!!metar KBFI

@egid Sorry, the weather data retrieved was > 500 characters (the max allowed) - I'll fix this tomorrow - try another airport!

@egid BFI/KBFI: Boeing Field King County International Airport • 082353Z 14011KT 6SM -RA BR SCT015 BKN021 OVC035 10/08 A2971 RMK AO2 SLP061 P0005 60027 T01000078 10100 20089 56030

funny, it looks windier than that outside

!!metar EBBR

@DeltaLima AMS/EHAM: Amsterdam Airport Schiphol • 082355Z 17013KT CAVOK 09/07 Q1010 NOSIG

@DeltaLima RTM/EHRD: Rotterdam Airport • 082355Z AUTO 16012KT 9999 NSC 09/08 Q1010 NOSIG

@DeltaLima BRU/EBBR: Brussels Airport • 082350Z 20012KT CAVOK 11/08 Q1012 TEMPO 4000 RA

i love that we don't have a RAB time

it's been raining for about... 4 hours?

Brussels is raining... that's the RA, right? that's in a weird place

It's in the Temporary section, which is normally at the end.

ah got it

i haven't seen tempo in metars before i guess

just taf

pprune.org/tech-log/407020-tempo-metar.html

so, it's a european phenomenon, and only if a meteorologist is on the field

Yes indeed. The Rotterdam one is AUTO, so no TEMPO RA there

METAR in the US is a pure report with no valid period

!!metar EBAW

@DeltaLima ANR/EBAW: Antwerp International Airport (Deurne) • 082350Z AUTO 18005KT CAVOK 10/08 Q1012

!!metar KPAE

@egid PAE/KPAE: Snohomish County (Paine Field) Airport • 090007Z 19018G24KT 5SM -RA BKN009 BKN019 OVC041 09/06 A2969 RMK AO2 P0001

ah, see, that's more like the winds i would expect down here

weird

Rainy at your place as well I see. But not so could as in most parts of the US

no, I'm in the Pacific Northwest, it's pretty mild most of the time

(Seattle, Washington)

there's a pretty remarkable squall cruising past my window right now though

I know, it's a nice city. Been there a year and a half ago. Perfect summer at the time

we do have pretty incredible summers out here

the rest of the year more or less makes up for it

Haha, it isn't that bad is it? Although being next to ocean would cause plenty of rain.

we are overcast for a huge portion of the year

not a ton of rain (Chicago gets more) but it's just generally drizzly and grey

I kinda like it, but I'm a native (and I have an instrument rating)

this is now on top of the building

The drizzly grey part sound all too familiar.

Nice picture, not so nice weather :-)

whee

@egid $50/mo for tiedown, or hangar? :)

@voretaq7 tiedown

hangars are dear around here

...I only hate you by a factor of 3 :P

;)

well a little more than 3 - $170/mo for my tiedown spot. (I could get one for $140 a month on the state's ramp, but they don't do snow clearing very well up there)

Hangars here are impossible - someone literally has to DIE for a hangar spot to open up, or you can take a slot in the jet hangar which costs more than the plane :P

allegedly when they do all sorts of terrible things we're going to get a bunch of T hangars. I wants one.

How in the world did you guys get ads on SO?

whoa

my question!

@Undo cross-network promotion is automatic :)

are the ads auto-generated?

@voretaq7 Yeah, but that sure isn't an automatic thing like I've ever seen before.

It's not the beta blue.

that looks really nice.

(also, how can Space get in on the fun?)

@Undo that's true.

usually it's site-themed or beta-blue

Maybe... you have some inside help?

(cc @BretCopeland)

Actually, doesn't Bret work on the ads team?

Dunno

I seem to remember him saying that

true... it's possible he's being a sneaky bastard :) Or someone else got bored

but hey I'm all for ads

Yeah

i think adblock is hiding them for me

We want them on Space :P

@egid You don't get the same one every time.

i just got it

it's adblock

Also, how in the world is it deciding which word to make red?

i don't get ads at all normally

@Undo it might be hand built

(i upvoted the ad)

@egid I don't adblock the SE network - the ads aren't THAT bad and I have enough rep on the sites I frequent that I don't see the annoying in-the-content ads :)

I have AdBlock too, but I told it not to run on *.SE and *.SO

I don't get any adds either, just tried refreshing but nothing happens.

try viewing an individual item on SO

i just saw the 'bravo airspace now what' one

I'm like the only tech person I know who generally doesn't adblock

probably because $job[-1] was working at an ISP and I know how much everything costs

^ Another one!

Oh, it disappeared ;(

Apparently you can't hotlink to them.

I can't get SO to show me any non Aviation.SE ads

hahah

(BTW, have you guys come up with an easy-to-type name yet?)

@Undo easier than Aviation?

@voretaq7 Yeah

Aviation

planes.stackexchange.com

fly.stackexchange.com

Like SEx.SE for Space Exploration, etc

aw, that's right beta sites don't get the big links

✈

;P

✈.se

av.SE but some people might gripe about that

yeah audio/visual doesn't seem like a very good fit

avi?

avit is how my university referred to it

Yeah, about the ads... it's a brand new experiment which started today. I've known about it for a while but couldn't really say anything.

@BretCopeland nice - it definitely beats the old cross-site promotion ads

it's a nice template

I'll put it this way, aviation is a site which has had a pretty good start, and which there is a very clear topic, and really good chance at success. So, SE is investigating ways to help sites grow, including a small amount of advertising.

I wouldn't even object to that as a favicon if they made the cloud talk bubble more distinct :)

is it phantomizing an html template?

if so, i might need to ask you more questions later

And aviation is a good guinea pig to test with.

@BretCopeland send-kittens

:)

@egid you mean, in terms of the question text, or what?

yeah

there are only really a few non-shitty ways to generate raster images from a template, and that one interests me at a professional level (we need something like that here)

@egid the questions are hard-coded. They're not dynamic ads.

got it

I hand-picked the questions.

so somebody on the design team pumped out a couple images from your list

@egid yes

well, send my compliments! :)

it looks slick

@BretCopeland probably better that way - the automatic question selection algorithms are... um..........

:)

I picked the question about keeping an engine sound because I felt like it might grab pilot people this time of year in particular.

And at the time, the seemingly most popular question on the site was about flying into a bravo accidentally, so that's the other one I picked... even if it might be self-serving since I have the accepted answer.

@BretCopeland nothing wrong with rep-whoring :)

@lnafziger I can't believe I typed out "two require..." without specifying which two. Thanks.

@voretaq7 I lobbed you a softball about WINGS

@egid "It's a great program... unfortunately when they passed an FAA budget to fund it they blew up the whole government to avoid having to spend the money" :-)

So can I not do it? :)

@egid heh at least the program is still running - but imagine how many more seminars & stuff they'd be running if they could count on their budget (without having to nip funds out of the airport trust fund to pay for things like, ya know, controllers...)

Yeah. So, how I mine for currency?

@BretCopeland No problem, figured it read a little better that way (especially since I was wondering which two anyway, lol).

@BretCopeland The MS Flight Simulator question might grab the attention of non-pilots as well as pilots looking to save costs. ;-)

@egid well first you need a fancy ASIC-dedicated mining rig (oh wait no that's mining for bitcoins...)

@PatoSáinz what did I do?

Finally skimming the ACR proposals for private and instrument

This stuff looks pretty good

@PatoSáinz I just gave input. It was the community team which decided to run them, and Jin (our designer) who made the creatives.

Having me as an internal advocate for the site at SE definitely helps, but this site would be doing quite well without me.

Haha

@BretCopeland run with it?

!!weather JFK

Worky?

@Undo JFK/KJFK: John F Kennedy International Airport • Observed: 22 mins ago • Wind: 260°/W @ 13kts • Visibility: 10.0mi/16.09km • Sky (AGL): Broken clouds @ 22,000ft • Temperature: -5.6°C/22°F • Dewpoint: -17.2°C/1°F • Pressure: 30.54" Hg/1,034mb • Conditions: VFR

Yay!

Hehe

@PatoSáinz BTW, you can just... oh, you figured it out.

!!weather BOI

@Undo BOI/KBOI: Boise Air Terminal/Gowen field • Observed: 23 mins ago • Wind: 120°/ESE @ 3kts • Visibility: 4.0mi/6.44km • Sky (AGL): Broken clouds @ 6,500ft; Overcast @ 8,000ft • Temperature: 0.0°C/32°F • Dewpoint: -1.1°C/30°F • Pressure: 30.05" Hg/1,017mb • Conditions: MVFR

Hrmph

looks for other airport codes

!!weather HNL

@Undo HNL/PHNL: Honolulu International Airport • Observed: 24 mins ago • Wind: 60°/ENE @ 3kts • Visibility: 10.0mi/16.09km • Sky (AGL): Few clouds @ 3,000ft; Scattered clouds @ 5,000ft; Broken clouds @ 7,000ft • Temperature: 23.3°C/74°F • Dewpoint: 15.0°C/59°F • Pressure: 29.95" Hg/1,014mb • Conditions: VFR

!!weather hnl

@Undo HNL/PHNL: Honolulu International Airport • Observed: 24 mins ago • Wind: 60°/ENE @ 3kts • Visibility: 10.0mi/16.09km • Sky (AGL): Few clouds @ 3,000ft; Scattered clouds @ 5,000ft; Broken clouds @ 7,000ft • Temperature: 23.3°C/74°F • Dewpoint: 15.0°C/59°F • Pressure: 29.95" Hg/1,014mb • Conditions: VFR

Hmmm

!!weather thisnoexisty

!!weather KBFI

@Undo You must specify a 3-letter IATA or 4-letter ICAO airport code - e.g. !!weather LPL or !!weather KJFK

Nice!

Server error (status 500) occured (message probably too long)

Uh oh :P

Bahaha

(ping @DannyBeckett)

boo

working on that now :)

@PatoSáinz No METAR data could be found within the last 24 hours for SCTB! Check you typed the correct 3-letter IATA or 4-letter ICAO airport code.

@PatoSáinz SCL/SCEL: Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport • Observed: 18 mins ago • Wind: 160°/SSE @ 9kts • Visibility: 4.97mi/8.0km • Sky (AGL): Clear • Temperature: 19.0°C/66°F • Dewpoint: 11.0°C/52°F • Pressure: 29.97" Hg/1,015mb • Conditions: MVFR

@DannyBeckett Where are you running it? Headless server-side?

@Undo yeah

@DannyBeckett How, if I may ask? I'd like to do something similar on Space.

Pato, it may not be polled by ADDS

@Undo @allquixotic guided me through the whole process real-time a few days ago

Presumably Danny will rig up fallbacks for when ADDS returns null

I should still be able to remember everything if you wanted me to help setup?

you just need a *nix box

@DannyBeckett Sure, if you'd like to. I have an EC2 server all ready to go ;)

what size?

micro

mightn't be great

And if that doesn't work I have a closet server ready to go.

I've had issues in the past with other apps killing the server through the lack of resources

old HP laptop

ping! I got mentioned!

Hiya @allquixotic

If you'd like, sometime I'd like to try to set up a headless chatbot on Ubuntu 12.04

hey @allquixotic!

I hear you're good at it.

we got our first command [almost] made now @allquixotic

!!weather lpl

@DannyBeckett LPL/EGGP: Liverpool John Lennon Airport • Observed: 1 hour ago • Wind: 90°/E @ 5kts • Visibility: 6.21mi/9.99km • Sky (AGL): Overcast @ 500ft • Temperature: 7.0°C/45°F • Dewpoint: 6.0°C/43°F • Pressure: 29.50" Hg/999mb • Conditions: IFR

@Undo will be around this evening to help if you need, but I'll let Danny Beckett take the lead ;)

@allquixotic sounds good!

@Undo only because I wrote the so-chatbot-driver component

@allquixotic Ok, thanks. I'd probably do it tomorrow if I was going to - what's the executive summary?

Uh oh

*nix with SSH, install some things, setup a user, get the needed rep, boot

"install some things" being the bulk of it

@DannyBeckett That's doable. I have SSH, etc., and a sockpuppet.

With 10 rep right now, I can post a few mSO answers and get 25 or whatever it is pretty quick.

yeah, I just did 10 suggested edits

@Undo for fully headless, no X server? install Java 7 (OpenJDK is fine), ant, NodeJS, npm, and PhantomJS; compile so-chatbot-driver; download SO-ChatBot (either my fork, or Zirak's); if you're running PhantomJS < 2.0 TP (i.e., if you're not using the TP), you need the ES5 shams (Danny has a patch); glue it together with scripts; go; forget ;)

k, thanks

thanks for that summary btw

saving it in a file

Probably a dumb question, but does it work with a dynamic IP? My ISP (if I don't use EC2), tends to change my IP at bad times

IP doesn't matter :)

@Undo it does no listening, so IP address is irrelevant, as long as it can connect to the public Internet over HTTP

Yay!

@PatoSáinz 2 completely different things

also, it's impossible to deprecate JavaScript on websites

Sure it is.

You're using it right now

Just really painful

I challenge you to write some godawful Perl script as a chat room client

(i.e. like the website you're using right now)

Uh, no

@DannyBeckett I said it would be painful :P

Perl = painful

Perl = Pato's favourite language

!!tell 13077539 no

Anyway, I've got to go now. I'll try to set up a chatbot here pretty soon, see how far I get.

@Undo Ping me tomorrow if you want

@DannyBeckett Ok, I probably will :P

for my day job, one of the personnel on my customer's side, who happens to be a team lead, likes Perl a lot -_- the customer is always right, so I don't contradict him :D

I'm online around this time (and a bit earlier) onwards each day

@Undo no problem :) (you WILL need guidance, I think)

Probably.

yeah, especially if you don't know all the steps... I should really write some documentation, but meh

ok man, talk soon

cya folks

@egid Cheerleading accomplished

yes, I'm "that annoying guy" that badgers everyone to participate in the WINGS program

heh, I totally don't belong here, I have never been in an aircraft

i'm trying to reduce my liability risk, so i encouraged my dad to do WINGS this year rather than do his flight review with me

@egid Is there something that you are looking for on your question: aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/561/…

it's SO MUCH BETTER than what people do for a bare-minimum 61.56 flight review

I've always been very strict about flight reviews (Almost 2 hours ground, 1.5 flight on average) and made sure to cover more than the basics, but I'm not teaching at a school so I'm no longer insurance-ized aside from AOPA legal

@allquixotic what, really?

@lnafziger um, cloud shapes probably! I am gonna accept your answer. forgot about this one.

@DannyBeckett yes, really

@allquixotic how come?

@egid haha, there just hasn't been much activity and with no comments from you asking for more I doubt that there will be. Thanks though.

@egid I don't think any instructor would WANT to do what I would consider a flight review - it would basically be a couple of hours on the ground doing changed regs and maybe a few interesting NTSB reports, and then beating the everloving shit out of me in the air

if the point is to demonstrate that I'm proficient enough to safely operate an airplane I want a workout

part of it is that I'm afraid of flying (not of the heights, but of the "infinitesimal" chance that some mechanic will forget to put a bolt in the right way and the tail will explosively decompress, and the resulting explosion takes out all the hydraulic control systems, leading to a 26 minute struggle for life using engine controls to steer and maintain altitude, followed by crashing into a mountain - true story); part is I've never, EVER needed to fly anywhere... ever

like the requirement has never come up; I've never even said "hmm... I COULD fly, or I could do this"

My dislike for (commercial) flying has more to do with the fact that I get stuck next to smelly people with the flu and screaming babies - pretty much without fail.

Like seriously as uncomfortable as those crew jumpseats look I'll TOTALLY trade with the flight attendant and sit on the fold-out shelf in the galley for the whole flight. I'll even make coffee!

thing is, I'm much happier taking my chances in a car, where (1) I have full control over the vehicle, and control my own fate; (2) where there are millions of non-lethal accidents; (3) where mechanical failure of the car might not even lead to a crash, much less severe injury or death; (4) where gravity doesn't basically mean that if the plane's going down, you get 5 minutes to think about how you're not going to be alive in 6 minutes

even though I know that statistically you're much more likely to die in a car than a plane

@allquixotic somewhere on our star wall is my feelings about driving :)

Actually that's not a fair statement: If the license plate says "Connecticut" it's a fair bet they're going to try their damndest to make die in a horrible flaming wreck on the expressway. Connecticut drivers are the new Jersey drivers :)

thing is, from being a lifelong gamer since I could fit my hands over a mouse, I have the reaction times of a fighter pilot -- I've had a sleeping driver running adjacent to me swerve quite markedly into my lane, and I had the presence of mind to get out of the way without causing an accident or getting struck

and I'm an extremely risk-averse driver

I like to think that I can reduce my chances below the mean

never had a moving violation or warning of any sort

150k miles behind the wheel

@voretaq7 I just want their aft-facing seats

they're measurably safer

driving would be great if it weren't for the other people on the roads. I can safely do about 85 on most of the parkways/expressways around here if they were just empty :)

@allquixotic thanks for sharing that

@egid only if you crash into something going forward :)

@PatoSáinz I guess if you needed to get somewhere far away in a short amount of time, sure

you never wanted to come to Europe?

@voretaq7 how often do airliners crash into things without any forward movement at all?

"at least once"

(poor little CRJ spun like those tanks in that old Atari game...)

"No one was injured." :P

ouch.

@DannyBeckett I've only left my region of the country a handful of times, and when I did, I explicitly set out with the idea of taking a moving vacation on a train; the train was a very significant part of the leisure and intrigue of the trip, and cutting it out would've been undesirable, even if I could spend more time at the destination

@egid "except the A380 captain, who was horsewhipped"

I've never had to travel for business or anything like that, and every member of my extended family lives in the same area

"...during the accident. After the accident, the CRJ crew punched the A380 pilots in their brains."

It's like the soccer mom's first SUV

"I didn't realize how BIG this thing is! It doesn't fit in ANY of the parking spaces!"

aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/777/… probably runs the risk of being closed as too opinion based

@egid it could use an edit to be less.... inflammatory/

yeah.

I mean I totally get the guy's frustration considering the FO does about the same amount of work as the captain these days, but right now he sounds like he's gonna grab some beers, pop the escape slide, and go running across the apron :)

it seems more like a forum topic

perhaps like this one airlinepilotforums.com/leaving-career/…

@egid probably, but it probably has a definitive answer

albeit a speculative one perhaps

@DannyBeckett "Because the way airline payscales are structured is antiquated and sucky"

I don't wanna discourage the guy too much for his first question

seinority-based pay is generally a crap way to attract and retain talent - it sticks around in the airlines because like the guy said "Everyone wants to fly the big shiny jets" (except me. I've got no desire to drive a (literal) air bus)

@Pondlife good comment

the tag of "unpowered" seems ... appropriate

@DannyBeckett Thanks, I can also see where he's coming from but it's more like a rant than a question. Which I don't mean as criticism of him, or of anyone unfamiliar with SE.

sure

@Pondlife If someone wants to take a swing at "un-ranting" it for him that'd be nice :) I think a lot can be cut & rearranged without losing the core question

otherwise I'll swing at it in a bit

@voretaq7 OK, I'll have a shot :-)

Oh Twitter, Y U NO PROVIDE RSS FEED?

@voretaq7 they cut it

presumably too many scrapers

you need to use their api now

fuck their API. IFTTT :P

I'm pretty sure that can consume twitter :)

@voretaq7 I'd also love an RSS feed for ntsb.gov/aviationquery/month.aspx

aw dammit it can't consume generic feeds....

I wanted to pop one up for:

which, by the way, everyone should follow. Because seriously it's kinda pathetic that it only has 511 followers.

@voretaq7 write an IFTTT integration for the chatbot

@voretaq7 Done, let's see if he likes it or reverses it :-)

Just the formatting helped make that question a lot more readable.

heh

@lnafziger i gotta say most of my classmates in the aviation program were not... um... they were pretty bad writers.

@egid that's pretty much everybody

My senior year one of the other CS majors and I decided to take the English department's Chaucer class. We were the two most articulate students in there, and I think the only two who could string together a decent term paper :-/

@egid I see that a lot with "professional" pilots making $100k+ a year too, lol.

(we totally took that class over - it was AWESOME.)

@lnafziger yeah, it's kind of baffling honestly