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The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

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Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#71
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pretty low on civ casualties. Look at Gaza, or the Iraq/Vietnam invasions compare numbers (civ casualties AND time it took) and then draw conclusions on the use of the word genocide. I also would abstain from using "russians" (or USAers, or Israelis) when referring to actions of the respective govts. Keeps the discussion cleaner of generalizations wrt people that may totally not suppor…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine currently suffers from severe undercount. The RF forces sieged Mariopol like a medieval city at the start of the war, creating large scale suffering. Afaik there was no water or power and people were melting ice for water. The civilian casualties on the Ukraine war are at least 100,000+ maybe a multiple of that number.

While we're on the subject of "under-counting", there is no official count of the number of civilians killed during the US Gov's invasion of Iraq. No sense counting what you don't want to know and don't want to be accounted for? US voters / citizens certainly don't care.

Independent sources put it at 100,000+. I've randomly read 2x to 3x that but 100k+ is bad enough.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/ir...

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#72

Everything's possible, but there would be no debate about UI mistakes if it was Iran shooting down a US plane. They would've done because they are evil by nature, or at least perceived as such. In that case the media and the public buys into its own reality, but of course the UI discussion could be a distraction from the public maybe starting to question if that's actually the reality. Also from the Wiki page about t…

One only has to see the differences between NATO bombing of serbian power stations vs the russians doing the same with Ukraine, or Israel killing children in gaza vs russian killing children vs the US killing afghan or Iraqi children. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/25/us/crew-of-cruiser-that-d...

[flagged]

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#73
post #52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO bombing of serbian power stations was done in response of Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, after the horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by serbian forces in Bosnia. "russians doing the same" is a blatant lie. What the russians are doing is a genocide.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pretty low on civ casualties. Look at Gaza, or the Iraq/Vietnam invasions compare numbers (civ casualties AND time it took) and then draw conclusions on the use of the word genocide. I also would abstain from using "russians" (or USAers, or Israelis) when referring to actions of the respective govts. Keeps the discussion cleaner of generalizations wrt people that may totally not suppor…

If you watch combat footage from eastern Ukraine, you will learn that many frontline towns and villages have been completely leveled by artillery. See for example[1]. And I don't have to mention Bucha[2] and other war crimes.

The relatively low civilian casualty count isn't because "Russians are so noble", but because:

1. Frontlines are static, giving civilians plenty of time to evacuate

2. Civilians actually have where to evacuate, Ukraine is big and covered by an extremely dense air defense network. Women and children can also freely go to the EU.

3. Ukraine has received an unprecedented amount of humanitarian aid.

[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/ublj5l/luhan...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGZ66uKcl0

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#74

Everything's possible, but there would be no debate about UI mistakes if it was Iran shooting down a US plane. They would've done because they are evil by nature, or at least perceived as such. In that case the media and the public buys into its own reality, but of course the UI discussion could be a distraction from the public maybe starting to question if that's actually the reality. Also from the Wiki page about t…

It's not really a UX error when your helicopter-carrier invades Iran after one of your helicopters invaded Iran. In wartime. What were these warships even doing in the PERSIAN gulf? And why do they shoot Iranian airplanes in Iranian airspace while they themselves are in Iran? I image "UX error" wouldn't cut it if a chinese missile cruiser shot down an US airliner while steaming up the Hudson.

Presumably some mission during the Iran–Iraq war? Iraq was an ally of the US at the time.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#75
post #52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO bombing of serbian power stations was done in response of Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, after the horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by serbian forces in Bosnia. "russians doing the same" is a blatant lie. What the russians are doing is a genocide.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pretty low on civ casualties. Look at Gaza, or the Iraq/Vietnam invasions compare numbers (civ casualties AND time it took) and then draw conclusions on the use of the word genocide. I also would abstain from using "russians" (or USAers, or Israelis) when referring to actions of the respective govts. Keeps the discussion cleaner of generalizations wrt people that may totally not suppor…

Genocide != Civilian casualties. Genocide is about the extermination of a people.

Anders Puck Nielsen just made a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9n77DPJ7AE

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#76

Everything's possible, but there would be no debate about UI mistakes if it was Iran shooting down a US plane. They would've done because they are evil by nature, or at least perceived as such. In that case the media and the public buys into its own reality, but of course the UI discussion could be a distraction from the public maybe starting to question if that's actually the reality. Also from the Wiki page about t…

A not so subtle difference is that the pilot shooting down KAL 007 identified it as a civilian airliner and proceeded to shoot it down anyway. Another more subtle difference is that in the Iranian Airlines shootdown, the US took responsibility and at least apologized. Meanwhile the Soviets denied anything happening until they couldn't and then claimed it was a spy plane (legitimate target).

Identified it as a Boeing 747, but not as a civilian airliner.

The same types of planes as civilian airliners are often used as platforms for military and spy planes.

FWIW, they would have ended up better off if the original TASS press release was not cancelled just before publication (the one where it was claimed a mistaken shooting due to misidentification).

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#77
post #46

I first thought this was a post about flat design, then went and read the whole toot. Man, who'd expect UI to be bad enough for life and death operations. Someone should post more details about the actually confusing UI that lead to this event. Would be a good lesson to most of us. It also appears that Lockheed won a contract for using this system in 2023 [1]. Can someone share if they actually fixed the UI issues wi…

The details are in the posted thread.

Basically, heading and location came from one plane, identification from another plane, and altitude yet from another one for reasons.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#78
post #52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO bombing of serbian power stations was done in response of Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, after the horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by serbian forces in Bosnia. "russians doing the same" is a blatant lie. What the russians are doing is a genocide.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pretty low on civ casualties. Look at Gaza, or the Iraq/Vietnam invasions compare numbers (civ casualties AND time it took) and then draw conclusions on the use of the word genocide. I also would abstain from using "russians" (or USAers, or Israelis) when referring to actions of the respective govts. Keeps the discussion cleaner of generalizations wrt people that may totally not suppor…

1) Russian is declared a terrorist state[1]

2) Number of civilian causalities is unknown, because part of territory is under occupation. However, excavation of mass-graves on liberated territories shows that Russians are ready to kill few percents of population. [2]

3) Ukrainian air defense is in much better shape now, so hundreds of Russians missiles are shot in flight. Russians are bombing civilians in cities with cassette bombs from the start of war[3], so low numbers of causalities is caused by good defense, not by good will of terrorist state which performs genocide of Ukrainians right now.

[1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221118IP...

[2]: https://www.space.com/ukraine-mass-grave-bucha-satellite-pho...

[3]: https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2023/02/21/deat...

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#79
post #52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO bombing of serbian power stations was done in response of Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, after the horrible crimes against humanity perpetrated by serbian forces in Bosnia. "russians doing the same" is a blatant lie. What the russians are doing is a genocide.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is pretty low on civ casualties. Look at Gaza, or the Iraq/Vietnam invasions compare numbers (civ casualties AND time it took) and then draw conclusions on the use of the word genocide. I also would abstain from using "russians" (or USAers, or Israelis) when referring to actions of the respective govts. Keeps the discussion cleaner of generalizations wrt people that may totally not suppor…

Hamas is using civilians as human shields pretty much literally. They set this war up so that there is as much civilian casualties as possible on their side to claim it's a genocide. In this particular case, Hamas has a written constitution claiming the destruction of Israel and the jewish people ; Hamas ARE the genociders, despite being the weak army in this war.

Ukraine is NOT using its population as human shields. There is no evidence of that. So every civil casualties that Russian inflicts on Ukrainians (which includes destroying infrastructure, sieging cities and deporting children, among other things like what happened in Butcha) is deliberate.

Re: The 1988 shooting down of Flight 655 as a user interface disaster

#80
post #59

Very impactful mistake, but apparently not a mistake worth apologizing for. From Wikipedia: "the U.S. government did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran" Pinnacle arrogance/exceptionalism. Disgusting. Oh, and the US back then supported Iraq in its horrific attack on Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...

You forgot to mention that Ronald Reagan apologized to the Iranian government and the US paid $60 Mil in compensation to the families.
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