what you say is reasonable but there are a lot of assumptions and i really would like to see some numbers.
Back in the old days pc were relatively polluting and none ever thought about that. Now we know of all the toxic problem related to their making - and their reciclying - so most companies are working on making them more "green".

So what about solar panel ? Are they made with this concepts in mind or are they made just as cheap as possible without taking in account pollution made to make them or not? How long does it takes to make them "greener" or , using math, when this is true ?

"amount of electricity of one panel per day" * "X days" + "pollution produced to make that panel" > "pollution per day of a fossile fuel power plant giving the same amount of electricity"
(i really hope it's readible)

Also you forget that solar panel will not last forever, so depending on the X of the equation above you can make some good assumption rather than running to solar panel because "they told me it's green so it must be".

I'm very happy to see this kind of competition however from a scientific prospective i see some problem: saying you save co2 with solar energy is a bit "gross", first to produce all those solar panels you had to pollute the environment so the first question someone should ask is : ok solar is good but how much do you pollute to produce one flat panel ? Are we sure the pollution made (and i'm not speaking only about amount of CO2 but also toxic in rivers, sea etc. etc. ) to make a solar panel is less than the one we would make to make the same power from "classic" method ? CO2 savings: well this is just ridiculous: a nuclear reactor, a wind reactor, a carbon fuel power plant, a hydroelectric power plant. 4 ways of getting electricity, four different amount of Co2 produced, so from what kind of power plant does your electricity come, this is how you try to figure out your real "co2 savings" . Next thing to speak about should the fact that our pollution doesn't come only from Co2 but from toxic wastes too, so measuring pollution with Co2 is ineffective and misleading. I really DO care for my planet and sometimes looks like all this "environmental talks" are just exscuses to push new products rather than really doing something to make earth a better place for our future generations but I might be wrong .

Even with plug and play software you have sometimes to stay hour to fix a problem because they aren't doing what they were told to do, so in that case you have spent $$ to buy the program and you have to spent time trying to fix problem or either contact customer support to find a way to solve the problem. This is not about Foss or proprietary sw, it's about wether a program is good or not and if their "default config" is enough satisfying for the 99% of the users who are just beginning with it. So maybe today you will find your linux distro more enjoyable since many default configuration works for lots of people and you haven't to spend time making custom configs.

and Giordano Bruno is still waiting, at least for turing it took only 60 years and not 500 :-)

no sorry, i just know the system today is flawed but i don't have any serious proposal.

yes that's what i'm talking about R&D for business since the one for the "commons" is mostly a matter of universities rather than private companies.

true. stronger ip laws will lead to even less R&D or to R&D which will involve 50% of the people there just to check if there hasn't been alread a previous IP on that idea . it is time to wipe out patent and copyright or rewrite it from the scratch to help evolve and not involve

page 16 (or 14) there are the top 10 isp supporting p2p piracy: Telecom italia is named twice at 11.6% and 1.6%... how come they are twice ? Iunet is named but the provider is named wind/infostrada . later in the page they named what they DID in December 2009 ... clearly a typo but.. does anyone re read it before publishing it ?

i went to see that page and i found it really horrible. the layout is not professional at all but rather one of those "conspiration page ALIENS ABDUCTED BY GOVERNMENT ZOMG ZOMG" template. the "shocking" attitude that spreading of opinion more like facts rather then .. opinion, which lead to "yes is true" "no it isn't because of this this and that" flamebait debate the "get linux" .. no really, i've been using linux on all my desktop and server since '98 but i'm aware of the fact that he's still not ready for end user joe the plumber also why not simply saying to look around for other oses ? it's not about windows vs linux it's about freedom of choice; what about freedos, what about bsd ? If you want to fight for the cause i think fsf should focus on making linux desktop more friendly to end user while keeping a high level of "hackable" for those who know what to do. I really hate these kind of campaign because they hurt my work and my reputation: when i go to a new client and i propose linux then i get that "you open source taliban yadda yadda yadda" and i have to spend a lot of time weighting sentences and phrases to explain why i proposed that solution based on linux, why it's a good thing for the company because of the less cost, etc. etc. Now i have a new campaign that will drop out my credibility again: ah you use linux, you're an open source taliban where's you tin foil hat ? seriously fsf, focus on coding, focus on producing good documentation on how to do "stuff" with linux, help on traslations for multilanguage. if you want to get rid of that poisoning education help debian-edu to prepare a nice distro that can be easily installed on a school network .

This is something you can activate on a router/firewall the same way today you activate Nat and Upnp to open some ports. Really, it's just a matter of the configuration guy to drop by default incoming to connection not initiated by you and enable only the hosts that are allowed to receive it.

yeah lawyers can make a mess for everything but if there's a written agreemen they can't ignore it. To the Author of the question: you can talk (through email) with your boss and make an agreement, the more you talk the less it is likely there would be a misunderstanding and it could be used in case some lawyers step in to claim anything. Since you already have some software licensed to you it would be only a mess to change property of the laptop and the software and it could lead to problem misunderstanding etc. etc. for his sake and yours it's better to just give $$ as a bonus without even saying it's because of the laptop. On the other side you'll both write and sing an agreement that at the moment you are using your personal laptop to do your work and both you and your company are good about this .

i did not know about this case so i went up looking back to all the story and trying to figure out what happened i've runned across these two that explain a bit http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/why-san-franciscos-network-admin-went-rogue-286?page=0,0 http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/childs-attempt-protect-network-password-gone-awry-978 What i'm now missing is what were his duties in the contract and who he had to provide those passwords. this document http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf cited in some post here is only about personal passwords and not system ones. So a sysadmin keeps an eye on security, he's asked by his boss in front of unauthorized people to reveal those passwords, in a improvised meeting in a place outside the place where he works. he refuse to say those passwords, he's suspended for unsubordination and some days later he's arrested, and he's still in prison He can only be guilt of being an asshole or too paranoid but since he was the only one responsible for the whole SF Wan who wouldn't have been ? you really would have give away your passwords knowing that if the day after the network would have been down it would have been your only responsability ? - "B....bbbut i gave the password to my boss!" - "Nice work! now you are fired and you'll be charged for the problem you caused with your inefficency" no really.. this story is crazy i really hope he will be released soon but then what about his lost job ? what about the loss in credibility he has to suffer due to ignorance of news that portrayed him as digital version of bin laden ?

it's not about segregation but rather keeping the competition as much fair as possible and keep that sport interesting. that's the reason you don't see a male gymnast jumping around with a ball or a ribbon

people don't go look for female baseball because they are not interested. in the same way they are not interested in floorball or male synchronized swimming. here where i live female volleyball is quite famous and many people go see their matches