I agree with this post, and suspect a lot of us will see the logic in approaching problems like this.
However, this approach isn’t universal and should be used with caution. A head-on approach isn’t effective with a person who is conflict-avoidant. Any of the given examples, no matter how gentle the delivery, will be seen as a personal attack and cause to pull away.
A quick search shows that there are over 20,000 ATCs employed in the United States. (I'm not confident in the sources I found - anyone know where to get reliable stats for things like this?)
Is the number of retiring ATCs higher than normal? I assume it is, but the article doesn't mention the baseline. It's hard for me to understand the scale of the issue from this article alone.
If we take the lower number of 15, than that is nearly 5.5k a year. Even if we round it down, that'd be 25% a year if your number is right and this situation continued. Of course it can't continue very long, because there won't be that many old enough to have the choice, presumably. But it's a crazy rate.
There is currently a shortage of ~3k controllers (as of this comment), and the time to train and put new controllers into service is significant. Excess retirements reduces time to system failure due to labor shortages.
> Entry-level applicants must complete required training courses and spend several months at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Applicants are paid while in training. After graduating the academy, individuals are placed in locations across the country and must gain 2-3 years additional training, both classroom and on-the-job experience, before becoming a certified professional controller. This rigorous training includes close supervision and evaluation by senior controllers that ensures controllers are competent, professional, know their airspace environment and can deal with the pressures and high pace of the job.
Controllers in training have been quitting because of the shutdown.
> The shutdown is having real consequences, as some students at the controller academy have already decided to abandon the profession because they don’t want to work in a job they won’t be paid for, Duffy said. That will only make it harder for the FAA to hire enough controllers to eliminate the shortage, since training takes years. He said that the government is only a week or two away from running out of money to pay students at the academy.
> “Currently nearly 50 percent of major air traffic control facilities are experiencing staffing shortages, and nearly 90 percent of air traffic controllers are out at New York–area facilities,” the FAA said in a statement posted on X on Friday evening.
This comment was moved from a different post that said “up
to 15 or 20” are retiring daily. Thus the lower number is actually zero, and my guess is they are actually describing a peak day of 15 or 20 people retiring (which is still a lot!)
Typical ATC career is 25-30 years, so naively you'd expect ~1.8 retirements per day. Maybe a little more if you assume the OP is talking only about working/weekdays, maybe a little less as the maximum age for trainees has been raised over time.
I would love to try hallucinogens but I’m worried that it’ll aggravate my HPPD. It’s a pretty rare condition, and only a single optometrist I’ve spoken with actually believes I experience it.
HPPD is by definition a lasting effect of hallucinogens. The diagnostic criteria begins with the phrase “Following cessation of hallucinogen use”
If you’ve never tried hallucinogens, you wouldn’t really qualify as having HPPD. There are other terms for visual issues that people can experience that look similar, but HPPD is specifically a hallucinogen-triggered condition.
I do agree, though: If you’re already having visual issues it would be very wise to avoid hallucinogens.
My best guess is that HPPD was triggered by how I used NyQuil as a young teen. I would drink half a bottle, sleep for half the day, and wake up feeling better. I did this pretty regularly for a few years whenever I got sick.
NyQuil contains DXM which is a dissociative in high doses as well as having some seratonergic activity. I wouldn't be surprised if this was why, especially taking it with a still-developing brain.
Dxm is the only thing that ever gave me hppd. Had fucked up night vision cause of all the visual snow for years after a few two-bottles-of-robitussin trips
The article is well written and shows why dynamic typing can be so compelling.
This is how I’ve been writing web services for the last decade. It was a style that came from being frustrated with the experience of using many all-in-one frameworks.
Frameworks take time to learn and the skills are generally non-transferable. Any complex application still requires you to know the underlying languages frameworks attempt to abstract. Frameworks often make testing more difficult due to adding layers of abstraction between what the application does and how the code is written.
Writing actual SQL/CSS/etc in a dynamically typed language to be used in a template is so much easier to understand, debug, and validate.
Same. For years now I've vaguely bucketed leisure activities into "empty" and "wholesome" in the same vein as caloric intake. Empty: mindlessly following a YouTube/Instagram/Tiktok algorithmic feed, modern games that are more slot machines than games, drinking alone. Wholesome variants: intentionally reading/watching high quality content, playing offline or 2-4 player coop games, socializing with friends in person.
Knowing is just the first part of the war though. If you don't constantly stay mindful of what kind leisure is taking up your time, the vastly more addictive nature of empty calorie leisure will win. And how many people even bother trying to resist, let alone win most of their battles?
Anecdotally, weight training eliminated my chronic shoulder and hip pains from sitting at a desk. I’ve read several similar stories but I’d be interested to see studies on this.
I’m currently using the kinesis advantage. It’s a great keyboard but I’ve been hoping to find a wireless split keyboard for a while. This one looks great.
However, this approach isn’t universal and should be used with caution. A head-on approach isn’t effective with a person who is conflict-avoidant. Any of the given examples, no matter how gentle the delivery, will be seen as a personal attack and cause to pull away.
reply