champu

I'm sure you'll agree, that mistake resulted from a different kind of assumption about a different kind of operator.

I think he qualifies as the first skysurfer to lose his board during the jump and get back together with it. Still, JT should probably stick to swooping.

Great idea! Exclude anyone with an IQ

Absolutely. The $US is legal tender in this country. This means that it must be accepted for payment of a debt. It does not mean it you can't accept other things, be it pesos, euros, bits of string, etc. Now... If I was in the US, and I paid for my food in $US and the owner tried to give me change in pesos (euros, bits of string, etc.) that'd be different.

3.2 Functional Characteristics 3.2.1 Taste [FRTCK.32001] To the maximum extent that is feasible while meeting all other requirements, the pastry shall be delicious. 3.2.2 Improvisational Weapon Usage [FRTCK.32002] The pastry shall provide stopping power against an average adult male soldier when thrown overhand from a distance less than or equal to 10 yards.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

"There are some important differences between the impact of the aircraft into WTC 2 and the impact into WTC 1. First, United Airlines Flight 175 was flying much faster, with an estimated speed of 590 mph, while American Airlines Flight 11 was flying at approximately 470 mph. The additional speed..." World Trade Center Performance Study The speed can be estimated quite well from all the video of the impacts. My last post may have been condescending, but it wasn't inaccurate.

Don't forget to put the fuel in a 200 ton plane and slam it into the structure in question at 500 mph. It may drive your costs back up, but If I remember correctly, and I admit in my old age my memory has gotten somewhat hazy, that was rather key... As a side note, I'm not sure raining debris over numerous city blocks can be accurately describied as, "a perfect science." Maybe my standards are a little higher than yours regarding what I'd consider a "controlled" demolition.

Keep in mind that if you have a cypres fire and are unconscious, you will probably be slumped to one side in the harness which will induce a turn, build speed, and smack you into the ground (and/or other obstacles) pretty good. Reserves are designed to be more docile with this type of input, and this is by no means intended to be an argument for getting a smaller reserve, but you should know that the "injury-free cypress-fire half-brakes no-flare reserve landing" is probably more elusive than you are making it out to be.

If you're comfortable under your main, and your reserve is smaller but within a size of your main (i.e. 170main + 160res or 150main + 143res, etc.) you will probably be just fine. If you're a bit dodgy under your main and your reserve is smaller than your main... well... it sounds like you've got two problems that need fixing. I would also suggest to people buying a new rig that are unsure about reserve sizes that seem to go with the main(s) they want to talk to the manufacturer about it. Most will listen to what you want and make sure you get a rig that can safely hold the canopies you are comfortable jumping.

Cellphones and blackberries have been completely prohibited in most areas (on or off, battery or not) at my place of work for quite a while now because of this. ...didn't know the FBI was actively employing it to collect evidence against suspects though, should have guessed as much.

The clip is from the Soul Flyers 2 DVD. If you think the runs in Chile were cool, you should see the Norway footage. I have a grand total of about 20 wingsuit jumps, and I can assure you, that makes the video more impressive to watch, not less.

Your feelings betray you, young Skywalker...

These two posts are excellent examples of the biggest thing wrong with the 9/11 conspiracy theory. That is to say, there isn't one conspiracy theory. They seem to be countless, and even though the implications of more than one are often used to paint a rather grandiose picture of "what really happened" behind the scenes, the assumptions made to drive them all are either orthogonal or at odds. Did people make money off of what happened on 9/11? Certainly. For example, a guy I work with bought a house the week after it happened when housing prices took a dip. He probably paid half of what the property was actually worth. Did many security layers in place that day that should have caught the events according to their own chest-thumping declarations of capability fail to prevent the attacks? Evidently. Drills and responses to minor false alarms are one thing, but until you're really under fire, you don't know how your system is going to perform. We know today, better than we ever did before, just how silly and misguided things like airport security can be. Did certain people have both the knowledge and capability to stop the attacks, but choose not to because of a political or financial agenda? Hmm, that's a good question. I personally tend to doubt it, but that's my gut talking. However I think a discussion that actually maintained focus on this particular topic rather than devolving into ridiculous and ignorant conjecture about cruise missiles, material science, and civil engineering would be much more fruitful than what these conspiracy theory threads always produce. Did the line of people who wanted the buildings destroyed grow so long (to include, but apparently not limited to, islamic fundamentalists, enron and worldcom execs, oil companies, property tycoons, and [withholding laughter] people trying to avoid asbestos removal costs and regulations) that one or more of these groups actively coordinated their efforts and employed both demolition charges and hijacked aircraft in a redundant fashion to destroy the buildings? Utterly and completely absurd.

eh, wasn't that big a deal. I was able to stop it from spiraling so I was out of the twists in a few seconds. What's funny to me about the photo is that I took it. Mouth activated switch + excitement = photos of near-collisions in freefall, canopy malfunctions, the last 90 degrees of a 270, etc.

You just have to make sure that you buy one that will fit a Canon.(it says on the box). 'ep, see attached. It would also say "For Canon AF" on the on the back of the rear dust cap it comes with.

On smaller/faster canopies, the flapping of an uncollapsed slider when in full-flight (after you release the brakes) can actually shake your whole harness considerably. It's rather disconcerting, and probably not good for wear on your slinks, risers, or lower suspension lines. I always collapse my slider and pull it down behind my head. I had my rigger stitch a couple wraps of webbing around my risers near the bottom to trap the grommets and keep the slider down. Any rigger should be able to do this for a few bucks if you ask them to. By the way, if you do decide to start pulling your slider down behind your head (necessarily passing it over your links, toggles, and excess brake line) make sure the keepers you stow your toggles in are in good shape and be sure to do so carefully so as not to get hung up on or release a brake in the process. This would very likely result in a, "Well, I'm an idiot..." malfunction and cutaway. And of course, as always, don't let adding something else to your deployment routine get in the way of making sure you don't have a canopy collision or fly the wrong way too long and end up having to land off.

Katana 107 last saturday...

Getting back to what I was saying about valid senses of intuition, I have an example. If I showed you video of the Sydney Opera House having a run-in with a class T8 tornado, what kind of damage would you expect to see to the structure suffer? Any ideas? I'll tell you what, I haven't got one damn clue what the hell would happen. (and I've seen a lot of tornado education and demonstration videos as a kid, I grew up in the midwest.) All I can tell you is that building's structural design is so different from anything I've seen videos of tornados taking out that to expect a similar looking outcome would be ridiculous. I also know that although the designers may have taken into account tropical storms (the building being on the coast and all) tornados are very different animals, and their forethought probably wouldn't have been enough to save it.

I think one of the most prevalent facets of conspiracy theories is that they always seem to be concerning topics for which most people have no valid sense of intuition. Topics in aerospace... physics... engineering... forensics... I'd wager the vast majority of people "learned" all they "know" about these topics from sci-fis, action movies, and prime-time cop dramas. I don't fault people for that, it would be silly to. You can't expect everyone to be an expert on everything. But if you want to hear how ridiculous news reports and eye witness acounts can get when people are out of their element, read any of the news clippings from the recent Mike Holmes skydiving incident. I'd help address the questions raised about the World Trade Center attacks... [deep sigh] again... but enough people here already have. Besides, I probably work too closely with the government for you to listen to what I have to say anyway.

Has anyone from the colleges of engineering at either the University of Illinois or the University of Southern California come forward in support of the theory that a controlled demolition brought the World Trade Center down? I'd hate to have to take my diplomas off the wall...

As with the video signal, I doubt the docking station does anything to the voltages. The AC adapter has input conditions of 100-240V and either 50/60Hz and outputs DC at 8.4V up to 1.5A. It's the output you really care about when it comes to working with the camera, but that input range would suggest it's designed to operate in both North America and Europe (among other places.) If you look at the adapter there's the brick and the cable that goes to the camera and they are connected, and it accepts a simple cord that goes to the wall outlet that can be supplied pursuant to which region they ship it to. It's always cheaper to design one version of the complicated thing and many versions of the simple thing.

About $4,500 w/ static line and buying used (albeit very modern) gear. That was as of the summer of 2003. Since then? Around $25,000 including jumpsuits, altimeters, helmets, uspa fees, video cameras, lenses, coaching, a second (new) rig, reserve repacks, canopy relines, and [of course] jump tickets. (not including gas, beer, various hotels, etc.) Would I do it again? Absolutely. And since I'm planning on doing a 4-way team this year, coaching, tunnel time, video, and jumps may make this one of my more expensive seasons.

Just a 3.7, although it looks like you were pretty close to it. They're definitely creepy.

This may be true, but only if the device were to use a different ECC scheme based on what tape you have inserted. For example, if the higher quality tape allowed you a higher data density than you could get away with on the cheaper tape, you could use a lower rate code (more redundancy) but keep your payload bit density the same (same number of actual bits you care about per a given length of tape) You'd have to keep an eye on how small your bits were physically becoming on the tape and how big of a tape wrinkle, scratch, or spec of dust you expected to encounter, but I suspect you could make things come out to your advantage. I am under the impression, however, that DV devices don't make use of the higher quality tapes in this way.