yoink

I hate him already!

They already do. A condition of staying in the US is always having an updated AR-11 form which details where you're staying. If you move and don't update it you stand to be deported. That the government never checks it or follows it up is different problem. You'll forgive me if I think you wouldn't be OK with the government suggesting tracking US Citizens like fedex packages. I think everyone would be furious about it. But it wouldn't work for peope who came in illegally, because they wouldn't get tracked in the first place. what are they going to do? Come over the border in a truck, make it to New Mexico then report themselves to a local border security station? "Hey guys, please chip me!" It would only track those who come in on legal visas who comply with the entry requirements and then overstay - by his own admission that isn't even a majority of legal immigrants - only 40%. What that percentage is as part of total illegal immigration would be less. (A very quick google search suggests that illegal entry is constitutes about 25% of all illegal immigration).

Nope - he wants to track EVERY immigrant in order to be able to find people if they BECOME illegal by overstaying. That means I'd have been chipped. Despite opening a company, hiring Americans, never exceeding my visa requirements, getting a green card etc. What would happen if I took the Citizenship test too? All of a sudden they'd be tracking an American Citizen... pretty sure you'd be up in arms if they suggested that.

I think the big difference is the distinction between sections of society. All of the stuff you listed happens to all of us - we should rightly be concerned about it. But when we start targeting a specific demographic for tracking just because they're 'immigrants' or 'Jews' that's a slippery slope.

If you saw that in Kallends original post then maybe you're reading too much into it... I saw implied criticism of one Republican nominee. Can you explain in the following quote where the 'broad brush' that is swiping at the whole presidential field is? I also didn't see any reference to either the Republican or Democrat parties, or any inference of their implied intelligence. Can you explain in the same quote where you're seeing that? From the original post I saw one guy being critisised for likening people to packages, and for wanting to apply an enforced tracking mechanism - the comparison to the inhumanity of the Nazis seemed obvious to me. Again, it seems like you see a post by Kallend and rather than reading, digesting and responding to it, you simply take the opposite position - no matter how ludicrous it is. It's OK to agree with each other on some things... The 'I'm a Republican therefore I must oppose every non-Republican' stance that you seem to have really doesn't do you any favors.

Barcodes are so 70 years ago. Now it's all about subdermal microchips.

Absolutely. Which is why I was really uncomfortable with the idea. However, what I've seen over the years on the internet is that if you take away the anonymity aspect and then force people to make their statement on their own in public you nix 90% of the 'me too' crowd. For the app concept there would have to be constant weighting of your vote - have you 'earned' the right to be listened to? I've no idea how that value would be defined, but we'd need to stop malicious and repeated reporting as well as the 1-off 'I'm drunk and pissed off' out-liars. Like you I quite like the concept - creating a channel for civil responsibility. But the other implications scare the crap out of me - including the remit of the agency which would have to oversee it all.

The Pilot isn't that old!

You heard it here folks. 9-11 wasn't nano thermite, it was a tactical nuclear weapon.

Do you actually READ any of this stuff before you start frothing at the mouth?

So my solution is based on that supposition too, but you're not going to like it... We have apps to report people for wasting water in california. Why not an app to report people? If you think someone is in need of help, use the app to report them - once a certain number of unique reports are generated for an individual it prompts an investigation or possibly a visit. (There are conceivable a sliding scale of next steps from 'monitor them' to 'send out the cops'). Official reports from employers could be given more credence and weighting than from joe public. I can already see massive problems with this (personal privacy aside), and don't suggest this is exactly how it would work, but somehow we need a way to identify people who may be a risk or require help and then start intervening in a small way but with some route of escalation. It's a horrific big-brotheresque solution which would require a large investment in some agency to do all the work.

I fail to see people dying seeking solo world records in skydiving and how this (the article) compares to regular Joe skydiving. Take care, space You haven't seen over-confidence and the seeking of positive reinforcement in poor decision making as a problem in our sport?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34070393

Still one of the random things I'm most proud of. Gadgets fail. Go the Mk1 eyeball.

The big one for me is stability - particularly in weather. Center cockpits are far more likely to induce motion sickness, at least for me - and I'm sure you know how debilitating that can be. The visibility is really nice though! I got a load of advice from the old salty guys this afternoon which I'll type up over when I get back from my vacation, but the summary is: A huge no on the Cat option - out of 3 guys who have been sailing all their lives they all agreed on this. They were less than complimentary about the decision making of even considering it unless you're racing. They also all suggested that you'd be far better off crewing a few long legs before being the responsible party on your own. All of them agreed that you will probably underestimate the cost of prepping a boat for oceanic sailing, and said that they still do. I think you'd love to do some time in open water sailing. As Lee intimated there are all sorts of forums where you can sign up for crew positions and I think you'd love that. I'm really struggling to give you a 'go for it!' for this idea as much as I'd like to though - mostly because I'm unsure of your partner. I'm off to Hawaii tomorrow but took notes and will type up stuff in more detail when I return. edit: the advice about the harness from Amazon is a good one. ALWAYS be clipped in at night.

This guy has no sailing experience? Sorry - but you need to pull rank. He may have the money but to my mind that doesn't mean he gets any sort of say in the boat or how it's sailed. That's like letting a skydiving student dictate the gear they'd use. Pick a medium size monohull that's easy to sail shorthanded. The Falcon is a gorgeous boat but I wouldn't fancy rattling around it on my own! He's also done no sailing and wants to go straight to years of doing it? Seems like he needs to spend some time on the water first. I'd be super leery about letting him take watch shifts unsupervised. You can do long legs with 1 inexperienced person on board, but I'd want at least 3 other very experienced crew with me. I'm off sailing this afternoon and we've got some super experienced open water sailors on our boat - One of them has sailed hawaii to the US solo a few times. I'll ask for their recommendations. Edit: I'd also suggest considering an aft-cockpit configuration for cruising.

I'm just going to lump in anyone obsessively trying to upload the video or trying to find it to watch it. Seriously, what's to be learned/gained from watching it? I can hardly read the details, I will never understand the need to watch something like this. Yeah. I didn't even try to click on the link. I could do without seeing that.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34062118

This was my first thought. I've done some 3 and 4 day ocean races in 40' Cats and it's not a particularly comfortable experience. If you're doing this as an adventure then you don't need to go as fast as possible - really you just want to cruise along with the minimum fuss. I think a decent monohull might be a better option. Pick something with some mass to it to help power through the swells. If you've not done any trans-oceanic stuff before I'd highly recommend a proper course in navigation, and definitely not to skimp on the communications gear. Get a satellite phone. It's a really big ocean out there - cruising from the Azores to the UK we went nearly 2 weeks without seeing anything. No boats, no birds, nothing. And that's only half an ocean... Make sure you arrange check-in times with family or friends - just a daily update of lat & long is enough and stick to it. I'd strongly recommend reading through the ISAF Off Shore Racing requirements and using those to decide how to provision your boat. http://www.sailing.org/documents/offshorespecialregs/index.php - I'd be reading at least the Category 1 stuff. 2 people is kinda light crewed for trans ocean stuff - particularly if you've not done much of it before. If 1 person gets injured or sick on a leg and can't pull their weight it will make things a hundred times harder. Something to keep in mind. I wouldn't say trans ocean stuff is 'fun', but it's a very special kind of loneliness.Definitely an experience that will stick with you. The decision whether to do it or not is up to you and there's some good advice up thread, but I would say that if you're going to do it, do it right - not cheap.

Given the fact that this was the first time that women have graduated, I think it far more likely that the brass saw that there was a good chance of these women making it and then giving the whitehouse advance notice of the possibility in order to make the most of the marketing opportunity if it arose. That isn't the same as the white house saying 'graduate these women'. I also don't see that as any indication of changing standards.

from what I've been reading on the scuba boards, it seems that physiology does some really weird stuff at those extreme depths. I think it's fair to say he probably thought he knew the physiology and physics but may well have been bitten by assuming he knew more than he did. That's a familiar lesson to us. The other one that rings true is that all the book-learning in the world isn't a substitute for actual, physical experience.

That made me chuckle more than it should have!

Cracking article. Someone on here has a signature saying 'nothing is more dangerous than breaking a BSR and getting away with it'. The section on normalizing deviance explains that perfectly.

Holy fucking shit. Can't believe the pilot survived! Looked like simple pilot error too.

Fucking right he's making me nervous. What if you're wrong about him fading away? Partisan politics aside, putting someone with that much of an ego, who is that much of an asshole in the oval office will be a disaster. I prefer to keep the big red 'kaboom' buttons out of the hands of egomaniacal lunatics.