Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Mentour Now!" channel.

  1. A fully free market most rewards sociopaths and incumbents, and guarding against runaway concentration of wealth lies in regulation and "socialism". Unfortunately too many of us are "temporarily embarrassed billionaires" convinced to victim blame the little guy for "stupid choices" and advocate for even more libertarian policies, which ultimately don't reverse but instead amplify the consequences.
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  2. I'd wager the obesity has more to do with the food available nowadays, which is more processed to improve taste, shelf life, and production yields. There's a surprisingly strong correlation between obesity rates and our intake of added sweeteners over the decades.
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  3. Unfortunately US laws compel corporations to prioritize their shareholders over their stakeholders.
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  4. You always have more money right after selling your house, your car, and any other vital asset.
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  5. Stakeholders involves all those with an interest in the performance of the organization, which includes customers, employees, suppliers, and the public at large. Shareholders is a more narrow definition describing just those with slices of legal ownership over the company.
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  6. ScotteVest makes vests and jackets with absurd amounts of storage, which is why I wear it on flights. It makes clearing security a breeze too.
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  7. Qatar Airways leased some off of Cathay Pacific, so there’s still Chinese text even on their premium class seats where they mostly just changed the upholstery to their trademark maroon colors.
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  8. If it's not eaten up by their sunk-cost HSR, or simply outcompeted on price by buses and slow trains that the vast majority of Chinese actually ride.
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  9.  @uclajd Unions in America are the way they are because of the corporate management that compelled their creation. It’s the business owners who are quick to anger.
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  10. Yet younger generations get blamed exactly for living some life now instead of waiting to splurge later following a prosperous career that definitely doesn't seem so guaranteed anymore.
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  11. The prices were also fixed there in the 1970s. This surge is more from a volatile mismatch of supply vs demand and is likely to come back down as both sides stabilize.
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  12. The unfortunate side effect of increasing efficiency is taking away from "unnecessary" resilience measures.
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  13. That's what long haul Premium Economy offers though. For short haul the seat features are mostly covered by domestic narrowbody First Class, so there'd have to be a serious overhaul of class differentiation for to get a merely "Premium Economy" experience and pricing.
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  14. That'd be expected considering the everyone on the plane spent the equivalent of a few thousand dollars today.
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  15. Well maybe advocate to re-regulate airfares so at least the airlines once again compete for market share through amenities. It'll lock in the current high prices but adjusted that's about what we were paying back in the "Golden Age of Travel", so might as well get better services out of it eventually.
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  16. @ “Slow trains” are the normal old style ones, with tickets sold between “soft sleeper” on the high end to standing room only. These get packed to crush level because of how cheap the fares are, smelling like stale fruits, tobacco smoke, and raw sewage the whole way.
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  17. It's an extremely high barrier to entry due to the aviation industry's priority on safety, transparency, and fuel efficiency. That said I see Embraer becoming that global third option ahead of Communist China's COMAC.
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  18. I remember it as being within 10 years, but yeah being a new venture is brutal regardless of recession, war, or boom times. Basically the most dominant factor to business success is simply the ability to try again after failing.
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  19. I'd prefer pilots exist, but the taxpayer-subsidized military pipeline is going dry and not enough of us are willing to bear the costs of what amounts to a medical degree for the more limited field of flying an airliner. But corporate executives are still more interested in scavenging for growth in its stock price instead of ensuring growth of its staffing pool with paying into the entry-level education and benefits that make the career more attractive to join.
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  20. I remember a Transpacific flight back in elementary school where me and my sisters got put in the smoking section. I think us completing all "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" reminded our neighbors that there were young children around, and more surprisingly nobody stopped us 🎶✈️
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  21. ​ @asw19B100 It seems it's cargo capability that gives an airframe a long life, after needy humans are no longer profitable to load. The human-centered design of the A380 makes a properly competitive airfreighter conversion almost as difficult as trying to turn a cruise liner into a container ship.
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  22. The wider market would rather not pay more as a whole to comfort the minority of above-average passengers. Short of owning your own airline, you'll have to deal with the seats offered on a common carrier designed for the average traveler, much like the average human has to deal with the lack of social privileges given to taller folks everywhere else.
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  23. I noticed flying through any cloud tends to be turbulent ~ there's a reason they're shaped fluffy and not stringy.
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  24. Airlines need to really up their entry-level OJT investment because the military pipeline is getting dismantled as drones take over the skies... and these skills don't exactly translate when the pilot has zero physical risk flying payloads considered acceptably disposable.
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  25. ​ @aarondavis8943 They'll manage, but the question is whether they'll end up closer Airbus/Boeing or more like Sukhoi/Ilyushin in global marketability.
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  26. Military receivers already do this, but I'd imagine civilian ones would need to be totally replaced with models that can handle the increased power consumption of decryption as well as somehow get updates for those digital keys when they expire or get compromised and revoked.
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  27. The safety briefing basically always covers the same general things, so for my specific flights I boil down my passenger preflight to three memory checks: 1) Nearest door is fore or aft? (look around) 2) Where's my life vest? (feel around) 3) Which doors are good in a ditching? (safety card)
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  28. Right, bottom-up protest raise the visibility and priority of issues, but real transformation only happens when the top has either a change of heart or a change of head.
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