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Welcome to Omnibits for Thursday, 18 September (Day 8)

0745

gOOD mORNING!!!

The FS judges are resuming their work on yesterday's 16-Way jumps, while 10-Way teams take to the air.

16-Way team photos are now online, thank you Deanna L for bringing that to my attention.

I had to get up early this morning to "finish" some 10-Way code, I have my fingers crossed that it will work. Previously OSHD has simply concentrated on the primary task -- creating the 10-Way speed score. But the event has evolved to the point that nobody cares about that part any more, it's just a nuisance on the way to some fun stuff!

So the sequence you will see -- hopefully -- is: the judges start the clock on the exit; the judges then clock the time of the completed formation, which starts a 5-second clock; after the 5-second clock a freeze-frame is applied (the team has to hold the formation for 5 seconds); after 5 more seconds the video playback is resumed, and continues until 52 seconds of video have elapsedfrom the time of the exit.

(In case your curious, the 52 came from USPA's Freefall Time Table. I used 11,000' for the exit altitude (as specified by the pesky rules) and 2500' opening altitude.)

The JukeBox replay will be slightly different: the video will play continuously (no freeze-frames), but a chronometer will start, then stop at the scored time. The video will continue until 52 seconds have elapsed after the exit (clock start).

Clear as mud ... ?

0800

16-Way is done! Congratulations to GKXP on a kick-ass performance! A full 26 points ahead of second place Arizona Airspeed 16, with Deguello 17, in their 26th year, placing third.

1000

Huge video playback headache. Turns out my fancy shmancy (and very expensive) video playback and graphics overlay component has a bug: if I try to overlay drop-shadowed text, it loses its ability to play at normal speed. Something I was only trying to do with 10-Way! Grrrr

An hour later, pleased to see a genuine race developing in 10-Way for the top spot!

1330

After 5 rounds of 10-Way, the Golden Knights are less than a second ahead of Airspeed. Anyone's ballgame!

GOOD MOVE at this Nationals, first time I've seen it: the Chief Judges chose to NOT print each score sheet. (What a waste of laserjet ink and paper that is!) Teams were directed to visit the Internet for scores and details, which can be done with a smartphone a second or two after a score exists.

They've been printing standings by hardcopy, and that's it. I hope this becomes SOP.

I hope that next year USPA either ends 10-Way as an event, or adds an Intermediate (or Advanced) category to increase participation. I do not want to see it experience the slow and painful death that Freefall Style is.

Of course Freefall Style just needs to go away, period. Not nearly enough people participating in that to warrant all the trouble. There is not even much international support for it -- it came very close to being ditched by the IPC just a few years ago. I'm told that just a single person prevented that.

(I think that the Windows 7 OS used by OSHD is old. The four year old laptop I'm working on has one, maybe two more years on it, three if I get lucky and manage to only use it with a USB keyboard. Go marvel at the video equipment being used to shoot style: the 1980s L&B camera, the 1970s Panasonic VCR ... those belong in the museum!)

1430

The Golden Knights end up winning 10-Way, quite handily! AA needed a win the last round by more than ~1 second and ended up losing it by six.

1630

... and all Artistic Events are done. Congratulations to Team Flo in Freeflying Open, winning a very close contest over Atlas Freefly!

Look for all videos to be uploaded by late tonight!

1800

Just got mp4 videos queued in FileZilla after many (cough cough) delays. 134 of them.

Starting tomorrow please let me know if you find a b0rken video link for any of the completed events. Some always fall through the cracks. 10q.

Team lists for the crEw events have been initialized in the results tables so you can browse who's here and who's not. The CReW briefing is done and we're gearing up for the Artistic, 10- and 16-Way awards ceremonies.

and

then

f(OO)d

 
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