Let's say you and I can both buy a shelf at Wal-Mart for $10. Now I start making shelves for myself instead, and make an exact duplicate of Wal-Mart's $10 shelf. Should my nearest Wal-Mart be required to buy my shelf for $10, transport it to your nearest Wal-Mart, and then sell it to you for $10? They have trucks already, so why should they charge me for the transportation costs?

That's exactly the case. If they charge residential customers $0.10/kWh, you don't think all $0.10 goes to pay for the power plant, do you? They have to transport the power from the plant to the customer's location (which has loss in the system; they have to generate more than 1 kWh to deliver 1 kWh), they have to meter how much the customers use, bill for the usage, maintain the system, etc.

Pick-up and deliver only makes sense when you get more for the delivery than you pay for the pick-up.

What are you, a COBOL programmer? That's nice, we'll get off your lawn now.

The color of a Cray doesn't tell you the model; you could get them in different colors. NASA's were "NASA blue" for example.

Verizon doesn't "choose" ISPs; they _are_ a backbone provider (they don't buy transit from anybody). Cogent is known for peering disputes, as well as selling hard to content providers (and sometimes eyeball networks) they think will give them leverage in peering disputes.

Smaller ISPs (that do buy transit) know that you don't buy from Cogent unless you have at least two other paths to everything on the Internet.

I don't know about Australia, but in the US, you are responsible if you are causing interference in somebody else's licensed band. Even if you didn't mean to, you are transmitting (noise) on a licensed frequency without a license. If it even looks like it might be because you made some modifications to radio gear, you can be liable for a large fine (and depending on the band possibly jail time).

I remember a few years ago a convenience store near Miami's airport was closed by the FCC because they had some dodgy electronics (door opener or bar-code scanner) that was interfering with the air traffic control radio frequency. The FCC forced the store to close (and IIRC shut off the power because they weren't sure of the source device) until they could prove they had non-interfering equipment.

Even the ISM (the so-called "unlicensed") bands, like 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz, are very tightly controlled. Equipment must stay within regulations on channels, power limits, and usage. Your equipment must be able to handle interference from other devices operating within the regulations, but if somebody operates outside the limits, they are liable and must shut down (and face fines, etc.).

Yes, I read the owner's manual for my car. Then I ordered the shop manual and reviewed it as well. There's a lot of good info in there.

No, I couldn't do it; that's what trained experts are for. The concept is not that much different from the US National Weather Service offices issuing storm watches and warnings.

For something like this (where nobody died), you wouldn't attempt an evacuation. I believe that most of the injuries were from broken glass and other falling debris; it would be enough to warn people to either get outside (away from buildings, trees, and other objects that could be blown around by a shock wave) or to stay inside away from windows.

There are variants in the instruction set (just like there are in the x86 world, where i686 is a superset of i383 for example). However, that isn't the big problem with ARM; there isn't a single-standard way of booting like there is with x86 (where most things are IBM PC BIOS compatible, with some now moving to EFI/UEFI). Also, there's no device enumeration like ACPI; lots of ARM vendors build their own kernel with a static compiled-in list of devices, rather than having an easy way to probe the hardware at run-time.

Sure there is - you have to have a Facebook account. Facebook can terminate your account for various reasons (or no reason at all), which could render you unable to receive such information in a timely fashion.

I know some people that have tried to work out filtration systems that can handle the volume of air needed for a moderate size data center (so that outside air could be circulated rather than cooling and recirculating the inside air), and it quickly became as big of an expense as just running the A/C. Most data centers are in cities (because that's where the communications infrastructure, operators, and customers are), and city air is dirty.

Aside from the fact that this decision is crap (I agree), and you'd have to spend $$$ to get a tuner card, you might not have to pay your cable company anything for a CableCard. For example, I have Comcast (sucks, but beats my other local cable company in every way: price, channels, and quality), and they include the cost of a tuner box in many of the packages. I have a TiVo instead of one of their boxes, and I get a $2.50/month credit for customer-provided equipment.

"stop working every few hours" would be a welcome improvement; there are people at my office that smoke at least 5 minutes out of every hour. They stink up the office, sometimes blocking the door open because, while they are able to carry a pack, lighter, and cell phone, they can't carry keys. They litter (even though there's a butt-receptacle), and I can't open my office window because of the smoke.

Smoking cigarettes is a filthy addiction, and not just because of the health issues. If I went and rolled in a pile of crap for a few minutes every hour or two and then came and stood in your office, you'd have me thrown out, but somehow smokers are "special".

Yes please! Of course, at the rate Alabama road crews build highways, I'd die of old age before it opened (even if they started tomorrow).

Hardly a similar comparison. We know what it takes to get to space.