We use electric heating--which is expensive, and while our neighborhood will be getting natural gas in the next few months, it makes no economic sense for us to replace our central heating system with gas. (The payoff exceeds the lifespan of the HVAC already installed.)

Resistive heating or a heat pump? If the former, I suspect that replacing your AC with a heat pump would save you a lot of money. I would even go so far to say that if your HVAC is old then it would make sense to upgrade (because you'd have to replace the AC eventually anyway, and the marginal cost is small), and if your HVAC is new then whoever had it replaced last time was an idiot for not upgrading to a heat pump then.

Tell us, what color is the sky on your world?

Grey, from the smog.

With single precision you have to be enormously careful not to drop digits even in comparatively modest loops; with double precision you can many digits before you run out.

Ha! I see what you did there. Unfortunately, your verb wasn't double-precision.

I have never understood why if your company makes something that is shipped in glass jars why you would care if they are reused or not unless you receive back the old jars like Coke use to do with glass bottles to refill and resell.

Liability, maybe? I think Classico was irrationally worried about getting sued by somebody whose jar exploded while being used for canning (either during the process, due to the heat, or afterwards from bacteria growth due to an improper seal).

Classico pasta sauce comes in jars with Mason-type lids. However, they're made of cheaper glass than "real" Ball/Kerr Mason jars and are unsuitable for canning due to breakage risk, so Classico apparently wasn't very happy that they were getting saved and reused.

Classico recently tried to switch to lug lids, but their customers (including me) complained, so they switched back. (In my letter, I pointed out that the reusable jar was the main differentiating factor that caused me to prefer their sauce over any random other brand in the same price range.)

I hate to break it to you, but Comcast is part of the joint venture that owns Hulu.

Thanks!

Usually I'm on the giving end of idiomatic corrections; it'd be hypocritical of me to fail to appreciate receiving one.

The problem with Snowden is that he unilaterally made himself the judge of which secrets should be released and which should not.

Bullshit!

Snowden had no goddamn choice -- NONE WHATSOEVER -- because going through the quote-on-quote "proper channels" would have resulted in his whistleblowing being ignored or buried and nothing changing.

So I was going to make a joke about how somebody should "appropriately deal with" Senator Burr, but then decided against it because the jackbooted thugs at the FBI (or whatever) might not be amused.

Let this just be one more example of the damage the so-called "Patriot Act" has done to our formerly-free society.

Meanwhile a diesel Fiat Panda had been getting 70+ mpg for like 20 years.

Yeah, but that's a Fiat. Nobody wants that!

We have a few reasonably-efficient cars like that here, by the way, such as the VW Golf 1.9L TDI. They're not popular because they have less-than-stellar reputations for reliability, and the reliable Japanese brands don't sell Diesels here.

Also to sell vettes and other crap.

Actually, Corvettes get pretty decent fuel economy (almost 30 MPG highway), especially now that they've got cylinder deactivation. Between the low weight, low aerodynamic drag, and tall gearing, they've got almost all the right characteristics of an economy car. The only thing holding them back is the huge, sticky tires.

This drug is two amphetamine salts mixed together.

Yeah, and table salt (NaCl) and cyanide (NaCN) are just two kinds of sodium salts. That doesn't mean they affect the body the same way, though!

Besides, dosage matters (a lot!), and the dosage of Adderall used medicinally is way, way lower than the typical recreational dosage of meth, according to Wikipedia.

My main issue is he's too anti-government, and wants to cut into the Department of Education, and is way too "pro-life".

I find myself wondering how much of his "pro-life" schtick is genuine, and how much is pandering in hopes of winning the primary. This is one instance where I hope it's pandering.

he was offered a 6 month sentence if he would plead guilty.

Oh yes, that's how it works today in Amerika! "We don't give a shit what you did, but YOU MUST BE GUILTY." All you fascists get a sexual thrill from that all-important admission of guilt. You just love how, once somebody gets in your clutches, you can fuck up their entire life by disenfranchising them, disarming them, and eliminating the possibility of them ever getting a decent job. And it's "only a six month sentence." Six months, my ass!

Six months is just as unjust as a goddamn death sentence when you've DONE NOTHING WRONG!

LOL! You think I'm a right-wing nutjob? That's weird; I more often get accused of being exactly the opposite. In reality, I'm a moderate anti-authoritarian, and want both government and corporations to GTFO of my business.

Besides, you're a dumbass, since you apparently fail to understand that negligence is a completely separate, irrelevant issue that's already covered by existing laws. I would already be liable if I modified my car to be unsafe, and computers don't change that!

Go re-read that last sentence, and let it sink in. Then read it again. Got it? Good! Now you'll realize that the stunt these automakers are trying to pull has nothing whatsoever to do with actual safety, and everything to do with them trying to assert control over their customers' property, so that they can restrict customer choice and increase their own power and profits. Nothing more, nothing less.