Asymmetrical bandwidth, or what you call "unbalanced bandwidth," isn't something the cable companies invented. After all, that's what the A in ADSL stands for, and it came out years before cable internet. And, if you stop and think about it, it makes sense for the average residential user: the vast majority of the data passing through the connection is incoming, with just a tiny fraction of it going out, and that's just as true for cable as for DSL.

I have a classic artillery notch, and there's no way this is going to help me. My hearing loss, btw, isn't from rock concerts, it's a long-term effect of my being exposed to too much outbound shore support back in '72. Yes, when I was topside I had proper hearing protection. Alas, I slept in the forward berthing compartment two decks down and about 50' back from the 5"/54 gun mount, and nobody realized that we should have been using ear plugs down there. One morning, I woke up and found out that there'd been a 40 round bombardment, and I hadn't woken up even once, which will tell you something about how adaptable people are. About the only good thing here is that it's Service Connected, so the VA can't charge me for any hearing-related service, such as giving me hearing aids.

That being said, I think this is a wonderful thing, because I'm sure that there are millions of people out there who can be helped by it.

...forcing people to get insurance, so that they pay ahead of time, seems like the next best thing.

So tell me, now, how you're going to force people who are living on what they can dig out of the dumpsters behind markets because they don't have any money to buy food to buy health insurance?

I'm retired, now, partially because what I do best, tech support, has all been outsourced. However, I do like the feeling that there are people who's day is better because of me, so I'm active on various web-forums and mailing lists devoted to community support for the Linux distro I use (Fedora). In some, small sense, it's a "working retirement."

Well over a decade? It's more like well over thirty years. There were virus infections written for MS-DOS 3.X back in the 1980s.

"I am not a number, I am a free man!" Not any more, you're not!

Tell me this: if the NSA did put a backdoor in the package and if this audit found it, how would the NSA know about it in time to prevent it being reported? Sending a security letter to the auditors would just be considered proof that there was a backdoor to be hidden. The auditors may have been forced not to reveal anything about it to the general public, but you can bet that the people over at TrueCrypt would have found out about it and eliminated it as soon as possible, although they'd probably have had to pretend that they found the flaw themselves to protect both themselves and the auditors.

I fully expect that in 5-10 years most of the users will not know what operating system they are using.

What makes you think that the average home user knows what OS they're using right now? If they're on a PC, they'll know they're using Windows, because that's what came pre-installed, but they probably don't know which version, nor care. If they're on a Mac, they'll probably know that it's OSX, but again, not which version. And, they won't care because as long as it works for them, that's all that matters. If it doesn't work, they'll take it to a computer shop and let a geek fix it for them and the only question they'll ask is how much it costs.

No, Mr. Abrams, the investigation hasn't indicted anything. It indicated that somebody might have taken control of the drone away from you. I don't know if that's actually the word you used or if whoever wrote the story is to blame, but in either case, the Slashdot editors would have caught this if they were actually doing their job of editing the submissions. Why they haven't been replaced by people who know the difference between using a spelling checker and doing proper proof reading to catch misused words is something that only the PHBs at Dice can answer.

"Hearts full of joy, hearts full of truth. Six parts gin to one part vermouth!"

I remember asking Dr. Forward that at LACon II, back in '84. He pointed out that a sphere of antimatter could only react to normal matter on its surface, limiting the speed of the reaction. He said that it wouldn't explode, it would evaporate and that it would look something like a drop of water on a hot griddle.

So there's nothing wrong with making stuff scriptable and changeable.

True. I have no issues with extensions as such; in fact, I think they're a great idea, just as browser extensions are. One of the many things I have against Gnome 3 is the fact that it's almost impossible to customize without extensions. Now, consider the case of a "Windows refugee" who's just installed Linux for the first time, with Gnome 3. It doesn't look or work the way they expect, and until they learn about extensions and how to install them they can't even do anything about it. Unless somebody either helps them get the vital extensions installed, or helps them replace Gnome 3 with a less user-hostile DE, they're very likely to give up in disgust, go back to Windows and spend the rest of their lives bad-mouthing Linux because they were stuck with a DE that they couldn't work with. Gnome 3 may be good for Linux geeks that know how to beat it into submission, but I'd never (not even hardly ever) inflict it on a beginner.

In the Linux world, Product X = Gnome 3. Totally unusable for many people without third-party extensions, yet those same people keep telling everybody how great it is. The only way it makes sense for me in either case (Win 8.x or Gnome 3) is if the advocates are all masochists and think that everybody else likes pointless suffering as much as they do. Personally, I use Linux with Xfce because it does what I want, the way I want without using up excessive RAM or CPU.

There are a number of species of small fish that feed on the larvae. Stoking the ponds with these is a well-known method of controlling mosquitoes that's been used for decades. If they're not already being used in your area, it may be that they're not adapted to your climate.

...quake-free Texas...

Everyplace is earthquake country if you wait long enough. Deal with it.