Transportation – Page 4

Travel demons and demons of history

Aviation, History, Personal No Responses »

Jan 292013

Travel demons were out to get me yesterday. First, my flight from Ottawa to Chicago was canceled and I was rebooked on a later flight. (At least I did get to Dallas eventually.) Next, the Dallas Sheraton was overbooked for whatever reason (maintenance, they say) and instead of being able to go to bed (finally) at 2 AM, I was shuffled over to the Hyatt. (At least it was something nearby, not all the way across town in Fort Worth.) Third, the room the Hyatt first assigned to me turned out to have been already occupied by a very morose person who quite understandably did not take it kindly that someone was trying to barge in on him in the middle of the night. (At least his door was securely locked, so I did not actually manage to barge in.) Fourth, the room I finally ended up in was rather noisy, in part because of a neighbor listening to a very loud television at 4 AM, in part because of the trains right under my window. (At least I was on a high floor.)

Yet if things didn’t turn out this way, I would not have woken up to a very unexpected, deeply historic sight through my window.

Yes, the infamous Book Depository building. The very place from which Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly fired his fatal bullet, when I was just a few months old.

Amazing.

21st century

Aviation, Internet, Personal No Responses »

Jan 292013

I may be sitting on board a decidedly 20th century airplane but I suddenly feel like I arrived in the 21st at last… being able to check my email and post to my blog from 30,000 feet.

Shoveling

Local Ottawa, Personal, Transportation No Responses »

Dec 212012

My other extracurricular activity today involved a shovel.

That is because we ended up with quite a few inches of wet, heavy snow, courtesy of this year’s first major winter storm. And I like to shovel the snow off my balcony, rather than let it rot the deck and leak in through our balcony door.

At least I didn’t have to go anywhere. Those who did had a hard time on the roads. A poor double-decker actually ended up in the ditch this morning.

But hey, we’re all still alive! Contrary to certain Mayan prophecies, the world did not come to an end. The daily struggle of our existence continues.

Not so funny Apple maps

Computers, Transportation No Responses »

Dec 112012

ios6maps I admit I, too, joined the happy chorus of Android phone owners ridiculing Apple’s decision to drop Google Maps in favor of a half-baked homegrown Apple solution in iOS6.

However, those bad maps are no joke. Apparently in Australia, several people found themselves in life-threatening situations when Apple’s mapping program guided them to a snake-infested desert instead of a tourist destination.

Faster than sound

Aviation, History No Responses »

Oct 152012

While Felix Baumgartner was getting ready to jump out of his capsule at an altitude of 39 km to begin his supersonic skydive, something else supersonic was taking place elsewhere: The man who first broke the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager, flew faster than sound again in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle. Way to go, General Yeager! I hope I will be at least half as healthy as you are when I turn 89.

Streetcars in Ottawa

History, Local Ottawa, Transportation No Responses »

Oct 022012

A few days ago, I was reading a Hungarian language blog about how over the decades the streetcar systems of Budapest and other Hungarian cities were decimated or outright eliminated. While many blamed the communist regime for this, unfortunately there was a worldwide trend back then to get rid of “obsolete” surface light rail and replace them with “modern” motorways.

Take the case of our fine capital city. Ottawa is about to embark on its costliest public works project yet, a more than two billion (!) dollar project to build a light rail network. The sad thing is that Ottawa once had a respectable surface light rail system. After searching a bit online, I was able to find a system map from 1948. How lucky we would be if this system were still in existence.

Bad drivers cause crashes

Personal, Programming, Transportation No Responses »

Sep 272012

Earlier this morning, I came across the following headline on Google News: “Fewer crashes when docs report bad drivers, study finds“.

The headline almost made sense. Yes, bad drivers cause crashes, indeed the main reason why modern operating systems crash these days is bad third-party drivers. So being able to identify and report a bad driver kind of makes sense, but how would you do that? And what does it have to do with your docs? Did the author mean perhaps that a document, say, an HTML page, could display a warning about a bad driver instead of invoking the driver (e.g., to display video) and risk crashing the browser or the computer?

Then, about three tenths of a second later, I realized that the headline was about road accidents and medical doctors.

A not quite electric streetcar in the Far North

History, Local Ottawa, Transportation No Responses »

Sep 252012

How do you operate a streetcar line that is not electrified? Why, you can always have the streetcar pull its own generator.

This is how the streetcar line in Whitehorse seems to operate. Something I stumbled across as I was reading about the sad history of Ottawa’s long defunct streetcar service.

Curiously, the color scheme of this former Lisbon streetcar happens to be nearly identical to the traditional color scheme used for streetcars in the city of my birth, Budapest. Another city with a streetcar network that, while not completely destroyed, has been much diminished over the years by misguided urban planners.

Mapping, Apple style

Computers, Transportation 1 Response »

Sep 212012

It is not nice to laugh at the misfortune of others, but I found the weird maps of the new Apple mapping app in iOS6 quite hilarious. Once I was done laughing at misplaced or missing landmarks, a flattened Eiffel tower, roller-coaster freeways, flattened and extruded cityscapes, I came across two of the best images yet.

One uses the new Internet meme, the unfortunate attempt of a Spanish lady to touch up a deteriorating fresco, to illustrate the point.

The other? Why, it’s just a photograph of a sign at a British railyway (?) station somewhere, informing hapless iOS6 customers about the availability of old-fashioned paper maps at the ticket office…

TaserDrone

Aviation, Film, Technology No Responses »

Aug 302012

To those friends of mine who think I am nuts when I express my concerns about the inevitable coming of Skynet (from the Terminator movies)… say hello to TaserDrone.

Yes I know, it’s just a proof-of-concept prototype and not a very efficient one at that, but still…

Memories

Aviation, Personal, Programming No Responses »

Aug 102012

It was over thirty years ago, back in 1979-1980, that I first earned money from a software development contract. My first assignment? Aircraft simulation, specifically tabulating the minimum safe take-off distance of TU-154 aircraft at Budapest airport under various loads and weather conditions.

Alas, the Hungarian national airline, MALÉV, is no more. But as of today, I became the proud owner of a MALÉV TU-154 B-2, with the original MALÉV markings.

No, not the real thing, I’m not that rich (and even if I were that rich, I’d not be spending my money on obsolete Russian aircraft), just a beautiful diecast model. Still, it’s a nice reminder.

Happy birthday, Amelia!

Aviation, History, Legal No Responses »

Jul 242012

Today would be the 115th birthday of Amelia Earhart, the pioneer female aviator. Google is celebrating with a Google Doodle, showing Ms. Earhart climbing onto a what appears to be a Lockheed Vega 5B (which is not the same as the famed two-engine Electra 10E in which she disappeared.)

Ms. Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The exact circumstances remain a mystery. At the request of her husband, she was declared legally dead on January 5, 1939, by a California court.

The reason why I looked up her official date of death was that I came across “the official Website” of Ms. Earhart. I put this in quotes because I found it odd that a person who disappeared 75 years ago can have an “official Website”, but then, what do I know? So I went and looked to see what the site was. While the site’s stated purpose is “to honor the life, the legend and the career of Amelia Earhart”, it is fairly evident that the real goal is to market the Earhart brand. Indeed, in the Site Purpose section, they warn would be users with stern language: “Any use of the name, image or likeness of Amelia Earhart , without the express written consent of the estate is strictly prohibited.”

Now I know precious little about personality rights in the United States, but I found this warning curious. Be it far from me to pick a fight with lawyers, but exactly who are these people doing the prohibiting, and on what grounds?

The site is marked “© Family of Amelia Earhart”, but the FAQ states that any e-mail sent through this site “goes to the webmaster of CMG Worldwide, the company that represents the name/image/likeness of Amelia Earhart”. So this is a full-fledged marketing operation. Nothing wrong with that (in fact, I appreciate their candor) but that still leaves my question unanswered: exactly what rights do they have to Ms. Earhart’s name?

Well, if Wikipedia can be believed: none. Had Ms. Earhart been domiciled in Indiana at the time of her death, her estate would hold the rights for another 27 years or so. But in California, the personality rights for a celebrity expire after 70 years. So to the best of my knowledge, Ms. Earhart’s likeness and indeed, anything related to her personality, are now in the public domain. (Not necessarily photographs. The copyright status of those may depend on when the photographer died.)

But then it occurred to me to check Ms. Earhart’s site using archive.org’s Wayback Machine. Unsurprisingly, the site has been in existence for many years. Although its visual style changed, much of the text remains the same, including text in the Site Purpose section. And back in 2003 (the date of the earliest version archived by the Wayback Machine) Ms. Earhart’s personality rights would still have been protected under California law.

Meanwhile, Ms. Earhart’s disappearance must remain a mystery for now. The latest expedition to locate her aircraft was called off as it ran into unexpected difficulties.

Stolen car found… 42 years later

Internet, Society, Transportation No Responses »

Jul 132012

Just heard this while listening to the evening jazz program Tonic on CBC Radio 2: a Texas man, whose Austin-Healey convertible was stolen in 1970, found it listed on eBay 42 years later! After a bit of a hassle (mainly because the vehicle’s VIN was misfiled in the FBI’s database) he was able to reclaim it, no doubt much to the distress of the California car dealer who may have bought it in good faith.

Hijacking a drone

Aviation, Computer Security, Technology No Responses »

Jun 302012

Last year, many people debated whether or not the Iranians had the wherewithal to hijack that US military drone which they were so proudly displaying afterwards.

Well, wonder no more. Apparently a team from the University of Texas at Austin showed how it can be done using equipment that cost no more than a thousand bucks.

OK, you say, but this drone was using the non-encrypted civilian GPS signal. True… except that if you simply jam the encrypted signal, many military drones fall back (or at least, used to fall back) to using the civilian signal. (As designed, the encryption was primarily about preventing an adversary from using the high accuracy military GPS signal, not about preventing spoofing.)

Shuttle cockpit goes dark

Aviation, Space No Responses »

May 112012

Here is a photograph of the cockpit of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, powered up for the very last time ever:

It is an emotional moment. But we must not let those emotions get in the way of reason. The Shuttle program swallowed up huge amounts of money and these orbiters, however wonderful, didn’t really take humanity anywhere.

Just consider: the Shuttle flew a few hundred kilometers from the surface of planet Earth. That is one one-thousandths (!) of the distance to the Moon, visited by Apollo astronauts over 40 years ago. But no human has been beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) since Apollo 17 flew in late 1972. Now if all goes well, in a few short years one of the very first missions of NASA’s new spacecraft, the Orion capsule, may take humans beyond the Moon, to the L2 Lagrange point. At last, this is real exploration again… not just a routine (albeit dangerous) taxiing between the surface and LEO.

And the taxiing is not going to stop for Americans. The Dragon capsule of SpaceX corporation is set to fly to the International Space Station next week. It is still an unmanned flight but if all goes well, perhaps the next time they’ll ferry not just cargo but also people.

Russia just cannot catch break

Aviation, Space No Responses »

May 102012

It’s one setback after another, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Last year it was Phobos-Grunt, Russia’s attempt to return to deep space beyond Earth orbit after a 15-year hiatus. Alas, Phobos-Grunt never managed to go too far… it failed to reach escape orbit and eventually fell back to the Earth.

And now, it’s the Sukhoi Superjet’s turn. After more than two decades, Russia is again trying to capture a small segment of the passenger jet market. Their demonstration model was on an Asian tour, trying to impress new customers. Well, they certainly created an impression… just not the impression they were hoping for. More tragically, 48 souls perished.

I suppose that from a Canadian (or Brazilian) perspective, this should be considered “good news”, since the Sukhoi Superjet 100 is intended to compete in a market that is dominated by Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer. But I don’t find this comforting. In fact, for the sake of the future of Russia’s commercial jet industry, I hope that this tragic accident will turn out to be a case of pilot error. Controlled flight into terrain.

Last flight of Discovery

Aviation, History, Space No Responses »

Apr 172012

The Space Shuttle Discovery is on its way to its final resting place.

Many lament the end of the Shuttle program. They shouldn’t. Beautiful as these machines were, they really stifled the American space program. For decades, countless billions of dollars were spent… on going around, and around, and around, in low-Earth orbit, ultimately getting nowhere.

When Barack Obama opted for a variant of the Augustine Commission‘s “flexible path” approach, some pundits called it the end of America’s space dominance. I think the contrary is true. Instead of opting for an overly ambitious but ultimately unrealistic space program that would eventually die on the floors of Congress due to lack of funding, Obama chose a space program that places the emphasis on sustainable development: a long term vision of expanding human presence beyond Earth orbit in the solar system, not necessarily with spectacular landings on Mars (however desirable such a landing may be, it’s also insanely risky and expensive) but with building the infrastructure for a permanent human presence beyond the protective shield of the Earth’s radiation belts.

Goodbye, Malév

Aviation, Hungary, Personal No Responses »

Feb 032012

Hungary’s flagship airline is no more: after 66 years of operations, Malév unceremoniously stopped flying after two of its airplanes were grounded in Tel Aviv by a demand for advance payment for fuel and services.

Though the news is not unexpected (Malév has been in deep trouble ever since it was ordered to repay several hundred million dollars worth of state subsidies that were deemed illegal by the European Union), I am still saddened. My first ever professional contract in 1979 (yes, I was still in high school) was to write code to simulate the take-off of Malév-owned TU-134 aircraft at Budapest’s Ferihegy airport under various adverse conditions, calculating the maximum safe take-off weight. I also have other memories, such as nearly missing a Malév flight in Bucharest in 1983, as in Ceausescu’s capital by that time, fuel was scarce, public transport was unreliable, and taxicabs fueled by natural gas were not accepting passengers to the airport due to the chronic fuel shortage and rationing. (I hitchhiked and caught my flight with only seconds to spare.) Ferihegy Airport without Malév is just not the same.

The route of Costa Concordia

Transportation No Responses »

Jan 182012

Courtesy of Lloyd’s List (a maritime publication that I don’t think I ever heard of previously) we now know the route of the ill-fated cruise ship Costa Concordia, and also that at least on one previous occasion, it followed a nearly identical route. One speculation is that the captain may have been using a low-resolution British naval chart (and thus when he asserted that the rock his ship ran into was not on the chart, he may have been telling the truth). This chart should never have been used for coastal navigation; indeed, a ship the size of the Costa Concordia (as large as a supercarrier) had no business being that near a rocky shore in the first place.

Air France

Aviation 1 Response »

May 012011

It has been nearly two years since the catastrophic loss of an Air France airliner over the Atlantic. Our only information about the possible cause of the crash came from automated radio messages as the airplane’s flight data recorder has never been found… until now, that is. Astonishingly, after the empty (!) housing of the flight data recorder was located a few days ago, it appears now that its contents, namely its memory module, was also found in good condition.

My first thought was that if we’re capable of finding an item smaller than a briefcase under a couple of miles of ocean in an area larger than most countries, we truly own this planet. And now, perhaps, we’ll find out once and for all what happened to that poor airplane and the over 200 souls on board.

My initial guess was lightning (the possibility is real that a lightning strike could do significantly more damage to a carbon composite airplane than an all metal airframe) but that was before I learned about a possible failure of the airspeed indicator. At high altitude, this can be a problem: if the speed is too low, the airplane stalls, if it is too high, the airplane is overstressed, and the higher the altitude, the smaller the difference between these two speeds, and the more important it is to have an accurate airspeed reading.

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