I don't disagree with your points, but what filtering software will do is decrease the risk of accidentally seeing something you don't want to have to explain to your children just right now. Not zero-risk, but lower. My 9-year old knows what sites she can visit, knows which ones she has to ask about, but doesn't type very well and sometimes screws up a URL, whether or not I'm sitting right beside her. Even my wife could do with some help with mistyped URLs sometimes...

If it doesn't do anything non-trivial and useful "out of the box" it's a framework. Therefore, Drupal is a framework.

One thing to consider is that a track download or CD purchase is a one-time event, and then I can listen as much as I want (no matter how much the music industry might wish otherwise), while the streaming royalties represent an ongoing revenue stream for the artists. That said, comparing to Last.fm: low royalty CD = 400 plays high royalty CD = 1333 plays Amazon = 120 plays Self-pressed = 10,667 play Keep in mind those are per user.

Just to correct one point: Last.fm doesn't have advertising in the stream. The ads are on the website, which is still free. I wonder though, is it possible to listen via the web browser on your mobile device? Not an option for me since I deleted Flash from my Android and use my Squeezebox 95% of the time I listen to Last.fm, but it's an interesting possibility.

Assuming it's even possible, that's just going to encourage people to continue to to use and rely on the IE specific features. We're talking about stuff like ActiveX, behaviors and IE "quirks". Please, don't let any of that stuff infect other browsers.

Actually, you'd probably create a secondary market where us skinny folks could sell our "extra" weight allowance. Assuming of course that the airlines couldn't find some way to have laws passed to outlaw that (kind of like how they didn't complain too hard about the ID requirements since it neatly solved a business problem for them, namely the resale of unused return tickets, although that's become less of an issue now that one can routinely find one-way tickets for close to half the round trip fare).

An SSN is not required to run a credit check. Ask any of the 3 credit reporting agencies and that's what they'll tell you. Finding a company knows that is a whole other story however.

That's the problem. The networks can't afford to lose the cable revenue stream (Netflix's revenue model is totally isolated from cable). For now, those of us going to the trouble of hooking our computers to our TVs are in the minority. That won't always be the case. Maybe a service like Hulu could break the cable company stranglehold on TV distribution (I'd be happy to pay a subscription fee for premium access knowing that it's needed to support show development, especially if they offered sane packages, or a-la-carte pricing). Now if we could just do something about lack of competition and choices for broadband, we'd be all set. On the other hand, if that's my biggest problem, I'm doing pretty well.

But they aren't watching it on their TV, so they aren't going to cancel their cable subscription. Read the Freakonomics post (which, I should have mentioned, is from the CEO of Hulu).

If you know how to set up Boxee/XBMC/Plex/whatever, you've probably got your PC hooked up to your TV and probably aren't too excited about running an app outside of your media center (extra clicks and whatnot). You might even consider canceling your cable subscription. If you don't know how to set up one of those apps, you probably don't have your PC hooked up to your TV (at least not permanently), so you're going to (as Hulu apparently imagines it) lean back in your chair at your desk and watch Hulu on your PC. More importantly, you aren't going to cancel your cable subscription, which is where the content producers get the lion's share of their revenue.

This post (Q's 7 & 8) I think explains why Hulu has been forced to block media center apps: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/your-hulu-questions-answered/ To be fair, Hulu needs to satisfy the desires of their content-providing overlords, and whether or not the people at Hulu agree with blocking media centers, they need to at least make it appear they are making a good-faith effort to do so (it does seem that every block they've thrown up has been easily worked-around). That said, I suspect the thinking is the full-screen app isn't going to be used by technically sophisticated users who are capable of setting up and running one of the Hulu-supporting media centers, and therefore anyone who is using the full-screen app isn't going to be the type that has their PC hooked up to their TV.

I'm running an unlocked phone on T-Mobile. T-Mobile will give you the unlock code for your phone after you've been with them for some time (I think 3 months), and you can add and delete features (like data plans) at will without contract extensions. I do have to "lie" on my online profile since the phone I own isn't a model they actually carry in the US market in order to make certain features available.

All reasonable assumptions given the current state of the airline industry and American driving habits.

energy densities, gas and jet fuel show that jet fuel is actually the same or less dense than common gasoline. And if we can't trust Wikipedia and random people on the internet, who can we trust?

To quote from Ask The Pilot:

I'm assuming that Mr. Smith as a professional airline pilot has got his numbers right. So where's your backup for your "insanely inefficient" claim?