My Windows 7 laptop does everything I need for Windowsy stuff, so I won't be replacing or upgrading it unless I win the lottery.

Sadly, my 10+ year old 3.8GHz Pentium-pre-Core2 box is finally dying, so I'm in the midst of shifting my development and personal stuff over to the laptop. I've used Windows for years as a developer so it's not *too* painful, but I'm going to miss Linux. Linux just *works* without getting in my way; I can't say the same for Windows, even on trivial issues as to which widgets get auto-focused when you open them up (who is the brilliant idiot who came up with the idea that the file browser should focus on that damned library panel instead of the list of files?)

You can secure SMTP with TLS, can't you?

Except this is exactly what it's about, and it's something that Comcast has already been caught doing. Allowing "fast lanes" would just be a way for them to legitimize the practice of stymieing competing services and/or extorting money from content providers.
=Smidge=

Last year was a very mild winter, so I can't see this year being anything but harsher.

Isn't this ultimately what this kind of service (d)evolves into?

>Something got really scrambled between the scientists and the copyrighters.

FTFY

This doesn't address what is the true threat: It's not about ISPs choking bandwidth to individual consumers, it's about ISPs choking bandwidth to their competitors.

For example, Comcast offers, internet, streaming video, cable television and telephone services.

If I, as a third party, want to offer telephone services that use broadband internet (VoIP), Comcast will be able to make my access to their consumers so crap that I can't compete with their telephone service. The only way around that would be to pay them for "fast lane" access which will also ruin my ability to compete as it cuts deeply into my budget.

The end user can have all the bandwidth the infrastructure can provide, and it won't mean a damn thing because my traffic, specifically, will be choked by the monopoly ISP guarding the gates.
=Smidge=

It seems kind of contradictory to hang the TV production model in the A&S museum, where people will complain about how simplistic the model is without understanding the nature of a TV model (ie, not meant to be seen other than in controlled TV shots on 1960s standard def television).

The TV model should be restored as closely as possible to its TV version and then put in the Smithsonian wing that houses various forms of Americana so that it can be a proper historical relic.

Then they should build a new model of the Enterprise with all the detail people have come to expect for A&S.

Not sure if this matters, but I remember reading someplace that one of the "benefits" of the plague is that it drove up the cost of labor which ended up having a positive impact for ordinary people.

It seems dangerous to me -- I don't text while I drive, but I've futzed with my phone to make a call or change some settings and even that seems like it could easily cause problems.

That being said, not a day goes by that I'm driving that I don't see one or more people texting and driving and yet from 2006 to 2011, fatal motor vehicle crashes went down in the US every year.

If texting is as dangerous ("think of the children", "we have to do something", etc) as its made out to be and as prevalent as it seems to be, why are motor vehicle fatalities going down? Shouldn't the "epidemic" of texting be pushing them up, especially if its so dangerous?

The fundamental problem is you're confusing a mention of the near universal trait of humans to believe in some sort of "powerful other" controlling the universe. Some people are more prone to that "need" than others, but it *is* present in the vast majority of humanity, from those who hold deep religious convictions to those who go to worship once or twice a year for "big celebrations" and even to atheists who fall back on "scientific method" as some panacea of what is right and just and purposeful.

Rather, it is you who confuse "faith" with a fundamental urge to believe in something, whatever that something may be. One can have faith in processes, in kitschy homilies and phrases, and other such "wisdom" with no more "proof" of their validity than a theory of there being some form of god out there. Of course those who have such faith are far more inclined to call it "knowledge", and to consider it to be beyond reproach.

Faith and belief are not the same thing. Faith is acceptance of something as "fact" without evidence. Belief is acceptance of something because all prior experience has demonstrated the "fact" to be so.

The problem is even atheists still feel a need to believe in *something*. Which is silly. Planting Science as your God still means you have a God and are not an atheist.

Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't willing to accept the simple credo of "do good". Which really is all that most religions were ever telling people in the first place, with varying details of what they consider "good". People don't want to think about what "good" is -- they want someone to *tell* them so they can follow some leader like sheep.

Well, this nicely wraps-up my 16 years of involvement with /.

See you on SoylentNews.

an apartment where she does share the building with up to 15 other families.

That doesn't preclude installing an antenna, it just reduces your options. Multi-floor apartment balconies and/or windows usually get pretty good TV reception. If previous occupants had DBS dishes mounted, you can stick an antenna on that J-channel. And landlords are usually reasonable. You can always ask for permission to install an antenna, explaining the non-destructive mounting option (chimney straps, non-penetrating root mount, etc.) you'd like to use, and promise it'll be less unsightly than what you'll do if they refuse.