I think M-Disc is worth a look. Yes M-Disc is not compatible with writers unless it is an M-Disc certified writer, such as drives made by LG.

The big mistake you have made immediately is that M-Disc IS compatible with DVD drives. That's what makes it such a good choice, because long after it's hard to find a M-Disc burner drive, one just has to find ANY optical drive that understands DVD or Blu-Ray media (if M-Disc Blu-Ray is chosen / available.)

This is a totally different deal than Low To High disc writing as there is no dye's used. M-Disc writers etch physical pits into synthetic stone (requiring a special disc drive laser and increased power at point of writing,) preventing the concept of bit rot, since it's stone. The only thing that can happen to the substrate is the surrounding medium collapses and makes it impossible to view the stone substrate.

What I'm confused about is the reference of M-Discs to LTH media.. M-Discs don't use dyes.. they require LG drives with modified lasers that actually burn pits into synthetic stone.

So, as time rolls forward, the only thing that needs to be concerned is the preservation of the disc and the ability to read that disc with a drive that is functional. The trade off is that the disc is only so large, and may require many discs.. but the trade-off of having a stack of discs / records that take space but hold the data seems reasonable if the sole purpose is just to make that data survive in a non-editable format.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but that's the benefit of M-Disc and the US Navy investing in using M-Disc as a media choice for hardened / critical situations. M-Disc is an ancient approach to the digital age; etch your story in stone and people will read it one day when you are dead.

M-DISC:
DVD format presently, BLU-RAY format in the future. Someday an electronic eye will just be able to look at the disc surface and see it all in one snapshot.

They aim for 1000 years. I expect 100. It may be reasonable. Just keep drives around.

http://www.mdisc.com/proving-ground/

I have been waiting for the ivy bridge to be released in the macbook pro because power draw is huge when on batteries.

But a "tock" which I feel nobody has mentioned and is almost the sole reason why I am patiently waiting for the next MBP is 4K screen resolution. I feel that "retina display" type dpi becomes possible with this feature. The next release of OS X shows development to utilize 4K potential.

Gaming may be poor performance since GPUs may have to get a substantial overhaul and nobody probably has a desktop screen that does 4096x2304 pixels. What it does afford presently is editing 1:1 1080p footage with room for an editing interface.

Or was this removed?? Is this why nobody is talking about it?

http://vr-zone.com/articles/post-idf-bites-ivy-bridge-gpu-to-support-4kx4k-displays-/13584.html

Oh yeah, just about forgot; something else that ivy bridge affords: Thunderbolt, for what it's worth.

For some reason I found this article quite difficult to read, almost to the point of loosing the message. Odd breaks? I don't know..

Think about it, seriously.. " The more USB ports, the better."

The iPad comment was a joke and it is just not built for the outside. It's barely meant for a kitchen with a tile floor.

If you don't want to touch the toughbook, maybe the Dell Latitude E6400 XFR http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-latitude-xfr-e6400?c=us&l=en&s=bsd

No mention of the BBS games of yore ? When I think of unsung heroes I think of Seth Robinson, creator of Legend of the Red Dragon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon

OH YEAH! and BEST of All.. You got the full PCM soundtrack of NIN on a shareware disc!

This sort of reminds me of when ID Software released their Quake Shareware CD. The disc had the shareware release as well as the full version of all the ID top titles, nicely tucked away in an encrypted mass, ready for ID authorization to unlock, that was until qcrack.exe came around :)

The way Windows 7 handles gaming hardware compared to OS 10.6, if Steam does complete the mac version, they'll have room to just call it "Almost boiling water."

"Almost boiling water" will be controlled by:
QuickDraw
Core OpenGL
Quartz 2D
Core Image Core Animation
Core Video
ColorSync
QuickTime

I swear, Windows 7 manifests my MacBook Pro's previous aluminum life as an F-18 turbine because she just wants to SCREAM at 6000 RPMs when Windows does anything multimedia. Ever since Direct-X 3, I have seen OpenGL handle things far more efficiently. Direct-X is just a windows botch override that is not native to windows. At the point of Halo's creation, MS creates a Direct-X native machine.

I agree. The Macintosh OS creates everything for the rest of iSeries. You have to program and design on an OS.

I also recognize that because we are dealing with communications systems, there is a lot of personal information being sent through the iSeries. While the mobile OS is young and not native to Mac OS 10, Apple has to validate programs so that the integrity of your credit card information stays valid to their user agreement.

Mobile apps can be very dangerous. They are running alongside WiFi/GSM transceivers and if these mobile devices go trojan/viral, they can spread through miles like silent cold wildfire. Sony's PSP has a Hard-switch and indicator LED for their WiFi so if their system goes rouge and you know it shouldn't be transmitting, you can kill the radio.

CmdrTaco can do whatever he wants because he has the powers of SYSADMIN. He has no serial number.

Pardon me.. Ken & Roberta Williams.. married.. obviously.. oie.

Yeah, Amigas were awesome for things like Deluxe Paint and other productive junk.. but the games were premium caliber.

I still play space quest III using kickstart as the amiga version has way better sound than the pc version. The rest of Sierra's titles came out for pc afterwards, so that is where I went.. where Ken Wilson & Roberta Williams went.