Only if that mountain bike has front suspension. I've done a ton of city commuting in my day. London, NY, Chicago. My go to bike is always a cyclocross bike. Like a road bike, but meant for light offroad riding (slightly wider tires than a road bike.) The large wheel diameter is what is really important. 26" (of a typical mtn bike) versus 29"/700c will not roll over bumps and divots quite as well because of the smaller diameter. This is why there has been a relatively recent trend of putting 29" wheels on mountain bikes. They go over roots and rocks much easier and maintain momentum.

...on pretty much every point: professionally, politically, personally. But I got to say, I liked the lunar base idea. It not any zanier than what JFK set out to do in the 60's. At least it would give this country a tangible goal to aspire to. It would put a new generation of kids into science programs.

Not like Obama's "Sputnik Moment" where our goal was basically to stop buying Middle Eastern oil from last year's SOTU. A bit of a dud, that was.

Yup. you're right. I hit one too many 0's

My sister is big into photography, and she kind of passed on the hobby to me. I am not nearly as hardcore as her, but I was looking for a decent camera I could take good looking photos with. I could creatively experiment with it, and i could also rely on it to take quick good looking photos. I did not want to be burdened with a massive camera body or a set of lenses, but I wanted some versatility.

After a bit of shopping, I found my way to the Panasonic Lumix LX5. It's great. Compact. ($370) I take it everywhere when I travel or when I want to snap a few shots of my friends. I don't take it to the bar, mind you, but I do take it to picnics, sports, etc. I walk around town with my ipod in my ear and experiment with some artsy shots too.

There is also a great book called The Photographer's Guide to the Lumix LX5 published by The White Knight Press. It covers all of the basics of photography and how to manipulate the camera with all of it's functions. A PDF version is available for under $10 through the publisher's website. I am partial to the Lumix LX5, but honestly all of the cameras that are covered by that publisher would fit your requirements in my opinion. (Except for the Leica, $$$$$)

Lumix LX5, Fuji Finepix X100, Canon Powershot S95, Nikon Coolpix500 (a bit bulky)

Children will need to get permission from the tag-ee prior to tagging them as 'it'.

I was at the end of 8th grade when the Matrix came out. I was fascinated at that point. I actually had a minidisc player as tried like hell to get it to work as a regular disc drive. I started listening to industrial electronic music. I deleted windows from my computer and figured out how to get linux running. I started reading books on C++. I subscribed to 2600. FREE KEVIN. Throughout high school I was obsessed be programming. I kind of got out of it after my first year as a computer science major in college. After having spend the majority of my past 5 years in front of a computer screen I decided it was enough and got into economics. As dorky as it is to say, The Matrix had a huge impact on my youth. I'm still interested in tech. It is still a hobby (I am commenting on /. after-all). But the days spent with Mountain Dew, my face in a thick programming book and the glow of the CRT while listening to God Speed You Black Emperor at 3am are gone...

I bought a tablet for the same purpose. What a let down. Typing on a touchscreen is awful, writing with a stylus is worse. I no longer use it for much of anything. Hundreds of dollars wasted. If you have a Mac, nothing beats OmniOutliner for notes, OmniGraffle for diagrams, and LaTeXit for equations.