I'd place the likelyhood of a nuclear war rendering Earth uninhabitable higher if we did have perminate self-supporting settlements elsewhere, than if we stay on earth. So long as we are confined to earth, politicians cannot make planet destroying scale wars on others without affecting themselves. Once we have other planets you can attack someone else and not kill yourself. (though retaliation is still a factor)
Even still it is worth while to get people to other planets. I just don't know if we should look outside of the Solar System now, or wait a few (hundred/thousand?) years for faster travel so that would pass those earlier ships in flight...
Yeah, my skies aren't that dark. When I look southeast I see a large glow. However I own an acre of land, and my closest neighbor's don't leave many lights on. I went out again latter to clear Skies, but the neighbor across the street had one light on (I'm guessing 60 watts), 150 feet away, and it was very bright in my front yard. Behind the house it was better, but that limited my views to the south.
The darkest Skies I've seen are in North Dakota where the nearest neighbor is a mile away (Somewhat less as the crow flys)
How are you moving into a house with no mortgage? I have ~27 years left on my 30 year house mortgage, and I'd love to get rid of it. Sadly my house is one of the cheaper ones on the market in my area. When I was working a good job it was no problem making double payments, now that I'm laid off...
Like you, I was caught unprepared. I don't know what I could have done different though, living in a cardboard box isn't appealing. Living without my cat or computer isn't any different. (And both are worthless in market value) Oh sure a few minor things could change but it amounts to peanuts.
I was planning ahead for a different dream that what I've been able to live. If I could have known I would have stayed with my parents, saved my money, when the layoffs happened I would have grabbed the next plane to Europe, and bummed around, seeing everything and living as cheaply as I could, when I was bored with that, off to India, or Brazil (with no importance on either)
I'm just wondering what you did. I can still make my house payments for a few months. I couldn't afford the cheapest house in a neighborhood with regular gang shootings if I sold out. (Though I could get a mortgage just based on working at the local McDonalds for minimum wage) Never mind if I want to live there.
I saw the story and got excited: I better go outside now! Bundle (just below freezing up, and I see fog.:( Two bright objects in the sky, I'm guessing one is Venus, the other Mars, or maybe Jupiter. (You can see how much an astronomer I am from that) After a few minutes I could see a few stars, but it was clear that there is little chance of seeing much more, and nothing would be clear.
I know, the problem astronomers everywhere face. Still wish it hadn't happened tonight. Lession to everyone: go out every night and look, since the first night isn't until tomorrow and I have 8-10 days of really good viewing I have a chance to see something. Don't blow your chance, if tonight is the only clear night in a while you will kick yourself for not spending a least a few minutes outside looking.
I live in the country, but still my neighbor across the street with his one light on was enough to annoy my viewing. Went the the backyard and discovered that a monitor makes a very good light to see by. I'll have to do something about that in the morning when I try again.
P.S. If you are in the Twin Cities are you are welcome to attempt a viewing from my yard. Better than the city, though not nearly as good as heading way out would be.
Knowing Java is very different from knowing programming. If you can't do a complex project in Java you can't do a complex project in any language. If you can do it in any language, you can do it in Java. The first step might be learning Java, but any good programmer can handle that in a short time. Now granted I'd want someone who knows all the tricks on the team so I don't re-implement the wheel, but a complex project by definition requires many people so that isn't an issue.
HR is far too hung up on what you have already done, not realizing that the data structures and algorithms are what counts, and they are the same in any language.
Security is a tradeoff, go too far and you end up being so annoyed with it that you bypass your measures and become less secure. So decide how far you need to go.
I'm, not impressed with hardware security, other than keeping important files on the USB keychain at your side. (And even then you need regular backups kept in a good data safe) Do a web search and you can find information on how to fake fingerprints. You can find keyboard loggers, which a well equipped attacker can modify into a more general logger to simulate your hardware device. (though I doubt you are worth that much effort, and encryption can prevent man in the middle attacks like this if you are)
Personally I would build a network, save all my files to a UNIX (openBSD perhaps) box in a secure area, and mount that disk everytime I was at the machine, and unmount it when I was done.
Don't forget access control lists. If the user you leave the machine logged in as cannot access files you have one less worry. Window has pretty good ACLs if you use them.
I'll bet there is a newspaper serving nearly every area, and the printer isn't too far away... find them and apply, someone has to run their computers. Telephone was mentioned elsewhere, another good place to look.
You don't have to stay in computers. Could you sell tractors? Drive truck cross country? (You would rarely be home, but it is a common job for those who do live in rural areas which should tell you something) Do AI on cattle?
There is always commute. Telecommute jobs are hard to find. Get a VW TDI (anything with good gas milage), and move 1 hour drive from the city, and work non-peak hours. Won't work in California (or NY?) but most cities in between have plenty of land 1 hour away allowing you the best of both worlds. (Not to be confused with suburbs which are the worst of both worlds)
Last, re-evalutae your life. Do you really need as much income as you are making? lower your standard of living and you might find that waiter at the local cafe takes care of all your needs.
This is a theoritical issue that isn't a problem in the real world for several reasons.
First: If you supply power, your neighbors are going to use it. Your equipment cannot supply the whole neighborhood, even the biggest will trip the mail breaker in your house (all your neighbors drawing from you is more power than your house can deal with), more likely you will trip a breaker on your equipment and not have power yourself.
Second, if you have equipment connected to the grid it cannot work without synchronizing frequencies with the grid. No grid = nothing to sync to. This shuts down a lot of systems.
Third, some equipment is built to detect this situation and shutdown anyway.
I'm not saying this isn't something to deal with. The risk is very low, but if I was a lineman I would be mad if someone relied only on the above, and not a positive lockout. (the third is good enough, the rest I wouldn't trust)
They have hit most of the scam signs I know of, and none of the ones that might give me the benefit of the doubt. I'm not stupid, I'm not giving you money unless I think it is worth it. If they got me a job I'd give them money ($100 is cheap compared to what the other recruiters I'm talking to would get if I get hired...), but not until. Not having a free section they don't even have a chance to prove there are real jobs there, and I wouldn't pay them money for until it was proved they have jobs, right now it appears more like a scam to get my money.
I'm ticked off at these people, everytime I search monster for a real job they show up in the results. Monster at least has real jobs. (Either that or once in a while they pay someone to call me, I haven't gotten a job through them, but I have got hints that some exist). Just based on their advertising I'm no longer willing to give them money even if they would help me get a job.
You are a statistic. In the case of americans with internet access you are either in the 75% group, or the 25% group if you are an american. Of course if you live in some other country you aren't part of that statistic, but you are still part of the world internet useage ones.
In the case of your phone, you are part of the growing segment that has dropped the land line phone for cell phone only. I'm part of that group too, but a case of skewed statistics, I have a land line connected to nothing because I'm required to have it to get DSL.
You are mistaking arithmatic for Mathamatics. You will use the latter in a university and the former in low end jobs. Very different skills, are needed.
I agree on the ergonomics thing. Thats why my current phone isn't a nokia even though I liked their old models. Not on the more features thing though.
Phones need to be a certian size, several years ago they reached a point where technology would allow them to go smaller, but the phone became less useful. They have all this extra space, why not use it. A few people want cameras, it doesn't cost much to add one, so why not give them one. A moment's thought latter reveals that inventory management becomes too complex with many modeles, they can lower the price on the camera phone to the price of the non-camera phone just be getting rid of the non-camera model and getting that much less inventory problems.
In other words, the camera is something you can ignore and doesn't cost anything so why not just accept it even if you won't use it?
It comes down to practice, and the only way you will practice is when you have to do it. So get a job where you have to do this.
When I worked carpendry I got really got a multipling by 1.42 (guess why[1]) because that is something we had to do often, and calculators didn't last more than a week on the job so we rarely had one. (The foreman would buy one if he knew a lot of calculations were coming up, but he often had to do math by hand) In that job there there is plany of surface to work with so we wrote everything out. Normally on the stud right next to us with a carpenders pencil, not optimal but it worked.
When I worked at McDonalds I soon learned that an extra value meal was $3.18 with tax in my state. At the time I knew all the common combonations, but I never added them up, I just memorized if off the register. On the slow days I would take drive through orders, and the customer would see me running to the door while giving his total and "please pull ahead". Different job, different set of skills that I got good at.
[1]I don't remember my trig terms, but if you combine thoughs of trig with 45 degree angle you should be able to figgure out what 1.42 is.
The whole thing reads like a metaphor for shepherds. Jesus never was a Shepherd, but he used that as an example because most people were close enough to shepherds they could understand the example. Certainly he was preaching then, and preaching and being a shepherd is not a compatable profession in general.
This isn't to say Jesus wasn't a shepherd for a year or so before he went to preaching, only that if so it wasn't recorded.
I think people are making far too much of my shepherd comment. Yes I understand metaphor.
There is no wrong choice here. Either way is just as good from all you have said. So make the choice you want to make. Obviously you are unsure because you haven't gone for it. So what are you really afraid of? It can't be the job because there are jobs all over, and many do not last a year anyway.
If it is just job hunting, there are jobs everywhere. Even if they decide your tech skills are good enough after this trip, you have shown the people skills needed for management, watch the money for the others (musicians are typically terrible at watching money, so just by being willing to do it you will be allowed to), and scheduling the next concerts (assuming this isn't done) will give you the rest of the skills. You could then leverage your previous tech experience for a job managing techs. Then go to school and get the MBA.
Many programmers I've known have been musicians. However some of us have a theory that you cannot be a good musician and a good programmer. Honestly evaluate yourself and decide what you are good at, and follow that path.
Laptop computers are cheap enough, take one with (perhaps with MIDI interfaces or high end sound cards) to keep up your tech skills. If you really want to get back into tech after the trip. Remember though that there are many careers to choose from don't limit yourself to what you have done before. MIT claims their average grad makes 7 career changes in his lifetime. Career changes, not jobs changes. You decide what you want to do with your life.
If you decide not to go for it, you have just left an opening for someone else to take the job, feel good about that. And remember you can use your vacation and the money you are earning to tour many of those places yourself. There is no reason you have to make money at music just cause you like it. Get some friends together and jam every few nights if that is what you want to do. Many good hobbies have been ruined by making them into a job.
If you decide to go for it, there are many techs out of work right now who would love your position, feel good about giving it to them.
Which picture of Jesus? The one where he is hanging on a cross, or the one where he is a shepherd with sheep around him[1].
Not that it matters, we don't know what Jesus looks like, there are no historical accounts. We can guess a little: he was Jewish which specifies some general things.
[1]Interestingly enough, there is no account of Jesus having anything to do with sheep. He was the carpenter's son (it was supposed by those who didn't accept the divine birth story), and recognized as such when he went to his home village.
Note, please don't take this into religious arguments. Nobody will be convinced so you end up wasting your time.
Last I checked, having a cell phone in say Germany and recieveing a call on it costs you money if your home is in say Spain. You not only pay, but long distace rates. Granted this was a few years ago, but your point doesn't apply.
In American we have a sensiable plans where you pay one flat rate for all the local calls you want to make within a large area.
In short: plans are different in the US, but that doesn't make what you are used to better. Just different. There are pros and cons to both systems.
I considered buying from them, but the prices just didn't fit the market. I can buy a laptop with the MS tax, or for more money I could buy from them. It just doesn't pay.
Yes it is worth something to have all componants that work in linux. IIRC they didn't provide that, instead it was everything but the modem (which is a hard point), and wireless. In the latter case they will sell you a 802.11 card so at least you can use it. (Of course with a million different laptops not all of the above applies to each one, but you get the idea)
Grandmas are limited problems, you can expect them to die in just a few years. Harsh I know, but I can't think of a better way to phrase it.
Lets take the important cases, first: programs like apache. These are sysadmin programs, there is good reason for all the configuration options, but some combonations (and there are a large amount) are invalid not because they don't work, but because of subtile security concerns. A good sysadmin is always required to set these up to avoid those issues, even when the setup is made easy. The hard part of even the hardest configuration mythod is still understanding what problems you need to prevent. Don't suggest checking for these issues, one there are too many; and two not all issues are under apache's control. (think of a firewall in the way some problem that would otherwise exist)
Next there are end user applications. More reason for our user to deal with them. We need to make it easy for the user. Many people place learning the interface higher than supporting the all day user, but once you teach the all day user how to do things saving half a second every minute adds up to a lot after a year. This class of users is at least as important as the new guy who is just playing and won't be back after things are done. Linux typically focuses on this user.
Part of the koffice project. Like the other apps mentioned, it isn't quite there yet, but it works, perhaps good enough for you. If nothing else it is a project to watch.
Wouldn't be a surprise at all, afterall this is the Warner brothers that killed Atari. Then after poisoning the brand sold the whole thing to the Tramiel's who repeated stuck knives into every part of it. (And everything else)
That was the goal of TCL, allowing you to extend the language. Course it isn't exactly the same, TCL extends the language for your app, while ARexx extended it for everything.
Arexx and dCop accomplishes essentially the same thing, it works in a very different mannor though.
Engineers have known for a long time they can design to lessen sound. However everything is a compromise, and they haven't figured out how to design for less sound without lowering the overall efficiency of the rest of the design. Though sound is a form of energy that they don't want, it isn't a big factor, while the obvious ways to reduce sound level end up lowering other efficiencies as well.
I have not studied the Mitsubishi design so I'm not qualified to comment on the particulars of that one. There is no theoretical reason when the lower sound levels are not a by-product of a more efficient blade shape.
I used to work at a place doing mainframe networking. We easily beat TCP all the time in speed tests, even at T3 (45Mb/s) speeds. TCP can't fill your pipe very well when your link includes a satellite in Geo-synchronous orbit. (think 1 second or more for the packet to get there) There are not enough windows in TCP for those situations.
However one thing we demanded was dedicated bandwidth, we could handle packet loss, but we made no effort to play nice with anyone else on the link. Course back in those days the internet backbones weren't fast enough to handle our customers anyway.
Pure water isn't a good conductor, but it is about the best solvent we know. In short if you dip your computer in pure water, the water will eat enough impurities from the computer to become a good conductor. For that matter take your pure water and expose it to air for just a few seconds and you now have impure water. (18 megaohms to 10 megaohms was the figure I heard from someone who did measure it)
My uncle's job is providing pure water for various drug and computer manufactures around here.
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I'd place the likelyhood of a nuclear war rendering Earth uninhabitable higher if we did have perminate self-supporting settlements elsewhere, than if we stay on earth. So long as we are confined to earth, politicians cannot make planet destroying scale wars on others without affecting themselves. Once we have other planets you can attack someone else and not kill yourself. (though retaliation is still a factor)
Even still it is worth while to get people to other planets. I just don't know if we should look outside of the Solar System now, or wait a few (hundred/thousand?) years for faster travel so that would pass those earlier ships in flight...
Yeah, my skies aren't that dark. When I look southeast I see a large glow. However I own an acre of land, and my closest neighbor's don't leave many lights on. I went out again latter to clear Skies, but the neighbor across the street had one light on (I'm guessing 60 watts), 150 feet away, and it was very bright in my front yard. Behind the house it was better, but that limited my views to the south.
The darkest Skies I've seen are in North Dakota where the nearest neighbor is a mile away (Somewhat less as the crow flys)
How are you moving into a house with no mortgage? I have ~27 years left on my 30 year house mortgage, and I'd love to get rid of it. Sadly my house is one of the cheaper ones on the market in my area. When I was working a good job it was no problem making double payments, now that I'm laid off...
Like you, I was caught unprepared. I don't know what I could have done different though, living in a cardboard box isn't appealing. Living without my cat or computer isn't any different. (And both are worthless in market value) Oh sure a few minor things could change but it amounts to peanuts.
I was planning ahead for a different dream that what I've been able to live. If I could have known I would have stayed with my parents, saved my money, when the layoffs happened I would have grabbed the next plane to Europe, and bummed around, seeing everything and living as cheaply as I could, when I was bored with that, off to India, or Brazil (with no importance on either)
I'm just wondering what you did. I can still make my house payments for a few months. I couldn't afford the cheapest house in a neighborhood with regular gang shootings if I sold out. (Though I could get a mortgage just based on working at the local McDonalds for minimum wage) Never mind if I want to live there.
I saw the story and got excited: I better go outside now! Bundle (just below freezing up, and I see fog. :( Two bright objects in the sky, I'm guessing one is Venus, the other Mars, or maybe Jupiter. (You can see how much an astronomer I am from that) After a few minutes I could see a few stars, but it was clear that there is little chance of seeing much more, and nothing would be clear.
I know, the problem astronomers everywhere face. Still wish it hadn't happened tonight. Lession to everyone: go out every night and look, since the first night isn't until tomorrow and I have 8-10 days of really good viewing I have a chance to see something. Don't blow your chance, if tonight is the only clear night in a while you will kick yourself for not spending a least a few minutes outside looking.
I live in the country, but still my neighbor across the street with his one light on was enough to annoy my viewing. Went the the backyard and discovered that a monitor makes a very good light to see by. I'll have to do something about that in the morning when I try again.
P.S. If you are in the Twin Cities are you are welcome to attempt a viewing from my yard. Better than the city, though not nearly as good as heading way out would be.
Knowing Java is very different from knowing programming. If you can't do a complex project in Java you can't do a complex project in any language. If you can do it in any language, you can do it in Java. The first step might be learning Java, but any good programmer can handle that in a short time. Now granted I'd want someone who knows all the tricks on the team so I don't re-implement the wheel, but a complex project by definition requires many people so that isn't an issue.
HR is far too hung up on what you have already done, not realizing that the data structures and algorithms are what counts, and they are the same in any language.
Security is a tradeoff, go too far and you end up being so annoyed with it that you bypass your measures and become less secure. So decide how far you need to go.
I'm, not impressed with hardware security, other than keeping important files on the USB keychain at your side. (And even then you need regular backups kept in a good data safe) Do a web search and you can find information on how to fake fingerprints. You can find keyboard loggers, which a well equipped attacker can modify into a more general logger to simulate your hardware device. (though I doubt you are worth that much effort, and encryption can prevent man in the middle attacks like this if you are)
Personally I would build a network, save all my files to a UNIX (openBSD perhaps) box in a secure area, and mount that disk everytime I was at the machine, and unmount it when I was done.
Don't forget access control lists. If the user you leave the machine logged in as cannot access files you have one less worry. Window has pretty good ACLs if you use them.
I'll bet there is a newspaper serving nearly every area, and the printer isn't too far away... find them and apply, someone has to run their computers. Telephone was mentioned elsewhere, another good place to look.
You don't have to stay in computers. Could you sell tractors? Drive truck cross country? (You would rarely be home, but it is a common job for those who do live in rural areas which should tell you something) Do AI on cattle?
There is always commute. Telecommute jobs are hard to find. Get a VW TDI (anything with good gas milage), and move 1 hour drive from the city, and work non-peak hours. Won't work in California (or NY?) but most cities in between have plenty of land 1 hour away allowing you the best of both worlds. (Not to be confused with suburbs which are the worst of both worlds)
Last, re-evalutae your life. Do you really need as much income as you are making? lower your standard of living and you might find that waiter at the local cafe takes care of all your needs.
This is a theoritical issue that isn't a problem in the real world for several reasons.
First: If you supply power, your neighbors are going to use it. Your equipment cannot supply the whole neighborhood, even the biggest will trip the mail breaker in your house (all your neighbors drawing from you is more power than your house can deal with), more likely you will trip a breaker on your equipment and not have power yourself.
Second, if you have equipment connected to the grid it cannot work without synchronizing frequencies with the grid. No grid = nothing to sync to. This shuts down a lot of systems.
Third, some equipment is built to detect this situation and shutdown anyway.
I'm not saying this isn't something to deal with. The risk is very low, but if I was a lineman I would be mad if someone relied only on the above, and not a positive lockout. (the third is good enough, the rest I wouldn't trust)
They have hit most of the scam signs I know of, and none of the ones that might give me the benefit of the doubt. I'm not stupid, I'm not giving you money unless I think it is worth it. If they got me a job I'd give them money ($100 is cheap compared to what the other recruiters I'm talking to would get if I get hired...), but not until. Not having a free section they don't even have a chance to prove there are real jobs there, and I wouldn't pay them money for until it was proved they have jobs, right now it appears more like a scam to get my money.
I'm ticked off at these people, everytime I search monster for a real job they show up in the results. Monster at least has real jobs. (Either that or once in a while they pay someone to call me, I haven't gotten a job through them, but I have got hints that some exist). Just based on their advertising I'm no longer willing to give them money even if they would help me get a job.
You are a statistic. In the case of americans with internet access you are either in the 75% group, or the 25% group if you are an american. Of course if you live in some other country you aren't part of that statistic, but you are still part of the world internet useage ones.
In the case of your phone, you are part of the growing segment that has dropped the land line phone for cell phone only. I'm part of that group too, but a case of skewed statistics, I have a land line connected to nothing because I'm required to have it to get DSL.
You are mistaking arithmatic for Mathamatics. You will use the latter in a university and the former in low end jobs. Very different skills, are needed.
I agree on the ergonomics thing. Thats why my current phone isn't a nokia even though I liked their old models. Not on the more features thing though.
Phones need to be a certian size, several years ago they reached a point where technology would allow them to go smaller, but the phone became less useful. They have all this extra space, why not use it. A few people want cameras, it doesn't cost much to add one, so why not give them one. A moment's thought latter reveals that inventory management becomes too complex with many modeles, they can lower the price on the camera phone to the price of the non-camera phone just be getting rid of the non-camera model and getting that much less inventory problems.
In other words, the camera is something you can ignore and doesn't cost anything so why not just accept it even if you won't use it?
It comes down to practice, and the only way you will practice is when you have to do it. So get a job where you have to do this.
When I worked carpendry I got really got a multipling by 1.42 (guess why[1]) because that is something we had to do often, and calculators didn't last more than a week on the job so we rarely had one. (The foreman would buy one if he knew a lot of calculations were coming up, but he often had to do math by hand) In that job there there is plany of surface to work with so we wrote everything out. Normally on the stud right next to us with a carpenders pencil, not optimal but it worked.
When I worked at McDonalds I soon learned that an extra value meal was $3.18 with tax in my state. At the time I knew all the common combonations, but I never added them up, I just memorized if off the register. On the slow days I would take drive through orders, and the customer would see me running to the door while giving his total and "please pull ahead". Different job, different set of skills that I got good at.
[1]I don't remember my trig terms, but if you combine thoughs of trig with 45 degree angle you should be able to figgure out what 1.42 is.
The whole thing reads like a metaphor for shepherds. Jesus never was a Shepherd, but he used that as an example because most people were close enough to shepherds they could understand the example. Certainly he was preaching then, and preaching and being a shepherd is not a compatable profession in general.
This isn't to say Jesus wasn't a shepherd for a year or so before he went to preaching, only that if so it wasn't recorded.
I think people are making far too much of my shepherd comment. Yes I understand metaphor.
There is no wrong choice here. Either way is just as good from all you have said. So make the choice you want to make. Obviously you are unsure because you haven't gone for it. So what are you really afraid of? It can't be the job because there are jobs all over, and many do not last a year anyway.
If it is just job hunting, there are jobs everywhere. Even if they decide your tech skills are good enough after this trip, you have shown the people skills needed for management, watch the money for the others (musicians are typically terrible at watching money, so just by being willing to do it you will be allowed to), and scheduling the next concerts (assuming this isn't done) will give you the rest of the skills. You could then leverage your previous tech experience for a job managing techs. Then go to school and get the MBA.
Many programmers I've known have been musicians. However some of us have a theory that you cannot be a good musician and a good programmer. Honestly evaluate yourself and decide what you are good at, and follow that path.
Laptop computers are cheap enough, take one with (perhaps with MIDI interfaces or high end sound cards) to keep up your tech skills. If you really want to get back into tech after the trip. Remember though that there are many careers to choose from don't limit yourself to what you have done before. MIT claims their average grad makes 7 career changes in his lifetime. Career changes, not jobs changes. You decide what you want to do with your life.
If you decide not to go for it, you have just left an opening for someone else to take the job, feel good about that. And remember you can use your vacation and the money you are earning to tour many of those places yourself. There is no reason you have to make money at music just cause you like it. Get some friends together and jam every few nights if that is what you want to do. Many good hobbies have been ruined by making them into a job.
If you decide to go for it, there are many techs out of work right now who would love your position, feel good about giving it to them.
Which picture of Jesus? The one where he is hanging on a cross, or the one where he is a shepherd with sheep around him[1].
Not that it matters, we don't know what Jesus looks like, there are no historical accounts. We can guess a little: he was Jewish which specifies some general things.
[1]Interestingly enough, there is no account of Jesus having anything to do with sheep. He was the carpenter's son (it was supposed by those who didn't accept the divine birth story), and recognized as such when he went to his home village.
Note, please don't take this into religious arguments. Nobody will be convinced so you end up wasting your time.
Last I checked, having a cell phone in say Germany and recieveing a call on it costs you money if your home is in say Spain. You not only pay, but long distace rates. Granted this was a few years ago, but your point doesn't apply.
In American we have a sensiable plans where you pay one flat rate for all the local calls you want to make within a large area.
In short: plans are different in the US, but that doesn't make what you are used to better. Just different. There are pros and cons to both systems.
I considered buying from them, but the prices just didn't fit the market. I can buy a laptop with the MS tax, or for more money I could buy from them. It just doesn't pay.
Yes it is worth something to have all componants that work in linux. IIRC they didn't provide that, instead it was everything but the modem (which is a hard point), and wireless. In the latter case they will sell you a 802.11 card so at least you can use it. (Of course with a million different laptops not all of the above applies to each one, but you get the idea)
Grandmas are limited problems, you can expect them to die in just a few years. Harsh I know, but I can't think of a better way to phrase it.
Lets take the important cases, first: programs like apache. These are sysadmin programs, there is good reason for all the configuration options, but some combonations (and there are a large amount) are invalid not because they don't work, but because of subtile security concerns. A good sysadmin is always required to set these up to avoid those issues, even when the setup is made easy. The hard part of even the hardest configuration mythod is still understanding what problems you need to prevent. Don't suggest checking for these issues, one there are too many; and two not all issues are under apache's control. (think of a firewall in the way some problem that would otherwise exist)
Next there are end user applications. More reason for our user to deal with them. We need to make it easy for the user. Many people place learning the interface higher than supporting the all day user, but once you teach the all day user how to do things saving half a second every minute adds up to a lot after a year. This class of users is at least as important as the new guy who is just playing and won't be back after things are done. Linux typically focuses on this user.
Part of the koffice project. Like the other apps mentioned, it isn't quite there yet, but it works, perhaps good enough for you. If nothing else it is a project to watch.
Wouldn't be a surprise at all, afterall this is the Warner brothers that killed Atari. Then after poisoning the brand sold the whole thing to the Tramiel's who repeated stuck knives into every part of it. (And everything else)
That was the goal of TCL, allowing you to extend the language. Course it isn't exactly the same, TCL extends the language for your app, while ARexx extended it for everything.
Arexx and dCop accomplishes essentially the same thing, it works in a very different mannor though.
Engineers have known for a long time they can design to lessen sound. However everything is a compromise, and they haven't figured out how to design for less sound without lowering the overall efficiency of the rest of the design. Though sound is a form of energy that they don't want, it isn't a big factor, while the obvious ways to reduce sound level end up lowering other efficiencies as well.
I have not studied the Mitsubishi design so I'm not qualified to comment on the particulars of that one. There is no theoretical reason when the lower sound levels are not a by-product of a more efficient blade shape.
I used to work at a place doing mainframe networking. We easily beat TCP all the time in speed tests, even at T3 (45Mb/s) speeds. TCP can't fill your pipe very well when your link includes a satellite in Geo-synchronous orbit. (think 1 second or more for the packet to get there) There are not enough windows in TCP for those situations.
However one thing we demanded was dedicated bandwidth, we could handle packet loss, but we made no effort to play nice with anyone else on the link. Course back in those days the internet backbones weren't fast enough to handle our customers anyway.
Pure water isn't a good conductor, but it is about the best solvent we know. In short if you dip your computer in pure water, the water will eat enough impurities from the computer to become a good conductor. For that matter take your pure water and expose it to air for just a few seconds and you now have impure water. (18 megaohms to 10 megaohms was the figure I heard from someone who did measure it)
My uncle's job is providing pure water for various drug and computer manufactures around here.