nigel99

I was just thinking wow no-ones mentioned naked news and this is Bonfire not speakers corner. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Yeah I know that On the brighter side since this thread is about the Golden gate bridge which I understand from the video's is 250ft high instead of the net why don't the base community provide prototype rigs for jumpers? Low cost R&D for base manufacturers if people change their minds on the way down. The rigs can be funded with public money instead of the net - its a win win situation Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Sorry nobody has the "right" to try and kill themselves. My wife is in the middle of a living hell right now as her brother tried to commit suicide circa 10 days ago. She is living and sleeping in intensive care and she has just been given the lovely task of making the decision to turn off life support about 2 hours ago. If people are to have the "right" to commit suicide then it must be in clinical conditions to avoid innocent people having to deal with the shit that follows. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

You are right - doctors still don't know if he will pull through (there are now further complications). I've tried to prepare my wife that it is better to pass away than spend x years as a vegetable. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Over the past 48 hours I have seen human stupidity and selfishness expressed to a degree that beggars belief My wifes brother left his wife & kids about 3 years ago for a bimbo and cut off ALL existing friendships and family as they didn't see "his" side of the story. Fast forward 3 years to beginning of this week. He and Bimbo record some crazy freaking videos and phone messages addressed to individual family members saying that the reason he killed himself is their fault. He then tries to end his life and is in intensive care with what the doctors believe to be severe brain damage (if he pulls through). Bimbo is sitting at the bedside and replaying the messages to family members - along with trying to contact his kids (minors under 12) to tell them it is THEIR fault I am REALLY pissed at the situation add to the fact that the people who are being lashed out at are likely to be caring for him the rest of his life and Bimbo will run. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Maybe they weren't from the FBI but were from the CIA and were helping in the coverup Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

** Post written on a forum by my father ** All countries and all continents have their successes and their failures; Europe, Asia, North and South America. But in general the other continents are progressing toward a better, freer and more prosperous life for their people. Not so Africa. When one looks at Africa one sees a sea of corruption, violence, malnutrition, starvation, intolerance and bigotry from North to South, East to West. There are very few exceptions indeed. Yet nearly all these countries were relatively prosperous and peaceful in “colonial times”. From what I know most countries of the Roman Empire suffered the same fate after the fall of Rome and it took more than a thousand years for countries such as France, Britain, Germany and Europe in general to even begin to recover. During the period of the Roman Empire there was a general peace “Pax Romana” and the same laws applied from Constantinople to Scotland. Many houses had running water, sewage systems, heating in the winter and generally a high standard of living. There was also a magnificent road system throughout the empire, and beautiful buildings that survive to this day. By about 700 AD most of Europe had gone back to living in houses constructed of sticks and mud. The roads were no longer maintained and the art of reading and writing was almost entirely lost. Life expectancy fell dramatically of course. The comparison with Africa is frightening. Everywhere, “things fall apart”, not only in material ways but morally and ethically as well. Throughout history we have seen how a successful minority has been persecuted in order to unite people against a “common enemy”. In Germany it was the Jews. They generally stuck together with their own people and culture. So Hitler demonised the Jews and Germans were encouraged to steal their property as they wanted. Later of course, there was an attempt to murder the entire Jewish race in Europe. In Zimbabwe the Zanu dictatorship has instilled hatred of “whites” and “the west” in its followers. The reasons are the same; whites are very easily recognised in a predominantly black society and also whites are generally much more prosperous than the general population. This manifests itself as a combination of awe and fear for whites, as well as a great deal of envy. Zanu and Mugabe have played on this constantly, and as their own efforts to run the country increasingly failed, so the hate speech against whites rose to a crescendo. These people (Zanu) could just not understand why their efforts failed whereas the whites had been successful – so they began to see plots and “hidden agendas” everywhere. It was of course impossible for them to see that their failure was fundamentally due to incompetence and a lack of the appropriate value system for success in the modern world. The Land Grab which destroyed Zimbabwe is an absolutely classic example of the working of this hate, fear and inadequacy. For twenty years before 2000 there had been sporadic and largely unsuccessful attempts at “resettlement”. Most of this land was either totally unutilised or drastically under-utilised. The Zanu government also showed absolutely no inclination to encourage more black Zimbabweans into agriculture and indeed efforts by the CFU to do this were spurned. In 1998 there was an International Land Conference in Zimbabwe. At this conference massive aid was promised to get more black Zimbabweans involved in agriculture. There were however a number a number of conditions; the whole programme had to be legal and had to be specifically targeted at Poverty Reduction. Mugabe and Zanu rejected this out of hand because it would have undermined their painstakingly constructed Patronage system. Then came the shock of the loss of the 2000 Constitutional Referendum (where Zanu with the help of Moyo had drawn up a draft constitution exactly opposite to what the majority wanted). Shocked by this, Mugabe and Zanu fought back the only way they knew how, using violence, hatred and envy. Thus began the Land Grab. Whether those who instigated it realised that it would destroy the country, I do not know. But if they did, they did not care. This has been stoked and inflamed over the years since 2000 in a way that Josef Goebbels would have been proud of! We have seen the endless repetition of lies and distortions twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Many have bought into these lies, and now believe them to be the truth, as we see here, as we read in the Zim newspapers and as we hear from Zim politicians. Just to recap: the land grab was violent, it was illegal and it was blatantly racist. It was also terrifyingly STUPID. But then, so are all emotionally-driven actions. We have people on here seriously stating (and possibly even believing?) that whites should own no land in Zimbabwe, that whites are “the enemy” and that it is just and fair to steal or destroy anything owned by whites. This is the foundation ethos of the whole Zanu philosophy. What is truly bizarre is that many if not most of these fanatics are living in “white” countries, many carry the passports of those countries, and a great number own property or land in those same “white” countries! Yet, they don’t see any irony in that. I cannot see Zimbabwe (or Africa) moving ahead until such time as the philosophy of hatred, fear and envy is replaced by a more mature philosophy of Nationalism and Patriotism. We have many, many competent and mature people from Zimbabwe but sadly they are mostly out of the country, and will in all probability never return except as tourists and visitors. Will Zimbabwe and Africa sink into a thousand-year period of barbarity as happened to the Roman Empire? It is up to the people of Zimbabwe (and Africa) to make the choice between progress and regression. I believe the Civilised World has very nearly run out of patience and that Africa will be left to stew in its own juices, sink or swim as the case may be, within the next ten years. China will no doubt be happy to harvest resources (and maybe settle a few hundred million of its surplus population) but the Chinese are not primarily driven by the altruism that motivates The West. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Simba Makoni http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simba_Makoni Was a senior member of Mugabe's government but resigned/got fired around 2002 for not following the party line as he disagreed with the policy direction. Although he was a member of the politburo until he stood against Mugabe for the presidency which has resulted in 1/2 the population liking him as it makes him anti-west by implication, and the other 1/2 lumping him as a Mugabe stooge. He is a very experienced politician and could probably get alot of support. He contested against Mugabe in these elections and although he launched his campaign only about 3 weeks (from memory) before elections he got 10% of the vote which is pretty incredible. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

How many car or ski-sites have a fatality database on them? Hopefully that answers your question about whether this is a dangerous sport. You can make yourself safer (not safe) by avoiding swooping, small canopies and other more dangerous disciplines (wingsuiting included) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think you are partly right. However I think the more sinister part is that Morgan (now prime minister) has bought into the coalition. I don't know what the carrot was but for the winner to buy into being underdog to the loser after holding out for 4/5 months something happened - and it happened in secret. Add to this that Zimbabwe now has an enormous government (just what you need to escape inflation at 10-40 MILLION %) It is also not without precedent as in 1987 ZAPU (Joshua Nkomo) joined forces with Mugabe after some estimated 20 000 people were killed. This allowed Mugabe to have a 1 party state with no cohesive opposition in exactly the same way as this agreement. Quietly sitting in the wings is a person called Simba Makoni - he may be Zimbabwe's only hope in about 5 years time. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Isn't admitting that you have changed your opinion a banning offence in SC?? On a serious note - it is nice to see people who are willing to re-adjust their roadmap in life.

Thanks but I got "Error 404. Page not found" I think thats an even funnier responce than the webcams! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I am not convinced that people who are dead scared should try skydiving (tandems would be fine) as brain lock is more likely to occur. This is from personal experience where due to lack of funds I jumped infrequently and struggled through progression and a log book full of comments that I looked like death. It has been 12 years since I last jumped and I still long to take the sport up again (stopped because of marriage and kids) but when I remember how lacking of awareness I was at 100 jumps compared to other people I am glad that I never had a "major" malfunction. If people like freefall then there is the tunnel now (which I really enjoy), if it is flying then there is either paragliding, microlighting or gliding all of which put you under considerably less mental stress than a skydive. If you are determined to try skydiving and are nervous or scared then I would suggest doing at least 3 jumps a day as frequently as possible as the currency really helps with the fear management - the worst thing that you can do is 1 jump every week or two. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I agree with Shrop. The high beam thing may be different between the UK and California as here in the dull grey a high beam will tend to blind people even during the day. Saying being polite doesn't matter is fine until you realise that there are dipsticks out there who when angry will deliberately try and cause you harm (e.g swerving at you because you are annoying them). For example - I ride to work and when traffic is backed up I ride the centre line. Last week someone got annoyed with me and deliberately drove down the centre line straight at me causing me to have to dive on the brakes and squeeze into the traffic - technically they were in the right (I was on their side of the road) but they had 10 foot of road to the left of them! Anyway does the high beam make any difference to the low beam during the day? Also remember that having the lights on reduces the ability of other drivers to accurately judge their distance to you although I keep them on personally. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Unfortunately it does sell stuff. A number of years ago our company was looking to buy new equipment and the equipment we as the users preferred was the same price as the alternative - problem was equipment we wanted was sold by a fat bald guy and alternative had leggy Linda - guess who our team leader chose to go with? I don't think it is degrading though. People seem to have this belief that women don't like the attention - a myth largely put forward by ugly old hags I believe. My mother in law is a retired hooker and she went into the trade as she liked sex and money. The biggest problem with soft porn type advertising is that the people who are offended don't have much choice. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Ha ha thats really funny. Your link says "the sun" and yet goes to the telegraph. I doubt that the sun would carry your article as they have this on page3 www.page3.com (NSFW for Americans ) what about the EU's own advert on youtube http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,492131,00.html Anyway I like sexist advertising my wife doesn't - and in the US you've got no choice the government decided you weren't responsible enough Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I was simply answering 377 comment about what on the money might indicate that it did not separate from Cooper and he bounced (he also mentioned money separated and money under inflated parachute) The terminal velocity of the money bag was exactly 79.0909091Mph according to the frigged values that I put into the online terminal velocity calculator on Nasa's website http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/termv.html On a more serious note wouldn't material analysis possibly show the "history" of the money, that is perhaps particles or bateria indicating storage in a bucket or being submerged for x years and possibly being buried for y years - rather than the form of descent that the money took? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

This may be a dumb question, but is there ANYTHING regarding the found money that would indicate whether it impacted at terminal velocity or came down under an open canopy? I cannot think of anything other than a high force impact puncture through a stack of bills and that was not found. If such an indicator did exist it probably could not distinguish between the money coming loose during the jump or staying with Cooper under an open canopy. I am just trying to see if there is any possibility that the money could tell us whether Cooper went in undeployed. Georger, Snowmman, Sluggo? What about blood stains - from what people have said about bounces I imagine it would not be hard to get at least some samples onto the money - could the rust stains be blood? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't have aviation experience to comment on what the gauges would show but I guess based on physics even in an unpressurised cabin due to the venturi effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect there would be a delta shown. As far as the pressure bumps again I don't know how sensitive the human ear is to pressure change in feet or the guage but at lower speeds (~100knots) in a DC3 or Casa 212 (largest planes I have jumped) there was no detectable pressure delta but you could definately hear the "whoosh" of other jumpers entering the airstream. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I was mullying over the "no jump" theory and want to propose a scenario: Based on the amount of "baggage" that cooper may have needed to jump with and building on the illusionist theories that Cooper managed to control the general flight path by dictating specific requirements how does the following sound? Cooper obtains the parachutes and starts to package everything including "tying the money" to his body. He has as supplementary equipment the bomb, the surplus parachutes and the little brown bag/briefcase whatever. He kits up for the benefit of the stewardess and then sends her forward. As soon as it is "private" for him he dekits and rigs up a cargo drop containing all the money/briefcase etc. He could potentially use the "bomb" if these were indeed flares as a means of highlighting the payload (much like a night jump) and then if he had access to a walkie talkie and an accomplice - hand deploy/assisted deploy his cargo shipment. I would imagine a flare would not attract much attention on a rainy day as it would only be visible once it broke through the clouds and the accomplice could drive to the locality pretty easily as I guess the canopy would be descending slowly being so lightly loaded. Cooper then has the rest of the flight to "hide" possibly through a service hatch into the underside of the plane (do the lav's have service hatches?). He is then free to leave the plane when the heat is off and in the possible confusion of the plane being met at the receiving end. I know the above is total speculation and was concocted at about 3 in the morning but beyond the most obvious "hole" in that the flight path was random - which is true for 99% of cooper was clever theories it would appear to be a possibility. I know that radio range would be excellent to an aircraft but I am not convinced that you could hear what was being said at the rear of an open jet. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Did someone say...Trench Coat? So cooper dressed up in a tan trenchcoat discuised as snoopy? What is Ckret covering up that he never mentioned the snoopy disquise Seriously though you wouldn't want to freefall very long with that much stuff flapping around would you? I've made the mistake of wearing a collared shirt in the tunnel and I came out black and blue - I'd hate to have a square foot of fabric flapping around my crotch area Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

RE- trenchcoat. As I understand a trench-coat extends to knee or ankle length and I can imagine that would seriously affect stability and would certainly hurt like hell to have that much fabric flapping around. I can't visualise how easily leg-straps would fit do maybe the fabric would be all bunched up? I guees people like twardo who jump with the big flags may have an idea on what this is like - but then would you even want to do that as a high speed exit or long free-fall? Perhaps to add to Coopers legacy he rigged his trench-coat as a wing-suit and managed to track all the way to tina bar where he deployed at 500 ft and buried his loot Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I've fallen out of a 182 at 8k when I tried to get comfortable with big guy leaning against my rig as we were wedged in - he moved and apparantly they could hear me screaming for about 5 seconds But the worst I've seen was when the pilot didn't put the brakes on and a jumper fell and hit his face on the wheel during his exit. As I really enjoy flying I also did a ferry trip with no parachute and no door with another jumper (also no rig). That is the only time I have been really scared as we flew the ~20mile trip sitting on some sort of plywood sheet (don't remember what it was) and it was shifting around. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I know it depreciated from $1 to the US$1 to $100 to the US$ in aproximately 48 hours. The thing is people have already "dollarised" and while it is illegal most transactions are conducted in either US$ or South African Rand. So most people swap local cash for forex as soon as possible. I guess what they did by reintroducing old notes it was no different to printing more money (what they have been doing previously) but this time the average guy on the street got a windfall and not just the government. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Zimbabwe has probably dropped off most peoples radar's as the elections fade away, but inflation is running at between 2 and 12 million percent (2M is the government figure, 12M independant economists). Paper for printing bank notes is only available from 3 or 4 countries in the world and a german firm that were supplying Zimbabwe stopped under pressure from their government. As a result in the hyperinflationary environment where the last bills devalue to being worthless in 2-6 weeks Zimbabwe's cash dried up and they were unable to pay the military. The solution was to remove 10 zero's so that $10 Billion = $1. The interesting twist is that due to shortage of paper the government RE-Introduced the OLD $1 coins and bills. There is at least 1 news story of a blind beggar who stashed the "worthless" coins and notes that people dumped on him over the years who is now exceedingly wealthy. My question is what effect does that have on an economy? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.