Isn't the Tablet PC market something ridiculous like 6% of the overall laptop market? (Because when you get down to it, outside of certain niches there's not a hell of a lot you need a portable pen'n'tablet interface for, and it adds a bundle to the cost of the machine.)

A Mac tablet -- be it something like the Axiotron Modbook only smaller and lighter, or something like a grown-up iTouch -- would be cool, but at the end of the day I'm betting on Apple going where the millions of users are, rather than jumping feet-first into a niche market.

(Also, let's not overestimate the value of writers as a market. I wish it were otherwise, but ...)

On the other hand, there probably is a niche for a bigger iPod Touch with an 800x480 screen, bluetooth, and some rockin' productivity apps. (Call it Newton 2.0, but not in Steve's presence.)

They weren't going to release a bluetooth-augmented iTouch with an HID and tethering last year -- it would have eaten the PDA market, for sure, but it would also have cannibalized the iPhone market -- but a UMPC-like tablet might work well with a 3G iPhone as a companion product, and there was that giveaway about six months ago about how the iTouch was being seen as the first of a range of mobile internet devices, rather than just as a video iPod.

This was happening decades ago: see also.

It's really down to the physical key size.

Some of these subnotebooks (the Eee 701 and Eee 901, the Kohjinsha machines, and so on) use an 80% size keyboard. The HP mini-Note, like a lot of other notebooks (the Sony Vaio TX series, IIRC) use a 92% size keyboard.

I've got adult male medium-to-large fingers, and they're just too fat for the 80% keyboards -- if I hit one key dead-centre, my finger will be touching the edge of a neighbouring keycap, and if I'm off by a millimetre it'll trigger a spurious keypress. I can type on such a keyboard, but it's fatiguing and slow because I've got to be more accurate.

In contrast, I'm generally okay on 92%-scale keyboards (I haven't tried the mini-Note, but I've used others over the years). It's small but the keys are large enough that as long as I'm reasonably careful I don't accidentally press two at once.

So: if you've got small hands the Eee will probably work fine for you. But if you've got big hands (and especially if you've got high-calibre fingertips) you will probably want the HP mini-Note.

PS: Cnoocy, the whole point of a subnotebook is that it doesn't weigh as much as a normal laptop. By the time you add the 800-gram weight of the Matias keyboard to an Eee, you're pushing close to 2Kg. Add a travel mouse as well (you'll need it, to go with the keyboard) and you've just blown the weight budget -- might as well buy an entry-level Dell.

Hmm ...

Can you get around the "no-fly" list by changing your name by deed poll?

Kestral is correct, and the law in all EU member states is similar -- you have the right to pay the lowest legal amount of tax.

However, if you buy goods above and beyond the duty-free allowance outside the EU and import them into the EU, even for your personal use, you are supposed to pay tax on them. So ditching the packaging and pretending you owned them anyway isn't tax avoidance, it's tax evasion.

Now, everybody does this, and I make no comment on the morality of the activity -- but if you're planning on doing it you ought to be aware of the legality (or otherwise) of what you're doing, and plan accordingly. In theory, you're actually supposed to approach the customs desk and tell them you've been buying stuff and owe tax; in practice, as long as you don't actually do something stupid like lying to them if they pull you out of the queue, nothing worse will happen to you than having to pay some tax and a processing fee.

But. Don't lie to them if they pull you unless you're sure you can back it up. Because? Worst case, if you piss them off, is they can prosecute you for tax evasion.

Kestral is correct, and the law in all EU member states is similar -- you have the right to pay the lowest legal amount of tax.

However, if you buy goods above and beyond the duty-free allowance outside the EU and import them into the EU, even for your personal use, you are supposed to pay tax on them. So ditching the packaging and pretending you owned them anyway isn't tax avoidance, it's tax evasion.

Now, everybody does this, and I make no comment on the morality of the activity -- but if you're planning on doing it you ought to be aware of the legality (or otherwise) of what you're doing, and plan accordingly. In theory, you're actually supposed to approach the customs desk and tell them you've been buying stuff and owe tax; in practice, as long as you don't actually do something stupid like lying to them if they pull you out of the queue, nothing worse will happen to you than having to pay some tax and a processing fee.

But. Don't lie to them if they pull you unless you're sure you can back it up. Because? Worst case, if you piss them off, is they can prosecute you for tax evasion.

Jeff @15: becoming a published writer isn't trivial, but it's by no means hugely difficult.

That is, however, a far cry from earning your living as a writer -- a very different business indeed, because rather than being about selling a handful of short stories, it involves the gritty work of bringing in paying commissions on a monthly basis and churning out prose of commercial or better quality year-in, year-out.

Having noted this, Absimliard @16 brings up the point that the skill set necessary to manage SFWA is not the same as the skill set required of a good writer. Very true. However, it is *essential* that the executives of SFWA, an organization established to represent writers, should have an understanding of the needs of writers. And while Andrew Burt arguably has the basic ability to get the minimal publication credits, he has impressed me profoundly with his lack of cluefulness about the needs of those of us *who are doing this job for a living*.

Finally: I would like to note that while many of Burt's backers within SFWA are writers, his opponents largely consist of those writers aged 40 or under *who are doing it for a living*.

Oskar, alas: while Cory is inestimably better qualified for the presidency of SFWA than Andrew Burt, I am afraid that he's about the only person whose candidacy would be even more inflammatory.

A vocal subset of SFWA members (a faction that Andrew Burt walks in front of and claims to lead) see Cory as the AntiChrist, come to strip them of their immortal copyrights and cast them into the fiery pit of public domain immolation. (The facts of the matter have nothing to do with their beliefs, which are fiercely held and not informed by actual knowledge; as with so many fields, the less that is at stake, the hotter the passions that are aroused.)

In fact, right now a Doctorow candidacy would be about the only thing guaranteed to turn out the boneheads to vote for Burt. Luckily, Cory has better things to do with his time.

"zero to thirty degrees below zero"

... Celsius or that weird Fahrenheit-thingy scale? It makes a difference, you know!

I hear people saying "it's only got one USB port -- what if I want to use a mouse?" ... as if they've never heard of bluetooth mice. (Hint: the MBA has bluetooth.)

Speaking as an Eee-owning Mac/Linux guy, I think comparing the Eee and the Macbook Air is a category error. These machines are designed for utterly different user bases.

The Eee: it's a cheap compact gadget aimed at providing a mobile accessory for someone who thinks £400 is a lot to pay for a computer. If you've looked at the software in the Eee's Xandros installation, it's woefully out of date (OpenOffice 2.0? That's about 18 months behind the release track! They're up to 2.3.1 at present!), the 800x480 screen does not -- I'm sorry to say -- let you see much of your documents or spreadsheets while you're working, and the keyboard isn't up to long periods of interaction. As for the battery life, two and a half hours (with wifi in use) is pushing it, not the three and a half to four hours they claim.

The Macbook Air: a high end laptop aimed at people who travel a lot and for whom every gram of weight matters -- but who want their full-sized keyboard and screen and applications with them in their hotel room. These people are likely to fly in Economy Plus or Business class, with seatback power (you noticed the amazing magsafe airline power cable, with no need for a brick-sized transformer?). I hear that the SSD version's battery life is somewhat better than the claimed 5 hours; but in any case, Apple got bitten hard by the backlash from bogus battery life claims in the 90s, and now tend to be fairly realistic. (Asus, in the case of the Eee, are taking the piss.) Finally: I've got a 18-month-old Macbook. Walking around with that thing in a bag on my shoulder makes my neck ache after a couple of hours. And I get to do a lot of walking around strange towns with a laptop in a shoulder bag.

The Eee is your best option if you've got a very cramped space to work in for a short period of time (like an economy class airline seat). It's really a jumped-up PDA, and as the logical inheritor of the Psion Series 5MX/Netbook's niche it's brilliant -- all it needs is a better battery. But in terms of performance and practicality, if you've got to spend a month on the road, living out of suitcases in a succession of hotel rooms, the Macbook Air wins hands-down.

Takuan: lithium batteries burn like a thermite charge. Putting water on them makes them worse. They can ignite if pierced, or if something metal shorts them out, or if they're close to an ignition source. Ignition of a shipment of lithium batteries was considered as a likely factor in one Air Lauda crash some years ago; it's as much a hazard as the perchlorate cannisters the Valuejet flight that went down in Florida was carrying. It's been determined that the cargo hold fire suppression systems of current generation airliners are ineffective against lithium battery fires packed in passengers' baggage. Hence the new policy.

The batteries in question are not button-sized, they're big power bricks designed for laptops or professional video equipment. The purpose of the ban is to keep them where cabin crew can get to them with a dry powder extinguisher in event of a blaze.

To reiterate: this isn't the TSA being pissy, this is the FAA trying to ensure that planes don't catch fire and fall out of the sky.

The meltdown canard rears its ugly head again, I see.

(Let's see: the AGRs are designed to go into passive shutdown. They don't need active cooling, and if the core *does* overheat and there's a loss of coolant -- which is also the moderator -- there's a hopper full of barium-impregnated glass beads sitting on top, waiting to melt and flow through the gas channels, vitrifying the reactor into a block of glass laced with a neutron-absorber that poisons fission reactions. The Westinghouse PWRs used elsewhere in newer UK installations have much the same shutdown mode as any other PWRs: they're designed to inherently reduce output if the core temperature rises. If they lose coolant the reactor shuts down because the coolant is the moderator: no moderator, no fission chain reaction. That leaves the Magnox reactors -- which might be a bit less reliable, but generally regarded as relatively safe (they have low density cores and are gas cooled, and were designed to contain the products of a LOCA): and as they were built during the 1950s and early 1960s, most of them have been decommissioned.)

The presence of one piece of alarmist rubbish in an article doesn't automatically invalide the whole thing, but it *does* call for a few extra pinches of salt to be applied.

Ill Litch: the flip side of decreasing human population is that on the one hand, there are more resources to go round ... but it's also deflationary in macroeconomic terms. (Fewer people means fewer workers which means a smaller tax revenue base which means shrinking budgets for maintaining core infrastructure and government services. It also means more housing, cars, and surplus real estate and tangible wealth chasing fewer dollars.) And once you get into a deflationary cycle, it makes hyperinflation look pleasant in comparison.

1. This isn't a TSA security thing; it's the Department of Transport.

2. Lithium is inflammable and it burns HOT. (Like a magnesium fire.)

3. You remember all those battery recalls because of laptops bursting into flames last year? That's lithium-ion battery fires for you.

4. It turns out that airliner fire extinguisher systems can't do anything useful to a lithium battery fire in a cargo hold. (Like that laptop, in the link above.)

5. The FAA/TSA regs are needlessly confusing, but what they boil down to is: keep the stuff out of the hold (so that if it *does* catch fire, the cabin crew can point an extinguisher at it), and don't allow so much of the stuff to pile up in one carry-on bag that you can't extinguish it.

So what's everyone getting worked up about?

I will concede that the regs are confusingly worded. I agree that the safe limit is arbitrary and badly defined, and I'm worried about how the goons at the security checkpoints will enforce it. And I agree that it's going to affect audio/video professionals. But those are edge conditions -- most of us, including intercontinental flyers (like me) aren't going to be directly affected.

And unlike the nonsense and voodoo about liquids and incredible exploding shoes, this does affect the safety of the flying public.

I avoid Griefrow like the plague. They've turned Terminal One into a shopper's paradise by ripping out all the seats and waiting areas. Because airspace around Heathrow routinely runs at >98% utilization, delays are frequent. The airport is, as Cory says, HUGE, and it has the annoyingly over-the-top BAA security regs. If you're there to transfer between flights you need to allow about two hours, to be on the safe side -- preferably more -- and that's when the shopper's paradise turns into a traveller's hell because, frankly, how many shopping malls are you happy to spend three hours trapped inside? There's nothing to do but wander aimlessly among crappy overpriced luxury goods stores or nurse an overpriced beer in one of the bars, if you can get a seat.

DWIM: you're looking at the ship date for the mass market paperback edition. The first UK edition will be a trade paperback, in mid-January 2007. (In compensation for the extra wait, some typos in the US first edition will be fixed in the UK first edition.) Hope this helps!

As a point of note, I spotted a fair bit of butt-biting bug merchandise around Tokyo and Kyoto earlier this month; it's now a manga and anime series, as I understand it, and the song is a spin-off.

Michael @28 -- some of us SFWA members strongly disagree with the position of people like Andrew Burt, are campaigning to change the organization from within, and intend to stay in the fight until we win.

Any voluntary organization is no more and no less than the sum of its active members. Encouraging people to withdraw from SFWA is counter-productive -- do you *want* to hand the organization to the copyright totalitarians?

I'd like to state publicly that, although I am an SFWA member, SFWA does not have authority to issue DMCA takedown notices on my behalf.

(Rule #1 of working in any creative field in the 21st century should be: Your Fans Are Not The Enemy.)