What specifically do you need to do that Linux does not do? MS Office isn't an answer, it is a specific application suite. The functions it does can be done by OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
While I don't "work" in IT, I am disabled and have disability income, I volunteer for Freegeek Twin Cities. There we take in donated PCs, test them, and build new PCs from good parts that meet our minimum standards. We then install Xubuntu 12.04 and sell them at low cost to those who can not otherwise afford PCs. As of yet I have not come across a software need that Linux can not do. The closest I know of is editing photos and graphic design. If Blender, CinePaint, GIMP, or Inkscape can not do what needs to be done then it is possible to install Photoshop CS5 using WINE.
Ooh, I just thought of something, run XCode to develop for iOS.
I used to be a GNUStep proponent as well. But in the end it was the lack of apps that killed it. Well not killed it but put it in life support. If you want GIMP you have GTK+ as a dependency, same thing goes for Inkscape. Applications rule put simply. Otherwise you could just use a regular window manager.
There are CinePaint and Krita to replace GIMP with. To tell the truth I've been waiting 15 year for GIMP to edit in at least 16 bits per color channels and it still does not.
Ubuntu is being moved to Window Maker as it's X11 window manager. It provides "integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment".
Honestly, GNOME 2 was a poor DE particularly compared to KDE3, and GNOME 3 just became more unusable, while reducing already minimal functionality.
As for which desktop environment is better, that is purely a personal matter of preference. Right now I use both KDE and Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 as well as Xubuntu 12.04. Soon I plan to install Linux Mint and use Cinnamon and KDE along with MATE. I also plan to install Arch Linux. I'll try all these out then decide which ones I will use regularly.
i have not experienced any of the problems others have with Apple gear beyond the cyclical obsolesence problems where Apple not only renders software obsolete, but their hardware as well.
I have not experienced this "cyclical obsolesence" of Apple products. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro r3.1 (Santa Rosa). It was released in the summer of 2007, and shortly thereafter is when I bought it. So in a few months my laptop will be 6 years old. Currently I have 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installed. I can install both Lion and Mountain Lion, the next 2 Mac OSes, to replace 10.6 but I don't want to. Actually because Apple is starting to act similar to MS, requiring Mountain Lion to be installed by downloading it from the app store and not providing it on disc, I may never buy another Apple product. I may by another Mac laptop but I don't think so.
I think you have that backwards. It was the Linux devs. that had the onus of providing compatibility; not Apple.
That is difficult if Apple does not release what is needed to write drivers. In this case though it's an NVidia graphics system that isn't working right, and NVidia will not release the code it uses for Linux developers to write drivers. It has only been lately that NVidia has started releasing it's own binary blobs for Linux. And those don't work well.
If this guy wants to sue, then power to him. I suppose he's standing on principle. But I'll pick more serious issues in my life to worry about.
And if it is a serious issue for a user? Bad displays can and do interfere with the work of graphic artists. Then again said artists should be using an external display for work. I own a MacBook Pro, I'm typing on it now. I am also a photographer, I used to develop film in a darkroom, but recently got a digicam so I'm looking for a new monitor. Now if my display did not work properly I would definitely go after the business I bought it from, and not the manufacturer.
I am no apple fanbois, it's just that if the defective part came from LG, why not home in to the manufacturer, instead of the seller?
Why Apple and not LG? Because Apple was selling a product it knew was defective. It is Apple's responsibility to make sure it's products work. Apple then should have went to LG about it. Apple used to have a pretty good rep about the quality of it's products but it this case they failed.
But how many of those 23 are likely to get hit by a giant tsunami?
Are you saying Fukushima never would have happened if there was not a tsunami? Hurricanes would not be ablet to damage a nuclear power plant enough? Tornadoes can't either? How about earthquakes?
I heard quite a few tymes the Fukushima disaster could never happen in the US because the US did not use it's design. Well golly there are 23 that do use it in the US.
And why would generators all of a sudden have to raise their price as soon as this deregulation occurred?
It wasn't all of a sudden. From the wiki article:
Drought, delays in approval of new power plants,[6] and market manipulation decreased supply. This caused 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000.
TFA also says partial deregulation legislation passed in 1996. There were at least 2 years between when legislation was signed and when the crisis started. However I guess you never had to suddenly start using AC. When everyone suddenly turns their AC on there is a sudden demand for energy. And yes, I am saying the CA government is responsible for the crisis. It interfered in a market and that usually causes unpleasant things to happen. When people are not concerned about how much they have to pay for something they will not be conservative in it's use. But those who sell have to pay for what they do sell, and if the price they pay is higher than what they can sell for that is bad for them, and everyone else involved.
I'm pretty sure the energy traders walked through that door on their own accord,
A door the CA government created with bad regulations. Notice I said "bad regulations", I am not against totally regulations, especially when there is a government created monopoly, such as energy distribution. I am okay with splitting the ownership of generating capacity with the ownership of the power cables, and pipes, that provide the energy. I favor regulations or laws requiring whoever owns the cables to allow independent energy producers to tap into the cables. If I have the money and I want to build a wind farm, I want to be able to tap into the electrical grid. And as long as I can do so safely I should be allowed to. Same goes for solar farms, tidal generators, and geothermal power plants.
Enron and the crisis they caused and profited from were a result of deregulation.
What happened in CA was not deregulation, can't you read? And understand what you did read? Not allowing energy sellers to raise prices is regulating energy. Not allowing companies to own generators and distribute that energy is regulating energy.
Of course that does not make sense to nincompoops. Requiring seller to sell at below cost is regulating. It's not hard to understand.
From that webpage: "The culprit seems to be sudden drops in air pressure that create internal hemorrhaging, but the precise cause is still a mystery." And: "Collisions are evidently a problem as well, though to what extent is also still unclear."
Sudden drop in pressure? Well I can partially understand that, my own ears pop when pressure drops. So perhaps siting wind genies can take bats into account. Another possibility is having sound generators around genies that repels bats. Play the sounds at night. Of course treehuggers offers their own suggestion, to shut down genies on nights when the wind is low.
Why do you focus on one "primary energy source" instead of using different sources? I want solar where appropriate, wind where appropriate, and geothermal where appropriate. I also want government to stop all energy subsidies.
That is my strongest reason for opposing large subsidies it -- it does not work in the large, and oh yeah, that complete unfairness of stealing from one person to subsidize another
Coal and other fossil fuels are massively subsidized. As is nuclear power. Here's Rep Edward Markey bragging My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!' . Oops, it appears the video is not there now. At least it's not playing for me when it used to. In the video though he says coal, nuclear power, and corn based ethanol get Billions of dollars each in subsidies.
I actually think that a wind farm looks really cool.....especially when they are sitting out in the middle of "wide open nothing" that would normally not have anything interesting to see.....
Same here. I can't make up my mind whether a wind gennie looks better off the coast, in the middle of a prairie, or on a mountain top. They all look awesome.
I wish that, when people are frickin' stupid like this, folks would just roll their eyes at them rather than take them seriously.
People seem to come up with the dumbest reasons they think they're ill. I know it can be frustrating to feel badly and not know why, but come on. Use some science.
As shown by the number of people who believe in Creationism, er Intelligent Design, and believe macro-evolution does not happen a bunch of people don't know or believe in science.
Years ago, during the California power crisis, BC Hydro made a killing
An important note: the power crisis was caused entirely by market manipulation with Enron at the front of the line. There was never a shortage of capacity. Traders would call up power plants and convince them to shut down unnecessarily thus driving up demand and price. Surprisingly a few people at the top actually went to jail for it. Good times. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis#Involvement_of_Enron
While partially correct most people do not know the state government actually caused the crisis. I think it's very telling saying "capped retail electricity prices" was part of the problem. Most people who want government regulation use the CA energy crisis, if it is used, as an example of why deregulation cause problems. They are dead wrong about that. CA did not deregulate energy, all the state did was change the regulations. Owning both electrical generation and the distribution of that electricity was made illegal. Then people were able to choose the retail sellers they bought their electricity from. Those retail sellers were not allowed to raise their prices to users but generators were allowed to raise their prices to retail sellers. When the prices retailers had to pay was higher than what they were able to charge their own buyers, the end users, they were left with stopping the sell of energy or with going bankrupt. The entire crisis was caused by the state government.
Why can't nuclear power stand alone, out of curiosity?
Because it's too expensive. There is no place in the world where nuclear power can stand on it's own. Nuclear power depends on government for it's existence.
Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Oh, about CATO:
"The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues."
The problem with wind farms isn't just the silly people surrounding it but the ecological risks and damage done. In NA our bat populations are critically endangered and being destroyed by the pressure differential caused by various wind farms, if you bother to count the bodies. It sounds OK until you realize that bats are incredibly useful, they pollinate more than bees do, they control more insect pest populations than anything else. A single bat can eat many thousands of mosquitoes in a night.
In countries with more wind farms the damage is magnified. See Costa Rica. If only more people even gave a shit.
Do you have actual data to back up how many bats are being killing by wind gennies? I recalled people opposed to wind gennies saying they killed a lot of birds. However studies have shown cats kill more birds than wind generators. The article Do wind turbines kill birds? has a chart of statistics showing how many birds are killed by different things, from cars, wild and feral cats (but not pet cats?), to windows. Some may have a problem with the chart though, out of seven killers of birds 5 of the statistics are provided by the American Wind Energy Association, one by treehugger, and one by American Bird Conservancy. Sciam asks the question Are Wind Turbines Getting More Bird and Bat-Friendly? It partially answers by saying stake holders from AWEA, ABC, and National Audubon are working on ways to reduce bird and bat mortality rates.
if everyone spent their entire time studying math and physics (or other theoreticals, as intelligent people tend to), we'd all have died a long, long time ago from starvation.
Physics isn't the only science. Agriculture, the study of growing food, is science as well. "Agriculture, also called farming or husbandry, is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel and other products used to sustain human life." There's also biology and medicine. A number of sciences exist to not just keep us alive but to improve our lives. There's even Biophysics.
People aren't getting any wiser, and propagandists are getting smarter too. While Fox News pushes *extremely dumb* ideas, it does so in a very slickly manipulative way that precisely targets the vulnerabilities of their demographic audience, effectively conditioning them to act less intelligent than they could be.
Other mass media companies do the same thing, as do advertizing and public relations businesses. They get paid for that.
I have a MacBook Pro r3.1 and can walk into an Apple store and get support at the Genius Bar for it. I have Snow Leopard 10.6 on it, along with Ubuntu 12.04, and I can upgrade the OS to Mountain Lion if I wanted.
Which you might want, if you find that the answer you get at the Genius Bar is "OK, that's a bug we fixed in {10.7.x, 10.8.x}, that's about all the help we can offer". Yes, the Genius Bar may listen sympathetically to your problem report, but the advice they offer might be "you'll have to get a newer OS if you want that problem fixed".
I have never had anything like that happen to be at the Genius Bar. The only problem I ever had when I visited the bar, is when I got my Mac. When I ordered the Mac, online, I ordered some programs for it as well. One was a suite of utilities. Booting with the utility DVD in the drive I could run diagnostics on it, which I did. However it told me I was running the wrong version of the utility. So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and there the tech told me I was sent an out of date disc. She suggested I contact the software company to get an updated disc. Now I didn't think that was right. Apple should have sent the right disc but since they didn't the store should have replaced it.
On the other hand I only upgraded to Snow Leopard to program in Java 6 and there was not an update available for the version of OS X I was using whereas Snow Leopard came with Java 6.
Ooh, and I don't want to upgrade to Mountain Lion because Apple is getting to be like MS. Mt Lion does not come on a DVD. Instead you have to install it by using the App Store to download it. At least Lion came on a USB Flash drive but Mt Lion does not. As I've said elsewhere I don't think I'll be buying another Apple product. I might buy another MacBook Pro but I don't think so. If I do I'll dual-boot it like I do the one I'm using now. And it's less likely I'll buy an MS Windows laptop. So for my next one I'll have to find one that comes with a Linux distro.
if you want security updates for your OS version for a long period of time, you might get more of that with Windows
As I've posted elsewhere I have a Windows NT4 PC under my desk. I bought it brand new in December 1997. In 2000 I ran Windows Update, as i usually did every two or three months, and it told me MS was not going to offer any more updates for my PC. Old updates are available for downloads, however as someone else said "Downloads != Support". Also I actually moved from MS Windows to Linux and Mac OS X because I hate MS business tactics. To me requiring Microsoft Product Activation, Windows Genuine Advantage, and other things is treating users as criminals and I hate being treated like that. Which is why I hate Apple's new download policies for upgrades.
(Oh, and I'm a Mac user, and have used OS X to work on stuff such as this [nfsv4bat.org]. Note, BTW, that, after those slides came out, we went with running a single automountd in a global session, but mounts are done by subprocesses that are, in various release-dependent ways, attached to the session that provoked the mount.)
It seems you know much more than I do about Unix and compatible OSes. I don't know much myself, but volunteering for Freegeek Twin Cities I'm slowly learning more.
But they don't offer any fixes for them, not even security fixes.
In May Canonical will stop offering fixes for Ubuntu 10.04. In December 1997 I bought a brand new MS Windows NT 4 Workstation. I was shocked in 2000 when I ran Windows Update and received the message MS was no longer releasing new updates. When I checked something like 2 years ago MS still offered update downloads, but there were no new ones. And as a responder said "Update != Support".
Slashdot Mirror
What specifically do you need to do that Linux does not do? MS Office isn't an answer, it is a specific application suite. The functions it does can be done by OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
While I don't "work" in IT, I am disabled and have disability income, I volunteer for Freegeek Twin Cities. There we take in donated PCs, test them, and build new PCs from good parts that meet our minimum standards. We then install Xubuntu 12.04 and sell them at low cost to those who can not otherwise afford PCs. As of yet I have not come across a software need that Linux can not do. The closest I know of is editing photos and graphic design. If Blender, CinePaint, GIMP, or Inkscape can not do what needs to be done then it is possible to install Photoshop CS5 using WINE.
Ooh, I just thought of something, run XCode to develop for iOS.
Falcon
I used to be a GNUStep proponent as well. But in the end it was the lack of apps that killed it. Well not killed it but put it in life support. If you want GIMP you have GTK+ as a dependency, same thing goes for Inkscape. Applications rule put simply. Otherwise you could just use a regular window manager.
There are CinePaint and Krita to replace GIMP with. To tell the truth I've been waiting 15 year for GIMP to edit in at least 16 bits per color channels and it still does not.
Falcon
Ubuntu is being moved to Window Maker as it's X11 window manager. It provides "integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment".
Honestly, GNOME 2 was a poor DE particularly compared to KDE3, and GNOME 3 just became more unusable, while reducing already minimal functionality.
As for which desktop environment is better, that is purely a personal matter of preference. Right now I use both KDE and Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 as well as Xubuntu 12.04. Soon I plan to install Linux Mint and use Cinnamon and KDE along with MATE. I also plan to install Arch Linux. I'll try all these out then decide which ones I will use regularly.
Falcon
i have not experienced any of the problems others have with Apple gear beyond the cyclical obsolesence problems where Apple not only renders software obsolete, but their hardware as well.
I have not experienced this "cyclical obsolesence" of Apple products. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro r3.1 (Santa Rosa). It was released in the summer of 2007, and shortly thereafter is when I bought it. So in a few months my laptop will be 6 years old. Currently I have 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installed. I can install both Lion and Mountain Lion, the next 2 Mac OSes, to replace 10.6 but I don't want to. Actually because Apple is starting to act similar to MS, requiring Mountain Lion to be installed by downloading it from the app store and not providing it on disc, I may never buy another Apple product. I may by another Mac laptop but I don't think so.
Falcon
You're confused. It wasn't the $199 Wing Wang Wong China Special that had problems working with Linux. It was the Retina Macbook.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple_mbpr_linux&num=1
I think you have that backwards. It was the Linux devs. that had the onus of providing compatibility; not Apple.
That is difficult if Apple does not release what is needed to write drivers. In this case though it's an NVidia graphics system that isn't working right, and NVidia will not release the code it uses for Linux developers to write drivers. It has only been lately that NVidia has started releasing it's own binary blobs for Linux. And those don't work well.
Falcon
If this guy wants to sue, then power to him. I suppose he's standing on principle. But I'll pick more serious issues in my life to worry about.
And if it is a serious issue for a user? Bad displays can and do interfere with the work of graphic artists. Then again said artists should be using an external display for work. I own a MacBook Pro, I'm typing on it now. I am also a photographer, I used to develop film in a darkroom, but recently got a digicam so I'm looking for a new monitor. Now if my display did not work properly I would definitely go after the business I bought it from, and not the manufacturer.
Falcon
LG was the manufacturer of the defective screen
They should sue LG instead of Apple
I am no apple fanbois, it's just that if the defective part came from LG, why not home in to the manufacturer, instead of the seller?
Why Apple and not LG? Because Apple was selling a product it knew was defective. It is Apple's responsibility to make sure it's products work. Apple then should have went to LG about it. Apple used to have a pretty good rep about the quality of it's products but it this case they failed.
Falcon
But how many of those 23 are likely to get hit by a giant tsunami?
Are you saying Fukushima never would have happened if there was not a tsunami? Hurricanes would not be ablet to damage a nuclear power plant enough? Tornadoes can't either? How about earthquakes?
I heard quite a few tymes the Fukushima disaster could never happen in the US because the US did not use it's design. Well golly there are 23 that do use it in the US.
Falcon
And why would generators all of a sudden have to raise their price as soon as this deregulation occurred?
It wasn't all of a sudden. From the wiki article:
Drought, delays in approval of new power plants,[6] and market manipulation decreased supply. This caused 800% increase in wholesale prices from April 2000 to December 2000.
TFA also says partial deregulation legislation passed in 1996. There were at least 2 years between when legislation was signed and when the crisis started. However I guess you never had to suddenly start using AC. When everyone suddenly turns their AC on there is a sudden demand for energy. And yes, I am saying the CA government is responsible for the crisis. It interfered in a market and that usually causes unpleasant things to happen. When people are not concerned about how much they have to pay for something they will not be conservative in it's use. But those who sell have to pay for what they do sell, and if the price they pay is higher than what they can sell for that is bad for them, and everyone else involved.
I'm pretty sure the energy traders walked through that door on their own accord,
A door the CA government created with bad regulations. Notice I said "bad regulations", I am not against totally regulations, especially when there is a government created monopoly, such as energy distribution. I am okay with splitting the ownership of generating capacity with the ownership of the power cables, and pipes, that provide the energy. I favor regulations or laws requiring whoever owns the cables to allow independent energy producers to tap into the cables. If I have the money and I want to build a wind farm, I want to be able to tap into the electrical grid. And as long as I can do so safely I should be allowed to. Same goes for solar farms, tidal generators, and geothermal power plants.
Falcon
Enron and the crisis they caused and profited from were a result of deregulation.
What happened in CA was not deregulation, can't you read? And understand what you did read? Not allowing energy sellers to raise prices is regulating energy. Not allowing companies to own generators and distribute that energy is regulating energy. Of course that does not make sense to nincompoops. Requiring seller to sell at below cost is regulating. It's not hard to understand.
Falcon
From that webpage: "The culprit seems to be sudden drops in air pressure that create internal hemorrhaging, but the precise cause is still a mystery." And: "Collisions are evidently a problem as well, though to what extent is also still unclear."
Sudden drop in pressure? Well I can partially understand that, my own ears pop when pressure drops. So perhaps siting wind genies can take bats into account. Another possibility is having sound generators around genies that repels bats. Play the sounds at night. Of course treehuggers offers their own suggestion, to shut down genies on nights when the wind is low.
However apparently coal mining also harms bats. Here's a.pdf titled Salazar Announces Guidelines to Protect Endangered Indiana Bat from Surface Coal Mining Impacts. Of course those are in Indiana. Well also apparently there's an Indiana bat, that's in West Virginia: Coal Mining in West Virginia: Guidelines for Protecting the Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis) [.pdf]. And what of bats' habitat, isn't mining destroying it?
So the question as regards bats are concerned then is, which is worse for bats, coal fired power plants or wind generators?
Falcon
Why do you focus on one "primary energy source" instead of using different sources? I want solar where appropriate, wind where appropriate, and geothermal where appropriate. I also want government to stop all energy subsidies.
That is my strongest reason for opposing large subsidies it -- it does not work in the large, and oh yeah, that complete unfairness of stealing from one person to subsidize another
Guess what? Someone above provided this , External Costs of Coal Plants, however I already have this: International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI). Energy Subsidies Favor Fossil Fuels Over Renewables. And of course there's this:
Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Coal and other fossil fuels are massively subsidized. As is nuclear power. Here's Rep Edward Markey bragging My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!' . Oops, it appears the video is not there now. At least it's not playing for me when it used to. In the video though he says coal, nuclear power, and corn based ethanol get Billions of dollars each in subsidies.
Falcon
I actually think that a wind farm looks really cool.....especially when they are sitting out in the middle of "wide open nothing" that would normally not have anything interesting to see.....
Same here. I can't make up my mind whether a wind gennie looks better off the coast, in the middle of a prairie, or on a mountain top. They all look awesome.
Falcon
I wish that, when people are frickin' stupid like this, folks would just roll their eyes at them rather than take them seriously.
People seem to come up with the dumbest reasons they think they're ill. I know it can be frustrating to feel badly and not know why, but come on. Use some science.
As shown by the number of people who believe in Creationism, er Intelligent Design, and believe macro-evolution does not happen a bunch of people don't know or believe in science.
Falcon
Years ago, during the California power crisis, BC Hydro made a killing
An important note: the power crisis was caused entirely by market manipulation with Enron at the front of the line. There was never a shortage of capacity. Traders would call up power plants and convince them to shut down unnecessarily thus driving up demand and price. Surprisingly a few people at the top actually went to jail for it. Good times. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis#Involvement_of_Enron
While partially correct most people do not know the state government actually caused the crisis. I think it's very telling saying "capped retail electricity prices" was part of the problem. Most people who want government regulation use the CA energy crisis, if it is used, as an example of why deregulation cause problems. They are dead wrong about that. CA did not deregulate energy, all the state did was change the regulations. Owning both electrical generation and the distribution of that electricity was made illegal. Then people were able to choose the retail sellers they bought their electricity from. Those retail sellers were not allowed to raise their prices to users but generators were allowed to raise their prices to retail sellers. When the prices retailers had to pay was higher than what they were able to charge their own buyers, the end users, they were left with stopping the sell of energy or with going bankrupt. The entire crisis was caused by the state government.
Falcon
Why can't nuclear power stand alone, out of curiosity?
Because it's too expensive. There is no place in the world where nuclear power can stand on it's own. Nuclear power depends on government for it's existence.
Falcon
Nuclear power is Hooked on Subsidies.
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don’t. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Oh, about CATO:
"The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues."
Falcon
Coal can be clean and safe too http://www.coalcares.org/cleanenergy.html
How is Mountaintop removal clean? How is coal mining safe? Ops, that's in China. 19 killed in coal mine accidents in U.S. in 2012. Now how many have been killed by solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources?
Falcon
General Electric-designed reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in U.S.
Falcon
I love it when the greenies insist on Sea Salt because it's more 'organic' than the other stuff
I've never heard "greenies" insist on Sea Salt.
Falcon
The problem with wind farms isn't just the silly people surrounding it but the ecological risks and damage done. In NA our bat populations are critically endangered and being destroyed by the pressure differential caused by various wind farms, if you bother to count the bodies. It sounds OK until you realize that bats are incredibly useful, they pollinate more than bees do, they control more insect pest populations than anything else. A single bat can eat many thousands of mosquitoes in a night.
In countries with more wind farms the damage is magnified. See Costa Rica. If only more people even gave a shit.
Do you have actual data to back up how many bats are being killing by wind gennies? I recalled people opposed to wind gennies saying they killed a lot of birds. However studies have shown cats kill more birds than wind generators. The article Do wind turbines kill birds? has a chart of statistics showing how many birds are killed by different things, from cars, wild and feral cats (but not pet cats?), to windows. Some may have a problem with the chart though, out of seven killers of birds 5 of the statistics are provided by the American Wind Energy Association, one by treehugger, and one by American Bird Conservancy. Sciam asks the question Are Wind Turbines Getting More Bird and Bat-Friendly? It partially answers by saying stake holders from AWEA, ABC, and National Audubon are working on ways to reduce bird and bat mortality rates.
Falcon
if everyone spent their entire time studying math and physics (or other theoreticals, as intelligent people tend to), we'd all have died a long, long time ago from starvation.
Physics isn't the only science. Agriculture, the study of growing food, is science as well. "Agriculture, also called farming or husbandry, is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for food, fiber, biofuel and other products used to sustain human life." There's also biology and medicine. A number of sciences exist to not just keep us alive but to improve our lives. There's even Biophysics.
Falcon
People aren't getting any wiser, and propagandists are getting smarter too. While Fox News pushes *extremely dumb* ideas, it does so in a very slickly manipulative way that precisely targets the vulnerabilities of their demographic audience, effectively conditioning them to act less intelligent than they could be.
Other mass media companies do the same thing, as do advertizing and public relations businesses. They get paid for that.
Falcon
I have a MacBook Pro r3.1 and can walk into an Apple store and get support at the Genius Bar for it. I have Snow Leopard 10.6 on it, along with Ubuntu 12.04, and I can upgrade the OS to Mountain Lion if I wanted.
Which you might want, if you find that the answer you get at the Genius Bar is "OK, that's a bug we fixed in {10.7.x, 10.8.x}, that's about all the help we can offer". Yes, the Genius Bar may listen sympathetically to your problem report, but the advice they offer might be "you'll have to get a newer OS if you want that problem fixed".
I have never had anything like that happen to be at the Genius Bar. The only problem I ever had when I visited the bar, is when I got my Mac. When I ordered the Mac, online, I ordered some programs for it as well. One was a suite of utilities. Booting with the utility DVD in the drive I could run diagnostics on it, which I did. However it told me I was running the wrong version of the utility. So I made an appointment at the Genius Bar and there the tech told me I was sent an out of date disc. She suggested I contact the software company to get an updated disc. Now I didn't think that was right. Apple should have sent the right disc but since they didn't the store should have replaced it.
On the other hand I only upgraded to Snow Leopard to program in Java 6 and there was not an update available for the version of OS X I was using whereas Snow Leopard came with Java 6.
Ooh, and I don't want to upgrade to Mountain Lion because Apple is getting to be like MS. Mt Lion does not come on a DVD. Instead you have to install it by using the App Store to download it. At least Lion came on a USB Flash drive but Mt Lion does not. As I've said elsewhere I don't think I'll be buying another Apple product. I might buy another MacBook Pro but I don't think so. If I do I'll dual-boot it like I do the one I'm using now. And it's less likely I'll buy an MS Windows laptop. So for my next one I'll have to find one that comes with a Linux distro.
if you want security updates for your OS version for a long period of time, you might get more of that with Windows
As I've posted elsewhere I have a Windows NT4 PC under my desk. I bought it brand new in December 1997. In 2000 I ran Windows Update, as i usually did every two or three months, and it told me MS was not going to offer any more updates for my PC. Old updates are available for downloads, however as someone else said "Downloads != Support". Also I actually moved from MS Windows to Linux and Mac OS X because I hate MS business tactics. To me requiring Microsoft Product Activation, Windows Genuine Advantage, and other things is treating users as criminals and I hate being treated like that. Which is why I hate Apple's new download policies for upgrades.
(Oh, and I'm a Mac user, and have used OS X to work on stuff such as this [nfsv4bat.org]. Note, BTW, that, after those slides came out, we went with running a single automountd in a global session, but mounts are done by subprocesses that are, in various release-dependent ways, attached to the session that provoked the mount.)
It seems you know much more than I do about Unix and compatible OSes. I don't know much myself, but volunteering for Freegeek Twin Cities I'm slowly learning more.
Falcon
away from you
Apple still offers PPC Mac and 10.2 downloads.
But they don't offer any fixes for them, not even security fixes.
In May Canonical will stop offering fixes for Ubuntu 10.04. In December 1997 I bought a brand new MS Windows NT 4 Workstation. I was shocked in 2000 when I ran Windows Update and received the message MS was no longer releasing new updates. When I checked something like 2 years ago MS still offered update downloads, but there were no new ones. And as a responder said "Update != Support".
Falcon