Back in the 1990's when I was flying around the world a lot - three weeks out of four, typically - bringing the Internet to Africa, Asia, Eastern Russia (Siberia) and other far-flung places, the Douglas DC-10 was the business traveller's least favorite ride, for a lot of reasons. mostly, they were rattletraps with poor ventilation, and there was always a horrible vibration on takeoff due to what pilots told me was, "an 'acceptable' amount of unbalance in the engines." This was further explained as something "caused by parts of the compressor fan blades breaking off over time, a known issue."
Today, this from the FAA, 15 years later:
Washington (CNN) -- The failure of General Electric engines on four jet aircraft overseas during the past two years has prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to issue an "urgent" recommendation to increase inspections of the engines on U.S. aircraft.
None of the incidents resulted in crashes, injuries or fatalities. But in all four cases, engine parts penetrated the engine housing.
Such "uncontained engine failures" are particularly dangerous because flying engine parts could puncture fuel or hydraulic lines, damage flight surfaces or even penetrate the fuselage and injure passengers.
At issue are General Electric CF6-45/50 series jet engines, older engines found on a small number of jets.
FAA officials said 373 of the engines are in service in the United States, on a fewer, but unknown, number of planes. The engines are used on some Airbus A300s, Boeing 747s, DC-10s, MD-10s and U.S. Air Force KC-10s.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Hologram
Via: Joe Bageant:
Ahhhh … Safely in the American national illusion, where all the world’s a shopping expedition. Or a terrorist threat. No matter, as long as it is colorful and wiggles on the theater state’s 400 million screens. Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram.
This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a Möbius loop from which there is no logical escape. Logic has zilch to do with what is going on. The smallest part holographically recapitulates the whole, and vice versa. No thinking required, we just cycle and recycle through an aural dimension. Not all that bad, I guess, if it were not generated by forces out to fuck every last pair of eyeballs and mind plugged into it.
The investing class has put thousands of billions into movies, TV and other media to keep the hologram lit up over the past six decades. Which is to say, keep the public in an entertained stupor, awed, mislead, and most importantly, distracted. But the payoff probably runs in the trillions.
For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.
However, for the unquestioning rest, the hologram, taken in its entirety, constitutes the American collective consciousness. Awareness. It enshrouds every citizen, defining through its permeation the daily world in which we all operate. Whether we love or hate it, there is no escape.
Ahhhh … Safely in the American national illusion, where all the world’s a shopping expedition. Or a terrorist threat. No matter, as long as it is colorful and wiggles on the theater state’s 400 million screens. Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram.
This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a Möbius loop from which there is no logical escape. Logic has zilch to do with what is going on. The smallest part holographically recapitulates the whole, and vice versa. No thinking required, we just cycle and recycle through an aural dimension. Not all that bad, I guess, if it were not generated by forces out to fuck every last pair of eyeballs and mind plugged into it.
The investing class has put thousands of billions into movies, TV and other media to keep the hologram lit up over the past six decades. Which is to say, keep the public in an entertained stupor, awed, mislead, and most importantly, distracted. But the payoff probably runs in the trillions.
For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.
However, for the unquestioning rest, the hologram, taken in its entirety, constitutes the American collective consciousness. Awareness. It enshrouds every citizen, defining through its permeation the daily world in which we all operate. Whether we love or hate it, there is no escape.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Cell Phones Don't Cause Brain Cancer Unless They Do
The largest study to date of the safety of mobile phones has found no clear link to brain cancer, although it said further study is merited given their increasingly intensive use.
"The study doesn't reveal an increased risk, but we can't conclude that there is no risk because there are enough findings that suggest a possible risk," the study's chief author, Elisabeth Cardis, told AFP.
Huh?
"The study doesn't reveal an increased risk, but we can't conclude that there is no risk because there are enough findings that suggest a possible risk," the study's chief author, Elisabeth Cardis, told AFP.
Huh?
