DrewEckhardt

Tons more kids are growing up, leaving home, and forming households. I think it's more fair to have a country where those children have the same opportunity to buy affordable homes as the preceding three generations than to cut the losses of people who were able and willing to commit to larger mortgages than were required historically over 2004-2007. We need lower prices still. Less money funneled to the banking industry in the form of mortgage interest means more money to spend on services and consumer goods The economy recovered fine when the 1970s and 1980s housing bubbles reverted to the mean and doing the same this time won't be the reason the economy remains stalled. A drop to one of the previous bubbles' peaks (which we remain above, with home prices higher than they've ever been since 1890 (eighteen ninety is not a typo) apart from the current bubble) would be a nice start.

No. Rule changes like these will just limit sales at unsustainable prices and help us recover to the historic situation of near-zero inflation adjusted home price increases since 1945. Although people like to talk about what a bargain homes are now that the national average is 33% down from the peak and suggest we need a "recovery" back to the peak they're ignoring the fact that we're still 25% above the long term trend line with furthur decreases needed for a recovery. Housing prices cannot increase faster than household income, either because household income is directly paying the mortgage or household income is paying the rent which needs to be high enough for the capital costs to make sense. Household income is not increasing in real dollars.

Before the government involved itself in maximizing banking and education industry profits via a credit supply increase with loans, loan guarantees, and legislation providing special treatment of student loans in bankruptcy the money available for higher education limited prices to what kids could pay with a part time job or their parents could support with a blue collar salary. It took government help to jack the price of education up at 4X the rate of inflation. A similar credit supply increase was responsible for inflation adjusted housing prices doubling their long term trend. [QUOTE] There is nothing wrong with a 0 down loan as long as the home is valued at the amount loaned, and the borrower is capable of making the payments. [/QUOTE] With zero down mortgages are 3X more likely to default (http://www.thetruthaboutmortgage.com/zero-down-mortgages-three-times-more-likely-to-default-than-those-with-10-percent-down/) than with 10% and prices still having 20-30% to drop nationally (http://www.multpl.com/case-shiller-home-price-index-inflation-adjusted/) to reach the expected trend line (obviously there are some places which are much more inflated and others which are under-valued by historical standards) those mortgages carry a higher risk and than more conventional loans. I don't mind having those increased risks (borne by increased interest rates) around as long as governments, government sponsored enterprises, and therefore the tax payers aren't on the hook when the loans go belly up. With the GSEs owning or guaranteeing nearly 75% of conventional mortgages and banks owning more deemed "too big to fail" that seems unlikely.

Except road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of axle weight. More reasonable would be miles * weight^4 / axles^3.

I jump a 245 for classic accuracy loaded to .7 pounds per square foot and have never landed backwards, even on one load where they needed catchers for the tandems.

In full-flight a canopy loaded about 1 pound per square foot is going to go forwards at about 25 MPH. The next size down is going to be going about 26.5 MPH. Even several sizes aren't going to make a big difference in when you're flying backwards or forwards. There are very few situations in which I'd be willing to jump my 105 but not my 245. You don't have the experience needed to make that decision for yourself let alone some one else. You should be.

ARTA does the same things but runs 79 Euros for personal use or 149 Euros for professional use, and IIRC a non-saving trial version is free. Siegfried Linkwitz (of Linkwitz-Riley cross-over fame and designer of the Stereophile 1998 Louodspeaker of the Year) made the switch from MLSSA, and if it's good enough for him it should be good enough for anybody.

Note that the software going past 140dB SPL is no guarantee that you're not going to run into your microphone's mechanical limits or cause the preamp to clip.

Mostly at 5000 feet MSL, with 8000 foot density altitudes on hot summer days: 12 jumps under Sky Master 295s and Manta 288s 70ish jumps under a Turbo Z 205 @ .88 12 jumps under a Sabre 170 @ 1.06 100ish jumps under a Monarch 155 @ 1.16 150ish jumps under a Monarch 135 @ 1.33-1.52 before acquiring other canopies, 100+ after. 250ish jumps under a Batwing 134 @ 1.5ish 600+ on my Stiletto 120 mostly at 1.67 but later

NO. HIPAA specifically allows source-of-injury exclusions. It only prohibits denying coverage completely in a group plan based on what activities you do. As a skydiver your group plan at work still needs to accept you. It needs to pay if you fall off a ladder. But it's free to exclude injuries covered by riding a horse, flying a plane, skiing, or skydiving. Individual insurance is subject to even fewer restrictions and less likely to cover skydiving/general aviation accidents.

I get 1.5 hours a day of road biking done monday/tuesday/thursday/friday working about 11 hours a day and still have time to watch too much Netflix. I learned to fly, built a set of stereo speakers, managed 168 skydives and 30 BASE jumps one year, and met my now wife while working 14-15 hours a day five days a week. Averaging 15 hours a day seven days a week I had two beers with friends on Thursdays and didn't do anything else but work. Your work load is still light enough to have fun. Get some exercise and sun (vitamin D). 100 miles a week (with lots of quality time around your lactate threshold) on a bicycle would do some good for you.

No. In unaccelerated flight the force on risers + brake lines must add up to your weight regardless of canopy size. Smaller canopies just mean you're going faster. The canopy in question. They split weight differently across front risers, rear risers, and toggles.

Not a problem. I've had gentle landings finishing final approach at 3/4 brakes prior to flaring at traditional accuracy/student wing loadings and 1/2 brakes with 120 square feet over my head. Figuring out when to flare is an issue and different from a full-speed approach. Do it too early (you'll accelerate after finishing and land hard), late (you won't slow down enough and will land hard) slow (you won't finish and will land hard), fast (you'll stall the canopy immediately and land hard), short (you won't slow down all the way and will land hard), or far (you'll stall and land hard) and you're going to crash land. You probably waited too long or flared too fast/far. Starting a bit early and not going quite far enough sucks less. Learning how to land from a braked approach might save you and learning under a large canopy is more forgiving.

Because you're generally not the only person in the landing area. At a minimum using up space is impolite. Some one sets up their landing 1000' feet ago and you get in the way at the last second. In the worst case situation it gets you and some one else killed because they run into you. Technically speaking it might be their fault for not yielding right-of-way to the low man. Your heirs might get something out of the resulting law suit but you'd be dead and wouldn't get much satisfaction from that.

None. No restrictions on concealed carry, private sales, or mail order sales. I'd be happy with repealing all firearms laws back through the National Firearms Act of 1934 and passing a national preemption law which disallows local laws that are more restrictive than federal. None.

America no longer has actual left/right politics although the labels are retained for marketing purposes and to distract people from the real issue which is both parties passing laws and policies which enrich profitable industries at the citizens' expense. Protecting profits at brick-and-mortar casinos who may establish on-line presences has more to do with the clamp down on off-shore poker than imposing morality on you. Real health care reform would be opening Medicare (with overhead costs of 3% versus 12% for private insurance) to everyone and establishing not-for-profit health care facilities as government sponsored enterprises. Instead we got a plan which requires everyone to buy private insurance which must cover more than existing low-cost plans and forces insurance companies to charge the youngest and fittest at least 1/3 what they do the unhealthy and elderly. That sort of reform should do wonders for the health insurance companies' bottom line.

Looks like they're not using the line release modification.

Are we going to implement this with a ban on canopies loaded over 1.2 pounds per square foot? That's as about as high as you can go and be guaranteed not to over-take some one jumping classic accuracy wing loadings who refrains from braked approaches.

It really depends on your inseam measurement with the rule of thumb being height - inseam - 20 = harness length. Fill out an order form like you were getting a new ring, call Sunpath with the serial number, and see what they thing. I'm 5'10" and need a 19-20" main lift web. When one DZO measured he thought he made a mistake and tried again.

Not yet although it's on my honey-do list. I plan on building it with raised panels, probably 4 across and 2 vertically split 2/3 and 1/3. I got my queen bed hardware package from rockler.com after they sent me one of their 10 or 15% off coupons http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17212 That "Create A Bed" hardware package is exactly the one I was talking about. You've been happy with it? It's still on my todo list. I still need to get around to opening up the hardware box and picking out lumber :-)

Not yet although it's on my honey-do list. I plan on building it with raised panels, probably 4 across and 2 vertically split 2/3 and 1/3. I got my queen bed hardware package from rockler.com after they sent me one of their 10 or 15% off coupons http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17212

My how things change. I was the first AFF graduate from Mile-Hi (I had a business trip in the middle which let me do AFF3, 4, 5, and 6 in one weekend at Brown Field which really sped things up) and was on my own to jump with whoever after that apart from being required to jump a rig with an AAD ($25/jump rental) for the next five jumps.

With the average successful senate campaign costs $10,000,000 to get a job paying $174,000 it's obviously about the fringe benefits, like landing wherever you feel like it.

At your pay grade you have at-will employment regardless of whether the guys currently paying the bills call you an employee or contractor. The reasons for job changes and how much warning you have to find the next position will vary (a big company acquires you and closes the office, you "finish" your big company project so it gets sent to India for maintenance and the organization/project you get moved to is sub-optimal, your contract ends, the company runs out of money) but job security isn't different between employee/contractor or small company/big company. As a (real, as opposed to being called one because your employer would like to weasel out of paying employment taxes) contractor you might have more security because 1) You have the latitude to work for multiple clients at once, and when you're keeping them happy any one client will be happy to have you full-time or more. 2) Your rates have padding to include the time you might spend doing business development. I've charged 50% more hourly than the sum of the salary I'd earn as an employee at 1850 hours a year, benefits, employment taxes, and other costs like my accountant's bills. When you do that you can afford 1/3 your time to be un-billable although in practice you just get paid more.

If you have skills which are in demand creating a Linkedin profile is all you need to create a constant stream of E-mails from recruiters some of which involve positions which will be interesting and lucrative and many of which are crap you want to ignore. With that and basic cover letter + resume writing skills you can get high-paying jobs advertised on craigslist, theladders.com (but this seems to have cratered), etc. when they don't find you first. They find you. If they do a decent job sending you positions you'd find interesting that are appropriate for your seniority level you give them a call or E-mail the next time you're looking for work. If they use the shotgun approach with vague job descriptions where you'd need to call to decide if you'd want to talk with some one you ignore them. Or they're contracted for a position you'd find interesting, you find them through other means like craigslist, and ask them what else they have if that's not a good fit. Getting jobs through your personal network is better because you usually have more visibility into what's going on at the company but becomes non-viable when you're relocating or looking for positions that are too different.