Linux Hippies in the Wild

In these troubled times (drink!), big purchases are hard to do, and that's killing the auto sector. While Detroit will survive by getting a massive bailout and getting rich on trucks and SUVs when conditions improve; overseas, someone had a brainwave. Make a cheaper car and try to make it up in volume. Hyundai is doing just that with the 2009 Accent compact for a mere $9, 970 US. I think the last time you could buy a new car for less than $10, 000, I was too young to drive (that was prior to 1997, if you're keeping score). Granted, its a very basic car. It doesn't even come with a radio. But it does allow you to get from A to B (at 27/33 MPG) for a very reasonable car payment. And there you go.

Other ways to keep yourself entertained on the cheap is to put Linux on everything. Those of you who have just been dying to ditch the iPhone's OS X-based firmware but are not dedicated enough to spend long weeks slaving over a hot compiler will be happy to know that Linux is now available for the iPhone. Now, I'm assuming that that means that you'd have to ditch iTunes (which would probably self-destruct on attempting to sync) and replace all your third-party apps with ones cobbled together with Python, but if that's your thing you're probably really happy about this. Now get that switch done and go back to reading your xkcd.