VTmotoMike08

Good article. One thing that I want to understand: it states that if we drill in ANWR, that OPEC would cut production to keep world oil levels at the same level. By that logic, it would follow that if we cut consumption my all using less and buying more fuel efficient cars, then they would again cut production. Their motivation would be to cut supply to correspond to the cut in demand to raise prices and keep their profits the same. So can someone tell me either where my logic is flawed? If it is not flawed, then how can you reasonably oppose offshore oil drilling and ANWR exploration? If prices are going to be high regardless, would you not rather the profits go to the US, where we can tax it, have it support our economy, and create jobs for us? You still have the enviro impacts, but dependency on foreign oil is not the best thing either. So if we are stuck with high prices (because OPEC refuses to allow us to increase world supply vs. demand levels), we could at least have it being pulled out of the ground here right? Probably more random thoughts to come as I think of them...

Thought this would be fun. Who has the most consequitive jumps that you know of without experiancing a malfunction requiring a cutaway and reserve ride? Maybe we can come up with the record Usually when someone mentions this, it goes something like "Joe had thousands of jumps and no chops... until he started jumping tandems" Personally, I know one guy with about 2800 jumps and zero cutaways. And he flies a stilletto and is one of the quickest packers that I know. I am sure there is someone out there with more.

Sounds to me like he means 30% of the current cost of powering your car with gasoline, in terms of dollars per mile. Aggreed that $300 million (of tax payer money) would be a small price to pay for putting into use electric cars that don't suck. And by don't suck, I mean can do everything that my current vehicle can do for a lot less cost. 30% of my current cost would defanitly not suck, 80% of it still would. And anyone who responds to this with "buy a tiny little hybrid and only drive on sundays when there is a full moon" totally missed the part where I said "can do everything that my current vehicle can do".

I'll look it up.

Interesting. However, if that report was prepared for 2007, the data was probably gathered sometime in 2006. With today's high prices, oil companies and investors might be more inclined to put the project and production into the fast lane. The faster they get those proposed new wells in place, the sooner they make money off of them. Of course, it could also be argued that the longer the wait, the more the oil will be worth. But I really hope we are not still using oil as much in 2030 as we are today.

I know why Jesus is mad- it must be all of the butt sex going on There, now it has it all. And I stole that joke from the Daily Show, I would dig up the clip but I'm at work.

Another one of your typical posts that basically makes the following claim: >(This) is gonna happen! >>How do you know? >Because it says it in the Bible! >>How do you know the Bible is right? >Because Jesus says it is! >>How do you know that Jesus is right? >Because it says it in the Bible!... At least try backing up a single one of your claims with verifiable physical evidence and maybe people on this board would take you seriously. Thats not a PA, but is a comment based on the fact that you always say they same thing and act like everyone else just doesn't understand. Maybe that is a clue that your remarks are nonsensical to any rational person. Sign me up for another dose of that headache medicine, because the rest of your post is really not worth responding to. I'm already done posting here, and I think I will also get some popcorn and watch this one unfold.

Yes, I agree that it would be wonderful if something could crap out crude oil. If we could find a way to make a mini home refinery, I could put this tank o' bugs in my garage, take the crude and stuff it in my mini refinery and make my own gas on the spot, small scale. Now that would be cool. So it takes 40 SF of space, and not everyone has that, in another year it bet it will be down to 10SF. So much to think about and a lot more issues to be addressed. Unfortunatly, I give it 6 months until Exxon buys the patent and we never see it again

Worst (that I have ever packed on): that concrete packing area at Raeford Best: the slightly shaggy carpet in many houses

Damn, Billvon wins again. That probably makes it like 0-5 for me. Just when I thought I had him too... Ever consider running for political office??

Please tell me where, and more importantly, how much more does it cost than a regular car? If it were that simple, everyone would have one by yesterday. And I maintain that a true breakthru in alternative fuel vehicles will be so huge that it needs no marketing, which is all that I was trying to say to begin with. Things like E85, plug in cars, etc are all nice, but are not a night and day difference. If Honda all the sudden came out with a car that got 150 MPG, ran off of fart fumes, burned your body fat while driving, emitted only pure dasani water all while donating the profits to the baby seals club of america, then it would be so huge that everyone in america would be talking about it at the dinner table and it would need no advertising. The reason why you have to advertise for E85 vehicles, hybrids, and plug in cars is that they really are not as good Jeez, everyone knew what I was trying to get at, why must everyone always pick at the details?

I am talking about deal breaking big ways, not little details. Sorry, but the only way your prius beats my Mitsu Montero is gas mileage. I am just claiming that if they made an alternative fuel vehicle that offered the same level of overall utility as a fossil fueled vehicle, it would be such a break thru that it would hardly have to be marketed. It would be like setting up a lemonade stand in the Sahara (sp?).

I aggree that we should fund alternative energy research and marketing, but I disagree whole heartedly with the implication that marketing is currently the biggest failure. All of the current alternative fuel vehicles are inferior to fossil fueled vehicles in at least one of several ways. Insight? Way to small for most people, although good for commuters. Impossible for soccer moms and anyone requiring a decent payload capacity. Scooters? Really silly looking, and not as safe as a car. Home fill up natural gas vehicles? Still gotta pay for all that gas, and try to fit a 16 hour fill up into your day and deal with the limited range. Once someone does come up with an alternative fuel vehicle that truely is "as good" as its fossil fuel competition, it will be such a break thru that it will practically market itself without much effort needed. So I disagree with spending much on marketing for now, lets put it towards research.

Congress has never been known to let a few pesky facts get in the way.... It is also part of McCain's plan: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/17/mccain.energy/index.html No, but they could hire contractors that are. I will do some more research into how other countries (Russia, Venezuela) run their national oil companies so that I can comment further. I fail to see how my idea equates to socialism. I am not suggesting that the gov't give us oil. I even mentioned that eventually this national oil company should be profitable. The main benefit would be that it would not be in the hands of foreign interests and it would not be controlled by investors that want to drive the price up. 1. The United States I am not happy about this either. Edit: Off shore drilling is banned in 85% of US Costal waters http://www.awb.org/articles/presidentscolumn2006/offshore_drilling_ban_allows_china_to_steal_u_s_oil_reserves.htm

Because our legislature has been unable to come up with a compromise between reasonable environmental protection and causing our economy to collapse under the strain of energy costs. Maybe someone who is better at searching can look up how many of these we currently have and see what legislature is blocking the constuction of more. Now heres a possibly crazy idea that vaguly makes sense in my feeble 22 year old brain: The US starts its own national oil company (heavily subsizided at first, but eventually slightly profitable)and suddenly drills a lot of our own crude. Couple this with a lot more domestic refineries, and we could flood the market with supply and force prices down. Reasons I can think of why it would never work: -Would take too long to pass congress -Environazis (am I allowed to say that?) would never allow it -NIMBY crowd -simply not enough oil exists on our land/ off shore I'm not an expert like a lot of people here, so the above represents just the little bit that I think I know. I would love to hear critiques.

That's one way to think of it. Is he going to college to "find himself" (good) or to be prepared to get a lucrative job when he gets out? (better) If the goal is a lucrative job, then math, science and engineering are statistically more likely to bring a high income than the liberal arts. It is, afterall, 2008. That being said, if I could start college over tomorrow, I would major in Materials Science Engineering and pursue a PhD in nanotechnoloy. Thats where the money is gonna be at in the upcoming decades. But my degree in Civil Engineering, with a focus on innovative environmental remediation techniques should also be fairly lucrative. I can say for certain that I am making more money than my friends with liberal arts degrees. Edit: Obviously, I did not major in english. I can't even spell nanotechnology

Do you think you are qualified to make a statement that generalizes that there is a lack of canopy flight training within the skydiving community? I think the community, as a whole, is getting much better at this. Many (OK, some) dropzones will ground you for not properly following the set landing pattern. I have not seen any yet that will ground you for not completing the planned formation or running into someone in freefall. The second part of your post is more towards being correct. The reason more people get hurt from hitting the earth is pretty simple: it doesn't move when you hit it, and you are guaranteed to land on it after every skydive. Other jumpers do move when you hit them in freefall, and you can avoid doing so most of the time.

Um, duh But you can also get hurt in a freefall collision with another jumper. But as you seem to understand, you have a much better chance, statistically, of hurting yourself under an open parachute.

Good call on replacing the velcro, I should have mentioned that I was already planning on that. I want something a little stronger than the sticker type adhesive that comes already on some types of velcro. I did skim the paperwork that came with the helmet and I did not see any recommendations, but I could have missed it. A call will be put in to Bonehead, but I doubt they will have useful information because it appears that they use just buy the pre-stick kind. I like Billvon's idea best, but I don't have easy access to clamps so I will probably go with super glue. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

Might be a simple question, but does anyone know what the best glue is to reattach velcro (hook side) to the inside of a carbon fiber helmet shell? I will probably just pick up a tube of super glue but I am not sure if a hot glue gun might be better. I was thinking that super glue is some pretty harsh stuff that is designed for plastics and might somehow be bad for the helmet. But hot glue tends to peel off and is not known for its strength like super glue is. Specifically, I need to reattch the velcro that holds the liner onto the inside of a bonehead helmet. I don't consider this a fault with the helmet, its more like routine maintenance that probably has to be done on most helmets with liners that are a few years old.

I am less optimistic about society's ability to adjust (especially in the short term), but we may have to agree to disagree. All of your adjustment theories are possible, but most will take on the order of years or decades to enact. We needed a solution yesterday. I believe that long term economic damage that is beyond repair will occur before our abilities to adjust can keep up. Some examples: >1) Not work, and live on unemployment. Not worth responding to. >2) Choose work you can get to (i.e. fast food.) Will not pay the bills. >3) Move to a location where you can afford to get to work (i.e. close to your place of business or close to public transit.) Already stated that I cannot afford it until middle class wages rise. >4) Get a high paying job that allows you to pay for the gas needed to drive long distances every day. Would be nice for me individually, but if everyone in the world gets higher paying jobs, prices on everything would have to go up, therefore negating my higher wages. >5) Get a car that gets 70mpg. And when it comes out, it will cost about $250,000 and only the people who can afford $9 gas could afford this car >6) Get a pluggable hybrid/electric vehicle and drive that. See above response. >>Right. But the city might well put in light rail from that business center to a place near where you live. And the increase in oil prices that brought the construction of this light rail will be accompanied by an increase in the cost of coal fired (and other) electricity. Before long, I will not be able to afford the light rail too. I still predict middle class starvation too if gas hits $9/ gal. Huge farms are viable because mass food production brings farmer's costs down to a point where increased transportation cost is acceptable to the end consumer. If the increased trans cost was no longer acceptable, then we would indeed try to buy from local markets. But these do not offer the cheap cost to farmers that mass production in a monocultured field does. So we will be stuck paying the cost of mass production + high trans or local production. It would be arguable which is less expensive, but neither is good. I have not been to a farmer's market in about 4 years but I do not remember them being much cheaper than a grocery store (might have changed by now tho). >>This has been predicted many times throughout history. The loss of the horse-as-transportation industry (stabling, farmers, blacksmiths, stablehands, buggy manufacturers, whip manufacturers, leather suppliers etc etc) was going to lead to the destruction of the US economy, brought about by the smelly, unreliable automobile. Today is differnt. There is currently about 6.2 Billion people in the world. It takes longer for 6.2B to adjust than for what, about 1B in the early 1900's? Our society is not designed to function on $9/ gal gas and if that happens, it will collapse before we can adjust. We are all screwed.

I don't post on this forum often. Recent energy costs and the fact that I will soon be out of college and trying to make it on my own in this economy have caused me to become a lot more politically savy, so now I am losing sleep over the details of every day life. Anyway, your statement does not make sense to me. For me, buying gas is not a choice. I simply have to get to work if I want to live and public transportation does not fit my work schedule and destination and (less importantly) my want to drive my car. I cannot afford to live near enough to walk or ride a bike to work. According to the reasoning behind this thread, cheap gas in the past decades is the reason why communities are layed out in a way that mandates commuting long distances to work. Presumably, if gas had always been as expensive as it is now, then communities would be layed out differently and I would be in a better position to utilize alternative transportation methods. Well, too late. Even if gas was $99 per gallon, I can assure you that the city will never be tearing down the modern skyscraper next to my office building to put in a moderatly priced apartment complex or housing community. Never. So, $9 gas would not force us to redesign our lives to use less oil. It would however: -Drive food prices thru the roof to the point of middle class starvation -Totally eliminate recreational activities that use gas (skydiving!) -Force people in suburbs to take lower paying jobs closer to home -Otherwise kill our entire economy Thoughts???

Good point, I guess it is just easier for me to get excited about skydiving than operating a camera. I should add that I am already at least a little bit knowledgeable about basic camera operation. I took a real camera class from a pro a few years back and I understand the basics of shutter speeds, lighting, and framing a shot, etc. A refresher would certainly be useful tho. I do enjoy photography. Err, OK, I'll go ahead and admit it, I was a yearbook nerd back in high school. But I was pretty good at shooting sports photos and a lot of my work was published. Any comments concerning my origional question?

Hey all, Aspiring camera flyer here. I don't have the gear yet but I am working on aquiring a decent camera helmet system (probably an optik illusion w/PC109 cam). A few questions: 1) What is the requirements to film a tandem? I hear some people say 500 jumps, and if that is the manufacturer's requirement, then I will of course respect that. However, if it is only a recommendation then I will pursue a course of training that allows me to do so safely. My profile numbers are up to date, and I know a few tandem instructors that I have jumped with who would let me do it with my current experiance. 2) Just about how long and how many jumps do most people spend to get good enough at shooting tandems and AFFs that you are working for pay? I am willing to pay my own slots for as long as it takes to get good, but I know that this is the direction that I want to take my skydiving and I am anxious to begin. Plus, camera flying will allow me to combine two of my favorite things- skydiving and getting paid I know that this answer will vary for different people based on skill level, so here is my background: 268 jumps and very current, 3ish hours in various tunnels. I am compotent in 4 way, I can do 15+ points on any given jump (when with 3 others of similiar skill). I recently did a dozen or so 16-22 ways and I was floating or diving for most all of those. I was decent at floating and (early) diving, and I never lost sight of the base and was usually docked within 10 seconds after exit. I am not interested in freeflying. So basically, I am not an awesome flyer, but I am generally compotent and aware for someone with my numbers. Is flying with a tandem much harder than floating on a big way? Or is it just different? I would think maybe its actually easier because once that drogue is out then it tends to move around less than a 4-way base. How many jumps did it take you to get to the point that people (students) were willing to pay for your work?

Yes, I have purchased from him. Actually, it was a trade not a sale. But he shipped everything as scheduled, gear was as described, he replied to questions promptly and it was a smooth transaction. I would recommend him for a newbie, but it can't hurt to have your rigger look over things too, especially if you are not very familiar with gear. Kind of a strange person, who gives themself the nickname Gear Gaper/ Master Sniviler? But I would recommend him. Edit: I see you are in New Zealand. I am in the US and so is he, so you should contact him to see how this will affect the sale, including shipping costs.