StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 03:15 PM) I bet they could use it to track other flight disasters. Thinking back to the Southwest Airlines flight that recently went convertable, I wonder if they could gone back and caught something in flight pressures to show that the plane was cracking for example. That sort of failure was likely brittle failure and catastrophic, meaning the crack would have formed, grown for a while but not actually breached the hull, and then failed rapidly.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 03:02 PM) Trying to be confusing or just in a very serious rush? Had to throw in the extra FYI! 2009. NOVA had a good special on possible causes of the crash.

They're storing it on individual drives on each plane, no reason they couldn't have the same storage capacity but substantially cheaper on the ground. Disk space is incredibly cheap these days.

"Just for the record" -- an interesting analysis of the performance of Democrat and Republican Presidents on the economy and federal budget from 1962-2001

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 02:47 PM) That is a lot of data though. Every single bit of info from every single plane trip? Maybe if they figured out a way to not store it for very long it could work. But I have a feeling it would involve a significant amount of archiving if they made those changes. If they're logging it on the plane, I don't see why the storage would be more cumbersome or expensive on the ground. Currently they record something 24 hour chunks and re-write over old data on the planes. According to wikipedia (supreme authority), the space shuttles used this sort of data logging and didn't have onboard FDR's. I'd imagine that's due to the likelihood of an FDR burning up or being lost in space. Here's the FAA's TSO on FDR's, FYI: http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...;FILE/C124a.pdf

Was the Huntsville or Athens/Decatur area hit at all?

This is already the 3rd deadliest tornado outbreak since 1950. Not sure why 1950 is the break-off date, but I'm guessing it has to do with forecasting and early warning capabilities. The SPC was sending out strong warning statements about this storm a few days in advance.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 12:45 PM) You just aren't correct here. As is clearly stated in the decision, there is still a method for claims in the court system. You cannot, even in some huge end user agreement, completely block the ability to seek remedy in the civil courts. And as seen in the various amicus briefs, Scalia's depiction of the facts of the case was misleading. The Concepcions had to go through arbitration first. edit: here's a pdf from a consumer advocacy group detailing mandatory arbitration. A dispute can still enter the judicial system, but only to challenge the arbitration clause (like this case), appeal an arbitration decision (because arbitration has no appellate court system) or compel discovery. You can't start the process there, and it's very, very unlikely that a court will overturn an arbitration decision. http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org/Broch...ionBrochure.pdf

Yes, you can block the ability to seek remedy in the civil courts. That is what these mandatory arbitration clauses do, and that's what the FAA does. If you couldn't block remedy in the civil courts, this whole case would be a non-issue because the Concepcions would simply file a civil judicial class suit. That's what this entire case was about--California's Discover Bank rule allowed the courts to strike down the mandatory arbitration agreement because it imposed a ban on class action. Once the arbitration agreement was out of place, the Concepcions could file judicial suit. However, because the SCOTUS ruled that California cannot strike down the mandatory arbitration agreement because of a ban on class action, the Concepcions cannot file a judicial suit. The matter must be resolved through individual arbitration and they can only appeal that decision to judicial courts for a review of unfair treatment.

Where I was working when I signed up + Sox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 11:52 AM) The problem is that we have gotten to the point in this country where if something affects a group in a disproportionate ratio, then it gets blamed on an -ism. (in this case, it's predatory capital-ism!) Anyway, I really don't see how this would happen, because the people most likely to fight for minority causes are the same people fighting against these schools. Why would they suddenly switch and want to bring these schools that benefited only their shareholders back?

I know vBulletin software has an "active users" tracking feature that you can set to tell you how many members you have that have at least logged in in the last xx days. It can also show you registrations and post volume by month. Not sure if IP.Board has something like that?

QUOTE (The Gooch @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) Sure it will. I would also bet that the government could generate some statistics (default rates, employment of graduates, salary, etc) from minorities of the schools that become ineligible for aid and make it a short argument. I'm telling you, some of the students that go to these schools are at about a 2nd grading reading level. The online schools are a joke. This is an issue at CC's as well since they must accept everyone, but they're charging a fraction of what these online universities do and they're not pressuring people into it, either.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 09:58 AM) If anybody was wondering, I'm okay. My brother in law was in Tuscaloosa, he almost died. His apartment was hit directly. He was blown out of it and tossed several feet, he saved a woman and her child, but got more hurt in the process. Numerous injuries, lost a lot of blood from a laceration on his foot, concussion, etc. It completely missed us, but came close. good to hear everyone made it through.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 10:44 AM) Transmission service you should do at or before 75K. If after that fact you do your first transmission service you are more likely to cause harm than good. Hell for the most part, as long as you change your oil, rotate your tires, replace the brakes, and flush your transmission around the 75K map and than thereafter every 50K miles or so, you should be in pretty good shape. Air filter is basic repair as it gets dirty and that depends a lot on the environment you live in and such. And your water pump is probably something you might want to do preventively around the 100K mark because if it goes bad, it could actually cause a pretty good amount of damage to your engine (might not do anything, but it can). And if you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, you need to remember to change your rear differential fluids every 30K miles or so. Yeah just follow the recommended maintenance guide for your vehicle for that one. I've also heard that flushing the fluid later can actually cause more problems.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 11:23 AM) And which schools do you think will disproportionally accept disadvantaged minority students? Its not on the basis of race for sure, but you can bet your ass it will be turned into a because of race argument down the road. I really, really doubt that people* are going to complain about colleges that prey on the disadvantaged and leave them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt being shut down. *except pro-business, f***-everyone-else people (USCoC) and the colleges themselves, of course Anyway I'm sure at the top of the list of schools that accept disadvantaged minority students are community colleges, and no one is clamoring for them to be shut out of student aid for predatory practices. Probably because they don't make millions/billions off of them and leave them with huge debt loads while providing a worthless degree.

From the brief, which gets the point I've been making:

The amicus brief filed on behalf of several states (including IL) seems to disagree with Scalia's interpretation of the contract: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba...uthcheckdam.pdf See the Statement, Section 2, which lays out the facts of the case as requiring arbitration first and then settling any disputes that arise from that in court. So you still must go through arbitration first, you cannot first file a claim in court and you're never allowed to file a class action.

You need to scale that $15,000 up a bit. The DoE rule doesn't restrict giving loans to minorities or those at risk of default. It targets schools who churn out loads of useless degrees that graduates have no chance of paying back because the programs themselves are garbage. If they're offering quality programs that actually lead to employment, there won't be a problem. If they offer crap programs with little or no practical field experience (nursing) or are just very expensive and unlikely to get a job, they'll be cut off from guaranteed federal dollars. BTW this is also why for-profit voucher schools are a terrible idea.

And the agreement still barred class action in any forum.

Ok, shouldn't have used AT&T there. You're still focusing on this one particular contract and refusing to acknowledge the plethora of contracts that do have mandatory arbitration.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) How is it untrue when you admit it to be true? Just because it's rare doesn't mean you don't have that opportunity. The fact is they can force you to try arbitration first, but if you don't like the results you can sue in court. What more does a person need? No, you can appeal the arbitration decision, not file a new suit. A person needs the ability for class action when the damages are individually small but widespread, otherwise the company will not be held accountable. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 09:38 AM) And from my skimming of the opinion, it's not barring class action lawsuits. I'm not even seeing where it says that you can sign away that right. If you signed that AT&T contract, you can and did sign that right away since you have to go through individual arbitration to resolve any disputes and you can appeal that decision, but you can't file a new suit in court. You're barred from filing a suit in court, either individual or class. That has nothing to do with barring class suits as most of these contracts do. And again, kinda runs counter, because one big class arbitration is going to be cheaper and faster than 17 millions individual arbitrations. Or, more likely, the company will never see a claim from 16,999,990 of those they wronged and get to keep the rest of the money they defrauded their customers of. If Thomas is saying that, he's arguing against what the main opinion says, because it finds class arbitration is contrary to the goals of arbitration as laid out in the FAA. And it appears the majority has very weak support for their finding based on precedence, at least.

This is a pretty good burn in the dissent:

BTW, in all of the reports, articles and blogs I read on this yesterday, only AT&T is claiming this is pro-consumer. Everyone else, even at Forbes and WSJ, is calling this pro-big business.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Apr 28, 2011 -> 09:15 AM) My point was that you can force people into arbitration, but you must provide them the choice to sue in court at some point. You can't just say "your only recourse is through arbitration." I don't see what's wrong with that. Don't sign the contract if you don't want to agree to that. But your point is demonstrably untrue. That's the whole issue with mandatory binding arbitration. Yes, you can go to court after arbitration, but it's very rare and even more rare that the decision is changed. They can and do say "your only recourse is through arbitration." In the RAC ruling last summer, the SCOTUS even ruled that you have to go to arbitration even if you're challenging the whole arbitration clause of the contract. It's absurd. So you're forced to go through mandatory individual arbitration first, and then you can appeal that decision to a judicial review. I'm not clear if you'd ever be able to bring a class suit. And now just about every consumer agreement has these sorts of clauses, and more and more employers are adding them to employment contracts. Now you're forced to pursue arbitration as an individual, which is unlikely and unrealistic over small dollar claims, which protects companies engaging in wide-spread low-individual-dollar fraud. This is a hugely pro-big business ruling, and you haven't made any argument to the contrary.