So many choices, so little choice...

Having failed to secure my $30 million this week, I am left once again having to choose between competing pieces of tech, rather than buy everything - and Myanmar will have to make do with a smaller donation than I would like (the UNHCR is my charity of choice, say what you will about the level of corruption inherent in the UN - many do).

So, my choices at the moment revolve around a laptop - something small and light, that I can use to fret away the 2-3 hours I spend on the bus every 5 out of 7 days. (On a side-note, watch out if you've been using the FBT exemption on laptops to bring down the price.) This led me to look at 2 of the headlining options at the moment: the MacBook Air and the EeePC. Both make a lot of compromises, but achieve great results, depending on what you want to use them for.

One thing about both of these options is that neither has a CD/DVD/BD drive, which kind of rules them out, since one thing I want to have the option of doing is watching movies. I could, of course, rip a DVD, but that would be illegal (there are legal download options, but Australian Internet infrastructure being what it is, I don't really regard that as a workable option). And it being illegal annoys me. A lot. Because when I buy a movie, I want to be able to enjoy it in a way that's the most convenient to me, because I bought it, not rented, leased or subscribed to it.

In Australia, not having access to fair use provisions provided to consumers in other countries in the market for these products, the utility of the Air and the EeePC is far less. Its a great example of the way in which our copyright laws are irrelevant to they way people actually live (my favourite is the provision that says you can record something off TV, but can only watch it once, then have to erase it - must be fun enforcing that one). Roll on, Creative Commons and YouTube.