While I use a pen for jotting quick notes, I mostly use pens to sign various documents (expenses, invoices, payroll, etc.) for which I'm responsible. I'd love to go digital, but it's not going to happen until I am king.

...and not just servers, but all the machine names on the network. (posted from Tullibardine)

Yep. I mostly grew up without TV, can't stand advertising, and have lived without TV for almost all of my adult life (I'm over 40). Same reason I don't listen to commercial radio.

See, GP, it's hardly a new thing or exclusively the domain of "hipsters". I know a few people who don't have TVs and like it that way.

Er, no. The publication process hasn't been muzzled as far as I know (and I'd probably know, see my comment further down). But this does point to some interesting challenges for the current generation of scientists.

Take a guy like Dave Schindler - when he ran ELA for the feds, he published and publicised ground-breaking work on nutrient loading and acid rain (to cite a couple of examples) that resulted in improved regulation. Today he's not employed by the feds, so he can and does tackle the oil sands issue, but those scientists who are employed by the feds are the ones who are told to vet their public comments.

My parents are retired scientists of world-class standing, previously employed by the Canadian federal government, with extensive networks of colleagues around the world as well as here in Canada. The current government's efforts to muzzle and control what scientists say is widely viewed as completely unacceptable by the scientists themselves, but the highest levels of the departments which employ them have long been taken over by bureacrats.

I would not be concerned with bias toward government goals on the part of the scientists, though. The government's attempts to vet and spin their public communications speaks quite eloquently to the scientists' integrity... and to this government's perfidy.

In my experience, most Diesel-powered cruising yachts have a separate Diesel genset. The good reasons for this should be fairly obvious.

Mine is the same, and I chose the same option. It would be interesting to know how many people do this.

"I'm Old Greeeegg!"

(Sorry, couldn't help myself, I just watched that last night.)

Erm, 1 litre is 1000 cubic CENTIMETRES, also (rather logically) known as the millilitre (mL).

...where's Dr. Lafe Hubert, aka Woodrow Wilson Smith? Sheesh.

I've used a LOT of mice over the years, and I went wireless way back. Currently I use a Logitech MX Revolution on my main home machine and another on my work notebook when it's docked. For travel, I use a Logitech V470. I'm no hardcore gamer, but the Revolution has always performed very well in every application up to and including casual gaming. The V470 is my second Bluetooth mouse (on my second Bluetooth notebook) and also performs very well.

I use my notebook all day every day at work, so I only get about a week of battery life out of the office Revolution, but it charges fairly quickly and I always have the Bluetooth mouse for backup if the Revolution runs low while I'm working. No manual switching necessary, it just works. The V470 runs on AAs, and I have yet to need a battery change, but I've only had it for a few months.

The one thing that will drive you crazy with some Logitech wireless mice, the MX Revolution among them, is their crappy charger design. I love the mouse, but you have to keep the charging contacts very clean (especially on the mouse, where a small pencil eraser helps) and fiddle with placement in the charging cradle waaaaay more than you should, especially with an older one. It's enough of a problem that I've seriously considered "acquiring" some electrolytic paste (like they use on ECG contacts) to make charging easier. That being said, it's still worth it.

To zero in on your original question - I would avoid USB dongles unless they are tiny enough that you can leave them plugged in all the time. I killed my first notebook (the one before the one before this one) by plugging a USB dongle into it one or more times a day - eventually the USB port separated from the motherboard, and everything went to hell after that. This, incidentally, is why I use a dock at work... and why both of my subsequent notebooks have had Bluetooth and a Bluetooth mouse.

So... I'd say go Bluetooth, and the V470 is a good choice if you're after a compact ambidextrous mouse with good battery life and a power switch (you want a power switch). Good luck!

About sixty thousand years earlier, IIRC.