sudo is available on all linux distros, so using that as an argument against Ubuntu (or any other distro) is fallacious. Heck, it is available on OSX.

In terms of asking for the password too often, that is configurable for sudo.

The superuser password is not the same as the user password, the sudo password usually is, but does not have to be. Also, it is important to note that you can configure sudo to only allow certain root access processes to be allowed, and you can restrict which users can use sudo at all.

I would actually say that the continual attempt to make linux a popular (say even default) desktop OS is flawed. No, I don't say that windows, or OSX are not (as easily) open to options on desktops as linux. This is actually their strength. With the exception of win 8, any user can sit down at a Mac, or a windows box and just use it.

Linux is not, and IMHO should not, be trying for the masses, as all it will do, should it achieve this, is inherit the flaws of windows/OSX.

Furthermore, installing linux on an apple computer seems like an odd choice, since OSX is a desktop put ontop of BSD which like linux is based on unix. If you can do it on linux, you can do it on BSD is (for the most part) a true statement. They are not binary compatible from my understanding, but the strength of linux is that you can compile from sources.

I definitely like the OSX theme that they showed, but there is no compelling reason, for me to switch to Luna from OSX. Because, under the hood, OSX is BSD.

BSD allows you to do almost all the things you can do with Linux, albeit, some of the command line arguments are a bit different from UNIX, but since most Linux distro's support both versions of command line arguments, this is not such a big deal.

And many people would consume 2 - 5 per meal. I don't see it as curing obesity.

I backed up to the dark matter between the galaxies...

Lets see:
3 iMacs
2 iPhones
2 iPads
1 Kindle
1 Macbook pro
1 Mac Air
1 airport for speakers
1 ps3
1 networked printer.

So 11 or 12 depending.

Nonsense. They did not say our sun. The fuel for nuclear power plants was made in a sun, and just left over.

In theory the idea behind Wikileaks is good.

The idea is: People who do not act in a transparent way should be exposed.

Unfortunately WikiLeaks has lost it's way. They are "leaking" things just for the sensation. Much of what they have leaked in recent times has put peoples lives in danger.

Wikileaks needs to be shut down, unless someone with a more reasonable moral stance takes over, someone who is not trying to shock and awe, but is actually dedicated to exposing corruption. What we have now is someone that is making a big noise about how great he is.

Most places that have decent internet security do not allow the users to modify this type of setting on their PCs. Of those that do, they simply capture every request and retranslate them. Excepting of course for those that just pay lip service to the concept of security.

Indeed it does. If the GPS is attached to the window, or dash mounted it can be used. If however you cause an accident by setting the address as you drive, you get the $1000 fine and points on your license.

However, the biggest problem I have with this new law, is not that it exists, I live in Ontario and cheer that it is in place, is that it does not apply to police officers. They are allowed to use hand held devices (such as cell phones) while they are driving. What is it that makes a copper less likely to be distracted by a hand held device than you or me?

Interesting that they weight their numbers by game sales.

What this tells me is that people buy games that do not reflect social/racial diversity, not that games do not.

Like another poster said, social science that starts with the answer and works back from there. It would be interesting to see the stats if the weighting was removed, I suspect the answers would be quite different and would not meet the agenda of the people who sponsored the study.

I had my but saved by mozy when two drives on my raid 5 array failed at the same time.

Yup RAID is not perfect, but it saved me a couple of times when just a single drive failed. Yes, a 4 drive array had two single drive failures, and a 2 disk at once failures. Suffice it to say I will never buy a western digital drive again EVER!

My personal record to date (and probably ever) is 125 hours. I was indeed hallucinating by the end of this which made my job "interesting". Not something I would recommend, but when you are making minimum wage, you just have to do this sometimes.

Anyone who uses a free webhost and doesn't have a backup of the website is completely without my sympathy if the free webhoster decides to delete the site.

If the site is important, spend the money for a hosted site, it will probably cost less per month than your internet connection. Besides, most ISPs give you a site with your connection.

Even if you have paid for a site, you should have your own backup. At least one.

I can't comment much on whether this is a good route to go, other than that I am seriously looking at that route for my next upgrade. I am going to take your questions in reverse order.

1) Win-X cannot use more than 4 Gb RAM period, and effectively is limited to 3.5. Giving it more is a waste. Given your applications, give it this max. Keep in mind under virtualization, any memory given to Windows is not available for OS-X, so you should look at a minimum of 6 Gb of RAM.

2) Dual boot? Only worth while if you are not going to use virtualization. Of possible utility while you are getting the virtualization running bug free, but why not just use your old computer until that is done. I see it as another area to run into problems.

3) Virtualization. You indicate you have had problems with Parallels, have you looked at Sun's Virtual Box? It is Open Source under the GPL license, and is free. It can't hurt to give it a try, and being open source, with a major vendor behind it, I would imagine that any issues are likely to be resolved fairly quickly. (http://www.virtualbox.org/)

Just my two cents.