dorbie

Hmm... the exact opposite of how jury selection works today, both in the order of processing and the results.

Thanks for posting, it can take courage, integrity and intellectual honesty to change your position like that. At least we're getting the available facts and not the snow job with frank posts like yours. I jump an Odyssey, so thanks again.

Spinal transplant, discs so don't get too excited: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444096&in_page_id=1770

Yup and in all sorts of ways large & small. The systematic abuse of children demands accountability from the individuals doing this.

I trimmed the red button a bit so it was almost flush. It now takes positive pressure and is less likely to be accidentally bumped (I lost one video bumping it on exit before this).

Unfortunately, if they had the same intellegence as man and evolved a few hundred thousand year ago, they'd have probably destroyed themselves by now. You're referring to factor fL in the Drake equation: http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html There are a number of factors that may be very low in that equation. For example ne and fi make me lean towards pessimism. fL is the remaining unknown for our own civilization (although we may not truly meed fc criteria yet). We know that the answer is at least 1.0 in the Milky Way but by definition any civilization asking the question has that as a baseline. P.S. 1.0 civilizations says nothing about the lower bounds of the result of the equation.

And hopefully the irresponsible bastards who took the kids and placed them in this situation will also be jailed for a VERY long time. Oh wait, they get a free pass, nevermind.

I can't see the first video right now, but as for the second: Is that jackass actually trying to suggest that the blip movement is anything other than camera movement (for some reason I was thinking he was suggesting that it was moving like that before this video was shot). CBS-Cleveland should be embarrassed for showing this news clip. --Head I'll speculate that it is more likely he saw Venus, thought "WOW a UFO" (it is a very common mistake) video'd the thing, then when he saw the video thought "Holy shit it's moving around". Whether he knew this was camera jitter or not did not stop him exploiting the motion to convince others of what he "knew" to be true.

Awesome. I wouldn't be surprised, it'd be exhilarating, but the chances of it being discovered in my lifetime are considerably less that the chances of it existing. Our galaxy is a tiny part of the Universe, but I chose it intentionally (and it says nothing about the origin of that intelligent life). Space and time is an immense barrier to this kind of exploration, even within the Milky Way.

I think it is overwhelmingly likely that there is life, and most probably some intelligent life, out in the universe. I absolutely do not believe in UFOs. In that case Carl Sagan would in fact agree with you not Darius, who seems a bit confused about Sagan's beliefs. Darius the fact that Carl had an intimate understanding of the Drake equation does not mean that he relaxed his demand for extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims. These videos are mundane, but the camera jitter Venus shot is particularly pathetic. Watch BOTH the tip of the building and Venus simultaneously. It highlights just how crap eyewitnesses are. I want to believe, but there is just no compelling evidence, I do think it is very likely that life exists on other planets. That intelligent life exists on another planet right now in our Galaxy is open to question. That space-faring intelligent life from another planet is buzzing Las Vegas suburbs in mylar balloons at the behest of a self styled new age guru is just a moronic suggestion.

Probably a small kids balloon, much closer than they perceive it to be in the first video. In the second video there is no motion that doesn't correlate EXACTLY with the top of the tower. It is static, probably Venus, it is the camera that is moving. Eyewitness testimony is notorious for seeing the sensational. Most of us have experienced moments where we see something strange, some people look at these things critically and come up with an explanation at the time by being skeptical and persistent with followup observations. Others just let their imagination run wild and convince themselves it's what they want to see. It's comical listening to these guys describe the fairly random motion and the imagined speeds based on an ASSUMPTIONS of distance. The issue is not explaining it, it's considering all possibilities could it be reasonably explained by a mundane cause and of course it could. There are several very plasible explanations and even implausible but possible explanations for what is on the videos without concluding extraterrestrial, UFO seems to have been co-opted to mean that these days when it means nothing of the sort. Of course they're UFOs

Is fucktard still OK? I'd hate to offend someone I'm insulting.

It is reasonable to say that without AADs the fatalities you mention would still occur AND you'd have more no-pulls going in. These are orthogonal safety issues. I don't think it is sound to conclude that skydivers take additional risks in other areas to compensate for the relative safety, especially when you're just looking at incidents.

You might want to go reread the post. Nowhere is it stated that the guy was on another 8 way. Ahh, thanks, I missinterpreted the first line of the first post. The whole thing makes more sense now.

There's a reason attempts are made to elevate other methods to some kind of equivalence with science and not the other way around. Science does enjoy a unique special status as the useful bag of tricks that helps us make sense of things. You can go stand in the corner and argue this, but it's just too bad for the dissenters, they're wrong and science will continue to be science and they'll continue to be confounded irrespective of opinions to the contrary. Science and the scientific method has accreted over years, and has been described formally by philosophers like Popper. It is not anything like traditional superstitions, it is the antithesis of superstition. Ask a hard skeptical scientist not an anthropology teacher (ideally they are not mutually exclusive descriptions) if you genuinely want to know why. Basically, with rare exceptions humans are crap at this "making sense of the world" stuff, we fool ourselves, we lie, we cheat, we subconsciously bias evidence and conclusions. Science gives us the framework to collectively be less crap at this, nothing else comes close in utility and of course many people who claim to be doing science or flaunt the trappings of science are not, some are flagrantly dishonest, others are just idiots without the right training or aptitude.

But did it prevent another massacre? You'll never really know for sure.

You weren't nearly killed because a guy opened at 3500, or remotely close. He was at that altitude 5 minutes after exiting, suggesting he was at 7k or beyond. You're blurring the message when talking about this 2-3k thing. But the guy was allegedly on another 8-way. I'm a bit incredulous that anyone on an 8-way deployed at 7k or anywhere near it, never mind allowing for breakoff. Something doesn't add up.

How would that have helped him pull the right handle?

Was it an AAD failure? if it was, which AAD was it? The key phrase is "didn't arm", the AAD did not attain sufficient altitude during the climb to arm prior to the bailout. This would have been within the designed operating parameters for the AAD, not a failure.

Conversely if you're not wearing an AAD on a jump because of a significant risk of it firing what does that say about the decisions being made? I like to think of the antarctic 4 way that became a solo when I think of AADs. I knew the survivor when I was a whuffo, back then I thought they were all idiots for jumping, now I jump I realize that three of them didn't wear an AAD and the one survivor did.

Yea, some mood lighting a bit of piped in muzak and some black drapes and it could really work. The fact is that the relatives of the deceased became the focus of concern when this happened and rightly so. If the rest just have to put up with the fallout they have it easy compared with the relatives. BA should have refunded the guy's first class ticket, but it sounds like he acted like a first class jerk. There is no convenient space on the plane to place the relatives with the corpse, if there was, there'd be passengers occupying it already. BA could have left the corpse in coach but there's more privacy and dignity in first class. They're apologizing to the passengers for the inconvenience, not for their actions, they did the right thing. Why anyone thinks they should be criticized for not having a better plan is beyond me, their staff acted impeccably aside from the interraction with the narcissist in first class. It's classic bullshit journalism, these idiots actually train for years to write that shit.

I think this is the key, he was on another load in an different aircraft. He pulled high and was still under canopy when Bill tracked past him at 3k. Talk about turning loads.

You've got a better chance of spotting them when you turn to start your track than from the aircraft. So are you saying that there's little point in spotting from the aircraft, best to leave it until you start your track? Seems to me that its probably easier to avoid canopies, small aircraft etc by staying in the plane for a few more seconds, that waiting until you are closing on them at 120 mph? No, I'm saying that I estimate there's a snowball's chance in hell of spotting a canopy open 10k feet beneath you. And yes it would make sense to look where you're going just as you track. I know I tend to clear my airspace for other skydivers on my own load but, we don't even have a good idea of our true trajectories thanks to the relative cues we get starting a track, I expect you would start looking down then out at about 45 degrees as you build speed, but I sure don't do that. Maybe I should, frankly I'd rather the DZ managed the job of mitigating the risk, there's only so much shit I can look out for at one time.

Well they didn't hang him on the battlefield as an illegal combatant. I'd say every day is a bonus for him after that.

There is the difference between science and religion. You do not have to believe in science - there is factual evidence which you can look on. But there is no factual evidence in religion. There is factual evidence that refutes the claims of many religions, but just look at the title of this thread . The core problem is that when you invoke the supernatural to sidestep the evidence you postulate something untestable in science. It's up to each of us to apply our own Occam's razor to the proposals. As I have said elsewhere; God is a vastly complex explanation for comparatively simple phenomena. God is not a simplifying explanation and of course no explanation is offered for God.