As someone from the U.S. who just recently traveled in Canada, I have to say that I like their current currency system a lot. Using loonies ($1) and "twoonies" ($2) coins is nice as they can actually be used easily to buy useful things, which is the primary reason why (I think) dollar coins haven't really taken off in the U.S.

In Canada, parking meters, soda machines, etc.. take $1 and $2 coins. It beats having to feed a pile of small coins into a meter or machine, or trying to iron out and feed a frayed and mangled $1 USD bill into a soda machine and having it rejected. The coins are also fine for face-to-face transactions; they are not unusual. In contrast, Susan B. Anthony dollars in the U.S. can get you some funny looks and many vendors flat out won't accept them, legal tender or not. You can go buy a beer in Canada with the change in your pocket. The Canadian coins make small daily transactions simple.

In the U.S., getting change is a pain in the ass because you invariably wind up accumulating pennies which are a nuisance. You can't use them for tolls or in machines in most places, and toting around a pile of pennies large enough to actually purchase anything with is ridiculous. So you either start carrying a satchel of pennies around trying to pay exact change, or you toss them in a jar, spend time rolling them, and exchange them at the bank for larger denominations (yay! A trip to the bank just to dispose of pennies!). You can also use services like Coinstar, which takes a cut (yay! A special trip to dispose of pennies AND paying some money to a company taking advantage of the dumb system!). In Canada, prices are merely rounded to the nearest 5 cents. Sometimes it is a few pennies in your favor, sometimes it is a few pennies in their favor. On the whole it is a wash, and you would have to be a really miserly SOB for it to worry you.

Canada has cash pretty well figured out. It's not that difficult, U.S.!

Ha! Got your attention!

Nope, Sheppard AFB pulls water from the Wichita Falls system, though it is trying to cut usage. They truck in water for non-potable uses such as pools. http://www.sheppard.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123412872

I don't believe many recruiters tout the "joys" of Wichita Falls and drinking somebody else's piss on recruiting posters.

People serve *in spite of* Wichita Falls, not because of it.

Moving can be difficult if you are in the service and have the misfortune to get stationed at Sheppard AFB (Wichita Fall's biggest employer, IIRC). Trust me, there are a lot of airmen there just dying to GTFO of Wichita Falls.

Yes. Don't disturb the illusion!

I spent 6 months at Sheppard AFB. It sucked part of my soul away. The drought is God telling people that he wants them to be happy and to move away from Wichita Falls as soon as possible.

But some people are hard-headed and would rather drink their own recycled pee. It's against God, I tell you!

P.S. I hope they shut off the pump to the ridiculous koi pond that they quaintly call "The Falls" before the resorted to this.

Oh, but they don't move so fast anymore, but that's easy to fix. Since the computers think they are all teenagers, just issue them drivers permits and give them their 1970 Lincoln Continentals back. Airdrop them into Iraq and let them at it! CHARGE!!!!

Makes perfect sense - which would make for a more fearless army, a bunch of 18 year old boys, or a retirement home full of centenarians with Alzheimer's and/or stage 4 cancer?

Human-wave attacks of volunteer centenarians against ISIS FTW.

Not dumbassed, but yes, the blade size, shape, and design speed would need to be redesigned for the reduced air density. Challenging, but perhaps not impossible. And there are many examples of turbomachinery that spin happily at hundreds of thousands of RPM.

If it could be done without a major size or mass penalty, this could permit not just a soft landing, but the potential of a hopping or a flying rover.

Why not just leave the quadcopter attached to the rover as a single unit? You then would have a rover capable of short hops to move from point to point, over obstacles, etc.. It might also allow a stuck rover to move out of a sandtrap. It could also blow dust off solar arrays. It would provide a lot more flexibility in motion.

The sky-crane maneuver was designed before the quadcopter design paradigm existed and they were simply trying to safely land a large and heavy science rover. The lower density of the atmosphere and the weight of the rover would need to be considered while developing a new design using a quadcopter approach, but I don't see why a sky-crane would be necessary or even desired.

Really, the 4th is just an excuse for BMC-drinking rednecks to blow things up and make noise on a day off. That's it. The meaning of the holiday flies high over most American's heads these days.

I spent the July 4th in Canada, where they call the 4th of July 2014 "Friday", just like most of the rest of the world.

July 1st was Canada Day, which I think has more meaning to Canadians than the 4th does in the U.S. There were fireworks but for the most part it was a pretty subdued and sober holiday.

This. Anybody who thinks the primary goal of college is education is mistaken. It is a profit-driven enterprise, pure and simple.

In the U.S. most employers demand at least a 4 year baccalaureate degree in something as a bare minimum job qualification. So if you want a job, you need to get a degree. Colleges charge as much as the market will bear and outsource the teaching to part-time and full-time adjuncts who are paid a fraction of what a full-time tenure-track faculty member would require to teach the same course load. And, by the way, they have no tenure protection so the administration has the adjunct faculty by the short hairs. Ouila! A cheap and nervous workforce - a corporate executive's wet dream!

I don't know how they define "cost effective", but since the plastic mostly came from oil in the first place, any energy expenditure to recover it is a net minus overall.

For an individual organization that can get a hold of a lot of landfill plastic cheap, this may be a win, but overall it is a fuel source with an energy return on investment (EROI) less than 1.

We're in trouble if we have to start resorting to this as an energy source. Deep trouble.

You're assuming that entire settlement goes to the plaintiffs. The lawyers will get several 10s of millions of that first.