Although I think I'm convinced the consensus, even here, is "wait", I'll address your question for the crowd.

Some of the things I would like to use it for:

• Dock in my car for GPS/Navigation
• Dock in my car for OBD2 data feeds via Arduino hack
• Carry at work for lab notes and PDF drawing pull-ups
• Home automation panel via Arduino hack
• Books and Wired mag
• Surfing Slashdot when the kids and wife have the PCs all tied up!

I'll reply to you to address all the "save the $" and "6 mo CD" comments.

I've already set aside >2x the amount I'm willing to spend on this "treat", plus payed some debt down.

This exercise is trying to maximize the remaining bang-for-the-buck.

My daughter has an iPod Touch. It's just a bit too small for my older eyes and big, fat fingers.

That said, it is what got me researching.

I know the iPad2 will be fabulous, but as I said in the submission, I need a little more hackability. I picked up an Arduino kit for Christmas and have seen some interesting stuff integrating those two platforms.

P.S. FWIW, I don't need to mow lawns to afford the iPad... I could get the 3G version now with the money I have reserved for this.

You need to upgrade to the "29 or" version of your "6 to 4".

BONUS: You're more likely to get laid if you use this in your college dorm.

I've already seen the bumper sticker for that: "Mean People Suck"

First, let me be clear that I wholeheartedly agree with you that this is a question of freedom, and neither side is legally restricted, either from burning the Quran, or building a mosque near Ground Zero.

The point is the same that I try to convey to my young children: we have the FREEDOM to do a lot of things, but there may be CONSEQUENCES to your actions that are negative. I think this is why you have Petraeus and Obama weighing in on this subject. If it was ILLEGAL, you'd have the FBI knocking on your door... as it is, it is UNWISE, so you have people publicly suggesting you don't do it.

And what kind of management are you doing that wears out your shoes? Can't you manage-by-email or manage-by-powerpoint?

He's doing the calculation the wrong direction!

The genome contains enough information to build the brain from raw materials. However, this data has already been losslessly compressed by countless generations of evolution. We would need to discover the evolved compression algorithm to "unpack" the 800 million bytes into the 3.2 billion bytes (using his factor-of-4 ratio) in order to begin understanding it.

You actually get to talk to a person on the phone?

^^ This ^^

30 years ago, drilling a well at this depth was not possible. Drilling technology has advanced to the point where drilling at this depth is now possible. Technology has also advanced to the point where the "same shit they tried 30 years ago" is even an available option at 5000+ ft down.

As an engineer, I take offense when people come up with stuff off the top of their head and assume that teams of professionals haven't considered the same options and rationally analyzed the feasibility.

I can assure you, all the crazy ideas you can possibly consider, and more, are being discussed among the engineers at BP who actually have experience in this industry. Yes, this spill is horrible. No, I can't believe BP doesn't want to have this fixed ASAP. The engineers on the front line simply don't have time to address the media, therefore you are left with execs so far removed from the actual work that they look like incompetent boobs

To what scale is this a "map of the Earth"? At some point this will become so small a 3D map of the Earth is going to be indistinguishable from a sphere.