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posted by
cmn32480
on Sunday May 08 2016, @11:49PM
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
from the I-can't-solve-DiffEq-with-a-computer dept.
This just in from the front lines of the War on the Unusual:
University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio was solving a set of differential equations on a plane departing the Philadelphia airport when the woman next to him surreptitiously passed a note to a flight attendant telling them she thought he was a terrorist because of the strange things he was writing on a pad of paper. The plane returned to the gate where he was questioned. At least this time the pilot had enough sense not to kick him off the flight.
Remember folks, if you see something say something!
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UPenn Professor Solving DiffEQ on Scratchpad Causes Plane to Return to Gate
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But what can you do with it?
-- ubiquitous cry from Linux-user partner
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday May 09 2016, @05:56AM
Someone etched that particularly stupid procedure into stone and so deserves ridicule for failing to take an obviously likely situation (a less than credible report of danger) into account. Abject stupidity on autopilot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Monday May 09 2016, @07:30AM
It's all about CYA. No one in a position of authority can afford to not overreact if someone expresses concern over a possible danger. If they underreact they'll be lambasted and fired. If they overreact, well they were just being cautious. That's the stance that we need to change.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Monday May 09 2016, @09:47AM
Agreed, and it's a hard problem. At one time as a society we looked down on cowardice, now we seem to have enshrined it.
(Score: 2) by captain_nifty on Monday May 09 2016, @02:58PM
The big problem is that we have as a society lost the concept of personal responsibility.
It's not seen as cowardice it's seen as just doing your job or following procedure, with the assumption that whoever wrote the procedure knew better, and the human cog in the machine cannot be responsible for making a decision.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 09 2016, @05:28PM
That started happening the moment "personal responsibility" lost all meaning except for victim-blaming. The only time I've heard anyone make any mention of "personal responsibility" in the past decade is when they were blaming a victim for being a victim.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday May 09 2016, @03:41PM
Satire and Memes-of-mass-destruction?
I mean, what else is available with a proven track record?
Always respond in kind, rhetoric to rhetoric never cross the streams of rhetoric and dialectic, at least in weaponized form.
That woman needs to be made internet-famous...
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday May 09 2016, @05:59PM
Sounds good. If you do one up I'll spread it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek