Try not marrying someone whose goal in life is to be a housewife or otherwise taken care of. Marry someone that is accustomed to taking care of themselves. Trouble is, that trait is generally not initially obvious or especially sexy in of itself, and most people don't think with their brains when it comes to objectively evaluating those that they are sexually attracted to. I had plenty of girlfriends that ultimately weren't suitable to marriage before I found the right woman that knew how to manage her own life and its costs.

Probably because most people don't really like that much change in their lives. They have friends and family, they are familiar with the setting, and they may have real property or other financial commitment that would be very costly to leave behind or abandon. It can be hard on people moving between cities within a region, let along picking up everything they can hold on to and changing whole countries where law, language, and acceptance will be entirely different.

It seems to fundamentally come down to people not wanting the government to have records that connect them to their firearms. I live in a state that's gotten somewhat nutty lately; we already did not require any firearms registration for private-party sales, so not only are background checks less effective as second-hand purchase avoids them and registration entirely, but we've also taken away a need for a concealed carry permit, so now anyone can carry a concealed firearm without any need to undergo training or to demonstrate proficiency (which were previous requirements). The need to obtain permits in the past was one tool available to the citizenry and the police to determine who, most likely, was carrying for personal protection (ie, those with permits) versus those who were carrying with bad intent (ie, those who didn't get permits and were carrying illegally).

I didn't think that the burden to obtain a CCW permit was especially high. Demonstrate that you can shoot and actually hit the intended target, and review situations when it is and when it is not appropriate to introduce a firearm. That was basically it. Unfortunately, there were those who felt that this was too much of a burden and they got the law changed.

This seems to be the biggest stumbling-block... Last standing desks I saw in a store selling office furniture were over $1000. I can't justify that at home, and I doubt that my employer would justify that at work.

I'm fortunate that I have both office and field components to my networking job, so I'm not sitting at my desk 40 hours a week for years on end and I get to walk and do some physical stuff to change it up, but for those that just sit, I can see this being a huge problem.

Smoking a brisket the traditional way, while requiring skill, is not something that's so complex that it can't be learned fairly quickly, probably more quickly than implementing a sophisticated control system to attempt to do it otherwise unattended. Besides, to implement one's own system one already needs to have mastered the skill to know what to implement in the first place, or has to learn the skill as one goes.

I've learned that I should not cook on a large scale. My wife and I can only eat so much and if we cook too much we get sick of whatever leftovers are generated too fast. I don't need to learn industrial or commercial processes for cooking as all I'll generate is waste. In a restaurant setting I'd be worried that too much automation would risk a breakdown that could cripple the menu on a busy night too, so even if automation is used to streamline the process there will still be a need to check on the condition of the product as it's cooked.

That's basically where I am now in a sense. My commute is so short that it's actually not economical to go electric at the moment; a good, low-miles used car with a lot of options is more cost effective than the bulk of electrics, but again, there's not really a used all-electric market yet, and those few cars that are all-electric don't really appeal to me.

My wife's commute is longer, and her tastes are different, so an electric might be more appealing to her and make more sense for range and reliability.

As for raw range itself, I want a car that can go 150 miles on a charge. The city I live in is a vast suburbia, and I want to be able to go to the other end of the city without having to charge to come back. 150 miles is basically half the range a single tank of gasoline gives most conventional cars, so I don't think this request is unreasonable.

Heh. I sort of miss the days when CPUs had pins and the sockets were just a pattern of holes. The ZIF socket of the nineties worked quite well.

Part of the reason that some of us take pride in our low-tech solutions is because we can achieve results above and beyond that of others even if we don't have any resources. I'm reminded how when Richard Petty crashed a stock car in the sixties during a big race; the team got the car back into running shape and aligned it with string to compare the geometry and got him back into the race, which he won. No fancy computer alignment or specialized tools, some mechanics hand tools and knowledge got them the solution.

It's great to use fancy tools or to construct a high-end system, but there's something to be said for being able to make it work without anything more than a brain and a few applied steps.

I use Safari on an OSX box from time to time, when I need to deal with work e-mail and I don't want to log-out of personal e-mail on the main browser. Seems to work fine that way.

So, does this legitimize a certain subset of epithets thrown at players by other players in online games or something?

Pretty much. My only real concern with a preloaded Linux install is that they'll probably pick a distro that I don't use, and if they've done any specific extra work to make their own packages, and there won't be packages for my distro available.

Even still, could be worse, at least there's a chance that more enterprising people than myself will build packages for my distro.

99.9% of customers don't care about an open source BIOS.

The trackpad is useful. The Window and Menu keys can be used with keyboard shortcut combinations. Taking away functionality that users have grown accustomed to and is expected by the OS is not a good business decision.

We just replaced an X301 with a Thinkpad Yoga 12.5" back in December. Honestly, if they would shrink the fairly large bezel around the screen but otherwise keep the feature set the same it would appeal. I can't deny that I like the keyboard on the X301 better than on the Thinkpad Yoga, and I certainly like the more modular nature of the X301 so that memory and storage can be replaced, as compared to how much of the Yoga is soldered-on.

The biggest thing that could help the X301 replacement would be price. They've got experience with Netbook form factors, and with tablet and convertible tablet form factors, so if they can keep the price down along with the weight then it could be a good choice if they can also keep it durable.

Thanks. We'll see if that makes the laptop more useful...

...punch the-equiavlent-of-bin-laden apps?

Based on the amount of anti-bin-laden crap that was around the office after Sept 11, there's clearly a market for anti-bogeyman propaganda.