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Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: LITF (black boxes) Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2025 13:04:58 -0000 (UTC) Organization: United Individualist Message-ID: <vqhf9q$m46$1@reader1.panix.com> Injection-Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2025 13:04:58 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2"; logging-data="22662"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 3104 Lines: 52 The actor Gene Hackman and his wife were discovered dead at their home in Santa Fe on February 27th. They had both obviously been dead for a while. But for how long? Much of forensic science is pseudoscience, as proven by the large number of people "proven guilty" by forensics but later proven innocent by DNA. But some of it is valid, including DNA itself. (Though DNA evidence can be misleading. Look up the Phantom of Heilbronn.) In plane crashes, we can tell who died at impact and who died in the following fire by whether there was any soot in their lungs. Similarly if the crash was in water and some drowned, by whether they had water in their lungs. Speaking of plane crashes, it was possible to tell which indicator lights were on at the instant of impact because the way incandescent filaments shatter is different if they're hot than if they're cold. But the main way we know what happened in recent plane crashes is from the planes' "black boxes" -- cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders, both of which are actually orange. It's just as well, since indicator lights are no longer incandescent. In today's news, I learned that we do know Hackman's exact time of death. It was on February 18th. How do we know? From his "black box." He had an implanted pacemaker. Like most modern electronics, it's computerized, with plenty of data storage. You know we're Living In The Future when people have built-in black boxes. We don't know the time of his wife's death, except that it was after the last time she was seen on February 11th. It's believed that she died several days before her husband did, probably of Hantavirus, and that the lack of her daily care of him contributed to his death. (He had Alzheimer's.) A dog also died, presumably because it was in a cage and couldn't reach food. Two uncaged dogs survived. Getting back to plane crashes, the NTSB was able to recover data from the heavily damaged cockpit voice recorder of very violent recent Lear Jet crash in Philadelphia. But it turned out to be useless, due to lack of maintenance. It hadn't been turned on in years, so all the data was from a much earlier flight. Technology can't compensate for incompetence or laziness. (Gene Hackman is not to be confused with Larry Hagman, a different deceased actor.) -- Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/ Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.