Given that my 10mpg '66 Ford Galaxie Convertible pounds the ground with its 460 engine, the 20mpg replacement (...? Toyota Solara or something?) would be a miserable change... also consider that my 66 is driven perhaps 2500 miles a year; it's not on the list for replacement.

My wife's 20mpg (actually 23 average) Ford Freestyle on the other hand is driven probably 15,000 miles a year, and may get replaced soon, depending on what's available - being able to seat 7 passengers or carry considerably bulky items in a car-like vehicle definitely has its advantages, though now that our three kids will be in college next year the people-carrying capacity isn't as important - but then again, the amount of driving will probably be reduced as well.

Really what people need to consider when looking at fuel economy as an upgrade is this - does the overall economic picture substantiate the need for an upgrade? You're looking at helping the environment, but does buying a new car (the building of which probably incurred substantial environmental degradation in itself) actually save you and the environment anything?

Our station wagon (Freestyle) would get us perhaps $5k on the used market; buying a replacement which would function similarly though smaller (something Mazda3 hatchback sized, as we don't need to carry 7 people - mostly 2 or 3 and very occasionally 5) would get us a 8-10mpg increase but cost about $18k. Worth it? Probably not.

told Congress the destruction compared to the Nazis burning books

I've heard of threads getting Godwin'd..... but this one had it in the summary.

Doesn't that, by itself, mean that no further replies are necessary?

One cow can produce about two kilowatts of electricity

Given that 1 horsepower (hp) = 746 watts, 2Kw = 2.68hp.

It's generally accepted that your typical horse can't even put out 1hp for extended periods, so I have to assume that this cow of theirs is only going to put out 2hp for extremely short bursts.

I suppose the article could be confusing Kw with Kwh, but then the "one cow [can produce]... enough energy to power" doesn't make sense.

Overall, I call b-s, or cow-s, as the case may be.

1024 is actually 2 to the 8th power (2^8)

2^8 == 256 ; 2^10 == 1024.

What, they don't understand when told to fuck off that it's friendly, that being slapped or hit on the shoulder is a sign of good-will? Participating in a swirling was a sign of belonging?

I've got to say, though I personally was home-schooled for the first 3 years, I never got "properly socialized" to understand the mechanics of school society. I was able to function at its fringes, but I always did my best to avoid it.

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek: I'm not surprised that they're uneasy when being questioned about their school seeing as how a, they're home-schooled and therefore "different" and b, so many people assume homeschoolers are whack-jobs.

My kids were homeschooled on and off. First 4 years of school at home, and then two of them did 7th and 8th grade at home. Non-religious (semi-atheist, agnostic, something... we did study religion but not as believers, if you can understand that). The kids are, by anyone's measure, among the best socialized kids you'll find - friendly, outgoing, thoughtful, respectful.

Of course, we made a big effort to provide social contact. In a controlled fashion, though, not like the free-for-all do-or-die in your typical school, where kids certainly aren't exposed to good practices.

I saw Avatar 3D - and it was interesting..... but really:

• I got a headache - most definitely eyestrain
• Colors were fine, I'll grant you this
• Glasses were uncomfortable and definitely limiting (this is apart from the eyestrain headache)
• The screen's not distorted but 3D seems to reduces the resolution of the film

I still intend to see it in 2D; I expect that it'll be better than the 3D, at least for my visual aparatus.

Personally I didn't see that much 3D about the film. Yes, there were seed pods floating around a bit and embers floating but most of the film didn't show substantial 3D aspects more than my own mind typically infers from a 2D film.

Both countries...

I understand the "our country" probably referring to the USA. What is the other country in the "both countries" that you're referring to? You are aware, I hope, that INTERPOL is an organization comprised of 188 nations... including the USA?

The trinity boils down to the game's AI. In D&D, you've got a (presumably) intelligent Dungeon Master who's running the mobs. The DM has the option of making the mobs smart or dumb, depending on the encounter; the DM controls what they do and can decide how they're going to react to the play style of the group.

The recent "Faction Champions" scene in WoW's Trial of the Crusader deviates from the typical encounter as it is a more "PvP" style fight, but still the mobs aren't actually intelligent; they do have some aggro, they just drop it a lot and go immune to attempts to recover it, and they still don't do smart stuff like getting out of area damage spells or attempting to break crowd control; if a DM was running the mobs in this encounter, it would be considerably different still.

Obviously without true AI, an MMO has an extremely difficult time trying to optimize the game's reaction to the player(s) in the encounter, and the game's designers have to fall back upon certain assumptions - the alternative without a much better AI is to just make every encounter a free-for-all where the mobs have no aggro at all; this would mean that every class would have to invest in heavier armor (which most games - RGPs and MMOs both - deny from the magic using classes).

Besides, real warfare often utilizes the trinity itself, through on a macroscopic scale. The front ground troops are the tanks - they're in the midst of the battle. Aerial attacks are kind of the DPS, and hospitals behind the lines are the healers. If you want to look at medieval warfare, you still had the infantry (often with shields) as tanks, archers behind, and.... ok, so no healers.... but 2 out of 3 ain't bad ;)