Isolation diaries

[ShottleBop]

NY Summer weather is weird. Very warm and humid. We've had clouds most of the day (leaves the interior of the house dark), and thundershowers on a couple of them. Doesn't cool off much at night.

[vremya]

Some venues are booking live music again (yay) but the ticket prices are waaaay higher than they were pre-pandemic (boooo)

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

This past Sunday, we went to MOMA PS 1 in Queens to see the Nikki de Saint Phalle exhibit.

Oooh, I like her and am envious.

Back when I was a teenager working at a convenience store, I spent a pretty big chunk of my paltry wages on her perfume for the really cool bottle, which I still have around here somewhere.

[Ari]

Pfft, who would spend a bunch of money on a perfume bottle... OH! Yeah, that makes sense.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Oooh, I like her and am envious.

Back when I was a teenager working at a convenience store, I spent a pretty big chunk of my paltry wages on her perfume for the really cool bottle, which I still have around here somewhere.

Yeah, they had some of those on display. I would totally have purchased a replica, had they sold them in the bookstore.

If you ever make it to the San Diego metro area, there is a major installation (Queen Califia's Magic Circle) in Kit Carson Park, in Escondido. We like to take visitors there. (Currently open Tuesdays only, from 9 to noon.)


https://www.escondido.org/queen-califias-magical-circle

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Ari

Pfft, who would spend a bunch of money on a perfume bottle... OH! Yeah, that makes sense.

Google Image Result for https://cdn0.rubylane.com/_pod/item/168800/19P178x20GT/Niki-de-Saint-Phalle-Perfume-Body-pic-1A-2048%3A10.10-6c883454-f.jpg

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

Google Image Result for https://cdn0.rubylane.com/_pod/item/168800/19P178x20GT/Niki-de-Saint-Phalle-Perfume-Body-pic-1A-2048%3A10.10-6c883454-f.jpg

She sold perfume, jewelry, books, etc. to support her public art--to reduce her dependence on rich patrons.

[ShottleBop]

Home again. Real coffee (as in, "not flavored"). Own bed. Dogs happy.

[vremya]

Nothing like coming home to your own bed.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by ShottleBop

Real coffee (as in, "not flavored"). .

I've just had some iced coffee with hazelnut milk and hazelnut sirop de noisettes. The idea and the hazelnut milk are from Little Miss JoeP who was here recently.

[ShottleBop]

Oldest son comes home, tonight. Since January 1, he's been in NY, working as night nurse for our youngest son's baby, born last November.

Yesterday, the baby took control of her food--refuses to eat unless SHE is holding the spoon and putting it to her mouth. And still takes a bottle, but keeps both hands on it at all times.

[vremya]

That's an independent babby!

[JoeP]

Taking control of things is core to many developments as we grow up.

Including toddlers refusing to get into the bath if you allow any negotiation ... and after two hours in the bath, refusing to get out.

[Miisa]

Waaah, I broke my Groke mug! And lost all the coffee it had in it!

[JoeP]

[JoeP]

Was there any coffee-induced damage to clothes? computer equipment? cubicle walls? colleagues?

[Miisa]

It happened at my home office (still now working on an approx. 12/13-hour shift) and yes, there was coffee in my lap, on my chair and on the floor. But the mug is tragicallyforever broken.

It is a particularly popular design which is sometimes hard to find as The Groke is Mörkö in Finnish and that is what a heroic and beloved ice hockey player is called (based on his actual name Marko)

[ShottleBop]

Yesterday, I drove up to LA with daughter no. 2 to pick up her car, repaired after a collision a few weeks ago. Her insurance paid for a rental, so she drove up, then I drove her car over to the dropoff site, and drove her home. Left the house at 8:45 for a 9:00 pickup of the car down here that took until 9:55. 2.5 hours to the body shop, then dropped off the rental, visited some nearby friends and had lunch, then left LA just after 2:30. Got home at 6. Talked son no. 1 into picking up Mexican for dinner.

Today, grandson is coming over for Father's Day dinner and to play Cards Against Humanity.

[Ari]

One of the youtube rabbit holes I’ve gone down are aviation videos and I’ve been taking some notes on bits that I found important. One has been a few videos looking at reducing the number of deaths in general aviation, especially given how low it is in Commercial aviation.

A flight instructor on FlightChops, asked some GA and Commercial pilots,
“If you’re flying your jet at 1,500 feet and let it get slow, stall and spun, would you be able to recover it in time before hitting the earth?”

GA Pilots,
“Yeah! maybe.” “I’d like to think so.”
Commercial airline pilots,
“No.” “Nope.” “Oh no.” “That would be pretty difficult.”

This right here seems to make one of the big differences. Airline pilots are taught that there are certain conditions that it’s so unlikely to recover from that they take extra precautions not to get into them, and do preflight work to know the exact numbers they must stay above to keep it from happening. Not that they aren’t also taught how to recover from a spin, but that if they have kept above their minimum requirements they will have plenty of time and energy to deal with it.

Which isn’t to say that it’s just spin stalls that crash planes, but the confusion caused by an unexpected event which then causes the pilot to no longer know what the correct inputs are, can bounce out of control from there. Airline pilots more so than general aviation go over a set of axioms and make calculated with numbers and math decisions on the ground before hand. That way when an unexpected event occurs they are less likely to be distracted to the point of missing their window of opportunity, or to have just a single event cause a chain reaction that results in a loss of control.

(If you’ve ever wondered “Why don’t airplanes just have a big parachute” there in fact is a line of single engine prop planes with a built in parachute pack and at first it’s accident record wasn’t any better, until they started convincing pilots to use the parachute at the first sign it was serious and needed and not try to ride it out and recover.)

[LarsMac]

A lot of those kinds of responses depend on the type of of plane they're flying, too.
Ask that question of a guy that flies the A320, or 747, and you'll get a different response than from the guy who flies a turbo-prop Island hopper, or a DC-9.
and a 747 at 1500 feat is barely off the ground. If something goes hinky for them at 1500 ft they are basically fucked.

Edit:
So my nephew and his buddy were sitting here on the porch with us, when I read Ari's post.
His buddy is one of the few non-former-Military commercial pilots. That was basically his response. For myself, I still ride with them commercial guys, but I'd just go with the GA response. "I'd like to think so"

[Ari]

Oh indeed, it’s more the certainty of the answer. A spin stall in a jet at 1,500ft is considered so unrecoverable that they’ve taken precautions to never get slow enough for it to happen. So that if something that is likely recoverable at low altitude occurs, like a bird strike or compressor stall, they don’t accidentally cause the unrecoverable scenario while being distracted by or trying to deal with the recoverable one.

Also since I’m not sure I included it, one big answer is a minimum speed. It’s speed that’s keeping the wings producing lift, thus staying above a minimum speed, however they can, even if it means losing altitude to do it, is much better than getting close to stall. In commercial flying this minimum speed is figured out in preflight and then marked on controls so there’s no thinking, just “If I’m flying it should be above this line.”

[lisarea]

I like when every now and again you find out people are nerds in ways you didn't know about before.

[Ymir's blood]

None of this changes the fact that Jet Fuel can't melt Steel Beams!

[wei yau]

I've noticed something about myself lately.

Wearing a mask didn't bother me at all, I was fine with and kinda liked how it hid many of my facial faults. I wore it the whole time we were in lockdown, every shopping excursion, etc.

And then they relaxed the mask requirements. At first, I kept the mask on as a "just in case". But, lately, I've been comfortable with keeping the mask off. All of a sudden, what didn't bother me before, became a nuisance.

And now it looks like we are going to have to put masks on again.

This time it bothers me.

[vremya]

MN dropped most of its mask requirements, so I was running around at my doctor's appointments yesterday without a mask which is a total no-no. It elicited a couple of horrified gasps.

We still have to wear masks on public transit, and I think in some schools (I don't have any kids, so I'm not real up on that one)