swansont

The reports I've seen say they flew to successive waypoints, which means someone with reasonable flight experience was at the controls. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/14/us-malaysia-airlines-radar-exclusive-idUSBREA2D0DG20140314 But, as one might expect, other reports are saying that this may not be the case.

It's probably a good thing to be able to turn off a piece of equipment if it's faulty and might be a fire hazard. I read this morning that's for the transponder it's not even a matter of pulling a fuse — there's a a knob on the control panel. The article spent a paragraph explaining how you turn the dial to the off position. (because turning a dial two or three clicks counter-clockwise is probably outside the experience of most readers)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/malaysia-plane-transponder.html?_r=0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control_radar_beacon_system

What I read implied that primary radar is sometimes turned off and only secondary radar is used, or that the plane was out of range of primary radar. All things being equal, primary has a shorter range since it drops off as r4, while secondary drops off as r2.

I think you're overestimating the abundance of cell phone towers out at sea (or in some areas of some countries), and how much civilian radar can do. It's my understanding that much of the tracking comes from query and response from onboard transponders, not active use of true radar — if you turn the transponder off, the plane is invisible to civilian radar. Can't find the link now, but one article said that two separate transponder signals went dark, but at different times. And that military (active) radar detected the plane on a different course after it went dark. That strongly suggests that there wasn't a catastrophic incident causing to disappear from civilian radar. Add to the mix the usual effect of incomplete information, with things that are wrong or merely speculation being reported as solid fact.

The important thing is an explanation of what the program does, i.e. what the model is.

The post by itself lacks context; you don't spell out details of what you are doing or why one might think it explains anything at all.

! Moderator Note Merged. Let's keep all of this in one thread, please.

Jaydeep as well (posts removed)

The subject of hijacking has come up a few times recently, so it's clear a few people don't understand what is meant by thread hijacking. In regard to the board rules, it stems from rule 5 which says Stay on topic. Posts should be relevant to the discussion at hand. This means that you shouldn't use scientific threads to advertise your own personal theory, or post only to incite a hostile argument. The relevant part is Stay on topic. Posts should be relevant to the discussion at hand. The latter part refers to specific actions that are against the rules: advertising a speculative "theory" (further detailed in rule 10), and trolling. However, any off-topic post is a violation. The basic premise is that the thread starter has a topic in mind, and the thread is for discussing what they want. Not what you want.

Can you at least post something of an abstract here? Something to whet one's appetite, i.e. to give us a reason to download the document and read it?

I Am the Father of TIME banned as a sockpuppet of LittleBoPeep

Rajnish Kaushik has been suspended 3 days for repeatedly ignoring moderator requests regarding rules transgressions. (and not for saying bro, even though many find that annoying)

The previous two entries also all being sockpuppets of Arjun Deepak Shriram

Rule 2.7 concerning posts that are comprised mainly of videos, pictures and links, has been updated. The pertinent wording is now Links, pictures and videos in posts should be relevant to the discussion, and members should be able to participate in the discussion without clicking any links or watching any videos. Videos and pictures should be accompanied by enough text to set the tone for the discussion, and should not be posted alone. In short, the use of videos, especially long videos, as a means to declare a point has gotten out of hand. Initial posts that are only links, pictures or videos are likely to be locked or deleted (and almost certainly if they link back to your web site or video channel). Long videos as responses are also discouraged; please summarize and point to the pertinent section. Few are willing to wade through a 20+ minute presentation for the relevant 30-second snippet. Some of you may recall the feedback we solicited on the topic; that was part of the equation. If you have questions or concerns, you can post them in that thread.

Davidjayjordan has been suspended 3 days for repeated instances of soapboxing and thread hijacking --------- ASG and ASG1699 have been banned as sockpuppets of Amanbir Singh Grewal

RonPrice has been suspended for a week for making threads solely for the purpose of advertising his personal site, after being warned not to do this. (the threads have been removed)

Jaya Jagannath has been suspended for repeated soapboxing and opening multiple threads on the same topic after being asked not to.

Bart has been suspended for continuing to re-introduce a topic after it had been closed.

Ran across another site that has some good material http://physics.open.ac.uk/~sserjeant/faq.txt Scroll down to "I have a new theory of the Universe". Most of it applies here; there are a few specific astrophysics comments, such as the specific test questions. discussion of this can take place here

Chicpilot has been banned as a sockpuppet of Hegne

xyzt has been suspended for a week for abrasiveness above and beyond tolerable levels and for abusing the report post function to lodge general complaints about other members' shortcomings (being wrong is not itself a violation of the rules; we expect that to be dealt with in the discussion)

whatifitaint has been banned as a sockpuppet of vuquta

danston has been banned as a ranty sockpuppet account of nyouremyperfect10 edit: but you already know this. (xpost with phi)

! Moderator Note kristalris You need to stop hijacking threads to discuss Bayes. If that's a subject you want to discuss, start a new thread on it and leave these other threads alone. Do not further hijack this thread by responding to this modnote.