You're lucky.

Close to a year back, I did check the broadband map. They said that I might be able to get a local provider, Sovernet, whose name I was familiar with. I checked out their web site, and not only did they permit servers, they would assist me with setup, host my dns records, etc. So I contacted them, ready to take the bandwidth drop from 4 bonded down-channels at Comcast to DSL, just for the better TOS.

No-go. If the network touches fiber between the CO and me, the ILEC is permitted to exclude CLECs. That was one of the freebies the FCC granted in order to encourage the rollout of fiber. I have no "enlightened TOS" available to me. Nor do I have fiber to the curb or home - the fiber is there for Fairpoint's benefit, not mine.

One other thought... Your kids will find their own paths. My daughter is into the sciences, my son is working on becoming a history teacher - even though he has always watched science fiction with me.

When both kids were younger and we were having a rough time controlling the scatalogical humor at dinner time, my wife would say, "The Kennedy's discussed politics at the dinner table!" Fast-forward a few years and dinners can be quit civil with sophisticated discourse - or not. But there capable of it, and at other times we can all share in the humor.

Mod this up. Comcast is the same as ATT, in this respect.

I'm rather surprised that only one A.C. mentions TOS. I was about to, but I was scanning the comments looking to see if anyone else had. In all of the comments you're the only one. Most of the comments were concerned about the MafiAA, kiddie pr0n, and loss of bandwidth.

But TOS is a civil matter. Share your connection and they're entitled to cut you off.

Have fun. Sometimes that's hard to remember, in the early years.

The other telling activity with my daughter was in the Fall of first grade, when she was building villages and roads out in the yard for the wooly bear caterpillars. On "take your daughter to work day" she would hang out around the microscope.

She's working in aquatic macro-invertebrates.

I would argue that US interest in bioweapons started much earlier, when we gave blankets from smallpox patients to the native Americans.

The book that started me down the path that ended in a career in engineering was, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", by Verne, which I read the summer after second grade.

When my daughter was in fifth grade we read "The Hot Zone" together. She's in the last semester of her Masters, and is planning to start her PhD in the fall, in the biological sciences.

Except Dawn Wells never did do the promised Playboy spread.

You're not the only one here with chronologically enhanced flatulence.

I don't think that there is a typical out there, there's everything up to Vesta. (+ or -)

T=1/2*m*v^2

Slingshot around a friendly nearby planet and bring it into a retrograde collision path. Much more effective.

I was diagnosed with apnea, but there were various delays in getting treatment. In that interval I "fell off the cliff" and found that in my fifties I had the energy level of someone in their eighties. (From caring for my mother, I had good experience of what that was like.) I didn't connect it with the apnea diagnosis at first but eventually getting on CPAP fixed the problem. The problems of sleep apnea can be deeper than suspected - don't look for just sleepiness.

> And since we don't even have the technology to move an asteroid yet

Yet it's essential that we develop that technology. The Earth has been hit before - and odds are that it is going to be hit again, it's just a matter of time. It's a simple matter of long-term self-preservation that we need to be able to adjust asteroid orbits. Asteroid mining is an excellent idea, because it lets us learn those techniques - and it may defray some of the costs.

It doesn't stop at precious metals, either. Even if SpaceX hits its target launch costs of $150/lb, that means that a ton of anything we bring back to Earth orbit has a starting value of $300,000. (Today the numbers are closer to 10X that.) Even if it's "worthless rock", others could call it "radiation shielding" or "thermal mass" and it becomes valuable. Given an adequate supply of focused solar energy, I suspect just about anything can be refined, in orbit.

Which brings us back to the "Death Star" mention in the article.

As you say, the idea is to use something cheap to bring the asteroid back near Earth, where we use the expensive facilities to mine/refine it. The real weapon here is bringing the asteroid back to Earth - all the way to Earth - with slightly different aiming.

I had a friend several years older. One day in the early summer we went to the bookmobile, that stopped at the end of our street. At the time I was into submarines, big-time, and had picked out a few age-appropriate submarine books. She mocked me for my little "two-page books." So I saw "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," had seen references to it before, and checked it out. It was a bit much for a second grader, and it took me several renewals to read it, but I wasn't about to allow her to successfully mock me. This got me into science fiction, then into science.

Of course as someone else mentioned, I was glued to the TV the whole day on July 20, 1969. But even before that, in grade school they would call everyone down to the gymnasium to watch the Mercury launches on a black&white TV on a cart.

Odd, it's usually the wife educating the husband about such shrinkage. As you also mention, perhaps this is a latitude issue.

He'd rather feed, house, and clothe his family, perhaps?

I wondered who the Jack Daniels corporate spokesperson was and why you didn't name him.

Then I wondered how many hours per week they work on average in the whiskey business, to be giving advice in this way.

After finishing reading your post, I began feeling sorry for the guy, wondering how many whiskey jokes he's the butt of.