Disaster Area

And That's Why We Need Jumbo Jets...

The Telegraph was the first major news outlet to break this story apparently. An "aviation blog" published a picture allegedly taken by an American Airlines flight attendant to highlight the difficulty of dealing with obese passengers. It's a growing problem, no doubt, and getting larger every day.

Now, either this photo is photoshopped (if so it's a very good one), or it was taken while this guy was out of his own seats (notice the two empty ones behind the row he's in) and talking to his buddy in the middle seat in mid-flight. He isn't sitting in the seat, he's sitting on the armrest (and very uncomfortably I can add - it's a good thing he carries his own padding with him.)

There is simply no way the airplane took off with him sitting like that - there's no way he can be strapped to anything like that, and blocking the aisle that badly would simply never be allowed to happen.

The Myers-Guinness Instrument...

It's typecasting, I tell you...

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

What's Your Beer Personality?

Question #3 Given unlimited funds, how would you celebrate your next birthday

Given that my next birthday will be my (gasp!) 50th, this is very timely.

If I had not only unlimited finds but also a magic wand, and given that my birthday falls right at the end of the baseball playoffs, I would celebrate it by getting as many of my friends and relatives together her in Seattle as humanly possible, and we'd all go to the baseball game where the Mariners win the World Series. That would be followed by a cruise around Puget Sound with lots of fireworks (some fired from the Space Needle, right) and a giant party at Salty's on Alki (that's pronounced Al-kye, not Al-kee, btw).

The next day we'd have a thanksgiving service for the Mariners World Series win, followed by Sue and I renewing our marriage vows and rededicating ourselves to each other for our second half-century (she turns 50 four months before I do and it will come right after our 28th anniversary).

Jewelry may be required...

Next!

Creativity

Creativity

Can't live with it, can't live without it. Pretty interesting guidelines, but it's funny how creative people have to tell you how creative they are all the time. Even have to have it in their job title - "Creative Director". Interestingly enough, how do you really "direct" creativity?

"Hey you!, be creative now!"

Of course only the advertising world calls themselves "creative". In the art world it's "artist" please. However, over in the engineering world we're just "product development". That's partly because in the adverising world it just takes some half-assed idea to sell pantyhose or tampons or bath soap. If it doesn't work, then no harm done, move along, nothing to see here, let's just try the next half-assed idea.

In the engineering world if we field a half-assed idea people die.

Bad airplane design? Oops, sorry, was that a relative of yours?

So we don't do that. We're not only pretty damn creative, we also have to think about what happens if ten different things go wrong simultaneously. And given the vagaries of human behavior that's a creative exercise in and of itself.

In fact, it may be the height of creativity to come up with the stupidest possible things people can do with your product. In many ways it's a sort of "stupid human tricks" guessing game.

So the next time you're relying on some critical piece of equipment, whether it be your car (or indeed the cars around you on the freeway), the toaster or the weedwhacker, remember the creativity of the engineers that went into the design and production of that item, and don't get too creative in using it (and no, that lighted mirror on the flip down shade is NOT for shaving with at 55 mph.)