champu

At a few intersections aroud here they've started adding "push for green" buttons at the right edge of the street that you can reach from a bicycle without having to go up on the sidewalk. Most intersections I encounter between a side street and a major street are so busy you'd have to be a nutbar to run the light.

And/or his audible did a great job saving him from his helmet... Most helmets out there don't have "structural" padding so protrusions like hinge bolts will go right into the side of your head if you take a big enough bump. To the OP: if it's an L&B audible, write them and tell them what happened, they might replace it for you, they're awesome like that. Also, if I remember correctly, the Mamba is the style helmet where the whole side pad comes out, you put the audible in it, and then put the whole pad back. I would double check with someone that you are orienting and positioning the side pad correctly when you put it back, that may be part of the problem.

Theres no place like 127.0.0.1 You need to get out of the 255.255.255.0 more.

I don't think your intent (which you've since clarified) was apparent in your first post. I was originally confused as to why you only included the bolded part above on one of the seven items in your list, but now it sounds like you intended for that to apply to all of the above. In other words your observation boils down to, "people want to do what they think is cool and a lot of times they're lazy and in a hurry to get there and that leads to getting hurt and/or killed." which isn't really news.

Most inexperienced I-just-turn-my-gopro-on-and-forget-it video isn't worth watching anyway. Don't get me wrong, they're great little cameras and if you have a particular shot you're after they can be the right tool for the job, but some people are seriously just wasting re-write cycles on their SD card.

Until you learn not to chase the gates into the corner? I dunno, maybe a 90 or a 96 sq ft? Stay safe out there.

...groans...

Bullshit headline is bullshit. It's not suprising they can get the first five, all you need is place and date of birth to predict it pretty accurately. Here's an article from a couple years ago where they talk about it. It's like saying "With just your last name, date of birth, and sex I can tell you what your Illinois drivers license number would be" ... well, yeah, that's how they assign them. The take away from all this is we just have to hope that people who think your social security number is a secure way of identifying you all die off such that the ridiculous notion is purged from humanity.

Doug, the article is garbage. He includes both sides of FICA, he adds in the highest CA marginal tax rate (which kicks in at $1M btw, our brackets are hilarious, it's 9.5% from $50K to $1M and then 10.5% after $1M ), and he rounds up a couple times to get to 70%. A flatter tax across the board will not be helpful and nor will a top marginal bracket of 70%. What he claims is the imminent situation and what he claims is the solution are both wrong. Luckily he's fear mongering and we're probably actually headed to somewhere in the middle, more similar to Clinton era taxes.

It's good to be able to fly a pattern in a variety of flight modes as different landing area and canopy traffic situations call for it. Here's a post I made a couple years ago on the subject.

I find it mildly amusing that you refer to government deficit spending as a Ponzi scheme and then say social security would be fine, if only better decisions had been made. It seems to be en vogue to call random things "Ponzi schemes" because people just understand that to be "something bad," whereas in reality it's a very specific way of tricking people into thinking your investment vehicle is sound by paying early investors directly with the dollars of later investors. Sound familiar?

Are you comfy pulling your either your reserve or main at 1000 ft? I'm not (reserve is close I guess). If the pilot wants it closed to a certain altitude x, and I'm comfy at altitude y for reserve exit, and all the seatbelts are off. then door opens at the higher of x and y. (If I'm at the door). let TMs bitch for another minute - they will live. I'd get out on my reserve at a grand. Having done some clear and pull jumps on the same make/model as a main, I'm pretty happy with how fast it opens out the door. But again, it's not so much about the altitude as it is about the seatbelts. If the seatbelts are off and the door is open on an Otter, then a pilot chute getting out the door is likely to be a problem for one person. I think by 1000ft the risk of it happening vs the odds that it can be handled by a jumper are reasonable. I'm familiar with the WFFC incident a few years back where the premature deployed into the horizontal stabilizer, but that guy climbed out and held on all the way to inflation which wouldn't happen in the case we're talking about. If the seatbelts are on and the door is open a pilot chute getting out the door is likely to be a problem for the whole plane whether you're at 1000ft or not. The risk of it happening isn't really any greater than in the above case but the stakes are much much higher. Waiting to open the door until people get done scooting around, moving to the floor, etc. should be self explanitory. Yeah, that's another silly "compromise." Although if a pilot chute does pull a d-bag out the bottom of the door the person attached to it is going right through that sliderblind. So it doesn't present as much of a hazard to the rest of the jumpers as having seatbelts on with the door open.

Calling these "part of the basic progressive tax structure" is a little misleading on their part. These are "tax expenditures" just like any of the other things they talk about, they've just been a part of the tax code longer. These shouldn't cause people too much heartburn though because, as noted, the levels of income these apply to are pretty low. There is a slight dilemma regarding "encouraging having children as a tax break" vs "it's not about helping the parent it's about helping the kid" but again the dollar amounts are small so there's not much heartburn to be had here. I think the problem is the sheer number of goofy tax credits that have sprung up in the last 10-15 years or so. You end up with this patchwork of nonsense that makes it very difficult to ensure that people in roughly the same situation pay about the same thing in taxes and that not too many people get a free ride. That's kinda goal number one. As it stands having a kid, for instance, counts for you above the line, below the line, rolls off two different ways... it's a complete mess. And these days you don't need an expensive tax attorney to game the system, you need a $10 subscription to Tax Slayer or something similar.

Indeed, this is a non story, other than I think Apple does its shareholders a disservice hoarding this much cash. Apple is not known for growing via acquisition - who would they buy? Apple has made this cash by selling very well designed (appearance, interaction) products at a high margin. Buying someone else's product line goes against their process. Apple hangs its hat on product engineering and HMI development, so you're correct they're not going after large companies/mergers, but they do buy quite a few small technology houses to get ahold of features for their products. Like facial recognition, voice recognition, and system-on-a-chip architectures. All those little gestures and widgets add up at a few $10Ms a pop.

This sticks out to me as one of those little pieces of evidence that you didn't actually read the article you linked to. "Other Cash Transfers" is largely referring to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) which means the category applies almost exclusively to the poor. You have some other screwed up assumptions too, see Chart 3 in your article. That aside... I think you're too focused on Chart 2 in the article which just talks about how people that pull off not paying taxes manage it. I don't care why people are able to get away with not paying taxes, I care whether they should be able to based on how much they are actually making. Go back to Chart 1 for a moment and look at the size of the green bars in the rows for, say, 40K and above. How do you explain that to the people at those income levels and below that do pay taxes? I think it's completely unreasonable to be making double the "poverty line" (about $22K for a family of four) or more and not have any federal income tax liability. /edited to add: the Apple links are a good read, thanks.

$65.2B was earned in one year. Not accumulated over several decades. Apple Inc. had revenues for the full year 2010 of $65.2B. Dude, just barely a day ago, in this very thread, you acknowledged there's a difference between revenue and taxable profits. You seem to have already forgotten that revenue doesn't just immediately become cash on hand. /edited to add: This whole thread is ridiculous, and I hate (yes, hate) idiotic comparisons like how much cash Apple has on hand vs. how much the US treasury has on hand. Who cares? Why Apple would have cash and what they do with it has nothing to do with the federal government's finances. The federal government isn't supposed to have tons of cash on hand. In fact, I'd be pissed if they did.

Make sure to be clear it's about not having the door open when people are belted in so no one gets ripped in half and/or crashes the plane. People that are stubborn about wanting to have the door open at all times tend to have misonceptions about why it's a dumbass idea. I might have a chat with Lob next weekend while I'm out there.

Made breakfast, cleaned the fountain on my patio (which the local avian community seemed to appreciate quite a bit), and at some point without realizing it got over the cough I've had for the last week. Might do a bit of washing at some point before I have get to pick up the girlfriend at the airport this evening. I've not seen that movie either but I think I may have it around here somewhere...

Yeah, I don't really care what's "allowed"... If I'm there I close the door until seat belts are off at 1000 ft and people get done moving to the floor and shifting around. We're talking less than a minute of having the door closed.

I'm used to "This " meaning either the current or imminent one and "Next " meaning the one following that. It's most clear when the two are used directly in contrast in sentences like, "If I don't see you this weekend then maybe next weekend we can get together." When someone says "Next..." and it's not obvious from context whether they mean the imminent one or the one following that, you can always ask for clarification. Or you could, you know, assume the person is an idiot and make fun of them.

haha... For a while in 2008 I had more jumps than posts... oh well... My favorites are shirts that are accidentally skydiving/base related... http://www.threadless.com/product/2269/I_Am_the_Bridge_Jumping_Friend_That_Your_Parents_Warned_You_About?streetteam=mosebeard http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=QC-AERO http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/generic/65a4/

Parents who have facebook accounts have kids who have facebook accounts.

Well, that goes somewhere in the top ten most asinine statements I've read on this site.

It has to do with the cutter being on the flap above the reserve pilot chute, the length of the cutter body, and the radius of the top cap of the reserve pilot chute (and how the whole thing is packed up.) I'm not a rigger and I'm not familiar enough with other manufacturers to say how susceptible other AADs or rigs might be.

I've had it happen on one of my rigs actually. It was after I had checked my rig in my luggage on a commercial flight and I presume it got handled roughly. SSK replaced the cutter at no charge and the rigger I use believes that with appropriate precautions it can be avoided. If you call up SSK and ask them about it they can probably fill you in.