Thanks for the tips. My father-in-law is a Windows man, it's too late to get him on the Mac or Linux wagon. I checked out Acer for the first time upon your suggestion, and they linked to a couple decent boxes sold at Amazon. I'll give them another look over, but the prices were nice. Cheers.

I wonder what Freud would say about such "extreme caving"?

I can't find Ninjavideo up with a new domain/registrar. If anyone finds it please let me know.

Am I the only middle-aged geek who DIDN'T think Dr. Demento was funny? I never found his shtick clever or humorous, and I just don't get why so many folks are nostalgic over such low-quality entertainment. You all can argue over the merits of radio and clear channels and whatnot till you're blue in the face, but I think perhaps this is just a simple story of bad quality entertainment justifiably giving way to slightly lesser bad quality entertainment in a natural evolution of mediocrity.

"Pa doesn't love Fa!" still brings a tear to my eye.

Garbage in, garbage out.

I'm amazed how many people think they are ENTITLED to an education and a high paying job simply because they went to college.

Did they study while there? Did they take complex, challenging classes? Did they engage the material and actually THINK about it? Or did they just coast along, getting C's and drinking at the frat house every Friday night?

99% of all statistics are made up.

As a history professor, I can safely say it's that kind of thinking that leads students to not come to lecture and instead rely on the interwebs when it comes time to study for exams.

Of course those students fail miserably, while those who attend lecture do much, much better.

Can someone please mod this post up a bit? It's VERY to the point and well-stated. Sadly, I don't have any mod points left.

Kudos to you, thesandtiger, for doing what so few on /. ever seem to do: hitting the nail on the head.

Yep, I was a big fan and user of the Jornada 820. I took mine overseas with me and recorded my daily research on it, but it was a very versatile platform. The nice keyboard and long battery life were outstanding features which sadly today's manufacturers apparently no longer care about.

As a Californian, all the Midwest looks alike to me. Is there a Smallville anywhere near the meteor's GZ?

One word: education.

Americans have stopped valuing education for a generation or two now (at least). Anti-intellectualism is at an all-time high, with the "red state," "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" mentality dominating American culture.

And an undereducated population makes bad decisions, including what to do with their dollars. It's that simple. We Americans now value our 60" plasmas more than caring about the consequences our purchases have (even if that purchase is on credit cards we can't afford).

You know, that's an interesting question re: audience, which I hadn't honestly considered. Dr. Who way back in the early 80s here in America was on late at night (on PBS), and the most recent SciFi channel incarnation (I refuse to use SyFy) was also on, IIRC, a tad later in primetime (9p? 10p?). Either way, it seems to me to have been marketed to adults.

If, indeed, it's a children's show, then I'll back off my criticisms of it.

Yes, I'm a Yank, but I love Python, I love Adams and the HHGTTG, I love Peter Sellers...so I think I'm at least a bit in tune with British humo(u)r.

I also love SciFi, from Foundation to Lost, from Heinlein to Farscape, so I think my tastes there are eclectic enough.

But Dr. Who, in every incarnation I've tried, has never been funny to me, never exciting, never clever, never interesting, and never even campy fun. It's always been boring, uninspired, trite, B (hell, not even B but maybe D) grade drivel. *shrug*

I don't have any mod points, someone give this post some credit. We Americans need to stop letting the loonies think they are on even footing with the rest of society. We're only doing ourselves a disservice. First we let the Scientologists think they are legits, then creationists, then the Tea Baggers, now Jedis? Ugh.