If only stupid were more painful

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BAD_DOG_DRIVER

Woman Crashes When Teaching Dog to Drive

BEIJING (AP) -- A woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia region, crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

No injuries were reported although both vehicles were slightly damaged, it said.

The woman, identified only be her surname, Li, said her dog "was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive," according to Xinhua.

"She thought she would let the dog 'have a try' while she operated the accelerator and brake," the report said. "They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car."

Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved but Li paid for repairs.

Mach 1.8 with 1/100th the sonic boom of the Concord?!

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71665-0.html

New York to L.A. in Two Hours

By Robert Andrews| Also by this reporte
02:00 AM Aug, 28, 2006

A new generation of supersonic private jets could trigger a boom in luxury high-speed flight -- without the sonic boom normally associated with breaking the sound barrier.

Lockheed Martin's advanced Skunk Works unit is designing a small, 12-seat passenger jet that would travel at 1,200 mph (Mach 1.8) but which would produce only a whisper of the annoying crack once emitted by the retired Concorde.

The sleek, 130-foot-long QSST (for "quiet supersonic travel") aircraft is being designed for a Nevada consortium called Supersonic Aerospace International, or SAI, at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion.

Aimed at business executives and diplomats, the QSST will fly at nearly twice the speed of conventional business jets and have a range of 4,600 miles nonstop -- Los Angeles to New York in just over two hours.

It could be ready for boarding by 2013, according to the company.

"Our design uses innovative aerodynamic shaping and employs a patented inverted V-tail that is instrumental to the radical reduction in sonic boom," said Frank Cappuccio, Skunk Works' executive vice president.

Designers expect the QSST to make a sonic boom less than a hundredth that of the Concorde's aural impact. Concorde was barred from flying at supersonic speeds over the United States when it debuted in the 1970s because excessive noise was produced by pressure waves colliding in the plane's wake.

Now, using modern computer-aided design software to model quieter "boom reshaping" techniques pioneered by military test fighters, SAI hopes to use a smaller craft to fill a gap left by the collapse of the Concorde's service following a fatal 2003 crash in Paris.

SAI revealed new details to aerospace analysts at the Farnborough International Airshow in England last month, claiming to have received interest in creating a scheduled supersonic service linking the world's financial centers.

But QSST is not the only group scrambling to create a superfast executive commuter network.

Rival Aerion, also of Nevada, is designing a slower 12-seat supersonic business jet, or SSBJ, that would reduce aerodynamic drag using straight, natural laminar flow wings. The SSBJ would produce a quieter, Mach-1.6 boom over water and fly at near-supersonic speeds over land. The wings will be tested at Albuquerque, New Mexico, this month.

Both companies have identified a market for up to 300 jets in little over a decade, each craft costing around $80 million, and are looking for investors and development consortia.

But engineers will have to carefully navigate laws restricting overland supersonic flight if they're ever to take off, said Bill Dane, senior aviation analyst with aerospace research firm Forecast International.

"The two major obstacles are available engines and the need to significantly reduce or to outright eliminate the sonic boom phenomena," he told Wired News. "If such an aircraft is to be a commercial success, it will have to fly over land and not just oceans."

Dane said there also needs to be an international set of rules regarding the noise issue.

"Several company spokespersons have said flat out that they do not want to invest millions or more in SSBJ research only to find that the aircraft cannot be operated in some regions or countries," he said.

Dane added that teams in France, Italy and Russia are also pursuing supersonic passenger jet designs. Delaying half the sonic waves so they do not reach the ground at the same time and create the unwelcome boom is one concept being explored, he said.

Some of the designs look into a crystal ball and assume the laws prohibiting sonic booms from civilian aircraft, first introduced in 1968, will be redrafted to take account of newer, quieter technologies.

"Over the next several years, regulations for low sonic boom will be developed and low-boom technology will be improved," says Aerion's promotional material. "Aerion will then develop low-boom aircraft to operate under the new regulations."

Least Competent Cops & Bail Bondsmen

From News of the Weird, naturally:

Least Competent Cops: Four New York City police were called to an apartment house in July in the Bronx concerning a landlord-tenant dispute, but were distracted by a teenager in the hallway smoking marijuana and started to chase him, when a pit bull attacked the officers. The toll, 26 bullets later: one dead dog, one bitten officer, three other officers wounded by each other's gunshots. [New York Post, 7-24-06]

Least Competent Bail Bondsman: That would be the unidentified bondsman who bailed out identity-thief suspect Thomas Samuel in Santa Cruz, Calif., last year on Samuel's bogus check for $9,800 (after rejecting as bogus an earlier Samuel check for $3,200). Least Competent Lawyer: Ms. Knovack Jones pleaded guilty in Miami in July to ripping off a client for $300,000, though admitting that she lost most of that money in a Nigerian e-mail scam. (Said Jones, "He had a contract with the government (for) $38.6 million, and he needed my (help).") [KSBW-TV (Salinas, Calif.)-AP, 6-6-06] [WTVJ-TV (Miami), 7-17-06]

Not that I had much doubt

Your Kissing Technique Is: Perfect

Your kissing technique is amazing - and you know it. You have the confidence to make the first move. And you always seem to know what kissing style is going to work best. Sometimes you're passionate, sometimes you're a tease. And you're always amazing!

Are You a Good Kisser?

Teleport spell for Discordians

I came across this on a forum that I frequent, I told the moderator how to set it to auto-prune messages and wanted to see what the oldest messages were. I posted this one back in February and still think it's pretty funny.

http://www.23ae.com/?post=267

Teleport Spell
A handy spell for Discordians
by Dantopia
2/15/2006 12:04:44 PM

This handy spell will let any Discordian teleport instantly to a random hospital in the area. You can do this in 5 easy steps - TRY IT TODAY!!!

Step 1 - Go into a building and get to at least the 2nd story.

Step 2 - Find a window that faces outside.

Step 3 - Jump through the window (make sure it's closed first so you crash through the glass).

Step 4 - Scream as loud as you can before you hit the ground.

Step 5 - Land on your head, so you get knocked unconscious.

If you do these steps correctly, you'll magically wake up in a hospital bed in a random hospital in your city. But beware - the lords of the teleport realm always ask for a toll. You will probably wake up all bandaged and bruised. Since people can't see magix happening they'll rationalize that they saw you leave in an ambulance. But you know the truth - you have teleported!

Note - the nature of this magix twix is VERY POWERFUL and sometimes the lords of the teleport realm will take a Discordian's life as payment. Please use this spell wisely. Neither I nor the Discordian Society assumes any liability for damages incurred with the use of this spell.

I'm not a chess coach, but I play one on TV

We had a little family reunion in Las Cruces Saturday. Pretty good turnout, about 30, the only ones missing were my parents, sister's clan, and the Oregon branch. Well, we were probably missing more, but that's good enough. VERY good food, lots of fun talk, I took a lot of pictures which I'm probably not going to bore people with.

But I did spend some time being a chess coach!

I'm not much of a chess player, my rating might be in the 1000-1200 range, which makes me a duffer/weekend warrior. I helped run a lot of tournaments and photographed a few more. I have autographs from Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, and many people whose names I can barely pronounce.

At the reunion, I had two second (or third or fourth or fifth) cousins who were playing at chess. It got so painful for me to watch that I sat down and started teaching them better movies, combinations, etc. The sad thing was that the didn't know what en passant was, much less how castling worked. They were also clueless regarding stalemate.

So I gave 'em a lot of education in an hour. I also suggested they get a copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, one of the best intro to chess games ever written (IMHO). It was reissued back in '82, but my first copy was in the early 70's. I'm also going to pull out a pair of sets and boards when I'm in Phoenix this weekend and drop 'em off for them. The set they were playing with was rather sad: it was a combo chess/checkers set with red and black squares and it was missing a white pawn and a black bishop, they were using quarters as replacements.

But man, it was a lot of fun! Makes me sort of consider seeing if I could find a chess coach gig here, but I'm really not good enough. The question is: am I good enough to teach?

Have you seen the Degree Anti-Perspirant "Stunt City" commercial?

Oh, man! Is it good! They show it frequently on Comedy Central at night. It opens with a guy putting his fist through his medicine cabinet mirror to get his anti-perspirant out.

Just a great commercial!