The best solution: make it socially unacceptable (same level as kicking a dog) to drink and drive. Takes time and effort, but it has worked in most of Northern and Western Europe.

Amen.

Norway also has 0.02%. Around here, drinking a beer and then driving carries a fair amount of social stigma, and I think that's reasonable.

To go in hand with that, we have some good services for getting people safely to/from places where they consume alcohol. For instance, if you are a young person (below 22 I think) living outside public transport coverage, a cab ride home only costs you $10. Which is the same as one beer at the pub.

Or how about, you know, get together with your buddies, drive together, one of you drink non-alcoholic and drive the rest home. Take turns being the designated driver. It's called using your common sense, and it ain't rocket science.

Ignoring the complete non sequitur that is your argument: do you feel the same about the alcohol limits for airline pilots? If not, please explain the difference.

I guess GP said "netbook" when he meant "laptop", since there were no netbooks 12 years ago. And I'd also hazard a guess it has a graphics card which does the heavy video lifting. My netbook (AMD E-350) can play 1080p with CPU at ~10% (provided hardware acceleration is possible).

The problem is that application developers then have to care about security updates. Which they don't. To wit: Maple's Linux version contains it's own copy of Java, which is 1.6.0 v. 18 on my computer, from a three-month-old Maple install. That's a mind-boggling 30 updates (or 4 years) ago!

Two points you fail at:
1. Your point is a non sequitur. Just because other companies place larger orders does not make a 100K unit order "small fry". And if a business thinks 100K is too small an order, they should say so at the initial round of inquiries, and save themselves the embarrasement of looking incompetent.
2. Intel is fairly grateful towards basement dwellers, as they drive almost all sales of their upper-range chip sales (e.g. K series overclock-able CPUs).

But I believe you already made an arse of yourself with your previous comment about China having "an emmense (sic) population of genius level citizens". If the best minds of China are leaving to study in the US and Europe, how can the ones that remain be "genius level", especially when we know the Chinese population is subjected to far higher levels than people in the west of pollution and toxins that are known to reduce intelligence?

Not only that: his comment is untrue even if you want to use the oil for energy. Say I'm drilling a large reservoir, but it's very expensive to get the oil up. If I only sell 1 out of 3 gallons I produce, and use the remaining 2 for extracting the next 3 gallons of oil, that could very well be financially viable (depending on the price of oil at that moment, etc.)

Don't worry, it will only happen in the US, the rest of the world has government privacy watchdogs that usually earn their paycheck and protect the consumer.

The problem he is trying to point out is this one:
Let's say that we solve problem no. 1 for the environment: people stop buying new stuff when their old stuff still works. So you'll keep your car until repairing it would cost more than 30% of a new car.
Now, say I have 3-year-old efficient car, like a VW Polo BlueMotion, and assume my options are as follows:
1. Switch to an electric car
2. Keep the VW
How long does it take from today for Option 1 to have produced less total emissions (including manufacturing the electric car)? It comes out at around 7 years. As gasoline cars get more efficient, this quickly becomes >10 years. Now, what is the estimated life time of a battery pack for an electric car? That's right, about 10 years. What happens when the battery pack is dead? Buying a new battery pack costs more than the car is worth at that point, so you're going to buy a brand new electric car, that's what.
Extrapolating further: if gasoline car emissions are reduced by another 40% over the current VW Polo, and the Polo lasts for 20 years, you never pollute less by going for the electric car.

On many cars there is a fuse which controls ABS, traction control, and other driver assists. I know on Volvo it's usually fuse 21. Just remove it when you want to slide around a corner, or better yet, wire a switch in front of it that you put on the dashboard. Preferably one that looks like the missile trigger on a fighter jet. And yes, it's perfectly safe to have a car without ABS provided you know how to pump brake.

Disclaimer: this probably voids your warranty and whatever, and if you do it, you must tell your insurance company that you do not have ABS and traction control, otherwise your insurance is pretty much worthless as well.

The problem then is that all banks use Java. My bank is one of few that has a Java-free option, but that requires me to switch cellphone operator. (I'm Norwegian, but I gather Denmark is the same.)

You win today's Most Informative Post Award, and will receive the grand prize of five internets.

And perhaps more interestingly: why has this not been used as a plot device in scifi yet?