nathaniel

Without a collection of data, like everyone else, an expert is in no position to make quantitative judgements and draw valid conclusions. Whereas, a beginner or an expert is well suited to disqualify any so-called expert who has no data. The only knowledge that's available is groundless. It doesn't matter who says it or how many neat swooping photos they have. It's weak until it's presented with the data that was used to prepare it. It's particularly weak if there wasn't any data used to prepare it to begin with. Look at the summaries on Gary Peek's website on parachute opening shock and fall rates and you'll see the difference between a slideshow / chat / seminar and real data. Unfortunately I don't have a good topical example of using statistical inference handy, but I assure you it looks nothing like anything I've seen so far in the discussion of canopy advice. Stat 101 type stuff...it's not mysterious or anything. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Voodew1 (TX) Professor (TX) FlyinBob (TX) Buried (IL) The111 (LOCAL!) Skyflyingbecca (FL) Moonglo (TX) Luminous (TX) unclecharlie95 (ITALIA) Base733 (UT) nathaniel(IL) My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

It's both. Both that the message is not established and that some of us would go ahead and spread it anyway. We have enough bad mythology and misinformation already...this path leads us right back to where we started. If not backwards. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

With our cooperative imaginations, and with a small amount of money. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I bet that the sheer speed, acceleration & control pressure on Luigi's vx-34 or whatever he's down to now would be sufficient to disqualify a huge portion of jumpers (myself included). Agreed. Give a pilot some data about his vehicle and he is better equipped to fly it. Simple things like the rest of the aviation community has put together. Cruising speed, glide ratio & parameters of control inputs. Right now all we can tell each other is "that one is hella fast" "drives like a bus" etc. because we have not data on it. If we have the knowledge we sure haven't betrayed it, or we are terrible communicators. Knowledge is not embodied in the polish on charts and conclusions, it lies in the reasoning that leads to them. I didn't mean to encourage ad hominem attacks when I pointed out them out... geez give it up already. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Wrong. Quantification is easy. Data is right in front of us and all around us, we need only capture it. We can use statistics to validate the rules and infer the parameters of canopy behavior only when we have data. They are not substitutes. They are complementary. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

cypres' track record speaks for itself. How many people have ever forgot to turn it on for a jump or three? Have you never seen someone new futzing with a cypres trying to turn it on or off? These are the hallmarks of ergonomics compromises. IMO a good man-machine interface in this case should be designed to minimize or eliminate procedures and instructions, not depend on them. Which is not to say that I have all the answers for how to improve it. The vigil guys seem to have a few ideas. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

IMO ergonomics is at least as much the responsibility of the device & manufacturer as the operator. The ergonomic factor is sometimes very hard to solve or even quantify...that it has resulted in deaths means to me that there's room for improvement, possibly with the device and probably with operators as well. Ergonomics is real, and has advanced as a science in large part due to aviation. The cypres and its modes of failure are tightly intertwined with its operator and his modes of failure. It's not always worth the effort to distinguish the two if a design change could improve the situation. Even if the operator were ultimately at fault. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I've met some famous people and heard them speak &c. That's not data. Data is equations, facts, statistics, numbers and figures. It's conspicuously missing from discussions about canopy performance. At least the ones that I've been privy to. Maybe it's unfair to call it hoarding if it's never been substantially collected to begin with...I really don't know or care why it's not published, only that it isn't. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

or contrariwise, it's no surprise that the majority of supporters were people unaffected by the proposal--either not included or intended to pursue canopy coaching regardless. Forget about tossing jibes at people, the 800 lb gorilla sitting in the corner is that there's very few hard facts about canopies, canopy performance, jumpers and jumper performance. What little there may be is hoarded by canopy manufacturers, not shared by jumpers, or collected by any institution. The first step after resolving to create a skills test is to identify skills. We have a lot of hunches but no good basis for believing and standardizing, let alone testing, any of them. As you can see about all that's accomplished in the absence of good data is ad hominem attacks. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Yes, several times. Speedy is repeating airtec's marketing lingo that the device is not known to have failed under a specific set of circumstances. While this may be true--it's hard to prove a negative statement like that--it's not the whole story. There are several documented cases where Airtec's marketing circumstances have not been met, a cypres has not fired, and someone has died. eg, cypres not turned on, calibrated incorrectly to a lower ground level, etc. And recently the reverse case of a cypres firing when it ought not to have (from a jumper's perspective, not an EE's perspective) happened when a swooper died after his cypres fired. Seat belts have killed people too. But I use both seat belts when driving and my cypres when jumping whenever possible. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Where's sebastian in relation to Miami? I may be in downstate FL for work on the following weeks.... I could possibly fly in early My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

No, that would probably imperil dz.com under New York State's Security Breach Notification Act, esp if you were a citizen of the State of NY, which then would require dz.com to notify you in writing that they had disclosed your protected information. Eliot Spitzer probably doesn't care what nationality the site operator is. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

The answer depends on you. 400 jumps at 170 lbs on a tapered 150 is not unheard of, and it's probably not uncommon. Tho it does seem a little bit more aggressive than your current canopy & experience. Maybe that's what you want. Whether it's a bright idea for you is a separate question from whether other people have done it. Understand that you are probably increasing your likelihood of injury. There is practically no data available to anyone about either * canopies -- except perhaps the manufacturers, but none has released detailed performance specifications * or your abilities and your interests-- except to you and people who know you, such as your instructors & coaches so for anybody to provide you with an evenhanded recommendation on this forum is quite hard. "It seems like" is about as accurate as anyone will be able to tell you. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I like that, it's one of those impossible statements.... If it was a crime to distract a security guard for ordinary people to walk past security...then they would be criminals...but they would not be "distracting" the guards away from criminals...thus they would not be criminals... My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

From the article If it was $500,000 bail for a generic DUI...I'd take a loan from the bank and go into the bondsman business. What's the bond fee on a $500k bail? edit to add: Not to mention...your rights are still curtailed when you are awaiting trial and the outcome of the test. Someone like me, for instance, who travels out of state a lot might not be able to do his job. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Tying two subthreads together...no that can't be a good reason. If the test takes weeks to process, then it is not just to imprison ordinary people till their tests are completed. The fact that a test takes a long time disqualifies the test, not the subject's citizenship. I'm sure we can think of a way to drag a breathalyzer into a 3 week process...private jail contractors will be thrilled when we institute it. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Then what's all that business about habeus corpus and the 6th amendment about anyway? Is there an exception for bogus drug tests stuck in there that I'm overlooking? Perhaps this lady capable of stuffing condoms with flour is a threat to public safety? Maybe you're thinking of the time of war exception... My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Well then it's a good thing that the US Constitution enshrines the right to speedy trial. How would you like it if you got to take a 3 week holiday in a cell while disinterested public workers shuffled your paperwork. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

The main difference I can see is that in the case of NJ EDS and Unisys are responsible for hiring for State of NJ job functions that they service, and they get to hire on terms that are entirely exclusive to them. Whereas in WA it sounds like the State of WA is responsible for hiring workers and union membership is a requirement for consideration. I'd be shocked, *shocked* to learn that EDS or Unisys had ever lobbied politicians in NJ. Another difference is that the union in question is probably not listed on the NYSE. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Food for thought, would that be different, say, from the State of NJ outsourcing whole sectors of its labor to Unisys or EDS, and laying off redundant workers? My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Well I finally took my hand to it this afternoon, with tools I downloaded for free off the internet. It took me about 6 hours and I'm now at the point where I can view and make my own graphs with unadulterated jump data. Seems like Paralog does quite a bit of data smoothing... I wonder if a Neptune is more or less jittery than a Protrack. Unfortunately I don't have a Protrack to observe. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I've taken my rig in a duffel bag a couple times. Several times it hasn't even gotten a second glance after going through the xray machine. Once I was randomly pulled over for enhanced security screening--it may have had something to do with buying a 1-way ticket one day in advance . This was at ohare again and they gave it a little wipe with their electronic nosewipe thing while the screener gave me a gentle, personal massage in public. The screeners all seemed to understand that it was to be treated carefully and seemed to anticipate my anxiety over their treatment of it. Which was nice. Another random security screening at Orange County airport ended up being rather entertaining as the screeners all asked about skydiving and seemed more interested in any stories I could tell them rather than my gear. Again the gear got special handling and an electronic nosewipe. At Tampa when taking the rig through the security checkpoint the screener didn't recognize it and asked me what was in my bag. I explained what it was and what she was looking at, which added some confidence I think because although I wasn't looking at the xray screen it seemed to make sense to her. She called over a supervisor and explained to him that I had said it was a parachute...the supervisor shrugged and said "well then, it probably is." and sent me on my way. I'd have to say the staff at ohare has been consistently the most professional with my gear. My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

That's supar awesome

Ooh I want to see pictures off the new tail My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?