+1

I've visited Europe a few times in the past few years, and in each case I find it a royal pain to figure out how to carry/sort the Euro Coins for small purchases. Carrying a coin pouch has been common in the past, but why should we revert to that today when bills are so much lighter? Then again, a cashless society would be even more efficient.

An ideal system in my head would be:
- Coins relegated to collectible souvenirs
- Add a half-dollar bill, and round all transactions to the nearest half-dollar (digital and physical for fairness)
- For the blind, consider giving each bill a slightly different size (Euro-style), or even better, texture.
- Use Tax Incentives/Banking regulation to accelerate the move to a primarily cashless society. Eventually, bills will only be used for small off-the-record transactions, kids allowances, senior citizens, and (maybe) tourists.
- Simplify electronic banking - specifically person-to-person transfers, including guaranteeing access to anonymous prepaid accounts (freedom of money = freedom of speech), and usage of cash will eventually disappear altogether.

That reminds me of once when I had a cheap antenna that only let me receive a handful of channels. One day I was cleaning up and forgot to reconnect the antenna, leading to the realization that the unconnected wire was just as effective as the antenna was! Suffice it to say, the next day I bought a new RS Flying Saucer antenna which worked well ... until I moved, and now need something better.

I have Comcast Internet, and typically I'm able to get half the broadcast channels via QAM, and the other half via OTA. Between them, I'm able to pick up most of the local stations ... and somehow there is little overlap between the two. If this change goes through, that will just add incentive for me to get a better antenna.

Desktop: Fedora (FC3 for a few months) -> Gentoo (~8 years until the MoBo died) => Ubuntu (due to lack of time) -> Debian (you know why) -> TBD
Laptop: Ubuntu -> Netbuntu -> Debian
LiveCDs: Knoppix (universal repair kit), Backtrack (cyber security training), and Networking Security Toolkit (network troubleshooting)
Router: OpenWRT

Android would also count - particularly if I ever take advantage of the Webtop mode on my Atrix to act as a full Linux environment.

FTFY. Each stage of the Saturn V was built and tested elsewhere before being shipped to Kennedy for final assembly.

Airlocks? Docking a train in a near-vacuum tunnel to a station has to be considerably easier than docking two spacecraft in a vacuum.

I suspect inertia has a lot to do with it. The northeast US was probably among the first, if not the first, major region in the world to have a 'modern' electric distribution system. As a result, there is likely a strong sense of the power lines have always been on utility poles, so they always should be.

Newer phone/cable/fios lines are buried because the public doesn't want more lines on poles, those companies want to ensure lower operating costs/higher-reliability, and, most importantly, I'm sure that burying low-voltage phone and fiber optic cables is a LOT safer, and therefore cheaper, than attempting to do the same for existing high-voltage power transmission lines which would have to be buried even deeper. If somebody accidentally cuts a fiber, some people lose service. If the same happens to a buried power line, somebody gets electrocuted.

That's my understanding as well.

If that is the case, I don't understand why it's the individual Linux distros that are buying the signature for the bootloader. Wouldn't it make more sense for w/e foundation is maintaining the bootloader of choice (which works with all Linux distros without tweaking), to compile and sign their own binaries that the smaller distros could then distribute?

Yes, it violates a distros ideals of compiling everything from source internally (or the Gentoo philosophy of the user compiling everything), but the bootloader isn't really a part of the core distribution anyway, just a tool necessary to boot it.

How about the (admittedly unlikely) case of a known bomb threat in a given region with a cell phone as its remote detonator? Or perhaps a known threat/disaster in an enclosed and highly crowded space where controlling information is necessary to prevent panic and facilitate an orderly evacuation?

The key is that such capabilities should only be exercised under extreme conditions where lives are in danger -- but never for mere political expediency (ie: impeding a legitimate protest).

My thoughts exactly. In fact, things would be far simpler if we actually had our homes wired up with DC power. Except for the appliances and legacy light fixtures, I doubt there's a single device left that's not using an AC->DC adapter of some form, though of course there's still quite a range of voltages coming out of those adapters.

I've recently started experimenting with various forms of the cheap LED strips myself. A single strip isn't quite as bright as a traditional fixture, but combining a few together and distributing them around the room can be quite effective.

My current project involves placing a strip on the inside of a wood trim that I mounted over my bar-counter (using custom brackets made on a friend's 3D printer). A single indirect strip provides adequate light for eating, and I suspect that will be enough to read by once I add the second direct-view strip. As a bonus, it looks great to - or at least it will once I finish hiding the power supply/cable.

For those that are interested, just search for "led strip" on Amazon. Average price is $35 for the RGB Kit (/w remote + power supply), or $15 for a single-color bright strips (power supply not included).

+1, though I was ~13 when I started learning Perl myself and it remains my favorite (if sometimes under-appreciated) language.

More important than the language though is the end goal. For me, I had no interest in Perl at that age, it was merely a means to an end-- in my case a login system for my Starcraft Clan.

Start by identifying what the kid is interested in and/or wants to build, then find the right tool that they can learn in order to achieve their goal.

Unfortunately that's one issue outside the scope of the mythtv project.

The HDHomeRun Prime technically does support CableCARD usage with Linux - but only for stations marked as "copy freely." If your cable provider decides to place any more restrictive copy flags on it (now or later), then your out of luck.

To make things even more annoying, even if you have an Xbox360 to use as a supplement for those premium channels, it can't tune the encrypted stations live without a Win7 box to serve as a pass-through.

Cable companies want above else for you to use their hardware and their services (DVR, cable box, etc) and are still fighting tooth and nail to cripple competing services on every front.

If they can send a firmware update to the phone, then they can brick it. All they'd need to do is push a special (invalid) update only to that one user, who would then need to be dumb enough to accept it if the update can't be remotely forced.

Realistically though, I think bricking is overkill in this case - by definition if its bricked, the phone should not be recoverable if there was a mistake.

All they need to do is log the phones unique ID, add it to a list shared by all carriers using compatible technology and prevent any such phone from being activated on their network. I believe the Europeans have already been doing this for years - with both smart and dumb phones. Some non-GSM US carriers will do this as well (except for the sharing-the-lists part).

Bonus points if they go to the effort of (with a court warrant) letting the phone on anyway as a type of "honeypot" while they remotely activate the GPS to track the thief.

I like that idea, though having it expire immediately upon changing hands would just prevent them from being sold in the first place. I think a far better solution (as in easier to get legislated) would be to impose a "half-life" on patents. Each time a Patent is sold/transferred the remaining time until the patent expires is cut in half. A win-win all around.

For that matter, such a rule would work nicely for copyrights to. Particularly if the half-life rules are crafted to apply to biological people and not corporations. So if an author/artist passes away and the copyright is passed on instead of entering the public domain, the remaining duration is at least cut in half.