So, two things.

If you're in the northern midwest of the US, you're not at the same latitude as Moscow. Moscow is 55 deg north, the continental 48 stop at the 49th parallel. So, unless you're talking about Ketchikan, which is decidedly not "midwest", then you need to adjust your memories a bit.

Second, as you should well be aware, latitude alone does not define how cold a place gets. In fact, southern Alaska and the Cascades region in general is generally more temperate than New England. Jet stream, currents, regional topography, all that stuff makes a difference. Going to guess based on your commentary that you're in the Montana/ND area, so comparing Helena with Moscow puts them on about par, with a full nine degrees difference in latitude.

No, "barbaric" is the way we treat people with mental illness and ailments that point to it. Rather than fix the problem, it's easier to take a puritanical view and pretend it's that individual's personal failings that caused the problem instead of society's failing to treat it. When this inevitably results in recidivism, it's just easier for society to hit the guy with a brick and make the problem go away.

We make the monsters and then claim that the monsters have to be killed because they can't be unmade.

Boston: If they can make bridges out of light, you have to wonder if they can make anything else.
Maggie: You mean...Light beer?
Boston: I was thinking more of a light house.

I could mod this as incorrect/misleading, but it's better to just reply with the correct information.

Boston is an anomaly when determining statistics of metropolitan areas. Unlike many larger cities like LA and Chicago, Boston has a fairly small land area. New York City is more than six times the land area of Boston for example. Whereas many metro areas grew over time, annexing adjacent cities and and towns, many of the towns in the Boston area resisted this move and were never annexed - They operate independently of the city proper. So while the Boston *metro* area grows, Boston itself has little room to do so.

That said, while there is crime in Boston (nobody would argue otherwise), your low statistic focuses only on Boston and not the Boston metro area, which includes places like West Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain, where the gun violence rate is much higher. To put it another way, using your statistic to make this argument would be like citing the murder rate in NYC based solely on the numbers in the Manhattan.

Oh. My. God. Lego City Undercover. Forget everything else, even Mario.

Is this how Ballmer issues missions to his operatives?

Not sure about the parent specifically, but I would guess that most of the people trying to draw attention to the problem already *are* "dealing with it". Many of the folks that are so concerned about the problem already have taken steps to do their part in ways more significant than "Don't buy a smartphone" - the real issue is convincing the disbelievers that they should act as well. He can't very well save the world by composting/recycling/bicycling while you're delivering pizza in your H2, now can he?

You make it sound as if hipsters are the ones warning us of the crisis. Well, you got the first three letters right anyway...

Wow, I guess that Phoronix site really is "well known"!

Jesus got banned for repeated violations of the TOS. He got caught duping some fish and bread and then started handing it out freely. He was also flagged for poshacking when a GM found him be walking on water.

He told his guildmates that he'd be back on a new account, though.

The light bulbs thing isn't about you saving money. It's about everyone making a very small change in their lives which results in a very large change for us all on this blue marble of ours. Making every single little government line item into "What does it do for me?" is part of how we got into this stupid mess in the first place.

"Greenhoue effect" by scorpius (235526)"

This is exactly the sort of dismissive post I would expect to see from one of Venus' scorpion overlords!

I recognize that someone in Mr. LaHood's position needs to strongly advocate for safety, but his position borders on authoritarian. I listened to an interview with him on Fresh Air (I think) where he basically shouted down anyone who offered a counterpoint to his position and portrayed them all as idiots. The best part was when the final caller claimed to actually be driving while calling and it set him off to the point I thought he was going to ask if they could trace the call.

Just get us self-driving cars already so that this and a number of related problems go away.

I'm sure "US scientists" would have absolutely no problem sharing. Your scorn is better directed at the military and bureaucrats.

As I am now located in proximity to an airport with a US Airways "service focus" and have had the "pleasure" of flying with them several times, I have to ask - how would you be able to tell the difference? Every time I've been in a US Airways terminal, there's always a significant number of non-weather-related delays and cancellations (compared to the other airlines' monitors). My wife and I have independently had three separate incidents this year where we were 4th and inches from having to stay overnight at an airport due to cancellations/late planes/overbooked crew/etc. In two of those cases, I had flights where we took off at the 2'55" mark, just shy of the three hour requirement to return to gate and let everyone off. The cynic in me suspects that US Airways is actually using that three hour window to plan its flights.

It's an abhorrent mess, and when I see the US Airways CEO defending against his last place customer service ranking, I have to wonder just how much denial one management team can stand.

So, I didn't want to cram up the submission block, so here's what I really wanted to say.

A lot of you already sound jaded beyond the point of wanting Syfy to continue existing. Fair enough. It could be someone else doing things properly. I mean, right now the Science Channel seems to have more going for it than Syfy. BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did. I don't know how the figures are working for Discovery, but BBCA has to see something if it's able to keep this stuff going. It's not like BBCA gets to use the UK TV franchise fee.

I'm not proposing an ad-free network like HBO. The market is niche but it's still not tiny. I mean, a MILLION people watched SGU last night, and that's with a whole bunch of Atlantis fans up-in-arms over it. Let's say that 1M is the audience. At $3 a month, that's $36M a year alone for SGU. Plus, as I mentioned in the summary, their ad revenue will go up because the spots become more valuable. Let's figure four TV tiers - nationwide network OTA (IE - free), local OTA (free), cable (paid), premium (paid AND personally invested). On a premium niche network, these are people that are specifically interested in a narrow segment of content that the network is carrying and not just putting that channel on because Son of Sharktopus is on. You know more about these people and can spend more money marketing to them because they have the money to spend not only on cable but on a premium channel.

And while I personally don't have a strong taste for the cheesy monster movies that they've shown lately, I was amused by the terrible disaster flicks. Not everyone's sci-fi tastes are the same, but they're close enough that I think if they weren't tainted with wrestling and other assorted crap, we'd have a really good network on our hands.

Let's not forget that SG1 started on Showtime, and Game of Thrones is doing *quite* well on HBO. The market is there. Maybe Syfy can't do it, but someone can, and I hope they do.