yoink

for all their awfulness, the IS aren't very sophisticated at public relations yet. (thank god). There have been many more successful terrorist organizations - can you imagine the 1980's IRA with access to the internet and media today??? They've not twigged that while 'freedom fighters' can be romantic if spun the right way, setting captured pilots on fire isn't going to have the effect they want... I agree with Grimmie - it won't take too much more of this sort of stuff to see a much more unified middle eastern response and the issue of course, is how many people become the collateral damage when that happens?

I'll tell you something - I wouldn't be planning to drop 13.5k in a couple of lumps sums in a hurry. Here's the thing - almost everyone who gets bitten by the skydiving buy gets bitten by it hard at your point in the progression. It's THE BEST THING EVER. but only for a few percentage of people is that actually true.. Don't make irreversible decisions yet. Take a holiday for a couple of weeks and see if you really enjoy banging out a dozen non-stop jumps a day when you're not doing it with people you know. Personally, for me, it got old pretty fast. When you first qualify there's the ambition to teach, to compete, to master every discipline and to completely LIVE the sport. Lots of us have that, but few of us stick with it. My advice would be to bank the 13.5K, spend a bit of it on solid basic progression for a year and go on a skydiving-only holiday toward the end and see if your desire to be immersed in it 24/7 is still there. .

I have no idea how much difference it makes, but to a neophyte like me, 'minimum' means 'must not be under', not 'must not be lots under'. I still have no idea why the NFL though it was a good idea to let the teams anywhere near the balls. Surely if they're the ones mandating pressures, it'd be easier if their officials made sure balls we provided at those pressures? Still, for a non-football fan, I'll say this. I enjoyed this superbowl more than the last one.

Anyone know if Kevin is still speedflying in Tahoe, and have an email for him? I'm heading up there next weekend and it'd be rude not to take my gear.

so what happens now if the Patriots are found guilty of cheating in that last game with the under inflated ball? Do they get their Superbowl title stripped from them? Does it automatically go to Seattle?

I actually did this for the first 10 minutes of the 3rd quarter. There was 1 minute, 22 seconds of actual 'game' being played in that 10 minutes...

Samsungs are good, LGs are good. No matter what TV you get, the quality will never be good unless you set it up properly. The out-of-the box settings are usually pretty poor. If you're dropping a lot of cash on a new HD TV, take the time to get the most out of it and set it up properly when you get it installed. You definitely want at least a couple of HDMI ports - more are better, and a USB port doesn't hurt either if you ever transfer stuff from your computer. Think about where these are located - I'm a big fan of having access to them on the side of the TV. If they're tucked away around the back, is it easy to get to it, or are you wall-mounting the thing? Many modern TVs now also come with internet connectivity, usually both wired and wireless. It's useful if you have a subscription to something like Netflix or Hulu but if that's the case, do a little research on how the applications for each TV manufacturer are rated. I've got a Vizio and the applications and wireless networking are shite.

Your idea of ' really simple' is definitely different to mine!

That's messed up. Are you planning to contact the manufacturer to get them to top using your name?

I've tried various methods - the simple answer is that there doesn't seem to be a straightforward way of doing it. The tv program doesn't preload anywhere from Netflix, which makes grabbing it as a native file (or files) difficult. The best solution is to use a video capture device, but this means you physically have to play everything you want to record in realtime - not an ideal solution.

Interesting. Thanks Ian. I will look through all that. Anything or any sources or resources though - outside of here (Dropzone.com) that might be considered INDEPENDENT - for purposes of validating any ACTUAL CREDENTIALS that may exist, of this now clearly being claimed within here - president of this Association? As posted by Mr. Crazy himself: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4321643 - post #49

Hells no. There's no good reason for circumcision anymore. although, my wife works in Biomedical research, and a lot of the cells that they use comes from baby-foreskin... so it does have its uses I guess.

You could also use Iron-On fabric as the 1-step-up-from-paint solution. Nuts to that much sewing.

Cool factor.

There are some encouraging signs of humanity in the world. After the recent terror attacks in Australia, the 'I'llRideWithYou' hastag went viral, showing the world that there were some people in Sydney who wouldn't cower to terrorism. After these attacks in Paris, massive support has been seen with the 'Je Suis Charlie' meme, and the 'Not Afraid' demonstrations... Both great examples for the world to be proud of. and here? Within 10 posts, this intellectual sewer had turned a report of a terror attack in a foreign country into a discussion on American gun ownership rights... It's pathetic.

no probs. It short circuits the 'how many jumps do you have' conversation... Have fun.

what do you want us to say? the guy made a bad joke... so what?

Might be a good thing to update your profile.

but swooping obstacles is cool... you know. Until the time you hit one and put it in hospital.

Jesus, times have changed... What happened to going to the dropzone, waiting for a weather day and just buying an experienced jumper a couple of beers to show you how to do it, or making friends and getting them to take you though it? Videos? Classes?

and how do you intend to prove that? The only way is with hindsight - maybe you could ask people who HAD an accident 'do you think it was because of your own overconfidence at that level', but you're reliant on personal integrity. Even then you can't compare different people and come up with a conclusion - you have no way of knowing if people simply don't recognize their own overconfidence, got away with it due to luck, simply didn't realize how close to accidents they were or whether they were very skilled or cautious. Lets try this another way - instead of simply beating your drum and making an ultimatum 'show me the data or I'll have to conclude that it might not be true' YOU come up with a way to generate that data which doesn't involve anecdotal evidence from observers. (which is a legitimate source of evidence in academia, by the way). A better way of doing it would be to ask a specific group of people who have had lots of exposure to the sport about their anecdotal evidence, and then performing a statistical analysis on those answers to see which is 'typical'. A simple comparison of number of accidents per x/hundred jumps is not going to give you an accurate picture of the reasons for those accidents. Lack of knowledge / overconfidence or anything else. It's not that simple, unfortunately.

The only other thing I can think of is to also update your USB drivers, assuming you're using a USB mouse? Have you tried a different mouse as well, just to be sure that's not the issue? (99% certain it won't be.)

so johnmitchell, raf and piis are no-one apart from that: maybe it's fun to be snide and condescending from time to time. no Need to get your Pants all wet over that Noone with thousands of jumps (apart from the originator) is posting and saying 'yeah! That's hilarious and true. Every newbie should be shown it!' because most know that a there are better ways to get the message across. Being snide and condescending just for fun simply results in exactly what you see here - pushback from those who really need to listen to the message. And THEN we need to spend needless time defending / arguing about the validity of it. Like I said, I don't think it's a good method of communication, but feel free to add it to FJC slides at your DZ if you disagree.

Rachel Maddow (whoever she is) has a fuck tonne of influence if she speaks for an entire demographic. and if you heard a word that often on a TV show, maybe she's just not a very good public speaker... Does there need to be a bigger issue than that?

In another thread, JeffCa is asking for hard data for something which seems true to me. The question is easy: 'With the benefit of experience and hindsight, at somewhere between getting your A licence and 200 jumps, did you think you knew a lot more than you really did?' I've allowed multiple answers to see if the time between 500 and 100 jumps makes a difference in the realization...