LSI SAS firmware nonsense

I'm screwing around with storage again. This time I bought a pair of 8-lane 6 gbps SAS adapters: one with two internal SFF-8087 ports, one with two external SFF-8088 ports. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. This post is mostly for Google, in case someone else…

CSC wireless upgrades

I've been tinkering with the Chicagoland Skydiving Center network in preparation for the 2014 Independence Boogie. This is generally a large event, and this year is no exception: The vast majority of the people on the network are guests on wifi. CSC can be broken down into three domains: The…

Performance Designs on wing loadings

I just noticed something odd. Head to the PD Velocity page. Follow the Velocity Flight Characteristics link. You'll see some wing loading recommendations: Size does matter: … [a Velocity] can be loaded as lightly as 1.0 pounds per square foot … So what size is best for you? … as long as…

Skydiving season is on

My 2014 skydiving season is off to a great start: I made jumps on both Saturday and Sunday! This puts me way ahead of last year, when the weather was so poor we didn't have a two-day weekend until July. I made a video to celebrate the occasion: Still nothing…

Free Fall Suits: malice or incompetence?

Free Fall Suits sells made-to-order jumpsuits, wingsuits, camera jackets, etc. -- everything a skydiver might want. Note that I said "sells", not "makes". TL;DR I ordered and paid for a freefly suit and camera jacket from Chris Kotscha at Freefall Suits on September 21, 2013. My five delivery dates…

avr-gcc on Travis-CI

I wanted to build an Atmel AVR project on Travis-CI. This wasn't hard at all: Ubuntu ships a usable gcc-avr package. I uploaded a sample project as a demonstration. Here's the .travis.yml: --- language: c before_install: - sudo apt-get update -qq install: - sudo apt-get install -qq gcc-avr…