Hewlett Packard XW8200 Workstation (bought used six years ago)

• 8GB RAM
• 2 3.2GHz Xeon Processors
• NVidia GeForce 8400 GS
• NVidia GeForce FX 1500
• Two 19in 4:3 aspect ratio monitors on either side of a 24in wide-screen monitor
• 500GB Samsung HDD (boot drive, running Windows 7 Ultimate)
• 1TB Western Digital HDD (My Documents)
• External Sony USB DVD-RW
  (this is what's on my desk under my center monitor. The computer is in a server cabinet at the end of the desk, vented through the ceiling)
• Microsoft split ergonomic media keyboard
• Gear Head cordless mouse

My background is in printing and typesetting with a short side trip into web design. I'm currently unemployed and looking for something not computer-related.

That's how I've always done it. Nobody showed me how. In the 1961 VW Beetle that I learned to drive in, it just seemed to be the thing to do.

I have the FreedomPop Overdrive Pro (3G/4G) on Sprint as my mobile internet in my car. I use a Nexus 7 as my GPS and entertainment, and don't even have a regular stereo in the vehicle. It works well enough for Pandora or NPR and for some navigation every now and then. I spend far less time in my car than a lot of people, so their 500MB/mo plan is usually adequate, but I'm using more as each month goes by. The next step up, 2GB/mo for $19.99, is probably in the cards for me soon. That's 2GB on 3G that Verizon wanted to charge me $50/mo for! So... would I pay $5/day for internet access in my car? Hell no!

In related news, Tyler Winklevoss says he totally named himself that first. (Thanks JR Raphael)

Most of your geekiest friends are intelligent people who can tear your idea apart and find the flaws, true enough. Just identify the geeks whose ideas you'll trust, but are far too unmotivated to take your idea and run with it. With a little research (you've been playing videogames with these guys at LAN parties for years, so you know who their friends are), you can make sure that you only show your idea to the most brilliant intellectually, but hopelessly inept socially. They'll never get it off the ground! And all for the price of a cup of coffee or a pizza! Win/win!

I've had an entirely different experience.

We moved into this house (built new) in July 2006. By the end of September we'd replaced every light in the place with a CFL, some 45 or so bulbs. The vanity in the guest bath has four globes and the main bath vanity has eight (it originally had eight *100 watt incandescents!). Most ceiling fixtures have two 40W equivalents, there is a 100W equivalent in a torchiere in the living room and one in the attic, and there are a sprinkling of 60W equivalents in various single-bulb fixtures in closets and stuff. We simply bought the equivalent wattage for whatever came out of the socket. There are four CFL spotlights on the corners of the house, 90W equivalent, on X-10 controllers so we can turn them on from the cars.

Out of the whole damned bunch, I've replaced four of the globes used in the bathroom vanities and one 40W in a closet. That's it! Before we finished replacing the incandescents in the house, two ceiling and two closet bulbs and the one in the attic had already blown (one rather spectacularly) in the first month of living here.

Nobody visiting us has ever noticed the fluorescent lighting unless they see the exposed bulb in the torchiere. The light quality is not noticeably different and we think that we're saving about $25-35 a month on the power bill. So figure it took about 8-10 months to offset the initial cost of the bulbs and I haven't had to drag a ladder out in almost three years.

I'm sold. The only incandescent bulbs still in the house are in the fridge and the oven.