Posting to undo accidental 'overrated' moderation.
+1 funny!

It really is just those two things.

At home, games: (Debian) Linux does everything I want except play games. Windows does everything I want [in a desktop] including play games. Linux has some advantages (middle click to paste what was selected, pasting text or image data on the desktop creates a file of appropriate type, easy always on top for arbitrary windows, less scary full disk encryption) but a lot of them have been disappearing (ie: Windows 7 includes desktop slideshow, a feature that kept me going back to KDE). I do have a Linux file server using Samba 4 which gives me all the non-desktop goodies that I am missing from Windows (SSH access, rtorrent, irc, DNS server, real scripting, etc).

At work, Outlook: Yes I can get the email all kinds of ways but that is only 10% of Outlook in an Exchange environment. Creating complex filters and rules, the colored flags, scheduling, calendar, and tasks are all necessary parts of the Outlook experience (even more so when there are shared mailboxes involved) and Evolution isn't quite there yet. I do have a Linux box as well but until that's ironed out, I am stuck with Windows as well.

Interstates that run within NYC (particularly river crossings).

Also, any highway that has a variable speed limit due to weather conditions.

Finally,during road construction work if there is no clearance between the construction area and the open lane.

Also (admittedly this is more pedantry) the US Numbered Highways are sometimes called "Federal Highways" even though they do not receive Federal funding - these typically follow the speed limits of local roads.

Quick guide to farenheit:
212: water boiling
150: this ends the cooking section of farenheit (lowest number on the oven) ...
110+: too fucking hot, this begins the section of Fahrenheit relevant to most people's daily environment
98.6: you (if the temperature of 'you' is > 100 consider seeing a doctor)
32: water freezes
0: too fucking cold

Having the typical range of human-livable temperature span 100 positive degrees makes it easy to 'visualize'. Also compared to Celsius, Fahrenheit is more precise. I can tell whether the house is 69, 70, 71 or 72 degrees. I can tell when the office has gone from its normal 73 degrees to 74 after someone puts an ice pack on a thermostat. I don't usually see Celsius measured in decimals but I'd imagine a lot of those temperatures would blur into the same number.

For most of the other stuff (ie: paper sizes, containers, weight) I agree metric is better, but I wouldn't want to give up the precision of Fahrenheit and its natural relation to human-liveable environments for the sake of conformity.

It doesn't need to work continously. Even on the trains that have it now, it only works reliably while in towns. If you're taking a 3 day cross country trip, having 10 minutes of internet every 2 hours is still an improvement.

Automobile accidents are the leading cause of transportation death though.

Today we had a train wreck between two rush hour commuter trains in Connecticuit. Worst Metro-North has seen since 1988. No deaths.

In the northeast, unless you're on the Acela Express or in a sleeper car, you're not riding anything younger than 30 years. The Amfleets which are the Northeast's bread and butter were built in 1975. At least the Midwest gets new Superliners every few years.

1) The Keystone Corridor is also successful (from a customer service point of view), sees over a dozen trains each way daily, with portions of the line at over 100MPH speed.
2) That section of the Empire Corridor is slow but only because it is a former freight line through a very urban area. There are some sections where vibrations of trains could cause rockslides (though those have recently been stabilized enough to allow 45MPH speeds). It is a necessary evil because the only other option would be for Amtrak to have to run these trains out of Grand Central, which would be inefficient both operationally and for passengers who need to transfer (the rest of the trains must use Penn Station). It also sees over a dozen trains a day.
4) The Post Road Branch isn't that significant. It is 12 miles from Albany, NY to near the Massachusetts state line - it carries the Lake Shore Limited (one train a day). While the speed limit is 79 MPH (or feels that way) it is on jointed rail and therefore the most uncomfortable 12 miles in New York State. That said, the rest of the former Boston & Albany main line is not owned by Amtrak and large portions have speed limits of 45, but the rail is smooth - excellent for freight, annoying for passengers.

It didn't help that from 1942-1962, Railroad tickets were taxed something like 10%, and that tax money went to the general fund (which then got doled out to the interstate highway system and the airports that directly competed with them). Source (admittedly biased but the best I could find with a quick google).

Places that are not NYC also have public transportation. Almost every state has at least one city with public transit. Middle class Americans seem blind to it because it tends to be viewed as only for "poor people" or the elderly, but it is there. The colleges around here (not NYC) educate these individuals on this with freshman car bans (parking shortage), so it's either learn to use the bus or never leave campus. It may not be convenient at all times but than can be worked around.

Also, your statement "rat and roach free" tells me you aren't properly understanding the solution - when you need to be frugal, sometimes you may have to live in a place that is less than pretty. Around here we'll often have three unrelated students sharing a 3 bedroom apartment. If there is a mice problem, they get a cat. Roach problem? RAID. You make do with what you have.

As for your heart rending example, that is an unfortunate situation but doesn't really describe the average college-bound individual.

Still possible to work your way through school in NYS... source.

We may have some of the highest taxes in the country but things like this is what it goes towards. There's also the Tuition Assistance Program (additional financial aid) and things like the Education Opportunity Program for students of low income households.

It can be made even cheaper by living at home (subtract room and board cost). Hopefully home is near a city (not necessarily *the* city, there's SUNYs everywhere). If not, that's simply the tradeoff of living in the middle of nowhere.

If you're not living at home, the "keeping gas in the tank" argument disappears - who says you need a car? That's several thousand a year going to what, exactly? You're not living at home so no excuse - you can select your state school and residence based on public transit requirements. Minimum wage jobs tend to also line public transit corridors. Many state schools offer public transit discounts for the regions they are in (or even flat out free transit).

Basically, if you are a resident of NY and cannot afford to go to college, it's most likely your own fault - do some research and be willing to adjust your lifestyle habits. If your home state is a lot less helpful, well, that's your lower tax rate in action.

I'm not sure when you were a kid but until the mid 1990s, we actually used to have good educational television. The roster was something like:
Sesame St - Pre school reading / numbers and socializing (currently a shadow of its former self)
The Electric Company - Grade school reading / basic grammar
3-2-1 Contact - science
Bill Nye - also science
Square One TV - math (varying ages)

Very little of what is around now seems to pass for children's educational TV, compared against the above list. These were shows you could plop your age-appropriate kid in front of, and it would both hold their interest and spark a healthy curiosity in the subject matter. People are going to have the TV babysit their kids anyway - with good educational television at least they'd be learning something in the process.

I had a college roommate for about two months who was from the country. He couldn't sleep:
1 - with the window open, because of the street noise... 12 stories below
2 - with the curtains open, because of the lights from the rest of the campus... 9 stories below

Other than the dorm's twin 1200 feet away and the campus far below there was nothing but mountains and fields out that window. Maybe all that natural environment piece and quiet he experienced growing up would have resulted in better performance, but we wouldn't know because he dropped out and moved back home; he simply could never get sleep (we both agreed the window and curtains had to be open due to no A/C). The flaw in the logic that those raised in a natural environment will perform better is that most people spend most of their lives in an unnatural environment. Being raised without being adapted to noise/light pollution is actually a disadvantage for our current society.

Obligatory XKCD. By dividing it into 28 hours it makes a perfect 6 "day" week.

When I had a 100% flexible work schedule with no reporting location, I tried this a few times, but I never had the discipline to see it through an entire week. It's quite interesting to see something like that actually work!

More like paint.net will have a windfall of new users, since most workplaces will be using Windows PCs anyway [the Gimp is still king in Linux]. I don't know if the Gimp ever got away from that whole floating windows with no parent window / menu bar design, and I'd imagine neither does anyone else who has ever tried the Gimp and been put off by its UI. Paint.net's UI has very little learning curve for those coming from Photoshop.