Blahr

Damn straight. That needed saying. Perhaps if the general public would actually develop a life, folks like these would fall back into the real world.

When its time to make an important decision, you dont Loser + Putz = Lutz

I saw the Blue Angels. I"m not sure how they comapre but that was a hell of a show.

Still, most filmmakers try to keep things relatively consistant with reality in this type of film. It's not science fiction after all Of course all films that have skydiving in them portray skydivers in general as gun running, drug smuggling, bank robbing, murdering, psychopathic wierdo's. I can think of one or two folks that match that description but in general I'd have to call that portrayal inaccurate as well I want one of those canopies though. Being able to switch back and forth from 7 cell to 9 cell could radically enhance a canopies performance envelope!

True, however Hotshots was SUPPOSED to be absurd. This was just the result of bad editing and, I imagine, poor planning. I suspect that they hoped it would go unnoticed.

Also check to see if you have located your monitor near something that might be generating an electromagnetic field. Unshielded speakers, electric motor, poorly shielded electric line, etc. These things can distort the screen. Try degausing the screen afterwards if you find that this was the case.

Yeah, that was Point Break. Full of boloney. I think they were in freefall for about 5 minutes while having jumped from 4000 ft.

I just watched the movie "Terminal Velocity" with Charlie Sheen The scene where he opens his reserve to escape from the roof of the factory. He leaves the roof and just barely clears an electric fence. He is flying a 7 cell reserve. Then they show the guy shooting at him. Then they show him land on the other side of the fence and he is flying a 9 cell . Apparently the electric shock from the fence made the canopy mutate from a 7 cell to a 9 cell. I watched again in super slow motion and confirmed it. Thats what I call bad movie magic. Duh

I never heard of Vladiball 1 let alone 2

Q: Do I look fat? A: Oh my god! A talking couch!

I can buy lots of jump tickets today but I have no rig till next month

I've been in it for 14 years and have 57 jumps. I've been out of it for 8 years. This means that those 57 jumps took 6 years to complete. I was never current and learned at a very slow pace because of this. It was very frustrating and I was very poor and had no transportation of my own. Money and frustration eventually caused to to pack it in. Forever I thought. Until just a few months ago when I decided to make a comeback. I have more money now and can put in the time I need to actually become good. I empathize with your plight, but this is just too damn cool to give up on it. Have patience and you will be rewarded. Cheers, Chris

Keep things in perspective. The world in general is a pretty shitty place. I have it pretty damn good by comparison.

I've seen the seatbelt argument a lot. But I think a better comparison would be anti-lock brakes. IF you get too used to them, you might forget how to brake properly because all you have to do is jam your foot in it. Can you see it when you go into a car dealer and want to buy a car with anti-lock brakes and they require that I first drive a car with regular ol ones to show that I'm not too dependant on the anti-lock kind? I know, its a silly comparison but its closer than the seatbelt thing My car doesnt have anti-lock brakes. Bur my rig has a Cypres!

Please dont assume that I feel as I do because of the cool factor (a somewhat insulting assumption) or because I'm some kind of tree hugging liberal. I am most definately not. I do CARE though, for whatever that means. When deciding what to use I take the following things into account in order of priority: 1. Does it get the job done? 2. Is it expandable/scalable? 3. Is it reasonably supportable? 4. Is it cost effective? 5. Were any consumers or small furry animals harmed while creating or or marketing the product? I look for a yes to the first 4 and a no to number 5. So far I have been able to meet all of my companies needs without having to compromise on any of these 5 things. Going with Microsoft gives: (my personal experience here, your milage may vary) 1. Yes..when it works right 2. Yes 3. Yes 4. Not by a long shot 5. Most definately

jfields and phillykev. I hear you both. I dont think that everyone should immediately change everything to suit my personal view. Ok, yes I do Justin, I dont see it as a cause, I see it as a path. I'm not one of those new age, freaky guys withn an empty life that needs a cause to fill the void. I have plenty to keep me busy Kevin, I'm not suggesting pushing a personal agenda. I'm suggesting people look for good sound business reasons to make a change. They do exist. Change is always hard and frought with a million difficulties. But change is good. Large companies with unethical, immoral, tyrannical business practices should be boycotted until they knock it off. Microsoft has some good products. I wont pay for any of them until they start playing nice with others. I'm not an open source freak. I love it, but I have room in my life for both models. Fact is, open source has caused companies like microsoft to have to improve their products. Competition is a good thing. I dont mind paying money for software as long as I'm not giving it to organizations like Microsoft. Until they see the light, that is. When they stop trying to rule the world and the internet, I will happily pay them for a good product. A product that also plays nicely with others.

I don't. HTML, WEB, and HTTP are all standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium. Mozilla follows the standard better then IE. If I site works in IE, but not in Mozilla, then it was designed for IE. Designing for a particular browser is never smart, programers should code for the standard and expect the browsers to work. Where browsers don't work, a workarounds are permitted as long as those workarounds don't break OTHER browsers. Code to the standard, everything works. Code to a browser, and things get screwed up. When I wrote www.littletikes.com, www.rubbermaid.com, and www.gracobaby.com, we coded to W3C compliant standards. We never had interoperability problems with any browsers that couldn't be easily fixed. Proramers who code to the dominant browser are lazy. As for pop up blocking in Mozilla, they do tell you when they block one, an exclamation mark shows up in the status bar bottom right. Click the exclamation mark to enable pop ups for that site. _Am Dude! I couldnt possibly have said this better. 100% agreement.

One could reasonably argue that this is because people keep going with the flow. It only supports my argument Your statement seem to indicate a belief that people will lose their jobs if they challenge the status quo. This may be true in some cases, but the fact it, the people that make the hiring and firing decisions are not usually the ones that have a say in the technologies being used. They care about results, thats about all. You can get the results either way. By the way, I am engaging in an intellectual debate here. I dont want to offend anyone Not till I have enough jumps under my belt, anyway!

Yeah! What kinda geek are you anyway???!? Well, you are still numero uno on the folding page! I'm all the way up to 12 or 13 though. All on Linux and BSD boxes!

We ARE here to hopefully make the world a better place. Supporting companies with abhorrant business practices, no ethics whatsoever, and only marginally good products doesnt further that goal. It might be easier to just go with the flow but in the long run it does more harm than good. The work CAN get done on other operating systems. Very effeciently too. This is kinda like recycling. Most people blow it off because its harder to deal with even though intellectually we all have to agree that its a better idea. We are all lazy at heart and naturally gravitate toward the path of least resistance. But we dont HAVE to. We CHOOSE to be this way. Just my humble opinion. It never seems to be all that popular so I dont think I'm damaging myself any by sayin so

I dont know what to say...this is more horrible news than anything else I've heard today so far. My sincerest condolances on your loss.

In 39 years I've lived in 28 homes, 4 states, and 2 countries.

The answer depends on what kinda guy your boss is. If he is pretty cool or has a sense of humor, just tell him the truth. If he is a bastard, then make up a story thats so absurd that it MUST be true :-)

Little Billy was sitting on a park bench, munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th one, a man on the bench across from him said, "Son, you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat." Little Billy replied, "My grandfather lived to be 107 years old." "Oh?" replied the man. "Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?" "No" replied Little Billy, "He minded his own fucking business"

Cant say anything about the mirage except that they look nice :-)