And I'm a borderline human who was happy to get a D in Differential Equations. However, I encourage anyone who thinks differently to do what they feel is right, and leave the good jobs to the rest of us.

Or

A Hurd of Vaxen

A Beowulf cluster of Timex/Sinclair 1000s

There you go.

Yup, dual DSDD floppies. I bought these Cannon 2/3 height floppies at a local computer show. They had a funky faceplate that you would push in to open, that looked really good with the TRS-80 all in one design. Eventually I added a third external floppy.

The controller was from whoever always had the ad in the first few pages of 80-Microcomputing (later 80-Micro) magazine.

I prefered LDOS, which I needed to use my double-sided 360k floppies.

But I voted for TRS-80 DOS above as a general alternative.

Thanks ! This immediately came to mind, but I could not remember the title of the book.

Points to anyone who can spot the reference.

This reminds me of my college days, when the school was switching from all DEC Pro-350 computers to PCs. They were throwing out pallets of the DECs, and students were grabbing them all up - to use as space heaters. Had an off-campus basement apartment ? Extra cold night ? Turn on another DEC Pro-350 !

Not a complete solution, but possibly part of a solution. WowWee (The company that made the Robosapian) has a mobile webcam 'robot', the Rovio

http://www.wowwee.com/en/products/tech/telepresence/rovio

They sell it for pretty much your situation. So, whenever it's wondering around, the family can know "Dad is here !"

Better blowing it up in Iraq and Afghanistan than New York.

Sorry guys, short term "better you than me" goals are a fact of life.

Fscking hot.

Why should we go to the moon ? Do you want someone ELSE to be at the top of a big gravity well, throwing rocks at you ?

Of course, discussing the military aspects of space is unthinkable, so it doesn't come up. Meanwhile, some other country will get up there, And that scares me.

The ultimate irony will be if this letter does more to raise funds for EFF and Creative Commons then ASCAP

I'ld like to read a transcript of the phone call where they told them unicords don't exist.

"Causing a sensation and inspiring others in the literary community" isn't my idea of a ringing endorsement. At the risk of being rated flamebait again, I could take a dump in the middle of the street and cause a sensation, that wouldn't make it good literature.

Joyce's groundbreaking "Stream of consciousness" style is to most normal people simply incomprehensible. I was tortured by Portrait of the Artist in High School, couldn't make it all the way through Ulysses, and was spared Finnegans Wake. Heinlein's description of modern art as "Pseudo-intellectual Masturbation" applies very well to Joyce.