KidWicked

That's rather presumptuous of you, Nick. You're hardly unbiased in this situation, and all the "johnny jump latelys" should be made aware of your past relationship with BR. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

This really does make no sense. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Sorry to be pedantic, but... ICMP is not a transport layer protocol (like TCP or UDP), and therefore it does not have a port-abstraction. Technically therefore, it is impossible for "pings" (by which you most likely mean ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets) to "try to open certain ports". What you are most likely seeing is TCP or UDP traffic arriving at your NIC on ports which your McAfee personal firewall is then interpeting as port scanning activity. It thinks the traffic is hostile, when in fact it may not be. Without seeing the logs, I can't draw any specific conclusion, however. Most networks have a lot of strange traffic floating around on them (see Bellovin's paper: "Packets found on an Intranet" for proof of this fact). Additionally, many protocols generate/broadcast traffic that your firewall may be interpreting as hostile. In conclusion, just because your firewall tells you the something bad is happening, doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

If he's not sponsored, how does he accomplish this? Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Bring out the shovels and rakes! Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

My understanding is that Ralph hasn't been producing Skybands for the last couple of years. He told me he had concerns over the quality of the rubber. If that's the case, then how were BR even getting the black bands to use? Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

There could well be an economic incentive not to report problems, in the sense that it may dissuade people from buying their products. Another thing to keep in mind is that there is no regulatory agency (such as the FAA) that has oversight over BASE equipment manufacturers. (If I'm wrong about that - please chime in.) In that sense, BR has no legal obligation to report problems. Is this good or bad for BASE jumpers? I'd personally say it's bad, but I'm sure someone will jump on here in a minute at the mere mention of "the man" (ray? :-) Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

I did my FJC with BR at the Perrine 3 years ago (or was it 4 years ago? I forget), and the BR staff recommended the black bands. During the course however, TomA happened to see me packing on the grass and said something to me like "I wish BR would stop using those black bands". So even back then there seemed to be a contradiction between what BR was advocating, and practical reality. I don't understand BR's thinking here. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

I was speaking in very general terms, but you are correct. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Oh, you meant the horizontal distance, not vertical. Yup, as it tends to be the one that kills you (more people die from object strike than impact). Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Object profile: within the mathematical model you could assume it was vertical (which certainly holds true of most B's, all A's, and many E's). Launch: you could measure a standing jump and extrapolate from there. I didn't say I knew enough math to do it, only that it is most likely possible to create a reasonable model. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Has anyone who's good at math calculated the increase in distance from an object when taking various length delays? Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Care to let us in on the details? (so that we can save out own lives and limbs). Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

You were sick about reading about the rail, so you started another thread about it. Uhm, ok. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

If that's true, when why do you call people who disagree with jumping from the rail "Whiney-Ass, Fucking Pussies." ? Why do you despise the fact that I won't buy a video that shows someone jumping from the rail? I don't think Jimmy's going to have to re-mortgage his house because he needs my $20... so whats your problem? Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

That's precisely our point. You seem to be saying that the longer you've been in the sport, the less you should have to care about site ethics. To me and other people, that doesn't make any sense. Sure, BASE to many people is about "sticking it to the man" and breaking the physical rules that most people have in their heads. But here's one rule that we should all live by: Don't do anything that endangers other people's sites! The jumpers who LIVE in TF don't want people to jump from the rail, so don't do it! Don't do it, and don't argue devils advocate against it - you're doing more harm than good. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Well said. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Total lie. Show me where, exactly. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

As this thread seems to be winding down I thought I'd post a few personal observations. As I was the original poster, I feel somewhat entitled :-) The initial votes cast were heavily in favor of not buying the video, because the trailer showed people jumping from the rail. Right now, the voting is about 50/50 between people who will buy the video and people who won't. It's interesting to me that the votes seemed to equal out after several people posted about how "cool" the video was going to be. Does our collective desire to see "cool" footage cancel out widely-held community objections to site-endangering activity such as jumping from the rail? Apparently for many people the answer is yes. Jimmy has posted to say that the video will not show jumping from the rail, but in the making of the video there unequivocally was jumping from the rail - because it's in the trailer. No doubt points could be put forward justifying the project, and about the contributions to the field that the people involved with the project have made. (And no doubt someone will reply to this post making those exact points.) My personal feeling however, is that at least an empirical sense, the results of the voting does not bode well for the future of community sites such as the Perrine. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

In the preview for the "RADIX" video that was posted on this forum a few months ago, jumpers are shown repeatedly jumping from the rail at the Perrine. Given that this is generally frowned upon within the community, will you still buy their video? I thought this might be an interesting question to ask... Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Does Apex have a web site yet? (Or are you talking about www.basicresearch.com?) Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Can we please just stop all this? The lessons in terms of BASE ethics are blindingly obvious, and so this thread has served a purpose - but can we please stop now? The signal-to-noise ratio has become atrocious. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Can you explain why you think a higher wing loading will result in a faster fully-formed canopy? Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

Atair claims their Onyx "system" (which is not the skydiving canopy exactly, but which is presumably very similar), has a glide ratio over 4:1. Source: http://www.extremefly.com/aerospace/onyx/ Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."

For such a calculation I think you'd want to fly your canopy in a way that created the best glide ratio - and that is most likely to be with some rear riser input in order to optimally flatten your glide (exactly how much to use is situation dependent). You might also want to consider bringing your knees up to your chest and bringing your elbows in, in order to reduce parasitic drag. Coreece: "You sound like some skinheads I know, but your prejudice is with Christians, not niggers..."