Dolph

From the nurses and docs I've talked to: nurses who have had strong desire to become docs, yet chose nursing (for various reasons, be it economy, hardship of studies, convenience etc) tend really happy with the position they're in. There tends to be some resentment that they didn't "go huge" and settled for the quicker path. Easy to understand since as a nurse you'd be constantly reminded of it, given that the nurses work closely with docs. I say go for med school. My sister is a doc and she loves it.

I am not sure whether this is mportant, unless you're suggesting that the US broke the Geneva convention by executing an enemy that had surrendered? I'd think that capturing him alive would give some breakthroughs on insurgent positions, so there's some incentive to doing so. Of course that'd mean a long trial and lots of publicity etc. So the best deal would be to bomb the crap out of the house, go in, find him, take a picture of himb being "dead", and then whisk him away for some serious interrogation. But that'd be a conspiracy theory.

While it is better to be a civilian in a country not at war than being a solider in an active conflict, statistics from WWII show that the civilian population *really* gets it when the war is taken to them. Given the situation in for instance Iraq, I'd rather be in a front line USMC group than an Iraqi civilian. Perhaps it is prudent with an equal celebration of the ordinay citizen living, raising a family and working in a war torn country is in order as well.

It seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

Ah my apologies if you found the examples a ridicule to your faith. If you read the later part of my post I think you'll agree my point has nothing to do with your personal faith but rather has to do with a re-definition that fails to take everything into account. And you are an a-[insert something you utterly lack any belief in, or knowledge of]. Not because you have faith in that, but because you lack it. Call it a non-[something] if you have an aversion to the connotations of the a- thing. It is simply as nonsensical to most atheists to suggests that they have faith in there being no God as it is to say that you have faith that the moon people don't exist. The argument, in other words, is not really related to your faith at all. It's about the argument that lack of something must mean existence of something else. B = faith If A equals NULL then A must be B. I'm happy on your behalf that you have faith and would not ridicule you for it - it's quite a marvel for me. I've read your posts and respect your faith. You just got caught in the crossfire in a discussion about the reclassification of lack of faith as faith. Rehmwa would be quite right in calling a belief that God does NOT exist as faith - but a lack of belief either way is not faith. And it's not agnosticism either. Agnosticism is simply the belief that the existence of God or Gods cannot be known (strong agnosticism) or currently isn't known (weak). Being an agnostic isn't really related to having faith in the existence, non existence or lacking such faith in a deity or deities. It's about knowledge of (or lack thereof). So ya have agnostic atheists, agnostic theists and apathetic agnostics. This is where it gets REALLY fun discussing religion at the bar after 10 beer. And there's a lot more to agnosticism than just that.

He may be an active a-Santaist. And an a-EasterBunnyist. And an a-GreenThingsInTheMiddleOfTheMoonThatEatPizzaist. Using Rehmwa's earlier reclassification of atheism as a faith, all three things mentioned above are faiths. Which would mean that even if you haven't heard about that last one, you still would havefaith in it. This seems like an indication that the redefinition isn't entirely solid. Something is not right calling an absence of something the presence of something else. That doesn't necessarily follow. Remove the onions from a pizza, and mushrooms do not magically take their place. Had the onions not been present from the start - does that mean that the mushrooms are mandatory? A statement such as "I believe God does not exist" could be taken as an opinion, or taken as faith. "I lack any belief in Easter Bunny or the moon pizza dudes and God" is a bit of a different animal. In my opinion it is important to understand the differences in those statements - they are not merely semantic ones.

So this guy can sue his boss for wrongfully demoting him? And, if he can back up that the cop lied and so forth, he could win? Considering his career has probably been ruined by this, it'd seem he'd be up for a sizable compensation if such a suit is possible and if he won.

Yep. I learned it some time ago. Up until that point I did my best (with varying success) to ignore it. Human nature, an almost instinctual aversion to thinking about the bad stuff. The recent deaths of much loved members of the DZ.com community has, I think, forcibly driven the truths behind the warnings home to a lot of people. Abstractly, intellectually knowing something is different from knowing something with the heart and outwards. That there are absolutely no guarantees you'll be able to see the person next to you in the plane smile again after the jump. Perhaps it is a loss of innocence, replaced by a sometimes hard reality. It may be grim, but it is true. And the contrast between the extreme joy and extreme grief skydiving can bring is probably more visible for people who've been active in the sport for a long time or have experienced the negative aspects of the sport.

Guess you're not alone. More often than not, I have "I hope this works and I hope I or someone else doesn't fuck up". Regarding beliefs, my rational skeptical mind says Game Over Dude. That's it, an eternal state of non awareness. Imagine that. No thoughts, no experiences - everlasting. Which is exactly why I smile and climb out anyway. There's plenty of time for that stuff later and I'm just here for a little moment any way I play it. It'd be pretty neat if there was something afterwards. I hope there is.

Good points. Busy commercial DZs are probably not going to follow this even if it was implemented. If exisiting regulations or recommendations are ignored, new ones addressing similar issues probably will too. It's easier at smaller DZs. I do not know the technicalities about law in the US, but here if a TM says "no", that's final. Same thing for an Instructor I (who basically has the job of a US ST&A). It ought to be enough to have such people make a normal sound decision on whether a person is fit to jumo or not - if it's done solely from a safety point of view, money not having any importance. Of course in the US some obese people might think about law suits for discrimination or whatnot if told "too fat to fly".

In one of the messages, you mean.

It's much easier that way. We need little boxes to sort our little lives out. Imagine if we'd have to think! On second thought, don't. I think people are in relationships for a great variety of reasons. To me, they're all basically almost as good. I find it hard to say that it is better to be in a relationship because you think your partner is totally hot, than it is to be in on because the other part is totally rich. Or because you need the emotional support (but don't really have any love). And so on. In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest the majority of marriages are more about growing accustomed to each other and being afraid of the unknown outside of marriage than it is about red hot love. Which is OK in my book. It seems there is more to love than just romantic teenage he/she-is-the-stars-the-sun-without-him/her-I-dwell-in-darkness stuff. Which is why it is really, really interesting, because it's hard to understand at all.

Yes I do. If people intentionally mess with me, I hold a grudge. It's conditional though, depending on circumstances and severity. I keep it latent and let it spring when opportunity arises, should the other part not had done something to redeem him or herself. Because to every action there is a consequence and some people need this taught the hard way. The best way to teach an asshole to behave is not always to turn the other cheek. They need to be kicked like the dogs they are when Opportunity arrives. Or one can get the feeling of being smugly morally superior by doing nothing harmful even though the perfect chance to get even has shown itself. It'd be unwise to count on the latter though.

Good. Cyclops was one of the most boring characters, along with Rogue, Storm, the woman doctor and, well everyone except Wolverine, the professor, Magneto, Mystique and that wolf man thing. The rest are boring with boring superpowers, little do-gooders who'll amount to nothing! Yes indeed. I wasn't gonna see it, but hearing the Cyclops dies - now I will. Maybe he is torn to tiny bits by something.

Safety. We have lots of gliders and they're pulled up with a wire. It gets them to 1000 feet no problem, right over the runway. And then they search for thermals. If you cross at less than 1000 feet, you risk being cut in half by the wire or the glider. There's a safety margin built in - and there's also the possibility of having to cross it against the wind etc., which would mean more time (and more altitude loss) Having seen a student almost get clipped by the wire, I don't think it is too convervative. Attached on the pic you see our DZ. Gliders will land on and on either side of the runway. There are nice outs on the "wrong" side (the building with red roof is our hangar, on the "right" side).

Sweden has Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a true genius on the field. They're gonna kick ass.

Bit of a tangent, but how common is is for freestylers to go into freefly? I'm thinking Nils Predstrup for instance. Had the pleasure of doing a few jumps with him. He has pretty much won everything in freestyle since 2001. Now, his skills clearly carry over to freefly as he is *very* good at this as well. Add to that that there's a certain grace and natural flow to his moves that many good freeflyers lack. After seeing him freefly I thought to myself "shit, I shoudda started freestylin' first, that stuff looks smooth".

Used to. The leather strap broke and now the pin is lying here somewhere.

"Implantable" is probably the key word. Means it can be implanted, but doesn't have to. Could be carried around. Once enough people decide that such a chip is valuable to them (valuable enough to risk exposing medical details to malicious hackers) it might be a good thing. It'd be a very individual thing to make the assesment whether to use one or not. For me it wouldn't be a problem, since there's little on it to start with. Basic info such as blood type, allergies etc. could help medical staff and thereby increase my chances of survival. For people with a longer history, perhaps with details that are sensitive for many reasons, it may not be so appealing. The risks of exposure of details are greater than the percieved or actual benefit. Not a bad idea, as long as it's kept non mandatory.

Push it up a bit, then be conservative about it. We have a 500m limit at our club (lots of gliders etc.). It's a bit of a bummer to have to walk around the runway to get back, but it beats being hit by a plane of some sort. When in doubt, I land on the "wrong" side. Sometimes some of the GA pilots get really pissy about it, claiming we're endangering their planes by doing so. Usually it's easily countered with "better than endangering your lives by crossing the runway".

At smaller DZs this system still seems widely used. It's harder to sneak on a small Cessna load or leave without paying and get away with it when the customer base is very small and well known. In a country like Deemark (lots of small clubs, all with Cessnas, relatively few skydivers), getting caught cheating would probably have great social consequences and any cheater would have a hard time finding a DZ that'd let him or her jump. I'm too new in the sport to know how things were before the multiple-twin-otters DZs opened - but I am not entirely sure cheating skydivers is the man reason that tradition ended. The sheer volume of people going through the system at a big DZ makes effective management much more important.

I've found that if my canopy wants to spank me, it'll do so no matter if I arch very well, cry, plead with it try to convince it to behave. But you're right. Body position and proper packing can probably remove most reasons for hard openings.

Every single race or ethnicity that exists today has been persecuted, suffered natural disasters, won and lost wars, been assimilated/assimilated others - and all are by definition in existence today. World history goes a lot farther back than a few thousand years. Dividing around ethnic lines is utterly ridiculous considering the natural dilusion that occurs. Dividing along religious lines is even more silly, since it's an act of faith to believe that is subject to change at the will of the religious. Back to topic; Iran is taking more than a few steps backwards culturally and socially, and more than a few steps forward technology-wise. I see a problem with this. Give a nuke to one of the old crazy Kings of old Europe. You know the ones that cut heads of people, tortured for fun, claimed to be Gods and generally suffered from lots of fun mental diseases created by a life of overindulgence, overpriviledge and inbreeding. Now give this King an excuse to use it (such as "water is wet"). Fun.

That is true. The increased forward velocity that comes with a swoop would increase the overall energy in the "system" and has to go somewhere though.

That was basically what my freefly pal and brother-in-law said to me. At 2400 meters, his canopy decided it had enough freedom to open up. Around 5 seconds earlier, I had been spock'ing him. Canopy opened up while he was in a head up position, malfunctioned and had to be cut away. Could have killed both of us. Since that incident, I do not freefly with people who have rigs that have been modified to be freefly friendly. Seen too many mods that just don't work. Was his last jump on that rig - he got a G4 about a week after.