MikeJD

Construction whuffos.

Not sure why peanut butter wouldn't work, and I'm surprised at people saying that mice will actually avoid traps. I had an infestation a few years ago, bought classic spring-type traps and placed them here and there with no particular strategy. I caught all of the invaders within about 48 hours, but maybe British rodents are just dumber than the average mouse. These weren't sticking to the edges of the room - sometimes they were running over my feet! I think I caught five critters altogether - it's a relatively comforting idea that you have 'a' mouse, but chances are you have several - so don't remove your traps until you haven't seen any rodent-related evidence for a while. I baited the traps with this, but I doubt there's much in it that works better than the alternatives people have suggested.

If that camera was in everyday use, it would certainly drive up the cost of shooting your average tandem video . Infinite Skydiving is an independent company rather than a DZ - they do skydiving photography for TV and cinema. Looks like they use the RED Epic Dragon for the really high-end movie stuff.

I like Marmite under melted cheese on toast, so I'd probably be ok with a Vegemite pizza crust - which, by the way, is not the weirdest of Pizza Hut's recent inventions.

I thought it had already gone off the boil well before the end of its run - it just got dull and incoherent - and I'd lost interest. I was seriously addicted during the first few seasons, though. If they're going to resurrect it, I hope they bring that early spark back. It was certainly groundbreaking in its time. I think the high production values you see in TV shows now pretty much started with The X Files. The first season made everything else at the time look cheap.

Can't say I've noticed any lights or decorations still showing on homes in my neighbourhood, but it wouldn't bother me. I'm more worried by the insistence that it's 'bad luck' still to have them up after Twelfth Night - hard to believe that so many people still carry these silly superstitions.

The whole idea of biographical film making, or of movies purporting to be 'the true story' or 'based on real events', is an odd one anyway. You simply cannot make a watchable Hollywood film without also making a lot of stuff up, at some level or other. At a minimum you have to pull events together, provide dramatic structure and theme and emotional resonance. You have to fill in the gaps between documented events by inventing incidents and conversations. You probably have to create wholly fictional characters, or merge real ones, in order to serve the story. At most I think a real person or event can only provide the jumping-off point or the framework for a movie. Even in the most faithful biopic, surely more than half of what's up there on the screen will have originated in the minds of the screenwriter and director. I think the other issue is that most Americans seem to attach much more significance to military service than, say, we Brits. Military-themed movies seem to attract a lot of argument on these forums, as though people feel they should be more accurate than the other Hollywood fluff: I don't see why that should be the case. Edited to add: I see our posts crossed. You'd already addresed some of what I said above.

Very much a comedy/ spoof, apparently. I wasn't inspired when I read the premise - the movie establishment's depictions of chav youth are usually embarrassingly wide of the mark - but the critics are full of praise (so far) and I'm actually quite keen to see this now. I think it'll do Firth's career good as well. The setup made me think of Men In Black - young misfit inducted into a secret government organisation by an old hand. Some of the scenes in the trailer seem to be riffing on that too, with the weapons and gadgets racked up alongside the sharp suits and accessories. And on top of all that, when was the last time we got to see Mark Hamill on the big screen? ----------------------------------------------------- Edited to add: Precious little info, but a handful of photos from the skydiving shoot here (towards the bottom of the page): http://www.infiniteskydiving.co.uk/#!filming-and-photography/c1mav. Filming took place in England - not certain where, but possibly Langar. Let's hope they've maximised the amount of real footage used! I see Norman Kent was involved too.

Quite the balancing act there between inserting the message and obscuring it so as not to attract suspicion - to me it just sounded 'wrong', because the morse rhythm is conflicting with the beat, and not in a good way. Add in the stereo panning effect, and I would guess that you'd not only need to have basic morse code knowledge to interpret this - it'd also help to be practised at picking out a morse signal from background interference, which is surely a rare skill. On the other hand, depending on how much communication there was between hostages, it would only have taken one person in any group to spot the message and decode it. It would have been really interesting to listen to the song without any prior knowledge - just have someone play it and ask "do you hear anything strange?" Maybe I'll try that with a couple of friends and see what they think.

So, The Shining "... was itself inspired by author Stephen King’s experience at The Stanley Hotel". What experience was that? Was he sent slowly round the twist? Menaced by apparitions of dead girls and a decomposing woman? Chased by a madman with an axe? Lucky there's no such thing as bad publicity!

Don't think it's exactly what you're looking for, but a member here called Shigeru posted some of his artwork a few years back that I really loved. I think these two would be the closest to your requirement: https://fotki.yandex.ru/next/users/kawaisan/album/153377/view/363019 https://fotki.yandex.ru/next/users/kawaisan/album/153377/view/364537 There's none of the motion associated with groundrush, but the perspective is very effective. Here's the top-level link to the gallery (most of it is skydiving and BASE-themed): https://fotki.yandex.ru/users/kawaisan/album/153377

Seems to me that self-absorption is a growing problem in the west. It suits some people - notably those with the genuine motivation, intelligence and talent to succeed on their own - but for the vast majority it just manifests itself as obnoxious, selfish behaviour. Too many people think that 'fitting in' is a sign of weakness or lack of personality, and I think reality TV and celebrity culture in general carry a lot of the blame. Modern-day role models are no longer famous for doing admirable stuff - they're famous because they're outrageous and outspoken, rebels without a clue. It doesn't matter how vacuous their opinion is so long as they can express it loudly enough, and anyone who challenges it is 'disrepecting' them. Back in the 'real' world, I continually overhear people (mostly, but not exlusively, kids) boasting that they don't back down, don't take any crap, speak their minds, achieve rewards without giving anything back, almost as though these things were automatically badges of honour in any situation - never mind that a successful society depends on shared contribution and co-operation, on some degree of toeing the line. And ironically, at the same time as they're expressing their individuality those people are all obsessed with the same celebs, the same ridiculous TV shows, the same clothing brands. They're clones, right down to sharing the same opinion of how uniquely special they are. I think it's true of all of us, though, that we overestimate our ability to think independently and underestimate the degree to which we're prejudiced by our upbringing, peer influence and the nonsense we watch on TV. We're pack animals, and it's both our strength and our downfall.

I watched a clip on YouTube, and thought that even if the stunt wasn't dumb the presentation was. If you have to make something appear interesting and exciting through fast cutting and DRAMATIC MUSIC - it isn't.

Ooh, there's an idea for a country song: The Toilet Seat Is Down, And So Am I. Hope you're doing ok, Nataly - sounds like you have the right philosophy on this.

Yup. If Taylor Swift has her own perfume line, then I'd say she's no longer completely her own person - she's a brand, a commodity of the marketing machine. Image management is of course part of the process of selling records, and even 'indie' credentials are often just another way to package an artist in a way that appeals to a particular demographic. It makes for good press that she writes/ produces her own stuff, and I'm sure she has talent in spades, but the public are a fickle bunch and from here on brand presentation will be key - without it she'll lose popularity and sales for herself, her record label and all the other peripheral products carrying her name. I don't see how you can escape it. That said, I've always been sceptical of this ideal of 'artistic integrity', anyway - the notion that recording artists and their music can be categorised as 'real' or 'manufactured'. At the end of the day, the vast majority of musicians are in the business to make money, and there's nothing wrong with that in itself. The Eagles were vilified when they talked about writing commercial music in order to get rich - but to me, they were just being honest about it. I did watch a 'making of' video for one of Swift's promos a while back - I think it was the cheerleader costume that drew me in - and it seemed forced. The goofiness, the screw-up outtakes from her cheer routine... it all felt calculated to say 'look how normal and unaffected I am.' That's not to say she isn't - so far - but it must be enormously hard to cope with that degree of celebrity without letting it change you in some way. Not that it's ever likely to be a problem for me , but I try to imagine what it must be like to be under that level of scrutiny, and to get to a certain level of popularity and then fear losing it all - and I shudder. Hopefully she's too level-headed to do a 'Bieber'. Remember when he was 'normal and unaffected'? That only lasted until his ego got bigger than the ability of his press team to contain it. I don't care for Swift's music, but she's doing incredibly well and I say more power to her and her people. As long as she's selling records in huge numbers, then they're only doing their job. I just find it insulting that we are now expected to lap up everything that has Taylor Swift's name on it - why anybody would choose a perfume because it is 'by' their favourite singer-songwriter is beyond me. Oh, wait... it's because 'Unlike the first two, which were inspired by fairy tales, Taylor fragrance is more personal to the singer because it reflects her own style.' Gawd help us...

I may be misremembering, but didn't PD advise/ mandate a minimum of several hundred prior jumps for Stiletto purchasers when it was first made available? If so, I'd suggest that advice should still stand. People will argue that more radical canopies have been produced since, but it's not as if that makes the Stiletto itself easier to fly. Nor does the benefit of another couple of decades of canopy design and piloting magically filter down to new skydivers - an inexperienced, untutored jumper flying a Stiletto in 2014 is at just as much risk as someone of equivalent experience flying one 20-odd years ago. Young/ low-time jumpers have far, far better freefall skills than they did when I started in the early nineties, thanks to the proliferation of wind tunnels. I think that fosters a general misconception that people are ready to move on sooner across all aspects of the skydive. Unfortunately canopy skills can't be 'fast tracked' in the same way - there's no substitute for experience in the air, and to achieve that safely you can't afford to get ahead of yourself.

From your various explanations, and on the assumption that it's not all in your head, I do think this might be a stability issue on exit. What you should get is a lovely smooth, gradual transition from the throw-forward of the exit into vertical terminal velocity - almost as though you were being gently cradled into the skydive by the airflow. But if you're not arching directly into the wind for that period then you're not being cradled any more - you're being flung around, shoved in the back, tipped on your head... Obviously for several of your exits you'll have had someone strapped to you or holding onto you - did you get onto solo exits during your AFF? What does the video show, if any? I also wonder whether this fear of falling is creating a negative feedback loop. If you're exceptionally stiff it won't do you any favours - likewise if you're kicking on exit it may trigger an 'Eek! I'm falling!' response in your brain, because flailing like that is one of the things we tend to do on instinct when we suddenly find ourselves adrift in space (I suppose to try and get a purchase on something). Relaxing on exit is easier said than done when you've so few jumps, of course - but once you're able to do that, and trust the mechanics of how gravity and air pressure work together, I think you'll find any sensation or notion of a sudden drop will disappear completely. A perfectly-flown exit - especially with a group of friends, the more the merrier - should be one of the great joys of any jump. Hope it becomes one of yours.

Well, that was their first mistake. Should have used an AN-2 engine.

Is that guy actually in freefall? Or riding on the back of an extremely fast-running furry animal?

Of course he's supposed to be on the piano. And the sooner he can train you to understand that, the better things'll be.

Awww, they've updated the story now to say that it was just an accidental discharge of the dart gun and the victim wasn't actually wearing a gorilla suit. I did like this update about his condition though: "Obviously he was sleeping a lot..."

Brighton

Zep, I agree this is daft - but much as you seem to enjoy bashing the UK (and accepting that there is plenty wrong over here), you're going to have to try harder than that. The story is about a theory posited by Professor Jennifer Coates. Professor Coates may be British, and her theory may be stupid, but she is not 'the UK'.

We're taking Hugh Laurie back, in exchange for Martin Freeman.

Frank Drebin: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day. Jane Spencer: Goodyear? Frank Drebin: No, the worst.