A USB dvd drive is light and dirt cheap. I'd much rather have one sitting (unused) on my desk than schlep it around inside my laptop all day long.

The question isn't "what's the fastest German car" or "what's the coolest German car" but "what's the most quintessentially German car".

All BMWs are douchebag BMWs until they're 10 years old. A decade from now, many people will be talking about how the Bangle years were the ne plus ultra of bimmer design. I would put non-trivial money on that.

E39's have diff mount issues? So BMW fixed that on the E34 but then brought it back for the E39? And that recirculating ball steering out of a 1940's truck? Please. E39 M5's are about as sophisticated as fox body mustangs.

Again, we come back to an NA/NB Miata: outgassing complete, capable of thousands of air changes per hour.

Eh, she's closer to a high speed oval or a drag race than I like. I like my women to look a bit more nordschleifesque.

I remember the xr4ti being a bit tail happy to begin with, though it's been—holy shit, where did my youth go??—15 years since I drove one. This one is going to be seriously entertaining.

Agreed in general. Devilishly advocating three words, though: S14 Powered 2002.

Cat meat.

... their owners have more money than brains. Over-engineered engines??? I know plenty of folks who have had head stud failures.

The Veyron is both the least interesting car you can buy for $1.7M and the least interesting way to break 225 MPH.

To me, Japanese cars are much more about continuous refinement and the quest for perfection than about any technology. The Toyota manufacturing process is *the* technology that defines not only Japanese auto manufactures, but ALL auto manufacturers and indeed all of modern industrial engineering.

Except you're going to pay the same for Audi and VW parts 99% of the time. Parts for a VW Passat with the same motor as an Audi A6 are not cheaper, nor are VW service centers cheaper than Audi service centers (especially since they're usually the same place).

Sorry, but which software will decrypt TrueCrypt or Lion's FileVault?

You don't believe in a biblical hell, do you? :)

The tone here is weird. These are two mega-corporations, and Apple is no longer run by a petulant idiot savant who will sacrifice his company's success to prove a point or get back at someone. They don't have feelings or emotions and they don't hold grudges. Their lawyers can battle 24-7 but the companies can (and…

Reading about this genuinely brought a tear to my eye. Losing Saab is like loosing Porsche. I can't think of another company like the two. Saabs are as close as you can come to the opposite of the 911, but both of them dominated their respective motor sports with batshit crazy designs and stuck to their iconoclastic…

Huge improvement but in NO WAY does it live up to what I've come to expect from Apple.

BY ALL MEANS ASK A BUNCH OF STUPID QUESTIONS AND PROLONG MY MEETING SO YOU CAN FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF. THANKS. THATS REALLY GREAT.

As someone who has had three japanese cars and fifteen german and swedish ones, I would never suggest european stuff to a neophyte. A W123 is cool and reliable and will be cheap if you're lucky, but repairs are expensive and it should be serviced by someone who knows MB's, which usually is not the repair shop affixed…