murrays

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Everything posted by murrays

  1. Lou, Here's a link that says Kittinger "approached the speed of sound". and yes...I'd buy Joe Kittinger a beer or three too. I'm hoping to be able to buy Michel Fournier a beer...or bottle of champagne...in May or June. Kittinger's jumps and Fournier's attempts were and are dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. A small equipment malfunction and it's game over. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  2. I think the difference is that Kittinger went as fast or faster than the speed of sound...at sea level...but didn't create a sonic boom by breaking the sound barrier by going faster than the speed of sound for the altitude and air density that he was travelling through. At least that is my understanding. I think the question is: Did he go faster than Mach 1.0? If we can find a definitive source for that, then we'll know. I'd bet you a beer Lou that he didn't
  3. I don't think Kittinger broke the sound barrier...he was close but not faster. Michel Fournier, from France, was in our little city (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) for a couple of months last year waiting for government red tape to be cleared and favourable launch conditions for his high altitude record attempt. If all goes according to plan he should break the sound barrier. Lots of information on the English version of his website He plans on using a body position of about 60 degrees...more like a delta or shallow dive. He will be back here in the spring, waiting for the jet stream conditions and ground wind conditions to cooperate. We're looking forward to seeing him and his crew again and hoping he gets a chance to launch. The ground winds have to be extremely calm to inflate the balloon...not something that occurs a lot in this fairly windy part of the world. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  4. Nope, haven't done that yet either. Still researching out the facts of whether to run the default system on that HD, or erase it and download my own OS. What do you think? ltdiver As I understand the exchange that you've had in the other thread, it sounds like you're debating installing the OS on the external drive. The Mac dealer in town that I deal with has a couple of operating systems and all his diagnostic software on an iPod so that he can boot from the iPod if a client's system folder is hooped. If you want a backup, then you could do this. (See some of the comments on Carbon Copy Cloner software on Versiontracker for why you might want to do this.) I would think that you would want the external hard drive to use the same file system that you use on your G4 hard drive. I would think that you could set it up using Disk Utility (in your applications/utilities folder). If you just plug it in to your firewire port what happens? Does it show up on your desktop? Does disk utility start up and ask you what you want to do? If you plug it in and start disk utility does it show up as a drive? Maybe you don't have to do anything...
  5. You need to determine the hyperfocal distance. The range of distance that will be in focus for a given f-stop depends on the focal length of the lens and the point of focus. If you have a lens that has the distance scale on the barrel and on either side of the mark that indicates the focus point there are markings for different f-stops you can determine what will be in focus for a given f-stop.....(this is way easier in person with a lens in front of you)....say for f8: Focus on something about 5 feet away..look at the distances that appear near the f8 marks on either side of the "diamond/focus point" and that is the range in which everything will appear to be in focus for that f-stop. You know....I think you might find this more useful as the explanation has pictures. Edited to add: Do a search on hyperfocal distance on yahoo or google and you'll find lots of pages dealing with this concept. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  6. Lori, I don't know if those tasks will run if your computer has gone to sleep. Try downloading Macjanitor (it's free) and having it run the background tasks. It is mentioned in the page that Quade referenced. The tasks it does are daily, weekly and monthly...I just click on "All tasks" every so often and let it do its thing. I remember the first time I ran this program that it took a _long_ time to finish. It goes fairly quickly now (2-3 minutes) and I run it once a month or so. I just tried it out and it works on 10.2.4 which I just installed last night. Have you got your 3000DV set up yet? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  7. Lori, I downloaded iMovie3 as soon as it was available. I saw on versiontracker.com that some people were having problems - especially with opening existing projects - but I didn't have problems like that. It seems slower to open and a bit slower overall but not too much. I'm using a 15" Flatpanel iMac, G4 800 with 768mb of ram. What are you using it on? Murray -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  8. When I got up this morning my DVD was sitting in the tray and iDVD wanted to know if I wanted to burn another one. I put another disc in and took the burned one to my DVD player to make sure everything worked before starting on the second. Everything worked great. Started the second disc burning...25 minutes to burn vs. 118 for the first. Once the menus and clips are rendered burning doesn't take very long and additional copies are finished fairly quickly. I am very happy with iMovie3 and iDVD3. The need to export your video as a Quicktime file has been eliminated. The Chapters Feature works great and is as easy as you can imagine to set up. You can still add Quicktime clips to the project...like extra features. Chapters makes this worth the $49 to me. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  9. I just got my iLife package and installed iMovie3 and iDVD3. One of the big feature changes is the inclusion of a "Chapters" feature. So, here's how it went... I downloaded some old (1986 or so) video that Fuzzy wants on DVD, set the chapter markers in iMovie and clicked on "Create iDVD Project". This took about 30 minutes to download 20 mins of video, set chapter markers and start creating the iDVD project. iDVD opened. It has the title of the iMovie project as the title, a link called "Play Movie" and another titled "Scene Selection". As you click on "Scene Selection" it takes you to Scenes 1-6, then to 7-12, etc...up to 36 scenes. So, I set the theme I wanted for all Scene Selection screens and went back to the main menu screen. I clicked on "Folder". A folder appeared. I renamed it, clicked on it to open it and then dragged two more Quicktime DV files I had previously created that I want to include. Set the theme. Open the DVD-ROM window and drag 600 mb of Quicktime files I downloaded from Headdown.net..to include as a data portion of the disk. Check all the titles, themes and click on "Burn DVD" Click again...insert blank disk...click on OK. Elapsed time...about 30 more minutes. about 60-70 minutes total. It tells me that in 118 minutes it will have finished burning my DVD. It is rendering right now as I type. I'll likely crash before it finishes but I'll check in and let you know how it turned out. My impressions of these new versions of software...iMovie seems a bit slower to open. Sound editing is much improved and setting chapters is really a great feature. iDVD3 is very similar. The new themes are pretty nice. Something there for just about every taste. The Chapters feature is worth 50 bucks to me. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  10. Regarding hard drive space...I have 60gb and I'm looking for stuff to delete constantly to make room for more projects. get 120gb external minimum..I don't know where the heck the space all goes but it gets filled FAST. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  11. Erno, My thinking on this scenario is that you may not _know_ you have a main/camera entanglement until you cutaway. The scenario that I am thinking of is if you have severe linetwists that come way down your risers and you can't move your head before chopping. You won't know if a riser is snagged until you cutaway. If it is, you would have to jettison your helmet and then deploy your reserve. I really like the idea of the Skyhook but I think camera jumping requires some additional consideration due to the above scenario. Jumping a more docile main that is less likely to spin up might be something to do if you wanted to jump camera and have the Skyhook installed on your container. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  12. I am planning on jumping a camera this spring. In my research with regards to rigs, canopies, helmets, and safety I learned that jumping camera is perhaps one place where an RSL/Skyhook may not be advisable due to the need to ensure you are clear of any entanglements before deploying your reserve. Any thoughts on this Bill? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  13. Nice to know that it works like I thought it might. Glad it helped you out Tom. Regards, -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  14. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada Jumped and lived all over Canada in the last 20 years and am now back in Saskatoon jumping with the: Prairie Skymasters Parachute Club. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  15. So, I just tried this out. I exported a Quicktime file to DV in PAL format then used iMovieVSS to switch the iMovie standard to PAL, started iMovie, made a new project and imported the PAL clip. Seemed to work just fine. My guess is that you'd be able to import from a PAL DV Firewire camcorder and once you have it in iMovie you can export it and convert it to NTSC directly or using QT pro. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  16. I always tell whuffos and others who ask this that the proper procedure is to hold up your left hand.......because someone on the ground might need a watch! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  17. Have you tried changing the firewire cable? Let's see...list of possible things that aren't working... 1 - Cable 2 - PC-5 3 - eMac No buddies around that could come over with their cameras and cables? I'd say if another camera and another cable won't allow the connection to be made then the problem lies with the computer. failing that...you just ain't holding your tongue just right -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  18. Do you have access to another Camera that you could connect to see if it is a problem related to just your PC-5? -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  19. That is very ingenious and cool Bill. I really want to see one up close to see how this works. I'd like to see photos of a reserve deployment without a cutaway. Do you have any for the website? Any plans to licence the Skyhook to other rig manufacturers? I am wondering if it is going to become as ubiquitous as throw-outs and 3-rings. First impression is that it is a huge safety improvement...that should be as widely available as possible. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  20. As the NTSC/PAL dilemma has struck several times, this little piece of freeware for iMovie3 on Macs may help somebody out. I believe that it should allow you to import PAL footage - say from a visiting European's camcorder - into iMovie3 on your Mac. You could then export the footage as NTSC or convert a Quicktime PAL DV file to NTSC using Quicktime Pro. I have no access to a PAL camcorder but I will try switching and then importing a PAL DV file and see if it works. I know that it won't allow me to do this now. Will let you know how it works. ALl the reviews on Versiontracker are very positive. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  21. Here's a pic taken shortly before I climbed out and dropped off. Almost no airspeed compared to an aircraft. Sort of like riding around on a chainsaw with wings...I hated the engine noise but it was cool to be sitting out in the open climbing to altitude. Edit: Taken in Kamloops British Columbia in 1986 or so. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  22. I have three rides on my Phantom 145. Lands fine. Flies like a seven cell. I loaded mine about 1.2 to 1 at the times I used it. Drop Zone elevations were sea level on 2 and about 1500 feet on the third. I had 1000+ jumps. If your wingloading is reasonable and you have good canopy skills you should be fine. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  23. I like the design you ordered better. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey
  24. Not without a fight!!! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey