One 7.1 surround system = 8 speakers
plus one 5.1 surround system = 6 speakers

= 14 speakers, which puts me in the highest numbered category...
If I included all the speakers tied to computers, I'd be well into the 20's.

Given that they use a polysaccharide secretion to bind various debris and their own fecal matter into their skin/shells/whatever --- I'm guessing they really can accurately be said to taste like sh*t....

Connected to the 12 Mbit DSL modem...

• 1 - 24 port 10/100/1000 switch
• 3 - Wireless AP's to cover the whole upstairs/downstairs reliably and cover the back yard.
• 1 - Vonage VOIP station
• 1 - Linux server for all external facing services
• 1 - Windows 2008 server - for email handling
• 4 - PC's directly hard-wire connected
• 1 - Blu-Ray player hard-wire connected
• 1 - XBox 360 - hard-wired
• 1 - HP Printer hard-wired
• 1 - Wii - over wireless
• 3 - DirecTV receivers - through DirectCinema box over wireless
• 2 - PC's over wireless
• 1 - Laptop over wireless
• 3 - iPod touch over wireless
• 1 - iPad2 over wireless
• 1 - iPhone over wireless
• 1 - 5 port 10/100 switch upstairs for easy connections
• 1 - Networked Lexmark MFP over wireless

28 devices Total

Does not include 6 connections for previously wired devices like the old DirecTV receivers, computer plugs in rooms no longer used, etc.

Theater isn't as popular as movies because the cost is much higher -- for example, I paid $63 a ticket to see "Beauty and the Beast" on stage, but I could buy the DVD/Blu-Ray/"Special Platinum Diamond Plutonium Edition Never Before Released from the Vaults" version for about a third of that.

The second problem apart from cost is the experience. In the theater, I get one point of view, quite a distance from the stage (at least without paying almost three times the price) and there is no focus on particularly important bits of the action. From 32 rows back, I cannot see the tears on Belle's face when Beast is dead, and if I happen to miss LaFou's pratfall, because I happened to be looking at "Large Breasted Blonde Girl #2" during the "Gaston" song, I will *never* be able to see it.

With the DVD, I can rewind, watch it again, lather, rinse, repeat. I can do so in the comfort of my easy chair. I don't have to worry about the woman next to me wearing enough perfume to be a candidate for chemical warfare, or the 6 year old kicking the back of my chair.

When I go to the bathroom, I don't have to worry about the 30 other patrons tapping their feet impatiently behind me, or whether or not there will be any paper towel left to dry my hands.

Small Theater is dying (and has been for decades) because movies made it cheaper, better, and more comfortable not to mention more often, with 10 shows a day vs a maximum of 2 shows a day at a theater. On top of that, the movie performances are always, at least in theory, the very best the director could milk out of the actors, as opposed to the day the Lead actor shows up at the theater drunk, or depressed, or hung over, and flubs half of their lines.

Now the movies are in danger as well, because I can get nearly the same quality of viewing at home, with my big-screen hi-def TV. What am I missing? Nothing but overpriced candy, popcorn, and soda. Twenty years ago I was hitting a movie theater every weekend. Today, I see about 4 movies a year in the theater.

The ONLY place the theaters still have the advantage is with truly engulfing experiences (iMax) and 3D technology which is still too expensive an inconvenient for most home users. This display is the first step towards getting rid of that "inconvenient" barrier. True, projective 3D will be the death-knell for theaters, because there's no way this thing scales up to theater size. Your home experience will now be far superior to the theater for anything but iMax nature films.

Everyone at The Onion admits their product is 100% fictional.

Fixed that for you.

Do you know what the paperwork on shipping nearly 1000 pounds of rocket fuel out of the country is like? Not to mention a 31 foot long rocket body.

The Dragon capsule they sent up and recovered is built man-rated. Had you been in the capsule they launched (and had they turned on an oxygen supply) you would have had, in the words of Elon Musk, "a really sweet ride."

Seeing that I looked into what it would take to launch a sub-orbital vehicle in 2000, I can tell you right now there were a lot of barriers to commercial space flight before the X-Prize drove the FAA to loosen regulations.

To launch a sub-orbital sounding rocket in 2000, I would have needed a government approved launch site, would have had to acquire something in the neighborhood of a million dollars of permits from the FAA, then paid to have multiple reentry studies done by "accredited research facilites" (read NASA and JPL) to determine the potential damage of a failed launch on down-field areas, at a cost of no less than $500,000 each. It was required under FAA regulations to carry at least one *billion* (yes, billion) dollars of insurance in case of launch failure, and the rocket would require a complete abort system capable of destroying the craft, which would have to be shown as reliable through no less than three successful static tests resulting in the full destruction of the vehicle.

That's just off the top of my head from what I remember. I went and actually got all the information I could find and it was a stack of requirements near two inches thick. And all I was trying to do was break the altitude record for a "model" rocket. But because I had the potential of breaking 100km of altitude, it was no longer considered a "model" and FAA rules applied to it.

So don't say there were no barriers in 1985 or 1992. That's just not true. No start-up could have afforded all the licensing and regulation overhead required to get their first rocket off the ground. The launch market was a locked-in old boys club between the existing military contractors like Lockheed and Boeing so they could continue to control the lucrative pricing structure. Unless you really think it cost Lockheed 10 times as much to build a rocket than it costs SpaceX?

You've got the broadcom decoder too? Only helps on certain things, unfortunately.

I'll probably leave it in, as I have a gigabit hard-wired network running in, so no need for a wireless card.

Haven't seen a price, but I've heard "October" for a release date. No reason it shouldn't hit soon, as they have all the packaging and drivers done for it when I checked their web site. Personally I'm hoping for that $49.99 price point...

Right now I have an HTPC sitting at home, based on an Atom chip that worked great (and still does) for pushing SDTV. When the HDTV went in, it was woefully inadequate, what with the embedded Intel graphics that can't push better than about 10fps at 720p.

It's got a single PCI slot for upgrading....

This card is *exactly* what I need to make this thing rock again as a Hi-def HTPC. With HDMI out, I can pump 7.1 surround to the stereo, and this thing should handle up to 1080p video playback without blinking.

This is so going to the top of my buy list as soon as it's actually released. Grumble...

But consider this, if there's less heat being generated, less likely that some of the snow melts and runs off and freezes into your gutters.

Right up until the snow load exceeds the structural rating and your house collapses.

You do realize "The New Colossus" wasn't added to the Statue of Liberty until 1903, right? And that the Statue itself wasn't put there until 1886? That's 110 years *after* the beginning of the country.

You also realize that there's no legal meaning to the poem as well, right? And that every immigrant who sailed beneath Lady Liberty on the way to Ellis Island (including all of my forbears) had to be sponsored to enter the country. In other words, they couldn't come here unless they had a person already in the country who was going to put them up in housing, ensure they had food, basic supplies, and a work position available?

Yes, the poem, which in excerpt, says:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Which, more correctly, is interpreted as an admonishment to other, older nations, who saw their poor as a burden. In contrast, this new nation would take them and set them free to allow them to become all that they could, rather than continue to suppress them with their ingrained class systems and the wasteful pomp of the nobility. America was founded on the idea that the individual, given the opportunity to succeed when given responsibility for themselves, would do so to great levels as a whole. No individual was guaranteed any outcome, merely the opportunity for any outcome. This allowed the outstanding individuals to shine - to rise as far as their ability would carry them. The poem says she lifts her lamp, "beside the golden door!" It's up to the individual to open the door. It's not going to opened for you. At least, that was the real intent of the founding of the nation.

But the important part is self-responsibility. You were welcomed with open arms, so long as you were willing to play by the rules. That has always been the American way. Those who live within the law are guaranteed freedom to do what they will.

You cannot, therefore, embrace the American Ideal if your first act in the country is to enter it illegally. "The New Colossus" does not say, "Give me your sneaky bastards who cut the fence at midnight to get in and ignore the laws."

Arrgh! You have a hanging GOSUB in line 30. Line 1030 does a "GOTO 10" instead of a RETURN. You're going to overflow the stack!