Conditions

Wind: West - light at 1750; W/NW ~15 mph w/ higher gusts around LZ.

Equipment

Wing: Nova ION4; Harness: Advance Progress 3; Reserve: Companion SQR120

Incident description

I was on a downwind leg, hoping to catch a thermal in front of 600. I turned around late, ending up deeper and lower than I ever want to be in that general area. Following a clockwise turn that felt normal, and once I was again facing west, my wing stalled. I didn't experience any prior warning signs. I recall having positive ground speed while heading into the wind, not using excessive brake input, and not feeling the wing falling behind me. After examining the video frame-by-frame, it appears that the left side of the wing stalled first, and it's consistent with my body turning left. I believe that a sudden change in airmass played a role, but my flying didn't help increase the margins to avoid a stall.

I looked up and determined that my wing may not be flying soon enough. Aware of my altitude, I looked down to locate the reserve handle, and instinctively tossed it out in one big swoop away from the wing. The reserve opened fully, and very quickly. I didn’t have time to pull the wing in, and although not pretty, my landing resulted in no injury. Actually, not a scratch, but some neck pain from the helmet as I was trying to keep my head up on landing.

Immediately after landing, I radioed Mike G. (my flying buddy) that I was fine, and also announced on the emergency frequency (147.495) that I was fine, but got no response. I packed up the gear, and walked to the 300ft launch where Mike gave me a ride down.

Apparent Cause: Insufficient speed margin to maintain controlled flight during a sudden change in airmass (thermal, wind direction, rotor)

Speculation

Unfortunately, the video isn’t 360, and key visual clues are missing to truly reconstruct how the wing entered the stall, which is the part that I’d love to figure out. When I first described what happened, I referred to the incident as a full frontal collapse, my impression under the wing being that the leading edge of the wing collapsed down and back.

Takeaways (in no particular order)

• The reserves work remarkably well
• Throwing the reserve may be a limited shelf-life option
  • No regrets for throwing
• Get the lightest (but safe) helmet!
  • My neck hurt because I was trying to keep my head up as I "landed"
• I want a 360 camera now
  • It would be a great way to analyze and learn
• Can I fit a SAS-TEC back protector in the Progress 3?
  • Didn't land the way I was hoping to
• Pay even more attention to the wing, and dial back on tight turns
• Keep running what-if scenarios in your head while flying, driving...
• Have a flying buddy on a shared radio frequency
  • Thanks Mike G. for the ride down from 300
  • Nobody responded on the emergency frequency: 147.495

December 06, 2017  HDTV

My last Samsung product

I used to think highly of Samsung. Then, in late 2017, about thirty days after purchasing a brand new 65” Samsung “smart” 4K UHD HDTV, I had a big reality check. Now I feel compelled to tell every unsuspecting consumer about the abhorring company that Samsung has become.

Samsung wants us to purchase and install their “smart” televisions, connect them to the Internet, create a Samsung account in order to utilize their “services”, and hopefully never realize that:

1. Their “smart” televisions are spying on everything we watch, and are uploading this information in real time over our internet connections. In addition to OTA (over the air) television and cable channels, the spying includes content from devices that are connected via HDMI, like DVD players, gaming consoles, and even streaming. From Samsung’s “Viewing Information Services” disclaimer: “Your Smart TV transfers video snippets or TV tuner information in order to determine the programs watched.” Samsung believe that spying on us is their right.
2. Samsung also believe that it is their right to display ads on the televisions that they have sold to us, as they don’t let us opt out of the ads either. In fact, they’ve gone as far as making sure that ads don’t show up before it’s too late to return their products. The ads start appearing after a month or so.

To recap: Samsung first gets paid by selling us a TV at a retail price - at this point, most of us believe that we own what we have purchased. Behind our backs, they start spying on us, and uploading information on everything we watch, when, and for how long, over our internet connections, and selling it to 3rd parties. Finally (so far), they start pushing ads on the TV screens which they also don’t own anymore, and charging 3rd parties for it. Unfortunately, companies these days employ such douchebags, and in Samsung’s case, they even gloat about these “achievements”: Samsung Ads

Can Samsung ads and spying be stopped?

Technically, it is possible to limit and even completely prevent Samsung from using your home internet connection, but doing so will cripple the functionality of the TV.

If you have a Samsung television (or any Samsung product), the best way to protect yourself is to disconnect it from the internet, and use some other streaming device instead (Apple TV doesn’t display ads, Amazon and Roku do)

The official BBB response from Samsung

Hello,

We received your complaint that was sent to the Better Business Bureau at the CEO’s office of Samsung Electronics. We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues with your Samsung product. Samsung believes in building quality products and we apologize all of your expectations of us have not been met. We value our relationship and are committed to providing the highest level of service simply because our customers deserve it. The feedback you provided is vital to Samsung and our commitment and dedication to our products and services. We will utilize your feedback to consider possible changes and enhancement to our current policies and procedures.

When setting up your television you agree to a series of terms and conditions in order to utilize the product, in these terms and conditions you are agreeing to allow Samsung and its affiliates to provide select advertisements onto your product. Unfortunately there is no way for the consumer to opt out of these advertisements as they are built into our platform. As far as your concern regarding the preinstalled applications being unable to be removed, I do understand your frustration regarding this issue but much like cell phones our televisions come installed with a select variety of applications that many of our customers have found useful. This is an industry standard that has been utilized by multiple different brands, these applications are non-removable by our consumers as they too are built into our user interface.

If you have any further questions regarding this please feel free to contact me.

Respectfully, Amber H.

Amber Harris | Office of the President Snaecr_ag18@sea.samsung.com / Snaecr_ag18@partner.sea.samsung.com

A few more things to know

ACR

Samsung uses a form of ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) as most “smart” TVs do. The entire industry wants ACR, because by spying on what we watch, when, for how long, etc. allegedly, they can better plan, execute, and monetize… In some idillic and naive sense, this could be great, just like nuclear power could be great, but history has shown that people and corporations cannot be trusted with power. Despite the inoffensive acronym, ACR stands for SPAYING on us full time, in our homes, and using the internet connection and bandwidth that we're paying for to transfer information wherever they want.

From Samsung’s “Viewing Information Services” disclaimer: “Your Smart TV transfers video snippets or TV tuner information in order to determine the programs watched.”

Samsung will also say that we can select which services we want to use, vaguely implying that we are in control over what’s taking place. But, I haven’t accepted any of their terms, and my Samsung TV keeps reaching out to dozens of external websites, including their own ACR. You can read more about ACR and Samsung here

The 2018 lineup of Samsung products is even more aggressive at spying and advertising.

How to fight back

There actually is plenty that we can do:

1. Disconnect Samsung products from the Internet. All of Samsung’s connected products are spying on us full time - they actually boast about the cross-media/device tracking abilities. If you have a Samsung phone, you won’t be able to do much about their spying on you, other than selling the phone. Read what Samsung says about it.
2. Stop or avoid buying Samsung products - there are plenty of choices out there for any one product that Samsung makes, especially phones, tablets, and televisions.
3. Tell everyone about Samsung’s spying and advertising practices: Samsung not telling anyone, waiting 30 days before displaying ads (so it’s too late to return their products), not letting users opt out, spying in real time, and even uploading video snippets over our networks in order to figure out what we’re watching.
4. Install Pi hole on your home network. If you’re not tech savvy, find someone who can setup a Raspberry PI with Pi hole on your home network, and just about all ads will be gone from all the devices on your home network.
5. Avoid doing business with companies that show up in Samsung’s ads.
6. File a claim with the Better Business Bureau.
7. File a claim with your local small claims court, requesting payment from Samsung for using your property/TV and Internet connection to send data to themselves and profit from it. In California, you can sue them for up to $10,000 per year.

Keeping this here, but overdue for an update

For context.. In 2006, I left Microsoft Windows for good, and switched to Ubuntu Linux. Two years later, in order to write an iOS app, I purchased my first MacBook Pro, and realized that OS X had all the ‘LINUX’ I needed and wanted, but also a great UX on top of it, and some really nice apps.

Ever since, I’ve been discovering new apps, little (and big) gems that make my tech life more fun and productive. Here is my up-to-date favs list:

General utilities and productivity tools

Alfred – a great program launcher, and much more. It is the app I install first, because it makes everything else easier. The cost is FREE, but you can purchase a power pack which will give you even more utility, and a great way to support this developer.

Visit website

FreeMind – simply the best FREE mind mapping application that runs everywhere. I use mind mapping for light project management, capturing meeting notes on the fly, and brainstorming. With FreeMind, I can quickly visualize project status with the team, without having to weed through lots of text in Jira (used for more serious and time-consuming stuff).

Visit website

Markdown Pro and Lightpaper – both are among the best Markdown editors for OS X. I use markdown for code documentation (GIT style), and wherever else I can – including this blog.

Markdown Pro is not free, but it’s worth the modest admission fee (around $12). I also played around with version 0.9 of Lightpaper which was free at the time, but a bit buggy. Lightpaper is no longer free. It costs around $10, and is worth a look.

Visit website Markdown Pro

Visit website Lightpaper

Pocket – so, I’ve fund this great article online, and I want to keep it around for later

Visit website

Google Chrome – other then IE, any browser is good enough for Internet browsing, but when it comes to developing apps, I turn to Chrome development tools

Visit website

Google Chrome Remote Desktop – because everyone has a relative that needs help with their computer 🙁

Visit website

Handbrake – I don’t even recall the last time I used this app, but if/when I need to rip a DVD, that’s where I'll go.

Visit website

Dropbox – DOWNGRADED. They were at the forefront of the free storage and sync movement, but have recently started taking away what they've originally given us, like limiting the number of devices that we can syncronize with free accounts. To me, that's the worse thing that anyone could ever do, and so, I've moved almost entirely to Google drive. Sorry Dropbox.

Automagically synchronizes files across all of my computers. I modify a file on one computer, and all the other computers receive that latest file. It’s magic, ..and super handy!

Visit website

KeePassX – I’m convinced that 1password is much better, but I find $50 very steep for a password manager. KeePass is still my absolute favorite password manager.

Visit website

AppCleaner – when an app pushes me over the edge, and I need to dispose of it quickly and effectively

Visit website

Spectacle – if you’re a bit OCD like me, and need to have your windows neatly arranged, ..just right, ..perfect, ..oh wait

Visit website

Skype – the one to go to when you need to talk with your team, or relatives anywhere around the world

Visit website

Transmission – when you need a bit-torrent client that is FREE and works well. I used to recommend µTorrent, but my latest download/install proved that µTorrent has become garbage that will change your default browser search engine, try to install a search bar, and so on. DO NOT EVEN TRY µTorrent at this point.

Visit website

3D Computer graphics, graphics design and photo editing

Affinity Designer / Photo – when graphics, design, or photo editing strikes, these apps please me with sophistication and price. Both are convincing Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop alternatives, especially if monthly subscription software isn’t your thing.

Visit website

Blender – an amazing 3D CG app that is also FREE and open source. I wish I had more time to really master it.

Visit website

Multimedia

PLEX – a great multimedia manager, DLNA server. DLNA server will show up on your HDTV DLNA-capable TV, and you’ll be able to stream music, videos, and movies. It also works with ROKU, but requires a paid plugin (reasonably priced)

Visit website

VLC media player – not an app I use often, but when I do, I say: “that’s a nice and powerful multimedia player.”

Visit website

OS X System Utilities

ResolutionTab – my eyes actually like it when I switch my MacbookPro 15″ monitor to 2880×1800 resolution, and this app makes it possible and easy. Well worth $2.

Visit website

MenuMeters – keep an eye on the CPU, memory, hard drive and network activity. I needed a build for El Capitan, so I Googled for it (the link below is for the ‘original’ version)

Visit website

need a build for El Capitan?

Unarchiver – when RAR comes to town

Visit website

BetterTouchTool – haven’t tried this one yet, but it looks very promising. At the moment, I’m struggling to get used to the force touch trackpad – thanks Apple for solving a problem that I didn’t have.

Visit website

Little Snitch – would you like to know which apps are trying to ‘call home’ ..on what ports, or accepting what connections? yes, all that and more.

Visit website

Geektool / Nerdtool – Display system, and weather type information on your desktop. I’m still trying to figure out why I need these, given that I have MenuMeters, and my desktop is almost always covered by a million windows. Nerdtool seems a bit user friendlier.

Visit website Geektool

Visit website Nerdtool

Developer tools and utilities

Eclipse – my goto IDE from more than just Java.

Visit website

Netbeans – it used to be my goto IDE for Ruby On Rails, but now the focus is on Java, C/C++, PHP, and HTML5/JavaScript.

Visit website

Atom – ..it beats Adobe Brackets behind a proxy, ..has very Mac friendly keyboard shortcuts, and I can get it to look and behave exactly the way I want it. That rarely happens in my life.

Visit website

iTerm – when you need to open and keep around a dozen consoles to run your AMQP/RabbitMQ micro-service apps and clients 🙂

Visit website

VMWare Fusion – Not exactly a developer tool, but it’s great for running Linux VMs with complete dev/runtime environments for apps that we’re working on, and that way our Macs stay clean.

Visit website

Music making apps and plugins

Logic Pro X – if you are a musician, or even if you’re just a bit curious about how modern music is made, there is absolutely no better way to spend $200. Why? Because in the world of pro audio, there are very few “PRO” things that you can buy for $200, ..and this is the absolute best $200 that you’ll ever spend on a piece of music-making software. The value per dollar that you get with Logic Pro X is simply astounding.

Visit website

Ableton Live – a lot more expensive then Logic Pro X, but has a unique angle. Its extensive MIDI learning capabilities combined with an external MIDI controller turn your computer into a sort of unique and powerful instrument for live performances.

Visit website

Plugins

1. Korg – a giant in the music industry. Somehow, KORG is able to reinvent itself and keep up with the ever-changing times better than other companies in this space. For starters, KORG has virtualized their legendary synths, and they’re part of the Legacy Collection. It’s truly amazing what $99 can get you.

But KORG is also leading the way with amazing iOS apps. All of these apps are outstanding, but I especially recommend Module for the high quality of piano sounds and playability (to make the most out of these iOS apps, you should consider a dedicated interface, and you simply can’t go wrong with the $40 Griffin StudioConnect.

What’s missing?

Please share..

THIS PAGE HAS ERRORS. IT WAS PASTED FROM MY OLD BLOG.

Wings

The most useful resource in helping me choose the right wing was DHV SafetyClass

To search DHV database, follow this link and use the modify search and new search links, right under the “number of items per page” drop down.

There’s also this search, but it’s not as easy to use.

Another great resource for gear reviews is Ziad Bassil and his Dust of the universe blog. He’s become so well known, that equipment manufacturers send their gear to him for feedback and reviews.

My priority was safety, and forgiving nature, which is likely what everyone’s looking for for their first wing. But, I also wanted a wing that flies well.

I used DVH SafetyClass to compile a list of wings that I was intersted in, and in the end, chose the Nova ION4 - turns out, it was a very good choice!

Harnesses

DVH SafetyClass has a section on harnesses, testing methodology, etc. There’s tons of information, but it’s not always easy to find what you’re looking for.

I didn’t find any recents tests, but here is a DHV link that has useful testing information.

My research led me to believe that Advance makes fine quality products, and that Advance Success 4 was the safest harness to surround my novice butt with, and that too was a great choice. The quality is great, but also getting into, and out of the harness is remarkably easy.

Now that I’m a P2, and I’m considering some hikes, I’m looking into the Advance Progress 3. It’s very similar in design to the Success 4, but reversible.

Advance Progress 3 Safety Notice

Reserve parachutes

Flybubble make great instructional and gear review videos, but their article on selecting the right reserve is the best I’ve come across so far.

Here is a video on the subject worth watching. If German’s a problem, turn on CC/translation.

I got the Advance SQR Companion. It fits my harness really well, it’s lightweight, and it has no sideway tracking tendencies.

It looks like Rogallo’s even better, but I’m concerned that it wouldn’t get re/packed properly, so it’s actually a bigger liability.

While on the subject, how about some PLF?

Why did I get a variometer ASAP?

I knew that it was going to be a while before my flights would benefit from having a variometer. But, I also knew that having an electronic logbook was going to be indespensible for me, since I’m not big on writing flights into my logbook “analog style” after each flight.

My priorities are having an IGC logbook (so that all my flights are recorded), the ability to connect w/ a phone app using bluetooth, and having a built-in barometric altimeter, and GPS (that way my phone battery will last longer).

I’ve found all those things, and more, in a relatively affordable vario made by SkyBean. The model is SkyDrop, and it also has a super easy to use configurator

Once you have a vario, and some IGC files, upload them to Paragliding Logbook site for some analysis, well, and to update your flight log.

2m VHF radio

The easiest way to configure a radio these days is using your computer. If that statement sounds reasonable, I’d suggesting getting a Baofeng F8HP. If you want something waterproof (SIV), take a look at Yaesu FT-270R.

I went with the Baofeng F8-HP. Don’t forget to also purchase the speaker microphone so that you can wire it into your harness, and a computer programming cable <- that one works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, so hightly recommended.

To program the radio, use the Chirp software. It also runs everywhere, and while it doesn’t look amazing, it just works, and it’s free.

Tip: Connect the radio to the computer using the above USB cable. Don’t forget to turn the volume on the radio all the way up. It’s required for good transmission signal.

As far as what frequencies should you have programmed in your radio: