Cheap headphones cost around 5-10$(tops).
The quality ones (Creative EP-630, Soundmagic etc.,) start from $15, and offer brilliant sound quality for use with entry level mp3 players.
However, if you have a cutting edge high end system, or a very high end sound card, and listen to flac or other uncompressed formats, a 30-50$ in ear will make quite a difference.
If you travel the subway, spend $50 to buy a noise cancellation (active), it will be worth it.

That said, from 50$ onwards, sound quality increase is incremental. A 80$ headphone will have the sound quality of 250$ headphones for 99.9% of the listeners.
However, most people, even ones with ruined years from years of high volume listening, can easily tell between a 10$ and a 30$ in-ear headphone.

Then a lot depends on music too. If you are a metal/rock kind of "bright" music guy, you will find quality from 15$ onwards. If you are a opera kind of guy, come to $30. If you have sensitive ears, $50, if you have the hearing of superman, spend $80.
"Audiophiles, even hardcore ones" tell me that above $80 its one in a million who will get the difference in case of in ear. In case of over the ear headphones, the peak happens around 120$. However, for me, the peak happens in the $50-60 range. Anything above that sounds the same to me no matter what the music, but then I do not have a very high end system, just a decent quality sound card, and listen to mp3 at 320kbps

Whats the driver?
If its your PC/Laptop. over the ear "HEADPHONES" will do.
Sennhieser RS110 or similar(HD series) all have excellent quality. Truly amazing.

However, if its your tiny mp3 player, in ear is the only way to go
I use a Soundmagic PL-21 which cost 20$, and are excellent. With your budget, you can get sennhieser or Klipsch image S4 etc.,
Again, I have listened, and they sound better than the soundmagic.

That said, my budget was $25(for creative nano), and PL-21 came out to be the best

Yes, thats how it is in EDA industry.
The "requirement" bit is mostly done by the AE or Product engineer, who knows the product.
Sales guy job is to
1. Arrange for an EVAL, i.e, get a foothold in the customer
2. Post EVAL, negotiate a deal

Unfortunately, many other tech vendors do not follow this route.

I was a cloud believer.
And then I saw this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjo7Gh_a07E

And it opened my eyes. Seriously. The cloud computing risks are too great to comprehend. This guy knows what he is talking about. He is an Ex-IT commissionar in India and a very wise and intelligent man. His in depth knowledge about cloud computing should be dispensed to all of slashdot

When you have a high density condo, by pooling in their resources, members can actually get much better QoS

For example, 80 condos can make a deal with a leased line vendor and get a 1000mbps 1:1 connection.
Even if everybody is using their internet at the same time downloading torrents, you still have a 10mbps+ actually BW available to users.

Monthly cost of 1000mbps is in the ballpark of 500-1000$

Even if you take it as 1000$/month, we are talking about less than 20$ per condo, which is cheaper than the cheapest 10mbps unlimited ADSL plan from a DSL provider.

Unfortunately, this is true worldwide
For example I pay 1399 INR for a 4mbps ADSL connection in India (25$ approx).
However, monthly quota is 30GB, after which you get throttled to 256kbps

Some countries have 200-300GB quotas as the norm, while people like us are at 30GB.

The 20$ plan from the same ISP gives you around 10GB/month quota.
I expect the problem to get worse in the future.

I also enable ads. Some of the ads are interesting. However, Slashdot needs to give some control on type of ads. For example, I have no interest in ads pertaining to women's clothing :D

Somehow, the media is hooked onto the theory that GM modified crops will make us all Zombies.
That is not the problem. I really doubt that these modifications will create crops which will cause health problems.
The actual problem is licensing and economics.

A seed is a thing which cannot be contained. If you neighbor has a crop, seeds will come to you farm.
If its a resilient crop, it may dominate too.
And then they lawyers come with their army, and drag you to court. How many small farmers can afford to fight.
Yes, there will be farmers who will willfully cheat, but right now the licensing model, and the law does not recognize this difference.

To be frank, GM crops can actually help coping with food shortage, but the licensing model has made something which is a boon, a bane.

How did a douchebag like Edison end up with these "inventors".
And shockingly, he a few peoples favorite too!

New Egg has a very good advanced search feature
Just input your screen size.
As for quality, Asus, and Toshiba make very good laptops
For example, toshiba Qosmio is great VFM, but screen is 1600x900, I think you want atleast full HD.
In that case you can get Asus for arond 900$
Again decent build quality.

But I don't want to take risks.
IR 900nm type of filter will cut out UV and visible light, but will let in Infra red radiation, and Sun is a pretty powerful source.