What journalists and the public often call the "black box" is typically a nearly-indestructible combination of two things: a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) which records the voices of the pilots and crew from microphones stationed around the plane, and the flight data recorder (FDR), which monitors and stores information about the flight itself, like speed, altitude, and bearing. Underwater locator beacons help search teams find submerged black boxes up to 14,000 feet under water, but sometimes even that isn't enough.
posted by MoreForMad on Sep 26, 2009 - 27 comments

Known as Black Box in the UK, Survival in the Sky was a four-episode 1996 series about commercial aviation accidents and the investigation of their causes. (Two additional episodes were filmed in 1998.) Not currently available on DVD, five of the six episodes are available in their entirety on YouTube (links within). [more inside]
posted by maxwelton on Jan 17, 2009 - 12 comments

Another stock market post. Technical traders (or charters) don't look at the fundamentals of an investment, like the earnings per share or even macro economic indicators to understand how a stock will move. Instead, they look at the movements in the market. While many of us might think prices are now low, technicians have the reassurance of fibonacci sequences, relative strength indexes, support levels and other "blackbox" ratios to determine their investments. There are some who blame them for a lot of woe, but they also provide a ray of light when everything else looks glum. Despite some evidence it doesn't work, or at least doesn't work over the long term, the number of true believers in the market mean even true fundamentalists can't ignore their impact. [more inside]
posted by bystander on Oct 28, 2008 - 74 comments

Interpreted: JamesBrown meets Kraftwerk.
posted by Burhanistan on Jul 28, 2007 - 16 comments

A Welsh Black Box to make biofuel whilst capturing car fumes
posted by ItsaMario on Jul 24, 2007 - 25 comments

Black Box Voting has completed their analysis of log files from Palm Beach (FL) county voting machines stemming from the Nov 2004 general election. You know it's not good news when the article starts with: The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
posted by taumeson on Feb 24, 2006 - 96 comments

A security analysis of the Pentagon's experimental Internet voting system, SERVE, says it's too vulnerable to be used. An incident in Canada last year highlights the risks. But the Pentagon is standing behind the system, and seven states have signed on. [Via Black Box Notes.]
posted by homunculus on Jan 27, 2004 - 14 comments

There appears to be a three-minute discrepancy between the time that Flight 93's black box stopped recording and the time that it actually crashed. Hmm ... I wonder if ... nah.
posted by textureslut on Sep 17, 2002 - 69 comments

Government plans to use Flight 93 cockpit tapes in Moussaoui trial "Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11" "An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request." Finally someone admits that there was a plane up there when Flight 93 crashed. But who was it and why?
posted by bas67 on Aug 10, 2002 - 15 comments

"Writer William Langewiesche, a pilot in his own right, explains why a jet packed with 217 passengers plunged 33,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean in the dead of night--and why it took so long for the U.S. and Egyptian governments to issue an explanation. Using black-box transcripts and radar records, Langewiesche meticulously reconstructs the last minutes of the so-called suicide flight. In a feat of storytelling, he reveals the nasty combination of politics and culture clashes that delayed the official investigation."
posted by semmi on May 3, 2002 - 25 comments

Right before you hit you were doing... Looks like we're all getting black boxes in our cars. As a high speed crash survivor I have to admit a certain curiosity as to the forces involved my accident happened. But I'm not sure I want to know this badly...
posted by daver on Mar 19, 2001 - 10 comments