Can you share more about where you took the class? Continuing education, or a vocational school? Did you take it purely as a hobbyist, or hope to get into the trade?
Initially I had actually looked at a local community college's TIG welding class which while comprehensive seemed to be more than I needed and was a larger time commitment than I could easily make (had been thinking about it for about 4 years but there were always other things I wanted to do). Only really interested as a hobby and for other DIY projects.
I found out about this local hobby shop that teaches classes and took a 6 hour TIG class https://www.wildcathobbyclasses.com/tig-welding-class It was just enough to get a taste/feel for what it was like (I had never welded anything before) and learn some basic safety stuff.
My plan going forward is to figure out a few easier projects (build a couple of railing and maybe some stairs) to get some more practice, and then try building a cargo bike from an existing bike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDlnDEXlfm8
There are some online TIG classes that seem ok, but the upfront cost is kinda high because you need your own welder and stuff, and I had no idea how hard it would be. (Easier than I thought to get something working, and about as hard as I thought it would be to be "good")
This is wrong. The census counts everyone, and while it's not perfectly accurate they also have methods for mitigating that, combining in-person surveys and sampling methods.
To solve the wide-screen, narrow text problem, I once threw together a demo with a hacked up Chromium/WebKit to create a flowing, multi column view mode that created a long virtual scroll surface and scrolled it like newspaper columns: https://vimeo.com/59463521.
It wasn't super intuitive, but wish a modern browser had this.
I'm kinda sure I saw a pre-chromium Opera browser build do this back in like 2010 or so (maybe it was just a mockup), but like you say, it's not super intuitive. And the scrolling feels weird when you have 2-3 columns moving.
This is essentially how a wingsuit works, although inflation happens in flight through inlets. That is in general how nylon wings (e.g. paragliders) work as well.
I would say ram-air inflation of parafoil wings is very different – it's dynamic, not static like a bladder pre-inflated with a pump.
This Inflatoplane is more of a precursor to modern "tensairity" designs (e.g. some of Prospective Concepts designs). While certainly interesting, pressurized bladders in aircraft have so far been a dead end due to practical limitations (catastrophic modes of failure, wear, altitude pressure differences IIRC). The only flying wings where inflatable bladders are successfully used are kitesurfing kites. But those don't normally carry people up high.
Parafoil based designs on the other hand are now everywhere. Paragliders, parachutes, parafoil kitesurfing kites, even parafoil sails (SkySails).
You'd be remiss if you don't mention Binary Ninja[1]. A relative newcomer that's already extremely capable, has great scripting support and is under very active development.
If you're healthy and using a normal, dynamic rope, no it won't. It won't even hurt. A factor 2 fall onto webbing or dyneema can totally mess you up though, even from a couple of feet.
The UIAA (climbing standards body) disagrees with you. The specs of climbing ropes are set by them to result in no injury in worst case falls. And plenty of people have taken factor 2 falls with no ill effect.
You'll want to retire that rope, but nope, I've had a couple of high fall factor falls with no ill effects. A true fall factor 2 fall is impossible to achieve in a real setting (knot, etc.), but I've taken a prob 1.6 or so.
