#even with other legacy airlines

[thesoundofsnowfallingfromeaves]

i got up at 2am (less than 4h of sleep RIP), its currently 8pm in my own timezone (10 where I'm now) and I still just did my russian homework AND yoga, I am truly god. and now, SLEEEEEEEP.

[bigairplaneblog]

Antonov An-225: The Biggest Airplane in the World

When it comes to airline airplane models, there's one that towers above the rest—quite literally. The Antonov An-225, known affectionately as "Mriya" (which means "Dream" in Ukrainian), holds the title of the biggest airplane in the world. This massive aircraft is not just a large airplane model in the figurative sense; it's the largest in every conceivable dimension.

The Antonov An-225 was originally designed in the 1980s to transport the Buran spaceplane, the Soviet Union's answer to NASA's Space Shuttle. But its capabilities far exceeded its original mission.

With its maiden flight in December 1988, the An-225 quickly became a symbol of Soviet engineering prowess, and later, an indispensable asset in global heavy-lift cargo transportation.

So, what makes the Antonov An-225 the biggest airplane in the world? Let’s delve into the details.

A Giant Among Giants

The sheer size of the Antonov An-225 is mind-boggling. This large airplane model has a measure of 84 meters (275 feet) in length, with wingspan size of 88.4 meters (290 feet). To put that into perspective, it's longer than an American football field and has a wingspan wider than a Boeing 747. The An-225 stands at 18.1 meters (59.3 feet) tall, nearly as tall as a six-story building.

This airline airplane model is equipped with six turbofan engines, each capable of producing 51,600 pounds of thrust. These engines, combined with its enormous wings, allow the An-225 to carry a maximum takeoff weight of 640,000 kg (1,410,958 pounds). This includes the cargo it carries, which can be up to 250,000 kg (550,000 pounds). This impressive lifting capability makes it the go-to choice for transporting oversized cargo, such as wind turbine blades, military tanks, and even other aircraft.

The Unique Capabilities of the An-225

The Antonov An-225's cargo bay is so large that it could fit 50 cars. The interior is 43.32 meters (142 feet) long, 6.4 meters (21 feet) wide, and 4.4 meters (14.5 feet) high, making it spacious enough to accommodate a wide range of oversized items. Unlike many other cargo aircraft, which load through a rear cargo door, the An-225 is loaded through the nose. The aircraft's nose lifts up, allowing direct access to the cavernous interior. This feature is crucial for loading extremely large and heavy objects that cannot be easily maneuvered.

Another notable feature of this large airplane model is its 32-wheel landing gear system. This complex system allows the An-225 to land on runways that would be unsuitable for other aircraft of its size, providing flexibility in the types of airports it can access.

The An-225 also has a range of 15,400 km (9,569 miles) when carrying a smaller load, but this decreases as the payload increases. Despite this, its range and payload capacity make it ideal for long-distance heavy-lift missions, and it remains a vital tool in global logistics.

A Record-Breaking Aircraft

Throughout its operational life, the Antonov An-225 has set numerous world records. In 2001, it carried the heaviest single cargo item ever transported by air—a 189-ton generator for a power plant. In another instance, it transported a 130-ton piece of machinery from Germany to Kazakhstan, marking the largest payload ever carried by an aircraft.

The An-225 has also been used in humanitarian missions, delivering supplies to disaster-stricken areas around the world. Its ability to transport large quantities of aid quickly and efficiently has made it an invaluable resource in times of crisis.

The Legacy of the Antonov An-225

The Antonov An-225 is not just a marvel of engineering; it's a symbol of what human ingenuity can achieve. Despite being over three decades old, this airline airplane model remains unmatched in terms of size and lifting capacity. Its continued operation is a testament to the foresight of its designers and the enduring need for such a massive aircraft in today’s world.

However, the An-225's future is uncertain. The only existing model has been in and out of service due to the high costs of operation and maintenance. There's also been speculation about building a second An-225, but financial and logistical challenges have stalled those plans.

Despite these uncertainties, the Antonov An-225’s legacy is secure. It continues to capture the imagination of aviation enthusiasts and the general public alike, reminding us of the heights—both literal and figurative—that human technology can reach.

In conclusion, the Antonov An-225 is not just the biggest airplane in the world; it’s a symbol of human achievement. From its origins as a Soviet space transporter to its current role in global cargo transportation, this large airplane model has set records and exceeded expectations. Whether or not it continues to fly for years to come, the An-225 will always be remembered as a giant among giants in the world of aviation.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

somewhere only we know

—or, herc visits captain fairbairn’s new office.

They walk through the terminal, the same way they once did all those years ago, though now Herc can sometimes be a little unsteady on his feet. It should be difficult to reconcile with the robust captain Linda remembers from the beginning of her career, who had been a bit of a health-nut even before it had been overly trendy, but—everyone who has loved Linda, and she has loved in return, is getting older. Such, she reckons, goes the arc of life.

“All right?” she asks him, who has a hand looped through her arm. He sends her a positively sappy look, and she rolls her eyes. Beside them, a respectful distance away, walk the two other pilots on this long-haul flight. The first officer operating out tows Linda’s flight kit along with hers.

“You’ve come such a long way, my dear,” Herc tells her as they continue down the terminal to their gate. He hasn’t been flying for a little over two years now—he had seen his last student to a multi-engine certification before hanging up his hat and bowing from the flight-school enterprise that Carolyn’s airline had metamorphosed into, the one Arthur had inherited and was currently managing back in Fitton. “You’ve worked so hard.”

“But you are to thank for…a lot of it,” she returns, focusing on guiding him onto the moving walkway ahead of her first officer and relief pilot.

“I’m honored to have been part of your journey, in that case.” He pauses, and Linda looks aside and sees the twinkle in his eye. “Captain Fairbairn.”

She feels her ears grow a little warm, and she ducks her head with a shy smile. It has taken some getting used to, but after moving from short-haul legacy A320 to long-haul A330 and subsequently bidding into one of the inaugural A350 captain positions, she finds that it’s less of a foreign title than when she began at Swiss. It’s just that when Herc calls her Captain, or her dad…those are the only times it makes her blush.

They approach the gate; a gate agent comes up to them. “Good morning, captain. You requested a non-rev seat for a guest today?”

“Yes,” Linda nods aside at the man on her arm, who’s now staring outside the terminal windows at the glistening A350 on stand at the apron, its fuselage narrowing into a daintily pointed nose and its wings gracefully curving up at the tips. She doesn’t blame him—the A350 is objectively a beautiful aircraft. “Hercules Shipwright,” she tells the gate agent, and Herc tears his gaze away from the airplane to acknowledge the agent with a nod.

She can’t wait for him to see inside of her aircraft.

“Wonderful,” the gate agent says. “Welcome, sir,” she says to Herc. “We’ll give you priority boarding, as requested.”

“Thank you.” Herc disengages himself from Linda, and she misses the comforting presence of her friend at her side. “Linda, I’ll find a seat by the window. I’ll see you out there, yeah?”

“See you,” Linda tells him, and leads her flight crew down the jetbridge.

The previous crew has left the plane turned around and ready for them; Linda pops her head into the galleys while her first officer starts preflight checks, greets the flight attendants, and reminds the purser about her guest.

As preboarding approaches, the first officer excuses herself to do the walk-around, and Linda is left alone with her thoughts in the flightdeck.

She peers out of the wide windows, past the six touch-screen LED displays. Though kitted out with more technology than she could ever have dreamed of, the family resemblance is clear in the design philosophy of the flightdeck—it’s very clearly an Airbus, from the fold-out tray tables to the blatant absence of a yoke. There had been a time when she’d thought she might make the switch to Boeing, but when Swiss had decided that the A320s it had taken in the merger with Cal would stay in the fleet, Linda’s future as a true-blue Airbus pilot was cemented.

Not that she’s complaining about it, when some of her happiest memories are framed by an Airbus-designed flightdeck.

Herc, true to his word, has taken a seat by the window of the terminal and is staring out at her with a smile.

Linda gets up, leans over the displays, and holds a hand up to the window in greeting; in return, Herc languidly waves at her. She grinned as he holds up a finger, one minute, and gingerly takes his phone from his pocket to snap a picture. Once finished, he lowers his phone, checks the photograph, and flashes a thumbs-up at her through the terminal window.

A knock at the doorway, and Linda turns to see the redcap peeking inside. “Captain?”

“Yes,” Linda acknowledges, and rises from her seat.

Before long, her first officer has returned, and the boarding time is flashing on the chronometer. Linda feels strangely nervous.

“You okay?” the first officer asks. “You look a little…” she trails off.

Linda shakes her head. “I’m fine, it’s just…” she casts a look out the flightdeck windows. Herc is no longer at his post by the terminal window. Her heart begins to pound.

“He’s…” The first officer ponders a little. “He’s not your dad, right? I forgot. I know you told me earlier.”

“He’s my best friend,” Linda replies automatically. “We haven’t been in a flightdeck together in—years.”

“I see. Well, I’ll just greet passengers outside,” her first officer tells her sympathetically, squeezes outside, then Linda hears her say, “Oh! Welcome onboard, sir.”

“Thank you,” says a voice she would know on any frequency, anywhere in the world, and Linda is immediately at ease. A second later, Herc pokes his head through the door, bracing a hand on the doorway. “Hello there, Captain. May I enter?”

She rises from her seat. “I’m coming, Herc.”

Linda stands at his side once more in the doorway, and he stares all around the A350 flightdeck with an expression of wonder on his face. “Good Lord, Linda, so many screens. How do you manage?”

“You pull the stick for up and push the stick for down,” she replies dead-pan, and Herc lets out a laugh so loud that several flight attendants and boarding passengers look in their direction. “Herc!” she hisses reproachfully.

Still grinning from ear-to-ear, Herc loops an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close to him. “Yes, Linda?” he asks, maddeningly innocent, and she rolls her eyes.

“Come on, let’s sit,” she says, and begins to lead him further into the flightdeck.

“You’re on the wrong side,” he points out, and Linda realizes she’s automatically drifted to the right seat and her first officer’s already-configured chair.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are, Captain Fairbairn,” Herc returns with the patience of a primary school teacher.

“I want you on my left.” She knows she sounds like a child insisting it, though she’s got several strands of silver running through her hair and glasses on her nose, but—she knows also that having Herc on her right in a flightdeck like this is not what she had envisioned when dreaming of bringing him up here. “Please,” she adds, as an afterthought.

He cracks a smile. “How very silly,” he says, and it doesn’t sound patronizing from him—it’s got all the affection she remembers. Yet he sits anyway, situates himself in the captain’s seat next to her, and—

The technology is so different from the ancient A320s of Caledonian, and yet—the flightdeck is so familiar.

Like they never left it.

Herc looks across the console at her with a breathtaking smile, and it’s like he’s de-aged about twenty years—maybe more.

“We should have done this,” he says softly, and despite the smile on his face, his eyes are suspiciously bright. “Even if it had been just once.”

“Done what?”

“Long-haul.” He casts a glance over the screens, the evolution of the same instruments that must have guided him for longer than Linda has existed. “Linda, I’ve half a mind to steal this plane,” he changes the subject.

She laughs at him, knowing that regret and Herc are two things that she’s careful not to let mix too much, and goes along with it. “I’m sure you could figure it out if I set it up on the ground,” she says lightly. “If I weren’t concerned about such things as, you know, keeping my job.”

“True, that is of slight importance.” Herc looks behind him, then curls his left hand around the sidestick lightly. The sight sends a wave of nostalgia through Linda—he could very well have been preparing to lift the nose at V1 on Bristol’s runway. “In any case…” He lets go of the sidestick, turns to Linda, and smiles gently at her. A single tear is tracing the groove of a smile line. “I wouldn’t steal an A350 with anyone else in the flightdeck but you.”

Linda reaches across the flightdeck, brushes the tear away with her thumb, and rests her hand on his face.

He leans into it, still smiling.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

CrowdStruck

By Edward Zitron • 19 Jul 2024 View in browser

Soundtrack: EL-P - Tasmanian Pain Coaster (feat. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala)

When I first began writing this newsletter, I didn't really have a goal, or a "theme," or anything that could neatly characterize what I was going to write about other than that I was on the computer and that I was typing words.

As it grew, I wrote the Rot Economy, and the Shareholder Supremacy, and many other pieces that speak to a larger problem in the tech industry — a complete misalignment in the incentives of most of the major tech companies, which have become less about building new technologies and selling them to people and more about capturing monopolies and gearing organizations to extract things through them.

Every problem you see is a result of a tech industry — from the people funding the earliest startups to the trillion-dollar juggernauts that dominate our lives — that is no longer focused on the creation of technology with a purpose, and organizations driven toward a purpose. Everything is about expressing growth, about showing how you will dominate an industry rather than serve it, about providing metrics that speak to the paradoxical notion that you'll grow forever without any consideration of how you'll live forever. Legacies are now subordinate to monopolies, current customers are subordinate to new customers, and "products" are considered a means to introduce a customer to a form of parasite designed to punish the user for even considering moving to competitor.

What's happened today with Crowdstrike is completely unprecedented (and I'll get to why shortly), and on the scale of the much-feared Y2K bug that threatened to ground the entirety of the world's computer-based infrastructure once the Year 2000 began.

You'll note that I didn't write "over-hyped" or anything dismissive of Y2K's scale, because Y2K was a huge, society-threatening calamity waiting to happen, and said calamity was averted through a remarkable, $500 billion industrial effort that took a decade to manifest because the seriousness of such a significant single point of failure would have likely crippled governments, banks and airlines. 

People laughed when nothing happened on January 1 2000, assuming that all that money and time had been wasted, rather than being grateful that an infrastructural weakness was taken seriously, that a single point of failure was identified, and that a crisis was averted by investing in stopping bad stuff happening before it does.

As we speak, millions — or even hundreds of millions — of different Windows-based computers are now stuck in a doom-loop, repeatedly showing users the famed "Blue Screen of Death" thanks to a single point of failure in a company called Crowdstrike, the developer of a globally-adopted cyber-security product designed, ironically, to prevent the kinds of disruption that we’ve witnessed today. And for reasons we’ll get to shortly, this nightmare is going to drag on for several days (if not weeks) to come.

The product — called Crowdstrike Falcon Sensor — is an EDR system (which stands for Endpoint Detection and Response). If you aren’t a security professional and your eyes have glazed over, I’ll keep this brief. An EDR system is designed to identify hacking attempts, remediate them, and prevent them. They’re big, sophisticated, and complicated products, and they do a lot of things that’s hard to build with the standard tools available to Windows developers.

And so, to make Falcon Sensor work, Crowdstrike had to build its own kernel driver. Now, kernel drivers operate at the lowest level of the computer. They have the highest possible permissions, but they operate with the fewest amount of guardrails. If you’ve ever built your own computer — or you remember what computers were like in the dark days of Windows 98 — you know that a single faulty kernel driver can wreak havoc on the stability of your system. 

The problem here is that Crowdstrike pushed out an evidently broken kernel driver that locked whatever system that installed it in a permanent boot loop. The system would start loading Windows, encounter a fatal error, and reboot. And reboot. Again and again. It, in essence, rendered those machines useless. 

It's convenient to blame Crowdstrike here, and perhaps that's fair. This should not have happened. On a basic level, whenever you write (or update) a kernel driver, you need to know it’s actually robust and won’t shit the bed immediately. Regrettably, Crowdstrike seemingly borrowed Boeing’s approach to quality control, except instead of building planes where the doors fly off at the most inopportune times (specifically, when you’re cruising at 35,000ft), it released a piece of software that blew up the transportation and banking sectors, to name just a few.  

It created a global IT outage that has grounded flights and broken banking services. It took down the BBC’s flagship kids TV channel, infuriating parents across the British Isles, as well as Sky News, which, when it was able to resume live broadcasts, was forced to do so without graphics. In essence, it was forced back to the 1950s — giving it an aesthetic that matches the politics of its owner, Rupert Murdoch. By no means is this an exhaustive list of those affected, either. 

The scale and disruption caused by this incident is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Previous incidents — particularly rival ransomware outbreaks, like Wannacry — simply can’t compare to this, especially when we’re looking at the disruption and the sheer scale of the problem. 

Still, if your day was ruined by this outage, at least spare a thought for those who’ll have to actually fix it. Because those machines affected are now locked in a perpetual boot loop, it’s not like Crowdstrike can release a software patch and call it a day. Undoing this update requires some users to have to individually go to each computer, loading up safe mode (a limited version of Windows with most non-essential software and drivers disabled), and manually removing the faulty code. And if you’ve encrypted your computer, that process gets a lot harder. Servers running on cloud services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure — you know, the way most of the internet's infrastructure works — require an entirely separate series of actions.

If you’re on a small IT team and you’re supporting hundreds of workstations across several far-flung locations — which isn’t unusual, especially in sectors like retail and social care — you’re especially fucked. Say goodbye to your weekend. Your evenings. Say goodbye to your spouse and kids. You won’t be seeing them for a while. Your life will be driving from site to site, applying the fix and moving on. Forget about sleeping in your own bed, or eating a meal that wasn’t bought from a fast food restaurant. Good luck, godspeed, and God bless. I do not envy you. 

The significance of this failure — which isn't a breach, by the way, and in many respects is far worse, at least in the disruption caused — is not in its damage to individual users, but to the amount of technical infrastructure that runs on Windows, and that so much of our global infrastructure relies on automated enterprise software that, when it goes wrong, breaks everything. 

It isn't about the number of computers, but the amount of them that underpin things like the security checkpoints or systems that run airlines, or at banks, or hospitals, all running as much automated software as possible so that costs can be kept down.

The problem here is systemic — that there is a company that the majority of people affected by this outage had no idea existed until today that Microsoft trusted to the extent that they were able to push an update that broke the back of a huge chunk of the world's digital infrastructure. 

Microsoft, as a company, instead of building the kind of rigorous security protocols that would, say, rigorously test something that connects to what seems to be a huge proportion of Windows computers. Microsoft, in particular, really screwed up here. As pointed out by Wired, the company vets and cryptographically signs all kernel drivers — which is sensible and good, because kernel drivers have an incredible amount of access, and thus can be used to inflict serious harm — with this testing process usually taking several weeks. 

How then did this slip through its fingers? For this to have happened, two companies needed to screw up epically. And boy, they did. 

What we're seeing today isn't just a major fuckup, but the first of what will be many systematic failures — some small, some potentially larger — that are the natural byproduct of the growth-at-all-costs ecosystem where any attempt to save money by outsourcing major systems is one that simply must be taken to please the shareholder.

The problem with the digitization of society — or, more specifically, the automation of once-manual tasks — is that it introduces a single point of failure. Or, rather, multiple single points of failure. Our world, our lifestyle and our economy, is dependent on automation and computerization, with these systems, in turn, dependent on other systems to work. And if one of those systems breaks, the effects ricochet outwards, like ripples when you cast a rock into a lake. 

Today’s Crowdstrike cock-up is just the latest example of this, but it isn’t the only one. Remember the SolarWinds hack in 2020, when Russian state-linked hackers gained access to an estimated 18,000 companies and public sector organizations — including NATO, the European Parliament, the US Treasury Department, and the UK’s National Health Service — by compromising just one service — SolarWinds Orion? 

Remember when Okta — a company that makes software that handles authentication for a bunch of websites, governments, and businesses — got hacked in 2023, and then lied about the scale of the breach? And then do you remember how those hackers leapfrogged from Okta to a bunch of other companies, most notably Cloudflare, which provides CDN and DDOS protection services for pretty much the entire internet?

That whole John Donne quote — “No man is an island” — is especially true when we’re talking about tech, because when you scratch beneath the surface, every system that looks like it’s independent is actually heavily, heavily dependent on services and software provided by a very small number of companies, many of whom are not particularly good.     

This is as much a cultural failing as it is a technological one, the result of management geared toward value extraction — building systems that build monopolies by attaching themselves to other monopolies. Crowdstrike went public in 2019, and immediately popped on its first day of trading thanks to Wall Street's appreciation of Crowdstrike moving away from a focused approach to serving large enterprise clients, building products for small and medium-sized businesses by selling through channel partners — in effect outsourcing both product sales and the relationship with a client that would tailor a business' solution to a particular need.

Crowdstrike's culture also appears to fucking suck. A recent Glassdoor entry referred to Crowdstrike as "great tech [with] terrible culture" with no work life balance, with "leadership that does not care about employee well being." Another from June claimed that Crowdstrike was "changing culture for the street,” with KPIs (as in metrics related to your “success” at the company) “driving behavior more than building relationships” with a serious lack of experience in the public sector in senior management. Others complain of micromanagement, with one claiming that “management is the biggest issue,” with managers “ask[ing] way too much of you…and it doesn’t matter if you do what they ask since they’re not even around to check on you,” and another saying that “management are arrogant” and need to “stop lying to the market on product capability.”

While I can’t say for sure, I’d imagine an organization with such powerful signs of growth-at-all-costs thinking — a place where you “have to get used to the pressure” that’s a “clique that you’re not in”  — likely isn’t giving its quality assurance teams the time and space to make sure that there aren’t any Kaiju-level security threats baked into an update. And that assumes it actually has a significant QA team in-house, and hasn’t just (as with many companies) outsourced the work to a “bodyshop” like Wipro or Infosys or Tata. 

And don’t think I’m letting Microsoft off the hook, either. Assuming the kernel driver testing roles are still being done in-house, do you think that these testers — who have likely seen their friends laid off at a time when the company was highly profitable, and denied raises when their well-fed CEO took home hundreds of millions of dollars for doing a job he’s eminenly bad at — are motivated to do their best work? 

And this is the culture that’s poisoned almost the entirety of Silicon Valley. What we’re seeing is the societal cost of moving fast and breaking things, of Marc Andreessen considering “risk management the enemy,” of hiring and firing tens of thousands of people to please Wall Street, of seeking as many possible ways to make as much money as possible to show shareholders that you’ll grow, even if doing so means growing at a pace that makes it impossible to sustain organizational and cultural stability. When you aren’t intentional in the people you hire, the people you fire, the things you build and the way that they’re deployed, you’re going to lose the people that understand the problems they’re solving, and thus lack the organizational ability to understand the ways that they might be solved in the future. 

This is dangerous, and also a dark warning for the future. Do you think that Facebook, or Microsoft, or Google — all of whom have laid off over 10,000 people in the last year — have done so in a conscientious way that means that the people left understand how their systems run and their inherent issues? Do you think that the management-types obsessed with the unsustainable AI boom are investing heavily in making sure their organizations are rigorously protected against, say, one bad line of code? Do they even know who wrote the code of their current systems? Is that person still there? If not, is that person at least contracted to make sure that something nuanced about the system in question isn’t mistakenly removed? 

They’re not. They’re not there anymore. Only a few months ago Google laid off 200 employees from the core of its organization, outsourcing their roles to Mexico and India in a cost-cutting measure the quarter after the company made over $23 billion in profit. Silicon Valley — and big tech writ large — is not built to protect against situations like the one we’re seeing today,because their culture is cancerous. It valuesrowth at all costs, with no respect for the human capital that empowers organizations or the value of building rigorous, quality-focused products.

This is just the beginning. Big tech is in the throes of perdition, teetering over the edge of the abyss, finally paying the harsh cost of building systems as fast as possible. This isn’t simply moving fast or breaking things, but doing so without any regard for the speed at which you’re doing so and firing the people that broke them, the people who know what’s broken, and possibly the people that know how to fix them.

And it’s not just tech! Boeing — a company I’ve already shat on in this post, and one I’ll likely return to in future newsletters, largely because it exemplifies the short-sightedness of today’s managerial class — has, over the past 20 years or so, span off huge parts of the company (parts that, at one point, were vitally important) into separate companies, laid off thousands of employees at a time, and outsourced software dev work to $9-an-hour bodyshop engineers. It hollowed itself out until there was nothing left. 

And tell me, knowing what you know about Boeing today, would you rather get into a 737 Max or an Airbus A320neo? Enough said. 

As these organizations push their engineers harder, said engineers will turn to AI-generated code, poisoning codebases with insecure and buggy code as companies shed staff to keep up with Wall Street’s demands in ways that I’m not sure people are capable of understanding. The companies that run the critical parts of our digital lives do not invest in maintenance or infrastructure with the intentionality that’s required to prevent the kinds of massive systemic failures you see today, and I need you all to be ready for this to happen again.

This is the cost of the Rot Economy — systems used by billions of people held up by flimsy cultures and brittle infrastructure maintained with the diligence of an absentee parent. This is the cost of arrogance, of rewarding managerial malpractice, of promoting speed over safety and profit over people. 

Every single major tech organization should see today as a wakeup call — a time to reevaluate the fundamental infrastructure behind every single tech stack. 

What I fear is that they’ll simply see it as someone else’s problem - which is exactly how we got here in the first place. 

[runwayrunway]

No. 53 - Hawaiian Airlines

I've spent basically a week and a half posting exclusively about Alaska Airlines, and I don't regret a second of that, but it's time to move on to something a little bit different. It's time to shift our focus south, from the icy coasts of Alaska to the sunny shores of the other non-contiguous United State. Thank you to @sirigorn for the request!

I'd had in mind for a while that I would cover Alaska and Hawai'i's home carriers right after one another. Despite the vast difference in climate their airlines have a startling amount in common. They are two of the five remaining US legacy carriers, standing proud with Delta, American, and United amidst the carnage of countless mergers and bankruptcies. They are both very well regarded - Hawaiian has a reputation for punctuality and professionalism, and is the only legacy carrier to have never had a fatality or hull loss despite being the thirteenth-oldest airline in the world still operating. But none of that is why I paired them up.

I paired them up because they both have faces. There is no reason to suspect that this was coordinated, but I think that Oliver and Pualani - the face on Hawaiian Airlines' tailfins - should be friends. If you take nothing else away from this post, let it be that. But I do have more to say, so let's look past the tail at the rest of the plane it's attached to.

(I have to say this upfront before I get into the review: no matter how pretty their airline's planes are, please choose somewhere other than Hawai'i for your next vacation. The islands were already strained by tourism and that's even before Maui was lit on fire. Now, when the people of Hawai'i are trying to rebuild, is not the time to divert their resources to anything other than supporting those affected by the deadliest wildfires in the past century. If you are able, however, I recommend donating to funds like Maui Nui Strong.)

Hawaiian Airlines has endeared themselves to me by creating a webpage discussing their brand refresh, which I always appreciate. I'm going to be discussing their modern livery today, which was introduced, with this webpage, in 2017, but it's worth noting that their 2001-2017 livery is very easy to mistake for the modern one. It's quite similar, so I'm going to quickly explain how they differ. For what it's worth, they're similar enough that I sort of consider the modern look a revision rather than an outright replacement.

This is the 2001-2017 livery. As you can see it has large flowers in varied shades of vivid purple which bloom out from around Pualani, who is on a solid red backdrop. They wrap around the tail of the plane, creating that sort of curved shape classic SASlikes try to have, and the same purple blooms are present on the winglets. I love this livery, personally - the colors and the shapes of the petals are both fantastic - I just wish there were more of them on more of the plane, instead of it just being boring and rear-heavy like everything else out there.

The 2017 revision is similar, but nonetheless visibly different. The color balance in general has shifted and Pualani has been slightly updated, but it's the flowers around her which have changed the most, and I'm going to be honest - I prefer the old one.

A large portion of Hawaiian's fleet is composed of Airbus A330s. (Each of them is named for a Polynesian constellation, historically a huge part of navigation for traditionally seafaring peoples!) The A330 is a very common plane but a very tricky one to work with. The Airbus roundness doesn't just stop at the nose, and A330s probably are the most vulnerable to this, the ratio of length to fuselage making them look a bit puffy in the front, while the taper of the tail remains about as sharp as with any other model of plane. The wings are located quite forward, and the tail is not especially large or visually interesting, which means that it ends up feeling almost small. None of this is to say that the A330 is an ugly plane; it is not. There is no such thing as an ugly plane (well, there is, but they're still cute and the A330 isn't one), but there are features of different airframes which can make them susceptible to certain visual effects. The A330, due to its specific shape, can easily struggle with an issue very opposite to many other planes - it is very easy to make it look forward-heavy, with the tail coming off sparse.

Unfortunately, this is what happens with the new flower pattern. And yet, somehow, once it's in flight it feels tail-heavy again, because all the color is concentrated there. This weighting of detail and color manages to solve no problems at all, while somehow making two seemingly paradoxical problems worse. And Hawaiian is by far not the worst offender in either camp, but it's my job to be nitpicky and harsh, so nitpick I will - the A330 is a big puffy white tube and you need more fuselage coverage, on both ends, to make it not look like a poorly weighted puffy white tube tumbling its way through the air dealing with just the strangest aerodynamic loads imaginable.

I think if I had never seen the old design I would still notice it, but knowing that they had fixed this very problem and then created it again makes it sting a bit more. I don't mind the flowers as they are now, to be clear - I just wish that there were more of them. They take up so little space that they're easy to miss if you aren't looking closely, and that's a shame, seeing as they've added so much detail!

Looking at the two tailfin designs directly next to each other, I think I actually prefer the old one. And that's not because I think the new one is bad or anything - to the contrary, I love the extra detail in the foliage, and I'll touch on another thing I like later, but there are just a few details that make me sad here, like the way the wordmark got a bit smaller and the removal of the color from the winglets.

The color in general, I think, is a step back. Some things I love, like the vivid, saturated flower they've given Pualani. In general, though, I miss the high contrast between the warm red and cool lavender of the old livery. The website says this regarding the changes to the tailfins:

Pualani, with her welcoming smile and proud gaze, embodies our culture even more clearly. Known as the “flower of the sky,” Pualani is now framed by the rising sun, watching over our guests and crew along their journey. To celebrate her regal status, we are featuring purple more prominently in our color palette, complemented by an updated graphical style that reflects our reputation as a premium, global brand.

So, I might be insane, but I actually think the new livery is less purple and more red, right? Am I insane for thinking this? And that's not bad - the color palette of a shelf of homemade jams is absolutely an appealing one - but I loved the contrast between dark, warm, rich tones and light, crisp, clear ones with the old purple, which had really been a new direction for Hawaiian's primarily-red historical branding. Like I said, I don't hate the new livery at all, but it feels like it's missing a bit compared to the old one. There's a part of me that feels like the ideal Hawaiian Airlines livery would have the tailfin of the 2017 livery with the 2001 livery's flower unfolding beneath it, fully wrapping up the tail the way it used to and providing that blueish lavender pop to really clearly contrast itself from the rest of the plane. That could be stunning, I think, and while it would be a lot of detail that's generally something you want with florals - you either go minimal, like the Vietnam Airlines lotus, or you take advantage of the potential depth of color and shape which layering can give you.

Seriously, though...it's less purple. I haven't totally lost it, right? Please tell me I haven't totally lost it. I like purple. I want purple! This feels less purple!

Having insulted the new livery a bit, I'm now going to tell you all what I really like about it.

A maile lei—one we use for important occasions—wraps around the body of the aircraft to symbolize the warm welcome we extend to our guests, and the ways that our traditions bind us together as an ‘ohana (family).

I don't think I need to explain why I love this idea, but I will anyway, because that's what you follow this blog for.

This is a lovely idea that, in addition to portraying Hawai'ian culture, is a great way to keep interest going throughout the fuselage. I love the way it's placed, with that natural-feeling flow to it which feels like it continues on from the placement of the colored flowers before assuming a flowing pattern like that of a lei held up into the wind.

It works well with the shape of the A330, curling elegantly around the ventral fairing and over the wing. It takes advantage of the large canvas provided by the giant tube of a fuselage to present an elegant pattern of twists which keeps the fall of the lei feeling natural and means that you get a different view of it from every angle. I like this a lot.

I also like the fact that they stuck with a shape that's more-or-less the Lufthansa-SAS-line archetype, but then added something else to the fuselage, less because of how it works for this specific livery and more because it proves that you don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to colorblocking...you just need to add something else. There is nothing wrong with the basic shapes, but everything wrong with the fact that they stop there.

...but I have to keep on nitpicking.

First: why is it grey? Why not a light purple? Grey is difficult to see on the white fuselage, and just feels at odds with the rest of the color scheme. It would feel so much more integrated, be more visible, do a lot to fix the rear-weighted color balance, and just look better if it were a light lavender or pink. I mean, fuchsia flowers lead directly into...grey ones? What kind of decision is that?

Second: why does it stop where it does? Surely with this sort of anfractuous winding pattern you could avoid covering the wordmark, or you could integrate it into the wordmark if you so wanted - I just don't understand why it cuts off behind it! This feels...

Oh no. Oh no, it's giving condor. Not literally as ugly, of course. It's not ugly at all. And it wasn't beginning with a never-before-done dynamite concept, it was iterating on something they already had that was nice but had room to grow. But it has potential dense enough that a spoonful weighs the same as an A330 and they've diluted it until most of the fuselage is just white. I don't get it. I just don't get it. They've been put one foot before the finish line of a footrace and immediately begun running in elaborate spirals. Like, you got there, but this was just a bad way to do what could have been so guaranteed.

Well, that's just one part of it. I've been talking about A330s this whole time. Hawaiian doesn't have an all-A330 fleet. I'm sure some airline out there does, but it's not them. (I had actually thought Aircalin did but I'm glad I checked to make sure because they have an A321 and a Twin Otter.) The reason I've been talking on and on about A330s is that I judge liveries which are consistent across models by their weakest points, and the A330 is easily the weakest for Hawaiian. On the reverse is the backbone of their inter-island fleet: a flock of Boeing 717s which are all named after indigenous birds, and apparently come with little plaques inside to dispense bird facts!

This livery actually looks phenomenal on the 717. This isn't a surprise to me. 717s are just fancy DC-9s, and DC-9s are one of the hardest planes to make a livery look bad on. I think the ceiling for a really great DC-9 livery is probably not the highest, but the floor for a bad DC-9 livery is in contrast quite high. Some planes are just hard to design liveries for - like A330s. Other planes are forthcoming with visual interest of their own in a way that accommodates liveries that look painfully minimal on larger, more conventionally laid-out planes.

The 717 has a very short (vertically) fuselage, limiting the blank space, and it seems like something about how they transferred the lei pattern unchanged onto it meant that it ended up reaching nearly to the nose. The small amount of overall real estate on planes like this means that detailed liveries shine their brightest, with every little bit fully blown up where on a larger, whiter canvas they could be lost in the dense shuffle and surrounding howling expanse. The rear part of the engines look a bit funky (which could be remedied somewhat if the flowers extended farther, like they did with the old livery) but this is otherwise just fantastic and would be exalted in my eyes if they just had made the lei an actual color.

Look, see how much better the shape of the old livery worked with the engines! It's so frustrated when airlines keep making half of a really great livery but never really merging them together into the absolute stunner of a livery that they could have - it reminds me of JAL, sort of, though again, Hawaiian just has nicer-looking planes at base by quite a margin.

The last type of plane they fly is the A321neo (each of which is named after local plants and forests). The relative stature, shape, and layout of this handsome girl are a compromise between the 717 and the A330, and accordingly I think this livery looks totally solid on her. The issues with the grey that I mentioned earlier remain, fuselage coverage is better than the A330 but not perfect, it's pretty but I can nitpick about it. Still, when I see this plane the nitpicks aren't the first thing that come to mind - they come after. The impression upfront is of a very pretty floral design in a lovely palette of homemade jams with a bit going on in the fuselage and Pualani's striking silhouette. There is a lot to like here and it's the details that just aren't keeping pace with the general design.

image: Hawaiian Airlines

Worth mentioning, though, is that this is the last type of plane they operate for now. Beginning in January of 2024 they will be taking delivery of 12 Boeing 787s, a plane which I love so much that it's one of the airframe features I've actually gotten around to doing. (I've been meaning to do more, but my life is hectic and posts kept getting long.) I only have this one picture to go off of, but I'm worried about the fact that the lei seems to stop even earlier on the airframe. The 787 is a beautiful plane, but it's a long plane, and this makes me worry that the rear-heaviness is going to be exacerbated on it. Maybe from a different angle the heavy wing sweep and the location of the engines could counteract this somewhat, but for now all I have to say is that I hope this very pretty livery and this very pretty plane can unite to create something very pretty, and I hope that it looks better when we get more pictures of it. (I do not yet know what their 787s will be named for.)

As I wind down my picking-apart of this livery, I keep stumbling on the glaring absence of winglet and nacelle detail. This is one of the simplest things you can do to avoid the rear-heavy look, and basically every livery benefits from it. The floral motif would be easy to translate, and the old livery even had some colored detail on the winglets, so I really don't get it. This doesn't just feel like a misstep, this feels like walking an hour to work every day and then learning on your very last day at that job that the whole time there was a bus you could have been taking.

And that's just...overall how I feel about Hawaiian Airlines. Beautiful graphics, fantastic idea, but it's like if a designer has ordered the building of a beautiful sculpture and the head of the company has ordered his employees to comply, but each one of them hates the designer and is doing all they can to sabotage him while never technically going counter to his instructions and vision. It's...it's really strange. It's hard to classify. I've kind of figured out how I give verdicts for things I think are really great executions of fundamentally insufficient concepts, but the reverse - 'great idea, generally pretty, so many bad choices' - is harder to nail down.

B-, I think.

Is this provisional or permanent? I couldn't tell you. But my reasoning is thus: this livery is one that I like, but which I think is poorly executed. A like-minus, if you will.

These grades ultimately really are something that can only mean something within the context of its own post - comparing one airline to another along their lines is going to be futile and this is not a tier list. I had intended it to function like that, but it just probably doesn't. Sorry, grading scales are difficult. I get so neurotic about grading scales. That's why I never used a numeric scale.

I mean, even these posts can be a bit misleading. This has been mostly critical despite the fact that I generally like this livery. It's the granular nature of my problems which makes up the bulk of the length. 'It's pretty' is maybe one paragraph at best. 'The details are mind-bogglingly suboptimal' is a full essay.

Their liveries are pretty. Their liveries have lovely colors and a fantastic logo in Pualani, reference their heritage, and incorporate features I've specifically pointed to before as being the sort of thing that can save liveries, but they managed to stumble so elaborately when sticking the landing that you wonder how they managed to do it - just landing on your feet would have been so much easier than doing that many ungainly tap-dancing maneuvers on your way down. None of it ruins what is still a very pretty livery, but all of it makes me look off at the horizon and faintly wonder 'why...' under my breath. I hope that in the future they wake up, take a deep breath, and realize they've built the perfect livery piecemeal all along and now all they have to do is put it together from their two most recent attempts, both of which were beautiful but far from perfect. I would even say that, with the inclusion of the lei, they have grown objectively - but they have so much further to grow.

And, to finish, I'm going to address what I know some people are probably wondering - no, I am not doing a deep dive into Pualani's identity, because Hawaiian Airlines is very upfront about what and who she is. Pualani is not exactly a real person, per se - she is a mascot, the 'flower of the sky' - but her image is based on a real person, and that real person unfortunately died mere weeks ago, as I was preparing to research this.

It was startling receiving this news as I was searching for information on the history of the Pualani logo - seeing 'is' turn to 'was' in real time. It was strange having to go back and edit my own writing to say 'was'. But maybe my timing isn't as bad as it could have been. One more tribute amid tributes - nothing special - but another voice among those celebrating the iconic face on the purple tailfins.

image: Miss Hawaii Organization

Leina’ala Ann Teruya Drummond, an indigenous Hawai'ian, was 1964's Miss Hawai'i and a top ten placer in 1965's Miss America competition. She had also worked for Hawaiian Airlines as a cabin crew member when she was younger, and was later chosen to be the model for the airline's new Pualani logo, which debuted in 1973. Coincidentally right after Oliver, but I do think it's just that - a coincidence - especially since the 1973 livery, including Pualani, was designed by Landor Associates, an incredibly prolific firm. She's evolved a lot since then, but she started out as Leina’ala Drummond and this has been public knowledge since the start.

Unfortunately, on 18th September 2023 Drummond succumbed to cancer, aged 77. She lived a full and exciting life, and I can't think of any better way to put it than the Miss Hawaii Organization did - her “iconic smile, elegance and grace will always be remembered”. Some of that elegance still lives on through the image on every Hawaiian Airlines plane's tailfin, which has evolved over the years but never changed at its core. May her memory be blessed, and my condolences to her loved ones.

image: Hawaiian Airlines

Even as she changes you can still see Drummond in Pualani's calm, graceful dignity. Hawaiian Airlines' branding would be a husk of itself without her, and I hope her image will grace their planes for decades to come.

[freehawaii]

KE AUPUNI UPDATE - SEPTEMBER 2024

Making Our Country Visible! You’ve heard the adage, “Out of sight, out of mind”? One of the biggest problems we face in reactivating the Hawaiian Kingdom is, because most people don’t “see” the Hawaiian Kingdom, they think it no longer exists! When people think of the Kingdom as something of the past, not in the here and now or in the future, it’s hard for them to support (or even care about) a nation they canʻt “see” in the here and now. But when you stop to think about it, the Kingdom did not go away. It’s all still here! — the land, the sea, the places, the people, the history, the legacy of Aloha remain. Only the name (the State of Hawaii), the people who run it (Americans) and the style they use, changed. Underneath that haole façade is still the Hawaiian soul and the deep culture of Kapu Aloha! How do we reset our minds to raise up our still existing nation? • By embracing the fact that we are Hawaiians, not Americans. • By dropping words like “mainland” from our vocabulary… • By focusing our thoughts that we are living everyday, every moment in the Hawaiian Kingdom, • By welcoming the return of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign nation, • By inviting everyone from near and far, to join in CELEBRATING the return of the Hawaiian Kingdom! Building Confidence! Many say they would like Hawaii to be independent, but deep down don’t think it can really happen. And there are those who think, that even if we can become politically independent, we are not capable of governing, operating, or protecting our country. We need a celebration to build up confidence in our people and dispel those doubts! • A celebration of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a living nation will build a sense of identity and purpose... and bolster confidence among the people! • Taking the celebration global, will allow others to “see” our nation and get excited that this is really happening! • The celebration will bring forward a vision and roadmap for the future of Hawaii creating momentum and a snowball effect to realizing independence. Other Benefits: Even if people know we exist, they may not know there is a strong movement to actively pursue independence. This celebration will give us an opportunity to bring greater awareness to the movement to free Hawaii and provide a platform to demonstrate our political will for a Free Hawaii. Will the US agree to pull out? YES! ... and this celebration will help to give the U.S. the necessary encouragement to do the right thing. Is there a plan in place to make a peaceful, orderly transition? YES! ... and this celebration provides an opportunity to work out a road map on how to restore our nation with wide participation from our friends from all over the world.  

“Love of country is deep-seated in the breast of every Hawaiian, whatever his station.” — Queen Liliʻuokalani ---------- Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono. The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. ------ For the latest news and developments about our progress at the United Nations in both New York and Geneva, tune in to Free Hawaii News at 6 PM the first Friday of each month on ʻŌlelo Television, Channel 53. ------ "And remember, for the latest updates and information about the Hawaiian Kingdom check out the twice-a-month Ke Aupuni Updates published online on Facebook and other social media." PLEASE KŌKUA… Your kōkua, large or small, is vital to this effort... To contribute, go to:   • GoFundMe – CAMPAIGN TO FREE HAWAII • PayPal – use account email: info@HawaiianKingdom.net • Other – To contribute in other ways (airline miles, travel vouchers, volunteer services, etc...) email us at: info@HawaiianKingdom.net All proceeds are used to help the cause. MAHALO! Malama Pono,

Leon Siu

Hawaiian National

[reasonandempathy]

What to do with 10 trillion dollars

I spent way too much time actually answering a reddit question of "How would you spend 10 trillion dollars if you needed to in 20 years. You will die after 20 years." So, I figured I'd share it here.

With only $10 trillion dollars you can't stabilize greenhouse gases or get rid of fossil fuels, which are 13t and 44t respectively. I'm using a variety of sources, so don't expect citations.

I did slightly overpay for things, strategically, partially because I can only imagine doing the things I would do would make it more expensive than it would otherwise be. You'll see.

I'm presuming I don't get assassinated.

What you can do (I did the math) figures are in Billions:

Personal (2.44/10000):

1.44 on remaking 8 games as mid-line AAA games (I chose Legend of Dragoon, FF8, Witcher 1, and the Legacy of Kain series).

.214 on 50 years of housing and buying yourself a $130,000,000 home in NYC. Includes taxes, maintenance, and furniture.

.15 on household staff for 50 years, with at double the normal pay

.000327 to put 3 kids through the best pre-k and best college in the country

.664 setting up each of those 3 kids with their own equivalent home and staff setup

Public Service (4303/10000):

Big one out of the way. 2500bn in lobbying/buying up American politicians to enact structural reforms I want to see. You would think this would be way too much, since the presidential election in 2020 only had 14.4 in it. This amounts to averaging 250 in spending every election cycle, even off-year. I counter with the global commercial banking market having a market cap of 2800 in 2023. The defense industry is almost 480. Health insurance in the US is 1600. This is an expensive, long-drawn fight. This is likely the single most important thing on the list. Anti-corruption measures, labor rights, pro-democracy reforms, including ultimately making it illegal for other people to buy more elections.

a cumulative total of 1803 spent on:

curing the most common cause of blindness worldwide

eradicating polio, rabies, elephantitis, malaria, world hunger, COVID19 issues, Water + Sanitation access, extreme poverty, homelessness in USA, Canada, and UK (I looked for China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan but couldn't find real numbers),

protecting the Amazon rainforest

Corporate Fixing (5692/10000):

Buying up and changing (converting to Co-Ops, converting to non-profits, dissolving, or something in line with those:

Meta

Amazon

Disney

JP Morgan Chase

Lockheed Martin

Delta

Alphabet

Asda

Tesco

Nike

The Weinstein Company

United Airlines

Shein

EA

BP

Bayer (side-note: they own/are Monsanto now)

De Beers

Vonovia Real Estate Developers

DLE

Ubisoft

Ikea

Shueisha

and Viz Media

It leaves me with 1.4bn left over. I'm comfortable with saying an additional billion would likely be used up administratively as things get a bit more expensive than I thought they would.

Honestly, I could likely blow it on close friends and family who need it. If you have an issue with the house spending being for 50 years instead of 30, that can just be shuffled around a bit to include more people in my personal life to meet the same number.

Leaving me with 470 million to spend elsewhere in the next 20 years. Expensive vacations, nice cars, donating to "smaller" issues as I see worthwhile, giving family and friends money for their ventures/dreams, etc. make me think it wouldn't actually be hard to lose track of that much money in those many years.

Hell, if I want to I can probably spend a million bucks on food a year just for my family. Probably more, if I actively try to do so.

[monkey-overalls]

I’m about halfway through SDRA2 and my love for the Satsuki-Haru-Teruya polycule is growing even more,,, Clown Airlines is top-tier on its own, but add Teruya and you’ve got yourself the perfect ship!

I already loved these three during the first game (especially with Teruya clearly having such a close bond with them to the point of keeping Haru’s goggles and promising to honor their legacy) but seeing Teruya getting so emotional at the sight of their statues??? Clutching Haru’s goggles and reacting so differently to them than any of his other classmates??? Linuj you fucker why did you break them up 😭💔

[eucalyprhodes]

Eulogy

Yesterday, I went to a memorial service of a close friend’s late father who passed away this week. Normally, a memorial service doesn’t really evoke any emotions in me, but there was something so profoundly different about this one. This memorial service made me feel that I missed out on knowing my friend’s father because of how wonderful of a person he was! He was described as quietly funny, dedicated, and as someone who goes above and beyond when helping others. He touched so many lives, his impact is so visibly seen in the families that he left behind, and he had a life full of love. 

In his eulogy, I learned that he was in the airline industry and when he moved to the US, he had a cleaning business before finally reunited with his love of airplanes by working for a major airline company at 67 years old! The eulogy said he HAPPILY drove in the traffic every day to LAX until his retirement from the company. If that doesn’t scream commitment to you, I don’t know what else will! 

Every person’s testimony about him left me laughing out loud because even though he is known to be a man of so very little words, his kindness overcomes his quietness. Hearing everyone’s story makes me wished i got to know my friend much much earlier in my life because then, I would’ve been able to know her father too. 

But then there’s another thing that got me thinking. Reading that eulogy and hearing everyone’s testimony made me think of my own eulogy, and the testimony that my loved ones will say. Will my eulogy focused on my career, or what I do for others, or my interests and hobbies? Most importantly, will my legacy be one of kindness, commitment to loyalty to God and to others? 

Here’s how I picture my eulogy will be:

Kezia was born in Jakarta, April 15 1991 to Jimmy Baten and Erlinda Sianturi Baten. She grew up in Jatiwaringin where she started her education in SD Tunas Kasih before transferring to SDK 4 Penabur and SMPK 5 Penabur. In 20015, at the age of 14, Kezia along with her parents and older brother immigrated to the United States where the family lived in La Mirada before settling their roots in Buena Park, California. 

Kezia obtained a bachelors degree in child development and family studies from CSU Long Beach. She initially wanted to pursue social work for social services agency before changing her dream to become an academic advisor for her alma mater. After a grueling 6 years, she finally obtained her dream and became an academic counselor at CSU Fullerton only to learn that she completely hated this job and there was no such thing as a dream job. After only 3 months at CSUF, she quits her job and returned to HR as talent acquisition specialist for a learning and development company. In 2023, she was unfortunately laid off but quickly accepted an offer in HR where she continued consistently for the next 25 years. She started working as HR Specialist at (insert super great company here), and worked her way up to HR Generalist, HR Manager, and finally Director of People & Culture until the day she retires. 

Kezia married Julian in the midst of Covid pandemic on October 4, 2020. Surrounded by their closest friends and families out in nature, they exchanged vows and settled in Fullerton, CA. In 2023, they celebrated their wedding by having a wedding reception in Jakarta, Indonesia. The following year in 2024, they welcomed their first children: twins (JJ and EZ). The family moved to North Richland Hills, TX in spring 2025 and have been living there ever since. 

Kezia loves Jesus and has served in various churches throughout her life. She served as a seating host and admin assistant at The Father’s House of Orange County from 2022 until 2032. She served at her local church (insert church name) and eventually launched a ministry where she served (insert population). Serving God has been a priority for Kezia as well as Julian and they made it a priority to always serve the Kingdom. 

In her spare time, Kezia loves being in the outdoors. She and Julian have gone to every single national parks in the United States, often bringing the twins together with them which inspires the twins’ own love and appreciation for nature. Every long weekend was an opportunity for them to take the twins camping, sleep under the stars, learning about all the plants and animals, and appreciate what God has created for them. After their retirement, Kezia and Julian spent most of their time traveling both for the ministry as well as their own enjoyment. Kezia also loves coffee and hosting dinner parties at her home. Her love language is food and she loves creating a safe space for her loved ones to feel safe and welcomed at her home. 

And that is all I can think about. Will my life really turn out like that? Obviously I don’t know. I do hope the twins thing really happened though :) But if yesterday taught me anything, it’s that our legacy matters. What do I want to be remembered of? Will my various HR titles matter? will my love for the outdoors matter? Maybe not so much. I truly hope i will be remembered as someone who loves the Lord, the Kingdom and has done everything I can to contribute to God’s Kingdom. 

Have you ever thought of your eulogy?

[shaimaglobo]

Antarctica Packages from Kerala: An Unforgettable Adventure with Kerala Travels Interserve Limited

Antarctica, the land of vast icy landscapes, towering glaciers, and unique wildlife, remains one of the most sought-after destinations for adventurous travelers. Its pristine environment, untouched by mass tourism, offers an experience like no other. For those residing in Kerala, a dream of visiting this remote and extraordinary continent can be fulfilled through exclusive Antarctica packages from Kerala. And when it comes to planning such a once-in-a-lifetime journey, Kerala Travels Interserve Limited (KTIL) stands out as the trusted name to turn your dream into reality.

Founded in 1959, KTIL is the first travel agency in Kerala, and over the last six decades, it has earned a reputation for offering unparalleled travel services. With a deep understanding of customer needs and a passion for exploring new horizons, KTIL offers a range of meticulously crafted Antarctica travel packages that ensure an unforgettable journey

Why Choose Antarctica for Your Next Adventure?

Antarctica is unlike any other destination in the world. It offers an experience that combines thrilling adventure, extraordinary natural beauty, and the opportunity to witness the planet's most unique wildlife in their natural habitat. Whether you're an adventure seeker, a wildlife enthusiast, or someone who craves solitude in nature, Antarctica provides an experience that will leave a lasting impression.

Some of the key reasons why you should consider visiting Antarctica include:

The Breathtaking Landscapes: The icy wilderness of Antarctica offers a mesmerizing and untouched beauty that will leave you speechless. From towering glaciers to sparkling blue waters, the scenery is unlike any other on Earth.

Unique Wildlife: Antarctica is home to unique wildlife species such as penguins, seals, and whales. The opportunity to witness these creatures in their natural habitat is an experience few people can ever claim.

Adventurous Activities: Antarctica offers opportunities for thrilling activities like kayaking, ice trekking, and even polar plunges, which make it an ideal destination for adventure lovers.

Scientific Exploration: Antarctica is a hub for scientific research. As one of the least inhabited regions of the world, it offers rare insights into the planet's ecosystems, climate, and geology.

Why Choose Kerala Travels Interserve Limited for Your Antarctica Trip?

When it comes to planning a journey to Antarctica, there are many factors to consider, from transportation logistics to accommodation and safety measures. This is where Kerala Travels Interserve Limited (KTIL) shines. As the first travel agency in Kerala, KTIL has spent over six decades in providing unmatched services in the travel and tourism industry. The agency’s commitment to excellence, customer-centric approach, and vast expertise make it the perfect partner for your trip to Antarctica.

Six Decades of Unmatched Service

Founded in 1959, KTIL has a legacy of over 60 years of delivering exceptional travel experiences. As the pioneer in the Kerala travel industry, KTIL has built long-term relationships with travel partners, airlines, and cruise lines worldwide. Their expertise in handling international tours, especially remote and unique destinations like Antarctica, ensures that your journey is seamless and memorable.

Tailored Antarctica Packages

KTIL offers exclusive Antarctica packages from Kerala, each designed to meet the specific needs and preferences of travelers. Whether you are looking for an adventurous expedition or a luxurious cruise experience, KTIL provides carefully crafted itineraries that include the best sights and experiences Antarctica has to offer.

End-to-End Travel Support

From the moment you start planning your trip to Antarctica until you return to Kerala, KTIL ensures every detail is taken care of. Their team of expert travel advisors assists in choosing the right package, coordinating flight and accommodation bookings, and ensuring a hassle-free travel experience. Additionally, KTIL’s partners offer expert guides, ensuring that you learn and experience Antarctica with seasoned professionals.

KTIL’s Antarctica Packages: A Journey Like No Other

Kerala Travels Interserve Limited offers several Antarctica travel packages designed for different types of travelers. Whether you're a first-time visitor or someone seeking a more immersive experience, KTIL has something for everyone. Here’s a glimpse into some of the popular Antarctica packages available:

Classic Antarctica Cruise

This package offers a luxurious voyage to Antarctica aboard a high-end expedition cruise. The trip includes stops at the Antarctic Peninsula, Deception Island, and Livingston Island, where you’ll have opportunities to witness the stunning landscapes and interact with wildlife. Onboard, travelers enjoy world-class amenities, including gourmet meals, comfortable cabins, and expert-led talks about the region's history and environment.

Antarctic Wildlife Experience

For nature lovers and wildlife enthusiasts, this package focuses on encounters with Antarctica’s unique animal life. It includes visits to penguin colonies, opportunities to see seals and whales, and educational sessions about the conservation efforts taking place in the region. The experience is designed to offer an in-depth look at the ecosystem and wildlife, with plenty of opportunities for photography and exploration.

Adventure Seekers Package

For the more adventurous traveler, KTIL offers a specialized Antarctic Expedition package. This itinerary includes activities like kayaking, polar plunges, ice hiking, and camping on the continent for the ultimate thrill. A highly personalized experience, this package caters to those looking for hands-on, immersive activities in one of the world’s most remote places.

What to Expect on Your Antarctica Adventure

When you book an Antarctica package through KTIL, you can expect an extraordinary experience that includes a range of exciting and educational activities:

Wildlife Watching: Watch penguins waddle across the ice, spot seals basking in the sun, and see whales in the wild during boat excursions.

Cruising through Icebergs: Cruise through frozen waters surrounded by giant icebergs and snow-covered landscapes. The sight of these immense ice formations is unforgettable.

Shore Excursions: Step onto the frozen continent during shore excursions, where you’ll explore pristine landscapes, visit research stations, and learn about the region’s history and ecology.

Guided Educational Talks: KTIL partners with expert naturalists and scientists who provide insightful lectures about Antarctica’s geology, climate, and conservation efforts.

Conclusion: Make Your Dream of Antarctica a Reality with KTIL

Traveling to Antarctica is an extraordinary experience that will stay with you forever. With Kerala Travels Interserve Limited (KTIL), your journey to the frozen continent is in safe hands. With over six decades of experience, KTIL provides expertly planned Antarctica packages from Kerala, tailored to suit every traveler’s preferences.

Whether you’re seeking adventure, wildlife experiences, or a luxury cruise, KTIL offers a variety of packages to make your dream of visiting Antarctica come true. Their legacy of professionalism, attention to detail, and commitment to customer satisfaction ensures that your trip will be nothing short of exceptional.

So, why wait? Embark on the adventure of a lifetime and book your Antarctica tour package with KTIL today!

[growingwithcathay]

There are two things that I usually seem thrilled about whenever I go for my placement.

First is the opportunity to wear a uniform that makes me feel confident and professional. Whenever I wear it, I feel more responsible for my words and actions during the placement to the extent that it makes me feel as if I am an actual employee of Cathay Pacific and not just a student completing her hours. Every time I see myself in the uniform, it just makes me feel proud of myself for making my colleagues feel like I am somewhat deserving of wearing their identity which is why they let me wear it to represent the airline’s legacy.

Second thing that thrills me at placement is the aircraft itself as every time I see it, I get goosebumps by just thinking that I am in some way responsible for why passengers were able to board the aircraft without any issues concerning their documentation or other immigration aspects. One time when I was leaving the airport and heading home, I was able to witness the moment that the flight CX805 got airborne that day and it was a something that made me appreciate the experience overall.

To conclude, with the help of nice passengers and interactions with them, the friendliness of the staff, the professional yet fun elements of the airline, and even the friends that I made during the placement, I can surely say that this is an experience that I’m going to cherish for the rest of my life. Thank you Cathay Pacific for making me grow myself professionally and personally with you♥️.

[madhousedarry]

The Omen: Legacy of Lunacy | Chapter 15

And at this time Richard Nigel was in Seventh Heaven with happiness and truly heavenly bliss from his joy.

Right in front of his face, right opposite his eyes and nose, hung the wet, glistening in the soft light of the lamps pussy of Asia Scallop, flowing with vaginal juice, which the young man diligently licked with his tongue, mobile like a small red snake, trying to penetrate as deeply as possible into her fragrant and enticing vagina.

His partner only moaned quietly, busy sucking his mighty cock, thanks to which, mind you, Dick earned his agent nickname "Damien The Thorn".

They were now at an altitude of twelve thousand meters on board a practically empty airliner, because apart from the two of them there was absolutely no one else in the passenger cabin, which gave both of them the idea to have sex right there, without waiting until they arrived in Jokyo, where they had recently flown straight from Whorecouver in order to track down a mysterious Kasakhian who, just yesterday, had managed to jump down from the same height at which they were now in the sixty-nine position.

People with big brains will find this way of killing time during a flight terribly indecent, but what do you expect from two residents of Analda of different sexes, where, as we know, there is no one except whores and hockey players?

It is not surprising that such an explosive mixture detonated immediately under the right conditions, causing both of our old acquaintances to have an attack of unjustified sexual attraction to each other at an altitude of 12,000 meters! But if only these two knew about that nightmare called Asia… However, who knows about it better than she herself?

In any case, it didn't matter to Nigel and Scallop, who, having known each other for only a day, had already become passionate lovers - apparently, this was due to the fact that in that memorable moment for both of them in the Whorecouver prison, in which Asia Scallop recruited Nigel's Dick, they both experienced incredible sexual tension, which then resulted in Asia's timid attempt to jerk Dick off and let the latter hold her tit.

And now their relationship was so close even without any connection - other than the obvious "you're the boss, I'm the fool" scheme - that it cost them nothing to risk their lives in order to satisfy each other even in such an inappropriate place as an airplane.

Be that as it may, they had almost reached orgasm, when suddenly the figure of a stewardess appeared at the end of the cabin, and our newly-minted lovers had to immediately stop stimulating each other's genitals and in a mad rush hide the genitals of their bodies under their suits, while the plane was already descending over Jopon.

As it turned out later, if it had not been for this most unfortunate oversight on the part of the stewardess, who, instead of addressing the only passengers of the airliner through the loudspeaker, decided to inform them of the landing, as they say, in person, then everything could have turned out completely differently, and in that case Dick and Asia would have had to get dressed not in front of one single girl, but in front of a whole crowd of employees of the Jokyo airport, who, after the landing of the airliner, immediately rushed into the cabin like dogs unleashed from a leash.

Dick instinctively wanted to pounce on a couple of cops so as not to let his beautiful companion be harmed, but the latter held him in place in time, clinging to his arm with a death grip.

The young man, who had perceived her behavior as an attempt to take away his freedom of choice to act at his own discretion, wanted to break free from the grip, but while he was floundering in one place like a fool, the police, passing their seats in transit, disappeared into the pilot's cabin.

"You see, you fool," Asia said to him in a wet whisper, "they don't care about us at all!"

Dick didn't answer her, but only gave up trying to break free from her grip, fortunately she had already let go of his hand and, rising from her place, began to smooth out the folds on her black leggings, which, although they hid the view of her pussy, however, due to the tight fit to her body, seemed to only further emphasize the feeling that Asia Scallop was actually completely naked, like Aphrodite emerging from the sea foam.

At least one sight of her crotch was enough for her new lover - agent "Damien The Thorn" - to immediately fill his mighty member with blood and try to break through the fabric of his underpants and jump out of his pants.

But Dick was too busy trying to come to his senses after the events that had changed so quickly - they were flying calmly at an altitude of 12,000 meters and having sex in the 69 position, and then suddenly the airliner had already landed at Jokyo airport and now a pack of furious customs officers had come on board for an inspection.

Not everyone would know what to do in such a situation, and so it is not surprising that Richard Nigel was simply confused and was now trying to cool his head (and his dick had long since been cooled by the cops who suddenly burst in).

After killing a couple of minutes to get his thoughts in order, Dick finally got up from his seat and followed Asia Scallop to the exit of the airliner. Since, as already mentioned above, there was no one else in the passenger cabin, and the crowd of cops was concentrated in the pilot's cabin, our sweet couple had no problems leaving the plane.

Having descended the steps onto the asphalt area near the airport building, our newly-minted lovers exchanged meaningful glances and, holding hands, headed towards a nearby yellow taxi, from the window of which a mustachioed face, adorned with an aerodrome cap, was sticking out.

"I'll give you a ride with the wind!" the driver said with a strong accent. "Only the air conditioning in my car doesn't work!"

"I don't give a shit," Asia Scallop answered him with a smile in perfect Joponese and sat down in the back seat. "Let's go! Just not too fast, because everything inside me hurts… Why are you standing there, stupid?" she asked Dick and waved her hand invitingly.

There was nothing to be done, so Dick had to climb into the taxi after Asia and lean back in the seat.

When the car started moving, his neighbor immediately pushed him down and began to pull down his underwear with a predatory gleam in her eyes.

"Do you want it right here?" Dick was surprised.

"Yes, yes, right here and now!" Asia hissed, already holding his rock-hard cock in her tender little hand. "Those customs faggots ruined my fun, and I'll never forgive myself for that!"

She didn't say anything else, because the next second she started sucking Dick's cock with fury. The driver with a moustache and a cap-airfield seemed to have either suddenly gone deaf as a stump, or had simply gotten used to the fact that his passengers were turning the back seat of his car into a real brothel, so not a single glance or movement of his lips showed that he heard and saw in the rearview mirror the scene from a cheap porn film that was playing out right behind him.

Maybe he was either gay or even asexual, but no one will ever know for sure. Anyway, by the time he got our couple where they needed to go, Dick had already cummed in Asia Scallop's throat five times in a row, and she didn't let a single drop of his cum go to waste, swallowing it all.

Apparently, this satisfied her hunger to the fullest extent, because when the driver told them that it was time to get off and at the same time, out of the blue, advertised some cafe with the telling name "Lustful Scallops", Asia Scallop, with a strange gleam in her eyes, answered him that she would not take a crumb of anything to eat in her mouth for the next five hours.

In response, the taxi driver merely shrugged his shoulders: it was his business, as if to say so, after which, having accepted the money from her hands, stained with sweat and sperm, he drove off home, leaving our couple beaming with pleasure on the sidewalk near the entrance of some entertainment establishment, which was guarded by two hefty Joponese men of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in white camouflage without insignia.

"Hey, pussy-eyed ones," Asia Scallop shouted at the two, "I'm tired of your stupid ass-faces! I want to see the boss! And now! Do you hear me, piss-skinned faggots?"

"Damien The Thorn" was already prepared to repel an attack by the seriously angry Joponese, but to his surprise he saw how both guards, without blinking an eye, turned their backs on the Analdian woman screaming at them and disappeared behind the glass doors.

"What are you standing there for? Let's go after them!" Asia nudged him in the shoulder and moved after them.

Dick obeyed his companion and followed; he was sure that such an unceremonious treatment of the Joponese by Asia Scallop would not lead to anything good, but he decided to hold off for now on trying to hammer into her head, filled with fucking and banging, the basics of behavior in a foreign country.

He felt uneasy about becoming the lover of such an eccentric person, but since she was also his immediate superior after recruiting him in a distant Whorecouver prison, there was nothing he could do about it.

Asia seemed to see from his sad face that he was thinking about what had just happened, and suddenly stopped, turning to him with a burning gaze.

"What are you crying about, you idiot?" she asked in the tone of a child engrossed in an interesting game. "They're servants, lackeys, lackey shit! They don't dare disobey us!"

Dick didn't know what to answer her, so he limited himself to nodding his head. And the girl continued:

"They have to endure everything I want to do to them! Even smear their stupid faces with my shit and bathe in my urine! Do you want me to show you what they are ready for?"

The young man, listening to these words, saw that Asia Scallop was shaking all over, as if in a fever, and her mouth was twisted with excitement, which made it seem as if in front of him was not a recruiter, but a real maniac.

He found it hard to find the strength to make a timid attempt to say a word against her:

"N-n-no need," "Damien The Thorn" squeezed out with difficulty.

"I'll show you "n-n-no need"!" the girl mimicked him, jokingly shaking her fist at him.

Then she turned towards the two guards who continued to march and barked at them in a commanding tone:

"Stop right there, faggots!"

The Joponese stopped as one and turned sharply to face her. Asia Scallop, after a dramatic pause, during which her gaze ran lustfully from one guard to the other, said in the same commanding tone:

"Hey you, on the left! Get on all fours! GET ON ALL FOURS, YOU STINKING FAGGOT!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The one to whom she addressed these words immediately carried out her command so quickly for his heavy body that Dick could not help but contain his amazement.

But Asia Scallop clearly wasn't satisfied with that, because after watching for a couple of seconds as the Joponese man, standing on all fours like a faithful little dog, looked at her with a completely emotionless gaze, she spoke up again:

"And you, condom, what are you standing there for? Give me the whip!"

"Damien The Thorn" didn't even have time to blink before the guard, who was still standing on his own two feet, suddenly took a whip out of thin air and threw it at the girl.

Asia Scallop deftly intercepted it and, shaking her long whip like a conductor's baton, again addressed the "dog-man":

"Now crawl to me, creature, and take off my shoe! Quickly!"

Dick, continuing to remain indifferent to the spectacle unfolding before his eyes, watched as his companion, at the last words, put her right foot forward, and the Joponese man quickly crawled up to her and began to take off her shoe.

When he finally succeeded, the eyes of all present were revealed to the goddess's foot, dressed in a short sock, and this sock, once completely white, had unsightly brown spots from sweat and dust in some places.

Dick wanted to look away or turn away, but Asia Scallop, meaningfully pushing him in the shoulder, immediately gave a new order:

"Now take the sock off my foot and swallow it! NOW, YOU SUCKER!"

She might not have said the last two words, because the Joponese man, who was on all fours, immediately pulled the dirty sock off her foot and stuffed it behind her cheek.

Dick saw how the poor guy then immediately swallowed this "delicacy" whole in one gulp, while maintaining complete indifference to everything that was happening.

Then Asia Scallop, clearly not satisfied with this, suddenly, for no apparent reason, swung her whip and began to strike the squatting Joponese man on his back, one blow after another, each one stronger than the other.

"Look, look good!" she hissed in "Damien The Thorn's" ear. "See what a face he has!"

And indeed, there was something to marvel at here - the Joponese man managed to maintain a stony expression while experiencing pain. But Dick was already tired of this.

Catching the moment when Asia Scallop raised her hand up, he immediately snatched the whip from her and threw it into the hands of the second guard standing nearby like a pillar, who immediately took it into his own hands and hid it behind his back.

Asia Scallop, frozen in an idiotic pose with her hand outstretched forward, looked for some time with her mouth open, first at Dick, then at the Joponese man who continued to stand in front of her on all fours, and only when Dick, turning his whole body back to the exit, was about to leave this establishment, the girl came to life and, emitting hysterical screams from her throat, rushed after him.

"What are you doing?" she screamed, throwing herself on his back.

Dick turned sharply to her and, looking into her eyes, with difficulty restrained himself from punching her in the stupid face.

"And what are you doing?" he parried her question, shaking slightly. "We came here to track the path of some superman who threatens our country, or to make fun of these pathetic slant-eyed ones, or something?"

Asia Scallop stared at him for a few seconds, her tits under her red shirt bouncing up and down in time with her breathing, and then she suddenly gave "Damien The Thorn" a slap in the face.

The latter bravely endured his beloved's hysteria, realizing that now was not the time to put Asia Scallop in a straitjacket and inject her with tranquilizers - after all, no matter how mentally ill a fool she was, she was still his direct superior and it was on her that the entire success of the operation she had started to track and catch a certain Kasakhian depended, who would be able to sneak aboard an airliner and then jump down from a height of 12,000 meters and not only stay alive, but also be able to walk with his accomplice to the monorail station with the obvious goal of moving further and further towards his goal!

And to be honest, Richard Nigel simply fell head over heels in love with Asia Scallop, although he tried not to show it outwardly - even during sex with her, he tried to maintain a stony expression on his face and tried not to make any sounds, which, it seemed, only turned his partner on even more, who, it seemed, psychologically found it easier to fuck a mannequin-like Analdian than a hot Mexican.

In short, having taken the full brunt of her sweeping slap, "Damien The Thorn" did not say a word to her and was about to move forward when suddenly a shrill cry reached the ears of both lovers:

"Miss Scallop, MISS SCALLOP!" screamed a young man with a guitar case on his back, running down the street towards them as if he were being chased by furies.

Our sweet couple froze in place, giving the stranger the opportunity to come closer to them and stop two steps away from them, breathing heavily.

The steel-piercing eye of "Damien The Thorn" did not fail to notice that the young man's face was covered with a deathly pallor of fear, mixed with the blush of shame; however, the latter was an entirely understandable consequence of the shock of feelings he had experienced due to the fact that such an imposing beauty as Asia Scallop stood before him.

Dick swore to himself that at night this young man furiously jerks off his small cock, imagining how Asia gives him a blowjob with a swallow.

Dick was torn from these thoughts by the voice of the young man, who, still continuing to breathe like a steam locomotive, delivered in a breaking voice the following report of his own composition:

"Miss Scallop," he began, "I did everything as you ordered me, and I was able to find out exactly where our two suspects went!"

"So where did they go, Carlton?" Asia asked lazily, seeming not to be interested in the matter at all.

"I interrogated the cashier thoroughly," continued the young man, whose lips suddenly stretched into a predatory smile, "and in the course of this very, I tell you, pleasant operation I found out that they had bought tickets to Alma-Thou!!!"

"And how did you get the necessary testimony out of that pussy-eyed hen?" Asia suddenly perked up, her eyes once again lit up with the familiar "Damien The Thorn" BDSM mistress light.

"Oh, it's a long story," Carlton replied, licking his lips. "Let's just say that I forced that bitch, on pain of death, to suck my dick right in front of the entire monorail station staff! Oh, you should have seen their faces," he turned to "Damien The Thorn", "when that slut, drooling and making pathetic moans, swallowed my cum, while ten-plus-sized guys with batons and pistols stood in front of us, afraid even to fart, knowing that in the event of the slightest resistance, my buddies would blow their entire stinking station to hell!"

[slyth3rinbab3]

Friday The 13th: A Bad Luck?

When we hear the phrase, Friday the 13th, we already automatically think of it as a bad luck or a taboo.. But , should it really be considered as such? or is it just a common superstitous belief among us?

Why Friday The 13th Is Considered Bad Luck

Friday the 13th has always been associated with superstition, especially by Westerners and Easterners, either with the day itself or historic events that happened during that specific date which gave it its ominous reputation.

For most people, Friday the 13th often symbolizes bad luck and this belief combines two elements of misfortune: the day Friday itself which people from various cultures perceive as unlucky in historical terms and the number “13” which people believe to be ill-fated – both for Western and Eastern traditions – hence, this day is always considered to be dreadful by some people for potential mishaps. (Source: “Why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky across the world” by Kristina Moy from Fox 13 Seattle” ; https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/friday-13th-myths-origins-legacy)

This superstition has been circulating around the world for the past 100 years. Experts can only guess and find it hard to pinpoint why Friday the 13th is always perceive as an “unlucky” day. According to Stephen Winick, a folklore specialist at the American Folklore Center of the Library of Congress, people start making references to Friday the 13th being unlucky without being able to say as to why they consider it to be as such – which leads to others gathering wild theories about the said date. (Source: “The possible origins of Friday the 13th and other unlucky days” by Kaity Kline from NPR; https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/nx-s1-5103766/beware-its-friday-the-13th-dont-say-we-didnt-warn-you)

“Fridays were considered unlucky days, and that’s been true since the Middle Ages in the English speaking world and probably through most of Europe, because Friday was the day of crucifixion. And in the old Catholic tradition, every Friday was a day of penance. And that idea has persisted,” – Marsh

One of the references gathered by Winick about Friday the 13th being unlucky is from both French writing and plays – where the character from the play Les Finesses des Gribouilles once said, “I was born on a Friday, December 13th, 1813 from which come all of my misfortunes.” and where the father killed his daughter on Friday the 13th (from a French literary magazine Revue de Paris as written by Marquis de Salvo). According to him, it is always Fridays and 13 that bring bad luck.

People have started approaching this said occasion with caution – avoiding significant decisions or events, avoiding travel, delaying surgeries or so and so. There are even airlines who dropped bookings on this date and buildings omit 13th floor entirely. (There are even some estate properties who dont have the number “13” on their unit.)

Friday the 13th is also associated with black cats which people also consider to be bad luck , especially when they cross paths with one on Halloween or on Friday the 13th. In history.com , written records associate black cats to the occult way back in the 13th century – black cats are considered to be or declared as Satan’s incarnate if not being inextricably linked to witches in medieval Europe.

Still curious? Read more from these links I’ve mentioned here in this blog:

Sources:

Why Friday the 13th is considered unlucky across the world” by Kristina Moy from Fox 13 Seattle” ; https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/friday-13th-myths-origins-legacy

“The possible origins of Friday the 13th and other unlucky days” by Kaity Kline from NPR; https://www.npr.org/2024/09/13/nx-s1-5103766/beware-its-friday-the-13th-dont-say-we-didnt-warn-you

[ramrodd]

How likely is Delta to win its case against cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike after the software update it provided crashed over 8 million computers, according to CNBC?

COMMENTARY:

Hard to say, Back in the 60s and 70s, Delta had a reputation for using obsolete IBM main frame data processing for its reservation system. It worked perfectly well and represented IT as brute force. They were actually cocky about it because, as I recall, it performed as good as if not better than all the other carriers.

I don’t know what happened after 1980 and PATCO. A primary issue of the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981 was that the entire system was dependent upon 1955 IBM hardware that worked just fine with lots of human resources to cover the gaps in the system, but Nixon’s design for airline deregulation assumed that robotics was the future for ATC because of the aging workforce in 1981.

At that time, NASA was doing crop dusting with bi-wing drones and the expectation that a huge capital investmetn in electronics, avionics and robotics in the ground system and on the flight deck would replace the dwinding human factors. If Nixon’s capital budget had been fulfilled over time in the ATC and commercial carriers, throughput would have exceeded a 30% increase and virtually everthing would be fly-by-wire in anticipation of the mobilization necessary for civil air support in a general war.

Well, that didn’t happen and one of the consequences is that, everytime a sprinkler system goes off during the day in Phoenix, O’Hara gets backed up, All the capital that was supposed to go into system upgrade and optimization has gone into the bloated executive compensation of airline CEO’s, including Delta’s.

In addition, the airline CEOs shifted their fleet mix to wide body aircraft and their scheduled services to ensure as close to a 100% load factor as possible,, If a certain section isn’t full, they cancel the section in order to fill the remaining equipment. One consequence is the plethora of cancellations even in perfect flight conditions. Episodes of 1200 and 1500 clacellations is a direct consequence of the Project 2025 economic legacy of PATCO. Everytime your flight is delayed or cancelled, you are helping to capitalize the bloated executive compensation of commercial airline executives

For all I know, Delta is still depending on a massive deployment of IBM maif frame computers and I do know that the ATC is dependent upon similar obsolete systems. The fact is, the hardware isn’t the problem: Microsoft is hopelessly obsolete and CrowdStrike is an attempt to retrofit the software equivalent of the Ford Tri Motor with 757 turbofans. For all I know, Delta is running MIcrosoft suites on IBM 350 mainframs and the IBN;s are probably the most stable part of their system, but they will probably hold up CrowdStrike for paybacks.

[giftsforus]

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[tourporlaindiaseo]

Dallas Stars

Based in Dallas, Texas, the Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team. They play in the National Hockey League's (NHL) Central Division of the Western Conference. The Stars have made a name for themselves in the NHL thanks to their fervent fan base and spirit of competition.

Past Events and Accomplishments: Establishment: Originally named the Minnesota North Stars, the team was created in 1967 and moved to Dallas in 1993. The team's relocation opened up a new chapter, and they soon established themselves as essential members of the Dallas sports scene.

Stanley Cup Win: The Stars' first Stanley Cup victory in the 1998–1999 season was the apex of their achievements. With goalie Ed Belfour, MVP Joe Nieuwendyk, and captain Derian Hatcher leading the way, the Stars won the championship in an exciting six-game series against the Buffalo Sabres.

Regular Contenders: The Stars have consistently competed strongly against some of the top clubs in the league and made multiple appearances in the playoffs. They have developed a reputation as a strong opponent due to their consistent performance.

Important Players: Mike Modano Modano spent most of his playing career with the Stars and is regarded as the best player in franchise history. He is the NHL's all-time top scorer among players of American descent and played a key role in the team's Stanley Cup triumph.

Jamie Benn Benn has been a vital component of the Stars' recent success, leading the squad as captain since 2013. Benn, who is renowned for his tough play and scoring prowess, was named the league's top scorer in 2014–2015 and was awarded the Art Ross Trophy.

Miro Heiskanen: Heiskanen is a rising star in the NHL who has emerged as one of the best defensemen in the conference. He is an essential player for the future of the Stars because of his superb skating, vision, and defensive ability.

Home Arena: American Airlines Center: Situated in Dallas' Victory Park district, the American Airlines Center serves as the home arena for the Stars. The arena offers fans a cutting-edge setting in which to take in thrilling hockey play and other activities all year long. Competitions: Intense Rivals: The Stars have a number of noteworthy rivalries, namely those with the Nashville Predators, Colorado Avalanche, and St. Louis Blues. Fans are captivated by the heated competition and exciting games that these matches frequently offer. Community Involvement: Dallas Stars Foundation: The team supports numerous philanthropic causes and youth activities as part of its active involvement in the community. The Dallas-Fort Worth region benefits from the foundation's initiatives, which are centered on wellness, health, and education. Latest Achievement: Playoff Runs: The Stars have made deep playoff runs in the past few years, culminating in a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals during the 2019–2020 season, further solidifying their legacy. Their effort showed the team's resiliency and potential even though they were unable to win the championship. In conclusion, the Dallas Stars in the NHL have a great past and a promising future. They remain a formidable force in the league, combining youthful, exciting potential with the experience of seasoned veterans. They are a well-liked and esteemed franchise because of their dedication to greatness on the ice and their involvement in the community off the ice.

The Dallas Stars provide an entertaining and thrilling hockey experience that epitomizes the spirit of community and competitiveness, whether you're a seasoned fan or just getting started.

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Investigate the Golden Triangle: Tour By Tour Por la India Enterprise The Golden Triangle Tour, provided by Tour Por la India Company, will take you on an amazing tour of some of the most famous locations in India. This well planned tour takes you to the energetic cities of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, highlighting each place's remarkable architecture, rich cultural legacy, and historical significance.

The Tour Por la India Company: Why Choose It? Experienced Guides: Take advantage of the skills and knowledge of knowledgeable guides who guarantee an enjoyable trip and offer perceptive comments.

Comfortable Transportation: Enjoy a hassle-free, pleasurable trip with contemporary, air-conditioned cars.

Customized Itineraries: You can design a tour that meets your needs and interests, letting you take your time discovering the main sights of the Golden Triangle.

The Golden Triangle Tour's highlights include: Day 1: Delhi, the vibrant capital; Historic Landmarks: Start your adventure in India's crowded metropolis, Delhi. Discover historical sites including the striking Qutub Minar, the imposing Red Fort, and the famous India Gate.

Cultural Immersion: Take in Delhi's rich history and culture by visiting its vibrant bazaars, historic temples, and busy marketplaces. Take in the vibrant ambiance of the city while shopping for gifts and sampling delectable street cuisine.

Day 2: Agra, the Taj Mahal's home The Taj Mahal Visit: See the magnificent Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, when you visit the enchanted city of Agra. Find all about the architectural significance and its intriguing history.

Agra Fort: Discover this additional UNESCO World Heritage Site, the famous Agra Fort. Explore its exquisite gardens, courtyards, and palaces. From the ramparts of the fort, take in sweeping vistas of the Taj Mahal.

Day 3: The Pink City of Jaipur Explore Amber Fort, the vibrant city of Jaipur, popularly referred to as the "Pink City." See the magnificent Amber Fort, renowned for its exquisite carvings, breathtaking architecture, and expansive vistas of the hillsides around it.

Discover the elaborate City Palace and be amazed by the Hawa Mahal's (Palace of Winds) exquisite designs. Explore Jaipur's lively markets and rich cultural legacy.

Day 4: Go back to Delhi Last-Minute Explorations: Use your last day to explore new hidden treasures in Delhi or to return to some of your favorite places. Before you depart, enjoy some shopping, dining, or just lounging around. Available Tour Packages 1. Standard Golden Triangle Tour: All-encompassing Exploration: A comprehensive tour that covers the main sights in Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur and offers a well-balanced blend of historical, cultural, and architectural experiences. 2. Luxury Golden Triangle trip Enhanced Comfort: For a more luxurious travel experience, take advantage of the Golden Triangle trip with opulent lodging, exclusive transportation, and individualized services. 3. Adventure Golden Triangle Tour Exciting Activities: Incorporate thrilling excursions like hot air balloon rides, elephant rides, and guided treks with the cultural exploration of the Golden Triangle. In summary Travelers may discover the rich history, vibrant culture, and stunning architecture of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur with the Golden Triangle Tour from Tour Por la India Company. Whether you're looking for an exciting getaway, a luxurious retreat, or a cultural tour, our packages are made to ensure that you have an unforgettable time visiting some of India's most well-known locations.

With Tour Por la India Company, you may start an amazing adventure by scheduling your Golden Triangle tour right now.