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You guys forgot Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. He proposed to his wife with a custom card.
http://howell.seattle.wa.us/games/MtG/Proposal.html
Its currently one of the most expensive cards in the game (there are other copies of it handed out as wedding invitation gifts or something similar).

I've tried to look up other laws in the past, and it's nearly impossible. None of the articles that I read linked to the law in question. I want to see whether the law references text messaging specifically, or just using the cell phone. If I've got directions cued up on my phone, and am checking my phone for the next direction, is that going to fall under this law?

Another law I've tried to look up in the past was the law referencing handicapped parking spaces. It took somewhere between 30min to an hour to find Seattle Municipal Code - Disabled parking. If anyone has a link to the full text of the law, please respond.

Never. It's physically impossible.

Light rail moves groups of people. Cars move individuals.

http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/prt.html

Through the magic of Google, I found this information about CF lighting from my local service provider.

The concept of automated, direct-to-destination travel has been around for a while. Personal Rapid Transit is a city-wide automated system that would deliver a small group of passengers to their destination transit stations without stopping at other stations along the way. Non-stop travel is faster and more energy efficient.

A link and another link.

Can we add our own transit systems as a comparison to existing systems? For example, I want to create a system with elevated guideways on which 4-passenger vehicles travel at 25mph to offline stations spaced one-half mile apart. How much time would I save over waiting for the bus and the stops it makes?

(If this sounds like a cool transportation idea, see Personal Rapid Transit or PRT pages.)

This PDF document has an interesting graph on the last page titled "Efficiency of Travel Mode" that shows the usefulness of travel modes (PRT, auto, foot) over varying distances. It wouldn't be hard to imaging how a 747 would look on the graph.

In your sporting event example, light rail and buses may work well if you assume that the riders want to go to the same destination, or if you just want to get people away from the stadium. If your goal is to actually get the people to their destination, the most convenient way would have the fewest transfers and least amount of waiting. A PRT system could provide more convenient transport here than the bus or light rail system.

This page directly addresses the question of how a PRT system could handle crowds. Keep in mind that each PRT vehicle would take the riders directly to their destination station, with no stops.

If the monorail would actually serve enough people to be useful, then it might actually get built. But, it's route would serve so few people that it's huge cost isn't justifiable.

If it doesn't serve many people, it won't do anything to reduce congestion. I-5 carries a lot of traffic, traffic that wouldn't be reduced by the monorail.

Consider PRT: much smaller & lighter than monorail, so it would be cheaper to build, cheap enough such that hundred of stations could be built to serve a lot of the city; 24/7 on-demand service; direct, non-stop to destination service, so it's efficient and rider-oriented.

I think the capacity of a PRT system isn't much of a concern: Passengers per hour: how to calculate transit capacity

It's conclusion: PRT could handle rush-hour in-bound and reverse commute better than light rail or bus.

A lot of research has been put into Personal Rapid Transit, which is expected to cost an order of magnitude less than monorail to build per mile, because it's so much smaller and lighter.

This page and this page show the cost comparison.

Read more about PRT studies and research here and here.

• No schedules: all rides are on-demand, when the rider wants to go
• Non-stop, direct to destination: your PRT car takes you to where you want to go
• Grade separated, so no traffic jams, no collisions.

I agree with you. Mostly get rid of the roads, and go to a PRT type system. Heck, make it robust enough for cargo, and people would love it.

Or have air bridges between the buildings, and airport style slideways for increased speed.

Does Boston have a decent subway system?

It's not in Seattle, it's in Kirkland. Microsoft is Redmond, and so is Nintendo. Real and Amazon are in Seattle (as is the Omni Group). Mind you, Redmond and Kirkland are adjaent to each other on the east side of Lake Washington, and Seattle's just on the west side of the lake. Getting to the east side (from downtown/uptown Seattle) takes about 45 minutes during rush hour and 15-20 minutes every other time of day. Meanwhile, the guys from Delicious Monster just sit in a coffee shop here in Seattle.

It is not illegal to throw away paper, glass bottles, or aluminum cans.

Depends on where you live...

From here:

City of Seattle Ordinance #121372 prohibits the disposal, effective January 1, 2005, of certain recyclables from residential, commercial and self-haul garbage...

<snip>

...Residents are prohibited from putting significant amounts of paper, cardboard, glass and plastic bottles and jars as well as aluminum and tin cans in their garbage containers as of January 1, 2005. Yard debris has been prohibited from residential garbage since 1989....

Funny eh? I work in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle and just today they had some machines very similar to these in operation on Occidental just south of Yesler. They ripped out the old meters and hiked up the rates by 50% too. Ahhh progress. I even found a link.

Why won't you people learn to use google.com before running off your mouths about half truths and FUD.

Seattle City Light has a nice page which shows the bi-monthly costs of many household items.

A typical computer drawing a constant 300watts (most computers draw significantly less) for 2 hours a day will cost ~$2.40 bi-monthly.

Granted a firewall would probably be running 24x7 it would likely not be drawing 300 continous watts..a smart monkey might even build one without a HDD and thus draw even less power.

How many months can I run a PC as a firewall before I meet the $200 price tag for a dedicated unit that is obsolete the instant you open the box?

Maglev, monorail, and lightrail all have the same fundamental problem. They are just glorified trains. They must stop at every stop, increasing travel time. They must cram passengers during peak times, making it less appealing than driving alone in an airconditioned car with your own music. They are horribly expensive, causing taxpayers to pay through the nose to subsidize it to keep it alive. They are terribly inefficient, since they run whether they are full or empty.

No transit system (even a snazzy one with mag-lev) will ever be successful unless it includes the following:

• Point to point service (no transfers)
• On demand service for little or no waiting time.
• Fares competetive or lower than traditional transit and automobiles
• A profitable business model (!)
• Faster average times than cars
• Privacy to travel without sitting crammed next to strangers

But until politicians and citizens in the US catch the vision, we will continue to suffer from congested freeways and inadequate mass transit.

• 1. Get on Board! Public Rapid Transit
  1. Taxi 2000