Free Republic

Today, February 22/ 5 Adar, marks 46 years to the day [on both calendars] since the Miracle on Ice victory over the Soviet Union.Team USA is all smiles.(February 22nd is another double birthday observance day; also tis the birthday of the father of our nation.)Adar is the month of Purim. As such, it is a month for Jewish commentaries involving wine.The Secret of WineAnd wine maketh glad the heart of man.. (Psalm 104:15)Wine enters, secrets emerge (Sanhedrin 38a.3)"Wine isn't just a drink in Jewish tradition -- it's a symbol of joy, sanctity, and ritual. From welcoming Shabbat to celebrating holidays...

Gallo, a major wine manufacturer, announced the closure of a large Napa Valley production facility and the elimination of nearly 100 jobs across Napa and Sonoma counties — a stark sign of the shifting landscape around alcohol consumption in America. Considered the worlds largest winemaker by volume, Gallo filed a “warning” notice with the California Employment Development Department on Feb. 12, confirming it will permanently pull the cork on The Ranch Winery in St. Helena. The closure will leave 56 workers high and dry by April 15. Gallo is also slashing staff at some of its other prestigious labels, including...

I have win10 on a couple computers and it turns out they can't be updated to win11

By my count, Linux has over 11% of the desktop market. Here's how I got that number - and why people are making the leap. The Linux desktop has continued its slow growth. Linux has been making gains in no small part because of Microsoft Windows' blunders. Users and governments have been losing trust in Windows and Microsoft. My colleague Jack Wallen and I have been telling you for a while now that you should switch from Windows to the Linux desktop. Sounds like some of you have been listening. The proof of the pudding comes from various sources. First,...

Linux users often hear phrases like “the terminal is faster” or “real Linux users don’t rely on the GUI.” While these statements are common in online communities, they rarely reflect how people actually use Linux in daily life. Most users browse the web, manage files, edit documents, connect external devices, and install apps without ever touching the command line.For everyday computing, the graphical interface is usually the most comfortable path. It is visual, discoverable, and forgiving. If you want to move a document, rename a set of photos, preview a video, or open a PDF, there is no reason to...

Like you, I see those flashy headlines and articles every day trying to convince Windows users to switch to Linux—how it’s supposedly better in every possible way, how you can use all your favorite apps, and so on. But honestly, most of that is just talk. It sounds great on paper, but it doesn’t match up with reality. Still, I guess those kinds of articles do their job pretty well.Here, though, I want to take a slightly different approach. Right from the start, let me be clear: I’m not here to persuade anyone to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Instead,...

ZDNET's key takeawaysWindows 10 support has ended, making Linux a possible alternative.It's a good time to consider switching from Windows to Linux.Switching to Linux can extend your computer's life and performance.I can still remember when I decided to install Linux on my very first computer (a Pentium 75). I'd been using Windows 95 and found myself more frustrated than not. I was experiencing constant blue screens of death, couldn't make the OS behave how I wanted, the software was expensive, and I hated the way it looked.So, I installed Linux over Windows, and the rest is history. I've been using...

Winboat is a tool that now easily let's you run your Windows programs underneath Linux in a way that makes it almost seamless. How do you do this? Let's find out!

As many of us have seen, Windows 11 is introducing AI into PCs programmed with that O/S. Granted, there are methods of removing it. Installing W11 with Rufus software is a common way of doing it. Using Flyoobe is another option. There is also software out there to remove unwanted components once W11 is installed. Regardless, I, and I'm sure many others, are trying to find ways of running Windows software on a Linux system. I've run across a few software packages in Linux that try to accomplish this. Bottles, Wine, Winapps and PlayonLinux are just a few things I've...

Want to play Windows games on your Linux system but not sure where to begin? Heard that some Linux distros are better optimized for gaming but don’t know which ones to pick? Don’t worry, here’s a guide to the five best Linux distros that make running Windows games smooth and hassle-free.The good news is that gaming on Linux has improved dramatically in recent years. Besides the many native Linux titles already available, you can also play a huge selection of Windows-only games using compatibility tools like Proton (built into Steam) and Wine. In fact, nearly 80% of the most popular...

When Linux was originally made public, it lacked many useful applications that the major competitor -Microsoft Windows was successfully supporting. Linux thus created a compatibility layer which was used to run the Windows application on Linux itself called Wine. PlayOnLinux is a front-end UI for the Wine application. It lets you install many popular Windows applications that you otherwise missed to use on Linux. You can run Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, iTunes and many other applications on your Linux system through PlayOnLinux.In this article, we will explain how to install PlayOnLinux on your Ubuntu both through the command...

What if, rather than make a Linux distro that can run Windows apps, you built the whole distro around Windows binaries instead?Loss32 is the most gleefully deranged idea for how to put together a Linux OS that we think we have ever read about in three and a half decades… but it's not impossible. Not only could it be done, there could be real advantages to doing it this way.The idea comes from a blogger and developer known as Hikari no Yume ("Dream of Light" in Japanese) who made it public at the 39th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany at...

The newly developed Muscat Shiragai grape offers a sweet, smooth flavor with a subtle Muscat aroma. Credit: Okayama University of Science ============================================================================= A team from Okayama University of Science has developed a new wine grape variety, “Muscat Shiragai.” A team of researchers led by Professor Emeritus Takuji Hoshino at Okayama University of Science (OUS) has developed a new wine grape variety called “Muscat Shiragai.” The grape was produced by crossing the wild Shiraga grape, which naturally grows only along the Takahashi River basin in Okayama Prefecture, with the well-known Muscat of Alexandria. The group has submitted the new variety for...

Research into grape pips found from an excavated Byzantine monastery in Israel hints at the origins of the ‘mysterious’ Gaza wine and the history of grapevine cultivation in desert conditions. The pips from settlements in Israel’s Negev desert - one of which was dated to the 8th century - were likely from a white grape, and is potentially the earliest of its kind documented anywhere in the world. It is thought it could be linked to the sweet white wine - the Gaza wine - that archaeologists have seen references to in historical records, but a lack of evidence of...

Heavy drinking, not cannabis, was tied to a sharp increase in unintended pregnancies—even among women actively trying to avoid them. The study reveals a gap between intention and outcome that alcohol may be widening. A Risky Link Between Alcohol and Unwanted Pregnancy According to a new study, women who strongly wanted to avoid pregnancy were significantly more likely to become pregnant if they engaged in heavy drinking. Their risk was 50% higher compared to women who drank moderately or did not drink at all. On the other hand, cannabis use showed no connection to increased chances of undesired pregnancy. Women...

Everyone has an opinion on tipping. Whether you add a standard 20% across the board or hate a tipping screen “on principle,” you might’ve noticed those opportunities popping up more frequently these days. Nearly nine in 10 Americans think tipping culture has gone too far — a sharp increase from the around 75% who thought the same last year. That’s according to a new report from personal finance company WalletHub, which examined Americans’ current attitudes toward gratuity. Survey respondents shared their views on this tricky subject, and it shows just how annoyed (and ultimately confused) Americans might feel about adding...

If there’s one place to find unexpected food combinations, it’s social media. TikTok recipes abound with weird combos like chamoy and pickles, whipped cream and lemonade or Jell-O mix and grapes. The mashup going viral right now is wine with jalapeños. People drop a few thin slices of fresh jalapeño into a cold glass of white or rosé and rave about the taste. At first, this pairing seems ridiculous. But I’m a certified taster and the author of How to Taste, and I can tell you that there’s solid logic behind this trend.

A recent investigation by University College Dublin archaeologist Conor Trainor posits that ceramic beehives found at the site of Knossos may be evidence that merchants on the island of Crete sold counterfeit products to their Roman clientele, The Conversation reports. Crete specialized in the production of a particular raisin wine sometimes known as passum. Drying out grapes before fermentation and making wine from raisins produces a sweeter vintage that was popular across the ancient Mediterranean world, especially with the Romans. However, this process requires time and patience, two things that Roman consumers may not have had. Trainor believes that there...

VIDEOHours after our rather hectic arrival in Portugal we finally got settled down in the Moov Hotel in the Oeiras district of the greater Lisbon area. I asked the person at the hotel desk if there were any restaurants within walking distance and he told us there was a pizza place and a restaurant called Casa Da Silva. Naturally we chose the latter in order to experience Portuguese food. Annnnnd WOW!!!It knocked my socks off including the fantastic house wine. Casa Da Silva would be a big hit in any city in the USA and yet Portugal, as we found...

If asked to picture an award-winning vineyard, your mind may well wander to a traditional wine-growing region such as Rioja in Spain, Napa Valley in California, Tuscany in Italy or Burgundy in France. It seems unlikely that you would begin with the sweeping plains and granite hills of Texas, but that may be about to change. The past few decades have seen an explosion in the Lone Star State’s wine production, with the number of Texan wineries soaring from around 20 in the 1980s to roughly 450 today, according to industry body Texas Wine Growers. This has been coupled with...