!), and as he's sealing the door, he's firing at him with the uzi, then he throws a grenade in the asphyxiation chamber, and then what i love is he squeezes a few more rounds through the edge of the door as its closing.

     

    hahahahah

    Lame, it is no longer on netflix!  Why wouldn't it still be available 6 years later?

  12. Posted

    I rewatched this movie and have questions.

     

    1. Why wasn't Hugh Jackman charged with murder at the end.  Just because he was a hostage, which the police may not believe since he did not have a C4 vest and went to the coffee shop with Travolta, but that does not give him the right to commit murder.  Is that the best course of action for him to get his daughter back, by killing criminals.  Further we saw the rush of people and cops in the building the bus landed one.  I speculate there is a a good chance Hugh Jackman took out at least one innocent bystander when the helicopter comes crashing down into the side of a building and/or on the street below.

     

    2. When John Travolta's goons kill Torvalds (the original hired hacker) at the airport police station how come they never got caught.  A secure area of the airport and the goons kill him in cold blood but we never see anyone attempt to find and arrest the goons responsible.  They were literally less than 50 feet away from Don Cheadle!

     

    For the record I own this movie on bluray.  It was part of an offer when I bought my PS3 and got 5 movies for free.  Of the r choices this may have been the most entertaining.  I also got Stir of Echoes, Wild Hogs (with Travolta), Flight of the Phoenix, and The Patriot.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    On 8/14/2020 at 1:15 PM, Wil Dride said:

    The music in the blowjob hacking scene sounds like a hybrid of the Snatch theme and the music from the Turkey Sandwich/Hubcap vehicle On the Line.

    Funny but after listening to the scene where Hugh Jackman falls down the cliffside i thought the music was very similar to the Matrix.  Both movies are from Warner Bros and Swordfish already lifted the 360 camera technique from The Matrix.  When i saw this in theaters i thought all directors were going to over use this technique.  I cannot think of another movie that mimic this.

  14. Posted

    On 6/30/2020 at 9:01 PM, CaptainAmazing said:

    According to JustWatch, it’s also free with ads on Tubi. Also still free on Amazon if you have Prime.
     

    I’m sure you’ve already spent the money, however.

    Thank you, i never did rent it.  I don't have Amazon Prime and youtube is really hard to find where to rent it on my PC as i originally saw it on my TV app.  Now i can watch it and it is not the crappy free version on youtube.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    I rented this in UHD and despite the bad story it goes down smooth.  This is on the same level as Bloodshot, bad movie but goes down smooth.  Not to mention this movie has an aggressive 5.1 mix and some definite bass at times which is odd to say since this is basically a drama at heart.  I would love to hear the gang talk about this movie.  Not nearly as bad as the reviews suggest.  Not great but not bad either.

  18. Posted

    I watched this movie last night and despite liking it it is HDTGM worthy.  Although it is not the best example of Nic Cage doing his Nic Cage acting.  This is clearly a horror movie but FandangoNow said it was a drama.  Here you go mom and dad watch a nice drama with Nic Cage!

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    This movie will be an instant classic when HDTGM reviews it.  A mute girl, a pill popping mom, a bratty teenager, and a sexually molesting dad.  I have so many questions after watching this movie for free on Tubi.tv.

     

     

    you can watch it here.  https://tubitv.com/movies/484029/the_quiet?utm_campaign=web-sharing  please watch it and we can start discussing everything that is wrong with this movie starting with the rotary phone scene.

     

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    In the prequel to episodes 217 Paul is warming up to a Transformers movie but Michael Bay wants him to do Revenge of the Fallen and Paul does not think that is the worst. I agree with Paul, Age of Extinction is the worst but for the show I think The Last Knight should be chosen because it is so bad it is good.  Here are my reasons why based on when i watched it years ago:

     

    The Last Knight and Merlin's current age relative do not do anything positive except they take away the staff from Megatron.  The Dinobots dissapear in the climax.  Optimus never transformers into a truck until after the climax which is the last 5 minutes of the film.  I love the constantly changing aspect ratio, WTF?  I love how this movie ignores the history of the other movies and ignores that Bumblebee was not on Earth until the first movie yet in here he is fighting nazi's during World War 2.

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