I find it ridiculous to see articles like this. Referencing Los Angeles, Disney Land, and Disney World..... For those that are unaware (and authors of such articles should at least make the effort to find out what they're really writing about), Disney World is in Florida and Disney Land is in California. So beyond my frustration with the confusion of that is the lack of actual information. Ok, a family was barred from traveling. Until we know why, their race, religion, sexual orientation, even the spot they're planning to travel to is irrelevant. I don't care if it was Muslims, Christians, or any of 1000 other religions that they follow. Unless there was credible reason to believe they posed a threat they should have been allowed to travel. If there was credible reason to believe they posed a threat they should have been barred like they were. The problem here is we know they were barred and nothing else. So what's the point of the article? To stir up controversy? Get us some facts to consider before posting this kind of rubbish.
Also, not sure why the UK Government would care why the US is restricting travel to the US. I think every countries government has the right to decide what it considers a threat and deny entry. I'm not saying that I agree that this was a threat, but if there is good reason then they shouldn't care. I also wouldn't think it a big deal for the US government if the UK barred me from traveling there (although I'd love to visit one day, so I hope they don't).

Are you seriously trying to blame the currency/protocol for exploitation and theft as though to imply that fiat currency is somehow immune to those things? People who have had bitcoin stolen have done so by leaving themselves vulnerable through things such as poor anti-virus, poor password practices, and general ignorance of scams. This is not a flaw in bitcoin (either the currency or the protocol), it's a lack of education for the end user. This is almost identical to putting a hundred dollar bill (fiat currency) on your front porch while you're at work and wondering what happened to it when you come home.
  I concede that bitcoin has it's downside, but exploitation and theft is something any and every currency form will always be subject to, if your using that as your anti-bitcoin basis, then your point is rather moot.

I also use and recommend the WD TV Live. I use it in conjunction with a rooted Seagate Go flex home 3 tb NAS. I run transmission on the NAS and use is Web interface to snag torrents of movies and shows. I can then turn my computer off and still be downloading and watching movies. I have 3 of the WD units and they all stream from the NAS simultaneously without skipping a beat.

Do I need a license to go drone hunting? or is it just open season? because that sounds like fun! Also, I believe shooting drones stays well within PETAs goals as I wouldn't be shooting animals :)

Actually, I don't need to speak to "HAMs that have actually attempted to participate in such activities within the last decade." As I am one. I'm not sure what bad experience you've seen with what sounds to have been a poorly organized net. However, it does not describe the entire community and it definitely doesn't apply to all situations. I don't think I've ever heard an actual "radio check" on a live emergency net either. Net Control tends to get very annoyed about low priority traffic like that.

Perhaps you're speaking only of a specific area or a specific group of HAMs, but I don't believe your comments apply everywhere.

Clearly in this situation, All Police/Fire/EMS/Dispatch personnel could have used Cell Phones to fill the void, but they didn't. There's a string of failures here, not just one system failing. My suggestion wasn't to replace their coms completely with HAMs, rather to use them in an organized NET to handle the lower priority calls, due to the concern over high volume on the state radio system.

I think people underestimate the degree to which people will volunteer and assist public services when called upon. You can criticize HAMs/Red Cross/etc... all you want for their failures, I'll judge them on their successes when few others are stepping up at all.

I live in Florida, and when weather gets bad it can destroy critical communications equipment (including redundant systems). One thing I've seen done in the past is pushing communications through Amateur radio operators. Who (unlike the name would have you believe) are EXTREMELY professional and they tend to be able to very rapidly deploy communications equipment from the inner cities all the way out to the rural areas. Some of their equipment is capable of city and state coverage, but some of them can also establish international communication on a moments notice. This would have been a good fail-over for the lower priority calls. Just my 2 cents... http://www.arrl.org/ares has some info on the group I'm referencing.

If I was a multi-billionaire... I'd probably want to play "Sim City Island Paradise - Ultra Realistic Edition" too...

They're just now suing someone? I've been skipping commercials for almost a decade now with MythTV... surprised it took this long.

No problem, just wanted to throw it in as an idea... I can say I've personally set up Digital Signage software as a method of mass deploying music to 100's of locations (hotel chain). It worked great, was fairly simple to maintain. But it can absolutely be it's own animal. Any way, I wish you the best of luck on the project, sorry I couldn't offer a solution that matched your needs exactly.

So... can you build a 5 story building? sure... have you personally done it by yourself? doubtful.... Having first hand knowledge of something, and knowing it can be done are not the same thing.. you're a complete idiot if you believe that you need to have done something to know it can be done. Like I said, stop trolling and offer some useful input.

Troll much?

First off, I've never done this with FOSS... That being said, I'm 100% certain it can be done..

You need to accept a couple of things when planning to do this with FOSS:
    Remote management can be done, but will require someone who understands the way you set it up
    You will probably be custom scripting when your playlists start (cron?)
    Updates will require manual playlist modification (goes back to understanding how you set it up)

For an amusement park, I think this is a bad idea... Not sure how big of an IT/Tech savvy staff this location has, but while they're looking to save a few dollars today, are they considering business continuity if you leave or if something happens to this custom system? are they planning to have regular backups done? are they planning for future expansion? etc...

My personal advice would be to avoid broadcast software (Way overpriced for this).... What would be more reasonable is digital signage software... it's designed to do this with audio and video, but you don't have to use the video portions (of course, consider that a future expansion option)... If you want to stick with linux based, I know ParkMedia has a decent setup... If you're willing to consider other (windows) options check into CoolSign.... Those are just 2 that I've used for similar setups, but there are tons of options in that field, that do what you want to do, with easy user interfaces for changing/moving stuff around, and the ability to remote manage them... Also they tend to work in a client server setup, so you back up the server regularly and if a client machine fails you just replace it.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.