Rose’s “suitcases of trouble” would be the perfect travel accessory for beautiful & rootless losers, but as far as I can tell they’re not for sale except as objects of art, putting them out of range of those without permanent employment.

But they’re a call, to me at least, to rethink the humble suitcase. If you follow Rose’s lead and customize your case, you’d have no trouble recognizing it on the baggage carousel. That it would get chipped and trashed would only add to its damaged beauty.

Here’s an interview with Aaron Rose.

It wasn’t until October 29 of 1969, however, that the first message was sent between computers, so some say the Internet was really born at the end of October, which would make it a Scorpio: “exciting and magnetic” but also “compulsive and obsessive.”

So the Internet is hitting the big 4-0, give or take a few weeks. What does it want to be when it grows up? Like many of us at mid-life, it professes to want more, or less, or at least something different. Like the rest of us, it wants to travel more. And like those of us who live abroad or want to, it’s not sure it ever wants to come back.

If the Internet had steamer trunks they’d be covered with stickers from just about everywhere. It’s been on every major continent, and its presence is becoming more and more more ubiquitous.

In the last 9 years, the number of Internet users around the world has jumped from 360,985,492 to 1,668,870,408. Most Internet users (about 704 million) are in Asia, because Asia is the most populous area measured, though only about 18% of people in Asia are on the web. Europe comes in 2^nd, with 402 million (and 50% of people there on the Web), and North America is third with about 252 million.

But in terms of penetration (if there was another word for it, rest assured that I’d be using it), North America is at the top of the pile, with almost 75% of the population on the web (the world average is about 25%).

Like travelers who’ve stuck with the more conventional destinations, the Internet has seen a lot of Europe, Australia, and North America. Now it wants to broaden its horizons, see the rest of the world. Maybe life would have more meaning if it could travel the old Silk Road in China? Or run with the Bedouins and their camels? When it accrues some more vacation time, the Internet will be heading for the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

And since travel changes the traveler at least as much as the places visited, the new Internet will come back looking and thinking differently. For those ready to listen to its tales, we’ll all be changed as well.

Statistics from Internet World Stats.

Image: Shutterstock

It’s time for something newer, and lighter. I thought I’d settled on a candy-apple red Dell Inspiron Mini 9, which I’d heard you could hack to run OS X. Voila! A cut-rate airbook that would work seamlessly with my new iMac.

But then Dell took that model off the market. And on looking into hackintoshing further, I heard that it can wreak havoc with the wifi and other functions. Not to mention that the “simple instructions” for hackintoshing are only simple for techweenies. Don’t get me wrong—I aspire to techweeniehood, but at this juncture have barely reached cocktail wiener level.

So I’m still looking high and low for the best netbook, a good (and cheapish) little soldier that will see me through airports and bus stations and rides in the back of pickup trucks, not to mention letting me blog from improbable places.

Everyone, it seems has an opinion. For your compare-and-contrast pleasure, here are 3 recent “Best 5 Netbooks” lists.
CNET’s top netbooks

1. Asus Eee PC 1005HA
2. Acer Aspire One D250
3. HP Mini 110
4. HP Mini 1151nr
5. Lenovo IdeaPad S10 4231

Lifehacker’s top netbooks

1. Samsung NC10
2. Dell Mini 10 (Lifehacker says this model is hackintoshable, but Boing Boing’s list of pc netbooks you can customize to run OS X says otherwise)
3. ASUS EEEPC 1000HE
4. Acer Aspire One
5. MSI Wind

Testfreaks’ top netbooks

1. Samsung NC10
2. Asus Eee PC 1000H
3. Tie between Asus Eee PC 1000HE & Samsung NC20
4. Tie between Samsung N120, MSI Wind U100, & Asus Eee PC 1000

Asus is looking pretty good to me right now, especially after I talked to my local computer repair guys and they said they were in love with the insides of the Asuses the took apart. (Asus porn?) “Really quality components,” they hubba-hubba’d. Who can argue with love?