If you're on cable or DSL, a small UPS would probably power the 'modem' for days. The problem is, at least for me, if it's an area outage and not just a power outage on my block, RoadRunner's network equipment goes dead. They apparently have no UPS capabilities on their neighborhood equipment. Even though I've had power to my local net, my internet access dies.
So in a situation like Florida, it wouldn't even help to have a generator. Granted, getting hit by three hurricanes probably takes out the POTS and cell towers, but at least those companies understand carrier grade reliability and I'll bet they have their networks repaired weeks before the cable companies do.
There is actually a bonus to having a DJ on a station, it gives it a more "human" feel to it, whereas no DJ starts seeming like Muzak.
DJs are good for one thing, telling you what song is going to be played next. Which of course, appears to be a lost art. The little display on my Roady replaces them quite nicely.
And I have listened to fully automated stations in the past. Generally after they have just canned all the DJs to change the format. I loved it. But they never seem to stay that way. FM seems to need DJs to run silly contests and be spokepeople for the latest diet service.
Having said that, despite having 122 official stations, XM needs to add more. Some of their stations are truly focused. Other claim to be, but their format drifts like a top40 station.
Driving to work in the morning, I want to listen to good music to get my day off to a good start. But all the decent radio stations in my area have dumb-ass morning shows where they jabber for 10 minutes between each song. I got a cheap deal for a Roady that required me to commit to 6 months of service, and pay for 3 months in advance. So I no longer have to listen to inane chatter. I am enjoying my peaceful morning sanity.
All I need is a decent antenna for the Roady that doesn't require me to sacrifice my paint to their magnetic mounts.
The people in your world live an awful long time. If they are retiring now at 65, it's reasonable to assume they have been working for 47 years. That would make them 112.
Now, according to the CDC, (2001) life expectancy is 77.2 years. (roughly 74 for men, 79 for women) Assuming you retired this year, you could retire at 65. In a few years that will increase to 67. But that's roughly 12 years of SS. That would be a total of $173,000. And keep in mind that is a sum that has been contributed to for those 47 years... Even with a minimal interest rate, that's a small monthly contribution.
Assuming SS is still there when I retire, I will have contributed enough to cover what I would receive, and quite possibly enough to cover both of my parents too.
Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?
Exactly. I have several spare 128m CF cards for my camera. I have the IDE adapter that I bought over a year ago. But I never seem to have time to put together the OS to run on it.
Just need to get a minimal config to run rdesktop, xterm, and VNC. But you also need to mount/home to a network drive and move/var either to the network or RAM. Knoppix might be a good start, but it's way too big and would need remastered.
It hasn't been a priority, but it would be nice to have a PC/Terminal with no moving parts. Unfortunately, $150 is too much for a hobby project I really don't need. (just want)
I doubt there is any place in the US that doesn't experience some kind of natural disaster. I don't live in a hurricane or earthquake zone. Do we flee areas that have tornados, abnormal floods, ice and snowstorms too?
Insurance companies don't provide food, water, and essential services to their policy holders. They don't deal with the life and death issues that FEMA and the Red Cross do. Insurance companies also aren't concerned with rebuilding local economies, they're more concerned with increasing my premiums to cover their losses in other regions.
I'm Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President. I ask the tough questions--to give you answers that really work!
But can you answer the tough questions?
If he will sign for NO deficit spending, what will he do in a national emergency? Say for instance, a state, let's use Florida as an example, gets hit by three devastating hurricanes. "I'm sorry folks, you're shit out of luck. I said NO deficit spending, so the fact that you have lost EVERYTHING really isn't the goverment's problem."
Or, suppose the US is invaded and we have a real war. (as opposed to the one in Iraq chasing terrorists who were really in Afganistan) "Folks, better start learning chinese, because I said NO deficit spending, so I'm afraid our navy is just going to have to fight with the ships they have."
It may be good for sound bites, but it's not a practical approach.
3. Scale down payments. Hey -- social security isn't a pension fund; it's a safety net incase everything else in your life goes bankrupt. Scale down payments, and hope that welfare and other social services can pick up the slack.
Scaling back benefits may not be practical. A safety net isn't much use if it won't save you from anything. For example, I know someone who will soon be retiring. As a retiree s/he will be recieving between $1000-1200 a month. Right off the top comes $400 a month for medical/perscription coverage. While you might be able to do without it, chances are a senior's health isn't going to be such that it is advisable. That $400 pays for health insurance, as opposed to hospitalization coverage, and reducing perscription costs. As the first generation to pay into SS for their full working life, $800 a month isn't a huge reward, but it is enough to make sure they have food and a place to live. SS isn't buying them motorhomes so they can migrate to Florida in the winter.
With what we have spent in Iraq in the last year and a half, we could pay those SS benefits for over a MILLION months.
I agree that we need to cut spending, but I don't think killing the retirement dreams of millions of american is the way to do it.
BTW, some of these people who rely on SS are the same ones that fought for labor rights so that you could afford to have your private pension fund.
I have been concerned about Social Security for quite a while. As well as all the talk about budget deficits while completely ignoring the debt. But I didn't have a real fear of our fiscal future until I saw ultra conservative Pat Buchanan railing against the Republican party over their stance on outsourcing and government spending. His predictions for the next 10 years are every bit as dire as any posted here.
We're going to have to start protecting our higher paying jobs, get control on government spending (lets clean up the two wars we have, instead of trying to start new ones in Korea and Iran), and get rid of our budget deficit. Balancing the budget is no longer enough, we need a surplus to pay for current and future debt responsibilities. I like tax cuts as much as the next guy, but they are irresponsible when we don't have a surplus. It's like saying "I'm not going to pay the gas bill this month, I need more discretionary money to 'invest' in a new SUV."
And as far as privatizing Social Security; unless you are willing to tell someone to sleep on the street and starve when they lose their money, it will do nothing but make things worse.
So yes, as long as Bush is president and he continues to ignore the train wreck, all the while finding ways to spend more and more money, then it is his fault. We've gone from a budget surplus to a record breaking deficit in 4 years. And while it's nice to blame it on the dot bomb bust, I'm sure 130,000 troops in Iraq aren't exactly helping the bottom line.
But since people don't see the significance of filibuster, they probably won't understand cloture either.
Simply put, with a vote of 60 Senators they can put a 30 hour limit on a filibuster. That means that all the Republicans have to do is get 9 Democrats to vote with them. They can't do it because unlike the 198 judges approved, these 15 are too conservative to encourage any Democrat votes.
There is a great deal of concern that Bush will change the composition of the Supreme Court with the sole intent of overturning Roe V Wade.
If that proves to be the case, we are much better off with the senate not approving these judges during the current session. Judges should be selected for their knowledge of our laws and the even handed way they apply them. Not because their personal beliefs mirror yours.
Which leads us to the second question: should we kill Star Wars (or its creator?;)
No, just make him live with Jar Jar for a year or two. He'll do the rest.
Re:I've got mine on pre-order.
on
Port-A-Nuke
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· Score: 1
You just don't upgrade laptops. Except for the bleeding edge gamers (who won't likely find a suitable laptop anyway), you just buy an inexpensive laptop, use it for 2 or 3 years and then buy a new one. The last two laptops I bought were $750 (2.0Ghz my toshiba) and and $700 (2.8Ghz compaq, mother's day present). Mine is over a year old and since I bought it with 512m RAM, I'm not feeling any need for an upgrade.
It also solves the problem of leaving your PC running all the time just because it takes so long to boot, suspend to disk is great.
I'll admit, I also have a server. So I don't need a huge drive. I just keep what I need and the big stuff can go on the server.
BTW, it's also nice just grabbing your 'desktop' when you take it to work or a friends house.
500% more marked cars would be more effective than more unmarked cars.
People aren't comfortable being pulled over by an unmarked car (criminal have been known to impersonate police officers in unmarked cars), so they end up needing a marked one anyway. You just mount the lights behind the grill and in the back window. By the time they see the shield on the door it's too late.
A marked car is a deterence, stopping the problem before it starts. Ever notice how many people will not pass a police car, no matter how slow it is driving?
Police officers need higher visibility. They need to be seen pulling over aggressive drivers and tailgaters.
And another rant, courts need to convict for the crime on the ticket, not the one the lawyers deal down to a non-moving slap-on-the-hand violation.
One of the most expensive ones out there? Not from my experience. 2003 Kaw Vulcan. Classified as a Cruiser and not a crotch rocket, so it gets a better rate. 40yo driver with a good driving record. Allstate, (have policies for my truck and home as well) $560 a year. State Farm and every other company except GEICO, similar. GEICO, $330 a year. Progressive, $175. The only stipulation was it changed to comp only insurance for Dec, Jan, and Feb when it's too damn cold to ride anyway.
I shopped the policy on my truck, all were within 10%.
Of course, it works out to nearly $2 a mile since I haven't had time to ride this year, I guess you could say it is rather expensive.
I have been driving for nearly a quarter century. I've had three accidents, none were my fault or avoidable. I have had three speeding tickets in that time. I think the only claim they have ever paid was $50 to fix a crack in my windshield. Yet my insurance goes up every time my policy renews. Since 2000 it has approached 10% per annual increase.
I like Progressive for my bike, I'd give them my car insurance if I didn't need the discounts on my homeowners. But you're gullable if you think any insurance company is looking for ways to reduce your premiums.
And we don't even want to talk about homeowners, it has doubled in 4 years. And will likely take a big hit again next year with two hurricanes hitting Florida, even though I live in the midwest.
Do the math, what percentage of YOUR income goes to insurance? I think I'll declare August as the month I work for the insurance companies.
I have replaced several batteries in a range of APC UPSs. Since batteries tend to be heavy, it's usually cheapest to go to the local electronic supply store. (we aren't talking Radio Shack)
One caveat, newer consumer APCs have been using a special connector. With those you may have no choice but to get them from APC.
If you want to make your batteries last longer, both in runtime and lifetime, don't put more than 1/2 the rated load on them. It can make the difference whether you get one year or three years out of them. But regardless, UPS batteries are consumable.
Actually, I'd pay the same price for a machine preloaded with Linux instead of WinXP. At least for now. HP has had to add new hardware certifications and ramp up customer support for an alternative OS. I don't see it as out of line that they recover that through the Microsoft tax.
Once we have competition for Linux laptops the prices will adjust. Where are the Dell laptops? Or better yet, Toshiba. If they would have put this on a bargain range Compaq with the AOL dialer from Linspire a couple months ago, I would have seriously considered it for my Mom's new laptop. After all, her desktop is running OS/2 so she isn't a Windows zombie. (not one crash in 8 years, and even with the shiny new laptop, she's happily keeping the old P75)
True, but this is short-sighted. The binary drivers WILL give problems in the long run for the users. (Microsoft knows this, windows is unstable with unstable drivers, therefore they emphasize a lot on signing of the drivers by Microsoft!)
Do you only use WQHL drivers? Not many people I know do, particularly with video drivers. I have heard support techs tell people to upgrade to the latest drivers. I've heard them tell people to upgrade to the latest beta (!) drivers. I've never heard one tell a customer to upgrade to the latest WQHL drivers.
I think source to drivers is nice to have and should be encouraged. But I don't think it is as important as having a working device. Honestly, I'd prefer hardware vendors simply opened the specifications to their hardware. If they provide an OS driver, great.
While I agree with your assessment of biodiesel being a good alternative to fossil fuels, I think you've missed some points on centralized production.
Yes, all of your pollutants would be centralized as well. But a modern oil burning power plant will release dramatically less pollutants than the equivalent (ICE) internal combustion engines. With a power plant, weight doesn't matter. That allows them to focus on production efficiencies and reducing pollutants. As new technologies are invented they only have to be installed in one place rather than 50-100,000 privately owned vehicles. And there are also benefits in regulating. For most people, if they didn't insist on driving huge SUVs, current electric technology would be more than sufficient. And for most, charging could be scheduled during off peak hours, reducing stress on the grid.
Economies of scale. In the 80's an ICE was only about 20% efficient. I'm sure that has increased with on-board computers and fuel injection, but since most of the inefficiencies were from heat loss, I doubt that it has increased dramatically. Steam generation and electric motors, OTOH, are extremely efficient. There will be losses in power transmission, but those are known variables.
I'm going to have to agree with others here, there is no one alternative to fossil fuels. Electric, whether with fuel cell or battery technology is one of them. Biodiesel and Ethanol is another. They address different market segments.
IMHO blocking outbound traffic from personal firewalls is of dubious use at best - once the machine has been compromised the malware can quite happilly disable your firewall (a number of viruses are known to disable ZoneAlarm automagically) or look at the firewall rules to see which port it can make connections on.
The only time I use a software firewall is to block outgoing traffic. Incoming traffic is handled at the router. I'm not looking to stop viruses, worms, or trojans. I've never had a problem with them. But everybody seems to want to make their software phone home these days and they are incredibly lax in telling their customers that they do it. For example, I just found that my Toshiba laptop connects at regular intervals. I'm guessing they're trying to 'do me a favor and let me know when software needs updated'. But the activity is undocumented and unwanted. And in the year that it ran before I installed a PF, it never once provided me with anything useful. With Kerio PF, I know that it is trying (and failing) to make outbound connections.
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If you're on cable or DSL, a small UPS would probably power the 'modem' for days. The problem is, at least for me, if it's an area outage and not just a power outage on my block, RoadRunner's network equipment goes dead. They apparently have no UPS capabilities on their neighborhood equipment. Even though I've had power to my local net, my internet access dies.
So in a situation like Florida, it wouldn't even help to have a generator. Granted, getting hit by three hurricanes probably takes out the POTS and cell towers, but at least those companies understand carrier grade reliability and I'll bet they have their networks repaired weeks before the cable companies do.
It could also be the lack of reliable e911 service. Or the fact that when the power or cable go out, you'd lose VOIP but not POTS.
Yay, the money pit is fully funded. Maybe that is the program that should have been subcontracted to Scaled Composites.
NASA, doing Scaled Composites work on a Haliburton budget.
There is actually a bonus to having a DJ on a station, it gives it a more "human" feel to it, whereas no DJ starts seeming like Muzak.
DJs are good for one thing, telling you what song is going to be played next. Which of course, appears to be a lost art. The little display on my Roady replaces them quite nicely.
And I have listened to fully automated stations in the past. Generally after they have just canned all the DJs to change the format. I loved it. But they never seem to stay that way. FM seems to need DJs to run silly contests and be spokepeople for the latest diet service.
Having said that, despite having 122 official stations, XM needs to add more. Some of their stations are truly focused. Other claim to be, but their format drifts like a top40 station.
Driving to work in the morning, I want to listen to good music to get my day off to a good start. But all the decent radio stations in my area have dumb-ass morning shows where they jabber for 10 minutes between each song. I got a cheap deal for a Roady that required me to commit to 6 months of service, and pay for 3 months in advance. So I no longer have to listen to inane chatter. I am enjoying my peaceful morning sanity.
All I need is a decent antenna for the Roady that doesn't require me to sacrifice my paint to their magnetic mounts.
The people in your world live an awful long time. If they are retiring now at 65, it's reasonable to assume they have been working for 47 years. That would make them 112.
Now, according to the CDC, (2001) life expectancy is 77.2 years. (roughly 74 for men, 79 for women) Assuming you retired this year, you could retire at 65. In a few years that will increase to 67. But that's roughly 12 years of SS. That would be a total of $173,000. And keep in mind that is a sum that has been contributed to for those 47 years... Even with a minimal interest rate, that's a small monthly contribution.
Assuming SS is still there when I retire, I will have contributed enough to cover what I would receive, and quite possibly enough to cover both of my parents too.
Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?
/home to a network drive and move /var either to the network or RAM. Knoppix might be a good start, but it's way too big and would need remastered.
Exactly. I have several spare 128m CF cards for my camera. I have the IDE adapter that I bought over a year ago. But I never seem to have time to put together the OS to run on it.
Just need to get a minimal config to run rdesktop, xterm, and VNC. But you also need to mount
It hasn't been a priority, but it would be nice to have a PC/Terminal with no moving parts. Unfortunately, $150 is too much for a hobby project I really don't need. (just want)
I doubt there is any place in the US that doesn't experience some kind of natural disaster. I don't live in a hurricane or earthquake zone. Do we flee areas that have tornados, abnormal floods, ice and snowstorms too?
Insurance companies don't provide food, water, and essential services to their policy holders. They don't deal with the life and death issues that FEMA and the Red Cross do. Insurance companies also aren't concerned with rebuilding local economies, they're more concerned with increasing my premiums to cover their losses in other regions.
I'm Michael Badnarik, Libertarian for President. I ask the tough questions--to give you answers that really work!
But can you answer the tough questions?
If he will sign for NO deficit spending, what will he do in a national emergency? Say for instance, a state, let's use Florida as an example, gets hit by three devastating hurricanes. "I'm sorry folks, you're shit out of luck. I said NO deficit spending, so the fact that you have lost EVERYTHING really isn't the goverment's problem."
Or, suppose the US is invaded and we have a real war. (as opposed to the one in Iraq chasing terrorists who were really in Afganistan) "Folks, better start learning chinese, because I said NO deficit spending, so I'm afraid our navy is just going to have to fight with the ships they have."
It may be good for sound bites, but it's not a practical approach.
3. Scale down payments. Hey -- social security isn't a pension fund; it's a safety net incase everything else in your life goes bankrupt. Scale down payments, and hope that welfare and other social services can pick up the slack.
Scaling back benefits may not be practical. A safety net isn't much use if it won't save you from anything. For example, I know someone who will soon be retiring. As a retiree s/he will be recieving between $1000-1200 a month. Right off the top comes $400 a month for medical/perscription coverage. While you might be able to do without it, chances are a senior's health isn't going to be such that it is advisable. That $400 pays for health insurance, as opposed to hospitalization coverage, and reducing perscription costs. As the first generation to pay into SS for their full working life, $800 a month isn't a huge reward, but it is enough to make sure they have food and a place to live. SS isn't buying them motorhomes so they can migrate to Florida in the winter.
With what we have spent in Iraq in the last year and a half, we could pay those SS benefits for over a MILLION months.
I agree that we need to cut spending, but I don't think killing the retirement dreams of millions of american is the way to do it.
BTW, some of these people who rely on SS are the same ones that fought for labor rights so that you could afford to have your private pension fund.
Yeah, that's Bush's fault.
I have been concerned about Social Security for quite a while. As well as all the talk about budget deficits while completely ignoring the debt. But I didn't have a real fear of our fiscal future until I saw ultra conservative Pat Buchanan railing against the Republican party over their stance on outsourcing and government spending. His predictions for the next 10 years are every bit as dire as any posted here.
We're going to have to start protecting our higher paying jobs, get control on government spending (lets clean up the two wars we have, instead of trying to start new ones in Korea and Iran), and get rid of our budget deficit. Balancing the budget is no longer enough, we need a surplus to pay for current and future debt responsibilities. I like tax cuts as much as the next guy, but they are irresponsible when we don't have a surplus. It's like saying "I'm not going to pay the gas bill this month, I need more discretionary money to 'invest' in a new SUV."
And as far as privatizing Social Security; unless you are willing to tell someone to sleep on the street and starve when they lose their money, it will do nothing but make things worse.
So yes, as long as Bush is president and he continues to ignore the train wreck, all the while finding ways to spend more and more money, then it is his fault. We've gone from a budget surplus to a record breaking deficit in 4 years. And while it's nice to blame it on the dot bomb bust, I'm sure 130,000 troops in Iraq aren't exactly helping the bottom line.
Why stop there. Just push through a constitutional ammendment that says anyone that disagrees with the majority will be summarily removed from office.
I'll bet that would put an end to all these annoying delaying tactics.
I guess I'll blow my mod points.....
But since people don't see the significance of filibuster, they probably won't understand cloture either.
Simply put, with a vote of 60 Senators they can put a 30 hour limit on a filibuster. That means that all the Republicans have to do is get 9 Democrats to vote with them. They can't do it because unlike the 198 judges approved, these 15 are too conservative to encourage any Democrat votes.
There is a great deal of concern that Bush will change the composition of the Supreme Court with the sole intent of overturning Roe V Wade.
If that proves to be the case, we are much better off with the senate not approving these judges during the current session. Judges should be selected for their knowledge of our laws and the even handed way they apply them. Not because their personal beliefs mirror yours.
Enterprise NX-01 doesn't have a tractor beam, it has a harpoon!
And so far, no sign of "I can make anything you need in my handy replicator" either. They have actually had to steal parts to keep their ship going.
Which leads us to the second question: should we kill Star Wars (or its creator? ;)
No, just make him live with Jar Jar for a year or two. He'll do the rest.
You just don't upgrade laptops. Except for the bleeding edge gamers (who won't likely find a suitable laptop anyway), you just buy an inexpensive laptop, use it for 2 or 3 years and then buy a new one. The last two laptops I bought were $750 (2.0Ghz my toshiba) and and $700 (2.8Ghz compaq, mother's day present). Mine is over a year old and since I bought it with 512m RAM, I'm not feeling any need for an upgrade.
It also solves the problem of leaving your PC running all the time just because it takes so long to boot, suspend to disk is great.
I'll admit, I also have a server. So I don't need a huge drive. I just keep what I need and the big stuff can go on the server.
BTW, it's also nice just grabbing your 'desktop' when you take it to work or a friends house.
500% more marked cars would be more effective than more unmarked cars.
People aren't comfortable being pulled over by an unmarked car (criminal have been known to impersonate police officers in unmarked cars), so they end up needing a marked one anyway. You just mount the lights behind the grill and in the back window. By the time they see the shield on the door it's too late.
A marked car is a deterence, stopping the problem before it starts. Ever notice how many people will not pass a police car, no matter how slow it is driving?
Police officers need higher visibility. They need to be seen pulling over aggressive drivers and tailgaters.
And another rant, courts need to convict for the crime on the ticket, not the one the lawyers deal down to a non-moving slap-on-the-hand violation.
One of the most expensive ones out there? Not from my experience. 2003 Kaw Vulcan. Classified as a Cruiser and not a crotch rocket, so it gets a better rate. 40yo driver with a good driving record. Allstate, (have policies for my truck and home as well) $560 a year. State Farm and every other company except GEICO, similar. GEICO, $330 a year. Progressive, $175. The only stipulation was it changed to comp only insurance for Dec, Jan, and Feb when it's too damn cold to ride anyway.
I shopped the policy on my truck, all were within 10%.
Of course, it works out to nearly $2 a mile since I haven't had time to ride this year, I guess you could say it is rather expensive.
I have been driving for nearly a quarter century. I've had three accidents, none were my fault or avoidable. I have had three speeding tickets in that time. I think the only claim they have ever paid was $50 to fix a crack in my windshield. Yet my insurance goes up every time my policy renews. Since 2000 it has approached 10% per annual increase.
I like Progressive for my bike, I'd give them my car insurance if I didn't need the discounts on my homeowners. But you're gullable if you think any insurance company is looking for ways to reduce your premiums.
And we don't even want to talk about homeowners, it has doubled in 4 years. And will likely take a big hit again next year with two hurricanes hitting Florida, even though I live in the midwest.
Do the math, what percentage of YOUR income goes to insurance? I think I'll declare August as the month I work for the insurance companies.
I have replaced several batteries in a range of APC UPSs. Since batteries tend to be heavy, it's usually cheapest to go to the local electronic supply store. (we aren't talking Radio Shack)
One caveat, newer consumer APCs have been using a special connector. With those you may have no choice but to get them from APC.
If you want to make your batteries last longer, both in runtime and lifetime, don't put more than 1/2 the rated load on them. It can make the difference whether you get one year or three years out of them. But regardless, UPS batteries are consumable.
Except when your machine runs 24x7 and it's a silly USB hub with an LED brighter than the sun.
The first time in 20 years I have asked; "does every device NEED an LED?"
Actually, I'd pay the same price for a machine preloaded with Linux instead of WinXP. At least for now. HP has had to add new hardware certifications and ramp up customer support for an alternative OS. I don't see it as out of line that they recover that through the Microsoft tax.
Once we have competition for Linux laptops the prices will adjust. Where are the Dell laptops? Or better yet, Toshiba. If they would have put this on a bargain range Compaq with the AOL dialer from Linspire a couple months ago, I would have seriously considered it for my Mom's new laptop. After all, her desktop is running OS/2 so she isn't a Windows zombie. (not one crash in 8 years, and even with the shiny new laptop, she's happily keeping the old P75)
True, but this is short-sighted. The binary drivers WILL give problems in the long run for the users. (Microsoft knows this, windows is unstable with unstable drivers, therefore they emphasize a lot on signing of the drivers by Microsoft!)
Do you only use WQHL drivers? Not many people I know do, particularly with video drivers. I have heard support techs tell people to upgrade to the latest drivers. I've heard them tell people to upgrade to the latest beta (!) drivers. I've never heard one tell a customer to upgrade to the latest WQHL drivers.
I think source to drivers is nice to have and should be encouraged. But I don't think it is as important as having a working device. Honestly, I'd prefer hardware vendors simply opened the specifications to their hardware. If they provide an OS driver, great.
While I agree with your assessment of biodiesel being a good alternative to fossil fuels, I think you've missed some points on centralized production.
Yes, all of your pollutants would be centralized as well. But a modern oil burning power plant will release dramatically less pollutants than the equivalent (ICE) internal combustion engines. With a power plant, weight doesn't matter. That allows them to focus on production efficiencies and reducing pollutants. As new technologies are invented they only have to be installed in one place rather than 50-100,000 privately owned vehicles. And there are also benefits in regulating. For most people, if they didn't insist on driving huge SUVs, current electric technology would be more than sufficient. And for most, charging could be scheduled during off peak hours, reducing stress on the grid.
Economies of scale. In the 80's an ICE was only about 20% efficient. I'm sure that has increased with on-board computers and fuel injection, but since most of the inefficiencies were from heat loss, I doubt that it has increased dramatically. Steam generation and electric motors, OTOH, are extremely efficient. There will be losses in power transmission, but those are known variables.
I'm going to have to agree with others here, there is no one alternative to fossil fuels. Electric, whether with fuel cell or battery technology is one of them. Biodiesel and Ethanol is another. They address different market segments.
IMHO blocking outbound traffic from personal firewalls is of dubious use at best - once the machine has been compromised the malware can quite happilly disable your firewall (a number of viruses are known to disable ZoneAlarm automagically) or look at the firewall rules to see which port it can make connections on.
The only time I use a software firewall is to block outgoing traffic. Incoming traffic is handled at the router. I'm not looking to stop viruses, worms, or trojans. I've never had a problem with them. But everybody seems to want to make their software phone home these days and they are incredibly lax in telling their customers that they do it. For example, I just found that my Toshiba laptop connects at regular intervals. I'm guessing they're trying to 'do me a favor and let me know when software needs updated'. But the activity is undocumented and unwanted. And in the year that it ran before I installed a PF, it never once provided me with anything useful. With Kerio PF, I know that it is trying (and failing) to make outbound connections.