Joellercoaster

Damn, we probably would have met... I'm getting there on the 12th for mine. Is there a skydiving course out there that *doesn't* qualify you for freefall? If so, you'd probably have a future as a CReW dog. Sorry to hear it man -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

"To me Coming from you Friend is a four letter word..." -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Yeah... it's important not to buy a main that you're just going to want to ditch for a higher-performance one after a few jumps. On the other hand... rental is expensive. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Then there's definitely going to be sex involved, or at least the hope thereof. It's the only explanation -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Doing just that now. I can struggle through, knowing it's only eight short hours until the weekend, and as such if my boss notices how little I'm actually getting done today he'll have forgotten by Monday. I've calmed down a lot though. When I was a Young And Angry Programmer, Thursday was happy hour night at all four of my favourite bars in town - consecutively. My friend and I worked for the same company, and on Friday mornings he and I would stumble in to work around ten, wordlessly go to our respective offices and turn the lights off. We'd then sit there in the dark and code all day, pausing only to go brew more coffee. Eventually my boss took me aside one day and said, "Joel - what exactly is it that you and Mike do on Thursday nights?" -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Not to mention the fact that we tend to piss them off more. A lot more people would get killed by sharks if we started trying to shake them down for a free Coke. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Is this why people swoop? [edit: Back on-topic... glad it's not just me who gets the "shit, what if my leg straps fall off now?" feeling under canopy. Don't get me wrong, I love canopy flight almost as much as freefall, but... the first few seconds are a bit creepy.] -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Douchenozzle is the new asshat. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Yeah that. We'd been dating for six months or so and realised we had spent maybe two nights of that apart, so we moved in. We've been doing that for the two years since, and will get married whenever we go back to Australia (people would never forgive us if we did it here). The living with someone to make sure they don't have annoying habits thing cuts both ways. Everyone has annoying habits. The question is, will yours and your partner's be compatibly annoying, or not? The only way to find out is to live together. Those of you who don't do the test-drive thing (sexually or not, I don't care) aren't just quaint - I think you're letting yourself in for a world of hurt. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

At least two I'm lucky enough to be marrying one of them after a few years of living together... -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Don't forget people using "action" as anything other than the noun it is. ~~~~ wavy lines ~~~~ Word to the wise: "action" isn't a transitive verb. It's not even a verb, period. While using it as one may act as a signal between members of the middle-managerial classes, it annoys the technical people to whom such communication is often also addressed. As people who make a living paying attention to detail and knowing what rules are, it just rubs them the wrong way. And annoyed technical people don't "action" anything. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Twice in about ten jumps. First one was my fault, just misjudged the winds and landed next to the DZ. Second one was pretty funny. Winds at ground level were within Student tolerance but the uppers were, uhh... a little stronger. Since I opened high and was very lightly loaded, I had no hope. After realising I was going to be out, I looked down and realised not only was I over a lake, I was flying backwards and getting further away from the shore. Hightailed it downwind and was over the lake in no time, and the ground-level winds were still low so as soon as I arrived over land all was calm and nice for a stand-up landing. The sheep were very impressed. Got back and discovered that my GF had been watching the whole thing and laughing at "whoever that last guy was - he was doomed!" -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Hmm. Reading this thread, some of y'all have had some way more terrifying experiences than this, but: I was about twelve, and ran through one of those old-skool plate glass windows. I ended up dangling suspended over a triangle of glass stuck in the frame, with another one of similar size wavering back and forth, point down over the back of my neck. Instead of being disembowelled or beheaded, I came out with a cut on my knee and a thin laceration on my abdomen through my sweater where I'd been hanging over the spike. Almost no blood at all. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Which is why you might want to do your A somewhere else. I'm going abroad next month for mine, and I'm confident it will still work out cheaper, but more importantly I won't have to worry about the weather so much. (Famous last words, I know - this will turn out to be the only time in history Lillo has cyclones, or something.) Doing my entire license in the UK, on weekends (and public transport!), sounded like a very furstrating process indeed. Back on-topic for just a second, I first did AFF in Australia, and they charged us $12 or something for a packing class, taken whenever we felt like it and as many times as we needed. There were people in the class with no jumps yet, and a guy with about 30, and the rest seemed to be in between. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

This is true of almost all British regulation nowadays. It's not just skydiving, don't worry. I haven't been living here terribly long, but good grief - the rules! Those on their own can be pretty funny, but the real gold is in the way those rules get expressed (as with the original post... awesome!). What scares me is that the British are genuinely scared that Europe is going to impose needless regulation on their lives. I dunno, going on their own performance, I would've thought they'd be pleased... [edit: does this mean I'm not *allowed* to fly anything smaller than a 250 until I get CH1 checked off? I reckon my exit weight would be around 210...] -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Toshiba laptop, you say? Putting up with Windows, you say? Get your friendly neighbourhood Linux nerd to hook you up, I say! (It's really not that hard to deal with, no matter what Dvorak says. Hasn't been for years.) -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

I had the opposite problem. I brought the Mac home, popped open a (transparent, yay OpenGL yay) terminal window and sterted playing with Python (yes, in vi - hadn't downloaded Emacs yet ). I had a bit of fast talking to do to explain that this didn't mean it was going to be the Linux experience all over again, and this really was going to be nice to use for someone who had only ever used Windows. An hour later, she turned to me and said, "You're right. Let's never go back." -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

This is true about the evolution from NeXT, but not about being a distant cousin to Unix. The current MacOS is wrapped around a Mach kernel, which makes it a fully-fledged form of BSD. Pretty much anything you can get to run on a BSD will compile for MacOS X, as well (obviously) as a lot else. It's definitely a Unix. (For what it's worth, POSIX or no, it's closer to being an official Unix than Linux is ) -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Peej... dunno about Merkin methods of implant (there are a few out there), but the most popular one where I come from is Implanon. It's a (plastic?) rod maybe a couple of inches long that goes under the skin - generally, the ones I've seen have been along the inner biceps. Sustained-release hormone for something like three years... Anyway, in the last couple of years a whole bunch of my female friends, including my SO, got them put in. They spent many a happy minute in bars prodding one end of their implants and making the other end poke up under the skin. It looks pretty weird the first time you see it. Watching two of them at it is like that scene in The Simpsons where Homer goes rushing out into the street with his new hair, and runs into another guy also with new hair, and they get that look of recognition. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Yarr! Hijacked ye be! Debian is still the one for me after all these years, though I'm recommending Ubuntu to other people lately. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Given the choice between Mac and Windows, I'd buy a Mac right now. Actually, I did the other day I've been a Linux user for over a decade, and since OSX, MacOS is the commercial (consumer) operating system that comes closest to letting me do what I want, and just getting out of my way, in the way that Linux does. I guess that's something to do with MacOS actually being a form of Unix nowadays... talk about interesting times. It's also incredibly pretty, if that matters to you. But: To the people who are saying the lack of spyware/trojans etc is a reason to buy a Mac, I'd say that's not actually much to do with the OS's security - it's more that not much malware gets written for it yet, because the audience is so small. Why attack a few dozen Macs when you can infuriate tens of thousands of Windows users? Also, modern versions of Windows aren't terribly insecure if you use them properly. Most attacks rely on user trust or carelessness nowadays. I've been using Windows at work for about five years now and haven't had a single successful attack. Still. Get a Macintosh just 'cause they're sleeker. And they come with, what, 5 programming languages out of the box? Can't argue with that. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

You're forgetting "implant". Unless that counts as being on the pill? Works for us, and now my baby is a cyborg. Sorta... and it freaks people out when she finds it in her arm and makes it stick out -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Depending on your Russian, this can all be a massive pain in the arse to do for yourself. They really do (apparently) check with the cops to make sure you're staying in the hotel you said you were staying at, and the hotel will take your passport for the duration of your stay to make sure. In the end, we threw up our hands and dropped some money on a tour company nominally based in Russia but actually run by (in partnership with?) Australians. They sorted all our accommodation for us, and were handily able to provide the invitation/cover letter too. Depending on what you want to do, of course. We were just rubbernecking across from Mongolia to Moscow on the train, paying for their standard services along the way - they might not be so keen to organise someone's skydiving holiday. [edit: This was a Tourist-class visa, if that changes anything.] -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Not so. There are plenty of JVMs running on machines that are using old video cards, or in some cases don't even have video cards. It's fair enough to say your software needs a resolution of more than 800x600 (I haven't taken it home to look at it but I will, it sounds like a neat thing and I'm all in favour of your open source idea), but don't go blaming Java for your UI design -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

Unless your boyfriend walks in and isn't so drunk he doesn't remember. Then it probably happened, and you are probably dumped. Happened to a girl friend of mine not long ago... she still doesn't remember :( Oh, the poll? Nah. Carmen Electra is kinda skanky. -- "I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan "You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?