Thursday June 26, 2008

Trying hang gliding again

A few years after I joined Sun I took up a sport I'd long been interested in - hang gliding. But then after two years of it - learning the basics of flying and actually managing to find a thermal or two and gain a modest amount of altitude - I found myself frustrated with the speed of my progress, the flight characteristics of my glider. And then I had to deal with some major life changes (loosing first one parent, then the second), and the years passed by with my glider gathering dust and mildew in the garage.

As part of a major house cleaning, I decide I needed to either finally sell it all, or give it one last go. I'm giving it one last go.

So I hooked back up with Pat Denevan of Mission Soaring Center in Milpitas, who suggested I try out their new-since-I-was-in-the-sport winch towing setup at their Hollister lesson site (Google Map's satellite view shows hang gliders on the ground there).

So a couple of weekends ago, I packed up my Wills Wing 195 Falcon, harness, helmet, gloves, and knee-pads, and headed down to Hollister for my first bit of hang-gliding in 7 years. I strapped my Canon Powershot G9 digicam to the tail of the glider, and took some videos to share with y'all. First up is a 30 second video of my first flight in 7 years - from the 40 foot bunny hill in Hollister. Next is a 4 and a half minute video of my first tow, up to 866 feet. My Flytec 4020 Vario captured the altitude data and variometer data of the flight. [Note: see the Theora FAQ for info on how to play the video files if you are unfamiliar with open source Ogg Theora video format]

As to whether I will stick with hang gliding this time... the jury is still out. These towed flights (both in this first weekend, and again a weekend later) have helped me regain my flight skills, and reminded me of both the things I like and dislike about the sport. Trying a more modern Falcon 2 glider gave me a taste of what better performance can give me. I hope to soon try flying the Wills Wing Sport 2 glider, to have a few longer flights off of Ed Levin, and see if I can't fulfill the remaining requirements for the Hang 3 rating so I can try ridge soaring at Fort Funston. (2008-06-26 19:26:27.0) Permalink

Friday June 20, 2008

Friday silliness - a bizarre "electronic curb cut" use of Oracle

One of the points folks in the accessibility community often make (me among them) is that accessibility features are useful to and used by folks who don't have a disability (or have perhaps a "situational disability"). This is termed an "electronic curb cut", stemming from the observation that the cuts in the curbs of our sidewalks placed there so that folks in wheelchairs can easily cross streets are used far more by delivery people and parents with strollers and bicyclists and so on. Similarly then, uses of electronic accessibility features by folks without the specific disabilities they were designed for are making use of "electronic curb cuts".

Today I came across a bizarre use of an electronic curb cut... installation of the Oracle database system by someone in a straight jacket, using nothing but their nose. The purpose of the video was to demonstrate that Oracle installation is not a particularly difficult or time consuming a task (as apparently an Oracle competitor had claimed) - that it can be done "with more than one hand tied behind ones back" (rather literally), and done so pretty quickly and efficiently.

Not only does the video make their point about Oracle installation in a silly way, it also speaks rather well to the purpose language in the current Section 508 accessibility guidelines: "Section 508 requires that...Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities...". As the video shows, with Oracle's support for mouseless operation, combined with the StickyKeys feature of the underlying OS, someone who can only press a single key at a time (perhaps with their nose) can install the Oracle database. And in fact, can do so pretty quickly for a task as complex as database installation (in something like 45 minutes, with the bulk of the time consumed NOT by keystroke entry but by the install process).

I wonder if the next video in this sequence will show the installer wearing a blindfold, and use a screen reader to make their point... (2008-06-20 10:41:03.0) Permalink Comments [1]