Howdy.

Works in the Library of Congress may be reviewed but not copied. The person(s) who reviewed this manual, and found the discrepancies, noted them and made them public. The original copyright holder must give permission for this work to be reproduced. That's why there are no copies, just mentions of the discrepancies.

Not sure without checking with my IP attorney how to get around this, since it's unlikely that the copyright holder will grant further copying permission. Perhaps a FOIA request to the Library of Congress will allow them to release the document?

Cheers!

Cool - thanks for the link.

I suspect that the French parachuting federation issues incident reports, analysis, and corrective measures bulletins just like the USPA does. We'll find out the whole story when that happens; if it's like here, give it 90 days or so.

Cheers!

From the report, it sounds like Cédric performed a maneuver called "hook turn" -- it's a high speed turn in your final approach, 100' or less from the ground, considered deadly and stupid by USPA, the French Federation of Parachutism, and pretty much anyone who's been jumping for a while.

The rate of descent increased as a parachute (square, ram air canopy) banks. The sharper the turn, the faster the descent. The hook turn swings the jumper fast, like a pendulum, and an experienced jumper will guesstimate ending the swing at about the same time as his or her feet would touch the ground. The margin of error for a hook turn, by an experienced jumper riding a small canopy (the more experience the smaller the canopy), is between 5' and 10'.

Start the turn too soon, and you'll end up 3' to 10' above the ground, with a stalled parachute, falling straight down. On a good day, a few bruises or a parachute landing fall, a dirty jump suit, and teasing from your pals. On a bad day, a twisted or broken ankle, yet survivable.

Start the turn too late, and you'll slam the ground with enough force to kill you. And remember: too late is a difference of only about 5'.

Even if the turn starts fine, and the jumper is the king of experienced up jumpers, other factors may come into play. A little thermal near the ground may force the canopy up or sideways near the ground. Or a cold air pocket (e.g. flying over a small puddle, or a dark patch on the ground) may drop the canopy a few feet faster.

Most if not all drop zones since at least 1994 ban people caught doing hook turns because of the danger they present to the jumpers doing them and others around them. Every once in a while some hot shot with a few thousand jumps thinks he's above physics and chance, and does a bandit turn if nobody is watching.

Maybe Cédric ran out of air on final and thought that hooking the turn would help him land into the wind. Maybe he was just hot dogging. Regardless, if he was an up jumper and he did a hook turn, he should've known better and performed a different maneuver. Sad to loose him, but not feeling sorry about the accident itself. Stuff like this is what gives a bad reputation to skydiving in the eyes of people with little or no knowledge of the sport.

Cheers!

One more thing I thought about:

OkCupid, Match.com and everyone else go to painful lengths to do the questionnaire and focus on "relationship" -- that's a huge barrier to entry for new people. It's just too annoying and boring. Newer services like Badoo, Kizzle, Twoo, etc. focus more on "meeting new people" and letting things evolve from there. Post a couple of photos, say a little about yourself, and you're off using the system. I always found Match et. al. a pain in the ass.

Cheers!

True - that was another interesting thing about Badoo in Russia - the ratio of men to women is closer to 5:1 (or was at the time). Other services in Russia/Ukraine/etc. had lower ratios. It seemed that women are more adept at on-line dating in those countries. Badoo in the US, at the same time, was a total ghetto. It had evolved only from minority groups, lots more men than women, and we had to winnow out quite a few "professionals" all the time. The kinds of women who used the service in Russia was very different from the US peeps: many university-educated girls, good jobs, nice people. There were pros, sure, like in all dating services. But I was always surprised at how good a demographic we had there compared to other markets -- the contrast was astounding.

From Badoo I had a chance to date a plastic surgeon, a nuclear scientist (no shit -- went to the university in Obninsk), several business women, and my fiancée who has a very nice for a major luxury firm there. The number of nice girls was very high. I have no idea what it's like now -- I haven't had a need for the service since I met my fiancée and left the company.

Cheers!

Dang it - I wasn't logged on last time and my post ended in Anonymous Coward limbo...

My girlfriend and I met through a dating service when I was living in Russia. We've lived happily for two years, have a child, and I wouldn't change anything in how we met, or the wonderful times we've spent all over the world since (we've lived in Russia, the Ukraine, Mexico, Switzerland and San Francisco since). The best part about the on-line dating aspect was that we could spend lots and lots of time discussing various topics of interest to both of us, comparing our values, and otherwise communicating in a cool way that would've taken a lot longer in-person.

Another great aspect of on-line dating is that you aren't limited to one person at a time. You can screen (and be screened) much faster, and you can then cherry pick with whom you'll invest time for the in-person dates and so on.

Disclaimer: at the time I was the VP of technology for Badoo, so I was in a position to use the service as much as I could or wanted. I didn't have to pay for the additional services (e.g. gifts, Super Powers, etc.) so it was easy for us to spend as much time on the service as we wished. My opinions on the subject are biased because of this -- but I'd still recommend anyone looking for a mate to try the on-line dating service that better works for their tastes.

Cheers!

E

Hrmph.

Kids these days...

Have a nice weekend!

LOL! Octave is a finished product? That's news to me. Horrible package when compared against R Project and its satellite projects (e.g. RStudio).

Not trolling, just can't say that Octave is usable with a straight face. Poor UI, bad copy of MatLab, and horrible performance. Friends don't let friends use Octave. They show them the path to R.

Cheers!

The single best R resource I've ever used was The R Book, by Crawley. Before buying it I invested way too much time searching all over the web for solutions to simple and complicated things alike, almost always with poor or incomplete results. The O'Reilly R books are barely OKi. Short circuit the BS and go straight to The R Book. It paid for itself in about 2 hours of coding (it's expensive and runs between $80 and $150, when it's available -- my time is way more valuable, though).

For applied R to problem solving, my suggestion would be to go with Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models by Gelman and Hill. It requires you to have gone through college level stats -- fantastic book.

Another good book is Data Mining with R, Learning with Case Studies -- especially the Introduction, which offers one of the best R programming overviews out there. It's about the only reference that explains the R object-oriented and functional features well.

Web resources are vital AFTER you've sunk 200 to 500 hours into R work. By then you'll have grasped the language and many of its quirks (it's a language by and for scientists, not programming professionals -- so, saying it's "quirky" is a hella of understatement), and the web resources will be more helpful because most are incomplete, but by you'll have enough experience to "fill in the blanks".

You're welcome to swing by irc://irc.freenode.net/#R -- we welcome n00bz!

Cheers!

pr3d

If commercial software is your thing, and you can afford it, and the vendor offers good support, 100% agreed.

If you're looking for R help the best two places to start are:

* Get a copy of The R Book, by Crawley -- it'll save you days of pointless/incomplete search for web resources
* Swing by the R IRC channel on Freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net/#R) -- we welcome n00bz

Cheers!

pr3d

If you bleed in 6 colors and are a true Apple hacker, I have two words for you:

INIT HELLO

Cheers!

/me just gets the popcorn and watches.

If it makes business sense to use *GPL I'll be the first one to advocate it. If there's no reason for it, and an Apache licensed component is available, I'll advocate that. It all depends on the business model and whom I'm advising. If I advise against using code under any particular license is precisely because the license content could have an adverse effect on the business.

I've licensed my own code under GPLv2 when it made sense, under Apache at times, and under BSD most of the time. If we're talking about ideology and personal preference, BSD is the sweet spot for me; the least restrictions of any license.

Cheers!

pr3d

Like you said, it's case-to-case. And until *GPL is contested in court we won't know for sure.

At Very Large Retailer I engaged Bruce Perens and his team (circa 2006) and we went through education. It paid off. Irrational fear of the GPL was squelched.

At other deals, especially startups, i try to advise them to find the best tech first, then worry about the license, and whenever possible to just avoid *GPL in their products to preempt potential issues. They will have a full plate if they end up in a funding situation. It's my fiduciary obligation to smooth due diligence for them or to protect the investor's interests. If using Apache licensed components reduces friction and increases their chances of having a successful partnership, I would be in breach for that endeavor if I didn't advise them to go with whatever works best for that situation.

At a personal level, I prefer less restrictive licenses than *GPL. I don't know that using or avoiding it is stupidity, as you suggested in your reply. It's just a license, and use or avoidance are specific to each situation. No license is inherently good or bad. As an engineer I rather solve the problem than engage in a phylosophical fight. If *GPL works for some case, then I will suggest to use it.

Cheers!

pr3d4t0r

By the way -- I don't think legal/business concerns are about the solidity of the license. The concerns are about the aspects that could be hostile to business and investment.

Remember that not everyone wants to make their bacon by offering consulting or other professional services.

Some people want to build and offer finished, successful products that some enterprising licensor may feel are worth pursuing in court over some obscure clause, very much like patent trolls and other IP holders of dubious value go about their business. Avoiding such trolls is a fiduciary obligation of the company management. One way to avoid them is to re-release derivative works, forks, or patches. Another is to avoid software based on such licenses. It's up to each situation and company mission to decide which alternative to pursue.

Deciding whether the company policy regarding a given license is in line one one's beliefs and whether to work with, or for, such a company, are up to each person in terms of his or her professional goals.

Cheers!

pr3d