DSE

To what end? I think you should seriously talk with your fellow moderator (DSE) about this subject. Otherwise you're going to come off as an uninformed person blowing smoke here. I think you should speak to somebody about being a buddy and a team player. Mike, not having been there, I'm gonna lean somewhat in the direction of Quade's thoughts. I can't watch the video/haven't seen it....but I wouldn't leave a buddy in distress if I see em' in a flat spin or other highly challenged situation. You're right, unless you're an unusually good WS pilot...you're not going to be able to do anything... but I've landed off with others when I could have made it back (on numerous occasions) so that I'm sure they're safe and not alone out somewhere.

I teach (as do several other C/E's in this area) basic bio mechanics. We teach it via using the mechanical concepts, have candidates observe the action in motion and define what the cause and effect of the action is, apply it to skydiving skillsets, and understand the benefits of observing and teaching armed with the knowledge. We teach it, because it flattens the learning curve and helps break down the body position processes to parts in much the same way we break a dive flow into parts. Using the techniques in practice also improves/accelerates muscle memory. I'm not interested in defending the practice; it works. I'm merely curious as to who is and isn't receiving this training. You train people to not do...? I wanna be clear on your last comment;

If you're not in it wearing it to work...it doesn't count. Very nice color design!

I use dimmable LEDs every day. See the pix of my skydiving helmet as an example. Television studios are rapidly converting to LED because of the energy savings, heat savings, and consistency.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio and SpeedEdit are VERY easy to learn. Quality of all the tools is the same on output with the same input source. It truly boils down to four things: ~budget ~Learning curve ~stability on platform ~Features *you* need (personal preference) All of the tools out there will do the job. Some are very fast to learn/use, others aren't. For example, achieving the exact same edit in FCP vs Vegas or SpeedEdit will be the difference of several minutes, but you'll be working with what is familiar to you. No application can touch SpeedEdit, Edius, or Vegas for speed of cutting. No application can touch the hype of FCP, and no application can touch the flexibility and complexity of CreativeSuite (Adobe). Nothing is as sexy as Avid (providing you have the room and lighting to go with it), and nothing is as stupid easy as iMovie (if you don't mind all your content looking the same). In other words, all tools have benefits and drawbacks. If speed and stability are the goal, then Vegas and SpeedEdit are ugly as hell, but they're significantly faster than anything else. Vegas and Adobe have great re-compression tools for both web and DVD. Apple sucks, so there is Squeeze. Ulead has ease of use, but terrible encoder tools. Avid has nothing of quality for the web, so there is Squeeze. Canopus has great DVD encoding, but their web encoding kinda sucks. Pinnacle Studio has decent DVD encoding, but nothing of quality for the web (their wmv encoder is very old), Of course...these are *my* opinions...I'm sure you'll hear others.

"useless as tits on a boar." "dumb as a box of rocks" "Cross her legs and hope to die.." "Play ball with me, and I'll scratch yours."

Yes, that is Pinnacle Studio. It is not an Avid-designed product. Avid purchased Pinnacle a couple years ago, mostly for their consumer-grade software. They killed the pro product (Liquid) in the process, because it competed with MC. Either way, all of the above caveats apply. For the same price, you can get products from Sony, Adobe, Canopus, NewTek that all have very solid backgrounds, actual tech support, new tools vs legacy, and most importantly, stability. Search the internet for problems with Pinnacle Studio. The 'net is filled with them. But... you can buy a Studio training DVD from my company if you want. We're pretty familiar with Pinnacle Studio. The box got prettier, but the contents didn't. it does manage AVCHD natively, that's a big plus, but so does everyone else (except Apple products). it also manages AVC natively, but so does everyone else (except Apple products). It manages AVCI natively, but so does everyone else (including Apple FCS X).

Which Avid software is only 200.00? I think you mean Pinnacle, which is sold by Avid, but is *not* an Avid product by any means. Pinnacle is a decent tool, and if you've got the time to learn it, deal with the commonplace crashes and instability, and your time isn't worth a lot...it'll suffice. For 200.00, I'd recommend SpeedEdit instead. Or Vegas Movie Studio (which does more than Pinnacle), Premiere Elements, or Canopus Lite.

A documentary on the Rapture by Andy Malchiodi and Christiaan Rendle.

if they're as bad as the Touchtek..., I wouldn't waste my time. Compression is lousy.

So you don't feel there is a problem having something attached to your right hand (or do you deploy with your left?) Perhaps a glove with a hidden "bump" wouldn't be an issue. I don't think I'd want anything on that hand should there be a bridle wrap or other deployment issue. You're exactly right. However, a skydiver with 200 jumps has at the least developed enough muscle memory that certain tasks should be without thought and therefore those "thought reserves" might go into dealing with difficult situations. Sure...some folks have the acumen and awareness to deal with these situations earlier than others, but history has shown that somewhere around 200 jumps, the average person can begin to consider adding more tasks to the skydive. As far as "knowing our own limits..." the Incidents forum is filled with people that thought they knew their limits. You can bet big money that none of them thought they were going beyond their limits when they broke that femur, pelvis, or worse. Tell that to Norman Kent, Joe Jennings, Tom Sanders, Bruno, etc. Did you read Billvon's paragraphs in the "README" for the camera forum? Would you suggest he shouldn't be jumping? Glad to hear you recognize the implications of the recommendations. They're not rules; they're recommendations. You're a big boy, you can do what you want unless your DZO has specific rules.

No, but that's another aspect. The section where I teach basic biomechanics is about "if I do this with my elbow, it does that to my shoulder" or "If you do this with your head, it'll do that to your body" sort of thing. A basic understanding of body movement, describing body position, inertia, momentum, impulse, etc. I know I'm not the only C/E teaching these concepts, just curious about how many coaches in the recent USPA program are getting this information. Here are the basics minus the math, that are almost the same as what I teach in this module.

In my Coaching Course, one component is dedicated to Sport Biomechanics. We spend about an hour learning examples and exercises. I've had a couple newly christened coaches visit for other training, and they've had no knowledge of biomechanics. In your USPA Coach Course, did you receive training on biomechanics? ~Did you feel it valuable? ~Why? ~Why not?

You're sure about that? Did you read the Small Format Camera list? Most problems in that list are related to pre-jump or in-jump distractions. History shows that most of us that feel we're above average aren't.

Great episode!! Brian's new ""Saved by the Beep" article is on the front page of DZ.com Brian is everywhere these days!

RI will do it if you ask, but I prefer to do it myself.

I have no doubt there was "a man" who was the basis for the Jesus narrative. To me it's painfully clear the story has been wildly exaggerated, parts made up much later out of nothing in an attempt to reconcile various versions and other bits outright stolen from other god myths, but somewhere in there is a kernel of truth about a radical philosopher who pissed off some Romans and got crucified for it. Not that it means much, there were an awful lot of them at the time. There are still sightings of Elvis, too. In 1000 years, Elvis, Michael Jackson, or John Lennon will be another Jesus, Mohammed, or... Imagine.

Arrogance, complacency, the "this will never happen to me" attitude... One was a BMI that was trying out a new suit brand; he doesn't know why he missed his legstraps. He didn't want a gear check on the ground, but his mistake was discovered by a newly-trained wingsuiter who more or less insisted it needed to be done. The other was fiddling with his chest strap (it was loosely fastened prior to boarding with his helmet clipped through it). I believe he disconnected it on the plane and then forgot to re-route it. Now that there are wingsuits that hide the cheststrap too...I expect we'll have a few more 'catches.' We had one guy from overseas who refused a gear check on the ground and was very annoyed when I went to give him one at our normal 10K check. No problems discovered, but some folks seem to view gearchecks as an insult of sorts. I think it's easier to miss legstraps with one particular kind of suit than another, but with hidden legstraps, it can happen with any suit. There is no reason to walk around with legs out of straps, IMO. The rule amongst most experienced wingsuiters is that if you're zipped in, your leg/chest straps are tight. Thread officially drifted... I've found it's very possible to miss stuff on the ground when you're self checking. Therefore, we've implemented a See/Say/Touch gearcheck much like a pilot does. It's caught these issues and raised a couple of others. Question for Rob; is there any aspect of the deceased's clothing that might indicate a separation from the harness? Even loosely done legstraps would lptentially leave damage to the jumpsuit/clothing/skin, as might a loose cheststrap. There were separation marks on the incident I witnessed in Sebastian, but those were different circumstances.

If I understand you correctly, if you'd have had an entanglement with your camera, you'd have had no ability to cleanly cutaway?

I'm sorry for your loss. This year alone, we've caught two very experienced wingsuiters at altitude without legstrap and chest strap. We've since mandated flight line gear checks similar to what they do in the UK. As far as the distance, there was over quarter mile in separation between Dan Kulpa's body and canopy landing. I believe he separated from his harness around 900'-1.5k', so a half a mile in L/V winds wouldn't be a surprise.

One would think. Then again...using rubberbands to secure a camera *might* fall into the "low IQ" category as well...a hard opening might cause pain for someone/something on the ground, too... I'm sure that every person in the small-format incidents/issues listing thought that they were _not_ one of "those guys."

As many of you know, Sony has a product called "Acid." Every month they give away Acid library sounds. This month's sounds are very cool. http://www.facebook.com/SonySoftware Thought I'd share. These can be used in Garageband, Soundtrack, Premiere, Vegas (any editing app) I am not affiliated with this division of Sony Software.

Because the lower resolution settings may well be in a bitrate column that your system can't manage/decode. Playback from the camera via USB isn't the same as playing back from an HDD. USB also shares bus resources, whereas a direct Xfer to HDD and then playback will generally be happy days on any computer that can run Win7