I'm a XP x64 user, and I'll say one thing - XP x64 seems to have been a testbed for the Vista x64 driver model. Even the least friendly company on my hardware list (Logitech) has released an updated QuickCam driver for Vista, which I've been able to successfully install on XP x64.
Canon get good marks in my book - their current printers are all x64 out of the box, and the scanner drivers have been updated within the last month.
not really - my instructor suggested something really obvious which I'd recommend to you here. If the hazard is on your left (parked cars and so on - I'm a brit), look over your left shoulder as the poster above suggested. If its on the right, wind your window down (the glass gives you bad refraction) and look over your right shoulder at what you're trying to avoid hitting.
Given the (baited) reception they recieved, it was a fair conclusion - they were asking for trouble, and nearly got it delivered in the form of easily ingestible lead capsules.
When I did a similar trip in the other direction, I didn't get anything in the way of trouble - but I was driving a bog-standard SUV unadorned by interesting slogans (I won't spoil it for those that haven't seen the episode yet)
The sub-£1000 car challenges in previous episodes were equally as good, but for different reasons - Clarksons Maserati blowing up on the way to a lap-dancing club, with the top tip that followed (yes, you can buy an italian 2 seater for less than £1000, but you don't want to).
I think the idea here is to take his own money (or borrowed, doesn't really matter) and buy US cent coins with it, then sell them for the metal content.
If you did it with £5, you could make £20 profit (in theory, at least) - £5 => $10 => 1000c. Sell the metal in 1000c for $50, convert back to GBP and you've got £25. It doesn't take account of commission on the exchange, but it would be potentially quite lucrative if it were legal.
Heres a far scarier thought for you - I've got a dell poweredge server under my desk for development, which has a keylock to stop the case being opened. The key for that looks almost exactly the same, with the exception that the dell key has a pointed end.
A better approach might be to follow the example of the motorways in the UK - they have overhead signs with a matrix to display a road sign (perhaps an altered speed limit) along with a reason for the altered limit. An example might be that it says "50 (surrounded by flashing amber lights) Queuing Traffic Ahead". These are usually a couple of miles apart, so they won't catch everything.
Around busier interchanges, there is an overhead gantry with a smaller matrix per lane, which allows police to advise traffic of closed lanes ahead and lower speed limits. These systems are usually a lot closer together, probably at 1/2 mile intervals.
It would probably be a better bet than the in-car systems, and would still allow people to drive their "classic" rustbuckets on the upgraded roads. It however requires driver intervention, which is why newer deployments are backed by speed cameras in places.
I refer you to Question C on the right hand page of form I-94W (for foreigners entering the US) on http://www.immihelp.com/visas/i-94w.html: "Are you now, or have you ever been, involved in espionage or sabotage; involved in terrorist activities; involved in genocide; or between 1933 and 1945, were you involved, in any way, to persecutions associated with Nazi Germany and its allies?" (Tick Yes or No)
You should (if you don't already) doubt the sanity of the DoJ, because thats their form for the allies of the US entering on holiday under the visa waiver scheme. I'd guess that you'd be asked the question by a person if you had to get a visa.
Its probably related to all the layers of government over there - my understanding is that on an election day (which are annual?) Federal, State, County and possibly City level votes are held on various issues. It was bad over here when we had Council (pick 5 from these 8) and European Parliament (pick 1 from 6 or so) elections on the same day with the postal ballots, so having to do 2 government elections plus a number of local resolutions must be what makes it difficult.
Perhaps thats why they aren't offering it free. The free services (certainly Skys, and probably Oranges as well) are capped down to what I thought were ridiculous levels, but now seem to be roughly half the standard in the paid market. Meanwhile, Telewest say up front that there are no limits of any sort on what you transfer.
I wouldn't be suprised to see the return of the old scheme from NTL where you get a not-so-broadband connection for a trivial amount (probably now free with phone or TV) which is limited to 128k in both directions. They are however trying to catch people with the 3 (basic DTV/Phone+free weekend calls/2Mbit BB) for £30 offer at the moment, which may be the reason why they're not going down the free route yet.
I'd have to say that they do produce power over a certain RPM range in relation to petrol, its just that with double the compression ratio and no sparkplugs, it tends to be quite a limited range. While the Honda type-Rs rev to 8500 and 9000 RPM to achieve their power, a typical diesels power peaks at 3000-4000 rpm.
Comparing on capacity, diesel engines tend to pump out a lot more torque which is why their main occupation state-side is in pickups and trucks rather than cars. Older ones do have a tendancy to sound like someone is shaking a bag of bolts on cold mornings as well, but modern ones have this one licked due to improvements in the manufacturing process.
They're an acquired taste, but you can't really argue with being able to travel 200 miles on £15 worth of fuel (which is about 4 imperial gallons, for those counting at home) ~= 35-38 in US MPG.
Looking at the current plans, I think the idea is only to licence one super-casino at all. Granted, there are almost certainly a lot of smaller ones (especially where rich people hang out) which presumably will have their restrictions relaxed at the same time (it used to be that you had to be a member, which required a 24 hour wait)
My ipod mini is behaving like the above windows/linux users under Tiger as well. Granted, its done some very peculiar things over the last month or so, so it may be the hardware at fault for me.
I get the matching warnings for an unexpected device removal if I move wrong (laptop) and the firewire plug pulls out, but this didn't use to happen. Before, it seems like the ipod was unmounted immediately after syncing everything, which may be the solution - the resident app on windows (and presumably mac itunes) checks to see if its (still) plugged in on subsequent updates, at which point it updates the tree view. If it is plugged in, it knows where it is to remount it later when you ask it to sync.
The problem with the linux tools is that this doesn't happen - iTunes puts these extra processes in place when it installs.
I think NBC has already had a go at YouTube (through the proper channel, rather than resorting to Court first) and had some elements of their own programming removed from the site. On the other hand, I believe they're also planning to release content of their own through the site.
England itself uses the more euro-centric dd/mm/yyyy format, for what thats worth. The only country I've heard use mm/dd/yyyy has been the US, although my experience certainly isn't comprehensive on the matter.
I think MM/DD/YY comes from the English way of speaking dates, which would be August 2nd, 2006 (although 2nd of August, 2006 is an equally common longhand form).
Oh, and another peeve here - it's not 6, its 06 or 2006. The year/6 was 2000 years ago, well before even the 8086 processors were released. Maybe in 6000 years, we can celebrate that anniversary. Even the Motorola 68000s seem a long way away on that scheme, never mind the Intel 80286.
now, their formation we can discuss the legality of, same with the legality of the existence of the UN in the first place...
What makes you think the UN and Israel are illegal?
The UNO (United Nations Organisation) was created by International Treaty (specifically The UN Charter, signed by 50 nations and ratified by 26 of those) in 1945. I'd say that was pretty legal and above board, and most other nations that have joined since that date are also signatories to the charter. Given that only a handful of nations are not members of the organisation, any binding resolutions by its members are essentially the voice of all the nations of the world.
Given that basis, Israel is an entirely legal entity, as it was created by UN resolution, and was recognised by both the USA and USSR shortly afterwards. Granted, it annoyed the hell out of the Arab nations around the area, but that just sets the scene for what follows to this day.
Woodcrest Xeons are the chips being talked about - the Xeon 5100 series, which has been released in the last couple of weeks (and suprisingly seems to have been overlooked by everyone drooling over Conroe).
One point about people talking who are in the car with you - they can see what you see too, and if they're a driver also, they tend to shut up if something looks like it might happen.
I'm not a person for having the radio on, but I don't have it at the same volume as a conversation when it is on (usually because theres a conversation going on over the top of it).
The main point about phones is that its a conversation with someone not able to see what you see, right in your ear, which you need to pay attention to (or they wouldn't have called you - its not rude to ask if something is important because you're currently busy trying to navigate some daft junction). This is where the key distraction comes from with phones, and the dulling of the reactions due to split attention manifests itself similarly to alcohols general dulling effect.
I don't think (IANAL, mind) that it works that way - what'll probably happen is that SCO gets sent into the US version of administration (Chapter 11 or 7?), where the administrators of the company sell as much of the assets to the highest bidder to raise the funds required to pay IBMs damages.
Given that it'll probably be higher damages than SCO can possibly pay, the result would be liquidation of the entire company.
Granted, it would be nice that IBM ends up with the copyrights and such for old UNIX given their current position of niceness towards the FOSS community, but I think it would be unlikely that it would happen that way. The assets are likely to be sold by auction, and there are other entities that would love to get out of their own UNIX contracts as well as IBM.
Well, I'm a brit and I'll tell you what I think of the *current* state of play. Within the last 6 months (exactly when, I'm not sure) the "Last mile" from local exchanges to premises has been moved from BT into a subsiduary (OpenReach) under a similar scheme to the one proposed a little further up the thread.
The plan is that OpenReach provide all the technical elements of the phone and DSL systems put in place by BT, and are responsible for fault-finding and such like. They also own the exchanges, and are supposed (possibly required) to let other last-mile providers (LLU operators, such as Cable and Wireless) install their equipment in there as well to foster competition.
In addition to this, you also have a single cable provider (used to be two, but they merged) trying their damnest to shake the tree from the outside, and the mobile telecoms companies trying to shake it from the inside, and as a result, the prices are falling significantly.
Within the last month, two providers have actually stated that you can get broadband internet (through DSL) for free, provided you pay enough for other services with the same company.
So, as it currently stands, the state-sponsored telecom provider (which has been privately owned for at least a decade) is just another dog in the yard. A big one, due to their previous position, but being fed less than before to become leaner. They're also probably going to struggle, as they don't have any influences in either mobile telephony or television provision (BSkyB, or News International have bought an LLU provider, and the cable firm has its own infrastructure).
As food for thought, it is currently possible to get 8Mb/s (with unknown upstream or usage limits) for between £100 and £200 per year (US$180-360). http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ is showing 12 different providers (mostly LLU) willing to offer that service at that price.
I'd go one step further, in that I wanted to take my mac to an exhibition that I was helping to set up for not too long ago, and found that the 12" iBook will fit comfortably in the paper pocket (inside) of a laptop bag when a dell laptop resides in the main body of the bag.
I don't think you can get much closer to portable for electronics than that.
Wasn't the major advantage of VHS over Betamax that you could record a full movie from TV onto VHS (using a 2hr tape) while Betamax could only manage 90 minutes?
The adverts in TV probably killed Betamax more than the porn revolution everyone else here talks about.
As a Brit (and therefore ignorant to some of the intricacies of US law), wouldn't Rico offences be under the criminal jurisdiction of the feds?
If that were the case, they'd have to match the US govt for funds until it changed to a more business-friendly administration (like with US DOJ vs Microsoft) - I'm assuming only a Democrat administration would bother bringing such a case in the first place, naturally.
Reading Wikipedias take on the RICO act was an interesting diversion, however - it would increase the scope of any damages brought under a civil suit (to triple the previous amount), but would require that the original organisation committed two offences from a list of 35 within a 10 year period. It applies to people rather than the organisation itself, so Jail time is a possibility (20 years, on top of the sentences of the other two offences)
It may be worth looking out for "Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Williams" currently before the supremes (again, wikipedia sourced) on which types of corporation can have RICO actions brought against them.
A bit of a long rant, designed to get the hopes up amongst you guys across the pond.
Which is why the peering agreements exist - the concept being that V-S traffic @ V-S rate is close to equal to S-V traffic @ S-V rate.
Privately between V and S, the payment balances out to an accounting issue rather than a cash transaction.
In the ideal world I've just outlined, everyone gets paid the correct amounts over time - Google pays Verizon, Verizon pays Sprint, Sprint pays AOL. On the request path, you've paid AOL, who pay Sprint, who pay Verizon. All the middle men get enough of a cut from the payment for them to carry on playing the game.
I don't understand (nor will I ever, I suspect) why the people in the middle want to get more of a cut of the cashflow, without actually doing any extra work. All the parties connected to their networks directly are being charged a (presumably reasonable) fee for doing so, and their connections to other parties cost them a (again, presumably reasonable) fee to stay established.
As a person who has suffered this proceedure, I think I can shed some insight.
As the people above have suggested, its not about keeping their eye on Americans (of the North sort, not the United States sort), but keeping their eye on Foreigners in general.
When I flew in from London last summer, my flight was routed to go through a "Port of Entry" which is a location where they have installed the US-Visit fingerprint scanners and such. Lucky me, I got to go to Detroit as my first port of call into the US on my way down to Florida. On the transatlantic flight, they gave out a form which was different for where you started out - the guy next to me was a US citizen, so he got a blue form while I got a green one.
In between arriving at Detroit and hooking up with the connecting flight south, there is a security bank where you need to collect your luggage from the inbound carrier, cart it across to another more sensitive luggage and body scanner (which picked up coins in my pocket that weren't noticed at Gatwick), check that on to your new flight, then go see the guy in the pseudo-military DHS uniform to make sure that you're not trying to overthrow the country. They then take your mugshot and index fingerprints on the scanner, part of the form you filled in on the plane inbound, and then over to the gates for the next stage of the trip.
What is supposed to happen on the way out is that you return through the same process to make sure you leave in line with the form, and they use a standalone fingerprint scanner to make sure you're the you that checked in. Flight delays put paid to that, so I was sent on a direct flight out instead of the hop back to Detroit.
I believe this privilege is reserved for countries that have an agreement with the US on such things, so the previous Visa system is still an option for entry if you pick a suitable source and destination airport.
The DHS website has a list downloadable that shows which airports are ports of entry, so it might be worth checking if you have a trip to the US planned. I'd say most inbound flights from the UK are routed through entry ports, as my return trip has been organised to go through Atlanta this year.
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I'm a XP x64 user, and I'll say one thing - XP x64 seems to have been a testbed for the Vista x64 driver model. Even the least friendly company on my hardware list (Logitech) has released an updated QuickCam driver for Vista, which I've been able to successfully install on XP x64.
Canon get good marks in my book - their current printers are all x64 out of the box, and the scanner drivers have been updated within the last month.
not really - my instructor suggested something really obvious which I'd recommend to you here. If the hazard is on your left (parked cars and so on - I'm a brit), look over your left shoulder as the poster above suggested. If its on the right, wind your window down (the glass gives you bad refraction) and look over your right shoulder at what you're trying to avoid hitting.
Given the (baited) reception they recieved, it was a fair conclusion - they were asking for trouble, and nearly got it delivered in the form of easily ingestible lead capsules.
When I did a similar trip in the other direction, I didn't get anything in the way of trouble - but I was driving a bog-standard SUV unadorned by interesting slogans (I won't spoil it for those that haven't seen the episode yet)
The sub-£1000 car challenges in previous episodes were equally as good, but for different reasons - Clarksons Maserati blowing up on the way to a lap-dancing club, with the top tip that followed (yes, you can buy an italian 2 seater for less than £1000, but you don't want to).
I think the idea here is to take his own money (or borrowed, doesn't really matter) and buy US cent coins with it, then sell them for the metal content.
If you did it with £5, you could make £20 profit (in theory, at least) - £5 => $10 => 1000c. Sell the metal in 1000c for $50, convert back to GBP and you've got £25. It doesn't take account of commission on the exchange, but it would be potentially quite lucrative if it were legal.
Heres a far scarier thought for you - I've got a dell poweredge server under my desk for development, which has a keylock to stop the case being opened. The key for that looks almost exactly the same, with the exception that the dell key has a pointed end.
A better approach might be to follow the example of the motorways in the UK - they have overhead signs with a matrix to display a road sign (perhaps an altered speed limit) along with a reason for the altered limit. An example might be that it says "50 (surrounded by flashing amber lights) Queuing Traffic Ahead". These are usually a couple of miles apart, so they won't catch everything.
Around busier interchanges, there is an overhead gantry with a smaller matrix per lane, which allows police to advise traffic of closed lanes ahead and lower speed limits. These systems are usually a lot closer together, probably at 1/2 mile intervals.
It would probably be a better bet than the in-car systems, and would still allow people to drive their "classic" rustbuckets on the upgraded roads. It however requires driver intervention, which is why newer deployments are backed by speed cameras in places.
I refer you to Question C on the right hand page of form I-94W (for foreigners entering the US) on http://www.immihelp.com/visas/i-94w.html: "Are you now, or have you ever been, involved in espionage or sabotage; involved in terrorist activities; involved in genocide; or between 1933 and 1945, were you involved, in any way, to persecutions associated with Nazi Germany and its allies?" (Tick Yes or No)
You should (if you don't already) doubt the sanity of the DoJ, because thats their form for the allies of the US entering on holiday under the visa waiver scheme. I'd guess that you'd be asked the question by a person if you had to get a visa.
Its probably related to all the layers of government over there - my understanding is that on an election day (which are annual?) Federal, State, County and possibly City level votes are held on various issues. It was bad over here when we had Council (pick 5 from these 8) and European Parliament (pick 1 from 6 or so) elections on the same day with the postal ballots, so having to do 2 government elections plus a number of local resolutions must be what makes it difficult.
I heard the same thing, but I thought it was about the Afghanistan elections held post-taliban (same problem - low literacy)
Perhaps thats why they aren't offering it free. The free services (certainly Skys, and probably Oranges as well) are capped down to what I thought were ridiculous levels, but now seem to be roughly half the standard in the paid market. Meanwhile, Telewest say up front that there are no limits of any sort on what you transfer.
2 which is fairly clear on the subject.
I wouldn't be suprised to see the return of the old scheme from NTL where you get a not-so-broadband connection for a trivial amount (probably now free with phone or TV) which is limited to 128k in both directions. They are however trying to catch people with the 3 (basic DTV/Phone+free weekend calls/2Mbit BB) for £30 offer at the moment, which may be the reason why they're not going down the free route yet.
I got the usage limit info from http://www.telewest.co.uk/websales/service.do?id=
I'd have to say that they do produce power over a certain RPM range in relation to petrol, its just that with double the compression ratio and no sparkplugs, it tends to be quite a limited range. While the Honda type-Rs rev to 8500 and 9000 RPM to achieve their power, a typical diesels power peaks at 3000-4000 rpm.
Comparing on capacity, diesel engines tend to pump out a lot more torque which is why their main occupation state-side is in pickups and trucks rather than cars. Older ones do have a tendancy to sound like someone is shaking a bag of bolts on cold mornings as well, but modern ones have this one licked due to improvements in the manufacturing process.
They're an acquired taste, but you can't really argue with being able to travel 200 miles on £15 worth of fuel (which is about 4 imperial gallons, for those counting at home) ~= 35-38 in US MPG.
Looking at the current plans, I think the idea is only to licence one super-casino at all. Granted, there are almost certainly a lot of smaller ones (especially where rich people hang out) which presumably will have their restrictions relaxed at the same time (it used to be that you had to be a member, which required a 24 hour wait)
My ipod mini is behaving like the above windows/linux users under Tiger as well. Granted, its done some very peculiar things over the last month or so, so it may be the hardware at fault for me.
I get the matching warnings for an unexpected device removal if I move wrong (laptop) and the firewire plug pulls out, but this didn't use to happen. Before, it seems like the ipod was unmounted immediately after syncing everything, which may be the solution - the resident app on windows (and presumably mac itunes) checks to see if its (still) plugged in on subsequent updates, at which point it updates the tree view. If it is plugged in, it knows where it is to remount it later when you ask it to sync.
The problem with the linux tools is that this doesn't happen - iTunes puts these extra processes in place when it installs.
I think NBC has already had a go at YouTube (through the proper channel, rather than resorting to Court first) and had some elements of their own programming removed from the site. On the other hand, I believe they're also planning to release content of their own through the site.
England itself uses the more euro-centric dd/mm/yyyy format, for what thats worth. The only country I've heard use mm/dd/yyyy has been the US, although my experience certainly isn't comprehensive on the matter.
/6 was 2000 years ago, well before even the 8086 processors were released. Maybe in 6000 years, we can celebrate that anniversary. Even the Motorola 68000s seem a long way away on that scheme, never mind the Intel 80286.
I think MM/DD/YY comes from the English way of speaking dates, which would be August 2nd, 2006 (although 2nd of August, 2006 is an equally common longhand form).
Oh, and another peeve here - it's not 6, its 06 or 2006. The year
Woodcrest Xeons are the chips being talked about - the Xeon 5100 series, which has been released in the last couple of weeks (and suprisingly seems to have been overlooked by everyone drooling over Conroe).
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=2793 has an Anandtech benchmark/review of this chip, which might give you an insight into their speculation.
One point about people talking who are in the car with you - they can see what you see too, and if they're a driver also, they tend to shut up if something looks like it might happen.
I'm not a person for having the radio on, but I don't have it at the same volume as a conversation when it is on (usually because theres a conversation going on over the top of it).
The main point about phones is that its a conversation with someone not able to see what you see, right in your ear, which you need to pay attention to (or they wouldn't have called you - its not rude to ask if something is important because you're currently busy trying to navigate some daft junction). This is where the key distraction comes from with phones, and the dulling of the reactions due to split attention manifests itself similarly to alcohols general dulling effect.
I don't think (IANAL, mind) that it works that way - what'll probably happen is that SCO gets sent into the US version of administration (Chapter 11 or 7?), where the administrators of the company sell as much of the assets to the highest bidder to raise the funds required to pay IBMs damages.
Given that it'll probably be higher damages than SCO can possibly pay, the result would be liquidation of the entire company.
Granted, it would be nice that IBM ends up with the copyrights and such for old UNIX given their current position of niceness towards the FOSS community, but I think it would be unlikely that it would happen that way. The assets are likely to be sold by auction, and there are other entities that would love to get out of their own UNIX contracts as well as IBM.
Well, I'm a brit and I'll tell you what I think of the *current* state of play. Within the last 6 months (exactly when, I'm not sure) the "Last mile" from local exchanges to premises has been moved from BT into a subsiduary (OpenReach) under a similar scheme to the one proposed a little further up the thread.
The plan is that OpenReach provide all the technical elements of the phone and DSL systems put in place by BT, and are responsible for fault-finding and such like. They also own the exchanges, and are supposed (possibly required) to let other last-mile providers (LLU operators, such as Cable and Wireless) install their equipment in there as well to foster competition.
In addition to this, you also have a single cable provider (used to be two, but they merged) trying their damnest to shake the tree from the outside, and the mobile telecoms companies trying to shake it from the inside, and as a result, the prices are falling significantly.
Within the last month, two providers have actually stated that you can get broadband internet (through DSL) for free, provided you pay enough for other services with the same company.
So, as it currently stands, the state-sponsored telecom provider (which has been privately owned for at least a decade) is just another dog in the yard. A big one, due to their previous position, but being fed less than before to become leaner. They're also probably going to struggle, as they don't have any influences in either mobile telephony or television provision (BSkyB, or News International have bought an LLU provider, and the cable firm has its own infrastructure).
As food for thought, it is currently possible to get 8Mb/s (with unknown upstream or usage limits) for between £100 and £200 per year (US$180-360). http://www.adslguide.org.uk/ is showing 12 different providers (mostly LLU) willing to offer that service at that price.
I'd go one step further, in that I wanted to take my mac to an exhibition that I was helping to set up for not too long ago, and found that the 12" iBook will fit comfortably in the paper pocket (inside) of a laptop bag when a dell laptop resides in the main body of the bag.
I don't think you can get much closer to portable for electronics than that.
Wasn't the major advantage of VHS over Betamax that you could record a full movie from TV onto VHS (using a 2hr tape) while Betamax could only manage 90 minutes?
The adverts in TV probably killed Betamax more than the porn revolution everyone else here talks about.
As a Brit (and therefore ignorant to some of the intricacies of US law), wouldn't Rico offences be under the criminal jurisdiction of the feds?
If that were the case, they'd have to match the US govt for funds until it changed to a more business-friendly administration (like with US DOJ vs Microsoft) - I'm assuming only a Democrat administration would bother bringing such a case in the first place, naturally.
Reading Wikipedias take on the RICO act was an interesting diversion, however - it would increase the scope of any damages brought under a civil suit (to triple the previous amount), but would require that the original organisation committed two offences from a list of 35 within a 10 year period. It applies to people rather than the organisation itself, so Jail time is a possibility (20 years, on top of the sentences of the other two offences)
It may be worth looking out for "Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Williams" currently before the supremes (again, wikipedia sourced) on which types of corporation can have RICO actions brought against them.
A bit of a long rant, designed to get the hopes up amongst you guys across the pond.
Which is why the peering agreements exist - the concept being that V-S traffic @ V-S rate is close to equal to S-V traffic @ S-V rate.
Privately between V and S, the payment balances out to an accounting issue rather than a cash transaction.
In the ideal world I've just outlined, everyone gets paid the correct amounts over time - Google pays Verizon, Verizon pays Sprint, Sprint pays AOL. On the request path, you've paid AOL, who pay Sprint, who pay Verizon. All the middle men get enough of a cut from the payment for them to carry on playing the game.
I don't understand (nor will I ever, I suspect) why the people in the middle want to get more of a cut of the cashflow, without actually doing any extra work. All the parties connected to their networks directly are being charged a (presumably reasonable) fee for doing so, and their connections to other parties cost them a (again, presumably reasonable) fee to stay established.
As a person who has suffered this proceedure, I think I can shed some insight.
As the people above have suggested, its not about keeping their eye on Americans (of the North sort, not the United States sort), but keeping their eye on Foreigners in general.
When I flew in from London last summer, my flight was routed to go through a "Port of Entry" which is a location where they have installed the US-Visit fingerprint scanners and such. Lucky me, I got to go to Detroit as my first port of call into the US on my way down to Florida. On the transatlantic flight, they gave out a form which was different for where you started out - the guy next to me was a US citizen, so he got a blue form while I got a green one.
In between arriving at Detroit and hooking up with the connecting flight south, there is a security bank where you need to collect your luggage from the inbound carrier, cart it across to another more sensitive luggage and body scanner (which picked up coins in my pocket that weren't noticed at Gatwick), check that on to your new flight, then go see the guy in the pseudo-military DHS uniform to make sure that you're not trying to overthrow the country. They then take your mugshot and index fingerprints on the scanner, part of the form you filled in on the plane inbound, and then over to the gates for the next stage of the trip.
What is supposed to happen on the way out is that you return through the same process to make sure you leave in line with the form, and they use a standalone fingerprint scanner to make sure you're the you that checked in. Flight delays put paid to that, so I was sent on a direct flight out instead of the hop back to Detroit.
I believe this privilege is reserved for countries that have an agreement with the US on such things, so the previous Visa system is still an option for entry if you pick a suitable source and destination airport.
The DHS website has a list downloadable that shows which airports are ports of entry, so it might be worth checking if you have a trip to the US planned. I'd say most inbound flights from the UK are routed through entry ports, as my return trip has been organised to go through Atlanta this year.