I'm writing this on my Chromebook Pixel, with its glorious screen. I run Linux via crouton and do plenty of creation on it. I thought I'd just use it as a Linux machine, but the ChromeOS front-end offers such a great browsing experience, that I spend plenty of time there, as well. I love mine.

I replaced my nine-year-old ThinkPad a few months ago (it's slowly running the latest Ubuntu). I went round and round for about a year and finally decided to get a used Chromebook Pixel. It's awesome! I thought I'd play around with crouton for a while, but eventually wipe the whole thing and install Linux on it.

I haven't done that. I do run crouton and can flip between ChromeOS and Ubuntu 14 in a keystroke. The thing is, ChromeOS is a really nice broswing experience and 75% of what I do is browser based. I could spend all day in Ubuntu, but it's just too nice using ChromeOS.

I'm really happy with my Chromebook.

Hoover Dam is worth a visit. It's overwhelming in its size and design. I hope they're re-opened the full tour that I took in the early 1990s (it was closed to tourists after 9/11 and incrementally re-opened later).

My model trains may disagree with you!

No Kindle version? Rats!

I had an Intellivision as a kid. It was awesome. There was a game for it called Utopia that was the first Civ-style resource management game I ever saw. I played it endlessly.

I want one of these, and think it's a great idea (de-innovation?) to remove the 3G support. I'm often in wi-fi areas, but don't really see the need to download books while I'm actually AT the beach. I can download enough when I'm at home (or at McDonalds, at Starbucks, etc...). Save money, save power, save bandwidth. I'm getting one!

Joe Celko writes fabulous SQL/database books! They are a joy.

Plasma guns, railguns, lighning guns, supersuits. Meh...

I want a grenade launcher that'll let me bounce grenades around corners and off floors. My all-time favorite FPS weapon.