I reached an agreement today to buy a motorcycle. Its current owner bought it last year for $11k, but just got a bonus and wants to upgrade to a $20k sport bike. He’s paying off the remainder of the $8k he currently owes this week, and next week will sell it to me for $4k.
It [...]
7e11 dollars. When the most convenient notation for a figure is the scientific, you’re talking about either a whole lot or a tiny amount. The exponent here is positive, so we know that it’s a ton, but trying to imagine that sum in terms of money just boggles the mind. It is too much money [...]
Some of you may recall the Writers’ Strike of last winter. Finally, some good has come of it: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It is a short film in three parts, free (until tomorrow midnight) to watch. It is very amusing.
Can even Joss Whedon tell a grand story in half an hour? No, but luckily, he [...]
Today in the academics portion of training we were learning about close air support systems. In passing, the Lt. Col. teaching us mentioned this nugget: “The Army spent a few million dollars for a custom computerized battlefield orders management system. It can handle hundreds of detailed orders per day, and coordinate them with the rest [...]
A friend of mine is an avid poker player. That would be an entirely unexceptional hobby, except he makes money at it. He studies the game almost as intensively as he studies for flight school, always reading one book or another about its theory and practice. I was skeptical of his claims that he’s made [...]
This morning at 0455 I was on a bus to the flight line. After some briefings, at 0800 I sat down in a helicopter–the first time I’ve done so in my life. Less than half an hour later, I was flying it without assistance from the instructor.
Actually, flying at cruise speed and altitude is significantly [...]
My contract in Japan specified that I would stay one year at that company, and that nine months into the process both the head office and I would determine whether the contract was worth renewal. If we both decided that I should stay, I would get a raise of about $1000 annually and an automatic [...]
One of the more common reactions I get from people newly learning that I’ve lived in Japan is “I wish I could do something like that.” It’s actually not all that hard; all you need is a bachelor’s degree, some patience during the application process, a few thousand dollars to get you over there and [...]
Japan has been crowded for as long as anyone can remember. Even in prehistoric times, when the very first boatload of proto-japanese people landed and set up a settlement, they built their town in an area the size of a basketball court and reserved the rest of the land for a mixture of golf courses [...]
Flight training proper, in which they teach us the theory and practice of keeping a helicopter in the air and the proper procedures for causing it to interact with the ground both with and without violence, has not yet started. However, we do occasionally get bits of training now; those parts tend to be awesome. [...]