As a veterinarian this is finality a topic on Slashdot I am qualified to talk about. However, rather than get into the details I am going to punt this one :)

Here is a four-part series on the struggle over the use of antibiotics in the livestock industry, the threat of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and the veterinary profession’s role in safeguarding animal and public health.

http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=18645

The C-64 could suck you into programming real easy. Because with a few one liners you could change the screen color, make some noises, etc etc. It peeled back the curtain a little, and let you see how the thing you just bought worked, and how you could make it do neat things, and it didn't take a lot of effort to get there.

How in the hell could I even start my daughter down this path today?

http://www.alice.org/

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

I filled out the survey, but I will share my major concerns here as well.

sucker... everyone knows you don't follow the links to RTFA on slashdot.

If you want to explain the software patent issue to someone else here is a good story on em. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/02/138934689/the-tuesday-podcast-the-patent-war

I want to be able to carry on working in the UK as well as in the US. I don't need to use the phone, so I am looking for an unlocked phone that can be used on pay-as-you-go data plans on both sides of the Atlantic.

What is the best as-you-go data plans on the US side? anything better than link: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-phone-plans/beyond-talk-plans.jsp

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-ghost-fleet-off-the-coast-of-singapore-2009-9 You forgot to take into account how many ships are currently underutilized and how much it costs to build a new desalination plant. Might make economic sense in the short term to ship and then build when the ships can make more shipping other stuff.

1st Netflix makes an agreement with Warner Studio's to delay the rental release of New Titles http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2010/03/blockbuster-gets-deal-that-netflix-redbox-couldnt.ars now they want to save a few bucks and blame the USPS.

If the USPS has to cut a day of the week why not mid week (wed or thursday)?

Clearly the global warming from the use of fossil fuels caused the ocean to evaporate.

Embryonic stem cells are interesting for their pluripotency.

But you can get iPS cells from a non-pluripotent adult somatic cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell/

while interesting not really the first: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/66162.php

This website is tracking H1N1 using Google maps: http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/

Friedman thinks Denmark is the answer! http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=741128102008

You think the publisher is going to charge significantly less for the material if it's delivered online?

The traditional publishers may not want to play ball but they are not the only game in town. I bet some of the newcomers may like to offer online textbooks at pennies on the dollar one source may be: http://www.k12.com/courses/textbooks-products/

Once the traditional publishers realize they are losing market share they will change their model or go out of business.

It is fine to talk about it here but nothing will happen; if you want things to change

fill out this form: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=311

Finally, something I know a little about.

The big enemy in vet clinics is pet hair. Mount the computer as high as possible to keep hair and dust to a minimum. If your father does not want to change software then the "physical to virtual" idea sounds like an idea you may want to look into.

I will let others comment on actually hardware but one thing you should talk to your dad about is good backups. Very few vet clinics back up frequently enough and even fewer know how (or when) to restore a back up. Set up a clear back up plan and teach the staff how to restore a back up; they should also be instructed on reasons to restore a back and be sure they understand what will be lost (everything since their last back up). I would recommend backing up to thumb drives and have a different drive for each day of the week. Also back up to CD or DVD once a week/month and archive.

I know of one vet clinic w/ a laptop plugged into a UPS w/ a low power printer kept on a cart but not connected to any other computers. When they had a snowstorm collapse the roof in the room w/ their sever one winter they rolled out the cart restored the back up and kept on seeing patients. Some veterinary software is written w/ a version for vets to use in the truck on farm call that then integrates everything back to the main computer when they get back to he office. If your dad is updating software as well, AAHA Trends magazine will have a write up on all the software this summer (june?)