Every time I think about Wintel laptops, I'm reminded of this piece: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly_overrated.html http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/si

Every time I think about Wintel laptops, I'm reminded of this piece: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly_overrated.html http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly_overrated.htm... (summary: people buy things with more knobs and lights because the illusion of control gives them the impression that it is more powerful) My Toshiba Satellite has five LEDs in a row on the front. Three of them are on continuously (one turns orange, I think, when it sleeps). One represents hard disk activity, though Task Manager's I/O graph is vastly more useful. One of them has never turned on. I have no idea what it's for. It has an icon above it that sort of looks like a piece of paper. I'm sure someone at Toshiba thought it was a good idea to forgo the anti-reflective screen coating in favor of a few more LEDs. "Consumers will love all the extra power afforded by the paper-light!" he said.