I was reminded of a little thought I shared with my last Hope Air passenger during the flight. I wonder whether my life would have been even better, if during my youth I consumed similar gems with any frequency.

My claim to the young lady was that life is both shorter and longer than it probably seems to her.

It is shorter in the sense that once it really gets under way – one’s 20s and 30s – one also begins to sense the end. One’s parents get older, one’s health starts a gentle decline, one’s time begins to be consumed voraciously, one realizes one may not be able to do everything one wanted to. There’s never enough time any more.

It is longer in the sense that, from the point of view of a yongster, “long term thinking” may relate to the party next week or the exam next month. She may choose to smoke frequently, thinking that she’ll never worry about her health. But unless one gets Darwinized out of the population prematurely, there will be plenty of time for regret. There will be time to take one’s health for “un-granted”, for thinking about politics and economics more deeply, for revising one’s attitudes and values drastically. Making decisions with permanent effects is really premature when one’s young.

So, there it is, in a few more words than I was able to squeeze out during the flight.

The little brat has been learning to have fun. Two recent breakthroughs were each the result of our persistent coaching.

The first involves tongues. I’ve stuck my tongue out at the kid for weeks, trying to make him return the favour. Finally, he started to do it back, but in a sort of vaguely bemused way. As of the last few days though, he’s really into it: he sticks it out as far as it goes (Gene Simmons, watch out); moves it around; giggles insanely during the performance as we laugh our heads off in return. Today’s innovation is the wet raspberry.

The second skill is splashing water. Ever since the first week he’s been home, and we’ve given him baths, I’ve been teaching him how to splash. I did this by swinging his arm into the water, and of course saying “splash, splash, …”. A few weeks ago, he started to do some mini-splashing with his legs only. In the last few days, however, the full glory of that sport called splashing has started to register. He sits up or is held; his hands go wild into the water; his whole face and the nearby few square meters get covered in water; he cackles with delight.

Yeah yeah … a childless reader won’t care, the same way I didn’t. It’s actually not the accomplishment of the physical act that’s so neat though – it’s that the brat seems to be developing a sense of humor, of play, which my infantile mind can fully match.

Here is some absolutely gripping first-hand reporting of goings-on in Iraq. And more, more, more, more, and many more…

The nobility of the military profession is eminent, and starkly contrasts the triviality of our day-to-day activities. It reminds me of deep sensibility in the clever satirical movie Starship Troopers. In that world, one become a voting citizen of a nation not by merely living there, but by serving in its armed forces, thereby risking one’s life for one’s nation.

For a few months now, elastic.org has participated in the SPF email verification system to limit spam and forgeries, in both sender and receiver roles. As of today, we also participate in the DomainKeys anti-spam/forgery system, thanks to new support in the exim mail software. These measures, along with our established aggressive SpamAssassin and ClamAV installations, we are trying to model all the best technologies to clean up Internet email.

It seems daily that one hears of islamic leaders issuing a death decree against someone or another deemed to offend the religion or something. All that the police seem to do is offer guard to the more prominent fatwa recipients. But why stop there?

For example, one swede has police protection from local muslims who say they want to kill the man. Salman Rushdie has been hiding for decades since his book Satanic Verses was deemed blasphemous. A dutch filmmaker was murdered after such a fatwa. Many other murders have occurred under instruction from preachers of the religion of peace.

But why doesn’t the police agencies go after these preachers directly? There are laws against the mob, against conspiracy, against murder-for-hire. Given that many of these preachers are audacious enough to even be recorded giving these murder instructions in mosque, why not charge them with the serious crimes they are committing? Free speech considerations are obviously trumped here.

Maybe it was the lack of food, but yesterday’s flying got boring.

I and my giant-of-a-human-being co-pilot Charlie Rampulla delivered two passengers from London to Sault Ste. Marie yesterday. There really isn’t much more to say about the flight: it was clear smooth VFR so the flying was easy; we flew high so the sights were merely ordinary; our passengers were resting quietly. This is quite a change.

We tried to occupy ourselves with diagnosing a small electrical problem connected to the new Garmin GNS-430 in the airplane, and to just learn to use the box. But even that didn’t last: we just turned on the autopilot and sort of semi-snoozed quietly to the droning engines.

It’s not supposed to be like that. It’s supposed to be a challenge. Bad weather, constant decision-making, planning, monitoring, worrying … Too many more flights like this one, and I’ll have to start believing that, to commercial jet pilots, it’s “just a job”.

If you have or know of young humans in the need of entertainment, consider bypassing the standard “Fisher-Price” brand products. These widely-distributed low-cost products are OK if that’s all you ever see. But if you come across products by Tiny Love, your eyes will open wide. The design elements are wonderful: soft, round, plush, organic shapes and colours, and interesting physical elements (sounds, vibrations, textures). Eric plays with them all the time, and so do we.

One interesting glitch occurred during today’s extra-long Hope Air flight, which consisted of a nine-hour Toronto->London->Thunder Bay->Toronto triangle marathon.

Most major airports have a VOR navigational transmitter located nearby. Like an airport, each transmitter is given a unique name. These names are used for identifying waypoints along a flight route to a navigational computer like an airborne GPS receiver. Generally the names match up using a simple pattern: here are some Canadian ones.

location	airport	VOR
London	CYXU	YXU
Toronto	CYYZ	YYZ
Thunder Bay	CYQT	YQT

Sometimes they don’t:

Kitchener	CYKF	YWT
Sault Ste. Marie	CYAM	SSM

This afternoon, after dropping off our passengers at Thunder Bay, and just leaving to return home, I messed up entering the waypoint names into the new GPS on board. I entered “YAM” to refer to the VOR located near the Sault Ste. Marie airport. The GPS promptly drew a line that seemed to go roughly in the right direction. The lower graphical display started showing bizarre figures like 823894823h28m as an estimated en-route time. And neither agreed with our plain old VOR receiver for which direction to fly.

After a helpful controller chimed in and pointed out that perhaps we’re heading in the wrong direction (off by 30 degrees, getting farther away from land over Lake Superior), we finally figured out what was going on. YAM is wrong, SSM was the right name. The correct line came up drawn on the GPS, and all the various navigational instruments agreed. We thanked the controller for his timely assistance.

It turns out a VOR named YAM does exist in the world. It’s in Ivory Coast, in Africa. The GPS was eagerly guiding us 10000 miles away, across the continent and the atlantic ocean. Well, even without the controller, I am sure we would have figured it if we were to run out of fuel somewhere in Quebec.

Choosing the safest initial climbout speed in a twin is a matter of minor controversy.

Some review first. The engines produce a certain fixed amount of energy per unit time during takeoff. This power can be diverted toward some combination of kinetic (airspeed) and potential (altitude) forms, as chosen by the pilot. She makes her choice by choosing an airspeed (or equivalently, an angle of attack for the wings). A low airspeed directs more energy toward the climb, and vice versa. The airplane manual includes standard speeds for maximizing rate and angle of climb on two engines and one. These are roughly the speeds for the Aztec under a standard set of conditions. Generally, optimum operation with one engine is at a slower airspeed than with two. (Similarly, for a single-engined airplane, the best-glide “zero-engine” airspeeds are slower than the normal “one-engine” climb speeds.)

mph	one engine	two engines
best rate	Vyse 102	Vy 120
best angle	Vxse 94	Vx 100

The complete problem scenario is then this. A twin makes a normal two-engined takeoff. Draggy gears and flaps are raised, and a stable climb is established. At some moment early during this climb, one engine fails. The aircraft naturally loses airspeed and climb rate. The pilot recognizes the failure, and responds by adjusting the pitch angle toward the V_yse or V_xse speed, for a sustainable one-engine climb.

The question is what airspeed to choose during this initial climb period. If it’s relatively fast (greater than V_y), then the pilot will have more time available to react before the airplane naturally slows down to V_yse. But the altitude reached by this time will be somewhat smaller. If instead the climb airspeed is kept relatively slow (between V_x and V_y), the airplane may slow below V_xse before the pilot reacts. In this case, a slight dive may be required first to trade altitude for airspeed. But the altitude reached by this time will be higher, making that dive not so bad.

So, which is better to have at the moment of failure? A higher airspeed but lower altitude, so a dive is not needed? Or a lower airspeed but higher altitude, so that a dive is not a problem? I think the issue can be decided generally by considering energy loss during the climb. Consider that some of the engine’s power is lost due to drag, the amount of which increases as a complex function of both airspeed and angle of attack. Whichever option maximizes the total (kinetic + potential) energy of the airplane at the moment of failure is the better one. And since the amount of power produced by the engine is independent of the two options, the only variable source of energy loss is the drag. From various aerodynamics textbooks, drag is lowest near V_y.

This analysis suggests that it’s best to climb at around V_y, in order to maximize energy at the hypothetical moment of failure. The energy difference may not be much though.

There has been a big fuss lately about a rumour that US interrogators of terrorist suspects sometimes “desecrate” copies of the koran book.

This is apparently a religious offence, in much the same way that Galileo blasphemed the christian church by his astronomy theories, or in the way that some US conservatives view the act of flag-burning. At least those latter two concerns have been given the big legal smack-down over the centuries and decades, but the first one is still alive and well. How much deference is a non-believer supposed to exhibit toward theologically protected artifacts? How much respect can one have for a religion that exhibits so little tolerance for non-believers?

Finally reading something non-technical, I’ve spent some kid crying (= no sleeping) time with Stephen Ambrose’s To America, a sort of synopsis of many of his previous history books.

He’s a great storyteller, but what has struck me most is his assessment of many historical figures as awesome yet deeply flawed people. It takes a wise mind to construct an overall judgement of a person whose actions and attitudes in context are complex and contradictory, and not just to slap on coat of thought varnish with a simple “hypocrite”, “good”, “evil”.

I wonder how much reticence this justifies about current figures though. There is so much silliness in what various leader types do, and so much cynicism about the few things they manage to get right. But we can’t wait for the judgement of history in making elections and alliances. This is frustrating. Maybe (Toronto’s current mayor) David Miller is not a lying power-crazed intellectual twin of Belinda Stronach. Maybe Paul Martin does something at work other than protecting his position. But even if contrary evidence appeared from the wormhole news sieve of the media, how to weigh it?

This conundrum is probably why leader types advertise themselves (and assassinate each other) on character qualities, as if that were more easily proven to a television audience than, say, their voting record or list of accomplishments.

You must have heard the saying: “if you’re not a socialist/liberal by your 20s, you have no heart; if you’re not a capitalist/conservative after your 30s, you have no brain”. I offer this humble rationale.

The first part is explained by one’s early training. From infanthood kids are taught to care about those nearby, to share toys, not to make too much noise, to leave daddy alone while he’s beating mommy. In elementary school, he’s given the standard “diversity & tolerance” indoctrination, where we care about the blue people, the pink people, and the plants of the purple people. In high school, the lefty staff gives us many reasons to hate George Bush (or whoever is the latest figurehead of Evil American Capitalism), sigh about the black people, the hemorrhage of social justice, the community work hour credits, the soul-piercing cruelty of calculus. In university one gets the final belch from the overwhelmingly unionized and socialist faculty about the intellectual corruption of this or that western concept. He will be taught how a little bit of activism, ever popular on campus, can make one feel good amongst the marching mob. Plus there is the little trend that families with kids, or independent students, tend to be hurting financially. It’s no wonder that one immersed in such circumstances thinks that the interests of poor people should trump all others. Tax the filthy rich indeed! Screw the System – after all, you have literally nothing to lose.

The second part is easily explained too. Assuming one didn’t get stuck in the rut of academia or the grant-teat of activism, and one actually started working for a living, one will gradually acquire assets. One will realize how little help one actually gets from The Government, how much an adult has to stand up for his own interest. He will start worrying about taxes, about crime, about who really is paying for all that money-hating education. He may get involved in longer-term personal commitments like marriage, careers, major asset ownership, peculiar hobbies. Gradually, he will realize that these personal accomplishments don’t amount to anything if someone else can come along and tear them down. He will start valuing his situation in a way he did not forsee earlier. He will have something to protect, i.e., to conserve.

Then he screws it up by making kids, and letting the cycle begin again. Dumbass.

Your normally jaded correspondent has just had a perfect weekend. I know I don’t deserve it, sorry universe. The ingredients: an airplane, a young boy, a wife, friends, family, and some exciting weather.

Saturday morning: flying time. Just captain Frank in GXRP, visiting the area near the Simcoe VOR, just southeast of Lake Simcoe, diagnosing an autopilot wiring problem. Flying through the rain shafts of an isolated cumulus cloud, announcing on a nearby training frequency that the car wash is open for drive-through service. Nathan Myers, flight instructor buddy, hearing me on that frequency and later dropping by with a student. Testing the two-engine-out gliding characterstics of the Aztec. Finding that the aircraft maintains altitude with both engines at the “simulated feather” settings, which is just not right at all. Finding that with engines idle and windmilling propellers, descent of 1500 feet/minute results around 120 mph airspeed.

Saturday afternoon: baseball time. Driving with Juimiin and Eric downtown. Meeting same Nathan Myers and friend Nikki at the Skydome, ugh, “Rogers Centre”. Hearing that the rather good tickets were promotional giveaways at Rogers Video stores. Noticing that stadium is still only half full. Still spending lots of cash on foodstuffs. Being “carded”, using firearms license to delight and surprise the booze retail age guardian. Realizing that professional sports are not the mob draw they used to be some years ago. Wondering whether they matter. Seething at the amount of taxpayer money that was sunk into this facility, after which related politician-turned-businessmen bought it at puny, almost corrupt, prices. Noticing how Eric has put up with the amplified ruckus and the mob quite well. Observing how Eric charms Nikki and even complete strangers. Relaxing about taking Eric out to such events in the future. Not caring that the Blue Jays lost.

Sunday: family time. Flying over to Windsor in early morning. Expecting that weather will turn rough (thunderstormy) over the whole region during the day. Planning to return at dusk. Taking Eric on his first flight. Testing out an ordinary shooting-purpose earmuff for his hearing. Checking out how Juimiin is managing the boy in the middle row of airplane seats. Feeling delight as the brat variously sleeps and plays while en route. Arriving in Windsor on time, in concurrence with the Avidyne flight tracking system. Meeting my father at CYQG. Being treated to a further eight hours of a happy little boy, charming the heck out of everyone. Eating yummy sweets, drinking some coffee, playing with offspring, beating my father 2.5 times in chess. Checking weather, confirming that thunderstorms indeed showing up, and dying down as day progresses. Deciding to fly back a little ahead of schedule. Loading the airplane up with bazillion bulky items of cargo. Passing through airport security with my pilot license and my firearms license. Chatting about the latter with the friendly security staff. Hearing Juimiin and Eric both go “ga ga ga va va va” during and after the takeoff roll. Trying to concentrate on the maneuver, despite laughing my head off. Flying home in lovely weather, weaving between some CB leftover clouds. Noticing how helpful the on-board weather radar and the downlinked weather radar both are. Arriving just before dusk, in jawdroppingly illuminated city skyline. Gloating that airplane performed problem-free, at the joy of general aviation. Taking lots of time moving said items of cargo into Big Yellow Car. Driving home. Finding ecstatic dog waiting for us. Taking dog and kid for a winddown walk.

Writing this entry wearing a big satisfied smile.