mr2mk1g

I've heard of incidents involving people surviving when accidentally falling out of planes and they've survived. This has happened a couple of times (litterally a couple - one guy famously in WWII who was in my Great-Uncle's squadron). It can be survivable... but you've better odds of winning the lottery several times running. If you have a double mal, you better bet you're going in.

cobolt? as in vibrant blue?

Threaten him with a lawsuit if you like, but don't bother suing him - it simply is not worth the arse ache. I'd be surprised if the police counted it as theft, more likely to be a civil issue. I'd be even more surprised if they gave a damn. Fuck his mom and film it. I hear kazaa is a good place to share, then send him a link.

With a system where you are either "verified" or not, any voluntary system will still run the risk of becoming defacto compulsory if people want to have any credibility. How about a points or percentage based system where the most you can be is 100% verified, but there are several ways to get there (read more than 100% points available. Just as a complete example: 20% for filling out the profile, 40% for proof of ratings, 40% for proof of jump numbers and currency, 20% for verified paypal account, 10% for verified email etc etc... (with weightings as HH feels appropriate). You should be able to see what details about a person are verified. This way anyone can become "verified" with out finding if compulsory to open a paypal account or dig up 5 people who can vouch for them... if there ever was a concern about someone though posters can still hit their profile and see exactly what is verified and what is not. I'm not sure I like the idea of being able to rate people... just imagine someone being pissed off in an argument (must happen many times a day on here). All the aggrieved party has to do is spend time going through Mr. X's back posts, rating each one as "appalling" and instantly Mr. X has a very very bad rating. Where loads of people have 500+ posts you would give renegades far too much power to instantaneously bring down the trustworthy. (a time expiry on the ability to rate a post could overcome some of this but would not prohibit vendetta's... Imagine if everyone could rate Ron... he has a lot of excellent advice, but who would listen if he had a rating of -50?)

Good - I'm picking mine up from the factory direct tomorrow afternoon! Going to take a little tour while I'm there and see how the helmets are put together. Should be interesting.

Not quite true. The FFX and FF2 ran side by side for a time. The FFX was all moulded as one piece and you accessed the camera from inside whereas the FF2 had a hinged side allowing access to the camera. Other than that they were completely identical. I spoke to Steve who runs the co and designs all the helmets a couple of weeks ago and he said that he simply wasnt selling enough FFX's. He said improvements to the FF2 made it just as snag proof as the FFX ever was so there was no real reason to offer the FFX. Of the two the FFX was comparatively a bit of a pain in the ass to use as you could only get at the camera from inside. Thus he dropped the FFX as it offered no real advantage to the far more popular FF2.

Nah - they took our swish blue leather pasports away about 10 years ago. Now we just have these gay red flimsy ones.

Where are you in the world? If you're in the UK I would reccomend 2k Composites FF1 hands down. If you're in the US there are a number of helmets available, most recomend boneheads but your budget may make you look elsewhere. Importing from England simply isnt an option with the exchange rate at the mo.

I think I'll order that shirt custom from the mall tomorrow... its perfect for me!

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Pooh-Bah%20 Hahaha - sounds just like me...

are you talking about what his left hand is doing or his RIGHT hand?

fairy snuf

I'm not gonna argue that that won't happen, but is that any less true of any of the current titles or simply to get off "Newbie" status? Besides, I thought of this title as a kinda bad thing. Possably linked to posts/day as opposed to total posts. Someone who's been registered for years may have a lot of posts, but is by no means a post whore. On the other hand, some people quickly seem to take to the boards and post far more messages than anyone else. I simply figured these people could warrant the derrogatory title "post whore"... who knows, it might even reign em in a little and reduce the number of dumb posts.

What about the title "Post Whore"? We all call people it, so why not label them it when they meet the requirements?

Seeing as this suggestions was spawned by a post of mine I thought I’d add my 2 cents and the reasoning behind my post. I said “almost wish” because I’ve concluded that it probably wouldn’t work overall (otherwise I’d have probably requested it myself at some point). What I think it would add is the ability to simply poll the “common belief”. All too often what I believe you actually get is the belief of the thread as it were. Ie, a poll is posted, it gets argued about and whoever shouts loudest or, to be fair more often than not - is right, influences the poll and you see a glut of votes on that one answer. I don’t know if those votes are there because the majority of people are right, or because they have read the thread, learned something and simply answered accordingly. If you had a poll which cloud not be posted on then you would only see the “commonly held belief” which would be a tool to see if there was a common misconception out there. Also spare a thought for those subjects like religion, guns and bush etc where it would be nice to see a poll without a starting a slanging match appended. The reasons why I don’t think that overall it would work are because A: we can find out common misconceptions (ok its much harder to do and a “locked” poll would allow you to do this much easier) and B: it would be abused (deliberately or not) as people would simply post a “locked” poll where an “open” poll would be much more suitable and this would end up being a limit to debate. In essence the concept of a “locked” poll would I think, add something but it would fall into such a small bracket of usefulness that it would simply be either ignored or overused.

two words mate.... all-you-can-eat pizza-hut

My housemate has made like half a dozen. Just go to your local surf or dive shop and beg a scrap of old thin neoprene such as leftovers from a bust up wetsuit (he usually gets it free, once it cost £1). Figure out how to cover your camera best with it then cut and sew. (its the cheap student option anyway)

Any helmet that can undercut a pro-tech and not look quite so much like a student helmet is worth a look for the new time skydiver. Not so sure how much protection this would offer but will at least do better than a Gath, and for about a third of the price. Basically a bonehead knockoff but without the rigidity or high end build quality. A good cheep starter helmet.

Without having read the full text I wouldnt like to comment on whether or not the constitution covers non-Americans, but do you think the little bit I quoted is why they are kept at Guantanamo bay, instead of inside the US?

Cool! On one hand, I'd like to see a get out clause in the treaty where you can have land mines so long as they self detonate after a while. That would allow those nations who wanted to be responsible, to sign up whilst still maintain their army's ability to protect itself. The problem with this is that many mines will fail - even western made ones, and you can imagine the failure rate on munitions from the less developed world? As such, this clause would probably do little to protect civilians and would most likely simply enable unscrupuless sign ups to abuse the treaty.

He’s right – its called “implied repeal”. Its common belief that because the law which says “X” was never repealed it must still be law. Not so in many cases, because a new law which addresses the issue has come into force. At the end of that law there will be a section which typically says that all other laws on this topic are repealed. Even if it doesn’t, if it countermands the earlier law, guess which one stands… that’s right, the later one. For example, its common belief in England that it’s perfectly legal to kill someone so long as they are welsh, and you do it with a long bow at 100yards in the grounds of Hereford Cathedral on the summer solstice. This WAS a genuine law at one time, and true enough, never repealed. Now what do you think the 1957 Homicide Act might say about it? That’s right, it says that all previous laws relating to the legality of killing someone are repealed. (It’s also believed that it’s still “law” that you can be given the death penalty for “sheep rustling” in the UK as it was never expressly repealed, but that again is no longer true). I am a firm believer in not shooting the messenger. If you don’t like the law, you complain to the lawmakers not the law enforcers (police) or the law appliers (lawyers). People are forever bashing lawyers for how fucked up their legal system is… but more often than not they did not make it that way, the legislature did. Bash them.

If this post was a test.... I would imagine that would make this your.... FIRST attachment!?

My housamate did it with his Cannon EOS (early model). Was a very easy mod... all he did was open up the camera and figure out which of the wires leading from the trigger button would cause the camera to fire (trial and error). Then he soldered a couple of wires on top of those and led them to a port he installed in a small hole he drilled on the front of the camera. Then he simply put the camera back together and plugs his jack into the socket he installed. The camera never knows the difference between the bite switch or the button on the top of the camera, all they do is complete the circuit. Simple £5 mod which looked totally professional. I don't vouch that this works on your camera. My imediate concern with digitals would be whether or not the trigger is as simple as completing a circuit.

skydivingmovies.com hehehe. No seriously, please post to that site with an appropriate commentary when its back up and running. Its an amazingly popular site and just as good a way of spreading the word as any.

RE: hollow points vs ball, You have to remember that most of the west’s military was set up to deal with the soviets in a large-scale conventional war. Most of our equipment is still designed to deal with that threat and like it or not, a lot of the planners have taken a long time to come around to the concept that the Soviets are no longer the primary threat. In dealing with the soviets, ball ammunition was considered way better than hollow point BECAUSE it was less lethal. I’m surprised this has not come up yet. The point was, in a conventional war, you don’t want to just want to kill the one guy you shoot, you want to take him down, and have his two mates carry him out of the lines, then have 3 doctors work on him, 4 nurses look after him, 5 orderlies feed him, then 6 seamen take him home etc etc. That’s a lot of resources eaten up by one bullet. A hollow point would have killed him. You just took one guy out of the line; his mates buried him in like 5 minutes. One guy per bullet and that’s all. Therefore in conventional warfare, less lethal, wounding ammunition was judged to be king (mostly based on theory). Now to meet today’s threats of mostly rogue states, and irregular armies, hollow points may well become more useful and western states may wish they hadn’t agreed to that restriction because all you want to do is take down that one guy with the AK. If he’s wounded he has no government or support echelon to care for him and take up resources, he just wants to kill westerners and every westerner he kills on his way down means the war becomes that bit untenable for the western democracy. Perhaps the US rues tying its hands the way it has done. I do not believe the refusal to sign up is just about Claymores; I’m convinced the US could justify retaining them even if it did sign up. (the treaty defines a landmine as a munition "designed to be exploded by the presence, proximity or contact of a person…." Now a Claymore can do that, but so can a grenade taped to a tree…. Claymores are primarily command dettonated and as such I think the gov would simply say they don’t apply. Semantics maybe, but do you seriously think the US gov is scared of relying on semantics?) Their reasoning lies with conventional landmines