And yet I find that most of the people I know who say that either: A) Don't actually have Comcast - they just think they do (wireless, dorm, whatever). B) Their PC or Network is shoddy.

Gamers are the worse (I am one, for the record). The first reaction is to blame the ISP when something goes wrong. After working in tech support for a gaming pc manufacturer, I saw this first hand. No one wants to believe that the issue is really because they screwed something up on their system. Yet 90% of the time, that's exactly what the issue would be when I would get the call about "Yeah, I can't get online and F-in Comcast says it's not their issue... stupid F-Ks!". Then come to find out that they hadn't kept their system up to date, and as a result the latest what-have-you nailed them and killed their TCP/IP stack. Then they go "But Comcast should've stopped that!". Can't win for loosing.

Anyhow, 10 Years at this point - and I've not had a single issue with my service. Even when all the BitTorrent crap was going down, I didn't have any problems - neither did anyone I know. All of which leads me to believe that for every "bad" story I hear, there must be far more to it than we know - and there must be far more good stories that we just don't hear about.

Err, no. It's quite well publicized that the download cap is 250GB per month - larger than any other ISP in the US with a cap. I have a 16Mbps line - I average 14Mbps. No, you are not forced to switch to Digital Cable - they are changing their signal in order to put more channels in the same bandwidth - something that customers have been asking for for ages - and to stop people from stealing service. You can put something like 16 SD digital signals in the same bandwidth taken up by one Analog channel. The first two DTA's are free (some areas it's 3), each one after that is $1.99 - and this is National pricing. In my area there are 2 direct competitors to Comcast - including AT&T U-Verse (want to talk about crappy service - AT&T has NEVER been known for it's service, and they're even worse now). And finally Comcast didn't "buy out" NBC - they bought a 51% stake. Yes, that means a voting majority, but that doesn't mean they've "bought them out".

Try getting your facts straight. I've had Comcast for almost 10 years - they've been FAR better than their predecessor in my area (Viacom). They're not perfect, but I've yet to meet a company that is - and I've had far worse experiences with others (here's looking at you, AT&T). Let's face the truth folks - if all, or even the vast majority of Comcast customer's had such horrible experience, they would be hemorrhaging subscribers - but they're not. The fact is, that most customers are happy - they're just not as loud as others.

No. It was not moved to a router because of the current IPv4/NAT - after all, there is a thing called a software firewall. The problem is that unless NIC manufacturers place hardware firewalls on their NICs, software is inadequate, and subject to being compromised - and yes, I know hardware firewalls can be as well. But I'm looking at a certain OS in this instance.

Even with IPv6, network overhead will continue to be an issue - and if I'm not mistaken, IPv6 uses larger headers, and thus more overhead, than IPv4. On older networks, if you remove the routers that intelligently direct traffic, because "they're no longer necessary" you are almost guaranteed to run into a situation where the available bandwidth is now entirely saturated - thanks to broadcast traffic.

Personally, I don't care if I have a world-wide unique IP address - I want a device that sits on peering point of my network and goes "Oh hell no!" and drops packets for me - without placing that overhead on each individual machine downstream, and hoping/praying that some rogue user/software/etc. hasn't decided to open a port it/they think is necessary.

While I haven't had the opportunity to watch the video or see the accompanying material, I just have to say this - I take anything and everything Reuters says with a grain of salt - a big one - after they published photo's they knew to be doctored, and later admitted it. Not only that, but even after admitting it they continued to publish photos that they knew to be doctored.

Including a cable TV decoder box?

Your argument is flawed - if you get your cable box from an MSO, you're not purchasing - you're renting. However, you are buying an iPad/Phone/Touch/Pod/whatever and thus own the Hardware (hence a warranty) and thus should be able to do whatever you want with it.

I purchase a new PC, I'm not told that I can't play a particular game or use a particular piece of software on it, just because the manufacturer or distributor of said hardware doesn't wish me to. I'd actually like someone to try this sometime, because I'm pretty sure it would come up against Restraint of Trade, which is a nasty thing to get in the way of.

*clap clap clap* Are you available for speeches and/or lectures? I'm serious.

You're thinking of Religion, actually.

In America? Yes!

Agreed. Though the real props are that the court said that restricting use of a computer totally was unjustified - not that he should be allowed to be online. The proper thing is for the lower court to modify the sentence and say that he can't have access to the internet via a computer. Of course, that still leaves open the definition of what constitutes a computer that others have mentioned.

I suppose you're talking about the 10th Amendment, again? A little war fought between 1861 and 1865 in many ways set the limits on the 10th Amendment. Case law since then backs up that idea. Seeing as healthcare affects all Americans, regardless of state, that would make it a Federal, not a State, issue.

You're wrong: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

And for those who say the Preamble doesn't have any legal authority, wrong again:

Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids

"Substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers". "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * * promote the general Welfare.'"

Indeed, but if there comes a time when an industry that affects 99% of a countries population refuses to reform voluntarily, then the government of the people must step in. After all, this country was formed "...to promote the general welfare" of it's citizenry.

The one thing that I find highly entertaining, yet sad, is that 95% of those claiming this bill is Unconstitutional don't realize that A) it's not; and B) there is already established case law that supports the goals of this bill. I don't agreed with all the provisions - but something HAD to be done, and now it has.

For the record I think that the mandate is a bit on the extreme side - but I can see how it serves a purpose, though I don't necessarily agree with that purpose. It's a fact that without a public option, the only way to control premium costs is to have a very large pool of users - and the only way to do that is to require that people carry insurance. However, I think the mandate is going to hurt the very people that this bill is supposed to be helping.

Except that that exact section of the Preamble has already been used to argue successfully for government power for the greater Welfare of the people - and in a healthcare case, no less!

See: Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids.

I quote "Substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers". "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * * promote the general Welfare.'"

The same question can be asked about states that require that drivers must have car insurance - yet none of those laws have ever been successfully challenged.