Zooming in close proximity to a crack: better known as the Rob Ford maneuver.

Thanks for the link, but it has no bearing on the video because the car wasn't attempting to pass.

Maintaining your position while travelling in the right lane cannot be deemed a passing maneuver by sole virtue of the fact that the vehicle is in the right lane.

I'm at a loss as to why passing is even part of any discussion on that video because there is no passing happening whatsoever.

(P.S. I like your username, DrThunderbutt. )

There are two lanes on that bridge. He wasn't passing on the right; he was just driving in the right lane. And why do you feel the truck isn't allowed to drive in the left lane?

I'm not really following your highway logic. Do you live somewhere where rules of the road dictate that trucks are not allowed to drive on the left and cars are not allowed to drive on the right?

The truck very deliberately breached the divider line to force the car to slow down. There was plenty of space in the lane and he was slow enough that the car had no choice but to slow down, which is why he had time for the truck to get out of view and was at a low enough speed that he could stop before careening into the overturned car.

There was a very tiny window of time the truck driver had to react to help the car, and he didn't have to do anything at all, but he probably saved lives with his not-at-all-reckless maneuver. If I was in the car, I would have been very thankful.

Today's driving lesson: When maneuvering in tight spaces, don't be afraid to turn the wheel all the way -- before you touch the gas pedal.

Not sure that was the best maneuver...

I must say I got a kick out of the (unintentional?) Skynet reference at 10:10.

"Machines can not only perform dynamic maneuvers on their own, they can do it collectively. These three quads are cooperatively carrying a skynet."

Oh noes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wlsd9mljiU#t=32s

What the...

I know nothing about the intricacies of maneuvering such a ship, so maybe someone can help me out.

She's drifting towards those boats, yet she doesn't go full ahead until ~50 seconds in: why?

And the tug lines to the ship seem slack: why isn't the tug boat going full astern?

Failed chain of communication, pilot/bridge crew playing strip poker?

It's a space dogfighting game, so there is atmosphere in space, or at least it controls like it is. The human spaceships are supposed to look something like WW2 era fighter planes, since that's what this game is about, WW2 dogfighting in space.

You can even see what could be atmospheric maneuvering controls on one of the ships at the 4 minute mark. Wings or rudders or something wiggling about.

As for realism, there's much worse lapses here than just "omg spaceships with wings!". You could put wings on a spaceship for practical purposes, to make a spaceplane like the space shuttle. Or for decoration. But then you get things like the really fast military fighters have a top speed much lower than C, they can turn and kill their old inertia as if pushing against air, all the fighting is done at visual ranges under accelerations slow enough for a human to react to (and survive physically), lasers fire discrete, visible, tracer like lines rather than an invisible ray traveling at the speed of light... I'm sure there's more.

The problem with this is how Americans continue to mistake the office of the president as this all powerful dictator position.

The office of the president is not a kingship, it is not totalitarian. It is one branch of three and it's not even the most powerful branch. Congress is the most powerful branch.

So whenever we have these scandals (left or right) the focus is always on the president even though they may or may not have anything to do with it. I'm not saying they're blameless, but they're certainly not the ringleader. There may be no ringleader. Whenever we have this scandal, there's always this mistaken notion that it was some grand conspiracy with very specific aims and goals and I don't think that is typically the case. I think most of these scandals are simply born out of laziness or negligence or simply just protecting one's ass. Government is a big machine (even in the right wing fantasy of small gov't, it will always be big) and it's more likely it's some unintentional screwup than some pre-meditated maneuver.

IMO, this is most evident during Bush's administration. The guy is obviously not that bright. There was something else going on behind the scenes pulling the strings. Even though Obama certainly is far more intelligent, it still doesn't change a thing that there is a bigger machinery at work and one person alone doesn't steer the boat.

And no I'm not talking about some cliche'd Iluminati-style group. You've just got a large go'vt mechanism that wields a lot of power and it's run by fallible people which is a far simpler plausible explanation.

The only way it's going to be better is if people demand it. But we don't even have half the nation voting. So you have a better than 50 percent chance that any time you hear someone complaining about the gov't...they probably didn't vote.

This idea is old. We used to have kings and dictators, but eventually people demanded something different so they came up with councils and parliaments and congresses, etc that wielded the real power, but they kept the kings and queens as a distraction, as a symbol even though they lost the bulk of their power.

Again, I'm not saying the office of the president is blameless, i'm just trying to inject some perspective.

Correct, the landing should not be hard when done correctly. Also while you are correct that it is difficult to do correctly, we used to do them all the time in the military. That's what TRAINING is for. That said, there are plenty of difficult maneuvers done by military pilots routinely. Landing on an LPH or aircraft carrier for example (especially fixed wing with no hover capability). Also landing a helo in "the field" can be a challenge, landing in between trees, around obstacles, on top of obstacles, etc. All of which is done routinely in the military on a daily basis. Also low visibility, night flights, and instrument only flights can be a challenge. Flying over water at night in a helo is also challenging and dangerous.

YouTube description:

According to the pilot-in-command (PIC), he was performing autorotations at the lower part of the main rotor rpm green arc in part due to weight considerations. Upon entering the accident autorotation, he maintained an airspeed between 85-90 knots in the hope that extra speed would allow a more aggressive deceleration flare prior to touchdown, which should in turn further slow the rate of descent and forward speed. The helicopter's rate of descent was high, and as the PIC turned the helicopter onto the runway heading it was apparent to him that the rate of descent was excessive and that he was too low to execute either a proper deceleration flare or perform a power recovery. He attempted to level the helicopter as much as possible prior to impact to minimize the damage to the helicopter and prevent injury. The helicopter landed hard with the left skid contacting the runway first. The left skid collapsed, damaging the outboard landing gear damper attachment structure. The helicopter slid about 100 yards before coming to a stop. According to the manufacturer, the main rotor rpm range is 90 percent to 106.4 percent. At the helicopter's weight and the density altitude on the day of the accident, the main rotor rpm during the autorotation should have been above the 106.4 percent limit (red line), requiring the pilot to increase collective pitch to maintain the rotor rpm within limits. Performing autorotations at the lower part of the green arc provides less availability of rotor energy to perform an autorotation landing. The pilot should have recognized that he was not achieving the required main rotor rpm for the autorotations and terminated the maneuvers. The helicopter was within weight and balance limits.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:

The pilot's failure to maintain adequate main rotor rpm during an autorotation, which resulted in a hard landing.

Holy crap, that bird did a Split-S maneuver! I wonder if they always do that.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcw7fobOnW1qzhn60o1_1280.jpg

Wouldn't it make more sense to be realistic about the possibility of the Taliban firing missiles? Does that happen enough that every takeoff has to perform what sounds like a risky maneuver?

Pulling up that fast with a heavy load seems a high risk approach.

I suppose, that indirectly, the Taliban can claim some credit for this.

there's a key word in my explanation (which the definition is posted in another comment); Under exigent circumstances, meaning using the excuse of "oh.. we're just looking for someone" isn't considered under that label. Also, probable cause can be used in a search without a warrant (i.e. shots reported in a building etc..).

Secondly, the entire city of Boston was on lockdown under a Public Safety measure (no martial law was called at the time), but national guard was patrolling the search area and aiding local enforcement. Anyone found on the streets walking around was instantly stopped and carded for info.

Again, the searches were not unwarranted and they were not illegal. They only searched the houses in the search area, they proceeded with by the book maneuvers. No one was mishandled in the searches from what I see in that video or any other account.

*FLARE* *FLARE* *FLARE*

do do do do do do do do do do do do do

Evasive maneuvers we got a wedding heading our way !