What, there is some standard way to do video chat over 4G? Or will this only work with other Onstar subscribers?

Er, no. There is an actual technical issue here. If you make a passive filter with sharper skirts you end up with more loss to the desired signal. GPS (like all things that transmit from space) is quite power limited. As a result the signal is just above the noise (pretty much all downlinks). So just adding a better filter in front of the receiver will significantly degrade things.

There is stuff that you can do here but it would be expensive and possibly power hungry (some GPS receivers have to run off of batteries).

Normally this issue is resolved by placing guard bands around downlink bands where terrestrial transmitters are not allowed. By not doing this in a reasonable way, the FCC has simply messed up.

Isn't he just rediscovering the smartbook with this? I have a cheesy ARM based smartbook that you can buy these days for $200 that has 6+ hours of battery life (EFIKA MX). It runs Ubuntu.

How is his expensive thing better than my cheap thing?

It is hard to make windows that both insulate really well and provide a large apeture when open. My house (which coincidentally is also in Winnipeg) has laughably small window openings. Modern insulated windows are better but it is still a tradeoff. The uninsulated windows that originally came with the house were much better in the summer than anything I would install today (triple pane R5+).

I can overcome this to some extent with a powerful fan but I have to live with a lot of noise at night...

VDSL2 only gives good speed if you have short high quality loops to a cabinet. You end up with lots of cabinets attached to a fiber network. All the effort to achieve this is better spent extending the fiber the last little bit to the building which allows for fewer and better placed cabinets. As a result VDSL2 is only good for things like apartment buildings with no provision to add fiber. It is more or less a stillborn technology.

That is interesting in that it seems to fail basic philosophy. A description of something is not the thing itself.

Whatever. I doubt I will ever be able to think like a lawyer. That might not be a bad thing...

The things mentioned are just programs ... a description of a process. Wouldn't they have to sue the individual users? After all, you can't be sued for having a copy of a patent. You have to have some sort of implementation to infringe.

Some do. Interference from FM transmitters is a known issue in Europe. Again it is the instrument landing system that is affected. I remember that was a reason for people to want to build the microwave landing system back in the day... Another common ground based cause of interference to aircraft stuff is leaky cable TV systems.

In general AC at the 110/220V used for residential power is way more dangerous than DC at the same voltages. That is because the 50/60Hz used in these systems is close to the optimal frequency that can cause your heart to go into fibrillation. A nice solid zap with DC current can fix this (defibrillator) but most people do not have access to such a current source at home. The AC current required to mess up your heart can be quite low. I have heard 10mA quoted as a lower limit. The trick is to not get the AC current through your chest. That is what the suggestion that you should put one hand in your pocket when you are messing with the guts of something that is plugged in is based on. During the AC vs DC wars the DC faction used to like to show how easy it was to electrocute animals with AC. Edison once famously electrocuted an elephant with AC current and filmed the result.

This is hardly a new issue. Metal lath has been popular for exterior stucco for some time now. Metal lath is popular for interior plaster walls. Perhaps the use of drywall has spoiled everyone.

The signals can come in the windows and bounce down the halls. Inside radio propagation has and will always be somewhat problematic. Just run some damn wires if it is a problem...

Just because I like to feel different I will state that I sometimes watch TV the traditional way. I learned a long time ago that there is no such thing as good TV. At some point in my life I gave up on cable and just watched Canadian network television. After a period of adjustment I found I was wasting as much time and more to the point enjoying it as much as before.

TV is like radio. You allow others to decide what you see and hear so you don't have to decide anything. TV is for those times you are not engaged with life enough to play video games. Breaking it up into bite sized chunks and putting it on the net transforms it into something else.

BTW I think the "TV effect" explains how things like infomercials can continue to exist. You don't see stuff like that in other mediums. TV is special in some way...

The evilness of creating a virus that causes large motor drives to damage the systems they are attached to is simply breathtaking. If this gets out into the world it very possibly could create widespread death and destruction. I think that it would be safe to assume that whoever created this virus firmly believed that the ends justified any possible means.

Dunno about the mail. I don't see any reason to assume that law enforcement can't monitor any phone call at will. Things are set up so as to specifically allow no oversight. ... or at least that is how it seemed back in the days when I worked for the local phone company...

What possible incentive would the phone company have to get in the way of local law enforcement? Perhaps there are Canadian ISPs that need encouragement to set up the needed infrastructure to allow the convenient monitoring currently possible with voice. Perhaps that is actually what is behind this proposed legislation.

Ubuntu 10.10 is the most 'consumer-friendly' version of the Linux distro to date, but it faces an uphill battle against Microsoft's marketing machine.

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. In what sense is it competing with an entirely different sort of operating system? OS X runs on Intel/AMD and is at least Unix like. Is Ubuntu competing with that too?

I've decoded it. Yeah, it's porn...