Don Giovanni by Boston Opera Collaborative

by philg

Mozart’s Don Giovanni is seriously out of step with our times. The producers at Boston Opera Collaborative realized this and posted a trigger warning on the door to the theater:

The original libretto, written without the benefit of the latest batch of Marvel female superhero movies, has Donna Anna’s honor defended (to the death) by her father. Mom is nowhere to be seen. In the modern B.O.C. version, it is a single mom who defends Anna at the cost of her own life, then comes back as a vengeful ghost to kill Don Giovanni.

The Boston Opera Collaborative’s update does not address one of the more problematic parts of the story for a modern audience, i.e., that nearly all of the women (2,000+) who had sex with Don Giovanni apparently did so voluntarily, attracted by his wealth and position or his fine words:

With blondes it is his habit
To praise their kindness;
In brunettes, their faithfulness;
In the white-haired, their sweetness.

As former Harvard Winthrop House dean Ronald Sullivan might be saying soon at Harvey Weinstein’s trial: “He had thousands of satisfied customers and just a handful of complaints.”

B.O.C. gives Don Giovanni (played convincingly by Junhan Choi) a modern way to reel in the females: he is a fashion photographer with a studio. He has a female enabler assistant (played silently, yet dramatically, by Felisha Trundle), just like a lot of the guys who’ve been #MeTooed. convincingly delivered the love/hate situation of Donna Elvira.

Sarah Cooper as Zerlina has some of the most troubling lyrics, delivered with an amazing voice and acting talent. In “Là ci darem la mano” she is considering abandoning her fiance for the just-met Don Giovanni because he is rich, has a fancy castle, and can raise her standard of living:

I would like to, and I wouldn’t,
My heart is trembling a little.
True, I could be happy,
But it could trick me again.

The only thing that she knows about this guy is that he is richer than the person she has promised to marry. Rich guy says “I will change your fate.” and she is coming around to the idea (“Soon…I won’t be strong anymore.” then “Let’s go!”), but Donna Elvira (Isabelle Zeledón; great), the spurned earlier lover, intervenes and proves Don G’s villainy by showing Zerlina evidence from a smartphone (texts?).

Her apology to Musetto (acted with appropriate frustration by John Bitsas) is what should generate a trigger warning. “Batti, batti, o bel Masetto”:

Batti, batti, o bel Masetto, Beat me, dear Masetto,
La tua povera Zerlina; beat your poor Zerlina.
Starò qui come agnellina I’ll stand here as meek as a lamb
Le tue botte ad aspettar. and bear the blows you lay on me.
Lascierò straziarmi il crine, You can tear my hair out,
Lascierò cavarmi gli occhi, put out my eyes,
E le care tue manine yet your dear hands
Lieta poi saprò baciar. gladly I’ll kiss.

The sets were spare, but reasonably effective. Quotes from men in modern headlines were projected during the overture. Big Harvey made the list and, of course, Donald Trump (full quote used: “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.”).

As with previous Boston Opera Collaborative productions, I enjoyed not being one of 3,800 (Metropolitan Opera House seating capacity). In the age of 4K video and good microphones, I would rather see the big productions electronically and get up close to rising stars.

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Boeing 737 MAX runaway trim scenario in a sim

by philg

“Ethiopian MAX Crash Simulator Scenario Stuns Pilots” (Aviation Week) describes an American crew given a comparatively trivial challenge. They were put into a sim and advised in advance that the MCAS system would go haywire. They started from a 10,000′ moderate speed (250 knots) cruise.

This is analogous to the crews that were given the “Skiles and Sully” US Air 1549 scenario and were able to do a 180-degree turn and land back at LaGuardia on a dry runway.

Piece of cake, right?

What the U.S. crew found was eye-opening. Keeping the aircraft level required significant aft-column pressure by the captain, and aerodynamic forces prevented the first officer from moving the trim wheel a full turn. They resorted to a little-known procedure to regain control. The crew repeatedly executed a three-step process known as the roller coaster. First, let the aircraft’s nose drop, removing elevator nose-down force. Second, crank the trim wheel, inputting nose-up stabilizer, as the aircraft descends. Third, pull back on the yokes to raise the nose and slow the descent. The excessive descent rates during the first two steps meant the crew got as low as 2,000 ft. during the recovery.

(i.e., they would have crashed if they hadn’t started with at least 8,000′ of altitude above the ground)

Related:

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Why no power indication on an airliner primary flight display?

by philg

Aircraft performance is a function of attitude (pitch and bank) and power. So you’d think that, in an ideal world, these two items would be displayed prominently right in front of each pilot.

This wasn’t possible in the old days because each item was presented on a different instrument. Thus the Boeing B-17 or B-29 cockpit with attitude indicators in front of each pilot and some engine gauges in the middle.

Why not combine this information and summarize it today on the “glass” (LCD) panels that are in front of today’s pilots?

Who does this right? Cirrus! The Perspective system that they co-designed with Garmin for the latest SR20 and SR22 airplanes show percent power at the top left of the primary flight display (regular G1000 does not have this). It isn’t perfect because a lot of space is wasted, e.g., “65% Power” has information only in 2 out of 9 characters, since the “% Power” never varies. I would rather see “65 CRUISE”, “95 CLIMB”, “25 DESCEND”, and “15 APPROACH”.

Who gets this wrong? Boeing, I think. People have wondered why the pilots of the latest B737 MAX to crash didn’t pull the climb power out. One possible reason is that nowhere on the primary flight display (PFD) images that I’ve been able to find is power indicated:

source:
http://www.b737.org.uk/flightinstsmax.htm#pfd

Power is displayed in the Boeing B-17/B-29 location: in the center of the panel (dashboard).

It fascinates me that decades after the obvious user interface became easy to implement (microprocessors have to paint the pixels, so why not put in the information that matters?) we still don’t have the obvious user interface.

Related:

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With enough undocumented immigrants, we can reduce crime rate to zero

by philg

“Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime?” (NYT):

Areas with more unauthorized migration appeared to have larger drops in crime, although the difference was small and uncertain.

For undocumented immigrants, being arrested for any reason would mean facing eventual deportation — and for some a return to whatever danger or deprivation they’d sought to escape at home.

According to Mr. Adelman and his team, however, the impact of undocumented immigrants is probably similar to what the research indicates about immigrants over all: They tend to bring economic and cultural benefits to their communities.

In other words, a true flood of the undocumented should reduce crime to zero!

Why don’t other countries figure this out and outbid us for these valuable folks who “bring economic and cultural benefits”? Citizens of Canada are not as smart as the writers and editors at the New York Times, which is why there are no Airbus A380s picking up caravans in Central America and bringing them to clean up the grittiest neighborhoods of Toronto and Montreal? (does Vancouver have any grit?)

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Why is the Bluetooth broadcast mode such a rare beast?

by philg

We manage a Pilatus PC-12 airplane in which the manufacturer certified a Sony car stereo as cabin entertainment. Totally state of the art… for 1995.

The speaker output of the car stereo is used to drive airliner-style six headphone outlets in the passenger cabin. They are all hooked up in parallel across the speaker outputs (100X the power required to drive modern noise-canceling headphones?).

Instead of trying to modernize this system, it would make sense to buy a stack of Monoprice Bluetooth noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones ($70 each) and drive them all from one smartphone. Except that the typical smartphone can drive only one Bluetooth audio device at a time.

How could the designers of this standard not have foreseen that people would want a broadcast mode?

This year-old Qualcomm web page says that the hardware for a lot of phones is now capable of broadcast audio via Bluetooth. The company publishes a page showing 7 headphones connected to one phone. Yet as far as I can tell, nobody is implementing this from software. Samsung offers “dual audio” on the S9 and S10 (two headphones). Apple offers nothing.

How did we get to the point that the latest and great technology makes it tougher to share music than it was with the original Sony Walkman (1979)?

[One idea for the airplane is to try to drive all six headphone jacks in parallel from an MP3 player or a Bluetooth headphone amp. The latest noise-canceling wired headphones have high impedance and sensitivity and therefore even six in parallel would be an easy load to drive. Or we could do nothing and wait for an Android implementation that actually enables the Qualcomm hardware capability?]

Entrepreneurs: A lot of aircraft now have USB power outlets. Owners would be happy to pay $1,000 or more for a little box that drives the Qualcomm hardware as intended. FAA certification shouldn’t be required since the device wouldn’t be permanently installed in the aircraft (no different than a passenger bringing a smartphone or tablet on board).

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If you build it, the cars will come…

by philg

Boston traffic, 9:26 on a typical weekday morning, going into the Central Artery, the result of the $15 billion Big Dig:

Bostonians generally say, of the project, “It was expensive, but worth it.” They cite the improved aesthetics of downtown, even if travel times are now actually worse (see “The worst gridlock in the US is right here in Boston,” Boston Globe 2019, for example). I’ve never heard anyone note that we didn’t pay for the project and therefore it is no surprise that we are happy with the result. If the Feds taxed citizens of Indiana and used the money to buy us all Teslas we would certainly say “Even at $120,000 per Tesla X, that was a great value.”

I entered the above traffic jam just as I was coming from a meeting at a charter (public) school. They’re trying to construct a building for about 500 learners. Most of their students are from families on welfare and therefore the proposed location is in one of Boston’s lowest income neighborhoods. Nonetheless, neighborhood groups are opposed to the school, citing concerns over traffic congestion. (Any seed of local opposition gets enormous financial support from the Boston Teacher’s Union, the charter school folks said.)

Separately, here’s the traffic picture from a recent Easter Sunday at lunchtime. I had expected traffic to be lighter than usual, since folks would be settled in with family and carving the ham, but the highways were jammed.

San Francisco edition, from a Facebook friend who works early morning nursing shifts:

Related:

  • https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2006/04/02/personal-solution-to-traffic-jams-motorhome-and-driver/ : “Plenty of rich folks in California, however, do spend more than $100,000 on a car. And during this past week they get onto the highways blocked off by civil unrest and demonstrations against restrictions on illegal immigration. What would be an intelligent way to spend serious $$ on ground transportation? How about a $120,000 diesel-powered 40′ motorhome? It wouldn’t be as much fun to drive as a BMW M5 and it would certainly be difficult to park in the city. You solve both problems by hiring an illegal immigrant to act as your driver. You send him to schoolbus driver school for a few days and let him sleep on the fold-out dinette in the RV at night. Now when you go to the beach, it will still take the same two hours at 5 mph on the clogged freeways that it always took, but you won’t care because you’ll be at home. You can read in an easy chair. You can do some writing at the dinette table or refer to your files. You can make phone calls and take notes. You can watch TV. With a mobile phone data connection, you can use the Internet. You can take a nap in the bedroom in the back. If you get hungry, you can fix yourself a grilled cheese sandwich in the kitchen. You’re at home in your second house, so waiting for friends or traffic jams isn’t anywhere near as annoying as it would be if you were in a car.” (The post from 13 years ago was about Los Angeles, but I think it shows that every social issue that affects California eventually disperses to the rest of the U.S.!)
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Happy Mother’s Day to the Virgins

by philg

I’ve been listening to (excellent) lectures on Classical mythology by Professor Kathryn McClymond. One thing that I learned is that Remus and Romulus were described in some Roman sources as having been born to a virgin who was miraculously impregnated by a god (Mars). There may also have been a solar eclipse on the day of their birth. It turns out that the story of a virgin birth is older than the New Testament. Signs from the stars and a virgin birth were markers of future greatness for a variety of young heroes in the ancient world.

(The full course is “Great Mythologies of the World”, available from Audible.)

So Happy Mother’s Day to all of the readers who identify as mothers, including the virgins!

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Gender Bending Fashion show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

by philg

If you need help completing your summer wardobe, our Museum of Fine Arts has a “Gender Bending Fashion” show through August 25.

Not sure what “Nonbinary” or “Genderqueer” mean? There’s a glossary placard:

Ready for inspiration next time you visit Amazon Fashion?

After you exit, there is helpful restroom tutorial:

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Sample bias at our local public school

by philg

In our town that provides sanctuary to any undocumented immigrant who can afford a $1 million house on an $800,000 zoning minimum two-acre lot, the middle school teachers asked the students to write up “My Family’s Immigration Story”. These were then displayed in the hallway:

(Immigrants to Massachusetts killed or displaced nearly all of the natives, so 100 percent of the students in the school were able to come up with an immigration story.)

One of the above guys came here in 1853 with $12 and eventually owned a 440-acre farm. The latest batch of immigrants shouldn’t have any trouble doing that… as long as we can find another continent to steal from natives!

These are awesome examples of sample bias/selection bias. To get people to think that low-skill immigration will lead to economic growth, ask people who live in $2 million houses to write about their immigrant ancestors.

Separately, the teachers ran an event featuring five speakers talking about their immigration stories:

The majority of non-citizens were on welfare as of 2014. How many of the five folks invited talked about their use of means-tested subsidized housing, health insurance, food stamps, or Obamaphones? It turned out not to be a representative sample…

Why would unionized public school teachers have an incentive to promote immigration and, therefore, population growth? Although their compensation, including pension, is guaranteed, they are at risk of being laid off if the population of school-age children shrinks. They might be able to demand higher salaries if the population of school-age children grows.

Some other fun stuff from the visit. Profound philosophical questions raised by personal locker signage:

PRIDE march hampered by chainmail:

Art from the adjacent elementary school:

Related:

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Robinson R22 pilot makes the news

by philg

“East Brookfield Man Arrested for Piloting Helicopter From Backyard” (NECN):

A Massachusetts man who previously had his pilot’s license revoked after he helped steal a helicopter has been accused of making dozens of illegal helicopter takeoffs and landings from his East Brookfield home.

Antonio Santonastaso, 59, was arrested Wednesday in connection to the unlawful flights, according to U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling. He allegedly made more than 50 flights from his backyard between April and November of 2018.

Santonastso’s pilot’s license was revoked in 2000 by the Federal Aviation Administration because of his participation in the theft of a helicopter from the Norwood Memorial Airport, officials said.

Cue footage of a Robinson R22.

He may face more prison time than served by the typical convicted Nazi or Japanese war criminal:

Santonastso has been charged with flying without proper certification and making false statements to federal agents. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000 and up to three years of supervised release.

Glad to see it isn’t anyone associated with our flight school!

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