Aerodynamics Quotes

Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.

I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

It's hard to make something that's interesting. It's really, really hard. It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity... So what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such an act of will...

It's possible to understand the world from studying a leaf. You can comprehend the laws of aerodynamics, mathematics, poetry and biology through the complex beauty of such a perfect structure. It's also possible to travel the whole globe and learn nothing.

[09:09] MAV: You’re sending me into space in a convertible. [09:24] HOUSTON: There will be Hab canvas covering the holes. It will provide enough aerodynamics in Mars’s atmosphere. [09:38] MAV: So it’s a ragtop. Much better.

If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies

I despise my own past and that of others. I despise resignation, patience, professional heroism and all the obligatory sentiments. I also despise the decorative arts, folklore, advertising, radio announcers' voices, aerodynamics, the Boy Scouts, the smell of naphtha, the news, and drunks. I like subversive humor, freckles, women's knees and long hair, the laughter of playing children, and a girl running down the street. I hope for vibrant love, the impossible, the chimerical. I dread knowing precisely my own limitations.

There's a metaphor Vincent Eades likes to use: "If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn't be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn't know that, so it flies.

Most craft give a nod, however brief and unfriendly, towards beauty. Vogon ships did not nod towards beauty. They pulled on ski masks and mugged beauty in a dark alley They spat in the eye of beauty and bludgeoned their wait through the notions of aesthetics and aerodynamics. Vogon cruisers did not so much travel through space as defile it and toss it aside.

When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise. Clare has turned the second bedroom into a wonder cabinet, full of small sculptures and drawings pinned up on every inch of wall space. There are coils of wire and rolls of paper tucked into shelves and drawers. The sculptures remind me of kites, or model airplanes. I say this to Clare one evening, standing in the doorway of her studio in my suit and tie, home from work, about to begin making dinner, and she throws one at me; it flies surprisingly well, and soon we are standing at opposite ends of the hall, tossing tiny sculptures at each other, testing their aerodynamics. The next day I come home to find that Clare has created a flock of paper and wire birds, which are hanging from the ceiling in the living room. A week later our bedroom windows are full of abstract blue translucent shapes that the sun throws across the room onto the walls, making a sky for the bird shapes Clare has painted there. It's beautiful. The next evening I'm standing in the doorway of Clare's studio, watching her finish drawing a thicket of black lines around a little red bird. Suddenly I see Clare, in her small room, closed in by all her stuff, and I realize that she's trying to say something, and I know what I have to do.

I’m surprised there isn’t a jet airplane designed in the shape of a brick. Some people (aeronautical engineers) might say that’s because bricks aren’t aerodynamic. Yeah, right. I’d like to see someone make that claim as they watch a brick flying towards their face at a high velocity. 


You see, the mind has a strange way of making one want to react even in situations where to remain idle would benefit it. The mind always wants to throw water on the grease fire, pull-up into an aerodynamic stall and pick at the scab.

The difficulty lay with the mind accommodating itself to the notion of the plane, with all its weight, defying gravity, staying aloft. She understood the aerodynamics of flight, could comprehend the laws of physics that made flight possible, but her heart, at the moment, would have none of it. Her heart knew the plane could fall out of the sky.

College feminists made fun of skyscrapers, saying they were phallic symbols. They said the same thing about space rockets, even though, if you stopped to think about it, rockets were shaped the way they were not because of phallocentrism but because of aerodynamics. Would a vagina-shaped Apollo 11 have made it to the moon? Evolution had created the penis. It was a useful structure for getting certain things done. And if it worked for the pistils of flowers as well as the inseminatory organs of Homo sapiens, whose fault was that but Biology's? But no--anything large or grand in design, any long novel, big sculpture, or towering building, became, in the opinion of the "women" Mitchell knew at college, manifestations of male insecurity about the size of their penises.

So, this Doctor Who guy travels to different galaxies in the TARDIS thing?" There was only silence on the line, so as always, I felt the need to fill it. "Because it's not very aerodynamic, and it doesn't seem like it's built to withstand the pressure of zero gravity

Many things have been compared to a brick, mainly as a tribute to their intellect or to their aerodynamic characteristics.

According to the laws of aerodynamics the bumblebee can’t fly. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it just carries on flying around.

This is a common theme in human progress. We make things beyond what we understand, and we always have done. Steam engines worked before we had a theory of thermodynamics; vaccines were developed before we knew how the immune system works; aircraft continue to fly to this day, despite the many gaps in our understanding of aerodynamics. When theory lags behind application, there will always be mathematical surprises lying in wait. The important thing is that we learn from these inevitable mistakes and don’t repeat them.

Wisdom: People attain wisdom in large part by remembering what happened in the past. No generation can attain wisdom without studying and remembering the past. None of those who believed in the 1960's aphorism, ‘Never trust anyone over thirty,’ became a wise person. Without wisdom, all the good intentions in the world amount to nothing. Intending to do good without having wisdom is like intending to fly an airplane with no knowledge of airplanes or the laws of aerodynamics. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Everyone wants to know how we can predict death. Tell me this. Do you ask pilots to explain aerodynamics before boarding the plane or do you simply travel to your destination? I urge you to not concern yourselves with how we know about the deaths and instead focus on how you’ll live your life. Your final destination may be closer than you think.

Teapots are not generally known for their aerodynamic qualities, hence the proclivity for their use during breaks between fighting rather than as an actual weapon of war.

The human liver is a boss-looking organ. It’s glossy, aerodynamic, Olympian.

helicopters don't use aerodynamics to fly, they just beat the air into submission.

This woman with glossy hair and smooth legs seems foreign even to me, but it feels good, as if I’m faster and more aerodynamic now that they’ve stripped most of the hair from my body.

The aerodynamic cowling is totally flexible, calculates its most efficient shape for the current speed and wind conditions, changes its curves accordingly, wraps around you like a nymphomaniacal gymnast.

I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

If polar bears live at the North Pole, why doesn’t Santa use them to pull the sleigh?” Brogan asked, licking mustard off his thumb with the air of someone who thought they’d won the argument, which was dumb, because he never won. Embry was the uncontested champion of arguing in their house. “Are you high?” Embry asked. “Have you seen a fucking polar bear? There’s no way they’re as aerodynamic as reindeer.” “Polar bears make about as much sense as reindeer, seeing as neither of them can actually fly,” Brogan pointed out. “Polar bears are stronger, too. You’d only need half as many to get the job done.” “Polar bears aren’t pack animals. You’d never get all of them attached to the sleigh at once.” “Think how cool it would be, though. A whole troop of polar bears pulling a sleigh. There should be fire somewhere. A secondary propulsion system in case the bears get tired. Like a jet engine.” His eyes went wide with awe, presumably at his own genius. “There should be a jet engine, Embry.

As an amateur Air Machine Architect, I design contraptions meant to take man from Point A to Point Z without touching points B through Y. My first Air Machine was modeled off the aerodynamic bodies of ducks, which is why it required water to operate and left poop everywhere.

[08:41] MAV: You fucking kidding me? [09:55] HOUSTON: Admittedly, they are very invasive modifications, but they have to be done. The procedure doc we sent has instructions for carrying out each of these steps with tools you have on hand. Also, you’ll need to start electrolyzing water to get the hydrogen for the fuel plant. We’ll send you procedures for that shortly. [09:09] MAV: You’re sending me into space in a convertible. [09:24] HOUSTON: There will be Hab canvas covering the holes. It will provide enough aerodynamics in Mars’s atmosphere. [09:38] MAV: So it’s a ragtop. Much better.

A real coin flipped by a real human trended closer to 51-49 in favor of whichever side was uppermost at the outset. No one could explain exactly why, but the phenomenon was easily observed in experiments. Something to do with multiple axes of spin, and wobble, and aerodynamics, and the general difference between theory and practice.

Similarly, wings didn’t suddenly appear in all their aerodynamic glory. They developed from organs that served another purpose. According to one theory, insect wings evolved millions of years ago from body protrusions on flightless bugs. Bugs with bumps had a larger surface area than those without bumps, and this enabled them to absorb more sunlight and thus stay warmer. In a slow evolutionary process, these solar heaters grew larger. The same structure that was good for maximum sunlight absorption – lots of surface area, little weight – also, by coincidence, gave the insects a bit of a lift when they skipped and jumped. Those with bigger protrusions could skip and jump farther. Some insects started using the things to glide, and from there it was a small step to wings that could actually propel the bug through the air. Next time a mosquito buzzes in your ear, accuse her of unnatural behaviour. If she were well behaved and content with what God gave her, she’d use her wings only as solar panels.

I remembered the story of the bumblebee. Aerodynamically it is impossible for the bumblebee to fly. The body is too big for the small size of the wings, but apparently no one told the bumblebee that, so he flies! That's pretty much the story of setting goals. Nothing is impossible unless you believe it is." ~ 'Against All Odds: My Story

A fellow undergraduate student, majoring in history, as was I, who didn't care about the advanced aerodynamic principles of things like boundary layer separation during stalls and exactly why you might get detonation within the cylinders of the engine if the mixture was grossly improperly adjusted for a given power setting at a given altitude.

A week ago," Ishmael said, "when we were talking about laws, you said that there's only one kind of law about how people should live--the kind that can be changed by a vote. What do you think now? Can the laws that govern competition in the community be changed by a vote?" "No. But they're not absolutes, like the laws of aerodynamics. They can be broken." "Can't the laws of aerodynamics be broken?" "No. If your plane isn't built according to the law, it doesn't fly." "But if you push it off a cliff, it stays in the air, doesn't it?" "For a while." "The same is true of a civilization that isn't built in accordance with the law of limited competition... Any species that, as a matter of policy, exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community..." "Yes." "Then what have we discovered here?" "We've discovered a piece of certain knowledge about how people ought to live. Must live in fact." "The law we've outlined here enables species to live--enables species to survive, including the human. It won't tell you whether mood-altering drugs should be legalized or not. It won't tell you whether premarital sex is good or bad. It won't tell you if capital punishment is right or wrong. It *will* tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that's the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs... You might say that this is one of the law's basic operations: Those who threaten the stability of the community by defying the law automatically eliminate themselves.

We became the most successful advanced projects company in the world by hiring talented people, paying them top dollar, and motivating them into believing that they could produce a Mach 3 airplane like the Blackbird a generation or two ahead of anybody else. Our design engineers had the keen experience to conceive the whole airplane in their mind’s-eye, doing the trade-offs in their heads between aerodynamic needs and weapons requirements. We created a practical and open work environment for engineers and shop workers, forcing the guys behind the drawing boards onto the shop floor to see how their ideas were being translated into actual parts and to make any necessary changes on the spot. We made every shop worker who designed or handled a part responsible for quality control. Any worker—not just a supervisor or a manager—could send back a part that didn’t meet his or her standards. That way we reduced rework and scrap waste. We encouraged our people to work imaginatively, to improvise and try unconventional approaches to problem solving, and then got out of their way. By applying the most commonsense methods to develop new technologies, we saved tremendous amounts of time and money, while operating in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation both with our government customers and between our white-collar and blue-collar employees. In the end, Lockheed’s Skunk Works demonstrated the awesome capabilities of American inventiveness when free to operate under near ideal working conditions. That may be our most enduring legacy as well as our source of lasting pride.

I may wish to return to my home in England, and I stand in New York, but ever since I was born I have been bound to this earth by a law that I have never been able to break--the law of gravity. I am told, however, that there is another law, a higher law, the law of aero-dynamics, and if only I will be willing to commit myself in total trust to this new law, then this new law will set me free from the old law. By faith I step into the plane, I sit back in the rest of faith, and as those mighty engines roar into life, I discover that the new law of aero-dynamics sets me free from the law of gravity.

They would give a lecture about how a pilot should never fly without a good solid breakfast—eggs, bacon, toast, and so forth—because if he tried to fly with his blood-sugar level too low, it could impair his alertness. Naturally, the next day every hot dog in the unit would get up and have a breakfast consisting of one cup of black coffee and take off and go up into a vertical climb until the weight of the ship exactly canceled out the upward thrust of the engine and his air speed was zero, and he would hang there for one thick adrenal instant—and then fall like a rock, until one of three things happened: he keeled over nose first and regained his aerodynamics and all was well, he went into a spin and fought his way out of it, or he went into a spin and had to eject or crunch it, which was always supremely possible.

In the skids, the tumbles, the spins, there was, truly, as Saint-Exupéry had said, only one thing you could let yourself think about: What do I do next? Sometimes at Edwards they used to play the tapes of pilots going into the final dive, the one that killed them, and the man would be tumbling, going end over end in a fifteen-ton length of pipe, with all aerodynamics long gone, and not one prayer left, and he knew it, and he would be screaming into the microphone, but not for Mother or for God or the nameless spirit of Ahor, but for one last hopeless crumb of information about the loop: “I’ve tried A! I’ve tried B! I’ve tried C! I’ve tried D! Tell me what else I can try!” And then that truly spooky click on the machine. What do I do next? (In this moment when the Halusian Gulp is opening?) And everybody around the table would look at one another and nod ever so slightly, and the unspoken message was: Too bad! There was a man with the right stuff. There was no national mourning in such cases, of course. Nobody outside of Edwards knew the man’s name. If he were well liked, he might get one of those dusty stretches of road named for him on the base. He was probably a junior officer doing all this for four or five thousand a year.

I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

The world’s population explosion is a biological problem, that is we pursue a policy that would be fatal for any species, then it will fatal for us in exactly the same way. We can’t will it to be otherwise. We can’t say our civilization is built on an evolutionarily unstable strategy but we can make it work anyhow, because we are humans. The world will not make an exception for us. And of course what religions teach is that God will make an exception for us. That is like expecting God to make our airplanes fly even if they are aerodynamically incapable of flight.

[08:41] MAV: You fucking kidding me? [09:55] HOUSTON: Admittedly, they are very invasive modifications, but hey have to be done. The procedure doc we sent has instructions for carrying out each of these steps with tools you have on hand. Also, you'll need to start electrolyzing water to get the hydrogen for the fuel plant. We'll send you procedures for that shortly. [09:09] MAV: You're sending me into space in a convertible. [09:24] HOUSTON: There will be Hab canvas covering the holes. It will provide enough aerodynamics in Mars's atmosphere. [09:38] MAV: So it's a ragtop. Much better.

There were many factors that made a handgun either accurate or not accurate. The velocity of the round and the length of the barrel were the most important, aided or not by aerodynamic subtleties like the degree of spin imparted by the rifling grooves, which either worked well or didn’t, depending on the bullet. Precision of manufacture was influential, with careful machining of quality metal much preferred over casting from leftover slag. Not that anything much mattered at seven feet. A pore to the left or a wrinkle to the right was immaterial. The human face was a big enough target, generally hard to miss at close quarters, and the man-on-first’s was no exception.

They set out the next morning just at sunrise. The vultures that top the taller, deader trees are spreading their black wings so the dew on them will evaporate; they’re waiting for the thermals to help them lift and spiral. Crows are passing the rumours, one rough syllable at a time. The smaller birds are stirring, beginning to cheep and trill; pink cloud filaments float above the eastern horizon, brightening to gold at the lower edges. Some days the sky looks like old paintings of heaven: there should be a few angels floating around, their white robes deployed like the skirts of archaic debutantes, their pink toes daintily pointed, their wings aerodynamically impossible. Instead, there are gulls.

4. Radicalism of forms. If a new model once created meets with much success on account of its greater efficiency than its predecessor, it lends certain neighbouring forms a formal radicalism, which attempts to borrow from the appearance of the new form: for example, bronze tools that had reached the furthest development of their utility had a disastrous influence on stone tools, warping them toward an elegance that could only be attained in bronze. Today aviation has imposed its aerodynamic forms even on baby strollers and irons. This radicalism of forms is a result of the fact that people become bored when they do not find some unexpected element in the familiar. This radicalism might seem illogical, as the advocates of standardization believe, but we must not forget that discovery is only made possible by this need of humanity.

«It's not easy to believe.» «I» she told him, «I can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.» «Really?» «I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in "War of the Worlds". I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kind of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.»

The wonder of evolution is that it works at all. I mean that literally: If you want to marvel at evolution, that’s what’s marvel-worthy. How does optimization first arise in the universe? If an intelligent agent designed Nature, who designed the intelligent agent? Where is the first design that has no designer? The puzzle is not how the first stage of the bootstrap can be super-clever and super-efficient; the puzzle is how it can happen at all. Evolution resolves the infinite regression, not by being super-clever and super-efficient, but by being stupid and inefficient and working anyway. This is the marvel. For professional reasons, I often have to discuss the slowness, randomness, and blindness of evolution. Afterward someone says: “You just said that evolution can’t plan simultaneous changes, and that evolution is very inefficient because mutations are random. Isn’t that what the creationists say? That you couldn’t assemble a watch by randomly shaking the parts in a box?” But the reply to creationists is not that you can assemble a watch by shaking the parts in a box. The reply is that this is not how evolution works. If you think that evolution does work by whirlwinds assembling 747s, then the creationists have successfully misrepresented biology to you; they’ve sold the strawman. The real answer is that complex machinery evolves either incrementally, or by adapting previous complex machinery used for a new purpose. Squirrels jump from treetop to treetop using just their muscles, but the length they can jump depends to some extent on the aerodynamics of their bodies. So now there are flying squirrels, so aerodynamic they can glide short distances. If birds were wiped out, the descendants of flying squirrels might reoccupy that ecological niche in ten million years, gliding membranes transformed into wings. And the creationists would say, “What good is half a wing? You’d just fall down and splat. How could squirrelbirds possibly have evolved incrementally?

I had the most powerful magic, and the need to use it.  Lifting my right hand, I summoned forth my Mana, converted it into magic, and spoke my own word of power.  Much to her surprise, I could still cast with my right hand, despite its missing digits.   “You aren’t really going to do this, are you?” Shart asked.  He was making his way over to me with only the barest hint of floundering. “Hoopie!” The spell pierced her barrier, turning the now useless boundary a bright blue.  Her expression was a mix of terror and amazement as the spell bypassed her defenses and impacted her.  Her ass exploded in an echoing cacophony of flatulence. It was literally the loudest fart I’d ever heard.  As someone whose mother-in-law used to regularly drive people from the room with her anal symphonies, I considered myself an expert.  I highly suspected Bashara was the kind of lady who didn’t fart in public; she must have been saving that one up all day.  She blinked several times, as she checked her status log.  It was time to execute the second part of my plan. Grabbing Shart, amidst his squawking protests, I yelled my battlecry. “Poke-Shart, Go!” Then, I flung the invisible demon straight at her head. Shart only weighed thirty pounds or so; I was more than strong enough to fling him at a pretty good clip.  His cry of “you bastard” slowly faded the further he flew.     I had hoped that being hit in the face would knock her off balance.  That would have given me a moment to pick up my sword and close.  Actually, I hoped it was possible to hit her at all; despite Shart’s ability to fly, he wasn’t very aerodynamic.  I couldn’t win a spell duel, considering I had only one good hand and didn’t know any good spells.  I was going to have to engage her in combat.  I sincerely hoped that my invisible familiar would give me an advantage. I hadn’t calculated on hitting the top of her head with Shart’s Belly Button of Holding.  Her head disappeared, completely buried down to the top of her shoulders.  Her body, however, still worked.  She was careening around, her hands furiously pushing on the demon.  The remaining bandit, coincidentally, looked at Bashara just as her head vanished.  Incorrectly assuming that I had some sort of head vanishing spell, he tried to break and run.   You can’t run away from a homicidal badger.   I managed to get within arms’ reach of Bashara, just as she had successfully begun pushing Shart off her head. She had freed her mouth and was screaming.  As she continued pushing, her nose popped free.  I felt only slightly bad when I grabbed the demon and pushed him all the way down.  In seconds, only her feet were exposed.  Then, I pushed those in as well.

I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe." "Really?" "I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in this universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath. Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud.

I was not satisfied; I needed speed – wind in my hair. 'Faster Ahern,' I commanded, digging my heels into his sides. In an instant, he sprung forward and I gripped the reins for dear life. He catapulted ahead so fast that he was soon approaching the wooden fence. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, but Ahern instinctively leapt right over the fence and continued at full speed. I whooped loudly and opened my eyes. The two of us were speeding across the open pasture now; I could hardly see in front of me as the wind blew into my sensitive eyes. I leaned forward as I had learned from Cormac and together Ahern and I became aerodynamic.

And the true inspiration, the sparkling grace note of genius that brings his masterpiece to life, is the soprano counterpoint: a syncopated sequence of exterior hatches in the outer hull sliding open and closed and open again, subtly altering the aerodynamics of the ship to give it just exactly the amount of sideslip or lift or yaw to bring the huge half cruiser into the approach cone of a pinpoint target an eighth of the planet away.

I remembered the story of the bumblebee. Aerodynamically it is impossible for the bumblebee to fly. The body is to big for the small size of the wings, but apparently no one told the bumblebee that, so he flies! That's pretty much the story of setting goals. Nothing is impossible unless you believe it is.

NORMA FOERDERER, TRUMP’S LONGTIME aide, rushed into the boss’s office on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower. The helicopter that carried the three executives had gone down. Agonizing minutes went by. Then a New Jersey police official called with the news: no survivors. Three of Trump’s most trusted aides, including the ones most responsible for opening the Taj, had perished, along with the crew of two. Trump would later learn that the scrape on one of the rotor blades had expanded during the flight, the result of metal fatigue. Over the pinelands of New Jersey, at an altitude of twenty-two hundred feet, a portion of the blade broke, the helicopter’s aerodynamics went askew, and the aircraft split apart in midair, raining wreckage on the Garden State Parkway. Trump

The Trade Scatto Short Sleeve Jersey is the perfect blend of aerodynamic and technical fabrics. This jersey takes advantage of the fabrics and features from our FR-C collection combined with the fit of our Silver Line Jersey. The materials utilized are ideal for the sublimation process, providing Giordana's Designers and design partners with a high tech canvas on which they can create a wide range of graphics with impeccable detailing. This is what makes The Trade Category of Garments so much fun. Unique sublimated graphics help you stand out from your local group ride, crit, or gran fondo while enjoying the comfort and performance you'd expect from a Giordana Garment Tech Specs: • Gi27: front and side panels • Asteria 2.0: sleeves and shoulders • Doubled Asteria 2.0 arm cuffs • Host Carbon: back panel to support the pockets and prevent sagging • Two reflective strips along the centre jersey pocket • Gripper elastic at waist • CamLock Zipper • Fourth zippered pocket

The sprout's slightly bitter, sulfurous taste is meant to discourage would-be insect diners. This is the vegetable equivalent of a chemical weapon and evolved to deal with pests.

some researchers have found that eating resin or oil from Commiphora or guggulu, lowers blood cholesterol levels. Chinese scientists have discovered that C. myrrha can reduce the development of arteriosclerosis —hardening of the arteries —in animals.

Smells can even help us carry out tasks, according to an experiment by Martin's colleague Alison Gould. In one experiment, subjects completed a tedious “visual vigilance task” in the presence of either no odor, an alerting (peppermint) smell, or a relaxing (bergamot) one. They did better with the peppermint. Another study showed that subjects performed an unchallenging task better when stimulated by an unpleasant smell —in this case, sour milk. A pleasant smell, that of an air freshener, helped them perform complex tasks better.

how is it that you came up with so many clever solutions to what seemed to be impossible problems?” “They weren’t, not really . . . clever, I mean. They were actually kind of crazy and not even well thought out. Stupid, you might say.” I pause, feeling like a fool before an audience of millions. “But—with all factors put together, they worked—for the circumstances. It’s like—you know that old myth about the bee? That, according to ‘physics,’ a bumblebee is not ‘aerodynamic’ enough, is not supposed to be able to fly—it just does because it doesn’t know any better? Well, that’s all nonsense. A bumblebee flies just fine! It flies according to physical laws, only different ones, because it itself is different, using other complex variables for its flight method—for example, something called ‘dynamic stall’ comes into play. . . . Anyway, what I did wasn’t clever but kind of all over the place, using everything at my disposal . . . like the bee. It’s like—if you move fast enough and just the right way—if you do some things quickly and desperately enough, hoping they don’t have time to fall apart on you—you can make the seemingly impossible happen. And it’s not ‘before it knows any better.’ It’s before the whole unstable construct falls apart. Move fast enough and you can walk on water. .

saying Eagle handled like a brick would be an understatement. It wasn’t aerodynamic, and inside a gravity well, it could only rely on its gravity control systems, which would be fighting against the planetary gravity like two individuals going through a rough divorce.

Just call me Ninja Skier. I love the rush of speed!” “What gets you going so fast?” “My aerodynamically contoured physique?

Once the black had surrounded him, he forced a hand forward and keyed the command that retracted the landing gear back into the plane. It wasn’t strictly necessary for aerodynamics, of course, but the extended gear would throw off the center of balance he was used to and maybe blunt the edge of his abilities. Besides, he didn’t want to look stupid. Stephanos

So young, he knew nothing about aerodynamics, except how the heart could lift and lift.

If you examine a butterfly according to the laws of aerodynamics, it shouldn’t be able to fly. But the butterfly doesn’t know that, so it flies.

They say he averaged 507 watts for the Hour so he just beasted it out for the 60 minutes. With what we know now about aerodynamics and the power Miguel could produce it’s frightening to think what he could have done for an Hour if he had sat a little bit better on his bike.

In a final flourish, drawing on his extensive knowledge of avian anatomy, he presents a critique of the supposed morphology of divine beings: “If angels had any reality, they would be very clumsy and awkward fliers with a slow heavy flight, lacking as they are in aerodynamic shape.

WE APPROXIMATE THE BIRD'S BODY BY A SPHERE OF RADIUS 5CM, said Sib, I had no idea aerodynamics was so entertaining

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway. -Mary Kay Ash

You could cut the estrogen in the room with a knife. The problem was, what to do with the slices? Making sandwiches seemed a tad too bizarre. The results were aerodynamic, but for some reason no one wanted to play frisbee. They

Mid May 2012 Dearest Andy, After all these years, you have not changed. You’ll always be the Valet I’ve grown to love and adore. When I read your email, I can hear the sound of your voice as it was so long ago. Although we are miles apart, I continue to feel you close to my heart. After our separation, I looked for a ‘big brother’ and lover like you and failed miserably, until Walter came into my life. He inquires about you persistently. I think he is hoping for a triplet relationship, similar to the one we shared with Oscar. He thinks highly of you. Walter is very similar to you, in that you both know that you are gods who could do no wrong. In the majority of cases, that is how I remember you. Of course we both have our shortcomings, as humans do. The wonderful times we shared definitely overshadowed the negative moments. I fear that having two alpha males in the same house will be a disaster because you’ll both be competing for power and lording your masculinity over me. That’s scary! LOL! That said, my partner and I discuss you frequently. The difference between you two is that he fully supports the writing of my memoirs while you, my friend, have made it clear that writing about my adolescent life experiences isn’t a good idea. I respect both your differing opinions, but this is something I will have to decide on my own. I sincerely believe that now is the moment to tell my story and I will tell it without hurting or exposing anyone unnecessarily. I’ve changed the names of the schools, the society, and, of course, the people that played an important role in my young life. Do you remember when we were in Las Vegas working on “Sacred Sex In Sacred Places”? The Count told us that Howard Hughes was in town and you dragged me along for an audience with the tycoon? You desperately wanted an apprenticeship in his aerodynamics engineering company. I remember the episode well. That experience is definitely worth documenting in my memoirs. We will have many opportunities to reminisce, but for now I am simply happy that we are communicating regularly. Tell me more about yourself in your next correspondence. I love you and miss you. Wishing you all the best! Young.

Shape of: something aerodynamic. Form of: a giant flying squirrel,” I muttered to myself and launched into the open air.

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.

We accept gravity, aerodynamics, photosynthesis, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics, sexual reproduction, rain, thunder, earthquakes, volcanoes, and tidal waves, all based on science. But when it comes to the origin and nature of life itself we take leave of our senses for a trip into the supernatural. We literally lose our minds. Even

Surprising how many people assumed that when a helicopter failed it simply rotored on down. Truth was, it fell with the aerodynamics of a grand piano.

When it comes to the number of forms, or phases, of ice, water has more solid phases —nine total —than any other known pure substance because it can form phases which differ only in the orientations of the hydrogen bonds. No wonder every crystal is different.

Retailers use various strategies, policies, and procedures in timing their markdowns of Christmas merchandise, adds Dale Lewison of the University of Akron. “Some retailers start taking small and early markdowns before Thanksgiving, while others wait until after the weekend following Thanksgiving —the biggest shopping weekend of the year. Still other retailers wait longer to mark down merchandise.

(The selfsame hydrogen bonds also make water blue, because they absorb a little red from sunlight, which contains all the colors of the rainbow.)

Aerodynamically there isn’t much you can do to enhance your Beetle’s handling. The Porsche style whale tale – um, tail is just that – a load of nonsense. It does no aerodynamic spoiling at all except to spoil your car ergonomically, and quite frankly, it looks like crap. It goes with blue LED lights under the car and (yuk) fur on the dashboard.

But what did aerodynamics matter in space? There wasn’t anything out here to cause friction. A Rubik’s Cube ought to fly as well as an arrow.

life span is determined by a fixed amount of metabolic activity: eat less, slow your metabolism, and you may live longer.

The term railway was to Victorian England what atomic or aerodynamic were to be after World War II, and network and virtual are today. When it came to investments, the romantic appeal of being a party to this technological revolution often dominated profit considerations.

aerodynamic

liked to watch Orest eat. He inhaled food according to aerodynamic principles. Pressure differences, intake velocities. He went at it silently and purposefully, loading up, centering himself, appearing to grow more self-important with each clump of starch that slid over his tongue.

HOW TEARABLE A PAPER AIRPLANE THAT CANNOT FLY

Whether you know it or not, the laws of gravitation work on you to pull you down. The only way to defy them is to understand them and apply different laws and principles of aerodynamics that allows you to be airborne and fly against gravity.

He set in place a system whereby every area of performance was explored. The idea was that if small percentage improvements were made in numerous areas – diet, psychology, aerodynamics, ergonomics – the cumulative improvement would be substantial. In a nutshell, if you did every little thing right then almost without noticing you could achieve something big.

Working Together Composed by David Whyte as a dedication to the 777 at the request of Boeing corporation. Whyte wanted to be sure not to write a corporate propaganda piece and hence he drew upon his own fear of flying to write something very meaningful. The idea of travelling 550 miles per hour at 33,000 feet with no visible means of support can be scary. However, we today know that the plane gets its support from the interaction between velocity and the wing shape. Velocity and the aerodynamic shape have existed in nature since time immemorial, but humans only discovered the power of bringing them together only about 140 years. That discovery has allowed us to travel all over the world today. Using this as a metaphor, he wrote about many hidden qualities in ourselves that we may need to bring together to achieve more than we can imagine. We shape our self to fit this world and by the world are shaped again. The visible and the invisible working together in common cause, to produce the miraculous. I am thinking of the way the intangible air traveled at speed round a shaped wing easily holds our weight. So may we, in this life trust to those elements we have yet to see or imagine, and look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well to the great intangibles about us.

My work always has been exciting to me and still is. Very serious study, while demanding, always has been a joy. I literally love aerodynamics, mathematics, physics, machinery—all the tools of my trade. I consider myself very fortunate to have lived my professional life doing exactly what I always wanted to do.

The mildly venomous colubrid Chrysopelea is the flying snake of south-eastern Asia. It is up to about 1.2 metres in length, and has several arboreal adaptations, such as ridged ventral scales, and a flattened belly. However, it has taken arboreal existence even further, for it is capable of gliding through the air from tree to tree for distances as much as 100 m. When ready to launch itself, the snake extends its ribs forwards and outwards. This doubles the width and surface area of the underside, and creates an aerodynamic shape like the wing of an aeroplane. As it throws itself forwards into the air, undulations of the body apparently make it an even more efficient glider, although we are not sure exactly how.

Q. What if you strapped C4 to a boomerang? Could this be an effective weapon, or would it as stupid as it sounds? A. Aerodynamics aside, I'm curious what tactical advantage you're expecting to gain by having the high explosive fly back at you if it misses the target.

Since the affliction was so plainly psychosomatic, the worst thing she could do was to give it space for thought.

A modern Formula One car is capable of developing 3.5 g-force – which is three and a half times its weight – thanks to the aerodynamic downforce of its spoilers. That means, theoretically, at high speeds, they could drive upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel.

THE FIREBOLT This state-of-the-art racing broom sports a streamlined, super-fine handle of ash, treated with a diamond-hard polish and hand-numbered with its own registration number. Each individually selected birch twig in the broomtail has been honed to aerodynamic perfection, giving the Firebolt unsurpassable balance and pinpoint precision. The Firebolt has an acceleration of 0–150 miles an hour in ten seconds and incorporates an unbreakable braking charm. Price on request.

Golf. The noble game of honour, equality and fair play. Unless, that is, we happen to be packing a few quid in our back pockets, behind the score-card, in which case we can just pull out our custom made precision driver, with adjustable perimeter weighting and heavy bias in our favour, and hoick for six* our unique, spherically-tiled, tetrahedral, catenary, aerody¬namic ball – plus any remaining notion of glory, parity and fairness. See you on the green. __________ *A cricketing term, usually referring to someone with fortune on their side, who’s not playing with a straight bat**. **Another cricketing term.

I believed there was nothing aerodynamic about the beasts. I didn’t think they actually flew, but instead beat the air into submission.

The person who holds a PhD in aerodynamics may know little about human relationships. The person lettered in psychology may know almost nothing about physics. While we may develop a great deal of knowledge about one small facet of the universe, we remain ignorant beside the immense ocean of knowledge. In the light of our great ignorance, where is the rationale for pride?

The larger station wagons—embellished with wood paneling, because what says “aerodynamics” like trees—used to have a jump seat next to the tailgate that could be folded up or down as needed. The seat faced backward and had no safety restraints or head support. To sit in the way-way back was to position oneself inches away from the potential of being showered with broken glass and punctured with jagged steel. Also? Just imagine how it must have creeped out other motorists to see a row full of doomed kids staring at them.

Previous airplane designers based propellers on those used for ships. But water has a million times the density of air. Boat propellers bite into the water to produce momentum. Air, on the other hand, is compressible, and the Wrights realized they needed to rethink how an airplane propeller would work. The aerodynamic frame led them to the answer. As Orville later described their insight: “It was apparent that a propeller was simply an aeroplane [wing] travelling in a spiral course.” The blades would need a camber to produce uplift, like the wings.

Jeremy George Lake Charles Corvette interiors Interior colors, from the instrument panel to the synthetic suede interior trim, give a new meaning to car elegance. Jeremy George Lake Charles Available in the same Corvette Stingray trim as the 2017 1LT, 2LT and 3LT standard models, the powerful Z51 takes performance and aerodynamics to new heights. In combination with a limited slip differential electronic, dual performance exhaust and sportier suspension set-up it is clear that the Z51 is a sport car. The trim levels are available with the three suspension settings FE1, FE3 and FE4, which correspond to the two Z51 performance packages. Jeremy George Lake Charles It brings the GT2 seats into the upper interior trim and envelops the lower interior trim wrapped in microleather.