Tivo + 2 powered antennas. Netflix + googleTV provides most everything we can't get over the air.

I totally agree with your sentiments, but none of my (6) blackberry phones have done any better. They require charging every night. (18hr standby is the advertised life for my bold). I'm still missing the 'good old days' when I would charge my phone once per week. Try to go camping for 3 days without a solar charger. 'Just turn it off when you aren't using it???' The blackberry boot time is as bad as any.

I'll try to bring up battery performance again this year at GoogleIO, but seems like no one really cares. 'Performance' means only frame-rate, screen resolution, and clock speed. Sigh

For some subjects, absolutely. I'm still wishing, however, that our local schools' science departments would emphasize the observation/experience connection to wonderment and hypotheses. Instead, we have a (very well ranked) system that focuses heavily on standardized tests (which is probably why they are ranked so high).

Thank you for keeping that as clean as possible. I almost avoided reading the comments on this one in fear of what other fluid might be suggested.

I have 1/4" tape I can't read, CD's that deteriorate over time, failed hard drives, etc.. Can I trust online services (e.g., Google/Picasa)? I also have 75 year-old B/W negatives that I can hold up to a lightbulb and see - even scan. There's something else about digital that disturbs me. Unless you run a forensics lab, there is no easy way to extract bits from outdated media. A cheap scanner will happily extract content from faded 'analog' prints and film though.

I chalk the popularity of digital media up to 'easy come easy go' - or laziness as a previous poster put it. It's easier to take a digital picture (and view it), but it's also much easier to destroy.

So knowing all this, what do I have? 11,000+ photos backed up up on multiple drives, because I'm tied to Apple Aperture at the moment. A few hundred on Picasa (at lower res), some on PhotoBucket. I also have boxes (acid free) of prints and negatives.

Where can I hire a librarian to sort this stuff out? :)

Amen. I'll just add that when I asked coworkers (years ago) how they afforded the cool sports cars right after collect, it turned out they were avoiding the 401k option. To summarize:
1. don't save for retirement
2. buy a gas guzzler
3. buy a home you can't afford
4. profit!