The 13 words in your post are currently under copyright protection and owned by me.
(As symbols required for interaction are now copyrightable, aka APIs, aka all words in a language)

You can paypal my $10000 per word usage licensing fee and I will refrain from opening a lawsuit against you.

As you say, pay up and deal with it.

Funny thing is, those terms and stickers don't even always hold water.

There was a hilarious case a while back where some PC manufacturer lost a lawsuit where they had refused a warrantee repair. Basically the courts told them PC buyers expect to open the case so you can't refuse warantee service over an expected operating condition, but, they can require the customer to revert any changes they made before they qualify for service.

Didn't stop the proliferation of stickers of course, because they may not actually void anything, but they may make you decide not to try a warantee claim.

Hell my monitor has an ugly bracket for the stand on the bottom, if you want to put it on an arm, you have to either leave the bracket sticking down off the bottom, or, remove a sticker to get it off.... lol, sticker removed.

For what it's worth, it was exactly that which drove me away from yahoo search and onto google search back in 98-99.

And I never did mind that yahoo search had links at the top to yahoo maps and yahoo games and such, nor do I mind google doing the same.

It was actually the 20+ ads on the main yahoo page (top, left, right, and center) that drove the last nail in. At least on that one aspect, google continues to win by a landslide to this day.

Yes it was mildly annoying when google changed their sponsored ads from having a nice different color background from the search results, but even now there is still a nice and noticeable yellow "Ad" icon next to those results that serves the same purpose.

It sounds like your opinion on where the threshold for abuse falls differs from mine, but for me personally google still hasn't crossed it.
It's just surprising and saddening that no one else seems to believe me regarding my opinion, saying I must be wrong or worse a stupid idiot for making an informed conscious choice in the matter...

This. The only time I ever click on them is accidentally.

But you have to realize, most people don't really know half of whats going on behind the scenes as they browse the web. Hell, I don't, I know enough to know how much is going on and how to find out more if I want, but who really looks? All the time? At some point you have to trust trust and everyone has to do it at a high level.

Most people don't have any conception of what a potentially hostile environment they have entered. Browsing the web is like replacing the hand shake with receptive anal sex and going out to a diner party:
"Hi there ReputableSite.Com my good friend"
"Hey there browser, come meet all my friends, we have a private room for 500, and they ALL want to meet you! Oh, is that condom? You need to leave that here or the door wont work."

The only part I've found complex is finding out where and how various apps actually store their data, particularly when I don't really have much interest in the app.

Apart from that however, system restoration is pretty trivial.

For example, let's say a basic Apache webserver.
Apache stores it's master website in /var/www and personal websites under a users homedir.

So you have a pre-backup script (or just a cronjob) that runs:
dpkg --get-selections >/root/current-packages.txt

Backups should always consist of /root , /home , and /etc no matter what.
As mentioned with Apache, we need to add /var/www to that mix.

Now to do a restore, you install from the debian disc, then restore your directories from backup.
Then run:
apt-get update && dpkg --set-selections /root/current-packages.txt && apt-get install

At that point all your software and dependencies are back from the listing in /root , and services started up from your own configs in /etc , and in this case Apache is happily again serving from /var/www and homedirs.

That's it. One CD boot, one reboot into the live OS, and a few commands to restore all data/software/apps/libraries/dependencies which get started after install and run from your edited configs just as before.

Again, the only real trick is not missing any application data. Especially from a sysadmin point of view.
A user of the machine asks for WierdSQL. What do I care about learning a new SQL server? I just want to make sure I can make consistent and regular backups of its data.
I don't want to hear someone say "Oh the raw DBs are in /var/blah/blah" which are always in use and always changing.
I want to hear "Use this command to backup the data to date/time stamped .bak files where ever, then go backup that whereever dir - and here are the commands to restore .bak files into a fresh install"

For servers I setup for myself, it's pretty guaranteed I either know the software already and can answer all of the above questions, or I'm just learning it and so there is no risk or useful data to be lost and it doesn't matter.
But for servers I run for others, yes it can be a lot more work to learn those things, and is certainly not nearly as fun as the former.

1200 baud is actually a pretty accurate guestimation.

75 and 300 baud was way slower than my reading speed.

1200 baud was the point that certain cases (say transferring an ascii text file) was pretty much equal or just slightly faster than reading speed, only balanced out by the relatively slower ANSI "box" characters being added to the mix and/or ANSI color codes that took more bytes to send.

2400 baud was the point things were beyond reading speed by a large enough amount that most all "baud frustrations" disappeared.

Granted this was all reading speed and not verbal communication, of which the latter is possibly faster.
But even then I would still only say "1200-2400 baud" as a good range for generic spoken communication, and only faster than that when both parties know the terms and higher level ideas being conveyed ahead of time.

That reminds me of a guy I knew a little over 20 years ago back in the BBS era.

I was a wide-eyed youth at 15-16 years of age, and met another sysop from in town who prior I only knew as the guy with a massive 48 node BBS that put a lot of our setups to shame.

While I was still fighting with the phone company to have a third POTS line run to my apartment so I could finally add a Second BBS node (ofc it was really my moms apartment, and line #1 was the house phone line), many of us wondered just what sort of business this 48 node BBS guy was running to make the kind of money needed for such a setup.

Turns out he did exactly as you said, he moved into a barn to live in cheaply and spent his excess real-job money on his hobby.

Although that part did seem a bit out of the ordinary, I must admit I was at the time way more interested in learning about PRIs over POTS, Ascend Max dialup concentrators over serial based modems, and this multitasking many DOS BBS apps under OS/2 over dedicating one PC per BBS node.

Being one of the many huge technology learning experiences as a teen that lead me down the path I am on today is the core reason I remember him still.

But I forgot all about the financial side of things and him being "the sysop that lives in a barn" until now, which is also quite interesting despite me not appreciating that fact at the time.

Ha! That figures.

(And I do apologize for laughing, it really isn't a funny situation)

At least my understanding of physics is safe for another day.

I saw the entry "Windows 10 and later upgrades and service drivers" show up under the products & classifications options on our WSUS server a good 3-4 months ago.

Interesting wording I thought, since all other entries under the "Windows OS" group are named specific to a major windows version, and as far as I remember have never said "and later".

It looks like Microsoft is really serious about copying Apple versions now, with the "10" not really being part of the version string but just being there, and using the minor version section as the new major version number.

Yeay for needless confusion!

But at least it still isn't as bad as Nintendo product naming I guess.

The only problem with that request is that today a percentage of hobbyist drones ARE autonomous craft in the 100+ pound class.

Limiting our discussion to one subset of aircraft (the small RC planes) would not allow for fully addressing the actual problem at hand, in that any/all unauthorized aircraft should NOT be in no-fly zones, and most certainly should not be in obviously dangerous areas such as over a forest fire where there is no justification or excuse for not assuming it would be a no-fly zone at that point in time.

And while no they are not specifically weaponized, in the sense of adding specific payloads to drop.
But similar to controlling a 2000+ pound car in and of itself can be used as a weapon, so too can the medium to heavier drones.
The point being that even non-weaponized doesn't necessarily mean the device can't still be used in a dangerous manor.

I remember reading stories and comments on slashdot referencing the British version of the US FCC, where they utilize vans/trucks of RF tracking equipment to triangulate locations of both unlicensed transmitters as well as unlicensed receivers.

As I recall they do this due to a mandatory "TV tax" type of thing on the receiver side, but more akin to preventing interference on the transmitting side very much in line with our FCC rules already.

Perhaps such methods and technology could be used to track down the drone operators and fix the problem at the source.

Of course this wouldn't necessarily at all help against autonomous drones or a coordinated attack situation like you described, but so far as the "toy drone" operators being assholes I think it would be quite effective.

I'm less familiar with the methods used to track down a receiver (I must admit I wouldn't have thought that even possible) but if that works as implied too it may also be helpful as one additional method to locate drones already out in the area.

As someone mentioned jamming the RF bands toy drones used would work well in keeping out drones that weren't already in the no-fly zone, tracking their receivers would fill in the other side of that problem for drones already there.

Also as someone who is a "toy drone" operator that isn't an asshole, I too would rather see the assholes in question be dealt with directly without having to force the issue of regulation.
Obviously a regulation like "don't fly in the fire fighters no-fly zone" (which we already have) are fine.
But past experience implies any new regulations will be even more restrictive than is needed, and is likely to put extra and needless burden on all of us non-asshole drone operators.

This is exactly why we can't have nice things. And fuck these people for ruining things for the rest of us.

That's why tracking down the asshole operators would be the better option of the two.
A fine to cover the $10000 in damages plus enough extra to make them think twice about their asshole ways is completely justified.

It is also only a matter of time before one of these assholes ends up resulting in the loss of human life.
Of course manslaughter charges and jail time are perfectly fitting as an after-the-fact response, but it would obviously be much preferred to not have that situation in the first place.

While it had its place in the 18th and 19th century, the Electoral college has long outlived its usefulness. The entire concept of winner-take-all in most states means that only a few key states actually decide our election every time it comes around....until the rules change, that's how the system works whether you like it or not.

I'd like to agree with you, but it depends on the proposed method of election. Given the population distribution and unique division of powers between state and national governments within our nation, I'm not a fan of a direct popular vote for the presidency. I just don't believe it best encapsulates the spirit of our nation. While I would generally support a change over to the Congressional District Method, I am greatly concerned about gerrymandering and its affect on such a proposed alternative solution.

In fact, check out the statistics at the Daily Kos, then do the math. If every state followed the Congressional District Method, Romney would have won the 2012 election...by one electoral vote! Interestingly, Obama would have still won the 2008 election. I wonder what happened between 2008 and 2012 that would have made such a difference...

The moral of the story was that by crying wolf, the boy made him crying wolf the equivalent of him NOT crying wolf ever.

It is tempting, and even mostly correct, to think of bugs as little biological robots, but, they are robots that have very complex programs which have dealt with all manner of danger and trick in the past and survived. It shouldn't be surprising that they have coping mechanisms to detect bogus signals and adjust.

Just like the townsfolk recognized a bogus signal and adjusted. That adjustment was the correct response to the boy who cried wolf. It left them vulnerable the one time he was right, but, he was a signal they couldn't rely on.

You can take the moral several ways, but at its heart it is: If you develop a reputation for not telling the truth, people wont believe you when you do.

That makes some sense. Admittedly I started out even younger on those twitchy FPS free for alls like Quake (well I started on Wolf but, multi-player was shit before quake), so when I got into games like CS and BF, well.... I died a lot.

You mean like the 5GHz band? I'm finding it just perfect, I need 2 APs (one for each floor) but I get good coverage out to the porch and balcony without the signal going too much further. My network's harder to spot and there's less interference with other people so we can cram more networks into the area. Of course I'm also a proponent of wired networking for fixed-location computers so I've usually already got ports near where I want an AP.