Nope, we're running off of cheap hydroelectric power. And there'd be more of it if it weren't for the "stop killing all the fish" hippies, etc.

Indeed. And I hope that sentiment spreads because I'm tired of left and right coasters moving here and trying to turn the place into another California or New York. Idaho is a terrible place to life. It's absolutely miserable. Stay away.

In his case, the math says $0.27 per KWh. The national average for September from the Department of Energy was $0.1194. Looks like location is his problem, although the DoE reports that California's average was $0.1459 per KWh. Are there enough taxes to raise that by 66%?

Lucky me, I live in Idaho. 7 cents per KWh. I whine when the power bill hits $100 in the summer.

Back in the day, that's what people did on /. /. today is just a social site where nerdy kids get together and share their snarky attitudes.

Well, something must be different, because I have it installed on an Acer Aspire One (the hard drive version) and it feels about as fast as XP was. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor. Now, I don't do anything crazy with the netbook, right? Just email, web and movies. So far, it hasn't crashed or locked up. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if there was some more tuning to customize the OS to the smaller performance footprint of netbooks. And, FWIW, it's probably completely inappropriate for an SSD-based netbook.

I installed it on my Aspire One (the XP/hard drive version). It works fine, even with the pretty graphics turned on. The \Windows directory is about 7GB. Performance feels like it's on a par with XP. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor.

The only thing that doesn't work is the little light on the palmrest that shows if the wireless network is enabled.

And, obviously, being super picky, Blizzard sells the subscriptions. But let's not get crazy.

As long as we're being picky, I'll point out that WoW sells subscriptions to the game. To the tune of about $150 million a month. But, if you wish, I'll meet your apple and raise you an orange.

On the other hand, at a hundred clams, the margin on those cheap-ass plastic guitars has to be nothing less than stellar.

Oh, of course. I completely agree with you. When I say "engineer" and "bean counter", I mean in areas of primary skills. When it comes down to it, we're also technicians, psychologists and, occasionally, comedians, too (my last bonus check was certainly a joke!)

What I was driving at in my comment was to respond to the parent's comment about everybody running his company being an accountant by training.

Wait...people on /. actually buy music from iTunes? Ick.

All I can say in response is that, in my experience, I get paid appropriately for the work that I do. My pay is based on my ability, the risks that I subject my little portion of the company to and the rewards that the company enjoys as a result of my work. Oh, and I wouldn't call what I (or any other engineer in my immediate vicinity "labor").

I'm an engineer. My supervisor is an engineer. Our department head is an engineer. Our vice president is an engineer. Holy smokes, even the president of the company is an engineer. The CEO? He's a bean counter.

My advice (which is free, so it's worth every penny you're paying) is that you ought to quit worrying about how much other people are making since there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Instead, why don't you concentrate on yourself. If increasing your value to the company doesn't increase your compensation, then you have a choice to make. Either accept that your compensation is what it's going to be or start looking for another job. But getting all wound up over some guy making more money than you, justified or not, is like competitive water treading. When you're done, you're all worn out, but you haven't gone anywhere.

Oh, and on a topical note, I use Excel. Not in a bean-counter way, though. It's a great engineering tool, particularly kick-ass at calculating transmission line impedance without any special programming.

I don't think that World of Warcraft is the target here. Think Second Life. Its currency is convertible into "real money".

Now that's the surest way I know of to garner a nice handful of "-1, Troll" mods. Well played, sir.

You're right, it is completely useless for on-the-go anything. Which is reasonable because that's not what it was made for. Read the article. No, I mean read it.

Or at least reluctantly satisfied!

Well, it may not be an iPhone killer, but it's also not going to be a Blackberry killer, either. It's just going to be another touchscreen phone that's lost in a sea of touchscreen phones that aren't made by Apple or RIM. After going through the personal agony of owning a few Palm devices (pre-Treo), I, like many others, have given up on Palm. They're big on talk, but that's about it.

On the other hand, since my expectations are pretty damn low, I guess they shouldn't have too much trouble meeting them.