Theres a great documentary "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea" (narrated by John Waters!) Definitely one of my top 10 documentaries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TjGAWxL23c
Some smaller companies and startup still do this. They need to in order to attract good talent. Toss that in with the fact that they sometimes pay better (for the same reason) and a fairly decent balance can be had.
Excellent read. Just a few more pointers from personal experience. When over water, "pencil" your body, feet first, at the very last second. Molecules of atmosphere, which are your friend at 120mph, are not so much when they are of water.
I've never been on the offshore survival course where they teach you how to jump off an oil platform into the sea and survive, but allegedly they tell you to cover your mouth firmly with the palm of your hand and pinch your nostrils closed tight between your thumb and fingers. Apparently when you hit the cold water your natural reaction is to breath in. Also, you must prevent water being forced up your nostrils and damaging your brain etc.
I have been. You do get to practice that jump off of a moderately high diving board, I forget exactly how high it is. But it's legs together, feet pointed down, one arm with the hand over your face pinching your nose and the other held tight to your stomach. Nobody mentioned doing anything special on entering the water, besides the obvious of swimming to the surface after you stop.
The thing that kills most people who are "simply" buried in an avalanche (and not pulped as they're carried through the tries or into a rock) is actually the CO₂ concentration in the snow around their nose and mouth building up over time.
I have a piece of avalanche survival kit made for skiers/snowboarders called the "AvaLung" in my off-piste bag. It draws air in from around the face, and vents your exhalations out behind you. People have survived being buried an hour or more wearing one of those.
I’ve also seen cliff divers saying to clench your buttocks as tightly as you can; apparently it helps keep your legs rigid so you don’t knee yourself in the face, and may reduce the likelihood of internal injury from impact to the perineal area.
Another key thing is to open your legs soon after entering the water to slow your decent. Don't stay in that pencil position or you're likely to go deeper than you really want to.
I know a guy who got to meet Queen Elizabeth. He was required to go through a royal customs seminar before meeting her. Apparently, you NEVER use "you" when talking to the queen. You can't say "Would you like some tea?". You must say "Would Your Majesty like some tea?". Hows that for formal.
Older English man still use indirect speech when referring to themselves and the person they're talking to if there's a significant class difference or even gender. Sometimes they'll even avoid posing questions altogether: "One would like to request your company for tea if it not too inconvenient...".
Makes everyone sound like a wedding invitation. :)
I still use "One" quite a lot in writing (especially forums) when I need to discuss your personal opinion without implying that I'm speaking for the other parties in the conversation. i.e.
"You often see cars speeding along this road" <- perfectly valid and the context can be taken from the way it is delivered in speach, but could be misread to imply that the writer thinks the person they are addressing sees the cars.
"One often sees cars speeding along this road" <- unambiguous.
People always say this sort of thing when talking about distant events, it's not actually true.
When we're talking about long distances then the relativity of simultaneity comes into play strongly. There is no universal ordering of events, there is a substantial degree of relativity to ordering of events that are separated by great distances. And, in fact, the only hard boundaries on this ordering are the "light cones" connecting events. In one reference frame the M82 supernova could have happened 12 million years ago, in another reference frame it could have happened a year ago, or two years ago, or even 20 million years ago. In the reference frame of any neutrinos that happened to have been created in the supernova it would have occurred mere seconds or hours before the first light reached Earth.
