The problem I've seen is analogous to building skyscrapers and garden sheds. Some projects, like skyscrapers, have be complely designed in advance and built to be a skyscraper. You don't build a 2-story building then decide it works pretty well and then add another floor, and so on, until you have a skyscraper.

At the other end, you want a shed to protect your tools from the weather. While you could design a shed and the process to build it the way you would a skyscraper, but that's a lot of expense and it's going to take a long time. Instead, if you wanted, you could throw up some supports and put up a roof. This gazebo works well and protects your stuff from the rain. It's pretty easy to add walls, and so on.

Agile is useful for certain kinds of projects and the "classic" way is good for other kinds of projects. The real problem is that people try to use the same methodology for every project.

The last times I tried using Google Drive, if you downloaded more than one file, it would make a zip file with the files where the dates were all reset to Jan-1-1980. Does it still do that?

That's a deal-killer to me and makes the service unusable. DropBox doesn't do that - so I know it's not technically impossible to so something so difficult as preserve a file's modify-time.

If they were banned hopefully I could get a prescription for the soap.

You could probably still get something like a chlorhexidine - it's antiseptic and antibiotic. One brand name is hibiclens. Vets use it a lot with animals with wounds and someone once told me it was also used as a surgical hand scrub.

College is valuable (potentially) in only 3 ways

There's a 4th... that you actually do learn useful skills. I've taken classes in computer modeling & simulation, operations research, data mining, and machine learning. I use quite a bit of this all the time at work and I find it's been helpful to have been given a solid foundation in the subjects - this makes it much easier to explore and learn more on my own.

But, I've been taking these classes for fun and out of interest - I already have a masters degree, so the possibility of an additional degree doesn't help me much.

You don't need a definition of intelligence to build a 1:1 model of a brain and then study it. Defining intelligence belongs in the domain of philosophers.

And I suspect that going through the process of doing this will shed more light on what "intelligence" actually is (if it is just one thing) than a bunch of people sitting around lobbing contractidictory definitions at each other.

plants "breath" co2 so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants.

Well, you breath oxygen, so breathing 100% pure oxygen is no problem, right? Well, actually, it is a problem if you breathe it for any prolonged period of time. Read up on hyperoxia.

It just doesn't follow that because plants need CO2 that more CO2 is better for plants... or at least the plants you want growing.

Well, you know... you meet a girl on OKCupid and invite her to dinner. You're running late because you're cycling home from the grocery store and got a flat tire, so you try serving her one of the near-to-expiration MREs (you know, you need to cycle them, first-in, first-out) and the next thing you know, she gets this phone call and it's some kind of emergency... her aunt fell down a well, and she has to leave before she's even eaten. I try to call later to see what's happened but the phone's disconnected. I figure she must have dropped her phone into the well and it got ruined so she canceled the account.

So you know, it's cool... I get to eat two MREs and get both the Tootsie Rolls AND the M&Ms. I just wish someone would cover all those wells these's girls' aunts keep falling into. It's a real safety hazzard out there!

You're right... I'm lucky that I live in a city that is, at least by American standards, bike-friendly. And the weather in winter is rainy but doesn't often get below freezing. I did my first through-the-winter bike-commuting this year and it was kind of fun, even if it was cold and wet.

But indeed most US cities seem to be made by the cars, and for the cars, and there are some drivers who have an irational rage about cyclists.

I'm sure it benefits the store to provide me whatever is oldest and/or least desired.

Well, that's only true if they don't want to keep their customers. Why would anyone keep getting delivery of produce and meats if they got lower-quality that way? It's like with game theory... optimal game playing different when you play one round vs many rounds.

I had food delivered one summer and I don't recall ever getting anything I thought was sub-standard.

I use 2 panniers on my bike (on a rack) and top out at 60 pounds of groceries. But I was breaking spokes until I had new heavier duty wheels built (though I'm a heavy guy at 275 pounds). It also makes the bike a bit squirrely. It can be done, though, and it's not too bad.

But works better is to just make a couple of trips and not carry as much. I just planned my grocery trips around other trips I was making.

I've been bike-commuting for a year now but I still drive. However last August I loaned my car to a friend and was strictly bike. It's intersting... I was much calmer. I find that driving, even short distances, gets me worked up having to deal with other drivers. Even though I'm biking in traffic, it's a completely different experience and not nearly as stress-inducing.

It actually is fun riding my bike around, even to get groceries. I use panniers and I typically get a weeks worth in that. Maybe I need two trips... and I do it coming home from work, so it's not that big of a deal.

But do you even think about what you're saying with the CO2? As a cyclist, sure, I emit some CO2, but it was from food I ate that probably took CO2 from the atmosphere within the last year - it's a short cycle and when factored over a year, nearly nets out. When I drive, my car is taking CO2 that was taken from the atmosphere millions of years and puts it back in the atmosphere.

And further on efficiency, if your huge fridge is stuffed with a months worth of food, then it's burning a lot more energy to keep it all cold. With a week's worth, one can have a smaller and more efficient fridge.

And inefficient lifestyle? Well, sure I spend a little more time bike-commuting. But I'm healthier for it by far. After a year of this, my blood pressure is down, my cholesterol is down, and my resting pulse rate is about 10 bpm slower. This is way better for me than spending money and extra going to the gym to try and be healthy. Plus, traffic is much less stressful and I'm generally more awake and more energized during the day - and I spend much less time trying to find parking at work since I ride right to my office door.

And you know, I can bike-commute and still keep food stores for emergencies. I'm not too worried about a blizzard... my house has a wood fireplace and I have a couple cases of MREs and a week's worth of dried foods, and several gallons of stored water.

Really, being a cyclist and bike-commuter is not nearly as bleak as you make it out to be.

That sounds like a much bigger problem with American drivers than with cyclists.

What kind of person feels obligated to harass someone else because they don't agree with the way they choose to get around or live their lives?

It really comes down to how our communities are designed. The US has worked really hard to build communities that are difficult to live your life without a car. As an example, the nearest grocery to me is 4 miles away, the nearest clothes cleaner is 2 miles in the other direction. The nearest gas station, however is only .75 miles.

As a contrast, I spent a couple months in a smaller town in Holland. I walked to work (2 miles) and all the grocery stores (and other stores too) were on the way and a short work from my hotel. I generally stopped every few days to pick up whatever I needed (note, the fridge was small... like dorm fridges in the US, as were fridges as friends' houses). If I'd had a bike it would have been an even easier time. But they just set things up in their communities so that it's easier to do day-by-day shopping and harder to buy an SUV full of perishiables to fill a giant fridge.

I now bike-commute here back in the US, and while it's definitely not as convenient as driving but it's been good for my health and I find I buy a lot less stuff that ends up being thrown out anyway.

Sure, I missed having grocery stores open at 3:00am, but if I'm given the chance, I'd definitely go back for a longer stint. It's a more relaxing lifestyle, even while I still worked hard.

Except that what they charge for the phone is not close to what it actually costs. I can go straight to Google and get a Nexus 4 for $299. T-Mobiles, "full price at checkout" is $408.

Slashdot is bad when it comes to acronyms and assuming everone speaks the same language (figuratively and literally).

In this case, EMT is Emergency Medical Technician. They're often the people who arrive in ambulances. The old US TV show, Emergency! is centered around EMTs, about the same time that EMTs first started to exist in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician