...and know that you will be missed here.

Good luck with the next adventure. :)

On a somewhat related note, we first achieved transcontinental euthanasia many decades ago, and we have an alarming rate of post-birth abortions these days.

"Since this beast needed 30% more displacement to produce 10% more torque and significantly LESS HP than the 6.2L V8 it's no surprise that GM stopped using it."

I doubt that tells the whole story though - everyone seems to want to compare the PEAK numbers from the engine and not compare the other things about it. I wish people would take a look at some dyno results from these things. If you scale the output of both engines to the same chart and look at the difference in area under the curve, you might have a somewhat different impression. It's also important to note that in truck applications, you want more torque in the lowest possible RPM ranges...they aren't trying to make high horsepower for towing applications.

I'm going to come right out and say that I haven't looked at it lately myself, but I've driven a few trucks with big blocks before, and based on my few experiences with them - those things were serious workhorses. They tended to survive longer when they're worked that hard too.

I beg to differ. I think the towers are somewhat directional and don't point up.

I've never looked at what type of antenna they are using on those towers, but I really don't think this is the case. Cellphones would work just fine in planes, several miles straight up. We're obviously not allowed to use them due to FAA regulations, etc...but they would (and do) work up there.

HAM radio repeaters are often put up on mountain tops and things like that for the same reason that g0dsp33d pointed out.

Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.

Aye, there's the rub...

I think the author is overlooking two simple facts: not everyone with a website is an "average guy", and that there are more than a few people in the world who are capable of understanding advanced mathematics and statistical methods who don't have the related PhD that apparently enables one to do so.

Strangely enough, there are also places with very high rates of gun ownership where assaults like this continuously fail to happen - which hints at the possibility that firearms might not really have anything to do with this...

Meh...strong words coming from an Anonymous Coward.

I'm assuming it's his legal right to have that firearm where he lives, so why the overreaction about him having a firearm on him? According to the story, he never pulled the gun on the maintenance worker - which would be a different thing entirely. (And at that point, I would agree with you wholeheartedly.)

I really like most of what I've read about the Volt design so far. Those longer trips are one of the things where the Volt will have a serious advantage over the pure electric vehicles that are coming out. Lets compare a several hundred mile long run between the volt and the Nissan Leaf that they're currently touting as more efficient. (The Leaf is 100% electric.) The volt will need a 5 minute stop for a fuel before you hit the road again. The Leaf will probably need at least an hour of charging. The same thing will happen even with the 120-something thousand dollar Tesla roadster. As a side note, IMHO, the Tesla at least looks great. The Leaf kinda looks like a retarded catfish. If you ever want to take a long road trip, the current generation of electrics pretty much suck.