Presumably, the typist didn't even notice the gag until after she finished typing. Not having to look at the output (or the keyboard) is a major advantage of touch typing, as opposed to hunting-and-pecking, no matter how fast one can hunt and peck.

I loved my old Model-M keyboard, but IBM made one that I liked even better. It was the keyboard for a block-mode terminal for an old System/34 system I used in school. The keyboard was essentially the same one used on the Selectric typewriter, and with the power off, it felt terrible. However, with the power on, a solenoid in the keyboard case would bang the case with each keystroke, simulating the effect of the typing ball in the Selectric.

Having the physical feedback (*BANG*) made the keyboard a delight to use. Of course, it was even noisier than the Model-M (which is the chief complaint of those sitting near a happy Model-M user).

I'm not sure why this would be a problem. I helped move a SCO Unix-based legacy system to Windows, while running the legacy system in a VMware virtual machine. One of the major reasons to do this was because VMware allowed us to make USB- and Network-based peripherals look like legacy parallel and serial ports. The last I heard, the system was being used in over 14,000 locations.

BTW, did you know you can map parallel and serial ports in a VMware virtual machine to named pipes?

Just as everyone who buys a current "Windows 7" phone will soon discover that they are totally obsolete. 2012 is not a good year to be buying new Microsoft devices.

I can't think of anyone I know who would assume that Windows 8 won't run everything that Windows 7 runs.

I've been warning people away from Windows 8 (in any form) for the time being, until it becomes clear how big a mess this is going to be.

OTOH, I have "saved" several Word/Excel documents that had become too corrupted to be used in Microsoft Office. All I had to do was load them in OpenOffice and then save them with a different name, and they suddenly worked again in MS Office.

will also work for many people. I recently cut my cable TV service when I realized that almost everything I was actually watching was programming being broadcast over-the-air. A $50 antenna and I'm all set

That would be people who actually create content and who want to be able to conveniently use their work machine wherever they are (including places like airplanes).

FWIW, I have a 2011 Macbook Air, and the 4GB of Ram and 256MB of SSD are sufficient for me to run everything I want, including Win7 in a VM. My last machine was a 2009 Macbook Pro, and that had twice the RAM and disk space, but I found I didn't really need the extra storage, and the combination of faster CPU and much faster "disk" makes the new, lower-spec Air run (or at least seem to run) faster and better than my old laptop.

The same argument could be used to argue against getting health insurance, life insurance, auto insurance, homeowner's insurance, etc. Sometimes, the cost of misfortune is far higher than the cost of protecting against misfortune.

Amazingly, most of the Hitchhiker's Guide fans I know have never heard the original radio production. Many of them didn't even know that it was a radio production first.

My dog ate my math exam, and later passed it. Thank you! I'm here all week!

FlightGear is a multi-platform (Windows, OS/X, Linux) flight simulator written in C++ and QT. Seems to work well enough for them.

FlightGear is a multi-platform (Windows, OS/X, Linux) written in C++ and QT. Seems to work well enough for them.

First you have to convince my family to switch to it, because the only reason I'm on Facebook is because that's how my family members (non-geeks) communicate these days.

But, before that, you'll have to convince everyone who is friends with anyone in my family to switch. And, you'll have to apply this recursively until you've switched everyone in the world.

Oh, and you'll have to add stupid games, because that's why my family and their friends are on Facebook.

But as soon as you do that, count me in!

But the same thing happened last year for the nonexistent "iPhone 5". http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/29/iphone-5-cases-and-realistic-unibody-dummy-show-off-incredible-s/