kirrz

Do you get any sort of error message?

don't worry i'll still be around to harass you for at least another year... i need the ski slopes!!

isn't dave awesome for programming help!

hey guys! thanks for all the replies!! i have a major in french so i'm not worried about the language barrier in montreal. i guess what i really want is a place like sydney but with accessible ski slopes.. sydney has awesome weather.. i love the european-ness of montreal but don't have a basis for comparison as i have never been to vancouver. remi - to work in retail/ customer interaction type jobs in montreal, do you need to be able to speak french? i'm going to be dragging my boyfriend along so if he's not going to be able to get a job, that might just be the deciding factor.. also, i want to do a masters in broadcast/ investigative journalism... are there any schools in either cities with an outstanding reputation? thanks heaps guys!! i'm looking forward to jumping with all of u in canada! (once i'm good that is)

I don't want to make a debate out of this but I am a media student - we are taught to verify the accuracy of our info (this is in the SMH code of ethics too). Gillian could have made the whole post up, the journalist would never have known. There are no interviews, no back up sources - nothing. The entire article is based around one post. In principal then, I could go up to a random forum and write an ultra-controversial (but completely false) post and have an entire news article in a "credible" paper devoted to me (the SMH is our equivalent to the NY times). Also in their code of ethics is "respect for private grief" which this totally violates. This is not journalism. It's bullshit.

I'm thinking about moving over to Canada in a year or so for grad school, I'm tossing up between Vancouver and Montreal. Which city has more jumping days/ better weather? I have heard that it rains nearly everyday in Vancouver (don't know if it is true though) but I know that it gets bitterly cold in Montreal.. Which is the best Canadian city if you're a skydiver? Help!

that is so fucked up. especially for what is considered to be one of the more "credible" papers here. i have told the journalist exactly what i think of this article, anyone else who wishes to do so: [email protected] i have also sent a complaint to the editor [email protected] outlining how this article violates many of their published code of ethics (http://www.smh.com.au/ethicscode/) gillian, the journalist is a fuckwit. i hope you find your peace. [url]

Things are back to normal here in Bangkok, it's like nothing ever happened - politics is not going to be an issue. leslieb - is the thai sky fest an actual boogie or are u referring to the big way? i would love to come jump if it's a boogie!

What an awesome post! I absoultely second it. I have definitely come into contact with "this guy" at my DZ. I have a huge fear issue and he will even sit there for hours just letting me talk a mile a minute to him to get the fear out of my system. He has adapted jumps to make them the least scary they can be for me and if it wasn't for him, I would probably have caved in to the fear and stopped. He has gotten off his own fun jumps to jump with me and he pushes me without being forceful. I always say that I want to buy beer but he always tells me not to because he knows I can't afford it, and he still helps me. The thing about skydiving that has really touched me is that there is such a diverse demographic of jumpers yet there is no discrimination over age, race, religion, appearance (at least at my dz)... I love watching people who are completely different in every way dirt dive and jump together, brought together as friends because of their mutual love for the sky. Being in the sky is not the only beautiful thing about this sport, the people are incredible too.

The crown prince (his son) used to be a loose cannon no doubt but over the last few years he's gotten married, matured and demonstrated that he is now capable of running the country. A few years ago I would have been the first person to go on a tirade about how useless the crown prince is but now I really think it's a whole different ball game. I know the opinion of the country has changed as well. Also, if the king was directly involved in the coup, there is no way in hell that info would ever ever ever become public knowledge. I suspect it's media speculation. The king has never interfered in politics. Each year, he gives a speech on his birthday - the only time he directly addresses the public - and if need be, he diplomatically gives his suggestions, he rarely does though. During the Thaksin reign, the king has been a bit more vocal about his disagreement with the Thaksin rule. But even then, the most he has said is "If certain people are so interested in promoting local tourism, they should not be hypocrites and spend all their time overseas" and "If people choose to be in positions of power, they should also have the ability to take criticism" (2005 after Thaksin tried to sue the journalist who held gatherings against him). The king would never be involved in the coup. If he was, it would never be public knowledge. The most that has been confirmed by the palace is that he has now given his support 24 hours later. This is not the same as being involved in the coup or advocating it. Also, the military leaders had to go to the palace today (after they carried out the coup) to make sure they had support. This would not be the case if the king was involved unless this whole thing is a really elaborate conspiracy. Edited to add: On March 24, 2006 in front of a rally of 50,000 [89], Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva asked for King Bhumibol to appoint a replacement Prime Minister[90] [91] [92]. The People's Alliance for Democracy's (PAD), the Law Society of Thailand, and the Press Council of Thailand also called for royal intervention [93] [94] . The King himself on 26 April dismissed the notion, saying that such an action would be unconstitutional. "Asking for a Royally appointed prime minister is undemocratic. It is, pardon me, a mess. It is irrational." [95] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaksin_Shinawatra

the last one was in 1991. this is the first bloodless coup ever though. and the military is rigorously maintaining that they have no interest in running the country. they just felt they needed to get rid of him - permanently.

It's only the rich people in Bangkok that want him out. The rural people are the ones who voted him in. Apparently, he abuses his position alot. (I am Thai, have lived there forever, am going back on Saturday and have spoken to my family in Bangkok 3 times today) Thaksin is ridiculously corrupt. He wins elections because he targets the uneducated farmers by giving them loans they don't have to pay back for 3 years if they vote for him. Of course they do. The educated population and the south hate him. Unfortunately, the farmers outnumber. So after 3 years (his time in power) the next govt is left with this debt. During his second election campaign.. his strategy was "you don't have to pay your loans back for another 3 years". Go figure why he wins. The reason people have been turning against him is because he owned most of the telecommunications in Thailand and sold them in such a way that he totally manipulated laws and managed to evade taxes. And the people found out. The outrage became "if the billionaire PM doesn't want to pay taxes, why should we"? A journalist started holding gatherings in a park every Friday exposing some of the things he does (ie. using govt planes to fly his friends to his party). The coup is the best thing for Thailand. Apparently Western media has overhyped it. I know Australian press is talking about how all the Aussies in Bangkok need to get out now. Everyone in Bangkok thinks it's amusing. They say life is going on as normal, everyone is back to work tomorrow, within 2 weeks a temporary PM will be appointed and elections scheduled. Official word has just come in from the palace that the king supports this position. The king NEVER interferes in politics which is why the people love him. He goes about quietly managing and running projects (ie. the environmental ones) to help the country. The fact that the king has publicly voiced support is going to be huge news tomorrow and the whole country is totally behind the king. Thaksin is a greedy dickhead and this needed to happen. He passes unneccessary billion dollar wasteful projects like building a freeway over the sea (wtf?!?!) where a normal freeway exists anyway so he can get his cut. The latest is that he has exiled himself to the UK for a year. Good riddance.

I last used an emulator a couple of years ago but the one I used was called Virtual PC. It was a total waste of time to use because it would be equivalent to running one operating system inside another. It took ages to start up and every time you pressed the mouse, there was a 1-2 second lag before the action started. YMMV

I had the same problem.. I was told to do push ups. It gets easier...

Do you think that if you fell out of a commercial plane but had a life jacket on and tracked to a body of water.. there is a chance of survival?

I had the same issue so I got an external drive.. I have moved some of my files onto the external so I have some more free space on my computer.. everytime I edit video, I log and capture to my computer, move the files across to the external hard drive, set the scratch folder there and then start editing. Works perfectly fine for me. Although it may logically work to log and capture straight to the external, I am too paranoid about frame skips to do that. I find logging and capturing rather tedious, I would rather not have to do it again.

Thanks for the advice and PMs everyone and especially thanks for the link Kell - it was awesome!! I feel heaps better!! Didn't make it to the DZ today cos I've found myself with the flu but will hopefully be there this weekend armed with all this new info. Thanks guys!

I finished AFF a few weeks ago but haven't jumped since because I was overseas. I want to go to the DZ tomorrow but I am so nervous! I wanted to ask about exits and the relative wind. I normally jump out of an XL (sometimes an Otter) and prefer diving exits to poised ones because I tended to not let go of the plane during AFF. I can get stable really quickly and I am fine in the sky, I just can't seem to nail exits. When I did my hop and pops, I found that all the different instructors at the DZ told me to exit with different body positions (still all diving) and so I just ended up being really confused. I know that I have to stick my legs up to my bum, arms straight out and look up.. but for some reason, sometimes it doesn't work and I kick a bit. I have heard the phrase "present to the relative wind" a lot but I don't really get it. Can someone please explain to me what exactly this relative wind is, how to present to it, what am I supposed to present to it and why? Also, how is it possible to have so many different exit positions whilst still "presenting to the relative wind"? Assume I am very stupid and please explain it to me like you would to a child. I just can't grasp the concept. I did a search but couldn't really find much. I am really nervous about tomorrow.. my fear is the initial 10seconds where I don't feel stable and tend to kick. Thanks in advance!

I'm addicted!!!!! Are any of you guys on there? And which skydiving group is the one with real skydivers? I did a search but most of them consist of people who have done one tandem...

No. I live in Thailand (equally 3rd world) and have an Indian background (so have frequented as a native India & Pakistan a lot), it's not child labour... it's just cheap because there is an over supply of labour in these countries and so the "skill" that earns heaps of money in Western countries isn't very valuable there because everyone can/ is willing to do it. It's the same reason why everything is made in China these days.. over supply of labour = cheap labour = low cost of good.

I will look into Parallels thanks for that! Lucky I only got this laptop yesterday so I am happy to re-install XP if need be. This sucks so much though, I can't understand why this is happening! I have installed the Final Cut Studio, Macromedia Dreamweaver & Flash, Adobe Acrobat & Photoshop, MS Office & a Thai-English dictionary program. That's it. Everything else came with OSX. Out of the 72gigs available on my Mac side, already 40gigs have been used! WHAT THE?!?!?!?!?! I found out that about 26gigs of this is in the Application Support folder under Library. This is so insane! I have a capacity of 72gigs on the OSX side and I can't even move my music (30gigs) onto my new computer because it is too full! What the?!?!?!!? The Applications folder is only 4gb.. I can't understand this! I had an 80GB XP based HP before, had about 10 times as many programs on it & it still held over 60GB of my personal stuff (music, photos, movies). I am so frustrated. I have a new laptop, installed the bare minimum programs I need and am already out of space before moving any of my information across. I feel like I just down-graded. Anyone else had such a problem? Do you know if it is because Mac versions of programs are just a million times larger or am I holding useless info on my comp? Also, under Users --> Shared, there is a folder called Motion which has 6GB of stuff. I still don't know what it is.. can't figure it out.. does anyone know if it is necessary for me to keep this on my laptop? On the plus side, it is a really fast laptop...

I just bought a MacBook Pro and part of the deal was that the guy would pre-install Boot Camp and a whole bunch of programs for me. I have found now that Windows has been allocated about 25gigs and OSX 70gigs. Is there any way to change the partition? I want to give XP less gigs because I have no intention of using it..

I bought a '98 Dolphin recently and had it sent to Altico for modification. They made every possibly freefly update to it and completely re-modified the front to the style of the newest Dolphin containers (freefly friendly tuck tabs). It costed me about $200-$250 (but that included having the container re-sized for me as well) and is like having a new custom made rig! Contact Mike Fury at Altico, maybe you can do something similar with your container...

I'm a religious South Park watcher, love it! I've seen every episode at least twice and all 9 seasons live on my desktop.. The best episode ever is "Scott Tenorman Must Die". That's the one where a 6th grader sells Cartman his pubes and Cartman embarks on a quest for revenge. It's absolutely the most golden South Park episode ever. I won't say more because if you haven't seen it but love SP, go download it now!! I like: -Fingerbang (Cartman starts a boyband to get $1 million) -Christian Rock Hard (Cartman starts a Christian rock band) -Cartmanland (Cartman buys an amusement park) -Stupid Spoilt Whore (The Paris Hilton one) -Butters' Very Own Episode -The one where Butters falls in love with a Hooters girl - the name escapes me .. Ahh I love them all, I could go on forever! I'm glad you're getting to watch them again! PS. Casa-bonita is hilarious too!!

I was actually in Germany for the second half of the world cup and attended a game.. I think the reason there is so much media attention is that over there, "against racism" was a huge theme of the championships. The posters were everywhere and throughout the tournament, it was a message that was continually being endorsed. If indeed Materazzi insulted Zidane with a racial slur, it goes against a lot of the things the world cup stood for and it is unacceptable. Racism is totally unacceptable, be it in a school, on the streets or on a football pitch. This is getting so much attention because it happened when so many people were watching it.. it's kinda hard to ignore..