I've been troubleshooting an issue with two Comcast users in the Memphis area. One is a recent Comcast subscriber, and the other has been using Comcast for months, noticed this issue, and invented a kludgey workaround on his own that involves several VPNs. After lots of head-scratching, I was able…
There might be sonething wrong with me: I keep finding situations where I need to use serial ports. They're not always RS-232 ports, either. Sometimes they're TTL serial to microcontrollers or other wacky stuff. Sometimes I modify firmware to add a USB serial port. Serial communication boils down to bits…
I noticed that Google Earth posted new imagery in and around Chicagoland Skydiving Center. Among other things, this means that the hangar is actually visible; the previous set features a time when CSC was operating out of tents. Google Earth says the photos were taken on Monday September 9, and…
It's important that you plan your flight around the winds; you want to get out in a certain area so that you can deploy your parachute in a certain area. But, well... as a skydiver, you often don't have control over that. You get to trust the people giving the…
I was jumping an Icarus Crossfire 2 149 over the weekend. The Crossfire 2 is a fully-elliptical, non-crossbraced nine-cell main canopy. This puts it in the same class as the Katana I demoed a few weeks ago, both of which are considered higher performance than my current semi-elliptical Sabre2 main…
I've made a lot of skydives so far this year; 450 and counting. Each skydive ends with me landing a parachute, so I've spent a lot of time flying parachutes this year. Even though it's the end of the season, this is the ideal time for me to try out…