DrewEckhardt

Can you remind me why bungee is not recommended for wingsuit? People forget that although you may have a 50MPH fall rate in a wingsuit, that comes from the lift that goes with > 100 MPH of forward speed which gets you back to normal freefall speeds. They also forget that a properly calibrated bungee pilot chute should have enough drag to deploy you at Cessna hop-and-pop speeds (I've heard 45 MPH). In practice, bigger reasons to avoid them are manufacturing errors which result in the bungee not inflating at low enough speeds and properly manufactured units inflating at contemporary canopy speeds resulting in premature planeout. Things got wonky for me when I got my Batwing 134 and I switched to kill-line collapsibles.

In which case you might consider a PD190 instead. With some wear you don't really want to load F111 canopies over a pound per square foot. Accuracy works best arround .7 as in a 260. Or you could just get a more modern ZP design. Older (firmer opening, less responsive) or less popular designs can be found with hundreds of jumps left on the line set for $300-$400 (Sabre, Monarch, etc.).

Many turbo-charged piston aircraft are turbo-normalized so they maintain their sea-level performance at altitude. This is especially important for DZs in mountainous states where normal 12,000 foot AGL jump altitudes can exceed 18,000 feet MSL where there's half the oxygen you have at sea level. Lycoming has made 300HP 540 cubic inch engines in both normally aspirated flavors. Starting at 5000 feet MSL we gave up before getting to 9,000 feet AGL in a normally aspirated ~300HP 206 while a turbo ~300HP 206 has no problems getting to 12,000 feet AGL/17000 MSL.

Ammunition is less expensive if you buy a case at a time, where a case is usually 1000 rounds. By the time you have all the required guns (.22 rimfire rifle and pistol, intermediate power centerfire rifle in something like .223 or 7.62x39, regular power centerfire rifle in something like .308/.30-06/.303/7.62x54R, centerfire pistol, single action revolver, 12 gauge shotgun) it's hard not to have thousands of rounds lying arround.

The IOM says different. More than 18,000 people die each year due to lack of coverage. The uninsured are most at danger in this country and do get substandard care if they get any care at all. The 18,000+ dead would also say that your statement is lacking credential. http://www.iom.edu/?ID=4660 Emergency medical providers are required by federal law to provide service to ANYONE who shows up prior to obtaining financial information or approval from an insurance company. When an emergency exists, they're require dto treat it. The local hospital had no problem treating my uninsured sister when she fell off her bicycle and stopped forming short-term memories. The State even picked up most of her tab with their indigent care program. Safety nets exist; people knowing about and using them is an orthagonal issue.

That's the simple answer. The more complex answer is that the company you're working for should be engaging You Company which is an LLC or corporation that has opted to be taxed federally as an S-corp. You Company is wholly owned by you, employes you, and pays you what the IRS considers to be a reasonable salary. If the work requires 2 years of experience but you have 20, you pay yourself what you'd pay some one 2 years of experience. Depending on specifics this could be as little as 50% of what you bill the customer. You Co pays the employers share of FICA + Medicare on Your salary which is in turn subject to FICA, Medicare, and normal income tax rate. You as the owner take the rest of the profits as dividends, which are only subject to your personal income tax. You Co witholds taxes and has them deposited with the IRS, either directly (Banks must do this, but credit unions aren't Banks) or via electronic fund transfers. You Co has Your Home Office as its primary place of business, so when it sends You to a customer site it's business travel that can be reimbursed tax free at 48.5 cents a mile instead of commuting to work which is paid for the post-tax dollars. You Co pays Federal and State Unemployment Taxes The federal rate is like 6.4% of the first $7000 you earn which is insignificant; and you get a credit for something like 5.2% of the state unemployment insurance. If work gets slow You Co can lay You off.

It depends. If the government health care is like that provided by the US Postal Service - universally available, affordable, high performance, and with commercial alternatives like Fed-Ex if want premium service I'll take it so I can spend less and still get health care without loosing my home and retirement if I become uninsurable. If the governemnt health care ends up being something like what they have at Walter Reed, means a 2 year wait to get an MRI if I don't fly to a neighboring country, or works like Social Security where I get 1/3 of the benefit if I'd paid my taxes into a private plan it'll be a tax sink with limited value. I fear that the later may be more likely. By reducing costs through not-for-profit insurance, reducing nuissance malpractice suits that need to be settled, having more doctors paid annual salries instead of by the procedure, etc. Our per-capita health care spending is nearly twice ($5300 vs. $2700 in 2002) the average among countries without waiting lists even though not everybody has insurance.

You want to do recreational sports for health. Like cycling. Or whatever.

For 45-60 seconds of freefall you have a 20 minute plane ride, and 60+ minutes of waiting for people and planes just 6 minutes of which is spent packing. Skydivers are real tolerant of waiting.

Small raindrops fall at 8 MPH. Big raindrops fall at 18 MPH. If they were any bigger, the aerodynamic forces would break them apart into small raindrops that fall slower. Skydivers without wingsuits fall at 100 - 160 MPH making for a 90-150MPH speed difference. Hitting anything going that fast is going to hurt.

That would make it hard to stay relative to other people who bought suits for a neutral fall rate. While arguably better than nothing, playing with yourself just isn't as interesting as being with other people.

Without a hardware keystroke logger you have no way of knowing if it's your room mate, some random person/program who'se using the unsecured computer to download porn for their own use (strangers downloaded alt.binaries.pictures.* when my NNTP port was unblocked), or some one having the porn downloaded there to be nasty (malicious "prank", frame-up). I wouldn't risk ruining your roomate's life incase it's one of the second two cases. I would definately stop sharing computer access with them incase it was intentional. I would stop associating with the room mate.

I aimed to be no worse at freeflying and swooping than before I moved some place with more frequent cloud cover and failed.

The most likely problem is the slide is not recoiling far enough for the next round to properly slide under the extractor claw or engage its lock when empty. Two possible causes are ammunition with too light a charge and the operator limp-wristing the gun which allows the frame to move so the recoil spring can't be compressed between it and the slide. Weak commercial (not reloaded) ammo is unlikely. Operator error is common on reasonably powerful pistols (9mm qualifies compared to .25 ACP) built on light (Polymer definately qualifies) frames. You need to hang on firmly enough that the recoil spring can compress instead of the frame moving. Don't anticipate the recoil and push down. The problem is much less common on guns that have a lot of stationary mass relative to the recoil spring strength; the big hunk of steel takes a larger impulse to get it moving so it stays still enough without much help from the user. A Ruger .22 with a fixed 1" diameter steel bull barrel won't hiccup. The problem becomes more noticeable as the gun empties and looses weight. You may also have weak magazine springs, especially if the problem shows up near the end of a magazine. Aftermarket floor plates which let you squeeze in an extra round or two may reduce reliability when not combined with a stronger spring. Bent magazine lips cause feeding problems but shouldn't prevent proper slide-lock operation. My polymer framed HK USP .40 stove-piped too often when I first got it, especially when shooting left-handed. Hanging on more firmly made it reliable.

Some of us trust ourselves more than other people and have packed both our mains and reserves; although a six minute main pack job is a different animal from spending a few hours inspecting and repacking a reserve.

Keep the open faced helmet, get a set of over-the-glasses goggles (about $20), and be sure to tighten them down because they blow off more easily than smaller conventional goggles. Speaking from experience, this is really preferable to landing down-wind because you can't tell which end of the windsock is skinnier than the other.

We have a Tempur-Pedic Deluxe bed and it rocks. It's supportive but doesn't have pressure points and we can roll arround without waking each other up. I get a lot better sleep on it but switched from a worn-out sagging second-hand matress left over from my student days. When we thought we'd be splitting our time between two places, we wanted another one but thought it was silly to pay that much for a piece of foam and bought an imitation (Angel bed) for half the price. That was less supportive , harder on top, and not comfortable to sleep on after a month so we sent it back. While it was shipped UPS, they vacuum bag them into a tiny bundle and you have to ship them back truck freight which meant building a box and $200+ in shipping.

Pay for AFF. If you really need a couch for watching TV, find a free one on your local freecycle list. No one needs a formal dining room.

22% of American households own handguns. Statistics aren't as easy to come by with respect to "assault weapon" ownership, although before the Clinton ban IIRC sport utility weapons constituted 1-2% of the suspected-crime-gun traces and were believed to be over-represented. By offending only a couple percent of the voters, Obama may be more likely to get elected. OTOH, Clinton's insistance on including his ban in the 1994 crime bill arguably cost the Democrats control of the House (formerly 56-57%, decreased to 46%) and Senate (59%, decreased to 47%).

It was tested acording to FAA protocols for strength, maximum opening time, maximum total speed and descent rate in the deployment configuration, etc. and has a label carrying the TSO (Technical Standard Order) it conforms to with maximum suspended weight and deployment speeds listed. Although some parachutes have been marketed as reserves and mains (Precision Raven and Falcon) there are big differences between contemporary reserves and mains. AFAIK reserves are all currently built with rectangular planforms, which are less likely to have opening issues than tapered/elliptical designs. Most modern mains have tapered planforms which can turn quicker and have lower stall speeds so they're more fun to fly and land. Nearly all are low-aspect ratio seven cell canopies which open more reliably; although Precision's 9-cell Falcon is certified for use as a reserve. Higher aspect ratio canopies have a flatter glide which will get you back from a longer spot. Nearly all are made of low-porosity fabric which performs as well as ZP when it doesn't have a lot of pack jobs on it (PD reserves must be sent in for inspection after 40 pack jobs or 25 uses), although Precision makes reserves with a ZP topskin. Higher performance canopies (the PD Excalibur) made of 0-3 CFM fabric and flown at contemporary wing loadings were only good for a few hundred jumps; while you can get thousands out of ZP fabric as long as you replace the lines periodically. Modern reserves all have spanwise reinforcing tapes which keep the canopy from completely separating during an over-speed deployment (I saw one older reserve spin in after it split into 2 and 5 cell chunks and was pleasantly surprised that the skydiver survived). Some newer main designs especially in higher performance classes (Katana, Samurai, and I think Brian includes them on the Lotus) have span-wise reinforcing tapes to make for a rigid wing but most main canopies and older reserves don't.

She'll have wasted an extra 1% of the year's weekends if skydiving isn't for her and if she likes skydiving will be more likely to repeat the jump and spend more money to get to her license than if she did a tandem first and got used to being in freefall without having to do anything. Standard skydiving equipment is more reliable than tandem equipment; although if she doesn't pay attentionin class and listen to the instructor under radio she could fly into obstacles while an experienced tandem instructor won't do that. Not doing as instructed can lead to bone breaking landings whether she's on a tandem or solo jump but there are more ways to screw up when you're in charge of all the controls.

More red blood cells give you more aerobic capacity. Taking EPO so you grow more is illegal and testable. Getting them by transfusion is illegal and testable if they come from someone else and they're working on a test for deposits you made to your own prive blood bank. Growing them naturally by living at high altitude is legal but introduces an unfair advantage for people who live in areas with mountains if it can't be artificially replicated.

That was my experience. The only reason to eat rabbit is when you are in a survival situation, and the alternative is starvation. I disagree. Farm raised rabbit can be a wonderful gourmet treat. We've been shopping at an Asian grocery lately with a good meat department, and a week or two ago Tammy braised a bunny and I made sandwiches. They were more flavorful and tender than if we'd used other lean white meats like chicken (boring) or turkey breast (yuck). If you prefer not to do it yourself, in Boulder, CO Matam Fez has decent rabbit and I've had good rabbit at Laudisio's (not on the regular menu). Cafe Juanita in Kirkland WA makes a wonderful wabbit (although it's not the sort of place that would get me to hop on a plane just for a meal). "Rabbit Braised in Arneis ($23) with Ligurian chickpea crepe, pancetta and porcini is mouthwatering. The tender rabbit is absolutely amazing with the Arneis sauce, and everything in the dish works well together." Yum. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. http://z.about.com/d/seattle/1/8/G/6/-/-/braised-rabbit.jpg http://seattle.about.com/od/fooddining/fr/cafejuanita.htm

The labor market is already global. Consumer goods are made in China where auto workers can be paid $1 an hour ($170 a month) instead of up to $27 hourly from Delphi. Intellectual property is produced in India where you can hire software engineers with a few years experience for $5000 a year instead of $50,000 for a fresh US CS graduate. Wages here are dropping to compensate - the Delphi guys are now earning $14.50-$18 an hour which only gets partway there. I make less in inflation adjusted dollars than I did five years ago. When your customer's wages drop in real money the price of your services and therefore wages paid must drop too. At least if we bring the labor here the wages need to be sufficient to support American housing and food prices. While we could theoretically slap a prohibitive tariff on foreign goods there's no way of telling that an idea came from India or Indiana. The people in developing countries like consumer goods too with Chinese moving from bicycles to cars and the increased demand for labor must result in higher wages. Eventually we'll have a more uniform, industrialized world where the standard (and cost) of living is higher elsewhere and lower here. We just need to figure out how to keep that as reasonable as it can be - with the worlds' poor becoming like our own (less than 2% of us lack refridgeration and color TVs) and our middle class not living 10 to a room.

That's what the alcohol is for, so I can forget about work and enjoy life.