Fixing the world economy? I'm no economist, so I haven't the faintest idea.

I am a tech enthusiast and would enjoy an SSD, though :)

https://www.ultimatebuds.com/store/product.php?productid=16134&cat=253&page=1

The Ultimate Buds UB7EB - Featuring drivers from Future Sonics.

Seriously, they're worth every penny of their $150 price tag - a friend has them (we're both audiophiles, but him moreso than me from a grear standpoint) and let me listen to them, and they compare VERY favorably with reference Etymotic ER-4S's. Great clarity, strong bass - actually stronger than the ER-4S.

I am waiting to see how good the new Apple buds sound (very flat frequency response with a slight bump in the upper mids, just like my beloved Grado SR60s - I HAVE to know how these sound in person). If they don't blow me away, you better believe I'll drop cash on the Ultimate Buds UB7s.

Just to be sure, you know that hyperspeed doesn't actually make playing GH harder, right?

All it does is change the speed at which the notes fly by. It doesn't actually make the song faster.

Some people (myself included, Hyperspeed on 2) actually prefer hyperspeed on because it makes big note runs easier to read.

I don't think it would matter for this robot, though.

Hmm, I said XBox360 in the other contest, so this time I'll go with Windows 98. I just remember thinking "man, this USB stuff is the wave of the future!"

//yes, I know USB support was backported to Win95, but most of my devices still didn't support Win95

Why, the XBox 360 of course! Such an awesome piece of hardware (though I don't actually own one. I just know enough people who do).

One of my favorite lines from Sin City comes to mind.

"Modern Cars. They all look like electric shavers."

I may photoshop a Norelco logo onto this thing for shiggles.

@JuniorMint

I shall answer your anecdote with my own.

I work in multimedia (well, I do support in Multimedia Labs), and hence, I am around a lot of macs and a lot of mac users (both coworkers and clients).

Less technical Mac users tend towards LaCie external drives and other accessories (they're pretty heavily marketed and sold in Apple Stores), and of all the drives I've seen, I've only seen one LaCie drive die (and that was after a coworker of mine dropped it getting out of her car - and of course it was one of those RAID0'd 1TB Big Disks, hence my bias against them).

That said, I reiterate that all hard drives die eventually, and "anybody who says "Brand X fails less often than Brand Y" is speaking anecdotally - don't listen to them."

P.S. I still love the LaCie 320 LCD monitor at work - amazing color accuracy for less than an Eizo. I definitely wouldn't call it junk (I probably wouldn't call it pretty either, unless you're talking about the picture :).

P.P.S. There's no "e" in manfesto.

Also should add that no matter what, BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT DATA.

Again, all hard drives die - RAID0 just doubles your chances of being screwed when a drive dies.

LaCie is a well known manufacturer of accessories, primarily for Macs (though it is of course PC compatible). They also make very nice high-end color-accurate LCDs (my workplace has one for printwork).

As far as reputability goes, LaCie is top tier.

That said, this drive is not without caveats.

It is two 500GB drives in a RAID0 array - basically, data is written in "stripes" to each drive - Half of the data goes on drive 1, the other half goes on drive 2 (hence why it ends up being one terrabyte). This means that if just one drive dies, you lose data from both drives.

It's also pretty expensive.

My advice? Go to http://www.newegg.com and buy a 1TB drive and an external enclosure. Also, buy a Seagate drive - all hard drives will eventually die (and anybody who says "Brand X fails less often than Brand Y" is speaking anecdotally - don't listen to them), but at least Seagate offers a 5 year warranty (most manufacturers only offer 3 years).

so sad.