I don't think this is half bad. Copyright holders need to go to court, rather than allowed to go straight to the ISP under previously proposed schemes.
Of course this is ignoring other possible agendas... and we know the block is useless anyway, but that isn't the point.

2x Shuttle XPC running vCentre
QNAP NAS for shared storage and media server
Cisco 857w
Generic gigabit switch
Linksys VOIP gateway
Small UPS

This sits behind the glass door of a nice oak AV cabinet in the living room, and I have a couple of 120mm PC fans in the back of it to circulate air. Reasonably cheap, no noise, easy on the power, and ok with the wife since I don't have an ugly rack of equipment sitting in the corner. Excepting for upgrades/reworks, this is more or less the setup I've run for the last 7 or 8 years.

Rest of house runs combination of Wifi & Ethernet. An additional Shuttle XPC sits in the shed as my "offsite" backup repository.

I second everything mentioned above, and also recommend the book "Grain Brain" (look it up on Amazon). It is written by a neurosurgeon who makes a very compelling, leading edge (and medically unpopular) case against grains and gluten, its relationship to inflammation and its effects on Alzheimer's, and the uncanny links with other first world epidemics like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc. Its very easy to read and there is lots of research referenced throughout.

At 33 I recently went through a cardiac event, scary as it is at this age, and I am definitely not what you would call morbidly obese. This book will change your thinking and your habits A LOT.

This means you are trackable.

the Smart TV industry will kill the PC industry, because you can now do things like surf the net and Skype? In that case, the PC industry better hurry up killing the console industry, they've been working on that one for two decades.

Its not ideal, but better than having the ruling overturned. Although, the prospect of having the studios pay ISP's to process the infringement notices will give them yet another reason to complain about "the cost of piracy".

It would appear that common sense does not prevail anymore. I also feel that that the "younger" generation may not actually realise that their phone can do more than just texting/IM and facebook. Like, there was actually a time where people *spoke* on to each other using phones. So last decade...

The purpose of Tor is to provide anonymity. Given that in order for Tor to work it requires "community" participation, that means anyone can operate an exit node, but there is also an understanding that exit nodes can be used to siphon data. The key point here is that the exit nodes cannot determine the origin of the data, hence anonymity.

However, there is nothing preventing you from encrypting data over Tor.

With cars becoming all *-by-wire, if you are going to the effort to detect the phone being used, why not get it to shut the car down?
(Of course there are safety issues here, but you get my drift)

Humour. Try it.

I thought the same thing as well.
I'm in Australia, even the people here are calling it a publicity stunt, although, if thats true then I don't understand the actual benefit the family gets with the publicity... aren't they described as a "crackpot" family?

My thoughts exactly, does it not have to store the carbon somewhere? Of course I have no knowledge in this area, but sureley that would change the structural integrity of the concrete over time? Could someone more knowledgable comment on this?

Or, for all we know, because its absorbing carbon it could very well make it stronger.