genoyamamoto

check out http://www.imagemagick.org/ the binaries are usually pre-installed on unix systems (I use 'convert' when dealing with photocd's). They apparently have windows source and precompiled executables. It requires some initial work but pays off if you do it more than once. oh and it's free Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Jamie, Lets go tomorrow! Stop working, it's bad for you! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Just found out my boss is in S. America for two weeks! Anyone wanna go tomorrow?!? I promise not to kill anyone. p.s. dear boss, if you are reading this i am of course kidding and will be hard at work tomorrow. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

If it seems too good to be true, it's probably a scam. Check out this thread, and i'm sure there are more around. http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005SFS You're better off going with a reputable store like B&H where you know you'll get exactly what you paid for and they offer quality customer service. Their prices are pretty good too! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

I was referring to the boundary layer "close" to the ground, since there is a boundary condition at z=0 that the air velocity goes to zero from whatever it is before the boundary layer. I don't know how high this layer goes, but am thinking it depends on how rough the surface is. Maybe i'm just getting excited when i'm close to the ground and think I feel my decent rate and ground speed increase. Am I on crack or does this happen to others? Thanks!

I've noticed that I pick up some ground speed at about 20 ft above the ground. Has anyone else noticed this? I don't know if i'm imagining this or not but it seems like it could be possible because there should be a boundary layer above ground where the airspeed decreases logarithmically to zero at ground level. The nerd in me needs to know. Thanks! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Beautiful shots. Kudos to the photographer for capturing those moments! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Beer will kill a microdrive while cf or smart cards work fine after a little dip and dunk. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

I'll keep an eye out for him. I wonder if he ever comes out to California to teach his course. By the way, do you guys think it's ever TOO early to learn this canopy control things? I mean will I benifit more after gaining a certain amount of experience or are these courses beneficial to people of all skill levels? Thanks! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

I have a tokina 19-35/3.5-4.5 lens that I never really used much except for a few landscape shots. I always used it stopped down at least two stops. It's a bit soft wide open, a better than a consumer grade lens, but if you shoot film and process at a mini-lab, you won't really notice as they defocus their printing lens anyway and it tends to look like grain under a loupe. There's some vignetting, not a probelm if you go digital. I'm guessing the tamron lens perfroms similarly. If I were going to australia anytime soon (never been there) i'd sell it to you as i'm looking to get rid of it since I got the 24-70 2.8L. pm me if you want some sample shots from the lens to give you an idea of what to expect. Happy turkey day! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Cool! when are they gonna try to land that thing? jk. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Tell me what happens to you if you get dropped head first from 4ft high onto a curb because that's what a 10mph headplant onto a curb would feel like. The observation that "There was not another mark on him" means that his head/neck took the full force of impact so i'm not surprised that his neck broke as something had to take the load from 240lbs moving at 10mph. If we observe or experience something, then isn't that empirical? I think you probably meant normal (perpendicular to surface) and rotational forces. Are there any other types of impact forces in spherical coordinates? Jim must have been a sick, twisted man... I hate it when statistics are abused like in http://www.kena.net/phd/docs/ntsb.htm. So let me abuse them the other way . But seriously... So there was a 40% (~factor of 2!!!) reduction in reported accidents. Either 1) there were 40% less motorcyclists on the road because the helmet law scared them away. 2) 1966 was a really bad year(doubtful) 3) Something happened on January 1, 1967 that reduced the number of reportable (serious) accidents. hmmmmmm.... Maybe they are the same because incidents that are worth reporting have their own distribution (e.g. in accidents bad enough to report, a helmet doesn't really help you all that much). From these numbers I would conclude that the chance of a reportable incident occurring is reduced by a factor of ~2 if you wear a helmet. If you do have a reportable incident, however, your chance of dying is 1.6% no matter whether you are wearing a helmet or not (assuming everyone riding a motorcycle in 1967 was wearing a helmet and nobody wore a helmet in 1966) with the caveat that the sample is small. In reality, the only valid number in this report IMHO is the total number of reported incidents. You know the best way to resolve this whole helmet debate is to run an experiment. Helmet lovers and haters take turns jumping off some low object like a desk and hitting their head on the ground with/without a helmet on. The group that requires the least amount of cumulative head related hospital care after 10 rounds wins the debate. I think 100 people on each side should give us enough statistics.

Thanks! So who's from Australia around here? Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

oooo that sounds scary and I don't think the S&TA would appreciate me trying to perform this maneuver at my tender age. Think i'll hold off on this for a while! But someday... Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

When the BSR states a minimum opening altitude, does that mean that one must begin wave-off/deployment procedures at this altitude or is this the minimum altitude one should be at under a deploying/deployed main? Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

I can't understand how people can make an argument that it would make an injury worse. That doesn't seem logical to begin with. I tend to agree with you here, and figure if a helmet is somehow making an injury worse, i.e. fragments embedding chances are it's going to be a byline to a more serious situation. Unless of course a helmet is somehow focusing the collision energy instead of dissipating it, but that sounds like pp engineering to me and anything that does this should not be called a helmet. Bottom line is i'm wearing a helmet every time I go up, as I think the chance of the helmet I use making an injury worse is vanishingly small and far outweighed by its benefits. Happy turkey day! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

I haven't seen an example where the injury was greater because of a helmet. The only way to support this statement is to get the same person to impact the ground the same way under identical conditions with and without a helmet. I assume this isn't the case. I think the reason there is a debate about helmets is because it is manifestly a bayesian problem. You can't do the same "experiment" twice IRL, that's why people in motorcycle accidents don't always sustain the same injuries. Sure you can test the shit out of a helmet and say it passes certain criteria but it still doesn't change the fact that every person, every helmet and every situation is different. Having said that, I wear a styling duct-taped protec helmet on my noobie head because I've banged it at the door while climbing into the plane and also on exits. It would suck to not have a helmet and start a skydive wondering if the pulsating lump on my noggen is spurting blood all over the place. At the same time I don't expect any helmet to save me from a 70mph mistake low to the ground. I wear a helmet to put the odds more in my favor in case something happens, but don't expect it to save my life under any circumstance. As for others, i'm not their mom and it's their life so they can do whatever they want with their heads, although it pisses me off when I think some guy could have survived if he wore a helmet. happy turkey day! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Thanks everyone for the information. Please tell me if you are in California and decide to fly your canopy backwards. I'd love to see it.

Yeah some things are best experienced alone without witnesses . Happy dancing on the other hand *ahem* is best when done in the presence of others, even tho i'm a horrible dancer. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Not to take away from the pro's because they are the bomb at what they do but the guys publishing in SI probably have an EOS 1V or D1 blasting away at ~9fps with AI servo on and their 300/2.8L USM IS. It's a lot easier to get a keeper if you can pay to stack the odds in your favor. Back when I shot film I was happy to get one keeper per 2-3 rolls. With digital, it's pretty much the same (~1 per 100). Keep on clicking. The money shot is out there waiting for you! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Oh yeah they watched every single landing! In fact they still watch my landings and have given me a few pointers, for example there were about 5 landings (post AFF) that I had to run off and a instructor that watched me land them came up to me and pointed out that I wasn't completing my flare. Man did things improve then. They also pointed out once that my turn to final looked pretty low (300ft) and that I did basically a 180 (short crosswind). It feels really nice knowing that people are watching over me and others and puts me at ease knowing they aren't afraid to point out the things that I need to work on. I was just whining because it would have been cool if I could have landed near them and do my happy dance. It's lonely dancing all by myself. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Hi I dunno, but tallguy and I look remarkably alike . I can see how Jett would get confused! I think the packer was half kidding, but who knows. I think everyone is always joking around. Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Ooooooh you guys are gonna be sooo scared (at least you should be) when you see this. Keep and eye or two out for me at Eloy! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Cool! Seems like I may never see it tho unless someone busts out an old canopy, unless there are people that still do this sort of thing. If you have any video, i'd love to see it. Thanks! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here

Do you have any ideas as to why the newer canopies can't do this? Your post seems to imply that line-length may be a factor. Just curious. Thanks for the info! Gotta go... plaything needs to spank me Feel the hate... Photos here