The whole idea behind these toilets is that water is scarce and the region is poor -- that's only half-true. If you want to get down to serious, cheap answers, fund plumbing of salt water in from the ocean -- it won't be useful for drinking without some prior preparation, but the toilets, if properly made, need not be an advanced technology to function. Plus if one goes through the trouble of piping in sea water, perhaps it would open up more inland areas to the possibility of desalination plants? The demand would be limited to simply drinking water and bathing, since the toilets would be "first priority" and not need to have a constant source of fresh water like the former two. The only issue I could really see here is a requirement for redundant plumbing, in areas where having too much plumbing must seem like...well, a pipe dream.

For those who use it, you understand.

Let's see what happens if we change Web Designer into Contractor

"Well you're a pretty fucking shitty contractor then. Nail guns are a tool. You should be able to use hammers, wooden blocks, shoes or whatever to achieve broadly the same results while you are learning. You don't need a Ferrari to learn to drive."

My point here being that having a personal preference about how you learn and do your job does not make them somehow inferior. It's specialization. If you're going to learn to do X, you're going to go with the tool that makes the job easier and, odds are, you'll continue to use that tool as a professional because it IS easier.

Microsoft Office and Open/Libre Office do essentially the same thing; there's only so much a word processor needs to do, and both accomplish this is roughly the same standard way. What you're arguing is more akin to comparing Word to a WYSIWYG web editor; you can get roughly the same output, but the experience is different and offers difference advantages and disadvantages.

And your point about the Ferrari -- yes, you don't need one to learn to drive, but at the same time, you're not going to compete in a NASCAR event with your friend's Astrovan, either. The tools you need don't have to be the best in the industry, but they do need to be usable, and preferring Photoshop over, say, a trialware version of Paint Shop Pro from 1998 doesn't make someone a bad person.

It depends on the availability of someone at a store who is actually granted the ability to haggle. A low-level clerk is probably going to be bound by what the register will allow them to do and have no incentive to haggle, as they receive a flat paycheck regardless of what gets sold. A manager or someone in sales, on the other hand, is probably much more likely to do so, but only assuming they have a corporation flexible enough to offer anything other than a "shut the customer up" discount.

Real haggling is a rare thing nowadays because the business relies on its price points when making, well, business decisions. It's not in their best interests to constantly have the price of their goods set by the consumer.

You've also completely forgotten that the money you've "saved" by not getting a mortgage will simply go back into rent for the place where you're staying in the meantime, which I do promise will ultimately end up costing more than any interest charged on the house you'd be living in during the same time period.

Of course this is all null and void if you stay with your parents until all of your bills in life are saved up for, but American culture isn't really big on large multi-family households anymore (which is a shame, it's great on the wallet).

I'm a smoker and someone who supports these taxes...to a degree. I'm also uninsured and seriously doubt that the money I paid in will ever be put forth in an effort to better my life later on -- perhaps stabilize me in an ER room, but actually get the help I need (e.g., chemo)? Probably not.

The amount of money taken in as taxes for anti-smoking campaigns really irks me. How about free distribution of nicotine patches and gum? Why not tax it in a manner to pay for an eventual phasing-out of cigarettes, making major pushes for entire smoke-free states? Or, if you feel that's highly unlikely to work, spend some money and develop government-approved nicotine delivery devices (e-cigarettes but with some hard facts behind them)?

Yes, it's simple enough to say "Just quit smoking". You've never been a smoker or been someone almost completely dependent on cigarettes. Nicotine stabilizes my mood -- I used to be extremely depressed growing up and cigarettes, in a sense, saved my life. I wouldn't recommend them as an alternative to expensive medicines if you have the cash, but a high possibility of lung cancer versus chronic, life-crushing depression, does lead me down the cheaper route.

Taxes do push people to quit. But not everyone, not to mention the next generation coming up simply picks up the slack. You're not going to end smoking in this country unless you treat tobacco like another marijuana, and we know how well that has worked in the USA. Keep the taxes, but keep them fair -- don't dip into the pot that should be set aside to fund "like" anti-smoking programs/treatments for other projects, for then it just becomes essentially a sin tax, punishing people for years for the single mistake they made as kids, picking up that first cigarette.

No, getting rid of seatbelts won't knock down the amount of incidents you experience on the road. Morons were plowing over motorcycles long before most of these safety features were implemented.

What can help is removing distractions from a vehicle. As someone who rides a motorcycle as his only mode of transportation, it alarms me to get into a modern car and hear...absolutely nothing. Engineers have succeeded in creating vehicles where the amount of auditory feedback from the world around them is minimalized as much as possible, while still cranking out cars with better sound systems, audio hook-ups, etc etc. I ride with my friends and my general impression is that everything is being focused on except the road in front of them, with a lot of short braking and a heavy reliance on the power of modern brakes (God help them should they ever wear those pads down and not have them replaced).

I love driving, I really do. With the radio off, the windows down (Yes, even in winter, although I may have them cracked with the heat running), and at worse a cup of coffee in the cupholder, in a spot where I can grab it with my right hand while maintaining both eye contact and at least keeping one hand on the steering wheel (People who drive with their knees should be shot). People don't really seem to enjoy driving, though. It seems to be a burdensome chore, or worse, simply part of a morning routine, where any and all distractions are open and welcome to alleviate the boredom. I don't know if this is uniquely American or what, but I would love for people to actually take the concept of driving several tons of steel down the road at Interstate speeds just a little more seriously; an attitude change would work wonders for those accident rates.

I just have to point out that seatbelts are designed for crash scenarios, not landmines. Yes, theoretically you could end up in a situation where the seatbelt keeps you pinned in a vehicle following a major accident; but the alternative would have been being tossed and ejected from the force of the vehicle during the original accident, so I consider it a minor risk at best.

Seatbelts will not protect you from devices deliberately designed to destroy the vehicle you're in, but that goes without saying.

Still paying the early adopter $25/m on Virgin Mobile...the data speeds are excellent, I've never hit a bandwidth cap, and since I use my phone more as a portable computer than a, well, phone, the small number of minutes on it isn't an issue. The fact that contract plans usually charge what I'm paying total to add a limited amount of data boggles my mind.

I believe monitors play a much more important role than either one of those. After all, without the output, you're essentially masturbating to electronic noise. Not that it can't be done, but it's probably not what you're after.

Gotta call you out on that one. States like mine (SC) still have to abide by the Federal Minimum Wage. So as long as you're not working in a restaurant, you can expect at least $8.15/hour, with real wages usually around $9-$10/hour unless you're just starting out or your employer really just doesn't care about who they hire. People who get stuck in a tip situation (think Waffle House) get screwed, somewhere in the $2-$3 an hour bracket. The justification is that they get tips which make up for the difference, and they are -supposed to- cover the rest if you don't make minimum wage doing this, but a lot of places will just as soon fire you rather than pay you the minimum.

Luckily I've been smart enough to avoid this industry, but for someone who's been out of work for awhile, its sometimes their only option. If you want to be outraged by something, restaurant wages would be a good start.

And I don't like the excuse of "It's been awhile. I've been out of school for YEARS but some things you just don't forget. The fact that he couldn't answer a single one dumbfounds me; this isn't the CEO of a tire company, this is a person in a position to set educational curriculum. They need to be held responsible for not knowing anything about their "business", just as one -should- be held accountable if one ran a computer company without having any idea how they worked (which, unfortunately, is also probably much more common than it should be).

What really gets me is that these are math questions. Not English or Science. Management is business and business is money; if you have no real mathematical education and cannot even answer word problems, people should be SCARED that you are in a position of monetary control; that, even WITH a calculator, you cannot figure out what your company may or may not be bringing in or shelling out.

Then again, there's always the possibility he simply failed the test on purpose in order to push his agenda. Which apparently involves making himself look incompetent and mildly retarded, but, hey, if it gets the test changed in the way he wants, more power to him for gaming the system in an absolutely disgusting manner.

" I'm not saying I'm against legalizing weed. Just making an observation that there's always going to be some jackass who hops up and then goes out and fucks up (or ends) someone else's life."

This happens, anyway. Someone who is completely irresponsible will be irresponsible regardless of the punishment. Legalizing marijuana simply serves to not throw people away who simply want to enjoy it responsibly; just like how most drinkers don't go out and crash their cars into crowded school buses (the president included in this list).

When someone commits suicide, it's not always the case that they're going to smother the Internet with cries for help -- introverted especially, especially the geeky kind, tend to bundle up their emotions. Suicides can and do happen out of the blue.

When a group is held outside of a system for so long, can you understand why it might be hard to come back into this system without hesitations?