Neurologist. Yes, there is such a thing as a remote brain surgeon!  A Nevada Hospital is looking for a full-time neurology physician.  Benefits include:  $500 signing bonus; W2 salary; medical, dental, vision insurance; enhanced 401k plan; continuing education allowance; professional dues and licensure allowance; generous vacation/paid time off; paid travel.  Amazing!

Getting paid to wear shirts. In this up and down economy Jason Sadler has started outsourcing wardrobe (namely shirts)! He has been wearing a different shirt everyday in 2009, taking multiple pictures throughout the day, blogging, tweeting, and facebooking all over the internet. You do the math $1, $2, $3…$365! He is making a killing from home!

Metal Music Blogger. Finally get paid to Rock, from home!  This is a great occasional writing gig for a metal music fan who is very knowledgeable about the genre and who (ideally) already attends concerts and festivals. Ever wanted to get paid to talk about music? Here’s your chance!

Hello Kitty Online Community Manager. This full time position is being offered to a knowledgeable and passionate Hello Kitty fan anywhere in the world! Offered by the gaming company, they are hiring an online community manager for all things Hello Kitty.

Magazine publisher, Hugh Hefner. So this list is obviously not in order. Working from the Playboy mansion, with the parties bunnies, cars, pools, animals, and everything else any Playboy could ever want is by far the best work from home job ever! In 1953, Hugh raised $8,000 from 45 investors to launch Playboy. Work clothes: robe!

Toishanese Interpreter. What is Toishanese you ask? Well it is a dialect of Cantonese mainly spoken in and around Taishan, a county-level city situated southwest of Guangzhou on the coast of Guangdong province. Don’t live in or around Taishan? Work from home! International interpretation services hire for tons of different languages, including Spanish, French, German, and some exotic languages like Toishanese too!

Virtual Juror. Did you like being on a jury but hated getting up early and driving to the courthouse? This is for you! Telecommuting Jurors review information, answer attorneys’ questions, and provide feedback on cases. Must be over 18 and a US citizen, but what a sweet gig!

So there you have it. If you’ve always wanted to quit, or just got laid off. There is a job for everyone, and your office can be your couch!

“We won’t be signing off until the world ends. We’ll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event… and when the end of the world comes, we’ll play ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ before we sign off.”

• Launched a short-lived competitor to MTV in 1984, the Cable Music Channel, which lasted 33 days. The story behind CMC is actually pretty interesting and almost warrants its own post.

• Attempted to buy CBS, instead bought the MGM/United Artists for $1.5 billion just to sell parts of it back to others in an effort to reduce debt. Turner retained ownership of a gigantic film and television library, which now includes

  The Wizard of Oz
  A Christmas Story
  Gone With the Wind
  Tom & Jerry
  North by Northwest
  Gilligan’s Island
  2001: A Space Odyssey
  Looney Tunes

  … along with a significant chunk of the pre-1986 MGM/UA TV and film library, the RKO Radio Pictures Library, and the pre-1950 Warner Bros. film library.

• Used to own theatrical and television rights to Pink Floyd’s The Wall.
• Had to start an entire company (Turner Entertainment) to manage all of his film assets in 1986.
• Bought World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1988, later sold it to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
• Launched the philanthropic Turner Foundation in 1990 which distributes grants for environmental and population-relatd work. As part of this, he created Captain Planet. That’s right. Ted Turner made Captain Planet.
• Created the United Nations Foundation in 1998 to manage his $1 billion donation to the UN’s causes. The one billionth dollar was donated by 2006.
• Served in the Coast Guard, receiving the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism (not to be confused with the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism).
• Is the recipient of 42 honorary degrees.
• Bought Hanna-Barbera Productions and acquired Castle Rock Entertainment (distributors of Seinfeld, among other things) and New Line Cinema in the early 1990s.
• In 2001, launched the Nuclear Threat Initiative to “close the growing and increasingly dangerous gap between the threat from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the global response.”
• Was Time’s Man of the Year in 1991 and Broadcasting & Cable (Magazine)’s Man of the Century in 1999. How an industry which has not existed for more than a century can have an industry publication that awards such a designation remains a mystery.

And now, the complete listing of his media properties (thanks, Wikipedia!)

TV

• CNN
• CNN HD
• HLN (CNN Headline News)
• CNN Airport Network
• CNN International
• CNN en Español
• CNN Chile
• CNN+ (Only in Spain)
• CNN IBN (Localized to India)
• n-tv (HLN Germany)
• CNN Turk (Localized to Turkey)
• truTV (formerly CourtTV)
• NBA TV
• TBS
• TBS HD
• TNT
• TNT HD
• TCM (Turner Classic Movies)
• WPCH-TV, Atlanta
• Cartoon Network
  • Cartoon Network Studios
  • Adult Swim
  • Williams Street
• Boomerang
• Boomerang UK (+ multiple localized European versions)
• Cartoonito (UK)
• Cartoon Network Too (UK)
• Fashion TV Latin America
• Infinito TV (Latin America only)
• Space (Latin America)
• Retro (Like TV Land, but for Latin America)
• China Educational Television Network (approx. 40% ownership)
• Nuts TV (UK-only, if Maxim had their own network, it would be this)
• Pogo (Cartoon Network for India)
• Boing (Cartoon Network for Italy)

Web Properties

• PGA.com & PGATour.com
• NASCAR.com
• GameTap
• CartoonNetwork.com
• AdultSwim.com
• CNNMoney.com
• CNN.com
• iReport.com
• TBS.com
• TNT.tv
• TruTV.com
• PlayON! Sports Network

It is surprising that the guy only has a net worth of about $2.3 billion.

The Tonys

Named for: Mary Antoinette Perry

Born in 1888, Perry was part of a family which embraced the theatre and spent much of her childhood aspiring to become an actor like her aunt and uncle. It is unlikely that anyone reading this is terribly familiar with her work, but in the event any of you are, her most well-known appearance was in Harvey, which started as a Broadway show and later became a film. Both also featured Jimmy Stuart. It was during the run of the Broadway show that Perry died of a heart attack in 1946.

Perry gained additional notoriety during World War II where she and fellow actor Rachel Crothers founded the American Theatre Wing in New York City. At the time, it provided stage entertainment to soldiers serving in the armed forces. After the war, the organization focused more on supporting theatre as an institution. It was in this regard that The American Theatre Wing’s Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre was first established and awarded in 1947. As this is quite a mouthful, the name has since been shortened to simply “The Tony Awards.”

The Oscars

Named For: (Unsure)

It isn’t entirely known why the Academy Awards are nicknamed The Oscars. The first of two leading theories is that prolific actress and first female president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (“The Academy”), Bette Davis, named the award after her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. The alternative theory is that In 1931, it was reported that The Academy’s executive secretary, Margaret Herrick, claimed that the award statuette reminded her of her cousin, Oscar Pierce.  The article went on to claim that employees of The Academy adopted the name after learning this. Walt Disney has been quoted as thanking The Academy for his Oscar in 1932 and a 1934 article in Time Magazine is regarded as the first mentioning of “Oscar” in print.

It was not until 1939 that the AMPAS officially recognized “Oscar” as an official moniker for the statuette.

For those of you who may go on to win an Oscar, keep in mind that you can’t sell it. Since 1950, it has been stipulated by the AMPAS that neither recipients nor their heirs can sell a statuette without first offering to sell it back to the AMPAS for the low, low, price of just $1. Recipients who chose to not agree with this regulation are not permitted to keep the statuette.

The Emmys

Named For: Image Orthicon Tubes (bonus points to anyone who knows what these are without having to read about them)

As part of a campaign to improve its image, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, chose to establish an awards ceremony in the late 1940s. The name “Emmy” is an anthropomorphizing of “immy,” technical slang for an image orthicon tube – a crucial component of early television cameras.

Today there are multiple Emmy Award ceremonies. Best known are the Primetime and Daytime awards, but there are also Sports Emmys, Technology & Engineering Emmys, International Emmys, Student Emmys, and regional Emmys specific to local news and programming around the United States.

The Golden Globe Awards are also distributed for excellence in television, but its name is somewhat more straightforward since it is presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and recognizes top content from around the globe.

The Peabodys

Named For: George Foster Peabody

The Peabody Awards are somewhat of an underdog award compared to the previous three. Originated in 1940, the Peabody Awards are awarded for excellence in broadcasting – radio, television, and now internet. Films are not eligible to receive an award. Additionally, unlike the other awards which are distributed by industry organizations, The Peabodys are presented by the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The University  had given Peabody an honorary degree for his dedication to public service and was the benefactor of substantial donations (for among other things, a fireproof building to hold the school’s library) from Peabody in reciprocation.

The Grammys

Named for: The Gramophone

Originally called the Gramophone Awards, the Grammys are the youngest major award ceremony starting in 1958. The ceremony is presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and up until 1971, winners had the option of receiving their award at one of two award ceremonies – one in New York, the other in Los Angeles. In 1990, the manufacturer of the Grammy statue, Billings Artworks (whose slogan is “The Best Damn Awards Money Can’t Buy”) was asked to create a newer, larger version since the original statues would often begin to break over time. According to Billings, the physical awards seen during the show are not the actual awards – they’re blank. Winners receive their own customized awards after the ceremony ends.

As can be seen, there isn't a whole lot going on here.

While drilling, the team discovered a large cavern full of natural gas. Drilling into the area led the ground on which the drilling equipment sat to collapse, leaving a crater between 50 and 100 meters in size.

Let’s say you were responsible for this accident. Would you:

a) Engineer a secure covering of the hole, similar to Chernobyl’s sarcophagus.
b) Just leave, there’s nobody in that area anyway.
c) Eliminate the threat of disaster by lighting the gas on fire.

Any guesses? Turns out the correct response is “C.” Not knowing how much gas was in the cavern, it was nonetheless decided to simply ignite it all and in turn, prevent any hazard from spreading.

Usually when chemicals explode, you might see something like this happen:

That didn’t really happen in Derweze, or Darvaza as it is somtimes referred. Instead, the gasses just … kept burning. In fact, nearly 40 years later, the hole is still burning and has received the moniker of “The Gates of Hell.” It’s somewhat of an apt title, since the scene now looks like this:

In still frames, it’s actually quite beautiful:

(Photo Credit: John H. Bradley)

Let’s say you’re an astronaut and things aren’t going your way. You and 7 others on the space shuttle are in imminent danger and you gotta get out of there. (… and by “there,” I mean still within the Earth’s atmosphere.) How would you do it?

Believe it or not there are two necessarily outrageous ways for astronauts to ditch their craft and head back to solid ground.

The first case happens if something goes awry while you’re still on the launch pad. How would you get from inside the shuttle to the ground, far enough away so that you don’t get blown into bite-sized chunks by the millions of pounds of rocket fuel surrounding you? Go ahead. Take 30 seconds and guess. Unless you already know, you’re not going to figure out how NASA does it.

• First, you need to unhook yourself from the 80+ pounds of stuff that’s in your spacesuit and head for the exit hatch.
• Next, run out onto the platform you walked into the shuttle on (You can see it in the picture above)
• There’s an elevator you took to bring you to the level you’re at. Walk behind it.
• You’ll see a number of large wicker baskets with their rims at floor level. These baskets are attached to a steel cable which runs from the platform you’re on (189 feet in the air) diagonally to the ground. It isn’t the world’s biggest zip line (that’s in Sun City, South Africa), but it might be the most expensive.
• Get into one of those baskets. Oh, and make sure you get in backwards.
• Pull the release cord and travel really fast into a pre-assembled pile of sandbags to cushion your fall.
• The basket should actually fly through a carefully placed opening in the sandbags, leaving you next to a very armored bunker.
• Get inside and close the door so you don’t get hit by flaming pieces of space shuttle.
• Now you have two options. You can wait in the bunker, or…
• …In case of emergencies, NASA keeps four M113 Armored Personnel Carriers from the 1960s at the back entrance of the bunker. They are purposely fully-fueled with their engines running and keys in the ignition so that fleeing astronauts can just hop in and get out of there if they need to. They look like this:
• There are no drivers waiting for you in those vehicles. Grab the controls and put the pedal to the floor…if you know how.

NASA has this whole procedure set up and ready to go with every space shuttle launch. There’s actually some video of this procedure being executed in a training exercise here.

There’s another scenario that may require a bailout. If for whatever reason you’re in the shuttle and can’t land, you and your crew still have an escape. Are there ejection seats? Maybe a secure escape pod like in Air Force One (the movie)? Nah. That’s too simple.

Luckily, on board with you is ICES, or the Inflight Crew Escape System. Fancy name, not so fancy otherwise. Basically, it’s a system that coordinates blowing out an exit panel so you can leave through it. And by “leave,” I mean hooking yourself up to an 8.75 foot long pole that sticks out the side of the shuttle, then letting go of it and falling 10,000 feet to safety at 230 miles an hour.

The pole actually serves a relatively important purpose. When you’re flying as fast as you are up there, it’s critical that when you jump out that you head in the right direction. The reason astronauts are strapped to the pole as they fall down it is to make sure that fall in that right direction.

As all this is going on, the shuttle is actually flying itself to make sure the craft stays level for the 90 seconds it takes for everyone to bail. I’m summarizing the procedure to a ridiculous extent — you can read the full official procedure from NASA (it’s long and detailed = boring) right here.

Bonus!

Part One: Check-In

I flew from Boston Logan to LAX and am writing this post on my return trip to the east coast. Walking into the terminal, one is greeted with a classy almost club-like atmosphere that continues throughout the journey for the most part

The Self Check-In system is very clean and elegant:

You slide your credit card along the right side of the display and your boarding pass pops out (like toast!) of the small slot to the left.

After check-in varies a bit by airport. At Logan, VA has its own very quick security line leading to two gates. There isn’t much in there and you can’t really leave once you’re through the metal detectors. At LAX, there’s a lot more available to do once you’re inside the gating area. I jumped to the conclusion that VA must treat its employees quite well, as I noticed they all have matching luggage while I was waiting to board:

Part 2: Getting Comfy & Red

OK, so let’s say we’re on the plane. What’s so awesome? Pretty much everything. Let’s start with a tour of  Red. The in-flight “interactive environment” is central to pretty much everything on-board.

There are a few ways to use it, either via the touch-screen at every seat, or by the remote control in each armrest:

View of the remote through the armrest (you flip it open to pull it out) while an announcement was made over the PA system. The display at the top will otherwise display the TV channel that's playing on your screen.

The remote control out of its armrest.

I tend to grasp at gadgets quickly. Too quickly, sometimes. After a minute or so of playing around, it was time for the ultimate airline safety video:

Part 3: In the Air

And we’re off! Let’s finish the tour of Red since it’s not activated until after the safety video. There are a number of modules built into the system. I’ll describe them each in no particular order.

One of the convenient things about VA is that instead of flight attendants running through the cabin every few hours asking if you’d like to buy food or drinks, it’s all done through Red. (They do a single run-through for drinks early on, then it’s up to you). So if you want to get some nosh, bang on “Eat” or hit the corresponding button on the remote with a cake icon on it and look around.  As you can see above, if you’re watching TV, it appears as PIP as you browse the selections.

One of the other neat and unrelated things about the TV part is that if you bring up the program guide, you can tap a show that will air at a later time and it will pop up later with a reminder.

First page of drink selections available through Red. Standard airplane soft drinks are available for free.

Ordering food and drinks is just like shopping online, you pick out what you want, add it to a cart, and then pay by credit card. You can swipe your card on the underside of the display.

It goes without saying that Red’s primary service is for in-flight video:

Things you can watch

TV and Music Videos are free, the rest are a nominal fee. Premium TV includes content like HBO specials.

Besides watching things, there’s also a pretty extensive audio library in addition to satellite radio. You can use the system to create your own playlist too.

There are also games!

Now imagine my surprise when I saw this. Doom? Awesome! Here’s what it looks like:

You can play via the touch screen, which doesn’t really work for Doom, but that’s OK, because if you flip the remote control over, you’ve got a D-pad, action buttons, and full QWERTY keyboard:

Oh,  you can also use it to purchase items through Red with your credit card!  Check it out– I used my MetroCard for show:

There are a plethora of other neat options to play around with, including built in Google maps services with the plane’s current altitude and position, and remaining distance:

So let’s see, what else is there… each group of three seats has two standard 110v power plugs so you don’t need to drop extra cash on a special converter or anything. For those of you equipped with a laptop, that means that you can stay powered for your whole trip. Not only that, you can fly wireless! VA offers wifi access through GoGo for $12.95 per trip. I personally think it would be better to pay for wireless while in the terminal and get it free on the plane too, not so bad though. The speeds are also really great:

There is also really bright LED lighting above each seat instead of the standard incandescent bulbs.

At the end of each flight, I thought it was pretty clever how to wake everyone up, the crew just turns them all on at once. I guess at this point I should also mention that instead of typical white lighting inside the cabin, there’s really cool dark blue and purple mood lighting along the ceiling and walls. It’s like a club in the air.

So that’s it! I’ve loved the experience immensely and highly suggest flying them. It was just $119 from BOS to LAX one-way, grab a flight today at VirginAmerica.com. It’s really great to see that Richard Branson & company has dumped what I can only guess is a ton of money into the Virgin America brand, delivering a first-class experience with an economy price. The stuff they’re doing has to be keeping the folks at Southwest and JetBlue up at night.