Terminal Velocity - Be my guest

I was enjoying a quiet drink by myself (sad yes I know) in a club at the top of the Center Point building. Two guys walked past where I was sitting on the top floor (32 stories). One asked if you would survive if you tried to jump off with a parachute. The other guy (one of those sporty types) said that you could base jump from that height as you would have your drone chute in your hand. He rightly pointed out that landing would be problematic.

So far so good.

But he then went on to say that you would probably survive without a chute as you are not high enough to reach terminal velocity. At this point I nearly spat out my drink.

So either

1) he thinks terminal velocity means the speed you reach before a landing becomes terminal or
2) he does understand what terminal velocity is (and he is right, you would not reach it at that height) but is a complete idiot.

Either way, jumping from the 32 floor onto the street without a parachute is unlikely to end in survival. But what do I know, I'm not a sporty type.

Poirot would be proud

The Belgians are going to lead the way (not something you hear everyday) by making a law to ban the Burka. Rather than taking on the Muslim community directly they are banning any clothing that prevents identification.

Brilliant move. The first nation to ban gloves.

What?

Yep, fingerprints are used as a means of identifying people (police use it regularly I hear). So no gloves as they cover us and prevent identification.

But that's ridiculous I hear you say! They would not ban gloves because if you needed to identify someone you just ask them to remove their gloves.

Bing!

So why, when you want to identify a lady in a Burka (as you do) can you not just ask for it to be removed. There are very few times when you would doubt the identity of the lady under the Burka (by this I mean that there are few times when you would need formal identification of the type that has to go beyond trusting the said lady not just to declare her identity).

Test pilots wanted

Its been an interesting week or so in news coverage. A mix of politics and natural disaster. And of course the volcano eruption in Iceland. One of the interesting news lines was the KLM plane that was sent up to test the impact ash has on the engines. Go Dutch! And they did. They shared the risk (or not as the case may be). A few days later the Germans sent up a plane and then BA. Why? God knows. Given that the air ways would not be opened up just to one airline why would:

1) one take the risk (is this an interesting sign of desperation and business impact)
2) having sent up one plane from KLM 2 other plans were put at risk.

Its not as if there is huge variation in engine technology to the point that one Boeing would be safe and an airbus would not.

It was interesting to see that the navy is sending out two ships and an aircraft carrier to ferry people across the channel. Can you imagine the cost of such an exercise! Unimaginable. That's what happens when politicians get involved. Why would you do this. Surely you would send across empty chunnel car trains (you know the ones you drive on at one end and off the other). You could fill one of those trains with hundreds and hundreds of people for the 30 min or so crossing. You must be able to get stacks of people back that way at far cheaper rate than using an aircraft carrier.

Nice one!

Enforced holidays

One would think now that with all of the economy in the state it is there could be a new approach to the whole bank holiday thing. At a busy time I am now faced with 4 whole days off in a row. Not a good time. Yes, one can argue that all work and no play blah blah blah but actually being forced off work at a bad time does not lead to relaxation but piles the work and the worry up either side of the days off.

We should change for a new model. A simple change to the law would mean that people should be given the bank holidays to take at their leisure. I.e. legal holiday time. It can't be rocket science to protect employer abuse (lowering standard holiday entitlement to include the free days). Much nicer. It would also mean that lots of us could take time off when it is not so busy, holiday spending and demand would be smoothed and the costs lowered.

I would prefer also to take my bank hols when the weather is better. Why do we have to take our bank holidays all at the same time? A smaller step from complete freedom would be to allow an employee to take off the appropriate number of bank hol Mondays and Fridays as they prefer.

I don't see any downside and in hard times the flexibility would be welcomed by a lot of people.