Intel uses IPMI, which tends to not have quite as many management hooks into higher level functions as ASF. There are still plenty of things that can go horribly, horribly wrong with a bad IPMI implementation...but they're more likely to be exploitable because of something on the system side than something on the NIC side.

A lot of IPMI and ASF code is an open door into at least some portion of the overall system. As NICs become more and more "intelligent," there's going to be more opportunities to exploit the NIC architecture and any subtle flaws because of the communication path into the system itself. Couple that with a rush to get stuff out the door faster and cheaper...and more of these issues will crop up.

If you don't like it, seek out politicians that are taking MPAA money and get them out of office. Then it's less likely lawmakers will turn a blind eye toward them when they go nuts.

It's neither here nor there, but I recently switched away from Time Warner in Austin. My cancellation call included the sales speech that they didn't cap usage like some other plans. I resisted the urge to tell her that Time Warner would be soon, because they're following the trends.

They do. Obviously nonprofits including, presumably, newspapers that go this route if it's approved can editorialize about what the city/state/country needs most and be ok. But naming a specific candidate is a violation of IRS rules.

I'm afraid if you're not ultraviolet, you can't ask that question. Can you tell me if the chainsaw looks like it's going fast enough, look closer.

I loved that game.

Assuming for a minute that it's because the youth feel the government has no control over them that they're stabbing people, why wouldn't they just steal the games and/or music that causes they're behavior?

They certainly don't represent the majority, or as near as I can tell any, of the writers I commonly read. My best guess is that they're making a lot of noise trying to scare writers into thinking their guild is necessary to protect them from the eeebil copyright infringement, all the in hopes of annual dues. That is only a guess, though.

You are seriously trying to tell me that out of the many thousands of people who tested the Beta, these were the only real problems that they encountered that MS has bothered to fix for the RC?

I'm not a big fan of MS...but no. What they're seriously trying to get you to believe is that on top of the fixes that are going into the RC, they added a lot of simple fixes and posted about them to attempt to maintain buzz about their new OS.

The biggest down side for me, as I understand it, isn't so much having different pricing schemes for different traffic. It's the ability to re-direct or block traffic the ISP doesn't like. Let's say that Time Warner and Yahoo! enter a deal. Suddenly people who have Time Warner as an ISP can't go to Google. Or any other "competing" web-site. Or even if you can get to the competition site, it's 5x-10x or more slower than the preferred engine.

Carried out to extremes, it could mean that you could only visit Turner broadcasting (subsidiary of Time-Warner) sites in a reasonable manner, because they're the preferred sites. And they could block any content that might be seen as infringing on any of their corporate copyrights, regardless of whether it does or not (no DMCA counter-notices when the DMCA wasn't involved in blocking the material).

At its worst, it gives the ISPs the ultimate control over the content their users see, and how they see it. Would it get that bad? Honestly, I don't think so. But knowing that nowadays a lot of people get service from a single provider (cable, Internet, phone), a significant number of people might find the idea of switching providers tougher because of all the other changes...if they even have another option (besides dial-up or doing without).