This is very encouraging!

We are like *this* close to...FREE BEER!

So, two things.

If you're in the northern midwest of the US, you're not at the same latitude as Moscow. Moscow is 55 deg north, the continental 48 stop at the 49th parallel. So, unless you're talking about Ketchikan, which is decidedly not "midwest", then you need to adjust your memories a bit.

Second, as you should well be aware, latitude alone does not define how cold a place gets. In fact, southern Alaska and the Cascades region in general is generally more temperate than New England. Jet stream, currents, regional topography, all that stuff makes a difference. Going to guess based on your commentary that you're in the Montana/ND area, so comparing Helena with Moscow puts them on about par, with a full nine degrees difference in latitude.

No, "barbaric" is the way we treat people with mental illness and ailments that point to it. Rather than fix the problem, it's easier to take a puritanical view and pretend it's that individual's personal failings that caused the problem instead of society's failing to treat it. When this inevitably results in recidivism, it's just easier for society to hit the guy with a brick and make the problem go away.

We make the monsters and then claim that the monsters have to be killed because they can't be unmade.

yep. we have an internal applet application that uses a self signed certificate. it's deployed to the local file system and launched from a remote page, thus we're stuck using java less than 1.6.24 due to a security change^^^bug oracle made.

http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7020285

I understand that e-cigarettes may be able to be used to kick an addictive habit that has horrific health risks. However, it is another addictive pastime that probably has health risks of its own.

It has the potential of becoming a fad which would hook millions who believe it to be safe into a dangerous and expensive habit. Something the corporate powers would relish being that they consider this a real cash cow and anyone hooked a mere crop to be cultivated.

If I didnâ(TM)t have morals and I controlled an evil tobacco company I would endeavor to gain control of the e-cigarette market so that I could manipulate the price of both products. That way if tobacco sales started to fall off I could raise the price of e-cigarettes enough to drive customers to the more affordable tobacco products. Back and forth I would cultivate my crops.

i doubt the veracity of those statements.

the big mac has: 28g fat, 46g carbs, and 9 g sugars.
the "worst" salad has 22g fat, 24g carbs, and 7g sugars.

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/getnutrition/nutritionfacts.pdf

this is one of the largest buzzwords in the industry lately in concert with virtualization. i'm surprised i don't see many "articles" on ./ about agile.

i'm not sure i quite understand how or why a software development methodology has become the defacto standard for the project management community as a whole. literally, overnight, project managers have become scrum masters and every project from developing a new predictive pricing solution for sales to an os upgrade project becomes managed as an "agile" project. did manifesto group envision (design/declare) a new project management methodology or good practices for developing (building) software?

your timing belt, water pump, other belt replacement is 350$? i just spent 1200 for mine. that's not chump change. most shops end up at 350 for a standard brake pad replacement every couple of years.

Boston: If they can make bridges out of light, you have to wonder if they can make anything else.
Maggie: You mean...Light beer?
Boston: I was thinking more of a light house.

I could mod this as incorrect/misleading, but it's better to just reply with the correct information.

Boston is an anomaly when determining statistics of metropolitan areas. Unlike many larger cities like LA and Chicago, Boston has a fairly small land area. New York City is more than six times the land area of Boston for example. Whereas many metro areas grew over time, annexing adjacent cities and and towns, many of the towns in the Boston area resisted this move and were never annexed - They operate independently of the city proper. So while the Boston *metro* area grows, Boston itself has little room to do so.

That said, while there is crime in Boston (nobody would argue otherwise), your low statistic focuses only on Boston and not the Boston metro area, which includes places like West Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain, where the gun violence rate is much higher. To put it another way, using your statistic to make this argument would be like citing the murder rate in NYC based solely on the numbers in the Manhattan.

Oh. My. God. Lego City Undercover. Forget everything else, even Mario.

what are the odds.

Is this how Ballmer issues missions to his operatives?