CP/M.

The important stuff: around 40 GB (photos, [home]work, repos, the /home I have had since forever etc...). The rest (music, videos, games I have bought, etc...) can be re-ripped/downloaded if needed - even though this would be a major chore. Haven't used a CD/DVD in quite a while: external hard drives (even an old HDD in a case) become more convenient for storing not-very-useful data.

The required first-aid kit was tried in Brazil some years ago. Until someone with a little bit of common sense realized that, for serious injuries, it was better to call an ambulance than have someone unskilled attempt care (which could turn the injury into something worse).

... get used to something I haven't used at all, due to a complete lack of interest, and that I will not use any time soon?

Slippery slope anyone?

If you don't mind doing coding, try Sage or Python + IPython + NumPy + SciPy. For a quick calculator I like to just use bc in a terminal.

... that the most interesting feature in library is discovery: finding related books just by looking at the nearby shelves? I will miss that when most libraries reach this degree of automation.

Hardening a newer processor, with much more transistors in a smaller process, will be quite expensive. Usually you'd go with the lowest-end possible for your application (all the heavy processing will be done on Earth, anyway).

But Apple has enough money to turn the development of this into hell.

... Apple finds a loophole and sues this developer into oblivion?

We are walking towards the same situation in Brazil: every new law pushes for higher salaries, as long as they are for politicians or judges, and other ways of keeping our bloated government fed. No matter who you vote for: they all stink and won't move a finger to make things slightly less sucky.

A 10-year-old (I think) oscilloscope - which takes floppies for storage - and a 19" CRT at work. At home, probably my digital camera (7 years old and taking good (IMHO) pictures - disclaimer: I understand nothing about photography).

"And therefore they can be herded into giving up their freedom by a combination of convenient features, pressure from institutions and the network effect."


Convenient features, such as stuff actually working well and doing what it's supposed to without needing tinkering. Pressure from institutions and network effect, aka '90% of my peers use the same software, it works well for our needs and it would be a major undertaking for them to migrate just to satisfy my whims'.

If you are travelling anywhere without HDD encryption, then you kinda deserve this. By the way, let's see them trying to put spyware on a PowerPC Linux laptop. :)

For every dropout that got to be a billionaire (specially if they don't come from a wealthy family which can pay for their mistakes), there are thousands of dropouts which will never get beyond a minimum-wage job.