I, for one, resent being compared to Geek Squad.

Just a note: Scribus and Inkscape aren't even close to each other. Inkscape is more akin to Illustrator - it's a vector drawing application - whereas Scribus is more akin to Publisher or InDesign - it's a publishing layout application.

Hear hear, re: Outlook. Evolution or Thunderbird know how to speak IMAP, SMTP, and LDAP (for address book services).

And they multithread, so they don't lock up while talking to the server. Outlook still hasn't learned to do that, as of Outlook 2007.

Samba isn't really a drop-in replacement for AD. It can be a replacement for an NT4-era Domain Controller, maybe. But it only speaks NetBIOS/NetBUI and SMB. Active Directory replaces the former with LDAP and Kerberos, though I believe the Kerberos functionality can be discarded without missing much.

We don't subsidize kids to encourage having kids, you idiot. We subsidize kids because kids are expensive, and it's beneficial to society at large that the kids grow up educated (guess what? people without kids subsidize public schools too) and well taken care of rather than illiterate and malnourished.

We subsidize marriage (and make it somewhat difficult to dissolve) because it is (in theory) a stable relationship, and stable relationships are good for society as a whole, just ask a sociologist. It is particularly good for children to have parents who are in a stable relationship (just ask any kid whose parents are divorced), and encouraging marriage is the easiest way to ensure that.

By the way, (just at the general audience) this isn't a valid argument against gay marriage. Gays can adopt, and many do - it's still beneficial for adopted kids to be in a stable family, regardless of the gender of their adopted parents.

No, you're right. Power consumption is in watts - if something takes 5 Amperes at 120 V (600W), it will take 2.5 Amperes at 240 V (600W). There is very little difference in efficiency at either voltage since it's all stepped down to ~3V, 5.5V, and 12V anyway (and I think one other, lower) and rectified.

Where higher voltage does give you better efficiency is in the wiring, though wiring efficiency is pretty trivial in something the size of a data center unless it's a large one.

Except that certain types of alcohol (specifically, wine and derivatives (brandy)) are beneficial in moderation. Something to do with antioxidants, maybe. Also, liver damage has only been shown to result from consistent drinking to excess.

I don't know that a proper study of tobacco products in moderation has ever been conducted, however nicotine is known to be one of the more addictive substances that humans abuse, and the cocktail of arsenic, tar, and other shit you inhale can't possibly be good. Tobacco products have no physical benefit (nicotine, although a stimulant, has antidepressant properties for some people), and even in moderation do have the potential for significant harm, increasing risk of respiratory infection. And let's not forget that cigarette (can't speak to cigars) manufacturers have been/are known to add additives to their product to make them more addictive, something the FDA (in the States) has adamantly refused to regulate, in addition to refusing to require an ingredients list.

Thus, the double standard - tobacco is potentially harmful in any amount, where alcohol is known to be harmless or beneficial in moderation (just look at all of Italy).

Who the hell modded this guy Insightful? This is Flamebait, at best.

Can't resist, though.

People joining the military are well aware that the enemy shoots back. They join because they believe in the military or their country. Or for some other reason. Also, joining the military may be conducive to your respect and maturity, something parent may want to look to.

Alas, such is bureaucracy and democracy. Not everyone agrees, so it takes time to get things done. Always. Ever try to navigate the process required for a change in an enterprise computer system environment? Last place I worked took almost four years to complete their pilot of the next version of the system.

Paying taxes subsidizes that cell you'll be sharing with Bubba if you don't.

Taxes pay for education, public safety (read: police), roads, and everything else we of the first world are fortunate enough to take for granted.

Yeah, okay. You don't get to complain about something if you refuse to try to change it.

"If sent to a non-Microsoft mail system" isn't entirely accurate - if it's sent to another (foreign) Exchange/Outlook infrastructure, it still won't work. At least in some cases it won't.

I'd be curious to know if there are cases where it will, though - I've never seen it work (but then, that's the point, isn't it?)

Well here's the thing: they shouldn't need to. Google and Yahoo both push OpenID as a federated login (think MSN/.NET/Windows Live Passport, but free as in FSF). Go to Zoho - you click to sign in with either Yahoo or Google, and it bounces you to the respective OpenID sign-in page, without ever asking you for a URL.

This is a much more friendly, usable system to your typical user than "http://username.screenname.aol.com/" or whatever.

OpenID is a great system, and it's hardly dying. It's just changing.

The traditional (and right now, standard) view of OpenID is that you use a URL (or an i-name, which are all but useless because, hey, there's a lot of people qualified for =john.doe - and they are not free. How many people do you know with a .name URL?) to sign in to a website. This is pointless, because nobody wants to be identified by their blog when they log into facebook, or by their myspace account when they comment on blogger.

The way it's increasingly being used now is as a federated authentication mechanism, kind of like Windows Live Passport, except an open protocol. It's more or less completely transparent to the end user - I go to Zoho Office and click the button to log in with either Google or Yahoo, and it bounces me to the selected provider's OpenID page without forcing me to remember something like https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id. That kind of system - transparent federated authentication - is much more likely to catch on with your average end-user.

This process sounds (like me) a lot like the NEWS plug-in for Azureus/Vuze. It measures network speed and latency and compares it to peers in order to try to detect filtering/shaping.

Try reading that again. GP isn't saying that if a handful of members of a church you are in go against your principles you should leave, sie is saying that if the leadership violates your principles, it's time to find new leadership. Whether it refers to leadership at the level of a class, a congregation (ref. "radical imam" or Westboro Baptist Church), an area, or a religion (ref. Church of Scientology), it is time to find new leadership at that level.

That could just mean a different class in a given church. It could mean a new church, or it could mean a new religion (or sect thereof).