When I was living in Strasbourg, France, it was 14 for wine/beer, 16 for hard liquor, and 21 for driving. I developed a taste for cider from Normandy and Picardy, and a fondness for Calvados when I was in France, at the age of 17, and it was entirely legal. I was also never asked for identification, presumably because it was assumed that if I was ordering a glass of Norman cider at a restaurant, I'd already been taught how to drink responsibly (which I had... my family is of British and German descent, and my parents started teaching me how to drink responsibly, with the help of drinks like a shandy, when I was 12). When I came back to Canada, I had to wait another year before I could do it again legally. Fortunately, my parents were understanding, and could get Calvados at the LCBO, unfortunately, they only had British-style cider, and I much prefer the French style, which is closer to a fine wine made with apples. I'm 30 now, but I have a hard time believing it's changed that much in 13 years.
In most US states, it's 16 for driving, and 21 for any kind of alcohol. In Canada, it's 19 for alcohol, except Quebec, where it's 18.
I believe that things are backwards in NA, and that it should be like France... younger drinking age, and older driving age, in order to give people a chance to get the stupid out of their systems before they're allowed to drive.
Regardless of whether the legal drinking age has changed to 18 in Europe, however, it doesn't change the basic premise of my point, which is that you should be allowed to drink years before you're allowed to drive.
the one major modification I'd see done is to mirror what's done in France and some other European countries: lower the drinking age, raise the driving age. In France, you can buy wine/beer in a pub at 14, and you can't drive until you're 21. That gives you the chance to get all the stupid out of your system long before you're ever allowed behind the wheel.
Unfortunately, that's probably never going to happen in the US. Canada, maybe, but not likely as long as we keep electing conservatives. In the US, even "far-left liberal" is conservative by global standards, so it'll happen shortly after we start colonizing Epsilon Eridani.
Then slower traffic would always need to be in the right lane in order to avoid impeding traffic, and that would (1) make it easier for smaller engined cars to come up to speed on freeway onramps, and (2) separate slow traffic from fast traffic.
Sorry, that's a non-sequitur. How on earth would making it illegal to pass on the right cause slow traffic to stick to the correct lane? Have you never run into somebody cruising in the far-left lane at 20 below the limit? And even if the slow traffic *does* stick to the far right lane, how is that going to make it easier to merge into traffic? The main problem with merging into traffic is the fact that onramps are generally too short to get up to speed, coupled with the fact that nobody moves over to make room for you.
Both of the problems you mention won't be cured by making it illegal to pass on the right. They'd be cured by requiring everybody to pass driver's ed before they can get a license, requiring they retake it every 10 years or so, and updating the required curriculum to include how to drive at speed.
Because he's forgetting the power of the illusion of safety and anonymity. I've noticed that a lot of people in SUV's do ridiculously stupid things, and the only plausible explanation I can find is that they feel invincible in such a large car. Either that, or they're completely unaware of the dimensions of their car and what it's capable of. I have also seen otherwise normal, calm, sane people turn into viciously rabid people the moment they get behind the wheel of an SUV, and again, the only plausible explanation I can provide is that they're under the illusion that they're invisible, too, inside that high up vehicle.
The "dock" at the bottom of the screen predates OS/X by almost 10 years, and while XFCE is hugely customizable (and can even be made to look/act like Gnome2), the default interface is essentially a rehash of CDE from old school Unix environments that predate Linux.:)
That said, I don't use XFCE any more. I prefer e17 on my systems.:) It's all personal preference.
That is... insane. Even when I had Windows 7 on my atom-based netbook, it was quite zippy and responsive. KDE is that bad on your system? Something is wrong.
Have you tried switching to a different DE? I am quite happy with e17, I used to use XFCE for years before that, and I have heard good things about LXDE as well...
It's entirely modular and totally customizable. If you like the Gnome2 interface, then set it up that way. If you prefer KDE's interface, then set it up *that* way. If you prefer, roll your own interface. XFCE is great, I used it for years, but it lacks the desktop gadget support that's built in to e17, and it uses more memory.:)
The packages for Ubuntu are way outdated, but there are e17-based distros that maintain their own packages... Sabayon, Bodhi (which I'm using), MacPup, and a few others leap to mind.
It's about ways to protect against bugs/exploits... specifically, about ways to protect against entire classes of bugs/exploits. In this case, they can learn a little from other systems, but it's not exactly innovative:
1. No running as administrative user. Make it impossible to modify anything that isn't in the home directory of the user without logging out, and logging back in as an administrator. Make it impossible to run an executable from the home directory unless you're running with admin privileges. Make it impossible to elevate permissions without logging out and back in as an administrator. Introduce a minor annoyance when you're running as administrator that will convince users to log out and run as a regular user... something like disabling the sound card when you're running as admin coupled with a screen overlay reminding users that they're running as admin, and disabling aero/screen graphics effects. 2. Set the default to have all ports closed, and to ignore ICMP packets. 3. Make it impossible for programs to open up incoming ports on the consumer version of the OS.
That won't prevent idiots from getting themselves infected... it's pretty well impossible to prevent idiots from getting themselves infected without removing the ability to expand on the factory configuration. It will, however, help protect against the majority of virus vectors currently in use. It'll also annoy users enough that they'll drop Microsoft like a used kleenex, and wouldn't make good business sense for them.
As much as some here might like to believe it, tech savviness (or lack thereof) is not a reliable indicator of intelligence level.
No, it isn't. And when I am dealing with end users who prefix questions with "this is going to sound stupid", my standard response is "no it won't, and I'd lay odds there's at least one subject you know a lot more about than I do." A lot of techie types do fall under the delusion that you're automatically an idiot if you don't know about computers, but as you say it's mainly a question of experience.
There is, however, a line to be drawn. I think my uncle is an idiot, based mainly on his lack of tech savvy, for example. It's not the lack of tech savvy that convinces me of his idiocy, it's his insistence that because he was over 40 when he got his first computer, he can't possibly learn how to use them (news flash: I know people in their 90's who have no trouble using computers). Couple that with the fact that he's been known to remember something "important" 5 minutes after calling me for help with a computer, hanging up on me after I've already dropped whatever I was doing previously, and the fact that he never retains the coaching/information, and I have given up trying to help him. Some people, you can help. Some don't want to be helped. When you're in a profession that focuses on helping people with their computers, it's easy to get the illusion that nobody wants to be helped, because they stand out so much. I'd say most people I've dealt with are not idiots. (of course, I'm 3rd line support, and spend more time supporting our dispatched field techs with stuff they can't figure out than I do customers directly, but still.)
That said, the more tech savvy folks I know do tend to be more geekish, and geekery usually attracts the intelligent before it attracts the bottom feeders...:) It's also worth pointing out that most of the geeks I know have more than one browser installed on their system, and have been known to use them all. Today alone, I've used Firefox, Links, Midori, and Chrome.
Additionally where MySQL has an ultra friendly console app with built in help for creating users and databases.. postgres has a series of scripts. The default way ot creating a new table is to copy one from a provided template (called template1). Again, this is all stuff you need to learn before doing. Someone can run the mysql command, run help, see "CREATE DATABASE" and kinda go from there. To use postgres you need to know that this template exists, how to use it, and what the hell you are actually doing... and then you need to figure out how to control who has acess to it.
I'm fairly sure that there's a PostgreSQL equivalent of phpMyAdmin or such. All you need is a single user that has full access to the whole shebang (which you need to create new databases/set up their access from CLI anyway), and if you're paranoid about security, do what I do: put it in a non-web accessible directory that has to be enabled by creating a symlink when you actually want it, use.htaccess to restrict access to a single user when it even exists in the web-accessible part of the server, and nuke the symlink when you're done using it. Or if you don't want to go through all of that hassle, still use.htaccess, and set up a namevirtualhost in Apache to respond to an FQDN that doesn't actually exist (on a TLD that doesn't exist at all, like sqladmin.yournamehere) and set up a hosts file to resolve that to your server's IP.
When the tools exist to do it through an easy interface, there's really no point in trying to do it through CLI unless you're trying to prove how leet you are.
You know, you're just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.
Nowhere did I say that you were doing it wrong. Nowhere did I say that you were using the wrong distro. Nowhere did I say that you're an idiot.
Until now. You're an idiot. You took a post where somebody was genuinely trying to help you solve your problems, and you lept down her throat and started spewing nonsense about Dell. News flash: I'm typing this on a Dell laptop... it's the third Linux-based Dell laptop that I have bought, and not one of them is still using the Dell-provided Ubuntu installation or the Dell repos. Each of them have had different distros installed, including Zenwalk (slack-based), Bodhi (ubuntu/debian-based), and SuSE (rpm-based). I am currently using Bodhi, which maintains its own repos. On all of the above systems, which are all still in use, I have *never* had a single driver gak on me, nor have I had a single piece of hardware fail on me. It really does "just work". On this laptop, it came with a *STOCK* Ubuntu 10.04 installation... the only thing that Dell had added that doesn't come with Ubuntu was the DellConnect software, which is their Linux port of LogMeIn. There was nothing else on this system that doesn't come with a standard 10.04 installation that you can download as an ISO, and there was nothing that didn't work out of the box after I wiped the hard drive and installed a stock ISO of some other distro.
I honestly did want to try to help you find an answer to your problem. Maybe you hadn't done it recently, maybe there's something you hadn't considered, but frankly, I don't really care any more. You're a prick, you deserve whatever happens to you.
Actually, many houses have 220V sockets anyway... either for an electric dryer or an electric stove. It really isn't hard to wire a socket for 220V from a standard electric mains panel, you just need to wire it in to two breakers, one on each side of the panel. The power coming in to your house from the street is already 220V, which gets stepped down to 110V because of the way it's wired in the panel.
In an emergency situation where I have the choice between lights, or no lights, I will be dragging cables to may car. Whether or not it's electric is immaterial.
That's the thing... how much more are you spending to buy that electric car, and how does that compare against buying a $1000 electric generator to power your appliances? That's about what I spent on my current genny, which produces 7.5kW (got it on sale, regular price was $1400), and that's plenty for the sump pump, the freezer, the fridge, and the percolator. Our neighbours run their sump pump off our genny too, actually.
It's a really good idea if you're buying an electric car anyway, but buying an electric car specifically for this is horribly inefficient, and wasteful. If the battery really has enough juice to power the average home for 2 days, then as the OP said, either the car has a battery that's *way* larger than it needs to be, or the car is using *way* more electricity than it needs to. Or they're *way* underestimating how much power the average house uses... TFA says the battery is 28KWh... that's the equivalent of running my generator for 4 hours. Now, my generator produces about twice as much power as we actually need during a power failure (which is why we let the neighbours piggy back their sump pump off it), but if we were running the TV, the computers, the laundry, the air conditioner? There's absolutely no way that a 28KWh battery would provide enough juice to run the place for 2 days. 1 day, if we stretch it, but probably closer to 8 hours of normal daytime household load.
I'd say a goodly chunk of those users are using Android for two reasons:
1) It's an "open" platform. Yes, cell vendors to lock it down, but it is significantly more open than its competition, and it's significantly easier to install software through other channels. 2) It's generally cheaper to get into, especially if you're buying the phone outright with no contract.
There is a *ton* of variance in the interface of Android... LG's version of Android is different from Samsung's, is different from HTC's. They share the same core interface, but they also have some significant differences between them, features and apps that simply don't exist. It's a heterogeneous ecosystem that is inter-compatible, but different enough that it can provide for many different types of users. That is an advantage that Apple and Microsoft simply don't have, because they keep much more control over their devices.
And yes, I do use Android. I use it because it does what I want it to do. I have no doubt that what I want to do could be done by an iPhone, or with a WinMo phone either. I have no intention of switching to either of those devices, but that's largely because of the cost, not because of brand loyalty. In fact, I have almost no brand loyalty within Android... my last phone was an HTC, the one before that was Sony Ericcson, and I'm using an LG phone now.
Honest question. I used to have issues with drivers gakking themselves, but that has been quite some time. These days, everything in my computers "just works". Even my brand new laptop, which actually came with Ubuntu preinstalled on it (I replaced it with my distro of choice, but let's not get into that flamewar, yeah?), everything works out of the box. Installing my printer was a bit of a pain, but it wasn't impossible... I just had to download the ppd file for the printer, and once that was done, it works fine too. Graphics, wifi, sound, bluetooth, webcam/mic, it all "just works", at least as well as Windows 7 "just works", if not better.
Graphics *can* be a bone of contention... ATi still doesn't have a clue how to write a decent driver, and NVidia, while able to write good drivers, insists on doing them as a binary blob, but both vendors are completely usable, you just need to redownload and rebuild/reinstall the driver every time you update the kernel (which can be avoided by blacklisting the kernel from updates). And if you want to avoid that kind of hassle, get a system with an Intel graphics card... Intel has taken the right approach by opening it up completely and working with the kernel developpers, and the result is that you don't need to install drivers at all, because the driver is part of the kernel source.
Use what works for you, but if you do want to try getting Linux to work, I'd suggest you give it a try with a more recent distro.
7 does implement some new UI features that really improve usability, though... the window previews on the taskbar, changes to the way things are grouped, etc.. The desktop transparency effects are nice, but not necessary, but I do find the changes to the taskbar are huge for system usability and multitasking. On a 7 system, I don't need to remember to open programs in the right order like I do at work (you'd be surprised how much muscle memory is involved in switching between tasks), because anything that's pinned to the taskbar will be in the same location, and you can drag/drop to switch the order of programs that aren't pinned. That's not even touching the security, which is generally accepted to be much better.
That said, all of the above can be duplicated easily with free operating systems. It doesn't make a case for upgrading to 7 specifically, but it does make a case for dropping XP in favour of something that's more usable. I have one Win7 system that I use for gaming... it hasn't been turned on in almost 2 weeks. If you're stuck in Windows-land, however, then I would strongly suggest 7 for usability and security improvements.
Not really. My fiancee has Republican leanings, and my own political leanings are so far left that even the Democrats appear to be a right-wing party. Just because we're deciding to spend our lives together doesn't mean we agree on every point... in fact, we disagree on several points. We agree on some points, but there's nothing that says we have to agree on all of them.
Part of the problem is that it's simply asinine to form a two-party system. At a minimum, there's two axes that need to be considered, meaning 4 parties if you want to cover all the bases: there is a difference between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism, and the thing the Republicans don't want you to know is that it's entirely possible to be a fiscal conservative while still supporting civil rights, liberties, and securities. In other words, it's possible to believe in an equal society with a social safety web, while still wanting the books to be balanced.
Actually, numbers 1-3 are already implemented in some parts of the world. The numbers are somewhat different, but in Canada, for example, corporations are not allowed to contribute money to political campaigns, the amount of money that can be spent on a political campaign is limited (about $110,000 USD, but depends on the population of the riding), there's a cap on the personal donation limit to a political campaign (no individual can give more than about $1100 USD to a campaign per year), and all accounting and political discussions are a matter of public record.
As for a law against censorship of any kind, I would argue vehemently against that, because there are cases where censorship is in the interest of the greater good. It's a tired old horse, but something about shouting "Fire!" in a movie theatre? And that's not even touching inciteful speech or hate speech.
Number 4, as much as I like it, is a bit naive to expect. Especially considering that it makes no caveats about what kind of education has to be taught, or where that money has to come from.
It'll run at less than 64mb of RAM if you have a super-basic e17 environment going.:) On my current laptop, it's using 250mb or so, but that is with the e17 equivalent of compiz/fusion and a whole bunch of other programs open too. (chiefly firefox and pidgin, but also a few others that I need to play friendly with the network at work)
Minimalist. Can be full-featured, that stuff is available, but at its core, it gives you a desktop, an internet connection, and a browser. You will need to add Flash, because it's non-free, but it may be what you're looking for.:)
Most people genuinely don't have to pay that much for the operating system, thanks to bundling agreements and volume licensing. I bought my current laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled on it. I saved $30 off the cost of the exact same laptop, with the exact same spec, with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 preinstalled. Ergo, the Windows tax is net only $30. Yes, I would have had to deal with the preinstalled crap that comes with it, but it's a Dell, and it's in their business line of products (Vostro v130, if you feel like checking it out for yourself, they still sell that model), meaning that the only preinstalled crap I would have had to remove was a trial version of Crapafee antivirus.
That doesn't mean that you're not an idiot for not installing the free updates/upgrades that Microsoft provides for security reasons. That was the GP's point, you realize? He's not suggesting people go out and buy a copy of Windows 7 because they're using Windows XP, he's suggesting that they log in to Windows update and install the critical service updates and service packs.
MS prevents pirates from getting new features. They don't prevent pirates from getting security updates. That's because MS, as evil overlordy as they are (and Apple is *way* worse IMO) is smart enough to realize that it's good for *everybody* if you are running an up-to-date system with current security patches.
Where else have I heard the phrase "too big to fail"? You do realize that people are jumping off the US Dollar already, because they don't see it as a safe bet? The Canadian dollar has been trading over the US dollar for months now, the US dollar is weak against the Euro, the Yen is rising against the greenback, and even the Australian dollar is rising against the US dollar. If the US started printing money to avoid the current debt crisis, even more people will jump ship.
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When I was living in Strasbourg, France, it was 14 for wine/beer, 16 for hard liquor, and 21 for driving. I developed a taste for cider from Normandy and Picardy, and a fondness for Calvados when I was in France, at the age of 17, and it was entirely legal. I was also never asked for identification, presumably because it was assumed that if I was ordering a glass of Norman cider at a restaurant, I'd already been taught how to drink responsibly (which I had... my family is of British and German descent, and my parents started teaching me how to drink responsibly, with the help of drinks like a shandy, when I was 12). When I came back to Canada, I had to wait another year before I could do it again legally. Fortunately, my parents were understanding, and could get Calvados at the LCBO, unfortunately, they only had British-style cider, and I much prefer the French style, which is closer to a fine wine made with apples. I'm 30 now, but I have a hard time believing it's changed that much in 13 years.
In most US states, it's 16 for driving, and 21 for any kind of alcohol. In Canada, it's 19 for alcohol, except Quebec, where it's 18.
I believe that things are backwards in NA, and that it should be like France... younger drinking age, and older driving age, in order to give people a chance to get the stupid out of their systems before they're allowed to drive.
Regardless of whether the legal drinking age has changed to 18 in Europe, however, it doesn't change the basic premise of my point, which is that you should be allowed to drink years before you're allowed to drive.
the one major modification I'd see done is to mirror what's done in France and some other European countries: lower the drinking age, raise the driving age. In France, you can buy wine/beer in a pub at 14, and you can't drive until you're 21. That gives you the chance to get all the stupid out of your system long before you're ever allowed behind the wheel.
Unfortunately, that's probably never going to happen in the US. Canada, maybe, but not likely as long as we keep electing conservatives. In the US, even "far-left liberal" is conservative by global standards, so it'll happen shortly after we start colonizing Epsilon Eridani.
Then slower traffic would always need to be in the right lane in order to avoid impeding traffic, and that would (1) make it easier for smaller engined cars to come up to speed on freeway onramps, and (2) separate slow traffic from fast traffic.
Sorry, that's a non-sequitur. How on earth would making it illegal to pass on the right cause slow traffic to stick to the correct lane? Have you never run into somebody cruising in the far-left lane at 20 below the limit? And even if the slow traffic *does* stick to the far right lane, how is that going to make it easier to merge into traffic? The main problem with merging into traffic is the fact that onramps are generally too short to get up to speed, coupled with the fact that nobody moves over to make room for you.
Both of the problems you mention won't be cured by making it illegal to pass on the right. They'd be cured by requiring everybody to pass driver's ed before they can get a license, requiring they retake it every 10 years or so, and updating the required curriculum to include how to drive at speed.
Because he's forgetting the power of the illusion of safety and anonymity. I've noticed that a lot of people in SUV's do ridiculously stupid things, and the only plausible explanation I can find is that they feel invincible in such a large car. Either that, or they're completely unaware of the dimensions of their car and what it's capable of. I have also seen otherwise normal, calm, sane people turn into viciously rabid people the moment they get behind the wheel of an SUV, and again, the only plausible explanation I can provide is that they're under the illusion that they're invisible, too, inside that high up vehicle.
It came up with a launcher based on CDE actually... :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment
The "dock" at the bottom of the screen predates OS/X by almost 10 years, and while XFCE is hugely customizable (and can even be made to look/act like Gnome2), the default interface is essentially a rehash of CDE from old school Unix environments that predate Linux. :)
That said, I don't use XFCE any more. I prefer e17 on my systems. :) It's all personal preference.
That is... insane. Even when I had Windows 7 on my atom-based netbook, it was quite zippy and responsive. KDE is that bad on your system? Something is wrong.
Have you tried switching to a different DE? I am quite happy with e17, I used to use XFCE for years before that, and I have heard good things about LXDE as well...
Try e17.
http://www.enlightenment.org/
It's entirely modular and totally customizable. If you like the Gnome2 interface, then set it up that way. If you prefer KDE's interface, then set it up *that* way. If you prefer, roll your own interface. XFCE is great, I used it for years, but it lacks the desktop gadget support that's built in to e17, and it uses more memory. :)
The packages for Ubuntu are way outdated, but there are e17-based distros that maintain their own packages... Sabayon, Bodhi (which I'm using), MacPup, and a few others leap to mind.
It's about ways to protect against bugs/exploits... specifically, about ways to protect against entire classes of bugs/exploits. In this case, they can learn a little from other systems, but it's not exactly innovative:
1. No running as administrative user. Make it impossible to modify anything that isn't in the home directory of the user without logging out, and logging back in as an administrator. Make it impossible to run an executable from the home directory unless you're running with admin privileges. Make it impossible to elevate permissions without logging out and back in as an administrator. Introduce a minor annoyance when you're running as administrator that will convince users to log out and run as a regular user... something like disabling the sound card when you're running as admin coupled with a screen overlay reminding users that they're running as admin, and disabling aero/screen graphics effects.
2. Set the default to have all ports closed, and to ignore ICMP packets.
3. Make it impossible for programs to open up incoming ports on the consumer version of the OS.
That won't prevent idiots from getting themselves infected... it's pretty well impossible to prevent idiots from getting themselves infected without removing the ability to expand on the factory configuration. It will, however, help protect against the majority of virus vectors currently in use. It'll also annoy users enough that they'll drop Microsoft like a used kleenex, and wouldn't make good business sense for them.
As much as some here might like to believe it, tech savviness (or lack thereof) is not a reliable indicator of intelligence level.
No, it isn't. And when I am dealing with end users who prefix questions with "this is going to sound stupid", my standard response is "no it won't, and I'd lay odds there's at least one subject you know a lot more about than I do." A lot of techie types do fall under the delusion that you're automatically an idiot if you don't know about computers, but as you say it's mainly a question of experience.
There is, however, a line to be drawn. I think my uncle is an idiot, based mainly on his lack of tech savvy, for example. It's not the lack of tech savvy that convinces me of his idiocy, it's his insistence that because he was over 40 when he got his first computer, he can't possibly learn how to use them (news flash: I know people in their 90's who have no trouble using computers). Couple that with the fact that he's been known to remember something "important" 5 minutes after calling me for help with a computer, hanging up on me after I've already dropped whatever I was doing previously, and the fact that he never retains the coaching/information, and I have given up trying to help him. Some people, you can help. Some don't want to be helped. When you're in a profession that focuses on helping people with their computers, it's easy to get the illusion that nobody wants to be helped, because they stand out so much. I'd say most people I've dealt with are not idiots. (of course, I'm 3rd line support, and spend more time supporting our dispatched field techs with stuff they can't figure out than I do customers directly, but still.)
That said, the more tech savvy folks I know do tend to be more geekish, and geekery usually attracts the intelligent before it attracts the bottom feeders... :) It's also worth pointing out that most of the geeks I know have more than one browser installed on their system, and have been known to use them all. Today alone, I've used Firefox, Links, Midori, and Chrome.
Additionally where MySQL has an ultra friendly console app with built in help for creating users and databases.. postgres has a series of scripts. The default way ot creating a new table is to copy one from a provided template (called template1). Again, this is all stuff you need to learn before doing. Someone can run the mysql command, run help, see "CREATE DATABASE" and kinda go from there. To use postgres you need to know that this template exists, how to use it, and what the hell you are actually doing... and then you need to figure out how to control who has acess to it.
I'm fairly sure that there's a PostgreSQL equivalent of phpMyAdmin or such. All you need is a single user that has full access to the whole shebang (which you need to create new databases/set up their access from CLI anyway), and if you're paranoid about security, do what I do: put it in a non-web accessible directory that has to be enabled by creating a symlink when you actually want it, use .htaccess to restrict access to a single user when it even exists in the web-accessible part of the server, and nuke the symlink when you're done using it. Or if you don't want to go through all of that hassle, still use .htaccess, and set up a namevirtualhost in Apache to respond to an FQDN that doesn't actually exist (on a TLD that doesn't exist at all, like sqladmin.yournamehere) and set up a hosts file to resolve that to your server's IP.
When the tools exist to do it through an easy interface, there's really no point in trying to do it through CLI unless you're trying to prove how leet you are.
You know, you're just being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole.
Nowhere did I say that you were doing it wrong. Nowhere did I say that you were using the wrong distro. Nowhere did I say that you're an idiot.
Until now. You're an idiot. You took a post where somebody was genuinely trying to help you solve your problems, and you lept down her throat and started spewing nonsense about Dell. News flash: I'm typing this on a Dell laptop... it's the third Linux-based Dell laptop that I have bought, and not one of them is still using the Dell-provided Ubuntu installation or the Dell repos. Each of them have had different distros installed, including Zenwalk (slack-based), Bodhi (ubuntu/debian-based), and SuSE (rpm-based). I am currently using Bodhi, which maintains its own repos. On all of the above systems, which are all still in use, I have *never* had a single driver gak on me, nor have I had a single piece of hardware fail on me. It really does "just work". On this laptop, it came with a *STOCK* Ubuntu 10.04 installation... the only thing that Dell had added that doesn't come with Ubuntu was the DellConnect software, which is their Linux port of LogMeIn. There was nothing else on this system that doesn't come with a standard 10.04 installation that you can download as an ISO, and there was nothing that didn't work out of the box after I wiped the hard drive and installed a stock ISO of some other distro.
I honestly did want to try to help you find an answer to your problem. Maybe you hadn't done it recently, maybe there's something you hadn't considered, but frankly, I don't really care any more. You're a prick, you deserve whatever happens to you.
Actually, many houses have 220V sockets anyway... either for an electric dryer or an electric stove. It really isn't hard to wire a socket for 220V from a standard electric mains panel, you just need to wire it in to two breakers, one on each side of the panel. The power coming in to your house from the street is already 220V, which gets stepped down to 110V because of the way it's wired in the panel.
In an emergency situation where I have the choice between lights, or no lights, I will be dragging cables to may car. Whether or not it's electric is immaterial.
That's the thing... how much more are you spending to buy that electric car, and how does that compare against buying a $1000 electric generator to power your appliances? That's about what I spent on my current genny, which produces 7.5kW (got it on sale, regular price was $1400), and that's plenty for the sump pump, the freezer, the fridge, and the percolator. Our neighbours run their sump pump off our genny too, actually.
It's a really good idea if you're buying an electric car anyway, but buying an electric car specifically for this is horribly inefficient, and wasteful. If the battery really has enough juice to power the average home for 2 days, then as the OP said, either the car has a battery that's *way* larger than it needs to be, or the car is using *way* more electricity than it needs to. Or they're *way* underestimating how much power the average house uses... TFA says the battery is 28KWh... that's the equivalent of running my generator for 4 hours. Now, my generator produces about twice as much power as we actually need during a power failure (which is why we let the neighbours piggy back their sump pump off it), but if we were running the TV, the computers, the laundry, the air conditioner? There's absolutely no way that a 28KWh battery would provide enough juice to run the place for 2 days. 1 day, if we stretch it, but probably closer to 8 hours of normal daytime household load.
I'd say a goodly chunk of those users are using Android for two reasons:
1) It's an "open" platform. Yes, cell vendors to lock it down, but it is significantly more open than its competition, and it's significantly easier to install software through other channels.
2) It's generally cheaper to get into, especially if you're buying the phone outright with no contract.
There is a *ton* of variance in the interface of Android... LG's version of Android is different from Samsung's, is different from HTC's. They share the same core interface, but they also have some significant differences between them, features and apps that simply don't exist. It's a heterogeneous ecosystem that is inter-compatible, but different enough that it can provide for many different types of users. That is an advantage that Apple and Microsoft simply don't have, because they keep much more control over their devices.
And yes, I do use Android. I use it because it does what I want it to do. I have no doubt that what I want to do could be done by an iPhone, or with a WinMo phone either. I have no intention of switching to either of those devices, but that's largely because of the cost, not because of brand loyalty. In fact, I have almost no brand loyalty within Android... my last phone was an HTC, the one before that was Sony Ericcson, and I'm using an LG phone now.
When was the last time you tried Linux?
Honest question. I used to have issues with drivers gakking themselves, but that has been quite some time. These days, everything in my computers "just works". Even my brand new laptop, which actually came with Ubuntu preinstalled on it (I replaced it with my distro of choice, but let's not get into that flamewar, yeah?), everything works out of the box. Installing my printer was a bit of a pain, but it wasn't impossible... I just had to download the ppd file for the printer, and once that was done, it works fine too. Graphics, wifi, sound, bluetooth, webcam/mic, it all "just works", at least as well as Windows 7 "just works", if not better.
Graphics *can* be a bone of contention... ATi still doesn't have a clue how to write a decent driver, and NVidia, while able to write good drivers, insists on doing them as a binary blob, but both vendors are completely usable, you just need to redownload and rebuild/reinstall the driver every time you update the kernel (which can be avoided by blacklisting the kernel from updates). And if you want to avoid that kind of hassle, get a system with an Intel graphics card... Intel has taken the right approach by opening it up completely and working with the kernel developpers, and the result is that you don't need to install drivers at all, because the driver is part of the kernel source.
Use what works for you, but if you do want to try getting Linux to work, I'd suggest you give it a try with a more recent distro.
7 does implement some new UI features that really improve usability, though... the window previews on the taskbar, changes to the way things are grouped, etc.. The desktop transparency effects are nice, but not necessary, but I do find the changes to the taskbar are huge for system usability and multitasking. On a 7 system, I don't need to remember to open programs in the right order like I do at work (you'd be surprised how much muscle memory is involved in switching between tasks), because anything that's pinned to the taskbar will be in the same location, and you can drag/drop to switch the order of programs that aren't pinned. That's not even touching the security, which is generally accepted to be much better.
That said, all of the above can be duplicated easily with free operating systems. It doesn't make a case for upgrading to 7 specifically, but it does make a case for dropping XP in favour of something that's more usable. I have one Win7 system that I use for gaming... it hasn't been turned on in almost 2 weeks. If you're stuck in Windows-land, however, then I would strongly suggest 7 for usability and security improvements.
Not really. My fiancee has Republican leanings, and my own political leanings are so far left that even the Democrats appear to be a right-wing party. Just because we're deciding to spend our lives together doesn't mean we agree on every point... in fact, we disagree on several points. We agree on some points, but there's nothing that says we have to agree on all of them.
Part of the problem is that it's simply asinine to form a two-party system. At a minimum, there's two axes that need to be considered, meaning 4 parties if you want to cover all the bases: there is a difference between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism, and the thing the Republicans don't want you to know is that it's entirely possible to be a fiscal conservative while still supporting civil rights, liberties, and securities. In other words, it's possible to believe in an equal society with a social safety web, while still wanting the books to be balanced.
You do know that Arnold ran on the Republican ticket, right?
Actually, numbers 1-3 are already implemented in some parts of the world. The numbers are somewhat different, but in Canada, for example, corporations are not allowed to contribute money to political campaigns, the amount of money that can be spent on a political campaign is limited (about $110,000 USD, but depends on the population of the riding), there's a cap on the personal donation limit to a political campaign (no individual can give more than about $1100 USD to a campaign per year), and all accounting and political discussions are a matter of public record.
As for a law against censorship of any kind, I would argue vehemently against that, because there are cases where censorship is in the interest of the greater good. It's a tired old horse, but something about shouting "Fire!" in a movie theatre? And that's not even touching inciteful speech or hate speech.
Number 4, as much as I like it, is a bit naive to expect. Especially considering that it makes no caveats about what kind of education has to be taught, or where that money has to come from.
It'll run at less than 64mb of RAM if you have a super-basic e17 environment going. :) On my current laptop, it's using 250mb or so, but that is with the e17 equivalent of compiz/fusion and a whole bunch of other programs open too. (chiefly firefox and pidgin, but also a few others that I need to play friendly with the network at work)
http://bodhilinux.com/
Minimalist. Can be full-featured, that stuff is available, but at its core, it gives you a desktop, an internet connection, and a browser. You will need to add Flash, because it's non-free, but it may be what you're looking for. :)
Most people genuinely don't have to pay that much for the operating system, thanks to bundling agreements and volume licensing. I bought my current laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled on it. I saved $30 off the cost of the exact same laptop, with the exact same spec, with Windows 7 Home Premium x64 preinstalled. Ergo, the Windows tax is net only $30. Yes, I would have had to deal with the preinstalled crap that comes with it, but it's a Dell, and it's in their business line of products (Vostro v130, if you feel like checking it out for yourself, they still sell that model), meaning that the only preinstalled crap I would have had to remove was a trial version of Crapafee antivirus.
My old system runs perfectly fine.
That doesn't mean that you're not an idiot for not installing the free updates/upgrades that Microsoft provides for security reasons. That was the GP's point, you realize? He's not suggesting people go out and buy a copy of Windows 7 because they're using Windows XP, he's suggesting that they log in to Windows update and install the critical service updates and service packs.
MS prevents pirates from getting new features. They don't prevent pirates from getting security updates. That's because MS, as evil overlordy as they are (and Apple is *way* worse IMO) is smart enough to realize that it's good for *everybody* if you are running an up-to-date system with current security patches.
Where else have I heard the phrase "too big to fail"? You do realize that people are jumping off the US Dollar already, because they don't see it as a safe bet? The Canadian dollar has been trading over the US dollar for months now, the US dollar is weak against the Euro, the Yen is rising against the greenback, and even the Australian dollar is rising against the US dollar. If the US started printing money to avoid the current debt crisis, even more people will jump ship.
Give the hyperinflation it'd cause enough time, and it would be $5 trillion worth of metal...