Actually, the co-location of desalination plants with natural gas power generation is the new rage. I am in TX, so I have a parochial view of it, but this is the near future.

T. Boone actually got beat out by CRMWA, which is the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority. They wanted to sell water to Amarillo, and when T. Boone didn't play ball they started buying up all the land around his (considerable) property. Even an armchair hydrogeologist knows that if you pump along the edges of a property, the water moves along the gradient towards the cone of depression. So T. Boone was forced to deal, and he sold his rights to CRMWA. CRMWA/Amarillo wins, and T. Boone has to mutter to himself while taking his nightly bath in gold coins (thinking Richie Rich or Scrooge McDuck here).

My biggest gripe with Slashdot is how overwhelmingly anecdotal it is. We are supposed to be bright statistical types, and it is just full of comments from people telling their singular life experiences. Do the math people, I don't care about your limited life.

Ed.

I live in Austin. Texas is a great place to live if you are upper middle class. Sucks if you are poor. The social safety net is substandard, and if you can't afford to move your kids out of lousy school districts (or send them to private school) then the education is also substandard.

Why do so many low wage earners stay in Texas? Maybe they can't afford to move.

Ed.

I have seen a lot of well-deserved complaints about expert-exchange. My nemesis is "fixya" which pops up with a mirror of your question (and no answer) for many typical DYI problems you try to google.

Ed.

I don't agree with you, at least in engineering. Being able to make proper calculations correctly is vital to being a practicing engineer, so I think there is value to doing homework correctly, and mostly independently. Ed.

I have moderator points. I just looked at the parent and this response, and thought to myself: "Am I smart enough to figure out who is right?"

Answer: Nope.