DrewEckhardt

That's the long term strategy Tesla is obviously headed towards.

Sure. The car dealers have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo where they profit on every new vehicle sold or leased, gain customers for their profitable service businesses, and have a steady stream of trade-in vehicles to profit from. This is a company which is NOT giving the car dealers a slice of their millions.

That's not going to help. In a steady state configuration tension on the four risers and two brake lines all add up to the total suspended weight. The suspended weight is the same under a smaller canopy and control pressures remain about the same unless you change the design. Tandems have high pressures because they have two people under them not because they're large. My Stiletto 120 also had high toggle pressure when I used it for a Mr. Bill. At 150 pounds I was jumping a 245 for accuracy at a .73 wing loading which would be like a 160 for a 100 pound woman with a 20 pound rig. It worked great.

Because the touch down speed with proper piloting on a rectangular, low aspect ratio, conventionally constructed reserve is so much higher than a modern skydiving main of the same size. A 150 reserve landing isn't out of line with a 105-109 square foot elliptical like a Cross Fire 2, Katana, or Samurai and smaller cross-braced canopy. Because you don't have to land your main with a broken leg which would make a fast landing hard or dislocated shoulder that would mean not flying with both arms, although if you're not going to land your main you will be using your reserve. Because you could get knocked out and land unconscious under your reserve after an AAD opening and appreciate having fewer injuries after you woke up. Because your chances of landing into the wind in a large, flat, wide-open field are much lower when you start at reserve opening altitudes following malfunctions. Because a small rig makes your ass look big and as a normal size person smaller isn't much benefit once it fits in an airline-legal roll-aboard. In my fun rig I have a 105 main and PD143 which measures 151 square feet the PIA way.

Something with the potential to be human after it matures to have more intelligence than non-human animals we eat for food.

No. Roller coasters were only scary in elementary school. Skydiving is fun (a bit like square dancing with fewer women, no music, more wind, and more modern outfits) but not inherently exciting.

***Go for it. Some DZs are allot tighter than the generally open country that balloons need to land. [/QUOTE] Don't go for it. The spots the balloon flies over which you're jumping into don't have any limits on distances to obstacles, and more time in the sport makes "just jumping" less novel and exciting so the jumper is more likely to notice things under canopy like power lines.

One could have acquired their firearms before becoming medical marijuana users. You only need to be 18 to buy long arms on a 4473 and 21 to buy handguns; although herniated discs don't become common in men until we age past 30.

While complete BS that's already a 10 year felony under Federal law. 18 USC 922(g) It shall be unlawful for any person (3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)); to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce. where the government believes that a gun which at one point moved in interstate is enough to satisfy the "possess in or affecting commerce" clause.

I wholeheartedly disagree. I find undergoing a root canal preferable. Then how will you know when "the media" (whichever flavor you disagree with) is lying to you? I'll read the speech transcript afterwards in less time than it took Obama to deliver it from his teleprompter and pause whenever I feel nauseous.

1. You can often get a new harness installed for ~$400. 2. The relevant measurement is torso length where the rule of thumb for main lift web length is height - inseam - 20 all measured in inches. At 5'10 / 70" with a 30.5 inseam that gets me to 19.5" and I have custom rigs with 19 and 20" harness. With a 37" inseam you'd take the same 20" size. Rigs with the closing loop on a main flap won't work. Rigs with it on the wall separating the reserve and main containers probably will if the big size is over-sized or at least snug which is the fashion. I have a couple of Reflex R335s officially built for 135 mains where a Lightning 143 can be made to fit (although you really wouldn't want to without a few hundred packjobs of practice), a 135 is tight, 120 good, and 105 soft but still allows a tight closing loop.

Still waiting for someone to explain how we'll convert all those WalMart semi's to electric. In a world where we can make 416 HP electric sports sedans like the Tesla-S, 500 HP semi trucks are not out of the question. Similarly when you're building 15,000 - 25,000 pound semi-tractors you can accommodate heavy batteries.

People ineligible for both Medicaid because they make over $100/month and ACA subsidies because they earn less than 100% of Federal Poverty Level can form a PAC, buy some congress creatures, and get that changed in a future congress.

I understand people trying to make ACA about themselves and the people but that's not how American politics work. PhRMA gave up $80B in discounts in exchange for a more favorable bill lacking problems like the re-import provision, then spent over $100M in cash advertising ACA to help pass it. In return they get millions of new customers with billions of tax dollars to spend. A few people who couldn't get insurance before will benefit but they're not why the bill passed.

Nope. It's going to stick because it makes more money for insurance and other healthcare companies. ACA limits insurance company gross margins to 20%. If they save some money by denying coverage they have to return any excess to their customers. They can only make more money by spending more. Spending $1000 more on health care lets them collect $1250 more in premiums with $250 of gross profits. There are several potential complications with this which don't cause problems in practice: 1. In theory one insurance company could cover less, charge less in premiums, and get more business. Fortunately that's not a problem when all of them are required to cover something. 2. In theory the resulting higher premiums could lead more people to choose the market alternative of no insurance. In practice premiums are capped for families of four earning up to the 75th income percentile and most of us earning more have our employers picking up the tab. With premium increases invisible to mot voters there won't be enough public pressure to do things differently.

That's gotta be an OSHA violation.

No. I never understood what guys saw in Facebook until a kid told me he used it to talk to girls. I really don't care how my real-life friends dress their children and cats for Halloween. If anything significant happens in my family's lives they'll call or email and tell me about it, and everything insignificant can wait for an e-mail update or call. OTOH I am into linkedin. I like to know when former colleagues work situations change and I might recruit them. I appreciate some of the inbound contacts. I do use Quora often and well enough to be a 2013 Top Writer. I like to answer questions surrounding my business and technical experience to help younger engineers play to win sooner. I like to read answers about crushing the competition even when I don't know the author.

A million dollars when you retire barely qualifies as middle class. It won't generate enough passive income to match the median household income to say nothing of the higher wages experienced professionals are used to. As of 2009 representatives averaged 57 years old and senators 63 and I expect there would be a larger share of millionaires if they were financially prudent. The takeaway here seems to be that congress members are irresponsible spenders as both politicians and private citizens. Becoming a millionaire is not hard. Put money into a Roth IRA instead of the average $450/month car payment and you'll have $1M in current dollars after a 40 year career if you achieve the S&P500 50 year average returns of 7% with dividends re-invested. Double that as a couple. Buying a median sized 1980 house instead of a median sized 2010 home and investing the savings should also do wonders for your net worth.

Germans make alcohol free Kinderbier for children although the added sugar means that like American Budweiser it's not considered Bier under the Reinheitsgebot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamalz

No surprise. Government Motors is trying to sell an electrified $17,000 economy car (the Cruze) for $41,500 which is still $34,000 after the government tax credit and failing because of it. Tesla is selling a luxury car comparable to gas cars at its price point, and outselling the Mercedes S-class, Lexus LS, BMW 7 series, and Audi A8 by a significant margin.

That makes a lot of sense - each generation needs to be more bad-ass than the last. 41's Saddam Hussein rolled into Kuwait with conventional weapons, 43's had WMDs. Kim Jong Il had two panthers to dispose of unwanted guests . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R6wWgVp9kA and while I'm a cat person 120 dogs sounds a lot more lethal. Anybody have the youtube link for Kim Jong Un dealing with his enemies?

I went to college, studied computer science, and spent a few decades working as a professional geek. I moved to Silicon Valley because that's where 40% of American Venture capital goes. I've also made a few parachute jumps and know how that works. Get your non-CS classes out of the way at a community college from which credits transfer for about $3K/year. Do the rest at a state school you can commute to from your parents' house for about $10K/year. That way $40K gets you a degree. Work on free software projects and be awesome. Take interesting elective courses with projects like compiler construction. Turn that experience into a good summer internship. Take that to Silicon Valley where a big company can pay you $110-$120K salary, a signing bonus up to $100K, and $100K+ RSU package which vests over 4 years totaling $150K+ per year. You can also do OK (market compensation disregarding equity gain until you get somewhere around the principal engineer level and a startup won't pay you $300K+) at series-A venture funded startups where you're much more likely to stop needing a paycheck (each dime or 0.1% of market cap at $1B is $1M with each $1M after taxes good for about $40K indefinitely) and it's easier to gain experience which qualifies you for more senior positions. Keep your current standard of living involving room mates with a $3000/month 2-bedroom apartment, invest the legal maximum in tax-advantaged retirement accounts, invest more so you can retire early, and pay for your own skydiving, auto racing, flying, etc. hobbies. You could also buy a nice double wide trailer in the heart of Silicon Valley - I highly recommend that approach. $1600/month in slot rent and chattel mortgage leaves a lot more room in your budget for other things. Don't breed - that's very expensive and your children might die of neglect if you get too busy with business working 12-16 hour days. Forget about how the rest of the USA interprets the American Dream - when 3/2 1500 square foot ranch homes in a nice neighborhood sell for $1.5M you don't want to buy one. Stick to a rental or double wide mobile home. Forget about that "professional skydiver" thing too. Just smile and nod politely when those guys tell you how they sold plasma and lived on ramen to pay for their share of the chartered helicopter.

Both points are valid. The guy who made 500 jumps in one year is more likely to fly his slot in freefall and look good on video. The guy who watched other people for 3 years is more likely pick up judgement observing other peoples' painful mistakes, less likely to run into some one under canopy (unless he does CRW where that's intentional), and less likely to need an orthopedic surgeon. The second option is safer for everyone involved, although the first might be more fun.

All of those could have EASILY been paid for as needed. A broken bone with a few complications can run $100,000 at the insurance company's negotiated rates. Most people don't have several times that (the flat $12,000 per day paid by the insurance company for a shared hospital room becomes over $24K without their discount) in their savings account.

Actually, they could. They could give them money as a contribution to an HSA, which is pre-tax. HSA money can't be used for health insurance premiums except for COBRA (and long term care insurance which doesn't cover peoples' immediate needs). HSAs are also only available to people who have qualifying High Deductible Health Plans.