The way I see it, net neutrality needs to be mandated for ISPs using state or federal funds to "modernize" America,

Then you see it wrongly. Government has a duty to impose regulations upon groups, corporations, or associations that pose hardships to people. This includes enforcement of laws barring abuse of a monopoly (Standard Oil, AT&T) -- of which an ISP oligopoly definitely applies. This is especially true in this case of a natural monopoly, where obtaining land use rights to dig underground to place wires or fiber is an impossible barrier to entry for new competition.

However, even if you wanted to play by the stupid "if the govt. didn't pay for it, it can't regulate it" rules, all of the ISPs would still have to submit to regulation because of the extremely lucrative handout the US Government gave to several large telecom companies in order to encourage them to build out more connections to rural areas and increase speeds in densely populated cities. Which the telecom companies pocketed. (PS: I'd really appreciate a good citation for this; every time I try to find a good description of this, it gets harder and harder to find on google.)

To echo that top link:
"After today investors will have little if any faith left in the US stocks, assuming they had any to begin with."

That describes me. I've got some respectable money in my 401k, but I'm early in my career (early 30s). I don't believe Social Security will still be around when I retire, and with these idiots on Wall Street, I don't think any of my 401k will be either. I predict a lot of people shifting their 401k investments towards bond funds shortly.

Plus, it's easy to develop for (with Qt) and has IR, FM transmitter, and all sorts of neat toys.

Its fatal flaw is that it is Nokia's bastard child, unloved and unsupported. Ask your local n900 owner about Nokia's maps. Have a tissue ready; he will cry unashamedly. The head of Symbian development at Nokia must be GREAT in the sack, because every single good thing for Nokia's phones (Ovi Maps 3, better Exchange support, etc.) comes to the Symbian phones.

I love my phone. I can VNC into work, I can tether to my laptop, I get good battery life and can write any app I want (though not as easily as with Android, I admit.) But I'm seriously considering ditching it for the Next Big Thing in Android. The hardware is a gold mine, but the maps are terrible.

I just got an n900 -- and while they got some things wrong, they got the touchscreen exactly right:
High-resolution LCD and resistive touchscreen. It's still easy to operate with the fingertips (though it needs a bit more pressure than my Android G1 screen did), but when you need precision, there's a stylus tucked in so tightly that it's almost invisible unless you know it's there. Pull it out and scribble away with it, and then when you're done, it hides again, and the display is still perfect for fingers.

I originally thought it was a gimmick -- now I want it included in your dream tablet.

I know this will sound like hopeless fanboyism, but Stewart was no slouch in ST:TNG, and he didn't just phone it in. I can't think of many other actors who could have pulled off "There Are Four Lights", or the episode where he lived an entire life in another planet and learned to play the flute (can't remember the name.) After a few seasons, the writers realized just how good "that Shakespeare guy" was, and they wrote some demanding episodes for Stewart.

Watch the first season, just watching Picard: it's a textbook example of how a talented actor can take a largely untried cast and some occasionally shaky writing and forge a solid character.

The licence for OS X says "only to be used on Apple hardware" and if you want to stay true to that licence, you cannot make a business model out of selling machines with OS X preinstalled that clearly break the licence.

The license for my car says "use only true Ford replacement parts", and if I want to stay true to that license, I cannot use aftermarket parts from third-party dealers of comparable quality and better price.

Or it would, if common sense and US court judgments had not (rightly) told this line of reasoning to go fuck itself.

...you can always call work and say you'll be late. Unless you've got T-Mobile.

I've actually been looking at this one and the IOGear GPEN 200N...anybody have any experience with them?

I'm guessing any of these digital pens would get you better filesizes and formats than just copying stuff into the notebook and scanning them in later...though as somebody said above, transcribing your notes in LATER gives you a chance to study at the same time...

In related news, 8th graders petitioned their principal to drop math from the list of required classes, complaining that "it's hard" and would cause an extra 3 hours of homework per week.

Note that if an actual free market for broadband existed, we would have true competition, allowing customers to choose the provider that provided the best pricing, speed, and feature set. It could be as easy as allowing municipalities to maintain large bundles of fiber through a city, exactly the same way they do with roads. (But cheaper, since you don't need huge roadworking machines and tons of asphalt.)

Unfortunately, our elected officials are honest, so once they've been bribed they stay bribed.

Agreed; something like the Myvu Crystal with decent resolution (640 lines is NOT enough for everyone; double it and I'll buy it tomorrow) should be possible and wouldn't require a prescription (or eyedrops). For extra fun, add a couple of accelerometers for head-tracking and you can use the old X-windows "slide the viewport around" trick. Add a small bluetooth keyboard, and you've got a mini-office anywhere you've got a chair.

I want that so badly. I got an Android phone because it was easier to write apps for, but if the iPhone were more open I would want so badly to get a new iPhone, a set of Myvu Crystal glasses, and some sort of small bluetooth keyboard.

If Microsoft has its head on straight with the Zune HD, it might win in this regard, but the lack of phone/3G is probably a killer. But wouldn't it be awesome to just be wandering around and, if you need to get some work done, whip out a pair of Geordi-glasses and pound out some code? Then, when you're done, fold it all away and walk off?

...if you have a Cleric with a 5th-level spell slot open.

Post-Iran, governments see that controlling the Internet is vital to controlling their population.
ISPs can declare 3rd-party VOIP and other heavy-usage models as violating the filtering rules (whether that makes sense or not) and kick them off the network.
Large businesses prefer that customers be reached through communication channels they control and understand. (TV, radio, print.)

Governments, ISPs, and businesses support it. Nobody important opposes it. (You are not important.) Why are we surprised that it is happening?

I cycle out that way, and I've never had a ride where I didn't have to fight the worst winds I've ever seen. There aren't any trees, Austin could definitely use the power, and there's not much development out that way. You'd be amazed how the wind just sweeps across a flat area where there isn't really enough water for good trees. It's nightmarish.

Having owned cattle: it doesn't work that way.

No, you don't have lots of reads on small numbers of cattle, depending on where you are. You're not their parents, and you don't care who they hang out with after class. If you're a large enough rancher to segregate groups of his cows, then you keep them segregated for that reason. (For example, you want to keep a group from breeding that season.) That group does not often change. Your main tagging duties are:
1: Calving. (Actually, probably during castrating time -- you've penned up half of that year's calves anyway. Pen the rest.)
2: Buying cattle: tag them as they come off the truck.
3: Selling cattle: new buyer tags them.
4: If you've got a very large herd, and you're controlling batches of them as above, then track them when you batch them. If you've batched them, you did it for a reason, and you're not going to change it more often than once per season. (If that often.)
5: Sure, you're out in the middle of nowhere with the cows, but we're not tracking them real-time by satellite. I guarantee you that even the smelliest hand goes to the bar on the weekend, and I've never known a bar without a phone. Seriously, they just hand the scanners to the boss that night, and he uses this bit of ancient technology called a modem -- at MOST every two weeks.

(Oh, and expense won't be a problem for small farms: they'll chip in and buy one for three or four farms and spend the next ten years blaming each other for losing it and everybody wanting it at the last minute, just like they do for everything else.)