Taken on its own merits, the Shuttle gives the impression of a vehicle designed to be launched repeatedly to near-Earth orbit, tended by five to seven passengers with little concern for their personal safety, and requiring extravagant care and preparation before each flight, with an almost fetishistic emphasis on reuse. Clearly this primitive space plane must have been a sacred artifact, used in religious rituals to deliver sacrifice to a sky god.

As tempting as it is to picture a blood-spattered Canadarm flinging goat carcasses into the void, we know that the Shuttle is the fruit of what was supposed to be a rational decision making process.

Still, in the beginning, the students were living in resort-style rooms and eating gourmet meals.

"Friday nights were jazz nights, and we were able to sit with the public and order filet mignon and scallops," says Ms. Tong.

A central tenet of socialism is that class conflict is the motive force of history and politics, and that nationalist-type identities are false concepts created to prevent working people from recognizing their common interests.
Fascism is precisely the opposite of this. It teaches that national/racial/ethnic conflict is the motive motive force of history, and that class conflict is a false concept created to prevent people in the same nation from recognizing their common interests. They are literally polar opposites.

Wow, I'm still here!

QFC had a sale on sockeye salmon, so sojai picked up a filet that weighed in at a little over 2 pounds. Meanwhile, I wandered over to the olive bar and picked up 4 ounces of mixed antipasto.

Review: it was tasty, and only about 30 minutes total work. While eating we sat at the table and talked about ways to fancy it up -- dinner rolls, and a salad, for instance, would not go amiss, and wouldn't be that much more work.

The text messaging application on my phone has a conversion bug in the date which makes the year display as “16” instead of “10”:

Additionally, the message I received at near-midnight on 1/1/10 in the Eastern time zone now displays as 12/31/15 in the Central time zone.

So clearly something is converting the date to a two digit year, then treating those digits as hexadecimal digits, then converting it back to decimal display at some point.  Weird bug.  I wonder if it’s Microsoft’s or HTC’s.

Engine pressure ratio (EPR) is one of the key power indicators used by pilots of jet airplanes during the takeoff cycle. It is a measure of how much thrust the engine is producing and therefore how much lift the wings will generate.  A given model of aircraft will have a range of EPR settings that are appropriate for different takeoff profiles – normal runways, short runways with low clearance at the end, and so forth.

EPR is measured by reading the pressure at just in front of the engine compressors (at the blue area of the diagram, known as PT2 in the lingo) and the pressure at the end of the exhaust channel (at the edge of the light green area, known as PT8) and taking the ratio PT8/PT2.  These measurements are taken by two small tubes that stick into the airstream. Obstructions in the tubes will give erroneous readings; in particular, if the PT2 tube at the front of the engine is blocked, it will read a lower pressure than the true value and therefore the ratio will be higher than the true EPR. This is dangerous because the correct thing for a pilot to do when EPR is higher than appropriate for a typical takeoff profile is to throttle back the engines.

Since the air at the front of the engine is coming in from the outside, it is at the ambient temperature. So the PT2 tube is susceptible to icing up and in cold, snowy weather can start to give erroneous readings. In 1982, an Air Florida flight crashed into the Potomac because the EPR gauges were iced and the pilots didn’t notice that they were underpowering the engines for takeoff. This is probably why the pilots of my flight out of Minneapolis were being paranoid about their eeper gauges.

This article by a former Air Nauru pilot tells the story of a flight out of Nauru in which both PT2 tubes were clogged, leading to a just-barely-averted disaster on takeoff. It also has an interesting discussion of the political aftermath of that flight.  Interesting reading.

1 sandwich worth of tuna salad, left over from last night’s tuna salad sandwich

1 small yellow tomato, chopped

1 small tomatillo, husked and chopped

1/4 c or less crumbled feta

2 slices Black Russian Rye, toasted and buttered, chopped into crouton-sized pieces

Put all ingredients into the tupperware you stored the tuna salad in.  Shake well to combine.  Eat with a spoon.

johncwright

arhyalon

karnythia

kate_nepveu

anarchomo

"Nunez critiques colonialist assumptions about race and class in this ambitious reworking of The Tempest, set in her native Trinidad in the early 1960s. . . . [It has] strong themes and dramatic ironies. Readers will find her love story—which has a refreshingly happy ending—very sensitively told." —Publishers Weekly
Exquisite retelling of The Tempest….Nunez’s masterful story plays out against the backdrop of Trinidadian hopes for independence, achieved the following year. Simply wonderful. —Kirkus Starred review

Remember K'taquita Jackson, the African-Klingon bookkeeper? It's pronounced "kuh-taKWAY-uh." I asked her if the last "t" in her name was a typo and she said, "no, it's silent."

Wow.

Other Guy: I'd love to know the etymology of that name!

Said Guy: No kidding. I still picture her sitting at the desk with a ridged forehead, battle armor, and nail tips/hair extensions.

OG: Man, you need to do this! Maybe I'm just overly geeky, but I could totally see it becoming the next big YouTube sensation! :D

SG: It could, except I don't know any women willing to play the part lol. I'm not creative enough these days to come up with anything beyond the concept :p

Searches related to: history of african-american names

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african american babies names	famous african american names	african american name origins	african american greek

The nature of the passage a l’acte as the false exit, as the way to avoid confronting the horror of the fantasmatic netherworld, was never so abruptly stated in a film: far from providing them with a real-life bodily satisfaction that would render superfluous all empty fantasising, the passage to the act is rather presented as a stopgap, as a desperate preventive measure aimed at keeping at bay the spectral netherworld of fantasies. It is as if her message is: let’s fuck as soon as possible in order to stifle the thriving fantasies, before they overwhelm us again. Lacan’s quip about awakening into reality as an escape from the Real encountered in the dream holds more than anywhere apropos of the sexual act itself: we do not dream about fucking when we are not able to do it – rather, we fuck in order to escape and stifle the excess of the dream that would otherwise overwhelm us.

• Spider-man and Prince Charles (the sovereign of the UK) are meeting to tighten the bonds of friendship between His Majesty and the world's superheroes. (締)
• When Spider-man stopped at an inn overnight he turned his costume over to the inn's laundry service, and was dismayed to find it had been shrunk in the wash! (縮)
• Spider-man married a monkey and sired a brood of spider-monkeys. (紳)
• Commander Data has to wear a dreadful uniform with a moldy towel hanging at his side. (怖)
• Commander Data was disconcerted to beam down to what he thought would be a pleasure planet, only to find it had been laid waste to by Romulan invaders. (慌)
• Commander Data can get no pleasure at all from butchers. First, he's a robot who has no emotions, so he can't experience pleasure. Second, he doesn't eat meat, so he has no need for butchers. (愉)
• I was followed to The Pinnacle Hotel by a demon-possessed Willie Nelson. (随)
• The maestro was so offended by Willie Nelson's singing, that he chased him from the concert hall, tails flapping behind. (追)
• Ceiling cat hates Willie Nelson, and sends back his CDs whenever he receives them as presents. (還)
• Mr T is his own right-hand man — his assistant is merely a left-hand man. (佐)
• Mr T transmits a message with rising clouds, to a nearby Native American tribe. The smoke signals spell : "I p-i-t-y y-o-u f-o-o !". (伝)
• Mr T and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince got together to form a new heavy-metal band. Instead of "Judas Priest", they will be called Buddhist Priest. (僧)

"I'm trying to savor the last days of capitalism," said Cathy Reno, 23, as she bitterly sipped a three-olive martini. [...]
"I'm hiding all my guns where Barry can't find them," added Villamor Asuncion, 26, referring to Obama's old nickname in high school. [...]
"I'm buying as many guns as possible, and I'm enjoying the last days of national security while I can." [...]

"I'm divesting all equity before the capital-gains tax goes up," said Jeff Miller, 25.

In 1930, when the great Edouard de Pomiane addressed the topic in his cookbook "French Cooking in Ten Minutes: or, Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life," one of his first instructions was to start a pot of water boiling -- "What's it for? I don't know, but it's bound to be good for something." [Source]

Once again, a Merry Christmas to anyone who wants one, and a Happy Upcoming New Year to all!

I no longer recognize marriage. It’s a new thing I’m trying.
Turns out it’s fun.
Yesterday I called a woman’s spouse her boyfriend.

She says, correcting me, “He’s my husband,”
“Oh,” I say, “I no longer recognize marriage.”

The impact is obvious. I tried it on a man who has been in a relationship for years,

“How’s your longtime companion, Jill?”
“She’s my wife!”
“Yeah, well, my beliefs don’t recognize marriage.”