Then I misunderstood your previous post, which I took to mean that there wasn't enough to bother with. It would be interesting to me to see an estimate of how much it would cost to make an exhaust manifold of thermocouple material, and what the estimated output would be. With hybrid vehicles like the Prius, which just uses the IC engine to charge the batteries that actually propel it, it might well be worth it.

There's a lot of energy available from an IC engine. If you doubt me let your car run for anything more than two minutes and then touch the exhaust manifold. Bumped one with my arm when I was in high school and it took twelve years for the scar to fade.

Actually I'm in Seattle rather than California, grew up in redneckland in northern Michigan. Those things you call 'Palmetto bugs'? Those are a species of tropical cockroach. I remember stomping on one, grinding my shoe to make sure it was dead, picking up my foot, and watching it run away. Vile things.

Lived in the sweltering armpit that is Florida for a decade one year. Never again will I step out of the airport at Miami. Haven't been to Texas in two decades, but nothing that I hear from anyone living in the area makes me think that it has gotten any cooler, any less humid, or that mountains have suddenly appeared in the state. And I really don't care if there is some tiny corner of either of the Carolinas that has managed to acquire a population with an average IQ higher than the ambient room temperature, you're still in a state only slightly less backward than Louisiana or Pakistan.

New year's eve 2004 was the first time that Cassini imaged Iapetus. At least that was how I read the sentence.

Texas/Florida - You have rednecks and six inch long cockroaches that fly. Hot and humid and depressingly flat. No.

North Carolina - Hot/humid alternates with cold/humid, in an area overrun with rednecks and completely lacking in decent food (except barbeque). No.

Montana - Constant wind, two meters of snow, more rednecks, jello is considered a salad. No.

Detroit - All of the above disadvantages (except the roaches don't fly), plus you're in Detroit. No fucking way in hell No.

Many of his suckers, I mean customers, are US citizens/residents and the transactions were initiated from their US-located computers. AC left out Fraud.

My mother was a legal secretary for 13 years, I've worked with cops in several jobs over the years, several of my in-laws are/were teachers. IOW, no hard data but plenty of personal experience.

Why not? I certainly wished death and dismemberment on them then, when I was the victim. Its fuckheads like them that join the Marines and commit atrocities, then get out and become abusive cops and abusive spouses/parents.

Nah, 1970s when you could still carry a pocket knife without being automatically expelled. Which I did, but then so did they, and bullies always travel in packs.

When Columbine happened the first thing that came to my mind was, "If it had gone a little further when I was in school . . ." A friend who was also bullied in school said that she had the exact same thought.

As children most cops and most judges were the bullies. For that matter, so were a lot of school administrators. They don't understand the problem, or that there even is a problem. I was suspended for finally hitting back in junior high school, and almost expelled when I did it a second time.

Training does not make one a doctor, either. There are tens of thousands of incompetent quacks in the Third World with medical certificates whose diagnoses are less trustworthy than the old lady who sells herbs in the market, and the quack charges prices that the poor can't afford. If the old lady's granddaughter can use this tool and a printed page with sketches of different microorganisms then the poor have a better chance of getting the help they need.

BTW, the training does not have to be expensive. Cuba and Venezuela both sponsor medical professional training (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc.) for free, as long as the student is willing to spend their first x-many years after graduation (5 years, I think) working in under-served areas of their countries.

Unlike Wally-world, Amazon is not fucking over its employees at every opportunity. Amazon employees make enough that they don't qualify for food stamps, much less need them to survive. Amazon employees have actual benefits. Amazon employees have actual insurance. Amazon doesn't take out 'dead peasant' life insurance policies on its employees either. Even the much-pitied fulfillment center temps are treated better than the best WalMart employee.

I don't doubt that **YOU** can provide the equivalent of x, y and z, but very few SMBs have that talent available. Is it worthwhile for a (for example) physicians' clinic to pay AWS, or cough up the money for staff/contractors to manage their cloud infrastructure? Hard call, and how many doctors can adequately judge whether the people that they're paying are competent?