Gary_Yngve

Fairweather, you are completely ignorant on this topic. Local roads are mostly paid by property taxes, business taxes, and sales taxes. Roads like 405 and 520, which I cannot bike on, are mostly funded through gas taxes. As a cyclist I already pay for the roads I ride on; furthermore I damage them less than if I drove a vehicle. In other words, I am already paying more than my burden. Most cyclists have drivers licenses and many own cars (and pay corresponding fees). Furthermore, the details of taxation (bicycle vs bicyclist, kids, mountain bikers, etc.) just don't add up.

that number is crap, because they'd all be bottlenecked at the Suez Canal, in or out. 16000 ships/day is one every five seconds.

Surely waiting a few days to group into a convoy is cheaper than going all the way around Cape Horn? Although really what needs to happen is the world's navies need to declare those waters as off limits to anyone but registered shippers (or other registered users), and anyone in those waters otherwise is presumed to be a pirate and subject to immediate attack.

sweet! it's frustrating how we've been dealing with the pirates.. we can't fire on them unless they fire on us, we won't hijack the ships back. for the sake of international commerce, i'm all for more aggressively taking out these pirates.

looking for: - decent quality (would prefer low-speed and consistent over high-speed with occasional downtime) - under $50/month - not bound to an annual contract, or can easily (and likely without quality reduction) relocate to elsewhere in Seattle - offers a 1 week full refund if quality isn't to my desire what do yall have? am i asking for the impossible? googling for clearwire sucks, verizon sucks, etc., returns a lot of hits

very very cool

Last night was amazing in Cap Hill! Broadway & Pike was almost a moshpit.. crowd surfers, random friends i hadn't seen in a while and bumped into, even crazy gray-haired hippy guy waving ribbons around (he's a regular at the solstice parade, though he was wearing clothes tonight). Folks were erupting into spontaneous anthem singing, high-fiving, hugging, etc.

we were running thru the streets of Cap Hill! f'n awesome! Pike & Broadway was a friggin' moshpit!

the recent complaints from McCain's camp about Palin deviating from her orders are hilarious

It was past Gem Lake, near Roosevelt Peak. The Coast Guard helo did the extraction around 4AM. Conditions were treacherous up there (snowy/icy but not yet skiable), and it was too windy during the daytime for the helo.

reislings and gewurztraminers are often sweeter, as have been pointed out. the cheaper ones tend to be sweeter and less complex, which sounds like exactly what you want. also check out viogniers, muscats, and piesporters. should be lots of inexpensive options from WA and ID.

v-threads break from either failure of the cord or failure of the ice. in the latter case, a whole chunk of ice (say a 2-foot-wide block) will break away (unless the ice is just really really bad). you want to place each v-thread in good ice. you want the v-threads equalized in such a way that the angles are small. you want the v-threads placed so they are independent of each other (the failure of one won't affect the strength of the other)

The holding power of the screw comes from the threads. The failure of a screw, assuming good ice, generally comes from a stress cone breaking off around the surface of the screw and the screw getting levered/deformed. The most important thing to realize is that a screw is best when in all the way. Tying off (when there's an inch or more sticking out) is better than clipping at the end for dealing with a screw that bottoms out, but nowhere near as good as using a shorter screw to begin with. Some said to angle the screw up to get a picket-like effect. Others said angle down to make the stress cone friendlier. I think it's probably better to put it in at the angle near perpendicular that is the least awkward/tiring to place.

you have a trip on Apr 16 titled: Goeat Wall (Prime Rib of Goat) - Mazama WA your banner has font over pano that is aliased (jaggies). it's worth spending the time to make it look good your menu bar does this weird creep thing on a hover, due to the bolding of texts.. would be better if each were in a fixed position rather than float:left or whatever it is now. your contact link in the menu bar is nonfunctional. when you make it do something, remember to antispam it. your search works pretty well

I'm surprised Taiwan isn't on that list. Taiwanese regularly prefer Republicans.

It's cool that you know the more personal side of Hans. From your angle, it sounds like he climbs the Nose with "German precision" and can probably recite every hold, every gear placement. What I got out of the article was: He tried adding a new trick to the pendulum. He missed the finish and had to do it again, costing precious time. His partner may not have been aware of Hans's intention to do this new trick. This failed trick certainly had a consequence; it cost them time. Higher up, they cut extra corners on safety to save time. I would think if they were concerned about time, Hans wouldn't have had added that trick. Something here just doesn't quite mesh. Hans can do whatever he wants to do.. I just get nervous reading it, even with your reassurance of his mindset. I hope any partner of mine would slap me upside the head were I to be the lion. (Hey, it's sunny, let's skip digging a pit so we can beat that other party to get first turns down the powpow!)

UW Climbing Club will be up there Saturday as well.

Half my point is my personal sense of what's cool. I think alpine-style first ascents are cool. I don't really care for speed climbing records. This is strictly my personal opinion. But the second point addresses Hans's personality. There's a classic paper addressing the psychology of individuals and parties, and how that relates to getting caught in avalanches. With respect to that, Hans is clearly the lion, complacently brave. His miss on the pendulum because of some jackass handstand stunt says it all.

I don't know how common it is, but in my local union (it's a skilled trade), we would not normally consider a person lacking an HS diploma. elitist and in a union. elitist commie!

Pi to six digits is utterly irrelevant in this day. One would use pi in three contexts now: 1) back of the envelope calculations, where 3, 22/7, etc., may be good enough. 2) algebraically as a symbol, e.g. e^(pi i) = -1 3) in numerical code, where the constant is already defined in the computer, and you just say Math.PI or whatever

Why won't the Army, as desperate as it is for fresh meat, recruit dropouts?

In my mind, this country should aim for 100% high school graduation rate. Though Kurt, I think it would be great to have high school opportunities for prepping for vocation rather than prepping for college. I see lacking a high school diploma as being a huge disadvantage for someone, even in a skilled trade. What happens if you become injured and need to take on a desk job? Given two resumes with roughly equal experience, would you choose the graduate or the dropout? Does dropping out carry a stigma of "bad judgment" or "poor choices" that might harm your chances of getting hired? (Certainly there is a set of jobs so crappy that only dropouts work there, because no one else wants to.) Wouldn't it be easier to finish HS and then start an apprenticeship, rather than drop out and try for a GED later?

Woah, I'm not saying he even has to go to college.. just finish high school. Not finishing high school is bad juju. You even have to finish high school to join the Army. The fact that I have a stupid fancy degree is irrelevant here.

i think they meant to say: "6700 vertical feet of snow and rock"