Generally speaking, I very much prefer paper books too... and can't see ever switching over to a Kindle or any other sort of e-reader.

However, the one advantage that e-books have over the real thing is that I can't throw my feet up on my cubicle desk and read a paper book... but I CAN spend all day reading a PDF (and/or Slashdot), and it looks like I'm working.

Since I spend a quarter-to-a-third of my life sitting at the office, working jobs that involve 10% programming work and 90% being held up by inefficient management, time-fillers are an important part of my life. In a perfect world, I could just waste time openly and perhaps encourage management to get its organization together so I'd be less bored. In the real world though that would just get me outsourced, so I need to give the impression that I'm "heads down" and slaving away for my brilliant manager. E-books help.

The developed world has had DECADES to build up moral authority on this issue, and utterly blew it. Now, efforts on our part to shame the developing world for pollution or inefficient energy use sound spiteful and hypocritical.

You may be right... but you're also wrong.

Or, more to the point, one that doesn't look "sexy"! (whatever that means)

... or maybe a Tata Shuffle, with the steering controls obnoxiously embedded in some earbuds?

WHO is the large target audience for these small screened, underpowered computers?

Two words... "battery life".

It's small, cheap, can be carried around like a paperback book, and does not require me to haul around an AC adapter and find somewhere to plug in . End... of... discussion.

As for processing power, if all you're doing is web browsing, email, and MAYBE some spreadsheet / word processing... then anything beyond late-90's CPU power is superfluous. If you want to compile code or do raytracing, then a netbook probably isn't for you. However, with the basics tasks for which most people use their netbooks, the modern CPU improvements that really matter are in the realm of battery power consumption.

All the TV magazine and blog articles I've read have agreed that that Dollhouse is on Friday night because that's a graveyard shift. NO show attracts blockbuster numbers on a Friday night, so the network wants something a little more high-end than reality programming (to lure better advertisers) that will attract a devoted core. In other words, they know that Joss Whedon's fanbase will watch anything... and is mostly sitting an home on Friday night anyway. If Dollhouse were on any other night of the week, it would have been pulled after the first two episodes.

While I'm at it, I'm as big a Joss Whedon mark as anyone but I'm going to go ahead and say it... Dollhouse simply SUCKS for me so far. With the possible exception of Echo's "handler", all the other characters simply do not interest me. They are one-dimensional stock characters (e.g. the arrogant nerd who tries to be funny, the gruff security guard who always wants to use the violent option, the obsessed FBI agent chasing chasing after Kaiser Soze, etc). Other than Eliza Dusku and her handler, the acting is pretty poor and the premise itself pretty retarded. Nothing has really "hooked" me yet.

Worst of all, the scripts are virtually devoid of wit and humor. WTF?!? That's the whole POINT of a Joss Whedon show... characters that pull you in and make you care about them, and intelligent dialog that catches you off-guard with laughs. Take that out of the equation, and you're just left with goofy sci-fi/fantasy ridiculousness and some mushy political/feminist messages.

Sorry... but if this goes, I won't miss it.

I don't really understand the business problem that this "invention" is intended to solve. If a manager doesn't want people using their laptops during his meeting... he should, well, tell the guy sitting ten feet directly in front of him to kindly close his laptop.

This is a technical version of your old college roommate leaving you angry notes to clean up or change your habits... because the person was too weak and passive to simply have an adult conversation to your face. A manager who has to "communicate" with subordinates in such a manner should not be a manager in the first place.

I don't really care to wade into the abortion-debate muck, particularly as abortion has nothing to do with the stem cells we're talking about. Those are obtained from fertility clinics, and created by people who are SO "pro-life" that they leave plenty of discarded excess life behind in the freezer.

However, what frustrates me to a greater degree is this myth that stem cell research has been "restricted". 90+ percent of people on the street (and probably even a majority of Slashdot posters here) mistakenly believe that the evil Bush administration "banned" or "outlawed" stem cell research. That's simply not true. The last administration refused to SUBSIDIZE it, and that's all. Researchers have been under no restriction whatsoever to do any of this research, as long as they're not sucking off the taxpayer teat for their funds.

This opens up an entirely separate debate on private sources of medical research funds, and why pharmaceutical companies now pay more in marketing than they do in R&D. I'll leave that debate to others. However, are we REALLY so drunk on "stimulus" spending for everything under the sun these days, that refusing to subsidize a particular item means that item is actively "restricted"?

Britney kicks off her latest world tour on March 3... post an article about that while you're at it.

... can a guy intentionally making homemade explosives that killed people, who had a role in major riots, who detonated bombs in public parks, and who never really apologized for any of it get cast as the GOOD GUY against Bill Gates!

Yeah, I voted against GOP last year too, in part because this was 40 years ago and and it was cheap for the Republicans to wait so late to bring it up. However, the fact that Ayers was criticized by some lousy political candidates doesn't that he deserves no criticism. This guy is a symptom of why the Left is a minority philosophy in the U.S., and can't win a Presidency without a major recession or impeachment just before the election.