I use my smart phone as a tool: In the same pocket which used to contain just a phone, I now have a decent camera (which is fine for documenting things on a jobsite), a bubble level (which is calibrated), a metal stud finder (which really does work fine), an eye-burning flashlight, a tool for measuring arbitrary distances outdoors, a calculator, a frequency generator, a spectrum analyzer, an automated DTMF generator, a satellite finder, a compass, an antenna aimer, a way to carry a huge amount of documentation around with me, a network analysis tool, a barcode scanner, and a few other things that I use on a regular basis.
I don't know what other people do with their "smart phones," but the more I try to use mine, the more useful it becomes.
Yep, that might be the final resting place for some of this hardware if I get the upgrade itch and feel like building an HTPC. Or I might trade my wife's machine up a hair -- her dual-core AMD machine is a bit (not hugely) slower than the Q6600.
It's just weird that perfectly quick hardware needs tossed just to upgrade the RAM cheaply. (I knew I should'a bought 16GB of DDR2 when it was still cheap...)
It's something I've not personally experienced since the days of EDO.
Of course I realize the design age of the Q6600: I bought the machine myself, kid.
You do realize that things have been slowing down markedly in terms of usefulness over the past decade or so, don't you? A Q6600, despite being half a decade old, still does the job for damn near everything I do -- and performs in realtime for the stuff I ask of it. I don't need a faster CPU.
When the Q6600 begins to be dissatisfying in my gaming and creative uses, I'll consider it to be slow. It hasn't let me down, yet, though.
Notwithstanding, I'll consider DDR2 RAM for it to be rather expensive, and a complete hardware swap+DDR3 to be a possible path to upgrade for RAM (which really was my main point).
And back in context: Despite my system being adequately fast, I'm reluctant to upgrade anything major because it will likely involve a new Windows install, and I've got a lot of hacks that I consider useful on my installation which I'm not looking forward to re-doing. A simple "RAM upgrade" to support Firefox's growing wants is, therefore, either not so simple or expensive.
And I've got mouths to feed. I can't afford to throw out and replace random systems just because they appear old to some random fuckwad on Slashdot with a six-digit UID.
Because we can't guarantee that a particular make and model of PC hardware . Microsoft got in trouble when using commodity PC parts from Intel and NVIDIA in the original Xbox because it was hard to convince the suppliers to lower their unit prices over time even as processes shrank.
Isn't that the eventuality that Steambox 1.1 is supposed to cover?
Round heavy things were rolled by themselves long before non-round heavy things were rolled along atop of other round heavy things.
Which happened first: Someone rolling a log around by itself, or someone moving an object atop a series of rolling logs? (Obviously, the former.)
I submit that the "wheel", as we understand it today, arrived alongside the development of the axle. Both of them together make a fine system for transporting things, but either by itself is very lacking unless it is the wheel itself that is the object to be transported.
We have a small family sedan, and a work van (which is generally full of tools and bolted-in Weathergard accessories).
So when we need to move something big (we're in the middle of a never-ending remodel), we just either hire it done or rent something. Even the local home centers have pickup trucks for rent, which while "pricey" at $20 for 75 minutes, are awfully convenient.
If there's more stuff than that to move, a remarkably small stack of 20's and a trip to U-Haul will get any of several sizes of box truck for about 24 hours of local use.
Hell, when we drove to from Ohio to Florida and back recently, we looked at rental prices just as a curiosity when we got back: I don't want to own a Chevy Aveo because they're no fun to drive, but renting one would've been just a couple of hundred bucks for a week's use, with unlimited mileage...and fuel savings from the relatively modern and efficient Chevy would've paid for a lot of its rental. Factoring wear and tear and risk on our own car, we're renting something next time we head down there. It's cheaper.
Yep. It's fast coming to the point where it'll be cheaper to upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and RAM all at once than to get any decent amount of RAM for this (not so old, IMHO) Q6600 box.
I've never tried push-starting my E36, per se, but I've purposefully stalled the engine while in motion, coasted a bit, selected an appropriate gear, let the clutch out, and it sprung back to life.
I mean: There's nothing at all stable about a car that has the starter motor turning the engine over...
I drive a 17 year old BMW. It no longer looks new. I bought it inexpensively a half-dozen years ago.
It has a dizzying array of buttons and functions.
I don't generally use them for anything, though the digital voltmeter function is handy for diagnosing electrical problems.
The heater controls have the correct amount of automatic-ness. All I have to do is pick a fan speed using the big knob on the left (clockwise==more, counterclockwise==less, culminating in off), and the direction of airflow using the big knob on the right (12 o'clock==defrost). Temperature is controlled thermostatically and doesn't need fucked with once set.
The windows are electric, and the controls are next to the gearshift, which is way better than having either a crank or a switch on the door. Push gently to raise or lower the window, push harder (just once) to raise or lower it all the way.
On a nice summer day, it goes like this: Unlock car, get in, start car, push the four window buttons one time to let the breeze in, engage a gear and go. Simple.
I hope to keep driving my simple old BMW for many more years.
Incidentally, people who don't know about computer architecture wouldn't be aware about overflows, so wouldn't know to check these conditions. Something about semi-educated programmers and their ability to debug code?
I grok this discussion as an exchange between a user who is experiencing a real problem and needs help with it but is unable to find useful answers, and a programmer who is patiently trying to explain to the user that they are somehow asking the wrong questions, while insinuating that the user should divine the knowledge to reformulate the question to meet the programmer's artificial specifications.
I submit that no solution to this problem will ever avail itself, given these incompatible mindsets.
And I fault neither of you.
Which really is OK: The problem exists, and will continue to exist. It is the nature of the beast for all manner of systems -- not just computers. TFA is about resolving the issue.
So give up, kids. You'll never fix this on your own, because you don't think the same way. It's alright.
As a consumer, I want current weather info on my TV (so I can sit back and watch what's coming). I also want it to work more easily than moving to a different room, engaging my smartphone, or firing up a laptop.
From my perspective network-connected TVs fail at this, and both posters are each correct and non-contradictory.
You fail at your language analysis. Previous posters are non-contradictory.
Meanwhile, I'm startled that even half of networked TVs are even once actually connected to the Internet. Such sets are bought by four different classes of consumer:
1. Folks who want a better TV and aren't afraid to spend more for it, and the "better" TV happens to come with connectivity that they don't currently care about. (Whether the TV is actually better or not is irrelevant to the way that common people actually buy TVs.)
2. Folks who buy the networked TV over a non-networked TV because they both want and understand that sort of thing.
3. Folks who buy such a TV because it has superior video performance to some other model that doesn't include such connectivity, and who don't care about the connectivity because they know they'll never use it: This user's TV will never see anything more than a singular HDMI video input from an ancillary device, and the user will never even hear how horrible its speakers might be, because their TV is just the display component of a greater entertainment system.
4. Folks who think they want their TV connected to the Internet, and then ultimately neglect or fail at doing so because it turns out to be unimportant to them or too difficult (respectively).
I'm quite probably very naive on this subject, but:
Compressing LNG (as with most other gases) is a very exothermic operation. The "waste" heat can be used to pre-heat water, or in extreme cases used to boil water directly for steam distribution -- which has been and continues to be a useful means of moving energy from A to B for a century or more.
So an LNG distributor need only sell the heat energy to someone nearby who can use it. Easy-peasy, and been done since forever. (plain old capitalism takes care of the rest.)
With this efficiency in the compression stage, the problem remains of keeping the LNG at "cryogenic" temperatures (whatever that really means in this context) might be reasonably accomplished by fueling the transport vehicle(s) with LNG and thereby using evaporative cooling to keep the tanks cold. If that's insufficient to keep the liquid cool, (and it seems likely to inadequate in terms of thermal loss), perhaps a mobile flare tower might be in order.
At least, mobile flare towers would be awesome: Watching flaming tankers roll down the highway for the sake of total efficiency is something I would love to partake of.:)
But much more practically, the compressed LNG can be efficiently burned to drive a compressor that in turn (with some R134A or propane or even natural gas in a secondary loop) keep the product as cold as is needed. Phase-change refrigeration is universally old-hat, and is plainly more than adequate at keeping the transported batch appropriately cold.
Meanwhile: As long as we use unadulterated propane as a propellent in all manner of household aerosol things, I guess I don't care how efficient the LNG system is.
So, I ask (probably naively): What's your issue with LNG, again?
I used to use Gentoo on a mail server just because Portage was a rapidly-updated system at the time and it let me keep the small handful of world-facing software that it used updated easily and quickly
But without care and feeding, it falls down on its face after a few years of piecemeal updates. It eventually became easier to migrate to a whole different system than to perform all of the myriad of weird, seemingly unrelated system updates that break -everything- if they're not installed in the right order. This seemed to happen about every 3 years, which I guess isn't too bad...but it's a pain in the ass requiring a new set of hardware to move over to (or a lot of very careful moves) and some downtime.
A modern system with VMs would perhaps make it simpler, but involves its own complications that just don't seem to be worth the extra effort for a box that only really does one thing.
Last time it switched, it went to Ubuntu LTS. My experience with Ubuntu LTS says it's close to the same: Some of the packages I needed (for a headless mail server!) weren't available in the server edition, but were available in the desktop version. So, the server runs "desktop" Ubuntu LTS, which is scheduled to be a goner after 3 years...which is the same timeframe as Gentoo, in practice.
(Cue someone from the peanut gallery calling me a moron for Not Doing It Right somehow, but admin'ing the mail server was just a side responsibility amongst the other non-computer work I was doing, it was a -very- small company, and I had wonderful availability on my server.)
Sometimes, I want the simplicity I used to enjoy from Slackware: Want something new and shiny? Download the source from Sunsite, compile it, and install it. The configure script usually sorted the details automatically (yay GNU!), and the rest of the system didn't care (yay libtool!). (But it's not 1996 anymore, and dependency trees can be huge for even the simplest of things...)
[Anti-package-management rant deleted for brevity.]
There's cameras recording the students actions inside, but a simple $100 system can look behind the bus.
Or just install a rear-facing camera at the same time as the rest of the in-bus video, plug it into the same DVR box as the other cameras, and add a monitor that is powered on by the reverse lights.
As a bonus, video will automatically be taken of cars that pass school stopped buses.
It's not the gear that is expensive, really, but just the person-time it takes to install it all and make it work.
Apparently, then, it is insane: I've really never heard of such a thing.
Around these parts (in my little corner of Ohio), people pay for attorneys with either cash or (in extreme cases of dire need and/or pronounced attractiveness) sexual favors.
And while I'm fond of telling people "You can insure anything, if you can afford it," nobody I've ever talked to has ever mentioned something similar to Rechtschutzversicherung.
Except you.
(I'm half-tempted to start a company to sell such coverage to others. It just makes sense.)
As an off-and-on FreeBSD user since prior to version 3, I must say that the whole tree has been full of new and interesting things that actually for well over a decade...and that Linux still reigns as king of the "free" *NIX crowd.
I cut my teeth on *nix in the mid-90s using the FreeBSD shell machines at the former io.com (while I myself had a modem and Telemate under MS-DOS), and while I was a customer of theirs they slowly started introducing Linux shells but their Linux boxen were never as stable or featureful as the FreeBSD machines. (And, yes: The admins were both very competent and open about all things, both good and bad.)
That FreeBSD 9 includes some new function-or-other that works well isn't news. FreeBSD has always been ahead of the curve in a lot of ways that matter on a server box (and often, on a user machine). It has always had a lot of irons-in-the-fire that make it seem like the Next Big Thing than any other OS. This is par for the course for FreeBSD.
But somehow, it has also always failed to gain any real traction. Dunno why. Perhaps it is just so, because it has always been so. But the devs keep pressing on, pushing out an awesome codebases with unwavering regularity, and it continues to thrive despite it its popularity disadvantage.
So while it's consistently been an awesome system, I'm not holding my breath while I wait for it to achieve world domination.
I'm reminded of the time when I outfitted my computer room with incredibly cheap X10 kit, all built around the Firecracker damn-near-giveaway system that was on repeatedly posted on/. over a decade ago.
One day I was sitting there doing nothing in particular, and I heard a voice, crackled and distorted and really very loud, over my stereo system. And then the lights started flashing on and off in seemingly random patterns.
I thought I was hearing the voice of God, but then I heard a big Diesel truck rumble by, and knew that is was not God trying to prove his existence but just some asshole with a linear who had wondered far enough away from the highway that he needed directions.
Oh yes, I do assume that the poster has an insurance covering his legal fees. If not: Why the fuck not? It's the common man's equivalent of the corporate legal department. I've probably paid more for my insurance over the years than they paid in lawyers fees, but I am glad I have it exactly because it allows me to call for a lawyer when I need one.
I am intrigued by your concept of "insurance against random legal SNAFU," and would like you subscribe to your newsletter.
Slashdot Mirror
I use my smart phone as a tool: In the same pocket which used to contain just a phone, I now have a decent camera (which is fine for documenting things on a jobsite), a bubble level (which is calibrated), a metal stud finder (which really does work fine), an eye-burning flashlight, a tool for measuring arbitrary distances outdoors, a calculator, a frequency generator, a spectrum analyzer, an automated DTMF generator, a satellite finder, a compass, an antenna aimer, a way to carry a huge amount of documentation around with me, a network analysis tool, a barcode scanner, and a few other things that I use on a regular basis.
I don't know what other people do with their "smart phones," but the more I try to use mine, the more useful it becomes.
Yep, that might be the final resting place for some of this hardware if I get the upgrade itch and feel like building an HTPC. Or I might trade my wife's machine up a hair -- her dual-core AMD machine is a bit (not hugely) slower than the Q6600.
It's just weird that perfectly quick hardware needs tossed just to upgrade the RAM cheaply. (I knew I should'a bought 16GB of DDR2 when it was still cheap...)
It's something I've not personally experienced since the days of EDO.
And all I said was that you're wrong.
*shrug*
Of course I realize the design age of the Q6600: I bought the machine myself, kid.
You do realize that things have been slowing down markedly in terms of usefulness over the past decade or so, don't you? A Q6600, despite being half a decade old, still does the job for damn near everything I do -- and performs in realtime for the stuff I ask of it. I don't need a faster CPU.
When the Q6600 begins to be dissatisfying in my gaming and creative uses, I'll consider it to be slow. It hasn't let me down, yet, though.
Notwithstanding, I'll consider DDR2 RAM for it to be rather expensive, and a complete hardware swap+DDR3 to be a possible path to upgrade for RAM (which really was my main point).
And back in context: Despite my system being adequately fast, I'm reluctant to upgrade anything major because it will likely involve a new Windows install, and I've got a lot of hacks that I consider useful on my installation which I'm not looking forward to re-doing. A simple "RAM upgrade" to support Firefox's growing wants is, therefore, either not so simple or expensive.
And I've got mouths to feed. I can't afford to throw out and replace random systems just because they appear old to some random fuckwad on Slashdot with a six-digit UID.
Or, you know, skip those other steps and just drop it in a Faraday bag.
I own one. It works remarkably well. It cost less than $3, shipped, from China to the US.
Every officer should have one.
Isn't that the eventuality that Steambox 1.1 is supposed to cover?
Is that a system problem, or a software problem?
Round heavy things were rolled by themselves long before non-round heavy things were rolled along atop of other round heavy things.
Which happened first: Someone rolling a log around by itself, or someone moving an object atop a series of rolling logs? (Obviously, the former.)
I submit that the "wheel", as we understand it today, arrived alongside the development of the axle. Both of them together make a fine system for transporting things, but either by itself is very lacking unless it is the wheel itself that is the object to be transported.
We have a small family sedan, and a work van (which is generally full of tools and bolted-in Weathergard accessories).
So when we need to move something big (we're in the middle of a never-ending remodel), we just either hire it done or rent something. Even the local home centers have pickup trucks for rent, which while "pricey" at $20 for 75 minutes, are awfully convenient.
If there's more stuff than that to move, a remarkably small stack of 20's and a trip to U-Haul will get any of several sizes of box truck for about 24 hours of local use.
Hell, when we drove to from Ohio to Florida and back recently, we looked at rental prices just as a curiosity when we got back: I don't want to own a Chevy Aveo because they're no fun to drive, but renting one would've been just a couple of hundred bucks for a week's use, with unlimited mileage...and fuel savings from the relatively modern and efficient Chevy would've paid for a lot of its rental. Factoring wear and tear and risk on our own car, we're renting something next time we head down there. It's cheaper.
Yep. It's fast coming to the point where it'll be cheaper to upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and RAM all at once than to get any decent amount of RAM for this (not so old, IMHO) Q6600 box.
Times are strange.
Are you sure you can't push start your car?
I've never tried push-starting my E36, per se, but I've purposefully stalled the engine while in motion, coasted a bit, selected an appropriate gear, let the clutch out, and it sprung back to life.
I mean: There's nothing at all stable about a car that has the starter motor turning the engine over...
I drive a 17 year old BMW. It no longer looks new. I bought it inexpensively a half-dozen years ago.
It has a dizzying array of buttons and functions.
I don't generally use them for anything, though the digital voltmeter function is handy for diagnosing electrical problems.
The heater controls have the correct amount of automatic-ness. All I have to do is pick a fan speed using the big knob on the left (clockwise==more, counterclockwise==less, culminating in off), and the direction of airflow using the big knob on the right (12 o'clock==defrost). Temperature is controlled thermostatically and doesn't need fucked with once set.
The windows are electric, and the controls are next to the gearshift, which is way better than having either a crank or a switch on the door. Push gently to raise or lower the window, push harder (just once) to raise or lower it all the way.
On a nice summer day, it goes like this: Unlock car, get in, start car, push the four window buttons one time to let the breeze in, engage a gear and go. Simple.
I hope to keep driving my simple old BMW for many more years.
I grok this discussion as an exchange between a user who is experiencing a real problem and needs help with it but is unable to find useful answers, and a programmer who is patiently trying to explain to the user that they are somehow asking the wrong questions, while insinuating that the user should divine the knowledge to reformulate the question to meet the programmer's artificial specifications.
I submit that no solution to this problem will ever avail itself, given these incompatible mindsets.
And I fault neither of you.
Which really is OK: The problem exists, and will continue to exist. It is the nature of the beast for all manner of systems -- not just computers. TFA is about resolving the issue.
So give up, kids. You'll never fix this on your own, because you don't think the same way. It's alright.
As a consumer, I want current weather info on my TV (so I can sit back and watch what's coming). I also want it to work more easily than moving to a different room, engaging my smartphone, or firing up a laptop.
From my perspective network-connected TVs fail at this, and both posters are each correct and non-contradictory.
You fail at your language analysis. Previous posters are non-contradictory.
Meanwhile, I'm startled that even half of networked TVs are even once actually connected to the Internet. Such sets are bought by four different classes of consumer:
1. Folks who want a better TV and aren't afraid to spend more for it, and the "better" TV happens to come with connectivity that they don't currently care about. (Whether the TV is actually better or not is irrelevant to the way that common people actually buy TVs.)
2. Folks who buy the networked TV over a non-networked TV because they both want and understand that sort of thing.
3. Folks who buy such a TV because it has superior video performance to some other model that doesn't include such connectivity, and who don't care about the connectivity because they know they'll never use it: This user's TV will never see anything more than a singular HDMI video input from an ancillary device, and the user will never even hear how horrible its speakers might be, because their TV is just the display component of a greater entertainment system.
4. Folks who think they want their TV connected to the Internet, and then ultimately neglect or fail at doing so because it turns out to be unimportant to them or too difficult (respectively).
Yep.
See also: Haas effect.
I'm quite probably very naive on this subject, but:
Compressing LNG (as with most other gases) is a very exothermic operation. The "waste" heat can be used to pre-heat water, or in extreme cases used to boil water directly for steam distribution -- which has been and continues to be a useful means of moving energy from A to B for a century or more.
So an LNG distributor need only sell the heat energy to someone nearby who can use it. Easy-peasy, and been done since forever. (plain old capitalism takes care of the rest.)
With this efficiency in the compression stage, the problem remains of keeping the LNG at "cryogenic" temperatures (whatever that really means in this context) might be reasonably accomplished by fueling the transport vehicle(s) with LNG and thereby using evaporative cooling to keep the tanks cold. If that's insufficient to keep the liquid cool, (and it seems likely to inadequate in terms of thermal loss), perhaps a mobile flare tower might be in order.
At least, mobile flare towers would be awesome: Watching flaming tankers roll down the highway for the sake of total efficiency is something I would love to partake of. :)
But much more practically, the compressed LNG can be efficiently burned to drive a compressor that in turn (with some R134A or propane or even natural gas in a secondary loop) keep the product as cold as is needed. Phase-change refrigeration is universally old-hat, and is plainly more than adequate at keeping the transported batch appropriately cold.
Meanwhile: As long as we use unadulterated propane as a propellent in all manner of household aerosol things, I guess I don't care how efficient the LNG system is.
So, I ask (probably naively): What's your issue with LNG, again?
I used to use Gentoo on a mail server just because Portage was a rapidly-updated system at the time and it let me keep the small handful of world-facing software that it used updated easily and quickly
But without care and feeding, it falls down on its face after a few years of piecemeal updates. It eventually became easier to migrate to a whole different system than to perform all of the myriad of weird, seemingly unrelated system updates that break -everything- if they're not installed in the right order. This seemed to happen about every 3 years, which I guess isn't too bad...but it's a pain in the ass requiring a new set of hardware to move over to (or a lot of very careful moves) and some downtime.
A modern system with VMs would perhaps make it simpler, but involves its own complications that just don't seem to be worth the extra effort for a box that only really does one thing.
Last time it switched, it went to Ubuntu LTS. My experience with Ubuntu LTS says it's close to the same: Some of the packages I needed (for a headless mail server!) weren't available in the server edition, but were available in the desktop version. So, the server runs "desktop" Ubuntu LTS, which is scheduled to be a goner after 3 years...which is the same timeframe as Gentoo, in practice.
(Cue someone from the peanut gallery calling me a moron for Not Doing It Right somehow, but admin'ing the mail server was just a side responsibility amongst the other non-computer work I was doing, it was a -very- small company, and I had wonderful availability on my server.)
Sometimes, I want the simplicity I used to enjoy from Slackware: Want something new and shiny? Download the source from Sunsite, compile it, and install it. The configure script usually sorted the details automatically (yay GNU!), and the rest of the system didn't care (yay libtool!). (But it's not 1996 anymore, and dependency trees can be huge for even the simplest of things...)
[Anti-package-management rant deleted for brevity.]
You guys are strict.
I've been stopped for going 52Km/h over the limit in Ohio (87 in a 55), and just paid a fine and a new insurance premium.
IIRC, I was 21 at the time.
Or just install a rear-facing camera at the same time as the rest of the in-bus video, plug it into the same DVR box as the other cameras, and add a monitor that is powered on by the reverse lights.
As a bonus, video will automatically be taken of cars that pass school stopped buses.
It's not the gear that is expensive, really, but just the person-time it takes to install it all and make it work.
Yeah, there's a sharp, pointy knife inside of every silver cloud.
Thanks for pointing that out. (See also: Disneyworld, and Burning Man.)
But these are just wild birds.
Apparently, then, it is insane: I've really never heard of such a thing.
Around these parts (in my little corner of Ohio), people pay for attorneys with either cash or (in extreme cases of dire need and/or pronounced attractiveness) sexual favors.
And while I'm fond of telling people "You can insure anything, if you can afford it," nobody I've ever talked to has ever mentioned something similar to Rechtschutzversicherung.
Except you.
(I'm half-tempted to start a company to sell such coverage to others. It just makes sense.)
Everything you say is true, but: Compared to Gentoo, FreeBSD can be a joy to operate. :)
I never toyed with Redhat or its derivatives, due to an ephemeral dislike for RPM that has yet to fade.
As an off-and-on FreeBSD user since prior to version 3, I must say that the whole tree has been full of new and interesting things that actually for well over a decade...and that Linux still reigns as king of the "free" *NIX crowd.
I cut my teeth on *nix in the mid-90s using the FreeBSD shell machines at the former io.com (while I myself had a modem and Telemate under MS-DOS), and while I was a customer of theirs they slowly started introducing Linux shells but their Linux boxen were never as stable or featureful as the FreeBSD machines. (And, yes: The admins were both very competent and open about all things, both good and bad.)
That FreeBSD 9 includes some new function-or-other that works well isn't news. FreeBSD has always been ahead of the curve in a lot of ways that matter on a server box (and often, on a user machine). It has always had a lot of irons-in-the-fire that make it seem like the Next Big Thing than any other OS. This is par for the course for FreeBSD.
But somehow, it has also always failed to gain any real traction. Dunno why. Perhaps it is just so, because it has always been so. But the devs keep pressing on, pushing out an awesome codebases with unwavering regularity, and it continues to thrive despite it its popularity disadvantage.
So while it's consistently been an awesome system, I'm not holding my breath while I wait for it to achieve world domination.
I'm reminded of the time when I outfitted my computer room with incredibly cheap X10 kit, all built around the Firecracker damn-near-giveaway system that was on repeatedly posted on /. over a decade ago.
One day I was sitting there doing nothing in particular, and I heard a voice, crackled and distorted and really very loud, over my stereo system. And then the lights started flashing on and off in seemingly random patterns.
I thought I was hearing the voice of God, but then I heard a big Diesel truck rumble by, and knew that is was not God trying to prove his existence but just some asshole with a linear who had wondered far enough away from the highway that he needed directions.
Fuck linears.
I am intrigued by your concept of "insurance against random legal SNAFU," and would like you subscribe to your newsletter.