The pace of training is increasing to about two flights per week, faster than my ability to blog each flight. Tonight I conducted five touch-and-gos at Austin Bergstrom. Remaining in the pattern at Austin is slightly more perplexing than the usual flights we take to smaller, more rural fields like Lockhart. Winds this afternoon were 15-25 knots, presenting strong cross winds that were compounded by heavy thermals over paved areas and highways around the airport. Traffic wasn’t especially heavy, but we were regularly position between MD-80s and 737s as early evening arrivals picked up around 5pm.
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Details of Amazon’s Kindle Tablet
Just before the Labor Day weekend, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler went hands-on with a prototype of the upcoming Amazon Kindle tablet. Siegler writes that the color tablet will feature a deeply branded reboot of the Android OS. Amazon is eyeing a November release, according to the report.Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, I believe the reports that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like the iPad uses) are accurate. This will be the first Kindle with a full-color screen. And yes, it is back-lit. There is no e-ink to be found anywhere on this device.
I’m a huge fan of the Kindle for two reasons. The first being that it’s neatly tied to Amazon, allowing me to purchase content and send it directly to the device, or access it through my iPhone or through the new Web-based reader. Second, e-Ink is incredibly readable; It’s far more easy to read for extended lengths than my iPad’s screen. It will be a shame if the Kindle Tablet doesn’t retain that level of readability. Expect leaked images of the prototypes screen at any time.
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Woman scammed by wooden iPad salesmen
Via The Smoking Gun:
Ashley McDowell, 22, told deputies that she was approached by two black males who claimed to have purchased iPads in bulk and were selling them for $300 apiece. After McDowell explained that she only had $180, the duo agreed to sell her the device at a cut rate. But when McDowell drove home and opened the FedEx box containing the iPad, she instead discovered the wood with the Apple logo. The “screen”–which was framed with black tape–included replicas of iPad icons for Safari, mail, photos, and an iPod.
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Call Tim, to see how his day is going
Screenshot of Steve Jobs’ calendar. Heartwarming.
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Celebrating 102
I’m a huge fan of my wife’s grandmother, who earlier this year turned 102. Fanny May Bruce was born in 1909, and she has lived a terrific life. She’s truly a witness to history. I was excited to setup a website in her honor that features clips and videos representing just a tiny part of her life as it was covered by several West Texas newspapers over the past year or two.
via Fanny May Bruce’s life blog:
[Fanny May Bruce] has enjoyed working with her hands. If she needed a piece of furniture to fit in a certain space in her home, she built it. Fanny May’s home is filled with many beautiful hand crafted pieces of furniture. In addition to the woodworking, she is an accomplished artist. When asked what her favorite color to use in her art work, she replied, “Whatever needs to be there.” One learns that this is a lady that doesn’t waste time with idle chat or thoughts.
More: FannyMayBruce.com
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Siracusa’s excellent Lion review
In the same way that Mac OS X so clearly showed the rest of the industry what user interfaces would look like in the years to come, Apple’s own iOS has now done the same for its decade-old desktop operating system. iOS was less shocking to users because it appeared to come from nothing, and the mobile operating system conventions it defied were ones that nobody liked anyway. The same is not true on the desktop, where users cling like victims of Stockholm syndrome to mechanics that have hurt them time and again.
It may be many years before even half of the applications on a typical Mac behave according to the design principles introduced in Lion. The transition period could be ugly, especially compared to the effortless uniformity of iOS. In the meantime, let Apple’s younger platform serve as a lighthouse in the storm. The Mac will always be more capable than its mobile brethren, but that doesn’t mean that simple tasks must also be harder on the Mac. Imagine being able to stick a computer neophyte in front of an iMac with the same confidence that you might hand that neophyte an iPad today.
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Flight Training Journal for June 11: Landings
Today’s flight begins just after 8 am. CFI Dakota Zigrang is in the right seat covering for George, who has a scheduling conflict. I preflight our plane, N733CP, and get a quick lesson from Dakota in visually checking fuel levels in each wing tank; this requires a remarkably ungraceful and awkward climb up on top of the wing, where I imagine my presence as being wildly comical to anyone who happens to be watching from afar, akin to a shaved guerilla balancing on a beach ball.
Dakota designates me as pilot-in-command and leaves to me the decision whether to fly with a well-worn right tire. Per the FAA Handbook, the tire is still airworthy until its steel radial strips are visible and exposed. I tell Dakota that I’m comfortable flying with the worn tire, and we resume our preflight. I’m on the radios, obtaining Ground/Clearance, squawk code, taxi instructions, and departure headings. My radio communications are still choppy, but I’m making great strides compared to several weeks ago.
After a quick taxi we takeoff from KAUS from Runway 17L and experience relatively smooth flying up to 3,000 feet. Our aircraft isn’t configured for IFR flight, so Dakota directs me to slalom through some unexpected cloud cover that crept up on us by surprise. By keeping our aircraft out of the clouds, we remain visible to other aircraft in the area.
We enter the traffic pattern at Lockhart with relative ease despite there being some other traffic in the area. Dakota keeps a light touch on the controls, but trusts me to bring us in on the small airfield. Clean, precise landings depend on the proper sequence of events: Enter the approach downwind, throttle back to about 1700 RPM to bleed-off speed, dropping flaps by 10-degree increments until established on final, and keeping the nose positioned slightly downward while making base leg and turn-to-final to avoid stalls.
Dakota helps me understand the need to visually focus on the runway numbers, eventually setting the aircraft down directly on top of the paint. After flaring, touching down, and applying brakes, I experience some difficulty remembering to maintain firm back pressure on the controls to prevent stress (and buffeting) on the nose wheel’s suspension during our landing roll.
After clearing the runway, we “clean up” the airplane’s configuration by adjusting mixture to two fingers, putting our flaps up and turning off our landing lights. We taxi, takeoff and go several more times before making a smooth flight back to KAUS. We enter the pattern for 17L, and are cleared for a number two landing behind Continental commuter jet, requiring us to keep a safe distance in order to avoid its wake turbulence.
Michael Castellon 