Or, experiment with SQLite. You can download a self-contained standalone precompiled binary that you run as an ordinary command-line program. (ex: "sqlite3 mynewdatabase.db") In fact, sqlite3 is already installed by default on your Mac and probably also on your Linux desktop, so you might not need to install anything at all. There are no servers to set up and maintain and no access permissions and user accounts and passwords to configure. And the database you create is just an ordinary disk file that can delete once you finish experimenting.

All of the databases on your Android and iPhone are SQLite databases, so if you want to look at some real-world data, just upload them and look at them using the sqlite3 command-line tool. You might find other SQLite databases to look at already on your workstation from programs like Firefox, Skype, iTunes, Dropbox, etc.

MySQL, MariaDB, and PosgreSQL are all fine products. But if all you want to do is experiment with the SQL language, they are way, way more complication than you need.

The importance of something like this (assuming the report is true) is for use as an energy storage mechanism, not as a means of "producing" energy.

Imagine a PVC power plant out in the desert someplace. Electricity from the plant is used to generate liquid hydrocarbons that can be stored and burned for fuel for use when the sun isn't shining, or that can be used in circumstances that are necessarily off-grid such as to power an airplane. The "gasoline" thus produced can be thought of more as a battery than as an energy "source". It is merely storing the energy of the sun for later use. And it is completely carbon neutral since the CO2 released when the fuel is burned was taken out of the atmosphere in the first place so there is no net change in atmospheric CO2.

The Achilles's heel of many renewable energy schemes has always been that they are inconsistent and do not generate energy when and where it is needed, and that there is no efficient way of storing the energy for later use. If the reports in this article are true (and that is a BIG IF) then this could be a huge win for renewable energy.

So the idea is sound. The question becomes whether or not the report is real (I have serious doubts) and if it is real, is the efficiency sufficient to make it worthwhile.

• (1) Your corporation will have a separate tax ID number, meaning that you won't have to give your your SSN to clients.
• (2) Your personal assets are better protected from liability lawsuits
• (3) Clients tend to take you more seriously if you are a corporation rather than a sole proprietor.

Disadvantages:

• (1) You have two income tax returns to file instead of just one. And the corporate return is considerably more complicated and jargon-rich than the 1040 you are used to. You can try to do the corporate income tax return yourself if you are masochist, but I would recommend paying $500-$1000 to get an income tax profession to do it for you. Getting the corporate return prepared professionally might also help you to avoid unwanted attention from the IRS.
• (2) There is a lot more paperwork. You will have monthly and quarterly filings with various local, state, and federal entities. I recommend that you keep a calendar of what needs to be filed, with whom, and when.
• (3) You will need new bank accounts. (Co-mingling of personal and corporate funds is not allowed.) Banks charge higher fees and pay less interest and offer fewer fraud protection guarantees to corporate accounts.

Showing the use of a search term in context (i.e. showing a "snippet") is a feature of a concordance - a kind of document that has been produced manually for hundreds of years. So there seems to be lots of prior art.

I've actually *sold* a few of licenses to the public domain SQLite library. Companies call me up and say they want to license the product. I carefully explain that no license is necessary and that they can use it forever for free for anything they want. But they still want a license. So I sell them one. So far, I've sold them cheap. Maybe I should charge more....

This appears to be more of an issue in Europe where, apparently, the concept of "public domain" is less well defined than in the US.