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Just like Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken are basically the exact same person.

Except Al Franken is funny and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot

The "for dummies" line of books is intended to cover exactly the material you descirbe. Not only that, but it is already well established and popular.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/7278 66/ref%3Dpd_sl_aw_bnag-1_software_9783603_6/002-65 19826-3681646

I think for a book which is meant to teach computers to someone with the computer literacy of youre average grandma, that kind of thing is way too detail heavy and technical. Why would they need to know OSI models, ASM commands and logic circuits? That's what geeks go to college for (although a real geek already knows most of it anyway, and spends all their time reading stuff that they'll "learn about" in another few years time).

What the layman wants to know is the basics; where, why and how do I create folders and files or maybe how it actually all works when it comes down to the hard drive - I'm not talking sectors, cluster sizes, boot sectors, bits, bytes, drive head seek times and whatnot. I mean telling them, in basic terms, what happens when they make a file:
"It gets put onto the hard drive somewhere, then a record of the file is made to tell the computer where it is (this is also kept on the hard drive, in exactly the same place on every hard drive). Just like a school timetable tells the student where his lessons are (and is always stuck outside the Head's office), the computers file record (or a 'File Allocation Table') tells the computer where the files are. When you browse through folders it looks at its FAT and shows you the files that are there. When you open the file, it looks at its FAT, finds out where the file is and then gets it, just like a student walking into his class after he has found out what lesson he has next."
That kind of thing (yeah it's not the greatest explanation, in fact it's pretty crap), just something they can relate to. Not a face full of technical mumbo jumbo they don't understand at all.

As for string theory without the maths behind it all, I would highly recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It's basically all about relativity, string theory, M-theory, extra dimensions, black holes, that kind of thing (mainly string theory), with NONE of the nasty maths. Lots of good analogies and diagrams, sometimes things are even explained in multiple ways just in case it's a little confusing.

I'm a huge fan of David Macauley, but let me recommend a better book for telling people what computers do and how they do it. It's How Computers Work from Que Press (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789734249/002-8 949151-7683258?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books& v=glance at Amazon. I've worked on it for 10 years, tapping some of the best brains in the industry. It's beautifully illustrated by Tim Downs, and it's sold more than 1 million copies. But don't take my biased word. Check it out at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you're into photography, there's How Digital Photography Works http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789733099/002-89 49151-7683258?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v =glance. I'd seriously like to hear what you think, Ron White

I'm a huge fan of David Macauley, but let me recommend a better book for telling people what computers do and how they do it. It's How Computers Work from Que Press (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789734249/002-8 949151-7683258?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books& v=glance at Amazon. I've worked on it for 10 years, tapping some of the best brains in the industry. It's beautifully illustrated by Tim Downs, and it's sold more than 1 million copies. But don't take my biased word. Check it out at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you're into photography, there's How Digital Photography Works http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789733099/002-89 49151-7683258?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v =glance. I'd seriously like to hear what you think, Ron White

I'm currently TAing for a class called "Introduction to Information Fluency" which is based on teaching the bare minimum required for non-technical people to not be helpless in today's society. The book for the class was directly created in response to the study by the nsf: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321357825/qid=11 37537623/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-843497 8-5059017?n=507846&s=books&v=glance I recommend people who actually care about the study just check out the TOC of that book. Also, the task is not at all as hopeless as people make it out to be. -T

this is a good reference... Feynman's Lectures on Computation Seriously.... several things about computer science became clearer once I had read part of it...

Apparently you haven't read any of the numerous other slashdot articles that are following the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD debate. Considering that the first generation stand-alone players for BOTH formats will be over $1000, a $600 (or even$700) PS3 will be a real bargain for anybody who is looking to buy into one of the new formats.

Whereas, apparently, you are of course bang up to date?

From Baker Street to Binary: An Introduction to Computers and Computer Programming (Paperback)

# Paperback: 277 pages
# Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1st McGraw-Hill ed edition (June 1, 1983)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0070369836
# Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.

It covers computers in terms of telegrams and such technology easy to understand.

It wont help people get a real understanding of what modern computers are doing; but it will help them understand the sorts of things they are doing (and I don't mean "binary addition") but like: Sherlock Holmes had the post office install a telegraph machine in his rooms, which he wired up to a train set (on which were stuck cut-outs of himself) so that he could control the casting of his shadows on the window without being inside. The parallel is, of course, a modem.

The book presents a series of sherlock holmes mysteries and then discusses the technology he uses and what the computer equivalent is, thus the reader is capable of saying "ah, it's like a ..."

Sam

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789734249/qid=11 37532114/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8013614-9758315?n =507846&s=books&v=glance/

By MacCauley (sp?). Best darn book ever and I need to go get it from my parent's house at some point so I have it with me. I mean, how can you beat the pictures of wooly mammoths who demonstrate basic mechanical properties?

Genius. Beautiful genius.

Here's the new edition on Amazon: The New Way Things Work

This book has a lot of nice pictures and diagrams, and explains not just hard drives and CPUs but things like GPS, Napster, etc. (although I have the sixth edition, I'm assuming the current eighth edition is probably similar). http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0789734249/sr=1-2 /qid=1137531708/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-3267622-7897402?_ encoding=UTF8

> In such a case, a computer is just a huge expensive word processor/typewriter.

That reminds me-- an excellent introductory book to using computers is The Mac is Not a Typewriter, by Robin Williams.

(no, not that Robin Williams.)

read this book.(no I am not getting a referral off this...)

that and John Nash's thesis will tell you why this will never happen (or rather, will always happen.)

All "enlightened" political systems are conceived with the idea of being equitable, (or at least "just") but they all fall down as soon as some @#$%^@ figures out how to cheat the system. (i.e. the totalitarian.) The interesting part to me is not that it happens, but that it happens repeatedly. "Those who forget the past..." etc. etc..

The real problem isn't that the information you'd like to convey to these laypeople has never been put into an easily readable, accessible format. The problem is that most people really don't give a damn about how things work.

Remember that most people never bother to even learn the full capabilities of the devices they come into every day contact with, like cell phones. Do you think that people who can't program their VCRs are really interested in the science involved in storing and retrieving data from a magnetic tape?

I'm not trying to harsh your mellow, but you need to face the facts. Most people are content to believe that the underlying technologies that make their lives so easy are simply "magical," and leave it at that.

I just lend people PC for Dummies. I bought it for my mother, and it helped her a lot. I've lent this and a couple of other Dummies books for Office & Windows it usually keeps them from asking the really dumb questions. Except for one individual who has a notebook with written instructions on reading his email. Go to the email icon on the desktop, click twice etc., he is beyond all hope.

You lose:
* All the accessibility mechanisms that OS GUI frameworks have. Everyone loves GMail, but navigating around it without a mouse is a real pain. No hotkeys, and an unpredictable tab order.
* Proper control of the layout of your UI.
* A whole lot of performance.

Your lose list is way off. On all three points you're either completely wrong or the blame is misguided towards the technology instead of the implementation.

Let's start with "All the accessibility mechanisms ... navigating around it without a mouse is a real pain. No hotkeys, and an unpredictable tab order". That has nothing to do with Web 2.0 concepts and it is wrong. GMail has hotkeys. You can put as much accessibility mechanisms as you want. Web 2.0 does not impose limits.

Ok, so let's move on to "Proper control of the layout of your UI.". Oh man, you obviously don't know what you're talking about and it looks like the moderators who gave you points are just as clueless. Proper layout control is done with style sheets. Style sheets can be used to control the layout of a web page when the browser supports it. It has nohting to do with the Web 2.0 concepts. Slashdot uses CSS now (thank god) and it isn't a Web 2.0 site. GMail uses style sheets and it is a Web 2.0 app.

Finally, the point that motivated me to respond. "A whole lot of performance." That is just nonsense. Web 2.0 methods can be used to speed up web pages by reducing the amount of traffic and work that is done on the server. Instead of having the server generate complete pages, it just generates the parts that need to be inserted or changed. Have a look at this cool Web 2.0 app(needs Mozilla/Firefox/XUL). I can find things much quicker than if I had to use the standard Amazon page.

My Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro was 5 years old and was quite dirty, so I decided to replace it. I have been gaming for a long time, so I was trying to decide between the Zboard and the Logitech G15. I decided to go with the Zboard because I thought the idea of a customized keyboard for a particular game was a good idea. I picked up the Zboard, plus a Doom3 Keyset and a Battlefield 2 Keyset.

After setting up the software, I tried playing games with it. After about two weeks of using the keyboard exclusively for gaming, I realized that I'm too used to the way WASD is layed out on a typical keyboard. In the end, I'm spending more time making sure I'm hitting the correct key, rather than the one I've been used to for all these years.

I think the Zboard is great for people who are new to computer gaming, maybe console users coming over who are used to joypads. Give them a Zboard so they have easily identifiable keys to use and get used to the idea of a keyboard/mouse combo. However, if you've been PC gaming for a long period of time, you're better off skipping this one and going for a G15. The integrated LCD is beginning to get useful plug ins which can be found at either G15 Forums or G15 Mods.

Things like this just add to the cost of being a hardcore gamer. Lets say you get:
(all prices from amazon)
Zboard: 40.84
COD2 keyset: 18.99
BF2 keyset: (unavailable price but probably around 18.99)
COD2 directors edition: 59.99
BF2: 44.99
Fatal1ty mouse: 49.99

total price: $233.79. And that's JUST for mouse + keyboard and games, not to mention new graphics card etc etc.

This is why I think more hardcore gamers will go over to systems like the xbox 360. Get the system, xbox live, and a microphone and you're set - everything else is skill. Back in the days where you could program your own buyscripts for counter-strike, advantages were at no addition cost. Now it's getting expensive... hard to imagine a teen blowing all that money just to play at the top level.

The keyboard itself would be very usefull for games like Warcraft 3 or Battlefield 2 (playing as the commander) where you have many different key combinations. I imagine it would be hard to switch from typing to gaming on the fly though. For games like COD2 though, I can't see how this keyboard would offer an advantage.
Nice to show off at LANS, but unless you a big wallet, I'd stick with your 10 year old IBM keyboard.

Zboard at amazon.com... link appears to be broken
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002H7F3G/sr=1-1 /qid=1137519621/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5603418-8999209?_ encoding=UTF8/

We tought our child sign language when he was 6mos old. By 8 mos, he was asking for 'more milk'. By 1 year, he had about 45 words in his vocabulary; long before he was able to use oral speech; he was able to tell us what he wanted for lunch; or that he was looking for a specific toy... I urge all of you geeks to look into this should you be lucky enough to have children some day.

This book is what got us started. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966836774/sr=1-1 /qid=1137518491/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4440407-6915304?_ encoding=UTF8

Don't worry Corporal Punishment is not on the Sony label.

We may be small, but we have big tools. Our technology allows us to extract and consume billions of tons of oiland coal each year. Is it any real surprise that means we've released almost 300 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the industrial era. You don't need to be an atmospheric scientist to see the trouble we are causing. The atmosphere traps some of the sun's heat and we are effectively putting more insulation into a system where the energy input cannot be readily decreased (a broken thermostat)... There are going to be big effects when you add more energy to a (relatively) closed system. The earth will eventually find a new equilibrium, but I doubt it will be very accomodating to us when it does.

I'm a pessimist, but I also take a very long term view. After all, the first anaerobic bacteria created the atmosphere we breathe - and this would have been a pollution crisis in their world if they could have recognized the evidence and understood the ramifications of it.

So maybe we are creating the next environment for something better than us. Or maybe we'll get some giant dragonflies again:

According to recently developed geochemical models, oxygen levels are believed to have climbed to a maximum of 35 percent and then dropped to a low of 15 percent during a 120-million-year period that ended in a mass extinction at the end of the Permian. Such a jump in oxygen would have had dramatic biological consequences by enhancing diffusion-dependent processes such as respiration, allowing insects such as dragonflies, centipedes, scorpions and spiders to grow to very large sizes. Fossil records indicate, for example, that one species of dragonfly had a wing span of 2 1/2 feet.

My money is on a coming panic at the effects of climate change that leads to an attempt to rectify by seeding the oceans with iron filings to feed the plankton and speed the process of breaking down the CO2. This could lead to another elevation in O2 that starts a planetwide fire and forces life back into the oceans again.

I think the fever metaphor is right on - sometimes fever kills the patient. It is the body's own immune response that creates the real problem. Perhaps life is, on some level, programmed to evolve little monkeys who get good at shooting down the occasional catastrophic meteor impacts (the reason we are so inclined to war, with the star wars missile defense type projects being a sort of holy grail for life's long-term success). Perhaps the earth's 'immune response' is normal in the evolution of a life-bearing planet, and unfortunately in some cases, fatal.

N.B. While I consider myself pagan and have no discomfort with being called a tree-hugging dirt worshipping hippy, at this time I don't necessarily believe in an individual sentience per-se in the earth as Goddess, or even as a single organism. But I am willing to believe that this process happens over and over and over again on many different worlds and that creates the basic protein structures that will tend to evolve in certain ways.

The pathologist Lewis Thomas wrote in response to the Gaia hypothesis that he could not see the earth as a living organism, but he could imagine it as a single cell. And then on our immune systems he said:

In real life, however, even in our worst circums

I've always wanted to write a book about cousin Ben. There are already a few books out there already. Still I think it would be neat to write one myself. I've done enough research on the man over the years to jusitfy it. Everybody should have a famous relative. It makes research paper ideas so much easier to come up with. :-)

The book spends its preface on Franklin's mid-career appearance for a sort of intellectual pillory in "the cockpit" in London. The sort of public roasting one got from the establishment powers there was accepted to be the dishing of a person's public career. For Franklin that supposed disaster was a turning point; he'd been desperately trying to get the London establishment to understand the point of view of the colonies, and getting spite back for his efforts made him ask what he really was, if not a loyal subject of the King. His answer was that he was an American -- and what did that mean, exactly?

I haven't read the more popular book, but Brands's was excellent, starting with that decision to phrase it around that moment when his identity really changed. It does justice to his intellectual pursuits -- chimneys, electricity, the "harmonium" -- but it's mostly shaped by his public life, in the outlines.

Walter Isaacson's recent biography on Franklin (available virtually everywhere, including amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074325807X/qid=11 37510251/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5388269-4030340?n =507846&s=books&v=glance) is a broad and comprehensive study that manages to be a fairly easy read.

Jeffrey Zeldman is the author of Designing with Web Standards (and who was somehow never adequately punished for writing that book; please look inside to see what I mean).

I recently made the mistake of buying that book a while ago, as it seemed to present information on ... well ... designing with web standards, you know, xhtml & css. Instead, I found it's a 400+ page rant on oldfashioned non-standard design. There's no information at all about design and hardly anything helpful on web standards.

So, though Jeffrey himself may think differently, IMHO it's silly to regard him as a authority on anything web related.

If you want to learn something on the leading edge you might even want to consider learning Io No books for Io as yet, but it seems to be be generating buzz among the early adopters (the sort of folks who were using Ruby five years ago).

I've heard of Io before, but I find it hard to take a language seriously if it has its own UI toolkit. That for me implies a lack of abstraction, a philosophy of micromanagement, and--since there's already plenty of existing UI toolkits for which its a cinch to write bindings--a sentiment of Not Invented Here. Let the language be designed so that it steps out of the user's way on many fronts and encourages him to code with whatever already-available libraries might be available.

FWIW, if the OP wants to learn another language beside Perl 5 just in case he were tasked to maintain some outside project, I'd recommend Python. O'Reilly's Learning Python and Programming Python are dynamite books.

If you want to learn something on the leading edge you might even want to consider learning Io No books for Io as yet, but it seems to be be generating buzz among the early adopters (the sort of folks who were using Ruby five years ago).

I've heard of Io before, but I find it hard to take a language seriously if it has its own UI toolkit. That for me implies a lack of abstraction, a philosophy of micromanagement, and--since there's already plenty of existing UI toolkits for which its a cinch to write bindings--a sentiment of Not Invented Here. Let the language be designed so that it steps out of the user's way on many fronts and encourages him to code with whatever already-available libraries might be available.

FWIW, if the OP wants to learn another language beside Perl 5 just in case he were tasked to maintain some outside project, I'd recommend Python. O'Reilly's Learning Python and Programming Python are dynamite books.

What is the best book to learn Perl starting from Perl 6? I notice that the latest (3rd) edition of O'Reilly's Programming Perl is from over five years ago, and the latest (4th) edition of Learning Perl seems to still be about Perl 5.

What is the best book to learn Perl starting from Perl 6? I notice that the latest (3rd) edition of O'Reilly's Programming Perl is from over five years ago, and the latest (4th) edition of Learning Perl seems to still be about Perl 5.

There are other texts outside the Bible that mention Jesus from that time period including writings from Cornelius Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Josephus and others.

Also see: The Historical Reliability of the Gospels http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877849927/ christiaphilosop/103-5191699-9351021

The commenters above are on the right track. This stuff comes around every few years, and has on a regular basis since Revelation in the 1st century C.E.

It is humorous to read the old editions of The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (1972) and The Population Bomb (1968). Their supposedly scientific predictions of the end of the world haven't come true yet, and don't appear to be imminent. I think the advice to keep hold of your wallet is sound.

Why do these books seem to always have a market. I think that is an easy question. They are the intellectual equivalent of horror movies. Being scared is an adrenallin rush, it's fun.

Here is the right attitude:

"Have you heard? It's in the stars, next July, we collide with Mars. Well, did you evah? What a swell party this is!"

"Well, Did You Evah?" by Cole Porter With Bing Crosby From High Society (1956).

The commenters above are on the right track. This stuff comes around every few years, and has on a regular basis since Revelation in the 1st century C.E.

It is humorous to read the old editions of The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind (1972) and The Population Bomb (1968). Their supposedly scientific predictions of the end of the world haven't come true yet, and don't appear to be imminent. I think the advice to keep hold of your wallet is sound.

Why do these books seem to always have a market. I think that is an easy question. They are the intellectual equivalent of horror movies. Being scared is an adrenallin rush, it's fun.

Here is the right attitude:

"Have you heard? It's in the stars, next July, we collide with Mars. Well, did you evah? What a swell party this is!"

"Well, Did You Evah?" by Cole Porter With Bing Crosby From High Society (1956).

An Indian economist, IIRC, wrote an article explaining why the population in his home country is increasing like it is. In a nutshell, it's because there's no provision for retirement, or for that matter, taking care of people in their old age. So, folks rely on their kids to take care of them in their old age. The more kids you have, the better off you are in your old age. Of course, in the meantime, taking care of all of those kids is a strain.

As libertarian as I am (notice the small 'l'), I can see the wisdom for having some social programs. In this case, it helps reduce population explosions.

: See this book

In summary Crichton shows how scientists have found that there is no good methodology for determining whether "global warming" is or is not occurring and that there is no way to determine what is causing "global warming" or "global cooling". Parts of the earth are warming up and other parts are cooling, but scientists haven't begun to fathom how or why. But they do know that global cooling/warming has happened many times before and so is nothing new, that large-scale burning of fossil fuels by human is not necessary for global warming/cooling to occur, and that there is no scientific basis for a cause-effect relationship between humans and global warming/cooling.

Crichton also documents how much money non-profit organizations who do no research and do little other than line their own pockets have invested their futures in the scare tactics of proclaiming global warming. Instead of scientists doing the science, we have lawyers and marketers pushing "global warming" so that they can get rich (via non-profits, environmental lawsuits, etc.). These folks have a vested interest in keeping the rest of us scared to death of "global warming".

In short, "global warming" supporters are all non-scientific and either naive do-gooders or unethical environmental carpetbaggers eager to empty your wallet. Quit sending them money.

Not RAID, but on my network I have a Linkys NSLU2 with two identical external USB harddrives. It has built in SMB support and can be configured to do a full drive backup daily. Its not the most scalable solution but it is low cost and easy to maintain.
The NSLU2 runs Linux and can be hacked so that you can setup more complex cron jobs to do your backups, if desired.

Hell, there's even a 2.5TB version using SATA.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ANMXL6/ref=wl _it_dp/002-2396307-9060010?_encoding=UTF8&colid=6V HWLFFX0TRD&coliid=I282RVK2V76GWN&v=glance&n=172282 /

Somebody buy that for me, it's on my Amazon wishlist. :)

Save yourself almost THIRETEEN ($13) bucks by buying the book here: Iron Heroes: A low magic tabletop game. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Everyone seemes to have done a nice job of Reduco ad adsurdam. Still isn't there something of a grey line here?

player A had 28 Hits and 100 at bats = Fact
player A had a .280 Batting Average = Derived Fact (Batting Average = H/AB)
player A is worth 5 Win Shares = IP? (Win Shares are based on a very complicated formula proposed by Bill James in his book: Win Shares http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1931584036/103-99 50907-7243037?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155

Not to play into this insane RFID paranoia any more than need be, but you can use a FilmShield to do the trick. They are lead lined and drive the airport scanners nuts... http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops- 1_photo_8714448_2/103-6943533-4911007?search-alias =photo&keywords=film%20shield/

GITS as y'all likely know, was originally a manga by Masamune Shirow. The movies and (I beleive) the TV series are by Mamoru Oshii.

There's a lot to say, but trying not to repeat what you can just websearch for yourselves, the TV series is more of a drama, focusing on character interactions; the book is more a geeky indulgence in dreaming the extentions of future technology, eastern philosophy, and impossibly spankalicious babes.

Which is why I mention the REAL GITS2. the second movie was Oshii's extention of his first movie. the manga GITS2 is much more the sequel I hoped for, getting far deeper into the philosophy and revealing the main character's metaphorical parallelling the japanese creation myths most especially involving the jewel, the sword, and the mirror.

here's a few scans to whet y'all's whistle:
image 1
image 2
image 3
image 4
image 5

the book is available at amazon and finer local comic retailers.

i'm amazed at how silently this book's been introduced in america. it's a travesty, as it's so much more fulfilling to GITS fans than the second movie.

I think Jared Diamond's Collapse offers an informative look on how the enviroment and our impact on the same plays a role in the success and potential collapse of civilizations. It is still bleak in areas, but not outright hopeless.

What bothers me about this article is that it closes with the following: "So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone." (bold my emphasis). Perhaps this is a poor choice of words and I've misread them. But, I don't believe that the pursuit of our basic needs and the preservation of our rights has as much to do with harming the enviroment as does sating our every want, whatever form it takes. Or, it could be the quasi-religious zeal with which he paints Gaia's wrath. Or, maybe it was that I read half-way through the article before hitting the part about the author's new book, and realized this was an advertisement.

...while Michael Chrichton is giving speeches detailing environmentalism as a religion.

Not everybody cared for the book (as evidenced by some of the reviews [personally I found it quite refreshing, he made a lot of very interesting points]), but Crichton's recent novel State of Fear dealt with almost this exact viewpoint. Individuals and "environmental" groups proclaiming doomsday just around the corner, and it's always our fault. Conveniently enough it's also right when they're having some sort of fundraiser or selling a new book.

*cough* *cough*

Give me a break. This guy is just the exact opposite as the niche of corporate types who really don't care if they dump toxic waste into the groundwater near a preschool.

You may want to check out the Hong Kong DVD packs. . . . It's legal but hard to find.

Sadly, eBay (and, from what I hear, many conventions) are flooded with bootlegs from Hong Kong, and I don't think most people know that what they're buying isn't legitimate. Search eBay, Half.com, or Amazon.com for a popular TV series like 24 or The Sopranos, and see just how many copies turn up that are described as "import" versions with "Chinese writing" on the box.

Anyway, to answer the grandparent's question, there's finally a trend starting where R1 anime companies release season/series sets in thinpak sets for a fraction of the price of the original discs, typically 6 months to a year after the last individual volume of the series is released. You lose the pack-in (and, sometimes, on-disc) extras, but the prices are far easier for the casual fan to swallow. For example, Amazon.com is selling Neon Genesis Evangelion -- once infamous for being ADV's cash cow -- for under $50 for the whole series. It's not quite on par with the pricing for most domestic TV series, but it's close.

Unfortunately, there's no word yet of packaging Stand Alone Complex in a cheaper collection, at least not in Region 1. Bandai and/or Manga have apparently decided there's still too much demand for the more-expensive individual volumes.

While they don't immediately come to mind when `not expensive' is mentioned, Sony makes some good small-sized laptops that feature small keyboards (both keycaps and spacing), and nice-quality small screens. While the latest and greatest Sony Vaois are pretty expensive, you can often find previous generations at affordable prices, and many of these devices are good travelling DVD players as well.

For both your needs and the OP, there are a number of `media keyboards' seemingly designed for living room use that might serve well -- these typically have many extra keys for navigation, program-hotkeys, etc. Even if these keys aren't labelled ins/del/pgup/pgdown/etc, that should be an easy problem to solve.

Finally, an alternative approach from my own experience: at a prior job where my desk had a good keyboard tray, I took an old buckling-spring keyboard with trackpoint (mine was from Lexmark, but I hear that UniComp owns that line now), removed the keycaps from the numeric keypad, and mounted my Logitech TrackMan Marble in that space.

It's not for everyone, but for me, clicky-keys+trackpoint+trackball-numkeys was nearly perfect.

It was the first story from his "Xeelee Sequence" that I read, but I'm definitely reading more now!

"maybe that's why drugs are illegal; drug dealers complained that "we would lose money if drugs were legal"."

Actually, I've often suspected something along these lines, as the only people who are better off with illegal drugs are those selling them. Seems I'm not the only one, read High Society by Ben Elton.

To get back on topic, yeah this is stupid, you can't own facts. And that's a fact©

Malcolm Gladwell in, "Blink." See, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316172324/sr=1-1 /qid=1137394659/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1304227-3896858?_ encoding=UTF8/

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.