mr2mk1g

Where'd you jump? At least the country...

For my advice I'd like to rely on a quote from the film "Scary Movie" given by the character named "Shorty". It goes something like this: I know it's quite complicated advice, but I'm sure y'all cope with it.

We can't be held accountable for failures in your education system.

They're perfect for the role they were designed to fill. Possibly the greatest example of a product that excelled in meeting its design requirements. But yeah, by other standards they suck... but then those standards weren’t their primary design brief. In this sense "Garbage" is a very subjective word.

That would be an amusing gadget!

Doh... NOW I read your last post [slaps forehead]

You realise the rifle you linked to was never put into service? That's the EM2 designed in the 50's as a replacement to our Rifle No.4 (used to own one - now those are nice). It never got adopted because we wanted to go super small with the ammo (.28) and NATO wanted to keep the 7.62mm. So we went with the L1A1 (FN FAL). We later resurrected the idea with the L85A1 which is almost identical but made with modern components and in the NATO 5.56mm Were you trying to link to the SA80? (L85A1) or did you mean the EM2? The EM2 was waaaay ahead of it's time and would have been a great weapon at that point in history. I think today though we ought to be looking at something a bit higher calibre. (yes - H&K are nice... mmm I'd love a little MP5A5 )

Yes, a number actually. Although we always tried to make sure it wasn't an arrest - just asking them to "voluntarily" accompany us. Only if they were resisting was it actually an arrest... but yes I’ve made a few full blow citizens arrests. But this was in the UK where I know the rules and the worst they’re going to be carrying is a knife. Which again I’ve had to deal with as part of a team. That involved the guy getting kicked repeatedly in the head until he let go of it. Circumstances were always either part of a security team in a large shopping outlet or on my own when I’ve personally witnessed the shoplifting. If I were on my own I’d always have called for backup over the radio I carried before stopping them. The legality in the UK is that citizens have a power of arrest where an arrestable offence has been committed. This is EXACTLY the same power of arrest a police officer has except for one key distinction in that the police officer may make the arrest where he has reasonable suspicion whilst civilians only have a power of arrest where there has actually been a crime committed. (ie, if I arrest someone and it later turns out they didn’t commit an offence – I had no power of arrest and thusly acted unlawfully. PC's on the other hand would have had the power - so long as they reasonably suspected the offence to have taken place, even if it didn't). That kinda sucked – thus the requirement that we had to be very sure about our actions before we did anything and also why we always tried to make it a “voluntary accompaniment”. You’d be surprised how many people when confronted by a big guy like me simply say “ok” and go with you to the security office – that’s voluntary and thus not an “arrest”. Remember what I said above is re the UK, NOT the USA, the laws are NOT the same.

Go re-read my post and point me to where in the hell I even remotely suggest that Al Qaeda are good. Go on – quote me the bit that you got that idea from. Go try it – I’ll even let you switch words round if you like, so long as it’s from that one post. I don't think you're gonna be able to do it. All I have said is that not all terrorists are Al Qaeda. Not all Arab's are Al Qaeda. Not all Muslims are Al Qaeda. You shouldn't JUST be worried about Al Qaeda, there are more groups out there trying to kill YOU than JUST AL QAEDA! Al Qaeda is trying to kill YOU. But so are other terrorists groups nothing to do with them. Why is that a difficult message? Why do you even want to argue with it? Why are you confusing it with some kind of sympathy or support for Al Qaeda? Are you trying to justify the inhuman atrocities committed by the IRA or the 20-odd other Irish groups simply because they were fighting for land. They killed kids too, lots of them! What do you want to do, give them a fucking medal because they killed kids while fighting for land? A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. It doesn't matter if they're fighting for land or for Jehad; they're a fucking terrorist. Ignoring some simply because they're not Al Qaeda is stupid - they'll end up killing you while you're watching the wrong people. Pretending that all terrorists all Al Qaeda is equally stupid because you reduce your ability to fight them. Know thine enemy! How well can you know your enemy if you can't even figure out which group they belong to? If you don’t know their group, you don’t know their ideology, you don’t know where they might strike, you don’t know where they might be found or what they might look like or who might be in the group or what links they have to other groups or where the might source their weapons, or what their demands might be, you WONT KNOW HOW TO DEFEAT THEM. Know thine enemy – that starts with figuring out what group they're in... and there are more groups out there trying to kill us all than JUST Al Qaeda.

I use a Sony 0.6 with a 30mm thread so I don't need a step ring. So I can't give you any assistance with cold hard exp. - I'm a total noob camera flyer - my thoughts are pure theory for me but other exp. camera jumpers I've spoken to have the same take on it. Others don't care and use metal - hence that I say opinions differ. Either way I think the risks of anything bad happening from a normal opening shock (where the strength difference of the two materials actually matters) are low. If it's something out of the ordniary - riser/plane/person strike then with the forces potentially involved in that sort of impact it won't matter what kind of step ring you're using - you're losing that lens. I'd much rather sacrifice my lens than the front of my camera. I do have lenses that I use for some jumps (eg a .42 fisheye for inside a tube or something) which require a step ring but I only managed to find myself a plastic one this very weekend. I'll use that in future as I know lenses are peanuts on e-bay. Camera's aren't. As I said, these are just my thoughts. Others may well differ and I only have something like 80 camera jumps so know virtually nothing more than I've read. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=26379; http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=26378;

I've vote for us being far more civilised now than ever before. Slavery's gone, the Inquisitions stopped, fewer and fewer countries have death penalties, those that do are humane about it, hell we now take prisoners in war... the list goes on and on. Depending on how you define "evil" - we have far less disease, infant mortality is low, longevity is high, there is healthcare for the masses and suffering in general is less widespread. I think you opinion is most likely based on either ignorance of or a failure to account for all the true horror and absolute barbarism our race has been capable of in the past. Much of what you list as "evil" today would be pathetically small fry by comparison to what people were experiencing thousands or even hundreds of years ago. Yes people are "evil" today... but they've got nothing on some of history's greats.

Opinions differ but personally I want a plastic step ring. My lens costs a TINY fraction of the cost of my camera. If something's going to break I'd prefer it to be the step ring and I lose my lens rather than the whole front of my camera getting ripped off. If you knock your lens and rip the thread out of the front of your camera you’re looking at an economic write off. A plastic step ring can be seen as sacrificial armour that would prevent that kind of damage. If you want a metal ring though - try e-bay. I turned this one up in about 3 seconds. I'd hazzard a guess you could find em cheeper if you took longer. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64329&item=3837775917&rd=1&ssPageName=WD2V

Depends if your up wind or down wind I guess...

Any rigger will do it for you. Or if you feel brave enough there are detailed instructions hidden on here for you to be able to do it yourself. These are accessible through the search button at the top. Key points I think are a bath cold water and mild agitation with something like woolite, lots of rinsing and drip dry. Obviously no canopies go near this. But go find riggers advice posted on here at the very least, don’t simply rely on my half assed memory. Best way though would be to take advice locally from “real” people if you’re tempted to try it. You’d probably find it’s cheaper to just throw the work your riggers way though if you add up your time and effort along with the cost of the water wand woolite. Entirely up to you.

Shit dude... if you're even more angry than you normally seem then you should just stick your fingers in the outlet and let all that power flow from outa you and you'll have half the block powered straight away. The best bit would be you get to bill them for it.

Well lets see: Britain endured 70 years of terrorist activities by Irishmen holding guns and bombs. So you’d claim they were all in the IRA? Or lets try and step into reality now… we had the IRA, PIRA, CIRA, TIRA, CAC, Cumann na mBan, Fianna na hEireann, the INLA, IPLO, LVF, the Orange Volunteers, Red Hand Commando, Red Hand Defenders, Saor Eire, UDA, UFF, UVF, the RIRA (real nasty Christian fuckers who killed kids), Sinn Fein – the political wing of the IRA, (although they’re all ex terrorists), there were Loyalists, Republicans, Catholics, Protestants… And that's just one small, lightly populated country. Terror groups are be found the world over. Get real. Just because they were Irish and a terrorist didn’t mean they were in the IRA. Likewise just because you find an Arab with a gun doesn’t mean he’s Al Qaeda. Take a look at the website below. It’s a list of the proscribed groups around the world. Note how many there are other than just Al Qaeda. http://www.terrorism.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=TGroups&file=index You’ve been force fed “Al Qaeda are bad – they’re trying to kill America - they’re trying to take over the world” for so long now you can’t see the wood for the trees. Yes they’re bad and they’re out there. Yes they have links to other organisations. But they are far from the only people out there trying to kill you. Ignore the others at your peril. Don’t be fooled by the media into thinking that simply because they’re an Arab who claims Jihad that they MUST be Al Qaeda. There are a lot of other possibilities. Remember The Life of Brian? “Fucking PFJ – SPLITERS!”

Doh! Typo, honest.

Yup, it's plenty big enough and should be plenty easy. The bigger problem than the area itself is simply the fact that it's a gully surrounded by trees so only really safe to land in if the wind follows it. That and the complete lack of outs. There are fields the other side of a dual carriageway but the national grid runs between the PLA and them. As I said - it'll be fine

It's my old university. Bottom right hand corner is a roundabout. A road leads from it up the right hand side of the photo. Trees are to the left of the road. To the left of the trees is a grass gully with a tiny streem in the bottom of it. (brown/green wiggly strip) That's the PLA, so long as the wind's blowing up or down it anyway... otherwise we abort and land with the plane and only the professional demo jumpers carry on. Yes I have the UK equivalent of my pro rating.

Sorry to bother you all but I'm trying to post some photo's for a friend elswhere and everything's broken... so I'm borrowing DZ.com to host them as it's the only thing reliable enought to actually get them up. Cheers sangrio. Anyway - this is the intended landing area for my first demo, going off at the end of the month. Tight aint it! Outs you say?... does the grass verge count? If you actually give a damn this link is the aerial map. No... we don't get to land on the nice football pitch top center.... we have to land down the grass gully (wiggley brown bit just right of center running north-south). Should be fun... and more importantly look sweet. http://www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?client=public&X=362000&Y=178500&width=700&height=410&gride=362093&gridn=178061&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=pc&pc=&zm=0&scale=5000&down.x=290&down.y=7

Dunno what the message is... Should'a bought a CYPRES or Never rely on your CYPRES

From the photo's it doesn't even look to be that windy. Less Hurricane wind - more slight breaze wind.

It's a pissing Continent!.... there's only 7 of them... how the hell can he get confused when there's only 7 of them!? It's not like he can claim it's too small to notice... it's as big as... as a Continent!

Some people will sell anything: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=208&item=3929269896&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Terrorist? - definitely Islamic? - some of them almost certainly, there’s a high proportion of Muslims in the population in that part of the world. All of them? - we don't know yet, not all Chechens are Muslim. Fundamentalist? - again we don't know. It's certainly not Chechnya’s stated goal. Nor is it Ingushetia’s if it turns out to be more to do with them. They are separatists not fundamentalists, ie they're not trying to set up a fundamentalist Islamic government, just their own government independent of Moscow.