Engineer's Daughter

40th anniversary of the jumbo jet

I'm not just an engineer's daughter; I'm also a former Pan Am flight attendant's daughter.  These two threads come together in my fetish for all things flight-related (as well as my travel bug), so I'm excited to note that the Boeing 747-100 jumbo jet celebrated its 40th birthday early last month.  Jonathan Glancey explains why the plane is a genuine design classic:

To say that the Boeing 747 revolutionised civil aviation would be an understatement. Not only was the aircraft huge – a mechanical elephant - but it promised lower fares for millions of people who may never have flown at all, let alone long-haul. For better or worse, the jumbo jet did its bit to democratise air travel. And yet at the time of its debut it was widely assumed that the plane would be built in limited numbers and with a relatively short life in passenger service. Of the 400 Jumbos initially planned, many were expected to become long-distance, heavy-duty freighters as an even more revolutionary generation of supersonic airliners reached for the sky, cutting journey times across the Atlantic in half.

We know how that turned out: The Concorde has been decommissioned, while the newest iteration of the 747 is preparing to enter service.  Click here for a fantastic gallery of jumbo jet photographs, including some classic pictures from the Pan Am archives.  My mom is not featured, alas.

the cultural events of 1951

Before I left for Thailand one of my coworkers joked to me that hopefully I'd have an economy to come back to, and then we both laughed uneasily.  Some business news trickled through into my consciousness while I was trying to get updates on the situation at the airport over there, none of it good of course.  And then in quick succession upon my return last week came the news that the Bank of England had cut interest rates to 2%, the lowest they'd been since 1951, and then that the US was losing jobs at the fastest rate in 34 years.  Dan Milmo reported on the grim American statistics for the Guardian:

Today's announcement brings the jobless total to 10.3 million people out of a total workforce of 154.6 million. Economists believe the unemployment rate will peak at between 8.7% and 9.8% over the next two years. "We are going to see the labour market remain very, very weak throughout the remainder of this year and 2009. It hinges on the monetary and fiscal response," said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody's economy.com.

My brother just got home from three years in the Peace Corps in Africa this Wednesday, ready to look for a job and an apartment, and this is what we present him with.  Perhaps in an attempt to cheer up its readers and show that 1951 and its 2% interest rate wasn't all that bad, the Guardian has published a fun gallery of photos from that year marking some high points in movies, architecture, music and other culture.  It's true that a picture of Audrey Hepburn like the one above will never fail to make me feel better.

secret report: biofuel caused food crisis

Oh boy, this is not good news at all.  Aditya Chakrabortty reported in yesterday's Guardian that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%, blatantly contradicting Dubya's claim that prices have been rising due to increased demand from India and China.  The source is a secret World Bank report that has been ready since April but has remain unpublished quite possibly to save the United States government from humiliation.  The report demonstrates that the production of biofuels has given precedence to grain grown for fuel instead of food, encouraged food farmers to set aside significant portions of their land for biofuel, and heightened financial speculation in grains.  The result is a highly skewed food market that has pushed 100 million people below the poverty line.  I feel nauseated reading about it this morning.  Happy Independence Day!

"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the [UK] government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."

Man, corn really is the devil.