metalslug

I lost track of that thread.. What did the message eventualy say ?

Heh, I got the impression so far that John may actualy agree with most of my comments here. I dont see yet how I've baited him. Nah, it's certainly not just Americans that arrive for safaris, but they are the most common and thousands of dollars is more than most other people are prepared to pay, both local and foreign.

To me this is an important distinction. I have empathy for most animals but actualy get some consolation from eating the meat and wearing the leather, knowing the animal has been efficiently processed and utilised to its maximum. It doesn't matter to me whether the animal was commercialy slaughtered and processed or whether the job was done by a hunter in the field. However.... I do have a problem with most big game trophy hunting. I'm especialy alarmed by "canned" hunting. Some American hunters travel to South Africa and pay thousands of dollars to shoot a lion in a restricted space. Can this be described as anything other than bloodsport ?

IMO, a part of this problem is that people have different ideas on what 'respect' means. Does respect mean acknowledging basic human rights and civil courtesy ? Or does respect mean compliance with every wish and whim of every friend or an authority figure (parent/boss) ? Do different cultures and ethnic groups around the world interpret civil courtesy differently ? I could disrespect a Japanese home by marching in with my boots on (rather than removing them at the door) and not realise I was showing disrespect. Should we respect the person ? ..or respect the position they hold regardless of their credibility ? I know of one teenager who shot his father to prevent his mother from receiving yet another beating. Did this child disrespect his father ? Using the above example, do children have the judgement to truly know what respect is, who deserves it, and when and how to apply it ? And lastly, are we obliged to still respect those who disrespect us ? Most of us will come into contact with thousands of people in our lifetime and few of us have time and resources to please all of those people all of the time. Assuming basic human rights and civil courtesy is the common definition of respect, we should all get along fine, but IMO its not always a clear issue.

You appear to be correct. The book of Jonah does not mention wine. Very interesting.

(1) ferret (2) None. Every book mentions wine.

'Strength' in a woman is an attractive quality. I define 'strength' as the ability to be independent, to speak honestly and not be afraid what people might think, to manage your own life and finances, to fight back when pressured, to not shit yourself if you get stuck in an elevator (or jump out of a plane ). Strength is measured by how well you can control your own life. It's not measured by how well you can control your partner's life. Being strong makes you admired, being domineering does not. The type of woman that I am most scared of are extremely beautiful women. I fear them because they can cloud my judgement. (and sometimes interrupt my cardio-pulmonary functions

The closest thing to a name I've seen at my DZ are the sponsor's names that appear on some sponsored canopies. The CI at my dropzone has an orange canopy with great big "Crunchy" lettering across it. So, some folks may point at the sky and say, "Ah, he's flying Crunchy now", or "Ah, there comes Crunchy" (expecting another impressive swoop). It's more an identifier, to distinguish it from the canopy in his other rig, than a personified name. I have also noticed some custom embroidery on some cutaway & reserve puffs/pillows. The one I remember best imitates a pinball machine, with the words "Tilt" on the cutaway and "Replay" on the soft reserve". But puff embroidery probably belongs in its own thread.

Hehehe, gitmike has a way with words.. More to the topic; thanks HH for the additions.

The question that comes to mind for me is "Will you learn anything at all about a particular type of jump or skydiving discipline without having to actualy do it ? It seems that in some cases the answer is Yes, and in some cases No. I have noticed that there are "side-issues" relating to the type of jump that do require experience. For example, the largest CRW canopies that our DZ has are 160s, so if a jumper is not sufficiently skilled or experienced under a 160, especialy regarding landings, then they have no business attempting CRW on those canopies. No point in building a great stack and a terrific downplane only to end up breaking bones while landing. Also regarding CRW, a person needs to be confident at not having an RSL, and in many cases, a cutaway on a CRW jump often requires the jumper to freefall until close to the hard deck altitude before deploying the reserve. I would assume this requires a cool, calm mental state and may be tricky for a low-timer experiencing their first mal. There is another recent thread on these forums about the dangers of newbie jumpers doing 2-ways. I was doing 2-ways with other newbies after about 35 jumps, after getting my "Category 2" FS rating from coached jumps. Soon after I also did a few 4-ways and 'horny gorillas' which didn't seem dangerous at the time. In my opinion, I doubt I was learning much about fall-rate control, docking, drift etc until I started jumping with other people, so I dont completely see the logic in waiting longer before attempting simple 2-ways, for example.

A common pattern of many "paranormal sightings" involve witnesses that are tired, fatigued, sometimes in their cars or beds, asleep or about to sleep or about to wake up. There are several studies of EEG brain activity that identify various stages of sleep, most interestingly alpha and theta rythms during Stage 1, as people are dozing off, characterised by drifting thoughts and images. It may be possible that this phenomenon can result in very realisitic delusions of paranormal sightings, or grants us temporary ESP to be receptive to the paranormal. (whichever you prefer to believe) What is harder to explain though, is lasting physical evidence of some events. It is easy to dismiss a ghostly sighting but it is less easy to dismiss the sights and sounds of a physical object (clock/vase/grand piano), seemingly moving or breaking under a paranormal force. Long after the incident has occured, the object affected remains conclusively moved or broken, and that is no delusion. I'm a skeptic most of the time too, even though I have an earlier post in this thread claiming telekinesis. A popular quote from fictional character Sherlock Holmes - "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

"I find your lack of faith disturbing..."

Maybe we should all be taking a few pointers from this fucker (TM).

To my knowledge, the PD Spectre is a 7-cell elliptical. Probably not comparable to the Diablo in performance though.

I performed telekinesis... I did a brief period of shift work for a few weeks, 12 hours on, 12 hours off, 6PM to 6AM. The colleague I was alternating shifts with was sleeping in the same house at that time in another room, and his alarm clock sounded exactly like mine. After just a few hours sleep I was awoken Monday morning at 5AM by what sounded like my alarm clock. Of course, it was my colleagues alarm clock in the other room. Anyhow, at that instant of wakening, I felt an abosolute sense of rage towards that sound and spun around in my bed to face my alarm clock, which was 15 feet away from me on a desk at the opposite end of the room. I watched, and heard the clattering noise, as the clock flew backwards about 12 inches, flipping over and impacting against the wall behind the desk. The clock did not break and still worked fine after the incident. My only witness heard the clock hit the wall but, of course, did not see it. There is no possible way for me to explain what I saw. I am quite sure I didnt throw anything at it and also sure that it was no dream. Combined with the bizarre and intense emotion of that moment, I believe to this day that I made that clock move.

Get a bigger aircraft, helicopter or a balloon for a day. In my short experience, visiting aircraft are the single biggest factor in attracting people. The last time we had a helicopter here in Nylstroom, we had about 4x the regular number of weekend jumpers on both days.

Held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1974, the Guildford Four were four people from Northern Ireland who were wrongly convicted in the United Kingdom in 1975 for the Provisional IRA's Guildford pub bombing, despite Joe McAndrew, one of the actual terrorists, subsequently admitting to the bombing. Like many charges under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, their convictions were quashed in 1989. The Act did not directly support torture but certainly gave significant power to police and it has been alleged that confessions were 'extorted' from some suspects. This Act was subsequently replaced by the Terrorism Act 2000 and may see more changes in future. Whatever the UK's policies are, or what they may become, let us hope that justice is ultimately served to the right people.

One of our company directors skydives, usualy at the same DZ as me. Some people play golf with the boss, I skydive with the boss. It's not all sunshine though, DZ politics and office politics have the potential to overlap with each other in uncomfortable ways.

The gas explosion story is an old one too, definitely way before 2004. There's an increasing number of "rogue" Darwin Award stories going around that seem to be a mix of urban legend and resurrected newsprint.

...and girls are evil.

I had my first reserve ride on jump 50, on one of these, a Predator R 170. It was preceded by a cutaway and was not a deployment at terminal velocity, the opening was quite smooth. It didn't feel very different from my 210 main canopy, except perhaps that it was a little faster and more responsive. I had never jumped a 170 canopy before. The most obvious handling difference was the exceptionaly long steering lines on this one, my knuckles were almost dragging on the grass to get any kind of flare on it. I only barely managed to stand up the landing, even with a 10kt headwind. The colors were interesting too, a mix of green and lemon yellow rather than conventional reserve colors. It was rental gear and I'm no rigger so I have no idea about the structural merits of these reserves.

I think the solution lies in computer education rather than what OS a person chooses to use. A great many people have been using M$ operating systems for years without so much as a single hiccup. Proper firewall practices (yes, its even possible on a home PC at minimal cost) and responsible email and internet practises (no, I dont want to open the YourPrize.jpg.exe mail attachment right away and I dont want to install that website application that will "fix my PC clock") ... will go a long way towards painless PC ownership and eliminating dependencies on Operating Systems that are expected to think of everything for the user.

Heeey, that beer doesn't look fabulously South African. Has Skreamer lost his sense of taste ?

For some folks, their metabolism slows down a bit as they get older. It's probably not the lager drinking, most beers only have about 13 calories per ounce. Cider has a little bit more than that, but neither of them can likely be blamed for having a bit more belly. Interesting article, lower down the page, here...

I may be the exception to the rule, but I was a very well-behaved child and yet my parents hardly ever put a hand on me to keep me that way. I remember that, most of the time, correct behaviour wasn't just dictated to me, it was explained to me so that I knew why I was supposed to do (or not do) certain things. I think that made a big difference. As best as my childhood memories will allow, my parents didn't seem to get angry when I misbehaved, instead they seemed to become 'sad'. I think that an angry parent is not as emotionaly significant to a child than a visibly sad/upset parent is. I know now, in hindsight, that much of their sadness was caused by relationship problems with each other (because they eventualy divorced) but there was nothing more terrible for me than to see my parents sad and I would therefore behave like an angel to do whatever I could to make them happier, to see them smile again. I was well-behaved in school aswell, mostly so that my parents would be happy to hear good reports from my teachers. Maybe my circumstances were unusual, but that's how it worked out for me.