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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/20/2022 in all areas

  1. 3 points
    Would a US analogy be the House Select Committee on Benghazi?
  2. 2 points
    Oh I am thinking the brainchildren of the trolley problem were very well aware of the concept of winners and losers. Behaviour formed by ethical dilemmas becomes even more interesting to discus as autonomous transportation grows.
  3. 1 point
    Heck, the guy who got her into that delicate state will probably win re-election. "Yeah, maybe I did that and maybe I didn't; there's just no way to tell. But I made sure she died for her sins. Just like Jesus. Thoughts and prayers for her family."
  4. 1 point
    My plan whenever we were using straps was (besides not taking it so low you get &#*@*ed) was if we could not release the straps for whatever reason we go back into a side by side and either cut the straps with a hook knife if we could not release them or land the side by side. But I would never go so low with straps where I had no options.
  5. 1 point
    Not quite as they are not held by politicians but bureaucrats. They basically are make work projects for lawyers.
  6. 1 point
    You may call me a boring old libertarian, Unitarian/Universalist, but I get embarrassed when right-wingers talk loudly about a third-party's sexuality. What need-to-know do they have about some third-party's sexuality? I don't believe that I have a need-to-know about some one else's sexual history until we agree to sexual intercourse. Even then, my need-to-know is limited to sexually-transmitted-diseases. May I suggest that nosey right-wingers get their noses out of third-party's sexuality?
  7. 1 point
    If looking for current info on using "death straps" I recommend the following resources The Raw Dogs CReW group Any military demonstration team. and nope, haven't seen my Terry Parsons book for a LONG time.
  8. 1 point
    Easy. Don't use Facebook for personal fun.
  9. 1 point
    this is the problem with being "mature" and having your usual vendors age-out or retire.
  10. 1 point
    Sure, there are some people who can use the internet to improve themselves. But the majority of news consumers are not discerning. They read what's in front of them - and now click on whatever's interesting and/or reinforces their beliefs. And then their news reader learns their preferences. That is a very fundamental difference. 30 years ago you read a newspaper, and the newspaper was edited to present a mix of news. Sure there was some bias but for the most part the stories were accurate and comprehensive. And they didn't change if you read the sports pages more than the news section. You got the same newspaper every week. Nowadays, if you read a newsfeed you eventually get only the things you have been clicking on. If all you ever click on are stories about how much Biden sucks, all you will see are stories about how much Biden sucks. And you will begin to believe that because you see absolutely nothing that counteracts that; your newsfeed is learning to give you only what you want. You have created your very own news bubble, and that shapes your worldview. And to a lazy news consumer, that's an accurate representation of the news he sees. That's true of everything. If you believe that Putin is justified in invading Ukraine because he wants to stop the evil Nazi Zelensky? Click on all those stories and that's all you will see. Want to believe that vaccines have microchips in them? That climate change will kill everyone within 5 years? That Jan 6th was just some tourists who got lost? Your newsfeed will alter itself to show you that. THAT is the big difference.
  11. 1 point
    This trend - the dumbing down of discourse to the level of angry soccer fans - is something that was predicted years, even decades ago by authors like Al Gore, Mike Judge, Susan Jacoby and Carl Sagan. I'm sure you've seen Carl Sagan's quote from 1996: I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or my grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." Replace that with "clutching our crystals and consulting our horoscopes" with "taking Ivermectin and reading Twitter" and you have today's level of public discourse. And 10 seconds? That's forever by today's standards. Today what people consider "substantive content" includes "Let's go Brandon" "Hunter's laptop" and "I did that!" Under a second.
  12. 1 point
    An intentional downplane in CRW can be flown in different ways. One way is to stack, plane, climb down and transition to a grip where each jumper holds on to the other jumper's legs. If you fly a side-by-side this way, it's easy to transition to a downplane by steering both canopies out, and its easy to break up the downplane by letting go of the legs. I've tried this a few times myself, and in my experience it is not easy to get a proper grip and you need a lot of force from both persons to keep the grip stable. If one person releases that force, the other won't be able to hang on and both jumpers will fly away from each other. Another way to do it that is physically easier is to make a harness with quick-release that you can connect to your own rig, and have a strap that can be connected between the two jumpers. I have made one jump with such a system (together with a CRW jumper who is very experienced in their use), and it is much easier to create a downplane with them, since you do not rely on muscle power to keep the connection. The downside is that you are more solidly connected to the other jumper, and if you cannot break that connection in time it can result in you both impacting the ground at downplane speeds. Typically, both jumpers have a cutaway system similar to a three-ring system on their end. One of the dangers (no exhaustive list) of this system happens if the strap gets twisted around somehow. This can lock in the release system, making release extremely difficult or pretty much impossible. Hence my advice regarding this topic. Here Be Dragons! Venture forth at your own risk. Always think deeply before you act, and talk with many experienced people. Weigh their advice carefully, and don't throw it aside lightly.
  13. 1 point
    Be careful if you venture there. Those things are nicknamed "Death Straps". There's differing opinions on whether that nickname is deserved or not, but such straps do add risk to a skydive in ways that are not readily apparent, so always keep thinking critically. My advice would be to seek out someone who is experienced in parabatics jumps with and without such straps, and jump/talk with them extensively. And because of their perceived risks, people are more likely to talk construction and dimensions when in-person rather than via the internet with someone far away.
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