RMK

1) yes 2) yes 3) yes Do most Americans even realise you are one of only three countries not on the metric system? Other two are Liberia & Myanmar (Burma). "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

From a European perspective, Birdman was a great name brand & logo, but the S-Fly Expert was there at the beginning and got the party going. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Is it actually difficult to find weed in the American south now? It's been many years since I lived there, but in prior years if you had $5 in your pocket; you'd have a "nickel bag" in no time in any town/city. In the southern rural areas, it was more plentiful than over-sweetened ice tea. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I had previously wished to attend a Bridge Day, but after following this story have no desire to ever visit. I hope the backlash and boycott yield an event so quiet that you can hear crickets chirp. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Yes, he's angry with liberals and our "evil" black president. He's got a .40 and would "pop a cap in someone's ass" "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

You've got to stop viewing everything with your conservative/liberal glasses. You've extrapolated the action of one person to a whole nation based on your binary classification. If your posts are to be nonsensical, at least attempt to make them humorous. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

There has been no post above advocating disarming US police. The thread is really about that they should be a little less "tase happy". "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Ouch that's harsh. It's the Ford Mondeo of the skies - it gets the job done (I have a Clipper II, which is the marine version with pop-out emergency floats). Yes an Agusta 109 Grand would be make every heli pilot smile - but they cost $4 million; that will get you a mini fleet (9) Robinson R44s "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Aside from the political/agricultural element; It would be useful to see more advancement in desalination technology (batteries and desalination are the two technologies that have left everyone disappointed). I noted this: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megascale-desalination/ However, this is still reverse osmosis, not exactly new tech nor easily scaled up for a population like California’s "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

The average police officer in the US better geared up than how many countries kit out their military – you’ve got to be kidding. We see it takes very damn little for a US policeman to shoot someone (not an indictment that all are bad, but you do have a disproportionate number of bad ones). When it comes to tasers, they seem to hand out tasering as if they’re handing out sweets; it’s overused. You taser children, the elderly, even people who don’t speak English and are unable to “show some respect for AUTHORITY” fast enough. You asked TK how much “city time” he has? WTF? I’ve got a few decades living in the large cities (London, Hong Kong, New York & Chicago). I have some comparisons; I see that the US policing model is shit. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Regarding pic#4 (dislodged handle) to make it worse, he's on the tail rotor side. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

The education systems have been “tinkering” with how verbal skills are taught for the past several decades. No reason Algebra has to instructed in the same manner as the 1950’s. I think the way math is taught in schools turns many people off (which really helps no one) "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Great video. When I was teenager I was parked next to another car stopped/speaking with them. For some teenage boredom reason I thought what would it be like if I if I crossed my feet to use the accelerator/brake/clutch with opposite feet (don’t try this in a crowded parking lot - like the bike video; you can’t). To the car next to me, they looked quite concerned when I couldn’t stop red-lining my engine (my natural brake foot) and kept lurching the car forward (I thought I was letting off the gas (my right foot) which was actually taking my foot off the brake. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

People's brains aren't all wired the same or to the same extent in certain topics. "Thinking" your way through an arithmetic or algebraic problem you never learned to do the old-school way is no guarantee of success. It can certainly be helpful in remembering how to do something though. The simplest and most “elegant” solution is always best. Yes, every post above mine is also a correct solution; it is just that the prior explanations could still be daunting to many. It’s not clever to dazzle with several lines of algebra when dividing two numbers into each other solves the problem. I see you're also intelligent and have math skills, but engineers aren’t always known for their people skills. Regarding “doing it old school method”, I’m actually a Mensa member and that is no problem; but it’s not good form to “wear it on your sleeve” to impress others with how clever you are - better to answer in a manner that is most easily understood. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Answer is 1385.68 Yes, the elaborate old-school method works; but confuses non-math jocks. Better to "think" about what is happening. A number with an added 8.25% is 1.0825 times of whatever that number is. Divide 1500 by 1.0825 = 1385.68 "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

If you take a rough average or median of those per capita state numbers and extrapolate them to the US population; yes it is pretty close. This isn't forensic auditing to bicker over small amounts. The gun deaths in US is approximately 120x that of the UK adjusted for population. This is general the same for all other G7 nations. The rest of the planet just thinks the US can do a little better than say Angola. The exercise of converting all firearms deaths into as big a dollar amount as possible is dishonest. If pro-life people came in here and said, "well, if we imagine every abortion in the US resulted in a wrongful death lawsuit and figured an average jury award of $6.2M then that means abortion costs Americans $19,000 per capita each year." We would all laugh together at them and tell them to get bent. Do this then; exclude every item that you remotely question the efficacy of and recalculate yourself - I won't argue the number with you. The result will still be outrageous in comparison to the rest of the developed world. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

If you take a rough average or median of those per capita state numbers and extrapolate them to the US population; yes it is pretty close. This isn't forensic auditing to bicker over small amounts. The gun deaths in US is approximately 120x that of the UK adjusted for population. This is general the same for all other G7 nations. The rest of the planet just thinks the US can do a little better than say Angola. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I'd have to agree. It would be interesting to me to see the demographics of cost kf gun violence. That is, is the per capita spending on gun violence correlated with per capita spending on other things? It's in this thread: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4721762;page=1;mh=-1;;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC The state numbers stack up with the above overall number of around $230 billion. That is a lot of money it's nearly what the US spends on Medicaid - in this case for something that is needless (excepting this need to have "shootin' irons" like the founding fathers). I hope both of the above two posters were joking by saying that the numbers seem cheap; otherwise it shows a strong lack of maths skills and understanding of large numbers. It seems every hillbilly can recite the US debt number, but ask them what the US GDP is and they go blank - it's 16.7 trillion; I'll save you Googling it. Anything that equates to a 1/4 trillion USD is a lot of money and not "cheap" "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

... as a conservative; a Republican http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/24/bruce-jenner-conservative_n_7140858.html I'm good with him being a woman, but the conservative/Republican thing? "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I’m a bit a closet tech geek and going back the early 2000’s got into encryption and steganography software. Over the past years, I’ve lost track of the newest/best programmes. For the tech people here, what are the best picks for steganography or encryption today? In prior years I used stuff like Invisible Secrets and Camouflage; also used one where the carrier file could be a MS Word file itself (can’t remember name) instead of a JPEG. Used PGP when you had to get it direct from MIT (and was technically illegal to use outside of US). Use Tor now and few other programmes. Invariably searching (in depth) for this kind of stuff takes you to dark places on the internet and murky hacker communities. I once had someone take control of my computer (don’t know how he/she did it). I was in some hacker site/forum/room and someone put up a message on my screen “WHO ARE YOU, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? – YOU’RE IN MY WORLD NOW”, then started to manipulate my screen. I had to pull the internet cable out wall to stop the attack. Needless to say I never revisited that site/room again and realised I should probably not mess around with hacker community sites unless I really knew what I was doing. I’d be interested in knowing what the pros or tech heads here think is good or waste of time re latest software. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Why do you always go to the liberal/conservative distinction? The need to have to bring something down to a binary choice is a mental mechanism for the less intelligent. Better to speak in terms of open-minded or closed-minded. The open-minded may still have very strong precepts, but are open to diverse ideas. Whereas the close-minded are dogmatic in their thought process and “know what they know & nobody is going to tell them any different.” "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Regarding science matters, you'd be better served by reading a physics book as opposed to the "good book". The sun has about 5 billion years left; earth will go kaput when it begins to enter "red giant" stage. Religion can give you personal peace, but unfortunately has no effect on the process of nuclear fusion or gravity. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Using “+” between words or putting full phrases in parenthesis are the two most useful search tricks. See following: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/20-tips-use-google-search-efficiently.html Another good trick for international searches is to follow the url with “ncr” which means “no country recognition”. Then it won’t default to your home country; useful to find prices on stuff in other countries. Example: typing in www.google.com will automatically change to www.google.co.uk if you are in the UK. Typing www.google.com/ncr forces the browser to search the US Google site (this works with many sites). "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

What is the solution? I don't have it either. However, I am certain that solution is not to do nothing. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Got to lighten up on the insecurity. No one is necessarily saying your typical “Earl & Billy Bob” can’t have a gun to go squirrel huntin [sic]. Maybe let’s start by not having the whole populace “packing” so that every disagreement can end in a gun fight or leaving guns around as nonchalantly as a packet of sweets. Maybe don’t leave said gun on the kitchen table when small children are playing in the house. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"