Perhaps I'm the only one, but I've had Wells Fargo for ~4 years, and it's been great.

The only bad experience I had was my checkbook was stolen while I was overseas (the checkbook was at the home I share with several guys, there was a party, strangers show up, college life etc.). I didn't check my balance much while overseas, and the dollar was weak, so didn't think much of it when my balance was low. When I got back to the states I noticed that there was a check written to one of my roommates for $75, which I didn't write. I confronted him about it, he denied it. Long story short, someone had stolen my checkbook and *HIS* debit card. They were then writing checks from my account to his name, depositing it into his account (with the debit card as ID), then withdrawing the money from an ATM (he was moronic and wrote down his PIN by the debit card).

After reporting to Wells Fargo, I was given some affidavits to sign, saying I didn't authorize the checks, under penalty of perjury, etc. I had a new checking account and the $900 that was stolen (plus $70 in overdrafts they had caused) refunded to me in about 3 days, with only about 45 minutes of work on my end.

Handled very professionally, I'd say.

South Africa did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Good for them! Thank the FSM there's some sanity left in at least one state.

Depends on the state, but at least in Texas, if you're 16-17 you must take a driving and written test. If you're 18+, you can get a license without either.

Most (all?) states will give you a license if you have a valid license from another state, due to the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.

For what it's worth, at my university, if you connect a computer that's spewing out spam or some other detectable network sin, it cuts off your service and redirects all HTTP requests to a help page explaining the problem, with a download of McAffee available to clean it.

Once you've ran it and cleaned up, you can put in a request to re-enable network traffic.

It's a quick bastard too. I hooked up my cousin's computer to do some diagnostics (behind my router, so I could send some files over the network), and my Linux box had it's access cut off within minutes.

You're new to the concept of English, aren't you?

That depends on the meaning of the word 'is'.

Texas doesn't have the right to secede. We have the right to split into 5 states without Congressional approval, however.

You're argument is flawed. Most economies go through a 3 stage adaption process. Agricultural, manufacturing, and tertiary.

We started as agricultural, this is where most third world countries are today.

We moved to manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution, this is where China is today.

We moved to tertiary post World War II. This is where (most of) the G8 is.

Just because you aren't making 'real (manufactured) goods' doesn't mean you aren't producing real value. Producing services is the sign of a much more advanced economy.

That said, depending on intellectual property as a mainstay of your advanced economy is a flawed economic plan.

Agree with parent. While many /.'ers are probably using some version of linux already, it's really a good solution for parents, etc. A few years ago, my mother's PC died after a bunch of virii and finally a hard drive failure. I built a new one and told her I was tired of fixing all those problems, and she was going to try something new. Installed Ubuntu (Dapper or Edgy IIRC), made sure her e-mail/favorite websites worked and gave it to her. Aside from having to explain how to install updates, she hasn't had a problem to date.

On a similar note, I gave my grandmother an old laptop and stripped out most of the ubuntu install, and filled it with lots of games. Locked down her account so she can't screw anything up, removed all shortcuts except games. She has bad insomnia, and enjoys playing the card games/mahjong at night. Works well for her, aside from her occasionally unplugging it instead of shutting it down properly (I'm going to set it to mount / as read only to prevent this when I go there for holidays).

Long story short, seriously consider using Ubuntu, the learning curve for it is much easier than teaching them to avoid spyware/virii.