Why didn't Microsoft just go with "Shallow?'

It's cheap!  It's plastic!  It comes in pretty colors!  It's mostly disposable!

In other words, it fits in PERFECTLY with the modern American lifestyle!

It's called "Surface," and incredibly, it's NOT a parody product reviewed by The Onion.  As near as I can tell, it's a flimsy, thin piece of electronic junk which is JUST cheap enough to convince you that when it inevitably cracks and breaks it's no big deal, just pitch it into the nearest garbage can and get yourself another one.  And if you don't break it in the first two or three months of ownership, well- BONUS!!  It's been upgraded to be even thinner and lighter and fragile!  Yay!

I can see this becoming the next Must-Have product for a generation that has grown up with cell phones which go from being the Kewlest Thing Evah to Outdated Junk in less than half a year.  I can see kids with huge college debt and no jobs somehow managing to justify owning this shiny, rather inferior substitute for a laptop (or, better yet, a fricking notepad and pen- that was more than good enough for me when I was in college, which no was NOT fifty years ago.)

And I fully expect that around this time next year, I'll be seeing plenty of these things scattered along the side of the road as I take my day hikes (26 miles today, new record, yay me!) crowding out cell phones and beer cans for space among the piles of rubble.  Because there's no overestimating the stupidity of the American buying public.  Microsoft is, as always, banking on it.