AndyMan

I would much prefer we take the people who fight against freedom of speech and deport them to China. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Another really good rebuttal to the conclusions this lunatic came up with is Pilot and Salon columnist Patrick Smith. See his column "The Hysterical Skies". http://dir.salon.com/topics/ask_the_pilot/index.html. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Wow. Pretty harsh. Personally, I try to respect people who have different opinions than me. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I think the biggest mistake environmentalists ever did was framing the discussion in "saving the world". It's not about "saving the world". The world will live long and prosper long after humans are wiped out of existence. The key, is that we need to save the ability of humanity to prosper on earth. The nutshell is that we don't need to save the planet, we need to save humanity. Oddly, humans are the one species on earth that have the ability to severly impact its environment. I have no doubt that we'll continue to do that. I hope we do it before its too late. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I have asked. Every time I do, I get an acknowledgement that of course it's biased. It has to be biased. By definition its biased. Read some Marshall McLuhan, or Noam Chomsky and you'll understand that every medium has bias. Start with McLuhans' "The Medium is the Massage". [sic] When I ask media professionals about Bias they always acknowledge it exists, but always claim to do everything possible to mitigate it. Some are more successful than others. Some, I think - are being disingenuous and don't fight it as much as they should. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I had thought that you could change many values, but not the frame rate? I understand the frame rate is a hardware limitation, not firmware. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Where is this line used? Shouldn't most fingertraps either be sewn (like line attachment points) , or have a knot to keep it in place (like toggles or closing loops)? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Thanks Jimbo, I was sure of that - but I didn't know PD published the numers. Dave - the difference isn't small, either. More than full foot difference between the end and center cells. You should be able to see that. Comparison to a Saber 2 190 which has a chord of 8.19/7.53, a difference of roughly a about half a foot - you can not calim that the Saber 2 is semi-eliptical but the Navigator is not. This just reinforces my point that the shape of a canopy is a very poor indicator of its performance. Popular PD canopies and the differences in chord between center and end-cells: Navigator 200: 1.14 feet Specter 190: 0.85 feet Saber2 190: .66 feet Stileto 190: 2.72 feet Clearly these numbers aren't the end of the story because there's a lot more to the "degree of elipticalness" than the difference in chord, also the span and its impact on the aspect ratio is key - but it does give a good indication. Somebody who knows geometry better than I do can do the math... Please? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I guess the one exception to my rule is that Chicago seems to have valet parking everywhere, which is just a pain in the ass. I HATE valet parking. I wouldn't do valet parking with expensive stuff in my trunk, since I drive an SUV there's no way to lock out the trunk from the valet key. Self-park though - all the time. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

It depends on weather the rig was in view, or not. If you've got a solid trunk (aka, not a hatchback or wagon) or got a cargo cover, I would have absolutely not trouble leaving anything of value in my car in downtown Chicago. I live in downtown Chicago. I've left my rig, all my camera gear, plus countless other expensive things under the cargo cover in my car, many times. I've parked my car in downtown Chicago for 4 years now, and never had it broken in to. I do make sure to keep anything of value out of sight, though. Strangely, on my last visit to New York City, my car got broken into the first night it was there. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I haven't heard Kerry complaining about it nearly as much as I've heard McCain. "Dishonest and dishonorable", said Senator John McCain - referring to the ad. http://news.google.com/news?q=mccain&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nn Now THERE'S a man with integrity. You could learn something from him. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I've once had a riser take a nic of skin off the end of my nose. The deployment didn't "feel" weird, either before or after the nose strike. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

At Chicagoland, it's pretty entrenched tradition that there's going to be a bonfire every saturday night. People drink around the bonfire until the wee hours of the morning. Some even stay up to watch the sun rise. People drink whatever amounts they're comfortable with. Some have just a few, some drink to far excess. Surprisingly, there is no corelation between how late someone stays up, or how much they drink, and how many people make the early morning loads on Sunday morning. A huge number of people jump hung over. Last Sunday, I showed up at the DZ at around 10:00, and since the days tandems hadn't shown up yet I jumped on a 12 way, I would fly video. Looking at the group during the dirt dive, we were all pretty much convinced it would be a complete cluster-fuck. EVERYONE was hung over - myself included. Something magical happened though, the 12 way turned 12 points, and I shot the best video I ever have. Yes, people jump after a night of drinking. Jumping is by far the best way I've ever found to clear a hangover. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

It may be morbid, but I've met a handful of ex-skydivers who have a very similar attitude. Especially after Roger Nelsons death last year, some people found the risks simply too high for their liking. It may be morbid, but it certainly isn't uncommon among ex-jumpers. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

That hangs on a poster at my Dad's cottage. It's always struck me for being apt in many ways. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I was struck by one of your comments. In the blog, you (i think it was you) said that you've lost more friends to drunken driving accidents than skydiving ones. I think you must have been very lucky at the DZ's you frequent, or you had a large number of alcoholic friends. I knew 3 people who died last year, one of them was a good friend. I've never lost anyone to a traffic accident. I simply can not imagine the validity of such a comparison. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Putting Alan Keyes up is simply an attempt to save face. They have to put someone up, so they're attempting to make it look like they're putting a strong candidate. They're forgetting that Keyes has the social graces of Urkel. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The first weakness I see is " S = shape (cut) of canopy: 0 for fully-rectangular canopies, 0.25 for semi-elliptical canopies, or 0.5 for highly-elliptical canopies. Keep in mind that the PD Navigator, a student canopy, is "semi-elliptical". So is the PD Spectre. I would not assume that a Navigator is anymore "high performance", than a Saber 1, which is fully rectangular. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

If Skydiving ever defined me completely, I think I'd be a pretty boring person. It's certainly a fun way to spend a weekend, but there's an awful lot of other good things in life, too. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Which completely remains to be seen. Often a hijacked homepage is caused simply by some clever javascript. The fact that Ad-aware didn't find anything reinforces this. If the simple fix didn't work, only THEN would I start recomending targetted downloads. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I presume you're using Internet Explorer? Reset your home page. Browse to whatever page you want to set as your home page, then go to the Tools menu, select "Internet Options" Under the "Home Page" section, click "Use Current", then "OK". _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I don't think you can blame it on the media. Historically, in times of starvation - being big is attractive. In times of "plenty", being thin is in style. The odd thing is that the western world is experienceing whats basically now 3 generations of relative prosperity, something thats effectively never been seen before. Being "big" hasn't been in style for an awefull long time, and hopefully never will again. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I often see larger women as stunningly attractive. It's not just about size. Except, with a very few exceptions. There's one woman I have in my mind who's well over 250 lbs, she wears very loose halter tops, often with no bra. She seems to bend over a lot, you can't help seeing everything through the extra-large neck. It's not what I want to see, partly because she doesn't fit my tastes, but mostly because it simply is not appropriate. More often though, I'm humored by whats going on, because I do work with tandem videos. For reasons I don't really understand, many of the tandems at Chicagoland choose not to wear jump suits, and many jump in short baggy shirts. This usually isn't a problem until deployment time comes, where its standard practice for the editor to put the video in slow-motion. A larger person in a loose halter top going through deployment is kinda funny, but not nearly as funny as watching the reaction on that same persons face when they see the video for the first time. This goes for both men and women. In a way, showing someone what they REALLY look like is kinda like a public service... lol _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Dang, happy birthday David! You shoulda said somethin! _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Seriously. If anyone thinks either is a big deal, they need a reality check with a bean-filled whack-bonk. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.