This is fun if you like watching really big airplanes doing weird stuff:
Video: Extreme Flying, 747-8 Style
Boeing, eager to shine some positive light on one of its test programs, released a video highlighting some of the 747-8’s more interesting flights. For anyone who enjoys watching something more than the usual straight and level flying, it’s a great video that includes stall testing (which in a 747 equals a lot of nose drop), flutter testing with some dramatic wing flex and the always-interesting VMU testing where the pilots drag the tail along the runway.
Jesse, did you get the baby elephant link I sent to the Tumblr?
Recently? I did not! I would like that, though.
I have to do my self evaluation. Bleh. On the plus side, we had to do job descriptions this year and I can cut and paste a lot from that. But am too lazy! (Am not putting that in my self eval)
I can't get to tumblr from work, but this is it: [link]
Ha! Thanks.
You know who's a good time? Mimi Smartypants:
Have you heard of this “alignment” schema? Chaotic good, neutral evil, etc? I hear this referenced sometimes, most recently in this great graphic about The Wire. (Oh! Just looking at that makes me so nostalgic for the show. I know I can watch it again but nothing will compare to the first time.)
Anyway, every time this formula comes up I idly wonder about its origins, but I never remember to Google it or anything. In the back of my head I had assumed it was invented by some philosopher, and my brain usually went to either Nietzsche or Spinoza because (a) it made a certain amount of intellectual sense, and (b) I have not studied or read either of those guys in depth.
You know where this is going, of course, but you cannot imagine my outrage when I finally get around to Wikipedia and find out that it comes from GODDAMN DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, and I cannot believe I devoted brainpower to feeling inferior about not being aware of a philosophical algorithm that seemed so widespread. If I had been thinking clearly, the very fact of its being widespread and pop-culture-applicable might have tipped me off that maybe the source text was not SPINOZA, for crying out loud. Maybe I really am as dumb as I look.
Oh, Jess, this is so random, but are you related to Amy [your old last name] of Powhatan, VA?
I'd have to ask my Dad or grandmother to be sure, but I don't think so - I've never heard of a Virginia branch of that side of the family.
If you google the name, and go to Jesse's employer's website, you can see a picture of her -- there is a strong resemblance.
