riddler

I have four extra tickets for the IMAX version at 2, and I can't give them away! Everyone's on vacation, or can't get off work, or can't go without their s/o, or already has plans, or has to watch their kids. Wah, people. Where are your priorities???? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Looks like a bike or two I've had in my own garage Here's a good thread that shows you how to make clicky links: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=443885 Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2448756945#ebayphotohosting Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I used to have what some people might consider out of body experiences when I was a kid. They were always related to flying or falling, and were the first thing I experienced when I fell asleep as a child. Very real sensations. I don't really believe in them - I think it's a manifestation of your brain, at the onset of a chemical reaction that is typically triggered by a traumatic experience (in my case, dramatic fear of heights). Many people claim that you can experience the same thing with sufficient dosages of Ketomine, but I've never tried that. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Want to add this: someone reminded me that this jumper has two rigs and since he started wearing a camera, he has been having staff packers pack his rigs while he jumps with tandems. Could have something to do with the more cutaways Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Unfortunately, I've seen some loft work that was less than stellar, as well. Nothing that big - just the "lack of pride" thing, and in a few cases, more of a "this part costs 2 cents less, and is still within specs, even if it bends" thing. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I ain't going nowhere near a DZ this weekend. High of 34 tomorrow. On the ground. At this point, I'm thinking my next jump won't be until Eloy. And I would buy your camera helmet (since you don't seem to use it much anymore), but I think my heads a little smaller than yours! Oh, and whenever you're ready to test-jump my lotus Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Money is a consideration for 99% of your life. But the other 1% - the part that is really important - has nothing to do with money. Only desire. If you want to go out and jump, and it's truly important to you, then money won't stop you from doing it. Geesh. I periodically have this discussion with young men and women that say they're not going to college because they can't afford it. Hell, I didn't have the money to go to college, but the truth was I couldn't afford to NOT go to college, and so I went. I did just about everything you can think of - loans, scholarships, jobs, borrowed, and I eventually made it through. Money was not this issue, only my desire got me through. Same with jumping. If it's really important to you, you won't make excuses like you can't afford it. You will get out there and find a way to do it. Pack. Or clean up the DZ - make friends with the DZO and offer to trade for work or anything. Whatever. How many people in our world - in our history - have had the opportunity to do what we do? Sorry to preach Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Is it a physical problem that's keeping you from jumping? If not, then there's nothing stopping you. Go out and do it. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Side note on that. When I started jumping, I knew the ADD would fire at 1,000 feet, but with burble correction (assuming I'm on belly), it may go off at 750 feet. At least that's what I've been told. Anyway, I happened to be in Atlanta for work at the time, and they have a 750-foot hotel there, which you can pay $5 to go to the top of (or free if you're a hotel guest). I paid $5 and spent 4 hours at the top of this building, looking at the ground. Getting an idea of what 750 feet looks like. I guess I wanted to see what it looks like if I ever have a CYPRES fire. You can do the same under canopy, I suppose, but it's only for a few seconds at a time. I have no idea if that's a good way to teach yourself to learn various heights, but it makes sense. I'll follow up on this if I ever have a CYPRES fire (I hope not ) and let you know.

Colds keep me awake Can't sleep more than 3 hours at a time. Getting some work done. Singapore, Turkey, London, Armenia, US - amazing that I get any sleep at all Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Probably my all-time favorite dz.com post Bill Booth talks about two jumpers that got into a fight during a skydive. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=282115;search_string=power%20lines;#282115 Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Wow. Is this because the RSL failed to work properly, or because the tandem mals were of the type that do not respond to RSL?

Do you think flying a camera with a fully elliptical canopy increases the chances of a cutaway? More than flying a fully elliptical without a camera? I have an experienced friend with a full camera setup and jumps a fully elliptical canopy. He mentioned that he had zero cutaways his first 1,000 jumps. Then he added a camera and has had three cutaways in the last 800 jumps. He didn't have an idea why. It could be just coincidence of course. But I also think that: 1. A camera can add 5-20 pounds of weight to your head. (could be more or less, depending on your setup). 2. That much weight on your head dramatically increases your chances of opening in a less-than-symmetric body position. If your body is balanced on the air, like a scale with the balance point somewhere around your hips, adding a lot of weight to one end will make the system more unstable. Seems like it would be much easier to be slightly off when flying/opening. 3. Opening in poor body position with an elliptical canopy gives you a better chance of inducing line twists than under a semi-elliptical or square canopy. 4. Line twists on an elliptical canopy are more likely to get worse and become spinning mals than with a semi-elliptical or square canopy. Finally, I want to add that I currently fly neither a camera nor an elliptical canopy, so I'm honestly just looking for an answer before I start doing both

Rule #1: We do not talk about fight club Rule #2: We do not talk about fight club Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Not I, said Riddler. Yahoo is generally very speedy, both sending and receiving. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

C'mon JT - you're making me go back 15 years to classes I was trying to sleep through I was forced to take Geology because my school was supposedly the best for Geology, or something like that, but I was only there for the engineering courses. Parts of land rise and fall as well - you'll see this in Florida, where divergent faults, caused by the slow movement of the North American plate to the west, fall down. Plate convergence can cause parts of land to rise (which is what caused the Rocky Mountains). There are also parts of land that are below sea level but dry, although most have water (lakes) in them. The part that is now Colorado was once undersea as well, but it's not the small (state-sized) parts of land that float, it's the entire *plate* (continent) that floats. As far as ice melting and causing sea levels to rise - melting icebergs (or ice cubes) don't change water levels - for that to happen, the polar continents would have to melt, which is unlilkely, even if the temperature over the entire planet increased a few degrees. I think it's human ego that makes us think we have more power than we do - even that we are changing the climate. I don't think anyone has proven to me that these changes are purely the result of human action. I'm much more inclined to think that these are natural cycles. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

You don't have to worry much. Most water-ice displacement isn't going to make ocean levels rise considerably. http://www.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm Also, it's not really easy to understand - I'm going back to plate tectonics from College here - but a large number of well-respected geologists believe that large landmasses (the size of continents) also "float" to some degree. It's not conclusive, but there's a certain amount of water content in the layer between the hot magma of the core and the landmass on the surface. The landmass movement is primarily effected by geothermal energy, but there is also a certain amount of "continental drift" that is caused by the floating action of land over water. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

*cough* *cough* Damn, I'm doing the know-it-all thing again, aren't I? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Here's the question: You are already an experienced skydiver with a few cutways. If you cutaway your main, and the RSL/skyhook/whatever opens your reserve, do you still pull your reserve handle? I know that your first reaction is probably "yes"! That is what we teach students, and it makes sense for students. But if you are an experienced jumper, with a lot of jumps, and you know that reserve is over your head and flying correctly, does it still make sense to still pull the handle? Here's the situation that made me think about this. Last weekend, I was on a load with an experienced (1800+ jumps) camera flyer and coach (video for tandem), who had a low cutaway, with an RSL (yes, he does fly RSL with camera, and he has a justification for it, but I hope this thread doesn't deviate to a discussion on that). He wasn't aware of is altitude when he chopped, and he wasn't aware of his altitude when he opened under reserve, but some estimates were that he chopped at about 1,800 and was under reserve by 1,200. On the ground, I saw him holding his cutaway handle, but not his reserve, so I asked him if he pitched the reserve handle. He then showed me his reserve handle still on the MLW and said he didn't need to pull it because his RSL did. Now my first reaction to this was that he should have pulled the reserve handle as well, but that's only because that's what I teach AFF students to do. But then I thought why? It makes sense for students to pull the reserve handle in that situation, because they may not be experienced or aware enough to know what's happening, and it's better to give them a procedure that covers all possibilities. But if you have 1800 jumps, and three cutways, you know what a good reserve over your head looks like. Why waste time pulling the reserve handle if you already know you have a good reserve out? If it's a low cutaway, that time might be better spent setting up for your landing. In the case of this jumper, his reserve opened into line twists, so he wisely spent time getting out of the twists, rather than pulling a now useless handle. The only disadvantage of not pulling the reserve handle that I can think of is that you are doing something contrary to what you were trained to do. Can anyone think of another reason to pull the reserve handle?

That's a great answer, hookitt. Students are intimidated by the idea of packing. I think it stems from movies and television where the bad guy packs a parachute for someone else and it doesn't open. Packing isn't rocket science - keep the lines straight, and in the middle, and it will almost always open fine. Everything else we do is to make the openings nicer and prolong the life of the material. I let students pack my main whenever they want (while I watch). Then I jump it (usually with them). Sure, I've had a few bruiser openings, but most of them are fine, and I want to stress to the students that packing is not a big deal - focus on a few important things, like setting the brakes correctly, and keeping the lines in the middle. Everything else, they'll learn over time. Heck, I still don't know much about packing - I'll keep picking up tricks and techniques the rest of my life, I'm sure. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I'm willing to go far for a good orgasm, but I'm not sure I want to enter the Matrix to do it Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Good point. I think you just cured me of being a pervasive know-it-all Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Can you compare loudness to a Neptune? This weekend, I heard a Neptune from an enclosed room on the other side of the hanger. Made me wonder if that thing might contribute to hearing loss Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Just my opinion, but that doesn't sound like good marketing to me. Teasing potential customers about something they can't have yet is one way to turn me off to the entire company. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD