Maidentrip, An Indie film 2013

14 year old Laura Dekker, a Dutch girl, wanted to sail around the world, single handed.  She does it.  She also narrates the film, and took all the at sea video.  It's a heartwarming tale.  Laura films scene after scene, of good weather, of her ketch foaming along with a bone in her teeth, of a cheerful sunlit cabin, of threatening thunder heads, of glorious sunsets, and of running the lee rail under in heavy weather.  Clearly Laura loves to sail and loved the trip.  It takes a while, she sets off at age 14, and is 16 by the time she finishes.  You can see her growing up in the video, she looks a lot more grown up at the end of the trip than at the beginning.
   There were a few technical details that I would have enjoyed knowing, like about her boat.  I never did catch a name for it.  She did mention that it was forty feet long, which makes it a big yacht.  I never saw it sailing under Genoa job, the sail of choice of modern yachts.  Did Laura know celestial navigation or did she rely upon electronics to guide her from port to port?  There are no shots of Laura holding a sextant or consulting a chronometer.  No comments upon how well the autopilot could hold course at night while Laura was sleeping.  No comments upon what her yacht did for electric power during 18 day passages off shore.  Did she have to run the auxiliary engine once a day to charge the batteries?  Did she carry solar cells or a wind driven generator? 
   Anyhow, a heartwarming film.  I enjoyed it.  The photography is very good, especially for an indie film.  Netflix has it.   

International Aviation Market Forecast for 2015

Interesting chart in Aviation Week about commercial aircraft production.  Comercial being jetliners, regional jet liners, utility aircraft.  No biz jets.  No military aircraft and no helicopters.  Sales forecasts are all for the next ten years. 
First thing that comes out in that there are only two real makers of full sized jet airliners, Airbus and Boeing.  Airbus is projected to build 7000 jet liners.  Boeing is projected to build 7400.  When you think that each aircraft sells for $50-100 million, that's a lotta business. 
  Then there are builders who are pretty much dead.  Ilyushin is projected to build just two IL-96 wide body jetliners.  At that production rate, they are losing barrels of money on each plane.  And we have Tupolev's TU 204/214 single aisle jet liner with a forecast of a mere 9 aircraft.  Let's guess the Russian government is subsidizing Ilyushin and Tupolev to keep the production lines open just in case they can line up some orders.  Good luck with that.  I hear the Aeroflot is advertising that they fly western built aircraft on all their overseas routes. 
   Then we have the regional jet liners.  These look like regular single aisle airliners, but they are smaller and seat few passengers, less than 90, as compared to a 737 which seats 150-180 depending upon model.  The regional jet liner makers are new comers, Embraer (Brazil) , Bombardier (Canada), and Comac (China).  Presumably it is easier to break into the jet liner market at the bottom, and perhaps small jets can be sold to the various puddle jumper airlines still flying small turboprops.  Sales projection are a hundred or so for each maker.  This market doesn't look all that hot.
  And then we have some surprisingly strong utility aircraft.  Beech King Air is forecast to sell 1302 aircraft.  That's more than all the regional jet makers put together.  The Pilatus PC-12 is forecast to sell 846 aircraft.  Even though utility aircraft don't bring in the money that regular jet liners do, that's still a nice bit of business. 

Telephone Scam, Second Edition

So I answered the phone.  I think it was the same scammer as before.  Had the same foreign accent as the guy last month.  .  So I told him I thought he was a scammer.  So he claimed he was calling from Microsoft.  I told him Microsoft never calls anyone, in fact, Microsoft doesn't even answer the phone if you call them.  So he blew me a couple of feeble insults and hung up. 
   The scammers are out there. 

Ultra Pricey

The Christmas catalog rush is warming up.  Exhibit A, "Chefs, Best Kitchen Starts Here".  Cookware, counter top appliances, baking dishes, pots and pans.  Nice stuff.  I cook a bit, and am partial to decent kitchen stuff. 
  Well, the stuff in this catalog had better be decent.  They have  $500 toasters, $500 mixers, $100 fry pans, $140 knives, and $200 soup pots. 
   Too rich for my blood.  Even as gifts. 

What is Net Neutrality?

What ever it is, Obama is in favor of it.  Especially when he gets to make the rules.  What ever it is, the FCC will gain control over the internet, a control that the Supreme Court has denied them earlier this year. 
   The current internet works pretty good for me.  I get broadband for $14.99 a month.  It's fast enough for movies.  I can go to any site I please.  Email goes thru, it's nearly as dependable as snail mail.  What's not to like?  And lets not mess it up. 
   There is some controversy about streaming video.  the video outfits (Netflix) love streaming video.  The service providers are luke warm, video sucks up fantastic amounts of bandwidth. requiring expensive new lines to be buried in the dirt.  The service providers, given their druthers, would charge extra for streaming video, and assign it a lower priority to allow email, web surfing, googling, and other net services to run at regular speed and streaming video to run when it doesn't interfere with other services.  They don't do that now, but they have been muttering about it. 
   Obama has messed up so many things, the economy, international relations, Iraq, healthcare, Solyndra, and my electric rates.  He has the reverse Midas touch, everything he touches turns to garbage.  With a record like that, lets keep his hands off the Internet. 

The Norks are making nice.

I wonder why.  They have released three American prisoners, which is better than average for the Norks.  I haven't heard of any negotiations, over say nukes, or economic aid, or lifting of sanctions, or anything like that.  There are the "six power" talks about nukes which have been stalled out for quite a while.  I haven't heard anything from the South Koreans, who often know more than we do about the North. 
   Has Obama made an under-the-table secret offer to the Norks?
   I think the Norks have a greater need to keep on China's good side than they do for us Americans.  China is subsidizing the Norks, to keep 'em running, fearing that a worse breakdown of Nork economy might kick off a revolution that ends up with the new North Korean government joining South Korea, a development that the Chinese cannot approve of.   

Immigration, comprehensive reform

Obama is on Face the Nation right now.  He wants "immigration reform" and is saying that if Congress doesn't do it, he will do it by executive order.  He isn't saying what kind of reform he wants.  In fact there are a lot of angles to immigration, some of them acceptable to the voters and a lot of them not acceptable.   A whole bunch of voters see immigrants as competitors for jobs, education, and wages. They fear immigrants will work for less, and depress their wages.  Unions see things this way.  "Progressives" see immigrants as potential democratic voters. 
Angle 1.  Legalizing the 10 or 11 million illegals in the country right now.  Or legalizing some of them.  Or just letting them alone, give up trying to deport them.  Or legalizing the kids, or college graduates or veterans.
Angle 2.  Allowing more workers, farm workers, programmers and high tech workers in.  Industry and growers are all in favor of this.  There is a shortage of farm workers who will do the hard work for little money.  There is always a shortage high tech workers.
Angle 3.  Revise immigration policy to favor the young, the educated,  over family members.  Current policy favors the elderly parents of citizens over young workers who can man our industries.
Angle 4.  "Securing" the border.  Nobody has said just how secure they want.  Do they want to build something like the Berlin Wall across the Mexican border?  Me, I'd settle for a chain link fence, a perimeter road, and daily patrols.
Angle 5.  How many immigrants will we accept each year?  10,000? A million?  3 million?

A comprehensive immigration bill might say something about all the angles.  Which requires Congressmen to come to agreement as to what angles go into the "comprehensive" bill.  It might be easier to pass a "non comprehensive" bill which just addresses the few angles that we can get some agreement on.