I am not an IT guy by any means, but I am a swing shift worker in a factory. My schedule includes two days of 3-11, two 11am-11pm days and then two more at 3-11. Im off two days and go back in for 2 days on 11pm-11am. Then I turn around the next day and work 7am-3pm for 5 days. Then, off two days and go back in on 11pm-7am. Then its off for 5 days total then rinse ne repeat. Not a fun schedule, and the guys that get to day shift permaneantly typically lose 20-40 lbs when they quit rotating. I've found personally that the midnight shifts leave me feeling worst, depression, lonliness and general angst are my best friends during the midnight rotations. I've found it affects my family just as much if not more than me because I'm so fun to deal with. On a related note, it takes me several days off to recover from the feelings incurred on the midnight shift. I suspect it'd be easier working one permaneant shift. One more thing then I'll get off my soap box, the divorce rate with this kind of work is ridiculous! I suspect that maybe the schedule has a lot to do with it...

How can I get the firmware this thing is compatible with? I waited on geohot (way to pull through in the clutch bud!) and at 3.21 I think. (had to update for a game) So now I can't get to the exploitable firmware since the new one has been released. Are there any games that require the exploitable one?

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, but I've always thought about using an Allen Bradley PLC5 family or a Modicon PLC to control everything. I work with them every day in an industrial setting and it is robust and you can do just about anything you wanna do. You can use ladder logic (which is beneficial because I know no coding) and fulfill whatever you desire with it. Set the conditions for the output to come on, the type of output. A few sensors, cables, a relay or two and a rack, processor, powersupply and required input and output cards. Maybe your way is cheaper, I don't know as I've just been thinking about it, not in the planning stages yet.

As an American living in one of the oft talked about rural areas of America with access to only dial up (which gives me a whopping 28.8k connection due to signal quality), or over priced satellite, I am more than ready for something along this line to be adopted here. At a time when more and more information and services are being distributed over the Internet, it gives us rural people a big disadvantage. For example, I work rotating shifts in a factory and would like to go to college to get a degree eventually. Due to my shift work, a physical classroom is out of the question, admissions would laugh me right out if the campus, but an online program through a local and respected school could help me to get to that goal. An online college course is not an option when it takes >30 minutes to load a 10 second video or when you have to split a 50 mb download over 5 nights to get the data. I promise, if the shoe were on the other foot you'd understand where I'm coming from.

I'll tell you what, I haven't been to the Mexican border, I have flown out to Honduras a few times though. There, your bags are checked by hand with you watching. No muss, no fuss. If I cross the border and they demand to check my camera, cell phone or notebook (think the idiot minimum wage guy would know what to do on Linux or the Mac OS?), then I will watch you do it, no matter the time it takes you to do it. It might inconvenience you and me, but nobody touches my equipment unless I trust them. I have a problem with someone nosing through my stuff. Especially a minimum wage probably discontented worker looking to make some extra cash. Thanks but no thanks. It might take me 30 days or longer, and I'll make sure I enjoy every day of it. All hail the iron fist of the Feds!

My bet is on the telecom employee in the bush with the BB gun.

First things first, I have Linux, OS X, and Windows floating around my house on various machines. Secondly, as a longtime PC user (notice I did not specify which OS), I ALWAYS check anything I download from the internet, heck, I even check some software I bought from a brick and mortar store for malware. Every system in my house has an antivirus software on it, all my windows systems have anti-spyware stuff out the wazoo running, (if you know of any Mac ones, let me know) and even my Mac is set up to scan something I just downloaded before executing it. This is way overkill on my part probably since I am behind a dial up connection, so a botnet isn't exactly useful to the operator from here (not to mention my phone cords are normally unplugged, long story and lesson learned.) BUT, I have yet to have an issue with any malware around my house. I grew up at a high school as the unofficial tech guy and saw what happened to reasonable sized networks as malware got a hold in it, and as a result I vowed not to let it happen to any of my machines. Also, all the anti-malware software I'm running is only as good as the user; if someone were to disable it and do visit some nefarious stuff on my computers they would go down too. That's why I'm admin and nobody else in the household has a sudo/admin/supervisor account. So far, so good! In summary: Security through obscurity is NEVER something to be relied upon. Security is only as good as the user's intelligence will let it be and in continuance, You can't fix stupid.

That is an excellent run down of the way things are. I concur completely. Myself, I usually wait until prices of games come down (or they join the Greatest Hits, Platinum Hits or what have you.) This does not apply if I just bought the system though. I bought two when I bought my PS3 and 1 with my 360. I haven't found any Wii games 50$ yet that I like. I buy old Gamecube and Xbox games all the time. My PS3 is the not backwards compatible one so I can't buy PS2 games for it yet. I'm hoping for an update/mod/hack to fix that.

Very true! I know that Allen Bradley HMIs run some form of XP. Also, I wish I could find some PLC programming software for OS X or a *Nix OS. Hell= programming a Modicon PLC using Modsoft. Modsoft= DOS based.