Visualized: Airliners In the Sky
An oldie but a goodie. It's just simply amazing that I make up a few of those lines every now and then and coming soon, I'll be JFK to SAN too! Can't hardly wait!
Tesla's P85D Insane Mode Launch Reactions!
This is just insanely ridiculous. People saying that they miss the sound of an engine roar... I don't think so. I've embedded the SFW version below (clean) but you can easily click on the more colorful one too. Check out 2:46 for my favorite reaction.
Are you getting an Apple Watch?
After Apple's ridiculous earnings call today, ahem $74.6 billion, Tim Cook released a small tidbit about their latest project: Apple Watch. He advised that it's on time for an April debut so get your wallets ready.
[Tim] Cook, however, did make it clear that he loves the thing. “I can’t live without it,” he said. via Yahoo
I don't know why that gets me excited but it does! Are you going to get one? And if you cared to know, I'm really drawn to the Milanese Loop. It's just so freaking beautiful! (that's the 3rd one pictured below)
The "Without" [You] App
Being without my family or my wife stinks. Plain and simple. I love the job, but it's really bad when you have a crew of slam clickers (those who go to the hotel and don't do dinner or sightsee) and you find yourself at the hotel playing Clash of Clans for hours.
Here comes a beautiful app appropriately named "Without" by Mr. Jeremy that brought the amount of buttons pushed from 17 down to two! Awesome idea, amazing app. Check it out and share it with your loved one.
Mint Yourself and Lay Flat!
I can't wait to welcome you aboard!
Flying Mint felt like being courted. Virgin’s Main Cabin Select felt like a waning long-term relationship — the attendants on my flight (as we know it’s luck of the draw) didn’t try as hard. That said, Mint is a newer contender. Let’s hope the romance lasts.
via NYTimes or for more info, head directly to JetBlue's Mint Page!
My Life at Work... in HD
The way it works here in the US is that rules disallow crewmembers from using an electronic device that is non-essential for duty while on the flight deck. Good thing another guy filmed it for me at his seat on his plane or his airline or made a compilation (read: it's not me) but a job has to be cool enough in order to be away from family right?
This is my life. (the music helps a lot too)
I still miss my family everyday I'm gone.
2014's Best and Worst Airlines
The Wall Street Journal released their metric of airline rankings that compares the major US carriers in categories such as "On-Time Performance", "Cancellations", "Complaints", "Involuntary Bumping", etc.
It's great to be part of the #4 airline and I'm hoping that while I'm here, I can help bump that up even more! Here's the 2015 and keeping the Blue side up!
On the other side of things, it's not really surprising to see United consistently near the bottom and never getting past #7 in any of the metrics used. It should also note that Major carriers don't necessarily include the performance of their regional partners into their own.
State of Ramen
The state of ramen by Momofuku’s David Chang.
When we first opened Momofuku, I feel like our ramen made sense at the time; we were figuring out what it was like to make ramen in America. But now ramen is everywhere, and a lot of it is the same. I don’t want to go to every city and taste the same fucking thing. Everyone’s serving tonkotsu ramen, everyone’s serving pork. You could do a blind taste test and not have any idea where the fuck you’re eating. Everyone is sharing the same experiences, but ramen is not supposed to be about that; it’s food for people that don’t want the same experience, that don’t want to be part of the mainstream. Even in Japan, cooks are returning to pure, clean, simple chicken ramen, because everything else has been done. That’s it—you’ve taken noodle soup as far as you can fucking go, and now it’s gotta go back to the beginning.
Mayweather's True Character Revealed
Says a lot about Mayweather's true character and unending excuse to fight Manny Pacquiao.
We want to deal with serious individuals, individuals who have the ability to make a decision. Regrettably, that is not the case with Mr. Mayweather," Muhammad said, as quoted by Boxing Scene.
"The Abu Dhabi group is serious, and I will not allow them to dangle an inordinate amount of time. Now that time has come, and the offer is gone," he added.
Muhammad also said Mayweather and "The Money Team" should "consider re-thinking its nickname" if the American superstar would rather fight for what he said was "hot dog money" instead of a $120-million purse.
via ABS-CBN News
SNL Does Serial Right!
It's been a while since I've actually laughed at an SNL skit but I think that they did a wonderful Christmas spoof off of NPR's latest and greatest Serial Podcast.
I just finished the podcast yesterday and will post my thoughts on another day. Did I enjoy it, yes. I also loved listening to it using Overcast.
Lowering Your Expectation of the Cuban Cigar
With the potential influx of Cuban Cigars, maybe they aren't that great anyways.
In the view of some experts, the appeal of Cuban cigar tobacco has been overtaken in recent years by stogies from Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican Republic and Honduras, many made by Cuban exiles.
In fact, the best cigar of 2014, revealed on Thursday by Cigar Aficionado magazine, is Nicaraguan, the Oliva Serie V Melanio Figurado.
via NYTimes
On top of that, this month's Cigar Aficionado is loaded with some great articles. Check it out!
Apples A8X Revealed
Since publishing our initial iPad Air 2 review last week, a few new pieces of information have come in that have changed our perspective on Apple’s latest SoC. As it turns out I was wrong. Powered by what we’re going to call the GXA6850, the A8X’s GPU is even better than I thought.
To get right down to business then, the die shot confirms what we had begun suspecting: that A8X has an 8 cluster Series6XT configuration. All 8 GPU clusters are clearly visible, and perhaps unsurprisingly it looks a lot like the GPU layout of the GX6450. To put it in words, imagine A8’s GX6450 with another GX6450 placed right above it, and that would be the A8X’s 8 cluster GPU.
Wow! This is the tablet to beat and Apple, by designing their own SoCs, is far ahead in this race. In other words, there's nothing in the competition's timelime that will out gun or out maneuver the A8X.
via Anandtech
Paternity Leave: Max it out!
A recent article that I've highlighted below, from the NYTimes: Upshot, covers the topic of paternity leave. Being an airline pilot, the only stigma that comes from taking extended leave is the reduction in flying hours (experience) and the potential of losing currency which would require a simple proficiency check.1 I decided early on that my family comes first and with that, those two side effects didn't worry me. Hence, I took the full 90 days of Family Leave when our daughter was born and it was the best time of my life2; getting to learn how to care for a newborn, new mother and bond together as a new family. I loved every moment of it and would never trade it for anything.
Five months after Todd Bedrick’s daughter was born, he took some time off from his job as an accountant. The company he works for, Ernst & Young, offered paid paternity leave, and he decided to take six weeks — the maximum amount — when his wife, Sarah, went back to teaching. He learned how to lull the fitful baby to sleep on his chest and then to sit very still for an hour to avoid waking her. He developed an elaborate system for freezing and thawing his wife’s pumped breast milk. And each day at lunchtime, he drove his daughter to the elementary school where Sarah teaches so she could nurse. When she came home at the end of the day, he handed over the baby and collapsed on the couch.
“The best part was just forming the bond with her,” said Mr. Bedrick, who lives in Portland, Ore., and went back to work in June. “Had I not had that time with her, I don’t think I’d feel as close to her as I do today.”
And of course, this comes without surprise. My daughter and I are tight and I love that I can read her and “feel” her emotions. I love her and my wife so much!
Social scientists who study families and work say that men like Mr. Bedrick, who take an early hands-on role in their children’s lives, are likely to be more involved for years to come and that their children will be healthier. Even their wives could benefit, as women whose husbands take paternity leave have increased career earnings and have a decreased chance of depression in the nine months after childbirth. But researchers also have a more ominous message. Taking time off for family obligations, including paternity leave, could have long-term negative effects on a man’s career — like lower pay or being passed over for promotions.
“Part of the rationale for paternity leave is if men are able to be very involved early on in the care of their children, they’re going to be more involved ever after, and it will translate to more equal sharing and equal roles,” said Ms. Waldfogel, the professor of social work. Though men who want to be more involved fathers are probably more likely to take leave in the first place, she found that even after controlling for fathers’ commitment levels, those who took significant leaves were more likely to do hands-on child care later.
Mr. Bedrick added, “I definitely would not have done anything differently.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
Cultural messages tend to reinforce the stigma. Last spring, Daniel Murphy, a second baseman for the New York Mets, was criticized when he took the three days of paternity leave allowed by Major League Baseball. “I would have said: ‘C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day,’ ” Boomer Esiason, a radio talk show host and former professional football player, said on his program. (He would later apologize for the remarks.) Mike Francesa, another radio talk show host, added: “You’re a Major League Baseball player; you can hire a nurse.” Men often receive subtle or not-so-subtle messages that leave is unacceptable, even if it’s in the employee handbook.
If you remember a few months ago in April, the sports media went a little crazy about criticizing Daniel Murphy and I too was enraged. It’s all about spending as much time as you can, no matter how rich or who you are, with your new family. Period. There is no higher calling. Baseball??? Dumb that in our society, we'd put these material things above that.
There’s also quite a few articles that have touched upon this highly important topic in the last year. One of my favorites was published a few months ago in The Atlantic and there’s also the 5 Reasons Dads Should Take Paternity Leave. Read them both and if you can afford it, max out your paternity leave!
note: with my daughter in school, and with a new one on the way, finances are stretching and unfortunately, I will NOT be able to take the full time off unpaid when my son arrives around Christmas time. However, if it was a paid leave, I would be all for it.
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