jaaska

So - I guess this would work in more general approach, too. There are important, fundamental (at least for some: e.g. for some people religion is such, others couldn't care less; others feel that e.g. gun laws etc. are, in a different way, as important) issues discussed here and I think it is very nice. I do not agree that this forum should be for skydiving only. This is Talk Back and as such people should feel free to post and discuss any given (if not breaking the forum rules) subject as they see fit. I do not follow Talk Back in most consistent manner (sometimes weeks or even months go by) so this is just my biased view - how do other people feel about it? I actually participated in some of the gun debates at first - but as someone so wisely put it: "If you think you can change other person's opinions in these forums, you should do a reality check" - I did and now I don't (normally) even bother to lurk in the Gun Debate threads - to me they have granted absolutely NO new perpectives since the day I started to read them. How do you feel? I mean there are 2-3 threads on this issue WEEKLY (ok. I might exaggerate abit ) - Can someone point me other threads that show up again and again and again and... (Ok... there are quite a few Boobies and GWB threads, too... ) Re-Post police: What do you consider re-post? (a valid question, since I know people's opinions about this issue and still they keep on bringing it up (both anti and pro, though it seems to me pro-people tend to start more new threads, BUT those same anti-people just keep on getting back to the same old subject).

I don't read French but I saw the latest issue - have to say that most beautiful and most professional (outlook etc. I really cannot comment that much the text) like skydiving magazine available! The latest issue had a beautiful portfolio of Jussi Laine - 11 pages, amazing photos! Check it out!!!

Go espresso!

EEC? An old term - does not "exist" anymore (since the Maastricht treaty, 1993). Try EU and EMU, Finland is part of both - UK is not (EMU).

I need to state first, that I've only seen (still)pictures of that JJ event. The next few lines are more gereral approach to this topic (of tits and everything ). I understand your point, hear me out though: Parental Guidance (US version) warnings are a constant topic of jokes here in Finland. I'm not saying that they should not exist. Quite the contrary. My point earlier about torsos and limbs is something to think about, though. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) decides those ratings. Their (ultraprotestant) values dictate results where violence is seen more "natural" than two people making love or a naked person waking up and walking to shower... (Oh, I know that this is very abnormal behaviour, but I actually do that). Why do I care? I live in Finland, right? Well, some very nice movies needed/will continue to be re-cut after MPAA gave/gives its ratings, for the studio wanted the movie to be e.g. PG-13 and there were some "obscene scenes" where one could actually see naked man (and heavens help) his penis too!!! Well, of course I come from a land where whole families (such perverts!) go to sauna several times a week, all naked. Oh, if somebody really think that is pervert or unnatural - well, I made my point then. I rest my case! PS. This was a general approach. I haven't seen the "obscene scene" of Janet Js mammary gland, so I really cannot comment whether that was derogatory to women. PPS. I totally agree on the parents rights of choosing what they children will see or not. In fact, I don't even tend to let my children (if I'm ever given any) watch TV when they are young w/o me/my wife sitting next to them. Also, 1/2-1h a night (not even on daily bases) is enough TV for a child under 6. I do however know, that if there is naked man with a penis walking around in tv, my children will not get "disturbed". just my .02 euro

Oh... Could you specify when Finland is not part of Europe? Do you consider UK to be a part of Europe?

What's wrong with double or triple negatives? If Chaucer (and many other fathers of English language) used them, they cannot be wrong... Double (or triple) negatives were commonly used until 18th century to emphasize the meaning (2xno means NO!, etc.) in very high literary texts. Some dork just came up with the idea of double negatives being un-logical or incorrect a bit over 200 years ago.

I don't know about other nordic coutries, but that's true about Finland... The law that http://www.finlex.fi/english/laws/index.php Basically what it says is: * A child needs be given a forename after birth * There can be maximum of three forenames * A forename is unacceptable if 1) the name is contrary to to Finnish spelling- or naming conventions. 2) the name is opposite sex's name (thus a girl cannot be named with man's name and the other way around - although some "unisex" names occur) 3) it is a familyname. 4) a sibling or half-sibling already has that name, unless it is the second (fore)name. point 2's convention can be broken if, 1) there is a religious reason for it 2) the person has, trough citizenship, family connection, or by some some other mean a link to a foreign state whose forename convention recognizes such name, OR 3) there is some other valid reason. Oh, and trust me, there are still some quite weird names here as well...

Just the other day I heard a joke (I hope it was a joke): In America, showing a naked body on a TV is a big NO NO, unless the head and the limbs are detached from the torso... LOL! edit: misspelling

Go for it! I haven't got that many jumps myself, so figure out yourself, whose opinions you're going to follow... Just my .02 (euro) c's I think I had around 40 jumps when I first attempted sitflying. I was, at first, quite sure that I was going to sruggle for a long time to get it right - since I had had my share of "things not going so well" when I first started skydiving... Also, I've seen people practicing a basic stable sit-flying for tens and tens of jumps - so some might get the basics in just couple of jumps, for others it may take up to 50 or more jumps (then again, some of those people advance later on a lot further - so don't give up!) Surprisingly enough, it took only around 3-5 jumps to get it semi-stable (meaning I could actually stay in a sit the whole ff). Of course I probably had some serious horizontal movement as well ... After ten or so Sit-jumps (some standups as well), I asked an exprerienced FF to join me in a 2-way sit-jump. I did a sit-exit and he dived after me and kept a good distance at first (did not trust me that much). We did a couple of more jumps where he actually got really close (no grips or anything, of course) - it felt great and also, having a lot more experienced jumper beside you makes it easier to practice turns, vertical speed (sit-stand-sit) etc. You actually have a reference point helping you to avoid unintentional horizontal/vertical movement. Of course, first of all, you should be confident enough that you will not (now, what's that word in English? cork "up" / plug ? ) "get unstable thus causing a serious drop in the vertical speed", which is not good. Just to be sure (and probably the experienced FF will just do that) the other FF (exprerienced) should stay away from the airspace directly above you (see corking... ). Oh, and about the line of flight etc. as some other people pointed out - you should be able recognize it before practicing sit-flying. Also, stop practicing high enough (not 4000ft, more like 5500 or something)! Have a blast! Safety first!

Thank you, all of you, for your replies! I need to start to contact rental companies and/or re-think driveaway thing. I just checked "normal" price for renting a car from LAX, CA to JFK, NY for five weeks - 1790$. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Some extra costs are to be expected since I want my wife to drive some of the time... Oh, and for everyone in the dropzone.com community: Like I mentioned, we have not planned a particular route, though we will definitely visit some of our friends on a way. My wife is a whuffo, so this is not going to be a skydive vacation , but I would like to visit some DZ's and jump couple of times with rent/demo gear. There is no point, however, to take my own gear for

Advice needed, please. I got married with the best girl in the world (oh, just trying to be objective ) just a bit over week ago. She's a teacher and I'm still a student so we decided to postpone our honeymoon until she's having her summer break and I have my masters (around June). We have both been to the states before and we have had a dream of doing a coast to coast roadtrip trough the US for quite some time now. First we would fly to CA, purchase a car and just drive away - w/o specific plans - arrive to the east cost (NYC?) in about 4-6 weeks, and sell the car. I think this would be the best way to see your beautiful country. We have got some friends on the way we planned to visit. So, the questions: The problem seems to be the insurance for the vehicle... Someone told me that it is darn hard to get an insurance since we're not residents etc. Is this true? If it's possible to get one, how much I should expect to pay for one? (we're are there only for six weeks or so, so does that bring it down a bit?) Is the insurance person- or vehicle-specific? (So, is one insurance enough for both of us?). Can you recommend any companies I should contact for more information? How much should I expect to pay for an inexpensive, reliable enough (to get us across the continent), preferable AC'ed, manual or automatic car? There are tons of other questions, but I'll ask them later once I find out whether this car thing works out or not... I (we) would really appreciate your help! Jaakko Skantsi (and Mrs. Marjukka Skantsi), Finland PS. I have looked into other possibilities such as renting or driveaway companies. Problem with the renting is that the car should be returned to the point of origin (or one has to pay pretty heavy return payment). The driveaways are pretty restraining and one may end up waiting for another driveaway opportunity up to week or so (depending of course where you are). If you have other ideas, I'm more than happy to hear them!

-48C (-55F, without the wind chill factor - no idea how much it would have been with one ). During my service in northern Finland, Sodankylä (Lapland). Did not get warmer than -40C (-40F) during that whole week and we lived in tents (although we had "tent stoves" ). Midwinter, sun did get up at all during that training. So it was pretty much dim dark blue forest. The hardest part was the cooking! We did our own cooking with small petrol cookers (one could cook for two persons with that thing) - you had to have a small candle underneath the cooker so that it would actually function. Our captain told us: "As long as you feel something - even pain, you're OK. Let me know right away if you don't feel pain e.g. in your toes!" The same captain kept on telling us: "This freezing hell is our friend - we can cope with it - 'the enemy' probably won't!" Did not feel too friendly to me ... Well - nobody lost their toes or anything...

Just out of curiosity, what are the average rates for calls (wireless) over there?

Finland is not capitalistic nor far-socialistic country (government does not own everything here). There are no private schools in the same sense that over there or in some central-European countries. Still the public school system of Finland is pretty efficient. According to a European survey, the best in EU. All education is free (all the way to Ph.D level - in fact the government pays "students fees" for the full-day students). Also, the level of teaching is very good from the primary school levels to higher education. I found statistics that USA spends around 14,5 per cent in education. Finland uses actually a bit less! (14.1 or so). USA spends around 15 per cent in the health care. According to World Bank (pretty capitalistic source ), the health care in US is one of the most inefficient in all industrialized countries. Finland spends around 8 per cent and yes, Finland has a public health insurance sceme - and it covers everything (so one does not have to worry about not getting treatment, because it's excluded from the insurance). Of course all this means that taxes are (too) high, but it does not mean Finland is not doing well in the global market: "United States in Second Place Behind Finland in Global Competitiveness Report" http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/United+States+in+Second+Place+Behind+Finland+in+Global+Competitiveness+Report If "public something" something does not work, the reason is not necessarely that "it can not work" - it might mean also that it is just "not too well set up" and/or "badly run". Then again, I'm comparing two nations, the other one having 5 million people, the other one over 50 times that. One could argue that I'm talking about apples and oranges... Oh, there are a lot of things to fix here in Finland (IMHO), so I'm not trying to say Finland is a heaven - far from it. There are numerous things that are done better e.g. over there in US. The point of this post was about capitalistic/socialistic ideas and about the fact that things are just not so black/white (as they never are). The ghosts of "socialistic republics" of former soviet blocks still color the word socialism etc. with very bad after taste. PS. I'm not that active person in political sense, although I consider myself as a supporter of "The National Coalition Party" (Kind of like the Finnish version of Republican party) - this does not, however mean that I support all their ideas and values. I agree in many parts the way they see the economics should be run - on the other hand I'm pretty far from the "conservatism" in the sense of "telling people about moral values", "how people should live their lives", "the concept of 'true' family" etc. Here I read time after time about "with us, against us" and "capitalism/commie" lines that just don't make sense to me. Could one of you that uses these "arguments" ellaborate me?

[reply How about something simple, like wrestling a 250 pounder to the ground so he can be cuffed and hobbled? If it's you and one other cop on the scene, would you rather have someone who can do the physical requirements, or someone who was passed unfairly? Hmm... There was a study here in Finland about the difference of having two male policemen vs. having a mixed team. It turned out that having a female partner diffused a "bad situation" w/o violence more often than having two 250 pounder gorillas. Of course this does not justify you to be out of fit etc. in the extend of causing serious hazard to you and your partner. On the other hand that's a whole different scenario and if somebody wants to start to preach about fit/unfit people in the uniform, they should start with the guys with big stommies, who can not run half a mile without having serious problems...

I say, it's time to get back to basics and to the good old time where it was easy to say who is bad/good, what is right/wrong, and how you should/shouldn't live your life!!!

It's all about the point of view... Well, Finnish, being synthetic lg. makes it possible to have almost any word order in a sentence and still the meaning is the same (although some of these examples are rather "weird" in Finnish, they still present the same information... [John] [gave] [him] [an apple] (SVOiOd) (OK) An apple him gave John (WTF?)....etc.etc. [John] [antoi] [hänelle] [omenan] (SVOiOd) (OK) Omenan hänelle antoi John (OdOiVS) (OK) Omenan antoi hänelle John (OdVOiS) (OK) Hänelle John antoi omenan (OiSVOd) (OK) John antoi omenan hänelle (SVOdOi) (OK) etc. etc. etc.

Oh... Speaking English is not a big thing... Writing it is... It's one **cked up lg. in that sense. When spend attended a high school (Texas ), I was astonished that 12th graders still did spelling tests - that's something that Finns do normally during their 1st and 2nd years of schooling. Of course the reason is NOT that Americans or other people with English as their first lg are stupid or something. It's just that your spelling (system) sucks BIG TIME: he e believe ie Caesar ae see ee people eo seize ei seas ea amoeba oe key ey machine i all representing sound /i/ OR letter just is not /a/, but something totally different (can't use phonemic symbols here, so I won't transcribe them) dame dad father call village many OR one sound has to be written down with several letters (church, shame AND on top of fact that the way some of these sounds are represented, when written, vary...) ETC. ETC. ETC. Just go Google and type "English, phonetics, problems, spelling" etc. and you'll find just how big of a problem this is... Especially for us Finns who speak pretty much the way it is written (so Finnish is quite phonemic lg, one could say...)

Although there are less women coming to jumping courses, I've noticed a pattern that those who do come tend to stick - IOW, the ratio of women starting skydiving and getting a licence is a LOT higher than the ratio of men starting skydiving and actually getting a licence... I don't have exact numbers, but I guess I could look them up at our club.

So you voted for, what? Pro-CP? (You're from UK where there is no CP, so did you choose option 2?) If so, do you also believe that a) Your justice system is flawless OR b) Some lapses in it should be tolerated in the name of common good (even if it means that sometimes innocents end up dying)

Yes, I do agree. This happens, unfortunately. Although it's not that common (luckily!), there have been cases where people have been found wrongly sentenced and new evidence/re-opening of the investigation for a reason or another (the real guy gets caught a lot later etc.) has set the person originally sentenced free. (The human factor you mentioned, I'm sure this happens in all justice systems ) The difference is that while it would suck big time having spent e.g. 15 years in prison for something you did not do, you would still be alive to live the rest of your life in freedom rather than being dead already...

It's not like I don't see your point... Also, soon there will be probably comments here in the line of "If it was your sister/child/father/friend/mother the **ck raped and painfully killed, would you not like to see him/her fried?" Now, how could I answer that question if I had not experienced it myself? It's very hard to really picture that sort of a situation... I would, probably, still say "No". It's not called the "revengesystem" - it's called the justice system. Of course I would expect that the person would get a life sentence (which in Finland doesn't mean life in many cases - and guess what, I'm ok even with that). Personally I think that this way he will have more time to think about his actions... The point I'm trying to make is: If you believe in the CP, you also have to believe that a) Your justice system is flawless OR (

This is something I really do not understand either... Maybe there is someone who will show me the light...