I think the rich SHOULD blow their money on this type of insanity; much better than writing off that 2.1 million dollars (being picked up by you and the rest of this land's taxpayers in the form of offsetting their deduction) and being all sanctimonious about their donation to charity or building another "Microsoft wing" at MIT. Yeah, if I were that rich I'd get a Tesla but the point is this sort of excess and the fun which goes along with it is the only real useful point to being rich that I can see. Being a bitch, serving their own interests and bossing people around seems to be their normal mode of operation; I'd rather seem them out on the road enjoying themselves and leaving the rest of us to enjoy ourselves a bit more.

OK- how about this- http://www.caterham.co.uk/. A caterham weighs less than a ton, out accelerates and out handles with the BASE engine about everything on the road and costs less than just about any sports car, much less supercar. It's reliable and perfect if you live in an area without a lot of snow or cold weather.

It's not as if the P51 or any aircraft was especially protected from 20mm cannon shells. If a plane were lightly loaded, rigid and thus maneuverable enough to avoid the unguided weapons of the time the material was irrelevant.

Along with the notion that Government was bad came the notion that Government was unfit for all intellectual activities and except for small (and growing smaller) enclaves at the national labs, NIST and the CDC, they got rid of really anyone with an advanced degree and engineering or scientific experience. Even the labs (like Sandia) are outsourced to companies with really few people within the Government or more precisely without a commercial interest in the activity, who understand what's going on. Understand me, people with an advanced technical background were forced out and are not welcome in the Government. The notion instead is that somewhere, out there in the big wide world, someone is somehow doing on their own and already has the answers- it only takes some tax dollars for this whatever it is to magically appear ready for use without even having to understand how it works.

There are still SBIRs and other small research activities but it's not big bucks and most of what's left is either driven by emergency (think CDC) or special operations (think UAVs, etc).

Yeah- two design features I don't get are the stupid touchpads and crappy batteries. Netbook manufacturers are you listening- DITCH THE DAMN TOUCHPADS. Hardly anyone uses them- it just ends up taking up very valuable keyboard real estate and periodically moving my cursor around in unexpected ways. I hate these damn things.

Secondly- 2.5hrs may be enough for regular laptop users who just use the thing as an overly expensive, delicate desktop anyway but netbooks are actually meant to be carried around and as such need to have much better battery life. I think five hours actual running time is mandatory. As a benchmark my 1000HA (with an aftermarket battery since ASUS hasn't grasped that people really, really care about battery life) has a TEN hour (that's 1-0) run time with Wi-fi. Come on netbook makers- take our cash- give us the option of getting decent batteries and don't waste our time and money on 2-3 hour runtimes. It's just not acceptable.

My brother is a digital media specialist (aka Librarian 2.0) for a major university and believe me Endnote has not just lost one client. Everyone on the inside is wicked pissed about their lawsuit, their outrageous fees and shitty service. They should not be surprised when Universities abandon them in droves just to avoid becoming the next target of this shitty company. Let's hope Blackboard is the next casualty since they suck even harder. (aka almost as much and in the same "make a simple task slow and complicated" way as this comment system on Slashdot)

Usually check engine lights don't matter- loose fuel caps etc will set them off. The basics haven't changed- if you have oil pressure and water flow you're more or less good to go. WHile the efficiency of the engine may suffer cars of the 1950s got along just fine without all this stuff so if your ECU is letting spark and fuel get to the engine the check engine light really doesn't mean shit. If you are worried get a scan gauge (about $150) and it will let you know if something crucial like fuel flow, turbo boost, water temp, oil, etc is gone wrong.

Unfortunately nobody (well I do but almost nobody) works on their own cars any more- cars now have the same status as jewelery or a blender. As a result, they are dropped off wherever and the repairs are a cost of doing business. Nobody gives a shit about independent mechanics either, few people even use them most people having been convinced that cars are "so complicated" only the dealer can work on them. MB even refuses to publish or allow others to publish detailed maintenance info. Check out the Bentley's manual and see just how sparse it is these days. Cars evidently have some new functions beyond moving forward and reverse that I have missed....

Until owners of cars begin to work on them and get pissed off about the lack of information becomes a purchase consideration manufacturers will continue this trend as it means more money for them. I will continue to drive my Bostig equipped VW van for another 20 years....

Ubuntu (Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty) all run fine and there are specialized distros like easy-peasy and eeeUbuntu which just add a customized kernel and extra utilities for managing power, etc. Ubuntu should install with no problems using Unetbootin or the equivalent. There's a good site with hits, etc. http://www.eeeuser.com/. Just check out the forums and distribution discussions.

My ma, my kids grandma runs Ubuntu- no problems whatsoever. She loves it. As far as the bigger screens nonsense Lenovo is spouting- sounds like he doesn't like the low margin netbook market and wants it to go away. My 7" ASUS was fine but the screen IS too small for regular use. The form factor though is perfect. My new 10" ASUS is about perfect esp with about 11hr (extended battery) run-time. If the screen were bigger I wouldn't get it, it would be too tough to carry around and bring on planes. If a notebook/netbook isn't EXTREMELY portable with a long run time I'll just stick to a much cheaper, more reliable and usable desktop.

Basically, nobody will sell a netbook with Linux on it despite it operating flawlessly on nearly all of them. Only Dell and on unobtainium ASUS model are available so we end up buying one with Windows on it and replacing it. For instance, I just bought a ASUS 1000HA. Guess what- a sale chocked up for Windows despite the fact that I'd just going to rm -rf * it as soon as the netbook arrives. Same thing for my daughter's netbook. She loves Ubuntu on it and has never had a problem. Lenovo is a MS whore.

Score for Grado- I own the SR125s- http://www.goodcans.com/HeadphoneReviews/grado125.htm

I have to assume you haven't tried to just use a netbook. Yeah I have desktop with a giant screen and quadcore at home but at work and on the road my Asus works just great, really well in fact. I bring a long cable so I can hook it up to the flat screens that are in more and more hotel rooms. Its fantastic for meetings and I don't have to worry about battery usage. On a plane it's fantastic as it fits right in my lap. At home we keep it on a shelf in the kitchen for looking up recipes, talking via skype and streaming music. I love the the thing- funny though I hated regular size laptops.

Yeah- all the netbook manufacturers seem stuck on that paradigm- I vote for getting rid of the speakers and touchpad, putting in a larger keyboard which can "unplug" from the surface of the system and all bluetooth accessories (mouse, keyboard, sound out) and switch to a DVI video out. Touchpads are the biggest change that's needed- they just make the system LESS usable not more.