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Increasing numbers of wingsuit jumpers are dying (2016)

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

#221

Post by notjustanymike »

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…

It's funny, the closest I ever came to a quiet mind was barreling down the back straight of Road Atlanta at 135mph in an open wheel racer. When more things can go wrong than are possible to comprehend, the mind appears to delete-all and focus on the task at hand. I'd call it psychological minimalism.

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

#222

Post by lillesvin »

emodendroket wrote: post #202
lillesvin wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Changes in speech drives changes in writing — every linguist will tell you that (I should know, I am one). Writing is — and always has been — way behind speech in terms of innovation.

Edit: Downvoting isn't going to change that. But you're welcome to show me an example of a linguist that claims that writing is the driving force in linguistic evolution.

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

#223

Post by emodendroket »

lillesvin wrote: post #222
emodendroket wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Changes in speech drives changes in writing — every linguist will tell you that (I should know, I am one). Writing is — and always has been — way behind speech in terms of innovation. Edit: Downvoting isn't going to change that. But you're welcome to show me an example of a linguist that claims that writing is the driving force in linguistic evolution.

I completely agree, but I can't see how that contradicts anything I just said. Using "of" here is not an example of "language evolution" any more than confusing "to" and "too" is.

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

#225

Post by jandrese »

gnaritas wrote: post #224
ProAm wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He died earlier this year.

Not the least bit surprised.

I didn't go out to find a video of someone who died, but I guess if you're looking for videos of people doing insanely dangerous stunts it shouldn't be a surprise.

FYI, here's the article on his death. Yes, he died just as you would have expected: jumping off of a mountain with in a wingsuit.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3219444/canadian-wingsuit-flyer-gr...

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

#226

Post by JPLeRouzic »

emodendroket wrote: post #223
lillesvin wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changes in speech drives changes in writing — every linguist will tell you that (I should know, I am one). Writing is — and always has been — way behind speech in terms of innovation. Edit: Downvoting isn't going to change that. But you're welcome to show me an example of a linguist that claims that writing is the driving force in linguistic evolution.

I completely agree, but I can't see how that contradicts anything I just said. Using "of" here is not an example of "language evolution" any more than confusing "to" and "too" is.

I am not a linguist but you are using "evolution" as having another meaning than LilleSvin. For you it is something which is positively improving as in the layman idea about Darwin's evolution theory and for LilleSvin "evolution" means exactly what it means in biology: Changes that are at a wide scale.

For example in old Norse that was used on the north and east coasts of UK in 900 CE, "time" was not pronounced like "ta-ii-me" and the English word for "ship" was pronounced "skip", the more modern pronunciation happened after the great vocalic change, an evolution of the spoken dialect. There is nothing positive or negative in the great vocalic change, but it is an evolution of the language because after some time, most people spoke it that way, not anymore like old vikings did.

(edited because I made many spelling errors)

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

#227

Post by jandrese »

cpncrunch wrote: post #218
Piskvorrr wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which, of course, defeats the point "I did something insanely dangerous and did not die". Is there a way to increase safety while keeping the feeling of danger? That sounds like a contradiction to me.

Isn't it the feeling of excitement they're looking for, rather than danger? It just happens that this activity is exciting and extremely dangerous. What about kite surfing?

Some people get off on the feeling of danger. I read an article once about a solo free climber who had attached some handholds to the ceiling of his apartment for practice, but it wasn't enough, so he build a board full of steak knives pointing upward to place under the handholds for the proper feeling.

Sadly I can't find the article anymore. I suspect it may have been taken down out of respect for the dead.

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

#228

Post by emodendroket »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #226
emodendroket wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, but I can't see how that contradicts anything I just said. Using "of" here is not an example of "language evolution" any more than confusing "to" and "too" is.

I am not a linguist but you are using "evolution" as having another meaning than LilleSvin. For you it is something which is positively improving as in the layman idea about Darwin's evolution theory and for LilleSvin "evolution" means exactly what it means in biology: Changes that are at a wide scale. For example in old Norse that was used on the north and east coasts of UK in 900 CE, "time" was not pronounced like…

No, I'm not using "evolution" in some sort of Enlightenment sense where only things that contribute to the onward march of Progress count. I'm saying changes in spelling are nothing like the process of organic language evolution.

Also, one wonders why the "great vocalic change" (maybe the Great Vowel Shift, you mean) would have changed the pronunciation of the consonants leading "ship."

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

#229

Post by jandrese »

perilunar wrote: post #19

- because they're going too fast when they hit the ground? - because their sink rate is too high, and gets worse when they stall? - because 3:1 is a lousy glide angle? - because their wings are too small?

It seems like the process went like this:

1. BASE Jumping is dangerous, because sometimes the parachute opens backwards and slams you back into the object you jumped off of. 2. Solution: Use Wingsuits to get further from the object before deploying the chute. 3. Thrill Seekers: So this means we can skim over the rocky ground and through forests right? 4. What, no! That would have the opposite effect! Absolutely not! We were trying to make fewer corpses, not more! 5. I'm gonna be a hero...

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

#230

Post by amygdyl »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #162
AmVess wrote: post #107

The most telling fact is that there is no clear bias of experience in these accidents. This simply means that the method is wrong. For sure, this is a bit like calling water wet, but people will continue to turn themselves into high performance lawn darts until they change their approach to safety. I think a lot of them don't fully appreciate how little room for error there is. They fly at around 150 MPH which is 220…

I think there are a lot of parallels with motor racing here. It was extremely dangerous on its early days, and didn't get safer when drivers got more experienced. It got safer when the cars got safer, and we still get deaths anyway (most recently in F1 the death of Jules Bianchi)

No.

I have been a serious F1 fan for closing on four decades and I must implore you and anybody else who might be tempted to discount to present values the hope that you express, to consider just how far motorsports* the physical environment and envelope of racing has been altered:.

- magnesium (not alloy!) monocoque body shells were ruled out.

- as were countless rare or highly expensive materials that created paper thin transitions in operation before failure.

- strict cockpit exit limits are enforced, 5s max to be standing on the tarmac and already have the steering wheel replaced

- pit speed limit introduced and lowered

- cornering radii universally enlarged, both by track design and track enlargement

- ditto above because high torque hybrid formula propulsion gives you more apex profiles

- driver aides have been a feature of F1 regardless of the rules, at no time has every assistant device become illegal

- hundreds billions of dollars in chassis, monocoque and aerodynamic R&D have been expended since I was born.

- delta sector split times read out on the steering wheel, feeding the driver closing dynamics and other indicators alert to track slicks and debris

Those were in no particular order, but all changes to far more than likely possible with wingsuits and skydiving.

Moreover these changes happened over decades.

That may be too obvious.

Until you next hear a water cooler cringe worthy moment when a proverbial PHB or sales jock exclaims how everything is enabled nowadays to the ultimate, by modern technology. We're all susceptible to a little bit of that..

* in my example F1, which suffered a near 30% fatality rate in years around the time of my birth, causing F1 to take a early lead, but it is not the solitary work of F1, the HANS device is a NASCAR R&D product that has saved F1 lives certainly.

(I'm a rare advocate of taking much more of the American culture than would be popular, as I feel that avoidable accidents have occurred due to overreliance on the systems and that gut instincts are not on balance a negative in racing, as you may be inclined to imagine, if you are a American fan visiting your first F1 weekend. But the culture as a danger is something that F1 had to address internally, or be outlawed, very early in relative time.)

Edit: phone

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