the opinion of a professor is much more worthy than that of a manual worker

Unless the opinion being solicited is how to use a shovel. Or thoughts on the NFL Playoffs.

</sarcasm> ?

Can you imagine..

Can you imagine writing an article as a series of tweets?

Sounds very unprofessional.

Best initial $250 I ever spent on a computer and the upgrades I put in were totally worth it.

This. For the price, you can't beat 'em. I've had my EeePC for 3 years now and have been picking them up for friends and customers on ebay for up to $200 (new, unused, 1 year old, etc.). My favorites to bid on are the people who get them for free at a convention or whatever but never use it and it just sits in the closet until they realize, "Oh yeah, I can probably sell that."

I can do everything on my EeePC that I can do on my desktop at home and work, running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Everything works, webcam, mic, wireless. And I too have beat the crap out of it through rough handling and carelessness and it's still purring along.

That's only 96 days of round trip commuting for you. With 6 months per year, 5 days a week, with 33% unsuitable days, that's 40 days of use per year. So you'd break even in under 3 years. Plus, you're saving wear and tear on your main vehicle.

Perhaps, in an ideal world, your statement is accurate even though it's "a pretty simplistic analysis."

"Breaking even" isn't what I'm worried about when it comes to transportation. I had motorcycles that got 50-80 mpg and combinations of things you can't predict never made it possible to ride that many days. Weather, schedules, deliveries, pick-ups, meetings, carpools, giving kid's friends a ride too, mechanical difficulties - there's too many variables. For me it's not practical and I'm not saving any money either. Plus you're still neglecting the maintenance costs of the scooter and the fact that a vehicle that small can't travel on the highway.

The Subaru gets 25 mpg on a good day.

A scooter's cheap enough that you can buy one to use when it does make sense

I'm glad you seem to know my finances well enough to make this statement. Purchase price is not all that's spent when buying a vehicle. In addition to the initial cost, there's also insurance, taxes (paid annually), tags, and maintenance. I've owned several motorcycles and they need more upkeep than a car, so there's also a 'lost value of money over time' factor to consider.

When does it "make sense?" I routinely pick up and haul several computers at a time, have 2 kids that play sports, and drive 25 miles each way to work. I live in a climate where it'd be practical to drive a scooter/motorcycle from maybe end of April through end of September, provided it's not raining, which is usually 30% of the time (give-or-take).

I live on a twisty-turny mountain road that's rife w/ roadkill. I've hit several deer with my vehicle and lived to talk about it. How likely am I to survive hitting a deer on my bike? Not very.

The decision to buy a particular vehicle is not always driven by cost or even fuel economy. In fact, my current vehicle, a somewhat small Subaru Outback, was left to me when my father passed away. I drive it because it's practical and allows me to haul all the stuff I need to work and the kids around when necessary.

Buy a scooter, 1 gallon will get you 70 miles.

Ok, so what do you do when it's 13 deg. F (-10.5 C) outside, with a 40 mph wind? Have you ever driven a 2-wheeled vehicle on ice or in the snow? Or when it's pouring down rain?

What do you do when you have to take your kid to hockey practice? You may be able to fit all the "weekly shopping" on it, but will it hold all the pads, bags and sticks required for hockey? What if you have 3 kids that play hockey?

Just because something works fine for you doesn't mean that's the case for everyone.

When you go to the bathroom...you are getting a break form sitting

I'm not sure I want to know how you take a dump.

your body kicks into the hibernation-like mode, forget what its called

It's called ketosis

tldr; version: When your body stops burning carbs for energy it burns fat instead. Adkins, Paleo, etc. are all based on it.

As someone whose experienced how the body feels on the level of restricted calories required to trigger the effect that's been studied, its a life of lethargy and lack of energy. I used to eat twice a day, under 1000 calories, and my bodily functions followed (don't have a bowel movement but once every couple days, don't get hungry, etc). The side effects were I could barely work out hard for 20 minutes and couldn't enjoy outdoor activities because I simply didn't have the energy, wanting to sleep upwards of 12 hours a day when feasible.

Then you're doing it wrong.

craigslist is a shithole

I won't go that far, but it is somewhat cumbersome to use in certain circumstances. For example, a colleague and I were planning a trip to Cleveland to hire a new manager, and wanted to post an ad on CL about a week before we were going to be there. This way we could do a phone interview, arrange a meeting, etc. all before getting to Cleveland, instead of posting it when we got there and then sitting around for a week doing nothing.

The posts we submitted kept getting ghosted, and the only reason we could figure was because the IP addresses we submitted from weren't in the Cleveland area. Sure enough, when we arrived in Cleveland we tried posting again using the exact same text and it was accepted.

As a side note, the posts were accepted only after we used the hotel's wireless network. When we tried posting using a USB cellular card plugged into a laptop, the posts kept getting ghosted, for probably the same reason. It was a pain in the ass, but you get what you pay for I guess.

..why this is impractical and won't ever work.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons this won't work in my house during the summer, when the sun is most plentiful and we have the least amount of overcast days where I live:

• Because now I have to cut down all the trees that shade my house and help keep it cool in the summer
• Because none of my unshaded windows face the East/South/West.
• Because the awnings that block the hot summer sun on windows that aren't shaded by trees will have to be removed, meaning the interior of my house will be hotter, meaning the a/c will run more.

using patents the way you want limits the software industry by saying only this company can make any kind of a software that does this

Not really. What is says is, "This company can make any kind of software that does this, and any other company must license it from the 1st company."

Until the patent expires, of course.

Bedrock is fairly impermeable.