Deane Barker

Perdition

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: hell, damnation, ruin

It’s from the Latin root for “to throw away, to destroy.”

Why I Looked It Up

From Team of Rivals, when the Secretary of State was trying to persuade the President to take action.

perdition [is] the sure penalty of further hesitation

I also remember a 2002 movie called Road to Perdition, which is based on a series of comics. “Road to perdition” might be interpreted as “highway to hell” or “path to ruin.”

Paloma

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I saw this on two different menus as the name of a drink.

On one, the ingredients were pomegranate (it was called a “Poma Paloma”), tequila, mezcal, grapefruit, and pink peppercorn.

On the other it was Hornitos Reposada (a brand of tequila), lime and grapefruit juice, with salt.

Clearly, one of the definitions is a tequila-based cocktail. But I knew I had heard it in other contexts.

Sure enough, there are a lot of definitions for it.

It’s a place name in both California and Illinois
It’s an archeological site in Peru
It’s a woman’s name
It’s a color; kind of a reddish brown
It’s a class of shark (according to one source; I couldn’t corroborate this)

Why I Looked It Up

As above – I saw it on two menus, but was sure it had some meaning beyond that context.

Center of Excellence

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

No.

This is a very vague title that basically means “a group of people who share information about a skill.”

Wikipedia even comes out and says:

Due to its broad usage and vague legal precedent, a “center of excellence” in one context may have completely different characteristics from another. The focus area might be a technology, a business concept, a skill, or a broad area of study.

Interestingly, Merriam-Webster defines it as:

a place of high achievement (in some subject or area)

They provide this example:

The university is becoming a center of excellence for genetic engineering.

So, they’re saying that it’s not something you create, it’s something that exists. Someone external to an entity might declare it a “center of excellence,” rather than it being proactively created for that purpose.

The Cambridge Dictionary echoes that meaning:

a place or an organization that is known for doing a particular activity very well, and that is involved in new developments, new ways of working, etc.

Some other definitions –

From Tech Target, What is a Center of Excellence (COE)?:

A center of excellence (CoE) is a team of skilled knowledge workers whose mission is to provide the organization they work for with best practices around a particular area of interest.

From Cleverism, How to Set Up a Center of Excellence:

The definition of a CoE states that they are a group of people leading the organization and its different structures in a specific focus area towards pre-determined goals. Hence, the aim of a CoE is to improve expertise in a certain area and make the most of its resources to help the business to improve.

Salesforce defines four kinds in Overcoming the Curse of the Center of Excellence Model (COE):

Best Practice Centers – These are the “sharers,” focusing on creating environments where business units can collaborate with each other on like-minded processes and technologies, designed to more rapidly enable lines of business.

DevOps Centers – These are the “doers,” focusing on providing a shared service to scope, design, develop, and deliver across with optimal IT governance, designed to foster standardization and reuse.

Competency Centers – These are the “guiders,”focusing on establishing best practices and standards to enable, build competency, and embed expertise within individual lines of business through the creation of targeted improvement agendas.

Innovation Centers – These are the “creators,” focusing on the incubation and experimentation required to develop the capabilities with (emerging) technologies, designed to accelerate maturity and time to value.

I couldn’t find any etymology or meaning on that term. The Salesforce article linked above says:

Centers of Excellence (COE) have been around in technology for over 30 years […] the COE has its origin in manufacturing, where it is used as a centralized body to help improve factory operations and output.

I couldn’t find much else.

Why I Looked It Up

The term comes up occasionally when I work with organizations in my job. I was curious if there was some standard definition for this, or if it’s just a vague notion and every organization defines the specifics themselves.

It’s the latter, it seems.

Mummification

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Mummification just means a corpse that has been preserved without rotting. This can happen a number of different ways.

Some mummification is intentional, like the famous Egyptian mummies. Their bodies were preserved by drawing out all the moisture with salt. This, combined with the natural dryness of the Egyptian desert, preserved the bodies.

Removal of moisture is key. Bodies rot by being consume by bacteria which require moisture to live.

An article helpfully entitled Why don’t mummies rot?, says:

Bodies rot because bacteria thrive in the moist conditions of decaying flesh and organs. Bacteria can’t live, however, where there is no water.

So, a mummy was either purposefully dried out (like the famous Egyptian mummies), or it was left in a place where bacteria couldn’t survive.

The tops of mountains have both cold temperatures and low moisture. This explains why the 200+ bodies on Mount Everest (like the infamous Green Boots) or the Children of Llullaillaco don’t rot – they’re at a high enough altitude that their is very little air, and therefore very little moisture.

In 2016, a yacht was found adrift off the coast of the Phillipines. Onboard were the mummified remains of the lone sailor – a 59-year-old German man. He had died of natural causes, and his body had been preserved by the salty air which drew out all the moisture.

“The air, heat, and saltiness of the sea are all very conducive to mummification,” said Peter Vanezis, forensic pathology professor at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. “It starts within two to three weeks. The fingers and other extremities … dry quickly, and in a month or two they are well gone.”

From an article entitled, Do Mummies Decompose?:

the accidental mummifications involved the bodies being kept in conditions ideal for preservation. Deserts, peat bogs, and ice all protect dead bodies from being eaten, as many microbes find extreme heat, acid, or cold inhospitable.

[…]they stripped the bodies of nutrients and kept them dry, ensuring they would last for centuries to come

Why I Looked It Up

Just got to wondering one day. We accept a “mummy” as a horror movie trope and artifact of history, but I started wondering what separated them from bodies that just decompose out of existence. There had to be some reason why mummification happened instead of decomposition.

Incunabula

Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This refers to printed material from Europe prior to the 1500s. (It’s the plural form; the singular is “incunabule.”)

The etymology is from a Latin word meaning “swaddling clothes,” which refers to the “infancy” of printing during this period. (Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1430s.)

Dictionary.com offers an alternate, more generalized definition:

the earliest stages or first traces of anything.

In this sense, it reminds me of Antediluvian, which literally means a time period before the Great Flood of the Old Testament, but has come to mean, simply, something very old.

Why I Looked It Up

I think it came up a lot in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Then, in Conspiracies and Secret Societies, it was used to identify the inner circle of participants in the secretive Bilderberg Meetings.

Leonine

Tue, 6 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: resembling a lion; powerful, majestic, like a lion

This seems to be a compliment used to describe something that embodies all the positive qualities of a lion.

“Leo” is Latin for lion, but I couldn’t find any references to this being used to discuss actual lions. It seems to only be used to relate other things to the qualities of a lion.

Why I Looked It Up

From Eurostorm:

Elise had never seen her leonine brother this vulnerable before.

Humanities

Tue, 6 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a vague word, generally meaning the studies of things centered around human beings, their culture and condition.

The opposing field is science, including social sciences like law and economics.

A review of several sources produced this list of fields of studies that can fall under the banner of humanities:

Foreign Languages
History
Gender Studies
Linguistics
Philosophy
Language Arts (including Literature)
Performing arts
Visual Arts
Religion

Many universities refer to these fields as “the classics” now.

Students majoring in humanities has declined considerably in the last century, as students attend college more for specific vocational training than for the pursuit of knowledge. It’s obvious that, in today’s world, the humanities do not lend themselves particularly well to any field or profession outside their immediate scope.

Several resources I reviewed were vocal about the value of the humanities when compared with the sciences. The general tone was one of protest against losing the value of the humanities against science and specific vocational training.

There would seem to be a considerable overlap with “the liberal arts.” However, that term generally means to study a wide range of disciplines outside of specific vocational training. For many students, the studies outside their vocational training would likely encompass the humanities, thereby causing the conflation.

Why I Looked It Up

When I was in college, the building where I had classes in English Lit, Religion, and German was called the “Humanities Building.” I never understood what it meant.

Recently, it came up in multiple books I was reading.

Capacious

Tue, 6 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: capable of holding large amounts; spacious, roomy

Why I Looked It Up

From The Swerve:

A comparably capacious embrace of beauty and pleasure […]

Abracadabra

Tue, 6 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

No one really knows where this came from or how it became associated with magic, but it’s been around for a long time. There are lots of theories about where it came from – most of them conflict, and none can be confirmed.

The first usage of the word was in a book from the second century. It was “used” to enchant an amulet which would supposedly ward off disease.

While we associate the word with ironic humor today – a stage magician proclaiming it dramatically just before a trick – back in ancient times it was apparently taken quite seriously and rumored to hold supernatural power.

Why I Looked It Up

I just got to wondering.

I remember that Amazon was originally called “Cadabra.” In 1994, a then-unknown Jeff Bezos posted a job ad to Usenet in which he used that original name.

Vicissitude

Tue, 6 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: a change in condition, often unfavorable

This often means something that changes regularly, or goes back and forth. The implication is usually negative.

Why I Looked It Up

In Team of Rivals:

A child less strong-willed and high-spirited than Kate might have been crushed by the vicissitudes of her father’s demanding love, which we bestowed or denied depending on her performance.

Fu Manchu

Mon, 5 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Fu Manchu was the villain in a series of Sax Rohmer novels in the first half of the 20th century and continuing into films.

In popular culture, he is considered an archetype of a “supervillain.” Generally depicted as Asian, with a mustache that extends downwards from the corners of his mouth.

(The type of mustache itself has come to be called a “Fu Manchu.”)

The Manchu people are the natives of Manchuria, which provides some basis for his depiction as Asian.

Why I Looked It Up

Annie and I were playing cards and listening to country music. Tim McGraw’s song Live Like You Were Dying has this lyric:

I went two point seven seconds on a bull named ‘Fu Manchu’

Annie remarked that she thought the name was funny.

I had always had a vague idea of the source, but for some reason I was thinking it was the villain from Flash Gordon (that’s Ming the Merciless), or Sherlock Holmes (that’s Dr. Moriarty).

I suddenly realized that I had no idea what fictional canon Fu Manchu belonged to.

Mach Numbers and the Sound Barrier

Sun, 4 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a value commonly used to describe the speed of an aircraft.

It’s not a constant value. It represents the speed of sound in whatever air is being used at the time. The speed of sound changes with elevation and air density.

Also, “speed of sound” is kind of a misnomer. What’s really being described is the speed of a pressure wave traveling through air. This is what humans perceive as sound, but it’s not sound until it enters our ear and activates our eardrum.

What’s happening when flying is that the sound of the aircraft is being cast off as waves in every direction. If we fly faster and faster, we can actually catch up to the waves in front of us. As this happens, sometimes bad things result – airflow over the wings can be disrupted, causing the buffeting of the plane. As we go even faster, we can break through these shockwaves (“break the sound barrier”).

A sonic boom happens when these sound waves catch up to a human’s ear. A plane flying fast enough breaks through its own sound waves – it’s literally flying faster than the sound it’s making. A very fast plane will fly past you silently, and you will hear a boom when its sound waves finally pass over you.

Mach 1 is about 760 mpg at sea level.

Why I Looked It Up

I was listening to a podcast that mentioned it, and I got to wondering why we use this number instead of more traditional speed calculations.

Kiwanis

Sun, 4 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the name of a service club founded in 1915.

The name is supposedly from a Native American word meaning “to make oneself known,” but this is highly debated. Every source I found said “allegedly” before the definition.

There is a “Kiwanis Avenue” in Sioux Falls. I did some searching for Kiwanis as a street name, but didn’t find anything else. Perhaps that’s just specific to Sioux Falls.

Why I Looked It Up

I just always wondered.

Chignon

Sun, 4 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: a female hair bun, worn low at the back of the head

It’s literally from the French word for “nape of neck,” so it clearly implies a specific location.

The pronunciation sounds vaguely Asian: “sheen-yong”

Why I Looked It Up

In Eurostorm:

Then an Arab hairdresser coiffed her copper locks into a beautiful chignon.

Showrunner

Sun, 4 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the producer of a television show who has creative control over the content of the show.

The showrunner is almost always a writer, and manages the writer’s room, making the final creative decisions. How the plot unfolds, season over season, is the responsibility of the showrunner.

From an interview with the showrunner of Insecure:

You’re running the show – literally. You’re putting it together, from no idea to “Hey, this is what you’re now going to watch on the screen.” It’s hiring writers; it’s sitting with [the star] before we even have writers and arcing out where the season would go, how we’re going to explore these characters. It’s looking at casting and deciding who’s going to get the parts. And it’s being on set and [communicating] with the director and saying, “I need the joke this way.” Then, in editing, it’s revising all that stuff and doing music. It’s continuing to always be there.

This is required in television, rather than film, because the creative direction of a TV show unfolds over time. The show has to be steered over many seasons, and plots can develop throughout the show’s run that weren’t known when the show began.

Conversely, a film’s script is usually set before filming starts, and – except in rare cases where a sequel is already planned – the story ends when the movie ends. Once filming begins, there are few creative decisions to be made, in terms of the story.

As of this writing, the most famous showrunner working today is likely Shonda Rhimes, who runs (or ran) Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and Empire.

If you like or hate a TV show, it’s usually due to the showrunner.

Why I Looked It Up

The had heard the term quite a bit over the last few years. Clearly, I knew it had something to do with the production of a TV show, but I wasn’t sure of the bounds of responsibility.

I feel like the term has taken on more and more importance as we’ve entered (the current) Golden Age of Television. Showrunners have come into a class of celebrity all their own.

Regicide

Sat, 3 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: the killing of a king

The “reg” comes from “regal.”

It’s unclear whether this specifically refers to assassination, coup, or execution. The Wikipedia page uses examples of all three.

Why I Looked It Up

In The LEGO Story:

The had been owned by a notorious figure […] who was convicted of regicide at Finderup Lade, stripped of his estate, and declared an outlaw.

Canadian Airport Codes

Sat, 3 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

It has to do with the transition from two-letter to three-letter codes.

Originally, airport codes were just two-letters. In Canada, they decided to use the same code as the Morse code for the corresponding Canadian railway station.

Eventually, it became important to know if an airport had a weather station on-site. Airports with a station prefixed “Y” to their two-letter abbreviation, for “yes.”

When the world switched from two-letter to three-letter codes in the 1930s, Canada simply retained the codes that had been established.

Why I Looked It Up

I just always wondered.

Fulsome

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: abundant, generous

Something that’s “fulsome” has a lot of some characteristic. It can also mean “overdone,” and is commonly used to mean “too much praise.”

Why I Looked It Up

From Team of Rivals:

In a fulsome letter, he expressed fervent gratitude to his “friend and benefactor,” realizing that Fed’s “public reputation” as well as his “private wealth & include” would greatly enhance his own standing.

Morning Constitutional

Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

There are two common definitions for this:

A morning walk
The first visit to the bathroom in the morning

There seems to be a geographic distance between those two terms. British English assumes the first; American English assumes the second.

Technically, “constitutional” means “something done to improve one’s constitution.” However, in America, it’s often used as a euphemism for a bathroom visit, and often a bowel movement specifically.

Why I Looked It Up

In Team of Rivals, I found this:

Rising early allowed him time to complete his morning constitutional through his beloved garden before the breakfast bell was rung.

Clearly, this using the first definition.

I also remember an episode of Fraiser when Daphne – who was the in-home nurse to Martin – said something like, “We completed our morning constitutional.” It’s unclear to what she was referring here, as either definition might make sense.

Perhaps “morning routine” is a more general definition for it.

"sic" a dog

Tue, 30 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Most people understand that to “sic a dog” on someone general means to direct the dog to attack.

This came from an accented form of the word “seek.” When hunting with dogs, you might say “seek them,” to mean “pursue them.” In Southern English, the word “seek” might sound a lot like “sick,” and that’s where we ended up with “sic ‘em.”

Why I Looked It Up

I was terrified of dogs as a child. The phrase “I’m going to sic my dog on you” was something I deeply feared. I got to wondering where it came from.

Piquant

Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: provocative, stimulating

This is used in food descriptions a lot. Something that is “piquant” has a sharp taste to it.

A person or statement that is “piquant” is something aggressive or provocative – something that stands out.

It’s from the French word for “prickly.”

Why I Looked It Up

In Fair Game, the author writes:

[ He said,] “Fuck ‘em. Go back with your head high and make ‘em sweat.”

… His confidence in me and piquant advice were just what I needed to hear.

Hawala

Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is an informal, traditional method of money transfer which started in India and is common in Africa and the Middle East.

In its simplest form, a Hawala network operates as a set of promises: “Can your friend Bob give my friend Ted some money?”

There are four parties to a Hawala transaction:

Person 1 (P1) visits Broker 1 (B2) wanting to send money to Person 2 (P2) who is in another physical location
P1 gives B1 a sum of money and some way of identifying P2
B1 contacts Broker 2 (B2), who is in physical proximity to P2, gives him the password or method of identification, and tells them the amount
P2 visits B2, gives the password or otherwise identifies themselves, and B2 gives P2 the money, minus a commission
B1 now owes B2 that amount of money

Reduced even more:

P1 gives money to B1
B1 tells B2 (the money transfer between these two is recorded and settled sometime later)
B2 gives money to P2

It’s very simple – basically, it’s you calling your friend Bob and saying, give Ted $100, and I’ll pay you back later. How you “pay them back later” is up for debate and negotiation at a later time. Maybe in the future, Bob will have you give Alice $100, and then you’re even. So long as it all works out at some later date, everyone is happy.

It’s informal – there are no laws and no rules. It operates on trust and honor. Anyone violating the trust of the network would be expelled from their community which is a serious punishment in the cultures in which Hawala operates.

Due to its informal nature, Hawala money is very hard to track.

“Hawala” is Arabic for “transfer” or “trust.”

Why I Looked It Up

In Season 3 of Jack Ryan, Jack is trapped in Athens, on the run with no money. In a call with Jim Greer, Jim tells Jack to “Shelter in paradise” in Arabic. This is apparently a known code between them.

Jim then goes to an bakery in Rome. The woman behind the counter appears Indian or Arab. He gives her $5,000, saying, “A friend of mine in Athens has run into hard times.”

Sometime later, Jack finds a store in Athens called “Paradise Clothing.” The shopowner appears to be the same ethnicity as the woman in the bakery. Jack says, “I think you have something for me,” and the shopowner then gives him some money.

Later, someone confronts Jim, saying, “I know about the Hawala money.”

Frog March

Sun, 28 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a method of forcibly moving someone, roughly defined as them being carried, face-down, with a person holding each limb. Apparently the London police came up with the phrase “frog’s march,” which is how they handled drunken criminals.

The term has evolved to mean the general forcing of someone to move. Either by literally carrying them, or by pinning their arms behind them and pushing them forward. The term implies some level of humiliation (likely intended).

The classic scenario would be someone forced to appear in front of a court.

Why I Looked It Up

I saw it in Eurostorm, then encountered it again in The Swerve. In discussing the contents of the poem On the Nature of Things, the author writes:

Either [humans] will gather flowers in an paradisal garden where no chill wind every blows, or they will be frog-marched before a harsh judge who will condemn. then…

Jutland

Sun, 28 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the peninsula that extends into the Baltic Sea on the northern coast of Germany. Most of it forms the mainland of Denmark, and there is some debate about how far south it extends. Some consider “Southern Jutland” to extend down into Germany and encompass the major city of Hamburg.

Jutland is one of the three major land masses of Denmark, along with the islands of Funen and Zealand. The largest Danish city in Jutland is Aarhus.

I was talking with a friend who lives in Copenhagen about cultural differences, and he said this:

There is classic hate between Zealand and Jutland. Everybody likes those from Funen, their dialect makes them sound friendly and trustworthy. North Jutland are the hillbillies and fishermen. People from Aarhus pretend to be real city people, but are mostly crazy (entire category of jokes about people from Aarhus)

Jutlandic people expect everybody from Zealand to be snobby urban people and woke hipsters

People in Jutland tend to be more religious. And conservative religious. Jehovah’s Witnesses are pretty common in western Jutland countryside. Even in the regular Lutheran state churches there, you will find priests who will not shake hands with females, won’t perform gay marriages, or marriage of people who have been married before.

Why I Looked It Up

I encountered it several times in The LEGO Story. Also, I’ve privately called this the “thumb of Germany,” due to its appearance, and I often use it to orient myself on a map of Europe.

Secretary

Sun, 28 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, the root of “secretary” is “secret,” which explains something about its original usage. Originally , a secretary was someone who knew all the secrets, and who handled confidential affairs for someone else.

While the modern usage of the word is quite different, a secretary still likely handles confidential matters. The word implies an assistant who “knows all the secrets.”

This also has political usage. The Secretary of State was originally known as “the state’s secretary,” meaning the person who knew the secrets of the state. It evolved from King’s Clerk, King’s Secretary, or Principal Secretary.

Additionally, there are many earlier usages in a religious sense: secretaries were entrusted with the secrets of God.

Why I Looked It Up

In The Swerve: How the World Became Modern:

[Poggio] had access, as the very word “secretary” suggests, to the pope’s secrets.

I also read a book called God's Secretaries about the creation of the King James Bible. In the sense of that title, the word uses both meanings: the translators transcribed things, certainly, but they were also responsible for conveying or guiding the secrets of the untranslated text.

Runway Length

Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Typical commercial runways are between 8,000 and 13,000 feet. Here’s a list of the longest runways in the world – some of them are just over 16,000 feet.

On the other extreme, the shortest runways in the world are hard to calculate, because what constitutes a “runway” can be debatable. A dirt path in the country could technically be considered a runway.

Wikipedia has a list of the shortest runways, and they seem to draw the line at any runway at an aerodrome with an official ICAO code. Under that criteria, the shortest runway is 400 feet long at a facility in Southern Idaho.

How much runway an aircraft needs to take off depends on:

the characteristics of the specific aircraft
the density of the air at that specific elevation; lower air density at higher elevations provides less lift
the wind direction during the takeoff; a headwind increases the relative speed of air over the wings
how much the aircraft weighs at that particular time

Obviously, an aircraft with nothing on board doesn’t need as much space as one that’s fully loaded. And this weight is highly variable – a modern airliner can weigh twice as much when loaded as when empty.

Most of an aircraft’s takeoff weight is fuel – a 747 can almost double its weight in fuel alone. It can hold 50,000 gallons of jet fuel, which is about 350,000 pounds, which is almost as much as the empty jet itself.

The Airbus A380 can actually can carry more weight in fuel than the aircraft weighs, and far more than the people onboard. At maximum carrying configuration, an A380 can hold 853 people. If we generously assume each person and their luggage is 300 pounds, this (250,000 lbs.) is still less than half the weight of the fuel (660,000 lbs).

Wikipedia states that:

At sea level, 3,200 m (10,500 ft) can be considered an adequate length to land virtually any aircraft.

Also:

The Boeing 747 is considered to have the longest takeoff distance of the more common aircraft types and has set the standard for runway lengths of larger international airports.

The page for the 747 lists different distances for different versions, but they average a bit over 10,000 feet. The Boeing 737 is currently the most ubiquitous airliner in the world (almost 11,000 have been built). It requires between 6,000 and 8,000 feet to takeoff.

(It’s unclear what configuration these numbers represent. On the page for the CRJ100/200, the takeoff numbers are qualified with “SL, MTOW” which means “[at] sea-level, [at] maximum takeoff weight.”)

In general, planes require less distance to land, due in no small part to the simple fact that they’ve burned most of their fuel and thus weigh much less than when they took off. Aircraft use three methods to slow down after landing:

Reverse thrust of the engines
Brakes on the landing gear
Flaps on the wings

Additionally, the distance required to land is affected by the condition of the runway. A wet runway will not allow as much braking force as a dry runway.

A graph on this page indicates that a unloaded 747 on a dry runway at sea level can land in as short as 5,000 feet.

Private jets are considerably shorter for both takeoff and landing. Fully loaded (MTOW) takeoff distances are 4,000 to 6,000 feet, with landing distances less than 3,000 feet.

The U.S, Air Force’s C17 Globemaster cargo plane requires 8,400 feet to takeoff and 3,500 feet to land at MTOW. This aircraft is specifically designed for short takeoffs and landings.

Why I Looked It Up

I was reading about the Sioux Falls Regional Airport for some reason. It has two main runways, at 9,000 and 8,000 feet, and a smaller one of just over 3,000 feet.

I got wondering is this was “long,” by some measure.

By comparison:

Chicago O’Hare has eight runways of between 7,500 and 13,000 feet
Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris has four runways of between 9,000 and 14,000 feet
Ellsworth AFB in Western South Dakota has a single runway of 13,500 feet (interesting because they support both B-52s and B-2 stealth bombers)
The private airport in Tea, South Dakota (the nearest airfield to Sioux Falls) has a single runway of 3,650 feet

I remember a 747 landing at Sioux Falls airport a few years ago – it was a charter bringing an local Army National Guard unit back from the Middle East. According to the graph linked above, it would require a maximum of just under 8,000 feet to land (Sioux Falls is about 2,500 feet above sea level).

Since the same plane would have taken off unloaded (given the nature of the flight, it wasn’t taking on passengers or cargo), it could takeoff in much shorter distance. They might also have minimally refueled the plane to keep its weight down for a shorter takeoff roll, then fully refueled at a larger airport.

A forum post on this page quotes a Boeing publication:

Sea level standard day (59 deg F, 29.92 inches Hg), no wind, level runway, air conditioning off (except one pack can be powered by the APU), PW4056 engines: minimum runway length of 5500 ft allows a takeoff weight of 635,000 lb, 6000 ft allows 665,000 lb, then a fairly straight line from there to 10,100 required feet for 850,000 lb.

Again, Sioux Falls is above sea level, but an unloaded 747 only weighs about 380,000 pounds – just over half the number discussed in the calculations above.

I also remember that after an air show in 2002 (or so), a B1 Lancer took off from Sioux Falls airport. I was working in a building downtown, and it literally shook from the force of the plane taking off. I couldn’t find any information on the minimum required runway length from the B1 (that data might be classified).

Cloisters

Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This has both a literal and symbolic definition.

Literally, a cloister is a covered walk forming the perimeter of a building’s open central square. It’s from the Latin word for “enclosure.”

Symbolically, “cloisters” refers to a separated religious life. To be “in cloisters” is to life a monastic life away from other people.

In that sense, “cloisters” can also be used to refer to a place of religious worship of study. (See: Synecdoche)

Why I Looked It Up

The word was used quite a bit in The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. For example, in describing the perspective one person had of monks:

Behind the thick walls of the cloisters, the parasites would mumble their prayers and live of the income generated by those who farmed the monastery’s extensive landholdings.

Zeeland, Zealand, and New Zealand

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Two of them – Zeeland and New Zealand are absolutely related. But perhaps not Zealand.

First, some definitions:

Zeeland: a coastal province of The Netherlands
Zealand: the largest island of Denmark, where Copenhagen is located
New Zealand: an island nation in the South Pacific (and where I was born, incidentally)
Zealandia: a underwater geologic structure in South Pacific that some consider to be a submerged continent

Zeeland (The Netherlands) and Zealand (Denmark) had the names first.

New Zealand was founded by Abel Tasman, a Dutchman. He sighted it in 1642, but never made landfall. He named it after the Dutch province Zeeland, which literally means “Sealand.” He called the landmass “Nova Zeelandia” or “New Sealand.” (He also named the Australian island of Tasmania, and Tasman Straight, which is the water between Australia and New Zealand.)

(Other place names come from Zeeland as well: there are municipalities in both Michigan and North Dakota named by Dutch settlers for the same province.)

A century later in 1769, the Englishman James Cook circumnavigated and mapped the coastline of Nova Zeelandia. He would land there on his second voyage in 1774. He is credited with anglicizing the name to “New Zealand.”

As for the Danish island, the origins are murkier. Wiktionary says:

Possibly from Old Norse Selund, a compound from selr (“seal”) + the suffix -und (“suffix for placenames”), thus meaning place with seals. The later name was Sjóland, which changed the meaning to “sea-land;” see sær (“sea”)

So “Zeeland” and “Zealand” might have completely separate origins and only coincidentally are phonetically similar. And confusingly, New Zealand is named for Zeeland, not Zealand.

Why I Looked It Up

Like I mentioned above, I’m from New Zealand. I was aware of Zeeland, Michigan, and vaguely knew there was some relation.

Then, in The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination, I encountered Zealand (LEGO is from Denmark), and decided to clear up my confusion.

Specious

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Definition: having a false look of truth or genuineness

It comes from the Latin word meaning “beautiful.” The implication is that it’s something that looks good on the surface.

Why I Looked It Up

I was researching what to call things like The Lost Cause Argument or Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. I posted a question to the English Stack Exchange, and this was one of the answers (actually, a comment).

Several people also mentioned “truthiness.”

Mechatronics

Tue, 9 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a portmanteau of the words “mechanical” and “electronic.” It can refer to two related things:

A general multidisciplinary approach to fields where robotics and electronics intersect
The specific study of automation – both physical tooling and their control systems (for instance, on a robotic assembly line)

The word was coined in Japan in 1971 and a trademark was filed (and subsequently released).

Why I Looked It Up

A friend posted to Facebook that their son graduated with a degree in mechatronics. I had never heard the word before.