I'm a father, writer, blogger, digital strategist and insufferable new marketing geek. I'm into Apple technology, functional medicine, health and socio-political nerdery. If you've arrived here in error, I suggest clicking around a bit. If that doesn't work, well, there's always my Google Buzz stream. Not that that solves anything.
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What stress looks like: landing a fighter on a pitching carrier deck
It's easy to admire our military personnel for the things they do in combat zones and hostile missions. These are what we see on TV and read about in magazines. They're what Hollywood turns into movies.
What many of us don't understand, including yours truly, is the risks our military men and women take every day, doing their equivalents of going to the office, filing reports and attending meetings. In some cases, their 'routine' tasks and training can become more dangerous than being on actual missions. Each of the two videos below is 10 minutes long, depicting what it's like for Naval aviators to try and land a fighter on a pitching aircraft carrier. Seas that toss a carrier 30+ feet are incredibly dangerous, making pitch and yaw measurement insanely difficult. The only thing that's more difficult is doing it at night, which also is a reality for these pilots. You won't find a more gripping 20 minutes of video. They're from 2008, but they never lose their punch.Here's the scariest part: the Navy forces its pilots out in rough seas to practice this skill. It's dangerous to the point where it even steels even the most experienced pilots, but it's necessary: one day, when the situation is real and there's no real chance of air support, pilots will live or die based upon whether they can pull this off or not. It's contingency training taken to the nth degree.Comments [1]
The Daily Show’s John Oliver Dissects the Propensity Of FOX’s Talking Heads to Always Say America Used To Be Better
via storyballoon.org
This sort of thing is a popular media theme right now, right alongside convincing people of their own incapability.
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Ice Driving
via cynical-c.com
Every couple years, a video pops up showing cars trying to drive on ice. Here's (one of) this year's. You have to commend the passengers' presence of mind to bail once they realized their cars had no intention of stopping as it slid downhill.
Also, here's 2007's, just in case you like watching this sort of thing as much as I do.
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Last Minutes with ODEN
via vimeo.com
Very sad, but very, very happy as well. Just like life.
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Where's Rob? The Latest From Improv Everywhere
For our latest mission, Agent Lathan pretended to get lost during a Knicks game. Throughout the second half he kept appearing further and further away from his assigned seat with a confused look on his face. Of course Knicks fans went crazy trying to help him find his way back. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below.
Here's what it looked like.
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Play the Lotto, Dude
via cynical-c.com
As Chris says, here is the luckiest idiot in the world.
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