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The political process was following this path even before the widespread availability of radio, though. Why is it that Americans, as a whole, have allowed the leaders to run roughshod over their Constitutionally drawn limitations on power? Why do the people acquiesce, against all wisdom, when an elected politician says,"Stay the course"?

With Border own site, it will be easier for customers to order books and pick them up at a Borders store (and save shipping).

Yep, this is actually why I always use Borders' online site when looking for music or a book. I live in Washington so I don't actually order much from Amazon anymore due to the tax + shipping. Instead, I can just reserve something from Borders online and go pick it up 5 minutes from my house and avoid the shipping. It's nice.

They still do. bordersstores.com

I always found Borders other website far nicer to use and order from.

...And only IF they allow VPN traffic to go through.

Permit me to expand on this. While several libraries, bookstore/coffee places, and even a few hotels have installed WAPs for the benefit of their patrons, and said WAPs work perfectly well for generic web surfing, I've yet to find a single one that allows VPN traffic to pass through.

This makes no sense whatsoever to me. What good is a wireless LAN connection if you can't use it to attach to your home or office LAN via secure tunnel?

When queried about the outright blocking of VPN traffic, the folks at the library gave some nebulous excuse about "security issues" that prevented them from offering the feature, but that they expected to have it available "within a year or so." Considering that, at least for PPTP, all one has to do is open a bidirectional path for port 1723 on the firewall, this excuse seems weak at best.

As for Borders, finding anyone who even knows anything about the WAP beyond "Yes, it's available, how much time would you like to purchase?" is hopeless.

With that in mind: I would be VERY interested in hearing from anyone who happens to take advantage of this feature on a Lufthansa flight AND is able to link to their home LAN via a VPN tunnel through it.

I would also be interested in hearing from those who have tried using VPN through other public WAPs in their area, and what kind of success (or failure) you've had.

Keep the peace(es).

Uhm... Isn't the DCMRA already taking a stand on this front?

Rather coincidentally, just the other day, at the Borders Cafe (oh yeah, I can rhyme!), I found and read an article about the DMCRA in the current issue of 2600 magazine. The article took the opinion that the DMCRA put Fair Use back into the equation and stated that it specifically makes exemptions for the cases of scientific research and other legitimate uses.

The article went on, with minimal explanation, to state that the DMCRA reestablishes the Betamax standard with regard to the digital world. Being unfamiliar the Betamax or any related standard, myself, has anyone else an explanation just what that means?

Locus Magazine Best Novels of 2001
Barnes and Noble Best SF of 2001
January Magazine Best of 2001 (go down to the bottom for SF)
Borders Best SF of 2001
Amazon Best Science Fiction of 2001
Amazon Best Fantasy of 2001
Some guy's Best SF of 2001 list
An Amazon Listmania Best SF of 2001 list

It's a tiny sample, but it looks like these are clear favorites:

1. The Wooden Sea, Jonathan Carroll
2. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
3. American Gods, Neil Gaiman

And all these do well, showing up on several lists and/or ranking high where they're mentioned:

Cosmonaut Keep, Ken MacLeod
Nekropolis, Maureen McHugh
The Chronoliths, Robert Charles Wilson
Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds

Personally, I haven't read enough 2001 novels to make a decent list.