crazy

no, its not. the thought that she might be jewish (even if by twisted logic) is what turned a group of robbers into a group of killers (yes, i know she wasnt killed, but when they cut her clothes and hair with knives and throw her kid on the floor, for me its the same.) Yeah right! I avoided hairdressers like the plague for 25 years because cutting my hair is the same as killing me. This is plain absurdity! Since you were so swift to point at the Arab anti-Semitism issue, I'm curious about your views concerning racist hate crime hoaxes such as this one? apparently to who? By definition, if there is no evidence, then apparently it doesn't happen. According to Esther Benbassa as well. Organized at a regional scale, not at the scale of the pub round the corner. You don't seem to be well informed about social and religious issues in France. You are from Israel, right? So, here is a scoop: your local standards don't apply to France. When it comes to the number and the scale of criminal acts motivated by racial or religious differences, there is absolutely no common measure between France and Israel. Even compared to reasonable standards, the leaders and the authorities are not doing too bad on these issues. -- Come Skydive Asia

Unfortunately, people don't always help people in distress. Come on, when 6 violent, aggressive, and armed guys are robbing someone, it's not the duty of the witnesses to go to her rescue. Of course, it would have been nice if someone did successfully, but i won't blame anybody for not doing so. It could easily become a blood bath, and trading a robbery for a blood bath is plain stupidity. Wouldn't this be a great title: TODDLER TRAMPLED TO DEATH, 8 BYPASSERS STABBED Besides, focusing on this aspect just adds noise and smoke around the main issue: insecurity. Even the racism is a secondary point in this specific case. The aggressors are obviously not nazis: 4 north-africans and 2 black africans (still wondering how they could possibly be identified as Muslim here). Even though they are obviously racist, they are clearly not anti-semitic activists, else they would have a better understanding of the meaning of the swastika and would probably have not used it. Anyway, apparently there is no organized Arab anti-Semitism in France. -- Come Skydive Asia

anybody else find that funny? I changed the name MENSA to Mensa. It varies with the member. Some members like the name in all caps, some in all lower case. I changed it to first-letter cap because I figured people would understand, but didn't want to confuse you. I'll try to stay with one syllables. Mensa members don't tell spelling from capitalization? Ron, don't choke! -- Come Skydive Asia

There is a lot of fuss about this (and it's not from yesterday), there are many arbitrary rules, but nothing strikingly reliable and efficient came out. When flying schools will be as popular as AADs, maybe we will see an evolution (in either direction), but this won't happen any time soon. A strong objection is that old timers and experienced skydivers don't necessarily know better than others. If you check the fatalities by experience levels, it's not clear that experienced skydivers are safer than beginners. Some years, it's apparently the opposite. Roughly, every year, out of 1000 skydivers, 1 dies... Hence 999 survive. Surviving several years doesn't mean that you are exceptionally safe and knowledgeable, it just means that you are part of the huge majority of the flock. Even dumb and reckless skydivers have a fair chance to survive many years in the sport and several thousands of jumps (actually nothing shows that they die more than smart and cautious skydivers). So far, nobody can design a test addressing the problem effectively. Some people have occult lists of "life saving skills", but all these lists are based mainly on the personal beliefs of their authors, and they usually fail to address some important traits of landing injuries and deaths. Coolness, anticipation, sobriety, and ability to spot might be more relevant to the problem than any flying skill or wing loading policy. -- Come Skydive Asia

What part is difficult to understand? That most people think that abuse of Americans criminals in american prisons is none of their business? Or that the self promoted international Champions of Righteousness draw flack with their "do what We say, not what We do" attitude? -- Come Skydive Asia

Full detail on The Neal Pollack Invasion [the fair and balanced voice of true american spirit], or in "Never Mind The Pollacks". Much more exciting than the stratfor theories. -- Come Skydive Asia

Even though it's just an approximation, in my opinion and experience it is very accurate. Even though it's easy to compute it more accurately, it's not worth it. The concerns about wing loading go a bit further than this. The energy is proportional to the square of the speed, hence it is proportional to the wing loading. An impact at a WL of 1.3 has 30% more energy that at a WL of 1.0. In addition, there are concerns about the size of the canopy as well: the same pilot under a smaller canopy has more input (the length of the arms is the same but the length of the lines decreases proportionally with the square root of the size). This means potentially steeper turns. If the turn is 14% steeper, this means 30% more energy. Altogether, a more cautious way to see it is that at a WL of 1.3, compared to 1.0, you have ~14% less time to make the right decision. This might increase significantly the risk of a panic turn. After a panic turn, you might hit the ground with up to 70% more energy. -- Come Skydive Asia

You are right, i didn't spend much time thinking about the inertia of the extra air inside the bigger canopy. I just assumed, maybe presumptuously, that it was an appropriate and useful answer to the question, even if it's just approximations. Since you disagree, let's stick to your bottom line. Laws of aerodynamics don't scale; different canopies under different conditions have different performances. Better? -- Come Skydive Asia

II didn't try, but it's quite easy to figure out what would change and to quantify it. Check this older thread to get an idea. Since you consider the same pilot at different weight, the most significant change would be the reactivity to the input: the length of the arms is the same, but the lines on a 149 are 13% shorter than on a 189. This roughly means that you would need 13% less input on the 149 to get the same reaction than on the 189. With the convenient assumption that the total drag on the 149 is 60% from the canopy surface, 20% from the pilot, and 20% of parasitic drag (lines, seams, etc), then the lift/drag is 7% better with the same pilot+lead under a 189. This should make the 189 glide better, pick up speed faster (counteracting the need for 13% more input), and swoop longer. I let you make your own computation for the opening (the terminal velocity would be higher with lead, which would counteract the effect of the bigger volume) and other performance factor. -- Come Skydive Asia

Then, instead of hammering an arbitrary advice, why not just bring out the 2 sides of the argument? The benefits of the RSL are bla bla bla. The drawbacks of the RSL are bla bla bla. The risk of each situation relevant to the use of the RSL is high/low/negligible/variable (with such and such parameters). Or even better: What benefits can you think about for the RSL? What are the drawbacks? What's the risk of such and such situation? Not bad! Maybe you should think a bit deeper about this and this aspects. The top of the top would involve a mockup skydiver, with main, reserve and optional RSL. Just let a group of beginners play with it on their own and discretely assess later. -- Come Skydive Asia

Art subsidies didn't start with the NEA. Among these 3 examples, Whitman is the only one who was not subsidised in some way. William Faulkner was subsidised by his familly (i think they started the Kentucky Railroad Company and the First National Bank of Oxford) and the University of Mississippi in Oxford under a special provision for war veterans, even though he had never graduated from high school and he never went to war. Pollock was subsidised by his family (they spent a lot of money for his art classes) and he was on the federal payroll (New Deal's work-relief projects). Again, Art subsidies didn't start with the NEA. There were art lovers before. Would you care explaining what grant applications has to do with he quality of the art or the quality of the artist? There are many artists considered as great artists who applied for grants (Diego Rivera for instance, or Jackson Pollock). There are pitiful artists who never applied for any grant and just focused on creating. Do you think that great artists would still be great artists without the mediocre ones? Would William Faulkner be such a great artist without his grandfather as a source of inspiration? Claiming that only great art should be subsidized sounds a bit like claiming that only gold ores should be extracted from a gold mine. It's even worse because it's easy to identify gold; it's much more difficult (if even possible) to identify great art. -- Come Skydive Asia

Advice: Opinion about what could or should be done about a situation or problem. Generally speaking, i don't see anything wrong with not doing things according to somebody else's opinion. Anyway, people have different opinions; some are good and relevant to my situation, others really suck. When it comes to taking care of my personal situation, i'm usually more capable than a random self-promoted advice giver. Sometimes advices are much better at flattering the advice giver's ego than at addressing my specific problems. Anyway, i value useful knowledge more than general opinions. Advices, particularly unsolicited, are usually unwelcome, as long as they lack of relevance to my specific situation, proper justifications, and evidences of truth. -- Come Skydive Asia

Hopefully you'll never work for any Arts Council :-) What is GOOD art? What is bad art? What makes art (un)popular? You are right, GOOD Art can be profitable. Fortunately, some artists focus on artistic creation instead of focusing on marketing and profitability. The drawback is that they are unlikely to make much profit, if any, even though they would create potentially profitable art. Sometimes, it's only years after their death, that GOOD businessmen notice the GOOD art, and make some GOOD money out of it. Sometimes, it's only years later that other artists use unknown obscure arts from the past as the main inspiration of their own profitable art. Are Van Gogh's paintings bad art because he sold only one during his lifetime? Without subsidies, there is no more arts creativity, only product development and marketting -- which implies a cultural and economical setback. Besides, subsidizing arts makes it available to more people. Without subsidy, arts could become as elitist as some European art collections used to be -- the Louvre, for example. When people are not exposed to the diversity of arts, they have no opportunity to educate their taste, no reference for sound criticism. Without subsidies, there are no more arts lovers, only pop-corn eating blockbusters customers -- which implies a cultural and economical setback as well. -- Come Skydive Asia

Ok, apparently you like flat turns more than barrel rolls, so let's talk about flat turns. On one hand you disagree with the claim that "A good canopy pilot is someone who is willing to go up to altitude and spend time flying their canopy" because "there are simply no references up in the air". On the other hand you expect a good pilot to be good enough to perform flat turns (i guess safely and in an emergency situation) at 50 feet. Sorry if i'm slow, but I'm puzled and i'd like you to clarify how skydivers are supposed to learn flat turns, from the beginning to the level of a real life saving skill. Where is it better to learn flat turns? - a) close to the ground to have a solid reference - b) between 2500 feet and 1000 feet - c) between 12500 feet and 1000 feet - d) other (specify) If you reject a) (so far i used to blindly hope that most people would), then c) is apparently much better than b) because it offers at least 8 times more working time, considering the traffic increasing significantly below 2500 feet, and the need to make it back to the landing area. Besides, both include the part between 2500 feet and 1000 feet. Am i wrong? If you don't reject a), please go slowly through all the detail. -- Come Skydive Asia

Are you rating pilots by their swooping abilities only? If it is only about swooping, your are absolutely right; it's foolish to claim "I practiced a lot up high, so I'm as good as someone with 500 jumps even if I only have 100 jumps!" However, the quality of a pilot doesn't have to be estimated on the swooping skills only. A pilot able to perform a clean barrel roll would be a good (even excellent) pilot, even with swoops not longer than 50 feet. If pilot skills are not only about swooping, then going up to altitude and spending time flying the canopy, alone or with others, definitely helps building strong pilot skills. 2000 feet is definitely not the right altitude to start experimenting with complex radical manoeuvers, or initiate a tight devil's dance (or whatever group manoeuver) with your buddies. -- Come Skydive Asia