"sells" is a stretch... They're giving away coupons for free tacos everywhere I go. And they force people to get them in their Munchy Meals, which are a good deal otherwise. Unfortunately even my cat won't touch them. My neighbor's dog seems to be a fan, so we can safely say they're slightly tastier than kibble.

I wish Del Taco would go national, and show people what good tacos are.

There's no reason people should hit red lights. Just the first one when you turn onto a road, then going the speed limit should be timed so you hit them all green, until you turn. Cars (or pedestrians) waiting to cross the intersection don't need to immediately stop traffic going the other way... They can wait a few seconds until the right time in the cycle that the first group has passed through, and the next is a ways off. Stopping traffic is not necessary or beneficial. There are always a few places that can't be allowed to back up for safety reasons, which makes this goal more difficult to pull off, but usually the problems are political, or just laziness.

I'll call BS on this. Can't find any reputable sources for any non-dead cadavers. There certainly have been people arrested for grave robbing, but the zombie twist is a new one, that reeks of the old "buried alive" myths and fears.
http://time.com/3547741/11-arrested-in-china-for-digging-up-and-selling-womens-corpses-as-brides/

And then they started singing...

"Christmas, Christmas time is near
Time for toys and time for cheer
We've been good, but we can't last
Hurry Christmas, hurry fast"

Tanky McTankFace

Not a very informative piece, just saying they existed, but now they don't...

I hope C batteries go away soon. Half the capacity of D cells, yet the same price. Just use 2xAAs instead of 1 C. AAAs are similarly less than half the capacity of AAs while being no cheaper, and sadly used where AAs would work fine. I do try very hard to avoid almost anything that takes Cs or AAAs (flashlights, radios, etc).

I'd like to see 9V go away, too. Expensive for the very little power they provide, and no longer needed now that very cheap and efficient voltage booster circuits are available. A couple AAs will fit in the same space and do the job, no problem.

D batteries were the size of the original EverReady flashlight batteries. They were "LeLanche" cells, which were improved to form "Heavy Duty" batteries, hence the confusing title, which makes no sense today. On the plus side they don't leak, unlike alkaline batteries.

E batteries exist, too. Longer than Ds, they typical put 4xE batteries inside an (alkaline-) lantern battery pack. Although it's not unusual to see numerous AA cells in there, instead, if they happen to be cheaper/more available at the time.

Why just alkaline? Because "Heavy Duty" batteries are more amenable to different shapes, so they have soft (paper wrapped), square cells inside of those.

The difference between cylindrical and rectangular cells gives "Heavy Duty" batteries a real advantage in 6V Lantern, and 9V batteries. They're only about 25% lower capacity than their alkaline counterparts, while being dramatically less expressive (50c for 9v at dollar stores and $2 for 6V lantern batteries at Harbor Freight and others).

When you need to replace the 9V batteries in your smoke alarm, you're best served taking a trip to Dollar Tree, alkaline batteries are wasted on such a low-drain task. Low-self-discharge NiMH rechargeable will be cheaper in the long-run, but it'll take over a decade to pay them off. Smoke alarms might not use 9V batteries by then. Some states already require them to have permanent 10yr batteries included (smoke alarms are supposed to be replaced every 10yrs, anyhow).

AAAA batteries are a thing, too. They're the size of the 6 cells squeezed into alkaline 9V batteries, and that's the cheapest way to get them if you've got an old hearing-aide, pen-light, camera, or other device that still needs them.

I don't expect cell phone manufactures to standardize any time soon. That would mean lower capacities or wasted space. I'd be happy if they'd agree on pin-outs. I can take the battery from one Samsung phone and stick it into another, because they're pin-compatible and the connector is in roughly the same place. You might need to shim around it, and may be too big to put the back cover on, but it offers a level of compatibility in emergencies, for maintenance, etc. Sadly, the battle right now is whether batteries are user-removable at all, which is a further step removed, still.

That actually doesn't sound unreasonable at all. Most In-n-Outs are small operations, but I've seen some large ones. Where property prices are high, they are fewer and further between, and occupancy is much higher. No doubt the managers are in charge of far more people, demand is high, and cost of living in those areas makes $50,000/yr basically minimum wage. Seems likely that manager making over $300k is probably somewhere very expensive and densely populated.

I'll take the 11 day trip. Why? Because you wouldn't be jammed into a coach airline seat during it. I liked flying infinitely more when I was a little kid. Now, above-average man size, in even-smaller airline seats, it is absolutely torturous.

Of course not one bit of that article has any truth. It's like asking little kids to explain how each part of a car engine works, and just publishing the result without a mention of the facts... Or maybe going to someone with a doctorate in the fine arts to ask for a medical diagnosis.

Most elements of Christmas originate from the Druid festival of Yule (hence Yuletide, Yule logs, etc). The tree, the decorations, the mistletoe, the gifts, the lights, the meals, the fires, the 12 days, the colors, the wreaths, etc. They all come with real explanations that make sense if you go to the origins and don't waste time on Christian rationalizations.

Here's a short one:
http://www.blackhillscelticevents.org/Events/CelticXmas.htm

Longer but interesting:
http://www.ibtimes.com/winter-solstice-2014-3-things-know-about-pagan-yule-celebrations-1763756

Actually, Easter is worse in that regard. It's even still called by the name of the pagan God (while Yule is a footnote in Christmas), and the kids activities for the day remain completely pagan fertility rituals (eggs, rabbits, etc).

Reminds me of Ben Baileys owl stand-up routine. Only a short sample here: https://www.amazon.com/Ben-Vs-Owl/dp/B0050MC2C2

What the monoliths are and do in 2001 is pretty self-explanatory from the first scene, not a question or mystery at all. Beating people over the head with further explanation would be boring and make the monoliths less mysterious and impressive, because you've defined strict constraints on their behavior and intent, rather than leaving those as open questions, where we don't know if maybe they'll become malicious later.

The sequel, 2010, made a similar but much larger mistake. (spoiler) It explained away HAL's murder spree as just a programming mistake, when it made more sense that approaching the giant monolith was making him self-aware, like the apes in the opening. If HAL's behavior wasn't affected by it, then it's a side-plot that didn't get properly set-up, and isn't really relevant to the story, oddly enough. I actually like 2010, as an independent movie, more action, adventure, and less mystery. But as a sequel, it really takes the air out of one of the greatest movies of all time, robbing it of the existential philosophical questions of what it means to be alive, conscious, intelligent, etc., and how we differ from the animals, and the advanced machines we've created to assist us. I don't believe it was coincidence that we start with apes killing to survive, then the rest of the film is HAL killing humans, then humans killing HAL to survive. Perhaps Artur C Clarke didn't intend it, but surely Kubrick did. It's far from the first movie that improved upon and eclipsed the source material, taking it in another direction. Though, obviously the reverse is vastly more common.