A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
Friends and readers keep asking me “What is the best digital camera to buy”? By this, they mean a compact or point-and-shoot style digital camera. So I have drafted an article simply titled “The Best Digital Cameras“. Comments would be appreciated.
Full post, including commentsThe New York City transit strike has me puzzled. The right to unionize and strike, and the requirement that an employer negotiate with a union, is an artificial right created by the government, along with copyright and patent. The government does not allow certain workers, such as police and firemen and, in this case, transit workers, to strike. The transit workers strike was illegal. A typical analysis of transit worker pay shows that they get at least 30 percent more than they would in a competitive market. The pensions are particularly expensive for New York City taxpayers, providing for retirement at age 55 with 50 percent of the final year’s compensation (typically this works out to 100 percent of a normal 40-hour-per-week salary because a worker will get a lot of overtime shifts in his or her last year and the pension is based on whatever was earned in those final 12 months before retirement, including overtime).
Consider an employer with a 54-year-old worker. The guy is getting paid $70,000 per year to do a job that a young immigrant would be happy to do for $25,000 per year. In one more year, assuming he is still on the payroll, you’re going to incur an obligation to pay this 54-year-old guy $70,000 per year for the rest of his life (30+ more years times $70,000 is more than $2 million). He does something illegal, thereby giving you a pretext for firing him. There are 140 qualified young applicants for his job, folks who won’t want or need a pension for at least 25 years from now. What do you do?
Ronald Reagan faced a similar question during his first year in office, when the nation’s air traffic controllers went out on strike. He fired them all (cnn story), and replaced them with younger, cheaper workers (there was no disruption in service, as supervisors picked up the load and worked overtime). One would naively imagine that it is easier to replace a bus driver or a subway car cleaner than an air traffic controller. New York City is more strapped for cash than the Federal government. Regardless of the merits of the transit workers’ demands, it seems unfathomable that Mayor Bloomberg resisted the opportunity to fire all of the workers who stayed out. What is different about this strike than the ATC strike of 1981?
Full post, including commentsLast night, along with the 10 other people in Boston who hadn’t seen the latest Harry Potter movie, I trundled down to the Fenway 13 for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I did enjoy the fact that I was saving myself days of effort by not having to read the book, but otherwise I can’t understand why anyone went to this movie or read the underlying book. The entire movie is about some sort of high-school wizard competition, that is wholly unnecessary and apparently rather risky. I could understand why someone in, say, Springfield Public High School, would care about their team and the Big Game with Shelbyville. But in general people don’t get excited about high school sports that aren’t at their own school. Why do people think that this is a worthy successor to the preceding Harry Potter books and movies?
Full post, including commentsWith the temperature dipping below 20 every night and the cost of a house running 2X what it might be in the Sunbelt, one wonders how the Massachusetts economy stays afloat. This article claims that nanotech is part of the secret. I link to it because it features Xtalic, a startup company on whose Board of Directors I sit. As much fun as nanotech and being on a company Board might be, however, I’m looking forward to leaving on January 13 for Hawaii (finishing up my helicopter instructor rating).
[Note: My advice on the subject of Xtalic’s Web site was not solicited.]
Full post, including commentsA couple of notes from my most recent commercial airline flights.
On a flight from BOS to SFO, I sat next to a woman who said that she was going out specifically to attend a big party in San Francisco. “That sounds fabulous,” I said. “Not really,” she replied. “Most of the people who will be there are computer programmers and they are the most boring people in the world.” [She herself worked in software marketing and lived outside of Boston with husband and kids.]
On a flight from BOS to Long Beach (LGB), I sat next to a woman who had recently graduated from University of California Berkeley with a degree in English. What kind of a job did she get where she could use her finely honed intellect? Selling home mortgages to folks with bad credit, same as that recent MIT graduate we checked up on a month back.
Full post, including commentsA lot of young folks are finishing up their college applications right now. Here’s a last-minute application tip: don’t be shy about checking the “Hispanic” box. I met a Harvard undergraduate at a party last night, pleasant, intelligent, and quite blond. Her mom was half-Hispanic, so she checked “Hispanic” when applying to Harvard, which now claims her among their minority students. The only awkward moment was just after she was admitted, when she was invited to come from her high school to campus for a visit and stay in a dorm suite with a Harvard undergrad. The Harvard bureaucrats thought that she might not be comfortable staying with a non-Hispanic white or Asian undergrad, so they asked her if she wanted a “minority” host.
At no time was she challenged on her ability to speak Spanish or the question of how her skin and hair came to be so pale.
Full post, including commentsI’m planning a trip to Kona, Hawaii, for some helicopter training with Mauna Loa Helicopters from January 12 through January 26 or 27. It would be nice to find a small house to rent out there that (1) is not too far from the airport, (2) has an ocean view, (3) has a lot of windows and light coming in from multiple sides (i.e., not the hotel room-style of all the light coming from a big window on one side of one room), (4) has high-speed Internet access already set up.
If anyone has any leads or tips for finding such a house, or helicopter sightseeing ideas for the Big Island, please let me know via email to philg@mit.edu.
Thanks!
Full post, including commentsHere are the stats on the ferry trip of N211SH, a Robinson R22 helicopter, from Long Beach, California to Bedford, Massachusetts:
Photos:
More to follow; I’m having trouble with my Photoshop scripts and the Canon EOS 5D image format, which is slightly different from earlier .CR2 Canon RAW format files.
Full post, including commentsSunday: We started just after sunrise from West Houston, Texas
and picked up Interstate 10. The air traffic controllers were
gracious enough to let us through their Bravo airspace and, after I
admitted to being “unfamiliar” (ATC lingo for “clueless
tourist”), provided helpful directions so that we could continue
following I-10 through downtown. I even got a followup email
afterwards from Keith Johnson, a rated commercial multi pilot
as well as a controller, which is probably why he was able to help us
even while keeping up with the busy flow of commercial airliner
traffic. We stopped for fuel at Lake Charles, Louisiana (LCH) and
proceed into the New Orleans Lakefront airport (NEW). There had
been some temporary flight restrictions over the city of New Orleans,
but these have been lifted and in fact it has never been easier to get
in and out of New Orleans. You can land day or night, good
weather or bad, at the big international airport. You can land
day VFR at the still-without-power lakefront airport. Either way,
you won’t have much company due to the population loss in the
city. The airspace is still Bravo, but the controllers are not
busy and they will let you do whatever you want. They are happy
to provide Bravo clearance and VFR advisories if you’re doing photos
over the city. Ernie the Attorney and his pilot buddy Vincent met us at NEW with sandwiches and sodas.
We did three sightseeing/photo flights over New Orleans. The
first was with Vincent, who oriented me to the area. The second
was with Ernie, who pointed out some additional sights and breaches in
levees. For the third flight, we removed the left door of the R22
and left it with the FBO. Tony flew from the right seat while I
took photos out the open left side of the helicopter. Flying
above the city, you realize what a tough challenge rebuilding is going
to be. Some of the high ground neighborhoods are more or less
back to normal, with the exception of blue tarps covering damaged
roofs. The low-ground neighborhoods, however, whether formerly
rich or poor, are deserted. It looks as though a 1970s-style
neutron bomb was detonated leaving the buildings and cars, but killing
all the people. No homeowner in one of those neighborhoods is
going to be able to rebuild without taking on a tremendous risk.
What if the other people in his neighborhood decide not to
rebuild? He will have spent $200,000+ on a new house in a
dangerous abandoned area.
New Orleans hospitality is alive and well. Ernie took us out
for an excellent dinner, then put us up for the night in his guest
rooms, and then got up at 0515 for the pre-sunrise drive back to the
airport.
Monday: We flew northeast from New Orleans over swampy and
scrubby forest to Jackson, Alabama (4R3), for some $3/gallon self-serve
gas. We were on the ground for 45 minutes and not a soul showed
up. Our next stop was Alexander City, Alabama (ALX), a company
town dominated by Russell Athletic. We borrowed the old whale of
a station wagon courtesy car and killed some time downtown while
waiting for the 25-knot wind gusts to die down (Airmet for “occasional
moderate turbulence” and the surface winds were getting higher as we
proceeded farther northeast). It was late afternoon when we
departed for Winder, Georgia (WDR) and we landed in the dark. Our
final leg was a all-nighttime flight to Greenville Spartanburg
International Airport (GSP) at the Hampton Inn. The staff at the
Hampton Inn warned us not to eat at Chophouse ’47, but it was the
closest restaurant to the hotel and it seemed to be open at what was a
fairly late hour for surburban South Carolina. Only after we
ordered did we notice that the music blaring from all corners of the
place was 100 percent Christmas-themed. It was like eating in a
shopping mall food court with shockingly high prices. We asked
the manager to change the music or turn it down a bit, but he
refused. He told us that he had one Christmas CD and was playing
it over and over again for the entire month of December. The
employees seemed to be on the verge of insanity.
Tuesday: Departed GSP just after sunrise. Fuel stop at
the friendly Mount Airy, North Carolina (MWK) airport. Were
treated to lunch in Lynchburg, Virginia (LYH) by Mark Dalton, local
helicopter and real estate hero. Lynchburg is the home of Jerry Falwell
and he has a 9,000-student Christian-themed university (Liberty),
which is where you send your kids if you don’t want them to major in
drinking and fornication. Just as the light was fading, we ended
up at Front Royal, Virginia (FRR) and refueled while shivering in the
cold. Our final flight was in the dark to Frederick, Maryland
(FDK). To avoid straying into the Washington, DC Air Defense
Identification Zone (ADIZ) or the prohibited area above Camp David, we
used the GPS in the helicopter and also called up Potomac Approach for
VFR advisories. They cut us loose as soon as we were well clear
of the ADIZ, so they probably suspected that was our primary reason for
asking for assistance. Frederick was a key stop because it has a
friendly helicopter school (Advanced)
and a helpful FBO with a heated hangar. Aircraft engines are
subject to a lot of wear if started when the temperature is below
freezing. Our helicopter did not have an engine block heater and,
to save weight and space, we were not traveling with the twist-on
wheels that enable the machine to be rolled into a hangar.
Rachael from Advanced dropped off a set of their wheels with Frederick
Aviation and the Frederick guys rolled N211SH into their heated hangar
at the very end of their shift. Tony went straight to sleep at
the Comfort Inn. I went to Miyako, a Japanese restaurant nearby,
to have exurban sushi with Matthew, Wendy, and their 5-month-old
Linden. The baby was sleeping peacefully until the restaurant
staff brought out a huge gong and drum to celebrate someone’s
birthday. Matthew and Wendy rocked the baby back to sleep.
He didn’t wake up again until 10 minutes later, when the Miyako folks
brought out the drum and gong for someone else’s birthday. Wendy
looked at Linden and said “we’re fucked.” The gong/drum system
played out another six or seven times during our meal. I asked
the waitress how it was possible that so many people had
birthdays. “This is a birthday restaurant,” she replied.
Wednesday: Hotel wake-up call at 0530. It was 10 degrees F
outside. We preflighted in the heated hangar, which was still a
little chilly. Lifted off from FDK around 0715. We had
planned to stop at 40N, but the Unicom folks there radioed that their
fuel truck wouldn’t start and the restaurant was closed. We
continued a little farther to Brandywine Airport (N99), which happens
to be home of the American Helicopter Museum.
The museum was closed when we arrived, but the staff started trickling
in at 9:00 am, still one hour before official opening. They were
happy to turn on the lights for a couple of transient pilots, however,
and didn’t even ask us to pay admission. If you want to see an
Osprey, this is the place. They have the third prototype ship,
which was designed in Philadelphia at Boeing/Vertol. The FBO
manager, when advised of our plans to land at the West Side Heliport (KJRA) in Manhattan, told us to call up the USS Intrepid
instead. He had done it about 10 years ago. The management
of the Intrepid, however, said that the NYFD wouldn’t let them land
helicopters there anymore without shutting down the entire museum and
they only now did it for visits from the President of the United States
and such. “It was great in the old days,” Matt Woods said, “we’d
cone off an area of the flight deck and all the visitors would come up
to watch.”
After stopping for fuel at Linden, New Jersey (LDJ), we did a
complete sightseeing tour of Manhattan, flying up the East River,
crossing over Central Park, and then flying down the Hudson River to
the Statue of Liberty. Despite the 20-degree temperatures, there
were plenty of tourists up for commercial helicopter tours and the
common radio frequency for the Hudson, 123.05, was busy. Inbound
from “the lady”, we called the heliport to ask for landing and parking
instructions.
“Land on the barge, pad C,” came the response over the radio.
When you’re zipping over the piers of the West Side at 70 mph, and
haven’t identified the heliport itself yet, this is not an easy
instruction to follow. I confessed to having no idea what they
were talking about. “Is that the rusting thing sticking out into
the water?” I asked. One of the sightseeing Eurocopter pilots
answered “Yes, and pad C is the 2nd one in from the west.” The
approach turned out to be fairly simple, as the winds were out of the
NNW. We parked, made our way to the trailer office, plunked down
a credit card ($75 to land and park for up to 15 minutes; $40 per hour
for parking thereafter), and I jumped into a taxi to have lunch with David Chesky and Maria Schneider.
David is a composer, musician, and record company owner. Maria is
a jazz artist who sang the praises of ArtistShare, a service via which
artists get a much bigger slice of the pie than from record
companies. I tried not to get in the middle. After lunch,
we all cabbed backed to the heliport so that they could watch me take
off. Tony had stayed at the heliport to schmooze with the turbine
helicopter pilots.
The trip up the Hudson River gave us views of the Cloisters and the
George Washington Bridge. We then headed inland to land just at
sunset at the Hartford, Connecticut downtown airport (HFD). We
refueled and took off in the dark for our final leg to Hanscom Air
Force Base (BED) and put the helicopter away in its heated hangar at
around 6:15 pm.
New Orleans has been having its difficulties, but in terms of wireless Internet, the city is leaping to the forefront of American towns. Private citizens in New Orleans have a refreshingly laissez les bon temps roulez attitude towards security, which tends to encourage access. From Ernie The Attorneys’s house in the Uptown area, for example, my laptop could see four 802.11 networks. All were free and open. It was almost like being back in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
The City of New Orleans itself is offering free wireless Internet throughout downtown (CNN story), even though this violates a state law (the phone companies have been paying off state legislatures throughout the United States to pass laws preventing cities from offering free wireless; New Orleans is doing this in violation of Lousiana state law as long as a “state of emergency” exists; Ernie the Attorney has some links to the relevant laws in his blog posting).
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