So.... does this IQ make me look fat?

I'm wondering if the water can do even more shielding - on Mythbusters they demonstrate that you can hide from gunfire under water - 3 to 4 feet of water and you are safe from everything up to a .50 cal sniper rifle bullet. Can 2 meters of water disrupt / absorb the energy of meteorites as well? As long as the water tanks can self-seal (military aircraft fuel tanks do) after punctures... I don't see why not.

So, it's basically the same as 10,000 people watering their lawn for a couple hours. Doesn't seem so bad.

"A Mooses once bit my sister."

  - Sorry, couldn't resist.

The book starting that series is "The mirror of her dreams" - "A man rides through" is the 2nd book IIRC

Normally, raw food costs in a restaurant are on the order of 25-30% IIRC. That would mean it would be around $7, maybe up to $10 as the restaurants get bulk discounts we don't.

For poker, at least, I know you can ask for the cards to be counted, can ask the decks be changed, etc. Blackjack is a little more... uncertain. You may be able to ask for that as well, but since they use 7-10 decks (not sure about the exact numbers, but it is a bunch) in one shoe, it would be harder to detect something amiss anyway.

In poker, specifically texas hold'em, several of the particular ways they hand is dealt are there to minimize the effects of marked cards, for instance. So keeping it honest is VERY important to everyone.

Online, you could do a statistical analysis of the hands dealt - after 10-20K hands you'd be able to tell if anything funny was going on - i.e. deviating too much from random.

So, yes, it can be done, for Poker at least. Anything else ? - maybe roulette as well with enough wheel spins.

A tenant of the free market is just one of it's founding principals, or better yet, an assumption needed for it to work. Transparency in this case means the customers for the credit cards, in order for the Free Market to ensure they get a good deal through competition, have to know about the cards, companies, terms, rates, etc. in general.

With informed customers, they make good choices, and the Free Market (i.e. competition) will make sure the terms and rates are fair, and don't gouge anyone. If a company gets out of line, customers will dump them, and they go out of business or get back in line with everyone else.

This helps make everything more open, more transparent, so everyone can see who is gouging their customers. Make sense now?

The square wheels almost worked too - how fun is that!

And let's keep in mind that the asteroid that exploded with a 3.8KT air-burst was the size of a minivan. Anything worth mining will be, what - 1000 times larger? 100,000 times larger? Nothing to mess around with - and by no means safe. A 100 megaton blast, and a ground impact to boot, will do more that blow peoples hair back.

No, water did not set everything on fire. Jet fuel was on fire, oil and water do NOT mix, and the water SPREAD the burning jet fuel to every area of the building, to set all the contents on fire, along with the fuel.

Instead, you actually think it was deliberate, with paint. How many thousands of gallons of paint do you think they applied up there? 'Cause they know how many thousands of gallons of jet fuel there were in the planes.

The "purpose and character of the use" is supporting documentation to a patent application. Which is intended to make money, therefor the use of the copyrighted material is commercial in nature. That's what I would assume to be the 'traction' as you call it. IANAL however, so that's just my own guess.

People donate money for charity work to be done - some in very large amounts. That gets used ONCE, for one 'round' of benefits for the charitable purpose.

If, instead, the people who understand business and how they work had the option to 'invest' in a charitable purposed company - why wouldn't they? Their gift can contribute basically forever, instead of once.

Sounds like a win-win to me. The incentive is there - I used 'invest' with quotes as the donors are not expecting a return - not a tangible one at least.

There are similar priced schools in my area. My wife and I took on a ton of debt to put our daughter through private high school (a really good one - we are really pleased with how she did there) - basically bringing her into the discussion and laying it out:
      We can pay for school now, or college later, but we CANNOT do both - just isn't possible. So we all decided to pay for school now. So far she's been paying for college herself (landed an ROTC scholarship, and really likes the ROTC program - but if not that, then she'd have had a ton of loans) - and so far is working out really well.
      Not saying it's something you should do, but it's an option, and has worked for us.

      Good luck!

"This will just add further bloat.You want applications to start instantly, but you want them to load even more information at startup and save even more at every shutdown. Just ask the user if they want to continue later, or remind them that they need to save. Should my media player really need to automatically remember that I closed every episode of my favorite tv show just before the credits began?"

      Actually, yes. It isn't that hard - my TiVo does it automatically. And is smart enough that if I stop it during the last 5% or less of an episode, it will start it again from the beginning. Single piece of meta-data - What was I doing when shut down? Single piece of meta-data per item - Where did I leave off when last asked to show this / play this?