Katherine Lee Delta Airlines Flight Safety Video

Katherine Lee, who works as a flight attendant with Delta Air Lines for ten and a half years, has become a YouTube sensation for her role in the airline's new safety video (see FOX's description below). She was picked as the lead flight attendant among a list of 10 finalists right before the filming.

On the soundtrack behind the mandatory Federal Aviation Administration safety instructions — such as how to buckle a seat belt, how to wear an oxygen mask and when to put away a cell phone — the new video is backed by a smooth jazz drumbeat and ethereal electronic tones. In one spot, the viewer suddenly sees a digital sparkle on the smile of a shaven-headed male flight attendant who is demonstrating how to properly wear a life vest.

There's also the finger wag. Halfway through the 4-1/2 minute video, Lee unexpectedly and playfully wags a long finger at the camera while instructing that "Smoking ... is not allowed, on any Delta flight."

Katherine Lee, 33, an Atlanta native, owned herself a nickname of "Deltalina," a combination of the airline's name and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, who many say she resembles.

Before YouTube, Katherine Lee, aka Deltalina, was a redheaded, blue-eyed, high-cheekboned woman who was just another beautiful flight attendant working at USA's third largest Airlines. Link

W00t, Word of the Year 2007

"w00t," an exclamation of happiness or triumph by online gamers, has become Word of the Year 2007.

According to the Merriam-Webster, the winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters.

The double "o" in the word W00t is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team".

ps. www.woot.com is a popular online store and community that focuses on selling cool gadgets using the One Deal a Day business model. Tags: woot, w00t, mw, word of the year

Why is It Called Hot Dog?

Only after watching the video, I just realised that the hot dog is also called frankfurters, named after the city of Frankfurt, Germany. #Tags: hot dog, frankfurters, funny, youtube, video

Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson Won 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics

 

The US trio Leonid Hurwicz (bio), Eric Maskin (bio) and Roger Myerson (bio) won 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics  for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory", announced The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Hurwicz, a U.S. citizen born in Moscow, is an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Maskin, 56, a New York City native, is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Boston-born Myerson, 56, is a professor at the University of Chicago.

The three economists picked up the prize for their work that helps find the optimal mechanism to reach certain goals such as social welfare or private profit.

"Mechanism design theory initiated by Leonid Hurwicz and further developed by Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson has greatly enhanced our understanding of optimal allocation mechanisms in such situations, accounting for individuals' incentives and private information," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

"Today, mechanism design theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science," it said.

The economics prize is the last prize handed out this year and not part of the original crop of Nobel Prizes set out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will. It was established in 1968 and is officially called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Link

Tags: noble prize in economics, Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, Roger Myerson

Drew Gilpin Faust Inaugurated as Harvard University's First Female President

(Drew Gilpin Faust photo credit: Erik Jacobs/NYT)

Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust, was inaugurated as Harvard University's President on Friday Oct. 12. Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian with the special knowledge on the history of the South in the antebellum period and Civil War, is the first female president of Harvard University and also Harvard's first president since 1672 without an undergraduate or graduate degree from Harvard.

Her predecessor Lawrence Summers resigned on June 30, 2006, after he set off a storm by suggesting that a lack of intrinsic aptitude could help explain why fewer women than men reach the top ranks of science and math in universities.

Ms. Drew Gilpin Faust was born September 18, 1947. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988 but declined to speak with the media about her diagnosis or treatment.

Source: New York Times & Wikipedia Link to Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust Inauguration homepage