Taikoen

Pretty situational. If I just have a drink or two, I'd rather it taste good. When I'm smuggling booze on cruises or getting drunk with my friends, it's all about the alcohol percent.

21 months ago I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science. It's easier to tell people that I'm an engineer (even though that's not really true, but I AM a technical person). The majority of my class was composed of American students. 9 months ago I graduated with my Master's Degree in Computer Science. I had a few classes where out of 15-30 people I was the ONLY American student. I remember my Chinese professor singling me out one day asking me if the term "ad hoc" is a common term used in every day English. Being a white American male, I never experienced the effects of being a minority member in anything until graduate school. Because of this I have a large group of Indian friends, which I find relevant given the chart posted. I would say that most American students get to pick their own majors and careers (well, you know what I mean; if I got to pick, I'd be a Playboy photographer or Vida Guerra's lotion boy). In typical Indian society, their education and career path is chosen for them. In junior high, they start down an educational path that is very difficult to alter. Engineering is a very respected career in India, a culture which highly regards education. Undergraduate education is done well in India, China I'm not so sure. However, their graduate education is supposed to be highly lacking in comparison to ours, which leads to a highly-competitive population of graduated Indians doing everything they can do attend graduate education in America. I work for a company started by a couple of Indian men that (at a rough guess) hires more Indian employees than other races. Our development team is in India, but the turnover rate is so high (because the name of the company you work for is more important than the work you do) that we can't get many steady high-quality developers. In my experience in software development, they may produce more engineers (because their population is higher, and they don't necessarily get to pick) but definitely not at the same level of quality. My opinion is that we let people get away with taking the easy path too often. Being a single male, I'd give money to find a pretty girl that had a real education and some responsibility (Women that are *please* don't flame me, I just haven't met you :P). Most of my friends have technical educations and we notice time and time again that people flaunt degrees where reading a graph was the most difficult thing they ever did. I know a lot of teachers that gave up because 2/3 of the class didn't do the assignment, so the due date got pushed back.

My laptop has a SIM card slot built into the bottom. I could turn this thing into a cell phone :P

I wrote up a long post about my family experiences with ADD/ADHD and realized that it's probably pointless; I'll just write my opinion out: If someone is diagnosed as having ADD/ADHD, give them all the pills they want. Whether or not they have those pills will not determine their success in life. If someone is going to succeed, giving them pills to help influence their concentration and behavior is going to be negligible compared to the force of will they will exude in their everyday lives to make themselves succeed. Pill or no pill, ADD/ADHD or not, doesn't matter.

No question in my mind. I'd fight to the death to avoid being taken captive because I have no idea what they'll do. If I give up what could be the only chance I have at not being tortured or killed, then it's my own fault for not acting when I had the chance.

I don't feel comfortable looking over the edge of a building that's high enough where I know I'll injure myself, which is just a few stories. If there's glass or a rail, I'll stand next to the edge but not lean into the only thing preventing me falling out/off the side of the building. I do absolutely fine with skydiving, once I got past the initial door anxiety. I think the anxiety at the door was more of not realizing that I know how to use the parachute (well, as well as someone with my skill experience could). Once I started tumbling and doing acrobatics, getting stable, and pulling to land safely I was fine. I was in the desert a few years ago, and I think the biggest factor for me is being able to hold into something solid when I can see ground that isn't nearby. I was standing on top of some rocky terrain that involved a little climbing. For a picture, my friend suggested I put my hands on my hips and look up and away. As soon as I did that, I lost my perspective of balance. I couldn't see where I was standing in relation to the rest of the world and got very anxious. So, yes, as someone said, I think it's a very complex thing that depends on a lot of different factors.

If you're blind. Kind of hard to hear your dog barking at you, though.

Survival of the Fittest. If you can't listen to music or a voice and walk across the street without getting hit by a car at the same time time...

Saw this and wondered: 'What happens if two 13-yr olds have sex twice?'. Off to the gallows with them both? More seriously though, being against the death penalty on principle, this doesn't even get off the ground as far as I'm concerned. Simply increases the chances on spending a fortune in convicting and executing people some of whom, given human fallibility, might well prove innocent somewhere down the line. Last I knew, the law was that the age of consensual sex in Texas was 17 or within three years of age to each other. According to that, two 13-year-olds could have sex all that they wanted to. Just how sixteen-year-olds can have sex with each other and it's not statutory rape. Or how in many states a seventeen-year-old can have sex with an eighteen-year-old. That birthday doesn't make someone within a week of your own age "illegal." I think it's so extremely disturbing for the people that commit these crimes. I had someone recommend the movie Hard Candy to me because he wanted to see if I could watch it. I wanted to turn it off a few times while watching it and felt dirty the whole time. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find thirteen-year-old girls appealing.

I almost laughed out loud. Men are evil. Along those same lines, women are evil. It's not that I don't trust people or am not a social person. I expect from the best from people but anticipate the worst. I still finding myself too trusting of individuals.

If I can't pass my supergenes onto my own superchildren, then no one gets any. Hey, so is it weird to get a brother or your dad to give it a go?

That's the point. You'd have to get the official state definition of procreate. Depending on your source it could mean to produce an offspring or perform the act which could produce a child. I won't comment either way on what they're trying to stop, but the state is basically trying to get across Boy Part + Girl Part. What if they push proof to be blood tests to prove that the couple on the marriage license are genetically proven to be the parents? They definitely have to work on the wording or male-female couples who aren't physically capable are going to be impacted just as much.

AFF 1 for my 18th birthday. Seriously got back into it just before my 23rd birthday. 24 now.

LCD 1080p. The life span of LCD is about twice that of plasma, and the video quality is practically negligible. This advice isn't directly my own. I asked a few guys at my company (I'm in the Consumer Industries department of a consulting firm) who have actually worked alongside the largest electronics manufacturers in the world researching all the various factors of these technologies.

Do people ever get mad at you for being a wrong number? There's a taxi cab driver that has the same number as me, and he's apparently on a list of Medicare drivers. I get calls every once in a while looking for this guy, Charlie or Charles, the Taxi Cab Driver. He actually gives out my cell phone number. I get calls and voice mails all the time by nurses or hospital staff and really old sounding people that want a ride. Or they bitch about how I'm late to pick up Granny Smith from the front entrance of Blah Hospital. Sometimes I tell them to just wait because I'm in traffic, but I try not to be too mean to them.

I have my own opinions on people and when asked, I usually share these opinions, which have gotten me into many arguments. I'm a 24-year-old smartass and have been threatened by people my entire life. The only physical fights I've been in were the ones that I started getting physical. I know there are situations that I could never talk my way out of or calm people down by using all the right words, but I'm pretty good at it. A LOT of that ties into just being nice, polite, and using the right words. I'd never be rude to people that serve my food, either. No telling what the hell this guy has unknowingly eaten in the past. I have a great job, and I've considered getting part-time jobs as a waiter or at a fast food restaurant so that I can speak my mind (which I'm not always allowed to do with the customers at my good job), yell at people, get fired/quit, and just not care. It would be so satisfying to teach people who can't be nice or polite to someone just doing their job a lesson by treating them the same way.

I'm from Waco. That's usually all I have to say, but we're the birthplace of Dr. Pepper, too. We were also on the globe until...well, you know.

I'm not arguing the contents of your reply. I do not think a typical t-shirt (I say typical because if it's filled with explosives, that's another story) could threaten the security of the plane. Well, unless someone reacted in a negative way to the word "Terrorist" on it and caused a security problem. You didn't bold enough of the quote, though. There's this little word called "or" right in the middle there. So what's not tolerated is "the potential to offend other travelers" or "threaten the security of the aircraft." It's either one or the other. It doesn't have to be the second one. In this case it was the first. So you're right, but you forgot the or, which is the the reason they approached him.

When I got my passport a few years ago, I remember there being a payment option for a faster turn around, something like less than two calender weeks. I remember looking at other services that promised 24 hours if you were willing to give them $150 or something like that. I think I ended up paying an extra $60 to give myself enough cushion before a trip that sort of rushed up on me because of the dates for the visa I needed.

I still get a little nervous, but there's no fear. I feel excited and anxious for the rush. When I first started jumping I wanted time to move like normal and get over the sensory overload. I remember getting around jump 10 or so and watching the plane flying in front of and above me. At that point, I started to become much more aware of what was going on. I thought I was doing much better with my sensory overload until I got to my A License check-out jump (I think it was jump 29 -- I must've done every coached module offered). My coach and I were doing a float exit (I was front), and I was supposed to do 360 right and left turns on heading with the plane. She said that by the time I got done, she should be in front of me and we could continue the dive. I'm sure it was a combination of the fact that I'm a total newb and she was on the World Team but in in the couple of seconds I spent immediately after the exit making sure I had good body position and was on heading she was already right in front of me. So less nervous, yes, but still so extremely inexperienced. Plus I have a blank look on my face 90% of the time (data input mode :P), so everyone thinks I'm scared shitless on the way to altitude. People always ask me if I'm okay.

Who doesn't want a pet monkey?

One of the best decisions I ever made was getting LASIK. I had -8 in one eye, -7 in the other, now I have slightly better than 20/20 vision. It's more so a luxury thing since I could wear glasses or contacts, but I'm still amazed sometimes by how well I can see. I'll see something so clear in the distance when I first walk outside or while I'm driving and think, "Damn, that's cool. It's so clear." Of course myopia might eventually set in, but I have 20 years of perfect vision until then. It's interesting the way the whole things work, too, in that one eye was slightly undercorrected, so they slightly overcorrected the other eye because as I age, the overcorrected eye will slowly get worse (which actually means better) and closer to 20/20. Before the surgery, I was approximately 2000/20, which means that if you put a big letter in a field at some distance away someone with good vision could read it when it was 20 feet high. For me to read it, it would have to be almost half a mile high. Now I can read the one that's only 20 feet high no problem :P If you can stand someone using a little saw to cut your eye open, hold it that way, then shoot a laser inside it, you'll be fine. You, however, are very f-ing aware that someone has opened your eye when it happens. They asked me to wait an additional week after the surgery before I jumped out of any more airplanes.

I can't comment too much about the ads on the forum pages, but I know the ads spattered around my gmail page are related to the content of the e-mail that I have open at the moment.

I thought DZ.com might be a good place to post this since I'm sure someone out there has an idea on how often barometric changes occur. There's got to be a weatherman + pilot + skydiver out there somewhere. Migraines run in my family, so I'm trying to record various points of data to determine as many factors as possible. I'm sure I could check the barometric pressure for where I am every two hours and eventually find out the best times to check, but does anyone have a good idea of how often these changes really occur? If I consistently check once a day is that enough? I was originally considering checking once in the morning and once in the early evening (like 8am and 5pm, which corresponds with my typical work hours, too). I know it fluctuates throughout the day, but I'm not sure to the extent of those fluctuations, especially somewhere like North Texas. Any input is appreciated. Thanks, John

Hindi is the national language. Each of the 15 states also has its own state language. The reason Tamil needs to be known by many people in South India is because Tamil Nadu (the state where Tamil is spoken) does not recognize Hindi as a national language. Typically, the progression in India is StateLanguage, Hindi, then English. In Tamil, it's Tamil, then English. Of course it is taught by some schools and parents, but not necessarily. With Hindi, your daughter should be able to go most places in India and get by. If she's thinking about one specific region, the state language(s) would be ideal. For example, Bombay and Bangalore are two of the biggest and richest cities in India, but they're in different states so the inhabitants speak different languages as their first language. When I was in India, I met with a group of friends whose only common language was English, although between the four of them they spoke 10 total languages.