There are technologies today, right now, that can MINIMALLY influence the weather. I've seen demonstrated a powder that turns liquid into this lightweight jello-like thing, that can be dissolved in water. One of the applications (future, under experimentation)? Absorbing moisture from hurricanes and large thunderstorms to weaken their impact. Cloud seeding is definitely being experimented with. China tried it for the olympics! And in making sure I wasn't mis-remembering that, there is an actual JOURNAL OF WEATHER MODIFICATION published by real, live scientists.

Of course, none of these technologies or techniques are particularly successful or mature. But why would one think that the military hasn't at least read up on them, if not tried out a few for themselves.

Believing that the military might dabble into experimental technology that could impact battlefield conditions? That's the sanest thing I've heard all day.

And in case logic and reason aren't good enough for you (they are, after all, the basis of scientific inquiry), here you go: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1336144/… You think the military provided the plane on demand, or because they're involved in the experiments?

Actually, I don't find $800/mo for a nice apodment all that bad, but I could be ruined by the high rents in DC. Your crap-tastic 1-bed here (500-700 square feet, generally), ran that here over 10 years ago. I have friends who currently pay over $1600/mo. for 400 sq. ft. studios. Group houses *were* cheaper, and that's really what an apodment seems to be...albeit nicer, more code-adhering, and more manageable for the individual. The last place I rented (5+ years ago), the upstairs house was shared by three people, all of whom paid more than $800/month for their bedroom, and then shared a kitchen and living room. Not so different, except for the lease terms and the fact that their bedroom was ONLY a bedroom and smaller than 200 sq. ft.

You don't necessarily give up space, but share it. It's not that you can't work out or chill in larger spaces there, you just do it in a shared living area. Yes, that means you have to negotiate with the other tenants to do so and haul your stuff in and out of the common area, but you'd be doing the same if you lived in a 120 sq. ft. bedroom in a shared house, AND THEN SOME.

Plus YOU'RE not the one negotiating with roommates over rent division, utilities, and lease terms. You sign a lease for a decently-sized room with some amenities (a kitchenette, for example), share a larger kitchen, laundry facilities, and hangout space with others doing the same. Sharing the housework is no more complicated than sharing a rented house, but lease terms and who gets evicted if one person doesn't pay up are easier. From what I can see, these are identical to sharing a large house, but a little easier on the individual tenants in that they don't have to get a half dozen people together to split it and have one joint-and-several liability lease.

@10, I disagree that small spaces like this are evidence of the eroding middle class. Not that there's no evidence of the middle class eroding, but this isn't it. Hear me out.

As others have mentioned, the market for these apartments are young folks, generally right out of college, who have moved to large cities to pursue jobs. There are varying levels of "poverty" among this group, but suffice it to say that most fresh-faced college graduates have had to bootstrap it for at least 2 generations.

Even about 10 years ago, when that fresh-faced college graduate was me, many cities were an entirely different place. Sure, the rent that I paid in nowherethefucksville, Midwest, bought me a whole lot smaller and crappier of an apartment in the city, generally featuring a roommate or 7, BUT IT GOT ME A ROOF OVER MY HEAD. Between 2002 and 2013, HUD's fair market values have skyrocketed in DC and many other cities. Over all classes (sizes, I did 0-3 bedrooms) of apartments, they're up an astounding 51%, and within individual classes between 47 and 60%. If the price of housing had risen only at the rate of inflation over that same time, it would be $173-264 per MONTH cheaper to rent an apartment, or save the median household 3.4-5.1% of their gross income on an annual basis. For comparison purposes, the average family in the US spends about 9% of their budget on groceries, so 1/3-over 1/2 the grocery budget isn't exactly chump change. HUD's numbers are astounding, and also laughable to a local. Yeah, I guess if you look at the whole city. But any neighborhood that is remotely safe will be at least 5-10% more than HUD's figures and "hot" neighborhoods could double the HUD numbers. This makes the problem worse than "official" stats can capture.

To worsen the impact of the "urban renaissance" and increased demand for housing within or closer to the city, cities began "cleaning up" just the kind of places young professionals inhabited. I'm 100% certain that my apartments in those early days would NOT have passed inspections. I'm also 100% sure the city didn't give a flying fuck. They had hundreds of murders a year to worry about. But, gradually, they realized that worn-out houses, no matter who occupied them, were not good for attracting the big bucks brigade, so they started enforcing housing codes stridently. Sure, people deserve safe, clean places to live, but those come at a cost. My friends who have been at the RE game longer than I have say it was in about 2004 that the city started busting illegal/out-of-compliance landlords with some regularity. Now there are whole websites geared towards getting renters to turn their landlords in. I turned in one egregious example in our neighborhood (someone was going to get hurt...that place wasn't even nice enough to be called a flop-house) and the city responded with a week.

Fresh-faced college graduates are no more poor than they used to be by most metrics, housing costs are totally out of control within the core of cities. Sure, you can still find cheap places on the periphery, but things that kids love about the city life as well as things that benefit them greatly (see: nightlife; the ability to forgo a car) aren't accessible in far-flung "drive 'til you qualify" suburbs. So, demand still high to live in the actual city, but fundage and options short, people build apodments. Don't worry, though, the NIMBYs hate young people as much as poor people. They'll fight vociferously to keep these heathen children out of "their" neighborhood.

As for the erosion of the middle class? That would be evidenced by the inability of a median household to buy/rent a suitable median-priced house in a *reasonable* location. If the median house price is too high for the median income, or it buys too little house (and I'm not even going to get into how people demand too much space, but let's keep that under 2K square feet for a family, can we...THESE ARE CITIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT), then your middle class is in trouble. Young people aren't middle class, but they do add a lot of fun to cities. Exiling them to outer suburbia is sad.

And, I just have to ask, is that how a large minority of men would treat another man, if we're really going with the equality excuse? Would you persistently follow a man armed with a bat when they've made their disinterest known, and then call them names when they threaten to use the bat? Would you corner a man on the subway who gave you directions and insist that they come back to your hotel just because they gave you directions? Of course not...it's only done to women because we're supposed to be nice AND are at a physical disadvantage most of the time. Even if you've been harassed as a man, when was the last time you consciously calculated your escape route from a subway car or where you would run if someone approached you on the street? For me, I decided on my escape route while walking through a parking lot about 2 hours ago, and figured out the two quickest ways out of the subway car about 15 hours ago. Have you ever dialed 911 into your cell phone before leaving the house/store/bus/train and then locked the screen, so that you know you can call the police in 2 seconds flat? I do that every time after dark. Do you carry self-defense tools? I've owned pepper spray since I was 15. Tell me again how the fact that I have to be ready to physically harm someone JUST to walk down the street is "equality?"

It's mildly amusing and simultaneously overwhelmingly disturbing that some people can't wrap their brain around the difference between a nice compliment and harassment.

I was sitting on the Metro next to a young, punk-ish looking guy (I'd guess 18-20, AA, lots of facial piercings & tattoos - though I'm probably less put off by this than most because, while my tattoos can be covered, I looked approximately like him at his age with all the holes poked in my face and my blue hair). He tapped me on the shoulder and told me "you smell really nice." I said thank you, we both put our earbuds back in and went on with our day. Made my night, really. But not because of the compliment, because of what he did afterwards. If a compliment (and "nice tits" does not count) were just that, then the world would be a million times better than it is. I wouldn't cringe if a man complimented my hair or clothes or smell or shoes or whatever if I didn't know what normally comes next...

For the men who spare enough dignity to address a random woman on the street with a nice compliment at first, what comes next is almost always "you got a man?" And yes (whether true or not) is generally not a good enough answer. The guy who followed me (in broad daylight through a busy shopping center) while I was armed with a bat was informed that I had a man the first time he asked. If he were the only dude who couldn't take no for an answer that I'd ever encountered, or a small minority, I would chalk it up to "people be crazy." But I could relate dozens of similar stories. As well as hundreds of guys who can't even be decent enough to start with a compliment. I once told a tourist dude who I had given directions to that I worked for the FBI to get him to leave me alone, because he saw my having the decency to give him directions as an invitation to FERVENTLY AND PERSISTENTLY insist that I "come by his hotel that night." Why do I need the force of federal law enforcement to be left alone in public?

My body is not public property. Here's an analogy that might make more sense. My house has really nice roses on the fence line. People passing by compliment us on them all the time. If the roses were my tits, the follow up to "wow, your roses are beautiful" would be "give me your house, and I don't want to hear any excuses as to why I'm not entitled to it."

@2, I disagree. Not only does my family (though I am not a gun owner myself, most of my family is and I was raised with them) do what others have suggested and clear a weapon before storing it in a safe and again when retrieving it from said safe, but there's an absolute prohibition on handling firearms when under the influence. I have even had my brother tell me I couldn't go to the range with him because I appeared to be hungover (I actually didn't want to go and actually wasn't hungover, just tired, but he made a point to tell me I was in no state to shoot a gun). Guns are not toys, and responsible owners treat them as the lethal weapons they are. We don't randomly show them off (if someone wants to see one, that's fine, but only if everyone is stone-cold sober and in the garage, where the safe is), we don't point them in the direction of any living being that we don't intend to kill, and we don't load them unless we intend to shoot them. We all also support 100% background checks and waiting periods. We know we could pass these requirements, and don't think that people who can't should have guns.

Yes times 1000, though I disagree slightly with the peanut gallery w/r/t when it's man-on-man harassment. Sure, the power imbalance is *less* likely to be there (size differences could be at play), but it's still not okay. We all deserve bodily autonomy when in public.

As far as being followed, I have a fantastic story along the lines of being "bat"shit, except that I was serious. I was walking home from a softball game when a dude decided to follow me, asking about "my man" and other various items. I wasn't far from home, and since I didn't want him to find out where I lived, I turned around and asked him "do you like your teeth?" He seemed confused and sputtered, and I said "because if you don't leave me alone, I will pull this bat out of my backpack and demonstrate my .750 batting average on your face...if you're lucky, I'll call an ambulance for you as I walk away." I got called a bitch and lots of other things, but he stopped. Seriously, dudes? Following a woman who is armed with a blunt object? I'm not nice enough for you to pull that shit, but it really does speak to male entitlement. Even if I am OBVIOUSLY equipped to fuck you up, some of you still try to pull shit on me.

I do my best, 168, but we've had 3 escapes over the last 2 years. It can happen even to those of us who train daily and have invested in training and living in places where our dog will generally be safe and controlled. Fortunately, I've always gotten him back in my control within a few minutes. He has the aptitude of a toddler, but is much faster. And every dog is different. One of my friends has a pitbull who, with almost no training, won't leave their porch without clear instructions to do so. My brother has a beagle who was trained to be a hunting dog and is generally super-obedient, but will run if the door is left open too long. My dog will follow commands 90% of the time and I avoid putting him in situations where he has the opportunity to misbehave, but by virtue of living in a multi-family community, that opportunity sometimes happens. I'm sure neither you nor anyone else would have an easier time training his natural prey drive out of him. If daily training after formal training can't get him to 100%, and he's loved, cared for, has expectations for his behavior, and is generally safe and comfortable in our home and life, I'm pretty sure we're doing it right.

But, of course, he has his faults. Since we've trained him to sit before getting pets, he sometimes sits down next to people we pass on the street and looks at them hoping for a pet. Fortunately, I'm less than 4 feet away on the other end of the leash to apologize for his "enthusiastic" friendliness.

Finally, I guess animal control varies depending on where you are. Ours is pretty damn good. It's a 24/7 operation that can be reached easily with a call to 311, and they seem to have their act together pretty well. I've called them several times over dogs at large in my neighborhood and seen a city vehicle respond pretty quickly (with 15-30 minutes). I also called them while pursuing my dog shortly after I got him when he slipped his collar on a walk. They asked me for a full description, my information, and my location. They promised to call me if they got any reports of a dog meeting that description and asked me to call if I got him back so that they could cross him off the missing dog list. When I managed to get him back on leash a little later, I called back and they thanked me for doing so and told me they would remove him from the missing dog list. Maybe they don't really have a missing dog list, but the procedure seemed ingrained in the two folks I talked to. They clearly and succinctly asked me relevant questions like breed, size, color, presence of harness/tags/etc., identifying marks, whether he had a microchip, his temperament (they asked me if he would be likely to approach strangers and whether he had any history of aggression towards adults/children/other dogs/other household pets), my information, whether that was a cell phone number, even my vet's information, etc. YMMV, I'm not a Seattleite so I don't know how your animal control operates. But, hey, if we can pull it off in DC, it is possible to have good animal control.