Maybe the Year of the Linux Desktop was supposed to happen, now Titor doesn't have to get his IBM 5100 because we are all going to use Macs in the future, and the iPhone and GTE (I mean Verizon) becomes reality.

We had the same problem because the company that I work for our antenna is pointed directly at a city with TV here in Wisconsin and it put us in line with Chicago. We ended up buying a new full spectrum UHF antenna that uses two stacked antennas and mapped out the co-channel interference and determined the point of the lowest interference. We used to have issues with blocking and tiling when a weather inversion would occur, but now those problems are completely gone. I would be willing to PM the name of the company that we used to consult on this project.

I have to add to the P3 pride list: At home, my file server is a Dell Poweredge 1300 with dual P3 500 Mhz CPUs and 768 Mb of ram. It has a software raid 1, from two 80 Gig HDs running Ubuntu 6.06. In my parents basement, I left a Pentium II 300 with 384 Mb and an 8 gig HD running Centos 4 for remote access, ssh tunnelling, etc.

I wish I had mod points. I haven't laughed so hard, out loud in the last couple of years.

The actual history of "going to the mattresses" comes from the Joey Gallo and the war between him and the Profaci family. The term appeared in the headlines in the early 60's in the headlines in New York newspapers.

Info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Gallo#Gallo-Profaci_war
http://tomfolsom.com/blog/

Another idea might be to look at VLC for your streaming server with either IP set top boxes with a web based interface (LAMP). I know that Amino can provide IPTV set top boxes that will work work H.264 and should be able HD picture quality without having to setup a bunch of thin stations. This would allow you to use HD TVs, but it might cost you some interactivity by not having a button to push. The advantage would be that the hardware to run this would not cost as much.
Currently, I use VLC to stream a channel that is on a loop from our headend to our customers because I don't want to have to deal with DVD's, etc.
http://aminocom.com/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html

The reason that you can't get DSL without a landline is due to the tariff that the telecom company serves under. If the telephone company operates the telecom and their tariff is written that you need to have a land-line to get Internet, that is the only way it is going to happen.

This goes back to how phone companies were set up as old school utilities with regulation while the cable company is not classified as a required utility in an area.

Often what causes the change in an area is if the local phone company has competition in the form of CLEC. The CLEC is usually established as a telecom company that happens to do pots vs. a phone company that happens to do telecom services. This usually causes the local exchange carrier to have to go back and re-write their tariff for the serving area to become more competitive.

working_connection != multicast_traffic + WIFI

Obligatory:

Hopefully, there weren't any chairs near him

Or it could be that our Senators and Congressman have used corporate taxes to impose a specific type of behavior onto the companies and people that are taxed. Thus, creating this specific type of behavior. Corporations and people naturally, follow this behavior because it benefits their bottom line. This is why the concept of a free market has become so convoluted.

If tax breaks where not imposed solar power, wind power, alternative fuels, hybrid cars, 401ks, iras, tuition costs, etc. would have a higher costs associated with them, thus jeopardizing portions (possibly all) of their exisitence. This means that alternatives become more attractive. I great example is the number of people going to college vs. entering a trade. The trades still exist, but the average tradesman has gotten older over the last 30 years.

Does a penguin then lead to global warming? I am sure all of the penguin poop leaves the penguin, entering the environment of Antartica warmer than the surrounding ice and snow. This then causes an ammount of ice around the penguin to melt (slightly). Which shows the results of an exothermic reaction, adding more carbon emissions to the environment. Hence, causing global warming