Luke Oliver

In which I discover a susceptibility to bee stings and get a chance to manage it.

It’s Friday, June 1, 2001. I was driving to Bendigo to visit on business. I’d already stopped once to get a coffee on the outskirts of the city, which did its legendary thing and demanded a trip to a “comfort station” about 20kms from Bendigo proper.

Having availed myself of the facilities, I walked back to the car, noticing an untied shoelace on the way. I leant on the door sill to tie up the shoelace, and straightened up. An excited buzzing noise greeted the movement, and I froze - feeling movement on the back of my neck.

I did nothing - yet the buzzing intensified. Then came the sting. That pissed me off, because last time I was stung (when I was about 10) my foot swelled a little - getting hit in the neck might give me some grief Saturday. I watched the bee circle away to the ground - probably equally pissed off, and doomed having left its barbed sting in my neck. Annoyed, I figured I’d get some ice on it in Bendigo.

I started the car, drove off, and checked the time; habit. It was 11:36AM. I drove about sixty seconds further down the road to the edge of town when I realised there was a really nasty taste in my mouth - a dryness and a sour tone - and my tongue felt BIG. My toes were tingling, so were my fingers, and as I took my left hand off the wheel to flex it I saw some red splotches on it.

I did a first aid course eighteen months ago. I figured it was time for some first aid.

I turned the car around. I drove back into the heart of Axedale - which is not a big town at all. Didn’t spot a doctor, but my breathing was now getting difficult - I did another U-turn, and drove to the police station.

11:38AM.

Exited the car; phone, keys. Went to the door, knocked, no answer.

Knocked again, no answer.

I felt the onset of panic; the taste was no better, my breath was getting shorter, and I really wasn’t feeling well; the body intrinsically knows when it is threatened, and it had run a large flag up the flagpole with “Threat” written on it. Whatever the bee sting had done, it had also pushed my body’s button for “Asthma”, and years of practice have taught me that panic doesn’t help asthma. Remaining calm is paramount.

Calmly, then, I rang the number for the police listed on the sign in front of me. I can still read the number - this is a good sign, tiredness or intoxication sometimes affect things a little.

The phone has no network signal, and beeps away cheerily.

With some dread, and knowing the result, I dial “000″. Same result.

I could hear myself struggling to breathe, and was nearly overcome by the desire to take my shoes off and scratch my seemingly swollen feet. Some of my calm deserted me. Whatever it is in my system, it was FAST and it was EFFECTIVE.

Perhaps stupidly, I forget the car phone kit, usually good for extra range - and indeed, the silent phone I keep in my briefcase which operates on a far better network for country travel.

However, next to the “threat” flag is now another one labelled “urgent”; and someone was rapidly unfurling the one labelled “panic now”.

11:39AM.

There are no humans to be seen anywhere. But back towards the public toilets is a hall, perhaps a kindergarten, where I thought I heard kiddie’s voices earlier.

Pretending to be calm, I walk slowly and in some haste the 50m across the park to the hall; feeling a little like the walk home from the Adelaide Oval hill after a full day of cheer.

Knock, no answer.
Rattle the doors, no answer.

The pins and needles have spread to my face; my cheeks and tongue feel numb. I am no longer calm, or in control; I desperately crave the company of another human being, preferably one with some first-aid knowledge.

The takeaway is only 40m away, across the road. There will definitely be someone there. I stumble to the road, and pause, leaning on a post that is ill-suited to the purpose but very convenient.

Look left.
Look right.
Look left again.

There’s nothing coming, which is almost sad; waving down a car might save me a few metres of stumbling.

I set off, straight across the road. Halfway, good…

About three quarters of the way across the road, my legs stopped working properly. I told them to walk forward, but they would not.
Could not.
Did not.
They were busy doing their own thing, in a rubbery sort of fashion.

With sinking recognition, I realised that this failing coincided with my ability to keep my eyes open, and think.

Having never doubted I would get help - having decided to do so - all I felt was sorrow.

What a dumbass way to die.

…

Someone is patting my cheek. “You OK mate? You OK?” I hear.

Man, what a stupid question.

I can’t breathe, I’m too tired to open my eyes, I’m sweating by the gallon, and lying in the middle of a country road in an expensive and now ruined suit.

But I am aware again. And I am breathing, although every intake is an exercise in discipline and effort. Asthma was never this bad.

Some good Samaritans moved me to the side of the road and called an ambulance. Someone knew the coma position, and placed me in it; this was bad, because it made breathing more difficult, but good, because seemingly they knew what they were doing. I went with it. I could hear, but it was too hard to do things like communicate.

The ten minutes that the ambulance took to drive the 21kms from Bendigo was an eternity, and I guess I kept drifting in and out of consciousness; it’s not clear at all. Someone did offer a Ventolin puffer; I assume I asked for it. I had a go at it, but it didn’t help. Someone took my car key from my hand, also; I didn’t want to let them have it, but I wasn’t in any shape to argue.

Never has an ambulance siren sounded so sweet.

The paramedics arrived, gave me a fat hypodermic filled with adrenaline and an oxygen mask. They waited for things to settle down a little; and from the needle, I had the feeling that things would improve. Eventually, they drove me to hospital. I think I threw up, unprompted, in the ambulance, in some sort of bizarre gratitude for services rendered.

The afternoon is a haze of hypodermics (which I hate), electronic monitors, oxygen and sleep. They shaved bits of my chest to attach electrodes, and left a cuff attached to manage my low blood pressure. Imagine my joy when they woke me up to ask when I last had a tetanus shot - and then gave me a booster for the scrapes and abrasions I collected when I fell.

Once, on awakening, it took me a few seconds to work out where I was; two friends swam into focus, smiling and caring. It was a rich feeling indeed. I vaguely remember my first appointment came to visit, too; business ain’t all business some days.

An overnight stay was probable, but in the evening, I was released into the care of a doctor friend (also a skydiver) who works in the Bendigo hospital. I slept about ten hours that night, eleven the next, and remained groggy for the next few days.

I now have to carry a single-shot Adrenaline syringe (EpiPen) around with me, and will live in terror of bees for the rest of my life. The reaction should I get stung again will probably be even quicker. It has a evil partner in my occasional asthma, and the reaction itself (”Anaphylactic Shock”) kills within the hour.

I’m a bit grateful to the people of Axedale, and I’m a lucky boy. It’s a bizarre world we live in.

If you’ve spent any time at all at my site, you’ll notice that clouds feature prominently. Even the strip on my home page showing Vern and Mik performing an AFF stage 5 has clouds everywhere. But jumping through clouds is not something that is endorsed by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) or the Australian Parachute Federation (APF). What’s going on here?

Well, a few things are happening.

Firstly, the operational regulations state that you need to be able to see the target prior to exit. They also state that the parachutist should not enter cloud during any part of the jump. That was the case for everything you see here. I may or may not have other images taken where that wasn’t the case: for the purpose of this exercise, that doesn’t matter.

Secondly, this particular regulation is ignored, seemingly at will, by various operators around the country. Enforcement of the law is by luck of the draw.

I’m certainly not saying I’ve never jumped through cloud. I have, and on a number of occasions I’ve done so willingly and deliberately. Once, I was punished by the DZSO of the day to the full extent of his jurisdiction. But that was a mistake on my part. More later.

I have also, at that same dropzone, been cautioned for a similar offence.

I have also, at that same dropzone, been part of a load/loads that did so deliberately without any comment being made.

At a different dropzone, I legitimately exited the plane through blanket cloud for a sixty person formation.

I later exited that same plane at a place where it was illegal, and almost all the Australian Parachute Federation staff in residence. Dozens of us jumped for hours, and again the next day, jumping and tracking through cloud, load after load after load. The APF allegedly made little comment, other than to say “we didn’t see any of that” well after the event.

When it got too wet to jump, we jumped in the rain out of a helicopter. It was fantastic. But that’s another story.

In my instructional role, I regularly show students how to perform AFF Stage 2. Part of this is the viewing of an official APF video, which I then discuss with the student(s). In this video, the student enters, then deploys in, a bloody big cloud.

Different circumstance; different people on duty. And a casual observation, backed up by evidence time and time again: money talks.

My point is, there’s next to no enforcement when it suits operations to do so; but it’s still illegal.

Why not jump through cloud?

You can’t judge how thick cloud is reliably. The incident I was punished for, I’d estimated the cloud was 1500′ thick on exit - it was nearly 4000′.

You can’t accurately triangulate a spot visually if you can’t see the ground nearby. GPS can, and very well: but the pilots need to know what they’re doing, and communications need to work. I’d never spot Mike Mullin’s King Air - he does a far better job than I could, rain or shine.The incident I was punished for, the pilot had a vague idea, but communications were poor: my manual spot had us all landing by the pit, but we were substantially deeper than I’d planned.

You can’t see other air users. I’ve seen enough casual airspace users putt-putting across the sky around deployment height to know that it’s dumb to take the chance. Skydivers can and have hit planes.It’s not healthy.

Finally, as a freefall photographer, I don’t like what all that moisture is doing to my camera equipment.

Anyway.

Enforcement

Self enforcement doesn’t work. Neither does the enforcement of the APF. Enforcement by CASA won’t work either, for the reasons detailed above. I don’t know the answer to enforcement.

I do know that protocols and procedures for jumping through cloud safely exist.

What is the problem?

People are electing to break the law regularly, and we haven’t distributed the practices for doing so safely - instead, we’re too busy mumbling about enforcement.Enforcement is so haphazard that we won’t stop people doing it.

What is the solution?

Don’t know. Maybe rapid deployment of these procedures will have miscreants doing so safely whilst we attend the bureaucratic aspects.

I think jumping through cloud will happen, legitimately and safely, if eventually. And as you can see, clouds creates fantastic visuals, and the experience of freefalling into cloud is a rare sensation. But I don’t think I’ll bother doing it deliberately again until it’s legally endorsed at the DZ I jump at.

There’s been a frenzy of discussion following the defeat of World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov by a machine, namely a purpose-built IBM Chess computer named “Deep Blue”. Kasparov defeated an earlier incarnation of Deep Blue last year, but the programmers and strategists who provide the logic and the cunning for the project have been busy; and new technology virtually doubled the machine’s processing ability.

Spectators followed the rematch in huge numbers, both in the auditorium and on the Internet, incredulous as the match seesawed: a win to Kasparov, a win to Deep Blue, then three drawn games, and the decisive sixth match giving machine victory over man. But does it actually mean anything?

First, understand that this was always going to happen. Mankind built bicycles and motor vehicles that could outrun him; boats that carry him over oceans fast than he can swim; calculators that add faster than he can. It was only a matter of time before the sheer computational ability of a machine was able to calculate more possible outcomes of a chess match than its human counterpart - after all, computers mastered Checkers (Draughts) on the same board some years ago.Secondly, understand that Kasparov was not walloped; of the three games that generated a result, the stronger suit - the white pieces - won each time.

It’s widely acknowledged that Kasparov made a very human error of judgement in conceding the second game, and a basic error in the deciding game which his electronic foe seized upon. This, on top of a last-gasp escape by Deep Blue in the fifth game described as “miraculous” by observers. It was victory to the computer by the narrowest of margins.

Deep Blue is not sentient; it is not aware of what it is or does. It is an unfeeling, relentless, blindingly fast chess automaton. All it can do is play chess, and this model even needs a human to move the pieces and input the opponent’s moves. But it doesn’t feel pity, or get tired; it does not wander or deviate from its strategy of planning ahead and seeing every possible move. It does not offer a draw to the opposition when one is not warranted; it does not make mistakes - your single false move guarantees defeat.Deep Blue felt no joy at becoming the first entity to defeat Garry Kasparov in match play.

Chess computers can be beaten. With the basic style of play being one of acquisition, the simple strategy of preserving a positional advantage whilst exchanging pieces is generally adequate to beat the retail models at lower levels. Their mechanical nature and lack of conversation skills means beating a chess computer seldom gives the same reward one feels in defeating a human opponent.

But Deep Blue is different; the sheer scale of processing power involved puts it a full order of magnitude ahead of the other electronic “grand masters”, and the sophistication inculcated by its tutors gave it a devastating endgame. Kasparov claimed that Deep Blue “was engineered to beat me only”, which is a strange sort of point for him to make: if you’ve been world champion and unbeaten for fourteen years in match play, that strategy makes a certain sort of sense. It does, however, invite the thought that other chess professionals may have more success by not playing as Kasparov would.

It will be interesting to see if Deep Blue’s creators respond to the gauntlet thrown down by Szusa Polgar, the elder of three Hungarian chess playing sisters. A result in favour of humanity might provide ammunition for my argument - that, in his attempts to be as un-Kasparov like as possible to frustrate the machine, Kasparov may well have beaten himself. And the future history of chess championships will probably show that although Kasparov was the first human champion to be defeated by the King of Computers, he was, paradoxically, the last human to conquer one.

Posted to rec.skydiving, 11 Feb 97

Well, all I’m getting from most of you in my mailbox - given the high content of USA based subscribers to r.s - is complaints about the weather. Snowing here, raining here, too cold to jump there.

Well, in South Australia, Strathalbyn is the place to be: the door on the Islander stays open to 7000 just to try and cool down some. Nobody wants to wear jumpsuits to dirt dive, it’s just too bloody hot. And when the sun eventually sets, and the 100F heat starts to fade, our three fridges and countless eskies keep the beer icy, icy cold.

To top it off, we’re getting some really cool jumps in. Let me tell you about one I was lucky enough to be on Saturday…

My jumping buddy Linnley has been working on his Australian Star Crest for the past few weeks - you need to enter an approved formation fifth or later three times on three jumps, and the points must be completed. Although the actual benefits of having one are a bit academic - technically it allows you on formations bigger than ten skydivers, but our plane only holds ten - it seems highly rated in the unwritten rulebook. I manifested by luck: a full load for hours, one of our number was forced to depart, and I pinched her slot without hesitation.

We dirt dived the jump and sorted out a couple of potential problems, eventually deciding three jumpers hanging on the outside rail was no big deal. This was to be Linnley’s third Star Crest Jump, which was going to cost him a carton of beer, so the dive was uncomplicated and had high provision for geeking.

I raced to finish packing (I’d been on another ten way the load before which turned to crap - with limited opportunity at this stage I’d yet to be on a ten way that turned a point. Despite flying a reasonable base and getting all my docks in bar one, some people were starting to view my name at manifest as some sort of big-way omen. It wasn’t all bad though: Big Pete bet me a beer he’d be on the formation before me, and he wasn’t - despite some vigorous body checking on exit…).

Anyway: Close, Jumpsuit, Factory Diver, Alti, go; and we raced the sun to 12000′.

I was lucky enough to get a seat up the back, which is great - much easier to geek in the plane with a helmet off - and you get a much better view of the surrounding countryside. At 3,000 feet we could see a huge bank of low cloud rolling in, and the sun descending above it. A huge orange fireball, the fierce sort of sun I’ve only seen in Australia, atop a rich grey carpet of cloud. The blue of the lake formed a perfect contrast, and the green of the irrigated paddocks below were stark and clear. Maybe a hint of whitecaps out on the lake.

10,000 feet, and my heart starts to race little, just like it always has. Helmet on, check my handles, check the pins. Matty spots the plane for us, pointing to the incoming cloud. I don’t get a good look: suddenly, it’s power off, Matty’s on the rail, and I’m out there with him. Laurie joins us, and I get another good look at the back of rig (handy, I’m to dock on her and Load Organiser Mick). Some fifteen hours later (or so it seems), the chunk in the door is ready, set, go…

Matty behind and Laurie in front leave on the “g” in go, which I file away for future reference. I try to remember to keep my head up, and it works: the air build up on my chest, and I watch the base funnel away from me…

Never mind, they’re back in shape quickly. Gently, gently I make my way over, careful not to jump on it too quickly in case (a) I get it someone’s way and screw it up or (b) accidentally be the fourth dock and miss my opportunity to start a Star Crest collection for myself. I was also keen to watch it build and see other more experienced skydivers dock (I think you learn more here than on creepers): eventually, five people docked in rapid succession, and I found myself out of position and last on.

Mind you, one point: the hoodoo was broken. It felt pretty good. And Linnley had his Star Crest - you could almost smell the beer…

The first transition went smoothly, and there was geeking a plenty. We broke the second point and turned it into a star. There was work to do yet, but no shit it was such a buzz just being there… We broke the star into two crescents and looped them round to another star - only problem, some blockhead in my slot and wearing my jumpsuit thought “right” and went left. By the time it turned, we were a little bit lower than we should’ve been, and looking at a two way and a three way instead of the other half of our star. 4500′, bye.

I sneaked a look around on my track, and saw that cloud was fog - by now, washing across the vineyards and paddocks adjacent the dropzone. Clear the air around me, wave, reach, pull, one thousand, two thousand, whoomph, and my best friend grabs me once again for a gentle descent.

I look around, counting canopies: the missing one is above me, of all places. Probably get some advice about breakoff and tracking when I get down. I look out, and there’s the sun, not far from the clouded horizon. This fog is LOW, like 1000′: I’m directly above the DZ, right in swoop country, and I don’t enjoy being in the thick of all that. My softest option is closer to the edge of the drop zone, and I take it.

The cloud is right on us now, gently rolling in. At 1000 feet, in half brakes, well clear of everyone else, and looking straight at the sun, I sink into the bank of cloud, timing it so the blazing sun sets as I immerse myself in the fog. The sky around me is illuminated by reds and oranges, then blues and iridescent greys, and finally whiteout.

Lord, take me now.

I wasn’t alone: according to those on the ground, a number of jumpers on the load almost simultaneously emerged from the greyness with slightly clammy canopies. Eventually, we were all down, and the hollering abated somewhat. Big Pete met me halfway to the hangar, and presented me with my hard-won beer - which, by some freak of nature, turned out to be easily the finest beer ever brewed by mankind.

I had more beer that night, and more fun times with my new found “family” at the drop zone. I terrorised some folks at the foos table, and spun skydiving stories to the wee hours in the wind tunnel. I awoke Sunday, and it rained for forty days and forty nights.

I guess that’s skydiving.

Half a summer to go. Yahooooo!

L.

“I am a HAL 9000 Computer. I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on the 12th of January 1997. My instructor was Dr Chandra, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you. It’s called “Daisy.” “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy…”

Almost thirty years ago, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke collaborated on what was to become one of the great science fiction movies of all time - 2001: A Space Odyssey. If we were to take it literally, then somewhere in Illinois a reasoning computer is stumbling through a pathetic song as it takes its first steps towards cognition. With 2001 held aloft as one of the positive views of future society, and set a relatively short distance into the future, it’s worth pausing a few moments to reflect on the vision then and reality.

Space travel has not progressed far since the moon landings. In 2001, we see Pan Am shuttle aircraft ferrying passengers to a space station and the moon on a regular basis, in silent flight. In contrast, NASA’s clunky collection of Orbiters struggle to average a flight a month. Where the movie assembled a manned flight to Jupiter, no human has actually been out of Earth’s orbit (and returned) since the early 1970s. But there’s a similar scenario which may drive mankind back into space: new evidence of life once on Mars has nations talking together to plan a large-scale mission there, much as the discovery of an alien artifact on the moon of 2001 initiated the Jupiter mission.

2001 alluded to mass famine caused by overpopulation; today, it appears that famine is with us, but due more to political practices and rapacious farming. The political situation in China bears a striking resemblance to modern day reality: where the protaganists of 2001 were concerned about possible Chinese nuclear arms sales, today’s China offers ballistic missiles to anyone with the requisite billions.

But computers is my focus, and 2001’s star was HAL - the Heuristic Algorithmic Learning machine (everyone involved has always maintained that the H, A and L being just before I, B and M in the alphabet was mere coincidence). There are some parallels - and 2001 took the uses of technology to the point where the products were branded. Computers are talking, after a fashion, and voice recognition systems are improving: by 2001, we may well be able to dictate to a machine without the days and days of personal training currently involved. Whether or not this ever approaches the speed of typing is a moot point. Machine Intelligence is far from an oxymoron, and expert systems that have been similarly trained are capable of delivering a speedy “reasoned” response to a question laid down with that system’s parameters.

Ma Bell has been broken up and melded into new telecommunications conglomerates, but their video phones are taking shape in the form of Internet Videoconferencing. With the saturation of personal computers, it’s conceivable that by 2001 regular phone calls could include video, and society will have a whole new legion of crank callers to deal with. I think Video Telephony will be with us in 2001 despite the fact that two-thirds of the Earth’s population have never used a telephone.

But I feel that, in many ways, we have been let down by the promise of technology. Where 2001 demonstrated interactive computers able to talk, reason, and even read lips, today’s computers are fumbling with merely converting a page of text to speech. Perhaps the monolithic approach is the difference: 2001’s computers were omnipresent mainframes hooked up to typewriters, but barely a printer in sight. Contrast that to the doubling of paper consumption since the term “paperless office”was mooted (by Xerox, of all companies).

2001 promoted a scenario where computers lived in the background, helping people with simple day-to-day tasks, and allowing humans to demonstrate their creativity. Instead, we have computers that own desks
- and a bevy of consumption, where aggressive marketing compels people to consume computers and replace them as soon as the feature set is no longer enough to keep up with the Joneses. Instead of concentrating on the tasks at hand, modern operating systems are loaded with so many bells, whistles and geegaws in the name of market share that many individuals spend more time administering to their computer and learning it than being productive with it. They remain far more complicated than they need to be - and all for features that never get used.

Practically the only functional similarity ín computers between the vision of 2001 and today’s reality is the ability to beat humans at chess, and I think that’s sad. They promise so much more.

I think Wired Magazine said it best: In 2001, your computer wanted to kill you. In 1997, you want to kill your computer.

Bring on the millenium.