First of all, why not simply upload a PDF with the new menu every day? That is easy, and scriptable. (For example, copy finished menu in any format in a folder. This folder is polled occasionaly for new content, if new content is there, eventually convert (doc, docx, odt to pdf), and upload to FTP server. Done.)

Second, you could just take a stock webcam, attach it to an RPi, let it make a picture, let's say every 15 minutes and upload it to the desired FTP server. 100% scriptable.

Personally, I think this idea is ripe for abuse. Somebody is going to draw penises on the menu and it will be there on the site for all to see. Overthink your workflow instead of doing this.

Jet fuel is to gasoline what gasoline is to diesel. It burns very quickly which as you can imagine makes it useful for an engine of this type.

Jet fuel is actually so much closer to diesel (and heating oil) than you imagine. Now, I know nothing about jet engines, but I did know that. Mainly because I tend to remember "interesting but useless facts". Link to Wikipedia

Give me a factory and a team of engineers from the 1860s

Typo? 1960, I buy, but in 1860? Not so sure... The birth of the car is generally put at 1886.... The Wright Brothers did they first powered flight in 1903.

That's almost precisely why this is being done in the first place. A Member of Parliament named Claire Perry saw a bandwagon she could jump on, using a tale she concocted about her daughter Googling for cookie recipes and getting porn instead, and used this as an excuse to hold a "hearing" on the subject. The hearing found that most parents were already aware of parental controls, had the option and chose not to use them; she took this as an excuse to push filters harder, demanding that ISPs make them opt-out rather than opt-in in hopes of boosting uptake. (Funnily enough, several of the people testifying at her "hearing" happened to be from companies involved in the filtering business...)

Since the biggest four ISPs agreed to force all their customers to reiterate specifically that they still don't want filtering, hopefully this will be enough to stop these idiots pushing any harder for a while - albeit having forced them to flush money away buying in a filtering system most customers never wanted. My current (much smaller, tech-savvy) ISP is very much opposed to this nonsense, which is one reason I'm happy to be their customer - though unfortunately this has already drawn government attention (after which, they had to take on an extra member of staff and upgrade transit pipes to handle the increased demand - probably not the result the politician expected!)

Telcos have been doing exactly that for decades now: all their exchanges and much of the optical kit runs on -48V: it's a low enough voltage to be safe to work on when live (negative rather than positive because that protects against corrosion on the wires), easy to combine sources (a diode will do it), no need to "switch" to backup power (just connect your load, battery and source together, job done).

Facebook went the other way for a large server farm, though: running 480V 3-phase AC to the racks (277V per phase). Cleverly, though, they don't need to convert DC from the batteries to AC in power cuts: the mixed DC/AC bus feeds switch-mode power supplies which convert incoming power to DC anyway, so switching between AC utility power and DC battery power doesn't matter. Pretty clever really, IMO.

Home-run fiber per home would get very expensive I think - normally the idea is something like PON (Passive Optical Networking), where a single fiber is split across a few dozen locations, rather like gas, electricity and water/drainage. Telephone service is, I think, unique in using home-run wiring back to the exchange; even there, the faster post-ADSL services such as VDSL share a single fiber link back to the exchange: my current 80/20 service is VDSL2 as far as the cabinet around the corner - all the hundred or so users on that cabinet share a single fiber from there.

Right now in the UK BT have this set up so everyone on FTTC or FTTP is connected to an Ethernet switch in the exchange, with their own VLAN; any ISP can connect their own equipment to that switch and get your VLAN trunked onto their Ethernet port, or they can pay BT to run PPPoE over that and transport it to them. That probably works better in practice than physically patching a few thousand fiber connections directly to different ISPs in each exchange building - my inner geek would love a straight through fiber link, but how much more would that cost?

Really, the subject says it all.

Undoing unjust mod. Sorry.

Or whatever, it's the spirit that counts not the denomination.

Cry me a river!

My wife nearly fell for one. I really wonder why I stay with her sometimes....

I know all that. Don't forget, I've lived here my whole life and know the mailbox companies. Let the Caymans and Co have them. It's not as if they actually leave money here (tax rates close 0 benefit no one except corporations).

I know that. "Crystal" anything makes me think of meth these days.

Crystal Windows? Is that something like Crystal Meth?

While, myself, I have never been there, I know too many people who have.

It is hard to understand from an outsider, and it took me a lot of training to understand what is going on.

More people should try to understand....