DSE

Am I wrong in believing it's illegal for a non-rigger to modify a rig? Wouldn't the pilot be in potential jeopardy if someone jumps a non-TSO'd device?

*that* is one of the most helpful tips I've read on DZ.com

I first heard about the magic lizard about six months after moving to SLC, Utah. The story I was told, by a self-described "jack mormon," was that the magic lizard appeared to Joseph Smith and lead him to the cache of golden plates. It's been years since I heard this and the reason that story stuck was that not real long after I heard it, there was a con man who had sold various faked "original" documents to the church and others. When the suspicions began, the guy started delivering bombs to people who might/would expose him. His scam came to an end when the bomb he meant to deliver near downtown SLC exploded as he got it out of his car. Don't remember the scam/bomber's name, but it shouldn't be hard to search for. Happened in the mid-80s. I was about two blocks away when the bomb blew and drove right past the damaged car just seconds after the explosion. He was badly injured. Some of the faked documents this guy sold contained "expanded versions" of Mormon lore and legacy. The guy was well connected within the church hierarchy and had access to the church's most sacred documents and archives. His forgeries were based on authenticated documents held by the church and other scholars. Hell ... a magic lizard is no less probable than an astronomic anomaly as a device for locating sacred relics or holy representatives. Zing, the story to which you refer is the Salamander Letter. Mark Hoffman is the bomber; Kathleen Sheets and Steve Christiansen were the victims. Steve Christiansen was my exwife's next door neighbor, I knew him fairly well, as my wife tended his children while we were dating. Had Gordon B. Hinckley had the balls to expose Hoffman at the time, rather than attempting to buy his silence, neither of those two people would be dead. Not just my opinion, but is the conclusion of several authors and researchers of the situation. Hoffman had sold literally hundreds of forged documents to high ranking church leaders, and all of them were not only bought as "authentic" but also used to support prophetic claims of Joseph Smith and Breed em' Young. Hoffman was smart enough to use his knowledge as a Mormon missionary, to find/probe weaknesses in the Mormon story, and forge documents that supported previously unsupported Mormon doctrine. He then sold the forgeries at astronomical prices. I have a forged Jack London's "White Fang" that Hoffman forged and sold to various owners. I bought it from Weller's books, who later learned they'd sold several forgeries and offered to buy them all back. I kept mine for nostalgia, and who knows"? Hoffman was such a good forger that even the FBI had a hard time catching them. Amazing, the Mormon church paid to hide negative forgeries of Hoffman's, but paid and published his positive forgeries, and used them as "evidence" of the truth of the Mormon faith.

My bad, I counted all four Nephi's as separate books, plus I'm counting the commentaries. Forgive me, I have sinned.blush] Dorbie, Living in Salt Lake City, Utah...Southpark had it MORE than just right. You wouldn't believe some of the shit that Mormons pull. That said, the *really* big news of the day is that Utah no longer is the reddest state in the Union, and no longer is more than half in support of George W. This morning's paper headline screamed loudly that Utah is no longer the reddest state! I'm so proud. Utah is the capitol of MLM marketing schemes for one main reason; Mormons will sucker up anything, and it's in their family's best interest to do so. Every week, there is at least one major headline of come Ponzi, MLM, or other racket being shut down,and most of them are from reasonably high profile Mormons. The biggest one of all was one of their main leaders, Paul H. Dunn, and when he was caught out being part of a diamond MLM, he also was exposed for having been a lifetime liar. He was put out to pasture as a "General Authority Emeritus" which is about as rare as hens teeth. Paul H. Dunn's lifetime of lies Bear in mind, he was one of the biggest salesmen the Mormon church had, with dozens of books published, thousands of speeches (I had to sit through one as a youth at school) and dozens of countries visited. His lies were huge. With the internet, he'd have been busted in a few hours. He defended his lies as "necessary fabrications with which to tell his stories of faith." Sound familiar?

Shit, Zing, when you were flying, Jay didn't jump, you just rolled that damn airplane and threw him out. One of those rolls almost cost me a very expensive camera! You sure got some great shots with your little pocket cam!

Your quad must be different than the one in my hotel room. I'm counting all the Alma's as separate books. If taking the lord's name in vain is gonna keep me from heaven, I might as well start stocking up on flame-proof suits now. I think I violate that every few minutes.

I disagree. I think the incidents prove two things: 1. People think "It'll never happen to me." 2. Shit happens. No one EVER jumps out of an aircraft, I'll wager, that is thinking "F@#! safety, I'm just gonna do this..." Habit, complacency, lack of sleep, too much caffiene, not enough caffiene, momentary lapse of good judgement are all the causes of incidents. I'd submit that Burke's fairly in-depth study, along with those of others, demonstrates a more controlled level of risk. If everyone is dumping at 3 grand in my opinion, the issue of exit order is minimal once the various canopy configurations come into the quotient.

And things don't "demonsrate" nor apply logic simply because you *do* accept them.

Uh...Pajarito, the Book of Mormon has 19 books over 531 pages, and encompasses less than 200 years of history. The Pearl of Great Price (Another Mormon scripture book) contains 15 books over 59 pages. The Doctrine and Covenants (Yet another Mormon scripture) has 138 books over 300 pages. All are sworn as being inspired by God. All contain affadavits of sworn testimony of at least 3 individuals that saw Jesus the Christ, God, and the Holy Ghost on a minimum of 3 separated occasions. Joseph Smith saw Christ at least half a dozen times. The Mormon books encompass histories and scripture relating specifically to the US, South America, and Jerusalem, spanning 2000 years, with many, many various authors. The books were found under a stone in Palmyra, NY fewer than 200 years ago. Much of the Mormon book supports Christian stories/myths such as the Noah's Ark nonsense, Tower of Babel, Garden of Eden, etc. I find it knee-slapping hilarious that you can support your own book but offhandedly blow off the Mormons for having at least a more recent sense of nonsense. Wouldn't you agree that your offhanded dismissal due to misinformation and lack of objectivity, falls into the category of pot=kettle? False Prophecies of the Bible Everyone can post links to whatever. Doesn't make em' true any more than linking makes them false. "Worms, Roxanne! Worms! I was afraid of worms" Hey, I think the Mormons are on to something, because the DaVinci Code makes it pretty clear that Jesus (whose name really wasn't Jesus, BTW), was married and had children. Aside from the DaVinci Code and it's heretical musings that are based on exceptionally solid historical evidence, it also stands to logic, which is why it makes for good fiction. And the Mormons only charge 10% of gross for guaranteed entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, and THEY allow polygamy in heaven! Then again, I kinda thought that James Kingsley had it right. Oops. [edited to add] Pajarito, I just noticed in another thread you posted: Mormons consider their books scripture, so how do you justify your quote? They also worship using the same bible as you, they've just appended it so that the story continues until 1836.

25 rigs, most of them donated by Team Fastrax fastest time to 2.1k was 1:53 wheels to wheels. Avg time was around 2 mins wheels to wheels. Support staff of approx 140 2 PAC XL's in constant, Porter used during refuels and tire change One helluva lot of training, planning, etc. Jay was an animal. We'll have a documentary of the event out in the not too distant future, captured from 11 cameras both on ground and in air.

Well...I can tell you that the current crop are all HDD or DVD based, which is why the HC3 is still likely the best candidate. the new Panasonic uses static mem, but it's AVCHD, so can't be edited by most systems. In fact, currently only Sony Vegas can manage AVCHD, but others will soon update, prolly by NAB in April. JVC's new Everio is also HDD based, and Canon has said they have no plans for new releases until much later this year. That leaves darn few camcorder manufacturers to be doing much differently, but that's part of why I'm at CES...to see who's doing what outside the loop.

Well...if you want one, you'd best hurry. They are discontinued as of Feb 1, 2007. CES starts tomorrow morning, I'll report what I see that hasn't already been brought up, if y'all are interested.

So, a Mormon theologan has a new book out that details how Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, is a direct, bloodline descendant of Jesus "the Christ." This demonstrates that Mormonism is the *only* church ratified by Jesus the Christ, and by proxy, the only God-ratified church. Read all about it. His research is based on statements made in 1899 by a church leader. Based on posts in other threads, if it was said a long time ago by someone important, it absolutely must be true. The interview with the author is about as reality-based as some of the posts in this forum.

You really don't need to understand it unless you're scoring music or inserting commercial breaks for broadcast masters, but the easy explanation is that DF or Drop Frame was created as a means of dropping TIME but nothing else from a sequence of frames, so it is easier to calculate for broadcast, making commercial breaks etc, be in "clean" time. Drop frame removes 2 frames in time count vs non-drop frame removing no time. The actual playback doesn't change. In other words, it's just a different method of counting. One hour of vid of true 60i is 108,000 frames. However, 108,000 frames at 29.97 is one hour plus 3.6 seconds. Dropping frames in the count makes it much easier for broadcast. Regardless of the format, NTSC can be annotated as DF or NDF, so 29.97 might be followed with either annotation. But...DV is always NDF at the camera, so you'd be shifting it in your NLE. HTH? [edited to add] NDF vs DF doesn't have any application to the discussion thus far in this thread, 24p, 25p 50i don't have DF modes.

Very good guy. Was voted Skydiver of the Year this year. He's a BASE instructor as well as all the other ratings I listed earlier, and a paraglider instructor. Great attitude, super gifted, and fun to jump with.

My mistake in reading your post. I thought you were trying to figure out a safer way of pulling your pin, not trying to design a new system. The system you describe more or less has existed in older systems, I don't know if there are current manufacturers using this design. There is an advantage to having the PC be clear before pulling the pin; it's going to be grabbing good air already, which raises confidence that the Dbag and lines will deploy properly.

There are some good wides, but none of them are small enough to suit the typical skydiving use. Good lenses are quite heavy and large. The Xdream is what I'm using for casual jumps, and using a 16x9 branded version of the Zeiss .6 for my V1U and Z1 camcorders on the bigger $ jumps and spec work. The XDream's only resolves roughly 80% of the information at center (best case), but it's still very good. The Raynox lenses only resolve to full HD at specific points in the zoom; you'll want to use a rez chart to find that point on your cam. I've got a variety of lenses, but find that .5 is plenty, and with the HC3, sometimes I don't use a wide at all. YMMV

Dunno about your rig, but given the length of most bridles, your arms can't be long enough to pull the pin on your own. Yes, you have enough strength to pull it, strength isn't the issue. If the bridle is short enough for your arm to pull it to full length, then you have a serious likelihood of the PC being caught in your burble.

We have a Muslim from Iraq that is a TM/AFFI/pilot at our DZ. I could be wrong, but I believe he learned to jump with the Republican Guard several years ago. He was recently interviewed on the news following the execution of Hussein.

Scared?..... Say scared... I'm scared. Between "God electing George Bush" and being aware that at least 40% of America believes in similar nonsense to what you're preaching...I'm scared for the future. Is half of America truly so ill informed and lazy?

Actually, a steadicam mounted to the swell is the "best" way to do this, but definitely not for the casual shooter. That aside, anything you attempt to shoot on horseback needs to be wide lens, OIS with wide options. We've shot some stuff with wide and neck roller with an FTP, and it works marginally well, but dangerous. We've rodeo'd bullet cams woven into horse hair and it's worked OK for catching the rider, but that's an oddity rather than a commonality.

For all the words and rhetoric, and the *most* obvious research that lies _exclusively_ in the writings or evidences of man, one cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God. Your belief can exist on faith, and that's all that should matter to you, but faith is simply a conviction based on your own interpretations. Faith is borne exclusively from emotion, not logic. God and Christianity are the dichotomy to intellect, fact, and the universe. What's striking and shocking at the same time, is the inability of *most* Christians to accept that there could be a combination of intellect and God. Jesus doesn't have to figure into the concept, and doesn't for the majority of the world. Jesus was just the local Elvis until someone in another country decided they needed to boost their Neilsen ratings 1500 years ago. For all the talk of "false prophets" that is tossed about, there is nothing more false than the concept of jesus as the literal son of God. God cannot be substantiated by figures nor feelings. On the other hand, the bible has shown to be discounted by historical and scientific evidence aside from logic and independent thought.

Yeah, in fairness, I've been calling from 3 timezones away, and just before, and all week after the Xmas holiday, so they probably were off for the boogie. That didn't dawn on me til just now. I love my TalonFat Sucker, and they were great to work with when it needed to be modded. Since we're on the subject, sorta, I've decided against cut-in laterals based both on how non-cut Voodoo's feel, and my Talon, which is cut-in. However, I'm interested if anyone has a different viewpoint. I liked the cut-in on other rigs, but on the RI rigs, it doesn't seem as comfy.

Q.E.D. QEF

A 1080 HDV grab is 1.62 Mp. The HC3 shoots 4Mp, but as Pops mentioned, you can only shoot to card or tape, and it's not convenient unless you have a proprietary LANC from Sony, and even then...you'll need to modify. The V1U allows for a slightly easier mod, but it's a significantly larger camcorder.