Actually I think Cleveland still has very decent transit for a Rust Belt city. Arguably Pittsburgh does a bit better, but that's arguable, and they have a much larger funding base. Detroit definitely does not, but its funding situation is even worse than ours.

Regarding the recent crime spree at RTA stations - mostly on the West Side - these have not been heavily publicized for obvious reasons, but there has been some news coverage that you can Google for. Cleveland cops rounded up something like 70 members of this group maybe half a year ago, but without noticeable effect because, like other gangs of its nature, its roots are in the prison system, and it is designed to operate both inside and outside. Publicity and flaunting the risk of imprisonment is exactly the point of their initiation rituals. They think it proves they're b*d*sses. RTA cops do a good job considering their numbers and the political mandate that most of them have to be at Tower City, but anyplace else, they really can only respond to crimes after the fact, not intervene while they're happening. The stations between West 65 and Triskett have been especially targeted, enough that I will no longer use them to bring my family downtown; we can always take the slow but relatively safe bus instead. I have friends who have been robbed and/or beaten repeatedly at 98th and 117th, and I have to use the West 98th station to change buses if I take the bus to work. I don't do that anymore unless I have to.

I don't see any of this as a reflection on RTA, so much as the decline of the surrounding neighborhoods and the battle between gangs to establish dominance. Some formerly very scary stations such as West 25 and East 120 (now being relocated to Mayfield) have improved greatly, reflecting development and/or gentrification in their surrounding neighborhoods.

Nonetheless, using RTA for anything other than a downtown trip usually involves transferring, typically in less than safe areas, and typically between buses that run only every hour. It's just not something most people choose to do if they have some other reasonable alternative. Not RTA's fault, just the way things are.

When I was much younger, and had less choice, I biked to school (3 miles give or take) in pretty much all weather conditions except ice. But I was a lot younger and healthier back then. Trust me, if I could bike to work even half of the time (it's only about 5 miles) it would be a huge win for us financially. But I find that it's an awful lot harder now than it used to be.

Maybe where you live, but where I live, the normal temperature range is between -26C/-15F and +40C/+104F with extremes around 5C beyond these in either direction. It can vary easily by 15-20C within the same day. It is generally humid in summer and windy in winter, making the extremes potentially life-threatening regardless of preparation. Roads are icy or at least wet during the majority of the year, making even walking, much less biking, quite dangerous. And it would be most difficult to fit 6 people on one bike. I know Slashdotters are supposed to live in their parents' basements, but some of us do have families (in my case by sheer luck, my wife being that rare combination of a sweet, beautiful person, inside and out, yet having exceptionally poor taste in men). A car, a fairly sizeable one at that, is a necessity if we are to maintain anything even approaching a developed-world standard of living. Now, I am able to use the buses for certain things. If I'm willing to risk my life by waiting 20-30 minutes to change buses inside gang territory where people of my ethnicity tend to be targeted for violence, then I can get to work by bus in 30-60 minutes. And once in a while I do. I chose our current location in part due to proximity to what by local standards constitutes a decent bus line. I knew this would be very useful in the event I were to become disabled, if one of our cars was on the blink, or any number of other situations. But even in that event it would be useful only to get to and from work, noplace else.

I have to say as a fellow Clevelander that while RTA has badly decayed over the past 8 years, it still does an outstanding job given the resources available to it, which are minimal compared to almost any other comparable urban area in the U.S. However, like most of the others, it is geared primarily toward two groups of people: downtown commuters, and the transit-dependent. People who have a choice don't use it much, mostly for reasons outside its control, for instance, the fact that some of the local gangs earn "street cred" by robbing, raping and killing people at train stations and posting videos on Youtube. If U.S. inner cities were not such violent and dangerous places, they would be rapidly repopulated, density would increase, and over time transit would lose its stigma, ridership would increase, as would willingness to fund it in a sustainable manner. Needless to say I'm rooting for these changes, and welcoming them where they occur, which is at least arguably the case in places like Ohio City, Tremont, and parts of the Central and Hough areas surrounding the Clinic, although, sadly, the reverse is happening in many other parts of town, and I'm guessing the same is true in other comparable Rust Belt cities.

My understanding: That was the case in most U.S. jurisdictions, not just NYC, for a very long time. After experimentation, it was found that in most jurisdictions, traffic flow was improved without significant impact on safety when right on red (and, sometimes, left on red between one-way streets) was allowed. Thus, by the mid-80s or thereabouts, it generally became legal in most places. However, NYC is much more densely populated, and has a far more distinct and challenging transportation culture, compared to anyplace else in the U.S., so right turn on red is allowed only when specifically posted (which, IIRC, is rare).

You'd probably also want to consider whether right turns on red are legal by default (yes in many U.S. jurisdictions, no in NYC).

Basically because P and Z aren't commonly available in food,...

No, but they are found in ketracel white,

Here is Stroustrup's take on learning C++, which includes some examples of why you might not want to start with C first.

Youve done d

Hey, I'm homophone-phobic, you insensitive clod!

I'm sure the wife comment was made in jest. However, my wife - whom I love dearly and would not trade for anything - is not great at managing money, for a variety of reasons. She therefore manages to commit us to spending most of my paycheck, which, being in a very low-cost area, is probably comparable to the OP's. I have tried in vain to explain to her that a salary that's twice as much as most of our employed friends' (leaving aside the fact that many of them are unemployed) should go a lot further than it does, and would, if not for all the stupid iPad games and restaurant meals and expensive gifts and parties and the like. If it were up to me, I'd pay off our debts first, live frugally until then, save several YEARS' cushion, and *then* start being more willing to spend on things that are not true necessities. But, like me, not everyone is able to do that without causing serious difficulty in their marriages.

NO. That will not happen. Power equals voltage times current. To deliver the same power load at a lower voltage would require higher current, and household wiring is already designed to carry as much current as it safely can. Lowering voltage would thus require new, much bulkier wiring, which can't easily be retrofitted in older structures. Conduits would be able to carry far less of it, so those two would have to be overhauled. Last but not least, wireless charging and better batteries will eliminate much of the need for the lower-power wiring in the first place. There are very few things that I can confidently predict about the future, but one of those things is that mains (110-220v) voltage is not going to change drastically anytime soon. I'd be willing to bet every single powered appliance in my home on it.

How hard can ore processing be? We already have word processors. Just fork one and make whatever minor mods are necessary to process ores instead.

If you don't have any meetings, how do you know what your coworkers are doing?

Most of the time they are orking cows.

Some of the "actual cities" in the U.S. span dozens or even hundreds of kilometers (e.g., Houston, Atlanta, LA, even Chicago). Even some of the urban areas near Cleveland, Ohio, an older and more compact city than most in the U.S., are 100km or more apart. (E.g.: Oberlin to Mentor). These areas are simply not navigable without a car, no matter how fast you manage to get in or out of whatever you consider to be the "central area." Part the reason is not just suburban sprawl but the fact that originally many of these areas were once collections of separate, distant smaller towns that eventually grew together.