SethInMI

I got mixed feelings about this. 50 years of dues is a lot of $, but USPA should be applying all of that to functions that you as a member are benefiting from. Now once you get 40-50 years as a member, you are probably 60-80 years old and with a converted lifetime membership could be another 10-30+ years of magazines for free. I don't want to support a bunch of people getting free magazines for decades. The lifetime buy is different. By chipping in $2500 up front, USPA SHOULD be able to invest the money and even subtracting regular annual dues withdrawals, through the magic of compound interest be able to easily cover as long a period as you would want to live, so no one is getting anything for "free". So IMHO, if you want to get Parachutist for the rest of your life, pony up the $ up front, otherwise pay the annual fee. Of course the smart play would be to invest the $2500 yourself, pay your dues out of that, so when USPA pisses you off, you can cancel your membership and spend the investment on some hookers and blow. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I don't often fly southwest, but I did on the Christmas holiday, flying out on Christmas day and back on New Years day. We had lots of jokes in the briefings, and got serenaded by a flight attendant upon landing at least on one leg both ways. The New Years day flight featured a version of Auld Lang Syne: "May other airlines be forgot, and never brought to mind. For Southwest Airlines got you here, and got you here almost on time." (she had to add the almost, we were 10 min late). The song continued for several more stanzas, but I can't find a complete lyric online. It was very funny and got a big round of applause. Apparently southwest is famous for both irreverent briefings and serenading the cabin on landing. Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The colorado law link that ryoder posted led me to a article that discussed the disparity in colorado ski resorts policies that you mentioned: the season pass purchasers have to sign their waivers, but the day - week ticket purchasers do not sign anything. Since season pass holders are largely residents of colorado, this creates a two tier system in which in-staters have potentially less recourse via the court system, and the article theorized that this could be an issue that courts could one day take up. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Yeah, after reading the judgement, I agree. It specifically says the court had to assume for sake of argument that the jump WAS negligently constructed or maintained, and then assuming it was, determine if the waiver covered that. They decided it did not, but now I guess it is up to the lower court to determine if the jump was in fact negligently constructed or maintained. The judgement does mention Oregon's Skier Responsibility Law, which shields ski resorts from liability for certain aspects of skiing, but not, apparently, from negligence in terrain park construction and maintenance. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I like this tweet from Emily Lakdawalla: "Robotic spaceflight IS human spaceflight. We ARE these machines. They are our eyes." It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The first post in this thread has a link to a video. Did you even watch it? If not, go to the 2 min point to see "the trap gizmo working". It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

We want to know! Anything you want to share about the process, there are those of us who love to hear about it. Especially now, in the north jumping is pretty much done for the year, so there is plenty of time to reminisce... It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

he is NOT the CEO. He is a senior VP. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

awesome! i love it. reminds me a bit of gary connery's wingsuit landing. gary did NOT do his in total secrecy, but it had the same minimalist feel, just put together the bare minimum team and strategy, and get out and do it. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

What number did you come up with? It's full of stars I have found zooming in and around that image of M31 is a zen like experience. (looking at 48327 x 12185 pixels, you feel realllly reallly small) It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Looks like Legos were inducted the 1st year 1998, as they should have been. The stick was inducted in 2008, the blanket in 2011, and the cardboard box in 2005. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

My co-worker of 15 years died a few weeks ago, and I feel already like his imprint on my life is fading. I was used to working with him for years, then getting updates on his care, and now nothing. So I am just posing this like a marker, or some small anonymous memento. None of you know me, and certainly don't know him, so I am not looking for responses, just maybe a silent acknowledgment that life is a bitch sometimes. Oh yeah, and smoking is bad for you. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Against all odds, I learned something in a DZ.com thread! Thanks dthames, I never had heard of a micromort, and that wikipedia article is a great and valuable starting point for any discussion of relative risk. The skydiving numbers in the article (both USPA and BPA) seemed reasonable. I thought it interesting that the US DOT prices a micromort at $6.20 I also wondered about the micromort of a single tandem skydive. If that was only 1 - 2 micromorts, I think you could call a tandem skydive safe, because it close to the baseline of 1 micromort of all non-natural deaths we face every day. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

This. Of course it's dangerous. But with risk attenuation, it's acceptably safe - for me. The exact same factors make it unacceptably dangerous for others - for them. No. Not This. Statistics are definitely NOT irrelevant. They are a useful way to measure risk, and all that the word safe means is a yes answer to the question "Is the level of risk of death or serious injury below a certain commonly understood level" It's that "safe" risk level that is hard to quantify. It is definitely non-zero. For example if said to my wife, "I am going to the post office and mailing a package," we could try to calculate what the risk of death is, either by car crash or disgruntled postal employee, and the fact is the risk is low enough that I and my wife would for all practical purposes view that as a safe activity. She would fully expect me to return alive, and would not spend any time worrying about me while I was gone. If I said to my wife, "I am going to ride on the back of Steve's bike while he jumps over 10 cars end to end for the 1st time", we could calculate the risk of death, and decide the risk is high enough that it is NOT a safe activity. Skydiving is somewhere in between these two extremes. We have a pretty good idea what the risk/odds are for it, but lining that risk level up with the average person's risk level definition of "safe" is not easy. Most skydivers solution for this is to qualify the term "safe", using phrases like "it is pretty safe", or "it is not perfectly safe". That is an imperfect solution, but more helpful that a yes or no answer. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The problem with that is often the most irresponsible are irresponsible in financial areas, i.e., they have little money, and it would be expensive to try and get it from them. Hospitals have the same problems with the uninsured, they just end up eating a lot of the costs. [actually I don't know that there is a correlation between the two, but the fact is there are a lot of those who can't afford a rescue] It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I think if I checked the certificate chain it should show something fishy. I attached the image of the certificate chain for mail.live.com, unless the company or government used a cert that faked Verisign it would be easy to tell that it was a different CA that was behind the cert. I have a trusted cert from my company on my laptop, but it has my company's name in it, so I could tell if it was used as the CA for a MITM by checking the path (I think). It's all very interesting to me. I guess I will have to break down and get a stackoverflow account, and ask some questions there, as those guys seem to be more interested in this sort of thing than skydivers... It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

One interesting thing I read was that Google Chrome has built into itself the certificates for *.google.com, so if you are using Chrome with https to any google site, including gmail, it should be resistant to a MITM attack, as it does not use a CA. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I read a story today that surprised me, about how foreign govs were using specialized networking equipment to spy on https secured/encrypted web traffic, the same equipment that some companies use to monitor employees secure traffic. I feel naive now, but I didn't know that was possible. After some reading, I know it's called the man in the middle problem, and essentially if you can control the network between say my computer and my bank's computer, then for encryption purposes you can pretend to me that you are the bank, and to the bank that you are me, all while decrypting and reading and saving all the information. So some questions: 1. Does anyone's company do this? 2. Did anyone else not know this was possible? 3. For the IT folks, how can I tell if I am on a connection where this is happening? Say I am in a foreign country, or on a network of a company, and I want to make sure that a MITM setup is not occurring. I thought using an EV site (the ones with the green site name next to the https) would do it, but now I am not sure. I realize that it matters whether or not I am using "my" computer or phone or tablet, or one provided by the company or hotel or web cafe, because I guess extra trusted certificates could be installed on the provided one, which make a MITM easier or possible. I thought if I was really concerned I could save a hex dump of the public key before I travelled and spot check it to the key shown in the browser, but now I don't even know about that. MITM is kinda scary for someone who though that good encryption can protect privacy. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

It's so unlikely in a catastrophic failure that you could get your rig on, so I think the more interesting question, (although of course also totally unlikely) is what would you do with your 1-2 min of time if you found yourself in the air after some sort of event (say at a low enough alti (15k ft or so) that you could function. I would: 1. Do some RW with the other people in the air. Dock on some unsuspecting person and yell in their ear, "We aren't going to make it!", or "Grab grass!" 2. Aim for the terrorists car. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Well I just learned something (that I guess all USA pilots probably know): from Wikipedia: A little-known responsibility of the NTSB is that it serves as a court of appeals for airmen, aircraft mechanics, certificated aviation-related companies and mariners who have their licenses suspended or revoked by the federal government. The Board's determinations may be appealed to the federal court system by the losing party, whether it is the individual or company, on the one hand, or the FAA or the Coast Guard, on the other. Reading up on what DiverMike was saying, the FAA generally views a congested area very broadly. From what little I read, I would guess if there is more than one person spectating, the FAA would view it as an open air assembly. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

If there is an unflattering part, it is the graphic description of Weston's bridge strike fatality, with the whole "covered in blood" and "severed leg lying nearby". Not the image WSJ weekend subscribers want to dwell on with their morning coffee, but nothing that will cause a measurable backlash. Now if that sort of fatality happened today, it would create a bigger impact than it did back then, with more video and higher fidelity available... It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I am no lawyer either, but I am of the understanding that Doug has. Here is the key paragraph from this nolo article: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/limited-liability-protection-llcs-a-50-state-guide.html Personal Liability for Your Own Actions There is one extremely significant exception to the limited liability provided by LLCs. This exception exists in all states. If you form an LLC, you will remain personally liable for any wrongdoing you commit during the course of your LLC business. For example, LLC owners can be held personally liable if they: personally and directly injure someone during the course of business due to their negligence fail to deposit taxes withheld from employees' wages intentionally do something fraudulent, illegal, or reckless during the course of business that causes harm to the company or to someone else, or treat the LLC as an extension of their personal affairs, rather than as a separate legal entity. Thus, forming an LLC will not protect you against personal liability for your own negligence, malpractice, or other personal wrongdoing that you commit related to your business. If both you and your LLC are found liable for an act you commit, then the LLC’s assets and your personal assets could be taken by creditors to satisfy the judgment. This is why LLCs and their owners should always have liability insurance. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

That's a great story, Jerry. You should cross post it to the "Scary stories from the old days" thread! It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The article DOES consider participation rates. The Australian data he cites uses injuries per million hours of activity. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Does anyone know where I can buy a high quality print of that for a bar I am building in my basement? It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".