champu

What I think you are trying to say is correct, but what you wrote is only half right. A longer recovery arc gives you greater freedom in your rate of turn; you can slow the turn down a lot more while still building speed for your landing. This makes it easier to err on the high side when you initiate your turn, making adjustments to get rid of the extra altitude as you go. I doubt many people would argue with me if I claimed it was safer to start your turn high, and adjust by getting rid of altitude than it is to start your turn low and try to "make up" altitude. Anything that makes the former approach a more inviting one could be considered A Good Thing (tm) The problem I have with what you wrote is in regards to bailing out. With a bigger recovery arc comes, by definition, a bigger corner. This means you can get yourself into the corner at a higher altitude. Higher altitudes are less scary looking than lower altitudes, so with a longer recovery arc you're more likely to not realize you're in the corner until it's too late to fix. This is especially true for a novice.

Alright, alright, I'm a lanky bastard, I get the point...

Hmm... I, also, did about 600 jumps on a sabre 135, and learned to swoop using it... The more I think about it, the more I realize that long-arc, short-arc, every canopy you get is going to be different. You can't expect to learn how to swoop using a sabre2/safire2, and then "plug-in" a katana/xfire2 (or, further down the road, a velo/vx) to get longer/faster swoops without having to throughly learn the new canopy and adjust/improve your technique anyway. So while you're wherever you're at, why not go with something that's going to be the most forgiving of the mistakes you will make.

I love EepyBird. I had some fun with this last weekend at the dropzone. I still have a couple boxes of mentos and a few 2-liter bottles of diet coke left in my team room for those of you going to be around Elsinore this weekend...

A friend of mine tried to say she thought skydivers were, in general, better drivers from all the canopy piloting. I just sorta groaned in disagreement, "I think good canopy pilots are probably also good drivers, but there are a lot of crappy canopy pilots out there."

Both good advice. Also, and I realize this is just my personal preference, but I like my websites to have a structure of their own, besides just the edge of the browser window. One of the easiest and most common ways to achieve that is by having gutters on the left and/or right of the page, and having the content exist in some width of the window that has obvious definition. here's an example of what I mean. There are also other ways to achieve the same effect without so much negative space (such as corralling the main content with menus) but without doing something it just makes your site... I don't know how to describe it exactly, but let's just say I feel like if I tore the edges off my browser window, the content of your site would ooze all over my desktop rather than holding any shape of its own. Also, as far as navigation goes. You don't have to be completely generic, but be sure and be consistant. Have the exact same navigation menu on all your pages. That way when people browse around they'll feel like they're looking around one continuous site, rather than hopping between a bunch of pages that just happen to all link to one another. As for these comments... Blegh! If you're trying to accomplish something with javascript or flash, fine. If you're trying to impress people that you know how to copy and paste code, don't bother. Friends don't let friends add mindless crap to their websites.

I would have to include an S-64 (air-crane). That way you can make anything into a jump "aircraft".

You could buy a 72mm glass filter, screw it onto the adapter ring that the lens cap comes attached to and keep that on the end of the lens. The downside to this is that the lens' field of view is wide enough that you will see the adapter ring in your shot, even if you're using a camera without a full frame sensor (Rebel XT et al.) That's why wide-angle lenses like the sigma 15mm use rear-mounted gelatin filters.

Absolutely. None of which meet the five requirements I laid out. ABL is a very expensive science project. Is it really necessary? Is the F-35 really necessary? Is JWST really necessary? I don't know, but one of my pet peeves is the haphazard mingling of technical and political arguments for or against these kinds of things.

Perhaps nuclear proliferation was a bad example as a great deal of the details behind "plutonium squeezing" are probably out there. Going from a general understanding of how they work to a functioning prototype doesn't constitute quite the leap I was getting at. I was trying to say that actually developing a material that could: -provide sufficient defense against a laser weapon system throughout the boost phase -be applied to long range missiles -be incredibly light weight -be even remotely cost effective (even for a military) -not significantly impact flight characteristics is not something I would sum up as, "only needing to put a reflective coating on the outside of its missiles." Coyle sounds like you'd pick the stuff up at your local Home Depot and be in business. I'm just as skeptical as the next guy about any weapon system developed in the open, doubly so of one that has been accompanied by as many press releases as ABL has, but I think "mirrored missiles" is a pretty weak argument against the pursuit of such a system.

That's all well and good, but the task of developing such a reflective coating is being trivialized in this evaluation. Just like, "all you need to do to make a nuclear bomb is get some plutonium and squeeze it."

I have an early 2005 FF2, I've had it for about a year and a half, and overall my experience has been very good. It fits on your head snugly and consistantly, to the point that you don't need to use a ringsight if you don't want to. 2k Composites has changed this helmet quite a bit since I bought mine and I want to address some of the changes they've made. Hopefully this will help people who may have seen a few of these helmets and noticed almost no two to be alike. They've changed the way the optional two-ring cutaway system is oriented. A big improvement as this keeps the cable better protected, and also protects the spectra loop from wear when the helmet moves around in your gearbag. They've replaced the quarter-turn fastener that closes the d-box with a screw-in fastener. This puzzles me, as the quarter-turn fastener has held up really well on my helmet, and it's much more convienient for quick access. You might consider asking for the old-style fastener when you order and see if they'll build it that way. They've changed the molding of the d-box around the opening for the camera lens. While this does protect your lens a little better, it makes it harder to get your lens lined up and fitting the opening properly. Especially if you aren't using a low-profile skydive lens like Royal-lens or Way-cool which the makers of this helmet obviously had in mind. They've redesigned the chincup to "capture" the excess ratchet strap rather than have it extend out past your chin. This is much nicer as I had to use a dremel to cut and reshape the end of my ratchet strap. You no longer have to do this. Some things they haven't changed which maybe they should: The top mount area is pretty narrow. It barely fits the width of a stroboframe quick release, and essentially any still camera mounting scenario you come up with is going to leave a good bit of the camera hanging off the edge, creating a snag point. The helmet could really use some kind of (perhaps removeable) shelf extension that will make it contour better to the grip of a still camera and keep lines from potentially getting caught. The D-box is designed to hold a few different cameras, which is nice, but the piece of foam on the inside of the d-box door is "one size fits none" I removed it and in its place rubber-cemented a larger piece of shipping foam which helps keep camera vibrations to a minimum. The molded cam-eye button position is questionable. While my right riser has only hit it and turned it off on opening a dozen or so times in the 800-odd jumps I've put on this thing, it can happen, and when you're pulling your reserve ripcord and you notice the cam-eye light is blue because the riser turned off your camera and you missed the footage of your wicked spinning malfunction, you get a little bummed. But in the end, I'd buy this helmet again, and that's what's important. If you want a side mount, and you have the money, I'd say get an FF2.

And every good mathematician knows this is only true in the case of independent identically distributed random variables with finite variance. more on the central limit theorem This isn't true (and it's also fatalist to a scary degree.) There's no rule anywhere that says, "as a sample set becomes large, the individual trials become independent."

Saying that anything is "safe" or "dangerous" in any absolute sense is completely meaningless. If you've come to terms with the risks and enjoy doing it then it's "safe enough." While I cringe just as much as the next guy when I hear someone say, "you're more likely to be killed while driving to the dropzone." I'm also sick of people who seem to be preoccupied with the idea that death awaits them at all times and around every corner of the dropzone. Being complacent can definitely get you killed, but everytime someone says, "You know, all said and done skydiving is actually pretty safe." you don't need to fly out of the woodwork, piss on their birthday candles, and scream, "But you can do everything right and still die!"

"mmmm... errrrr... you're input impedance at low frequencies is laughable!"

I suppose I was focusing more on, "...to completely wipe out one of the following groups by pushing a button." and thinking you can "wipe out" a group without actually going and killing everyone. Either way, I'd repugn that it's a more interesting question using my interpretation.

Am I the only one who didn't assume she meant which group would you rather kill off all the members of? I was thinking of it more along the lines of, "press a button and make people stop molesting children, drinking and driving, terrorizing, etc." sheesh!

Earth always chooses rock, so you should always choose paper. If you get in a battle with the paper, then switch to scissors to win. Be sure to allow plenty of time to win that battle so you can switch back to paper and defeat earth's rock.

Reminds me of this comic from a couple years ago.

If they ask you, "Please open this bag sir/ma'am." Lean over the rig, open the pin flaps and riser covers, lean back, and then blink twice slowly with a stupid look on your face.

sweet video... "loading area ground level 'no pull' total double fracture." How is your wrist doing btw?

I agree with this in principle, however... Talked them out of it? What good does giving them the right to have you open your reserve if they're going to get talked out of it? TSA Agent [scratching back of head] > "I uh... need you to open your reserve." Skydiver [waving hand slowly at TSA Agent] > "You don't need to see the inside of my reserve." TSA Agent [eyes now dialated] > "I don't need to see the inside of your reserve." Get a game plan for inspecting rigs together (preferably one that doesn't involve opening the reserve) and stick to it with some backbone. Individual discretion is a recipe for disaster.

As I'm sure you know, there's good reason to go with the general shape that you see in today's missiles and SLVs. That said, some SLVs are pretty shameless in their specific form. I always felt the Titan IV was one of the worst offenders.

You mean like the "sperm field" in Eloy?

I don't think there is a problem with memorizing a fundemental equation like the quadratic. If we had to derive something like a quadratic, or even trig differentials every time during an exam, we would take a lot longer than a 50 minute class period to take the exam. As long as you have seen it and understand where it comes from and know how to apply it, then use it and move on, but remember that to apply it to the next level of math you choose to pursue. "Fundamental" and "Basic" are rather subjective terms. The few cases where I've helped people with algebra recently have reminded me of this. It would seem that the further you go down the "rabbit hole," the more you start to take for granted. As for a kind of hidden beauty in the world of mathematics, I think there's some truth to that. I have on my bookshelf at work (amongst others) an Electromagnetics text and an Acoustics text. While at first glance they seem to cover drastically different material, the more you understand each of them, the more you develop an appreciation for just how similar they are. Further down that same avenue, you start to realize it's not just how waveguides and loudspeakers work, it's how just about everything works.