Spartan Gold: Gulfstream and more

pg 347

She...dispatched Langdon, her ex-SAS bodyguard, aboard her Gulfstream to collect them.

Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics. Gulfstream designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and services business-jet aircraft. Gulfstream has produced more than 2,000 aircraft since 1958. Gulfstream's fleet consists of the following models: G150, G280, G350, G450, G500, G550, and G650.

"He redeemed himself, in spades."

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/in-spades.html 

Meaning

In abundance; very much.

Origin

It's easy to believe that this expression derives from the imagery of digging with spades and that 'in spades' is just short for 'in spadefuls'. However, the spades concerned here aren't the garden tools but the suit of cards. Spades is the highest ranking suits in the game of Contract Bridge, a very popular pastime in the USA in the early 20th century, which is when and where the phrase originated.

Despite the agricultural-sounding name and the shovel-like shape, the suit in cards has nothing directly to do with garden spades. Playing Cards originated in Asia and spread across Europe around the 14th century, arriving in England a little later than in Spain, Italy and Germany.

The Italian versions of early cards used the suits Cups, Swords, Coins and Batons, which, on migration to England, became Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs. The image for Spades on English and French cards looks somewhat like that of the German Acorn or Leaf suits, but its origin is revealed by its name rather than its shape. The Spanish and Italian for sword is 'espada' and 'spada' respectively, hence the suit 'Swords' became anglicized as 'Spades'.

We have been 'calling a spade a spade' for many centuries, but the expression 'in spades' is a 20th century US coinage. The term was often used before that in relation to card games, where Bridge contracts might be entered into in the minor suits of Clubs or Diamonds or, for the higher scores, 'in Hearts' or, best of all, 'in Spades'.

The figurative meaning, i.e. the non-cards-related 'very greatly' meaning, isn't found before the 1920s. The American journalist and writer Damon Runyon used the expression that way in a piece for Hearst's International magazine, in October 1929:

"I always hear the same thing about every bum on Broadway, male and female, including some I know are bums, in spades, right from taw."

It isn't possible to be sure that the figurative 'in spades' derives from Bridge, but the coincidence of the time and place of the origin of the expression and the popularity of the card game certainly does suggest a connection

 Yvette's MacBook Air sat open on a mahogany desk

The MacBook Air family is a line of ultraportable Macintosh notebook computers created by Apple Inc. Designed to balance performance, a full-sized laptop keyboard design and a machined aluminium casing with extremely low weight and thickness, they are available in 11.6" and 13.3" designs and a range of specifications, all currently using SSD storage and Intel CPUs. In Apple's product range, they occupy a position between the tablet computer iPad and iPod touch lines running iOS and the thicker and higher-performance Macbook Pro laptops, and inspired a competing range of Ultrabook computers produced by other PC manufacturers.

 History

Steve Jobs introduced the first MacBook Air during a speech at his keynote at the 2008 Macworld Conference & Expo on January 15,. The first-generation MacBook Air was a 13.3"-only model, initially promoted as the world's thinnest notebook. It featured a custom Intel Merom CPU and Intel GMA graphics. In late 2008, the CPU was updated to a faster, non-custom Penryn CPU and integrated Nvidia GeForce graphics while the hard drive capacity was increased and the micro-DVI video port was replaced by the Mini DisplayPort. A mid-2009 refresh, introduced alongside the MacBook Pro family, featured a slightly higher-capacity battery, and a faster Penryn CPU.
On October 20, 2010, Apple released a redesigned 13.3" model, with improved enclosure, screen resolution, battery, and flash storage instead of a hard drive. In addition, a new 11.6" model was introduced, offering reduced cost, weight, battery life, and performance relative to the 13.3" model, but better performance than typical netbooks of the time.
On July 20, 2011, Apple released an updated model in the same form factor as the prior model. The new model was powered by the new Sandy Bridge 1.6 or 1.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, or 1.8 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processors, that came with an Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor, and with a backlit keyboard, two USB 2.0 ports, a 720p FaceTime camera, a standard of 2 gigabytes of RAM though configurable up to 4GB, Thunderbolt which shares function with Mini DisplayPort and Bluetooth was upgraded to v4.0. Maximum SSD flash memory storage options were increased up to 512 gigabytes. Both 11 and 13" models had an analog audio output/headphone minijack (that also supports an iPhone/iPod touch headset with microphone), but only the 13" model had an integrated SDXC-capable SD Card slot, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a Firewire 800 port. These models use a less expensive "Eagle Ridge" Thunderbolt controller that provides two Thunderbolt channels (2 x 10 Gbit/s bidirectional), compared to the MacBook Pro which uses a "Light Ridge" controller that provides four Thunderbolt channels (4 x 1- Gbps bidirectional). A USB Ethernet adapter was immediately available upon release and a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire 800 adapter became available for the 11" model in mid-year 2012.
On June 11, 2012, Apple released an updated model in the same form factor as the prior model. The new model is powered by the new Ivy Bridge dual-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, doubles the RAM and SSD speeds, has the new USB 3 ports (with USB 2 capability), in place of the USB 2 ports and the new Magsafe 2 charging port