"You're that clever shark, aren't you?"
"Just a dolphin mam..."

Works over here (NZ) on diesel vehicles. When I had my last diesel I used to pay up front for kilometers (usually 10,000) for x amount of money. If you are ever stopped and found to not have enough kilometers to cover what is actually on your odometer you are fined. You can read about it here: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicle/registration-licensing/ruc/index.html I had no problem paying them and thought it was a fair way of taxing. Much better than taxing at the pump like they do with gas. It was depressing when I started driving (I'm originally from WV) and looking at the amount of tax clipped on at the pump.

... expect someone else to see it. It really is that simple. Anytime data leaves your network or has a means of leaving your network, expect that someone else can and is looking at it. Of course you can encrypt everything, use Tor, only go to HTTPS sites, etc, but as soon as you place or pull data from someone else's systems or networks, expect there to be a trail or log of that happening at the very least. This isn't conspiracy theory or whatnot, it's common sense really. Do I like it? No. Do I not like it enough to quit using the internet, phones, etc?? Hell no!!! I'm just aware (as I have always been) that if I use someone else's stuff, don't expect the experience to be fully private, that's all...

About the same for me as well. We had a TRS-80 in class and learned on that in 2nd Grade (in '82). First it was copying down what was in the book, then basic problem solving along the lines of "What's missing in this line". I should have really kept going with it but by the time I was 12 I was completely and utterly fed up with it. That's when I switched to music. :) Of course, nowadays I pay the bills doing the usual admin and network engineering I would say a lot of us do and try not to get anywhere near programming.

Funnily enough, my son has gotten into programming via Minecraft and Lua scripting. Through this he has moved into VB (although he was interested in this prior to Minecraft), Javascript, toying with C++ now, and still tinkering with C as well. All in all, maybe a book may not be the best option.

That 1680x1050 res screen isn't in a cheap laptop you bought from a store I would assume (bad me for assuming). My boss has a Dell with that same res and I keep telling him what I'll tell you, you'll need to get a decent consumer grade laptop (probably gamer spec'd) or a decent business machine to get a good resolution. There are more and more (basing this on NZ stores mind you so take with a grain of salt) lower end laptops sporting better resolutions but, on average, you need to pay a bit more for a better resolution and that usually means not a cheap laptop for the masses.

Why not just PXE boot a small OS image which does the backup and wipes the drives?? Linux or DOS will do the trick just fine. If you're trying to backup anything NT based (NT-Win7) get a read-only NTFS driver on the PXE image too. It's pretty simple really and doesn't take any real time IF all of your systems are semi-modern.

... to welcome our new Aussie overlords.

I know where I'll be buying my next iPhone. Over here the pricing is as follows:

16GB = $949 NZD 32GB = $1129 NZD

Direct conversion USD -> NZD

16GB = $793 NZD 32GB = $915 NZD

From an iPhone user's point of view (at least this iPhone user's view), this is a catch-up to not only Android, but also some of the fun little things users currently jailbreak their phones for. I've been a good little boy and haven't jailbroken this phone yet and will wait till this fall to see how version 5 does. Hopefully the notification system is on par with what Android has. As far as the camera goes, I still don't see HOW it has taken them this long to figure that brain-dead feature out. I'm picking no one in the higher ranks of Apple use their phones for taking photos. As for iCloud, meh. If I were still living in the US i would use Google's service. Since I live in NZ, iCloud will be first to the show over here.

Here's a small list to start with of treaties which weren't honored: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_treaties_did_the_US_break_with_native_Americans To the other part of your post, being an American who has been living outside the US for over a decade, it's very interesting seeing the world perspective versus the US perspective in things like the news. As a little homework assignment for all Americans, watch the news over the next few days. After watching, try to find similar stories from other countries and see how they report it. It wouldn't be difficult to find a real list but, hell, it's been a long day and I'm tired.

or I could have read "3GS" and kept my mouth shut :)

Uhm, no. Patently wrong. You must not have your WiFi turned on. Works on my system just fine through WiFi, my desktop system via WiFi, and my wife's Bluetooth-less HP laptop via WiFi just fine.