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Here is your open thread for the mid-week on January 9th, 2013. You may post random links and off-topic discussions here. Also, if you have an idea or a topic you’d like to see covered in an article, please make it known.
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By Chris @ 10:
As to the review, sometimes the reviewer doesn’t like the message. I don’t remember for sure, but I think the book was also somewhat critical of the press, so that might be another reason for the bad review.
In college we had an assignment where everyone had to write a book review based on the first 100 pages (or so) of different books. I was assigned Johnathon Livingston Seagull, and my paper was very critical of the book. Apparently the TA liked it, because I was given an F for the paper. Fortunately I was taking the course pass/fail, so it didn’t matter.
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I Won’t Ride On That Foreign Made Piece of Cracked Plastic Junk
Reuters news reported yesterday that the Japan 787 cracked apart yesterday trying to take off at the NY airport leaking 40 gallons of jet fuel and with electrical failure too.
Boeing stocks plummetted yesterday too.
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It didn’t crack apart. A valve stuck open. The reporting that I’ve doesn’t indicate whether the valve is in any way different than valves used on other Boeing planes. Sometimes things just break! Of all the 787 incidents, that’s probably the least disturbing.
That said, it will be a long time before I want to ride on a 787. It’s just that this particular incident doesn’t bother me much.
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RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 3 –
Valves Can Break Through Excess Vibration and Bending of the Plastic Hull
“…The 787 makes extensive use of new technology, including a bigger reliance on electrical systems, and is built mostly out of lightweight carbon composite materials. While the problems so far do not point to serious design problems with the airplane, they represent an embarrassment to Boeing’s manufacturing ability….”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/business/global/safety-of-boeing-787-dreamliner-called-into-question.html?partner=yahoofinance&_r=0
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RE: softwarengineer @ 4 – The bigger unanswered question for me is how to evaluate whether or not the composite structure has been structurally compromised, whether it be by mechanical force or by excessive heat. It’s (relatively) much simpler to look at an aluminum airframe and be able to tell if there are problems with it.
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Fun listing: http://www.redfin.com/WA/Toutle/9745-Spirit-Lake-Hwy-98649/home/14837074
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What did Jack Lew know, and why isn’t Robert Rubin in jail?
Obama sucks.
“In late 2007, Hunt’s group estimated that about 60 percent of the mortgages Citigroup was buying and selling were missing some form of documentation. Hunt says she took her concerns to her boss, Richard Bowen III.
Bowen, 64, is a religious man, a former Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet at Texas Tech University in Lubbock with an attention to detail that befits his background as a certified public accountant. When he saw the magnitude of the mortgage defects, Bowen says he prayed for guidance.
In a Nov. 3, 2007, e-mail, he alerted Citigroup executives, including Robert Rubin, then chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee and a former Treasury secretary; Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden; the bank’s senior risk officer; and its chief auditor.
Bowen put the words “URGENT — READ IMMEDIATELY — FINANCIAL ISSUES” in the subject line.
“The reason for this urgent e-mail concerns breakdowns of internal controls and resulting significant but possibly unrecognized financial losses existing within our organization,” Bowen wrote. “We continue to be significantly out of compliance.”
There were no noticeable changes in the mortgage machinery as a result of Bowen’s warning, Hunt says. ”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/woman-who-couldn-t-be-intimidated-by-citigroup-wins-31-million.html
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Part of the reason there’s little bank inventory out there:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-01-09/blackstone-steps-up-home-buying-as-prices-jump-mortgages
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RE: redmondjp @ 5 –
Good Point
They need to tear it apart and xray it for voids [glued sections pulling apart you can't see]. Good quality control composite checking requires very expensive equipment that even big A/C subcontractors can’t afford either, let alone bankrupt airline carriers.
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RE: softwarengineer @ 9 – I suspect Boeing would pay to test the airplane with the battery fire, or any of the other fires to date.
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