@55(Orchestra Spy):

I am no android (yet), but I approve of you comparing me to one!

Together we stand, Xeni.

Please, Please let this be the catalyst for the adoption of net neutrality in Canada, as well as either the removal of heuristical rate shaping, or at least clear, well defined and transparent heuristics so that we can know with specificity what will happen to our packets as they transit these ISPs.

Jake0748, I'll see if anything's up on our end that may be causing your issue.

Thanks.

Best wishes to the three of you. :)

Cpt.America, part of the problem is our impending "update", which was hinted at on Friday. It has left a few systems in limbo, the "forgot password" functionality being one of them.

Noen, Feel free to let us if you run into any specific "burps" you'd like us to have a look at. I'd be happy to do so.

BoingBoing's SysAdmin here:

Apologies for the loss of Flying Squid's initial post. This was not an act of malicious deletion, but a fluke in how our antispam filtering works. When Teresa disemvoweled comment #1, the spamfilter decided that the post was, indeed, spam, and hid it from view.

I've since fixed the spam score and it is now back where it should be.

But its genuine purpose is revealed by this product picture: to give defenseless butterflies debilitating nightmares.

Thanks, Joel - I have to clean off my monitor now. ;)

While I debate the autoland comment above (airliners.net has a good debunking of this, Cat III autolands are performed regularly and don't cause anything like a bone jarring thud), I will say that after being obsessed of late with too much airline investigation media (both documentaries and reading the actual reports), there's no question that the main reason pilots are still in planes is to deal with adverse situations.

If you notice, the a380 has no "steering wheel" - it's Fly-By-Wire (FBW), and the AirBus makes use of what's known as "envelope protection" to always keep the plane in a situation where it is unlikely to stall or otherwise be put in danger - in normal situations.

Pilot training really comes into play when you're looking at adverse weather, or runway conditions, or, any sort of failure onboard the plane itself. These people train for hundreds and hundreds of hours to be able to react quickly and correctly to these kinds of situations. You'd much rather have a person in the cockpit trained to make split-second judgement calls in an emergency situation, rather than hope that the plane's software took your particular scenario into account.

planes aren't designed to be foolproof any more than cars are. They're designed to be controlled by individuals who know what they're doing and won't subject the vehicle to unusual situations without understanding the impact of doing so. However, given the impact of a plane crash compared to a car crash, relative speeds, and the fact that you're in the air, there are a lot more tools to help pilots than the average car driver. :)

Seriously.

Let's assume for the moment that some event transpires that removes all credibility from "deniers" that global warming is occurring, and that it will have significant impact on civilization (due to climate patterns, sea level, etc).

This is independent of whether or not it's "manmade". Let's further postulate that the majority of scientists believe we can *do something* about it.

Do you really think the economy would collapse as the world changes directions? You don't think that there would be an *explosion* of new development, high-skill manufacturing, and industry refit, all creating jobs, as the world wakes up to this new reality?

I don't know about you, but if *I* lived in New York in that new reality, and came to the realization that yes, large swaths of Manhattan could be underwater soon, I'd be willing to support green initiatives, green power, etc.

Up here in Toronto, I've changed over to Bullfrog Power, a company that provides carbon-free power (from wind and low-impact hydroelectric). Does it cost more? Some. Would this be mitigated by economies of scale if projects like theirs exploded in popularity? Probably.

I was shocked to find out how many materials are easier to recycle and reuse, than remanufacture from raw materials - the problem, again, is scale - if this was a global effort, the amount of energy and funds required to think "cradle to cradle" would eventually be less than the old "cradle to grave" thinking method.

The economy didn't collapse when the Western world shifted to making weapons of war and rationing during the world wars. But it *did* collapse when people/corporations/governments were unprepared for the change brought on by the end of those wars. I postulate that the same could be said of the global economy in this case - preparedness will result in *more* economic activity, not less, and getting caught with our collective economic pants down *is* a very possible result if the change isn't made in time.

Absolutely Awesome, sir. :)