And how thick are the tank's panels? how thick will they be on a pickup truck?

It's going to be a joy on winter-salted roads, too. Yeah, steel rusts, but aluminum corrodes, under wet conditions rather more than steel rusts, and it can become porous while still appearing reasonably sound (I have an old aluminum-skin trailer that kinda oozes right through the skin when it rains).

I've hauled heavy loads cross-country enough to have a clue. My ancient F100 (4600 lbs.) is at a considerable disadvantage on downgrades and in wind, compared to my middle-aged F350 dually (6000 lbs.), and even with really good trailer brakes, the F100 can't stop in anything close to the space that the F350 can. (Much to the good fortune of an idiot who pulled out right in front of me when I was hauling the big horse trailer. The F350 stopped short and the trailer stayed square, tho it left skid marks. The F100 woulda T-boned him, and the trailer would probably have fishtailed.)

You don't always get to tow under ideal conditions.

I've seen those low-profile tires on trucks too, and I'm like, WTF?? But where I live (across the border and maybe a bit west of you), most people make their trucks work for a living.

Outside of the major metro areas, so do Americans. There are probably more 20 to 40 year old trucks here in Montana than there are post-2000 trucks.

I think one side effect will be a lot of people who use an F-150 as a general light towing vehicle will find it no longer so capable (if they stay within total weight safe limits, anyway).

And when I really need to sterilize my hands, like when I've been handling infective matter out in the barn, I use straight bleach. Otherwise, I don't worry about it.

I recall a study of hospital surgical-scrub methods. Turns out the mechanical action of scrubbing with a brush does nearly all the work of removing organisms from the surgeon's skin; soap and water mostly served to carry away the resulting detritus.

Having used the Los Angeles County emergency room system, I'd say it's more like 99%. Invariably I'm the only English speaker in the room.

If you turn off CSS and JS, the horrible /. beta becomes more or less usable again. Or at least readable.

Secession really wasn't over slavery, tho. It was over states rights and economic coercion. Basically the same problem as California has today, where the concentration of power dictates the economics of everywhere else, and if that strangles your livelihood, too fucking bad.

[Having lived in SoCal for 29 years... I utterly agree, California needs to be broken up. And unbalanced areas like Los Angeles County, ditto.]

Good point. :D

Agreed about the environazis. It's one thing not to shit in your own pool (that's just common sense); it's another to decree that there shall never be shit anywhere, even if harms nothing or is perhaps even beneficial. It's like the ARs -- they don't love animals; they hate people.

I don't see that even the most vigorous strip mining could do much to change the lunar landscape, especially as visible at this distance -- I mean, what's one more crater, or even a hundred more craters, among the tens (hundreds?) of thousands already there? Light pollution might be more of a visual issue. So as was pointed out, do your thing on the far side instead. And plant that radio telescope there, for sure.

Then again... perhaps someday there'll be a "great Darsh face hanging over the garden wall". ;)

Wasn't that more or less Netware's approach? not the tree of VMs, but the tree of permissions.

Do what I did: install XP with SP3 and turn off updates entirely first thing. What possible difference could it make at this late date?

That's exactly what I meant (I think you misread me). Tires spinning more distance (ie. odometer reading) than the GPS records means the road is slippery. Well, if the GPS has that much sensitivity. :)