Noman Info Warrior

[Rick Masters]

I say this because the new Google algorithm identifies sites with extreme political views and denies search engine access.
Search engine access is the Hawks one great strength against tremendous odds.
You guys are going to throw that away, if you haven't already.

[Bob Kuczewski]

It's a valid concern Rick.

But the thing that really hurts us with Google is that Jack Axaopoulos (sg) has black balled us on hanggliding.org. It's my understanding that Google looks at popular sites and uses them as "approvers" of other sites. Since Jack Axaopoulos has forbidden any links at all to the US Hawks, Google sees the US Hawks as being of very low importance since it doesn't even appear one time on hanggliding.org. Of course Jack knows that, and that's why he's so iron fisted about that rule (even writing software to automatically change people's posts).

I'm hoping Google might wake up some day and recognize Jack's predatory behavior and punish him severely. But I'm not holding my breath.

I'm also hoping that the word will get around about how Jack Axaopoulos is hurting hang gliding with his stupid little retaliation and people will abandon that iron curtain site. But again, I'm not holding my breath.

If you think it's an important issue, bring it up as a topic for the board. I would lean toward our current policy, but I might get out voted.

[Rick Masters]

The current policy recognizes that the U.S. Hawks is an association dedicated to recreational hang gliding.
A provision for off-topic posts has been provided in the Free Speech forum.
I don't see any reason to take that to the board.
It seems like good policy - if it is enforced.

[Bob Kuczewski]

The current policy recognizes that the U.S. Hawks is an association dedicated to recreational hang gliding.
A provision for off-topic posts has been provided in the Free Speech forum.

That's a U.S. Hawks policy - for U.S. Hawks portions of the forum. Chapters make their own policies for their portions of the forum.

It should be a Board decision that a particular Chapters policies are abusing that freedom. That's another area where we differ from USHPA. USHPA simply refused to renew the Torrey Hawks chapter at the administrative level. There was no vote of the Board and no reason was given. They just did it. We don't want to go down that road.

[Bob Kuczewski]

By the way, this portion of Free's earlier post is particularly relevent to much of what's been destroying hang gliding:

[Studies show ] that even one dissenting voice can give people permission to think for themselves. Specifically:

Solomon Asch, with experiments originally carried out in the 1950s and well-replicated since, highlighted a phenomenon now known as “conformity”. In the classic experiment, a subject sees a puzzle like the one in the nearby diagram: Which of the lines A, B, and C is the same size as the line X? Take a moment to determine your own answer…The gotcha is that the subject is seated alongside a number of other people looking at the diagram – seemingly other subjects, actually confederates of the experimenter. The other “subjects” in the experiment, one after the other, say that line C seems to be the same size as X. The real subject is seated next-to-last. How many people, placed in this situation, would say “C” – giving an obviously incorrect answer that agrees with the unanimous answer of the other subjects? What do you think the percentage would be?

Three-quarters of the subjects in Asch’s experiment gave a “conforming” answer at least once. A third of the subjects conformed more than half the time.

Get it so far? People tend to defer to what the herd thinks.

But here’s the good news:

Adding a single dissenter – just one other person who gives the correct answer, or even an incorrect answer that’s different from the group’s incorrect answer – reduces conformity very sharply, down to 5-10%.

Why is this important? Well, it means that one person who publicly speaks the truth can sway a group of people away from group-think.

If a group of people is leaning towards believing the government’s version of events, a single person who speaks the truth can help snap the group out of its trance.

I believe that quote is very important to our mission. Each of us can be the voice that breaks the trance that USHPA has cast over our sport.

Thanks Warren for posting that quote, and thanks Rick for causing me to read it more carefully.

[Free]

Rick should note that the extreme political views that upset him so much were posted 2012.
He should be more upset about what google has devolved into since then. Sorry the times have changed and we are increasingly punished for our thoughts and words, Rick.
The broken Dragonfly picture was a test. I'll post more about it later from the library that is now closing this Saturday evening.
Salutations to everyone.

[Rick Masters]

He set a record for consecutive loops in a hang glider.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Rick .... should be more upset ...

Gentlemen,

My goal is that none of us should be upset with each other.

We are the small few who can see what has gone so clearly wrong with the sport we love and share.

We are too small and too few to be letting anything divide us.

Please ... if you give a rat's behind about saving hang gliding, let's work together on this one small little problem in the world.

It's great to have both of you on board. Thanks.

[Free]

He set a record for consecutive loops in a hang glider.

The picture of the flipped Dragonfly isn't what or who you are thinking, Rick.
The Dragonfly in this picture

is the same Dragonfly recently posted about on the Davis show http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54916


As far as I know, no one was seriously injured in this Kansas City hang gliding crash.

[Free]

Rick, You were thinking of Chad Elchin, of 95 consecutive loop fame.
Chad died flying an improperly assembled Dragonfly at Quest hang gliding flight park in 2003.
Article at http://m.ozreport.com/7.98#3

I met Chad 2 years earlier in Florida where he was considerate enough to help set up my enclosed trailer for Dragonfly transport.
Very quiet, classy guy. So sorry to hear what happened to him.
Sadly ironic is that I pointed out the same mistaken assembly on one of several Dragonflys being assembled at Quest Air
on that same trip, April 2001.