fcheblog  -

2012-05-18 08:03 | fche blog enun-dorsals pirates of penzance at stratford

What a lovely show.

2012-04-26 16:48 | fche blog flying sir pilot darwin

I thought the luckiest pilot-man alive might be this guy at our very own airport two years ago, who (illegally/dangerously) attempted a single-engine take-off on a twin-engine plane, and crashed it into an adjacent cornfield, but walked away.

But now I read an accident abstract from last month’s COPA Flight magazine, this CADORS report

TSB reported A11P0138: The privately registered Aero Comp Air 6 was landing at 100 Mile House, BC (CAV3). During the landing, the elevator trim assembly separated from the control stick at touchdown. Full nose up elevator trim occurred as a result and the aircraft began to bounce out of control down the runway. The pilot executed a go-around and the aircraft struck a tree with the left wing. The damaged wing was affecting controllability causing a roll to the left. The aircraft then struck a second tree and tore off the damaged material allowing the pilot to regain roll control. The aircraft was then able to divert to Kamloops (CYKA) and make a landing without further event.

A quick review: during the landing roll, the airframe breaks. Instead of stopping, the pilot elects to take off. The airplane hits a tree and damages a wing – another important part of the airframe. The airplane hits another tree, and damages the wing again enough to break off the broken piece. The pilot continues the flight with a three-times-broken vehicle for perhaps an hour, over mountainous terrain. He walks away. Congratulations (?).

2012-04-23 18:42 | fche blog tech note to self

In case the reader ever searches for the audio equivalent of the netpbm (nee pbm) utilities, look no further than sox. It makes converting, batch processing pipelines just as easy as pbm did for image conversions, batch manipulations. For general multimedia (audio/video), perhaps gstreamer. Lovely little tools to write scripts to chew through thousands of media files.

2012-04-16 20:51 | fche blog tech looking for systemtap/pcp/valgrind developer

Our team at Red Hat is looking for talented software developers to work on systemtap, valgrind, and/or pcp. Please see this job posting if interested in this opportunity to get paid for hacking on free software!

2012-03-27 10:27 | fche blog seriously true story

There I was, on a busy urban road, in a second-story room above a store. Streetcars rumbled past. People on the sidewalk went around their business, dodging a garbage truck trying to clean up. Then someone got hit.

2012-03-15 23:16 | fche blog seriously wish my camera was near

Tonight’s unrecorded scene: a line of fifty people, waiting in the dark, on opening night of the seasonal ice cream shop, in the parking lot of a local shopping plaza. Yes, it was that warm, and the demand was that pent up. Damn, I wish I had my camera with me.

2012-03-13 10:27 | fche blog seriously disconnections

Spengler writes a piece, drawing interesting connections between the decay of a loss of libido, decay of fruitful-family-centered culture, pornography, glorification of the single secular life, and lonely old people. As always, he’s worth a read.

2012-03-07 11:21 | fche blog seriously poet warriors

Carroll LeFon, ex US Navy pilot, poet-warrior, died yesterday in an airplane crash. I have never met the gentleman (in all senses), but was a devoted reader of his for years, and we have exchanged the odd email. Eulogies are pouring out all over the blogosphere. Lex has left behind an awesome corpus of work even just counting his blog; enough material to fill a book with. I am unworthy of identifying his “best of Lex” articles, so many times has he made this grown man exhilarated or all teared up, sometimes in the same piece. To lose a man who can create like this – or from a selfish point of view, to have no more to read from Lex – is terribly sad. But at least we can re-read.

Last week, Andrew Brietbart also died. He was not a literal soldier like Lex, but did wield his own sort of weapon against his own sort of enemy. He too left prodigious artifacts behind. His politics may not be your cup of tea; if it isn’t, consider instead some departed leftie like a Kennedy or a Layton. One can slurp their saved intellectual nectar for quite awhile.

UPDATE: I meant to also mention Michael Masterov, who until his sudden death during a motorcycle accident, spent years tirelessly educating his readers on all matters aviation. This was through some thousand postings on Usenet, and via meetings with pilot groups throughout the USA.

I have written before that approximately everyone’s ideas are worth saving. One day, we all become just memories. Please care that those memories last. Please, record your stories, keep them safe, pass them on. It makes loss less lousy.

2012-03-04 12:56 | fche blog seriously courage of convictions

“Say, have you an opinion or two?”
“Thanks for asking, so do I! Would you like to argue about them awhile?”

2012-02-28 08:45 | fche blog enun-dorsals least worst past II

Following up on the previous blog summary report from 2004-2009, I reread my 2010 and 2011 scribbles to choose the very least bad, especially for you.

2010:
uninvited
ignored advice
advice to salesmen
bright solar idea
aopa letter
right level of government
different drummer
about that beret incident
criss cross pause
dell satisfaction
contraband
speaking down to muslims
opting out
sparkling night
I do not consent

2011:
thought police
memoirs of little people
ciao, cloud
yes, can you file a bug?
propaganda parody
poor dears
worm food
is consistent with vs. proves that
apology to readers
baseline confusion
heart beat frequency
using systemtap better
crapulent curiosity contraband
sheltered lives
automation reassurance

2012-02-26 17:32 | fche blog tech how not to measure wind

During a family outing the other day, I spotted something that reckons back to the How not to measure temperature series at WUWT. A weather observation station is installed at the Philosopher’s Walk at Trinity College of the University of Toronto, which appears to be the one code named CXTO in the international databases, which has apparently been in operation for almost two hundred years.

2012-02-19 10:08 | fche blog enun-dorsals crank turner

Browsing through the local web server logs, a recent hit came in for my old kvetch about a disappointment at a Toronto car dealership. Out of curiosity, I looked up what’s new with this place since six years ago, and came across this revamped web site. I wanted to look up what the troublesome folks there have been up to since, but the new site lacks a lot of contact/staff details.

2012-02-14 20:59 | fche blog seriously valentine love scenes

According to google’s valentine day doodle, this here is a sampling of valentine’s day love:

An eclectic collection of token couples!

Each one is unlike the others in some way.

2012-02-13 17:56 | fche blog stuart birds

From a discussion moments ago with the five-year-old:
Frank: “Look, there are some ducks flying over there.”
Stuart: “No, those are geese.”
Frank: “Whatever, same thing.”
Stuart: “No, they are different. You can tell them apart by neck size.”
Frank: “How’s that?”
Stuart: “Well, birds in the duck family have fairly normal size necks. Birds in the goose family, such as swans, have an extra large neck. It’s longer.”
Frank: “Oh.”

2012-02-13 14:15 | fche blog politics dear conservative party fundraiser

Yes, it is true I may have donated in the past, and long ago may even have signed up for party membership. But don’t expect to pull off stunts like C-30, internet lawful access and keep the faithful faithful.

2012-01-22 10:30 | fche blog politics disease with no name

The current kerfuffle about the US feds forcing private health insurance plans to include free contraception as “preventive medicine” should not have arisen. This has all been predictable, not just from the point of view of christian groups feeling under attack. This current administration is after all the one whose leaders say a baby can be a punishment, or that abortion … reduces the cost [of citizens] to states and to the federal government.

It’s not as though these were isolated statements or outlier attitudes. These folks seem to consider new life a costly disease.

UPDATE: Sebelius digs deeper

2012-01-16 10:40 | fche blog flying colors

Observed on final approach to KBCB after a bumpy cloudy rainy night flight.

2012-01-08 09:00 | fche blog enun-dorsals, politics unexpected pride

Having escaped communist Hungary in the early 1980s (thanks, mom & dad), and having heard from afar that country’s tortured state since, I never expected to express any particular pride in it. However, it sounds like there is glimmer of hope, starting with a new constitution, controversially adopted in the last year. From what I gather, bravo.