Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was Hitler just "stupid"? Hanlon's razor is used by the malicious to fool the stupid.
Stupidity does not adequately explain the Holocaust...
And neither does it explain 9/11.
‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
71–80 of 211 posts
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#72Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#73This is a phenomenal oral history of the events, learning of, and response to the events of 9/11. If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics. Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell w…
I'm going to piggy-back on this about a certain way information may not add up. I live in Boston, and so do my siblings. We all worked downtown. On the day of the marathon bombing, I immediately called my sister on her cell phone to see if she was okay. Someone that was not my sister picked up, then immediatly hung up after I said who I was looking for. I was immediately terrified. What if my sister had been hurt, dr…
I'm sure someone more qualified and experienced with phone networks can chip in, but from memory this is by design on the phone network, when it gets overloaded it just starts to connect randomly to reduce load.
I can't remember exact details, because it's not my area of expertise, but I vaguely remember my father (who's a telecommunications network engineer) talking about it years ago.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#74So weird to see such a detailed article on the critical moments after the attack which basically doesn't even mention the President.
The article is a book exerpt, essentially a chapter of a larger work. The chapter addressing the President, then in Florida, has been posted elsewhere in this thread, it's here: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/were-the-onl...
offtopic:
Where do you blog nowadays? Haven't followed you since G+ went down and you dropped Reddit too. You don't seem overly active on Mastodon either?
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#75I was headed downtown to my startup's office when I heard a radio newscast. I don't even know why I had my radio on as it was a pretty short drive. I immediately went in and started checking the web. It gave me a little more information. Fifteen minutes later when my developer showed up you couldn't bring up any news site on the web. Guy from across the hall had a TV and he invited all of us in the building to watch.…
A lot of the Web wasn't geared for high load. Information was developing so rapidly that online was really the only effective place to go for information (such as it was -- there was rampant speculation). Many sites rapidly slimmed down their services and offered lightweight versions. A few lighter-weight sites remained up, notably, at the time, Slashdot. NPR refers to 9/11 as the event which made clear that the netw…
This is something that I’ve completely forgotten until now. I remember all the major news sites were down and when they came back up, there were only simple html pages. It took a while before they restored to a slimmed down version. I have a memory of a picture on a news article that I can’t forget: there were tens of ambulances one behind another on a boulevard, waiting in line to help people.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics I like this characterization somewhat, though I think there needs to be a [perceived danger] variable not accounted for. Perhaps: An emergency is a circumstance in which realities are perceived as existentially dangerous and aren'…
The definition's a working one, and subject to modification, but I feel it's a good start. I've been collecting / compiling / commenting on similar veins for a while. There's Robert Ewashuck's paging philosophy (Google SRE): Pages [alerts] should be urgent, important, actionable, and real. They should represent either ongoing or imminent problems with your service. Err on the side of removing noisy alerts – over-moni…
This is one of the reasons why HAM radio bands should be sacrosanct. You never really know what nature will throw at you next, we think we have it all figured out and then boom, something happens that we have no record of in living memory.
HAMs are typically well prepared for being back in the air first thing and are a very useful source of information from regions that have just suffered a disaster of some sorts.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#77The required read is also the written statement of the planners of the attack (the copy of pdf on Penn Law):
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/5964-d-101-islamic-resp...
"killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion. These actions are our offerings to God."
They really tried hard to be very clean about their motives there.
Covered by
NYT 2009: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/us/10gitmo.html
The Guardian 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/10/guantanamo-det...
The document is also on the Smoking Gun: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/terrorists-bone
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics I like this characterization somewhat, though I think there needs to be a [perceived danger] variable not accounted for. Perhaps: An emergency is a circumstance in which realities are perceived as existentially dangerous and aren'…
The definition's a working one, and subject to modification, but I feel it's a good start. I've been collecting / compiling / commenting on similar veins for a while. There's Robert Ewashuck's paging philosophy (Google SRE): Pages [alerts] should be urgent, important, actionable, and real. They should represent either ongoing or imminent problems with your service. Err on the side of removing noisy alerts – over-moni…
I heard on Hardcore History a similar notion, that the fall of empires often was indicated by the absence of news from the outer regions. It just became quiet, and that quiet kept on creeping in.
Terrifying thought in todays terms, imagine we simply stopped receiving news out of Hong Kong and spreading out from there. People on WhatsApp/Instagram there would stop responding. News agencies would wait for their updates and receive none...
Now I want to read that book.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#79I was riding the 7 train from Astoria, Queens, to my job at the big Citigroup tower in Long Island City. It was after the first plane hit and, with the 7 being an outdoor subway line with a great view of the Manhattan skyline, we in the first car could see the gaping hole and smoke billowing. I assumed it was an accident. When I got to work I said dismissively to colleagues, “That must be the dumbest pilot ever.” We…
> I thought nothing would ever be the same.
And nothing ever was. Plenty of stupid political decisions today, and untold billions of wasted money some of which is spent today are a direct consequence of 9/11.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, I've never heard of that happening. If anyone knows, I'd love to hear a technical explanation of how and why that could occur.
I don't have a technical explanation, but I had a few weirdly misconnected calls and even a call that changed to another person in the middle of a call in the analog cell phone days.
Way easier to happen on the old analog phone systems, when an unreliable relay would not react, or randomly flip. With digital networks and all their checksums and error detection, it's not become impossible, but at least you'd much much more likely just get a dropped detection or other "unreliability" fault than being connected to someone else.