It is in the land of the free. It's generally not banned in Europe, so most BASE jumpers who are active spend at least a few weeks a year there.
About 10 to 20 die world wide in about a population of 1000 or so active jumpers. It can be done relatively safely but the group isn't big enough to regulate effectively and most BASE jumpers are hostile to anyone mentioning the idea.
I'm aware that BASE jumping is banned in US National Parks (and it's been argued that this increases the risk [1]), but it doesn't seem to be banned generally in America (see Perrine Bridge, or Bridge Day, for example [2]).
For the age group 25-44 we have 269.8 male deaths per 100k, vs 114.8 female ones - or a total of 192.0 per 100k regardless of gender, or nearly ~2 per 1000.
Looking at http://base-jumping.eu/base-jumping-fatality-list/ , which might be a bit dated, I see 26 fatalities listed for 2015 world wide. I tried to find how many base jumpers exist, and ended up on a forum where it was speculated upon. Perhaps 3000? In which case we have a mortality of ~9 per thousand , no age group discrimination.
So.. from that perhaps naive collection I see a 4-5x increased risk of dying if being a base jumper compared to just being average. However one can ponder if it would help fight depression and such. And, looking at death rates for 45+ , cancer then becoming a major killer with obesity certainly being a factor. How many lives does the fitness regime of base jumping save?
And out of a pool of similar 1000 people? I seem to recall that affluent young men used to kill themselves in sports-car racing in the preceding decades.
Perhaps this is a confounding factor: as Spooky23 notes in a sibling comment, "Cars are engineered to protect all but the most reckless and negligent from death" - but indeed, who else would choose BASE but the reckless and the self-proclaimed immortals?
If we're talking about car racing, rather than just driving a car, yes, I agree it is pretty dangerous. Probably still not as dangerous as trying to navigate canyons in a wing suit.
It's not like poeple don't understand the risk - especially by the time they get to the point where they can actually do it. What about all the other 'extreme' sports where death and/or serious injury is a possible outcome?
Valid concerns, sure. But how is banning it a good solution? How do you even enforce a ban on a group of people who are okay risking their lives for fun?
Maybe instead you get them contributing to a local SAR organization. Maybe they have to get insurance. Or something else more constructive and less ham-fisted than just making it illegal.
Why is banning stuff so high on everyone's list of solutions to problems that don't really affect them?
Personally, I think as few things as possible should be banned/restricted. If things directly impact other peoples lives, then sure, but if its indirect or minimal, then perhaps not. Its a difficult balance though (but in general, I'm in the "the less government involvement in the peoples lives the better" camp).
> About 10 to 20 die world wide in about a population of 1000 or so active jumpers.
How is 10-20 peoples worth of coronor time worldwide an appreciable number for taxpayers. Furthermore is it even remotely comparable to the cost of trying to enforce a ban, which would presumably also be funded by tax payers.
My point is more that you've at least thought about it a little, unlike the OP of this thread.
People get injured all the time while just walking/climbing and have to be helicoptered out, one august week in the alps has probably enough deaths to cover yearly wingsuits deaths.
I could list 100 things people should not do that are less flamboyant but waste more life and more resources. I'm not saying "Give up on reducing dangerous behaviors." I am saying there are more effective priorities.
Quite: cigarettes, alcohol, bad driving, and cooking whilst drunk and passing out with the stove still on[1] kill way more people annually than BASE jumping and I don't see anybody banning them.
[1] I'm obviously not 100% sure about this last one but it seems likely.
How would you enforce a ban on people jumping off tall objects?
The Antenna part of BASE must be getting harder to achieve. When I worked in the radio and TV broadcast industry we had problems with BASE jumpers climbing masts at remote unmanned sites, but physical security is always being improved.
Also, you wouldn't want to try climbing onto a live high power mast radiator, you would be vaporized.
A ban might not stop people from jumping, but it would certainly underscore that this is dangerous. I don't think there's any commercial BASE jumping, but if there is/was, a ban would definitely stop that.
If you're a new programmer, I don't think you should start from OO. OO-based languages are built on procedural, structural and imperative programming foundations. Starting from OO may force you to see everything as an object even when it doesn't fit.
The less you start off with, the better your understanding will be, and then you should learn to expand your horizons with other programming paradigms: logical, functional, and many others.
I know that a lot of universities (mine included) introduce programming through object oriented programming so this could be a problem for a lot of people going into university without much if any programming experience, much like I did. I've been interested lately and reading more about functional programming though.
Through object oriented programming or through a programming language that can do it? Many programming introductions start with mostly procedural/imperative, while using a language that has OO (and which is then introduced later in detail).
Totally agreed on other paradigms not being teached enough though.
OO is more an organizational method than a programming method; it still falls down to being imperative (do this; do that). OO is nice when you have a lot of types and few actions whereas non-OO languages are nice when you have lots of actions and few types. When there are a small number of types and actions, it really doesn't matter which organization method you use, but if you expect the types to grow, use OO. If you expect the actions to grow, don't use OO. If both are expected to grow to large numbers, there still isn't a good organization method yet.
It's kinda hilarious in that. CLRS is the gold standard recommended introductory text for algorithms, but it's so dense and over-stuffed that it's overkill, so better for reference. Skiena has a lot of stuff you don't need, but is comparably more succinct and light to read.
