On the one hand, it is a majestic airplane, with a good ride, and enough room in it to do whatever you want with it. Flying White House, Flying Pentagon, both been done forever. NEACP (Kneecap, or "Gordo") is another favorite 747 of mine.

On the other hand, the 747 was the airplane that killed Pan Am, and therefore I resent it a bit. True, Trippe went completely bonkers and bought too many too soon -- Pan Am would've been better served by updating its extensive fleet of 707 instead -- but the 747 was more airplane than the world needed then.. and maybe even now. 747 was Pan Am jumping the shark.

And that brings me to the point of this post: While the 747 in Air Force One colors is really nice, no airplane wears that paintjob better than the 707 did. Especially with the check in the tail, which the 747 lacks.

The new one better have a polished underbelly and a blue and silver check in the tail, just like the original Loewy design for Air Force One when it was a 707.

I can't think of a better airplane than the 747 for Air Force One. a 777 doesn't have the cubic footage, the 787 is even smaller. And a civilianized C5 would just be wrong, just plane wrong. As for Airbus, Air France 447 and the one that crashed during the Paris Air Show have left me with a bit of disdain for their particular style of fly-by-wire. I don't think Boeing's take on FBW is as demented. I'd rather fly in a beat-up smokey Super 80 than in any Airbus.

"Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!"

But I really like what Mini, Jag and some others (lambo?) are doing -- they replicate the *pop* you sometimes got out of hi-strung carburetted cars when you let up on the gas. This pop was made by a bit of unburnt gas going into the pipes when the throttle plates would snap shut.

The modern version just randomly squirts a bit of gas into the exhaust to make the pop artificially when you let up the gas. And I'm totally cool with this. In my mini it's selectable by sport mode. I love this feature. It reminds me of old sports cars.

Mine's a polite little pop or two. The F-Type jag sounds like a machinegun, and the Aventador I heard the other day had so many pops on upshift that it could've been confused with an mg-42.

All artificial, but not piped in through the stereo. A joy to hear in a garage or a tunnel.

Digital pianos do this too -- they replicate (or for lesser pianos, sample) artifacts of real pianos. Because people found out that a perfectly tuned piano with no mechanical noises is boring.

Have you?

Do it. Now. Don't give robocallers / wildly inaccurate collection agencies an inch.

Whores will gladly accept money from anyone -- especially staid old companies looking for one last fling before The Inevitable comes and claims them.

Didn't the English have a room in London where *every*single*wire* coming into the country went through? Weren't they reading each and every cablegram coming in and going out?

That was in WWI.

Yes, technology advances make it exponentially easier now, but don't for a second think that en-masse wiretapping is a new thing enabled by the Interwebz.

With the whole picture, they'd probably wish they were never born, or that they could get off the planet quick-like.

I have this premonition that things are so bad our brains can't even comprehend it.

Everyone has been spying on everyone for at least a couple of centuries.

The difference is that now, thanks to Snowden, Wikileaks and others, the Average Joe Muggle knows it. And nothing makes more noise than Joe Muggle with only 1/4th of the Big Picture in their brain! A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, yes?

Nothing's changed, other than public awareness of espionage.

Big ship turns slow -- the inertia of government / judiciary is fearsome.

Maybe they spent the time gathering intel and evidence, dotting Is and crossing Ts. Building a case. Due process and all that.

Either way.. win!

No, the Mom and Pop likely uses a 3rd-party payment processor.

What, you thought *everyone* taking credit / debit payments have their own in-house?

Mom and Pop don't have their own POS. They use payment processing houses. It's the Big Dogs that have their own POS systems.

So you'd rather have it so there are no Federal consequences for being a sloppy, lazy, bug-infested easy target?

Sometimes regulation protect all of us, not just corporations. This could be one of those.

OK, I have a non-regulated approach to fighting breaches: If your company is stupid enough to get breached, the banks and card issuers must block you from doing credit and debit card business again -- ever. Good luck with cash-only.

Is that too cold-hearted for you? You'd rather have that instead of rules and consequences for data breaches?

The last sentence of TFS has a link to an article mentioning bankers are pressuring retailers to pay for the banks' costs in a post-breach cleanup.

Money talks. In this case the bankers hold all the cards and the retailers will have no choice but to armor their payment systems. That, or spend hand-over-fist in cleanup and damaged reputation.

Which road will they take? The cheaper one -- which I suspect is to armor their POS systems.

There was a roach bug in that film. Complete with electronics backpack and ridiculous but hilarious dish antenna.

Instead of confusing directions from relatives, you occasionaly get improbable confusing directions from your satnav.

"Ahead, drive straight ahead" twice in 30 seconds.
*looks at map*
The blue line showing intended course shows a left turn. "Dammit, left turn in 500 feet? WTF?" followed by quick mirror glance and hard left if possible. Which isn't often at all. x.x

Tom Tom, get yer shit together!

After using satnav for 5 years I can see how we (US) can miss the intended target and make a holy place a holey one instead by accident.

I still won't go back to paper.