An antenna, which is 40cm across and 15cm high, is firmly embedded in a 4.5 tonne slab of 300 million year-old sandstone from Yorkshire which in turn is fixed almost three metres into the earth.

BBC: Satellite technology aids quake research

It takes its name from the four fixed objects - buildings, antennae, spans and earth - which divers use to take off.

BBC: Mother's grief at base jump death of Gary Harbird

But customers of Gilat Satellite Networks of Israel are already buying fixed phones tied to geostationary satellites (which hover 38, 000 kilometers above the earth, versus 1, 350 kilometers for Globalstar).

FORBES: Surviving Iridium

The acronym stands for the categories of fixed objects aficionados can jump from: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs, mountains).

BBC: Profile: Skydiver Felix Baumgartner

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.

NPR: An Author's Companion in Rage, Exile and Return