Chan's Personal Blog - History

Where Were You On 9/11?

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:59:00 -0700

With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, I came across a pretty incredible story from the Washington Post entitled, "F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11."

Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather Lucky Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The days fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.

The one thing she didnt have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.

Except her own plane. So that was the plan.

Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.

I had a number of conversations about that fateful day. The typical question is always, "where were you when 9/11 happened?" I noticed that a lot of Americans view the event as exclusively an American event; however, it definitely affected all of North America, and Canada was definitely affected.

One of the conversations went like this:
American: Where were you on 9/11?
Chan: On a Canadian navy base.
America: Wait, Canada has an army?
Chan: ...
Chan: Who said anything about an army?
America: Why would Canada need a military?

In either case, to prove that Canada does in fact have a military, this was where I was on 9/11. Home of the Pacific Fleet:

The other really strange thought is that there are kids right now that know nothing about 9/11 because they were born after it.

Secrets of the Samurai Sword

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:36:22 -0700

With The Daily Show on a summer break, I began to search for some other TV content to fill time. Naturally, I wandered over to PBS to see what they had. I came across this fascinating documentary entitled, "Secrets of the Samurai Sword." The documentary does a good job of explaining the cultural, spiritual, and scientific aspects of the Samurai sword. It's quite fascinating that even though 1,000 years ago, the Japanese swordmakers didn't understand the science behind their craft, but were able to create such effective weapons.

If you go to the 33 minute mark of the video, they do a live demonstration of a katana blade in the hands of a grandmaster swordsman. An archer fires an arrow directly at the grandmaster, and the grandmaster is able to defend himself by cutting arrows out of the air. Here's a clip of it:

Another interesting aspect of samurai swords is how they are rated. The more bodies a sword can cut through in one stroke, the higher quality the sword is. There's talk in the video about legendary five body blades which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you jump to the 46 minute mark, they go over the meticulous work required in polishing finished swords. They use whet stones to polish the swords, and the stones can go for thousands of dollars. The sword polisher spends ten days polishing these swords.

I'll end with a passage from the Samurai honour code.

The Way of The Warrior: Think Not Yourself As Established

A man who thinks he is already established is unwise; a man content with fixed views won through considerable effort has already fallen into a trap. Without a moment of self-content with what little one has found out, one should keep thinking his accomplished results as being still unsatisfactory and not good enough, exploring the right way to the attainment through one's whole life. Truth lies in no place but in this course of pursuit itself.

[Update] For Canadians who want to watch this video, you can watch it here.

Russian Solution To Oil Leaks

nospam@example.com (CHaN) — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:11:22 -0700

With an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico right now, I came across this article entitled, "Nuke That Slick," which describes how the Russians dealt with oil leaks.

As BP prepares to lower a four-story, 70-ton dome over the oil gusher under the Gulf of Mexico, the Russians the worlds biggest oil producers have some advice for their American counterparts: nuke it.

Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: the underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the wells channel.

Yes! Its so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union, a major oil exporter, used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities.

It'd be interesting to see what would have worse consequences; having a nuke go off and dealing with the nuclear hazards, or having the oil continue to leak.