Science Of Gaydar

Today on the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert interviewed David France on his recent article attempting to bring to light that homosexuality is a genetic trait, and not acquired through nurture. An interesting comparison came up during the show which had me and my roommate pausing the DVR to determine whether we are "genetically" gay.

Please direct your attention below:

EXAMPLE C: Digit Proportions (Female)
The index fingers of most straight men are shorter than their ring fingers, and for most women they are the same length or longer. Gay men and lesbians tend to have reversed ratios. (Image and caption taken from NYMag)

Kelley's hand conforms to the heterosexual female model, so she is very happy that the test proved true for her. As for me, well, apparently I'm most likely genetically gay.

*sigh*

Well, I guess it is not too far from the truth. I've always said that I'm a gay boy trapped in a female body.

What the hell does it mean to be feminine and masculine anyway? Aren't both standards made on a per society basis?

Full article can be found here.

Jetty Park: Atlantis

Taken 8 June 2007

Aftermath

Landing...without landing gears

A friend of mine sent me this clip, and it is absolutely amazing: You'll want this pilot on your next flight!

Skywest 5741, hold...Hold, HOLD!!!

Diagram that shows where the two airplanes ALMOST collided.
(taken from FlightGlobal.com)

More and more people fly as time goes on. My friend May who lives in Sanford, can coordinate a trip to fly to Taiwan to meet her other friends from different countries flying to the same destination. In the past, traveling from one U.S. city to another meant spending weeks on the road. Now, I can fly to New York City from Orlando for one weekend to attend my mother's graduation.

So it is no surprise that runway incursions are on the rise. FAA reported 330 incidents in 2006. People have been screaming bloody murder for an ATC reform for a very long time, and though there is a plan, implementation phase is slow in coming.

Skywest narrowly missed a collision with Republic Airlines Embraer 170 because the pilot from Republic Airlines rotated (pulled up) earlier than usual when he saw the Skywest on the adjacent runway. Embraer makes light jets, therefore such a maneuver was possible. Imaging if it was a Boeing 747 adjacent to Skywest, it would have been Tenerife Part Deux. An article on this matter can be found here.

Bear in mind that this type of incursion usually happens on airports with runways that criss-cross each other. Tampa International (TPA) and Orlando International (MCO), for example, have parallel runways only, so the chance of such an incident happening on both airports are rather slim.

FlightGlobal also posted an audio stream link to the actual ATC transmission during the incursion. Link can be found here. You can tell, after the incident, that the voice from the Skywest pilot is audibly shaken.

No photos for a little while

No, it is not because I haven't been taking them. On the contrary, I have some shots from the Atlantis space shuttle launch just two days ago taken about 8 miles from the launch pad. I can't show them to you, because I can't get them off the D80.

The D80 and Navi (my Apple Powerbook G4) do not seem to get along. Recently, Navi decided to just ignore the D80 altogether and refuses to recognize the camera. Period.

I knew there would be problem when I got a female camera. It is universally known that not only are women fussier and high maintenance compare to men, but women generally do not get along with other women. Navi, being the female laptop, got along fine with the Lumix because Mito is a male camera. With the D80, sometimes they talk, sometimes they don't. Now Navi is giving the D80 the silent treatment and I am bereft of my photos. The D80 and Navi refuse to comment on the situation.

Interestingly enough, an older Powerbook that I recently bought from Zack is a male, by the name of Legolas (don't make fun of me, Zack named the computer). Legolas has no problem talking to the D80. But all of my photo editing software is on Navi, so it is a bit painful to transfer files to Legolas (with only USB 1.1 transfer rate) and then mount Legolas as an external drive on Navi, and then transfer from Legolas to Navi.

The cause of this excommunication is under investigation.

Yes, you can say I am insane. But I am sticking to my theory.

Airbus Jacket

*UPDATE 5 June 2007*
We have three people interested in the jacket!!! So I will get it as soon as the auction ends. There will be two more leftover, so if you're still interested, go ahead and do a Buy-It-Now by 8 June 2007. I will order the jackets as soon as I get everyone's sizes. Click here for the auction.

Thank you so much!

So...in honor of the first A380 delivery to Singapore Airlines this year, I've decided that it might be cool to have an Airbus jacket. I went to CustomInk.com and designed what I think matches closest to the uniforms that the assemblers wear in the factory (please see photos).


I've posted an eBay entry here. I am looking for at least three people interested in buying the jacket (because I can only purchase in bulks of six or more). The jacket itself is 46.56 USD (as quoted on the CustomInk website), but it gets cheaper when purchasing more than six jackets. The winner will tell me the size they want, and you can get the sizing guidelines here. Also I ship internationally, so let me know which country and I will give you a quote.

I'm not making a profit from this-in fact I'll lose a bit more money after auction fees and PayPal fees. I just think it'll be neat to have an Airbus jacket, but I just want one of them! ^_^!

If this turns out to be successful I might do one for Boeing next year when they deliver their first 787. ;)

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

AVweb published a link to a spotter's video capturing a Boeing 757 Thompson in a moment of birdstrike upon take off. Though birdstrikes are unfortunately somewhat common, capturing the actual instance on video is very rare. Several things are interesting with this scenario:

1.) As soon as distress signal was confirmed, the whole communication became quiet except the emergency aircraft and ATC.
2.) ATC cleared the 757 to land on any runway as the pilots see fit.
3.) All other planes were on hold during the emergency.

Watch the video to the very end...it is very short.