So does a mortician. Big deal!

Okay. We need you to embrace Windows 8, and Apple, and ditch open source. Oh, and for the love of Sanity Itself, please never abandon Slashdot Beta.

It only gets wholesome channels. It'll show Little House on the Prairie, but you'll get a blank screen if you try to watch Game of Thrones.

Ah! So Blackberrys then.

You could make this a little more fair by pitting one person with a CS degree from MIT against ten people with CS degrees from the University of Phoenix. ;)

Blizzards happen all the time, but we've got these newfangled contraptions called snowplows... in fact we're equipped to deal with winter in the extreme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Okay, so that's way up in the high country, but I've never seen it to where you couldn't get around in town or couldn't get from one town to the next if you really had to.

Where are your people at? I've got rancher relatives up by Fort Benton myself. And yeah, it not only requires skill and education, it requires good judgment and good risk assessment, because nothing is a 100% sure thing in agriculture.

And as to the educational level... it's so much better in MT than, say, California (I can attest, having lived about equal time both places) it's not funny. But don't believe me, believe the Census data:

This was current as of 2007, but it's enough to illustrate trends:

For population 25 years and over in Lancaster, California:
* High school or higher: 78.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 15.8%
* Graduate or professional degree: 5.6%
* Unemployed: 11.2%

For population 25 years and over in Bozeman, Montana:
* High school or higher: 94.3%
* Bachelor's degree or higher: 49.5%
* Graduate or professional degree: 15.6%
* Unemployed: 9.5%

(Lancaster CA was doing significantly better than nearby Los Angeles. Bozeman is about typical for MT.)

Montana State University is among the top schools in the world for Engineering, Chemistry, and Architecture. In fact my sister (who is a partner in a big architectural firm in CA that has offices worldwide) recruits mostly from MSU, because, in her words, that's the only place she can find competent prospects.

Actually it's the other way round... folks from Calgary are often seen shopping in Great Falls (prolly not so much now with the oil boom and all the growth on northward, but when I was a kid there, it was very much so). Never heard of anyone doing the opposite.

Instead of posting photos of Glacier and Yellowstone, we should post pictures of ... oh, say the old part of Butte. That'll keep the undesirables out. ;)

And if you lose your metal key entirely, any dealership for your make can look up the key pattern from your VIN. They still charge thru the nose for the key, but it's like $25, not $200+.

Indeed. Oil or silicon are last resorts for locks stuck beyond the power of graphite (or whatever they use now) to penetrate... unless you =want= the lock to wear out prematurely from the abrasives that wander in and get stuck in the oil... remember, no matter how finely milled, that lock is at least partly open to fine dust and grit.

I use a locking gas cap, and people look at me funny when they see a tuna fish can over it... but once I started doing that, I never had any more problem with dirt jamming up the lock (lubricated properly or not, road dirt works its way in there).

It seems to be random. Here's my anecdotes:

1963 Olds, 1979 Chrysler, sedans: separate keys for ignition, doors, and trunk.

1991 Ford pickup: separate keys for ignition and doors.

1978 Ford pickup: same key for ignition and doors.

BTW first thing I do is make a copy of the original key, and stash the original. That way I wear out (or lose) the copy instead. Tho this doesn't seem to be a huge deal, since the '78 is still on its first copy. But the copy is brass; the original is aluminum, and I didn't think that would hold up to the occasional stiff lock in winter. (Brass keys will bend, but they don't generally twist right off like I've seen aluminum keys do.)

Someone above mentions wearing out the lock cylinder -- the mechanic told my mom, when she got her first brand new car, that the real reason for it wearing out is having the weight of a whole bunch of keys hanging there, wiggling as you drive and putting leverage on the lock. He said keep it down to just a few keys tops, and you'd never have that problem.

Conversely, I can take my keys to any locksmith or hardware store, or even Walmart, and get a copy made for two bucks or less. And I can stash a copy somewhere outside the passenger compartment in case I need to replace a lost key right now (or lock myself out of my vehicle), with no worries that it won't work when I need it.

BTW, good luck with that pushbutton door lock after freezing rain. Chances are you can knock open or melt open a frozen keyhole with no tools beyond a match, but pushbuttons can get solidified to the point that you need half an hour with a hairdryer to get at all the ice.

Funny how the folks who bitch the loudest about how 'wasteful' the livestock industry is in terms of land productiveness, are usually the same ones who believe the whole 'flyover' parts of every continent are wasteland that should be either turned into solar farms or returned to the buffalo. And that crops can be grown everywhere.

I'd like to see 'em raise hemp on the ground around here, with little soil or water and no practical way to irrigate, lots of rocks, a short growing season, and most of the ground at enough of a slant to make even compensating tractors dangerous. But lots of grass suitable for grazing... and it evolved to be grazed. If something doesn't graze it (and it doesn't much matter what; cattle and bison both do the same job) it goes to weeds and scrub in a hurry.

Fact is, most farms and ranches already cultivate every acre they can, because crops are more profitable and less risky than livestock, and crops don't require hay all winter either.

(Where y'all at? sounds like maybe Alberta. :)

... and that's what this is about. Scare people into believing livestock cannot survive a degree or two of 'climate change' and you fuel the 'livestock is cruel' meme in the minds of the uninformed public.

Funny how domestic livestock are found in an even wider range of climates than their nearest relatives in the wild, and do better under a wider range of conditions... care to guess why? Because one of the best traits livestock can have is adaptability, so you don't lose your herd the first time you have a really harsh winter or a really hot summer. Livestock producers have selected for this since time immemorial.

And if producers are dim enough to buy into this -- if you skew herds and flocks toward varieties that are primarily heat-adapted, well, those same critters can't deal with the hard winters that are more the norm in livestock-producing areas. If everyone bought into these varieties, voila, first hard winter and you're rid of those pesky livestock producers.