>>subsidized higher education is the best investment we can make for ourselves

Just be careful to avoid the situation I see in the Netherlands, where those who are considered "gifted" enough to get into a University program (as opposed to a technical or vocational school) are basically SOL if they don't get a Master's degree. I call it educational inflation: when all of your peers have an MA, you need an MA just to get your foot in the door for a normal job, and an MPhil/PhD to get a really good job.

>>Has anyone tried to resurrect a PC this old before?

I'm currently resurrecting a 1971 DEC PDP-8 minicomputer, and I'm not the first one to do so. This is after years of bringing back old micros from the brink of doom. So yes, unequivocally, you *can* restore a system of this age. Even the same standards are still in use!

I feel I must point out here that my point has been missed rather masterfully.

I should go complain that nobody wants to pay me to hand-deliver milk in glass bottles door-to-door anymore, and see if I can get them to tax milk and give me the proceeds!

Of course, this is functionally the same as the blank CD/DVD "anti-piracy" levy: government intervening to prop up an outdated, failing business model with tax money, rather than letting it die and allowing evolution to take its natural course.

I've blown more money than I care to imagine on HMDs over the years, including two Virtual-IO i-glasses (one composite-in video rez with clear optics, one VGA-in 800x600 wiht opaque optics) and some offbrand visor thing, composite, plastic lenses, gak, as well. My favorite was the first one, because you could get a nice video image floating in space in front of you as you walked down the sidewalk. Overall tho I think they're disappointing, and moreover heavy, straining on the eyes and neck, and especially the ones that sit on the nose tend to give me that weird sensation like you get when someone puts their finger between your eyes and close to your nose. I say, save your money and buy a nice CAVE and a big stack of (super-cheap now!) SGI Onyx2 IR2 boxes to run it off.

Isn't 10Gb internet access going to further increase the technical requirements for implementing the kinds of surveillance and recording systems the UK government wants? If you think that the associated complexity and costs of their current & proposed systems are extreme already, just imagine if everyone's access were to get 5000x faster!

Maybe they'll have to give it up. I suppose we can only hope!

Going by all the positive press Win7 is getting, and the fact that XP is getting rather long in the tooth, I reckon Microsoft can probably lump whatever crap they want into 7 as long as it has a shiny, snappy UI and decent driver compatibility, and people will buy machines with it installed and love the taste of the Kool-Aid. Welcome to the future: looks like it's gonna suck.

Charles Krauthammer, in The Washington Post, Feb 6 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020502766_pf.html