I learned on a manual, and I don't know that I'm particularly hard on keyboards. Manual typewriters are kind of a momentum thing. It's not a very high force, but you are accelerating the mechanism for a long time.

My friend learned to type on an ASR33 and it's unsafe to be in the room with him while he's typing. A keycap could let go at any time. Teletypes have a long stroke with all the resistance at the bottom, so he *really* hammers on keyboards.

#7: These glasses are going to give you a view of the other end of the spectrum. The high reflection in the near IR is from physical structures in the leaf, not chlorophyll. Near IR photos of a live leaf and a dead one look pretty much the same.

Absolutely brilliant. I run a listserv where I could use exactly this sort of policy. Am I correct that this is covered by BoingBoing's CC-BY-NC license?

To me, the definitive sweding is still Raiders: The Adaptation. The film is pushing 20 years old, but is a complete shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark done by a few kids. They were 12 when they started, and it took them 7 years to finish it, so their voices keep changing, etc.

So far as I know, the only way you'll ever see it is at an Indie film festival or somewhere like Alamo Drafthouse. I saw it at SF Indie this year, and it's absolutely brilliant.

I don't know what laser engraver you're planning on using, but the Epilog machines do just fine with raster images.

Joel, (and Tommy) I think you're wrong here. If there's a dimension to bitch about, it's height. Footprint doesn't matter much, even in coach. And width is the least critical dimesnion unless you're rocking one of those 19-20" monstrosities...and you're not going to try to use *that* in coach anyway.

But height, expressed as the probability that the top of the screen will get caught in the notch the tray table came out of when the guy in front of you leans back, is a big deal. I dearly loved my Libretto L1 because it was *short* when opened, and while the Air is a lot taller, it does seem to be shorter than the plastic MacBook.

I love the fact that the Air gives me the same 'interface surface' as my MacBook in a smaller, and most importantly thinner, package.

Hitachi got this right (about the only thing they did) when they tried to sell notebooks here a decade ago. Match the footprint of a notepad/folio, and pack as much screen and keyboard in as you can. Then make the thickness as close to zero as possible. It *really* makes a difference if you're carrying it around.

You've hit it exactly on the head, and this is one of the reasons why I mourn the Foleo. It's amazing to me that the Gadget Bloggers bashed the Foleo en masse, and then fawned all over the Eee.

The Foleo had a MUCH better keyboard[1], gorgeous screen and an accessible CF slot for storage. It had a slower CPU, but that's a battery tradeoff I'll take. Marketing it as a "smartphone companion" was idiocy, it was a perfectly good email/web/ssh machine...or would have been if they finished the software.

[1] Note to hardware designers: the key to the right of '/' is 'SHIFT'. Do not, under any circumstances, ever try to cram the up-arrow key in there)

Maxtor One Touch III Turbo. Supposedly a RAID-1 capable external enclosure, and just the thing for long photo trips.

Until a drive failed. There are no external indications that a drive has failed, though in my case the drive is making clicking noises. Once the drive has failed, however, the device is totally dead, and won't appear on the bus. It seems that if you notice a failure while the drive is running (and running the diagnostics seem to be the only way to do this) you can get your data out until you turn off the drive.

So now, I can void the warranty and remove the remaining good drive, or get a new drive without the data.

Even more annoying, it took three weeks for Seagate/Maxtor support to even attempt to answer the question: "What is the expected behavior when a drive fails?" And every time I got close to an answer to that question, I'd get escalated to someone who offered a FAQ on backup strategies or the Wikipedia article on RAID.

So, no, never again. I certainly won't buy a packaged drive from Seagate/Maxtor again, and I'm seriously reconsidering specifying Seagate anything. As I work for an online storage provider, that's a challenge for me.

"Strictly speaking, then, the string in Raymer and Smith's box was never knotted."

I can think of no clearer statement that mathematicians do not bother themselves with reality.

I wonder how much of the garbage in the EULA is forced upon Amazon by the content rightsholders? Of course, it's still a valid point that they could resist this, and haven't.

As to Awful Crap from Sprint, I really don't think that will be an issue. Amazon's revenue stream from Kindle users is dependent on Sprint remaining invisible, and I think Amazon will do a good job of keeping them that way.

And Sprint is the only wireless carrier that has, to date, failed to piss me off.

Kurt-

Thanks for the pointer... The battery/Cradlepoint combo will fit nicely in the back pocket of a photo vest, giving you continuous, real-time uploads. Very cool.

-Z

re: smaller EVDO computer.

I bought a Cradlepoint EVDO>WiFi router early on, and got an email from them that a battery powered version was coming. Who needs a computer?

-Z

While I see Lectroid's point (and agree with his taste...the Black Pearl and Woolloomooloo are outstanding), you really do have to try one of these.

They're hard to find, mostly because most buyers are going to look at it and think 'ewwwww'. (In SF, Ruby on 18th St has them)

These are *really* good. Good in directions you can't imagine. Seriously. Go find one and try it.

@Joe: Because that would be immensely more expensive. Building a structure of that size would be a major construction project, whereas replacing the skin of the existing structure would be a minor project and probably not more expensive than tearing it down.

It is a *spectacular* structure, and would be a stunning event venue, if nothing else. At the Moffett airshows, they used to fly hot air balloons *inside*.

Hangar One is deserving of landmark status, just like its sister hangar at the Goodyear Airdock in Akron. (Hangar One in Lakehurst is already a landmark, but was of a very different design, and not nearly as pretty)