Hinduism? Shinto?

And what about Windows? Is that Scientology?

The transit is a van. Equivalent to the Econoline in the US, as far as I can tell, with both passenger and cargo versions.

Interesting point. So far it's not a problem - he's 70 next year and physically stronger than me (that's the IT lifestyle for you!) and doesn't have trouble with fine motor action. My grandfather did computer courses at the local library in his late 80s, maybe 90, and he did suffer from arthritis but still managed.

At this point I'm more worried about the software limitations. He may decide he wants to write a letter, and a tablet would be a pain for that (and printing - again, any cheap printer will do with a PC but there's more to consider for tablet compatibility). I just don't want to hit a point where he's frustrated at having spent his money on a tablet that can't do what a laptop would do for around the same sort of money.

I'm in the same situation with my dad. He's finally decided that there are too many things that really need internet access, such as shopping and booking holidays. After much discussion, we've decided that a laptop would be better for him. Tablets are great for browsing, but as soon as you need to do things a proper keyboard wins. OK, that's partly my preference as well, but I don't want him to hit a limitation.

He may also want to do some basic photo editing. He likes photography, and has been getting by with a printer that has a card slot for his SD cards. The ability to do basic edits and back up his photos will be useful.

And yes, I'm going Windows for him. I can't justify the cost of a Mac, and his peers all have Windows so they can swap advice. For someone who hasn't used it before, Windows 8 is fine - he won't have that learning curve of everything being different.

Happened to me but what's worse is it that the spark plugs had only ever been touched by the main dealer as part of a routine service (as required to maintain the service history). So even the "trained" junior mechanic managed to screw it up. Spark plugs actually popped out while driving, stripping the thread in the process.

I wouldn't trust them to fix it, but the little local garage round the corner rebored and inserted a new helicoil and replaced the spark plugs, all for about £130. Next day, whereas the main dealer wanted to charge twice that and do it the following week...

With senility, in various forms, it's no longer you suffering. You are not you any more. The memories, thoughts, experiences are all gone. You are just an animal. An empty physical shell. Probably sitting in your own shit.

No, I'd rather die. The trouble is I can only make that decision for myself while I'm still physically capable of implementing the decision, even though at that point I have some quality of life left.

Oh come on. Just. No. Suffering from which you recover, even partially, is one thing. Suffering of a largely senile old man? How can that be important?

The cat has more dignity because it isn't made to suffer.

I saw both my grandparents go through it, confused, in pain and - in their lucid moments - praying for the end to come.

Unless you want to run your own server, internet available, it's a way to have access from wherever you happen to be. Web interface, phone... whatever, wherever.

I use gmail, download all of it to my PC inside Thunderbird for archiving, and get the best of both worlds. Permanent local copy, plus ready access to incoming mail on my phone when I'm out.

I'm using Wunderlist for tasks and Evernote for notes, but I'm happy to use separate applications for each. The gmail calendar is good enough for me as I don't get out much :)

That's a good point, and one I had considered. I'd have preferred a separate screen, but the mini is underpowered and the pro is way over the top.

I figure I won't be upgrading any time soon anyway. Hardware improvements have tailed off, and even my old PC was good enough for most of my needs. I got the Mac in part because I wanted the screen and in part because I wanted to switch.

It's the best way to get a unix OS that can run commercial software. I need to use Lightroom and Photoshop. I prefer to use unix. I like a very high res screen. So the 27" iMac is perfect for my needs. YMMV.

Devil's advocate:

Why?

Most of the sites I visit don't require logins and so I can't see a reason to use https. Why would I need it in Wikipedia unless I'm editing it? Why would I need it on the internet archive unless I log in? Why would, say, the BBC News website need it at all?

Yes, for anything where you actually log on and do anything under a user account, https is important. I can't see any real reason for static content served to users who aren't logged on to be encrypted if it's just a news website, personal blog or whatever.

Encryption brings its own headaches to shared servers - name based virtual hosts being the obvious one. It's an overhead that isn't really required in most cases.

I see talk about trade sanctions and so on as a way for the EU to "punish" the US.

Germany are leading the way in that regard. I work for a UK company with subsidiaries in Germany. We are looking at moving various services in the cloud (management's bright idea), including Office 365 and one of the cloud based authentication services to tie it all together.

At the moment Germany are pretty much vetoing it. Nothing can be US hosted. That rules out Office 365 for email, anything running on AWS or Azure... unless it's hosted in the EU (or for some data, Germany itself) they tell us it's not compliant with their data protection laws.

I don't moderate, but that's worth a funny.