last weekend was the 2-year anniversary of a 3-year "wager"
which michael hart and i made way back on april 21st, 2010.

i'd posted "longstanding question has finally been answered",
a message noting that the ipad -- on the verge of release --
had answered the frequently-debated question as to whether
general-purpose machines or dedicated e-readers would win.

the 300,000 pre-orders for the ipad were convincing to me...

but michael differed, saying dedicated e-readers would prevail.

we eventually settled into a bet where he made me pick a date
when the number of ipads would surpass kindles/nooks/sonys.

i thought it would be from 1-to-3 years, max, so i said that...

>   http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006648.html

and so the wager was formalized...

>   http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006659.html

>   http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006660.html

i said that ipads would outnumber sony/nooks/kindles on
4/21/2013, and michael (for some reason) bet the opposite.

***

along the way, i also made another post full of predictions:

>   http://lists.pglaf.org/mailman/private/gutvol-d/2010-April/006652.html

kind of interesting to go back and look at how close i was...

***

anyway, 2 years in to our 3 year wager, apple just announced
its results for the quarter that concluded at the end of march.

they sold 11.8 million ipads in the quarter, for a grand total
of _67_million_ since the debut of the machine 2 years ago...

pretty sure that dwarfs the other machines, even if you were
to add in all the other e-readers and tablets, even combined.

the ipad is an absolute juggernaut.

apple's market cap -- which is now #1 -- has grown to nearly
$600 million.  (exxon, #2, hovers solidly around $400 million.)

***

at any rate, i miss you, michael.

-bowerbird