My (mid-range) laptop is only a year old, but I can say that I notice no difference between MSE 2 and MSE 1 for speed, either while scanning or while lurking in the background. So, I'd say go for it.

Thank you. I use easy passwords all the time for crap like this. Why waste one of my strong but easy-for-me-to-remember passwords on something that doesn't actually have any connection to my personal life or my money?

And by "a few", I mean "I'm pretty sure I was using a pirated copy of Windows 2000 on my blazing-fast PC".

I thought I had hot plugged in Windows too, but that would have been a few years ago, and I remember it only sometimes working. Does anyone else know?

If it got as bad as I hypothesized, $200/month internet, I'd have to seriously consider switching back to dialup.

And in areas with true monopolies (in reality, I think the majority of the USA sees one single cable provider and several slow DSL providers) I think there would be enough people put off by that price that it would become economically feasible for a second or third competitor to enter the marketplace, or for those DSL providers to mature a bit and start offering cable-style speeds at more realistic prices.

In the end, I really think most cable companies will resist the temptation to charge per byte so that they can ensure they continue having a monopoly.

And actually, even then I fell for a red herring. Your ISP must only provide access to servers based in your state. Goodbye, backbone.

No, but your paying for it does. Unless you only use an ISP based in your state to access DNS servers in your state to access websites hosted in your state. And even then, it's not likely (my first jump via tracert goes to Illinois, and I live in Wisconsin).

The government's meddling in business is what has kept this from occurring ten years ago, champ. Note that this is the FCC considering a RULE CHANGE. If the FCC had never been around to create such a rule, we would have already seen this happen.

Having said that, I'm very, very, very cautiously optimistic that this will only have a short-term effect. Streaming HD (in my case, via Netflix) has gone from a "that would be cool" to something I do almost every day within three years, and despite my /. account, I'm not a bleeding edge type. The difference between "normal internet user" and "person who streams a shitload of video" is blurring and is probably going to disappear within the next 18 months. And people just aren't going to pay $200/month for internet unless there's a massive speed increase, and even then, probably not.

Sorry, I didn't see this until now. Not sure if you're still checking for replies.

I can't say I disagree with majorly scaling things back and banning the military-industrial complex.

But, since that hasn't happened yet, we have to work in the most responsible way within the system we currently have. A lot of people (including Julian Assange) think that if there are enough of these links, we'll get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and stop throwing billions of dollars at Bechtel, Lockheed, Boeing, etc. I wish that were true, but I just don't see that happening; people are just going to get MORE insular and MORE secretive.

Sorry - not "more than one degree"; any degree of removal seems to be okay.

Knowingly disseminating classified information is illegal, but you're probably correct in that organizations more than one degree removed from the dissemination are in the clear (otherwise places like CNN wouldn't be quoting from the documents). However, I can't find usable information on this, just chest-puffing on both sides.

If what I said above is true, the debate over whether WikiLeaks can be considered the original disseminator would end up getting appealed to the Supreme Court anyway. This is why I made sure to hedge what I said :)

Sorry, to be clear, I meant that international affairs would be anarchic - in the domestic realm, things would keep going, for a while anyway.

You never have a bad idea at work? You never need advice from your co-workers or bosses?

It's pretty clear we have two fundamentally different ideas of what a government is, so I'm not really expecting to sway you at this point.

What you're describing is functionally a veiled version of anarchy - something you could certainly make a case for, but not really the system we're talking about here.

We pay the salaries of diplomats, of course. They work for us. But hiding information is really part of the job description. I'm saying that diplomacy just cannot occur if you can't go "back home" and talk to your colleagues candidly about other countries. Yes, behind their backs, and yes, in disparaging terms, often enough.

I know I keep going back to this, but seriously, please describe to me how you envision global diplomacy where private conversation is banned. I just cannot see it happening.

Low-level diplomats, who are hugely important in the day-to-day world of foreign relations, don't have the authority to make decisions past a certain point, of course. In your scenario, they would need to PUBLICLY go to their superiors.

Can you imagine how many controversial, potentially catastrophic, stupid ideas need to get knocked down by higher-ups? Can you imagine how much worse those ideas would be if we found out about them during Phase Zero? How many times would we see missile-lobbing and embargoes between countries because an idealistic 23-year old had a stupid idea while brainstorming? It would be hell.

You've got to be kidding. Security clearances exist for a reason. Are you saying you should be able to look up all diplomatic, military, and security conversations your government is undertaking?

From my earlier example, should I be able to drive into Los Alamos National Laboratory, or walk into wherever I want in the Pentagon?