NanoCorrection 2.0

This is not the first time I tried to copy van Gogh’s masterpieces using colored-pens. The first time dates back to one year ago, in those summer days during vacation. Mind refreshed by some books, I decided one day to draw the longtime-appreciated The Starry Night.

One can be astounded by the energetic strokes, the vibrant turbulence and the great power of hallucination upon seeing this work, even without knowing what is what. And I started copying without knowing what is what. It was merely an imitation. Precisely measured proportion and sizes, closely observed colors. After a few days, it became even a little tedious as the brightness of colored pens could hardly reach the dark-toned oil paint. It was my true love for this drawing that encouraged me to continue where I left it. After finishing it, I felt I was able to recall every bit of the original.

                                                   
But not until now do I get a deeper insight into this piece.
This summer vacation when I visit aircraft manufacturing corporations, I have plenty of time to return to my beloved copying. This time, I read as I drew.

Going through van Gogh’s personal experience, I get to know his paintings are not always like what it feels in The Starry Night. Broken dreams, sheer loneliness and total fail in every aspect of life came to him one by one. And his paintings went from fine art for practicing to harmony in motion for expression.

The Starry Night was painted after he went to mental hospital at his own will. Though living a hard life, he constantly discovered new motifs he loved, like later the cypresses. I now know the dark-brown and black flame trying restlessly upward to touch the sky, is actually a cypress or, some cypresses, entangled. The tiny quiet town could not stand against the mighty crazy night sky – the force of nature.

Indeed, copying artwork cuddled in an air-conditioned cozy room, is much too little. With some knowledge of van Gogh’s artistic development, I undertook to draw The Church In Auvers. Again, a picture of night, all the colors toned down. Using my one-year-old colored-pen-skill, I managed to fill the whole A4 paper with colors. Almost everywhere on the church and on the lawn, firstly there places a layer of silver gray, then the main color or color mixture, finally a layer of gray by pencil to further darken it down if necessary.

The ultramarine blue skies spread over, without stormy clouds, without enlarged stars, without ever-shining sun-like moon, only pure tranquil ultramarine blue. And I don’t know why I don’t have to lay the color gray on the sand road, while leave somewhere white and elsewhere sulphurous yellow. Where does the light come from I don’t know. Maybe from where he stood.
Being close to nature as much as possible was his only way of living at this moment between sudden fits. And he said:" To suffer without complaining is the only lesson one should learn in this life."

So the compulsory visit to aircraft manufacturing corporations in Shenyang is meant to be of pure boredom. We started countdown the day we arrived.

However, the second Monday here was remarkable. We finally changed our course and headed for shop 39. It belongs to Shenyang Civil Aircraft Corporation. The ongoing projects here involve assembly of B737 afterbody, B787 leading edge of vertical tail and, most exciting of all, modification of B747 and B767 for Israel Aviation Industries. I was put on high alert the moment I smell something related to IAI here. I never knew IAI has a Bedek Group which deals with civil aircrafts.

The majority of the room is taken up by this project, which aims at modifying commercial airliners to freighters: skins to be thickened, frames to be strengthened, doors to be enlarged etc. There were documents available for instruction. With those paper directly sent from IAI, I was a bit excited and felt privileged. They specify that 29 items are to be improved, which fasteners, bolts to be replaced, how beams are to be modified etc. The designers in Israel had made everything clear and workers here make it reality accordingly.

As I observed every part carefully, I saw a man walking by. His T-shirt read “IAI-SAC” in the front, and “B747 ASSY” on the back. I was pretty sure he’s an Israeli and works for IAI. I hesitated, not knowing if he was hurrying to work, or if I should try to communicate. But look, he was going to disappear behind the door up to the second floor. I thought I should at least say hello to him, an Israeli working in the leading aviation industry in Israel(and in the world). So I ran up to him and said “Shalom”. Then things work out as it should be. A brief self-introduction and expression of great interest about his country. Shortly after that I was invited to his office for a talk. His name is Emanuel (Amy).

The office isn’t big. There’s a large Israeli flag pinned on the wall, which to me is a what-a-big-eye-candy” thing. Above the flag were some pictures of Israeli cities. I could recognizeJerusalemwith the Kotel. On the right side of my seat was a whiteboard, recording missing parts and other work stuffs.

My heart was bumping happily. And we talked extensively about almost everything. He encouraged me to speak in Hebrew. And for the first time I heard someone said to me “את יפה” :D I replied with “תודה” and this time with a correct stress position. We talked about Technion Aerospace Engineering. It sounded to me is the most valuable source for aviation industries in Israel, just like BUAA for Chinese aviation. Amy showed me a picture of Haifa hung on the wall and told me Technion locates at the top of the city. There are three other pictures of Jerusalem as well.

Amy was quite surprised at my knowledge and enthusiasm about Israel. Later when his colleague, Moshe, came in, Amy happily introduced me to him. And he didn’t forget to add “She loves tuna pita!” However, when they communicated in Hebrew, or when they answered phone call back from Israel, I could hardly understand anything. Anyway, it already made me feel like flying being in such a Hebrew atmosphere.

For a while we also discussed some academic problems. I used to read a little about challenges toward Bernoulli’s law, which is widely applied in engineering nowadays. Challenges came from many angles. Some saysNewton’s law can explain the lift very well, and puts it more simply than Bernoulli’s law does, and both have the same physical essence. Some says Coenda Effect does not stand, and this theory should be discarded in pure research while only remains as an engineering method. I myself haven’t study every saying deeply. And currently I believe in what the school teaches me – that is the authority saying. But I remain open to other possibilities. However, Moshe said the current theory of generation of lift is not a theory, but a fact. Well, that’s fine for me at least for now. Maybe I’ll study other saying when I go back home.

After staying there for an hour, it was time for me to join my classmates to go back. Amy suggested we exchange phone numbers. He said he was going toBeijingin August and might have time to contact me. I squeezed out my phone number in Hebrew in great difficulty from my memory, of course spending much time doing this =P Really hope we could see each other in Beijing, or maybe in Israel, again:)

I didn’t hesitate to upgrade to an alpha version. I didn’t read known issues in release note. I didn’t cancel the upgrade even if I saw nVidia driver is to be removed. And when it reported xserver installation failure, there was no way back. Now this is the price I have to pay… The screen freezes even before plymouth shows up.

The binary video drivers -fglrx and -nvidia do not have XServer 1.10 compatibility, so do not function in Alpha 3. We anticipate receiving an updated driver with this support from NVIDIA in the coming weeks, and an updated -fglrx from AMD at some point prior to Natty’s release, but do not know their exact ETAs.

—- From Natty Narwhal Alpha 3

- Hey, simply plan for a full reinstallation from a live CD after the bug-fixed stable version comes out. It’s almost the same as upgrade since Natty removed your chromium browser and GNU octave, right? Say cheeeeeeeeeeese…

- Uh uh, I’m fine. I mean, really. Look I’m now with Windows 7 the other system.

Are aliens more likely to be aggressive or peaceful? To someone who’s religion is skepticism, the answer would be ambiguous. But that doesn’t stop the naysayer from being scared and being hostile to little green men: “Aliens, although always depicted as little green men, can be so different from us that they’re unimaginable and that it’s wrong to guess their motivations and it’s wrong to make any assumption about them.”

Since peace will only be possible if both little green men and us commit to peace and know well the good will of each other. Yet we don’t know them and chances are they don’t know us. Then that inevitably leads to jungle of suspicion (exactly like the realism reality which some people believe in and others decisively abandon.) There’s nothing we can do about them but try to avoid them.

Is there only the unknown apart from the unknown? I have my own faith, backed by imaginable human logic (It has to be).

Look at humans. Most of the wealth they create have poured into national defense and only serve the purpose no other than self-destruction. This is the realism reality that prevent us from going further in the outer space, from exploring, from expeditions, from building space industries, from settling and expanding. This is the realism reality that confines us in this small, poisonous, crowded and stifling place. Obviously, we will never truly go to the space until humans stop harassing each other. The day we reach out for the little green men, is the day we respect without being aware that we respect, we live in peace without being aware that we are in peace. Until that day human evolution complete another stage. They will be peaceful not aggressive. I want to apply the same rule to our extra-terrestrial friends, can’t I?

Today we estimate there’s a great chance that extra-terrestrial intelligence exist. Most of us agree this is a reasonable estimation because it’s backed by latest scientific theories. Just walk upstream a little to see what it is that draw the conclusion, we’ll see it’s stars, planets, chemistry and temperature similar to  us that make life conceivable. Note the word “similar”. From the very beginning, we focus on similarity. And then, life there will also endure (or is enduring) evolution and form intelligent beings. They are, again, born because of stars, planets, nice chemistry and temperature conditions. For this ground, I want to apply the same rule to them. If they find us, and visit us, they must have overcome war. That is to say, they must have been peaceful for long.

Alas, there are so many things that can kill the entire human race in no more than several centuries. Count them. Energy, population, pollution, climate, disease, the shadow of war. They are actually so close that we could see their faces. While someone out there is trying to do our little green men wrong! Even if eventually, the ETI prove to be evil, are human still going to wage war against each other, to pass the blame on each other regarding the approaching crisis then be helpless and terrified before alien invasion? Or, shall we, no matter it’s peaceful or aggressive whatsoever little green men, choose to unite, as one.