then why can't the free market take care of this?, if there really is such a demand for ISP level filtering.

The only effective way to filter is to locally whitelist sites you allow your kids to visit, if this is too much hassle then you are not a very good parent.

rsync (plus a git repo) can give you the basic features of Dropbox

Open source software is not know for good user friendly UI's though (there are exceptions) which is why Dropbox is so popular

$100 a month for an ipv4 address?, try this on residential customers and they will just start to hate their isp and the internet

try it on businesses and they will shop around for price that is close the market value of an ipv4 address, at the same time they may consider implementing ipv6

ipv4 trading will happen and you will have to pay for it but i doubt prices will ever get that high

no, ordinary residential routers will not be upgraded to support ipv6 in a short timespan

the bulk of the migration to ipv6 might take as little as 5 years, but i predict there will still be multiple users natted behind a single ip address for 20 years

much easier to nat them and make them pay the cost (+ margin) for an ipv4 address if they want one

From the PeerBlock FAQ

7. Does this mean my P2P downloading is completely safe now?

Not necessarily. While many people do use IP Filtering software like PeerBlock to help "protect" themselves from being sued for copyright infringement, it is not 100% protection. In fact some people believe that using blocklists like this are completely useless. Others disagree, and believe that even if it's not 100% safe, it still lets them download files more safely. Sometimes they invoke the "Bear Principle": when running away from an angry bear you don't need to be faster than that bear . . . you only need to be faster than the guy next to you. However, as I seem to remember seeing on the old Peer Guardian site at one point:

                The only way to be "safe" with P2P downloading is to not share copyrighted content!

PeerBlock is good at what it does - keeping your computer from "talking" with ip addresses on your configured blocklists. Everything else is up to those blocklists themselves. And heck, even if the blocklists provided 100% coverage of "bad" ip-addresses, and if blocklists were 100% proven to work, there could still be some bugs in the PeerBlock software that may prevent it from working correctly on your machine; we offer no guarantees that it works, and disclaim any and all responsibility for the consequences of your own actions online. If you're sharing copyrighted music/video files and get sued by the relevant organizations, it's not our fault. If you're stuck in a country with an oppressive government and are trying to get out your plans regarding the upcoming revolution, and those in power break down your door and haul you away, it's not our fault. If you're sharing some secret footage of Area 51 and the "Men in Black" come knocking on your door, it's not our fault!

If you choose to download copyrighted material from the Internet, be aware that you may be breaking the law.

yes broadband bandwidth and availability has to increase and improve before physical media can be written off.

How long do you think this is going to take?

This guy from the article thinks it will get to that point soon.

yep this explains why i can no longer use bitlbee or twirssi to follow twitter timeline

yeah they both become unusable really quickly

the taxpayer likes air travel, they will want the government to step in and keep it afloat.

40 bucks for a short haul european flight ?, its cheap i grant you but its not 99 cents cheap. if it doubled i suspect the airlines would notice falling sales.

how much is domestic air travel in the USA anyway ?

because air travel will become insanely expensive if the airlines go bankrupt. it would also seriously effect tourism and the global economy. Governments will subsidise the airline industry before they let it fail.

Not that i think it is right that the taxpayer has to pay for this.

I am not sure that calling the airlines greedy is really fair, the airline industry has been having a very tough time in various different ways since 9/11.

BA in particular have had lots of problems with strikes leading to a negative effect on their already poor finances.

Now I am not saying that they should be compensated, or that it was right for the airlines to want to fly when the conditions could have been dangerous, but "greedy airlines" is probably a little too simplistic.

the isp logs will still be able to identify individual customers, in this case there would be basically no change at all

the ipod is pretty successful hardware

Wow this story is almost as crazy as my idea to build a giant water tower in the ocean to lower sea levels, see http://izit.org/content/all-water-earth for more details.

In all seriousness the poster seems to be interested in using the laser to communicate, is that such a big problem ?. The world is a much smaller place than it used be, I suspect that simply activating the laser would take some time, possibly calling the local officials would be almost as effective.