Somehow I didn't know that.

I accumulate random bits of knowledge and most of them are irrelevant. That said when I don't know something that I think I should I am surprised all over again.

Stephen Colbert was excellent last night, and it's linked from this article from The Guardian: Emotional Stephen Colbert tells of family plane tragedy after Kobe Bryant's death.

The fact that I didn't know? That helicopters don't have black boxes. I mean, it's been mentioned a few times since the Kobe Bryant crash, but never as a categorical "they don't" vs it was mentioned, but maybe some do and this one just didn't. But no:

[A friend of Colbert's] explained to Colbert that because the they don’t carry black boxes “when a helicopter goes down, we don’t know how to improve the helicopter. We don’t know how to improve the flying of the pilots so this doesn’t happen again in the future.”

This seems important. I'm kinda horrified. Especially in helicopters where there is no wiggle room. If those blades stop rotating... well, there are no wings to slow a descent.

Sikorsky?