OT: Oh no, not one of those 'remember when this cost..." threads.

[John Esak]

No, I don't want to start one of those threads.... And I won't add to it if
it starts.  We have all heard it all and commiserate with each other on how
much we each paid for our first 12 Megabyte hard disk. BUT, this just
absolutely blows away all the old stuff.  Just two things.  I got a
TigerDirect email today. One of there typical sale items for today... Are
you sitting down.  A 500 Gigabyte hard drive for $39.95.  Gulp!  I mean,
that is beyond belief compared to back in 1982 when I bought my... Blah,
blah... Well, you get the point!  $39 bucks... Good god you could build a 3
Terabyte array for $240!!!!  Sheesh.

Okay, second thing. My buddy just bought a 256 Gb hard drive... Non moving
media (a phrase I coined about 10 years ago... Or, at least I think I made
it up for a keynote speech one year...)  Think of it, 256 Gb on a plug in
memory flash drive. It just has a regular SATA connector on it! I think it
is the new 3.0 SATA though, so this little bugger would be a killer in my
handheld PDA. Which now has a 40Gb mechanical spinning, breakable, crashable
hard drive in it.  I can't wait, and if the company doesn't do it soon, I
may retrofit the flash card in myself!  :-)

Incidentally, I just got my final copy of the complete Max headroom series.
Good God, that was a smart series... And still, I mean still, to this day,
it is ahead of its time.  If you want some of the best computer sci-fi
you've ever seen get this package... About 
$32 bucks from Amazon.  The first episode is a killer, and then do yourself
a favor and jump to the episode about The Blanks.  You will be a forever fan
immediately.

John