SuperGirl

I feel your pain, Lurch, I really do...

woohooo! should be a great time! getting there in the evening of the 22nd. Can't wait to see you all and fly!

can I get one for xmas? I promise I've been really good this year on a more serious note, fuuuuck yeah! that's veeery cool stuff!!!! great to see the discipline constantly being pushed forward

Daaamn, that one took a while, huh? But I guess it was worth the wait! Nicely edited, Jarno! That is one SWEET VIDEO! It also brings back lots of good memories... ohhh my, the PONY jump... that one will be remembered forever... when you find yourself laughing in freefall so hard that it's affecting your flying, you *know* you must be having some serious fun! Really enjoyed watching this, and totally looking forward to Flock n Dock 6 this year! Shall we bring you a real life pony to fly with this time? See if you can handle that one in your mouth

and... "I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handlebars, no handlebars..."

1. Yuri 2. Jarno 3. Simon 4. Andreea

not sure how much it applies to your field... I'm in computer science... the advice a good friend gave me once was that the statement of purpose when you apply for a phd program should actually be called a "research statement" for the most part basically you need to show them that you can be a good research bitch for some professor in the department for a few years, and have what it takes to produce quality research and therefore make it through the program I'll look for my old one and send it to you.

woohoo!! lookin forward to this one

NIIIIICE!!!!

That's the thing, these mofos will keep coming up with new suits all the time. Maybe you could take the "currently available suits on the market" part out of the book and into a blog, where you could keep it up to date most of the time, and just have the book focus on the rest of the information that's not suit-specific and therefore doesn't expire as easily. Just a thought.

you keep promising it since 2007 cmon!! looking forward to reading the new book... if/when it comes out...

cmon Jarno we all know it was the ponies on the side of the road that caused you to lose control of your vehicle. stop looking at those ponies, you perv!

We do need to make a distinction between the formation during the record and other formations in general. The 68-way was flown TO FIT THE GRID. All efforts were made to get the formation inside the grid, including exactly the kind of stuff Kallend is talking about with flying off of people further away rather than our immediate neighbors. Our only goal was to get a nice grid picture. We flew off of people way further in front of the formation in order to correct for any flaws in the lines that would affect the grid fit. Had the requirements been different, the flying might have been a little different, too. Instead, we found ourselves adapting our flying style to accommodate the grid, rather than the grid being an accurate representation of our flying. No surprise that some of those bubbles don't always fit. I, too, have mixed feelings about the current "best fit" criteria that are combined with subjectively choosing the formation that looks best. So we have a grid that could fit a bunch of junk in it (Jarno's counter-examples come to mind), but we claim that we will not submit a bunch of junk as a record jump, because people will always want to submit something that looks record-worthy. But we really have no guarantee for that and no proper way of enforcing it. I recall a certain 70+ way (what was the number again?) being built the day before the mighty 68 way. I may be wrong, since I was not involved in any of the judging and I don't have any pictures at hand to prove this, but my impression was that the bigger way from the last jump the day before also kinda fit the grid, just not as nicely. Hence it didn't deserve to be called the record, when compared to the badass-looking 68-way that followed. So what makes the 68-way MORE grid-worthy than previous formations? How do we properly quantify its grid-worthiness without being too subjective? Yes, the 68-way provided a much better fit, it flew together longer in that solid configuration, it sure as hell felt great (that jump has provided most of us with sweet visuals of excellent sight lines, and memories that will probably last a lifetime). But if we hadn't done that jump, if Purple had flown a shittier base, if we'd gotten hosed by weather for the remainder of the event, or whatever other scenario, then would the other formations from the day before have been equally okay to claim as the new record? Or would we have stuck with the 30-something way from the earlier 2-plane formation just for the sake of being strict about it? When we move on to bigger and bigger numbers, will it be as easy to make the distinction? Will we be tempted to accept formations of lesser value then, just because the rules are loose enough to allow it? Will we risk becoming more complacent as the task becomes harder to accomplish? It often seems that a decent formation is achieved, but it still looks a little bit all over the place, so it is then improved upon, until not only does it meet the baseline criteria for being a record, but it also LOOKS worthy of being called a record. We break a record, but we're not quite sure yet if it's the best we've got, so we try it a bunch more times, and then we realize that what we had before was actually pretty damn good and call that our best. When we finally realize we got a record it all feels a bit anticlimactic. Yea, we sorta knew we had something good all along... we were just working out a few kinks, but wait, we actually had it right there... never mind... It's not the clear YES/NO answer that makes you go "YEAH!!!" immediately. Why the doubt? There's that fuzziness that comes with the wide range of improvement that is still possible. Maybe we are still missing some extra guidelines in that judging rule set.

hehehe of course you'd expect some level of exception. a lot of us were under the impression that we weren't being all that anal about some of the rules [cough cough... 300 jumps... cough, cough] good times, man! would've liked to see you around the dropzone more. ohhh... and the inspirational blogging of the 71way, filled with little details, real people, and real emotions... missed that this year! (No offense to the official blog of this year's event, that was very cool, too... big props. Just a lot more official...)

it's expensive!!! think of all the jumps you could do with that money!!

exactly!!! silly string, anyone? :)

looks great!! how about some in-flight shots?

aaand clicky

With all this anti-flocking bs in the other thread(s), perhaps we also need some more pro-flocking talk. I don't know about everyone else, but outside of all the drama and other ground stuff, just looking at the pure flying aspect of it, I thought some of the formations built in Elsinore were absolutely beautiful. Yeay for serious flocking!! That was bad ass!! A bit of good speed, too (yay, Purple!) Seeing those sightlines fall into place... man, that was niiiice!! I'm sure some of the people on the previous unofficial 71-way shared similar feelings. Regardless of who calls it what... We've gone so far!! All the effort that went into these events enabled a lot of us to share some really good team jumps together, and I for one am very grateful for that. So... how 'bout all that flocking, eh? What's next? Bigger-ways? Huge multi-points? 3D? If so, how will those be grid-worthy? And how done are we with our current grid-worthyness? How can we improve our flocking experience even more? It is in our human nature to continue to question things, and to always seek to better ourselves. A week before the bigway event, some interesting ideas were kicked around in another thread. I recall some cool bubbles with the potential of turning them into a photoshop brush or something like that. Sounded like a really neat addition. It also sounded like some really bad timing. Nobody wants to listen to any new stuff just a week before a major event. It's the worst occasion to bring that up. Too late in the game. So, then, when is a good time? How about something like RIGHT NOW? How about we don't wait another 2 years until it's too late in the game - AGAIN - to have some meaningful pro-flocking discussions. Get your brains working! How can flocking become even better? Hell, perhaps we can reach a point when even Yuri might be tempted to join the flock! Now that would be an interesting challenge, wouldn't it?

no I didn't. (although I have to admit I was tempted to do so, even if temporarily, just for the awesome photoshopping adventure of that whole Yurination thing) don't you dare. read my clarification to the other post. nobody's quitting flocking. it's all good fun!

I never said I was on anyone's side. I just pointed out that I wasn't taking you seriously (hence the smiley) hey hey, now, I very much enjoyed the view from my slot in the 68way, thank you. there's all kinds of fun out there, Yuri. your balls-out flying is very cool. flocking can be fun, too. fucking around in scary rolls and induced flatspins (as in Spot's video) can be equally entertaining. Try a little diversity... a little open-mindedness... you might enjoy it. It's kinda like sex with all the toys you've got in your avatar picture, and you surely seem to be having fun in that one Now THAT's some seriously funny shit. *golf clap* Sooo... all your posts are just Yurine on the forums? Ahh, it all makes sense now.

You know, sometimes you need to follow your own advice... Especially when it's a post accompanied by a little smiley face

man you're really running out of stuff to pick on. what's the relevance of the lack of horizontal speed in a "fuck around" type jump? who are you gonna bitch at next? headdown flyers?

+1 a good CMS will save you tons of work.