I travel a lot. I happen to have a netbook (HP Mini), and an iPad. The netbook has a third of the battery life, is heavier and bulkier, has worse controls, and because the screen is held further away than the iPad it's also harder on the eyes. The keyboards are miserable on both, but the thing is that I can (and do) hook up a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. I can't get rid of the netbook's keyboard. I have the iWork set for my iPad, and I'm productive enough with them. Browsing is completely superior on the iPad.

The netbook was bought because it was an experiment, and now it's collecting dust. I'm using the iPad all the time, even when I'm working on my regular computers. Between high-quality tablets and dirt-cheap, full-sized laptops, netbooks don't stand a chance.

That really glosses over the importance of the centrifuges. They are massive, expensive machines to replace, and they directly handle the material. If failure occurred during operation (which was exactly what Stuxnet was designed to do), then on top of losing the machines, the nuclear material itself would be lost. The centrifuges are a critical part of the entire program, and their loss set Iran back years. It's unlikely that "full nuclear catastrophe" was ever a plan, given Stuxnet's precise design. Iran under a nuclear fog makes for bad PR, after all.

For those of you who haven't read it, here's a great summary of the unravelling of Stuxnet, the key players, and conclusions made. Or you could listen to the US cyber analyst blame "them Ruskies".

I spend hours and hours on Minecraft because I like the earned satisfaction when I build something awesome without hacking my inventory.

Days were spent in the original Rainbow Six mission planner because it was more important that I have a flawlessly-executed mission than beat the game.

The fact that I never had a weapon for the longest time in Dark Corners of the Earth, or had to hide from monsters in Amnesia, never bothered me in the least.

Gamers will create their own "scores" if the game allows them. Here, it seems pretty obvious that the player has to choose between danger, and the possible shots that they can get. Add the tension of being a soft, meaty target that can't shoot back. Putting together an effectively-edited video at the end of any event, whether or not they share it with the community, will give a lot of people a sense of satisfaction in the work they did earlier in the game.

So what I'm saying is that it offers creative appeal akin to Minecraft (getting the footage), the planning appeal of Rainbow Six (editing the footage), and the tension of DCotE or Amnesia (staying alive for the sake of the footage). These are all successful games in their own right, and I can see a lot of players looking forward to this. I know I'll be buying it on release day (if I can't pre-order it).

Name me one cheaper, faster, better tablet.

Heck, name me that has two of those qualities.

I think it's foolish to dismiss the strength of good vertical integration on user experience. You're completely right that it depends on what Amazon does with it, but having it in the first place is vital to controlling the user experience, and thus being able to ensure that it's high-quality). Apple does it by controlling every facet of their iDevices. Amazon did it with the Kindles and, outside of the speed of eInk, they're very easy and pleasant to use (I own a Kindle 2). Microsoft does this with WP7 and its requirements for phone manufacturers. Of course, if Amazon messes it up it can't pin blame on anyone else.

No doubt. Which is a huge uphill battle for Android tablets. Amazon has a better shot, because people understand "Kindle" as opposed to "iPad". This goes back to point #1, of course.

It's likely not fair to say that it's entirely a "different market" from the iPad, but I think you're right here. Amazon's tablet will (in theory) steal away some potential iPad buyers, but it's also likely to draw the attention of many others who weren't going to buy an iPad, for whatever reason. Amazon isn't trying to beat Apple at its own game, it's trying to squeeze in where there's room. I think that reasons #1-#4 will be instrumental in its success (or failure). So you're possibly right that it's not an iPad competitor, but if it's a viable tablet that sells well, then it'll be considered a wild success.

1. "Amazon" and "Kindle" already have significant mindshare in the general public, while Android tablets had to start from scratch.
2. Pundits are expecting it to "just work" with the same sort of tight vertical integration that helped make the iPad such a success.
3. Yes, its specs are similar to the Nook, only it does more than a Nook without having to be rooted first.
4. The "heavily-skinned, older version of Android" is not the same. All UIs are not equal.
5. There's no "suddenly" in the pundits' predictions. People have been expecting the Amazon tablet to be the strongest iPad competitor when it was barely a rumour.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Amazon has to offer. I love my iPad 2, but I'm eager to see something that actually challenges it, too.

Given that I have a fully-functional copy of Ascendancy running on my iPhone right now, and could in theory be running modern versions of SimCity, Civilization, Final Fantasy Tactics, or even Street Fighter, it's hard to argue that there's no "depth," unless you're deliberately confusing "depth" with "fancy graphics".

I haven't even tried the numerous adventure games available for iOS.

That isn't to say that there's no place for dedicated consoles. I can't stand the lack of buttons on my iDevices, so I avoid arcade/platform games which just can't feel right. But when the controls are designed well, and suit touch, iOS sings as well as any other console.

You think very wrong.

I've watched people beat Super Mario Brothers in under ten minutes. I guess it's no longer respectable? The time it takes to complete games hasn't changed. Action games (once platformers and top-down shooters, and now FPSes and 3rd person shooters) take a handful of hours to complete. RPGs take tens or hundreds of hours. Casual and arcade games take minutes to play and end up eating hours or even days of your life. I enjoy the Mass Effect series as much as I enjoy Super Mario World. I've also grown up and gained a great number of responsibilities and obligations that cut into the hours I used to spend playing video games. Sure, it "only" took me six hours, over three nights, to play through Portal 2's single player once. I had fun, and didn't feel ripped off. And when I'm playing video games, that's all that matters to me.

That said I doubt Win7 will work on netbooks, so I won't be surprised that XP will be with us for a long long time to come.

Actually, there have been lots of Win7 installs on netbooks, and the general consensus is that it runs fine. Is it as quick as running XP? Well, no, but don't forget that XP is a seven-year-old operating system that required a Pentium II at release.

I've been running the Win7beta for a couple weeks now, and it's been a pretty nice experience. My machine's perfectly capable of running Vista, though, so I haven't noticed many speed gains. The UI touch-ups are nice, though.

Send out a spam like this: [snip]

I can't be the only one who wanted to read that to the tune of the Major-General's Song.

I am the widow of a wealthy Arizonan millionaire.
His will is complicated and I'm pulling out all of my hair.
Please meet me in the desert and help me sort out my affairs.
I promise not to kill you but instead will give you a nice share.

Etc., etc.

I'd be willing fall for scams that put the effort into being musicals.