Category: noted in passing

The picture of the pilot is just unreal. Like something out of a cartoon.

IT WAS like a scene out of a movie. A small cargo plane, flying over a busy highway, began losing steam and doing cartwheels in the sky over Florida.

Then it struck a warehouse, clipping its right wing, and crashed into a grassy swale on the side of the road — just metres from oncoming traffic.

I was reminded of when a Super Constellation crash-landed in a field, not far from where I lived. I should be able to map it: my guess is it would be a much worse disaster now. If memory serves, it crossed University Drive from the west and skidded across what was then an undeveloped plot of land. I can’t quite recall how far south it was but I’m thinking it was between Southgate and McNab. We drove out to see it, I think, or were perhaps passing by and pulled over to gape.

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• Web contracts can’t be changed without notice
  Is anyone else surprised the 9th Circuit is the one cited?
  (tags: law business values)

Quote of the Day:

“There once was a man named Vitter
Who vowed that he wasn’t a quitter
But with stories of women
And all of his sinnin’
He knows his career’s in the — oh, never mind,” John Kerry said, speaking at an event in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

What is it about Nantucket that inspires limericks?

After four hours at a swim meet when I had to get up every few minutes to see what events are coming up (a. you can’t hear the megaphone in a cavernous public swimming hall and b. events sometimes get condensed if there aren’t enough swimmers (what I call a SuperHeat)), it occurred to me that a POV display, like this one, might be useful. I wonder how hard it would be to make a simple input interface where you can key in event numbers and heats.

Harry:

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a fine thing that a noticeable
proportion of the whole world is going to stop what they’re doing this weekend and read a book instead.

The younger readers have been limited on these, with one on each birthday, starting at age 8. This means the Ten Year Old has read the first three, the Eight Year Old just the first. Well, with the buzz around this The Final Installment, we gave in to the badgering and let them carry on with the rest of the series with the proviso that they must stop when they get scared and no waking us up with gibbering about Dementors. So while we older readers scheme and plot to get our hands on the new one first (ha, I’ll just read it once she’s abed and snoring), they’re catching up.

Happy Potter Day to you.

a former colleague who moved into an old neighborhood of mine just let me know my old house[*] has been torn down for what I suspect is a better use of that lot but could be an ostentatious folly.

This is a description of what’s going in there: it will certainly alter the character of that street.

Still, it pains me a bit to think of that house going away after 50 years. It was a good little house (emphasis on little) at just under 1000 square feet. Hmm, I need to think about this and perhaps even grieve a little. I have seen other houses leveled and don’t find it pleasant: first time it’s happened to one I lived in.

* The map Google provides is wrong here: the point they provide is several houses away. The house directly to the right of the green pushpin is the one.