Smoking a brisket the traditional way, while requiring skill, is not something that's so complex that it can't be learned fairly quickly, probably more quickly than implementing a sophisticated control system to attempt to do it otherwise unattended. Besides, to implement one's own system one already needs to have mastered the skill to know what to implement in the first place, or has to learn the skill as one goes.

I've learned that I should not cook on a large scale. My wife and I can only eat so much and if we cook too much we get sick of whatever leftovers are generated too fast. I don't need to learn industrial or commercial processes for cooking as all I'll generate is waste. In a restaurant setting I'd be worried that too much automation would risk a breakdown that could cripple the menu on a busy night too, so even if automation is used to streamline the process there will still be a need to check on the condition of the product as it's cooked.

That's basically where I am now in a sense. My commute is so short that it's actually not economical to go electric at the moment; a good, low-miles used car with a lot of options is more cost effective than the bulk of electrics, but again, there's not really a used all-electric market yet, and those few cars that are all-electric don't really appeal to me.

My wife's commute is longer, and her tastes are different, so an electric might be more appealing to her and make more sense for range and reliability.

As for raw range itself, I want a car that can go 150 miles on a charge. The city I live in is a vast suburbia, and I want to be able to go to the other end of the city without having to charge to come back. 150 miles is basically half the range a single tank of gasoline gives most conventional cars, so I don't think this request is unreasonable.

Heh. I sort of miss the days when CPUs had pins and the sockets were just a pattern of holes. The ZIF socket of the nineties worked quite well.

Part of the reason that some of us take pride in our low-tech solutions is because we can achieve results above and beyond that of others even if we don't have any resources. I'm reminded how when Richard Petty crashed a stock car in the sixties during a big race; the team got the car back into running shape and aligned it with string to compare the geometry and got him back into the race, which he won. No fancy computer alignment or specialized tools, some mechanics hand tools and knowledge got them the solution.

It's great to use fancy tools or to construct a high-end system, but there's something to be said for being able to make it work without anything more than a brain and a few applied steps.

I use Safari on an OSX box from time to time, when I need to deal with work e-mail and I don't want to log-out of personal e-mail on the main browser. Seems to work fine that way.

So, does this legitimize a certain subset of epithets thrown at players by other players in online games or something?

Pretty much. My only real concern with a preloaded Linux install is that they'll probably pick a distro that I don't use, and if they've done any specific extra work to make their own packages, and there won't be packages for my distro available.

Even still, could be worse, at least there's a chance that more enterprising people than myself will build packages for my distro.

99.9% of customers don't care about an open source BIOS.

The trackpad is useful. The Window and Menu keys can be used with keyboard shortcut combinations. Taking away functionality that users have grown accustomed to and is expected by the OS is not a good business decision.

We just replaced an X301 with a Thinkpad Yoga 12.5" back in December. Honestly, if they would shrink the fairly large bezel around the screen but otherwise keep the feature set the same it would appeal. I can't deny that I like the keyboard on the X301 better than on the Thinkpad Yoga, and I certainly like the more modular nature of the X301 so that memory and storage can be replaced, as compared to how much of the Yoga is soldered-on.

The biggest thing that could help the X301 replacement would be price. They've got experience with Netbook form factors, and with tablet and convertible tablet form factors, so if they can keep the price down along with the weight then it could be a good choice if they can also keep it durable.

Thanks. We'll see if that makes the laptop more useful...

...punch the-equiavlent-of-bin-laden apps?

Based on the amount of anti-bin-laden crap that was around the office after Sept 11, there's clearly a market for anti-bogeyman propaganda.

I suspect that the FCC will eventually have to step-in. One of the Part 15 rules is about not interfering, and clearly that's not working out so well. I can imagine a day when power levels have to be so low that an AP is basically only good for the room that it's in, or that's the default programming on an AP even if the end user might be able to raise it, and then the process to raise it would require bringing it up in steps, so that the user is encouraged to keep testing as they keep raising the level, so that they stop when they find enough power.

I want Linux on a laptop. The bulk of my work involves connecting at the command-line to other systems, sometimes through SSH, sometimes through serial. I like that the same command-line interface for initiating these connections is also the command line interface through which I can manipulate files in the filesystem, edit files through text editors, and manipulate files through command-line utilities.

While usually I can do my work from the office, sometimes I have to work in the field too. It's much easier to have one computer doing that work than it is to have one at the office, one out in the field, and one at home. Unfortunately the newest batch of portable computers, the convertible tablets, don't work well with X-Windows. This means having to have a separate computer at the office to connect into in order to work out of if I want access to everything that is helpful.

I've played with OSX-based laptops, I find the GUI clunky when it comes to working with multiple terminal windows, as Apple has taken the approach of using Apple-Tab to switch between applications, rather than switch between windows. It's more awkward than it should be to switch between multiple terminal sessions quickly. It also doesn't help that Apple has removed important keys from the keyboard, like pgup/pgdn, home/end, back-tab as shift of tab, and the distinction between backspace and delete, so a lot of the keys and combinations that I use effectively aren't available to me on the Mac.

I've ever heard of Guido-something or Allan Day, and Linux's mascot as a penguin, as an amimal that Linus Torvalds happens to like, has gotten fanbois salivating at the zoo near their enclosure.

Mr. Torvalds has a bit of a cult of personality around him, even if he doesn't participate with it much or contribute to it.

Mr. Torvalds,

For many uses of Linux such as on the desktop, other software beyond the kernel and the base GNU tools are required. What other projects would you like to see given priority, and what would you like to see implemented or improved?

Admittedly I thought most about X-Windows when asking this question; but I don't doubt that other daemons or systems can be just as important to the user experience.

Thank you for your efforts all these years.