can you studs un hijack this thread?

if not explain what it's about

Your posts are awesome and if you had a book I'd buy it and I'm glad you're back on the forum but you're not even close to being right here

Dudeman wrote: “ Also, apparently you're not going to confirm whether that was Taft you jumped at?  ”

Sorry I missed the question. I jumped at Taft in the mid 1970s. I earned my SCR at Elsinore. Those are the only two Southern California DZs I have jumped at. NorCal DZs include Livermore, Antioch, Tracy, Santa Rosa, Pope Valley, Monterey and Byron.

Jumping this coming Saturday at Byron. I turn 72 soon. So grateful to still be able to skydive.

377

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New episode out tonight. DB Cooper’s safety deposit box with Tim Collins aka SafecrackingPLF.

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Enjoy!

I’ve got some other great guests coming up, but I’m still waiting on a few of you guys to come on. If you’re on the fence I’d say maybe ask some one that’s been on, how their experience was. This show will last a pretty long time, but I’m not going to be doing it much longer. I’m talking to you Georger, Flyjack, Parrothead, shutter, and snowmman.

3 hours is a lot to listen to.  Anyone know when he talks about Bayes or if he talks about Max Gunther?  Here are some comments on the parts I've listened to, and response to some of the posts on DZ.

Tim seems like a reasonable person. I like the approach of narrowing the field so to say, but I question some of the math.  He starts off taking a total US population of 225 million, then the next step is taking into account male smokers, then somewhere in there is wavy hair, pocket knife ownership, etc.  I don't think you can multiply the percentage of male smokers by the total population. You need to multiply the percentage of male smokers by the total male population.

The flaw in this is the overlap of what I would call conditions.  There is double counting going on.  If I take all the pocket knife owners, with wavy hair, with swarthy complexions, who smoked, then I might have more than the total population.  It would be like me adding together all the people in the US with high blood pressure and then adding in all the people who are overweight and who don't exercise.  These symptoms overlap, in that someone who has high blood pressure is also likely to not exercise, so I can only really count them once.  I learned this in detail when looking at populations to recruit from for military service.  We found that much of American youth had multiple disqualifying conditions, and that 18 year olds with criminal records often had poor grades and tested poorly on aptitude tests.  So even if we got them to prepare for the aptitude test and do well, it did not change the fact that they had other issues. Comorbid would be the medical term.

I do believe in narrowing the field, but would look at it a little differently.  Something in this order:

1.  Take the total male population in the US around 1970.  Make the assumption he was American. Add in Canada if you want.  He was not female.
2.  Take his age.  In 1970 there were about 25M males between the age of 35 and 60.
3.  Take out those who did not serve in the military (again an assumption)
4.  Take out East Asian, African American, and any other groups that he certainly was not a member of
5.  Now try to figure in smokers.  Take out PhDs, maybe take out Masters level.  Take out eye colors if you'd like.

It gets tricky when you start looking at overlaps, like brown eyes who served in the military who are of the right age.  But, you can definitely whittle down the total number.  But you can't get it down to 19 people like the podcast guest did.  Duane Weber is one of thousands of American males, maybe 10s of thousands that fit Cooper's description.  How does this help right now? It probably does not. But in the future with enough databases, the field can be narrowed.  Ancestry.com can do a lot simply by using the census data.  How many males, aged 35-60, of European descent, who lived in a certain area, who served in the military, etc.  It can be done.  And that then gives you the list of who's DNA to look at.  Possible, but not probable given our privacy laws.

Georger: Good points on DZ about probability.  Simple probability works.  How many times did a plane flying South on that route make the turn to the West?  To use probability we need to know what distribution to use, as in uniform, normal, Poisson, etc.  It is a complicated field, but it is often used to overcomplicate things. The parachute probably opened.  It probably got him to the ground.  But if we want to use Bayes and figure out what the probability of the chute getting him to the ground given the probability that it opened, then great.

I'm all for using math like in the podcast, but there needs to be a balance with common sense.  There are a lot of basic facts in this case that don't need to be made more complex.  I have graduate level classes in probability for engineers, and I can say that it is a very complex field.  Maybe not to the level of physics, but complex.  So it is easy for people to throw out a bunch of concepts that confuse or make people disengage.  I just don't see the need for deep complex math here.  Maybe some algebra, but not calculus so to say.  Well maybe a little calculus.

Last thing.  The podcast mentions left hand smoker.  Were there nicotine stains on both hands or just one, and if one, then which hand?

As most here, I thoroughly enjoy Darren's podcast.  Some guests and theories are better than others.  I can certainly appreciate Tim's passion for his suspect and the case in general.  But Duane is a tough sell as a suspect, like trying to swim with a millstone tied to your waste.

I still have about ~40 minutes left, but my take so far:
- They talked about a cabin being broken into and a couple of food cans being stolen from it in the original drop zone within a few days of the hijacking--no valuables taken, just food.  I feel like this may have been discussed here before, but not sure.  But Darren seemed to not have heard about it before so not sure if it is really new info, but it's mildly interesting. 
- Gunther was mentioned briefly, it was speculated that Clare or Clara would have been one of Duane's previous wives i.e. not Jo....but again, no proof of it, just speculation....
- All in all, the case being made was based on a lot of coincidences that didn't really seem very compelling.  Ex:
  - Duane and Jo went to many different Casinos. Implication being he was laundering the money...no hard evidence
  - So Dwayne had a few lock boxes...many people do, doesn't mean he was Coop.

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As most here, I thoroughly enjoy Darren's podcast.  Some guests and theories are better than others.  I can certainly appreciate Tim's passion for his suspect and the case in general.  But Duane is a tough sell as a suspect, like trying to swim with a millstone tied to your waste.

I still have about ~40 minutes left, but my take so far:
- They talked about a cabin being broken into and a couple of food cans being stolen from it in the original drop zone within a few days of the hijacking--no valuables taken, just food.  I feel like this may have been discussed here before, but not sure.  But Darren seemed to not have heard about it before so not sure if it is really new info, but it's mildly interesting. 
- Gunther was mentioned briefly, it was speculated that Clare or Clara would have been one of Duane's previous wives i.e. not Jo....but again, no proof of it, just speculation....
- All in all, the case being made was based on a lot of coincidences that didn't really seem very compelling.  Ex:
  - Duane and Jo went to many different Casinos. Implication being he was laundering the money...no hard evidence
  - So Dwayne had a few lock boxes...many people do, doesn't mean he was Coop.

Im still not sure who started all of this, Jo or Duane. At one point Jo told one person the Cooper story was 'good for business' and specifically an insurance business Jo and Duane were seeking to launch? That seems like flawed logic to me but who knows? What Jo was doing, day to day, is what got my attention. Jo was a consummate net-worker - Duane not so much and more private. Jo developed a network of people she contacted on a daily-weekly basis and this went on for years. That alone accounts for all of her files (Sluggo and Collins actually saw when they visited her). Jo's technique was highly refined! Jo used the 'back door method'. If Jo could not get to Himmelsbach directly, then get to H's wife, or several of his friends. JT and JT's wife remember when Jo first contacted him. JT's recollection is that Jo was claiming 'Duane might have been' DB Cooper - not that he was DB Cooper. There is a universe of difference. Jo developed a long relationship with H's wife, based on compassion and trading personal (female) anecdotes. Jo worked the crowd like any good saleswoman does, and her contacts quickly became 'informants'.

It was through these contacts (people off the map - people you would never think of - people adjacent to the Cooper case investigation) where Jo developed much of her information/ideas. When the Citizen sleuths formed Jo contacted people she could find immediately looking for inside information. I cut that off as best I could, immediately. It didnt take 24 hours for Jo to figure that out!  Jo called my home phone the next day several times and let several anonymous (female) snide remarks  basically challenging my "authority", as she worded it.

This was serious business with Jo Weber. It distresses me that anyone got sucked into this con job or perused Jo Weber's fantasies. The Cooper case has always attracted speculators and opportunists. The interference at times was great. I am sure there were discussions about prosecuting Jo Weber. My recollection is that Duane Weber himself protested on his deathbed asking to Jo to "Leave it alone!". It may be very clear what he was saying, requesting, and why . . .