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Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

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Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#21

Post by nsxwolf »

roryokane wrote: post #19
nsxwolf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not afraid of heights, you're afraid of falling. To me, NOT being afraid of heights is irrational.

I am afraid of heights, even when I am not afraid of falling. I dislike being on a high balcony even if I am ten feet away from the edge, with a trustworthy railing there. That's the way my body works - the fear is left over from more primitive times, before high places had windows and railings.

I'm afraid of low railings on high balconies. I don't understand why they build railings that are below the center of rotation of the average person.

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#22

Post by Xcelerate »

nathanb wrote: post #16
shawabawa3 wrote: post #11

> In a choice between a 300-foot-fall to water and a 30-foot-fall to concrete the winner is discernable if not immediately clear I'm guessing the correct choice is the concrete, but for some reason I feel like I would still prefer to go for the water...

This is why I love the TV show Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong. (A 30-foot fall onto concrete might still kill you, but a 300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you. And if the fall onto concrete doesn't kill you, it will be much easier to get you the medical attention you need if you're not floating in San Francisco Bay).

Huh, I never saw the Mythbusters show. Why would a 300-foot fall into water definitely kill you? I know the world dive record is 172 feet. And terminal velocity for a human is about 120 mph. I imagine if you make yourself flat for most of the fall you could lower that speed and then right before you hit the water take a "pencil" position. Would you not at least have some chance of surviving that?

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#24

Post by nicholassmith »

Xcelerate wrote: post #22
nathanb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love the TV show Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong. (A 30-foot fall onto concrete might still kill you, but a 300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you. And if the fall onto concrete doesn't kill you, it will be much easier to get you the medical attention you need if you're not floating in San Francisco Bay).

Huh, I never saw the Mythbusters show. Why would a 300-foot fall into water definitely kill you? I know the world dive record is 172 feet. And terminal velocity for a human is about 120 mph. I imagine if you make yourself flat for most of the fall you could lower that speed and then right before you hit the water take a "pencil" position. Would you not at least have some chance of surviving that?

If you're a diver, or sky diver, or trained you might have the sense to try that, but for the majority your brain is going to be screaming 'oh fuck' when you're half way down.

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#25

Post by jt2190 »

milliams wrote: post #3

Awful choice of font colour.

The font color is dark gray #333 on a background of black #000. There's barely any contrast at all.

(edit: According to the Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser [1], the luminosity contrast ratio is 1.66:1. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommend a ratio of 4.5:1 [2]. That'd be #777 on #000.)

[1] http://juicystudio.com/services/luminositycontrastratio.php

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#visual-audio-...

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#26

Post by nathanb »

Xcelerate wrote: post #22
nathanb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love the TV show Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong. (A 30-foot fall onto concrete might still kill you, but a 300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you. And if the fall onto concrete doesn't kill you, it will be much easier to get you the medical attention you need if you're not floating in San Francisco Bay).

Huh, I never saw the Mythbusters show. Why would a 300-foot fall into water definitely kill you? I know the world dive record is 172 feet. And terminal velocity for a human is about 120 mph. I imagine if you make yourself flat for most of the fall you could lower that speed and then right before you hit the water take a "pencil" position. Would you not at least have some chance of surviving that?

Water is noncompressible. Maybe the word "definitely" was misused because there's always the possibility for a fluke, but my understanding is that at terminal velocity hitting water is functionally equivalent to hitting concrete.

Look up the "hammer drop" episode of Mythbusters if you want to see the long explanation.

The second point still stands, though. I'd rather fall onto the concrete, where I could get help quickly and if I knocked myself out but survived I wouldn't drown.

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#27

Post by chiph »

Xcelerate wrote: post #22
nathanb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love the TV show Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong. (A 30-foot fall onto concrete might still kill you, but a 300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you. And if the fall onto concrete doesn't kill you, it will be much easier to get you the medical attention you need if you're not floating in San Francisco Bay).

Huh, I never saw the Mythbusters show. Why would a 300-foot fall into water definitely kill you? I know the world dive record is 172 feet. And terminal velocity for a human is about 120 mph. I imagine if you make yourself flat for most of the fall you could lower that speed and then right before you hit the water take a "pencil" position. Would you not at least have some chance of surviving that?

Water is incompressible. So the fall ends up being pretty close to 300 ft. to concrete vs. 30 ft. to concrete. Entering the water toes-first would just mean you have broken legs as well as being dead.

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#28

Post by oldcigarette »

In railfanning we don't look kindly on people who trespass to great the 'perfect shot' because they just end up screwing things up for everyone else with ever increasing rules, surveillance and fences. Please think about the consequences of your actions when doing something like this.

Re: Illegally climbing the Golden Gate bridge at dawn (2011)

#30

Post by glurgh »

nathanb wrote: post #16
shawabawa3 wrote: post #11

> In a choice between a 300-foot-fall to water and a 30-foot-fall to concrete the winner is discernable if not immediately clear I'm guessing the correct choice is the concrete, but for some reason I feel like I would still prefer to go for the water...

This is why I love the TV show Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong. (A 30-foot fall onto concrete might still kill you, but a 300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you. And if the fall onto concrete doesn't kill you, it will be much easier to get you the medical attention you need if you're not floating in San Francisco Bay).

Mythbusters: they routinely demonstrate how our intuition on these matters is wrong.

Or demonstrate that things we're sure about are sometimes not quite right:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=E40...

(Fast forward to 5 mins)

300-foot fall into water will definitely kill you.

Some do survive the actual jump and impact into the bay. Some (very rarely) are even recovered and survive the entire ordeal.

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