Category Archives: Misc:

“MGC Safety Day – Skydive Windy City”

Misc:, Skydiving, , ,
“Michigan City Airport (KMGC) – Safety Day – Skydive Windy City”

Even though I have not jumped for the last two years I try to keep involved by attending the annual USPA Safety Day, keep current on jumper activities by reading the monthly Parachutist magazine, and visiting several drop zones in the area throughout the year. I enjoy taking jumper pictures, sharing them, rubbing elbows with current jumpers and getting in the occasional “jump run” as an observer.

For those interested in what goes on during a Safety Day Presentation the following are the highlight’s of what to expect when attending safety day.

The United State Parachute Association (USPA) Safety Day is scheduled each year in March for all jumpers to meet at their local drop zones:

  1. to review and practice Safety Procedures
  2. to inspect and discuss their equipment
  3. to socialize

An effective USPA Safety Day format includes

 Equipment:

  • Pre-jump inspection & checks; (2) maintenance and compatibility inspection; (3) update and service bulletin advisory.

After the standard gear check is covered, go over the wear points that need to be inspected thoroughly and frequently to include:  Container and Harness material condition and stitching, high-wear areas of outer lines, steering lines, canopy line attachment points, and attachment at links, three-ring release system condition, harness condition, both webbing and stitching; leg strap and chest strap elastic keeper condition.

This is a “Jump Shack” Racer container with a BOC (bottom of container) pilot chute. The Yellow circle is the “pop top” of the reserve parachute, the area below the reserve is where the main parachute is contained.

 

 

 

This view  shows the back of the container and the harness assembly and straps. The two metal rings on the l & R shoulders are part of the three ring system used to jettison the main if there is a malfunction. The Red handle or pillow is used to get rid of the main parachute and the Silver handle is to deploy the reserve parachute.

 

Freefall safety: (1) exit order; (2) group separation; (3) collision avoidance; (4) break-off and tracking procedures.

Hands-on practice sessions in a training harness for parachuting emergencies. (1) malfunction and reserve procedures; (2) obstacle landings.

 Canopy flight: (1) training and review of canopy flight procedures: (2) local descent and landing pattern protocol.

Aircraft: (1) routine procedures; (2) review of aircraft emergency procedures; (3) discussion of spotting, including exit order and group separation

Packing review: When packing you must all ways pay attention to the details and avoid distractions.

FREEFALL SAFETY: Freefall safety is everyone’s responsibility.

  1. Exit order based on the type and size of groups, when the aircraft is flown into the wind for jump run.
  2. Adequate horizontal separation between each group
  3. Maintain visual contact with the other jumpers in the formation to reduce the chance of an inadvertent collision and use proper docking techniques to help reduce the chance of a hard collision from excessive horizontal speeds.
  4. Break-off and tracking procedures: plan for break-off, separation, deployment altitude and a canopy descent.
  5. Opening Procedures a. The pull should be preceded by a distinct wave-off, look down and to the sides to ensure that the area is clear. The low person has the right-of-way, both in freefall and under canopy.

PARACHUTING EMERGENCIES

  1. The cause of most emergency situations is improper packing or equipment maintenance.
  2. Discussion of the various types of malfunctions and the appropriate response for each.

Emergency parachute procedures that should be covered include:                             (Malfunction Pictures by Performance Designs)

(1) Total malfunction—nothing deployed ->pull the reserve.                                                             (2) Pilot chute in tow—>cut away and pull the reserve or just pull the reserve.

 

 

 

(Malfunction Pictures by Performance Designs)

 

(3) Bag lock—lines extend, but the bag remains around the canopy —>cut away and pull the reserve.

 

 

 

 

 

(4) Partial malfunction -canopy partially inflates  —>cut away and pull the reserve.

 

 

 

 

 

(5) Spinning malfunction—due to twisted risers—>cut away and pull the reserve.

 

 

 

 

(6) Procedures for two parachutes out: (A) Side by side (B) one behind the other (C) Down plane. (A &B) Land if desired, do not flair, (C) Cut away the main by pulling the red handle immediately.

 

 

 

 

 

(7) Obstacle landing procedures (avoid trees, buildings, power lines, roads, water, & airplanes).

 

 

(AP Photo / Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Tim Telford)

 

(8) Deployment altitudes required according to license, decide-and-act altitudes, according to license, altitude at which to pull the reserve immediately, regardless of circumstances, recommendations for flotation devices near water, procedures for extraction from obstacle landings.

CANOPY CONTROL

  1. Discuss landing patterns, off field landing options, and other factors that are unique to that location. a. large bodies of water, forests and power lines
  2. Cover canopy controls and the effects of each: Rear-riser turns, flares and braked approaches.

Note that Front riser dives may reduce the effects of strong winds after a short spot or help a jumper descend to a less crowded area for a safer landing approach.

  1. Collision avoidance and procedures for a canopy entanglement 

AIRCRAFT PROCEDURES: Cover loading procedures that are specific to your DZ and general rules that apply to every DZ, like approaching a fixed wing aircraft from the rear and prop avoidance.

Discuss weight and balance and aircraft overloading.

Review aircraft emergency procedures and each jumper should know the proper action for each aircraft emergency scenario.

Skydivers should be aware of their altitude during every plane ride to altitude, and keep in mind what they would do in the event of an emergency situation at any given moment.

Explain why jumpers should be taking a look outside before they exit the plane (aircraft, clouds, other groups, the landing area). Cover seat belt release altitude & seat belt stowage procedure

These are many of the topics available to be discussed and as always attendees are encouraged to ask questions on anything they are not sure of or have encountered.

Great site to visit: https://uspa.org   and   https://www.dropzone.com

 

 

 

 

 

Good or Bad? H.R.1 “For the People Act of 2019”

Misc:, , ,

Saw an interesting post concerning H.R.1 which was enacted by the Senate & House of Representatives.  It’s also called “For the People Act of 2019” as Introduced in House on 01/03/2019.  Its over 500 small type pages but contains a bunch of interesting “stuff”.

Did your representative really read it BEFORE voting for it? The table of contents is the door way to some interesting verbiage.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1/text

Just rambling thru the table of contents in highly informative……

This Act is organized into 3 divisions as follows: (1) Division A—Voting. (2) Division B—Campaign Finance. (3) Division C—Ethics.

DIVISION A:

PART 1—PROMOTING INTERNET REGISTRATION – Clarification of requlations regarding eligibility to vote.
PART 2—AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION – Automatic registration of eligible individuals   .
PART 3—SAME DAY VOTER REGISTRATION

PART 4—CONDITIONS ON REMOVAL ON BASIS OF INTERSTATE CROSS-CHECKS – Conditions on removal of registrants from official list of eligible voters on basis of interstate cross-checks.;  Grants to States for activities to encourage involvement of minors in election activities.

PART 8—VOTER REGISTRATION EFFICIENCY ACT – Sec. 1082. Requiring applicants for motor vehicle driver’s licenses in new state to indicate whether state serves as residence for voter registration purposes.

PART 9—Providing VOTER REGISTRATION Information to secondary school students prior to graduation.
PART 10—Voter Registration of MINORS
SEC. 1094. ACCEPTANCE OF VOTER REGISTRATION APPLICATIONS FROM INDIVIDUALS UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE.

subtitle E—Democracy Restoration; SEC. 1402. RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. The right of an individual who is a citizen of the United States to vote in any election for Federal office shall not be denied or abridged because that individual has been convicted of a criminal offense unless such individual is serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election.

SEC. 2201. District  of Columbia Statehood. Congress finds the following:
1) District of Columbia residents deserve full congressional voting rights and self-government, which only statehood can provide.
(2) The 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia pay more Federal taxes per capita than residents of any State in the country, yet do not have full and equal representation in Congress and self-government.
(3) Since the founding of the United States, the residents of the District of Columbia have always carried all the obligations of citizenship, including serving in all of the Nation’s wars and paying Federal taxes, all without voting representation on the floor in either Chamber of Congress or freedom from congressional interference in purely local matters.
(4) There are no constitutional, historical, financial, or economic reasons why the 700,000 Americans who live in the District of Columbia should not be granted statehood.
(5) The District of Columbia has a larger population than two States, Wyoming and Vermont, and is close to the population of the seven States that have a population of under one million fully represented residents. (side note: this has been discussed for years. The standard solution is to give the property  back to Virginia and Maryland which restores individual voting rights and representation)

PART 2—GRANTS For risk-limiting audits of results of elections:;  Sec. 3106. Pre-election threat assessments.; Sec. 3201&2.National Strategy & Commission to Protect United States Democratic Institutions.; Subtitle E—Preventing Election Hacking; Sec. 3402 Election Security Bug Bounty Program.
DIVISION B—CAMPAIGN FINANCE;  TITLE IV—CAMPAIGN FINANCE TRANSPARENCY; Subtitle A—Findings Relating to Illicit Money Undermining Our Democracy; 

PART 3—OTHER ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS;  Sec. 4122. Judicial review of actions related to campaign finance laws.; Subtitle C—Honest Ads;  Subtitle D—Stand By Every Ad

Subtitle E—Secret Money Transparency: Sec. 4401. Repeal of restriction of use of funds by Internal Revenue Service to bring transparency to political activity of certain nonprofit organizations.
Sec. 4402. Repeal of Revenue Procedure That Eliminated Requirement to Report Information Regarding Contributors to Certain Tax-Exempt Organizations.

Subtitle G—Disclosure of Political Spending by Government Contractors; Sec. 4601. Repeal of restriction on use of funds to require disclosure of political spending by government contractors.

Subtitle B—Stopping Super PAC-Candidate Coordination: Sec. 6102. Clarification of treatment of coordinated expenditures as contributions to candidates.; Sec. 6103. Clarification of ban on fundraising for super PACs by Federal candidates and officeholders.; Subtitle C—Disposal of Contributions or Donations

TITLE VII—Ethical Standards:  Subtitle A—Supreme Court Ethics; Sec. 7001. Code of conduct for Federal judges.

Subtitle B—Foreign Agents Registration

Subtitle C—Lobbying Disclosure Reform:

Sec. 7201. Expanding scope of individuals and activities subject to requirements of Lobbying; Sec. 7202. Prohibiting receipt of compensation for lobbying activities on behalf of foreign countries violating human rights. Sec. 7203. Requiring lobbyists to disclose status as lobbyists upon making any lobbying contacts.

TITLE VIII—Ethics Reforms for the  President, VP, and Federal Officers and employees.: Why would this be new?  

Subtitle B—Presidential Conflicts of Interest; Sec. 8012. Divestiture of personal financial interests of the President and Vice President that pose a potential conflict of interest.
Sec. 8013. Initial financial disclosure.
Sec. 8014. Contracts by the President or Vice President.

Loved the part on SWAMP flyers:

subtitle H—Travel on Private Aircraft by Senior Political Appointees SEC. 8071.
This subtitle may be cited as the “Stop Waste And Misuse by Presidential Flyers Landing Yet Evading Rules and standards” or the “SWAMP FLYERS”.

TITLE IX—Congressional Ethics Reform: (Not a lot of detail here)

Subtitle B—Conflicts of Interests: Sec. 9101. Prohibiting Members of House of Representatives from serving on boards of for-profit entities.; Sec. 9102. Conflict of interest rules for Members of Congress and congressional staff.; Sec. 9103. Exercise of rule making powers.; Sec. 9202. Requiring disclosure in certain reports filed with Federal Election Commission of persons who are registered lobbyists.; Sec. 8003. Requirements relating to slowing the revolving door.; Sec. 8004. Prohibition of procurement officers accepting employment from government contractors. ; Sec. 8005. Revolving door restrictions on employees moving into the private sector.

To Google or Not to Google, is that the question?

Misc:, Uncategorized,

To Google or Not to Google, is that the question!

Firefox; google search web; Microsoft edge; Goggle Chrome; Xfinity – enhanced by Google

Is Google compromised by its own globalism and corporate corruption, including a desire to work socio-political manipulations into the basic search function in order to push the obvious “all-important” Orwellian agenda, and the all-pervasive presence of bought-and-paid-for garbage that gets shoehorned into the so-called results.

Does Google reflect most national media views in results as well as prioritizing matches with past searches from the same device? Was YouTube (under full control of Google) recently outed for skewing its search results toward the left in all areas?

Is there a bias in search results towards anything pro-liberal policies (in the US) and pro-liberal (US) news reports?  If you did a search on any controversial political topic do you notice any information manipulation? When searching U-Tube, does it appear that Left-leaning mainstream media videos show up at the top of results, while conservative results are pushed way down? Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, denies manipulating the results. In a statement by Google the company claimed, “Google has never manipulated or modified the search results or content in any of its products to promote a particular political ideology.”

But Google News head, Richard Gingras, recently said “What we will always do is bias the efforts as best we can toward authoritative content — particularly in the context of breaking news events, because major crises do tend to attract the bad actors.”  So, Google does boost news sites that it feels are reputable and it’s these sites – like CNN – that typically dominate in the results. Do reputable news sources tend to lean left?

Google said that in fact, searches on Google are biased, but that bias is entirely intentional. The bias in this case is yours Google says.

Search results have been personalized so that they’re more relevant to each searcher. Things like your location, your past search history, the way you structure your query and several other signals will be used by Google to filter the results you’re shown.

In a recent study that looked at Google’s impact on political beliefs. This study found that voter preferences can shift by as much as 20% due to biased search rankings and that effect can be even higher in some demographic groups.

So!

Is Bias relative? If you truly understand how to manipulate Google, the basis behind black hat SEQ’s (search engine optimizers) systems have rules. Since few know how to exploit them, you get what the system is designed to show you, not necessarily what you want.

If Google is the “Great Satan of the internet”, is the solution as simple as that expressed by Herman Cain and his infamous line “blame yourself”. I believe he was quoted as saying, as long as “Google” is a generic phrase for Internet search, their dominant position is assured. That said, you can do something about it. Use something else or develop an alternative.

With that said, the trouble with the “alternate” engines is that they’re either trying to use gimmicky interfaces and “specialty” results, and/or they’re basically underpowered offshoots of Google as it is in its present semi-dysfunctional state (in some cases, they’re even powered by Google).

What we need is a fully functional search engine that does what Google USED to do before it became compromised by its own globalism and corporate corruption where one works socio-political manipulations into the basic search function in order to push perhaps, to some at any rate, the obvious “all-important” Orwellian agenda, and the all-pervasive presence of bought-and-paid-for garbage that gets shoehorned into the so-called results.

Can someone with a basic bit of knowledge and resources simply reinvent another “wheel” that rolls the way a wheel is supposed to roll?

So, in its stead, do we develop our own search engine or use multiple existing ones to arrive at unbiased input and dictionaries that have not been radically edited?

What is this mysterious Google algorithm that squashes searches and information?

The Google core algorithm is the Holy Grail for digital marketers and SEOs. This shrouded, maniacally complicated, and ever-changing set of algorithms almost immediately made all other search engines obsolete, made billions of dollars, and has kept SEOs and webmasters scratching their heads since the late nineties. Google has kept their “special formula” and adjustments to the algorithm close to the chest, releasing little information to the public.

So, are there alternatives?

Most people don’t want three dozen search engines, especially people who are not trained internet users. Most people want a single search engine that delivers three key features:

  • Relevant results (results you are interested in)
  • Uncluttered, easy-to-read interface
  • Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search

So, what is a person supposed to do?  There are plenty of Google alternatives and many of these players may offer a better search experience, depending on your needs. What are some of your alternatives?

Google isn’t the only game in town and isn’t even the best alternative for many specific tasks and needs. Maybe our daily lives shouldn’t need to balance on the fickle algorithm changes of the world’s most valuable company.

Your choices include:

Addict-o-matic; Ask.com, AOL Search, archive.org (internet archive); Bing Search; Blekko; Boardreader; BuzzSumo; Creative Commons Search (CC Search); CrunchBase; Dogpile; DuckDuckGo; Firefox; Giphy; info.com; Infospace; Ixquick; IMyWebSearch; Quantcast; Quora; SocialMention; SlideShare; StartPage (originally Ixquick); Technorati; Topsy:Torbrowser; Vimeo; WebCrawler; Wolfram|Alpha; Yahoo; Yandex; Yippy (Yippy.com); Webopedia Search; WolframAlpha; Wow.

And I am sure you can add a few.