Yeah, but honestly, the alarm gate doesn't stop those people either. They zip right out. I wonder what the value is of one of those things that they're nabbed so often...

The scanners seem to be just set up to show something at random that's on sale. It'd be nice if it was related to where I was, but it'd be even nicer if it'd just shut up and leave me alone hehe.

Well, you should want to! They're interesting... all sciency and stuff.

~ Pop

There is a chain of stores in the US, Stop & Shop, that is doing what you describe for self-checkout now. It's much much more convenient than the regular self checkouts here. I wish more stores would take that up, though from what I'm told, there's a lot of people stealing the hand scanners... ...and annoyingly, the hand scanners every so often make a "ka-ching" noise and show some special on the screen they're having. It's loud and unwelcome. It's still better than the regular system, though.

Well, you know what this means...

My attempt at humor failed. Curses, foiled again!

Admittedly, it wasn't very funny to begin with...

It's not paranoia if they really /are/ out to broadcast coded messages at you. 73, K1PUP

Ah ha! So Jerry Lewis has autism! LaDEEEEEE

To that end, have you found a decent VNC client application for it?

Oddly, in my case, that's not an option. While Comcast has a drop to my home, the local telco, Fairpoint, does not, and when called, has no desire to dig up my yard to run a line (not that my landlord would let me tell them to do that anyway).

As such, I can get Comcast. No southern exposure for satellite either.

Are you terribly sure of that? It seems rather the opposite -- I know this is just one my personal experience, but my taxes are lower, my utility prices are lower (electric, phone, cable), my broadband availibility is the same (but higher speeds are available) and my rent is lower since I've moved from the city (Springfield, MA) to a little rural town in Vermont. Granted, the roads here are less maintained here than in the areas surrounding the city, but those in the city were worse than they are here too.

If you want cheap fast broadband, move out of the US.

Really? Hmmm... given the way pager signals sound (indeed, a series of tones -- they bleed over into the ham bands that I use when not configured properly) I figured that's what it'd meant... My mistake.

from your link:

"The "electronic communication" means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce, but does not include(A) any wire or oral communication;(B) any communication made through a tone-only paging device;(C) any communication from a tracking device (as defined in section 3117 of this title); or(D) electronic funds transfer information stored by a financial institution in a communications system used for the electronic storage and transfer of funds."

Not at all. There's a lot of cheap phones on the market (Chinese ones especially, like the faux iPhones) that don't have a valid IMEI. Some don't even have one at all -- it's not used to set up calls or anywhere in the routing process. It's there merely to track the phone.

I doubt it...

Speaking of credit where credit is due, the song was originally recorded by Jimmy Soul, but was written by Frank Guida. It was based on a calypso by Roaring Lion, though I don't recall what the title was.

...hmm, Wikipedia tells me it was "Ugly Woman."