The latest RPi 5 is really great running off an M.2 or external USB-C SSD attached... every bit as good as a mainstream laptop/desktop for basic tasks. Running off a microSD is much less pleasant. You could still use an external USB drive with the Pi 500, but it would have cost so little to include an M.2 slot on this and would have made it so much nicer. Really poor decision-making from RPi.

I also grew up on Byte magazine... actually had an article published in Byte back in the 80's. I still remember Ciarcia's series of articles on rolling your own PC (8086-based, if memory serves). Great stuff. These days Microchip probably provides the best overall support for the hobbyist through their good app notes, forums and web ticket system (and of course all the free tools and cheap development boards). Sparkfun is both a good supplier and they host very helpful forums.

That's essentially right... and it's a massive tax - something like 2x or more - for which the 'value-add' from Cisco is essentially nothing. If someone figures out how to make non-Cisco full-spec GBICs work in their gear, there should be no reliability penalty at all.

This seems like a great opportunity for Google to not just 'not be' evil, but to actively suppress evil. MS has been threatening Linux for years by citing various IP infringements, but, as far as I know, they've never actually detailed what they believe is infringing (so that the community could try to work around these or maybe someone could challenge the legitimacy of said patents). I can't think of anyone in a better position than Google to find out what MS thinks the problem is and lead the effort to work around it. Of course they could already be moving in this direction but just keeping quiet about it.

Of course this is disgraceful, but it's by no means limited to government - there's plenty of waste in private industry, we just don't hear about it as much. I have a friend who recently worked as a consultant for one of the big health insurers in California. She talked about a multi-hundred-million-dollar development project on a new IT system that they scrapped before implementing. You'd think someone could have pulled the plug before the project got into 9 figures.

Of course, from a cost standpoint, healthcare is a disaster here in the US (I think we spend about 2x as much per-person as the next highest country, and I suspect it will only get worse under the new reforms). Having relatives who work in healthcare, and seeing the mess that's resulted from multiple, independent providers who don't share data efficiently (i.e. hospitals, doctors and clinics) and multiple, independent insurance monopolies that negotiate separately with each provider, I can't imagine a public healthcare system wouldn't be better than what we have. Of course, half the country seems to think having the government involved in healthcare is 'evil socialism'... at least until they hit 65 and go on Medicare, at which point most of them seem to like it.

When I see how the US reacts to complex debates like this it's hard to believe we've been as economically and militarily successful as we have.

- ss