skykilo

I've never had any problems with Fritschis, but after recently acquiring a new setup with Dynafits, I would recommend Dynafit. After a full resort day and one fairly long tour (~25mi.), getting into the bindings has never been as hard as I might have feared, and the weight savings are astounding.

I was referring to smaller mass, which is the critical matter. Mars has smaller mass and radius, though, so I have no idea what you are talking about. Mars/Earth Comparison Bulk parameters Mars Earth Ratio (Mars/Earth) Mass (1024 kg) 0.64185 5.9736 0.107 Volume (1010 km3) 16.318 108.321 0.151 Equatorial radius (km) 3397 6378.1 0.533 Polar radius (km) 3375 6356.8 0.531 I think we should both make it a goal for the rest of this evening to smoke some Dodo Bird and knock back some brews, and maybe not worry about this Mars stuff too much.

Actually, what the equation shows is that a photon of arbitrary energy has no mass. By arbitrary, I mean that you can consider any photon, one with as large or small an energy as you desire, and it will be massless. Anything anyone says about science is all theory. That's what science is. Make a model, test it, and use it until you find that it's broke. Our theories now are very accurate in many different ways, so while we could never say it is absolutely true, it's pretty damn close. Here's a nice analogy: Mt Rainier isn't exactly 14,410 feet tall. It may be, say, 14,410.0162789... feet tall. But who cares? It seems to me you'd be telling the truth to say it's 14,410 feet tall. The photon is massless to an even better approximation than the example I just created. You're totally right about the escape velocity thing. Mars is smaller than Earth, so it is a smaller potential well. As for me, I don't give a rat's ass about Mars. There are no face shots (of the preferred type) there. And yes, I have limited my thinking to say that. Have a great weekend everyone...

You can kill all of Schrodinger's god-awful cats for all I care, I've got allergies.

You're totally right. Paul is a photon.

Paul's no photon.

No, it's not meaningless. You're misapplying the formula. E=m*c^2 is the formula for rest mass energy. To get the rest mass of the photon, first measure its energy. Now, that was in your rest frame, in which the light was moving at c. Lorentz boost the light's energy-momentum 4-vector to the frame in which the light is at rest, and it's energy and momentum will be ZERO. The scalar magnitude of the E-p 4-vector E^2-p^2=m^2 is always zero. We can reaffirm if we compare the photon's quantum mechanical energy and momentum. p=h/lamda E=h*f f*lamda=c implies E=h*c/lamda Now check the invariant Lorentz product E^2-(p*c)^2=(h*c/lamda)^2-(h*c/lamda)^2=0 I was ignoring c's in the first paragraph above this. Forgive me, it's a very convenient habit to use c=1. You were just trolling, right?

All right dudes, I'm gonna make one serious post here, and then I'm gonna go help put an experiment together. Yo Iain, you are right, speed affects the rate at which time passes for an observer, that is special relativity. In a relativistic theory of gravity, it is logically necessary that the passage of time is also affected by local spacetime geometry, which in turn is affected by the distribution of mass and energy. The obvious example of this phenomenon is gravitational redshift. Wirlwind, we can measure photons because they have momentum and energy. By mass, we mean rest mass, and photons don't have any rest mass. They don't exist at rest. Now, electromagnetic fields are made of photons, and the fields carry energy, which in turn affects the geometry of spacetime, so they have all the privileges of a massive object, except for one crucial thing-there is no photon at rest. A photon at rest is a nothing, which does not have mass. You could say something cool, like 'Photons travel along null geodesics, objects with mass propagate through spacetime on time-like geodesics.' An object with mass can never go the speed of light. Light can propagate at a net speed less than the speed of light by scattering off a the atoms of a material, which is why refraction happens. Just to be extra confusing and start another three pages of misinformed spray about physics, I'll mention Cerenkov radiation, which is what happens when something is moving faster than the speed of light in a given material. This is one way we detect neutrinos. The neutrinos are moving faster than the local speed of light (but still less than the speed of light in vacuum), and they radiate energy away until this is no longer true. Sorry to be so serious. I'm grumpy because I kept waking up during Nuclear Astrophysics today, so I neither learned from the lecture nor got a good nap.

Nevermind, I'm going to adhere to my original policy of not discussing science here. You won't hear anything else out of this jackass! moving at the speed of stupidity

Actually Jon, according to general relativity spacetime is warped by massive objects, so time is also based also on your proximity to large objects. In the case at hand, though, that difference is negligible. Wirlwind, when did you find out photons have mass? We have only put limits on the photon mass, but those limits are pretty damn small (effectively zero).

Aloe Vera?

The eternal mantra is, "I'll go take a look for myself." No offense intended, but I consider everything speculation without firsthand observation. Also, Yocum Ridge would always be a bailout possibility, right?

I have the Big Stix 750, and I love them. I find myself feeling great at high speeds on all kinds of conditions. They are also good for steep skiing. I would recommend them without hesitation.

Yeah, love that Wy'east. As for myself, I want to ski every possible descent in the mountains of the northwest. I might not finish this year, but it's a general goal that motivates me from day to day.

I'd like to give a big shout out to wildsnow.com. A short self-mount trip report: I am another arrogant physicist. If I can help build apparati to search for fundamental laws describing the behavior of the universe to astonishing levels of precision, surely I can mount a pair of bindings. I went to the lab yesterday at four, slightly hungry, but sure I would only be there for two hours. Five hours later, I only had the toe pieces mounted; I was pissed, cross-eyed, and ravenous. I had a great night of New Year's festivities, and walked home to the U-District from Capitol Hill at five in the morning to catch some sleep. I was up at nine, and by noon I was ready to give the bindings another shot. Now they're mounted, they're well-aligned, and I can't wait to ski my new light weight setup. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to keep up with Fat Boy (you know who you are). I might post a few of my own tips as an appendix to Lou's great instructions at some point, but I am very thankful for his info. Thanks Lou. What did you think a self-mount trip report meant, you sickos?

You are as vacuous as the interstellar regions of our universe (so suck to the infinity)!

Don't go to Alpental to rip the fresh, it really sucks there! Especially when it snows heavily all weekend, better to check out real ski areas like Crystal and Stevens.

Panama's all about licking ass. He will probably attack you and take your butt-plug for a chew toy. He does not discriminate based on sexual preference, there is only sheer blood lust and equal opportunity mauling.

No, all freshiez are mine! If I see you at my TH in BC, then I will slash your tires to teach you a lesson! Now that I have booties for my pit bull, I will sick Panama on all those who dare to try to stand above a run I will ski. He will feast on your blood while I lap the fresh!!! Good boy!

I voted for you Paul!!!

Moonlight skiing is da' bomb. Here is a picture of skiing the Roman Wall in alpenglow, before skiing the Coleman Glacier under beautiful moonlight, with the lights of Bellingham in the distance. The snow was really icy, but off the glacier we were treated to some nice wind-blown fresh in a few gullies. I regularly find myself even more awe-struck with the beauty of the mountains under moonlight than my normal levels of exhiliration.

BRO-BRA-How dare you suggest I have man-boobs?

He's just doing the tight-fisted bird, which always looks strange. Cool guys keep it loose, letting the fingers extend to the second knuckle, to show that they are saying fuck you, but aren't truly perturbed. As in, "You're a fuck-up, but I'm not gonna get all tense about it."

Indeed, the most courteous thing to do would be to straight-run at all times and huck as much as possible. I wonder how Extremo feels about this?

In my self-important, filled with delusions of grandeur opinion, the whole point of the backcountry is freedom. If you are not putting someone's life in danger, poach to your heart's content. If someone is standing above where your skis are naturally taking you, they should get moving if the almighty untracked on that exact slope is their utmost desire for the day. A thought: how will you even be aware of making them angry if you blast through in a whirlwind of faceshots, screaming at the top of your lungs? Anyone who could get angry at such a sight of delight needs some perspective, perhaps. Just to reiterate to the point of redundancy in the most rhetorical fashion: is it backcountry skiing if you have to ask someone's permission?