Here in Sweden you have lots of places where you can go and work outside.. At least in the summer when the polar-bears are not roaming the streets:) There are quite a few places where you can sit and work inside too, as long as you order stuff for the duration... Have done that myself quite a few times, but only for about 3-4 hours at the max.. never had the need for anything longer... Libraries can also be kind of nice if you want a bit quieter environment..
In London, at least the places i usually visit i don't see that a whole lot, but there must be some... The hotel-bars is often a good place unless it's crowded and i usually see some people working from those from time to time...
Amsterdam have tons of cafe's, and yes coffee-shop's too:), and it's a wonderful city... But same thing here... just as long as you keep your orders going... Most i have spent in one place there where about 3 hours without any complaints...
It probably differs from place to place, but as long as you are not disturbing anyone and keep ordering stuff you should not have any problem anywhere in Europe.....
But from experience you can never go wrong with the hotel-bar/cafe/lounge.. Usually you don't have to order that much and it's usually not packed during the day so they will not complain even if you don't order anything as long as you are staying in the hotel...
I usually don't stay in hostel's, but from the few i have been staying in one maybe 30% of them have had some semi-quiet place where you could sit and work... Check online before booking...
While it is highly desirable to have the source to a hardware driver, if the choice is between accepting inferior hardware with source, or superior hardware without source, I'll take the latter every time.
Well, in most instances the hardware is quite good... The bad thing is usually buggy drivers and with source, *and specifications*, for them it's fixable...
As long as the cost of replacing (some) HW is less than ~$150 you can go ahead and switch since the license of the "modern" os is something you need to think about too... Next would be what you can get for your old hardware.. If not too old you can get a few bucks for it too...
Main issues are motherboard and gfx-card... new motherboard ~$70-$120 for something that works... Graphics card for between $50-$200 depending on what requirements you have..
so 70+50 = easy switch right now.. 120+200 = check what you can get for your old motherboard and gfx-card, if more than 120+200-150=$170 you can switch right now too... If less than 170 then wait for the next time you upgrade...
And btw, usually it's only the GFX card that causes issues... Have not had any major issues with any motherboard we have bought the last 3 years except for some BIOS settings that needed to be changed during installation. (AHCI / IDE mode) (but now i have only been talking about stationary machines... laptops can be a totally different hell)
not to mention that the more efficient PSU's are usually also build with a higher quality and will last longer..
Have had a few cheapo $60 psu's and they have all broken down within ~2-3 years.. The last i got was about $110 and has been running for about 3 years now... and i pay about 0.2Eur/kWh with all the taxes and crap they put on top...
Thing is that Samsung did not agree on a licensing cost of $30 per phone and $40 per tablet so they took it to court... But not to forgot... Apple is also infringing on Samsung patents.....
I do think that android is a bigger threat than microsoft and that's why apple is going after that...
And might that be due to that Apple had never made a cell-phone so they needed to start from scratch with HW etc?
Samsung has been making phones for quite a while, and basing their stuff off android they just ported android to their HW and then customized the GUI, which is much easier than to write a new OS and get a working UI for the phone...
Your comparison of 3 month's vs 5 years don't really say anything if you look at the rest of the stuff...
I do agree that Samsung have taken some design-hints from apple, but i don't think that the patents apple has for those things should be valid since they are quite generic and obvious to most engineers in that market.
Hey, you never know what the Martians might try to install on it!:)
Using a PK scheme might actually be adventitious here. Some scenarios...
- Transmitting an encrypted image with decryption before writing to flash. This requires some extra cpu for the flashing procedure.. If using a separate "failsafe" module for this would require more advanced equipment.
- Transmitting an encrypted image without decryption when writing to flash. This will require main cpu to decrypt image before running.. Either runtime or once.. If runtime it will take a few cpu cycles ie require more advanced equipment or if only once it will rewrite the unencrypted image to flash there by aging the flash. And since flash only can take a specific amount of writes before failing this would be bad too..
- If using a PK signed image all that would be required would be to transmit the image, unencrypted, to the sw-download module that would write the software to the flash. Extremely simple CPU could be used for this... If main image is corrupt in any way it would detect it before starting...
A Public Key scheme is be as secure as any symmetric key scheme in regards to validating the image that will be executed. It's actually even a bit more secure since a pure symmetric key scheme can upload junk.. They are only on the same level if you add checksums inside the encrypted image..
1. Apple is suing Samsung for patent infringement. 2. Yes. 3. No. But as with all patent-infringement cases the defendant has a right to defend him self by showing prior art that could invalidate the patent(s).
So... It's all about Apple being able to show that their patents are actually valid and for Samsung to defend itself by showing that the patents that Apple has are invalid by either prior-art or that the patent is invalid by being to broad or other things like this...
The thing with patents are that they are not really valid until they have been proven in court. So as long as it's cheaper to license than to sue they will license but when you reach this limit ($30 per phone / $40 per tablet) they will fight back...
Or perhaps they are just using normal signing of images (Public-key crypto) with a good enough hash-algorithm scheme...
No need for multiple round-trips... Send one image and let the rover verify signature of the image, if valid upgrade and if not then scrap the new image and report back...
Saying I'm an atheist is ok, saying you are stupid because you believe in god is not.
Well, both are ok... First one is a statement... Second one is an opinion...
And BTW, if it would be illegal to say "you are stupid because you believe in god" then basically every religious person in the world should be put in jail since they are all claiming that the other religions are invalid and stupid and that their own is the only correct one...
In some cases a rewrite is actually wanted and warranted..
- Code is just bad and impossible to understand.. - Code it slow, has become to bloated... - Hard to debug and hard to track down problems happen from time to time.
You start with a small corner and when that small part is done, and working, then you might go for the next thing... But don't throw out everything.. just the parts that are bad... And while you are doing things like this you should try and do some type of unit-test implementation also to make sure your new code works as the old code was intended to work.
1) Automotive. Cars don't look any different now than they did 10 years ago, and technologically they're pretty much the same. The fuel economy is slightly improved with some brands, mostly thanks to gasoline direct injection, though there's some concerns about how these engines do over long terms.
Hybrid cars have evolved quite a bit since they became more mainstream. Pure electric cars are much more common... quite a big step.. Bio and Natural Gas powered cars... have become very common.. at least here in Sweden.
Design changes over many more years than 10... Compare cars from the 70'ies with the ones from the 80'ies etc..
2) Aviation. The only advances I see are a couple of space startups (SpaceX etc.) launching rockets and creating some prototype spacecraft. That's nice, but it's not really an advance since we've been doing that for decades, they're just figuring out now how to privatize it and do it a little cheaper. We have yet to see if any of the more radical ideas actually pan out or not; so far all they've succeeded in doing is launching satellites using newer, private designs rather than reused ICBMs.
SpaceX - it's not only a little cheaper... It's about half the cost.. NASA's Space Shuttle Program - $450 million per mission. SpaceX Dragon mission - $133 million per mission.
The cost per pound of cargo is $10000 for SpaceX and $20000 for NASA.
3) Computers (meaning desktops, servers, etc.). Nothing new here at all, in fact a lot of giant steps backwards (GNOME3, Windows 8 Metro coming soon). For most computer users, they finally got an overdue upgrade to XP in the form of Win7, but there's no real advances there, just some updates. The CPUs have gotten better now that Intel's abandoned Netburst (P4), but clock speeds are stuck, they're just adding cores to try to make new ones look better, and the power efficiency has gotten slightly better.
Giant steps back?? Gnome3 is actually quite nice for allot of people... It all depends on what type of user you are, but with a few tweaks it's actually quite nice for the stuff i do at work.. At home i prefer XFCE.
There have been major advances of desktop's and servers.. Major shift seems to be : Desktop computer -> Laptops -> Tablets More and more companies are using "the cloud" for infrastructure and storing data. For good and bad.. Virtualization has taken a extreme leap since 2000.. it's enough to just look 4-5 years back..
2001 - Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th. 2001 - Wikipedia is founded on January 15, 2001. 2001 - Bram Cohen introduces BitTorrent on a public message board July 2, 2001. 2001 - Apple introduces the iPod and it goes on sell October 23, 2001. 2002 - The first of code that would later become Mozilla Firefox is made available September 23, 2002. 2003 - Apple opens the iTunes store April 28, 2003. 2003 - The H.264 standard is completed in May 2003. 2003 - Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.3 code named Panther October 25, 2003. 2004 - Mark Zuckerberg launches Thefacebook February 4, 2004, which later becomes Facebook 2004 - Google announces Gmail on April 1, 2004. Many people take it as an April Fools joke. and around here it just sparks more and more stuff, more than i want to read... http://www.computerhope.com/history/2000.htm if you want to read it yourself.
Then on the hardware end.. Disk capacity: 2000 around 20Gb 2005 around 100Gb 2012 - 3Tb...
Number of transistors per CPU: 2000 - Pentium 4 - 42 Million using 180nm process. 2003 - AMD K8 - 105.9 Million using 130nm process. 2006 - Core 2 Duo - 291 Million using 65nm process. 2009 - Six-Core Opteron 2400 - 904 Million using 45nm process 2011 - Six-Core Core i7 - 2.270 BILLION using 32nm process.
And the GPU's have also evolved quite a bit... a Nvid
he... i was more referring to that Excel suck regarding doing those sort of things...
But regarding using gui's... Most gui's dont offer the same flexibility as a CLI does and it is impossible, without making a GUI that's even more hard to understand to, to make a GUI be able to do everything you can do from a CLI... Sure most simple stuff can be done in a fairly good way from a GUI, and i actually prefer GUI's in alot of instances.
But this is my preference... I'm comfortable with the CLI while many other are not... it does not make the GUI better or the CLI worse, it's just that i can use a CLI much more efficient than any GUI for doing some tasks, but for some tasks like visualizing data in a simple way a GUI can work much better and i prefer that in that case... The right tool for the job, determined by the user and his knowledge and preference.
Currently it does not matter if it's from loans, unpaid bills, lawsuits or criminal fines... Even if i think criminal fines should be excluded from this.
What they do is that they review all the debts that are outstanding and see if the person will have a chance to ever pay them off in any timly manned.... It's the total of all debts they take into account... Ie a debt of 10M with 8% interest ie ~800k per year is more than most people make per year..
The reason for this... If a person will never be able to make anything more than the absolute minimum they would not have any motivation to actually work.. Ie a welfare case... If they make it so the person will be punished (5 years on bare minimum) it will give them an incentive to actually make some money and behave in the future..
I think it's good for the most part... But i think it should be a little more restrictive in some cases... Have read about people getting a debts of around 500k SEK that they could have paid off in 10 years (not living on the bare minimum) that have gotten debt sanitation and that, i think, is not totally right...
... most databases have more than 65535 rows (Excel 2007) and there are many databases with a couple of million rows (Excel 2010)..
Starting in Excel 2007, the size of the grid expanded from 65,000 rows to over one million rows. This increase caused some performance and rendering issues when working with graphics objects in the new regions of the larger grid. Starting in Excel 2010, Excel optimizes functionality that relies on using the top left of the grid as the origin in order to improve the experience of working with graphics in the new regions of the grid. Rendering fidelity and performance are improved relative to Excel 2007.
The other thing... I would love to see excel merging 3 different databases with say 5 million row without screwing up... especially with data-entries that might start with "=" or accidentally converting between , -> . or the other way around for decimal values...
Then Sir, you are either illiterate or just stupid as per my comments below.
I stopped because I was sick of having to use the CLI for practically anything
Eh what? Installed the server-version without any graphical user-interface? My dad has been using ubuntu for about 5 years now and he has never had to even start the terminal once... From time to time i do backups of stuff for him using a CLI, but that is remotely using SSH.
from copying files
Too hard to find the file-browser under "Places"?
to installing applications
Too hard to find a first-level menu item for "Ubuntu software central"
and making your hardware functional.
Most machines i work with works out of the box... Some things might not work, but that's because they don't have a "Linux certified" label on them and due to this you need to do some research before you buy stuff... If the manufacturer has chosen to include hardware that is not supported by the linux-distribution of your choice then you will have chose something else.. Currently the only problem we have at the office with hardware compatability and linux is the new Intel/Nvidia Optimus crap, but that does not require you to use the command line even once... Open package-manager, add the bumblebee repository for the optimus stuff and install from the package manager... Sure the Optimus stuff only works to a degree, but that is due to no support from the manufacturer of the hardware, not linux.
To make a reference - try installing Windows 7 on some old box from 2005 and see if you can even get a hold of all the drivers needed for the hardware in it.. It's actually *easier* to install a Ubuntu on a machine from 2000 than it is to install windows 7 on it since all the drivers are kept and maintained in a single place.
Slashdot Mirror
.. It can be challenging but can be done....
Here in Sweden you have lots of places where you can go and work outside.. At least in the summer when the polar-bears are not roaming the streets :)
There are quite a few places where you can sit and work inside too, as long as you order stuff for the duration... Have done that myself quite a few times, but only for about 3-4 hours at the max.. never had the need for anything longer...
Libraries can also be kind of nice if you want a bit quieter environment..
In London, at least the places i usually visit i don't see that a whole lot, but there must be some... The hotel-bars is often a good place unless it's crowded and i usually see some people working from those from time to time...
Amsterdam have tons of cafe's, and yes coffee-shop's too :), and it's a wonderful city... But same thing here... just as long as you keep your orders going... Most i have spent in one place there where about 3 hours without any complaints...
It probably differs from place to place, but as long as you are not disturbing anyone and keep ordering stuff you should not have any problem anywhere in Europe.....
But from experience you can never go wrong with the hotel-bar/cafe/lounge .. Usually you don't have to order that much and it's usually not packed during the day so they will not complain even if you don't order anything as long as you are staying in the hotel...
I usually don't stay in hostel's, but from the few i have been staying in one maybe 30% of them have had some semi-quiet place where you could sit and work... Check online before booking...
Hackerspaces do exist here, but not too many depending on where you are going... Check http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces
hmm... Would be fun to light up a smoke... or just wait for the next thunderstorm then... *whoooof*
While it is highly desirable to have the source to a hardware driver, if the choice is between accepting inferior hardware with source, or superior hardware without source, I'll take the latter every time.
Well, in most instances the hardware is quite good... The bad thing is usually buggy drivers and with source, *and specifications*, for them it's fixable...
As long as the cost of replacing (some) HW is less than ~$150 you can go ahead and switch since the license of the "modern" os is something you need to think about too... Next would be what you can get for your old hardware.. If not too old you can get a few bucks for it too...
Main issues are motherboard and gfx-card... new motherboard ~$70-$120 for something that works... Graphics card for between $50-$200 depending on what requirements you have..
so 70+50 = easy switch right now..
120+200 = check what you can get for your old motherboard and gfx-card, if more than 120+200-150=$170 you can switch right now too... If less than 170 then wait for the next time you upgrade...
And btw, usually it's only the GFX card that causes issues... Have not had any major issues with any motherboard we have bought the last 3 years except for some BIOS settings that needed to be changed during installation. (AHCI / IDE mode)
(but now i have only been talking about stationary machines... laptops can be a totally different hell)
You have to check out those full-HD abacus'es now... 1920x1080 makes them real nice for working with really big numbers... :)
I lie about everything
Infinite loop detected... failure...
not to mention that the more efficient PSU's are usually also build with a higher quality and will last longer..
Have had a few cheapo $60 psu's and they have all broken down within ~2-3 years.. The last i got was about $110 and has been running for about 3 years now... and i pay about 0.2Eur/kWh with all the taxes and crap they put on top...
No, they have a patent-agreement.. http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/13/apple-ios-devices-patents-are-licensed-to-microsoft-anti-cloning-agreement-in-place/
Thing is that Samsung did not agree on a licensing cost of $30 per phone and $40 per tablet so they took it to court... But not to forgot... Apple is also infringing on Samsung patents.....
I do think that android is a bigger threat than microsoft and that's why apple is going after that...
And might that be due to that Apple had never made a cell-phone so they needed to start from scratch with HW etc?
Samsung has been making phones for quite a while, and basing their stuff off android they just ported android to their HW and then customized the GUI, which is much easier than to write a new OS and get a working UI for the phone...
Your comparison of 3 month's vs 5 years don't really say anything if you look at the rest of the stuff...
I do agree that Samsung have taken some design-hints from apple, but i don't think that the patents apple has for those things should be valid since they are quite generic and obvious to most engineers in that market.
Hey, you never know what the Martians might try to install on it! :)
Using a PK scheme might actually be adventitious here.
Some scenarios...
- Transmitting an encrypted image with decryption before writing to flash. This requires some extra cpu for the flashing procedure.. If using a separate "failsafe" module for this would require more advanced equipment.
- Transmitting an encrypted image without decryption when writing to flash. This will require main cpu to decrypt image before running.. Either runtime or once.. If runtime it will take a few cpu cycles ie require more advanced equipment or if only once it will rewrite the unencrypted image to flash there by aging the flash. And since flash only can take a specific amount of writes before failing this would be bad too..
- If using a PK signed image all that would be required would be to transmit the image, unencrypted, to the sw-download module that would write the software to the flash. Extremely simple CPU could be used for this... If main image is corrupt in any way it would detect it before starting...
A Public Key scheme is be as secure as any symmetric key scheme in regards to validating the image that will be executed. It's actually even a bit more secure since a pure symmetric key scheme can upload junk.. They are only on the same level if you add checksums inside the encrypted image..
1. Apple is suing Samsung for patent infringement.
2. Yes.
3. No. But as with all patent-infringement cases the defendant has a right to defend him self by showing prior art that could invalidate the patent(s).
So... It's all about Apple being able to show that their patents are actually valid and for Samsung to defend itself by showing that the patents that Apple has are invalid by either prior-art or that the patent is invalid by being to broad or other things like this...
The thing with patents are that they are not really valid until they have been proven in court. So as long as it's cheaper to license than to sue they will license but when you reach this limit ($30 per phone / $40 per tablet) they will fight back...
Or perhaps they are just using normal signing of images (Public-key crypto) with a good enough hash-algorithm scheme...
No need for multiple round-trips... Send one image and let the rover verify signature of the image, if valid upgrade and if not then scrap the new image and report back...
Saying I'm an atheist is ok, saying you are stupid because you believe in god is not.
Well, both are ok... First one is a statement... Second one is an opinion...
And BTW, if it would be illegal to say "you are stupid because you believe in god" then basically every religious person in the world should be put in jail since they are all claiming that the other religions are invalid and stupid and that their own is the only correct one...
Can't wait to have one of these on a phone or tablet.
Are you happy to see me or is that a 27" screen in your pocket?
Yes, the formulas taste much better with a bit of salt.
Well, it did have quite a big effect on their ftp... Never got any good speeds back then, especially the days after a new kernel-release..
In some cases a rewrite is actually wanted and warranted..
- Code is just bad and impossible to understand..
- Code it slow, has become to bloated...
- Hard to debug and hard to track down problems happen from time to time.
You start with a small corner and when that small part is done, and working, then you might go for the next thing... But don't throw out everything.. just the parts that are bad... And while you are doing things like this you should try and do some type of unit-test implementation also to make sure your new code works as the old code was intended to work.
1) Automotive. Cars don't look any different now than they did 10 years ago, and technologically they're pretty much the same. The fuel economy is slightly improved with some brands, mostly thanks to gasoline direct injection, though there's some concerns about how these engines do over long terms.
Hybrid cars have evolved quite a bit since they became more mainstream.
Pure electric cars are much more common... quite a big step..
Bio and Natural Gas powered cars... have become very common.. at least here in Sweden.
Design changes over many more years than 10... Compare cars from the 70'ies with the ones from the 80'ies etc..
2) Aviation. The only advances I see are a couple of space startups (SpaceX etc.) launching rockets and creating some prototype spacecraft. That's nice, but it's not really an advance since we've been doing that for decades, they're just figuring out now how to privatize it and do it a little cheaper. We have yet to see if any of the more radical ideas actually pan out or not; so far all they've succeeded in doing is launching satellites using newer, private designs rather than reused ICBMs.
SpaceX - it's not only a little cheaper... It's about half the cost..
NASA's Space Shuttle Program - $450 million per mission.
SpaceX Dragon mission - $133 million per mission.
The cost per pound of cargo is $10000 for SpaceX and $20000 for NASA.
3) Computers (meaning desktops, servers, etc.). Nothing new here at all, in fact a lot of giant steps backwards (GNOME3, Windows 8 Metro coming soon). For most computer users, they finally got an overdue upgrade to XP in the form of Win7, but there's no real advances there, just some updates. The CPUs have gotten better now that Intel's abandoned Netburst (P4), but clock speeds are stuck, they're just adding cores to try to make new ones look better, and the power efficiency has gotten slightly better.
Giant steps back?? Gnome3 is actually quite nice for allot of people... It all depends on what type of user you are, but with a few tweaks it's actually quite nice for the stuff i do at work.. At home i prefer XFCE.
There have been major advances of desktop's and servers..
Major shift seems to be : Desktop computer -> Laptops -> Tablets
More and more companies are using "the cloud" for infrastructure and storing data. For good and bad..
Virtualization has taken a extreme leap since 2000.. it's enough to just look 4-5 years back..
2001 - Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th.
2001 - Wikipedia is founded on January 15, 2001.
2001 - Bram Cohen introduces BitTorrent on a public message board July 2, 2001.
2001 - Apple introduces the iPod and it goes on sell October 23, 2001.
2002 - The first of code that would later become Mozilla Firefox is made available September 23, 2002.
2003 - Apple opens the iTunes store April 28, 2003.
2003 - The H.264 standard is completed in May 2003.
2003 - Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.3 code named Panther October 25, 2003.
2004 - Mark Zuckerberg launches Thefacebook February 4, 2004, which later becomes Facebook
2004 - Google announces Gmail on April 1, 2004. Many people take it as an April Fools joke.
and around here it just sparks more and more stuff, more than i want to read... http://www.computerhope.com/history/2000.htm if you want to read it yourself.
Then on the hardware end..
Disk capacity:
2000 around 20Gb
2005 around 100Gb
2012 - 3Tb...
Number of transistors per CPU:
2000 - Pentium 4 - 42 Million using 180nm process.
2003 - AMD K8 - 105.9 Million using 130nm process.
2006 - Core 2 Duo - 291 Million using 65nm process.
2009 - Six-Core Opteron 2400 - 904 Million using 45nm process
2011 - Six-Core Core i7 - 2.270 BILLION using 32nm process.
And the GPU's have also evolved quite a bit... a Nvid
he... i was more referring to that Excel suck regarding doing those sort of things...
But regarding using gui's... Most gui's dont offer the same flexibility as a CLI does and it is impossible, without making a GUI that's even more hard to understand to, to make a GUI be able to do everything you can do from a CLI... Sure most simple stuff can be done in a fairly good way from a GUI, and i actually prefer GUI's in alot of instances.
But this is my preference... I'm comfortable with the CLI while many other are not... it does not make the GUI better or the CLI worse, it's just that i can use a CLI much more efficient than any GUI for doing some tasks, but for some tasks like visualizing data in a simple way a GUI can work much better and i prefer that in that case... The right tool for the job, determined by the user and his knowledge and preference.
Currently it does not matter if it's from loans, unpaid bills, lawsuits or criminal fines... Even if i think criminal fines should be excluded from this.
What they do is that they review all the debts that are outstanding and see if the person will have a chance to ever pay them off in any timly manned.... It's the total of all debts they take into account... Ie a debt of 10M with 8% interest ie ~800k per year is more than most people make per year..
The reason for this... If a person will never be able to make anything more than the absolute minimum they would not have any motivation to actually work.. Ie a welfare case... If they make it so the person will be punished (5 years on bare minimum) it will give them an incentive to actually make some money and behave in the future..
I think it's good for the most part... But i think it should be a little more restrictive in some cases... Have read about people getting a debts of around 500k SEK that they could have paid off in 10 years (not living on the bare minimum) that have gotten debt sanitation and that, i think, is not totally right...
... most databases have more than 65535 rows (Excel 2007) and there are many databases with a couple of million rows (Excel 2010)..
Starting in Excel 2007, the size of the grid expanded from 65,000 rows to over one million rows. This increase caused some performance and rendering issues when working with graphics objects in the new regions of the larger grid. Starting in Excel 2010, Excel optimizes functionality that relies on using the top left of the grid as the origin in order to improve the experience of working with graphics in the new regions of the grid. Rendering fidelity and performance are improved relative to Excel 2007.
The other thing... I would love to see excel merging 3 different databases with say 5 million row without screwing up... especially with data-entries that might start with "=" or accidentally converting between , -> . or the other way around for decimal values...
Well... i dare you to run wireshark on my MIPS based OpenWRT router with 16Mb of ram :)
Not to mention all Android phones out there... Or why not all linux-based routers etc...
I used Ubuntu for years.
Then Sir, you are either illiterate or just stupid as per my comments below.
I stopped because I was sick of having to use the CLI for practically anything
Eh what? Installed the server-version without any graphical user-interface?
My dad has been using ubuntu for about 5 years now and he has never had to even start the terminal once... From time to time i do backups of stuff for him using a CLI, but that is remotely using SSH.
from copying files
Too hard to find the file-browser under "Places"?
to installing applications
Too hard to find a first-level menu item for "Ubuntu software central"
and making your hardware functional.
Most machines i work with works out of the box... Some things might not work, but that's because they don't have a "Linux certified" label on them and due to this you need to do some research before you buy stuff... If the manufacturer has chosen to include hardware that is not supported by the linux-distribution of your choice then you will have chose something else.. Currently the only problem we have at the office with hardware compatability and linux is the new Intel/Nvidia Optimus crap, but that does not require you to use the command line even once... Open package-manager, add the bumblebee repository for the optimus stuff and install from the package manager... Sure the Optimus stuff only works to a degree, but that is due to no support from the manufacturer of the hardware, not linux.
To make a reference - try installing Windows 7 on some old box from 2005 and see if you can even get a hold of all the drivers needed for the hardware in it.. It's actually *easier* to install a Ubuntu on a machine from 2000 than it is to install windows 7 on it since all the drivers are kept and maintained in a single place.
Good comment... wish i had some mod-points.