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With EV's and self-driving vehicles becoming more prevalent, we're going to one day see a country western song where a cowboy's truck leaves him.

The 'funny' part about that is the fact that the chances of someone winning the lottery is in the same neighborhood as the chances of having a serious reaction to the vaccine.

Privilege is difficult to understand until you travel or understand immigrants and what they have gone through.

My opinion is that it's a good video to cause discussion. Consider, 1) Establishing your credibility on a single page, and 2) a "Table of Contents" with timeline benchmarks in the description section. For example: Watch this video to learn more about the difference in skydiving disciplines: Subject | Video Timeline Wind Tunnels | 1:43 Accuracy | 2:15 Kinethesia | 3:05 Etc. Etc.

Back in the days, gaffer tape was all the hype, and was useful.

Gowlerk, I think this is for an audience we’re not part of — people who watch a lot of YouTube’s to learn stuff (or maybe watch a YouTube to, for instance, figure out a recipe). We read stuff; others want the discussion. But then I always skip to the printed instructions. Videos are too linear, and I’m more random access I’d run it by some younger instructors and/or coaches; they’re closer to the target audience. Wendy P.

Nope. You'd womb up. It's like having the rock when those of us with scissors think we've got the game won.

Times are changing and I find myself drawn to this new line of EV's. Ford just announced the Lightning Pickup with an entry price of 40K https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-electric-pickup-truck-specs-pricing/

Another long ass post, this one about privilege. It's something I've been talking about with several friends of mine, and I wanted to get some thoughts on paper (or pixels or whatever.) Privilege is something that is close to the center of many of the discussions society has been having lately about race, and gender, and sexual orientation. And there is no topic that is so divisive - as John Scalzi notes, mention the word privilege and some people “react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon.” Often when you talk to people about privilege, their first response is defensive. They often try to redefine the word so as to not include themselves in what they consider to be an odious bracket. You hear things like "I'm not privileged! I worked for everything I got!" But that's not what privilege is. It does not mean "you are successful only because of what people gave you." Privilege refers to the benefit you get by virtue of your race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or family/community connections, or nationality, or natural abilities. It sets the starting point, not the end, of anyone's progress through life. Scalzi uses a good analogy – it’s like playing an online game on the easiest setting, whereas other people have to play on a harder setting. It doesn’t mean you (or they) are poor players, and it doesn’t mean you are evil. It just means that the “game” starts out easier for you. I understand the feeling of having to defend yourself, though, because I used to do the same thing. I had stories that showed just how un-privileged I was, because I wanted to make it clear that I was successful all on my own, that I (and no one else) was responsible for my successes in life. One of my go-to stories was the story of how I made my last tuition payment with nickels and dimes. I was working three jobs by the end of my college career, trying to make that last payment in time to graduate; one of them was running the local laundromat. And since I couldn't wait three weeks for my last paycheck, they let me take it in change, because that would let me meet the deadline at the cashier's office. And so I showed up there with trays and trays of change, carrying just enough to pay my final bill and graduate with my class. That's not the story of someone privileged, right? Privileged people don't have to (literally) scrape nickels and dimes together just to graduate! What that story misses, of course, is that I was doing that at the best engineering school in the country. And that I had made it into that school because of a whole host of factors, like my birthplace, who my parents were and what community I was raised in. Those connections had a lot to do with my earlier success in school, success that led me to MIT. I had another story from my college days that I used to tell which demonstrates how unconscious that privilege was for me. During the setup for a dorm party one day, a friend and I heard someone screaming outside. We opened the door - and there, at the top of the stairs, was a couple being mugged. My friend and I took off after the thief. He threw the purse away within 100 yards, but we kept after him, because we didn't want a mugger roaming around our campus. We chased him into a copse of trees at the end of campus. He ran out the other side, with me to the side of him, still trying to pace him. That was a big mistake on his part, because the other side of the road was the jurisdiction of the Cambridge police, and they were ready for him with weapons out. Another story of how I wasn't privileged - because privileged people don't have to chase muggers in their schools, right? They have people for that. But looking back, I thought nothing of running out of a clump of trees towards cops with their guns out. Because the mugger was black and I was white, and I knew they'd be able to tell who was the mugger. And that was a decision on a completely unconscious level, because I grew up in an environment where the police were on my side. The desire to be seen as unprivileged is, I think, a somewhat recent development in historical terms. When we look back at the popular entertainment in the time of Shakespeare the heroes were all privileged members of society. Kings, princes, the children of powerful families, wealthy merchants. I think this is because back then, underprivileged people didn't just get low-paying, thankless jobs, or get hassled by the cops - they died of starvation, and often had to watch their families starve. No one wanted that, and no one wanted to be associated with that. For the past few hundred years, though, society has reached the point where starvation has become less of an issue. And as that has happened, our heroes have gradually become the people who overcame great odds and succeeded anyway. Harry Potter, a penniless orphan who goes on to defeat the big evil. Luke Skywalker, who not only starts out as a poor orphan farmboy, but later discovers that he has a father who is literally the worst guy in the galaxy - and he still overcomes all that and wins the day. And perhaps no hero story is as indicative of our current view of privilege than the story of Tony Stark, a rich military contractor, who cannot become the hero Iron Man until all that is taken away from him by terrorists who kidnap him and hold him prisoner in a cave. Only then, when he loses all that privilege, can we see his story as heroic. It’s no wonder, then, that we want to see ourselves as without privilege. We want to be like the heroes our society (and our media) portray. And often that is completely unconscious; few people think “I want to be just like Iron Man” but we pick up the underlying message nonetheless. This sense of “privilege as an insult” can lead to unintentional gaslighting of minorities, women, LGBT people and disabled people – because when a wealthy white man tells a minority woman “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t get any benefits that you didn’t” he’s telling her that she’s crazy and she doesn’t understand reality. And there’s really nowhere to go from there; any real discussion ends, because you can’t have a rational conversation with someone who thinks you are crazy. I think it’s critical that we accept that some people in society have privileges over others. That doesn’t mean they are inherently lazy, or biased, or bigoted, and it doesn’t mean they didn’t work for what they got. But it’s simply a fact that some segments of society have privileges that others don’t. Some of that comes out of the structural racism/homophobia/bigotry in our society, which has developed over centuries for a host of historical reasons. Some of this is based in our own biology – homophily is something we evolved as a protective mechanism, and it makes us see someone familiar as someone of “our tribe” and inherently more trustworthy than someone with a different appearance, accent or presentation. But whatever the source, it’s real, and a great many people in the world have to live with it. This can be very hard to see (as it was for me.) We all choose the company we keep, and it’s easy to join a community of like-minded people within which almost no one has a dramatically different amount of privilege than anyone else. And that can make it look like no one in that group has much privilege, because we tend to see differences, not commonalities. The things common to the group – race, socioeconomic status, citizenship - become the baseline “normal” rather than being seen as something that might confer an advantage. So the next time you talk to someone about DEI issues, be cognizant that most people born in the US have privileges that most other people in the world don’t have. Accept that other people will see the privileges you have much more clearly than you do, and realize that the privileges other people have that you don’t have may not be clear to them. Do that and you can get past the initial discussion and start hearing about the real DEI issues that are important to people.

Cool, then it hit the mark and as I suspected, there’s no bad/unsafe opinions. I just send my pups to my channel and tell them, “watch all this stuff before we begin working together next week.” Again, appreciate the feedback!

I took it as exactly this - not necessarily instruction, but discussion points for the sub 200 skydivers. Hutch and I used to work the WFFC specific to getting and keeping the sub 100s in the sport, fun jumps, easy four ways, SCR's and most important - safety at a large boogie. We too had these conversations "When can I do that?" in the evenings. There's always one guy on Reddit that's going to poop on anything you do - cause, well, they can.

here's an idea Hydro dipping a skydiving helmet

Psychologists tell us that people are more averse to losing something than to gaining something of equivalent value. I think the willfully unvaccinated should lose privileges rather than being given handouts. And if they still hold out, let Darwin have the last word.

In three or four years, there will be a year where the first named storm does not happen until June 2nd. At that point, the usual suspects here will say "See? Storms are DECLINING and coming later and later!"

Bullet holes (stickers, not real ones). "High Fall Risk" warning sticker. Team stickers (I have SDC Rhythm and SDMW Next). Of course, there's the standard equipment manufacturer stickers, but I generally prefer not to be a 'walking advertisement' without getting paid, so I only have a couple of those.

Oh please, Professor. They turned a blind eye to Trump's traitorous behavior with Russia, while vilifying Clinton for 'selling uranium'. They turned a blind eye to Trump's (and the rest of the Rs) giving huge tax cuts to the super rich, while vilifying the idea of giving money to the 'ordinary folks' struggling to pay the bills. They ignored Trump's corrupt behaviors (and there were a LOT of them) while vilifying Clinton for her use of a personal e-mail account (which Trump's spawn did the entire time he was in office). They turned a blind eye to Trump's denigration and disrespect to the military ('suckers and losers') while trying to pretend Clinton was responsible for the deaths in Benghazi. And, last but not least, they attempted to overturn the legitimate results of an election, all the while claiming 'voter fraud'. Trumpism. Hypocrisy. Someone can be a hypocrite without being a Trumpette. But you can't be a Trumpette without being a hypocrite.

Yes you right about the flag i dont know how to change it. Thank you about the information , didnt thought about the coast and the wind.

i found that had it been in the evening, i would have fell asleep. it has useful information, and was well put together, but the sound of the voice with that music is what got me.

I will say that as a 10+-minute video to answer some questions, it’s a good start, and makes the point regularly that this stuff isn’t automatic. It’s the video format that’s not for me, but I’m not it’s target audience. Wendy P.

That video is definitely long and I couldn't sit through it. But as in most disciplines in skydiving - are you doing a solo angle jump or a 10way? Are you trying to do CRW with your 50 jump buddy or the guy with 5000 CRW jumps? Are you trying to sitfly with 4 friends when none of you can keep it for a whole skydive? So much depends on the experience of everyone involved. I have done a ton of CRW jumps with people who had less than 50 jumps but they were simple 2 ways with me who has world records in the discipline. Them doing a 2-way with another 50 jump wonder would be a completely different thing. Trying to sitfly with your friend who also has 50 jumps is a completely different beast than doing a sitfly with someone who has a thousand freefly jumps..

What are your qualifications and how did you formulate your recommendations? Truthfully I got about 5 minutes into and became bored. I know you put some effort into doing this, so I feel a little bad, but I'm not sure the skydiving world needs your opinions on this to be blunt. Your profile does not list your extensive coaching and instructing background. Maybe you are qualified, but I have no way of knowing. I suspect that if you were you would not need validation here from the reddit critique.

Hey — what about me? Would I man up? Wendy P.

He's a man of honor who would carry the entire load if he could. As someone who would never turn his back on a solemn responsibility he, quite naturally, feels that he should have a legitimate right to a say. If the woman wanted the baby and he didn't I suspect strongly that he'd just man up and own the responsibility. The problem is that the sentiment just does not scale out very well. The reality is that the woman's and the baby's fate must never be left to the lowest common douchebag denominator. Hence, the only viability question must center on the one person who will be left holding the diaper bag. From a moral or policy perspective nothing else fits the truth of things.

I’ll agree with the contention that it’s the responsibility of both parents and some sort of medical person to be involved in the decision. HOWEVER: only one of those parties has the opportunity to completely neglect their responsibility. And all too often does. And only one of those parties has the physical impact of pregnancy. So the votes should be prioritized accordingly. It’s really only a choice for the man. Tô a lesser degree it’s a choice for the medical personnel, but one can sometimes find new medical personnel. Wendy P.

It's not a medical decision. Babies are alive. So are fetuses and embryos. So are egg cells. So is sperm. So are your kidneys. All alive. When medical judgment enters into it is viability. Is a 25 month old fetus viable outside the womb? Usually. Is a 22 month fetus viable outside the womb? Usually not. That has some relevance in that abortion is different than delivery only after viability. That number will get slightly lower as we advance in medical technology. The SOCIAL question is who decides when to abort a pregnancy - the woman or the government?

Going through a box of old Parachutists today and I found the one with you, Q, Holly and Keith Myer on the cover. It's going on the wall in our game room tomorrow. You still matter.

I ran across a Microhawk II, and figured I'd give it a try. I was unable to google a manual for it, so I contacted the manufacturer (which was the only data I was able to find, provided by dropzone.com ofcourse). Egbert Robnik replied with How to use instructions for Microhawk / Epsilon Audible altimeters. So for the next guy looking for instructions on how to use the used audible you bought / received for free: ================================= HOW TO USE THE MICROHAWK / EPSILON Turn the know slowly to find the 0-point at the elevation of the landing place, (depending on the previous setting, you might have to turn in either direction - if you follow our later described procedure, it will be anti-clockwise). At the 0-point the sound will be emitted. From there turn clockwise to the altitude where you want the signal during skydiving - one division for every 500 feet or 150 meter. As a check for proper setting and function, the signal-tone will also sound when climbing at the chosen altitude. Make any correction by turning clock- wise (for a higher setting) or anti-clockwise (lower). If you are finished with jumping for the day, leave the knob at the last setting if it was more than 4000 feet, otherwise set it to an altitude of 4000 feet or more. The reason for this is that the trigger-point should not be reached due to atmospheric pressure fluctuations or the difference in elevation between the drop-zone and your home. Following this simple procedure will not only help finding the 0-point, but also give you several years of battery-life. THREE-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY Our altimeters are guaranteed against defects in material and workmanship and will be serviced or exchanged (our decision) without charge during a three-year warranty period (from the day of purchase), provided they have not been modified, abused or tampered with AND THE DEFECT HAS NOT BEEN CAUSED BY AN EXCESSIVE MECHANICAL SHOCK OR HEAT. OTHERWISE, WE HAVE TO CHARGE FOR THE REPAIR. Remark: In most cases a "Standard Service" (currently EUR 32,-- plus return- postage) will cover small accidents. This service also includes new batteries and calibration. Please look up our web-site: www.robnik.com to get detailed information how to return an instrument for SERVICE & REPAIR. WARNING NEVER MAKE AN INSTRUMENT TO THE SOLE MEANS TO DETERMINE WHEN TO START THE SEPERATION, WHEN TO OPEN YOUR PARA- CHUTE OR ANY OTHER SAFETY RELATED PROCEDURE. YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE DETERMINING FACTOR. THEREFORE WE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY RESPOSIBILITY FOR INJURY OR DAMAGE TO PROPERTY, CAUSED BY TOO EARLY OR TOO LATE INITIATED SEPARATION, DEPLOYMENT OF THE PARACHUTE OR ANY OTHER SAFETY RELATED PROCEDURE, EVEN IN THE EVENT OF A MALFUNCTION OF OUR PRODUCT. =================================