Regarding the idiot who refused to put it in neutral: I think a lot of people don't realize that NEUTRAL isn't the same as PARK. Which, again, is a case of user idiocy. (I'm not saying everyone needs to know every mechanical element of their car, but they SHOULD at least learn what each gear setting actually does if they intend to ever drive a vehicle.)

But I remember reading a comment from Steve Wozniak regarding sudden acceleration, and how he was able to reproduce the problem repeatedly.

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1430048&cid=29973870

You can achieve the same security as with NAT with IPv6, setting your router properly. You can have your LAN set with global routable addresses but unreacheable from outside, and letting LAN clients to reach outside as if you were using NAT.

This is so simple, and I see no trouble nor needing to write lots of paragraphs inventing a problem.

Solution with ip6tables (for example), on the router:

(eth0 is lan leg, eth1 internet leg)

  *filter
  :INPUT DROP [1716:169212]
  -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
  -A INPUT -p icmpv6 –icmpv6-type echo-request -j ACCEPT
  :FORWARD DROP [3096:2128308]
  -A FORWARD -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
  -A FORWARD -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
  -A FORWARD -p icmpv6 –icmpv6-type echo-request -j ACCEPT
  :OUTPUT ACCEPT [1712:169536]
  COMMIT

** the icmp echo request are the only that can reach inside your LAN for testing purpose. You can safely remove that lines to avoid this.

On wifi life is good, but on 3G keeping a data connection open for - SIP (for calls) - Skype (IM/calls) - gtalk - facebook (XMPP)

is wearing on the battery in a 3G area

I'm looking around as to which protocol is most efficient to decide which I can "afford" to keep on in 3G. Ideally that would be at least one. gtalk looks like an interesting option, but I prefer the "open standards" aspect of XMPP.

Of course my apple fan colleagues just tell me about apples' "push" service. of course in part that's down to lack of multitasking, but it's also very relevant in terms of power consumption.

One feature I'd like to see, I want to subscribe someones details. One can deside what the other is allowd to see an if the phonenumber changes, it syncs to my addressbook.

This could even grow to a distributed social network without the privacypains of facebook