I just like this obituary on 'the Lindbergh of hobbyists'

From a Wall Street Journal obit:

"On a clear Saturday evening in early August of 2003, Maynard Hill stood on a hillside on Cape Spear, Newfoundland, started the motor on his model airplane and heaved it into a light wind.

Thirty-eight hours and nearly 1,900 miles later, the 11-pound plane with a six-foot wingspan landed in Ireland, the first radio-controlled model to make a trans-Atlantic crossing.

Mr. Hill, who died Tuesday at 85, was the dean of model airplane hobbyists and spent decades setting records for altitude, duration, speed and distance. His planes outflew those of the Soviets in competitions during the Cold War.

During the 1980s and 1990s, he developed unmanned aircraft for the armed forces, expendable models carrying radar-jamming equipment, cameras and antitank weaponry.

But despite decades spent convincing Pentagon brass to embrace his ideas, Mr. Hill was a poor fit with the gold-plated contractor's culture and dropped out of defense work.

'He didn't believe his planes should be used for war,' said his wife, Gay Hill."

The rest is here.

A patient's perspective on mental health emergency services

The route to in-patient mental health care on Vancouver Island is through the Archie Courtnall Centre, or psychiatric emergency services. Patients can wait more than a week, sleeping in chairs, before a bed becomes available.
Tara Levis offers a patient's perspective.

"Psychiatric emergency services is nothing short of a nightmare. It is a holding cell for people at rock bottom, waiting for a transfer to the in-patient unit. It is a small room, overseen by a glassed-off nursing station, that at some points holds over a dozen people.

Claustrophobia sets in the minute I walk through the secured doors and if I'm not on edge to begin with, I most certainly am bordering on psychosis when the door shuts and I am confined at the mercy of an overburdened health-care system.

My personal items are examined with a fine-tooth comb and promptly locked away until further notice. I am allowed to keep a journal and a book. I want to cry when they take away my cellphone, my last connection to the outside world apart from the public phone they provide, which is always in use. The items on my person must be guarded at all times as theft is rampant in PES. Blink and my stuff would be gone, likely to be sold for cigarettes."

Read the rest, please, here.

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