What would you say if I called you a pencil-necked, paranoid geek for encrypting your communications? After all, you have nothing to hide, right? The police don't even know you exist.

It's about discovery, invention, and planning for the future. And people who ridicule those who are forward-thinking disgust me.

BTW, a single-shot pistol is not a weapon of war, Captain Jingo. Buy a dictionary, you tool.

Where the heck did I leave my mod points?

Because cops never lie, amirite? BTW, I'm pretty sure Oz already has various departments for consumer protection and safety. It's not their job.

I live in the city, and assume disasters happen to people who don't live here because they're dirty, disgusting, bad people. Yes we have storms, typhoons they're called, the bad ones batter the city with winds that would barely make the news in more relevant nations. It's not an issue. It stops the trains from running due to trees falling on the tracks, but that's all I know or care about because who cares what happens to the roads and houses of the great unwashed who don't live in cities. For completeness, I'll point out the obvious fact that the underground trains continue service even under those weather conditions-- too bad that's of no help to the farmers who lost their crops or the townspeople whose houses were destroyed.

FTFY.

I'm American, and our Dutch ovens are fueled by bean burritos. *brrrapp*OH GOD NO YOU JERK I CAN'T BREATHE!

No wonder why Venezuela disarmed its citizens. That country is enjoying the lowest gun crime and suicide rate in its history, so all this NRA talk about "only outlaws have gun" is BS.

Your statement is the BS here. A total lie, in fact.

The generator's so I don't lose hundreds of dollars of food and I still have water to bathe with. Keeping enough drinking water is not too difficult (although most people really underestimate-- even preppers) but keeping enough non-potable water for bathing is space consuming and difficult to heat safely. So, if you don't want a cold sponge bath or to lose a bunch of food, you'll keep a small 240V generator as insurance. Oh, and lots of gas.

We also used to do the canned food thing, but we mostly dislike canned food and you have to rotate it out frequently... which means eating it. If you can can fruit and vegetables yourself, it's more work but tastier. We elected to reduce our canned stocks and go with MREs.

That's because those are more expensive and require a high level of skill to use.

3/4 of people who attempt suicide will be deterred by a simple obstacle or obstruction in their way.

Who are we to say whether someone should kill themselves?

People being rational don't murder.

Yes, they do-- absolutely. Unless you're thinking only about what some jurisdictions call second degree murder. That's a biased sample.

There's a spring on the hammer. I could imagine that being replaced with a pneumatic strut that could be printed, though.

Indeed. It's not hard to find Groupwise haters, even now, but they never seem to explain why. Groupwise was essentially the first modern groupware. Even on Windows 3.1, while Microsoft was putting out a bare bones mail program, Groupwise had a 99% complete calendaring system. The only thing that everyone uses that it didn't have yet was busy searches.. and that came with v5 in 1997. Outlook was pretty much still crapping in its diapers, in multiple ways, and Notes was a database design program disguised as a horrible groupware.

This is similar to how politicians and teachers' unions insist that the way to produce better results in our public schools is to throw more money at them. Meanwhile, the performance of European schools (and even American private schools) do better with less.

How about getting mail for your ex-wife's deceased father,
- who never lived in your state
- much less your home?

How about collection notices to your workplace for a guy living in Chicago,
- a place you have never even visited,
- but his first and last name are the same,
- so you call to tell them about the mistake, and they send you another one the next year anyway?

How about getting tax forms from the town you used to live in,
- and when you call they ask that you send annoying amounts of proof of where you live just so they'll stop sending you forms,
- and you do it anyway
- and they still send forms the next year?

FedEx and UPS screw up too. I got a delivery confirmation once, where they delivered it to the wrong address and then FAKED THE SIGNATURE. I informed them of the issue, and they said they would send someone out to pick it up and take it to us. Of course, it was hours later and almost 7 PM with no delivery in sight. The guy who got it was nice enough to bring it to us himself by the point-- and we hadn't even met him before then.

People can pick their own house number where you live?

Is your car's speedometer an "accurate scientific instrument"? How about the gas pedal, and its linkage? How about your foot: the bones, tendons, and muscles?

Expecting a driver to maintain an exact speed to the MPH, much less the km/h, is stupid.