After a complicated 2015, Météo-Parapente is back in 2016 in excellent health.

And if we had found the right assembly?

The big event of this beginning of the year is the transition to a “paying” operation.

I grant you: after the fight I led for access to free weather, this turn may have seemed a little surprising. Unfortunately, ideology was not enough to pay the bills.

To build a quality service, we cannot rely on the goodwill of a few sponsors. Sponsors are fragile, they only allow us to survive, and when they're gone, everything disappears. We experienced that last summer.

Many of you contributed. After a few months of hindsight, I think this choice was the right one. Météo-Parapente has not only become independent, but we are also giving it the means to develop.

RASP is back

The first investment was the restart of the RASP model. Many of you have been waiting for it. We therefore again have forecasts identical to those we had for the past 4 years.

At the moment, the installation is still a little bit DIY. This means that there may be failures from time to time: power cuts, crashing of the internet connection...

It was initially planned to install the machines in a Geneva data center, on the shores of Lake Geneva. But these projects were turned upside down by Pioupiou's move to Belgium. I am therefore looking for a new datacenter closer to my new home. There, we will be on a pro installation.

New youth

We have also started the developments to give the website a facelift.

This version of Météo-Parapente dated back to 2012. It was just before the arrival of mobile phones, which revolutionized uses.

Here is the preview of the new Météo-Parapente, which will be as easily usable on a computer as on the small screen of a smartphone.

I prioritized clarity and ease of use. You will not be lost.

This new Weather-Paragliding will also be an opportunity to use the latest technological developments of the Internet, in order to offer you even more innovative services. In 2012, Météo-Parapente was the first website to present the weather on an interactive zoomable map! In 2013, I introduced the simplified emagram. In 2016… we will go further. But for now, it's a secret 🙂

There is still a little bit of work left. This new version should arrive soon. I voluntarily do not give a calendar, it's "feeling".

Kilo-watts

I am investing in new hardware. The available computing power will at least triple over the next two months. Electricity consumption too 🙂

I did a lot of tests to validate the hardware that has the best power / consumption / total cost ratio compared to my use case.

First benchmark with a classic server

Solution adopted: “super servers” each containing 8 processors

Infiniband network ports at 56GB/s to connect the machines to each other

With all this paraphernalia, we will extend the duration of the forecast as well as the geographical area.

It will also be an opportunity to reserve some power for “experimental” functions that we will introduce later.

This dear Europe

If the software and hardware aspect is quite fun, there is always the administrative part that weighs everything down.

I just finished editing the invoices for the contributions. It was a real hassle.

In order to tax Google, Apple and their friends, Europe had the good idea to create a specific VAT regime on digital services.

The merchant must charge VAT according to the consumer's country of residence. It's a mess not possible: you have to manage 25 different VAT rates, then pay this VAT independently to each country of the union. Enough to waste a lot of time for all small SMEs.

Brief. It's over and it's fun.

Access codes

I emailed most access codes and invoices.

If you haven't received it yet:

– This is normal if you paid by Paypal after February 29, or sent a check after February 15. I'll send it to you at the end of the month.

– Otherwise, check your latest emails, including in Spam or Notifications type folders. If you still can't find it, there has been a problem somewhere, like a typo on your address. I have about thirty messages that could not be sent. The solution is to send me an email at support@meteo-paragliding.com

Access restriction is not yet in place. When it is, you will automatically receive the code and the invoice immediately after payment.