Did you check to see if the regulation bans them? I doubt it does.

Either way, it's up to the people of France. If energy independence is more important to them than skylights, so be it. If Vlad Poutine decides to cut off the supply of energy to Europe in order to gather up more of the ex-Soviet territories, the European nations need to have a way to keep the lights on. It's not a matter of aesthetics, it's an actual power play between Russia and Europe.

Did you miss the words "commercial zone"?

Oh yea? Google presents their name, a text box, and a button. If you manage to find the "about" link at the bottom, all it basically says is "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Nothing about bias. If Google's services are better than the competitions, placing them first actually would make the results more useful and would make their services more accessible.

The concept of "fair competition" is truly lost in this day and age. How is it fair to force Google to not place their own services ahead of other results? It's their search engine. They built it. Why should some third party be able to force them to place other results first? At most, I could see maybe requiring them to disclose why some results were promoted, like what is done with sponsored links.

It's the consumers that have the power of choice here. There are alternative search engines. Some popular for the very fact that they're not Google. The fact that people are too lazy to use them doesn't mean that what Google is doing is wrong.

Why shouldn't it be? It's their search engine. Who says search engines have to be unbiased?

There are laws that set the speed limit on a road. What laws would prevent Google from favoring its own services in search results? It's their services, it's their search engine, it's their search results.

A better question is, why wouldn't Google favor their own services?

Tell that to the IRS.

The twenty minutes on the side of the road would be a deterrent.

Changing it to a percent of wealth or income would encourage more rich people to hide their assets overseas. It wouldn't fix the problem. They have plenty of money to hire fancy lawyers and accountants to make sure their wealth remains in tact. Meanwhile, the middle class would probably get hosed because they have enough to be hurt by higher fines, but not enough to defend against it or hide their assets. And what happens to the poor? They'd get zero fine because they have nothing and earn nothing? That doesn't sound like it helps anything. The best thing for speeding, IMO, is to set better limits. If 90% of the traffic on a road travels higher than the limit, the limit isn't set right.

It doesn't. You clear the snow and ice off before setting off. The defroster or heater keeps it from refreezing with the help of the slipstream of air helping to keep the stuff from accumulating on the glass. You slow or stop, it can accumulate, it becomes more than the defroster or heater can handle, it freezes. Maybe once you're moving the wind plus the defroster can knock it loose, maybe you have to pull over and scrape it off again, maybe the wiper fluid will help if it doesn't just make it worse.

You don't get road slop from treated roads from other vehicles? I've been up to Canadian provinces where it's ungodly below zero and the same problems exist.

That could be the big difference between you and everyone else. I'd rather deal with the windows than freeze.

Sure it does. The cabin of the vehicle gets warm therefore the windows get warm. When you slow down or stop, the wind tunnel effect goes away and it accumulates. If it accumulates too much, it lowers the temperature of the glass enough to freeze. Same thing with body panels. You can leave the defroster running, but it is only capable of so much, the weather can exceed its capability.

I have a difficult time accepting that you're in Alaska. Is there some part of the state that never sees cold weather? Anyone anywhere in New England could describe all of this the exact same way.

AK47 seems most likely. Gun nut. Possibly a libertarian.

BTW, we're seeing more snow than you. Please come get it.

If you do actually live in Alaska, you must not go outside much. The second you stop moving in traffic everything refreezes. You must have magical snow.

It was windy the whole time. But what the fuck would I know, I just live in the area.

Ever drive in a snow storm? It refreezes. Constantly.

The snow is light-weight powder and we haven't had a thaw/freeze cycle, so when the wind hit makes no difference. Only about half of the roofs have been flat. There's a huge multi-building apartment complex down the street from me that evacuated because one building did have a roof collapse. The roof was nearly as pitched as my own. A number of others in other towns with similar style roofs have had the same problem.

Wind can relocate snow, but high wind doesn't mean roofs or anything else gets cleared off. It just means the snow gets put wherever nature feels like it. Get some gloppy slushy snow and that stuff will stick to anything like glue. Your panels would be doing about as good as our roofs, which isn't very good. The best part is that houses with panels would have to bear the weight of the roof, the weight of the panels, plus the weight of the snow. Not to mention the wind when it really gets ripping up here will want to tear those panels right off. Wind gets strong enough here to remove roofs if there's enough imperfection in them, or shoddy maintenance, or stuff attached to them that wasn't meant to be there.

Exactly. That's why during this time of wind gusts over 60mph, greater Boston has seen dozens of roof collapses.