dont rule out foul play either. after the initial big drop, the plane leveled out and gained altitude but then proceeded to go vertical again till the crash.

A nice graphic that shows off the big drop off...
https://twitter.com/SueDHellmann/status/564844218989158402/photo/1

Yes, it is way better.
1). First, that toilet isn't going to spill over. Ever had that happen? And with a heat register near by? Disgusting.
2). Two, do you realize how much Feces is splashed around the bathroom when you plunge? Not just on your floor, but walls, and on you, your clothes and possibly your face. It's not just the big drops, but the little ones, the ones that practically become airborne.
3). Three, Clean up afterwards, once you're done with a plunger, you need to clean it off, and if there is stuff sticking to it, as you can guess, that's not fun either. Not to mention, where are you going to clean it? in the bathtub? After you sanitize the plunger, now you have to sanitize the tub, or sink, or what ever as well.

-You're going to need to wipe down that toilet whether you plunge or use this sheet.
-This plastic sheet, looks strong enough that it's not going to break.
-And disposing it. Well, lifting it into a garbage bag, that just seems way easier.

I get a similar feeling holding an expensive camera or pair of binoculars etc etc over a big drop. Feels like they might slip out of my hands at any moment.

If its something I dont really care about dropping, like a small coin or a pebble or something then I dont get that anxiety at all.

So the UK has a higher violent crime rate and yet also less homicides? The UK has some of the strictest gun laws, and a gun homicide rate of 0.07per 100,000. This is 1/40th of the states. How much of this correlation is causation? I don't know, but I reckon if the UK suddenly go lax on gun laws that 0.07 figure would only change one way.

As for the drop in crime in the states...well, it reminds me of an episode of The Wire. A big drop like that and nobody wants to take credit for it? One can't help but wonder if thats because the goal posts have been moving. That or somebody created Amsterdam zones on the quiet

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

issy and I are stuck at home with the flu. Can't speak for her, but I'm all over the unsifted page. Also, it is Thanksgiving, so there's probably a big drop off in site traffic.


Cats get flu?

See now that issy is sick and weak...this is EXACTLY the time you want to speak for her!!! How else are you gonna get a word in otherwise???

**hears a noise behind him**

**Ninja cat assassination squad jumps down from the ceiling**

No...nooo...it was a joke...I swear!


>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

issy and I are stuck at home with the flu. Can't speak for her, but I'm all over the unsifted page. Also, it is Thanksgiving, so there's probably a big drop off in site traffic.

issy and I are stuck at home with the flu. Can't speak for her, but I'm all over the unsifted page. Also, it is Thanksgiving, so there's probably a big drop off in site traffic.

OK, I originally wrote this as a reply to your comment on "What motivates us", but I go off on a bit of a tangent that probably wouldn't interest the average viewer of the comments section there so I thought I should move it here to your profile.

It is entirely possible that my rambling below won't interest *you* very much either; in that case please accept my thanks for your aforementioned post which piqued my interest, and feel free to ignore me...

Quite a lot of your comment rang true for me. I've been living in Thailand for 3 years, working as a teacher in an ESL program. In Thailand, there is a pretty high demand for native English speakers to work as teachers, but there isn't a great supply, particularly of high-quality people that are actually interested in teaching as a career.

An extremely low percentage of native-speaking English teachers actually have degrees in teaching or English (I myself have a Computer Science degree). The majority are tourists that come here to visit and like the country, so they decide to look for options that would allow them to stay and end up teaching.

A lot of people tend to think that is a recipe for disaster, in terms of quality of teaching, straight out of the box. I basically disagree; I have seen a lot of converted tourist teachers that get personally interested in the work and motivated to do a good job. However, I think that in general the educational system and institutions here do a poor job of recognizing the realities of the talent pool that they have access to and how to manage their teachers to KEEP the people that show that they have teaching skills and motivation.

Autonomy is usually easy to come by. In most educational programs here teachers (many of whom have never actually taught before) are thrown into classrooms without any syllabus, lesson plans, course outcome goals, or even any verbal instructions or ideas. So at least in terms of the course content, I think there is generally too much autonomy.

Work conditions, on the other hand, are extremely variable. As someone from the midwestern US, Thailand is frequently HOT. Sometimes classrooms have air conditioning, but many do not. Some classrooms are good at having ready access to very basic supplies (chalk / board markers / copy machine for worksheets) or other stuff (flashcards / books), and some seem to think that a room containing broken chairs and desks, with no chalkboard or other writing surface should be fine. Administration officials seem genuinely surprised and puzzled when a lack of basic supplies creates motivation issues.

Another major contributor to classroom conditions is the presence, absence, and/or quality of teaching assistance. Schools say that there will be a Thai speaking co-teacher or teaching assistant in the classroom at all times to help maintain order and translate words or concepts as needed. In practice that is often not the case, which can be disastrous for people that are just thrown in without any experience or techniques to maintain discipline. If you lose control of discipline in a hot classroom full of 40+ gradeschool kids that don't speak English, and don't have anyone there to back you up or bail you out, motivation is going to plummet. Rapidly.

Anyway, sorry for the really LONG ranting response, but I'm interested in how that would compare to your findings in your thesis. Particularly if there is some country or system that tends to "get it right" more often than others.

And just as a final note, I too thought of Google when watching the clip. When the narrator said he was going to provide an example of a company that gave employees time to work on self-directed projects, I was almost sure he was going to say Google.

Thanks for the interesting comment!
>> ^SDGundamX:

For my Master's final project, I presented on teacher motivation for teachers of English as a Second or Other Language. In my research, one of the things I looked at was salary. Studies that had been done on teacher motivation and salary found the same thing this study found--that you need a minimum salary in order to get people to stay at the job, but better than average salary didn't correlate to better motivation. There were a host of other factors that did correlate, however, including the big one mentioned here--autonomy.
But autonomy wasn't the only factor. As poolcleaner pointed out work conditions are also a significant factor in motivation. If you're forced to teach your classes in the janitor's closet with no air circulation and only a dim lightbulb for illumination no amount of autonomy or salary is going to make you a motivated teacher. Likewise, if your boss doesn't listen to anything you say or you have no input in the curriculum at all, you see a big drop-off in motivation as well.
Still, autonomy is a pretty key component to motivating people. I think autonomy in the workplace works if it is coupled with accountability. If you look at companies like Google, which give their employees a couple hours a day to work on whatever they want, you quickly see that the model works because Google also monitors what the people are working on and gets to keep (and ultimately sell) whatever the final product is. I think it is safe to say that this model is working well for them.
Also, having been to the Google Mountain View campus lots of times, I can tell you that they've definitely got the work environment thing covered: free lunches at dozens of restaurant-style cafeterias; on-site massages and doctor; laundry services; a gym; free shuttle from the major mass transit stops in the area.... It's unbelievable. You can read more about the benefits here.

For my Master's final project, I presented on teacher motivation for teachers of English as a Second or Other Language. In my research, one of the things I looked at was salary. Studies that had been done on teacher motivation and salary found the same thing this study found--that you need a minimum salary in order to get people to stay at the job, but better than average salary didn't correlate to better motivation. There were a host of other factors that did correlate, however, including the big one mentioned here--autonomy.

But autonomy wasn't the only factor. As poolcleaner pointed out work conditions are also a significant factor in motivation. If you're forced to teach your classes in the janitor's closet with no air circulation and only a dim lightbulb for illumination no amount of autonomy or salary is going to make you a motivated teacher. Likewise, if your boss doesn't listen to anything you say or you have no input in the curriculum at all, you see a big drop-off in motivation as well.

Still, autonomy is a pretty key component to motivating people. I think autonomy in the workplace works if it is coupled with accountability. If you look at companies like Google, which give their employees a couple hours a day to work on whatever they want, you quickly see that the model works because Google also monitors what the people are working on and gets to keep (and ultimately sell) whatever the final product is. I think it is safe to say that this model is working well for them.

Also, having been to the Google Mountain View campus lots of times, I can tell you that they've definitely got the work environment thing covered: free lunches at dozens of restaurant-style cafeterias; on-site massages and doctor; laundry services; a gym; free shuttle from the major mass transit stops in the area.... It's unbelievable. You can read more about the benefits here.

>> ^Arg:
He states that the known width of the building is 100m. Is this the width when looking straight on? Is this video looking at the building straight on? If not then he is overestimating the width of the building in the video.


If the video is taken from an angle, wouldn't that mean that he was underestimating the width of the building in the video? For instance, if the roof is 100m across then from an angle it would be even longer. If he were seeing it from an angle (I can't tell) then he could be looking at something that could be up to 141m wide (45-degree view if the building is square).

In that case when he estimated how long it took for the building to drop 100m (or how far it dropped in one second) then the building would have actually dropped more than his estimation, meaning that his estimation would show a slower acceleration than what actually happened. Since that would put the acceleration well above gravitational force I don't think that is the case.

However, that doesn't mean there aren't errors. I wonder if he authenticated the time scale of the video. If that was faster than normal for any reason then it would make acceleration seem faster. This needs to be verified using multiple videos from other angles before we can draw confident conclusions.

If it is correct though, that's a big drop with no resistance. It looked like the initial velocity of the building at the beginning of those 2.5 seconds was 1.5m/s. That would mean the building dropped nearly 35 meters (114ft) without anything slowing it down. The implications of that are pretty big, so I'd definitely have to see some confirming calculations with multiple other videos before believing it.

as the baby boomers start croakin' you can bet we'll see a big drop in conservative votes. hopefully there'll be some balance by that time. Pretty much...by going to war you are always going to end up creating an overwhelming amount of conservatives 50 years down the road.

Skateboarders are pretty tough when it comes to scrapes, bruises and broken bones, but frankly, tough doesn't save you from a fall like that. Luck does. It's a freakin miracle he didn't die or paralyze himself given that his spine took the brunt of the impact.

I actually couldn't watch it all the way through...one replay was enough, thanks.....but upvote for the guy's good luck.

Also, I saw this and I thought of those crazy parkour videos. I wonder if these big trick skateboarders could/should learn some of those techniques for landing from big drops.....it's not like it would be that far out of their normal sphere of expertise.