nathaniel

not weighing in on politics, but CBS has released another update My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

For the record, it's Javascript, not Java. Java is Sun Microsystem's infamous beast of a programming language Javascript is a scripting language that originated in early versions of Netscape and now is standardized by the European Computer Manufacturers Association And the timing issue you see is probably your operating system, not your web browser: "SUMMARY The timestamps that you can obtain from Windows are limited to a maximum resolution of 10 or 15 milliseconds" It's a basic design flaw in most versions of Windows, probably the newer ones as well but I've not got a handy reference on them. Most people can get by without that much precision anyway. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I paid a visit to my company's NYC office two weeks ago for a project there. Literally everybody in the office and everybody that I spoke to from the client had made plans to get out of NYC for the convention. 10-15 people in all, of diverse political affiliation. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Depends on what you're talking about. I can -definately- see the flashing of a screen refresh, 1/60th or so, using my peripheral vision. I also see flourecent tubes flashing in the same way. This is actually not uncommon. I do not see the same effect with the fovea, the center on my vision. 24 frames a second is an old standard for motion picture films. It's not the maximum of what a person can detect, but rather the minimum sufficient rate to consistently trick a brain into seeing motion. A good way to experience this yourself is to rig up some contemporary video games that can show you the frame rate real-time. You can really see and appreciate the difference between 20 and 60 frames / sec. And I think you'll find that anything less than 20 seems choppy. ISTR broadcast television uses 30 frames / sec...tho watching my mom's satellite dish it's apparent to me that satellite & cable cheat a bit. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

If you have Geico car insurance, you can save like 10% on your bill by joining the NAFE, the National Association of Female Executives. When I was financing my car in college my insurance was really high (like $2000 / year) so I got the $50 NAFE membership fee paid back to me 3 times. And I got a free subscription to Working Woman magazine! It's funny tho, now I get all kinds of women's catalogs in the mail. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Short answer: take it to a rigger, it might not cost you anything to get it fixed. I had the same issue with a '96 J1 and was correcting it with a rubber band. My rigger took a look at it and advised shortening the closing loop so that the main gets squished in a little higher up and the container's closing flaps likewise end up higher. The result is that there's effectively more of the main flap tab to bend up and hide underneath. A rigger is the best person to advise you about the length of your closing loop. Haven't had a problem since, tho I kept the rubber band. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Amen. And the ease of hacking these platforms will decrease as all the sheer number of morons running them increases. This is not a comment about the relative preponderance of moron by operating system...just more people means more morons. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

What's scary is that some people would take implants for the slightest of reasons, without the slightest thought of the consequences. Nightclub 'chips' punters My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Playing devil's advocate] Are the alleged terrorists US citizens? nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I predict this would cause short term shocks to prices, followed by all the current research into autonomous vehicles (think David Hasselhoff and KITT) all of a sudden starting to pay off. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Ahh yes, the Evil Bit. And here I was thinking that was an April fool's joke. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I didn't miss that point, I reject it. The best solution possible is not good enough if it doesn't pass the test of reason, if it doesn't work at all. Nobody has "helped at all" by any measure, we haven't got off the ground yet. We've seen nothing but specious conjectures lacking data. (Edit to make clear: they are specious before they lack data, not just because.) I contend it is productive to dismiss the bad ideas as soon as possible. There's a good reason to think the advent of the reliable AAD makes the question irrelevant. But I think you are familiar with the whole debate already, if not the article explains it better than I can, I have a plane to catch in 4 hours. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Come on, are these proposals really not worth defending? If they are valid then they will stand much worse than I can deliver. Though I concede I can get impatient with illogic, I believe that criticism can only strengthen good ideas. Hiding the mysticism will only perpetuate fallacy, and hurt more people than benefit. We haven't got to the analysis stage yet, we are still waiting for data. Just about any idea that's proposed could be shot down for this reason. Had I the means to obtain the data I would deliver (edit: I would deliver the data, no promises about solutions). Like I said, it's a non-sequitur to get from this to endorsing any position. Let's turn that back on the people proposing all kinds of regulatory innovation. Share your knowledge with us. Show us what you know; you too might learn something from yourself in the process. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

I feel no shame in saying I do not have one. It's a non sequitur for that to validate someone else's proposal--it's precisely the assumption that good intentions produce good results that I'm afraid of. I can assure you I'm not trolling; if I had confidence in the definition of the problem espoused by you and others here, and if I saw an easy answer I would propose/endorse/defend it. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Experiments and theory go hand in hand, amen. But they are not separable. As unvalidated theory (aka conjecture) is useless, so too experiments mean nothing without the context of well-derived theory. All this crooked talk about jump numbers and restrictions is specious in large part because there's been no theory shown to back it up. Present some theory and we'll start getting places. Let me reiterate, pissing contests prove nothing. I don't dispute you've got more skydiving mojo than me, so whatever's got your goose you can let it go. A good driver doesn't need to know about angular momentum or the particulars of braking systems. You, good sir, are undoubtedly a good canopy/freefall driver. But the people who make rules about road grading, surface materials, speed limits and the like are useless without sound appreciation of the theory of those domains. The rules may have started with what seemed to work well for the cars of the time, but right around the time that the business matured is around the time that people started deriving the theory seriously. One does not need to be a NASCAR victor in order to derive sound rules for driving. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Whatever 0day exploits mozilla has, they aren't being widely exploited on financial websites. Good enough for me

So umm, invert the conditions and you're "saving" more people? no limit < 25 1.3 > 50 1.1 > 200 1.0 > 500 Jockeying with numbers is an easy way to come up with all kinds of absurd proposals, what reason makes your proposal different? I know I know, you mean well and that should be enough. But it's not, not on its own. edit: likewise, my old proposal would have "saved' them all 1.0 < 10000 jumps 1.1 < 20000 jumps 1.2 < 30000 jumps 1.3 < 40000 jumps 1.4 < 50000 jumps Absurd, yes, but can we at least try to reason about why it's absurd? nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

You're exhibiting a different meaning to the term theory. I've been using the definition in the first sense described in AHD and M-W and dictionary.com; in the sense described here. This kind of theory is as close to fact as humans can get--mathematical theory is about as pure as fact comes. While mathematical purity is not possible in the "Real world" we belong to, and while there have been notable screwups in the application of reason, it's not a reason to give up on theory altogether. Having your ducks in a row actually helps when we realize there's a bad premise tucked in or when there's been a lapse of reason. While using the word theory to mean conjecture is not incorrect (it's listed in the dictionaries as an additional meaning) I think it may be part of the confusion between us. Unfortunately it's one of those funky words like "cleave" that can mean one thing and the opposite depending on how you use it. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Your recollection of history is incorrect, unless you can present evidence that the Ancient Greeks circumnavigated the Earth. Not that it's relevant at all...the failures of crackpots do not invalidate the scientific method any more than your favorite pocket rocket fatality invalidates all of skydiving. It's exactly the opposite; knowledge and theory is what gives us all (incl less experienced skydivers like me) the ability to tell true statements from conjecture. Abnegate it and just about all you'll have left is your experience to work with. What would a pissing contest prove? Certainly not either of our arguments... nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Perhaps in time you will build enough experience to empirically validate the value of theory. It took thousands of years for humans to figure this out the first time; modern humanity doesn't have to wait that long. True statements do not know of the experience of their speakers. The properties of a statement and the properties of its orator are disjoint. A knowledgeable person is better equipped to make true statements but at no point is his ability to make false statements diminished. How hard is it to prove? The standards of proof are the same for jumpers of every age, sex, and level of experience--this is a bit of a tortured way to put it b/c proofs are conducted for statements, not speakers. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Conceded. But the assertion I made is not about a rigger inspecting gear across a room; it is based on probability theory. Am I expected to learn in the next few years that probability theory does not apply to skydiving? nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

To continue this analogy, an experienced rigger who could only examine a few dozen microscopic threads would be no help at all. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

And here we go again, begging the question. The risks and costs of driving at excessive speed have been quantified, as have been the benefits of speed limits and enforcement. The results are fairly conclusive. The analogy is not. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

Oh, no need to worry about that. Ryan's campaign is already sunk. Jack Ryan previously hired a professional goon to follow his opponent Obama around and personally harrass him: shoving a camera in his face, following him into restrooms, and heckling him as he talked to constituents. I don't know if Obama has any particular qualities worth voting for... but he at least seems to have the presence of mind not to do incredibly stupid things. On that basis alone I think Ryan doesn't stand a chance. nathaniel My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

While this is undoubtedly true of some jumpers at every level of experience, this is a difficult proposition to levy on an individual because it's a catch-22. By conceding it seems the individual in question would be contradicting the claim. It's one of my favorite studies, nonetheless