VICTORY TO UKRAINE!
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Not all programs in YSFLIGHT.COM are open source. But, you can download some of the source code from the following URL.
https://github.com/captainys/public
VICTORY TO UKRAINE!
This summer was more fulfilling than any I've had before. There are just too many fun things in the world.
I started by finishing two retro games that had been piling up: Drakken and Vain Dream. For Drakken, the puzzles were so difficult that I had to look up a walkthrough. The FM TOWNS version of Drakken had voice acting by famous voice actors, but there were no subtitles, and some of the lines were only said once. If you missed a line, you'd have to reset to hear the information again. A lot of the dialogue was also irrelevant, so listening to all of it was a huge pain. There were also many lines that guided you in the wrong direction, so I gave up on my initial goal of clearing the game on my own while taking notes. This game was probably a hit because it was one of the first of its kind to let you wander around a vast 3D field (by the standards of the time). But if it were released now, it would probably be roasted online. Back in the day, magazines would often have hints scattered throughout their articles before a game was even released, so players probably had some prior knowledge before they started playing.
I was able to clear Vain Dream completely on my own. However, I thought the final boss was going to be the emperor who had turned into a monster, but then the ending movie scene just started, and I was a bit confused. The one thing that's been bothering me is the description in the game's text that mentions a mini-scenario. I couldn't figure out if this referred to the snowy town or if there was an additional mini-scenario in the FM TOWNS version.
I used to think that the people who created emulators were amazing, so it was a surreal and cool experience to play these two games on an emulator that I had made myself.
I also read a few books that had been stacking up. I wanted to finish "Quarks" by Yoichiro Nambu, but the summer ended before I could.
Carnegie Mellon's 2018 quantum computing course is available on YouTube, and my goal was to watch all of it. However, it's hard to make progress when you're trying to take notes and understand everything as you go. In the end, summer was over after I had only watched the first ten lectures. But when I tried to simulate the CHSH game from the course in C++, I was able to successfully replicate the results. Quantum computing seems more interesting than AI. Everything's about AI these days, and honestly, I'm sick and tired of it.
I also took on a role as a programming mentor for the local high school's robotics club. I was shocked to find out they were controlling their robots with Java. Java has no reason to exist anymore. It's a language that should have lost to C++ and disappeared from the spotlight, but Google brought it back from the dead like a ghost to tie programmers to Android. And now it's haunting a high school robotics competition. I always thought there was something strange about Java when it first came out. C was pretty widespread, and we had finally gotten to a point where we could get decent performance without having to program with assembly to shave off cycles, and then Java comes along with a "virtual machine" that's basically an interpreter?! What is this, a throwback? That's what I thought at the time. My professor back then also said that Java was a language created in desperation by a coalition that had lost to Microsoft.
At my boss's command, I spent some time this summer studying ROS2, the standard for the robotics industry. This high school robotics competition, FRC, uses Java, but they also have their own ecosystem, which is completely different. I was worried that the unique FRC systems and such wouldn't be useful in college, but then I decided that wasn't my responsibility to worry about.
On June 13th, my wedding anniversary, my wife and I went to watch the U.S. Open Golf tournament. And I really did go, and probably from the best vantage point possible, but I couldn't actually see the game. That's because I was 3,000 feet up in the air.
There was a temporary flight restriction over the golf course that day, but it only went up to 1,000 feet from the ground, so it didn't affect me at 3,000 feet (which is about 1,800 feet from the ground around here). The smoke from the Canadian wildfires was covering a wide area over the U.S., though, so visibility was poor.
From June 27th to the 29th, the world's largest rubber duck came to Idlewild and Soakzone, a theme park near Latrobe, so I went to see it from both the ground and the air.
It was huge.
On July 3rd, my wife went back to Japan, so I lived alone for about three weeks.
During that time, I tried using Google Gemini as a running coach and got some advice on a training schedule. It recommended a cycle of: a pace run (30 minutes at 7.2 mph), intervals (30 minutes of alternating between 1.5 minutes at 8 mph and 2.5 minutes at 6 mph), and a slow and long run (45 minutes at 6 mph).
Then, on July 11th, I, who had never tried anything other than 5K race, decided to enter my first one-mile race, America's Mile. My usual pace is about 8 minutes and 20 seconds per mile, so I set that as my goal time. After the 0.75-mile mark, I realized I still had some energy left. Around 0.8 miles, I decided to try picking up the pace to the 8 mph I use for my interval training. I was able to finish the race and still had energy left. To my surprise, I finished in 7 minutes and 41 seconds! That was 39 seconds faster than my goal time. It's interesting how the strategy for a 5K is different from a one-mile race. Next, I think I'll aim for 7 minutes and 30 seconds in the one-mile race. I think that's a pretty good time for a guy in his 50s.
From July 20th to the 23rd, I went to AirVenture, an airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I'd been told that every pilot should go at least once, and this year, I finally made it.
AirVenture was heaven. The song "Gandhara" by Godiego kept playing in my head. "Oh, they said it was somewhere in the west, so that's what that meant?!" I had never been surrounded by that many airplanes in my life. I thought a normal airshow was an event where you wake up early, line up in the parking lot, admire planes all day in the scorching heat, do some pull-ups (?), drink some beer, and then go home. But in Oshkosh, they sell planes. They sell airplane parts, too. My Telex noise-cancelling headset had just broken and become a regular headset, so I bought a new noise-cancelling headset for $450.
They also sold merchandise in air-conditioned booths.
While hot dogs or hamburgers are standard airshow fare, there was a Dunkin' Donuts. How luxury is it to be able to have a breakfast of donuts and coffee at an airshow?
I saw a plane drawing a smiley face in the sky.
Planes were constantly flying in and landing on the runway. They were making their turn from base to final pretty low, so I wondered if I could do that.
One of only two airworthy B-29s in the world, FiFi, landed and was towed to a static display area. The other one, DOC, was flying by overhead about once an hour.
Planes were everywhere. If that's not Gandhara, what is?
There was also a regular airshow. The opening was, of course, a parachute jump with the Stars and Stripes. Next was the Warbirds Extravaganza. Some people say that propeller planes are less impressive than jets. But the idea of overwhelming them with sheer numbers... is absolutely brilliant! It reminded me of the Diamond of Diamonds formation (four diamond formations creating an even larger diamond) that I saw at the Atsugi Naval Air Facility airshow around 1994, which you can't see anymore.
I also saw a real Mig-29 for the first time. The Mig-29 actually exists. And it really flies.
This was probably my last chance to see an A-10 fly.
I got some great pictures of the F-35. It's especially cool when you can see the pilot.
There was also a hovering demo of the F-35B, but I wondered if it didn't do a vertical landing because the runway wasn't built to withstand the heat.
The four elements of an airshow are planes, blue skies, beer, and the pull-up bar. I looked for the Marine Corps pull-up bar in Oshkosh, but I couldn't find their booth, so I tried at the Navy's instead. I got 16 reps this time.
I've been uploading videos of my past attempts, and the number of reps has been steadily increasing. My goal is to get to 20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcpzcp77pUE&list=PLFTgp39NPaSjInsr1S-84jITBEC7tya8j
Looking up at the sky from the parking lot, I saw pilots playing a game of tic-tac-toe. The circle won.
Those two days, Monday and Tuesday, were truly Gandhara.
The week after that, my wife came back from Japan, and her mother and sister came with her, so I took them sightseeing.
Then, on August 1st, I went to the Vintage Computer Fest West. This year, I was excited because a friend was exhibiting the FM77AV40SX, the last model in Fujitsu's masterpiece 8-bit FM-7 series, as well as the fourth-generation model 2CX of the FM TOWNS, a legendary machine that's still talked about—or rather, that we work hard to keep talking about.
The Vintage Computer Fest was also Gandhara. Well, I did travel quite a bit west from Pittsburgh. So that's what that meant?! My friend's group's exhibit was a huge success, featuring two X68000s, a PC-6001, and an incredibly rare laptop-type FM TOWNS.
Someone even created a 6502 CPU with non-integrated circuits.
There was also a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 workstation, the same model I used in college, and a special exhibit for the Amiga's 40th anniversary. It was truly Gandhara in my mind.
In the "free to take" section, there was a Pharlap 386 DOS Extender SDK, and I really wanted it, but I already had the one for FM TOWNS, and I knew the DOS version wouldn't work on the TOWNS. Plus, it looked too big to fit in my suitcase, so I gave up. If it had been the Metaware High-C++ compiler, I would've taken it no matter what.
I also got to see the permanent exhibits at the Computer History Museum, the venue for the event. The mesh for Honda's collision analysis might have been created with a mesh generator from my lab at CMU. I didn't work on sheet metal meshes, only 3D meshes, so my work wasn't directly related, though.
And on top of that, I went to Mitsuwa nearby using Uber to get some delicious food. I wanted to buy the coarse ground pork sausages to take home, but there was no way to get them from San Jose to Pittsburgh. I've been thinking about whether I could check a cooler box, but I haven't figured it out yet.
I stayed in a hotel within somewhat walking distance from Apple Headquarter, clean and quiet. But, only complaint this light. I could not move desk back and forth. The light was exactly place so that I hit my forehead when I stood up.
On the last day, my local friends took me to a computer store called Micro Center. I can find Best Buy in Pittsburgh, but it is more of a consumer electronics store, so there aren't any computer-specific stores like this in Pittsburgh anymore. I bought two cheap, small USB speakers.
On August 8th, I took our flying club's Cessna to Lancaster to have a new angle of attack indicator installed. A friend from the flying club wanted to go too, so I flew the first half, and he flew the second half. However, when I landed in Altoona, the nose wheel started vibrating abnormally. In practice, I usually shoot for a GPS 21 approach and try to maintain 85 knots, but I was a little fast, and I was at 90 knots at the minimum. So I admit it was a bit of a clumsy landing since I couldn't slow down enough before touchdown, but I didn't think it was that bad. At first, I thought I had a flat tire, but when I stopped, it was fine.
It seems the phenomenon is called "shimmy." I had the local mechanic look at it and consulted with our club's mechanic, and they said there was nothing wrong with the nose wheel, so we flew on to Lancaster. The takeoff and the landing in Lancaster were both normal. They suggested that I might have released the pressure on the control yoke too quickly after landing.
The airport in the below picture is Harrisburg International Airport, and the beyond the airport is famouse Three-Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.
I was recording the flight, so I reviewed the video later. After landing, the plane bounced a little and then touched down again. The pitch was up during that time, so the attitude should have been correct when it hit the ground. The vibrations started right when the nose came down and the nose wheel touched the runway. I don't think I released the pressure suddenly, but maybe I did. I flew it myself once after that, and the same vibration didn't happen. The cause remains a mystery. By the way, we gave up installing AOA indicator due to the installation cost after all.
The summer ended with the Columbus Air Show and the flying club's spot landing competition. I had originally planned to go to the Columbus Air Show for two days straight, but the spot landing competition was scheduled for Saturday, so I had to cut it short. It was a tough schedule, leaving Columbus early on the second day, dropping my wife off at home, and then heading to the airport, but I made it.
I also did pull-ups at the Columbus Air Show. After 15 reps, my grip gave out, not my arms. What the heck. I bought a rosin bag to better prepare for Cleveland Air Show.
https://youtube.com/shorts/gCb9QptGLSw
The performance of Melissa Burns racing the Jet Truck at the Columbus show was incredible. As the Jet Truck overtook Melissa's plane, there was a huge explosion. The timing and location were perfect, so it looked like Melissa's plane was flying in front of a wall of fire. Unfortunately, the Blue Angels' show was a "low show." However, during a low show, the line abreast formation doesn't loop and passes straight in front of you, which is a great chance to get a shot of five planes in a straight line.
A very busy summer has ended, and a busy autumn has suddenly begun.
Looks like TFR is up to 1000ft AGL, and I should be safe if I stay at 3000ft. I'm going to fly over Oakmont Golf Course around 10am Eastern time. If you see a small airplane on TV at that time, that probably is my airplane. It may be just a small dot though.
For some reason, Pittsburgh seems to have some connection with Ireland, and we have a relatively big parade in the weekend before the St. Patrick Day. I don't know who St. Patrick is, but in CMU, I learned that the St. Patrick day is the day when I am supposed to wear something green and drink Irish beer.
If you felt like, oh, Pittsburgh has some connection with Ireland because of Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie is from Scottland. Not Ireland. Since both are somewhat northern Great Britain, it is easy to mix up. Maybe Andrew Carnegie had some connection with Ireland after all, and therefore Pittsburgh has a good reason to cerebrate St. Patrick's Day big, but maybe nothing to do with Andrew Carnegie. I really haven't bothered to look into why.
Anyways, there was a 5K race on the day of the parade. This was my first 5K race of this year. My goal of last year was to run 5 kilometers within 27 minutes, which I did. This year, I want to run 5K within 26 minutes. I increased my speed to 7MPH on treadmill since this month. 7MPH is about 8 minutes 30 seconds per mile. So, my goal for this race was to keep up with 8 min 30 sec pacers.
The 10-day forecast was predicting a increment weather on the day of the race, but as the day came closer, the severe weather gradually delayed. It turned out a very good race condition. I was a bit worried about the parking, but when I arrive at the downtown around 7am, I easily found a parking spot.
But, my condition was not bad, but not the best. I picked up norovirus infection earlier the week. I had to stay in bed for Monday to Wednesday. My body weight stayed stubborn after doing that much exercise, but I lost 5 pounds in these three days. Then, I could not help watching total lunar eclipse Thursday night to Friday morning. So, I was a little bit sleep deprived.
1-mile fun-run and walk started at 8am. And then 5K was to start 8:25. I waited for the horn right next to the 8 min 30 sec pacers.
Then it started. At the beginning, it was nothing difficult to keep up with the pacers. I rather felt slower. But, if I run too fast, I'll run out of energy before finishing 5K. Then soon turned to fourth ave. Uphill and headwind shove off my energy. Then Wood St., Forbes Ave., Smithfield St., and then turned to Seventh Ave. This uphill and stronger headwind was really difficult. In the first lap, my legs were still moving. I somehow kept up with the pacers, but felt I was burning my energy quickly. Then Grant St., and turned to Blvd of the Allies. This was a long downhill. Then I thought. It was a 2-lap race. The uphill-headwind combination was so tough. I probably won't be able to maintain the speed. Then, I should earn some time on this downhill. I increased the speed and passed the pacers.
Then entered the second lap at Stanwix st. As expected, I slowed down a lot on the uphill streets. Seventh Ave. was so difficult. Same uphill and same headwind, and my legs were not moving as much as the first lap. But I was just telling myself I should be able to do it. 8 min 30 sec pacers caught up with me in the middle of Grant St. After that, I just gave my best shot to keep up with them.
I did not have energy to speed up on the Blvd of the Allies downhill any longer. But, finally the goal gate was in sight. The timer next to the gate was showing 26 minutes even. No energy left to final push. It felt such a long time. But, still I was with the 8 min 30 sec pacers.
The timer showed 26 min 30 seconds when I crossed the goal gate. It took some time to get to the start gate after the horn, so it should be a little bit shorter. Turned out, the official time was 26 minutes 15 seconds. And, I kept up with 8 min 30 sec pacers all the way. By the way, the division place, and the age-group place were both inaccurate immediately after the race. Can anyone who even do not know how to sort get paid as a programmer? I felt so ironic. But, by now the results were corrected. Probably either that ineligible programmer was fired, or that person was sent back to school quickly to learn how to sort.
I did run 5K within 26 minutes once in the Great Race 5K last year, but it was almost entirely downhill. This was a up and down mixed race, plus headwind on uphill streets. Finishing this race in 26 minutes 15 seconds was a good result for me. I just need to increase speed gradually toward later in the season.
I was in Japan late December. I was bombarded by sneezes from front, back, and the right. How could I disembark without catching cold!? Somehow I evaded the bio hazard while I was in Japan (My wife was not that lucky). But, I caught cold after coming back to Pittsburgh. Or maybe it was my incubation period while I was in Japan. So, I lost one week. I was thinking to play Vein Dream during the winter break, but I ran out of time.
Last year was full of astronomical shows. Total solar eclipse, Atlas comet, and low-lattitude Aurora. What about this year? Actually, I already had one. The moon passed in front of the Mars. It was not as spectacular as the ones I was last year, but still was interesting. The red dot just under the moon was the Mars. But, I heard that it takes about 54 minutes for the Mars to re-appear, so I came out after 54 minutes, but the Mars did not come out. I didn't even see a red star near the moon. Did anyone destroy the Mars? I'm worried about Mars now. Probably I should come out tonight again to see the Mars still exists.
Comments are welcome.
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