I set up college funds for all my kids. One of them is bound to blow it all on substance abuse, low level criminality and fucking around. I might as well just turn it over to him and let him burn through it.

It sounds like Intel is chucking in some servers to build out the backend infrastructure needed to make the OLPC a thin or thinner client which is how the mesh topology infrastructure of the entire OLPC effort views each endpoint. There's not an awful lot that Intel can bring to the table to forward a cheaper design for the desktop/laptop units. It's possible over time for Intel to manufacture them widely and thereby bring the per unit production costs down. But the basic design of them is about as low end as it can be. Swapping out one kind of low powered CPU for an Intel XScale CPU or smaller embedded processor is a small nit in the cost. OLPC is predicated on a network of lightweight clients that are meshed through a redundant fault tolerant backend to accomplish its goals. This is probably where Intel sees its value. In providing largely commodity servers in robust wrappers to service that.

the peaches were picked by slave Mexican labor. They were sprayed with toxic chemicals which killed all the frongs and then sold at Wal*Mart/

Breath Deep the Evil in Everything.

For another political blogger with big pull-through numbers then.

I recommend:

http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/

By ONE guy for his personal use. The name and location (Arab nation cough cough) has not been disclosed. Price was in the vicinity of $300 million dollars.

Hasn't happened so far - so he'll get another and call it a mandate. Sorry folks, the Congress blew it and now we are not getting out of Iraq for another 7 years.

The State tells you what your favorite song is, and it's the Internationale.

Ron Paul is already President of the United States of Unicorns. So impeach Bush on the Internet. You folks misrepresent the rest of the country. Or, you're simply mistaken that any significant number of people are this worked up.

I love watching companies kill themselves. Sony is tearing itself apart for no logical reason. They're killing the one model that sells and lying to people in order to move the inventory. Then they're going to cheapen and strip down the more expensive model and raise the effective price of the same level of function. And the sales numbers already suck.

This is like the Simpson's episode with Hank Scorpio where they put Bart in the 'special school' and he shouts "We're already behind the other kids and you expect us to catch up by going HALF as fast??"

But hey, it's your deal.

All hail the Dear Leader.

Just run them when or if they feel like it. That way wouldn't have these silly expectations of service. They should run more or less run them ad-hoc and price them accordingly. That way if I have to go somewhere say <600 miles, I call up the Ministry of Who Gives a Shit about Passengers, inquire what's going on with getting to such and such a place that day or the next. They tell me either there's nothing or here's the flight give or take 4 hrs either way and I make that decision. I mean that's kind of what happens today but it involves fake promises from flunkies who don't know shit and TSA morons wandering around on crowd control duty. Believe me anyone who's ever had the experience of messing with ground transportation in the 'developing world' is already familiar with this.

I am a scooter freak.

A huge number of scooters come from mainland China. There is a lesser number from Taiwan, a few from S. Korea and some from Japan (which are mostly Chinese subcontractors). Compared to the Italian & German (some lesser known Russian bikes) the price comparison for PRC scooters is a slam dunk. A Piagio (Vespa) scooter can run you almost $7,000-$8,000 depending on the model. A high end "Japanese" bike such as a Honda or Yamaha - certainly they're great bikes but at $6,000+ they should be. Kymco is a great product - from Taiwan but again the price premium is sometimes staggering almost 2x what a PRC bike will cost. Likewise and almost an oddity - some of the most expensive scooters compared to the size and features are Indian. Bajaj either is or is not a great product but at the prices they charge, it's hard to be tempted to find out.

So the price differentials are pretty wide. But does it make a difference. It probably makes some difference although Vespa quality is renown - for its unreliability. But otherwise, it's a pretty simple machine. A scooter is a scooter is a scooter pretty much. You pay for engine size, transmission and ad-on's like antilock brakes, a smoother ride and such. Will a good one last 30,000 miles vs. one tenth that for a cheap one? The gap is not that wide. At worst it's no more than 2:1. And servicing an expensive one is no easier than a cheap one, even for a mainline brand like Honda. So for your $1,400 - $2,000 for a road worthy fully licensed and insurable Communist Chinese scooter it's not much 'worse' compared to the value of spending twice as much, or 3 or 4 times as much. Are the wheels going to fly off? No they still pass basic DOT standards.

Lord knows we're not the only people in the world. Would that we could pitch assholes like you out the hatch over Omaha.

Over what bigoted hate mongering ignorant intolerant retards they are let's just say I'm not putting big money on people realizing much of anything anytime soon. Don't forget, more than ego maniacal triumphalist mob violence what they love more than anything else is their martyr complexes wrapped in the flag and scripture. They love telling you they're persecuted, they're on the run. When they lose the White House next, assuming they do, you will be able to hear the hate radio screaming from orbit.