On Flitetest they talk about attempting this in the US, Ohio i think, and said that it was not that difficult to get FAA approval.

It seems to me that the content of an IP packet should be protected under wiretapping laws. What gives the ISPs the right to monitor my traffic. If they do have this right, do they also have the right to break or somehow spoof encrypted traffic as well?

I'm sorry to say that while the Do No Call List seemed to work well for several years it is now completely being ignored. I guess the telespammers realized that it had no teeth. I really hope that the FCC or who ever runs it takes a company like this and makes a serious fucking example of them.

As a Canadian that lives in the US, I have to say that one of the few things that impressed me when I moved down here was how much better USPS works than Canada Post. Here is it very common to chuck something in the mail and have it delivered the next morning. That does not happen in Canada from my experience.

A perfect example is Netflix. I thought that it was a crazy idea until I tried it and found how well it works with one day turnaround. As far as I know, it has not taken off north of the border and the reason is that the postal system does not provide that level of service.

Saturday service is another thing that I've liked about it and will be sad to see it go.

Microsoft. Just because they are no longer relevant does not make them any less evil or forgive them for their past crimes. This campaign is just another example of how they really, really don't get it. If they could make a decent product for once, maybe they could get some new market share instead of just sitting and watching their monopoly dwindle away.

Somewhere there is a story about someone that actually got charged with blowing a loud whistle into the ear of a telemarketer. I think this was before it was actually illegal for them to call. Now that it is, it is really tempting to do. And no, I don't care about the poor underpaid schmuck on the other end of the line, they deserve what they get.

As in the final nail in Ballmer's coffin.

They have a habit of missing the boat on things and then when they realize it, they compensate by embracing it and over doing it. A perfect example was the Web. They completely missed the boat on it in the mid 90's and when they realized it, they reacted by reworking everything they could to be based on http/html and the result was a mess. This time they completely got it wrong on smart phones and tablets and now they are over compensating by trying to turn a desktop into a tablet.

Apple seems to be getting it right by moving the best features of the tablet to the desk top but doing it in a way that makes sense. For example, gestures are great on both, but when it comes to the desktop, you should use a proxy surface such as a touch pad rather than the screen itself. The first fucker that jabs his finger into my monitor to move a window is going to lose it :)

In middle management

That sort of sounds illegal to me. If the ISP's start generating fake DNS responses or modifying packets, i suspect that they will be spending time in court. Not all bit torrent traffic is illegal.

Seems about 15% short of the mark

Halleluiah, i don't know why most IDE's bugger with the tab setting but the only proper one is 8. Anything else requires agreements that everyone must follow, which printers and terminals don't support.

Last year we got slammed by Irene and the October snowstorm (the snow storm was 10 times worse). Afterward I created a storm preparation list which I've reviewed this week and was surprise by some of the things that I wrote that I would not think of now. .e.g. spare fuses for generator, charge cell phones, etc.

During Irene I learned exactly what happens to my house as the amount of rain piles up. We can take 6 inches or so but after that the water table rises and my basement starts to leak in certain places. So we are clearing out those places and are prepared with mops, shop vac, backup sump and generator.

This time we won't be able to change what happens, but since we have experience, we know how to at least limit the damage.