They use “Googler” to refer to employees of Google. Other internal terms stemming from this use include: Noogler (new Googler), Gaygler (gay Googler), doogler (dog owning-Googler), carpoogler (share a ride?), and Greygler (a Googler of a “certain age”).
Yves Rossy soars over Switzerland yesterday strapped to a jet-powered wing. The flight was a test run for a cross-Channel attempt next month
A Swiss daredevil's bid to cross the English Channel propelled by a jet-powered wing strapped to his back moved a step closer yesterday with a successful 36km test flight over Switzerland.
The flight proves that his jet-powered wing can take him far enough to make it across the channel from Calais to Dover. He hopes to make the crossing on 24 September if the weather is suitable.
His attempt had originally been thwarted by a collection of technical failures, including a leaking gas tank and two aborted flights during which the engines stopped within seconds of jumping from his support plane. He blamed these failures – which forced him to deploy his parachutes early – on "electronic interference problems".
The successful flight involved him jumping out of the aircraft at 2,300m, flying horizontally under jet power from a height of 1,700m and then switching off the jet engines before deploying two parachutes at 1500m and 1200m.
The wing does not include moving parts such as flaps to control direction, but Rossy is able to steer by shifting his weight and moving his head.
When he reached the ground he still had 2 litres of fuel left in his wing, suggesting that he would have some margin for error during the cross-channel flight.
Rossy is a former military pilot. His channel flight will be streamed live on the National Geographic Channel.
Yves Rossy (born August 27, 1959) is a Swiss pilot, inventor and aviation enthusiast. He invented and is the first person to have flown a jet engine-powered wing strapped to his back. The flight occurred in November 2006 in Bex, lasting nearly six minutes. While work with jet packs to propel humans dates back as far as World War II, his is the first jetpack to also have wings.
Yves has served as a fighter pilot in the Swiss Air Force flying Dassault Mirage IIIs, Northrop F-5 Tiger IIs and Hawker Hunters. He flew Boeing 747s for Swissair and now works as an Airbus pilot for Swiss International Air Lines.
Go to http://www.jet-man.com/ for more info, photos and videos of Yves Rossy "Jetman / Fusion Man" the Human powered flight.
Today there was a comic book in my mail, sent by Google and drawn by no less than Scott McCloud, creator of the classic Understanding Comics. Within the 38 pages, which I’ve scanned and put up, in very readable format Google gives the technical details into a project of theirs: an open source browser called Google Chrome. The book points to www.google.com/chrome, but I can’t see anything live there yet. In a nut-shell, here’s what the comic announces Google Chrome to be:
This looks like a very interesting project, and I think it can’t hurt to have more competition in the browser area. Google is playing this as nicely as possible by open-sourcing things, with perhaps part of the reason to try to defend against monopoly accusations – after all, Google already owns a lot of what’s happening inside the browser, and some may feel owning a browser too could be a little too much power for a single company (Google could, for instance, release browser features that benefit their sites more than most other sites... as can Microsoft with Internet Explorer). For now, until Chrome is released in a testable version, how much of the speed, stability and user interface promises will be fullfilled – and how much of the interface you’ll be able to configure in case you don’t like it – remains to be seen.
[Images by Google.]
"Millions of people have been moved by the amazing affection between Christian the lion and his human friends, John and Ace.
Just as Elsa the lioness, returned to the wild all those years ago by George and Joy Adamson, awoke a respect and fascination for lions so, I believe, Christian can be another ambassador for these wonderful animals. Now so critically reduced in numbers, across Africa.
If you can help us to help them – join us, adopt a lion, buy the “Christian the Lion” DVD, made by my husband Bill Travers, we would be so grateful."
Virginia McKenna
Born Free Foundation Founder and Trustee
In 1969 a young Australian, John Rendall and his friend Ace Bourke, bought a small lion cub from Harrods pet department, which was then legal. ‘Christian’ was kept in the basement of a furniture shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea, the heart of the swinging sixties. Loved by all, the affectionate cub ate in a local restaurant, played in a nearby graveyard, but was growing fast…
A chance encounter with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna led to a new life for Christian. He came to live in an enclosure and slept in a caravan at their Surrey home. Then in 1971 he was flown to Kenya, his ancestral home, and returned to the wild by lion-man George Adamson. Almost a year later in 1972, John and Ace returned to Kora in Kenya and it is their reunion with Christian at this time that is shown in the clip.
It was an emotional reunion: “He ran towards us, threw himself onto us, knocked us over and hugged us, with his paws on our shoulders.”
John Rendall
Christian left the Kora Reserve in 1973. George Adamson believed that he made his new territory along the Tana river, but when the Wakamba herdsmen brought their livestock to his hunting ground, he moved on. George said in his autobiography, "I used to count the days on which we hadn't seen Christian, but when they reached 97, I gave up recording them in my diary." Because a lion can live from 12 to 15 years in the wild, Adamson believed that Christian ended his days in the Meru National Reserve only a few miles up river.
Below is the last 6 minutes of the film Christian the Lion, with original soundtrack and commentary by Virginia McKenna.
Born Free CEO, Will Travers, Blogs about the Christian he knew.
