Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Quotation's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, October 13th, 2011
6:06 pm	My TTC Customer Service Experience of the day I just returned from over two weeks of vacation, which was grand, but now I'm having a confusing time finding out the best way to commute for the rest of the month. See, I usually buy a monthly TTC metropass ($121) at Union each month, with a credit card that then gives me 2% back in cash. But, I commute on the 144, which requires an express sticker, which is only sold at St. Patrick and King subway stations. The TTC won't accept credit cards at those two stations, so I have to pay cash for the sticker ($35.50). Because of the 2% back from my credit card, and 15% back on taxes, that $121/mo comes out to $1,209.52/yr. But, because I can't get either the 2% or the 15% back on the express sticker because they're not sold at Union, and the TTC hasn't labelled them to comply with the Federal Tax Credit requirements, I get nothing back of the $426/yr, and my total spend is $1,635.52/yr. If you're following along, that's $136.30/mo, which isn't a bad deal at all. Sure, I could save a bit more money with the Metropass Discount Plan, but then I'd violate the policy of not letting any organization directly debit from my bank account. I've dealt with far too many incorrect debits to waiver on this policy. I'd happily pre-pay a full year with cash, interac or mastercard before compromising on this policy. Anyhow. Because I was out of the province, I just figured I'd buy my October pass today, my first day back at work. Even at full price (that $136.30), it'd be only marginally more expensive than using tokens (12 work days x 2 tokens x 2 directions == $120), and, hey, unlimited additional travel for $16.30! But, no, you can't buy an express sticker _anywhere_ anymore after the 4th business day of the month -- how dumb is that? So, even if I bought the $101.20 monthly metropass and used tokens for the express additional fare, that would come to $161.20 for the month. Half a month of travel is more expensive than a full month of travel! Insanity! So, how about I use tokens-only for the 14th and 31st, then use weekly passes for the two full weeks? That's ($2.50 x 4 x 2) + ($36 x 2) + ($2.50 x 4 x 10) = $172! Even if I could show TWO weekly passes to cover the express fare over the two weeks, that would still keep the price above the usual monthly spend: ($2.50 x 4 x 2) + ($36 x 4) = $164. How much to drive for the rest of the month? $9/day parking from Green P on Esplanade, 12 business days, $108. Sure, I'm not including amortization of the car, gas, insurance. . . . but that stuff wouldn't margin to be more than $60 over what I already spend on the car. So, driving to work for two weeks is notably cheaper than using the TTC for two weeks, and the TTC will only be the Better Way for me again after Hallowe'en. Hopefully, when the TTC rolls out Presto, they program it to simply deduct $2.50/ride (double for express) and stop charging at $10/day (day pass rate), $36/wk (Weekly pass rate), $121/mo (Monthly pass rate). With smart cards, there should no longer be a need to predict your monthly travel, it should just charge the cheapest rate based on what you use. . . . unless the TTC approaches presto wrong. There's a bright light, though -- http://twitter.com/#!/www_ora_tion_ca/status/124541125578076160 http://twitter.com/#!/www_ora_tion_ca/status/124541575408795648 http://twitter.com/#!/TTCchris/status/124545493278785536 http://twitter.com/#!/TTCchris/status/124545664641273857 http://twitter.com/#!/www_ora_tion_ca/status/124595257328402432 http://twitter.com/#!/TTCchris/status/124601127177162752 (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
11:50 pm	My TTC Customer Service Experience of the day Now, I don't take the TTC every day -- living in North Toronto and working in Markham -- but I really do love public transit systems, especially any on rails. You see, I come from a railway family: 6 generations of telegraph operators, stationmasters, labourers, and engineers.[1] So, I'm not a daily TTC commuter, but I still pay attention. Today, my brother was on his way from Ottawa to Vancouver on VIA, with a couple of hours to kill at Union Station, so I ducked out of work at 4 and parked at the Finch subway station. At the bottom of the steps to the platform hangs a sign: "Next Train," with a lit/blinking arrow that points at the train you're supposed to board -- particularly useful when there are two trains in the station.[2] I like to watch the tracks, so I prefer to sit in the first or last car, and when going from Finch to Union, the best car is the last. Well, the arrow pointed to the East, so I got on the Eastern train with everyone else, Northernmost car #5786 at 4:30pm. We sat and waited, and waited. At 4:37, a TTC operator boarded the train, opened the door to the operator cab, flipped a few switches, and then made an announcement over the train speakers. "Yeah, uh, it was still on." And then he left the train full of people, got on the empty train (that the arrow was pointing away from) and drove it off Southbound. And as a hundred or two voices cried out in agony, the nice old lady beside me just sighed, and said, "Well, that's the TTC for you." And she was right. That's not acceptable customer service. Our train left at 4:49. [1] - Of the civil and bridge variety, not the Casey Jones variety. [2] - Finch is the end of the line, all trains are Southbound, from both sides of the platform. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
5:48 pm	Christmas letter from my grandfather (I've posted these previously) Dear Friends When arrangements had been agreed on wherein Mary and Joseph would be married, they became one in spiritual terms. Joseph was absent when the angel Gabriel interrupted the thoughts of Mary, to convince her that through direct spiritual presence within her, she would become a mother to a son, this son to be named Jesus, also to be called Son of God. When Joseph learned about the miraculous event, it was a tremendous challenge to his marriage vows, as well as his faith. Being a man with a gentle and thoughtful nature, the thoughts of Joseph were not on himself, but Mary, requiring compassion and understanding. It would seem like a dream to Joseph when in the midst of his anxious thoughts, suddenly there came a message from the Lord that their marriage vows had received divine blessing. When next they came together their thoughts would be that Jesus was now in the centre of their union as husband and wife. Their experience teaches us that we should be constantly receptive to the word of God guiding our thoughts, arising from faith and love in to our hearts. Scripture teaches us that the thoughts of God are ahead of and above human thoughts. The Lord thought to use Roman law to protect them and other travellers going to their destination, to provide private accommodation for the birth of Jesus, the stable also a thoughtful location to receive the shepherds, that the wise men tell the false king Herod they desired to worship the true King of the people of God, to arrange that Simeon and Anna see Jesus, born for the salvation of his people. His Son would be safe in Egypt until it was time to return to Nazareth. When Jesus developed to manhood, he did not reveal to Joseph his thoughts on how he would save his people from their sins; Jesus thought on care for his mother from the cross, while scripture is silent on the thoughts of Mary. Our faith teaches us that from eternity to eternity, the thoughts of God are on righteousness, truth, and love; that the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit saves us from the power of evil. Whatever our thoughts during Christmas and throughout the coming year, concerning faith, peace, love, joy or sorrow, let us hope and pray that we live in gratitude to our Saviour who saved his people from their sins. Joyous Christmas (Comment on this)
Monday, September 7th, 2009
12:38 pm	Tillsonburg! After the Colibri failure last week, I was itching to try again, and hopefully fly home without needing a towplane sent out to get me. On Monday afternoon, the weather looked promising for Tuesday and Wednesday, so I headed out to the cottage after work and was ready to go in the morning -- to Woodstock. The weather looked better to the West than to the North, but I think I was overly optimistic. I made it almost as far west as Ayr before I started to get quite low -- my GPS said I was able to get to an ultralight landing strip just North of the 401 (labelled as "Ayr" in the Turnpoint Exchange, but locally called the Roseville Airstrip), but I didn't go there because I was convinced I could find some lift over some quarries, and also because I couldn't actually see this alleged airstrip. I found it on the satellite images here, so now I'm a little more confident about going there -- but from the sky on Tuesday, all I could see were trees where the strip was supposed to be. (J-Flo, check out the video at that link to see how frightening an ultralight really looks!) The larger quarries weren't working at all for me, and I ended up down to about a thousand feet. After calling Chris Gough on the radio to let him know I was landing out, I started to line myself up for a field beside one of the smaller quarries -- with lots of lift! That thermal carried me high enough that I decided to concentrate on getting home instead of getting to Woodstock. Even though I didn't get to Woodstock, I still learned a lot about flying out of range from home! On Wednesday, I didn't try to get further than Cambridge, the sky was just too sketchy. I did have a great flight and got to see the Brantford Air show from the sky! Just outside their 7NM airspace restriction, though. If you look closely, you'll see some smoke trails: Thursday and Friday were back in the office. I will not speak of the horrors. On Saturday morning, I called dibs on C-FSXN, the same sailplane I've been using for all my 50km attempts this year, and based on my reading of the weather, I set my sights on an out-and-return flight to Tillsonburg. I chatted a bit with Anthony Kawzowicz before taking off, and based on his advice, I knew not to fly directly there, but instead to fly West a bit to where I'd given up on Wednesday, and then head South along the Grand River to stay away from Brantford and closer to the clouds. By the time I got to the South end of Cambridge, I have to admit, that was a BIG blue hole to cross. There was one, lonesome, tiny, lonely little cloud in the direction of Paris, though, and it kept calling my name. Sure enough, that little cloud had grown a bit by the time I got there, and gave me enough lift to get the rest of the way to Paris. This weekend was the kickoff of the Paris Fall Fair, so the fields were full of cars, and horses were running around and kicking up dirt in the rings, which made for some very easily findable lift. I think I lingered over Paris a little too long, partly because the fair was fun to watch, but also because of yet another big blue hole on the South side. The Paris Fair had helicopter rides available, so I got to say hi on the radio to the nice lady in C-FMVV, the Robinson R44 from Great Lakes Helicopter. She and I made sure we always knew where the other was, and I hope some of her tourists enjoyed the sight of a tiny little glider, limping across the sky above them! Just south of Cathcart, I found something weird on the ground that got me high enough to get to Norwich, which gave me plenty of height to get in to Tillsonburg. Tillsonburg was very quiet, with nobody flying in the area while I was over it -- I heard some people doing touch-and-go practice after I left, but the area was surprisingly empty. If I'd just landed there, I could have called home for a towplane and chalked the experience up as a success, but no, I was far more optimistic for that, and hoped to fly home! On my way back out to Norwich, though, I just kept getting lower and lower. The nice thermal I'd been in had gone by the time I got back, and I just couldn't find any more lift and sank down to 8-900' above the ground. I'd picked out a nice golden brown field with straight rows as my target, since landing in something in something bright yellow or dark green in that area could have been corn or tobacco -- neither one of those being a crop I would particularly enjoy seeing up close. Amazingly, from the flight trace, I've been able to determine that I had a great thermal from that very field on my way out, and that if I'd flown a left-hand circuit instead of a right-hand, I might not have had to land out. I could see the hydro wires along the North and West sides of the field as a flew along the West side to land facing South. The field I had chosen had some trees 2/3 of the way down, and I had to clear a big barn at the North end on final, but the field kept looking nicer and nicer as I approached -- harvested hay stubble, with long and smooth rows. (All the neighbouring fields had 6 feet of corn!) I landed on the Western part of the field, to be further from those trees, as well as to be closer to the road for a retrieve. As soon as the glider stopped, and before I even had the canopy open, I could see a couple of kids bounding out across the field to greet me with their dad. Their mom came out a minute or two later, and a few cars stopped along the road to take pictures. Carl and his wife Linda were both glad to hear that all was well with me, and I was happy that I hadn't done any damage to the field or crops, of course! The kids, Carl and Rosalyn, got ample opportunity to sit in the aircraft and pose for some pictures. I'd left my car hooked up to the glider trailer, just in case I ended up like this, and I'd also spoken with Rafael Nunes and Spencer Hunt to make sure they knew of my plans and were willing to help out. The first time I called Rafael, he was flying and I got his voicemail, but I was able to get my coordinates to someone on the club phone. Carl's family was exceptionally generous and welcoming with me, so I spent the next three hours on the deck by their pool, chatting about gliding and Ontario with coffee and delicious Dutch cookies. Apparently, it's not every day that a random visitor drops out of the sky! I hope Carl takes me up on the offer and comes to SOSA for a flight. Once Rafael and Spencer arrived, it only took about ten minutes to de-rig the glider, fold it up, and stow it away in the trailer. It was great to have the family there with us to help with some of the lifting, though they were a little amazed by how simple the trailering process could be. We got back to SOSA just in time for sunset, and even though we did it by flashlight, I think we put the glider back together faster with three of us than when there's typically 6-12 people helping! I really wanted to tape the wings up and seal the cracks, but the mosquitos has other ideas and thwarted my plans. Rafael had to get back to Daniella in Toronto for dinner, so I still owe him the traditional steak dinner as thanks -- and since Spencer was going back to Burlington that evening, I made him try to eat a full pound of pulled pork from Camp 31's booth at Canada's Largest Ribfest. Because I didn't make it all the way home, and didn't land at Tillsonburg, I've got to read the rules to find out if this qualifies as a 50km flight or not. Either way, it was still the best day I've had all year. Flying to Tillsonburg, my first landout, awesome farm family, coffee on the pool deck, first trailer on my car, ribfest, beers, and all the other stuff I've left out. Fantastic day. Wants more. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 21st, 2009
2:55 pm	My 50km flight on Wednesday This year, I started off with a series of goals: - SAC Bronze Badge, required before I'd be allowed to fly cross-country. All that I didn't complete last year was proving that I attended an airspace briefing, which was easily accomplished when Transport Canada came to visit us. - Checkout for solo in the club's DG-505. Unfortunately, some needed repair work has put that aircraft out of service until next year. Disappointing, but there's not much I can do about it. - FAI Silver Badge, required before I can fly cross-country in the higher-performance aircraft. Completing the silver badge requires officially observed and recorded flights that include: 1.) A flight of 5 or more hours, 2.) A height gain from release of at least 1,000 meters, 3.) A distance flight of over 50km. On June 14th, I had a 5-hour, 18-minute flight in BVF, a PW-5, leaving just the 50km distance and 1000m height gain requirements, which brings you up to date with this week. Well, on Tuesday afternoon, the Wednesday weather looked good enough, and my Wednesday schedule at work was clear enough that I started to plan for the 50km distance attempt on Wednesday. After running some errands and procrastinating, I found out around 11pm that I'd have to get to the club pretty early to make sure I had dibs on the plane I wanted! Not being the kind of person to wake up early and brave Toronto rush hour traffic unless it's absolutely necessary, I drove out to the club at midnight, getting there at about 2am thanks to the 401 resurfacing work, which meant I only had to wake up at 9 instead of 6. So at 9, I dragged my sorry ass out to the hangar in order to call dibs on C-FSXN, an SZD-51-1. After signing out the daily inspection, I had some time to go shower, have breakfast, and get ready. Mike Kinsner had been hoping to take the club's other SZD-51-1 for his own attempt at a 5hr duration flight, so I encouraged him to take off earlier than me so I could let him find the lift for me. George Haeh was also around to fly DW (LS4), and Jerzy Szemplinski was out to fly his ASW29 -- as well as a few other local flyers and students. I ended up taking off at 1730Z, which was 1:30pm local time, and sure enough, Mike had found me a great thermal to climb in over the Westfield Heritage Village. As I talk about the flight, you can see the trace along the ground on its OLC page. Clicking on "Google Maps 2D" might make it look more familiar to you. As soon as I found that lift with Mike, I made sure to fly to the South of Highway 6 and descend down to about 1500' above the ground (AGL) to establish a low point of the flight. This low point would be used to calculate whether I achieved the 1000m height gain or not, and I wanted to be South of highway 6 for that so it would also establish a Southernmost point for calculating the 50km distance. Well, I joined Mike in the thermal again, and climbed up to about 3,800' above mean sea level (MSL) before the lift started to taper off and I found myself wasting time. I thought 3,800' would be more than enough to get me over to the North end of the African Lion Safari, which got me high enough that I headed North towards the 401 at the foot of the Hanlon Expressway, getting there at 1800Z, and 2,300' above the ground. There's some sort of quarry at that interchange, which usually means reasonable lift, and I didn't think that 2,300' would be enough to let me safely zip North through the airliner-populated region above the 401. So, I hung around the interchange trying to find that lift for what felt like forever -- but my records show it was just 5 minutes. At 1808Z and 4,100' MSL, I headed North of the 401 for the first time ever, aiming for a nice cloud near the corner of Wellington Street and Wellington Road 32. Man, road naming can be dumb sometimes. Unfortunately, when I got there, it took me 5 minutes of farting around again at 2,700' MSL before I could connect to the lift. Obviously, something I need to get considerably better at doing! By the time I was climbing and had made it up to 4,000' MSL, George appeared in DW to join me in the thermal, only a hundred feet or so above me. At about 5,250'MSL, George and I both headed North -- him towards Erin, and me towards Fergus. Twice on my way to Fergus, I stopped in some thermals, but gave up on them halfway because they were weak and hard to center. There were beautiful clouds over a huge factory in Fergus, and everything was looking like I'd make it to Fergus with enough height to connect with that lift. By the time I got to Fergus, I was only down to 2,850' MSL when I started trying to get in to the factory thermal. Now, when I was scratching around near that factory, I started wondering why the houses seemed so big. 2,850' MSL is 2,000' above the ground at Rockton, where I took off from, and that's the height I was at when I released from tow, and my lizard brain is used to thinking of 2,850' as a decent altitude around home. I told myself that the houses just seemed huge because I had become accustomed to being much higher as I flew up to Fergus, and I concentrated on centering the thermal. I could see plenty of fields that seemed well within gliding distance, though. Luckily, I was right about the factory thermal! It took me right up to 5,682' MSL in 11 minutes, which gave me time to take a little more stock of the situation. Unsurprisingly, George reappeared from the East to get in the thermal as well. It felt really good to be doing my first 50k and being used as a sniffer by a much more experienced pilot in a higher-performance aircraft! But that's when I did the math and worked out just how low I'd been when I was scratching over the factory: 1,500' AGL. The ground at Fergus is about twice as high as the ground at Rockton. I knew that. I'd looked it up weeks ago, and written it down in the booklet strapped to my leg. I'd been told hundreds of times to pay attention to rising ground when flying cross-country, and I failed to do it properly. My N800 was running Cumulus, and flying with that kind of fancy toy was still new to me. I hadn't done enough local flying with it to be completely comfortable, and was mostly flying by maps and landmarks. I was surprised by how much easier it was in the air to navigate by maps/landmarks than by GPS -- far easier than I expected. One thing I hadn't done, though, was switch the altitude display on the GPS from MSL to AGL, so I'd have an easy way of knowing how low I was over the ground. Had I known the numbers when I was low over Fergus, I certainly would have behaved much differently, especially how I was over a moderately populated area. It's hard for me to say in retrospect what I would have done differently, but I certainly know I wouldn't have been as cavalier about the situation as I was. 1,500' was plenty of height to get safely to a landable field, but would I have clued in about the problem at 1,000' when I had talked myself out of worrying at 1,500'? I don't know. I can hope I would have, and focus on not losing situational awareness like that again. And I certainly need to get good at it without using the GPS as a crutch or as a shoddy excuse. So, anyhow, George and I got to more than 4,000' over the ground, which was way more than I needed to go the last 10-15km to the York Soaring Club airfield, which was the distance goal of the flight. And, 5,682' MSL in Fergus, minus the 1,500' MSL low point before starting out is a 4,000' height gain, enough to satisfy the 1,000m goal. As soon as I was that high, and within final gliding distance of the goal, the euphoria kicked in. After about 6 years of being licenced, I'd finally jumped through the hoops! I could do it! Accomplishing something like this was a such great feeling, but not something I can easily describe. I left George (he went back East again) and made a beeline for York Soaring at about 120-140km/hr, getting there with plenty of height to spare. I took a few minutes to circle around and get the lay of the land -- did you know there's a big wind-power generating farm up there? -- and figure out how I was going to fly the circuit and land. (Tip: Power flies left-hand circuits, gliders fly right, which is the opposite of what I'm used to at SOSA). Landing: On the GPS trace, I can see a nice square circuit, and I got quite a few compliments on a very by-the-book circuit once I'd stopped. I'd flown a left-hand circuit, though, since I hadn't noticed their oppositeness from the sky. Overall, it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get there (63km from SOSA to York), averaging about 47km/hr. When compared to Jerzy's flight in the same direction on the same day, it's not all that impressive. He went 391km at about 88km/hr (a short and slow day for him!) but I'm nowhere near that skilled and experienced yet, so I'm still feeling very accomplished. George ran in to some trouble after going East from Fergus, and he ended up having to land in Guelph instead of being able to fly home as he'd intended. The vast majority of the people I met at York Soaring were very nice -- but with the exception of a very beautiful interior on their Pawnee, I'm very glad I chose to join SOSA when I moved to the Toronto area. The York Pawnee was their only operating towplane, since they'd sold one and the other two required repairs. Since it was a very busy day for them, with lots of people waiting for a turn in their 2-33s for local flying, the towplane was operating non-stop, except for fuel-ups. I would have needed a 5-6,000' tow to the South over Guelph in order to be sure I could get safely home, but because of how busy they were, York would only be able to provide me with a 5-minute local tow to 2,000' and not the 15-20min tow I needed. So, that meant I had more time to wander around the York airfield and chat with the people while I called home for a spare SOSA towplane to come back and get me. A big thanks to Terry McElligott for hopping in to the Citabria to come and get me! Not only was I lucky that Terry was generous enough with his time, but Terry only had to take me back as far as the 401 for me to get home, and he then went to Guelph to pull out George in DW, which means George's landout will reduce the cost of my tow out of York! Once the aircraft was cleaned (I killed a lot of bugs), stowed, and I had a beer in my hand, it was time to start the paperwork. I'd flown with one of the club's LX Colibri flight recorders, but a much older model that didn't have fancy things like USB and SD cards. This recorder is in a tamper-proof case and produces a cryptographically-signed flight record of position and altitude every 5 seconds or so, and that file is needed in order to file the Silver badge claim to the international organization. Of course, it didn't work. George and Dave Springford both tried very hard with me to get the damn thing to offload its data (the LCD showed that the flight was stored, but we just couldn't get it out the serial port!), finally giving up around 11pm after trying two different computers, 4 software packages, and two wiring harnesses. Needless to say, that flight recorder has now been removed from service, and is on its way back to the dealer for inspection. There's about a 5% chance that I'll actually get the file I need in order to prove that I had the flight I had, which is a bit of a kick in the nuts after such a euphoric high earlier in the day. If I don't get the file, I hope they'll let me personally dispose of the retired Colibri. There's still a lengthy process of witness statements and paperwork that I can go through in order to claim the 50km distance portion of the flight, but there's no way for me to claim the 1,000m height gain without a crypto-signed GPS trace file. For any of you feeling sorry for me, just remember that the flying part is something that I actually consider "fun," so I won't mind doing the flight over again at all! Sure, I'll hate going through the whole Windows-98 RS-232 flight recorder crap again, but I only really need that to work once. Coincidentally, the LX Colibri was one of three flight recorders I had with me in the aircraft -- but it was the only one that could produce the approved output for a badge claim. Turns out that the N800+Cumulus flight recorder was off (because I hadn't completely read the manual), so the trace I uploaded to the OLC website came from my WBT-201 that I'd liberated from Mike Hoye. The WBT-201, though, produces its trace in a crazy binary proprietary format, so I had to use four different pieces of software over two days to eventually extract and compile the trace that you see here. Seriously, GPS manufacturers, aren't we supposed to be living in the future? (Also, I think it's a bold-faced lie to say that your device is a USB device when it really just contains an integrated USB-to-Serial chip and the actual communication with the device is still over serial. I hope your pants die in a fire.) Tomorrow looks like a reasonable soaring day, but I've promised to help splice and repair ropes in the morning, so I don't think I'll be able to try another 50km+1000m flight tomorrow. Baby Boober jackasses have so thoroughly messed up our flying weather that the planes are all sure to be in high demand tomorrow. If everything works out, though, I might be able to get 1,000m in the PW-5 or L-13 and start the paperwork with Dave and Terry as witnesses to make a manual claim for Wednesday's 50k. Now, since I know that some of the other non-silver pilots will read this, I'd like to toss in some advice: * Start flying with Colibris as soon as possible, even for local flying. Going from YeeHaw to Peter's Corners to St. George to Cambridge and back is a great way to build experience without leaving gliding distance back to SOSA, but I really regret not using a colibri and uploading to OLC for those flights. I'd have gained more experience with the stupid flight recorder crap, and uploading local flights to OLC will surprise you with how much feedback and encouragement you'll get from more senior members. * Read your navigation thingy's manual, practice with it, and even hook it in to Condor for simluator training. * My kneebook really, really helped. Ask to see it at the field sometime if you haven't checked it out yet! And for the more senior pilots, no, there will be no beer list unless one of the badge claims is successful. That's only fair, right? (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 15th, 2009
3:26 am	As promised for the J.Flo (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
9:25 pm	How my weekend was made. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 16th, 2009
10:05 am	Some notes on US Airways Flight 1549 ditching in the Hudson River Well, first, this goes to show how breaking news reporting has changed forever. Now, if only twitter could get its shit together with organization and stability... I digress. As with all aviation reporting in the mainstream media, I've got some concerns with what the whackjobs are saying. To that end, I've put together an analysis for you, based on actual data right here. Note that all of the blue points were plotted in the space of five minutes of flight time, and that the alleged bird strike occured within 1-3 minutes of takeoff. For a nice long narrative about it, check what Patrick Smith has to say. He's incredibly reliable. Some additional points: * Neither of the two pilots at the controls, Chesley Sullenberger and Benjamin Bronk, would have been able to do this alone. * The heroes of this event are, in my mind, the flight attendants. Same thing for the Air France crash at Pearson. Cabin crew are not there to bring you peanuts, they're there to save your life. When they give you peanuts, thank them for it. * I'm boycotting Air Canada. This is just demented. No lives were lost because of decades of painstaking work by authorities and industry to work through scenarios like this, and because of textbook execution by the crew. Edit: Count how much time passes between the splash and the wings being full of people: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9e6_1232166872 Edit 2: Better video footage of the initial splashdown: http://www.truveo.com/Newly-released-video-shows-plane-landing-on-Hudson/id/901984028 (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
11:19 pm	Is your livejournal important to you? Well, so far this week, livejournal has laid off 20 of its 28 staff and some of its webservers have already started to behave oddly. This might be the end of the line for the old girl. I think most of us have found each other on facebook by now, just in case LJ disappears without further warning. I've made a backup of all my posts and comments; it all comes out as a big long webpage page with everything included. (XML dumps also available). If you'd like me to prep a backup of yours, just send me your password somehow. To do the backup yourself (If you have a UNIX box), my command was: ./jbackup.pl --user="quotation" --password="YeahRight" --server="www.livejournal.com" --sync --dump=html --file=quotation.html (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 25th, 2008
8:40 am	Merry Christmas! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
10:57 pm	What my mother got for Christmas. Shoot me now. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
11:25 pm	On the wisdom of Tom Paxton. As only a very small number of you know, I've been a huge fan of Tom Paxton ever since I found one of his tapes in my father's collection when I was just knee-high to a buzzard. I'm sure you're all familiar with The Marvelous Toy and Going To The Zoo. Those are two of his most well-known children's songs -- the kind of children's songs that are played so often by so many that it's hard to imagine them ever being composed to begin with. They're simply songs. In the 1960s, Tom was also a prolific songwriter of activism. He had opinions about Vietnam, government intervention in free market economics, nuclear proliferation, and all of the other fun hot-button topics of the day -- and he put them all beautifully in to song. As I grew older, of course, I started to understand more of the songs. A song that made no sense to me at all as a child, now makes perfect sense now that I've understood its historical context. I'd read a piece of history from 1965, and the meaning of a well-known song could change completely in an instant. If you haven't heard them before, I'd strongly recommend listening to Buy a Gun for your Son, What did you learn in school today? (Sung here by Pete Seeger), and The Willing Conscript (Sorry for that last video -- I can't find a linkable cover that does it any justice, but I can't leave that song off the list, it's my favouritest). It wasn't until a couple of years ago that, while looking up lyrics, I came to find that he was still recording, and he's still got the touch. If there's nobody around to see you cry, then check out The Bravest. If you'd like your milk to come out your nose, give a listen to Tinky-Winky. Not only have Tom's songs been steeped in awesomeness, but they also manage to be both immediately topical, but also eerily timeless. Tom Paxton's songs from the 60s and 70s still rung true today, with parallels that aren't lost on him at all. Yes, Tom Paxton has been re-recording some of his old classics. And, as a testament to his continued relevance, I'd like to share two pairs of songs with you. The auto industry bailout of 1979 gave us the first song: I'm Changing My Name To Chrysler (Sung here by Arlo Guthrie): And now redone for 2008, Tom is changing his name to Fanny Mae: In 1964, Lyndon Johnson took the US to war under false pretext and Tom Paxton sang about it: And now, redone for 2007, George W. Told The Nation: I'll close with a stanza from Tom's latest single: Marching 'round the White House, Marching 'round the Pentagon, Marching 'round the mighty missile plants, Speaking truth to power, singing peace to Babylon, Asking us, Why not give peace a chance? How Beautiful Upon The Mountain Comedians & Angels (2008 Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy Nominee) http://www.TomPaxton.com/ (Comment on this)
Friday, December 12th, 2008
6:34 pm	Happy birthday YumiKid! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
4:34 pm	The second letter. Yasmin Ratansi House of Commons 784 Confederation Building Ottawa ON K1A 0A6 19 Nov 2008 Yasmin, On 22 August 2008, I sent you a letter as a constituent. It was a very considered and thoughtful letter, I thought it to be constructive and informative. I asked some questions, and made some requests. On 8 September, I joined the Liberal Party. The federal election had been called the day before, and I felt it was about time I started to learn how to do more for my country and my values than just vote. I received my membership "card" on 7 November, after the 14 October election, likely because the party had better things to do during that time period. I'm okay with that. But just yesterday, I received a letter from you, sent to me as a party member, rather than sent to me as a constituent. The letter was on Liberal letterhead, but in a parliamentary envelope and sent with your franking privileges with your Parliamentary office as the return address. The address on the enclosed letter, however, was that of your campaign office on Victoria Park Avenue, rather than one of either your Parliamentary Address in Ottawa, or the constituency office on file with Parliament on Duncan Mill Road. Clearly, this was party material, and not constituency material. I have two concerns with this experience. First, it's been 3 months since I sent you my letter, and though I haven't heard back from you as a constituent, you still seem to be working hard to drum up more support from party members. Based on my experience so far, I believe that your priorities are deeply misaligned. Additionally, during the campaign, I heard several complaints from Liberal candidates about how the Conservatives were abusing their franking privileges, using them for party and campaign material. Even in your letter of this week, you alluded to your scorn for this "barrage," of which ten-percenters played a major role. And yet, I now feel that you are abusing your franking privileges. I am a citizen, a constituent, a voter, and a taxpayer first. I am a party member second. You have demonstrated to me this week that you are putting your party ahead of your duties and responsibilities as my Member of Parliament, and I consider this to be a betrayal of the trust and confidence that has been placed in you by your constituency. Please change. We deserve better. Yours, quotation (Comment on this)
Friday, November 14th, 2008
8:39 am	I took a screenshot this morning. Let's see how long it lasts. Screenshot taken 8:30am, 14 Nov 2008. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
12:14 pm	Quotation's plan to fix the country Step 1.) Ignatieff quits the Liberal party, joins the NDP, and challenges Layton for the leadership. Step 2.) Rae quits the Liberal party, joins the Green Party, and challenges May for the leadership. Step 3.) Justin Trudeau merges the three parties in to the "Progressive Reform" party. Step 4.) Mike Duffy's head explodes. Step 5.) Profit. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
6:40 am	WARNING: Friends-only posts For some reason, several friends-only locked posts over 2 years old have been mysteriously unlocked by Livejournal this week. Multiple users are affected. Check your posts. Log out, and read your journal. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
4:08 pm	Reviewlet: Burn After Reading Astounding performance by J.K. Simmons, but way too little screen time for him. Great performances by all the actors, actually, but the movie itself was crap. Half as funny as Fargo, and 4 times as long. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
8:36 pm	Upcoming festivities. Birthday celebration planning is underway for the evenings of the 10th and 12th in Toronto. If you want in, but you didn't hear about it because you're not in Toronto, not on my Facebook, or were otherwise omitted from the invitation list -- lemme know. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
10:34 am	An open letter to Stephane Dion and Garth Turner This letter was emailed out to Stéphane, Garth and Yasmin at 5pm. The dead-tree copies should be in their parliament offices by the end of next week. Did you know that sending mail to MPs in Ottawa is free of charge? Try it out! Huge thanks to ben_zine for cleaning up much of my overly verbose language and passive-aggressive sentence structure. To: http://www.stephanedion.parl.gc.ca/ http://www.garth.ca/ CC: http://www.yasminratansi.parl.gc.ca/ Stephane, Garth; On 20 Aug 2008, I had the honour and the privilege of meeting with you at the Halton Town Hall, (http://www.garth.ca/weblog/2008/08/21/in-search-of-hope/) - both in the large Town Hall, as well as in the smaller blogger's reception beforehand. I'd like to thank you for your availability. For your bravery in handling our unscripted and unannounced questions. For your thought leadership, your openness, your passion, and your approachability. Your willingness to address difficult questions from wingnuts such as myself is a welcome change from what we have sadly come to expect from our politicians. I have no doubt that you've been positively influenced by Garth Turner's dedication to open democracy. The bulk of your statements, and the bulk of the questions from the floor dealt with the Green Shift (http://www.thegreenshift.ca/). A question from the floor noted 30,000 scientists who oppose the plan, but my own research today has convinced me that this petition was mostly signed by fictional characters and persons in fields unrelated to climate change or environmental studies. The common name for this petition is the "Oregon Petition," and it's over 7 years old. (http://www.google.ca/search?q=Oregon+Petition) Many of the actual signatories have now changed their positions. I mention this because you were unaware of the petition on Wednesday, and I hope you didn't take it seriously. Your Green Shift plan is simply a logical necessity. I believe that the strategies you've proposed are inevitable and necessary for our survival. Even the current government believes that this taxation of pollution is desperately needed, but their plan for new taxes doesn't include any reductions in personal taxes -- it's just a cash grab! (http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/virage-corner/2008-03/541_eng.htm) The taxation of pollution is inevitable: we must use market economic externality metering in order to ensure our survival. A mandate to implement the Green Shift with the next election will allow us to start sooner, cheaper, and ramp up more gradually than if we were to put this off any longer. There were other questions from the floor that caused me some concern. Some of the increasingly pressing issues with Canadians are relatively unknown to you, although there was always at least one other MP in attendance who was familiar with them. Because the Liberal Party does not yet seem to have articulated positions on these topics, I'd like to share with you my opinions, in the hopes of making them yours as well. Garth mentioned that he's been able to convince you to start a blog, the "Leader's Notebook" (http://www.liberal.ca/notebook_e.aspx). This move will certainly make you more accessible. In time, I hope you'll be brave enough to permit commenting and discussion. I know I'll certainly follow your postings once they're available for syndication by RSS. The Liberal.CA website has 6 published RSS feeds, but some oversight has left your blog from the list. Additionally, I found that your profile on the Liberal.CA website links to a Facebook profile that does not exist (http://www.liberal.ca/conversation_e.aspx). I'm sure that your web staff will be able to easily correct these oversights once they've been made aware. You mentioned in one of your answers that we would have to build more of a knowledge economy in order to weather the economic changes taking place in the manufacturing and industrial sectors. I have personally transitioned from manufacturing work to a professional career over the past decade, and can vouch for this necessity. Building a knowledge economy requires a knowledge infrastructure. Such an infrastructure includes traditional schools, libraries, and publishing, but also incorporates telecommunications, the internet, and a creative commons. Restrictions on research and development, knowledge sharing, academic discourse and innovation are all barriers to the construction of the kind of knowledge infrastructure that Canada needs to compete on a global scale. Our biggest threat right now is Bill C-61. This bill was crafted in the interests of foreign corporations, and misunderstood even by the tabling minister. Bill C-61 decimates the existing Fair Use provisions of the Copyright Act, provisions previously described by the Supreme Court as user rights. Bill C-61 makes it illegal for teachers and librarians to continue sharing knowledge in the ways they have become accustomed, and this is unacceptable. Dr. Micheal Geist, the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, has proposed that all Members of Parliament be asked to take a copyright pledge in defence of teachers and librarians. The pledge is simple: "I will not introduce, support, or endorse any copyright bill that, either directly or indirectly, undermines or weakens the Copyright Act's fair dealing provision." (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2562/125/) Mr. Dion, I challenge you to ask the Liberal caucus to take this pledge with you and affirm your commitment to Canada's knowledge infrastructure. Further, I encourage you to meet with Dr. Geist in order to learn more about these new issues. I know that it is often difficult for experienced politicians to understand the controversies and issues surrounding new technologies, and I hope you'll see Dr. Geist as an ambassador from that world. The internet is a huge component of this new knowledge infrastructure, and wonderful because the internet is decentralized, global, and commoditized. Except that it's not commoditized in Canada. While other countries benefit from a competitive marketplace, Canadians very often only have one or two high-speed telecommunications providers for last-mile service delivery in their areas, and these providers are heavily and successfully lobbying to maintain their monopolies. The current government has instructed the CRTC to take a hands-off approach in regulating the internet. This instruction has effectively handed control of our national knowledge infrastructure to a very small group of companies. Bell has used their monopoly in last-mile DSL-based telecommunications to unfairly and unreasonably interfere with the relationships between consumers and smaller Bell competitors. Rogers has locked out all competitors from their cable-based last-mile monopoly, and Canadian consumers have been left with no other options since the effective failure of Look Communications. Canadians are in dire need of a new competitor in the last-mile telecommunications marketplace, but Canadian regulation of that market prevents new competitors from arising! Bell, Rogers, Telus, Shaw and Cogego are leveraging the regulation of one market in order to monopolize another unregulated industry, with a disastrous effect on the quality, pricing and other measures of competitive marketplaces. Canadian consumers left to brave the whims of this stale seller's market. This brings us to the subject of network neutrality. Bell's anti-competitive practices are well-known within the government, (http://blog.juliannayau.com/2008/08/21/prentice-response-to-my-email-regarding-net-neutrality/) but our government is simply not taking a leadership stance to ensure that Canada's knowledge infrastructure is nurtured and fostered. In Canada, we only have three wireless telephone network providers: Bell, Telus and Rogers. Other wireless telephone "brands" are subsidiaries or resellers, giving control of our wireless telecommunications to the same effective trifecta monopoly as our last-mile high speed internet connections. I'd like to give you a concrete example of why this is bad. I've got a smartphone, a Nokia e51. When I bought it, the device was light-years ahead of any cellphone sold by Canadian wireless providers; they were unable to satisfy my requirements in a cellphone, so I purchased my phone from an importer. Bell and Telus wouldn't let me use an imported cellphone on their networks, since their infrastructures are too antiquated. This is also the reason why the iPhone only works on the Rogers network (Fido is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rogers). Since Rogers has a complete monopoly on GSM communications in Canada, I'm forced to use Rogers as my wireless provider. Because I have an imported phone, the cheapest wireless internet available to me is $0.05/kB. Your blog, Mr. Dion, is a very modest webpage, and is over 500KB in size. Mr. Turner's blog is double that. It would cost me over $75 to read those two blogs on my cellphone -- just once. Without even reading the comments! In the USA, I could buy an unlimited internet data plan from AT&T for $30/mo. I would pay $30/mo to read your blogs, but not $75. There's no doubt that Research In Motion is a Canadian success story, and an aggressive innovator in its field. It's too bad that the Canadian market is so uncompetitive, causing our citizens to pay significantly more for Blackberry service than those of any other nation. I am confident that the inventors at RIM will explain in private meetings how the current wireless marketplace in Canada is a major barrier to Canadian innovation and technological leadership. (http://exple.tive.org/blarg/?p=727) My core theme in this letter is that the Canadian knowledge infrastructure is so misunderstood by so many politicians that Canadians are missing out on the knowledge economy. Technological innovation is fleeing our country, our infrastructure cannot support its development, and backwards legislation like Bill C-61 aims to make it suicidal for consumer electronics companies to operate here. I know that the environment and the Green shift are higher priorities, and are your flagship policies. I know that it would be unreasonable to expect you to become overnight experts in knowledge infrastructure. I urge you, though, to designate a caucus member to become versed in these issues and to engage themselves in the public discussions. The 91,000 Canadians concerned about Bill C-61 are waiting for you at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6315846683 The 24,000 Canadians concerned about net neutrality are waiting for you at http://www.neutrality.ca/ Thanks again for your involvement, http://quota.tion.ca/ (14 Comments |Comment on this)