My employer runs their entire business on Comcast business class internet and we are not being blocked as you describe. Are you sure something else isn't going on?

That said, I also run my own mail server at home, on a comcast consumer connection, and I use google's mail servers to proxy my outbound mail. I got in on free google apps for your domain account back during the beta... but you may be able to pull this off with a normal gmail account. Just set your mail server to forward through googles smtp servers using your gmail credentials. Not sure if this will work if your reply to address domain is not hosted by google.
What really sucks is that Comcast also blocks inbound port 25 on consumer accounts so I have my mail delivered to google and then I transfer it to my own mail server via pop/imap, in theory leaving nothing on the google servers but probably rather pointless in practice. This is what I'm reduced to unless I wan't to pay more for a business connection. There has never been any such thing as net neutrality at the consumer level here, afaict. Every internet connection I've ever had has been asynchronous and limited in some way.

I'm less disgusted by the people responsible for this than I am by the people who are going to tune in to watch it, but not by much.

Partly because I'm now posting on Slashdot at 5 am but mainly because it was a silly idea to begin with. As if pretending that it's an hour later than it actually is would improve the lives of the majority.

... and if there's nothing to be outraged about we'll manufacture it.

One of the worst shows on NPR if you ask me.

hmmm.... I've got 20 or so LED bulbs in my house, installed over the last 2-3 years and have not lost one. Most are Phillips, purchases when on sale. The most I ever paid for one was about $15 and the latest ones cost $5.

I've gotten better results with LED than either CFL or incandescent.

Profit trumps ethics.

It's relatively safe environment if you run your own invite-only server. If the setup is too much to handle, you can rent one.

It sounded to me like the author just wants some of us to continue to subsidize his ESPN viewing.
There is literally nothing on basic cable I miss after 15 years of no cable. HBO was extra anyway.

Microsoft is trying to be Google and Apple at the same time and they will likely fail badly at both.
All because they can never stop growing....

The US mainstream press has rarely been more than a non-analytical echo chamber for US policy, or worse yet, has/had an agenda of it's own (Hearst... Murdoch) What good is a press that merely repeats what the government says? A press that gives equal credence to two sides no matter how ridiculous one (or both) might be? A press that only bares it's teeth for scandal no matter how inconsequential? A press beholden to advertisers over readers?

At least now, we have variety at our fingertips if we wish, but it's hard not to be cynical about any of it. I personally think that Google News has been the best thing to happen to news in this century as at least we can now easily get a (theoretically) random sampling of all kinds of coverage, flawed though that coverage may be. It makes it a little easier for the critical reader to figure out what's really going on.

Binoculars won't cut it if you want to see Jupiter's moons or Saturn's rings. Even if they have the magnification you still need a tripod to hold the view steady and you really need something with an equatorial mount to follow the objects or they will slip out of view very quickly I used to have a 90mm refractor with a manual equatorial mount (you had to rotate with knobs).. I'd go electric if I got one today... especially if a bunch of kid's are taking turns looking through the thing.

I find that my Twist has twitchy or broken touch & mouse control. All pointers can randomly jump around no matter if you are using the trackpoint, touchpad or external mouse. Touch misses so often it's practically useless for anything other than launching apps. Auto-rotate is unreliable and frequently sticks in the wrong orientation. I expect (or hope) that these hardware problems don't exist on the Surface but I would still expect any Windows 8.1 hybrid to act like a slow tablet and mediocre laptop combined into one device which frequently does what you did not mean to ask it to.... Even the appearance is hard to get used to. I can't see the windows controls/scroll bars very well, for instance, no matter the color scheme.

I've got a Lenovo Twist and it is, by far, the most frustrating device I've ever used. It's partially Lenovo's fault for bloatware & minor hardware issues but mostly I blame it on the schizophrenic OS that is Windows 8.1. Want to use it as tablet? Try manipulating that file with your fingers when a default app takes you to the desktop. Want to use it as a desktop? Whoops... That file just opened up in some crippled, full screen metro app...
Just want to login to the damn thing? Why is the screen stuck upside down? I just pulled a neck muscle.... <Sigh>

You'd think someone would have thought to allow separate default apps for desktop/tablet mode. Launching a file from one mode only to have it open in the other is aggravating hell... desktop windows controls don't work well with touch input.. not on my 8.1 tab/laptop anyway. And if you went the other way, you find yourself in a crippled metro app that doesn't have the function you were looking for.