the best way to do this is to make a basic user account for normal mode, and an administrator account for accessing everything. all the settings for WM can be made so that admin can see everything wile basic user sees only a custom menubar and desktop and can't actually do anything. if their desktop icons are made immutable they won't be able to remove them, and if you find cheap hardware to run it all on they won't be a target anymore except to spammers/con artists.

http://linuxgizmos.com/fanless-x86-mini-pc-runs-debian-on-2-3-watts/

is a $100 device you could work with and just tell them it's their new pc. since it has a serial port many hardware modems will work, and need no drivers, usb modems may or may not work i don't know...

Agreed on the ChromeBook.

I'm not sure about making a ChromeBook use dial-up, so the solution is to somehow get a WiFi router on dialup.

I think there used to be WiFi routers that could manage a modem directly, but there isn't much call for them these days so I doubt you can find one.

You could set up a computer with Linux just to manage the dialup, and plug that into the router's WAN port. But maybe you can just customize a router to do what you need:

Buy a router that is well supported by open firmware and has USB ports. Install the open firmware, login as root, then customize the router to do the dialup with a USB modem.

In the past, I have used TomatoUSB with an Asus RT-N16 router (costs about $80 new). It was a pleasure to work with. The router gives you about 24 MB of usable storage using onboard flash memory, but you can trivially plug in a USB flash drive and have gigabytes of storage if you need it. But you can probably set up the needed scripts to manage the modem in the 24 MB space.

There are newer routers with bigger onboard flash if you prefer. I only mention the Asus RT-N16 because I have actually worked with one, and it's very inexpensive. And it has plenty of CPU speed and RAM for this application.

The above solution is cheaper than using a computer to manage the dialup, and should be bulletproof. Also your relatives are unlikely to mess with it.

P.S. Hmm, I did a quick Google search and there are still routers with dialup support. Here's one for about $150... I've never used one so I don't know how well it works.
http://www.greatarbor.com/products.html#GAC-252

i don't know where to go with Linux recommendations but pppd on freebsd will allow dialup on demand, but if you don't want that a manual link can be put on the desktop. chflags run as root (chattr if you don't like bsd and insist on linux) can make files immutable then not even root can delete, or move without running the chflags program first. if you want parts of the os to be protected feel free to make immutable files anywhere you feel like it to 'harden' the system the freebsd handbook has a walkthrough on compiling the kernel which is highly recommended for removing features and making the system harder to hack. disable or remove everything you or they don't need to further harden the system, and use a customizable WM and edit it so that only the functions you or they need are present i don't know what the people use these days, though.
freebsd is easily configured to run on slow computers. keep in mind software modems may be a real pain to configure and there are usb modems that might work good, further research is required. i don't know what hardware you're running for them, but if you've got them on an arm board there are way more people working on linux based ARM support while FreeBSD warns they aren't end user ready... however a basic browser and email virtually anything x86 is usable for a modern browser which may not work right on dialup requires at least 256MB of ram with 1GB or better recommended by me.

Have none of these people spent even a week on the administration side, FFS? Change "an attacker" to "a malfunctioning process" and, all of a sudden, you want it to be recoverable so you can figure out WTF went wrong so you can fix it.

Jesus's father did know, but didn't care. If god(s) exist, they aren't very nice people.

Well, it depends on how pedantic one wants to be (and this is slashdot, after all.:))

BSD is Unix, but not UNIX(TM). That is, it has the provenance, but not the corporate blessing. Feeling that the latter would confer any value is probably a litmus test of some sort...

Your other two examples are duly solemnized carriers of the brand name, however. ;)

What they should do is use the ocean version of "pumped storage": build a giant vertical cylinder in the ocean, and when you have surplus electricity you pump water OUT of the chamber. Then when usage peaks and you need more electricity, you let water run back in and turn turbines to generate it.

It's probably a hell of a lot cheaper than batteries. Pumped storage has been an up-and-coming technology for 20 years now. I worked on one project in which they hollowed out an entire stone mountain, creating huge chambers to store water for a pumped-storage system.

When I was a child, we had a nice wood boat. A ChrisCraft. The finish was getting pretty weather-worn so my father took it to a guy who refinished boats to get it done. He specified brass screws, just like the original. The refinisher said, "Everybody uses stainless steel these days. They're just as good." My father reluctantly let him use the stainless steel screws.

The boat was moored by strong chains to a dock in the ocean. (You had to leave lots of play in the chains so the boat could ride up and down with the tide.) A few weeks later, by family got a call from the SeaBees. They had found the boat, dangling underwater by the chains holding it to the dock pilings.

The seawater had eaten the stainless steel screws right up. It only took a few weeks.

Fool! You failed to include the pager that I use the Most!

Small waves and ripples carry a lot of energy. Even the small waves that are not, on average, enough to budge a houseboat at all, can charge batteries and power lights, pumps, TVs, etc.

Had they been successful, they would have slingshotted the moon further away from us. Oh, the calamity!

Rather raises the question of why we went from devomax from full-independence-or-nothing in the space of twenty-four months.

No it does not. For fucks sake, I'm a Dutchman, I don't follow the UK news daily, and even I know that it was the Unionists who insisted on a two-alternative referendum. Salmond as negotiator offered Devo-Max as a possibility and was shot down.

What is it with you guys? Is reading and checking facts for yourself really that sodding hard?

I don't who taught you to read, but even across the North Sea it's obvious that it is Better Together, not the Yes campaign, who are threatening a nasty vicious divorce.

And second, it's an entire Yes campaign. It's not just the SNP. If even I can get that from here in the Netherlands, what's your excuse?

Oh, those grapes are sour.

OK, now let's run with that analogy, it's close enough for illustrative purposes.

So, 1/3 of all cars are exposed to this radiation which weakens seatbelts anyway.

Now, a small proportion of all cars, we could go by model but let's go by circumstance instead... Maybe let's say 98% cars used for off-roading are exposed to this radiation.

So now, instead of 33%, it's what, 34%, 35%? If this is an issue, then the 33% is also an issue and we should be doing what we an to eliminate that. Sure, it's not ideal if you're a farm worker or an off-roader (in the car analogy case) but many jobs and activities have negative aspects.

I just think that statistics are being used here to generate a story when there isn't one. "Farm workers have increased risk of infection" just doesn't have the same ring for pulling in the $$$