I grew up in the Prairies as well... definitely know about the extremes. The weather is generally shit year-round as you say - I was talking strictly about sunshine. SAD never seemed to be much of a problem there for people... even on winter days where it was -30C or lower, it was usually brilliantly sunny out.

You know what I meant, don't be deliberately obtuse. Edmonton has a million people... most people would agree that that's a "city". The only place further north that comes close to being a major city would be Anchorage at 350k, but that's obviously much further north and off the beaten path, as it were.

Of course, there's tons of cities further north if you stick to the general Canadian definition of > 10k people (varies by province). Most of the world wouldn't agree.

If the submitter has been living in the UK for any length of time, I don't think SAD is a problem.

And as far as Canada goes... might want to recheck your globe.

Edmonton, Alberta would be the northernmost city in North America, and it's at the same latitude as Liverpool. So that right there tells you that most of Canada gets at least as much sunlight as the UK. The Canadian Prairies (Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba) get more sunny days than California, even (Los Angeles = 186 days/year, Calgary 333 days/year).

So picture this not uncommon scenario: you speed up over the limit to pass, for some reason or another you need to pass more than one vehicle, and you go to re-enter your original lane just before oncoming traffic reaches you. No biggie.

Now imagine what would happen if the engine suddenly decided to decelerate before you could re-enter your lane, and you're stuck travelling parallel to the vehicle next to you with oncoming traffic coming up fast and...

Well, that's the end of that politician's pet experiment.

If it sounds good then who cares? I know from a talent perspective that they're shit, and they recycle songs, but I still find myself humming the lyrics way after I'm done listening. At least a few of their songs are catchy - just listen to what you enjoy, and don't analyze the shit out of it.

I must disagree with you. We're not "deliberately destroying" our environment, we are producing the resources we have available to us, in as environmentally conscious a way as we can. I have worked in the oilsands in northern Alberta, and even the largest surface mining projects up there are only a couple of square kilometres in size.

The company that I worked for is very aware of the impact surface mining has on the environment, and has worked hard at improving other techniques such as Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) that have a much smaller impact on the environment (not much more than conventional oil production), and SAGD has been found to have an even higher efficiency throughout most of the oilsands, and I believe it will be one of the most used technologies going forward.

Any way you look at it, resource production of any kind will damage the environment. The point is how government regulations and companies deal with it, and I think Alberta and the oil companies involved are doing at least an acceptable job of managing those responsibilities.

So by that logic, why don't we tack on another 3% tax on the ISPs to be paid to Google, since the ISPs have more demand/usage from people who need a easy way to find stuff online?

And why not another 3% tax, to be distributed based on total page views to all businesses who can demonstrate they "add value" online?

A blanket tax for music was stupid when they put it on blank media, and it's stupid when they're lobbying for it for ISPs.

If you can't figure out how to make money without passing onerous legislation, then you're doing it wrong.

If Americans want public education with any degree of quality, their teachers should have a legislated performance standards body that would require work on the teachers part to: 1) get their degree in the first place, and 2) keep their job in the long-term.

Just like we have a regulated body for engineers, nurses, and doctors because they have the power to kill people, so too should we have standards for teachers since they have the power to fuck up our children.

I'm a recent University graduate, and more than a few of my friends have gotten through an education degree with thinking akin to "I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I think I'd like to teach, and Education is an easy degree to get." And then they inevitably get hired to do a shitty, apathetic job of teaching for the rest of their lives.

The critical point you're missing though is that the majority of those who pirate the game wouldn't have bought it in the first place. A 90% piracy rate doesn't mean a 90% loss of potential revenue... I would suspect it would be closer to a 20% loss in revenue at the most.

This goes for most games and software, not just World of Goo.