riddler

Those are just RW people that are converting to FF. After all, belly flying is just another type of FF, right? A few weeks ago, three of us got together to FF. I have no idea how it happened. There I was, AFFI, lots of tunnel time on belly, trying to remember what it was like to FF when I was young. Next to me a guy that had been to nationals four-way RW twice, borrowed a FF suit from the DZO. Then a guy that I had done several belly jumps with, 4,000 RW jumps, 4-way nationals several times, wearing a very tight RW suit from the 80s (no booties, tiny grippers). We went right to our RW training, and mocked up the exit. The only thing we didn't do was get on creepers Usually, I pick up a FF jump at about 8,000 feet. "Me? I'm solo. Will I do a four way FF with two people I've never met before? Sure, why not . We've got like 2 or 3 minutes on a cramped plane to rehearse it in our heads ... You guys know how to track, right? I don't have a camera - are you sure you want me to still FF with you?" Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Tru dat. Mach kernal, anyone? Also funny how many macs were made with magnesium casings when Jobs came back - where, oh where did he get that idea? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I have to admit that I like .NET. It has flaws for sure, but there has been a tremendous library base built up around .NET, surpassing Java in several ways. I'm also surprised that most of the .NET programmers I talk to are C#.NET - more than half of those transitioned from Java, due to the similarity of the syntax. Last year, I deployed my first production C# application, and I would say that it was equivalent to any Java app I've ever built - in some ways even better. But I have yet to see a comparison of enterprise level apps in .NET vs. Java. And at this point, I doubt that I will ever fully convert - just too much time spent learning Java, and I believe too much in multi-platform compatibility. This is where Jobs' statement surprises me. You would think that he would be more supportive of a platform that executes equally on Mac as well as PC. New macs run Windows apps, but I don't think Jobs wants to sell out completely to Windows. OTOH, I remember the NeXt computer. First Jobs said it was the end-all be-all of systems. Then they stopped making hardware, and said NextStep was the end-all be-all of OSes. Then they stopped making NextStep and Jobs ended up back at Apple. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Nobody uses Applets anymore. By today's standard, they don't cut the mustard (yes, eener, that little phrase just proves how old I am ). How many websites do you see that have URLs that end in JSP? A good chunk of web applications use Java somewhere in the back-end, even if you don't see it on the web page itself. 80% of mobile devices have Java as well. It's not the best thing going out there right now, but it definitely has a wide acceptance base, and yes, people still use it. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

When asked why the iPhone does not include Java, Steve Jobs of Apple replied: Well, that sucks. I've been programming Java for 12 years now, and my career is in the toilet, I guess. I guess, me and the other five million Java programmers world-wide will have to make a living by relying on the 4 billion other devices that currently do support Java. I hope someday I'm as rich and powerful as Steve Jobs, so I can live in my own little fantasy world, too Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

$160 for 16K "mosaic tile", which improved my Atari 800 from 32K to 48K. Mostly, it just made Ms. Pac Man run better for my mom. And the Atari 800 was my second computer - the first was a 400 which could not be upgraded. Tape drive - I'll never forget the wrrrrr-wrrrrr-wrrrr-BEEP sound it made when you loaded a program. And whatever happened to plugging into your television for a monitor? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Seems like these days, self-defense means defending yourself from someone with a gun. I don't think of martial arts as a way to fight - what good is it against someone (even a kid) with a gun? OTOH, martial arts, like dancing, swimming, whatever teaches kids great coordination, and especially can give them discipline (which is what many kids in our society seem to lack), and personally, I think can even improve their mental concentration. I plan to teach my daughter kung fu for exercise and discipline, but also the many ways to avoid fighting. It's not worth fighting these days. When I was a kid, I never saw anyone get into serious trouble in school for fighting - we were all on our own. These days, they kick you out of school for one fight. Sure, kids in my school had knives, etc, but we never had guns. I see kids just on my block waving guns around, and even occasionally firing them in the street. Why fight with another kid if they've got a gun? I don't think martial arts is much good for self-defense anymore, but it's still great exercise. Self defense means having a cell phone and knowing how to talk your way out of situations. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

They are also reducing the price of the 8 gig iPhone from $599 to $399. That is a pretty significant move, putting it in line with Blackberrys, price-wise. 180 gig - I can't even fill up my 60 gig Zen. I guess if I had a lot of movies, I would use more space. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I've observed that revolutionary ideas are almost never successful, no matter the initial hype. On the other hand, evolutionary ideas get very little notice, but seem to become the norm very quickly. I was thinking of this when I went into Home Depot the other day, and saw a Quizno's Express kiosk. Have you seen these? Supposedly, they are going into gas stations, hospitals, sports venues, etc. They are units that take up about 25 square feet of floor space (I'm estimating), and are attended by one employee, have a smaller franchise fee, and do not make the food on demand (it appears to be made earlier in the morning, somewhere else, and delivered to the kiosk daily). This isn't a new (or revolutionary) idea - Starbuck's puts coffee bars in just about everything. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to go into a Starbuck's, and see another Starbuck's inside of it (would that violate some law of physics?). But it is different (evolutionary) in that it seems to fill the void between a small but semi-permanent bar (such as a mini-Starbuck's) and a vending machine or hot-dog stand, and would cater to businesses that can't sacrifice too much floor space, franchise owners that can't afford an entire staff or large fees, and customers that want food everywhere, but refuse to eat out of vending machines. Quizno's is based in Denver, and so am I. Supposedly, they've had these kiosks for more than 10 years, but this is the first once I've noticed. At the same time, I can imagine in another 10 years, walking down the gates at Denver International Airport and seeing a different mini-kiosk at each Gate - 10-foot wide Burger King with pre-packed food and one employee at Gate 37, 10-foot wide Jamba Juice with one employee at Gate 38, Einstein's Bagels at Gate 39, etc, etc. How long before we see these in every large store? If I wasn't fundamentally opposed to fast food, I would be tempted to buy a few of these just to see how well they work. The franchise fee for Quizno's Express is only $10,000. Get a credit card, and you can start a business with that. Maybe a few smart skydivers will start setting these up at the local dropzones? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

There once was a place called "The Pub", Oft it is broke, there's the rub. On Wednesday night, someone posts the beer-light, then you know to get in there, Bub. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Maybe a better title should be OS-X vs. Vista. My opinion - OS-X beats Vista hands down. No contest. If you are in a financial and application-agnostic position that you can choose between the two, get a Mac. OS-X also beats XP and Linux, and the Mac hardware is better than just about anything else out there (Sony Vaio comes close). The one exception is if you do a lot of gaming. Then you should get XP (not Vista). Sure you can run XP from a Mac, but why boot into it all the time? If Windows is going to be your primary OS (for games or whatever), then just get a windows machine. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Ah, the King Air. It holds a special place in my heart, as it was the plane I learned to jump out of. I didn't even jump out of a Cessna until I had like 70 jumps, and that was just because I wanted to try something different A few years ago, my DZ got an Otter in addition to the King Air. Now I do almost all of my jumps out of the Otter. The King Air is used mostly for tandems, and the Otter for AFF and fun jumpers. But if there's ever a problem with the Otter, or not enough room, we can always slum it in the King Air Wow, I just realized how gosh-darn spoiled I am Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I had a student in one of my scuba classes that was a dermatologist, and we were talking about small skin wounds. She mentioned that they've done studies that show that Neosporin and other similar topicals don't do any better than putting plain ol' Vaseline on it. She said they will heal much faster and scar less if you keep them covered in a jelly, but save yourself the expense, and get a small tub of Vaseline instead of Neosporin. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I don't post as much as I used to, but I still post. I think it was CanuckInUSA that pointed out that I have WAY more posts than jumps, so I thought it would be better if I shut up and jumped more Still lurk though. I saw that thread and thought "AggieDave", then I just saw AggieDave post, so I guess I'm not the only one limiting myself. Keep posting yourself, though! I still read 'em

If your mom uses a browser to send and receive email, and she never wants to do anything else, then it's probably a better option than Windows. It's definitely a more stable OS - I've been using Redhat since release 6, and even though Fedora still could use a lot of work, your tech support will be limited. Anyway, eventually, someone is going to email your mom some crochet pattern application that only works on Windows, and then you're screwed. She'll whine for the next six months about how she can't open that and ask if you can make it work. Short answer - buy your mom a Mac. Linux is still for people that like to tinker hard-core. Edit - just want to add for anyone who's thinking of buying this laptop - immediately upgrade to 1 gig memory. Seriously. Even for Linux. With Redhat 9, I had to upgrade from 256 to 512 just to make it run decently. With Fedora, you really do want 1 gig. The hard drive is probably adequate (but OpenOffice can suck that down if you are planning on using Office apps). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

According to legend, here was a time when the number one cause of death in the US for skydivers was drowning. The response was required water training. I did mine in a heated pool, swimming trunks, no chest strap, round parachute. Then we all played on the water slides and sat in the hot tub with the hot skychics. Just because it's required, doesn't mean it shouldn't be comfortable and fun Never landed in water, but there isn't much still water in Colorado. Maybe they'll require swoop training next (or swoop awareness, or something like that). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I was particularly impressed with the giant wall murals at the end of the tour - something like 15 feet high I guess they took quite a while to complete. I could spend several days at that museum, and it's not all that big. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I was once on a flight to Auckland, and the plane was delayed due to weather. It took United three days to get the last of us out. On the plane, before we found out about the delay, I would describe their normal, well-behavior as aggressive. When they found out the flight was delayed, I thought they were going to riot - a Kiwi next to me explained that they were just a bit perturbed

Because the universe is about 15 billion years old, and homo sapiens has only been around for the last 100,000 of those. If you believe that other life is out there, it is likely that it is much, much older than us. If you also believe that life evolves and gets smarter, then it is likely that most other life is much more advanced than us. Or maybe humans are way more brilliant than any other life that has ever existed, and we have become the most advanced life in the universe. Um, yeah, right. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

When Chuck Norris speaks, Merriam Webster automatically changes all grammatical rules for the entire English language so that everyone else speaks like him. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Well put! That fact in itself may drive non-HP fans crazy, and to me it's an insight to just how brilliant Rowling is. You kinda have to know the entire story to understand that one answer, and I've heard a lot of people (non-HP fans) ask the question. So if you want to know if Harry dies, you are sort of forced to read all the books. I was really shocked at Ron leaving, I was completely wrong (as usual) about most of my guesses (I was sure Snape was a bad guy, but I did suspect Harry's scar was a Horcrux), and I was hoping for more in the epilogue (what did everyone do for work, how did the Weaselys deal with the death of one of the twins, who became headmaster after Snape, did Hermione return to complete NEWTS, etc). The worst part for me was the death of Dobby! But it was really a good book, IMO - much more action and less suspense and mystery than previous novels, which is exactly what I was hoping it would be. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I can't pretend to understand all the issues in Turkey, the religion there, or the politics, but I work with Turkish I.T. people in the main city of Istanbul and have frequent discussions with them about the situation. The inside take from them is that the AKP party is pro-fundamentalist, and their intention is to remove secularity from the government (in other words, they want to bring back religion into the government). To understand the background, you have to go back to the beginning of modern Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century. A man, whom the turks call the Ataturk (meaning "father of the Turks") came to power and introduced sweeping changes to what was previously an empire. Among other things, the Ataturk introduced democracy, educational reforms, scientific learning, women's rights and a separation of church and state (secularism). He is considered a hero to many modern Turks. The relatively new AKP government represents a return to fundamentalist Muslim, and potentially pro-Islamic beliefs, and modern Turks feel that the AKP intends to erode the ideals of the Ataturk and eventually return Islamic restrictions to the people of Turkey. Their message to the western media has been carefully crafted to state that they support secularity (when in fact, many turks do not believe so, and have held a few large demonstrations to that effect that haven't really been shown in the western media), to say that they want a "blend" of Islamic and democratic society (again, many people there don't buy it), to say that they support women's rights (needless to say some of the educated women that I work with are very concerned). The current US government supports the now-ruling AKP party, despite these differences. The feeling of my co-workers in Turkey is that the US supports the AKP party because they have allowed US air bases to continue flights in and out of Iraq. Although Turkey doesn't support US ground troops into Iraq, the feeling is that the US government wants to maintain the status quo there by supporting the government, regardless of it's current political climate. The elections there are different than here - it's not a case of people lining up and everyone casting a vote, as we do in the US. The elections involve the senior representatives of the government (a unicameral national assembly) casting votes to the exclusion of the people. Now that the AKP party has taken a majority seat in the elections, many Turkish people feel that their way of life will begin to change for the worse, and they feel that the government may soon begin to openly support Islamic fundamentalists. For more information, check out this article at the Washington Post. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

The Denver Daily news just had an article on this, showing genetic links. I have a mild case of this, as does my mother and father. Well, my father got shot up a lot in both the arms and legs in 'nam, so it's hard to know if he has RLS, or just old war wounds But my mother definitely has it, and so do I. There is a drug for it called Requip, but mine's never been bad enough to try that. If I get good exercise during the day, that helps. So does eating fresh fruits/veggies. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I have a feeling we'll understand that issue a lot better after book 7 is released. One thing I'm curious about is the Wednesday opening of the movie. Friday 13th sounds like a great day to open a HP movie, but they chose Wednesday the 11th. The only guess I have is that they didn't want to offend the people that already think HP is satanic. Best movie review quote from The Onion - "... the overall feeling is that it sucks to be Harry Potter, and it's only going to get suckier from here on out." Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Airships that I still want to jump out of (most of them illegal): 1. Blimp 2. Jet 3. Ultralight 4. Glider Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD