I'm in the final stretch of my ATP rating, I’ve been thinking a lot how we can maximize survival and minimize the likelihood of becoming another aviation news headline. I'm now convinced that we have the wrong mental model. Pilots like the simplicity of categorizing safety by powerplant: “Piston engines fail every 1k–10k hours.” “Jet engines are good for 100,000 hours, and with two of them you will never have to worry about it.” Unfortunately, the real world is very messy, very gray, and very conditional. A much better mental model that will keep you alive is to completely throw away those statistics and build a model for every flight you take. That’s much closer to reality. The conditional probability of any given flight varies greatly. Some flights have a 1-in-10-million survival rate—you would have to repeat that flight 10 million times to have an incident. Some flights, if we’re intellectually honest, are probably terribly low odds, like 1 in 100. Repeat that flight 100 tim...
NYC is adding a $2.75 "surcharge" fee for all rides south of 96th street. Effects Lyft and Uber only, not yellow cabs and other car services, who will now become the cheaper option. "Your surcharge will go directly to the state to support public transportation. It won't go to drivers or to Lyft. " This is a form of direct taxation. There are a few issues with this. We already pay the highest taxes in the country for living in new york city. and now new yorkers are again being charged yet another form of tax to support the state (note these proceeds go to the state, not to the city). Let's do some quick math.. if you take uber to and from work, and use it twice on weekends, that works out to 2.75*2*7=$38.50 per person per week, or $2002 per year in increased tax. For someone making 100k a year, that's a 2% tax increase. For someone making $1M a year, that's 0.2%. How liberal of new york to add this new form or taxation of the lower an...