Slick Jet, Lost Pet, GWOT Vets

A trio of neato stories today.

First up: There's going to be a Virgin America Airlines. Good news. And the first jet was christened the Jefferson Airplane by Grace Slick, whom I hadn't known to be a gifted graphic artist. You can see what she looks like now--and what she paints like--in this dispatch from San Fiasco.

Next, how the hell did a lost 47-year-old parrot get from Johnson City, Tennessee, to Long Island, New York? By car, of course:

"When I heard he was in New York I was skeptical at first," Kendrick said, "but then I talked with Buzzy on the phone and Josh sent [me] photos and it's no doubt that it's him."

Welcome home.

Finally . . . in a world of borderline pointless blogs (like this one), some have to be cool, and The Sandbox is actually worth a look-see. And I would never have known if not for the good folks at the AP.

See ya.

Trying to Work Offline

Boy oh boy oh boy. For years I haven't understood why there was no "Work Offline" option under the File tab in Internet Explorer on my computer. Drove me crazy. It was a big problem because whenever I wanted to view a recently cached webpage--say while I was working during a flight--I had to go searching through thousands of temp files. Today I found the answer, thanks to the JSI FAQ here and here.

In short: Work Offline disappears if you have your homepage set to a file on your computer. I have a plain black screen as my homepage; this was the problem. Ctrl+N and Work Offline reappears like magic.

Thanks so much, Microsoft.

Positivity

One of the most important things I have ever read. The whole NYT article is here.

[. . .] Dr. Levy and her colleagues decided try a method that was used to study the effects of stereotypes about race and gender. The idea is to flash provocative words too quickly for people to be aware they read them.

In her first study, Dr. Levy tested the memories of 90 healthy older people. Then she flashed positive words about aging like “guidance,” “wise,” “alert,” “sage” and “learned” and tested them again. Their memories were better and they even walked faster.

Next, she flashed negative words like “dementia,” “decline,” “senile,” “confused” and “decrepit.” This time, her subjects’ memories were worse, and their walking paces slowed.

If you need some positivity in your environment, call me. Let's keep it positive.