I certainly preferred Grafiti on my OMP- but on a Newton OS 2 device, Newton HWR pwned Grafiti. Call me average, but like most english speakers, I think in words, not characters. Newton HWR was much more natural for me- and fast to boot. On a Newton or under CalliGrapher on Pocket PC, I can get a good 45-50 WPM with 99% accuracy. I have to fix a letter or so every paragraph. Not bad.
I too am a person who took all of my college lecture notes on a Newton, for 4 years. I think he meant notebooks, not textbooks, though I've known plenty of folks that carried a lot of notebooks around each day.
The best thing about the Newton for notes is that I could search my notes. Cramming for a test right before class starts? I could be reading the notes I needed then, not flipping through pages and pages looking for the right place...
Paper darts? Coding Lisp or NewtonScript or playing some game on the Newt is a lot more fun.:)
Yeah, not many people know about them. I've not seen them reviewed in most of the usual sites. They are pretty spendy, though- but if you like your PDA and do not want to upgrade, it is still a good option- esp before the Palm OS SD wifi card, when it was the only option. I originally found it when looking for the GRPS case- which looks way cool... One day I'll get it, for getting online w/o a phone.
Like someone else said, there are plenty of ways just to backup your PIM apps to your memory card.
One warning: if you're used to a Palm, make sure to try out a Zaurus before buying one. Look for the kind of apps you'd need, make sure you can download them, etc etc. A lot of folks who are used to the completeness, maturity and ease of use of a Palm or Pocket PC get burned when they get a Linux PDA. It's not the same situation as on the desktop: all the same software, but with a more robust OS. Just don't buy blind.
On the new Treo 650 you can use the full-screen Graffiti 2. It doesn't have the dedicated space like older Palms do, but like the newer ones, you can write anywhere on the screen as well... On the older ones, you could still use Jot and write anywhere on the screen.
It's not stable, it's a resource hog. It has more moving parts, and having supported both PPC and POS, can say without hesitation that in my opinion, POS is still far superior.
And that's just it- in your opinion. In my opinion, the Newton OS is still far superior to any other option out there, past or present. But, that being dead, the next best thing is Pocket PC. It has a number of things wrong with it, and I'd still rather use a vanilla WinCE.NET 4.2 machine over a PocketPC one, but unlike POS, it gets the job done for me.
I have owned many, many PDAs. I liked my Sony NX70V enough that I kept it. But unlike even the older iPAQ 3650 I got from/for work, it lacks a lot of functionality... Stuff the Newton had 10 years ago that POS still doesn't have. Multitasking is a big one. A full-screen HWR system. A good note-taking app. While I've not found any notetaking app for any platform that is as nice as the built-in Newton OS 2 Notes app (except that wiki-like system for NOS 2 that sat on top of it), there's nothing on the POS that is even close to the one that comes with PocketPC (Notes) or older WinCE (InkWriter)! I'd love to be proven wrong- where can I find a notes app for the Palm that provides these very basic features:
1. The ability to add typed notes, entered through Graf, Jot, or Decuma. 2. The ability to draw notes and diagrams- within the same note, the same canvas- side by side along the text. 3. Have an "unlimited" canvas, such that the notes page is always one page ahead of me in blank space. Naturally, nothing is unlimited, and this would be confined by the memory available to the device. Something even the first Newton, with a measley 640 KB of RAM had.
Yeah so Palms technically have no multitasking. It's also not a computer. It's not a washing machine either.
I was talking about OS 6, which has a form of multiprocessing, though a limited one. But Palm OS 4 and 5 has had some multiprocessing as well, although it didn't come from PalmSource that way. Sony added it, both in Palm OS 4 and 5 for their own Clie line. Specifically, they added the functionality of having *one* background thread, in addition to the regular single process. They added this for playing music in the background, though that means piping the file to the MP3/ATRAC decoder chip, not doing decoding in software.
Palm OS 6 (see subject- topic of discussion) has a little more in the way of multitasking, though not in the way most folks are accustomed to. It has the ability to have more than one background thread, though no additional full on processes. If a developer specifically writes an app to take advantage of the new POS 6 backgroudn thread API, it can use it- but if I want to put some random OS 4 or 5 app in the background, that is something I cannot do. Let's say I've got some cool IRC app (say, upirc), but they haven't done the substantial work of converting it to Palm OS 6 thread savvy. I don't want to have to reconnect every time I go back into IRC. That isn't that much to ask for, is it? Maybe after a few months, there'd be a version for OS 6 that kept the connection alive in the background, but even with every developer wanting to spend a lot of time any money retooling their apps, it still doesn't cover every contigency. As any power user knows, the original developer never thinks of everything the end user will want to do with their software, and unless they have thought of it in advance and made it so it could live in a thread, I'll be confined.
I guess what you mean is, it's not a Windows computer, right? It can't play Doom 3 so it can't play games. It can't run OpenOffice, so it can't edit or view documents. It can't serve files so it has no storage. You don't have a 21" monitor so it has no display. It doesn't multitask like Windows, so you can't possibly do two things, ever, on it. Drat, I paid $300 for a block of wood!
Who said anything about playing Doom or running OOo? One could say that the Newton OS didn't "multitask like Windows," but it still was powerful enough in the way of software and hardware to allow me to use it as a computer, not just a $300 organizer. I've no specific love for Windows CE or any desktop Windows, but since the Newton, there has not been any other real alternative for someone wanting to do more with their PDA. I don't pretend I'm not a minority- starting with my Newton MP2100 and more recently a Jornada 720 and Sigmarion 3, I've used my so-called PDA as my primary computer when at home. I've no need for a 21" monitor- most recently, my main computer at home has had a 5" 800x480 screen, which is more than I'm used to working with. This day in age, I'd prefer nothing under 640x480, though I'd settle for 480x320 (my Clie NX70V, Newton MP2100) if the rest of the device was right.
It's not that I want Palm OS to have a POSIX-compatible API, so that I could port tons of *nix apps to it, like exists for Windows CE and Linux PDAs. But I do want multitasking, because it is something I need to do, but more importantly something I *want* to do. I don't need a C compiler for Palm OS, and I'm not asking for one- but as you say, there are languages on the Palm OS for which you can get an on-board compiler... Is it too much to ask for to be able to put that app in the background and do something else- play solitaire, read an ebook- while it compiles? You may be willing to put up with the additional work and time wasted of single-tasking, but why should your needs decide it for the rest of us?
We're talking about 400 MHz CPUs here. Adding the ability to multitask to Palm OS is not going to "bog it down," or cause some 2000 lb. cancer of bloat to grow on the POS. If Palm OS is as efficient as f
Heh. The Zaurus is still very disapointing in a lot of ways, though mostly software. The C-series is very nice, although the lack of wifi or bluetooth for such an expensive PDA is a big disapointment. Heck, even a built-in camera might appease me.
Though Linux and CE PDAs have a big heads up on any Palm OS device, even with the new OS 6: multitasking. The POS6 definition of multitasking- having a few threads, no concurrent apps- is sad, and it's what makes my Palm PDA just an organizer and crappy camera, not the handheld computer that CE and Linux devices are.
Heh. That doesn't make any sense- they are talking about giving away a T5 running POS6. Were they just going on speculation that the T5 would come with OS 6, or do they have a developer model sitting around?
Pfft. I already have Docs To Go in ROM on my NX70V, though I had to put it there myself, using the bootiful JackFlash program. And PicselViewer. Very, very good.
The database thing wasn't thought up by Palm, even remotely. The Newton had that whole database-as-filesystem before the Palm existed.
Palm suck though, since they have no multitasking. It is the biggest thing that makes my Clie NX70V just an organizer and crappy camera always with me, rather than a computer I can fit in my pocket.
I use a program like WIMR on my Palm, never did on PocketPC though. I use JackFlash, FileZ, CLIE Files and Super Utility. I seem to need them all to get full coverage for what should be simple- file management.
Bush would only come off worse if you actually sit there watching him for 7 minutes without a stream of jokes in the background.
It would seem that way. I think most Americans need the sarcastic commentary so they can be told what to think. Bush would look bad enough by himself, for those of us who took the time to look at him. He is more than capable of incriminating himself and prooving him a chump, but most Americans aren't interested in that.
One thing I often thought of in F911 is that there is even worse dirt on Bush than what was in the film. Perhaps because some folks wouldn't believe that he wasn't *that* bad and then question Moore?
Yeah, those evil Dems are at it again! Not only do we want permission to pirate his film, but we want him to do the work for us! LAZY FAT BASTARD! Not willing to steal our movies for us!
but was immediately put off by the reliance on the QT toolkit and the framebuffer.
I was really interested in running BeOS, but I was immediately put off by the need to have a videocard to see the GUI.
I mean, there has to be some way to push the pixels onto the screen, where you can see them.
I'd second the suggestion- GPE sucks, but so does OPIE. No offense to the developers, both aren't the best soil from which to grow mature PDA apps, and hopefully things will get better. Sharp's Qtopia and Opie have a lot of little problems and immaturity leaking out of it, and in some ways GPE is no worse, and in a few ways it's better. And it's definately fun.;)
They've been doing this for a while already... My account was upgraded a month or two back. But then again, my account is pretty old- from 1996 IIRC. Which is the year Hotmail launched, again IIRC. Anyway, this explains why I've had a 250 MB account for a while, but a coworker of mine (who makes new accounts all the time to use for some reason) hasn't had any of hers upgraded yet. good to know.
A "Little Joint" is just as illegal as a line of coke. My point is, again, that most Americans don't care.
Umm, not necessarily. In my state Minnesota, the coke is more illegal. A joint is a misdemenor, with no jailtime and a small fine, but the coke is a felony. We'd have to find out where Clinton smoked up and what year to evaluate this, and it's not worth that much energy. The sheer amount of winter that went up Bush's nose would have him classed as intent to sell, though.
But you're right about Americans not caring. The majority of us don't have the intelligence or desire to make any political choices based the facts, or information. But then again, most Americans don't make most of their decisions using the facts and logic. *shrug*
No joke- it is far from perfect, and they have far from everything. But eMusic isn't one of those evil DRM'd subscription services- you can join for two months, download what they have that you do want, and move on. You don't have to keep paying them to keep accessing the music you own. There is no reason you can't have a bunch of MP3s you ripped yourself, AACs from Apple, and MP3s from eMusic in your music library- it isn't a lifestyle choice or religious decision you're making, just purchasing a product. Sometimes I'll buy a CD at Best Buy and sometimes at the Electric Fetus. Both have advantages and disadvantages, which is why I don't have a life contract signed with either.
Why is it that when President Bush obtains the advice and consent of Congress to go to war he is criticized and ridiculed [slashdot.org], but when President Clinton signed the Kyoto protocol in defiance [heritage.org] of a unanimous Senate who tells him it will not consent to the treaty, he is praised?
I'm with Andrew- is that a serious question, or a joke? For it to be anywhere in the same league, Clinton would've not only signed the bill in defiance, but he would've had to go ahead and implement it (how?) and kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civillians and over a thousand of our Service men and women in the process. If he could manage fucking up that hugely (taking lessons from Bush?) then he better get criticized and ridiculed.
Then again, there's the other question: why is it OK if Bush was a lush and a cokehead for year upon year, but Clinton smokes (part of) a joint and suddenly he is Satan incarnate. Cocaine is more wholesome perhaps?
Sounds fine to me. But if we're changing the way things work, we better allow for someone who lives in the US to get the other president- I really, really do not want to get stuck with Bush for another 4 years (really). Not that Kerry would be all that great, but I'd take a a cheese sandwitch over Bush. It may not accomplish anything, but at least it can't do anywhere near as much damage.
Anyway, that brings up an interesting idea- govern people according to how they voted. With computers it could almost be done, though there are areas it wouldn't work. E.g., if you voted for Bush, your taxes drop 0.5%, but your kids get stuck going to a shit school- unless you send them to a private one; you don't get any national health care; and maybe they'll put your name on a missle. Vote for Kerry or Nader and have your taxes go up 3%, but actually get services for your contribution. When some poor schmuck who voted for Bush shows up at the hospital, they ask for his ID, and check the database. If he voted republican, send him the full bill; if he voted Green, send him home healthy and with a co-pay or reasonable deductable.
Things like roads would obviously not work- but most politicians would agree on the need for a public transportation infrastructure. But the national vacuum train system would only be used for those who voted for the candidate which supported it...
The first couple revisions of the iMac did indeed have a fan. I'm not sure which revision it was before they lost the fan, but it may have been D? The 400-500 MHz Sage, Ruby and Indigo models.
eMusic isn't just a bunch of small-time independent musicians. eMusic has a lot of semi-popular music. No, there is no Brittany or Christina Agularia, J. Lo and probably no Snoop Dogg. But there is a ton of good industrial and electronic music available. Stuff from Cleopatra, Metropolis, others. Maybe not your thing. A fair bit of cool underground hip-hop too, and a great way to find similar music to other stuff you dig.
Check out the trial- no trickery involved. Sign up and get a few albums worth of free, legal MP3s, and when you've downloaded them cancelling it is easy and straight forward.
The real bummer is that eMusic used to be even better, though IMHO this is still a good deal. eMusic used to have unlimited downloads for your $15/month.
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I certainly preferred Grafiti on my OMP- but on a Newton OS 2 device, Newton HWR pwned Grafiti. Call me average, but like most english speakers, I think in words, not characters. Newton HWR was much more natural for me- and fast to boot. On a Newton or under CalliGrapher on Pocket PC, I can get a good 45-50 WPM with 99% accuracy. I have to fix a letter or so every paragraph. Not bad.
I too am a person who took all of my college lecture notes on a Newton, for 4 years. I think he meant notebooks, not textbooks, though I've known plenty of folks that carried a lot of notebooks around each day.
:)
The best thing about the Newton for notes is that I could search my notes. Cramming for a test right before class starts? I could be reading the notes I needed then, not flipping through pages and pages looking for the right place...
Paper darts? Coding Lisp or NewtonScript or playing some game on the Newt is a lot more fun.
Yeah, not many people know about them. I've not seen them reviewed in most of the usual sites. They are pretty spendy, though- but if you like your PDA and do not want to upgrade, it is still a good option- esp before the Palm OS SD wifi card, when it was the only option. I originally found it when looking for the GRPS case- which looks way cool... One day I'll get it, for getting online w/o a phone.
This memory is flash, non volatile.
Like someone else said, there are plenty of ways just to backup your PIM apps to your memory card.
One warning: if you're used to a Palm, make sure to try out a Zaurus before buying one. Look for the kind of apps you'd need, make sure you can download them, etc etc. A lot of folks who are used to the completeness, maturity and ease of use of a Palm or Pocket PC get burned when they get a Linux PDA. It's not the same situation as on the desktop: all the same software, but with a more robust OS. Just don't buy blind.
sorry for the dual-post, but check this for a a review of the wifi portfolio with a T3, should work with a T2 as well.
There is one more option for wireless- one of those Enfora cases. You can use it for getting online via wifi or cell.
On the new Treo 650 you can use the full-screen Graffiti 2. It doesn't have the dedicated space like older Palms do, but like the newer ones, you can write anywhere on the screen as well... On the older ones, you could still use Jot and write anywhere on the screen.
It's not stable, it's a resource hog. It has more moving parts, and having supported both PPC and POS, can say without hesitation that in my opinion, POS is still far superior.
And that's just it- in your opinion. In my opinion, the Newton OS is still far superior to any other option out there, past or present. But, that being dead, the next best thing is Pocket PC. It has a number of things wrong with it, and I'd still rather use a vanilla WinCE.NET 4.2 machine over a PocketPC one, but unlike POS, it gets the job done for me.
I have owned many, many PDAs. I liked my Sony NX70V enough that I kept it. But unlike even the older iPAQ 3650 I got from/for work, it lacks a lot of functionality... Stuff the Newton had 10 years ago that POS still doesn't have. Multitasking is a big one. A full-screen HWR system. A good note-taking app. While I've not found any notetaking app for any platform that is as nice as the built-in Newton OS 2 Notes app (except that wiki-like system for NOS 2 that sat on top of it), there's nothing on the POS that is even close to the one that comes with PocketPC (Notes) or older WinCE (InkWriter)! I'd love to be proven wrong- where can I find a notes app for the Palm that provides these very basic features:
1. The ability to add typed notes, entered through Graf, Jot, or Decuma.
2. The ability to draw notes and diagrams- within the same note, the same canvas- side by side along the text.
3. Have an "unlimited" canvas, such that the notes page is always one page ahead of me in blank space. Naturally, nothing is unlimited, and this would be confined by the memory available to the device. Something even the first Newton, with a measley 640 KB of RAM had.
Yeah so Palms technically have no multitasking. It's also not a computer. It's not a washing machine either.
I was talking about OS 6, which has a form of multiprocessing, though a limited one. But Palm OS 4 and 5 has had some multiprocessing as well, although it didn't come from PalmSource that way. Sony added it, both in Palm OS 4 and 5 for their own Clie line. Specifically, they added the functionality of having *one* background thread, in addition to the regular single process. They added this for playing music in the background, though that means piping the file to the MP3/ATRAC decoder chip, not doing decoding in software.
Palm OS 6 (see subject- topic of discussion) has a little more in the way of multitasking, though not in the way most folks are accustomed to. It has the ability to have more than one background thread, though no additional full on processes. If a developer specifically writes an app to take advantage of the new POS 6 backgroudn thread API, it can use it- but if I want to put some random OS 4 or 5 app in the background, that is something I cannot do. Let's say I've got some cool IRC app (say, upirc), but they haven't done the substantial work of converting it to Palm OS 6 thread savvy. I don't want to have to reconnect every time I go back into IRC. That isn't that much to ask for, is it? Maybe after a few months, there'd be a version for OS 6 that kept the connection alive in the background, but even with every developer wanting to spend a lot of time any money retooling their apps, it still doesn't cover every contigency. As any power user knows, the original developer never thinks of everything the end user will want to do with their software, and unless they have thought of it in advance and made it so it could live in a thread, I'll be confined.
I guess what you mean is, it's not a Windows computer, right? It can't play Doom 3 so it can't play games. It can't run OpenOffice, so it can't edit or view documents. It can't serve files so it has no storage. You don't have a 21" monitor so it has no display. It doesn't multitask like Windows, so you can't possibly do two things, ever, on it. Drat, I paid $300 for a block of wood!
Who said anything about playing Doom or running OOo? One could say that the Newton OS didn't "multitask like Windows," but it still was powerful enough in the way of software and hardware to allow me to use it as a computer, not just a $300 organizer. I've no specific love for Windows CE or any desktop Windows, but since the Newton, there has not been any other real alternative for someone wanting to do more with their PDA. I don't pretend I'm not a minority- starting with my Newton MP2100 and more recently a Jornada 720 and Sigmarion 3, I've used my so-called PDA as my primary computer when at home. I've no need for a 21" monitor- most recently, my main computer at home has had a 5" 800x480 screen, which is more than I'm used to working with. This day in age, I'd prefer nothing under 640x480, though I'd settle for 480x320 (my Clie NX70V, Newton MP2100) if the rest of the device was right.
It's not that I want Palm OS to have a POSIX-compatible API, so that I could port tons of *nix apps to it, like exists for Windows CE and Linux PDAs. But I do want multitasking, because it is something I need to do, but more importantly something I *want* to do. I don't need a C compiler for Palm OS, and I'm not asking for one- but as you say, there are languages on the Palm OS for which you can get an on-board compiler... Is it too much to ask for to be able to put that app in the background and do something else- play solitaire, read an ebook- while it compiles? You may be willing to put up with the additional work and time wasted of single-tasking, but why should your needs decide it for the rest of us?
We're talking about 400 MHz CPUs here. Adding the ability to multitask to Palm OS is not going to "bog it down," or cause some 2000 lb. cancer of bloat to grow on the POS. If Palm OS is as efficient as f
Heh. The Zaurus is still very disapointing in a lot of ways, though mostly software. The C-series is very nice, although the lack of wifi or bluetooth for such an expensive PDA is a big disapointment. Heck, even a built-in camera might appease me.
Though Linux and CE PDAs have a big heads up on any Palm OS device, even with the new OS 6: multitasking. The POS6 definition of multitasking- having a few threads, no concurrent apps- is sad, and it's what makes my Palm PDA just an organizer and crappy camera, not the handheld computer that CE and Linux devices are.
Perhaps you had less RAM, but you had a lot more than 32 MB of hard drive space, about what this has in equivalent ROM.
Heh. That doesn't make any sense- they are talking about giving away a T5 running POS6. Were they just going on speculation that the T5 would come with OS 6, or do they have a developer model sitting around?
Pfft. I already have Docs To Go in ROM on my NX70V, though I had to put it there myself, using the bootiful JackFlash program. And PicselViewer. Very, very good.
The database thing wasn't thought up by Palm, even remotely. The Newton had that whole database-as-filesystem before the Palm existed.
Palm suck though, since they have no multitasking. It is the biggest thing that makes my Clie NX70V just an organizer and crappy camera always with me, rather than a computer I can fit in my pocket.
I use a program like WIMR on my Palm, never did on PocketPC though. I use JackFlash, FileZ, CLIE Files and Super Utility. I seem to need them all to get full coverage for what should be simple- file management.
To each his own.
Bush would only come off worse if you actually sit there watching him for 7 minutes without a stream of jokes in the background.
It would seem that way. I think most Americans need the sarcastic commentary so they can be told what to think. Bush would look bad enough by himself, for those of us who took the time to look at him. He is more than capable of incriminating himself and prooving him a chump, but most Americans aren't interested in that.
One thing I often thought of in F911 is that there is even worse dirt on Bush than what was in the film. Perhaps because some folks wouldn't believe that he wasn't *that* bad and then question Moore?
Yeah, those evil Dems are at it again! Not only do we want permission to pirate his film, but we want him to do the work for us! LAZY FAT BASTARD! Not willing to steal our movies for us!
(sheesh)
but was immediately put off by the reliance on the QT toolkit and the framebuffer.
;)
I was really interested in running BeOS, but I was immediately put off by the need to have a videocard to see the GUI.
I mean, there has to be some way to push the pixels onto the screen, where you can see them.
I'd second the suggestion- GPE sucks, but so does OPIE. No offense to the developers, both aren't
the best soil from which to grow mature PDA apps, and hopefully things will get better. Sharp's Qtopia and Opie have a lot of little problems and immaturity leaking out of it, and in some ways GPE is no worse, and in a few ways it's better. And it's definately fun.
They've been doing this for a while already... My account was upgraded a month or two back. But then again, my account is pretty old- from 1996 IIRC. Which is the year Hotmail launched, again IIRC. Anyway, this explains why I've had a 250 MB account for a while, but a coworker of mine (who makes new accounts all the time to use for some reason) hasn't had any of hers upgraded yet. good to know.
A "Little Joint" is just as illegal as a line of coke. My point is, again, that most Americans don't care.
Umm, not necessarily. In my state Minnesota, the coke is more illegal. A joint is a misdemenor, with no jailtime and a small fine, but the coke is a felony. We'd have to find out where Clinton smoked up and what year to evaluate this, and it's not worth that much energy. The sheer amount of winter that went up Bush's nose would have him classed as intent to sell, though.
But you're right about Americans not caring. The majority of us don't have the intelligence or desire to make any political choices based the facts, or information. But then again, most Americans don't make most of their decisions using the facts and logic. *shrug*
No joke- it is far from perfect, and they have far from everything. But eMusic isn't one of those evil DRM'd subscription services- you can join for two months, download what they have that you do want, and move on. You don't have to keep paying them to keep accessing the music you own. There is no reason you can't have a bunch of MP3s you ripped yourself, AACs from Apple, and MP3s from eMusic in your music library- it isn't a lifestyle choice or religious decision you're making, just purchasing a product. Sometimes I'll buy a CD at Best Buy and sometimes at the Electric Fetus. Both have advantages and disadvantages, which is why I don't have a life contract signed with either.
Why is it that when President Bush obtains the advice and consent of Congress to go to war he is criticized and ridiculed [slashdot.org], but when President Clinton signed the Kyoto protocol in defiance [heritage.org] of a unanimous Senate who tells him it will not consent to the treaty, he is praised?
I'm with Andrew- is that a serious question, or a joke? For it to be anywhere in the same league, Clinton would've not only signed the bill in defiance, but he would've had to go ahead and implement it (how?) and kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civillians and over a thousand of our Service men and women in the process. If he could manage fucking up that hugely (taking lessons from Bush?) then he better get criticized and ridiculed.
Then again, there's the other question: why is it OK if Bush was a lush and a cokehead for year upon year, but Clinton smokes (part of) a joint and suddenly he is Satan incarnate. Cocaine is more wholesome perhaps?
Sounds fine to me. But if we're changing the way things work, we better allow for someone who lives in the US to get the other president- I really, really do not want to get stuck with Bush for another 4 years (really). Not that Kerry would be all that great, but I'd take a a cheese sandwitch over Bush. It may not accomplish anything, but at least it can't do anywhere near as much damage.
Anyway, that brings up an interesting idea- govern people according to how they voted. With computers it could almost be done, though there are areas it wouldn't work. E.g., if you voted for Bush, your taxes drop 0.5%, but your kids get stuck going to a shit school- unless you send them to a private one; you don't get any national health care; and maybe they'll put your name on a missle. Vote for Kerry or Nader and have your taxes go up 3%, but actually get services for your contribution. When some poor schmuck who voted for Bush shows up at the hospital, they ask for his ID, and check the database. If he voted republican, send him the full bill; if he voted Green, send him home healthy and with a co-pay or reasonable deductable.
Things like roads would obviously not work- but most politicians would agree on the need for a public transportation infrastructure. But the national vacuum train system would only be used for those who voted for the candidate which supported it...
The first couple revisions of the iMac did indeed have a fan. I'm not sure which revision it was before they lost the fan, but it may have been D? The 400-500 MHz Sage, Ruby and Indigo models.
eMusic isn't just a bunch of small-time independent musicians. eMusic has a lot of semi-popular music. No, there is no Brittany or Christina Agularia, J. Lo and probably no Snoop Dogg. But there is a ton of good industrial and electronic music available. Stuff from Cleopatra, Metropolis, others. Maybe not your thing. A fair bit of cool underground hip-hop too, and a great way to find similar music to other stuff you dig.
Check out the trial- no trickery involved. Sign up and get a few albums worth of free, legal MP3s, and when you've downloaded them cancelling it is easy and straight forward.
The real bummer is that eMusic used to be even better, though IMHO this is still a good deal. eMusic used to have unlimited downloads for your $15/month.
I'm glad someone had the brains to figure out that what I said was meant as a joke- and to follow up on it. :)