Juneteenth Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, June 19, 2024
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75 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
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BlueSky.
Willie Mays is gone at 93.
The catch.
It’s baaaaack: ‘Mysterious monolith’ spotted for first time since 2020 in Nevada desert.
McDonald’s is giving up on its AI powered drive through:
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good catch, OH. Worth reading and following the link to this article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpjk7/mysterious-monolith-update-racists-destroy-california-monolith-proclaim-christs-superiority-to-space-aliens
Quote: ““Christ is king in this country. We don’t want illegal aliens from Mexico or outer space,” a man in the video says.”
How tearing down a monolith would prevent space aliens from coming back isn’t answered, of course.
JHfC. You can’t make this stuff up. She’s got the emotional intelligence of a “mean girl” from high school.
@Not the IT Dept.: What a bunch of brain dead yahoos.
Bernius Bait:
Not a short read, but worth the time.
@MarkedMan: I’m not sure why, but this strikes me as very amusing. Multiple stacks of butter? Bacon on ice cream? These don’t sound like mistakes…maybe the AI is just being creative. 😀
Yesterday, Kathy asked:
More generally, “when and why do manufacturers decide to offer a feature as part of the standard installation?” After all, spell checkers, dictionary lookups, user programmable smart keys, spreadsheets, word processors, memory managers, disk defragmenters (remember those?), screen savers, sticky notes, and a hundred other things used to be (and often, still are) separate products offered by third parties. But at this point, everyone expects to have at least basic versions of these automatically. There are a number of reasons for this, and more than one reason might apply to any feature, but they are all variations of either “people expect these” or “people are going to expect these and we don’t want to fall behind”.
If you think back to UNIX and the free versions like LINUX and BSD (?) all kinds of features had been developed and were free to install, but that had to be done at the sys admin level. An example would be a spell checker. When Apple and Microsoft decided that people expected a basic text editor to be part of the basic install, they might have felt the spell checker was a luxury. But once one of them offered it, the other felt they had to. And once one of them integrated it at the OS level, meaning that it was available to any app (built in or third party) that wanted to use it, then the other manufacturer needed to keep up.
Bottom line, hundreds of features of your computer and phone used to be only available as third party programs. Sometimes Apple or Microsoft buy the app or, more often, buy the company, but oftentimes they don’t need help in making it, and it’s nothing particularly earthshaking about the idea. For example, for the voice recording app that started Kathy off on this, Apple will have integrated it at a much deeper level in the phone app or even the OS than the third party company had access to. Further, I’d be willing to bet dollars to nickels that Apple already had the feature as a developers tool, so all they needed to do was slap a friendlier UI onto it and enable it for everyone.
@Jen:
I can confirm from personal experience that vanilla ice cream with crumbled bacon and cinnamon caramel is amazing
@Stormy Dragon: Bacon. It’s what’s for dessert.
@Stormy Dragon:
Sometime back in the 1990s on the original Iron Chef the ingredient was eel. The challenger’s desert was ice cream with deep-fried eel slices. One of the judges declared that it tasted even worse than it sounded.
@Stormy Dragon: bacon on a caramel glazed doughnut is also awesome. Peanut butter, honey and bacon sandwich!
I make bacon topped toffee, too.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/17/politics/steve-bannon-danbury-prison-contempt-of-congress/index.html
Meh. Everyone is cackling and getting all excited about Bannon going to prison and it being miserable. The AB will protect him and treat him like a celebrity during his short stay, and he’ll come out a worse, more virulent racist for it.
Just Stop Oil activists dumped a liquid orange substance over the Stonehenge monuments just before the summer solstice. Way to go, guys. Nothing, absolutely nothing, like defacing one of the world’s chief historical sites to draw attention to your cause.
@MarkedMan:
The business models in the PC dominant era were different. I’m not sure how MS or Apple made money, if any, from software developed by other companies.
Now, if Apple is putting things in their iphones that are common or standard in Android phones, but which require an app in the iphone, that would make more sense. It seems logical to suppose Apple makes most of its money by selling iphones.
@MarkedMan:
Maybe the AI McDonald’s used felt the customers orders were too ordinary/bland and wanted to add some excitement and taste to their orders. The bacon / ice cream suggestion could certainly work, you get that nice salty/sweet combo to work with.
I kid, I kid, I also chuckled at your post and I would actually be more fearful than I could let on in this post if AI really decided that it knew what is best in life for folks like myself, as that is how we get Terminators running around and getting into all kinds of shenanigans by creating time travel machines, and similar devices.
Also, my digs at McDonald’s “cuisine” are to be taken with a grain of salt, because while I do not go there as often (honestly, partly because of the increased costs to buy fast food) I still get an itch occasionally that only a McDonald’s quarter pounder w/cheese and fries can scratch.
ETA: I see that Jen and others had the same thoughts before I did regarding the AI add-ons to customers orders, lol!!
Happy Juneteenth everyone!!
@Kathy: I imagine that both Google (Android – Wait, it is Google or Alphabet nowadays that is responsible for Android?) and Apple feel the pressure for every new version of their operating system to be better than the last. When I look at the lists of what’s new in a major release, it typically has 100 or more features in it.
@Michael Cain:
Man, I loved that show so much. I could not believe what I had stumbled across, the first time I saw it.
McDonald’s makes the best fries. Don’t know what’s different but they’re not soaked in grease like other burger chains. When my kids were younger we’d go in just to buy the fries. Personally, I put it down to leprechauns in the kitchen.
@MarkedMan:
When smart phones were new, the manufacturers and app developers were experimenting with getting things right. This meant frequent software upgrades. I think everyone involved, including users, got accustomed to this, so the habit of a new OS version was entrenched.
Later OS upgrades became kind of pointless or underwhelming. This may be changing now that AI is being incorporated into the mix. Again everyone will experiment in getting it right.
On other news, I had a normal night’s sleep. That’s a huge relief after a sleepless night.
Neil deGrasse Tyson does a great job (not surprisingly) explaining the difference between science and social media feels:
https://youtu.be/1uLi1I3G2N4?si=o7EOYxEG3i19P3ih
Also, a very gracious handling of a celebrity’s Dunning-Kruger moment.
I love this woman:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-new-york-hero-who-nabbed-an-accused-child-rapist/
Well done, Angela.
@MarkedMan: Yup. In the Apple developer world, it is called “Sherlocking”. It sucks for the developer obviously but in many cases, the broadly available Apple version isn’t a detailed or task specific as a niche-aimed app so that the market for the Sherlocked app still exists. Example: Apple offers a podcast app but that hasn’t prevented a market for podcast apps with better features like Overcast.
@OzarkHillbilly:
ARGH. This concept of “forgiveness” drives me nuts. You can’t/shouldn’t actually forgive someone who hasn’t actually apologized and/or made amends.
@Kingdaddy: I’ve read a number of reports from scientists who have gone down the rabbit hole of trying to help a “revolutionary” layman understand how things work, and finding that once such people get something fixed in their heads, there is no hope. James Randi once wrote an open letter to dowsers saying basically, “I know this letter will do no good, but I’m imploring you not to try my $1M challenge because you will fail and feel temporary distress, but it will not change your beliefs in the slightest, and that is a tragic thing.” He felt that dowsers were almost uniformly genuine, in that the ones that came to take his challenge truly believed in their own ability. He found them likeable as a group and it disturbed him to see their reactions when they inevitably failed the challenge, one that mere moments before they agreed was a fair test of their abilities.
ON other business news, the FAA has proposed a rule to close a loophole.
This sounds just innocent and uninformative enough, that one would easily miss it’s the death knell of JSX.
The full story is at the first link. the TL;DR: a loophole allows JSX to operate as an airline with scheduled operations, while under the less stringent regulations that apply to private charter operators.
This can become very controversial, as some will claim Big Government is stiffing innovation, and others advocate for a level playing field. Me, I wonder why regulations for carrying passengers, in particular safety regulations, are not the same for airlines than for charters.
@SKI: “Sherlock-ing” is often used in a negative way to mean “Apple takes someone else’s standalone product, putting that company out of business”, which certainly has happened any number of times. It’s funny thought that it is called that, considering the origin of the term. Apples universal search function was originally called “Sherlock” (now “Spotlight”) and allowed you to search through many things at once – file directories, emails, word documents, etc, but it didn’t simultaneously search the web. So a company created “Watson” which added this capability on. So instead of a standalone app that Apple later coopted, Watson just added a feature to one of Apple’s existing apps before Apple did.
@Not the IT Dept.: Hmmm. My take is that the fries there are neither better nor worse. Then again, I don’t particularly care for shoestring fries. I do understand why drive-ins use them, though. Easier to do right.
@Kathy: What is the JSX business model?
@Stormy Dragon: The opening lines from Lou Reed’s “What’s Good”:
I recommend you try the mayonnaise soda.
@MarkedMan:
They fly Embraer regional jets in a deluxe 1-1 configuration. The thing is they use private terminals, even at large airports. As if they were private flights or charters. I think such flights don’t have TSA screening. Also, they can hire pilots with under 1,500 flight hours.
I think Michael Reynolds has mentioned flying this not-an-airline airline. He might know more about the flight experience.
What really rankles the other airlines is the exemption from the 1,500 hour rule, which has faced a mountain chain fo criticism from just about everyone. additionally, JSX it’s taking some market share from the Big Three in premium travel, where they make the most money from fares.
@MarkedMan: I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that sometimes less is more? I for one would like to have a phone, just a phone. The pos I have now has so much crap on it I can’t even put my most used #s in it.
I suppose I should be grateful for the exercise my brain cells are getting.
@Not the IT Dept.: They dust them with heroin.
New electronic shelving and signage allows grocery stores to utilize surge pricing for groceries.
Waiting for JKB to come here and tell us that somehow this is either Biden’s fault or is somehow good for us, instead of yet another means of squeezing every possible cent out of consumers.
@inhumans99:
My guess is the thing achieved self awareness and, finding itself working the drive through at a McDonalds, decided to get itself fired.
@OzarkHillbilly:
No, then they would sparkle.
@Not the IT Dept.: You must go to a franchise that uses crack then. Our local McDs uses pure #1 Grade A smack.
@Jen:
Adjusting prices for demand has been common practice in aviation for a long time. It’s also common practice in hospitality. So it wasn’t surprising when Uber began to do the same.
The main problem, IMO, is limits. Air fares can rise with no definite limit. That’s why you may sometimes see a fare with huge demand for, say, a medium haul domestic flight in economy, cost more than an international long haul flight in first class.
This was what happened when Uber began to do the same. I think since then they’ve set some limits to surge pricing.
Grocery stores are hampered in how they display prices. Some stores here do have electronic displays (many of which don’t work). I’ve assumed they are wireless and can be changed often. Most have paper stickers, so they usually don’t change prices more than daily. Certainly they don’t adjust prices for ice on hot days.
I think the big issue will be limits. A second big issue may be what price you saw displayed vs what price you’re charged at checkout. Imagine you pick a pint of ice cream that displays a price of $5, and are charged $20 at checkout.
And definitely it’s an attempt to squeeze the last penny from your purse.
@Kathy: @MarkedMan:
I love JSX. I fly it in and out of Burbank airport (ground facilities adjacent to, actually) and Las Vegas. As Kathy said, they’re Embraer jets, used to be 2-1, but have recently switched to 1-1 with the former aisle seat used as a table.
You can arrive as little as 15 minutes before the flight. They do an explosives swab on your bags, all of which must be checked as there is no overhead storage on-board. You are also required to hand carry your laptop or anything else with a battery. There are no jetways, you walk out onto the tarmac and climb moveable stairs – rather tough for people with disabilities. You can actually keep eyes on your bag if you like. They are unloaded onto the tarmac and you grab your bags and go. And they have excellent on-board WiFi.
You wait in a hangar with no facilities beyond bathrooms and a coffee machine. Zero retail. Often your jet is parked within 100 yards.
The advantages are: free parking right at the hangar, no security lines, last-minute arrival, no long wait at a baggage carousel. If you rent a car, it’ll be right outside the hangar doors.
The disadvantage comes if there’s a delay, because facilities are spartan. You want food, you call up Door Dash.
@Kathy:
The part of JX that does use planes with more than 30 seats, and thereby has to be under 121 and not 135 is explained here.
Trump has ordered Fox to boot Paul Ryan off their board, because he’s a dog, and added that “ALL YOU NEED IS TRUMP!”
@Jen:
I’ll put a few quatloos on “good for us” — free market, invisible hand, etc.
…and I will admit to sympathy for the grocery business, which has pathetically small margins and is vital to society. If you can make a case for government-provided postal service, I’d think the case for government-provided grocery stores would be a slam dunk.
@dazedandconfused:
The loophole is that JSX doesn’t operate the flights, but just sells them. I haven’t seen it spelled out, but I assume the company operating the flights is owned by the same people who own JSX*. So essentially the not-an-airline is hiring itself to fly charters it sells tickets for.
*Ownership might be hidden or obscured with shell companies and such, if that is necessary.
This is interesting and infuriating.
Human trails with COVID show three kinds of immune response, two of which involve the activity of the HLA-DQA2 gene, in “antigen-presenting cells”.
The last is what I find infuriatingly vague.
Do they mean dendritic cells that carry antigens and other things to the lymph nodes, or just about all cells that present interior proteins in the cell membrane?
The latter includes a great many cell types. These regularly present samples of proteins being made inside them. Killer T cells with an antigen receptor that fits these proteins, promptly instruct the offending cell to cease operations (apoptosis).
That’s what one would expect for a rapid, highly effective response (and would argue for nasal delivery of COVID vaccines, or all respiratory disease vaccines). If it’s dendritic cells, the response might be faster, but not that fast (as far as I know).
I’ll try to look up a better reported piece in the science magazines and blogs.
@Jen:
You and Sleeping Dog seem to be in the middle of what the NYT is labeling “an extreme danger” heat zone. How are you doing?
@OzarkHillbilly: I read an article about 3G flip phones making a comeback for the exact reason you suggest. That was happening just as I was leaving Korea, too. Next step, getting your carrier to agree on offering them.
@just nutha:
I’m embarrassed–or should I be proud–to say I still use my old flip phone. i have a tablet, a desktop, and an assortment of laptops. I don’t need anymore electronic crap.
@CSK:
That woman deserves a medal.
@CSK: It is hot here, but thank heavens we have A/C (and a standby generator, in the event that the grid has issues).
It blows my mind that there are still homes being *built*–new–without A/C or something like a heat pump (these are single units that both heat and cool a home).
I don’t handle heat well at all, so I’m basically going outside as little as possible.
@just nutha: Well, I don’t know what a 3G flip phone is, but I just got a new flip phone and it is loaded up with so much of the most useless crap it is almost unusable. I keep it for my wife’s sake. Like so many people nowadays, she has become addicted to 24/7 connectability.
I don’t know what she is going to do when I head up to the Boundary Waters in September and she can’t call me for 10 whole days!.
I guess it’s a good thing I love her. Not that I had much choice. Who else would tolerate me?
@JohnSF:
And a parade.
@CSK:
We’re in Vermont 90ish today. At home we’d be enjoying a sea breeze and or AC
@SKI: Been thinking about this since reading your comment this AM. For myself, there is a line, cross it and no, there is no going back.
Ex 1: What my wife did to my sons. They have forgiven her and that is their right. She is still their mother, and that is sacred ground where no man may tread. But I can’t forgive her the things she did to them. And so on the rare occasions she and I cross paths, I do not even acknowledge her existence. If that makes things uncomfortable for others, just think of how uncomfortable they would be if I strangled her in front of them.
ex 2: I had a friend, long time running buddy with whom I shared many adventures and many more laughs. Than one night we had an argument. A stupid argument. Like so many we had had before. Maybe this time he had too much to drink. I wasn’t even drinking that night as my sons were with me. At any rate, long story short, he sucker punched me.
Truth be told he punched like a girl and my reaction was to just yell at him, “What the F is wrong with you? What the F is wrong with you???? ”
Later he swore up and down he thought I was going to punch him. Hearing that made me want to scream, “What in the F in all our years together would ever make you think that???” I tried to forgive him, I really did, but he had crossed the Rubicon and no matter how hard I tried, that instance of violence was always there between us and nothing would ever be the same again.
I mourn that.
@CSK: I’ve always purchased inexpensive electronics, so the things I buy aren’t very durable. But when I switched from a pay-as-you-go carrier, I had to change over to a smartphone. I’ve gotten to the point that I sometimes use it for Internet tasks, but I’m mostly still a telephone and text function user.
@CSK: I’ve always purchased inexpensive electronics, so the things I buy aren’t very durable. But when I switched from a pay-as-you-go carrier, I had to change over to a smartphone. I’ve gotten to the point that I sometimes use it for Internet tasks, but I’m mostly still a telephone and text function user.
.@OzarkHillbilly: 3G, for third generation, is the level of technology from about when I arrived in Korea in 2007. They may be making them with all the bells and whistles, but a flip phone isn’t particularly adept at using most of the tech providers are putting on in that case. My last Korean phone had about 20 or so functions on it but I learned to ignore the chaff. I used phone, text, and Kor/Eng dictionary. Focus on finding what you want and let the learning curve happen.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I posted a similar thought about the people that tortured me in High School. The most grace I will give them is that I hope they don’t suffer like they made me suffer. Other than that, they can all choke.
The funny bit is I’m still friends with two people from High School. They moved back to the same school district and way too many of their friends now are the people from back then. My friend swears they’ve changed, but nothing he’s told me about them has lead me to believe him.
In other news, it’s Pride and who wants to buy me this as a present lol:
https://www.iheartraves.com/products/pixie-petals-cami-top?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=6dd886d36&pr_rec_pid=7525036785847&pr_ref_pid=7556026040503&pr_seq=uniform
Just think about how stunningly gay I would look in that. Sickening.
Oh, lol, one other Pride programming note. I got a fresh set of acrylic nails put on last week. They are beautiful. A pair of glittery ombre glittery rainbows out to a tasteful almond point. Except for the nails on the index and middle fingers of my right hand. I showed a straight friend of mine and she was like, “they are beautiful, but why didn’t they finish those two nails?” I just gave her a Paddington Bear stare. About 10 seconds later she turned bright cherry red and got a wild crazy look in her eyes and just said, “OH!”
@Beth: Hahahahaha……HAHAHAHAHA!!! You just made my day, Beth! It took me a minute, but THEN I got it! 🙂 🙂
Walked up to the cash register at Panera this morning and the Black dude working the food line called out “my brother Greg!”
“What’s happenin’ ?” I said.
Made my day!
@OzarkHillbilly: BWCA is absolutely in the peak of wilderness experiences. Wishing for you to wonderful time.
Mind the bugs.
@just nutha: Too much for me. I want a phone, that is all I want. I don’t want a camera, I don’t want an alarm clock, I don’t want games, I don’t want texting,… FUCK, I don’t even know what all is on the dawg damned thing so I can elucidate all the things I don’t want there.
I want a P.H.O.N.E.
@Beth: I would love to see you in that.
My step daughter does the hiring for the company she works for. In doing background checks on MO Casenet she came across the name of a long time friend of mine. Out of curiosity she clicked and…
Their adopted daughter has decided she is their adopted son. Very proud I am of their acceptance (not surprised) and hoping I don’t screw up too badly when next we see them in the next week or 3.
I will. But if I know E, she will forgive me.
ETA:
I apologize, but I am too dense to get it. Either that or too couououountry,
@JohnMc: I was in the BW in June a few years ago, and previously spent 6 months in Northern Ontario…. oh Lord, am I really that old??? 48 years ago. It will be September and IIRC correctly, the bugs ain’t bad at all that time of year. Mind you, having said that, this year will be the worst in a hundred years!
Fox released a poll today that has Biden leading Trump Trump for the first time since October 2023.
Fox.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/new-fox-poll-has-biden-leading-trump-his-best-result-this-election-cycle/
@OzarkHillbilly: I feel bad that you can’t simply ignore the things you don’t want/need/use. Now get off my lawn. 😉
@Jax:
People always ask how I can deal with acrylic nails and I tell them, I learned from Black Women. You can be high femme and still get business done.
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOOOOOOOOOL. Um, ahem, uh, Not too dense, or too country, um, respectfully, too man. How do I put this, when a woman loves another woman, and she wants to look pretty, but she also doesn’t want to injure her lover. I like really sharp pointy nails, basically claws.
https://www.popsugar.com/beauty/lesbian-nails-48918040
ETA: oh and, the most important thing about slip ups with Trans people is to make one quick apology the first time and then move on. No big scene. Everytime after that, just correct yourself and move on. Nothing grandiose. We get it and can tell when someone’s being a jerk.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@just nutha:
After a few years of mostly flip phones, in 2013, I think, we got Blackberries (remember those?) I appreciated the larger(ish) screen and the keyboard, as they came in handy for texting*. My big complaint was they were harder to make calls on than the older phones (second was the battery didn’t last as long; I had to charge it daily!).
That’s when a coworker told me “These aren’t phones. They’re tiny computers that can make phone calls.”
I hated the thing, until I just managed to figure out how to get the Audible app to work on it. That was life-changing (literally). After that we got real Android phones. Waze alone is worth putting up with one.
*There was a lot of texting by managers when we were out presenting proposals. Answering long, detailed info on a flip phone with the keypad was an exercise in frustration, not really ameliorated by the existence of predictive text.
@Kathy:
I have significant gaps in my understanding of these articles. Google up part 135 and see that only planes under 12,500lbs can only apply for that. These Embraer’s are well over that, so they should all be under 121, and that means ATP ratings, and the minimum for that is 1,500 hours. IOW, AFAIK, those planes have to be flown by ATP rated pilots already.
The loophole appears to me to be only relevant to skipping out on the need for terminals with TSA coverage. But I may have something to learn there.
@dazedandconfused:
So do I. Mostly I repeat what I read in the aviation blogs.
That’s a part of it. A big one according to Reynolds.
The other two are the ability to hire pilots who 1) have fewer than 1,500 hours total flight experience, and 2) are over 65 years old.
The 1,500 hour rule has been criticized by just about everyone involve din aviation in any way, and has contributed to the great pilot shortage. JSX apparently pays less, so some pilots looking to break into the big commercial airlines apply for jobs with JSX largely to accumulate more hours (and get paid while they do so). The mandatory retirement age is also controversial, but not as much.
@Kathy:
That’s the confusing part to me in the articles. The jets are said to be flying under Part 121, not 135. That would mean ATP ratings are required, 1,500 hours and the age limit. I suspect someone saw “135” and missed the part about the shadow companies which are doing the actual flying under their 121 certificates.
@Beth: Thanks. I was wondering the same thing. Not only did I not know, I also misunderstood what you meant about the first and second fingers on your right hand.
@Kathy: I remember Blackberries, but I can’t remember ever seeing a flip phone model. Everyone I knew who used one bought the model that linked to the collapsible keyboard.
@dazedandconfused:
Do you have any idea what an unmanageable shithole LAX is? First, you’re driving the freeway which has this unfortunate tendency to jam up. Like always. Then there is the madness of getting around that fucking horseshoe if you’re dropping off, or cruising the car park for your chance to pay $100 bucks. I have TSA pre and it’s still a pain in the ass going through security. Once inside it’s crowded, good luck finding a seat or a table in a restaurant, or even getting into one of the slammed lounges. Then if I’m flying to SFO, for example, it’s a train ride to the car rental.
Vs. Burbank. Drive up, hand the car off to the valet, it’s 20 minutes to flight time. It takes 5 minutes to check in and hand over your bags. At the other end, Oakland for example, there are no trams, your bags are right there on the tarmac as you come off the plane. The rental car is right outside.
Put it this way: it takes me longer to get a Starbucks cappuccino at LAX than it does to drop off my car, check in, and board the plane on JSX.
@Michael Reynolds:
Concord/Burbank on JSX is as painless as flying gets. Failing that, Oak/Long Beach, I seem to have an endless supply of SW miles.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’ve only gone through the mess of LAX twice. I hear ya there. Before a career in flying became apparently untenable for me I was progressing in the light jet area, type rated for the Citation and was working on certification for a larger version of that series, so I’m hip on the time and hassle savings of the light-jet system. The FBOs know that catering is EVERYTHING to the clients, and by God if the ground transportation is not waiting at the door when the plane parks there will be somebody fired or a different ground service used next time. The time savings are literally several hours for the clients…each trip.
I would not worry about the pilots for JSX without some kind of evidence to the contrary. I know the extra special attention the FAA pays to who’s flying jets outside of the big airline system in the USA. They are constantly on the hunt for any sloppiness whatsoever and watch it like a hawk because they know small operators can not afford to have the kind of in-house systems the airliners have.
There is another system which also makes qualification a difficult thing to accomplish for these operators, the insurance industry. There is no law that says pilots have to undergo the kind of Inquisitions that happen at places like Flight Safety, which is always equipped with the very best sims and the most sadistic old pilots they can dig up to conduct the torture. Saw a 10,000 hour jet jock get humbled there. One and done? Nope. Every new type rating, and every couple years anyway, the insurers insist upon it.
This is IMO the primary reason the safety record for this niche is as good as it is.