idrankwhat

How do you hide nothing?

I'm not sure what the problem is. Anyone got a problem with the Annenberg Challenge's goals? Let's do a quick wiki. "The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001 that worked with half of Chicago's public schools and was funded by a $49.2 million, 2-to-1 matching challenge grant over five years from the Annenberg Foundation. The grant was contingent on being matched by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money.[1] The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was one of 18 locally designed Annenberg Challenge project sites that received $387 million over five years as part of Walter Annenberg's gift of $500 million over five years to support public school reform. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge helped create a successor organization, the Chicago Public Education Fund (CPEF), committing $2 million in June 1998 as the first donor to Chicago's first community foundation for education." (yada yada yada) "Beginnings The three co-authors of Chicago's winning Annenberg Challenge $49.2 million grant proposal were:[18][19] 1. William Ayers, associate professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago; co-director of the Small Schools Workshop; co-director of the Chicago Forum for School Change—an affiliate of the Coalition of Essential Schools;[20] chairman of the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools (ABCs) coalition;[21][22] former Chicago assistant deputy mayor for education (1989–1990);[22] brother of John Ayers, executive director (1994–2004) of Leadership for Quality Education (an affiliate of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago) and former associate director (1987–1994) of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago......" Looks to me that if association with Ayers is a disqualification for POTUS then that pretty much rules out anyone associated with education or business in Illinois.

Cindy: "Good thing we had a pre-nup". Sarah: Abort-Retry-Fail

When just getting into this aspect of the sport the low profile, single point security mounts that you mention seem to be the way to go. But when you read this forum for a while and people bring up the sloppiness of those mounts and the benefits of compression, then I tend to lean towards the alternatives. My cameras are small(er) so I'm willing to bet that a goldmember, schumacher, or stroboframe would be just fine. And actually I thought it might be fun to do some RW inside flying with two video cameras mounted 90 degrees to each other on a quick quad. I don't know. That's probably the way I'll end up going but I thought I'd pick some brains before I made the purchase. All opinions, insights, random smart-ass comments.....all welcome.

I'm in the market for a couple of mounts, one video and one still for a Mantle. I thought that the ability to adjust one of those mounts would come in handy when trying to deal with the side by side configuration. The still will be my XTi when I finally put it up there. I agree, a couple of RRS mounts, one with an "L" bracket would be the ideal setup. RRS is apparently the RRS but it's also RRE(xpensive). I'm hemorrhaging cash at the moment and looking to plug the wound, or at the very least, slow the bleeding.

I'm new to the quick release mount scene and haven't seen this sort of fitting before. Anyone see how this mount might have any promise or is the clamp a non starter? The sliding travel ability caught my eye.

I might have to pull the trigger on the Mantle. The rear entry/solid chin is a big improvement. It also seems like camera sighting would certainly be easier than with a still on top and a side mount video. There's more room up there than I remembered from the other thread. Not sure there's enough for a flash but I'm probably thinking too far ahead for my current needs. If I decide to go with it I might have to pimp it out with the "Princess Leia" custom paint job

Hmm....do I detect a wee bias perhaps But you do make some good points. Visibility and mobility are valuable commodities at my level. Let me go back and revisit your earlier thread and your photos. I may be leaning. The biggest downside I saw to the mantle was the lack of a changeable top plate. If I go that route I need to get the mounts right the first time. I'm looking at one to two video cameras to start, with the ability to easily add the still later. Thanks for the help.

Gotcha. I did indeed. I'm not going to be flying a camera in a tunnel any time soon anyway (that's an understatement)! I've done some inside flying to capture the perspective but I could use a wider angle lens. Maybe that's another plus for the OI. More money to spend on lenses.

I hadn't thought about tunnel flying but that's not as much of a concern. Something to think about though. I think you're right about the Invertigo-X option. The OI seems like a great helmet with great price. That's one plus. The second is that it seems to provide better visibility than the FTP. I don't know that for certain though. The third would be that it will be less of a "rudder" than the FTP. The mantle seemed like the best compromise and the thread posted here on that helmet really piqued my interest. Unfortunately it came in at about a hundred bucks more than I was anticipating. Still haven't ruled it out though. But with only about $50 difference in price, I keep thinking, "why not go FTP"?

Yea, soccer's only a safe sport if you're under 40 apparently. The first game back from the layoff left me with a pulled groin muscle. I'm sticking with skydiving from now on. Some were "flying video". Many more were simply jumping with a camera. "Aviate-Navigate-Communicate" seems to apply to universally. That aside, I simply cannot explain how fantastic the folks at the DZ are. The amount of information and instruction available simply for the asking is fantastic. Egos are in check, fun and safety are the priority. The instructors are top notch and the videographers are well experienced and always happy to let me question them and check out their gear. I'd say they should charge for it but they might be reading this. On top of that, the regular fun jumpers are always grabbing new license holders and helping them transition to RW. It's not uncommon to have someone with 30 jumps doing a four way with a combined experience of 20,000 jumps. It's a great group of folks to say the least. I like the idea of having everything on top for weight distribution as well as riser clearance. I lost a battery to a riser strike during an intentional cutaway and frankly, I've got enough footage of my left three ring assembly to last me a lifetime! Also, my lanc port is now unreliable and I'd like the next setup to be more connection friendly than the sidemount setup that I have now. Thanks for the input!

Hi folks. This thread could go in a number of directions but I guess I'm looking for opinions on camera helmet progression. I'm just now reaching the advised number of jumps to start thinking about flying camera. However I started playing with it about a hundred jumps ago. To give some background on experience, I came out of the gate pretty strong. Skydiving made a lot of sense, I progressed through the license easily and had some great support after I got the "A" license. I read a lot, asked a lot of questions, I jumped frequently with extremely experienced folks, took canopy flying and camera flying courses when they were offered and jumped regularly. Then I got injured during while participating in a "safe" sport. That knocked me out for the better part of a year after you added in a few bad weekends of bad weather. I've been jumping irregularly for the last few months. Only about 40 over the last six months. But now I'm ready to make up for lost time. I've been jumping with an Invertigo X and an HC21. I wanted to jump with a camera but I didn't want spend a lot on a rig that I might have to cut away on the first jump. My first priority is safety, the second is not screwing up my subject's dive in any way, shape or form. As a result, I've got some fun rw footage that people always appreciate, and have shot 4-way competition video on a few occasions. Generally I don't have too much trouble getting decent video except that I often, erring on the side of caution, will not tighten up the shot as much as I could. Not to drag this out any longer, I'm about to buy another helmet. The Invertigo-X is ok but I'd like a more stable platform with greater potential for growth. I plan to jump a whole lot more this coming year. Most of the jumping will be fun jumps shooting RW for friends and the occasional competition. I'll probably set up the helmet for one to two video cameras (the latter for competitive jumps) and then start playing with stills after I gain more familiarity with the setup. I'll be buying from Bonehead composites and was initially going to go with the FTP. The real estate, the ability to change top plates, the rear entry/fixed chin cup and most importantly, the (as I see it) fewer snag opportunities of the design point me in that direction. The FTN seems like a nice idea but it seems limiting. The Mantle had me a bit excited but then the price came in at the same as the FTN. What I'm wrestling with is this: should I get the optic illusion which will be similar to what I've been jumping and save the difference to throw at mounts, cameras, connections etc? Or should I just suck it up and get the FTP? How much differently do the helmets fly? I'm ok with the idea of putting another few hundred jumps on an OI and then stepping up but is there any reason to? What would be the drawbacks of going FTP? Any input whatsoever would be welcome.

And you think that we're not going to share our bad leadership? Let's just take small steps here. I'm not looking for a genius. I just want a President who is competent for a change.

It's confusing, even for the candidates! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plwcvFXCHO8

No one does. The Pentagon does, but that's for another thread.

Interesting that you believe ideology is more important than knowledge. That's 'cuz knowledge is evil! No questions! Only faith!

Really? What's the number, maybe I can help? Oh, just kidding

Well, to be fair, they did something. They reversed the trend. Earmarks were reduced in number and amount. Just not by very much. And they seem to have put that one on the back burner for now.

Has anyone checked the start date of her earmark reduction campaign with those of the election of a new Congress vowing to eliminate earmarks, a President's sudden and newly founded concern with earmarks and substantial news coverage of Sen Steven's pet pig? Just curious.

I don't think our government should "take over" things such as finance, health care or education however I do think that government has a place in oversight and regulation. But, IMO, the only way to do that successfully is to somehow close the industry lobbyist-legislator-lobbyist-legislator revolving door. Our tax dollars tend to go much more towards overhead than to actually getting the job done. We need effective investment in our population's health, education, and next generation technology/infrastructure if we don't want to be left behind. Our government needs to quit letting entrenched interests guide the path. Our leaders need to look at the big picture and direct progress towards long term national success and not be so focused on quarterly balance sheets. The best example I can think of at the moment is the effect that the 1980's removal of tax incentives on alternative energy development. The technology developed here in the US 20 years ago is now being sold to us by Denmark, Japan and Germany. Thanks to us they have the lead and we're struggling to catch up.

Campaigns are great sources of income. The media stirs the pot, helping to create controversy, then cashes in. Unfortunately we all end up just a bit dumber for it. As for your "world won't end" comment, I don't think the world will end because of who we choose as President. But I do think that we're on the verge of a very serious shift in "the world as we know it". With globalization in its many forms, the end of cheap oil, and our strained financial markets, I see a significant paradigm shift on the horizon. The big question is, how do we deal with it? Do we embrace it and thrive or do we grasp for the past and likely get left behind?

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

True. But McCain rhymes with Bush in nearly all ways...... except the phonetic ones.

The only way your idea would work would be if we were to nationalize our oil supply. That's not going to happen.

Are you seriously looking for a response or are we a focus group for a new McCain ad?