Eule

All, A while back, I asked about the possibility of having a link to the original poster's profile on the reply/quote screen. (I can't find the post where I asked about it, though.) The idea is that sometimes I hit "reply" or "quote" to respond to a post, but then realize I should look at the profile of the person I'm replying to, to see what country they're in, if they're new or experienced, or whatever. Right now you have to click around a bit to do that from the reply page - there isn't a direct link. I have written a Greasemonkey script that adds a link to the original poster's profile to the reply page, just to the right of the Subject box. Click the link and Firefox will open their profile in a new window, or in a new tab if you have Firefox configured to open new windows in new tabs instead. I have tested it on exactly two sites: dropzone.com and Gossamer Threads' site. I have only tested it on Firefox 1.5.0.6 on Linux, but it should work on other recent versions of Firefox and on legacy OSes. I have not tested it with any legacy browsers. You will need the Greasemonkey Firefox extension to use the script. This software is supplied with NO WARRANTY. If it breaks you get to keep all the pieces. Having said that, I would appreciate any reports, good or bad. A screenshot of the script in action is attached, along with the script itself. Or, go here to install the script. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm kinda partial to the Sac and Fox, myself. Mostly because they (or at least, the people who gamble in their casino) are helping to pay for repaving the highway to the dropzone, so I can get there faster. :) Eule Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

It is pretty cool, but I was about to complain that it only runs on legacy systems and FruitOS. But now they have a penguin version too, yay! I downloaded it, and it runs, but it's not a great idea for me to run it and Firefox at the same time. Some day I'm really going to have to go up to 128 megs of RAM from 96 megs. Trading links to DZs among ourselves is probably totally cool, but Google Earth links to DZs on dropzone.com's dropzone listings might possibly run afoul of the license agreement: Google may or may not actually care about this, but I figured I'd mention it. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

My first thought was, "why are the TI and the student both wearing masks?" Then I noticed there were three people, and then noticed that they all have rigs and are hanging on to each other - it isn't a tandem. I recognized Nixon right away but wasn't quite sure who the other two were. I read the caption inside and studied the picture some more and I _think_ the other two are Clinton (top) and Bush the Elder (bottom). (I've seen Point Break but it was several years ago, before I started jumping.) I agree with the comments on the lighting of the photograph. I'm not sure how to fix it, other than to observe that maybe the jump took place very early in the morning or very late in the evening, causing the one-sidedness of the sunlight - maybe jumping more towards mid-day would have been better. Also, if the jumpers could have done it back-to-earth, having the ground in the photo would give a better sense of "this is happening up in the air". For an alternative "photo of the $PERIOD", check out Skydive Radio, which usually has a new pic-of-the-week on Tuesdays. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

He does have his ticket and sometimes works at Cushing. (I had no idea "Outlaw" was his real last name; I just figured it was a nickname.) A guy named Andy Beck is also a rigger and is at Cushing most every weekend (he's also a TI and AFFI); he can probably do it for you but I'm not sure how soon he can do it. He lives north of OKC as well, but I think further north than you do. Seconded. 918-225-2222. Most anyone that answers the phone can probably help you out. If you can get 6% Corona at the PX on Sunday, that may be a useful bribe tactic. :) (The only beer civvies can get on Sunday in Oklahoma is 3.2% beer.) Cushing is maybe 45-60 minutes northeast of OKC. If they can't help, you might call out to Skydive Hinton at 405-457-6500 and see what they can do. They are about 45-60 minutes west of OKC. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I have. Two weeks after I started jumping, I also made up a legally binding will. I have the will, a letter stating my wishes, and a copy of the waiver I signed at the local DZ in an envelope in my office. The envelope is in a tolerably obvious spot, but I haven't directed anyone specifically to look for it. This is partly because I feel that it's likely that if I tell the other half where it is, it will get opened and read immediately (even though nothing has happened to me), and that might be too much to take. I have considered setting up a "deadman switch" on my computer - if I don't log in and reset it every X days, it sends out an email - but I haven't done it. Part of the problem is that X needs to be reasonably small, so if something bad does happen, people can learn of my wishes relatively quickly. But it needs to be large enough that if, for example, I have an unplanned overnight stay at the DZ, it doesn't go off and send out an email that freaks everyone out. I'm pretty sure the last time I talked to my folks was before the plane crash at Quantum Leap, and I'm pretty sure they will have seen it on the news as they also live in Missouri. I am anticipating some discussion about that crash and jumping in general the next time we talk. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Whitewright with all that stuff. Real content: I don't own any patch-suitable gear yet, so I haven't put patches on anything. Stickers seem to be popular, though. At Eloy there were bumper stickers from lots of dropzones all over the inside of the building that manifest was in. The 182 at my home DZ has all kinds of stickers on the inside: Rolling Stones, USPA, Mirage, various radio and TV stations, a couple of DZs, a rather beat WFFC 199x sticker, RWS, Alti-2, etc. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I paid $35 for the packing class I took on a bad-weather day at the DZ. One of the riggers taught it, and IIRC there were one or two other students in the class. I suspected I was supposed to pay for the class, but I didn't know for sure, and I didn't bring it up that day. The next weekend, I was told that I owed the money, so I paid up. This was not at the DZ I started at. I had switched DZs in an attempt to possibly speed up my slow student progression. At the time I took the packing class, I had maybe three or four middle-AFF-level jumps at this DZ and maybe 30-35 jumps total. Since then, I returned to the DZ I started at - mostly because it's a lot closer to my house and partially because the jumps are cheaper. I haven't asked, but I suspect the local DZ wouldn't charge for a packing class. It would probably be good form to bring some beer, though. I like my job, but if they didn't pay me, I probably wouldn't do it. I think that somebody who does something for free because they like doing it, when they could be doing something else that would make them money, can easily turn out a better product or service than somebody who is trying to beat the clock. In an example you may be able to relate to, about 60% of the web sites on the Internet, including dropzone.com, run a Web server (Apache) that is given away for free, and about 60% of the hosting companies run on OSes (Linux or FreeBSD) that are given away for free. I help run a site hosted on Apache/FreeBSD on a dedicated server in a data center, and its current uptime is just over 2.4 years. (Sources here and here.) I think this is a pretty good performance from software that was written by people who, by and large, weren't getting paid to work on it. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Ah, another RFC-1149 network. The world needs more of these. In this implementation, the average round-trip time for a 64-byte ping packet was about 87 minutes, or about 0.01223 bits per second. The distance is not clearly specified but looks to be on the order of 15 km (10 miles). I wonder if using humans with wingsuits would work any better than the pigeons? Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

QuoteDoes the USA have an equivalent of the UK's Advertising Standards Authority or Trading Standards? The Federal Trade Commission is most likely the equivalent body in the US. They do seem to do some good, or at least cause sellers of dodgy products to tone down their claims a bit. I'm not sure what their record is for service businesses like dropzones, though. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Two weeks ago I didn't even know how to grease my monkey, but now I'm making big bucks on the Intarweb! I don't even remember if I looked up Greasemonkey when you mentioned this, but I ran across it again a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for a way to do something else. After installing a couple of scripts written by others, and looking at their source code, I figured, "how hard can it be?" So, after some classic clone-and-hack coding and a small dose of RTFM, I came up with a script that might be helpful. What it does is add a "Direct Link", immediately to the left of the "Quote" and "Reply" links that appear at the upper right corner of each post. Click the link and Firefox will likely redraw the page such that the selected post is at the top; right-click the link and select "Copy link location" to put it on the clipboard (or "Bookmark this link", or whatever.) I have tested it on exactly two sites: dropzone.com and Gossamer Threads' site. I have only tested it on Firefox 1.5.0.4 and 1.5.0.6 on Linux, but it should work on other recent versions of Firefox and on legacy OSes. I have not tested it with any legacy browsers. You will need the Greasemonkey Firefox extension to use the script. This software is supplied with NO WARRANTY. If it breaks you get to keep all the pieces. Having said that, I would appreciate any reports, good or bad. A screenshot of the script in action is attached, along with the script itself. Or, go here to install the script. Eule EDIT: Attaching the script doesn't work very well; you have to download it to your local disk and then load it from there to install it. So I added the userscripts.org link. PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Skydive Radio show #42. (Includes the answer to the question "when does he go to the loo?") Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

You might try sending a PM to sangiro ; he's the man. You might get a quick reply, or it might be a few days - hard to say. Possibly. You would get to convince me that you're going to use your powers for good and not evil. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

In the last week or so, Google text ads have been running in some of the banner slots and on the front page. Some of the ads are for legitimate dropzones, but I have also seen such quality advertisements as "watch satellite TV for free" and "free paragliding ride, just fill out a survey!" (See attachments. The links were: TV and paragliding .) The other day I clicked on one that lead to ThrillPlanet.com , which one person in the Skyride thread in General claims is Skyride. This one may have been taken care of, because I haven't been able to get that one to come up in several dozen reloads. I understand how these work and I know that someone at dropzone.com isn't hand-picking the ads that will be shown; the dz.com admins set some general categories and can reject ads for certain sites, but they don't have very fine-grained control over what ads appear. But some of them seem somewhat questionable, and I don't think it's helpful for dropzone.com to be shilling for some of these products. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

It depends a lot on the instructor. Newer instructors are generally easier to tip than more experienced ones; the experienced ones are half expecting it anyway and will wake up and/or startle when you try it. Sometimes, the instructor doesn't stay the night, which makes it a lot harder to tip them. In general, though, if you make sure to pour a beer or three into the instructor once the beer light comes on, he will be a lot easier to tip later on. Once the instructor is asleep, be as quiet as you can, and try to sneak up from the back side and downwind of him. A quick, firm push at about chest level will usually do it. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

If the information is stored in a database, the webmaster could give it to you with one command-line query. (It would be insane _not_ to keep it in a database, but the designers of web-forum software are not, in general, sane.) This does of course assume that you can convince the webmaster that you are going to use your powers for good and not for evil. If you can't get it that way, these "computer" thingys are really good at doing boring repetitive stuff, like downloading a lot of Web pages and scanning for key words in them. For this, you would have to convince some geek that you are going to use your powers for good and not for evil. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Mine is a metal band with a design, but no stone. Sometimes I leave it on the ground with my car keys, etc, but if I'm wearing jeans, sometimes I stick it way down in the change pocket of the jeans. So far so good... Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

My guess would be that its algorithm goes something like this, once it thinks it's in free fall... highest_freefall_speed = 0; while(speed > 20) /* or some other "minimum" speed of free fall */ { speed = measure_speed(); if(speed > highest_freefall_speed) { highest_freefall_speed = speed; } } /* now we are under canopy */ store_to_nonvolatile_memory(max_freefall_speed); The reason it waits until it thinks it's under canopy to record the max freefall speed is that often, writing to the non-voltatile memory (flash) is rather slower than writing to the volatile memory (RAM). In freefall, it doesn't want to spend a lot of time writing to non-volatile memory, as then it might miss a momentarily higher freefall speed. So it just keeps looping quickly and keeping the highest speed it saw in RAM. If it fell out early enough in the deployment, it probably never slowed down enough to register "I'm under canopy now" and write the max freefall speed to non-volatile memory. It just kept looping and kept the max freefall speed in RAM. I would further guess that it might have suffered a momentary power loss at impact (was the battery still in it when the guy found it, or had it popped out?), OR it kept running, but a built-in time out caused it to "give up" on that jump after, say, 15 minutes or so. On the other hand, maybe it should have seen the zero speed after it landed and concluded that it was under canopy, and gone ahead and recorded the max speed. A little rough estimating says that if it was falling with its smallest face down (least cross section into the relative wind), it might have hit 100 mph or so. There is probably at least +/- 30% tolerance on this estimate, though. It might be interesting to ask Alti-2 about this. They probably already know what terminal velocity of a Neptune is, but they might be able to explain better why it didn't log the speed. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Seven identical posts, asking people to click a link. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Last week, I heard a jet going overhead, and about half an hour later, the attached safety briefing card fluttered down to land in my back yard. Maybe it will answer some of the questions. Of course, I didn't get the briefing to go with it, but some of the points seem to be: - at altitude, do a pin/handle check - when exiting the rear door, don't hit your head on the step - don't scare the tandems - stow small children in the overhead compartments Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Caution: low jump numbers here. My first thought after reading your post was that maybe something else is on your mind. I don't know what it is - it could be within skydiving (a buddy of yours got hurt, the DZO kicked your dog) or outside (too many bills, significant other wants to leave). It doesn't even have to be a nominally "bad" thing - maybe you and your other half just had a kid, which is great, but now you are putting pressure on yourself, or getting pressure from others, to stop jumping because of the kid. That is perhaps quite a bold conclusion to leap to based on a few sentences on a message board, but that's what I thought. The tandem thing I can't really speak to. On the RW dives - have you been doing a lot of RW lately, or mostly tandems? I couldn't itemize the differences for you but it seems to me like tandem instructing and RW are Different and doing lots of tandems would mean that you're not going to go out and turn a hundred points on a four-way the first time you try it. On hitting the pole - well, what the hell is an unmarked pole doing in a landing area? (Assuming it _is_ in, or very close to, the landing area.) Go hang a windsock, flag, or blade on it, or paint it Aviation Orange, or just remove the damn thing. Again, just my opinion. I hope it helps. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

QuoteHow many other business owners add on a surcharge for credit cards... All business owners do this; they just don't tell you about it. Another way to phrase it is, "why do so many other business owners rip off their cash customers?" For quite a long time in the US, most Amoco gas stations offered about a $0.04/gallon discount (about 3-5% - this was with gas from $0.80-$1.20 a gallon) for cash. I think since they got bought by BP they quit doing this, but some other gas stations still do it. To the larger question, in a perfect world, no, the USPA wouldn't allow tandem factories as GMs. In that world, there would also be a dropzone offering $5 to 15k lift tickets on a Twin Otter within 30 minutes of everybody's house, and everybody would have a pony. In the real world of "no fee if no recovery", I don't think it's a good idea. We already have a situation where (WARNING: big oversimplification here) the USPA didn't like the business practices of a particular dropzone, tried to revoke their GM status, and got sued for their trouble. Again, this is a vast oversimplification, but I think if the USPA tried to pull the GM status of lots of tandem factories, the lawyer food bill would kill them. I think it kind of sucks when decisions have to be driven in part by the cost of lawyer food, but that's the world we live in. Just my opinion. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Does anyone have numbers for USPA membership before 1991? I can get numbers back to 1991 from Dan Poynter's site and the USPA annual membership survey results, but I haven't found anything older than that. I want to plot these numbers against total US population, some finanical indicators, etc, and see if I see anything interesting. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Yeah, but how much of that is paid for by working at the DZ? I might still have the receipt for the jar of cherries if you want to count that in the total. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Initial random thoughts: 1) I hope the RealNetworks people don't get annoyed at your trademark b) I hope the RealDoll people don't get annoyed at your trademark III) "But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses." -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" I've been on both sides of this table. I've been the guy who was writing the code, answering the support calls, fixing the printer, and trying to migrate the CEO from an AOL address to the company's domain. I've also sat in meetings where the salesman was promising us that the software would run, never crash, sing, dance, wipe our asses and make us coffee in the morning. So, coming from that background, here are some more thoughts on your proposed software. This is probably going to sound like I'm slamming you pretty hard and I don't mean it that way. I just think that these are the kinds of questions that you will get asked when you are trying to sell this software, and maybe it will help to think about them now instead of in the sales meeting. You've probably already thought about many of them. Click here. I think what you're getting at is that it makes it easy for anyone on the staff to do any of the normal daily business activities. But the "complete control" also sort of sounds like the manifest person could delete last year's records, or put $1000 on their buddy's account, or whatever. Such as? (I can think of some, but I wonder which ones you are thinking of.) There's only one intuitive user interface. After that, it's all learned. Check-in and manifest I understand; I don't quite get "account funding". Are you saying that a jumper will be able to run his/her own credit card (or put in a bank account number, or put in cash) at the kiosk to put funds on account? How will this interact with the wireless Internet access offered by some dropzones now? Will you need to punch in a different SSID for the manifest system vs. general Internet access, or something else? Does the Web site require a particular hosting platform in order to work? IMHO, replication is tricky to do right, but is pretty cool when it works. On a related note, what kind of bandwidth is needed between the DZ and the remote database? The size of dropzone I think you'd be selling to is more likely than most to have something better than dialup, but it might only be a not-very-good DSL or similar. This is printed on the certificate, right? I understand the DZ's desire to not have a lot of "free jumps" floating around out there that they may have to make good on at any time, but this has to be made clear to the customer. Ask ten friends if they know that the gift cards from many retail stores expire after a while - most people don't realize this. You can say "beta test". It's not a bad word. :) 154 jumps a week, every week. That's a lotta Cessna loads. At a random guess, there's probably five or ten DZs in the US that could say "yes" to this. I understand why you would want a resident geek for the first/early installs of the system, but I don't think most DZs will be able to afford one guy that only does computer stuff. From your second post: And remember, newer is _always_ better. Everyone should avoid old technology whenever possible. (How old is recripocating aircraft engine technology? Turbines?) Right! I want to enter my credit cards into the PC, at least when the PC isn't busy going to Windows Update, or being attacked by the virus/worm du jour, etc. I agree that having everything on paper is a little bit crazy in these modern times. But trusting the computer to never screw up is also crazy. Because the spammers and marketroids have made many people instinctively averse to software that "phones home". It sucks, too. I've spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get someone on the other end to tell me _exactly_ what's going on, where if I could have just logged into their box, or had their box email me a file, I could have already been working on the solution when my phone rang. On the other hand, if I'm running a business, I'm not sure that I want my computer randomly emailing my P&L statement to my software vendor. Because the vendor can, at any random time, push through an "update" that breaks my system and stops me from doing business? Because then the IRS sees it. :) I think you still have to provide a human or a kiosk though. Some people don't have laptops, or don't have a wireless card, or whatever. Also, is the manifest-yourself application browser and OS agnostic? I understand that you want to provide "one stop shopping" with your software, but I sort of wonder if tying the accounting/manifesting side of things and the website side of things together is really a good idea. I know that there are places where it's really a good idea to tie those things together (let tandems sign up on the public Web site, etc), but they are somewhat different concepts. I fixed your post. :) If you don't want to give these details, it's cool, but: what kind of infrastructure is this built on? What's the database - Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server, Access, or ? Is the Web-broswer stuff done in Javascript, Java, ActiveX, or ? Can a "modest" PC run the user-level applications well? I don't think dropzones will be too interested in hitching themselves to a 2 or 3 year upgrade cycle on their PCs. I think you can reasonably demand something better than Win9x/Me, but requiring a 3 GHz Pentium HT on every desktop is also somewhat of a hard sell. It seems like the "entry level" DZ for this software will be running at least one turbine aircraft, and it seems to me like there aren't that many DZs like that around. I'd say the average is one or less per state in the continental US - 48 or less. If you can develop a less expensive application, maybe something in the few-hundred-dollar range, there's maybe 100-150 additional dropzones you could sell to. You might lose money on every one but you can make it up in volume, right? :) Again, I don't want you to think I'm dumping on you. I just want to ask the kinds of questions your prospective customers are probably going to ask. Like I said, you've probably already thought about many of them. You don't have to answer _me_ if you don't want to -- I'm not a DZ who might be giving you money for your software -- but you will probably get some of these questions from people that _do_ have the money. Eule (amateur skydiver for 1+ years, professional geek for 10+ years) PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.