argyle

I've owned 4 Safire II's from 189 to 149 and I still use the 149 for wingsuiting. I put about 800 jumps on these canopies. 3 of these canopies I bought new. All of them opened with end cells closed almost every time. It did not seem to depend on packing method. I just got used to it. Slider hangup was not a problem. Also, the openings were mostly soft and on heading. It just took a couple of seconds for the end cells to inflate. All of my Safire II's came with vectran lines. That means you can't tell how old they are by measuring because they don't shrink. They just start to look old but old lines will not affect the way the canopy flies. YMMV Art

If by "nieve," you mean "able to form an objective opinion," then, yes. I'm that "nieve." It's Israel that hasn't upheld their end of the 2008 truce agreement. It sounds like Israel are the ones who aren't willing to negotiate in good faith. You've repeatedly said that a big issue is that Israel did not hold up their part of the 2008 truce. Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_ceasefire is a pretty good description of the issues involved in that truce. If this sounds like Israel is the one who would not negotiate, then, no, you're not able to form an objective opinion. Also, note that we are talking about Hamas firing thousands of rockets, not just an occasional pain in the ass.

We should remember that this discussion is really about requirements for doing things other than simple jumps and straight-in landings. The wingsuit example is a good one. I don't think a student should be subject to an AFFI with 9 months in the sport, no matter what. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine seriously hurt himself by doing something stupid. It prompted me to write Are You Competent? about competence vs. skill. It's not great literature, but the idea hasn't changed. There are a lot of people who complain about rules and requirements. Maybe skydiving should be the right of every person, but personally I would like there to be some order provided by those who have survived to know better. I think that time in the sport is hugely iimportant.

It looks like this thread is dying down. (\gasping ) To the person who saw contradicitons between SR and quantum mechanics: if SR is special relativity, then there is no contradiction. The combination is called quantum electrodynamics, and it works very, very well. The bad egg is general relativity, which does not seem to play well with quantum mechanics. If theories really contradict each other, one of them is wrong. The next breakthrough would be to figure out which one. It is usually not true that as you look deeper, you find contradictions. What you usually find is more questions. That's just how it works. Art

Humans may thirst for the why, but the answer is there whether we get it or not. In some cases we humans can't handle the truth.

Neither. The "descriptive or physically explicative" explanation is what we do so well. I don't believe that there is a "motivational...." explanation. I am talking about the real 'why'. I suppose it's like asking where the universe came from. For example, we understand the forces that hold the solar system and galaxies together pretty well. The equation (Einstein's) has some geometry stuff on one side and the mass distribution on the other side. It gives us gravity, black holes, and the shape of the universe. If you read about how Einstein came up with it, as much as he wrote, it was his idea of logic, beauty, and simplicity. Bottom line is that it works as far as we can test it. So why do matter and geometry interact like this? This is the ultimate question. This is the 'why'. We just don't know. Well, here it is. By 'explained', you mean you have an equation. Quantum mechanics is governed by Schroedinger's equation. Schroedinger and his buddies in the 20's just kept trying different modifications to known equations until they came up with something that worked. (He got there first.) Not only did they not understand the equation, but we still have trouble with what it all means. The equations work, but the 'why' is not even close. Quantum mechanics seems strange to us, yet it runs the universe. Let's use your example of Bose-Einstein condensation. I am not talking about whether we can measure it or create it. The point is that the effect is due to the 'spin' of particles. Now, spin, is not really spin, but some property that was named spin when people first introduced it. The elementary particle guys have some good ideas, but still, 'why' do some particles have integer spin? Who knows? String theory is an attempt at getting deeper, but to me it looks contrived and way too complicated. Ok, so here is a good example. (It's not static, but ok.) Classical electrostatics is just a formula which works. It doesn't 'explain' anything. Electrical force can be understood as an exchange of virtual photons which brings in quantum mechanics which brings in everything we know. Still, same ultimate questions. My point is philosophy, not engineering. The ancient could predict positions of the planets pretty well, but had no clue what they were looking at. We can create B-E condensates, but cannot explain why there are bosons. My favorite is still the one about light chasing you at the speed of light. That one fact is responsible for all of relativity, which ultimately is responsible for gravity and the universe. And yet, it is weird and did not have to be that way. Einstein wrote a lot about religion and god, but certainly did not believe in the god of our religions. I think his god was the place where the answers are kept. Sorry about the number of words here. Also sorry if this is too obtuse. Weather is bad. Art

Ok, here's some more fodder for the science guys. First, let me say that I have some pretty good credentials in physics, astronomy, engineering, and motorcycle mechanics. I say this just so you know where I'm coming from. Oh, and I'm a complete atheist. When we say that compared to ancient man, we now understand a certain law of nature, what do we mean? We mean that we observe some physical phenomenon, and then we come up with a way to predict what will happen next time under similar circumstances. For instance, using Newton's gravitation we can derive all of Kepler's laws for the orbits of the planets and explain falling skydivers very well. Knowing that the speed of light is constant relative to an observer, we can derive all of Einstein's special relativity. From this and a little quantum mechanics, you can understand how atoms and molecules work. To explain electromagnetism, we came up with the concept of fields and some cute equations that show how radio waves work. And on and on. We know quite a bit about how the physical world works. And, strangely enough, the ancients had most of it completely wrong. (For a really deep thinker, Aristotle had some goofy ideas, etc.) Now, using fancy theories with all their math, we can design airplanes and computers and suspension bridges, so we know it works. But does it EXPLAIN anything about the universe. I say no. We have some equation that says that an electron is held in a hydrogen atom with so much energy. We still don't know why. Having an equation is an explanation of the surface. We will never know what is under the surface. We will never know why the universe exists or why things work the way they do. As deep as our understanding goes, it eventually stops. There are questions that just cannot be asked. Maybe they have answers, but not to us on Earth. We can predict almost anything we can measure, but it's all empirical. At some level we run out of understanding. At some level, there are things that could be different, and we don't know why. (For example, saying that mass warps space and results in the appearance of gravity just peels one more layer of the onion.) So does all this science and engineering conflict with faith in a god? Not as far as I see. I have studied, taught, and worked with most of the hard sciences, and I cannot see where all these equations rule out god. Science has no comment about god. None at all, as long as he does not violate any laws. Stopping the Sun would be right out. Reading your mind, pretty doubtful. The problem that I have is that I also can see absolutely no reason to believe that there is a god. Those people who say "god does this, god does that, god is great, god creates, god destroys, god loves you....." have been sold a bill of goods (IMHO). But, still, I can't tell you why light always chases you at the speed of light. It just does. Art

Dark energy is a more recent and less understood concept and changes as information comes in. Dark matter is simpler. We just can't see it. If you look out into space, you see a lot of things, but only what creates or reflects light or radiation that you can detect. Darkness does not involve faith, just detectors. I don't know any physicists who don't have open minds, but they have a short fuse with amateurs who don't know anything criticizing years of research. I used to get the quack mail in my department, and it is amazing how many people write elaborate papers or even books disproving relativity or quantum mechanics. They were all wrong. Not that relativity cannot be expanded or improved, but not by someone who doesn't have all the tools. Scientists love to come up with new or corrected theories. A lot of them result in Nobel prizes. If you want to debunk Dark Matter, do the research, get the tools, don't just assume that it's wrong because it sounds weird. Aristotle was wrong, Newton was right. That one took a couple of thousand years. Time passes, people learn.

Except the hard evidence isn't there. As said in this thread, 'we know it exists, it definitely there, but we can't (yet) detect it or actually prove it. It's our best model; but I don't see how you can prove it's not "God." Fruit flies, otoh, are very easy to repeat experiments on, and quickly get results. Nice short life cycles, and cheaply available. Physicists sometimes give things catchy names like "Gluon" or "Neutrino". "Dark Matter" may sound like science fiction, but there is no doubt that it exists. We just can't tell exactly what it is. It could be dust, could be ice crystals, etc. We can rule out some things, and not others. Some day with better measurements, maybe we will know. This is not a 'god' question. There is hard evidence that it exists. We can detect it about as well as we can detect electrons. Maybe it should have been given a better name. Astronomy experiments are a lot harder to do than fruit fly experiments, but that does not mean that we can't get answers. We understand a lot about our universe. We will understand more in the future.

Filtering through the bullshit on this thread gives a pretty good example of the attitudes toward science and research that have been growing for the last 8 years. You can argue about the ivory tower and the revenge of the nerds, but the real danger is the general lack of education and understanding of science and its importance. For example, we have Rush Limbaugh and his crew self-righteously taking on global warming as if they are experts and the scientists are fools, GWB killing funding on stem cell research, ALL of the politicians under-funding and ignoring alternate energy research for 40 years that the US could have been leading the world, and on-and-on. If you need an example of how dangerous this can be, go read up on Lysenko and the history of winter wheat in the Soviet Union. Stalin's politicizing of genetics put back their agriculture 50 years. We do not need to follow in their footsteps, but we have been. Fortunately, we do not have dictators with lifetime power. The discussion of dark matter just shows how anti-science the public is - even this guy who says he is an engineer (right!). The idea of dark matter has been around for almost 50 years. It is called dark because we can't see it. It is called matter because we know it is there and has mass. There are a lot of things we can't see, but physics deals with them just fine. There have been a lot of ideas of what this dark matter could be, but we are not sure. There are some things we know and some things we don't know. As time goes on, we learn more - that is how it works. This is not voodoo or blind faith. Every scientist who works on dark matter knows about the arguments about how basic physics may change in faraway places. That is another discussion that has been going on for about 100 years. Physics evolves when old ideas are disproved. Even if some scientists resist new ideas, hard evidence always wins. The public who thinks that professors and researchers are disconnected from reality and whose opinions are not valuable is misguided or ignorant. They love their iPhones and organ transplants, but hate the people who invent them. Makes no sense. Theories of dark matter may not be used to make a washing machine, but Einstein's relativity is built into every GPS, and y'all love yer GPS's. Lastly, I was an astrophysicist at a university, and now I'm not. I've been in the ivory tower and I've been in the trenches. I'm not young and I'm not inexperienced and I don't care if you don't care. The number of people who flaunt their ignorance scares me, and when they are in power, we are in trouble.

I agree, but hopefully good judgement comes at least partly from experience. The problem that I was getting at is that it's good judgement in a flash. You really can't take time to debate with yourself. That takes experience. Judgement is a tough one. Years ago I went to traffic school for too many speeding tickets. They showed us a film about your driving personality. You were supposed to drive with adult-like behavior, not child-like behavior. Good luck with that one. Good judgement in a can. Thanks for the comments. Art

Amen. And thanks to all who enjoyed my little rant. Art

I have to agree that there is not much of an apprenticeship program in skydiving, but neither is there in the other sports that I mentioned. The best approach in my experience was in motorcycle racing, where the novices had to attend a class and a riding school at every race. Both were led by very experienced racers. You were a novice until you accumulated enough points by your finishing positions to advance. The toughest one to learn was mountain biking. There were no teachers and no rules. For the first couple of years, I was constantly damaging myself. In skydiving, after AFF, you are pretty much thrown to the wolves. At my dz, there are some extremely competent guys, and they do watch over things, but generally it is up to you. I have no complaints about that, but I came to it with a lot of experience doing this other stuff, and nothing to prove. Well, each dz is responsible for its own culture. It would be nice to have something like the novice classes I mentioned, but who would do it or pay for it? How about having the annual Safety Day every month or so? Well, go and organize it. Not so easy. I think it's going to be a personal choice forever. Years ago, in between motorcycle races, I talked to a guy standing at the next urinal about the last race. He said he was pissed about his lousy finish, and it was "balls to the wall" on the next race. Yes, Mildred, the ambulance took him away. What can you say? Art

Sigh... Thinking is great. You do realize the BSRs were written in blood, dont you? Thinking is pretty well over-rated. At best, do it on the ground. Part of what I was talking about in the original post was that with experience, reaction to a situation is almost subconcious. That assumes a lot of training, practice, and thought, not just lots of jumps. If you are going to question what you are taught, you better think it ALL the way through, because in tight situations you will do what you were trained to do and you better be clear. When under pressure, you will not be able to think, especially if you're new. Do not fight the system unless you really understand what you are doing. Art

Yes, everything varies from person to person. My point is that you can take to it like a fish..., but not like an old fish. In motorcycle racing, we used to say "Get smooth before you get fast." Same kind of thing, but some people were just plain fast. The ambulances were kept busy by fast guys in over their heads. When are you experienced? In a couple of years at 1000 jumps/year, maybe you're ok. Personally, I don't think you can get competent that fast, no matter how many jumps you make. It only matters when it matters. Art