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Businesses

Submission + - Michael Dell Is Buying A Boeing Dreamliner (nycaviation.com)

Submitted by longacre
longacre writes: Dell Computer scion Michael Dell is reportedly buying a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is not yet clear if Dell plans to use the state-of-the-art, 250-passenger jet for personal travel or as an investment. Ironically, it wasn't that long ago that one of Dell's products had a similar problem to that which caused the FAA to ground the 787: Exploding lithium ion batteries.

Submission + - "Miracle On The Hudson" Was Just Two Pilots Doing A Good Job (nycaviation.com)

Submitted by longacre
longacre writes: It was 4 years ago today that US Airways Flight 1549 glided to a safe landing on the Hudson River after losing both of its engines. Were Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger (and his frequently forgotten first officer Jeff Skiles) heroes or were they just doing their job? From the article, "There’s little harm in celebrating the unlikely survival of 155 people, but terms like “hero” and “miracle” shouldn’t be thrown around lightly. A miracle describes an outcome that cannot be rationally explained. Everything that happened on the river that day can be rationally explained. And a hero, to me, describes a person who accepts a great personal sacrifice, up to and including injury or death, for the benefit of somebody else. I didn’t see heroics; I saw professional execution in the throes of an emergency."

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 170

by longacre (#41516329) Attached to: New York Plans World's Largest Ferris Wheel
Nope, you're right. In addition to the construction costs, the security cost will be massive and ongoing forever, and I don't buy the idea that tourists want to take a 30 minute ferry ride to ride a ferris wheel with okay views of the harbor and skyline.

Comment So what? (Score 2) 56

by longacre (#39997563) Attached to: Kickstarter Leaves Project Ideas Exposed
This is obviously a bug, but if anyone is actually hurt by this, they shouldn't have been posting their idea to Kickstarter in the first place. Markets will not be affected by a pre-production, pre-funding idea becoming public knowledge earlier than it should have: Anyone who could act on such info would have done so when it became live, anyway.

Comment Re:A triumph! (Score 1) 339

by longacre (#39955309) Attached to: Russian Superjet 100 Crashes During Demo Flight, Killing All Aboard
Boeing is doing the same thing with their 787 Dream Tour: They outfitted a test aircraft with a semi-realistic interior to fly around customers, suppliers and media. It is not a full production model...the plane still wears "Experimental" badges warning that it does not meet federal safety regulations and many of the seats are not usable as they are not certified for whatever reason. That said, when I flew it, I was completely confident that Boeing wouldn't do any hot dogging to impress us, and they didn't. It wasn't a sightseeing trip, they let the passengers concentrate on the plane.
Education

Submission + - High School Principal Forced to Quit After Posing as Student on Facebook (stltoday.com)

Submitted by
longacre
longacre writes: ""Suzy Harriston wanted to be friends on Facebook. The profile said she was from Clayton [Missouri] and had more than 300 friends, many of them from Clayton High School. No one seemed to question who Harriston was. That is, until the night of April 5, when a 2011 grad and former Clayton quarterback posted a public accusation. "Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them. It is the Clayton Principal," wrote Chase Haslett." Suzy Harriston quickly disappeared from Facebook, and Louise Losos, the principal, subsequently took a leave of absence, and then resigned."
NASA

Submission + - Inside the Mummification of Space Shuttle Discovery (nycaviation.com)

Submitted by
longacre
longacre writes: "When Space Shuttle Discovery goes on display at the Smithsonian next month, it will be a shell of its former self, with most of its critical systems removed. Here's a behind the scenes look at the removal of the engines and their replica replacements, as well as photos of the orbiter in various states of deconstruction."
NASA

Submission + - Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis Meet One Last Time (nycaviation.com)

Submitted by
longacre
longacre writes: "One dull morning last week, two teams of NASA technicians simultaneously gathered at two iconic buildings—the 525-foot Vehicle Assembly Building and the shorter, but equally important, Orbital Processing Facility 1 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, tasked with moving a space shuttle orbiter from one building to the other thus effectively swapping their positions. The “shuttle shuffle” would have Space Shuttle Discovery (the oldest and most flown orbiter surviving in the three-ship fleet) in OPF-1 swapping places with her sister ship, Atlantis, the second oldest and second most flown orbiter. Fleet leader Discovery would emerge from OPF-1 as a preserved spacecraft, gutted and mummified for museum display."

Comment Re:How is this news? (Score 1) 355

by longacre (#39175137) Attached to: Vatican Attack Provides Insight Into Anonymous
The article seems to give all the credit to this Imperva company, who sounds like maybe the source for most of the story. This could mean they convinced a NY Times reporter to write an unverifiable story to boost they're street cred, or maybe they're actually better at defending websites than the Feds.

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