I have been called worse.

I support the United States, the Constitution of the United States of America, our military.
I do not support the current President or his policies.
To do so would be to forswear all that my Dad, his brother, and dozens of my relatives and older friends fought for during World War II and Korea.

In my opinion the current President is a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States.
If I sound like a patriot, a supporter of the Tea Party movement, a small-"r" republican, and a small-"c" conservative, it's because I am.
To another comment above: I'm well aware that GWB is no longer in office. In my opinion he was no closer to being a conservative than is President Obama.

If the President, or any member of his Administration, does something I consider laudable, I will certainly offer approbation.
Otherwise he, his Administration, and everyone in the House and Senate is open to criticism when such is warranted.

Yes; they don't have a damned-near-traitorous coward as their chief executive.

No argument here.I plead non-inebriation as the cause of that post.

I know I'm getting old, but the last time I checked the American alphabet it contained 26 letters.

This appears to be a re-branded product marketed by Blue Line Innovations http://bluelineinnovations.com/. I purchased one of these about three years ago for about US $200.00. It works moderately well although the meter-reading device doesn't seem too happy with New England winters.

The unit can read meters with a spinning dial and meters with a digital display. Digital meters contain an optical port through which the device monitors the meter.

The model I have can't interface with a computer; the company might have models that will do so.

Another product I purchased is produced and marketed by BrulTech Research Inc. http://www.brultech.com/. The unit is the ECM-1220 and works quite well. The supplied software is written to run under Windows, although BrulTech are very helpful in providing sample software and code for anyone who might like to port the product to another operating system.

I had marvelous plans to write some GPL'd software for OS/X and Linux; as with many projects life got in the way.

As I recall, this unit and the supplied software (not the sample code) cost me about US $300.00.

The product uses current transformers. On my 200-amp 220 VAC panel I have two current transformers - one for each leg of the load to the house.

Monitoring each load is possible with enough current transformers and host units; the cost would be (for me) prohibitive.

I strongly prefer the BrulTech unit over the Blue Line product, although each is quite usable.

Now that you've stirred up the memories, I want to build another crystal radio :)

The Xtal Set Society: http://www.midnightscience.com/

I worked for Radio Shack about twenty of the thirty years from 1967 to 1997. (Finally got time-off for good behavior.)

Several times through the years we sold various types of 'whole-house antennas'; all were advertised to provide stunning VHF reception. A couple even advertised they'd work on UHF. The units typically were simple high-pass, LC-based (inductor / capacitor) filters.

The capacitors were in series with the AC line supply and would frequently short.

Older tube-based TVs weren't too badly affected. As the tuners moved to solid-state devices, the stores received about one claim every couple of months for TVs damaged or destroyed by failed 'whole-house antennas'.

.. people who take to the same issues that matter greatly to yourself (DRM, DMCA, kernel stability, PHP security, source compilations, etc). Its quite a treat to be able to sit down and have a beer with someone else who actually knows what a buffer-overflow is.

Man you have an interesting life...

We could change Sunny's comment to:

It's quite a treat to be able to sit down and have a beer with someone else who:

shares an interest in ham radio.
shares an interest in electronics.
shares an interest in photography.
shares an interest in beer.
shares an interest in music.
shares an interest in good theatre.

Personally, if I had the time (and a schedule to make it practical) to attend a LUG, I'd not want to discuss buffer overflows. Rather, I'd hope to discuss hardware, installation glitches, usability issues, new / useful software whether Open Source or commercial, among other things.

Any group, if the right mix of individuals is involved, can be an exciting, lively, and educational experience.

I've held membership in several groups (the long-defunct Boston Computer Society was one such) where the founders and leaders kept to themselves and basically left the dues-paying members on their own.

The desire of self-proclaimed 'leaders' to maintain a clique has led to the downfall of many otherwise good organizations.