I work for a small, rural ISP with many of the same challenges that you're looking at. We started up as a dialup provider in 1997 and have moved into wireless and DSL.

First, get some money. A lot. Shitloads. Second, raise your pain threshold. Third, that whole "this will not be my day job" thing? Forget that, it will be your day job, night job, weekend job and holiday job. Finally, hire some talent that isn't lost in licensed frequencies and other issues.

What we do is wifi mesh. We use grain elevators, radio towers, old TV masts at customers locations, whatever we can ad AP or radio on to help extend the mesh. We use inexpensive customer premise gear, lightning sucks around here. You'll need some backend equipment, bandwidth backhauls and some routing gear; everything we use is open-source, DYI equipment because money, that's why. Don't try to cover the entire area at once, hit customers you can easily reach, solidify them and then move slowly. DO NOT! run an ad that there's a new ISP in town offering high-speed service, you likely won't be able to meet the demand.

A guy, you, can totally do this. But you're going to need some help, some money, and some adjusted expectations. If you're a gambler, go for it, if you're hoping to make a bit of money from it on the side, get out now and save yourself.

Try them all out for a month or two each before deciding.

If I had mod points you'd get them. That's the most precise explanation I've ever read. Someone who hasn't been there simply cannot understand it, and then once you're there, you cannot see any alternatives.

I read and loved the crap out of all three of the Han Solo books when I was a kid. It's been probably, oh, 100 years or so since I last picked one up so I have no idea how I'd like them now, but I sure remember having a lot of fun with them then.

The Invader. Alternately, his super-rival Dib.

Not the sequel, the original. Saw it when it came out, read the book, and that's part of the reason why I sit here now doing what I do for a living. Wish that movie had never been made. /disgruntled.

For years and years and years we used phones that didn't have any sort of confirmation of the numbers pressed. Shooot, I've got one on my desk right now that I just have to hope and pray I dial correctly without being able to double check myself.

I believe it was a screaming.

I don't know. I think the lack of bells and whistles might be what causes some people to look for an alternative. I've quit using Facebook because of the bells, the whistles, the endless posts of what my friends like, pleas to like things that I don't like, requests to join groups I've got no interest in, and all of it from people I haven't had an actual conversation with or seen in 20 years, or even worse from friends of theirs that I've never met at all. If Diaspora strips social networking back to it's basics, if it lets me see what's going on with friends and family, look at pictures of their recent vacation and send a few "how are you?" messages, then I'm all for it.

That'd be great! I'd feel a lot more secure going to the market to pick up more seashells for the bathroom.

It's dance, and an art. And yet, you can win at it.

One of my peeves is users complaining about "jargon". Error messages are not jargon, proper names for peripherals are not jargon. If I ask you if your ethernet cable is plugged into your network card, that is not jargon. And yet users will tell me "why do you guys always use fancy jargon that I don't understand?".

I wish I had mod points. You'd get '+1 Damn Straight'.