True, but it depends on how much money you have and what you want. the asker did mention getting off the grid... in which case a permanent natural gas generator is the way to go. However, like you pointed out, this complicated and usually reserved for mission critical things like grocery store inventory and hospitals that much be kept cold. I survived for days after katrina on a standard gas generator. we had TV, frig and I think some AC. However, we burned through gasoline like nobody's business. the poster should keep this in mind, because having access to gasoline is just as important as having the generator. weakest link in the chain. also, don't plug your generator into your house power line feed, could kill someone when they actually find your ticket.

your comment is absurd. do many parents foot the bill for their children's phone plans? sure, but that doesn't mean anything.
many adults send text messages (the number of people 18+ vastly outnumber those below), and plenty of the 17 and under crowd work to buy things including phone plans, clothes, cars, booze, school, etc. just like everyone else.
any parent paying for a phone bill is just as responsible to be a good consumer as the child using the service.
your comment was a pointless jab, uninteresting, and certainly not insightful. it might be funny as a one-liner, but only for a half hearted chuckle at a stereotype zing like blonds and the polish without the humor.

thats ridiculous.
texting is widely used by people in many age groups including my 50 y/o dad, which means the "youth" you just generalized includes like 100 million people.
it is used by many people (such as my friend) to avoid high-cost voice plans, which makes them thrifty from a certain perspective.
people talk on the phone in public just as they send texts, but I think most find the talking part more rude then the typing. (while driving on the other hand is a different story.)
the youth have always been called "feckless" (usually by other names), but not because they communicate, and the "old and wise" are most feckless when they do not communicate well.
federal tolerance of anti-competitive business practices is the kind of business model companies dream of.
i don't see how that comment is insightful at all. in fact, it sounds like drive-by labeling and a cheap shot

hmm, warner was a part of this-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike
"Every issue that matters to writers, including Internet reuse, original writing for new media, DVDs, and jurisdiction, has been ignored. This is completely unacceptable. --WGA Negotiating Committee"

and may be a part of others-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike#Other_2008_industry-wide_strike_threats

IANAL, but my understanding is that hearsay is a major hurdle for admitting evidence to court. often, a person needs to appear in court to say yes- i or they said, signed, was present, etc. "insert details here" before the evidence can be used, even contracts. whether these pranksters realize it or not, evidence of automated traffic enforcement may be found inadmissible to court due to constitutional protections if challenged under the right circumstances (such as this), where there is no one to summons for appearance in court, you know, to confirm "yes, I pulled that person over for speeding".

Uh oh, someone stole the plans for the NSA Tape Dispenser, it is missing from their Domestic Technology Transfer Program website! http://www.nsa.gov/techtrans/techt00075.cfm

I was given some itunes gift cards last year for christmas, but i never used them because I was holding out for more drm-free music and better encoding quality. this year when my dad asked if itunes cards would suffice instead of cds as they are more convenient for him, i told him no. instead, i would like a giftcard i can use on amazon.

job well done. They realized that the crooks stealing information from average computer users - novice, gullible and/or unconcerned - are just as susceptible themselves. Bugs in the exploiting software, misconfigured servers, and unsophisticated application programming logic can be used against them. The drop sites can be identified and apparently often times compromised, there is weakness in the system. But not just any system, a systemic international problem of organized crime (at times loosely) that threatens the financial and private information of average citizens, institutions and critical information systems. Now, why is it that researchers from a university are apparently more capable of identifying, evaluating, and investigating these risks then the many government organizations and private institutions tasked with these responsibilities? know where a drop zone is? shut it down. know who downloaded the information? Arrest them. identify the communication patterns of the trojans? scrub them. you don't know these things? change your tactics and pay attention.

if ISPs voluntarily go along with limiting file sharing due to influence from the RIAA and not market driven (cost prohibitive) factors, then there will be a market opening for new or exisiting service provides to sell censor-free internet services to consumers like us. and we are the majority.