Divalent

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Everything posted by Divalent

  1. OTOH, of all the people on the plane, I think Tom would be the last one you would think would be the fatality. That he died and the pax didn't was very likely just chance; it very easily could have been the pax. So IMO, his survival shouldn't really change how we view the situation. (And at least the disputed account claimed the pax was incapacitated by the hypoxia.)
  2. A father is listening to his daughter say her prayers before bed. The daughter says “God bless Mummy and God Bless Daddy and God bless Grandma and good bye Grandad.” The father says, “Good bye Grandad? Why is that?” The daughter says, “Just because I felt like it.” The next day, Grandad drops dead The father can’t believe the coincidence, but decided not to question it. That night, he listens to the daughter’s prayers again. She says, “God bless Mummy and God bless Daddy and goodbye Grandma.” The father is shocked again and asks his daughter why, but she says again, “Just because I felt like it.” The next day, the Grandma drops dead and now the Father is getting worried but doesn’t know what to do, so he tries to forget about it. That night, he listens to his daughter again and she says, “God bless Mummy and goodbye Daddy.” The father is now terrified and goes to work the next day sweating, cancels all of his meetings, and hides in his office for the whole day. He doesn’t go home and stays there until midnight. He’s very surprised. ‘I’ve cheated death!’ he thinks to himself, then rushes home. His wife asks, “Where have you been?!” and the husband says, “Oh don’t ask me any questions, today’s been miserable.” The wife replies, “Your days been miserable? Well, listen to my day! Firstly, the milk man drops dead on the porch…”
  3. A man boarded an airplane and took his seat. As he settled in, he glanced up and saw the most beautiful woman boarding the plane. He soon realized she was heading straight towards his seat. As fate would have it, she took the seat right beside his. Eager to strike up a conversation he blurted out "Business trip or pleasure?" She turned, smiled and said, " Business. I'm going to the Annual Nymphomaniacs of America Convention in Boston ." He swallowed hard. Here was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen sitting next to him, and she was going to a meeting of nymphomaniacs. Struggling to maintain his composure, he calmly asked, "What's your business role at this convention?" "Lecturer," she responded. " I use information that I have learned from my personal experiences to debunk some of the popular myths about sexuality." "Really?" he said. "And what kind of myths are there?" "Well," she explained, " One popular myth is that African-American men are the most well-endowed of all men, when in fact it is the Native American Indian who is most likely to possess that trait. Another popular myth is that Frenchmen are the best lovers, when actually it is men of Jewish descent who are the best. I have also discovered that the lover with absolutely the best stamina is the Southern Redneck." Suddenly the woman became a little uncomfortable and blushed. "I'm sorry," she said," I shouldn't really be discussing all of this with you. I don't even know your name..." "Tonto," the man said, "Tonto Goldstein, but my friends call me Bubba."
  4. My ex girlfriend's dog died, so I tried to cheer her up by getting her an identical one. It just made her more upset. She screamed at me, "What am I supposed to do with two dead dogs?"
  5. Despite having a disability in one of your arms, if you are able to move it, then you are using muscles. And if the problem you have is due to fatigue and/or weakness, that is (at least in part) a muscle issue. Muscles can be strengthened with exercises that 1) mimic the particular motion that is current is weak, and 2) provide load resistance in the same direction that currently is weak. Maybe not to the point where it is as strong as your other arm, but almost certainly stronger than it is now. So maybe (in addition to other's suggestions above, like keeping your hands close to your midline, and using your good arm for most things before you land) try to do exercises like pulling down against an elastic, or on a weight machine configured to raise the weights when you are moving your arm downward in a way that is identical to what you do when you flare.
  6. A man boards and airplane and sits next to an attractive woman. After a couple of minutes, the woman sneezes, and rather than wipe her nose with her tissue, she instead reaches between her legs and wipes her vagina. The man is initially too embarrassed to say anything, but after the third time witnessing this, he quietly leans over and asks, "Is everything alright?" The woman looks at him at says, "I'm sorry, but I have a rare condition that whenever I sneeze, I have an orgasm." "Whoa!" the man exclaims, "That's pretty serious. What do you take for it?" The woman replies, "Pepper."
  7. Except polarized sunglasses are oriented to block light reflecting off of surfaces, which has a pronounced horizontal polarization. This is why they are better at preferentially cutting down on glare, compared to non-polarized sunglasses. I doubt they make polarized glasses that are oriented 90 degrees from the standard orientation. (I mean, who would want sunglasses that make glare worse?)
  8. https://www.facebook.com/alex.coker.39/videos/373257630998893/ Looks like about 2 min 20 sec of freefall.
  9. The 1993 French patent would have expired. BTW, for those that actually read the patent to try to figure out where Aerodyne might be infringing it, you might find the following useful: Only the "Claims" section specifies what the patent covers. The preceding sections help you understand things, and can define what terms actually mean, but unless it is in a claim, it is not something that is covered by the patent that they were granted. There are 21 claims, and for this patent, claim 1 is the broadest claim. All subsequent claims are based off of this one by adding one or more additional descriptions that further specify elements in claim 1 (and so, they narrow the coverage of the claim). For example in claim #17 they state that a particular "connector" in claim 1 is formed by a loop of the lanyard. This is typical of patents, where claim 1 is quite vague of about the particulars of an element, and then subsequent claims get more particular. (E.g., Claim 1: "A car with tires." Claim 2: "A car with 4 tires." Claim 3: "A car with 4 tires made of 95.3% rubber and 4.7% polyester") So, *IF* claim 1 is valid (i.e., that claim can *not* be defeated by proving that that claim of the patent should not have been granted), then if they don't infringe claim #1, they don't infringe the patent. You don't need to look at claims 2-21 (because they have to infringe #1 in order to infringe any of the others). And to infringe a patent claim, one has to infringe each and every element in the claim. [Now if claim 1 can be defeated, (for example, by showing that one element was prior art and thus not patentable) then you might have to look at the other claims. Maybe connectors were used in the past to do what they are doing for one element in claim 1, and so on that basis claim 1 is ruled invalid, but maybe it is novel to make a connector from a loop of the lanyard, in which case claim 17 could still be valid.]
  10. What’s the difference between your job and a dead prostitute? Your job still sucks. How do you get a nun pregnant? Dress her up like an altar boy. What do you call a cheap circumcision? A rip-off. What’s the difference between a bitch and a whore? A whore sleeps with everyone at the party. A bitch sleeps with everyone at the party—except you. What does it mean if a man remembers the color of a woman’s eyes after a first date? She’s got small tits.
  11. Lets see, at 41k ft, atmospheric pressure would be about 19% of sea level. So one would have to breathe 100% O2 to have the same concentration as you get in air at sea level (~20%). I wonder what terminal velocity would be at that height. A quick google says terminal velocity is proportional to the square root of 1 divided by the air density, so sqrt(1 / 0.19) = sqrt(5.26) = 2.3. So if belly terminal velocity is 120 mph, at 41k it would be 275 mph. If head down is 165 mph, then 378 mph. (Although probably about 20% less, as standard terminal velocities for skydivers are probably measured at 8k or so above sea level.)
  12. So does this look like Cooper? Lots of details about Hahneman in the Wikipedia account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Hahneman#The_hijacking (what brand of cigarette did Cooper smoke?) Maybe he lost the "Cooper" money in his jump, so that explains why he did it again (assuming he was, in fact, Cooper).
  13. LOL! So he asks for 2 mains and 2 reserves, and the FBI gives him 2 bailout rigs (that can't take a reserve) and 2 reserves? (So the fact that one "reserve" was actually a dummy is a complete moot point, as both were useless with a bailout rig.) Man! Never trust the FBI! I think it's very likely that he had at least some skydiving experience, but was not a rigger-level. I think a somewhat experienced skydiver would not have immediately recognized that the main rigs were bailouts, and by the time they were back up in the air and he figured it out, it was probably too late to make the plane land yet again and get proper equipment. He had enough experience, tho, to gamble with jumping without a reserve. But given that they fucked him on the reserves, is it not unreasonable for them to have also fucked him on the mains? (IMO, the question is whether they gave him a 50% chance of surviving, or a 0% chance.) The moral for me is: "Never trust the FBI!"
  14. That's just not true. Nobody was geeking the camera on that jump. They spent over a minute trying to link up, and both were focused on that task. And THAT'S what was distracting them from checking their altitude! Once they did link up, their AAD's fired in less than 3 seconds! The camera had nothing to do with it.
  15. (forgive me for asking questions that I assume have already been addressed.) How do you know the dummy reserve couldn't be attached to a harness? The wikipedia DB Cooper paged linked to an FBI page that only said it was "sewn shut". I would think if you have a mock-up for ground training that it would be important to be able to attach it to a (dummy) harness, so you can feel the weight and bulk, see your altimeter (often mounted on top of the reserve), etc. Otherwise it's just something to look at, which doesn't seem worth the trouble to create, given that there were plenty real reserves at DZs to look at. So has it been established that it lacked the ability to be attached to a harness? Why would he have wasted time and effort discarding it if he recognized it was a dummy? Unlike other things he apparently tossed, he didn't bring this on the plane, so it wasn't something that might have value in IDing him that he needed to get rid of. (Canvas wouldn't have finger prints on them.) I suppose he could have cannibalized the good reserve for lines before he noticed that the other wasn't real (and so he knew he'd be jumping without a reserve), but still doesn't explain why he later tossed it. (Maybe he only noticed it at the last minute, as putting the reserve on would be one of the last things he would do after getting geared up, and threw it out in frustration when he finally discovered it wasn't real.)
  16. Well, if he was a skydiver, then I highly doubt he would have done that. He'd jump clear of the plane, stabilize himself at about a 120-130 mph fall rate in a belly-to-earth posture, then deploy. Even if the plane was traveling 120 mph, I'd fear snagging of the pilot chute or lines with parts of the plane and ramp, particularly in the turbulent air that back there. And I'd also fear the speed would more quickly inflate the main, which means the forces experienced would be even greater then the 2x you'd estimate just from the velocity (squared). But the fact that he chose a dummy reserve seems to suggest he wasn't a skydiver, and so perhaps all that didn't occur to him.
  17. Yeah, if he intended to commit suicide. The acceleration (deceleration?) force would likely have snapped his neck (and the rest of his body). That's assuming the pilot chute and lines didn't snag on the ramp/stairs/support in what was very likely very turbulent air back there.
  18. My granddad said "It's going to be horrendous on the roads this weekend, snow is forecast". "Tell me something I don't know" I replied. "I can get my whole fist up your Nanna's arse" he said .
  19. Just a reminder that the Nova show on electric airplanes is to be broadcast on PBS tonight.
  20. I assume you used Google to see what might be there. Did you try the dropzone finder on this site? A lot of the info is old, so you might hit a few dead ends, but worth a try: https://www.dropzone.com/dropzones/
  21. PBS's Nova show will be releasing an episode entitled "The Great Electric Airplane Race" on May 26th (at 9PM). This should be interesting. "https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/great-electric-airplane-race/"
  22. Interesting quote from this article on the energy density of the batteries they intend to use: That's about double the numbers others used earlier in this thread when assessing the feasibility of electric planes. Admittedly, although they refer to this 1st generation in the present tense, I suspect they are still in development.
  23. Just to be clear, I'm assuming the 100% total maximum power the aircraft can produce consists of 80% from the combustion engine, and 20% from the electric. I'm also assuming that cruising power needed will be 75% of that total maximum power, and in the example above, the batteries are sufficient to provide 5 minutes of sustained "reserve" capacity. These #s are variables you can adjust to fit reality for a particular aircraft and situation. Regardless of the numbers, as long as the combustion engine power exceeds what is needed to cruise by some amount, there will be excess power to recharge the batteries and restore reserve power during the cruise portion of the flight (and the descent portion as well). So the combustion engine will be running much closer to WOT than it would be if it was the only engine.
  24. "80%" is WOT for that combustion engine. (80% of the total max power, with the other 20% coming from the electric engine). So cruising at 75% of total power (combustion plus electric) for an engine where WOT can contribute only 80% means that engine would be at 75/80 = ~94% of WOT. So in this scenario, you'd always have an available 5% of max power as a reserve, plus whatever the status of the batteries are, up to 20% (maybe none very early in flight; full 20% but for only a short burst until batteries are replenished thereafter).