Two companies (Avidyne & Ryan) whose pricy avionics entertain in GXRP’s cockpit have merged the other day. The most interesting part of this is the pricing of the combined product line.

GXRP’s traffic system is what used to be called “Ryan 9900BX”, an active transponder interrogation based sensor, costing something like US$20K at the time. This product’s “smaller brother” featured only passive sensing of transponders, meaning less utility outside radar coverage.

But now, Avidyne has decided to continue selling only active version of the product, but forked it into three variants (“TAS 600, 610, 620”). In an act of marketing chutzpah, the lowest one is priced at just $10K, and differs only in traffic display range. The model equivalent to the old 9900BX is the 620, still around $20K.

My best guess is that the hardware is actually identical among all the new variants, but a few lines of the software were changed to impose the differentiating constraint. PC software vendors rarely get away with this kind of trickery, but I guess avionics is a different business. People are reticent to patch back in functionality that was hobbled for purely marketing/pricing reasons.

There is a police union labour action going on in Toronto right now. The issues boil down to, as usual, money.

I have no opinion one way or another as to how much police should be paid. I am not familiar with the employment market, nor much with the intricacies of the ever-confounding and ever-growing municipal budget. So when an intrepid local reporter asks the “man on the street” about whether they “support the police”, the invariable “yes!” response makes me shrug. The average “man on the street” around here is an urbanized Liberal voter, not equipped with a strong grasp of government … or finance.

The easiest comeback to such knee-jerk-supporters is not tell them to educate themselves first, since they will rarely do so. It is rather to ask just how much their “support” is worth: how much of their own money would they like to donate to the multi-million-dollar cause. It’s easy to show “support” when this act consists of merely speaking the words in front of camera. When “support” affects one’s personal budget, perhaps one will be less eager to spout off.

The Toronto police force has begun a so-called “gun amnesty” program today. But they are using a different dictionary than the rest of us.

According to the press release, this “amnesty” targets legal gun owners who are encouraged to “change their lifestyle”, to avoid letting their property “be turned into a crime gun” since guns are so “susceptible to theft”. They should “surrender” their firearms to the police, it is presumed for purposes of destruction.

But the word “amnesty” means:

1. Forgetfulness; cessation of remembrance of wrong; oblivion.
2. An act of the sovereign power granting oblivion, or a general pardon, for a past offense, as to subjects concerned in an insurrection.
[1913 Webster]

The problem is, of course, that legal gun owners have done no wrong. There is no past offense to pardon. To label this event an “amnesty” implies an air of criminality about a perfectly legal, highly regulated, safe activity.

This is a disgusting political smear, and the police and parroting press should be ashamed.

One rarely expects a friendly chat from a customs officer at a US/Canada border crossing.

After he cleared me through, a gentleman at Vancouver International Airport called after me, asking “Eigler? Eigler?”.

It turns out he is one of our clan too, and has some not-so-remote relationship to the same Austrian family that my father’s side descended from. He claimed that there is still a 450-year-old family home in a particular town, and that the whole village would come out to celebrate if an Eigler came by to visit.

Perhaps some day we’ll go and see.

A medical concern that has become biennial has turned me into a pathetic slob yet again: an ear infection. Uncomfortable, painful, gack. Please send your sympathy notes to the charity of your choice.

When and how to dispose of an infant to the clutches of a professional day-care is often not up to the parents.

Recent parents and people working in the childcare biz will know the main reason that daycare transitions tend to be out of control: waiting lists. Like appointments for medical specialists in Canada, or like purchasing a car in communist countries of yore, the possible market for providing the good/service on demand has been strangled by soviet-style regulation / monopoly / rationing. Waiting lists can be literally years long, which by the way is huge compared to infant development time scales. The activists’ cure for child care scarcity? Yet more government intervention, of course, with selective subsidies and not-for-profit business. A recipe for success.

So, with the exception of one or two very expensive outfits in the whole city, new parents basically have to count out the commercial daycare option, and instead consider babysitters/toy basement daycares/nannies. While these have some charm, these may not be an option for logistical or safety reasons. So some folks are stuck at home.

That was the situtation with us, until last week. We anticipated graduating from waiting lists at some 18 months, and have planned other life-scale changes in loose correspondence. However, all of a sudden, a daycare spot opened up for Eric, allowing Juimiin to return to work very soon. Great news … or is it?

We’ve become used to the new status quo. The little brat has gradually become an impressive little learning sponge. (Maybe, like my mother suspects, Eric is temporarily playing a model child, knowing the implications.) Juimiin has not been hugely motivated to return to office life with her old lab group, even though they generously kept a spot open for her even after her maternity leave expired.

After an agonizing week of sitting on the fence, Juimiin finally resolved to turn down the daycare spot, and stay home for at least another season or two. But at least, this time it’s our decision, not the absence of options, that dictates the outcome. It’s nice to be in control at last, a little.

An odd little item came through the 0xdeadbeef mailing list today. Read it here.

It wonders why a terrorist bombing (“out of frustration with the system”) makes the news while an environmentalist setting himself on fire doesn’t. Here’s a hint: a terrorist blows other people up.

The absence of an innate understanding of the differences between these two types of people makes me wonder. Does this rose-glassed urban crowd imagine a kind, gentle, misunderstood terrorist on a quest to save the planet? Or perhaps that more environmentalists should imitate big tough ecoterrorist hippies?

So tell me this: if a terrorist blows himself up and there is no one else hurt, was there a bang?

I’ve been feeling like such a 50’s woman lately.

At least, I’ve enjoyed putzing around the kitchen a little more lately, after having brought into our possession a triplet of little pots: a new slow cooker, pressure cooker, and deep fryer. These new widgets have worked well, and have saved many hours and hair follicles in their first month here. Having the right tools for cooking chores is a good thing.