People who use tools badly inflict bad results on other people, quite often far more so than they do so on themselves.

Yeah. It's funny how companies don't like to hire people that use tools correctly, but insist on creating tools that allow them to hire cheaper, less-qualified people.

PHP works fine, if you're a halfway decent programmer. Same with C++.

I find that physical activity promotes sound sleep.

With the consequence that disambiguation may be needed.

It might have been contingency planning: you don't need a weatherman...

When applied to insightful writing, that is much more likely to dull the point rather than preserve or sharpen it.

Imagination will give you something to think about, but it alone will not tell you which thoughts are correct.

I guess you probably don’t live in Texas, then!

I would guess that the interior of leaves are quite conductive and that this accounts for most of the attenuation and scattering.

Update: this comment on the original posting of this article suggests so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39896699

You might find these points helpful:

1) when an airliner lands, the undercarriage legs, which are telescopic sprung and damped struts, spread the vertical deceleration over a finite period (I cannot say how long it lasts, but I would say of the order of a second or so.)

2) At the point of touchdown, the wings are generating lift about equal to the aircraft’s weight. This decreases quite rapidly, largely on account of the decease in angle of attack as the nosewheel comes down and from the deployment of spoilers, but it would be mistaken to think that the runway is immediately supporting the full weight of the airliner after touchdown.

3) On takeoff, until the nosewheel is lifted to initiate rotation, a significant fraction of an airliner’s weight is being supported by the runway. During rotation, as the angle of attack increases, the lift increases [1] until it exceeds the weight, at which point the airliner lifts off.

4) If we ignore the fact that the undercarriage is sprung, then the airliner has no vertical velocity until it lifts off. Right at that point, however, when the lift exceeds the weight, it gains a vertical acceleration.

I hope this helps!

[1] Plus a vertical component of the engine thrust, but no airliner rotates to anything like 45 degrees - in fact, if it has not left the ground at a rotation angle equal to the angle of maximum lift coefficient (~10 - 15 degrees), it is not going to do so without going faster.

OK so let's look at a second. I think I can get away with this analysis:

On take off f = 330 x 10 = 3300 (units etc)

On landing f = 160 x 10.7 = 1712

So, if you are gentle enough on landing and the aircraft is nearly half the weight it was on take off then the downward force on landing is very much less than that on take off.

That 160 tonnes empty also implies I've thrown the passengers, crew and luggage out too, which is a bit rough. Let's try total fuel at "about 180 to 213 tonnes" and allow that we need a factor of safety, so let's say 40 tonnes of fuel left over on landing.

On landing f = 200 x 10.7 = 2140

So, I'm still going to need some convincing about landing aircraft causing more damage than those taking off.

I was only waffling about rotation angles whilst trying to get to grips with what is going on. I now don't think the engines have anything to do with this analysis. Mind you I am just about old enough to remember watching Lightnings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Lightning) taking off. Imagine a large silver firework ...

Maybe, but it is the present which concerns me.