Skip the review of the Shuttle appliance for now. The reviewer perfomed a click-by-click installation review of both Mandrake 9.2 and Windows XP on the machine.
Bottom line: Mandrake was easier and faster to install than XP. It had just as many pretty pictures, and it required less knowledge on the part of the user regarding networking, hardware, etc. It took 40 minutes instead of 50, and required only one reboot as opposed to the nine+ required to install XP. And when it was done, the reviewer had far more applications ready to run installed on the machine.
His conclusion was that Linux is indeed ready for the desktop.
The Pine Bend refinery just southeast of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area already uses a "California-approved" process for reducing sulfur from the gasoline they sell. They are marketing it at the metro area Holiday stations as "Blue Planet Gasoline". I find their prices are roughly the same as those who sell other gas, so I've switched and exclusively purchase my gas from their pumps; and probably will continue to do so regardless of price.
I spoke to a refinery employee for quite a while last year, and he said that they had made the investement in filtering in hopes that they could sell the gas at a premium to environmentally conscious people. However, they simply proved that gasoline is very much a price sensitive commodity and most people will cross the street to save one cent per gallon, regardless of any other considerations.
But the refinery still seems just as dirty as it ever did, and they still are being accused of silently purchasing the houses and farms in the surrounding areas, especially those of people with lung ailments. At least it's out in the sticks, as opposed to the stinking ethanol plant which was stupidly located in a former brewery in the middle of a residential area in St. Paul.
Totally off topic, but I followed your link to your rig. Very nice. You might want to consider a Zalman GPU cooler to go with that Radeon (and add the optional fan.) I've got those cards in both of my machines, and they run hot! I cut holes in the sides of the cases and added 80mm fans pointed straight at the card edges. I wish I'd have known about that heatsink earlier, and I might still add them. (Given the amount of heat coming off those Athlons makes me wonder if I shouldn't just watercool the damn things.)
My problem now is my desk doesn't have enough airflow around my case...:-(
Ethanol takes energy to make. Lots of energy, possibly more than it contains
This is true only with respect to burning ethanol as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. This statement does not appear take into account the difference between an internal combustion engine and the conversion of ethanol to hydrogen to electricty to motive power.
You also are ignoring the fact that the ethanol can be produced using ethanol based energy. The tractor power, the distillation, the factory incidentals, the distribution, all of that energy could be provided by ethanol. That it isn't produced that way yet is due in large part to the lack of a widely available efficient ethanol conversion process.
The "hydrogen-based energy economy" has been hampered by the fact that hydrogen is not as easy to deliver as gasoline. However, ethanol is exactly as easy to deliver as gasoline, and the infrastruture already exists to do so. The problems with converting methanol or ethanol to hydrogen for fuel cells (the expense of the platinum catalysts) has been one of the final roadblocks to widespread adoption of fuel cell powered vehicles.
Crying "corn belt subsidy" before the technology even sees the light of day is counter-productive. Yes, some people are going to get filthy rich off of whatever fuel supplants oil. Unethical people will make financially-motivated decisions to use a "dirty" process and release lots of pollution. There will be more crooked deals with more crooked politicians, there will be kickbacks and porkbarrels the likes of which will relegate Haliburton and Cheney to the junior varsity level. Some oil industry barons will be ruined, many oil industry workers will lose their jobs, and the world will be changed. But it needs to change. The new direction may or may not be ethanol, but it can't remain fossil fuel based forever. And we need to explore those alternatives now.
Their enemies are now working, for free, to extend Microsoft's monopoly onto new platforms.
"Enemies"? "Extending monopoly?"
I think the author has missed one of the points about.NET: it does have some very attractive features that certainly could be useful in any environment, not just Windows. Automatic garbage collection and rock-solid typing are valuable assets. Just-in-time compiling in the runtime environment can provide extremely fast running code. (Not that it always does, but it has the potential in some situations.) These are benefits that there is no reason the GNU community can't share.
There's also another benefit: it's a two-way street. Having dotGNU might provide a roadway for Windows developers to leave the Windows platform.
He has interesting points, and they're worth discussing, but it's way to early to pronounce dotGNU or Mono dead.
No, I'm still not worried about the field exposure. I just want an excuse to go out and buy an ike!:-)
In reality, I think these power lines may have done me more good than harm. During thunderstorms, I can pretty much count on the lightning striking the tower in the backyard instead of the house.
But yeah, I'd like them to take a bit more care of the easement too. We really don't need anyone hurt by an arc some stormy night.
Long ago, a friend wanted me to put a large coil on stilts at the property line and save myself a few bucks a month. I thought I should just ring my deck with neon bulbs and save myself the trouble of stringing Christmas lights.
My property abuts a set of high voltage transmission lines. (I'm about three miles from a coal plant.) The lines cut a long, skinny park through my city. The plat for the site shows a 200 foot wide easement, which is about 30 meters to the property on either edge of the park. I've never measured the height of the towers, but my rough guess is that the line itself is perhaps 25 meters above ground. That puts the line itself about 39 meters from the edge of my property.
The land beneath the lines was clear-cut about 12 years ago. But there are now trees under this line that are about 10 meters high.
Years ago when my wife was concerned about "power line emissions" the power company loaned her a meter that showed "electrical fields." I don't remember the scale, or even what it was supposed to measure, but I do remember that we had to actually get about 200 feet from the wire before the field from the line stopped affecting the meter. (Yes, on a humid summer day I once stood in my back yard with a neon bulb and caused it to illuminate by simply dangling a three foot wire from one lead and touching the other.) I had always assumed it was a 750kV line, and that the 100 foot easement was more than sufficient. Now, I wonder. Hey, maybe this is enough of an excuse to go out and get one of those IKE toys!
Y'know, that's a great suggestion! Matt might have them jump a shark in this movie just for the joke. He knows the show is old, and mocking himself would be perfectly in keeping with his style.
I don't believe that Commodore died for lack of trying to drive sales. I think they died because the Amiga was a niche product, that they always knew it was a niche product, and they desparately needed to come up with a new product to fill a mainstream need. In their minds, that meant some product that was PC based.
I was present at the Minneapolis release of the Toaster (I still remember the invitation came with an actual piece of toast in a box, which knocked around our lab for a few years afterwards.) Jim, Kiki et al were there. We were introduced to a Commodore VP of sales (or marketing.) He had heard about our application and that we had purchased 60 Amigas for use throughout our company. He wanted us to split from our company and take our product to the road.
I distinctly remember that within three seconds of our saying "we can't at this time because we're in the middle of a lawsuit over it" that we were given the cold shoulder; he was gone and off to fish for other potentials. They were actively looking for partners who were going drive sales, and if it wasn't you then they had absolutely zero time to waste in finding someone else.
I got the impression Commodore WAS pushing the Amiga as hard as they could, within the limited resources they had. They had a great product. I loved my A500 and I still get it out once a year or so for a nostalgic game of DungeonMaster. But, for all it did it was still a niche product and it always was. My apologies to the Amiga fanboys who never saw it that way, (most of them still don't,) but that's the simple fact. If it was more than a niche product, the proof would have been in the continued existance of Commodore Amiga.
BTW we never did get a toaster.:-( Our application was simple enough (and not so visually demanding) that we were able to use a $99 "ProGen" genlock.
Glad you didn't RTFA. These aren't orbs, they're meters. No colors. Just indicator needles pointing to text.
The Ambient Dashboard consists of three independent meters. You insert transparent faceplates in front each meter that indicates whatever you wish that meter to display, daily Dow Jones rise/fall percent, local temperature, football game point spread, whatever. And each faceplate has some encoding mechanism that automatically tells the base what type of data it is supposed to display; the base then listens for that info and monitors it.
The whole point was to be able to display a datum with both a quick glance and calibrated text if you cared to study it more. I happen to agree with you that a pile of multicolored glowing orbs would be mostly useless, but this is a real indicator with text, not a random blob.
His list has one point I'd argue: typewriters. They'll die with the current crop of older adults that still use them. (I'm 42 and haven't touched one in probably 17 years.) Offices used to keep them around, even after entering "the computer age", but if you walk into any small business now, you'll find the token typewriter stuffed in a closet, no longer even usable.
Yes, there are some people who use them, but there are fewer and fewer forms to fill out these days that aren't automated.
Then you'd have loved our previous lunchtime chats.
Consider the era before wearable cell phones, when every person on the team I work on has worn a Motorola pager 24 x 7 since at least 1987. (While we were only supposed to get paged while on-call, and we wouldn't get in trouble if we took the pager off if we weren't on call, the boss still wanted us to be "available" in case some really big disaster struck.) All the pagers have always had identical tones, as they were usually replaced as a group when the company switched paging providers. And way back when, vibrating pagers were not the "standard."
At lunch, if one of us would get paged it was like watching synchronized swimming. You would see six arms reaching for six belts, and six glances downward. Then you would see five smiles and one guy getting razzed for having the misfortune to actually have to leave lunch to answer his page.
So I know from personal experience that distinctive ringtones have their utility. Polyphonic ring tones don't add quite so much value; although I sometimes amuse myself by trying to figure out why some personality types would select some of the music choices I've heard.
Quality Control does not necessarily mean "user interface". You can make a very high quality cell phone that still sucks. Nokia has an entire factory full of them.
The story isn't about cheap-ass phones that break, but about phones that have features that are so poorly implemented that 95% of the users are unable to make use of them, and/or features that 99% of their users don't need or want.
I think a lot of the problem is the rush to market with something new, regardless of actual utility. "We have to have the 2005 line designed by Thursday, and we need a feature the competition doesn't have. Let's have a micro-motorized skin that pulses along its length, allowing it to crawl across the table like a worm!" "Why would we do that?" "Because Sony-Ericsson hasn't done it yet!!!"
So regardless of "what" the function is, or how consumers might use it, it gets thrown into the device. This is most evident in cell phones, where it seems every phone has a calculator, an appointment calendar, a stopwatch, a diving computer, a pedometer, and an altimeter. And the manufacturers trumpet these alleged features as if they add value, when in reality all they do is clutter the interface and suck electrons.
My ideal cell phone would be a small brick I keep clipped to my belt, next to my leatherman. A bluetooth headset would allow me to talk, and my Tungsten would allow me to surf. The phone would still have a speaker, microphone and keypad so I could use it "in manual mode" if I didn't have the headset with me. A screen displaying ten digits would be nice, but optional. And I guess I'd like some kind of powered-on indicator, although the position of an "on-off" switch could suffice.
I find it almost criminal for a phone to have a "backdrop" picture, or a "screen saver", or even color. All these "features" do is to draw down battery power, and add to the visual clutter. They don't make my "phoning experience" easier or faster or more enjoyable. I really don't want a "phoning experience" -- I just want a fucking phone that I can call my wife and tell her I'm going to the Chinese place and ask her if she wants wontons with her cashew chicken!!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong, (but I seriously doubt it.)
After having read the Silmarillion, I appreciated the character of Tom Bombadil more as the whole 'Father Nature' character; but I still agree that he was the weakest character in the FotR.
With all the other Hollywood-esque liberties Peter Jackson took for the occasional one liner ("Nobody tosses a dwarf!") it wouldn't have been totally wrong to bring him in as Tim Benzedrine from the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. Just stick in some stoned ancient hippy, like Tommy Chong who would have been perfect for the part, or maybe even Steven Tyler!:-) "Whoa, man, little dudes! Great 'shrooms, man." There you go, a deviation nobody would have complained about.
I will never understand why he left out the Scouring of the Shire. I thought that was the single most significant point of the entire story. Sure, the destruction of the ring was the climax, but it was certainly not the end of it; nor was it the moral of the story. The rebuilding of the Shire after Sharkey's End was the "happy" part of the ending. I really wanted to see Merry and Pippin ride in, mock the Shirrifs and start kicking butt; Sam replanting the Party Tree and becoming mayor; Frodo giving Lobelia Bag End; etc. Those were the happy points you leave the book with. The movie just went from "Here's a wedding, there's the credits, don't let the boats hit you in the ass as they sail off to the Grey Havens."
"And they all lived happily to the end of their days" would have been so much better if they actually had.
Y'know, I'd argue the point with you but I think I'll wait for the movie to come out.
Actually, I think the parent post's prophecy is chilling. I see fewer and fewer kids reading for pleasure.
What you may not see in your circle of friends is that the vast majority of Americans DON'T read for pleasure. They'll go to the movies, or see it on TV, and then that will become The Definitive Version for them. You can argue the books' point of view till you're blue in the face, but you won't change their narrow little minds. "I saw it in the movie, therefore I know what the real story is."
Tolkien's written works are among the top of the heap in popularity, and have held that spot for a long time. But eighty-some sold-out printings might find their way into the hands of 10 or 20% of the population, tops. 60%-80% will see one or more of the movies at some point, either in the theaters, cable channels, or eventually on TV. It's a numbers game, and books are no longer likely to win it. Not in this world where nobody you know shops at WalM*rt, but they're still the top retailer by a factor of ten.
I have his 4" astrolabe with 8 plates, and have a few words of advice to anyone considering buying one to actually use.
First, get the 8 plate model. The fixed model is OK for hanging on your coffee table and playing with once or twice at home, but it quickly becomes inaccurate at other latitudes. And talk to the guy selling them, he can take your plates in trade for new ones for the latitudes you'll be at. (Speaking of which, I must remember to order a 49 degree plate...)
Next, I recommend the pewter finish. My reasons are that the gold reflects too much sunlight when you're trying to read it, the pewter costs less, and you won't feel bad about scratching it up. That said, the gold is prettier, and no, it won't make that much difference, so go with what you like.
I found my rete (the spiderweb) was scratching my plates, and was difficult to turn. I fixed it by putting a sheet of 600 grit (ultra fine) sandpaper on a flat tabletop, and sanding the back of the rete in a circular motion. (Oil on the sandpaper will help.) It turns as smooth as silk now.
Finally, keep in mind that the pointer and the rule are made of pewter, a very soft metal that bends easily. They can get out of alignment without your noticing. You need to check them prior to every use, and gently bend them straight as needed. Also, it helps to bend a slight "bow" in your rule (the sights) such that when you tighten the screw, it presses the tips of the rule against the mater. I find this gives just enough friction to keep it from sliding when I take the reading.
All those warnings aside, I am very pleased with my purchase. Norm has good people working for him, and I have always felt I was dealt with fairly in his shops. And I think his prices are quite reasonable (although it's not like pricewatch has an astrolabe category for me to compare against.) When telling time, this tiny astrolabe is accurate to within about four minutes. I would buy another one in a minute, although I'd rather have one made of brass just for durability reasons.
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Bottom line: Mandrake was easier and faster to install than XP. It had just as many pretty pictures, and it required less knowledge on the part of the user regarding networking, hardware, etc. It took 40 minutes instead of 50, and required only one reboot as opposed to the nine+ required to install XP. And when it was done, the reviewer had far more applications ready to run installed on the machine.
His conclusion was that Linux is indeed ready for the desktop.
I spoke to a refinery employee for quite a while last year, and he said that they had made the investement in filtering in hopes that they could sell the gas at a premium to environmentally conscious people. However, they simply proved that gasoline is very much a price sensitive commodity and most people will cross the street to save one cent per gallon, regardless of any other considerations.
But the refinery still seems just as dirty as it ever did, and they still are being accused of silently purchasing the houses and farms in the surrounding areas, especially those of people with lung ailments. At least it's out in the sticks, as opposed to the stinking ethanol plant which was stupidly located in a former brewery in the middle of a residential area in St. Paul.
My problem now is my desk doesn't have enough airflow around my case... :-(
I can build one in about two hours.
[ *RIMSHOT* ]
Thank you, I'll be here through Sunday. Tip your servers, they work hard for you...
This is true only with respect to burning ethanol as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. This statement does not appear take into account the difference between an internal combustion engine and the conversion of ethanol to hydrogen to electricty to motive power.
You also are ignoring the fact that the ethanol can be produced using ethanol based energy. The tractor power, the distillation, the factory incidentals, the distribution, all of that energy could be provided by ethanol. That it isn't produced that way yet is due in large part to the lack of a widely available efficient ethanol conversion process.
The "hydrogen-based energy economy" has been hampered by the fact that hydrogen is not as easy to deliver as gasoline. However, ethanol is exactly as easy to deliver as gasoline, and the infrastruture already exists to do so. The problems with converting methanol or ethanol to hydrogen for fuel cells (the expense of the platinum catalysts) has been one of the final roadblocks to widespread adoption of fuel cell powered vehicles.
Crying "corn belt subsidy" before the technology even sees the light of day is counter-productive. Yes, some people are going to get filthy rich off of whatever fuel supplants oil. Unethical people will make financially-motivated decisions to use a "dirty" process and release lots of pollution. There will be more crooked deals with more crooked politicians, there will be kickbacks and porkbarrels the likes of which will relegate Haliburton and Cheney to the junior varsity level. Some oil industry barons will be ruined, many oil industry workers will lose their jobs, and the world will be changed. But it needs to change. The new direction may or may not be ethanol, but it can't remain fossil fuel based forever. And we need to explore those alternatives now.
"Enemies"? "Extending monopoly?"
I think the author has missed one of the points about .NET: it does have some very attractive features that certainly could be useful in any environment, not just Windows. Automatic garbage collection and rock-solid typing are valuable assets. Just-in-time compiling in the runtime environment can provide extremely fast running code. (Not that it always does, but it has the potential in some situations.) These are benefits that there is no reason the GNU community can't share.
There's also another benefit: it's a two-way street. Having dotGNU might provide a roadway for Windows developers to leave the Windows platform.
He has interesting points, and they're worth discussing, but it's way to early to pronounce dotGNU or Mono dead.
In reality, I think these power lines may have done me more good than harm. During thunderstorms, I can pretty much count on the lightning striking the tower in the backyard instead of the house.
But yeah, I'd like them to take a bit more care of the easement too. We really don't need anyone hurt by an arc some stormy night.
Long ago, a friend wanted me to put a large coil on stilts at the property line and save myself a few bucks a month. I thought I should just ring my deck with neon bulbs and save myself the trouble of stringing Christmas lights.
The land beneath the lines was clear-cut about 12 years ago. But there are now trees under this line that are about 10 meters high.
Years ago when my wife was concerned about "power line emissions" the power company loaned her a meter that showed "electrical fields." I don't remember the scale, or even what it was supposed to measure, but I do remember that we had to actually get about 200 feet from the wire before the field from the line stopped affecting the meter. (Yes, on a humid summer day I once stood in my back yard with a neon bulb and caused it to illuminate by simply dangling a three foot wire from one lead and touching the other.) I had always assumed it was a 750kV line, and that the 100 foot easement was more than sufficient. Now, I wonder. Hey, maybe this is enough of an excuse to go out and get one of those IKE toys!
Y'know, that's a great suggestion! Matt might have them jump a shark in this movie just for the joke. He knows the show is old, and mocking himself would be perfectly in keeping with his style.
I was present at the Minneapolis release of the Toaster (I still remember the invitation came with an actual piece of toast in a box, which knocked around our lab for a few years afterwards.) Jim, Kiki et al were there. We were introduced to a Commodore VP of sales (or marketing.) He had heard about our application and that we had purchased 60 Amigas for use throughout our company. He wanted us to split from our company and take our product to the road.
I distinctly remember that within three seconds of our saying "we can't at this time because we're in the middle of a lawsuit over it" that we were given the cold shoulder; he was gone and off to fish for other potentials. They were actively looking for partners who were going drive sales, and if it wasn't you then they had absolutely zero time to waste in finding someone else.
I got the impression Commodore WAS pushing the Amiga as hard as they could, within the limited resources they had. They had a great product. I loved my A500 and I still get it out once a year or so for a nostalgic game of DungeonMaster. But, for all it did it was still a niche product and it always was. My apologies to the Amiga fanboys who never saw it that way, (most of them still don't,) but that's the simple fact. If it was more than a niche product, the proof would have been in the continued existance of Commodore Amiga.
BTW we never did get a toaster. :-( Our application was simple enough (and not so visually demanding) that we were able to use a $99 "ProGen" genlock.
"It's female, Jim."
Are those ads still around even? I haven't seen banner ads in a long time, so I don't know...
I must have read too much Cryptonomicon as a kid ... oh, wait, it didn't come out until I was an adult.
The Ambient Dashboard consists of three independent meters. You insert transparent faceplates in front each meter that indicates whatever you wish that meter to display, daily Dow Jones rise/fall percent, local temperature, football game point spread, whatever. And each faceplate has some encoding mechanism that automatically tells the base what type of data it is supposed to display; the base then listens for that info and monitors it.
The whole point was to be able to display a datum with both a quick glance and calibrated text if you cared to study it more. I happen to agree with you that a pile of multicolored glowing orbs would be mostly useless, but this is a real indicator with text, not a random blob.
Yes, there are some people who use them, but there are fewer and fewer forms to fill out these days that aren't automated.
Consider the era before wearable cell phones, when every person on the team I work on has worn a Motorola pager 24 x 7 since at least 1987. (While we were only supposed to get paged while on-call, and we wouldn't get in trouble if we took the pager off if we weren't on call, the boss still wanted us to be "available" in case some really big disaster struck.) All the pagers have always had identical tones, as they were usually replaced as a group when the company switched paging providers. And way back when, vibrating pagers were not the "standard."
At lunch, if one of us would get paged it was like watching synchronized swimming. You would see six arms reaching for six belts, and six glances downward. Then you would see five smiles and one guy getting razzed for having the misfortune to actually have to leave lunch to answer his page.
So I know from personal experience that distinctive ringtones have their utility. Polyphonic ring tones don't add quite so much value; although I sometimes amuse myself by trying to figure out why some personality types would select some of the music choices I've heard.
The story isn't about cheap-ass phones that break, but about phones that have features that are so poorly implemented that 95% of the users are unable to make use of them, and/or features that 99% of their users don't need or want.
I think a lot of the problem is the rush to market with something new, regardless of actual utility. "We have to have the 2005 line designed by Thursday, and we need a feature the competition doesn't have. Let's have a micro-motorized skin that pulses along its length, allowing it to crawl across the table like a worm!" "Why would we do that?" "Because Sony-Ericsson hasn't done it yet!!!"
So regardless of "what" the function is, or how consumers might use it, it gets thrown into the device. This is most evident in cell phones, where it seems every phone has a calculator, an appointment calendar, a stopwatch, a diving computer, a pedometer, and an altimeter. And the manufacturers trumpet these alleged features as if they add value, when in reality all they do is clutter the interface and suck electrons.
My ideal cell phone would be a small brick I keep clipped to my belt, next to my leatherman. A bluetooth headset would allow me to talk, and my Tungsten would allow me to surf. The phone would still have a speaker, microphone and keypad so I could use it "in manual mode" if I didn't have the headset with me. A screen displaying ten digits would be nice, but optional. And I guess I'd like some kind of powered-on indicator, although the position of an "on-off" switch could suffice.
I find it almost criminal for a phone to have a "backdrop" picture, or a "screen saver", or even color. All these "features" do is to draw down battery power, and add to the visual clutter. They don't make my "phoning experience" easier or faster or more enjoyable. I really don't want a "phoning experience" -- I just want a fucking phone that I can call my wife and tell her I'm going to the Chinese place and ask her if she wants wontons with her cashew chicken!!
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong, (but I seriously doubt it.)
With all the other Hollywood-esque liberties Peter Jackson took for the occasional one liner ("Nobody tosses a dwarf!") it wouldn't have been totally wrong to bring him in as Tim Benzedrine from the Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. Just stick in some stoned ancient hippy, like Tommy Chong who would have been perfect for the part, or maybe even Steven Tyler! :-) "Whoa, man, little dudes! Great 'shrooms, man." There you go, a deviation nobody would have complained about.
No, it was the leader of the Nazgul on Weathertop who stabbed Frodo. Jackson did get that part right.
"And they all lived happily to the end of their days" would have been so much better if they actually had.
Actually, I think the parent post's prophecy is chilling. I see fewer and fewer kids reading for pleasure.
What you may not see in your circle of friends is that the vast majority of Americans DON'T read for pleasure. They'll go to the movies, or see it on TV, and then that will become The Definitive Version for them. You can argue the books' point of view till you're blue in the face, but you won't change their narrow little minds. "I saw it in the movie, therefore I know what the real story is."
Tolkien's written works are among the top of the heap in popularity, and have held that spot for a long time. But eighty-some sold-out printings might find their way into the hands of 10 or 20% of the population, tops. 60%-80% will see one or more of the movies at some point, either in the theaters, cable channels, or eventually on TV. It's a numbers game, and books are no longer likely to win it. Not in this world where nobody you know shops at WalM*rt, but they're still the top retailer by a factor of ten.
First, get the 8 plate model. The fixed model is OK for hanging on your coffee table and playing with once or twice at home, but it quickly becomes inaccurate at other latitudes. And talk to the guy selling them, he can take your plates in trade for new ones for the latitudes you'll be at. (Speaking of which, I must remember to order a 49 degree plate...)
Next, I recommend the pewter finish. My reasons are that the gold reflects too much sunlight when you're trying to read it, the pewter costs less, and you won't feel bad about scratching it up. That said, the gold is prettier, and no, it won't make that much difference, so go with what you like.
I found my rete (the spiderweb) was scratching my plates, and was difficult to turn. I fixed it by putting a sheet of 600 grit (ultra fine) sandpaper on a flat tabletop, and sanding the back of the rete in a circular motion. (Oil on the sandpaper will help.) It turns as smooth as silk now.
Finally, keep in mind that the pointer and the rule are made of pewter, a very soft metal that bends easily. They can get out of alignment without your noticing. You need to check them prior to every use, and gently bend them straight as needed. Also, it helps to bend a slight "bow" in your rule (the sights) such that when you tighten the screw, it presses the tips of the rule against the mater. I find this gives just enough friction to keep it from sliding when I take the reading.
All those warnings aside, I am very pleased with my purchase. Norm has good people working for him, and I have always felt I was dealt with fairly in his shops. And I think his prices are quite reasonable (although it's not like pricewatch has an astrolabe category for me to compare against.) When telling time, this tiny astrolabe is accurate to within about four minutes. I would buy another one in a minute, although I'd rather have one made of brass just for durability reasons.
dud u r so rite. u old farts spnd 2 much time riting shit.