Oh, there is also a second factor — not merely the risk of damaging the aircraft or the pilot, but also the risk of causing the aircraft to *stop flying*. This is more a problem of getting into a low-gee situation, since lift requires both air moving over the wings and the downward force of gravity. If you read the…

Oh, absolutely. Neither aircraft nor pilots come with a single, solitary “this is my G-load limit” sticker. The direction is very important; Give Me Tacos, or Give Me Death gave a great explanation of how that works with pilots, where people can handle it differently in different directions, but it’s also true with…

It wasn’t quite *that* bad, but if there was the teensiest bit of precipitation, they were out salting liberally.  Like, the parking lot was crunchy. It was ridiculous. They’d sold it as “other contractors charge you a flat rate and you get soaked if it doesn’t snow; we only bill you if we actually have to come out”.

My church made the mistake of hiring a cheaper plowing service one year. The contract stipulated they’d be paid for how much salt they applied.

I’ll stick with my snowblower. It’s self-propelled, and easier to get out of the garage when everthing’s nasty than my car is. :-)

In Minnesota, freeways are plowed by MnDOT. Other highways it depends. State and federal highways are plowed by MnDOT. CSAHs (County State Aid Highways) may be plowed by MnDOT or the counties. County highways and roads are generally plowed by counties, which includes most of the section roads. City roads are plowed by…

You are correct in every way that matters. These were not supersonic flights. They exceeded the speed of sound in still, dry air at standard temperature and pressure, but they were not traveling through still, dry air at standard temperature and pressure. There’s a reason why flights from New York to London are…

They seem to care enough to pretend he was just being awkward. Which means at least they’re self-aware enough to know it’s wrong.

Yeah, that’s a good point.  DC has the peculiar distinction in that its plates instantly say “I am from a city”.  Any other plate, you can’t tell if a person is city or rural, but DC is just a city.

“A long way from DC”? Good grief. Mind you, I’m from the Plains. It’s not unusual to see a Wisconsin plate in South Dakota, and vice versa.

We could have a promise of giving everyone in the country all that, plus $50,000, a lifetime supply of ice cream, and lifetime subscriptions to all the streaming services, and they would still refuse it if it meant giving up their guns.

Don’t worry, I think you pretty much nailed it. :-/

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress

As the mother of two autistic daughters, I find that defense deeply offensive.

The really sad and tragic thing is that I firmly thinK SpaceX could be doing a whole lot more. The more I hear about their work environment, the more I think Musk is actually holding them back with his craziness. He’s actively preventing the company from building up institutional knowledge, which is very dangerous. He…

Yeah, as I overheard someone at lunch pointing out, once is an awkward coincidence.  Over and over again is not.

It’s not entirely untrue. Way more migrants are definitely coming from the southern border, but there are also migrants coming from the north. The thing to remember is that not all immigrants into the US are Mexicans, and some folks have realized that the northern border is far less closely watched.

His desired Secretary of Health and Human Services would like the accompanying fries to be cooked in lard, which might help.

Oh come now. They’re not alldoing it to save their asses. Some of them are doing it straight up for profit by way of graft, and didn’t even wait to see if their asses were actually in any serious danger.

My boss calls his garage the “macro fridge”.