In an attempt to capture some of the Apple magic, Steve Ballmer walks into a Cracker Barrel in ass-less chaps.

The new mini has a removable plate on the body that gives you access to memory. I use a wired keyboard and wired mouse. You can use wireless if you want to. The service plan is not mandatory. The retailer played you for a sucker if he told you that and you believed him. "DIY memory. Thanks to a removable bottom panel, now it’s easy to open Mac mini and add memory. Just a slight twist of the panel, and you’re inside Mac mini. Simply pop your memory into the SO-DIMM slot, then twist the panel back on. And you’re done." In fifteen years of Mac ownership I've only had problems with hard drives dying. My wife is still using her ten year old iMac. She only powers down during thunderstorms.

Ever since Jobs returned, Apple has been about delivering content. They didn't want to take over enterprise, they wanted to take over Hollywood. I think it would be a great idea if Apple could compete with the cable companies. Most cable companies have no competition within their regions and can gouge us at will. We need Apple or some other entity to challenge them.

I pay 3 cents a month for the web version of my newspaper. I get real value for pocket change. I wouldn't pay 1 cent a month for a Murdoch publication because they don't deliver unbiased news. I don't mind bias in the editorial pages, just keep it out of the news. The Wall Street Journal used to have a good wall between news and editorial, but now it is a Murdoch rag.

Why do we need health insurance companies? What do they do to keep us healthy? What purpose do they serve?

Wrong, injury and illness affects everyone associated with the victim. Businesses have to deal with loss of productivity, families suffer from the financial costs, and in the case of communicable diseases, everyone around the victim is affected.

The Exchanges are similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan. If an insurer acts up, or screws over their customers, they get the boot. The FEHB shifts the power from the insurance company to the people. BTW, mail clerks up to Senators belong to the FEHB. And now congress will be part of the exchanges, giving the exchanges a lot of clout.

But it was the insurance company that was defining pre existing conditions, not the doctor. My wife's insurer reversed their decision to cover my wife's brain surgery while she was in recovery from the surgery. They stuck us with a $60,000 dollar bill (1980's pricing), and dropped her from their rolls. I guess when they saw how much the surgery would cost they decided her illness was "pre existing." She had been paying into the insurance for 8 years, but the fast growing tumor in her brain was a preexisting condition. Yeah right I had to get a government job to get insurance for both of us (FEHB). Now that I am disabled from my job, I still carry that insurance because we can't change to a cheaper plan. As it is now, health insurance takes up 60% of my pension. At the current rate of premium increases, two years from now they (CIGNA) will take 100% of my pension.

Windows? No way. It has to run a Nix of some type to make me interested.

I have fine motor control problems, so I'm not a good judge of the abilities of Ink.

Apple has Ink as part of their OS. It works with a graphics pad. You can write or draw using Ink.

Ha! And don't forget sushi and their new and improved Thigh Master.

MS has a track record too, so we know what to expect from them.

Actually it has been about a decade and a half since I first heard about their plans to go after the content delivery market. It took a few years to get the company back into a situation where it could have some leverage. The first plan I heard was to use satellite linkups to deliver movies to theaters, but that changed when Jobs returned. They were also working on MkLinux at that time. Nice looking is the end result of good engineering. Open up a Mac Pro and take a look at it. There's attention to detail. Think of this: if there's a cute kid and an ugly kid, which one will get more attention? The same goes for consumer products. You will take better care of something if you find it attractive. I was basing my comments on their overall track record. Sure they made some mistakes, but they succeed more than the fail, and that has had an effect of giving them a market cap greater than IBM, Dell, HP. Where is SGI now?

BTW, the iPhone and Touch are starting to become gaming platforms. Maybe the tablet will ramp up that capability.