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Samsung Laptop Review

Trust me, this is the coolest Windows laptop ever.

It’s the “Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A-A03 13.3-Inch Laptop.” (Just sort of rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it?)

Anyhow, I visited the Microsoft Store with my wife & daughter a few weeks back… you know, just to check out the enemy. And I was seriously impressed with this Samsung laptop! Mind you, I would never think of buying one. (Regular readers know where my loyalties lie.)

The best I can tell is that Samsung is attempting to compete with the MacBook Air. About the only thing the Samsung has over the Apple is processor speed. The Mac’s hard drive is twice as big as the Samsung’s. They weigh exactly the same.

For a Windows laptop, the design is really not bad. They’re trying.

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Never seen a human like that

This falls under the category of bad art direction… Notice where the hands are on this computer. If the model’s arms were at the angle shown, an amputation would have taken place before the shot.

Thanks to 1and1, the company who paid for the ad this photo came from.

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Tesla in Colorado

Tesla makes very fast electric cars. Very fast expensive electric cars.

Boulder has had a showroom for a while, but Denver recently got one – in a mall! (Funny enough, the Boulder store is now missing from their dealership listings page.)

The store is small. Just two cars are on the floor. But at $140,000 each, I’m not surprised.

The Roadster is the only model currently available. It’s basically a Lotus Elise at more than double the price. That’s a lot of saving the whales you can do for the difference.

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Thanksgiving

I know that it’s a long way from Thanksgiving. But I’m thankful today. Two years ago, My mom passed away. I am thankful for her life and the indelible influence she had on me.

(This was a letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News that she got published on Thanksgiving Day, 2000. You can see that she shared my love of writing.)

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Unclaimed $100

(Yes, I know you’re wondering, has Paul gotten into spam? No, I haven’t.)

During my last year of college, I made a bet with my roommate. It was a significant bet. It was perhaps the only real financial bet I’ve ever made (in the strict definition of betting). I bet him $100 that ten years after we graduated from college, I would be more into classical music than I was into rock.

It was based on my love affair with the Andante movement of Mozart’s 40th Symphony. To this day, in my opinion, it’s one of the finest musical creations ever. Even though I’ve heard it tons of times, it still evokes deep emotion within me.

But alas, I lost the bet. Rock is still my first love. If you like, compare rock to cotton candy (UK: candy floss), but it keeps me consistently coming back for more.

So Brian Wells, if you are reading this, shoot me an email and I’ll send you $100. (Sadly, I lost track of him several years ago.)

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Remember what a privilege it is

This “Discover Riches at Your Library” bookmark was given to my daughter as part of a summer reading program at our local library.

I remembered that in Nairobi, a city of about 4 million people, there are a few libraries. Most of them have old tattered books. There is not a selection of the latest best sellers. There are no libraries at all in Kakamega, a city in western Kenya with maybe 250,000 people.

So be thankful for what you have, people of “the western world.”

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The loss of something

As life moves forward, we lose some things.

When I was a kid, my family had encyclopedias. I used to enjoy sitting down and reading them. Or skimming them to find interesting articles. Hours and hours of my childhood were spent learning that way.

Today, kids have Wikipedia and Google. Both offer huge advantages over encyclopedias. But some things are lost. I wonder how many kids spend hours combing Wikipedia for interesting articles.

I have a Kindle, and I love it. But it’s far from perfect.

Recently, I learned of a high school not far away that is “paperless.” No books, except eBooks. Again, some good things come with that – but some things are lost.

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One thing I regret giving away

My first iPod.

I bought it on eBay. It worked great for maybe four years. Then it died.

Compared to more recent iPods, it was a brick. But it was amazing for the time – and is still a work of art.

My minimalistic lifestyle sometimes betrays me.

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