Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#201

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:09 PM UTC

lukas099 wrote: post #138

__s wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a nit, because I spent years not realizing this due to my accent, but it's "I'd have" not "I'd of". It sounds like "I'd of" because "I'd've" gz on surviving the fall so that you could have random people correct your grammar in the future. Glad to hear you kept with it-- people are surprisingly risk adverse yet will ignore passive danger

Possibly the use of "I'd of" had authorial intent, e.g. to sound more colloquial. In my opinion this is valid usage in English.

It's a mistaken spelling of an expression, "I'd've," pronounced exactly the same way.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#202

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:10 PM UTC

lillesvin wrote: post #157

lorenzhs wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing valid about it, it's a misspelling and a grammatical mistake.

It's language evolving. When the misspellings/misinterpretations of "a napron" and "an eekname" became common enough we got "an apron" and "a nickname". If anyone — especially native speakers and others with a high degree of mastery of English — claims to have difficulty understanding "I'd of stayed home" then they're most likely being deliberately obtuse or needlessly contrarian.

Two things:

1. Examples like those involve changes in speech; there's no difference between the pronunciation of "of" and "'ve."

2. It hardly makes something correct just because you can understand it. I bet you can understand the intent of "the dog seems slieping," but it's also clearly not right.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#203

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #183

base698 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eight or nine years ago, I lept off a tower from about 800 ft. After opening the parachute and scanning for my landing area I turned towards it to the left, which was slow and felt off. "Maybe I'll turn to the right and come around from the back", at which point the parachute collapses and spins violently from behind. I reach up and grab the left riser, the strap that connects you to the harness, and stopped the spin…

I've been a paraglider for a long time and have observed this pattern so many times. When we have a brush with death or lose a friend, we go flying ASAP and confront the fear immediately. You invest far too much effort and risk into fear management, to lose ground over a setback. If we really prioritized survival for its own sake, we just wouldn't fly.

I'm not and have never been a thrill seeker but it was important to me to get back on the road and confront my anxiety after getting into a fairly bad car accident so I guess I can understand the impulse.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#204

Post by Allower » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

krisives wrote: post #148

0xfeba wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But part of GoPro's profits are knowingly built up by a quasi-suicide cult. How is that?

They will gladly broadcast and support the success of a stunt but I don't see them around when one fails

Have you checked?

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#205

Post by 659087 » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

HN attempts to sound authoritative on yet another subject it doesn't understand. A few people pretend to be skydivers after studying the wikipedia entry about the sport, but give themselves away through improper terminology.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#206

Post by clueless123 » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #179

jly wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skydiving is actually a very safe and low-risk 'adrenaline' activity, from what I've heard. There are multiple redundancies and you are almost never at the mercy of randomness like with winsuits, climbing, or whitewater rapids. The deaths that do occur are almost always from experienced jumpers that not following recommended safety processes, often in the pursuit of pushing things to the edge. The point is that unlik…

> Skydiving is actually a very safe and low-risk 'adrenaline' activity, from what I've heard I'm sorry, but you've heard wrong. Skydiving is super dangerous, relative to other sports. Less than wingsuit flying, but more death per participant than most other sports. There's an unfortunate infographic that's made the rounds that makes skydiving look relatively as dangerous as football, but they made a mistake with the…

Here we go again.. (I think we discussed this topic previously)

Skydiving, hang gliding,Paragliding and many other "adventure sports" contain a significan amount of risk.. the difference is that skydiving (not base jumping) is tightly regulated by the FAA, there are strict training requirements, equipment maintenance etc etc .. it is almost like flying a plane. so.. it is super dangerous compared to knitting.. but it's quite safe compared to many other risk activities.. (Paragliding, hang gliding, motorcycle racing on a street, experimenting with drugs, proximity flying etc)

Most of the people I've met during 20 years skydiving are very much alive and still jumping, several hundred people..

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#207

Post by ProAm » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #196

itsdevlin wrote: post #177

Active BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot here. Instructor of both. 2016 was by far and away our worst year on record. We lost newbies, heros, and damn near all levels in between. Since then, a few sites have taken a more locked-down approach where we used to be welcome, and as a community we've made progress to band together to push education and conservative decision making over 'dude that was so sketchy.' A lot of peo…

If you need your mind to be quiet, and to feel present to your life, there are non-life threatening ways, like mindful meditation and psychoanalysis, or maybe even working in a charity.

Or just continue to do what he's doing because it works and he likes it. Everyone gets to choose their own path...

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#208

Post by maxxxxx » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #183

base698 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eight or nine years ago, I lept off a tower from about 800 ft. After opening the parachute and scanning for my landing area I turned towards it to the left, which was slow and felt off. "Maybe I'll turn to the right and come around from the back", at which point the parachute collapses and spins violently from behind. I reach up and grab the left riser, the strap that connects you to the harness, and stopped the spin…

I've been a paraglider for a long time and have observed this pattern so many times. When we have a brush with death or lose a friend, we go flying ASAP and confront the fear immediately. You invest far too much effort and risk into fear management, to lose ground over a setback. If we really prioritized survival for its own sake, we just wouldn't fly.

I gave up paragliding after 3 years. Had some close calls but never got injured myself. But I saw way too many ambulances up close loading people I knew.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#209

Post by dahart » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

clueless123 wrote: post #206

dahart wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skydiving is actually a very safe and low-risk 'adrenaline' activity, from what I've heard I'm sorry, but you've heard wrong. Skydiving is super dangerous, relative to other sports. Less than wingsuit flying, but more death per participant than most other sports. There's an unfortunate infographic that's made the rounds that makes skydiving look relatively as dangerous as football, but they made a mistake with the…

Here we go again.. (I think we discussed this topic previously) Skydiving, hang gliding,Paragliding and many other "adventure sports" contain a significan amount of risk.. the difference is that skydiving (not base jumping) is tightly regulated by the FAA, there are strict training requirements, equipment maintenance etc etc .. it is almost like flying a plane. so.. it is super dangerous compared to knitting.. but it…

Oh hey, you're right, we did discuss this a while ago. Nice to see you again!

Yes, you're right that skydiving is safe compared to the sports that are more dangerous than skydiving. I agree and admit there are sports and activities that are more dangerous than skydiving. Wingsuit flying is one of them.

Last time we talked, you said the risk of dying skydiving is 1 in 100,000 and pointed at the comparative table here: http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12419507

That number is per jump, not per year. The other 11 pictures in the top 12 of that page are per year figures. The units are different, the comparison is invalid. Juxtaposing these numbers is wrong, and quoting 1/100,000 per jump is super misleading when you compare it to the annual fatality rates of other sports.

This is what I was talking about above. The annual fatality rate of skydiving is 1 in 1,580. Skydiving is a bit safer than hang-gliding, roughly 3x. It's definitely not 180x safer, which is the very first thing the infographic implies.

The infographic depicts skydiving as safer than boxing, football, canoeing, and SCUBA. That is flat false, skydiving is much more dangerous than all of those combined.

BTW, with respect to regulation, about one in about 1600 skydivers die each year after having gone through training, after safety inspections, after exposure to the risks and liability waivers, after subscribing to USPA magazine and reading about each and every death in the U.S., etc. etc. Since nobody needs a license to get in a canoe, you may expect a higher percentage of people who are unprepared for the risks of canoeing to die doing it. Skydiving has a relatively high fatality rate despite the fact that it's regulated and the skydiving population has more training and safety equipment than other sports.

Re: Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

#210

Post by 15155 » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #179

jly wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skydiving is actually a very safe and low-risk 'adrenaline' activity, from what I've heard. There are multiple redundancies and you are almost never at the mercy of randomness like with winsuits, climbing, or whitewater rapids. The deaths that do occur are almost always from experienced jumpers that not following recommended safety processes, often in the pursuit of pushing things to the edge. The point is that unlik…

> Skydiving is actually a very safe and low-risk 'adrenaline' activity, from what I've heard I'm sorry, but you've heard wrong. Skydiving is super dangerous, relative to other sports. Less than wingsuit flying, but more death per participant than most other sports. There's an unfortunate infographic that's made the rounds that makes skydiving look relatively as dangerous as football, but they made a mistake with the…

How many skydiving deaths are a result of swooping - relative to normal, vanilla jumps, I wonder.