AT&T takes our money and builds infrastructure in customer rich locations like KCMO, DFW, etc. Even here in the county seat where I work all AT&T can offer is DSL, or at least they did at one time. Out of town? Nevermind, all you'll get is dial tone. AT&T has done ZERO infrastructure upgrades in our rural area within the past 30 years ago or so. It is really inexcusable, IMO. But then it is becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy as fewer customers are keeping their landline phone which has prompted AT&T to run FUD ads trying to scare people into buying a landline for "peace of mind". Despicable.

The local WISP thus has no competition and is now quite slow to update anything. 512 kbps is all they can muster out to where I live and during daylight hours it's generally much slower. I guess I should be glad I no longer rely on dialup any more.

Actually, there are some that are intent on doing just that despite being labeled "haters" even though their motivations have nothing to do with "hate". Disagreement does not mean hatred. So long as the Linux kernel does not require specific user space software or versions, those of us who prefer a more traditional approach will be fine.

Please, don't "work" on your son. The last thing he needs is to think that he's obligated to participate in dad's hobby. If/when he shows an interest then guide but don't press him. Pressing can only leave a bad impression of amateur radio on him if he clearly is not interested. Enjoy your participation in the hobby and perhaps he'll find it interesting in its own right. If so, great, if not, don't let your ego get bruised.

Also, amateur radio appeals to those interested in radio for radio's sake and experimenting with technologies on top of that. Comparing it to commercial telecom services really does amateur radio a disservice. The two aren't even in the same universe. Let's get away from repeating the mistake of comparing amateur radio to commercial services.

Well, this is cheaper for the carriers to implement than building the infrastructure to support their over selling.

Perhaps it's not as prevalent but it does exist in KDE as well. Mind that I was dedicated KDE user after 3.4 hooked me. I stuck with it until 4.4.something, or about a year ago on Debian. I installed a second video card and KDE4 lost its mind and barfed widgets, apps, and desktop backgrounds everywhere. I dumped it in short order, tried GNOME which coped better with the setup only by a matter of degree. I then gave XFCE4 a spin and it handles my Zaphod heads independent desktops like a champ. Session restoration does what I expect by putting apps back on the screen/desktop I prefer them and doesn't bork backgrounds or panels either.

The download/installation footprint of KDE these days makes it a non-starter to see if things have improved with respect to handling independent desktops. If it's working for someone else, that's great. I'm not going back.

Do you have a link to make this claimed "Plug in USB speakers and have audio come out" actually work? I'm not trolling as I'd really like to know. I nearly tore my hair out trying to find one bit of documentation on doing just that as all I found was post after post on removing PA and then writing a ~/.asoundrc to make the USB speakers work which is what I did. But if you have a link to any sort of documentation (and don't point me to the PA site as it is as useless as tits on a boar hog for end user docs) please do post it.

Thus far I have to agree with those arguing against PA as I've simply been unable to achieve any of PAs claimed benefits/features.

Some months back I decided to install PA on my Debian laptop so I could plug my USB Logitech speakers in and have them work. It didn't. (I was frustrated as KDE has a nice GUI to set sound device ordering but I don't use KDE any longer, opting for XFCE) I spent all manner of time reading FAQs and using my Googlefu, all to no avail. Seems that what does not exist in the PA universe is a sane bit of documentation for the end user on how to configure and use the POS. I wound up with a simple hack to ~/.asoundrc that lets me use the speakers. It is inelegant and it works.

I'd really like to use its claimed features but it only seems useful as the volume slider on a Ubuntu desktop. Any use case beyond that violates GNOME HID or some such nonsense.
 

Are you arguing that there was never any concern about a near-future ice age back in the '70s? If you are, then you may wish to re-examine your facts as it was there, in full scare-force as the warming scare has been ongoing for the past decade. While I was in elementary school (3rd or 4th grade in the early '70s) we were shown a series of films that portended the coming ice age and that where I live right now would be under a glacier in 40 years or so time, i.e. right now (there is only a dusting of snow although the temp is -12C ATM)! The propaganda was out there even then and there is no denying that fact.

Why not LGPL2? You still get the ability of having any code under any license linking to the codec but contributions to the codec must be released under the LGPL2. Seems like a very smart (and best) way to do it to me.

Perhaps, but not wise, IMHO. Some years ago there was a case in California where a hiker got into hot water for transmitting on the local sheriff's frequency to report a legitimate emergency. The FCC did nothing to defend the radio amateur for using any means at his disposal during an emergency. Since then my advice is that radio amateurs do not have carte blanche access to the frequencies of other radio services even during a legitimate emergency.

In short, transmitting outside the amateur radio bands opens one up to any legal actions from all entities up to and including the FCC.

Ignorance is the most expensive commodity in the USA today. And we pay for that ignorance on a daily basis.

Hopefully Ken has been able to push the frontiers of ignorance back just a little. Sometimes it requires a jolt to get that moment moving and I think that both Ken and Karen have learned a lot about jumping to conclusions. Here's hoping that Karen will now become an ally to Ken and his project.

That's not conservative, that's authoritarian.

In the USA conservatism gravitates toward more power to the individual and less to the government, especially the federal government.

Why even bother to have elections any more then? Let's just put Mensa in charge and walk away. That should work, right. Right?

Exactly. Had the media been doing their constitutional duty rather than merely cheerleading the outcome during the primaries would have been decidedly different for both parties. For McCain the cheerleading had been going on since 2000 and for Obama since his convention speech in 2004. But since the media has gravitated toward large top-down government, these are the candidates they promote, and why there really was no choice between the major party candidates in this election.

Under-qualified? She was emminently qualified as she met the Constitutional requirements for the office. That is all that is necessary.