riddler

Come to think of it, my old DZO wore tie dye too - I thought it was pretty loud. You might have something here. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I think they featured one of these in the movie "The Gods Must be Crazy". The first or the second one - I don't remember which. The airplane is so small that it has a parachute attached to the airplane that can bring it down safely. It was pretty cool to see in the movie. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I doubt it - at least if your comparing military jumps on rounds vs sport jumps on squares. My great uncle was a paratrooper in WW2 - just died this year. He and his entire squadron were dropped low on one practice jump (keep in mind that low was 500 feet ) - about half of them were injured, most leg and knee injuries. Of course that stop the old fool from dropping in on battle of the bulge later, but he became a cook not long aftewards. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Yeah - it's not ORDB - it's Joe Jared's list. http://relays.osirusoft.com Honestly, I don't see how anyone could have a problem with open relays these days - it hasn't been a problem send SM8.9, but I guess there's lots of old systems out there. My provider doesn't have a problem with open relays - they just sell to spammers. One guy on there has listed nearly half the world's IPs (no joke) for filtering - that's the guy I'm talking with now. The funny thing is I hate spam as much as any admin. I used to be a NANAE regular and did my share of getting spammers killed. I even got a copy of the very first email spam send by Sanford Wallace. So I know these guys' frustrations. But some of them are REAL assholes. I think we're going to see a fresh round of lawsuits in the US as more and more legitimate people get blacklisted. narcimund - could you send me a PM a let me know about your hosting company? - thanks Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

If you can get down to Atlanta, they are testing them in that market. Lots of cops and postal employees have them - I guess they just gave them to everyone that has a gun. They are very cool to see in action. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Can you recommend how I get the money back from paying for a year of hosting in advance to datalink? It was only $50 or so, and now I know why! I hate spammers. I'm starting to hate spam vigilantes too. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

So I own my own domain name, which translates to a specific IP, which is apparently owned by a company that has a reputation for allowing spammers on their sites. This means that some people have made lists saying this entire range of IPs (one of which is mine) are spammers. So now a lot of ISPs use this list and block all email from these IPs (one of which is mine). The result is I can't email some of my friends, because their servers all block my emails assuming they are spam. So I find myself in the unfortunate position of emailing the guys that make the lists and kindly asking them to remove me from their list. Meanwhile, they are yelling at me because they are frustrated at all the people that are asking to be removed from their list. I get responses like this: Me: "In any event, I would like to be removed from everyone's list." Him: "And I wish an end to US attempts to attack a country without a UN resolution because the oil barons that sponsored president Bush want that oil in Iraq. I want an end to the bombings on innocent citizens in Afghanistan. I want an end to the boycot on water refineries, so children in Iraq won't die of polluted water. I probably won't get that either. Those oil barons want that money." Apparently he is also angry at the US, so I get to deal with that too. Some guy in the Netherlands that also owns a site on Christmas Island. Some people need to get away from their computers and try skydiving. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Good luck! You won't get that many in at Longmont. It's cold in January! Brrrr. Very few plane trips. Sometimes they shut down for a weekend. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

People think up robber stories. Tell friends. Sounds plausible, so friends repeat. May have happened. Maybe not. We'll never know. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Ha! I DEFINITELY can't compete with tuna cans! I'm just looking for the tuna smell. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Iraqi voting ballot: "Whom will you choose to be the next president of Iraq?" A. Saddam Hussein Some fun quotes from the article by people that are bad at math: "This referendum and the 100 percent shows that all Iraqis are ready to defend their country and leader" "We are not surprised with the 100 percent vote for the president" "Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he will not believe this percentage" Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

OK, tell the truth. Man or vibrator? If you say man, I will volunteer. If you say vibrator, I'll bring my video camera Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

EEEEWW = not safe for my eyeballs. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Vibrators should be outlawed. Men just can't compete with that. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Is there a secret username/password for this ftp server? Anonymous doesn't seem to work and it says I don't have access to view anything from a browser. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Hmm - visualizing skymama in pants with no seat. Mmmm. Anyway, I have a fixation problem with with landing too, but it starts higher. I feel like getting to the target is my strongest skill right now, but I find myself getting visually fixated on the target - starting at about 1,000 feet. I think this is not a good thing. The landing area is like a funnel - as you get closer to the ground, people under canopy get closer to each other trying to make the landing area. I think it's even more important to keep your head on a swivel and keep looking around for others as you get ready to land. I have to force myself to think about others when I land. From about 2,000 feet, I try to know where every other canopy is in the air and I try to determine the order that I am going to land (i.e. who lands before me and who lands after). Of course, many people try their hardest to foil my mental picture by spiraling down right over the peas, but I adjust when that happens. Usually by 500 feet, I know who is before me and who is after and I am working to time my landing exactly halfway between the two, and the final target reasonably far from the person in front of me. If I can safely get into the peas, I will, but I will immediately start looking up and behind me after I land, and I always expect the next person to be aiming right for me (worst-case scenario). Using your car analogy, the landing area is like driving in a parking lot - you always have to watch out because people come from every direction out of nowhere. I'm still working on forcing myself into good habits on landing, but I haven't run into anyone else yet! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Do they know that skydive is one word? I'm jealous of the raft divers - mine never go that good! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Songs that have been converted to MP3, then back to AIFF (standard CD format) have about the same quality as radio. If you are really picky about sound, you need to either get the AIFF (usually 50 meg per 4-minute song) or just buy the CD. I personally am boycotting the RIAA - I buy CDs used from other people on the web for 1/4 - 1/2 price. RIAA gets no money from me. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I can: http://www.cameltoe.org/ Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Another good site is Urban Legends: http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/ Whenever I get something unbelievable, I check here first. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Just a follow-up. My rigger made some mods when he was fixing my steering line and repacking my reserve. One thing is that he replaced the cutaway pillow with a loop. It is really cool - I was always grabbing part of my shirt or jumpsuit along with the pillow, and now I don't do that. And I can also stick a thumb through the loop to help facilitate the cutaway. The more important thing that he did was sew some extra material on the legstraps. The extra material makes the legstraps thicker so that it is less likely that the straps will slip through the hardware. I tried it out at the balloon fiesta boogie this weekend and paid close attention to where my chest-strap was on opening. It didn't budge. I encourage everyone that has an older container to pay attention to how much your chest strap moves when you open and when you are on the plane. If it moves up or hits your chin or neck on opening, have your rigger take a look at it - the modification only cost me $10 and I feel a lot safer in the container. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That's the same thing I was thinking as he was calling in for a repeat of the address, because I live on Franklin St, and there IS a South Franklin st, and sometimes the delivery guys get it messed up. But it was my number on Lafayette St. Completely different name - he just messed up where he turned. 'Course if I had to answer a call for an in-progress crime, I'm sure I would be frazzled too, but he didn't have to go scaring the crap out of me like that! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Did you see last Saturday's episode? That was me pitching the bag and running away Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

So here I sit at home, listening to Snapcase, sucking organic honey from the bottle and happily writing Java code when I look outside and see a cop with a gun in one hand trying to open my front gate. The barbarian was thwarted at the moat. My gate was locked

Steve - how many jumps did you get in on your tri 220? And do you like it? I love my 190. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD