It's an equatorial mount. The mount itself has a motor on it, but I need to refurbish the clutch on it because although the motor works, it doesn't actually move the telescope.

See pictures of the mount here: http://flic.kr/p/7WnB7h

"I cannot imagine it will be very long before Apple updates iOS to block it as it is a very real security risk."

Nope, not long at all:
http://www.macrumors.com/2010/08/11/apple-fixes-i...

The question I have is whether what you describe will happen before we have a repeat of Apple vs Microsoft and Android takes over the smartphone market.

120 days?!? Really?!? And once things get going, are they actually going to hold them to that 120 days or will the schedule slip as congress reduces the number of people going through the applications? What a stupid set of requirements!

Good luck. Verizon won't even offer to sell DSL here anymore (at least it didn't last time I checked. My previous house up near the South Square area couldn't get DSL because they kept saying I was too far from the CO. They kept promising to put in a new CO so it would be closer, but it never happened. I got so fed up with it I went with cable internet. At my current house near Parkwood, I believe I could have gotten DSL, but seriously, 3Mbps compared to 7Mbps is a huge difference. And, $29/month is only the entry rate for the first few months (even with DSL). I've never yet found a comparable long-term rate for DSL (same price, same speed).

However, that's not the worst thing. My friends at local ISPs have been universal in their hate of Verizon DSL. Apparently, the way they do it is just horrible (for the ISP, even). At least with cable it works (most of the time) without any hassle. I'd really love to have fiber to the home, though, like Wilson, NC has.

According to the senator from Missouri, the money put into the program, $1 billion dollars, was enough to fund 250,000 cars. That's a lot of new cars on the road!

Ha! That's funny. What was first? (It's first when I search.)

Yes, Frontier bought all the Verizon franchises in Durham.

It would make so much sense for Durham to lay fiber to everyone's house. There's so many things that could be done with it. Besides the obvious of phone, cable, and internet, they could do real-time water monitoring or real-time power monitoring (with an agreement with the power company) or things no one has even thought of yet.

Actually, disregard the white text on white background comment. It appears that the problem is with my Google Chrome browser.