I don't know why people are modding you down because you are right. All through the 80s and 90s when I flew, your carryon was limited to very specific size measurements. I had a rucksack that I could take when I flew to The Netherlands, but, every single time, upon return, KLM's carryon sizes were smaller. Occasionally, if the flight was not full, they'd let me take it on, but most of the time it had to be checked.

The last time I flew (Denver to New York) the carryon luggage was the size of regular luggage and I saw people literally punching the bags to fit into the overhead bin. I had a backpack and my netbook, both of which fit right under the seat in front of me. Somewhere along the lines, they just started letting people take whatever they wanted into the cabin and now they're forced to deal with it because it's become a huge issue.

Like you, I don't like my stuff out of my sight. I pack extremely light because of this. A good rule of thumb for people taking on carryon luggage, if you cannot personally lift it over your head, by yourself, then it's too damned big and should be checked.

I work with Special Education kids. We have one kid that draws guns, tanks, semis, etc. nearly every day. He always has these elaborate drawings of highly weaponized semis with far too many weapons to actually be practical. He also loves zombies. This is why he draws the weapons. He always tells me, "If zombies were real, this truck would save you." It's all a bit of harmless fun for him and, thankfully, the other adults in the building know this too.

We also had an art project due this past week. You had to list 20 likes and 10 dislikes and then draw half of them on a silhouette of yourself. He had two guns on there and told me, "I don't think it's appropriate to draw the AR-15 and 9mm after last week." It's just sad that everyone jumps to conclusions when anyone talks about weapons or draws them in a notebook.

I have done both. I made sure that the car I bought did not have a black box and I have written to my politicians for the past several years. Every single politician replied with their standard form letter, indicating that no one read shit in my letter. I've even called and left messages or spoke with someone in the office, but never the politician themselves. They all spew forth the safety issues and that I should just go along with it because they're looking out for my safety and everyone's best interests.

The fact that the black boxes may now be required means that I won't have a choice and, as usual, politicians could give a fuck.

Some insurance companies, such as Progressive, already have little devices that you can attach to your car to record certain things. They promote it as a way to monitor your teen driver and they give anyone who uses it a discount. Sure, it's a discount now, but you know that, eventually, it's going to be a requirement. That's how it works. In some states where black boxes would be questionable legally, they will just offer a discount to have access to that data and, when all insurance companies in the state do this, you are essentially paying more for your privacy.

The politicians, again, don't really care about this. You have a few that pay attention and make a big stink, which is why it hasn't happened yet, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, apparently, can make this a requirement and there's little we can do about it because so few politicians actually care.

If insurance companies can blackball you, then they could do that at any time, for any reason and you would have very little control over their decisions why. What if you consistently drive 79 in a 75 and the insurance company doesn't like that. You're tossed off the insurance. Sure, that's technically speeding, but everyone does it. What happens when you always stop 1.5 seconds at a stop sign and not the 2 seconds dictated by law? Your insurance can drop you then, too. How about you take corners too hard, you break too heavily, or don't put your headlights on at the right time? You might think these are a stretch, but when it comes to money, insurance companies are quite petty and like their profits. They might not blackball you, but they'll find a way to charge you more for insurance.

As an example, I was pulled over by the police a few months back. I was at a red light. The left arrow turned green, so I went. The police, who was two cars behind me at the red light, pulled me over. My crime? The cop said I pulled away from the light too quickly and he thought I should have done it slower. I got a warning. Now, under this system, where the insurance company has this data, they can question why I stopped, started, then stopped again. They can already pull my DMV record. Well, now they could decide the cop was right and raise my rates. You're damned right this is a privacy issue. If I have done something wrong, then let the courts petition for my private information. It shouldn't be readily available to anyone, be it police, insurance company, or private individual. If the government needs a warrant for my private information, then they should as well. Your phone records used to be available only by court order. That's not totally true now. Then again, it's for our own safety right? Only bad guys would want to keep any of this information private.

I graduated high school in 1988. In my high school classes, they taught Cobol, Fortran, and Basic.

I currently work in the local school district at the junior high. My husband works at the high school. This is what is taught.

7th grade is a typing program that teaches the kids to type.

8th grade they learn how to make posters and fliers with MS Word. They also have to pick a cartoon picture from the internet and then try to draw it using MS Word. Their last project is creating a PowerPoint.

9th grade they learn how to make a comic strip (iirc it's in MS Word), they learn how to use Excel, and practice their typing skills.

10th-12th grade consists of programming classes. I'm not sure of everything they do, but the young man I mentor is currently learning Visual Basic 6. Even though there are 3 grade levels here, the school only has Programming I and II. At some point, they will also learn Java, Flash, graphic design, podcasting, HTML, CSS, and how to build web pages. I think they will also use Macromedia stuff for creating web sites. I'm just not sure which order the stuff is taught in.

I had never heard of these guys. Thanks, I'll check them out.

Sometimes I really hate living in the middle of nowhere. I thought maybe, this time, someone will have what I want, but, alas, Simple Mobile does not service my area. I really want service such as what the OP is looking for, but my only choice in town is Verizon. Even the pay-as-you-go services only have voice and text for me. I'll keep dreaming though. One day someone will have what I want.

I started shopping at Best Buy in the early 1990s. I loved it and went there often. I used to make jokes about how I'd go in to pick up something real quick and come out $100 poorer because I found other stuff to buy. I think it was about 2004 when I started noticing the really shitty changes to the company. Since 2007, I think I've been in there ~15 times. It's mostly browsing though. I rarely buy anything from them these days because I can get it much cheaper and better at Newegg or someplace else.

I hate writing checks. I wish they would go away, but I have two issues as to why I can't stop writing them yet.

First, there is no way for me to pay my rent, electric bill, water bill, and garbage bill if I did it electronically. The electric company has sent out a notice that sometime next year they will start taking payments online, but that's next year.

Second, I do not trust the security of my bank, or any bank, in the small town that I live in. A friend also banks at this bank and it only took me a short time to be able to get into her bank account. To log into your personal checking account, you need a password, PIN, and identify a photo that you uploaded. You can get the PIN wrong 5 times before you're locked out of the account and have to go in person to fix things.

I already knew that the bank won't reset your PIN. They mail you a new one or you have to go in personally to get it reset. That was the only hard part. Of course, just chatting with my friend, I discovered she used her mom's birthday as the PIN. I didn't need to talk to her for anything else. She leaves her cell phone on her desk with her email and Facebook accounts logged in. So, I just clicked on the "forgot my password" button on the bank website and reset it. Then I logged in. The photo part is a photo that you upload. It was completely obvious that it was her dogs.

Now, I did all this while sitting next to her because she didn't see the big deal in using the same passwords everywhere or leaving her accounts logged in on her phone all the time. I kind of freaked her out a bit, but she was thankful that I showed her how easy it would be for anyone who just knew a little bit about her could get into her account. We spent the next Saturday changing passwords everywhere she was online and actually securing her accounts. I also got her to go into her bank and set it up so that, if the password to her bank account needs to be reset, she has to do it in person now. She still keeps her Facebook and email open on her phone, but at least they have different passwords now. To me, it's not 100% secure, but it's better than it was.

I live in a very small town and have limited banking options. The banks here are all the same when it comes to online banking. I really don't want to put all my hard earned money into a system that I don't believe is safe or secure. If any of the banks in town ever does that, they will get my business. Until then, I'm stuck writing checks for all my bills.

Lastly, I have three credit cards. I use one online exclusively. They have been excellent at fraud detection. I call once a week to check my balance and transactions. This takes about 3 minutes, but I can know immediately if something has happened. Twice the credit card company has called me and asked if I just tried to make a transaction because it threw up red flags with them. Once was me and it was a merchant I had never used before. The other time, there was a breach wherever they store their numbers. They just changed my account number and issued me new cards. It'd be nice if the banks could get their act together.

I like the idea of the way Iceland does it. I have several Dutch friends and I like their system of online banking. I just don't think the US takes it as seriously as other countries. When they do, I'll jump at the chance to get rid of checks and bank online.

I haven't had to use a PAR2 file in years. The delivery of binary files are just fine for me. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but I just haven't had problems with incomplete files in at least four years. Many of the bigger usenet servers do offer downloads via HTTP as well.

Sure, he could have done that, except he'd still be subject to an immigration check. I've done the Chunnel several times and, as an American, my passport gets checked before I leave.

My problem with giving the states control over the money is that it's going to apportioned incorrectly. There has already been some grant money that was supposed to be used in Western Nebraska to repair the roads, but the federal government changed the way it's to be disbursed. It used to go directly to the city/county that applied for and received the grant. Now the money goes to the capital and the state government decides how it's going to be disbursed.

Scotts Bluff county (in rural Western Nebraska) got a nice grant to fix up many of the roads this summer. This money is badly needed. I drive on one of the main roads every day here and the ruts where people's tires go are so bad that, in winter, your car bottoms out in the middle of the road. Many roads have potholes that never get fixed because there's no money. A lot of roads in town don't have painting or desperately need repainting. The money was awarded last year, but isn't being sent until next month. Now, only a small fraction of that money is now coming to the county because state officials in Lincoln said that Omaha and Lincoln need the money more. Sure, the roads in Lincoln and Omaha will look nice and the eastern part of the state will continue to draw people, but you're fucking over the rural areas of your state.

In this rural area, the two biggest crops are sugar beets and corn. We also have alfalfa, sunflowers, and cattle. If you live in the United States, there is a good chance that any sugar you bought came from this area. Sugar beets and corn are two huge crops in the US. Now imagine that, because the eastern end of the state takes a disproportionate amount of money needed to keep up the roads, what's going to happen to all those trucks and semis that have to drive on dilapidated roads or roads that were forced back to dirt roads because someone in the state doesn't care about the western half of the state?

I've traveled to 26 of the 50 states and have lived in 5 of them. Seat belts are compulsory where I've been. I cannot state how much of an explosive force cars here have as I am not an engineer and haven't looked into it.

Sometimes they don't even wait until later. I had a new bottle of soda that I bought in Dublin after going through security and being corralled into the waiting area at my gate. I was saving it to drink for my layover in Philly. I figured that, since I had already cleared customs in Dublin, I'd be fine. Well, we ended up going through security again right after we landed and they took my soda. I wasn't even 10 feet away and the TSA agent gave it to another one, who promptly opened it and started to drink it. My husband had to pull me away from the area because I was so pissed and he knew I was going to make a scene. I was mad at him at the time, but he was right, it wasn't worth being arrested over $1.35 soda.

I got excited for this as $35 is $2 less than what my land line costs. Then I checked and, sure enough, there's no coverage where I live. It's a shame that so many monopolies keep the prices artificially high and force you into contracts.

I work at a junior high where the science teacher has a Master's in Computer Science. She tells everyone not to use anything but IE because those other browsers aren't supported by Microsoft and you don't know what virus you're going to get with them. She's extremely vocal about it and nothing I've said makes a difference. She just keeps telling me I'll be sorry when I get a virus from "that Firefox you use." She has the teachers in the junior high convinced not to use anything else.

Meanwhile, you go to the high school where my husband works and they use a mix of Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and IE, depending on their own preference.