I run a site that offers downloads of files. I have advertising on that site. A large number of those ads, obviously context-sensitive, display fake "Download" buttons on them.

Guess who is my ad provider? Google AdSense.

Google, heal thyself.

It has to work this way. Otherwise your alarm would be going off every time you turned on the microwave oven. Wireless security systems are inherently secure. I refuse to use them in my house.

Oh, waah, cry me a river. I live in Ohio, and the only place I have ever found to plug in my car is in my own garage, at my home. There ARE no public charging ports, anywhere. They don't exist here. So when I hear about Californians crying because they can't conveniently find enough public charging ports, excuse me if I don't get all weepy about their struggle.

My phone can act as a WiFi router. Does that mean no more firmware updates allowed for my phone?

Or they live in the UK, where it is normal usage for what we in the US refer to as "Math."

My favorite cell phone ever: a Mitsubishi DiamondTel 22X, back in the days of AMPS. Hold down the pound sign and type 0944635 (still remember that) and it would go into diagnostic mode. You could manually turn on the receiver, and then manually tune to different cell channel pairs, and spend the day listening to other peoples' phone calls. Not that I did, of course, that would have been illegal.

My 1980's Commodore PET hack story: We had a MuPET (Multiple User PET) network that consisted of a card plugged into the IEEE port in the back of each PET, and connected to a daisy-chain ribbon cable that led to the MuPET controller. This controller then plugged into a 4040 dual floppy disk drive and a printer. When the MuPET controller was powered up, it would load its firmware from the disk in drive 0. When each PET was turned on, it would load the TSR (terminate, stay resident) driver to redirect disk and printer I/O to the MuPET controller, from the controller itself. Therefore, each PET was running a TSR that ultimately came from whatever was stored on drive 0 on the 4040 when the controller was booted. I wrote a tiny hack into this code that when loaded into the PET as a TSR, would watch the jiffy timer. Every 9 minutes or so it would make the End of Memory pointer equal to the Begin of Memory pointer - effectively erasing whatever BASIC program the student was typing in. So students who were sitting at the PET typing in their programs, would unknowingly end up saving only the last 9 minutes of their work. Stupidly, I was so proud of my nasty little hack that I put a message with my initials in it. Turns out the Computer Science head was smarter than I thought, and found my little boast. That little bit of fun got me banned from the computer lab for the remainder of my high school career.

We had a server at a co-lo that was locking up on a regular basis. It had a phone line that it used on an infrequent basis with a modem to send faxes. When it would lock up, usually at 4 am, I would have to drive 45 minutes to the co-lo in order to press the reset button. I took an old 1200 baud modem, and cut the traces on the PC board where the off-hook relay connected to the analog phone circuitry, and instead brought those relay contacts out to a set of wires. I hooked those wires into the reset switch on the server, put the modem on the same phone line as the outgoing fax line, and set the modem to auto-answer after 20 rings. There were never any legitmate incoming phone calls on that line, and any random wrong numbers would give up after 4-5 rings. When the server did lock up, I would just dial the number of the outgoing fax line and let it ring 20 times. The modem would "answer" - but the relay would actually "press" the reset button on the server instead, saving me a 45 minute drive.

More specifically, I would like to see the MPAA and RIAA take on the Russian mob. I would encourage them to do this! Heartily!

You're missing the point. The idea behind GPS-driven ADS-B is that it REPLACES surveillance radar.

Here's how it works right now: The ground-based radar sends out a signal; it hits the aircraft and bounces back; ATC now knows which direction and how far away the aircraft is. On top of this, there is a transponder in the aircraft which sends back a coded number assigned by ATC, so that ATC can determine which dot on their radar screen is which aircraft. Additionally, if the transponder has (and has enabled) Mode C (which is required in most congested airspace), it sends back the aircraft's altitude. ATC now has a 3-dimensional fix on the aircraft, with positive verification as to who you are.

ADS-B gets rid of all of this. Instead, the aircraft has a GPS receiver, which gives itself a 3-dimensional fix in space. It transmits this information along with a unique identifier, when interrogated, to ATC. ATC utilizes this information to identify and track the aircraft in 3 dimensional space, as is now done with conventional radar/Mode C.

The problem is, what if GPS goes out? What if some pimply 17 year old kid buys a GPS jammer from Mexico and sets it up on his roof? Every aircraft in the area suddenly loses their ability to receive GPS signals, and all of a sudden ATC has no idea where any of the aircraft are. There is no backup system, because part of NexGen is the decommissioning of all primary surveillance radar.

THAT is the issue.

Philadelphia airport does this throughout the entire airport - loud classical music blared 24/7 over PA speakers. Now don't get me wrong - I love classical music, but after a five hour layover there, I was ready to kill myself.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Pretty well every gasoline engine has the capability (and the provision) for the addition of a block heater. Go up north where -40 is a normal winter temperature, you'll see everyone has block heaters. Even store parking lots have lines of plugs for you to plug your car in while you go inside. By the way, the only reason Diesel is more expensive here (unlike the rest of the world, where it is cheaper - which make sense, because it is far less refined and less costly to manufacture than gasoline) is because the government heaps taxes on it.

I couldn't agree more. I've been on Sprint for five years. I also can't remember the last time I had a dropped call or no service, and the "everything" plan can't be beat. I talk to the Apple fanboys at work toting their iPhones, and they try to compare who has the least number of dropped calls - they can't believe that I don't have any at all, ever.

Electric bikes have been used and encouraged in Toronto for over three years. They can appear like stocky bicycles, or scooter-style. They have a maximum speed of 20 mph, and you don't need a drivers license, motorcycle license, license plate or insurance. A whole industry has sprung up around the legislation with many models of electric bicycles being sold.

Ontario Ministry of Transportation e-Bike FAQ

Negative. I have a Loran-C (Apollo 612B) receiver in my airplane that is about to be turned into an inoperative brick.