Dead Rising 2: Case 0

Xbox 360 Live Arcade download, a “prequel” to the upcoming Dead Rising 2. 400 pts gets you about four hours of play – exactly two hours each for your first playthrough and a replay to get Ending A (the ‘true’ ending) and the rest of the achievements.

It’s got all the great aspects of Dead Rising: killing zombies with just about anything you can find, exploring abandoned stores and lewting their stuff, rescuing survivors, and performing missions against the clock. But unfortunately it also retained many of the downsides of Dead Rising: frustrating durability mechanic, quirky mission triggers, and for some reason ridiculous load times despite being entirely installed on the hard drive.

If you’re curious about Dead Rising 2, this good way to find out if you’ll want to spend the $60 for the full game. If you played Dead Rising, you already know you want it. Otherwise, give it a pass.

40% Rid of Comcast (or: how I learned to stop worrying and love fiber)

We have shed our outdated Comcast cable modem and traded up to a Verizon Frontier FiOS fiber-to-the-home Internet connection. While our measly 15/5 Mbps has already been laughed at by most of the modem world, it is satisfying to at least have the security of a modern reliable network.

Don’t get me wrong; Comcast High-Speed Internet wasn’t bad for us – reasonable price (except for the “modem rental”), and more than adequate speeds for our tastes. Our traditional enemy has always been Comcast TV, with its over-compressed “high-def”, its unusably buggy DVR, and its ridiculous price gouging for basic service. However, the TV and Internet share one fatal flaw – the failure-prone Comcast local networks, which over the past month have been out more often than they have been working. One theory I was presented was that this is a result of heating on the underground wires on hot summer days. No cable = no Internet AND no TV, a fate no techie should have to endure.

Unfortunately, Comcast has a TV monopoly for us. Trees firmly block any satellite option, and while FiOS does provide a wonderful TV package, a quirk of King County broadcasting regulations prevent Frontier from offering us service. However, said regulation does not block Internet.

So we’re wired. They dug up a trench in our yard, ran the fiber to a box in our garage, then jacked our house’s coax connections to wire up a respectably beefy-looking modem/router/wireless combo device. By the time I got home, both computers were back online.

While in theory our new connection is no faster than what we had with Comcast, it *feels* much more responsive. Web pages load noticeably faster, downloads regularly pull upwards of 1.7MB/s, even Netflix loads faster. Who knows, maybe the latency is better… or maybe the hardware is just better than the old cable modem. If nothing else, it just reinforces the simple fact that speed is not just is about raw pipe bandwidth.

Oh, and it hasn’t gone out once since they hooked us up.

So, while I was only able to get rid of the lesser of two Comcast evils, it’s nice to take a tiny bit of money away from them and get a more reliable (and apparently faster) alternative. And the best part, on hot summer days, when the TV cuts out, we can watch Netflix instead of being forced to go outside .

Sassafras has been adopted!

Many of you know that Amber and I have been fostering a young Golden Retriever girl that we renamed “Sassafras”, or “Sassy” for short. She entered our care from a local vet, who had been requested by her owner to euthanize her (at 7 months old) because she had got sick.

Sassy at Marymoor park.

We advertised her on a few Microsoft lists, and the response was incredible! She was almost immediately matched with a loving home. Sassy is now happily in her new home, living with her now step-sister golden and a Mommy that loves to take them hiking and swimming!

Sassy (left) and her step-sister (right) at Rattlesnake.

Red Ring of Death

It finally happened. The fate that all Xbox 360 gamers dread, yet know, deep in their dark and lonely hearts, will come to them in the not so distant future. The end of one of the few things left that makes it worth owning a television. A fate, for the dependent, the addicted, and the helpless, is equated with both anger and despair. The dreaded “General Hardware Failure”. I got Red Ring of Death’d.

This is not uncommon. In fact, it’s so common that Microsoft had to extend the warranty to three years on all consoles (at considerable expense to the stock price). Needless to say, Murphy is an asshole, and I am early in my fourth year of ownership.

So, my options are to mail it in; $120 and a few weeks later, I have a working refurb of some sort. Or, buy the $199 “Arcade” package, new-in-box, with HDMI support, and I get to keep the old Xbox to tinker with. I can even try a DIY fix-it approach, and if I get it working with a hair dryer or whatnot, pawn off the box on Craigslist. My choice seemed apparent to the cashier at Best Buy, whose first words to me were “I’m sorry.”

So, I’m back up and running. As a bonus, it’s actually much quieter than the last one, and I do have the HDMI now. Though strangely, HDMI will only give me 1080i, while component gives me 1080p. Technology is weird, but meh, 720p never killed anyone.

So, anyone want to buy a fragged Xbox?

Taxes 2010

Done (well, at least until the Canadians get uppity again)! Even with good tax preparation software, my US taxes are always a pain. It’s mostly simple, but capital gains are the bane of my existence, and of course, nobody knows where Canada is.

Some tips for Microsoft folks:

• TurboTax is 25% off if you visit through a Fidelity referral link.
• Despite Fidelity managing our ESPP, they get the cost basis wrong for short-term capital gains, calculating it on the discount price instead instead of Fair Market Value. If you had short-term gain/loss from ESPP, be sure to calculate your cost basis yourself.
• If you sell ESPP short-term, Microsoft does report it in your W-2 income. It’s itemized out as DQDIS on W-2 box 14. For some reason, I’ve never been able to get it to add up exactly (always off by a few dollars); would love it if somebody knows the secret to how it’s calculated.
• At least in TurboTax, if you do the worksheet, they want to know a bunch of completely irrelevant information (period-start FMV, etc); none of it will impact the final cost basis (which is what matters) but it whines if you don’t have it. The best place to find this all is in the ESPP program “transaction history” which summarizes all the info you need on one webpage (except sale price and commission, which you can get from your monthly statements).
• Any stock grants or awards are pre-taxed. You only have to worry about paying capital gains, and only when you sell.
• If you ever sold MSFT at a loss, watch out for wash sales – since ESPP kicks in every three months, there’s only 4 months out of the year where you’re safe from them. Fidelity is usually good about warning you that a sale might have been a wash sale, but you’ll have to jump though several more hoops when calculating your capital gains.

For the Canadians here in the US:

• First off, if you’re living and working here, you’re NOT a resident of Canada for tax purposes, and no amount of worrying will make you one. Over and over, I hear people discuss and debate the ‘residential ties’ issue; a rampant paranoia that a single bank account or club membership will make them liable to pay taxes. First, they completely ignore the fact that the only primary residential ties are residences and family, thus making it almost impossible to be resident without these factors involved. But more to the point, even if you were found to be factually resident, you would then apply tie-breaker rules under the US-Canada tax treaty to become a deemed non-resident. So you’re non-resident. Game over.
• This means, barring special circumstances, you don’t need to file a Canadian return at all.
• Yes, Canada might ask you to file one anyways. Don’t be alarmed. You file the “Non-Resident” package, declare your worldwide income (you’re not paying taxes on it, just declaring it), fill in a bunch of zeroes and call it a day.
• DON’T file an NR73 to request a residency determination, unless you are specifically asked to. YOUR declaration of non-residency came from the last tax return you filed the year you left (where you checked “I ceased to be a resident”).
• Your RRSP is tax-deferred in the US (unless you’re contributing or withdrawing, but both are VERY bad ideas), however you must declare it EVERY YEAR using form 8891, which is specific to Canadian RRSPs. This allows you to invoke the tax treaty to avoid US dividend taxes on your Canadian account. TurboTax has this form
• Though not part of your taxes, if you have over $10k aggregate in your Canadian accounts, you must file TD-F 90.22-1. This gets mailed separately from your taxes. It doesn’t cost you anything except a stamp, but they threaten dire consequences if you skip it.

My Blog Has Moved!

Blogger, under their Google overlords, recently announced that they would be discontinuing FTP publishing for blogs, due to incompatible changes happening to their infrastructure. This basically means that users are now required to host their blog content with Google Hosting / Blogspot. While this means some changes for me, I suppose I can’t complain about Google paying the bandwidth bill.

So, using Blogger’s “Custom Domains” feature, I am now at:

http://blog.lownewulf.com/

I took the opportunity to update my template as well. Hope people like the new look.

Renton Hooters

I finally got to sample the establishment that’s too classy for Renton; the newly opened Hooters.

Great concept. A Hooters, a casino, a full bowling alley, and arcade. Any one of those four could be my evening’s entertainment, and they’ve put them all under one roof. They executed well on all four aspects. The restaurant is larger than any I’ve seen, and served by a very talented staff. The casino hosts some friendly table games and dealers for Texas Hold’em cash games (though sadly 3/6 is too rich for my blood). Bowling alley has to be 20 lanes at least. Arcade has some good shooter games. Throughout, cheap beer to be had, as much as you can drink (and cheap if you’re playing cards).

The downside: it’s a Hooters. And a casino. Not a Hooters Casino. Nobody goes to Hooters for wings (though to be fair, the boneless wings are indeed full of win), so why would you go to a Hooters Casino to be dealt cards by some middle-aged dude? My daydreams of being dealt cards by Hooters girls sitting on stools just two inches below the felt were crushed. If not for the girls that didn’t quite make the cut for the restaurant proper collecting drink orders approximately once every 18 years, you wouldn’t think it any different than any other local cardroom.

Oh well. They have Pai Gow Poker, $2 local beers, and you trade the standard $25 casino buffet for a Hooters restaurant! I can hardly complain.

Failing of the Academic Process

The big news among climate change skeptics these days is “Climategate” – an incident where years of internal emails and documents from a well-known climate research group at a British University were leaked to the Internet. Skeptics claim that quotes from email and Fortran source code offer proof that the researchers regularly manipulated data to produce the desired conclusions of global warming, and aggressively attempted to suppress research in the academic community that did not agree with their views. Supporters counter that the quotes are being taken out-of-context and in fact just represent standard research methodology.

From what I’ve seen of the leaked content, the latter seems more likely. The quotes seem purposely misinterpreted by those with well-documented agendas, and while much of the leaked content is unfriendly and at times  sloppy, it is consistent with what I’ve seen of the world of academia. But that makes me sad.

(note: all of what I’m about to comment on comes from my fairly limited experience in the academic research world… feel free to comment if you know better)

The goal of the average researcher, particularly in a University setting, is to get published. The more the better – both your current and future bosses will judge you largely based on what you’ve published. Most useful publications comes in two forms – a journal article (think a magazine article but longer and more boring), or a conference paper (a shorter article, that trades the extended journal review process for a live presentation/Q&A). Which forum is favored depends on the subject area, and certain conferences or journals are more prestigious than others. For example, getting a paper you wrote published in ‘Nature’ could be the high point of your career, while presenting at a random conference in Maui may actually hurt your credibility.
“Publish or perish,” the saying goes.

The determination of what gets published in a refereed scientific venue is called the ‘peer review’ process. The editor choose several experts in the field in question to review submissions. These submissions are usually articles submitted by researchers, but are sometimes just abstracts, with a promise to write the rest of the article later. The experts review the submissions and provide their opinion as to whether the research makes sense as described. The editor considers these reviews, and uses them to choose the most credible research to include.

Unfortunately, the process is, in all but a few cases, horribly broken. Reviewers have their own agendas, usually based around their own ability to get published, or simply their planet-sized egos. This means that the decision to accept or reject a paper is not based on the research itself, but rather the names of the authors, whether the research agrees with their personal opinions, or if their own work is referenced.

Even if you take as an assumption the basic honesty and competence of the reviewers, and only consider lengthy full-text journal article reviews, the fact is that the review is cursory. At best it would allow enough time to check for obvious logical flaws, or a few key related works that either duplicate or conflict with the research. There’s simply no time nor motivation to seriously examine and test the research claims as part of the peer review process.

Then the paper gets published. For the vast majority of published content, that’s the end of it. The paper’s popularity can be roughly is determined by how many other papers reference it (which, given the issues in the peer review process, doesn’t mean much), but otherwise nobody will care to critically consider the conclusions. Because, in the end, why challenge someone else’s conclusions when you can just publish your own?

My question is: given that the scientific method’s bread and butter is validating hypotheses, why don’t we bother to verify our own publications?

My thoughts to improve the system involve adding feedback from the research community at large. Realistically the research the average master’s student does is not going to significantly advance the curtain of knowledge… maybe at best poke it a bit. Rather than have them do bitchwork for PhDs and write nominally useful papers, why not encourage them to publish “verification papers”? 1) choose one specific paper to analyze, 2) recreate its conditions/technique, 3) verify that the results match the stated findings of the paper, 4) whether it matches or not, publish the findings in a refereed journal specifically designed for such content. The point is specifically NOT to introduce new evidence, but only to evaluate the existing evidence as presented. This gives even junior researchers something that they should excel at with light supervision, dramatically increases the number of refereed publications they author, and improves their understanding of the body of knowledge.

This verification in turn benefits every stage of the process:

• Papers will necessarily have to be written with the details sufficient to reproduce the results. Any paper that doesn’t is liable to be set aflame by eager verifiers.
• Reviewers have a level of accountability, as their recommendation of a paper is as much up for review as the paper itself. A reviewer that recommends a paper that gets discredited is unlikely to be a popular choice for reviewer in the future.
• Readers can have confidence in a paper they read, knowing that others have evaluated and confirmed the results. While a body of research with similar conclusions provides similar confidence, this requires a level of analysis of its own (the source of the ever popular ‘literature survey’), and even then only confirms the common elements.
• Authors have an avenue of publishing that allows them to discuss existing work, without the requirement to publish half-baked ideas or conflicting views. If they disagree with an idea, they have an ideal venue to voice specific concerns.
• Authors are rewarded for thorough and well-documented research through positive public feedback.

For such a system to be effective, it must be extensive. It would reasonably require most publications to have multiple reviews within a year of publication. Insufficient feedback reduces the rewards for excellence and encourages the same ego-centric approach that plagues peer review.

If such a system were in place, Climategate would be a non-event. It wouldn’t matter what schemes the researchers were plotting, nor what shortcuts were taken in their methods. You’d have an entire body of independent research already in place validating the accuracy of every last number, and backing every conclusion, point for point.

The Glory of the iPhone

As most of you know (from my incessant bragging), I have succumbed to the devil with white earbuds: a black iPhone 3GS 16GB. It’d be fair to say that life has been better for the week that I’ve had it. Is this how it feels to be one of those stoner hippie Mac users?

It would be hard to name one (or *just* one anyways) killer feature that makes the phone such a rewarding experience. More than anything, I think it’s just the polish of the entire experience. Solid performance, unwavering reliability, intuitive yet childishly simple UI, and a never-ending stream of “oh hey, that’s clever!” moments that make you really feel that a bunch of very smart people put a lot of thought into how people would use their creation.

First, it’s a 16GB iPod. That’ll hold my entire music collection easily. And unlike most phones, a real 3.5mm jack, so no crazy adapters. Special category and sync setup for podcasts makes listening to the BBC a breeze (a serious pet peeve of mine, if you recall). Plus, a sufficiently large screen to make video watching not just possible, but practical, be it Youtube clips, or a 2hr movie to entertain on a long car ride. If you want, you don’t even have to sync with a computer: you can access iTunes directly from the device.

It’s a full featured phone. Audio quality is great, if a bit quiet. Works perfectly with a bluetooth headset. Visual voicemail – no more touchtone prompt nonsense. Reception is top notch.

It’s a PDA. Exchange email and calendar sync, with push. The interface, while lacking some of the advanced features in Pocket Outlook, is arguably far more usable, and far less annoying (in particular, less fail from the notifications over WinMo). Notepad for the grocery lists. Facebook communications with an app. You can even become a Kindle, and read Amazon’s e-book titles.

It’s a gaming platform. Touch-enabled games, from the simple joys of cat-stacking to futuristic tower defense. Specialized apps for the Zynga Facebook games that are so popular right now.

It’s a camera. Not as good as a dedicated camera, but enough for clear pictures in all but the dimmest of light. Even video! Beats any other camera-phone I’ve seen to date.

It’s a navigation device. Google Maps built in, but that’s not the only way to use location. One of the most interesting GPS uses I saw was the AAA app, which can call for a tow at your current location with literally just the push of a button.

It’s even a web browser. Having seen the utter rendering failboat that is Pocket IE (even the newest one), and the 50lb slug that is Opera Mobile, I’ve been consistently impressed both with the speed and accuracy of webpage rendering from Safari. It’s the only mobile device I’ve seen where it’s actually practical to surf the web.

Even the common iPhone criticisms seem lacking. Soft keyboards are unpopular with many, but you’d be surprised how quickly one adapts. Many criticize that you can only run one downloaded app at a time. Yet this very limitation leads to a very consistent application design, where apps have to make the conscious choice of what state should be persisted. It doesn’t hurt that this keeps performance good as well. Finally, there’s a fundamental objection to the tight leash Apple keeps over its OS and the app store. While that does irk me from a philosophical standpoint, the reality is that Apple has served as exceptional gatekeepers for quality, keeping the worst of the cruft out of the app ecosystem, and to a similar extent preventing the worst crapware that the carriers love to add to otherwise working phones.

But more than anything else, the damned thing works. This may seem wild to those who haven’t suffered buggy phones before, but the fact that I don’t even know where the reset button is says volumes about the device’s reliability. Thus far, no hangs, no crashes, not even any slowdowns. I’ve never drained the battery past half-charge (though GeoDefense certainly does try). Not a single feature that did not work exactly as expected on the first try.

So yea, iPhone = win. Go get one!

Why I scrapped my WinMo phone

The context of the discussion: Kyna got me an iPhone 3GS. While an interesting topic of itself (coming soon), here I discuss what finally pushed me away from a more Redmond-friendly device.

I’m no stranger to Windows Mobile. I started eight years ago on a third-hand Compaq iPaq I bought from Lyllea, long before WinMo was even WinMo, let alone a phone. I’ve upgraded several times since then, including HP iPaq successors, up to my most recent device, an HTC TyTN. Next on my list, a brand new WinMo 6.5 device, the HTC Tilt2. But instead, I got an iPhone.

There’s a variety of reasons I defected from the WinMo brand (most of which I can’t discuss publically, given my access to internal betas). But one very specific scenario put me over the top.

I want to listen to the BBC World News during my drive to work. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request; the BBC offers it for free, I have a modern car stereo, hundreds of dollars of computing hardware strapped to my hip, and more internet access than your average developing nation. Why shouldn’t I be able to keep abreast of world news once a day?

First off, I subscribe to the BBC Global News podcast in Zune (which, if you remember, I consider totally awesome). Set it to download the latest episode, which true to Zune form, works flawlessly. But of course, the Zune app is too good for my clunky old TyTN… it only wants to sync with Zune devices*.

[* Some may observe that this entire scenario would work flawlessly with a Zune. Which is true; but a Zune isn’t a phone, and damned if I’m dropping hundreds of dollars EACH on a phone and a dedicated media player. Not to mention being an even bigger geek by having two devices on my belt. ]

So I fire up Windows Media Player on Windows 7. WMP can in fact sync directly to my phone’s memory card (my phone itself has a paltry 64MB RAM). But Windows Media Player won’t show me the latest version of my podcast… the library is outdated, showing me last week’s news. So I can just click refresh? No of course not, that would be too complicated. Even after waiting for the library update to complete, which takes upwards of 20 minutes thrashing on my DivX files, it’s not updating. No way to add it manually either.

Say, hypothetically, I actually get the latest file to show up in the library. I have to find the new content, and manually click on it to sync (no autosyncing a specified folder, that’d be too smart), and also manually remove the old episode I’m done with from the device. If I can’t get the file to show up, I have to use Windows explorer and copy the files manually.

Now, on to the phone. Fire up Windows Mobile. I have to manually build a new playlist. But, like its desktop companion, I have to first convince it to add my new content to “the Library”. On the plus side, unlike its desktop companion, there’s an explicit ‘update’ button. On the downside, the update is dumb and takes like 10 minutes to locate an MP3. Then locks up. You have to notice the UI freeze, and hit cancel. But the library, not being transactional, is in fact mostly built now. I then have to manually delete the old entries from the playlist, then find the new podcast episode and add it.

Now, I’m ready to drive, but of course have to restart Pocket WMP. It’s still running, but if the device is idle for more than five seconds, it flips back to the today screen. Using media controls while driving is out of the question, given the eight pen-target clicks one has to go through just to get to the pause button.

My phone, being too cool for a 3.5mm jack, needs an adaptor to plug into the car, which takes up the power socket. If you use the power splitter, you get feedback any time you rev the engine. Hope the battery is full… but it always is – I charge the phone nearly 24 hours a day, just to keep it able to receive calls anyways.

So finally, I’m ready to find out the latest from $ConflictedCountryDuJour, but ironically, in the 30 minutes I’ve spent fiddling with various bits of software, I could have just listened to the podcast at home, and let BJ Shea keep me company on the way to work.

Just to be clear, on my iPhone, my process: plug my phone into my computer, wait about 15 seconds. From my phone, press the “podcast” button, plug into my car using the convenient 3.5mm jack, and news happens!

Virgin Airlines

Hanging out in LAX, stealing Wi-Fi from the OneWorld Lounge, and downloading as much Zune Pass content that I can (which is not much at this range) while waiting for RanmaSao and company to meet up with us. LAX is a bit wierd; inside security it seems nice, but the outward-facing parts are super budget and in stark contrast to the rest of what we've seen.

Our first flight with Virgin America was great! The most noteworthy aspect I think was the people - not the batik-clad models of Singapore Airlines, nor the disgruntled old women of domestic airlines. The best way to put it is that they're normal people; friendly and helpful, but still sharp and willing to tell you to get your butt back in the seat (as one embarassed passenger discovered during taxi). Their staff matches the expectation they set in their advertising communications... go marketing department.

At least for domestic, Virgin seems to charge for *everything* in economy (as do most domestic airlines these days); $20 a checked bag, even for the first! But I was impressed with the options available on the plane, even if they cost money. On-demand movies, wi-fi internet (yes, INTERNET on the plane!), a variety of food selections. Headphones even cost money, but it's a standard 3.5mm, so you can plug in your own (presumably much better) headphones into the system.

The in-flight entertainment system is pretty advanced. Google Map tracking of your flight. On-demand movies. Satellite TV was a nice feature to get 'real' TV, but had the same downsides as said real TV - ie. there's jack all on at 7am. You can order food directly from your screen. They had some online games you could play, but nothing particularly special. Sadly, the system was a bit laggy and not super reliable, which isn't good for channel-surfing, but fine once you've chosen your entertainment.

Overall though, the flight experience was good, and that's what counts. Everything was executed with clockwork precision with no hassle. Smooth takeoff and landing. Comfortable seats for coach with lots of legroom. And no stupid employees doing stupid things to make me mad.

So, I declare Virgin America as win. That is all.

Metablogging (and Zune stuff too)

Several of my Canadian colleagues at work recently asserted that Windows Live Writer, Microsoft’s blogging application, was “very much not wrong”. So, to verify the assumption, I have installed Live Writer and am using it for this post. A pressing need? Not really – the Blogger web UI is more than adequate for my once-every-few-months ramblings. But still, the assertion was one I felt compelled to verify.

So far, seems like a basic word processor. In fact, it seems almost identical to what Blogger offers in their web UI, except as a snappy lightweight client app. It allows you to save drafts either locally or directly to the server. Preview is instantaneous.

So yes, Live Writer is in fact not wrong at all. It’s at least as good as editing on the web, and is lightning fast. The integration, even with the enemy, is impressive.

To continue the pro-Microsoft propaganda, the Zune software 4.0 update. As I mentioned earlier, the Zune client is basically Microsoft’s answer to iTunes. Latest update has a bunch of quickplay features blah blah something about being way faster in searching (it’s true!) la la app store, but the one that really changes the game is the “Smart DJ”.

That was always my biggest problem with my Zune Pass. With Pandora, I could just leave the music running for days at a time without actively having to choose something to listen to. Zune, while allowing me to download any music I want, still fundamentally required me to choose every song I wanted to hear. They had the “Just For You” picks, but the channel only updated weekly with about an hour of music – not enough to last through a commute, let alone a 40 hour workweek. The Smart DJ fixes this – any band or song, just click Smart DJ and it makes a playlist for you (around twenty songs). Click it again, and it chooses new music.

At least for the few bands I’ve seeded thus far, it seems to choose well. The variety is quite good, and it does well at determining suitable related songs to play. I’ve already discovered a couple interesting bands (eg. ‘Another Black Day’), and have yet to have to skip anything I didn’t like.

The kool-aid. It tastes so good.

Update: Windows Live Writer handled this post admirably. And this edit too!

Acer Aspire One 10.1"

Despite the recent successful ressurection of Kiasumalice (the Dell desktop replacement that served me through college), I've been craving a new laptop. Something genuinely portable. So when Woot had an refurb Acer netbook up for grabs for $250, I couldn't resist!

I'm finally in possession of Kiasubitty - a blue Acer Aspire One AOD150. Not for lack of Fedex trying, who left the laptop laying right in the middle of my driveway. Good job, guys! But nevertheless, I have it, and it works exactly as advertised.

Here's the executive summary in way of review:
Pro:

• Sexy blue steel look. None of this silly white nonsense.
• Removable 6-cell battery. Battery life is like six solid hours!
• Respectable BIOS. In-BIOS support to recover to factory from a hidden partition. Solid network boot support. Boot from USB. Boots fast too.
• Good ports: 3xUSB2, 2.0 audio out, mic in, card reader, VGA out, gigabit ethernet.
• 160GB HDD, so you have room to install more than a barebones OS.

Con:

• Trackpad isn't very good - the buttons in particular kinda suck. Though apparently old Acer netbooks were even worse.
• Not quite enough horsepower for HD video. It can (barely) handle 360p from Hulu though.
• No integrated bluetooth.
• Using an HDD not SSD.

The default install has a ton of stuff installed by Acer. Nothing you'd particularly want (McAfee trial, Works, Office trial, some Acer in-house junk), but nothing outrageous for a default install. Pretty much the only offensive apps were the full Google Desktop and Toolbar suites, and some news aggregator free trial, which were quickly uninstalled.

Of course, none of that matters, since I installed Windows 7 on it right away. Windows 7 installed flawlessly - just click "Install Windows", and wait for the magic to happen. It automatically picked up drivers for all my hardware, and it honestly seems to perform better than the base XP install (albeit that may be due to McAfee and the other software that was pre-installed).

It's a nice little netbook! I won't be raiding on it any time soon, but being able to surf the net during a long presentation has already made it worthwhile.