In order to be a fad, there has to be some significant adoption ("pet rocks", for example). Not gonna happen, IMO, with Dolby Atmos (tm). I've got a fairly extensive last gen' home setup (1080p, not 4K; 7.1, not 9.3), and there's nothing I've seen or heard that encourages me to "upgrade" to even those levels, much less the whole room redesign needed for Atmos. I'm sure there will some adoption by those who simply "must" own the latest tech, then watch cable/satellite 720p, but it won't be enough to constitute a fad.

Businesses have repeated shown no concern for their workers or the surrounding populace when it comes to safety or pollution, and no remorse for the consequences of their actions. Rivers in the Appalachians, lead poisoning in Industry, plant explosions in Texas, worker deaths and oil spills from a rig explosion in the Gulf, the Ohio River literally on fire are all examples of this psychopathic behavior.

If a business cannot provide a safe workplace, and clean up its own waste, it should not be in business, because neither of those is all that hard.

I like that resolution, too. Reasonable balance between not enough room and dealing with all of the font/scaling issues of the higher-resolution monitors. One of my compadres chose the lower resolution of two high-resolution monitors because the higher just didn't look right in side-by-side comparison. Besides, I look at the monitor much more than the TV, so it should have "more", too.

I recently picked up a Dell U2412M, and may order another to keep as a spare.

I used to work for one of the In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) vendors. Although their "architect" was clueless about security, some of us doing the work managed to build some into the system. With WiFi, it was harder, but, before I left, we had, at least, set up some VPNs to isolate the system control links from the cabin crew- and customer-access features (don't know if that persisted). The entire IFE did rely on hard-coded passwords, though.

There IS a connection between the IFE and aircraft systems. It is used to feed aircraft position and speed data, plus some useful state, such as wheels up/down (there are features that only enabled while in "cruise", but not during takeoff and landing, for example). The aircraft systems designers, however, seemed to have a clue about security, however, as we were only allowed a network connection to a slave server with no apparent upstream links.

Wanna sue the gov't for something meaningful? Sue to get ALL of it (DHS, FBI, local cops, whatever) away from filling the welfare trough for the studio scum.

The Blu-Ray for "Under the Skin" has 11 MINUTES of uninterruptible BS before the menu (but, yes, she IS that hot). The torrent is a better product; "let the marketplace decide".

I've got an Ouya, specifically to run XBMC. Runs pretty well with both the controller and a keyboard+mouse, except that the mouse speed is a bit high. Yes, it could use GigE and USB3.0, but running from the NAS it's fast enough and upscales what I've used, so far, in real time. Haven't found a good Linux Blu-Ray-to-stream converter, so no testing with those.

Is it a requirement that cable company employees (probably above the level of grunt) must be utterly despicable {socio|psycho}paths, or is that the industry just doesn't attract anyone the rest of us wouldn't be better off without?

If there was any good chance of a reasoning being on the other end of her call to the police, it would have been worth it to let her call and then have the LEO "explain" to her the (unfortunately rare) consequences of filing a false complaint, then watching HER be arrested for disrupting the flight. As it is, of course, ...

I don't mind buying a copy of the content, but I dislike the disc experience as much as your children.

Suggestions for loading my discs into local storage?

Myopia is the effect of having an eyeball out-of-round. Astigmatism is the result of aberrations in the cornea. Why cut up the cornea to fix myopia? You got lucky with 20/15; most do not, and many have aberrations. No thanks.

If/when myopia-corrective lens implants give full vision range (and, incidentally, also correct presbyopia), I'll be down to the clinic to have it done. Until then, I have 20/15, 20/20 and astigmatism correction with contacts and no side effects.

It's not illegal, except, maybe, in California, and not tested all the way up there, AFAIK.

It's sleazy, but Verizon is a US telecom provider, so that is almost (exception , anyone?) a given.

None of the above. I have an old Denon DBP-2010CI that just plays discs (Blu-Ray, DVD, CD), but has a (at the time it was sold) spectacular scaling engine.

All of the other stuff would be handled by a WDTV, PC, Mac, ...

So far, I haven't found a 1080P, or less, disc it will not play, but the DVD players all eventually couldn't handle the menu formats of some disc, or other, so I suppose this one will, too.

I still need a good Linux BD->streamable file converter for backups, though, and I could also use the files with XBMC or one of the systems listed above.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

If you want to know that you can protect against/treat smallpox virus, even if mutated (un)naturally, you have to have some with which to work.

The question is fundamentally nonsense.

There's still the Comcast deal pending, and email will change then, anyway, so I might as well explore the options.

As a current TWC hostage, I need to move my email before this happens. Since the US government is unconcerned about collateral damage when taking down a hosting site, I'd like it to be in Europe (Germany, France, Netherlands, for example). I need POP/SMTP access, and a routable domain (name not yet selected) for incoming mail. If there MUST be a web service, a simple static "C" program returning "Access to this site not authorized." in a few languages (and, maybe, a suitable response for robots) should suffice.

Any suggestions for hosting provider/registrar there?