How to be smart in the 1970's: Go to graduate school, learn all you can about electronics and computers. Work for a company like Motorola and create something that has a profound effect on our everyday lives.

How to be smart in the 2000's: Buy the latest trendy gadget or computer, and pretend that you are smart enough to have invented it, even though you don't really have the slightest idea how any of this stuff really works.

Actually, LaserDisc was an analog device, using FM modulation, not digital code, to store information. I still have about 100 of them, all slowly rotting away, with a snowy picture due to problems with delamination of the disc layers. The worst thing about closing the analog hole is the ton's of video projectors, plasma tv's and other stuff that don't work with hdmi. Just toss them in the trash stream and run out and buy a new one. Standard analog TV lasted for years, including my original trinitron, which is 30 years old. My HD projector, with component inputs only, still puts out a fine image. Why should I have to ditch it?

If only you could use the Netflix player "anywhere". I travel outside the continental U.S. a lot and netflix will not stream content when I travel. So good for travel within the U.S....a no go elsewhere. I wonder if Apple TV has the same limitation?

For those of us who are now going through the recession, it's a bad time for investing in any kind of new technology, whether it's Blue Ray or anything else. The best bet for me is to keep my Netflix account active, and hope that HD quality downloads will work with netflix in the near future. That new internet box that they have is a good idea, only 99 bucks to buy, lets you download about 10000 movies for free with your current netflix account, and it's got component out, so hopefully, some HD content will be available soon. When I can get a Blue Ray player for around a hundred bucks, I'll splurge on one. In the meantime, watching DVD's from netflix on an upconversion player on a 42 inch plasma is not torture, and a lot cheaper than going to the cinema at 11 dollars a ticket. (plus, with gas now more than 4.00 dollars a gallon, I don't have to drive there and waste even more money).

Hopefully, a new operating system for Palm will be backwards compatible with the old one. As a long time palm user, I have a lot of programs that I use that I hope will still work on the next version of the treo or centro. My treo 650 can use programs that I have from 10 years ago that worked on a palm IIIxe. The whole problem with the merger of phones and PDAs is that phones seem to be more of a disposable device. All the carriers want you to update to the latest and greatest model, but if you are actually using the PDA functions of the phone, and have invested time and money in learning how to use the programs that you have purchased for it, it's a big hassle and expense to keep buying new programs, and learn all over again how to use them

happy birthday....read your site daily!