If I had a big group to feed, I think that whale would do quite nicely, thank you. Any chance you and I could partner to develop a more friendly, targeted, whales-only dynamite? I mean really, we're talking food here, let's leave the small fry out of it, don't you think?

I was speaking about commonly available, modern, 3d-capable hardware. They might be out there, but I've never seen an Intel video card on the shelf at the local Fry's.

Comparing nVidia with AMD/ATI, nVidia has always had more "just works." I left out Matrox, because even though they've always been great solid cards and indeed have/had great Linux support, they're not something I would buy to put in a new machine (though since you mention them, I probably own at least 5 or 6 of them, in various PCI and AGP configurations, and I still use them in some of my older boxes - they're some of the best 2D cards out there).

If you can show me a discrete Intel card in the $75-$125 price range with comparable performance to an ATI or nVidia card in that same price range, by all means, I'd be interested in going that route next time I build a machine (though that will probably be at least another 6-8 years, considering I haven't even bothered to turn my desktop machine back on after the last power outage 3 months ago).

I'm a pragmatist... I get behind the company who best supports their hardware on Linux, regardless of if the driver is open or closed source... I just want it to work dammit, and in my experience nVidia has always had more "just works" on Linux. AMD might "support" open source drivers and such, but I've always been very disappointed by the end result. So, if I want it to work on Linux, I buy nVidia, end of story.

I can re-image a couple hundred servers in a day or two, easily, and have done so many times. Apparently I'm working for the wrong employer, if I can make 130,000 Euros for two days' work somewhere else. If it's a bunch of different hardware spread across multiple geographic locations, it could take a few weeks to get all the infrastructure in place and do all the testing, but I'd still be willing to take 130,000 EUR/month for that kind of job.

It really depends on the gun. I have a few different carry guns, depending on the situation. I have a couple of single-action autos* that I carry "cocked and locked" with a round chambered, and the gun holstered. There's not a chance I'd carry a 1911 un-holstered in that condition, even though it has enough safety features it would be highly unlikely to have an AD.

That said, the gun I've most frequently carried over the past 8 years or so is a Kel-Tec P3AT, which has no safety. I carry it with a belt clip only, no holster, and I carry it chambered. It's not a safety concern to me, because it's a DAO pistol. the trigger pull is about 1" long and very heavy, and is small enough that my jeans act as an effective holster (keeping something from accidentally catching and pulling the trigger).

The most important things to consider are: 1) Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire and 2) Carry in such a way that nothing else can accidentally pull the trigger.

To do #2 effectively, you must know the firearm you carry inside and out. Know its safe modes of carry, and its unsafe modes of carry, and only carry it using safe modes of carry. Even beyond that, only carry in a manner you feel comfortable with - For some people, this means don't carry a 1911 cocked and locked, carry it un-chambered, even though C&L is considered a safe mode of carry for that firearm. For a DAO pistol, chambered and holstered is fine, and they usually don't have a safety. If that makes you nervous, don't chamber a round.

Finally, even though open carry is perfectly legal in many places, it's usually a good idea to conceal just to avoid freaking people out who aren't familiar with guns. I support the right to open carry, but I think a lot of people who do it are idiots looking for a fight, and that I don't like. If you do open carry and someone complains to you, be polite and encourage them to call police if they're concerned. Let the dispatcher be the one to tell them that what you're doing is perfectly legal and they should ignore you and move on with their lives. Don't be an ass about it, or you'll just give the rest of us a bad name.

*Side Note: "Autos" in this context means an auto-loading pistol, as opposed to something like a revolver. It does not, in this context, mean it lets off a string of shots every time I pull the trigger.

If only I had mod points... Agile is another buzzword for management to hide behind and another way for them to pin their personal failures on the people who work for them. Hooray.

Corporate America sucks.

Right, you should be running on Linux, obviously. Anyone who doubts the security of Linux should just look at Android, and how secure and untouched by malware it is... oh wait. Umm... maybe OpenBSD? I mean, it's gotta be secure, cause Theo says so. So do the other 3 people who use it.

Maybe it's actually more important to just run a modern OS behind a good firewall, use safe computing practices (don't blindly click on stupid stuff from computers or networks with sensitive information), and keep everything well-patched. That will remove > 98% of risk. A properly locked down and patched Windows machine is no less secure than a properly locked down and patched Linux, Apple, BSD, or other machine.

I'll absolutely second this - HP's servers kick ass, quite frankly. They've had a few pretty major problems in recent years (P400 and P800 array controllers were absolute pieces of shit from a reliability standpoint, and the P410 STILL doesn't work quite right with SATA drives, though it rocks with SAS disks), but overall the engineering that goes into HP servers puts them well ahead of their competition, from what I've experienced. I've used Dell, IBM, white box, and HP, on the scale of "hundreds to thousands" of each brand, stretching back 10+ years.

The HP's have been more reliable, more configurable, more robust (yes, this is different from reliable), more manageable, and FAR better supported. There's a reason companies pay a premium for HP hardware, and it's because it pays for itself many over during the life of the hardware.

There are companies and applications that don't need that kind of reliability and run on shoddy white-box hardware... think Google, Facebook, etc. There are others, particularly stateful services like telephony and conferencing, that depend on reliable hardware. For those like that, servers like what HP provides will always be in demand. So long as HP maintains their focus on engineering in the server space, they won't be going anywhere soon.

Interesting. I haven't researched it myself, but at a guess I'll bet there's a substantially bigger gap if we compare homicides instead of "firearm-related deaths." I suspect (but at the moment have no data to back this up) that Mexico has a significantly higher homicide-by-firearm rate and a significantly lower suicide-by-firearm rate.

Even without narrowing the scope to homicides, we see that a country with about 83% fewer guns per capita has a firearm-death rate about 8.5% higher than the US. I won't say gun laws are the causative factor here, there's substantially more factors that play into it, but it's clear from this that a simple "reducing the number of guns will reduce the firearm death rate" argument is also not valid.

I think when one starts to compare gun laws vs. crime rates in enough countries, it becomes pretty clear that they're not strongly related. There are contries with very liberal (where liberal = non-restrictive) gun laws, and some of the lowest violent crime rates in the world. There are others with extremely restrictive gun laws and extremely high violent crime rates, and then there are countries (and even areas within countries) where things are the exact opposite (restrictive with low crime rates, and liberal with high crime rates). Then there are a bunch of countries in the middle with regards to both. The simplest conclusion? Guns can be used to commit crimes, and they can be used to stop it, and there's probably not much true correlation between gun laws and crime rates. It's much more likely that crime rates are due to cultural and socio-economic issues. Television, movies and video games may or may not play into this. It probably does to some extent, though likely not as much as parenting practices and other adult influences during a child's development.

England: 332 knife deaths, population 5,3013,000
US: 1704 knife deaths, population 311,591,917

England: 1 in 159678 chance of dying by knife.
US: 1 in 182859 chance of dying by knife.

Englanders therefore are approximately 14.5% more likely to die by knife than Americans, averaged out.

Now, what are the total per-capita homicide rates between the nations? Forget what tool was used, and forget total numbers, it's the per-capita that matters.

You forgot the bit about "if need be, your society." If you need to understand the rationale behind this, look at any of the Arab countries who have recently decided "enough with our tyrant leader." Do you believe any of them could have been successful in casting off their oppressors without access to assault weapons? And are you truly so naive as to believe we couldn't end up with the same kind of oppression here?

The second amendment, at the most basic levels, exists to ensure "the security of a free state." If this isn't something you care about, then feel free to move to a less free state.

What's the per-capita "gun death" rate in Mexico? Better yet, let's scope it to homicides, as "gun deaths" is somewhat of a weasel term.

Compare firearm-related per-capita homicide rates in Mexico (where firearms and ammunition are tightly controlled and regulated) with those in the US. Better yet, compare with per-capita homicide rates in the US, excluding places that tightly regulate and control firearms, such as Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York.

If you don't give a shit about our rights, do the rest of us a favor and GTFO of our country (assuming you're in it). And if you're not in it, then do us a favor and piss off.

You could have simply stopped at "If only there was an OSS alternative to Office 2013..."

There's really not. OpenOffice/LibreOffice is ok for some stuff, I used it for years because I didn't have the money to buy MSFT Office, but now that I have a few years experience using the real thing I find it very frustrating to go back (I have a couple Linux systems where I don't have much choice, and any time I have to use a spreadsheet I realize how far behind OOo really is).

Higher education (college, university, whatever you want to call it) has never that I know of been considered a "right" to be enjoyed by all. It has always been reserved for the financially well-off (those who can afford it), the financially stupid (those willing to take on loads of debt for something not guaranteed to provide a return on investment), and the financially gifted (those given scholarships for any number of reasons).

There have also always been people who don't fit in any of the above categories, to whom a formal higher education is denied. Some of them make up for it through self-motivated study, obtaining books from the nearby library, etc. I suspect the free online courses appeal most to this class of people, and I suggest that if they are sufficiently motivated, available broadband internet will not be a limiting factor. There are still books available covering most material needed, and anything only available online can be accessed at a local library or similar place in any developed country.

For those who might say "what about the undeveloped countries," I say those people have bigger things to worry about, like where the next meal is coming from, how to get clean water, etc.

Funny that you got modded up for this while I got modded down for saying nearly the same thing in a more humorous manner. Perhaps I should have used refrigerators instead of Santa and his Militant Reindeer Army as my example.

Maybe the mods are cold today, and have become slow (and not able to appreciate humour) as a result.