(Update: Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope provides a clear explanation of why the plane will indeed take off.)
David Pogue at the NYT has presented this classic airplane on a giant treadmill problem, and people are arguing about whether or not the plane would take off or not. Here's the problem:
“Imagine a plane is sitting on a massive conveyor belt, as wide and as long as a runway. The conveyer belt is designed to exactly match the speed of the wheels, moving in the opposite direction. Can the plane take off? “I say no, because the plane will not move relative the the ground and air, and thus, very little air will flow over the wings. However, other people are convinced that since the wheels of a plane are free spinning, and not powered by the engines, and the engines provide thrust against the air, that somehow that makes a difference and air will flow over the wing.”I say yes. Let's assume the friction in the wheel bearings is negligible. Putting a plane on a treadmill is like putting it on an icy lake. When you fire up the jets, the plane is going to shoot down the lake and take off just like it would on a runway. Link
I've added the comments to this link in the extended entry.
Continue reading Airplane-Treadmill problem.
Nail Polish Meets House Paint
In the dazzling tradition of The Crucible's Fire Operas, this first-ever Fire Ballet is a theatrical spectacle that fuses ballet, classical music, aerial performance, and the fire and industrial arts into a compelling modernized rendition of Shakespeare's tragic tale. Choreographer Corinne Blum, formerly of the San Francisco Ballet, has been recognized as one of the West Coast’s most exciting, young choreographers. Dazzling fight scenes—expect real fire when tempers flare!
10 Zen Monkeys has an excellent selection of treasured classic Christmas TV specials that wisecrackers have edited into foul-mouthed and cynical spoofs. 
Michael Crook does not own the copyright to the image in question. It is that simple. With photographs and videos, copyright law protects the photographer, not the model. It even says so on the 
Written by Stu Maschwitz, co-founder of the Orphanage (the legendary guerrilla visual effects studio responsible for amazing and award-winning effects in such movies as Sin City, The Day After Tomorrow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), this book is a must-have for all those budding filmmakers and students who want to produce action movies with visual effects but don't have Hollywood budgets.
We pieced together that this was probably a surviving copy of the legendary Scepter Studios recordings, which had been regarded as lost (hence the application of the moniker “the lost Scepter Studios recordings” to these unheard sessions over the years). The recording is composed of the primitive first “finished” version of the LP that Andy Warhol had shopped to Columbia as a ready-to-release debut album by his protégé collective.
Over 3000 people came to the 
The inspiration for this piece came a couple years ago from a New Yorker article about robotics. In the field, there's a term called "the uncanny valley." Briefly explained: when a person encounters an artificial being, they are more likely to empathize with it if it has distinctly human characteristics. However, if the artificial being is too human, revulsion takes the place of empathy. The Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori termed this sudden dip in empathy the "uncanny valley..."
I've set my latest novel free under the usual Creative Commons license: you can get Blindsight (Tor, October) by going to my 
Larry Lessig has just posted the whole text of the second edition of Code, called "Codev2" (natch). Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace was one of the seminal books on regulation, law and the Internet, organized around the central hypothesis that "code is law" -- when AOL writes a chat-room that limits the number of chatters to 12, it's like a nation passing a law limiting public gatherings to 12 people.
Reason: When it looked like Comedy Central wasn’t going to rerun the Mary episode, people were still able to download it illegally online. Did you see that as a victory for free speech, or did you think, “My God, these people are stealing our intellectual property”?
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