Empty Cosmos

get into debt if you must, but own a warehouse

randomly hearing your favorite song is more satisfying than playing it yourself.

Put the average woman in heaven and she’ll find something to complain about. Put the average man through hell and he won’t say a word.

Be careful with your words, because once they've been said, they can only be forgiven; not forgotten.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on - Franklin D. Roosevelt

“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”

Photograph of the Twin Towers on the night of September 10th, 2001.

This is why there is constant tension on construction projects: 1. Architects think they lead. 2. Engineers think they are the most important. 3. Builders think drawings are not practical. 4. Quantity surveyors think everyone is wasting money. 5. Contractors think consultants delay projects. 6. Artisans think professionals just talk and don't know site reality. 7. Clients think everyone is overpaid. (Ctrl C+V)

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." Captain Eric Moody’s voice was calm, but the circumstances…they were frightening. On the night of June 24, 1982, British Airways Flight 9 was cruising at 37,000 feet above the Indian Ocean. The mood on board was calm; the passengers were settling in for the night, and the crew, led by Captain Eric Moody, watched the instruments. Then, the impossible began with a light show. An eerie, electric blue glow began to dance across the cockpit windshields—a phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s fire. While beautiful, it was the harbinger of a nightmare. In the cabin, a thick, acrid smoke smelling of sulfur began to fill the air. Initially, the crew suspected cigarette smoke—this was 1982, after all—but the intensity was wrong. The radar showed clear skies, yet the plane was being battered by invisible particles. Then, the unthinkable happened. Engine four surged and flamed out. Less than ninety seconds later, engines two, one, and three followed suit. The roar of the 747 was replaced by a terrifying, absolute silence. They were seven miles high, carrying 263 souls, with zero power. The massive Boeing had become a 300-ton glider falling toward the jagged mountains of Java. The British Understatement In the cockpit, the situation was frantic but controlled. The co-pilot’s oxygen mask collapsed, forcing an emergency dive to breathable air. They were losing altitude fast—gliding with a ratio of 15:1—meaning for every mile they dropped, they traveled fifteen forward. But the mountains were rising to meet them. Amidst this chaos, Captain Moody keyed the intercom to address the terrified passengers. His voice, steady and devoid of panic, delivered one of the most famous lines in aviation history: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." The Invisible Enemy The crew didn't know it, but they had flown directly into a massive plume of volcanic ash from Mount Galunggung. Because the ash was dry, it didn't appear on the weather radar, which is designed to detect moisture. Inside the engines, a catastrophic physical reaction was taking place. The microscopic shards of volcanic glass were sucked into the combustion chambers, where temperatures exceeded the melting point of the rock. The ash melted into a sticky glaze, coating the interior turbines and choking the airflow, suffocating the engines. The Miracle of Physics As the plane plummeted through 13,000 feet, the air outside grew denser and cooler. This temperature drop caused the molten glass coating the engines to brittle and snap off. The crew had attempted to restart the engines over a dozen times with no success. But on the next attempt, the cleared turbines roared back to life. First engine four, then the others followed. They had power, but the danger wasn't over. The Blind Landing As they approached Jakarta for an emergency landing, Captain Moody realized the "sandblasting" effect of the ash had turned the windshields completely opaque. They were flying blind. Relying entirely on instruments and a tiny strip of visibility at the very edge of the side window, the crew threaded the needle. They touched down safely at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport. Not a single life was lost. The incident revolutionized aviation safety, launching the International Airways Volcano Watch. It proved that even when the impossible happens—when the sky goes dark and the engines go silent—panic is the enemy, and persistence is the only way home.

Two aircraft. One runway. 583 lives lost. Today marks the anniversary of the Tenerife air disaster, still the deadliest accident in aviation history. It wasn’t a single mistake. It was a chain. Fog. Pressure. Assumptions. Two highly professional crews, both believing they understood the situation… and a breakdown in communication that left no margin for recovery. That’s the uncomfortable truth about aviation, and about life more broadly. Catastrophe rarely arrives in one moment. It builds, quietly, step by step, until there’s no space left to correct it. While researching JUMBO, I had the privilege of speaking with Dorothy, a flight attendant on the Pan Am aircraft that day. She survived. And what stayed with me wasn’t just the sequence of events, it was the human side. The confusion. The disbelief. The seconds where everything changed. And the resilience required to carry that experience forward. We often talk about Tenerife in terms of procedures and lessons learned, CRM, communication, decision-making under pressure. And those lessons reshaped aviation forever. But behind all of that are people. Lives interrupted. Stories that didn’t get to finish. It remains one of the most important reminders in aviation: Clarity matters. Humility matters. And good judgement is everything. If you want to understand not just the history of the 747, but the human stories that shaped modern aviation, my book JUMBO explores moments like this in depth. Available now at all good bookstores. #Tenerife #AviationHistory #JumboBook #Boeing747 #CRM #HumanFactors #AvGeek #DecisionMaking #NeverForget

"One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man." —Fyodor Dostoevsky

At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, walked through the park in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully. Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her. The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.” Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life. During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable. Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned. “It doesn’t look like my doll at all,“ said the girl. Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: "my travels have changed me.” the little girl hugged the new doll and brought her happy home. A year later Kafka died. Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written: “Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”

[Fourth-Wall Break] Well, I just finished reading a book after six weeks and I since many of you seem to be history lovers and readers also, I wanted to share the last 12 nonfiction history-related books I’ve read that I would recommend, so here we go…

@Ramosmoz Ter um bom arquiteto é uma parte da equação, não uma imagem completa. Devido ao terreno achatado, temos aqui e poucas árvores, o que não é suficiente. Mesmo casas com boa ventilação exigiriam algum resfriamento porque o ar circulado na atmosfera também fica quente.

Não, AC não devia ser requisito básico para uma casa ser habitável. O que faz uma casa realmente confortável é um bom projecto desde raiz. Contrata um bom arquitecto e pensem em orientação da casa, ventilação cruzada, materiais adequados, isolamento térmico, sombreamento etc etc

Resilience is staying in the game long enough to win.

@introverdiaries Timing be looking at me funny

@EmptyCosmos_ You can only profit from that

Suahili

@introverdiaries Seems like i need to join a language class

@EmptyCosmos_ It didn't used to have (k,y,w), but now it does. And it's now "double U", it's "double V" just like in Germanic languages.

@adilsoncamach0 English

É realisticamente possível implementar uma língua africana comum em todo o continente? Se sim, qual seria a melhor candidata e com que condições?

Women don’t just want a rich man. They want a rich man that’s foolish enough to give them all his money.