Here in the police state of Illinois, our legislature has passed a bill, which was larded onto another, completely unrelated bill, which makes recording cops and government officials a class 3 felony, with up to 2-4 years in prison. The bill was added as an amendment to the unrelated bill, which passed with over 90% support in both chambers, essentially making it veto-proof.

It uses the word 'eavesdropping' a lot, so it may be argued that it applies only to audio; however, a chance at having a sentence like this would certainly scare off most people who would try to film the cops.

It will be interesting to see how this develops - a similar bill was struck down by the state supreme court in March, and the US supreme court has ruled that police have no expectation of privacy when they're in public, and on duty.

Not so much, anymore. With the addressable digital boxes that the TV providers use, there is just as much profiling done when you watch TV, too. Your TV provider knows what you watch, how you watch it, and when you watch it. I think it can, however, be gamed to work to our advantage:

If enough people time-shift live TV by 15-20 minutes per hour (the typical amount of advertising) and skip past all the ads, at least on networks where it isn't disabled, that sends a message that we don't want ads. Or, they'll disable skipping ads on all channels. If enough of us rent on-demand movies like Gia and skip to all of the lesbian scenes, that sends a message that we want more lesbian scenes. :-)

It's difficult to do with telemarketers, but try being nice to the person who calls you the third or fourth time. Tell them that you have repeatedly said you are not interested, and ask to be added to their internal Do Not Call list. AT&T has one as well. A couple of days later, you will get a robocall to confirm your addition to the DNC list. That is the last call you will get, at least for a while. I haven't gotten a call from either of them in months, but I'm guessing that it times out after a year or so.

Why sue? For $80 she could buy a Surfboard 6141 at Best Buy, and save the money by not paying modem rental. The modem will pay for itself in 10 months. If she is using Comcast's phone service, she would need to buy an eMTA (Embedded Multimedia Terminal Adapter). Although some cable franchises may not allow them on their network. One of the reasons I did this was to avoid being a node on their public network. Another one is that I have a router with custom firmware that I am quite happy with, and their integrated unit will probably not allow dd-wrt or tomato. I like to be in control of my own network.

I would imagine that the setting could be turned off in the rental eMTA from Comcast. In my subdivision, I have only seen one XfinityHotSpot network, and it was only for a short time, then it disappeared. My guess is that the Comcast customer noticed this brand new XfinityHotSpot had as strong a signal as their own router, and figured out how to disable it in short order.

One of the things that bugs me about America is this mindset that we seem to generally have of, 'sue first, look at other options later, if at all.'

A couple examples from my home county:

LAMP,INCANDESCENT 15 $5,096.70
LIFE PRESERVER,YOKE 12 $11,908.32

It seems like someone is scamming someone here. Or, is Uncle Sam actually paying over $300 each for light bulbs (maybe complete lamps)? $1,000 for a life preserver?

This concern is aside from the county's acquisition of a tank, APC's, mine resistant vehicle, dozens of assault rifles, etc.

I don't wonder about space exploration in general. I wonder if manned deep-space flights serve any practical purpose at this point. With current propulsion technologies, it seems they would just be suicide missions. Plus, the added cost created by the additional weight of life-support systems, food, water, etc.

However, unmanned missions to scout (and possibly mine) elements and minerals from asteroids, etc. will likely be necessary within our lifetimes given how we are just consuming resources on Earth like there's no tomorrow. Also, the benefits of research that can be performed (again, by unmanned probes) could be tremendous.

I was not aware of the 1-2 billion dollar cost of a single flight. I haven't really kept on top of it - I have just figured that NASA's projects have been dead, due to lack of funding and lack of interest in science in general here in the US. That cost, as you mention, is clearly a concern given our infrastructure is falling apart and our schools absolutely suck. As much as I'm for space exploration and the spinoff technologies, that money could probably be better invested elsewhere.

The whole thing is probably served up by ad servers. To a group of people who most likely have multiple layers of ad blocking. Know your userbase much, Dice?

We should have been at this point about 10-15 years ago, when the shuttles were already past their expected usable life, but still in service. Now, the question is, is there really any practical reason for manned deep-space flights at this point? That will be the hard sell. A way to get to the ISS without thumbing a ride will certainly be a plus!

Looking at the list of songs and artists in Exhibit A, I would say they've been punished enough.

It also explains why the recording industry is in the toilet.

The discussion turns to Kim Kardashian? On Slashdot?!

Quote of the day at the bottom of the page (at least for me):

Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you. -- Thomas Jefferson

A few years ago, a couple of guys I work with were in serious credit trouble. I told them to each cut up a credit card. They didn't want to, so I rounded up about 4 other engineers, and we all broke out a credit card and cut them up at the same time.

Some of the gals from customer service walked by as we did it, and they started acting like we were slaughtering puppies! For weeks they said that they couldn't believe we would do that! It was pretty hilarious, yet pathetic at the same time.

There is some truth to this. I have lived essentially debt-free for 10 years now. I have a few credit cards with no balance on them, and occasionally will finance a car, which gets paid off in 50-60% of the term of the loan.

Over this time, all other things have been equal with my credit history, but each time I take out an installment loan, my FICO score goes up 20 - 30 points over 3-4 months. Once the loan is paid off, it drops down again over about a year.

I bought a new motorcycle over the winter, and financed part of it. FICO score is on the rise again! But in a year, it will be falling again, as the loan will be paid off.

Also, a few years ago, during the rash of bank bailouts, I had several credit cards cancelled for 'lack of activity'. I'm sure it was the banks trying to improve their balance sheets to make it look like they did something with the bailout money other than steal it.

Don't worry -

:-)

Women's shelters and animal shelters are where all of my charitable donations (items, money, time) go. Our motorcycle club has poker runs and such to raise money for Home of the Sparrow, a local shelter for women with children escaping (usually abusive) relationships.