Author Archives: Mike

About Mike

I'm a software engineer. Look into the about page for more information about me.

Mixing Communities is Like Mixing Groups of Friends

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If you’ve ever introduced two groups of friends which you normally don’t hang out with at the same time you may have noticed some awkwardness. One group may think you’re this really outgoing and wild person while the other thinks you’re reserved and quiet, as in mixing your college buddies with your co-worker friends. I’ve found that this is the same when you try to cross between communities on the Internet. With social interactions in real life there are subtle things that can make a difference, tone of voice, body language, etc. With Internet communities there are still norms but … Continue reading →

Spektrum Telemetry Viewer for Android

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I’m announcing two new projects! TLMReaderLib, a library for decoding Spektrum TLM files, and TelemetryReaderForAndroid, an Android application for viewing Spektrum telemetry. Let me tell you why I’ve undertaken these two projects in my spare time. Continue reading →

Sunbird Electric Glider Build

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Recently I got bit by the building bug. I don’t know why, but I’ve been wanting to build something. There was a thread on RCGroups about building a woodie DLG. I decided that it would be cool to have. It looks like an awesome flying glider. However, I have’t built anything before. A DLG airframe takes a bunch of stress. Building one has to take this into account. You don’t want it to come apart after a few hard throws. I decided that building something cheap like the Sunbird Electric Glider would be best for me to try before I got the … Continue reading →

CSS and IFRAMES Break IE11

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Because after all these years, IE still sucks. Does anyone know how to prevent IE11 from barfing when using a few nested IFRAMEs and a lot of CSS? Continue reading →

TopGun 2015

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Every year in late April or early May the world’s best scale modelers are invited to Lakeland, FL to compete in TopGun for the prize of Mr. TopGun. This event is the one of the most prestigious in scale modeling. Individual competitors and teams from all over the world bring their highly detailed RC models to be judged. Continue reading →

SeeSpace InAiR

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One of the popular things in tech circles is crowdfunding. If you’re not familiar with the concept of crowdfunding or haven’t heard of sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundMe, I suggest you read a bit. Crowdfunding is a great way for ideas to grow some legs and allow those entrepreneurs the ability to create while in turn providing early adopters with an opportunity to get the latest and greatest gadgets. Of course, once you dive into the world of crowdfunding you’ll quickly see it’s not just about tech and gadgets but artists and non-profits can use it as a tool … Continue reading →

FSS #2 Mixed Wench / ALES Contest

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On May 2nd & 3rd the Florida Soaring Society had their second mixed winch and ALES soaring contest at the O.W.L.S. field at Kennyworld in Morriston, Florida. I participated in the soaring event in the novice class. The weekend called for nice weather. It was expected that the wind would be relatively consistent but a bit on the breezy side. The project average for Saturday was 5-6 m/s with it being slightly less windy on Sunday, ~4-5 m/s. I learned during the previous event that my Gracia Maxi tends to not do the best when the wind is high. After … Continue reading →

One Hundred Posts

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Well, I’ve been doing this whole personal blog thing for over two years. Yesterday marked my 100th post! With that post I’m on a 1:.24 post to comment ratio! At the moment I’m just short of 54K views and seeing between 2,500 and 3,000 views a month. I don’t think those are that bad for a pretty obscure blog by someone that isn’t known in any large web community. I am impressed that overthe last couple of years I’ve written some pretty popular articles: True/False (Boolean) Values in PowerShell Increasing External Speaker Sound in CM11 Open Flight Stabilizer for the … Continue reading →

Scrape Websites With NodeJS

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In the RC airplane hobby we’ve been blessed and cursed with the rise of inexpensive foreign manufacturing. On the plus side the cost of participating in the hobby has gone down drastically. The actual monetary cost of the materials and components has dropped tremendously. However, on the negative side, the hobby has seen a race to the bottom for prices which has led to dramatic cost cutting measures. When kits and components are produced in such a large amount the proper QA is often thrown away to favor a lower cost to the distributor. This is also seen with many … Continue reading →