nigel99

Yip 26million records posted on enencrypted CD's. Someone also pointed out - what the hell did the NAO need the bank details for anyway? In the UK we are suffering from boiled frog syndrome and when we wake up it will be to late The ID card argument is so weak it is laughable - except I get the feeling that it will "find" its way onto the statute book... Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think that reading requires a longer attention span. The web and even magazines provide short forms that often gloss over the subject matter. I see it in my own children as they really struggle to follow a story where the storyline is not full of action and shorter than a few minutes. The reading is possibly secondary to the ability to continue a line of reasoning over an extended period. If you suggest that reading the same content online or on a PC is just a new media then I agree with you - I just haven't found the same depth of subject matter, and if I did I am not sure that I would like to read a novel on a PC. Online media can reduce your vocabulary such that you don't know the correct use of effect and affect Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

No 1+1 = 10 (I prefer working in binary) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

It is true - and contrary to what some may believe I think the affect is already being felt in work place. The number of times that people ask questions that can be answered by reading datasheets (engineering) is really irritating. I also think there is quite a trend of being dislexic - where sometimes it is just laziness or lack of comprehension. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

but but but Zimbabwe has the ability to get "pure" diesel straight from the ground!!! http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=17720 Mugabe personally hosted at least 1 meeting where the woman managed to convince the government that she could magically produce diesel. Goverment paid her Z$5Billion (about £5000 pounds) Now if only Bush was as stupid as Mugabe.... BTW The UK will never invade Zimbabwe as the "people" prefer a shitty dictator to "interference" from the west. After all we can't have the colonials imposing thier ideals on us. It is better that Zimbabwe and its people are left to rot in the hell they have chosen for themselves. When they no longer want to passively accept Bob they will take action. That includes food aid - I don't see why we should prop up the belief in a stupid man by supplying food that he takes all the credit for supplying. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

A friend of mine went to visit someone sometime after christmas a few years ago and the people still had the turkey left-overs on the kitchen table. I believe that the people were still picking bits off it. Anyway Craig picked it up or looked closely at it and there were maggots. He didn't eat there again Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I am not sure how much you know about southern africa - but Mugabe was put in place as a "suppossed" democratic leader (after he murdered Muzerewa - the true elected leader that the US & UK refused to acknowledge). Exploitation? Having lived in africa most of my life I really struggle to see colonialisation as "exploitation" that is a false guilt complex that the Brits need to get over. The Brits took technology and medicines that was possibly 1000 years ahead (or more) of the culture there. Did that give the British an advantage over the locals - yes of course but I believe the British acted pretty respectably in Rhodesia. Now Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front were a completely racist group and that is another whole issue. To my knowledge only Rhodesia and the US have successfully Unilaterally Declared Independance from the British empire - the UK should have not let Smith get away with that and confronted him. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I agree with Skyrad that Democracy does not appear to work very well in alot of cultures. To be perfectly honest I don't understand the reasons why this is true but I will give a couple of examples: Iraq - Saddam clearly had a better grasp than the "democratic" alternative. Zimbabwe - The country was far better off before democracy. (This is true of most southern african countries if compared before and after independance from the colonies) I suspect that for democracy to work people must have the belief in themselves and that they are capable of questioning and confronting the leadership. This appears to be a foundation stone for successful democracy. The US has this sense probably stronger than most (refer to JohnRich's post regarding why gun ownership is so important). Where a country has a strong cultural or religious tendency to "obey at all costs" I don't think democracy works very well. It is better to have a benign monarchy/external force in control. In this way I think that the US fails the world as it meddles in other peoples business and yet does not shoulder the responsibility. I would prefer the US came out as an Imperialist nation (which it continually flirts with anyway) and actually colonised the countries where is tries to right wrongs - this would remove the vacuum's they tend to leave. Lastly I think that Europe is loosing its ability to question leadership and I believe that at some point in the future we or our children will be abused by politicians with to much power and nobody with the will to confront them. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Thanks UDSkyJunkie you summed up what I was trying to get across in my posts. It certainly seems like the attitude is less common than I thought based on the strength of everyones responces. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Firstly I am sorry I seem to have mistakenly generalised. I certainly don't mean to imply that extraordinary risk is a bad thing when planned for, but I am questioning whether the few hard headed individuals who consistantly disregard safety advice could have a different viewpoint and decision making process with regards to risk assessment - making arguments about risk a waste of time? I guess that you are saying that rather than fatilism the people who seem to ignore the risks - believe that they are the cream of the crop and therefore more competant than everyone else? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The BBC has 2 gun articles today. The first one that I saw made me laugh - the poor old fool. Perhaps the gun people need a new acronym DD (Darwin award discharge) for this one... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7091904.stm The second had a comment that I really liked as it seems to sum up the pro-gun attitude. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6937537.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

With all the recent debate regarding downsizing and risk in skydiving I have been thinking about the general attitude towards risk within the community. Over the years a number of skydivers that I have known has believed to a certain degree in fatalism. A recent comment in the blue skies forum also mentioned to quote "we are born with a certain number of heart beats" While fatalism is irrational as it largely portrays our fate as being beyond our control certain cultures have a strong belief structure based on fatalism and their actions are therefore considered strange to us. A good example is Bali where they ride bicycles with goods piled so high that they can't see where they are going - however they believe that all accidents are fate and therefore don't bother with risk mitigation. Could it be that the irrational risk takers (some would argue skydiving is an irrational risk in itself) merely have a stronger sense of fatalism and therefore arguments about risk are irrelivant? This then raises the following questions: - If fatalism is fact should we stop worrying about risk mitigation and enjoy ourselves? - Is fatalism a form of dillisionment, mental illness or coping mechanism in dealing with death and should it be treated? - If somoeone is taking un-necessary or extraordinary risk is their belief structure based on fatalism and therefore the risk argument redundant and what "means" of preventing them killing themselves is available? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

That is the problem in that we are losing the ability to think and act freely in the west (I don't think the US is much better than the UK on this). Remember the old chemistry sets? As a kid I loved playing around and making things go bang - some of the stuff was quite dangerous. There are fascinating old books with bomb making recipies that can be really interesting to read - are we going to be expected to "register" the books with the police? The problem with the counter-terrorism laws as they are evolving is that they are pre-emptive. Many household goods (including milk) can be used to make explosives so are we going to be shutting down CostCo etc to stop bulk purchasing of potentially lethal materials? I remember traveling to the US regularly during the early part of the Iraq war and I was genuinely too scared to take political reading materials on the plane (specific examples are Hans Blix "Dissarming Iraq" and "Bush at War" by Bob Woodward. Both mainstream books but I had no trust in the system not to get screwed as a potential high risk individual. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Kallend surely from a pure learning point of view it is obvious that the lower someones experience level is the higher their likelihood of making a mistake? The higher the performance level the more likely a serious injury will result. The same is true in lots of dangerous activities (motorcycling for example has far more deaths on >100hp sports bikes with riders

Yes I realise that the last image shows him standing up. But the site is deliberately misleading. It is fairly difficult to see him in the group and if your mind is made up then you could certainly draw the wrong conclusion. I copied the image I did because I think it is deliberately used to reinforce the image of suicide - it is a crap skydiving picture with no meaning to the sequence of images. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

They have pics of the Travis chuteless jump, implying that it was a suicide. The top strapline is If you had cancer would you want to go out like this guy did? It includes a distant beach shot (attached) that I can only assume is meant to imply a bounce. (The red is the canopy) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2971611;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

True I never thought of a secondary radio. You could probably do it over Bluetooth. It is apparantly very easy to "hack" bluetooth and I believe lots of people leave it permanently on. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Are you being sarcastic? Madona is the last person I would ever expect to write a religous song... If it is about go then where does she want to take him? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I searched for that a year or so ago. It has a real feel good factor when you are little - its bright red so it must work! (We called it monkeys blood). I can only assume that it was withdrawn from the market as it contained Mercury) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

This morning they had "Just Like a Prayer" on the radio. Is it just my dirty mind or is that song suppossed to be her describing giving a BJ? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

That is quite a cool idea but would require alot of technical advances (and invasion of privacy). It would be very simple to provide a "vibrate mode" instruction to the software - but how does the theatre know your phone is present? The phone supplier can only locate you to approximately a few hundred square meters. The only realistic solution is people starting to have some consideration. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The legal way is to screen the room. There is no law against reducing signals entering a building that you own. I doubt that full screening is required to reduce the signal quality enough that calls would start to be filtered out reduced. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I really struggled on static line progression with the shorter delays. One of my instructors decided to go against convention and let me go up to 8k for a ~10 second delay. Our DZ didn't have cypresses and kit was good old fashioned T-10's. I found it very stressful and having the extra "time" to make mistakes really relaxed me it just mean't that I was under canopy at ~6-7k which I enjoyed. If you're allowed it might be an option and it also gives you much more time under canopy which is alot of fun. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The bloody little chavs. Last night coming home after 14 hours out. Little bastard hoodie threw a fist sized rock at me (doing ~30MPH on a motorbike). There was a large pack of them - more than 20 aged mid-teens I guess. I stopped to yell and then changed my mind after the number of recent deaths in the UK of people tangling with youngsters and getting kicked to death. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I thought with a thread title of "POINTLESS..." it was a Charlies Angels type skydiving question Although I have seen a film covering a cargo door that became dislodged/blew off (I THINK based on a true story/documentary - but can't be sure). I think you could have exited that - but the plane was structurally sound and flew/landed safely. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.