I just moved to the UK (like a week ago) and here's my recommendations:
1) Hit seatguru.com and look up the plane you will be on. You'll be able to find out if you'll have a power port at your seat, and also learn about any issues with the seat you are on. My advice is to upgrade to Business Class if you can. Far more comfortable.
2) Bring your laptop. Your wifi will work out of the box, no adjustment necessary (I don't even think there are region codes on wireless, but I could be wrong), but pickup a travel plug. Your laptop's power brick should be autoswitching and will handle the 220V/50Hz power now problem, but check to be sure. Don't buy a new cord unless you are actually planning to move there.
3) Will you be traveling alone or with someone else? If you are with someone, get each of you a Pre-Paid phone. If you already have a GSM-Phone, check if it's a tri- or quad-band phone. You may be able to make do with just buying a Pre-Paid SIM and swapping them in. Either way, you can find many places to pick them up, including Vending Machines.
4) In the states, it seems like everyone takes Credit/Debit cards and nobody cares if it's Visa or Mastercard. Not so over here. I've seen quite a few ATMs that VISA only, so be sure to check. It helps to carry a few quid with you, just in case. FYI, Quid is slang for Pound(s).
5) Someone else said it, but remember to LOOK RIGHT when crossing the street. We usually look left first, and then walk into the street as we look right. This can be deadly in the UK.
6) Most of us are aware that not everyone loves us Yanks. The UK is pretty safe for Americans to travel, but be aware just the same. The movie Taken, while certainly overly-dramatized, makes a good point. Nobody thinks that it will be them. You don't need to be paranoid, just cautious.
7) Be nice. Try to prove the American stereotype wrong.
Lastly, 8) HAVE FUN. The place is kewl and they have some great beer. Definitely hit the pubs, even if you don't drink. They're an experience.
You know, it's been largely ignored, but there is a very good reason why we should have gone in anyway. We created the problem. It's our mess and we had a responsibility to clean it up.
How is it our mess? We trained, funded, and equipped Saddam Hussein. That's right, we made him what he was. We trained him (and several of his top officers) at places like the Inter-American Air Forces Academy (IAAFA) at Lackland AFB. We funded and equipped him to fight Iran back in the 70s. We turned him into a barely leashed fighting dog.
Maybe he would have gassed the Kurds anyway. Maybe he would have brutally oppressed his people without us. Of course, Iraq might have been taken over by Iran or someone else. We'll never know. What we do know is that we helped him, and that makes us responsible for his actions from that point on.
Our reasons for going in were wrong. That doesn't change the fact that it needed to happen.
Secondly, Mars and the moon are going to be totally different kettles of fish to colonize.
If you think about it, they simply require different levels of refinement to the same technologies. Most of the technologies that would make colonization of the Moon possible would allow us to survive on Mars and most other places in the solar system.
I definately agree with you (and Robert Zubrin) about fuel, however there are pros and cons to each side. Eventually, I believe there will be space stations at one or more of the Langrainge points as well as a Moon base. I simply believe that we'll have a Moon base first because of political reasons.
I think we both agree that a permanent habitation in space (moon base or L5 station) is important. We need a refueling point if we hope to reach Mars in the near future.
I think the fuss over the moon boils down to 3 main reasons: 1) Basically, we're planetbound beings. The vast majority of us would be reassured by the feeling of something solid beneath our feet and the ability to look out a window and see ground, even if it's virtually vacuum out there. 2) In general, people look at colonizing the moon much like Mars and other planets. Putting a base on the Moon sounds more like we're really getting out there and starting our expansion into the universe at large. 3) There are a few resources available on the Moon, most notably building materials. It's likely to be more cost effective to build using Moon rock than to haul tons of structural material in addition to everything else.
The trick is that if your friend who knows Linux set you up right, you won't be infected with three viruses and 18 types of spyware six months later.
Course, if said friend can do that, he/she can also setup a Windows box, and then the user doesn't have to learn to operate in an environment he/she isn't used to. Furthermore, as someone said in another comment, this friend won't have to be tech support for as long as the user owns his/her machine.
Now, from my own experiences in Linux, I've found that learning do more than the basics can be amazingly frustrating at times. I'm definately no slouch when it comes to administrating a Windows box however when I attempted to learn some of the intricacies of Linux, I continually ran into documentation issues. I found that documentation fell into two areas: That written for the user who wants nothing more than "Install and Forget" and that written for the user who's already mastered much of Linux. I often had to piece together the answer from 8 different posts about slightly related problems, all across the internet. Perhaps I just didn't find the right site or book, but this seems the major difficulty of Linux.
I've seen others say things similar but the one thing I think Windows definately has over Linux is that support seems to be available for all levels of users.
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1) Hit seatguru.com and look up the plane you will be on. You'll be able to find out if you'll have a power port at your seat, and also learn about any issues with the seat you are on. My advice is to upgrade to Business Class if you can. Far more comfortable.
2) Bring your laptop. Your wifi will work out of the box, no adjustment necessary (I don't even think there are region codes on wireless, but I could be wrong), but pickup a travel plug. Your laptop's power brick should be autoswitching and will handle the 220V/50Hz power now problem, but check to be sure. Don't buy a new cord unless you are actually planning to move there.
3) Will you be traveling alone or with someone else? If you are with someone, get each of you a Pre-Paid phone. If you already have a GSM-Phone, check if it's a tri- or quad-band phone. You may be able to make do with just buying a Pre-Paid SIM and swapping them in. Either way, you can find many places to pick them up, including Vending Machines.
4) In the states, it seems like everyone takes Credit/Debit cards and nobody cares if it's Visa or Mastercard. Not so over here. I've seen quite a few ATMs that VISA only, so be sure to check. It helps to carry a few quid with you, just in case. FYI, Quid is slang for Pound(s).
5) Someone else said it, but remember to LOOK RIGHT when crossing the street. We usually look left first, and then walk into the street as we look right. This can be deadly in the UK.
6) Most of us are aware that not everyone loves us Yanks. The UK is pretty safe for Americans to travel, but be aware just the same. The movie Taken, while certainly overly-dramatized, makes a good point. Nobody thinks that it will be them. You don't need to be paranoid, just cautious.
7) Be nice. Try to prove the American stereotype wrong.
Lastly, 8) HAVE FUN. The place is kewl and they have some great beer. Definitely hit the pubs, even if you don't drink. They're an experience.
You know, it's been largely ignored, but there is a very good reason why we should have gone in anyway. We created the problem. It's our mess and we had a responsibility to clean it up.
How is it our mess? We trained, funded, and equipped Saddam Hussein. That's right, we made him what he was. We trained him (and several of his top officers) at places like the Inter-American Air Forces Academy (IAAFA) at Lackland AFB. We funded and equipped him to fight Iran back in the 70s. We turned him into a barely leashed fighting dog.
Maybe he would have gassed the Kurds anyway. Maybe he would have brutally oppressed his people without us. Of course, Iraq might have been taken over by Iran or someone else. We'll never know. What we do know is that we helped him, and that makes us responsible for his actions from that point on.
Our reasons for going in were wrong. That doesn't change the fact that it needed to happen.
Hmm...I wonder how long talk.google.com will take before there's an actual site there. For that matter, I wonder how long it's been up.
...here's a link to Wal-Mart's website. They appear to be nearly sold out of the 1 gig ones, though.
I definately agree with you (and Robert Zubrin) about fuel, however there are pros and cons to each side. Eventually, I believe there will be space stations at one or more of the Langrainge points as well as a Moon base. I simply believe that we'll have a Moon base first because of political reasons.
Point taken. What I should have said was:
"We need a servicing station if we hope to have manned exploration of our Solar System in the near future."
I think we both agree that a permanent habitation in space (moon base or L5 station) is important. We need a refueling point if we hope to reach Mars in the near future.
I think the fuss over the moon boils down to 3 main reasons:
1) Basically, we're planetbound beings. The vast majority of us would be reassured by the feeling of something solid beneath our feet and the ability to look out a window and see ground, even if it's virtually vacuum out there.
2) In general, people look at colonizing the moon much like Mars and other planets. Putting a base on the Moon sounds more like we're really getting out there and starting our expansion into the universe at large.
3) There are a few resources available on the Moon, most notably building materials. It's likely to be more cost effective to build using Moon rock than to haul tons of structural material in addition to everything else.
Now, from my own experiences in Linux, I've found that learning do more than the basics can be amazingly frustrating at times. I'm definately no slouch when it comes to administrating a Windows box however when I attempted to learn some of the intricacies of Linux, I continually ran into documentation issues. I found that documentation fell into two areas: That written for the user who wants nothing more than "Install and Forget" and that written for the user who's already mastered much of Linux. I often had to piece together the answer from 8 different posts about slightly related problems, all across the internet. Perhaps I just didn't find the right site or book, but this seems the major difficulty of Linux.
I've seen others say things similar but the one thing I think Windows definately has over Linux is that support seems to be available for all levels of users.