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How to repossess an airliner without getting shot, or thrown in jail, or beat up, or slammed into a wall, or…
Air & Space Magazine has a really interesting article on the commercial aircraft repo industry.
Salon previously did a story on the same company…
[via MetaFilter]
Game guru Sid Meier explains gamer psychology
Sid Meier knows how gamers think. He has been making hit games such as Civilization for decades. Today at the Game Developers Conference, he shared his insights on gamer psychology and how he has had to change his assumptions about how players behave. More often than not, he said, players just don’t act logically.
Sid Meier had some really insightful things to say; I can’t wait for Civ5 and Civ Network for Facebook…
For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path
Amateur [photographers], happy to accept small checks for snapshots of children and sunsets, have increasing opportunities to make money on photos but are underpricing professional photographers and leaving them with limited career options. Professionals are also being hurt because magazines and newspapers are cutting pages or shutting altogether.
“There are very few professional photographers who, right now, are not hurting,” said Holly Stuart Hughes, editor of the magazine Photo District News.
That has left professional photographers with a bit of an identity crisis. Nine years ago, when Livia Corona was fresh out of art school, she got assignments from magazines like Travel and Leisure and Time. Then, she said, “three forces coincided.”
They were the advertising downturn, the popularity and accessibility of digital photography, and changes in the stock-photo market.
F-35B Lightning II 40 knt Approach and Landing
It’s been pretty exciting to watch the F-35B flying around Patuxent River Naval Air Station (where I work) as it goes through its flight test program. As usual, though, I’m not allowed to take pictures. 🙁
It looks like they’ve been pretty timely and forthcoming with official photo and video releases, although more than likely that’s to show progress while Congress grills the program over its huge cost overruns…
A convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Writer J.D. Shapiro apologizes for “Battlefield Earth”
Screenwriter J.D. Shapiro graciously (and humorously) accepted a Razzie for “Worst Movie of the Decade” for his work on Battlefield Earth. He sounds like a decent guy who got screwed over, but at least he can laugh about it:
Once it was decided that I would share a writing credit, I wanted to use my pseudonym, Sir Nick Knack. I was told I couldn’t do that, because if a writer gets paid over a certain amount of money, they can’t. I could have taken my name completely off the movie, but my agent and attorney talked me out of it. There was a lot of money at stake.
Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.
Battlefield Earth! If anything, I’m trying to figure out a way to bottle it and use it as birth control. I’ll make a mint!
[via Boing Boing]