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IANAL, but I agree with you that the notice is defective and that they shouldn't be under any obligation due to it (nor should they be obligated by any "invoice" Toyota sends).

Frankly, I would get a real lawyer to tell them off, but it couldn't hurt to refer them to the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdam.

ATI was opening up their drivers. The OSS drivers were working well, and Nvidia wasn't doing anything. Nvidia addressed their horrible Linux XRender support, and now this. I may just have to stick with Nvidia in the spring.

It is actually quite far from the truth.

You might want to read a blog post I wrote about why nVidia rocks when x.org does not. It's likely to give you more reasons to move over to nVidia over ATi.

The only thing nVidia is not doing, is making their enhancements opensource.

Well, she has a LiveJournal. But she hasn't posted in almost two and a half years. What's up with that?

George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series has just been given the "production order" by HBO which had optioned it awhile back. It's just for a pilot but if it does well, they may do a season a book, which would be great for such a huge series.

If you've read Wheel of Time, you should try Song of Ice and Fire. Different writing style, more developed and interesting characters. (I'm biased...I barely got through the first WoT book, but loved the SoIaF series).

quoting from http://gregdek.livejournal.com/38775.html which has some facts against the FUD and microsoft PR in this article:

I would like to point out a few facts. Facts, people. Verifiable facts, straight from the honchos at OLPC themselves.

1. Microsoft committed to purchase 10,000 machines in May, customized to run Windows. They're free to do whatever they want with those machines. For instance: if Microsoft wants to run a pilot of unspecified size in two towns, and turn that pilot into a huge PR event... they are perfectly free to do that.

2. The reason these 10,000 systems had to be customized? Simple: Windows can't even boot on open firmware. Can't even boot! Which means that the other 990,000 XO (or so) systems in the wild CANNOT EVEN RUN WINDOWS with the firmware installed on them.

3. OLPC builds XOs with Linux. OLPC will continue to build XOs with Linux. OLPC has no plans to change this. None.

You should read http://gregdek.livejournal.com/38775.html in full!

quoting from http://gregdek.livejournal.com/38775.html which has some facts against the FUD and microsoft PR in this article:

I would like to point out a few facts. Facts, people. Verifiable facts, straight from the honchos at OLPC themselves.

1. Microsoft committed to purchase 10,000 machines in May, customized to run Windows. They're free to do whatever they want with those machines. For instance: if Microsoft wants to run a pilot of unspecified size in two towns, and turn that pilot into a huge PR event... they are perfectly free to do that.

2. The reason these 10,000 systems had to be customized? Simple: Windows can't even boot on open firmware. Can't even boot! Which means that the other 990,000 XO (or so) systems in the wild CANNOT EVEN RUN WINDOWS with the firmware installed on them.

3. OLPC builds XOs with Linux. OLPC will continue to build XOs with Linux. OLPC has no plans to change this. None.

You should read http://gregdek.livejournal.com/38775.html in full!

You have to disable the drive's spindown settings. If you don't already have it on your system, you must install "sdparm". I have a Freeagent Go and had this problem until I ran it:

http://alienghic.livejournal.com/382903.html

sdparm --clear STANDBY -6 /dev/sde

Apparently this command will restart a stopped drive, but I've never tested it because I always leave it running when connected:

sdparm --command=start /dev/sde

I spent some time poking around in laptops.org to get more info, but that didn't lead to any collaboration. Anyone know where it might be documented?

I haven't tested collaboration myself, but here's what looks like documentation. And here's a link that describes how a Jabber server is used to enable collaboration without using the mesh. I believe that by pointing to a particular server anywhere on the net, you can collaborate with anyone else on that server. Here's a blog post showing how to point sugar at a jabber server. I think you can also configure a server within the recent sugar control panel versions.

OTOH, we were impressed by how much better the OLPCs used any nearby wifi access points than any of our "grownups'" computers.

Same here. My XO always sees more APs than my standard notebook, I think it's those cute "ears" which are the antennae. I don't think it's the firmware/software.

And on the third hand, I wish we could figure out how to use the OLPC's browser's bookmarks and history.

Among the improvements since the first G1G1, OLPC now includes Firefox 3 in the G1G1 activity set for Release 8.2, and it works pretty well. I don't use the non-FF browser anymore myself for the reasons you mention.

I lead WikiFur, which was recently lent hosting by a fan. I didn't want to hog the server, so I scoured the web for tips on reducing the impact of websites. There turned out to be a lot of improvements that could be made which significantly increased our performance while drastically cutting the load. The biggest difference is not in reduced bandwidth or increased maintainability but in the user experience. Simply put, people love being on a fast site. No site will reach its potential if you have to wait ten seconds for pages to load. If you can cut that to mere tenths of a second, you're more likely to have a winner on your hands.

Let me clarify before people jump down my throat... OpenVZ (www.openvz.org) is OS Virtualization (aka containers) and NOT machine / hardware virtualization... so it can only run Linux on Linux... but it has been able to do live migrations from one processor family to another since they initially added checkpointing. OpenVZ is fairly CPU agnostic and it has been ported to a number of CPU families. In fact the project leader recently ported it to ARM (Gumstix Overo). See: http://community.livejournal.com/openvz/24651.html

*seconding the "who brought up rape?" sentiment*

Surely you're not a Feminazi who calls *all* sex between a man and a woman rape? (Yes, they exist. See: http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html?thread=148382#t148382 )

As Monty said:

First off, MPEG2 video, MPEG4 video, VP3, VP5 and VP6 are all in the same codec family. They're all block-DCT codecs with motion-compensated inter-frame block prediction. Exactly how they lay the bits into the stream differs, but the foundation math is all the same. They all use the same battle strategy. In fact, if you generalize 'DCT' to 'transform', even Dirac and Snow are typical members of this video codec family. (Tarkin differed significantly and was not a technical success).

It is interactions with and between windows in X that is slow. E.g. without compositing, each windows framebuffer is not stored in memory. That means that when you unminimize a window it has to repaint itself. When you move a window so that a window beneath it becomes visible, that window has to repaint itself. So when you dragged a window on top of a firefox window showing gmail, that would cause huge rendering artifacts and slowdowns everywhere because the gmail gui is constructed using javascript which firefox had to reinterpret.

I am aware of these facts. Fortunately using a nVidia driver has it's benefits with the few annoyances that plague x.org.

O HAI! I UPGRADED UR PHYSICS

From here:

One day, Abdullah Jaffarov, the secretary of the Copyright Holders' Association reprimanded Nasreddin Hodja for downloading music recordings off file-sharing networks:
"This is unfair, Nasreddin. These musicians, they are working hard, and you're listening to them playing without paying. You know, they also need to pay their bills."
Nasreddin contemplated Jaffarov's argument for a while, then told him: "You are quite right, what I have been doing was unfair to all those musicians. How can I right my wrong?"
"Oh, that is no problem," responded Jaffarov. "you just pay the Copyright Holders' Association, and we shall distribute your payment to all the recording studios and they will pay the musicians."
Nasreddin Hodja immediately agreed to this proposal.

The next day, when Nasreddin Hodja went to the bazaar to buy some groceries, he asked his friend to record a video of him paying the vendor. "Why do you want me to record how you pay?" asked Nasreddin's friend.

"Oh, I must correct a horrible injustice," replied Nasreddin. "I shall send the recording to Mr. Abdullah Jaffarov, so that he can distribute it to all the studios he represents. See, it is only fair that if I can listen to the recordings of their musicians playing music, they can also watch the recording of me paying money."

A quick in-page skim and search does not appear to show anyone else having already said this:

It'd be interesting to see if Brad (yes, of LiveJournal fame) does something like this, given (1) what he's already done and (2) what he's mentioned he'd like to do.

He's already rolled his own automatic/wireless garage door opener;
Short overview with some detail in part 1: http://brad.livejournal.com/2394220.html
More details in part 2: http://brad.livejournal.com/2394707.html

Also in Part 1 you'll see that it was suggested that he put his multitude of in-home access points to use, and use it to let his Android determine where he is in his house, and wire up some other basic utilities to use this data.

If he gives every light switch an IP address, then the room can light up as soon as he goes to enter it.

That would be nothing short of amazing. He would never have to raise his arm to flick the switch ever again!

And when he wants to be social, he can just broadcast his EXACT position. It'll be like Britekite on Steroids! :P

A quick in-page skim and search does not appear to show anyone else having already said this:

It'd be interesting to see if Brad (yes, of LiveJournal fame) does something like this, given (1) what he's already done and (2) what he's mentioned he'd like to do.

He's already rolled his own automatic/wireless garage door opener;
Short overview with some detail in part 1: http://brad.livejournal.com/2394220.html
More details in part 2: http://brad.livejournal.com/2394707.html

Also in Part 1 you'll see that it was suggested that he put his multitude of in-home access points to use, and use it to let his Android determine where he is in his house, and wire up some other basic utilities to use this data.

If he gives every light switch an IP address, then the room can light up as soon as he goes to enter it.

That would be nothing short of amazing. He would never have to raise his arm to flick the switch ever again!

And when he wants to be social, he can just broadcast his EXACT position. It'll be like Britekite on Steroids! :P

Of course this came from livejournal, I don't know why I didn't assume that right off the bat: source

Does this plugin actually proxy your web browsing through a Chinese host? Or does it just randomly mess with your requests?

Kind of reminds me of apt-gentoo.

This plugin is based the SwitchProxy Tool plugin. Also, from the release notes:
- Find an awesome source for Chinese proxy servers, and keep the list updated.

Does this plugin actually proxy your web browsing through a Chinese host? Or does it just randomly mess with your requests?

Kind of reminds me of apt-gentoo.

Just a few days ago, I finally installed and ran an OpenSim server on my own box.

Given the absurdity of being effectively forbidden to make backups copies of the stuff in Second Life they claim I own the copyrights to (a deal breaker in my book), I'm pretty happy to finally see an actually open and complete virtual worlds platform (even if it is alpha).

It wouldn't surprise me if the burgeoning openness of these and other VW software projects is what is driving business to take a second look at it, as well.

Steve Milano is a tardbus.

Steve Milano is a tardbus.

Steve Milano is a tardbus.

This might be an opportunity for a European or US ISP (or university) to offer a Citrix (or VNC or other similar) connection where the processing is done at the ISP and (relatively) low bandwidth screenshots are all that are sent between the user and the ISP.

I sincerely doubt that's going to help. After all web pages are mainly text, which is going to be substantially smaller than any image, no matter how good your compression.

In a similar vein, though, there are HTTP proxies out there which do heavy lossy compression of images to speed-up internet access. Such options have been heavily advertised by AOL and Netzero for dial-up users in the US. Open source proxies exist to do this.

It could potentially do a lot better, too, if good implementations of "ordered dither" were available in graphics processing libraries and applications other than NetPBM (requiring multiple conversion steps). See: http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/35634.html for an idea of how much a proxy doing image re-compression with good-looking dither could save on bandwidth.

Ok, so fix that with better sources, that's how it's supposed to work. Nobody said it was perfect.

This is impossible when you have an organized "consensus" of people who coordinate their efforts to keep certain reliable sources that don't fit their particular bias out.

Well it's really easy to refute this since these types of things get fixed all the time.

Error: [Citation Needed]

Certainly one admin cannot proclaim a source isn't good enough and keep it out and you know that, but you're choosing to distort the situation. If one admin acts against the consensus then others can easily come in and reverse that admin.

But that's not the problem: the problem is when "consensus" is flawed and based on the same problems that were listed above, and "consensus" consists of an organized group of people (probably including an administrator) whose goal is to keep an article tilted in a particular fashion.

Not that that needs to happen much since there isn't much that admins can do to enforce certain content, but admins do reverse others regularly, so your point has no teeth to it.

Excuse me? Admins can quite easily, in sequence, (a) reverse an edit and (b) block or even ban whoever made the edit. Thanks to Wikipedia policy on "wheel warring", no sane admin who wants to stay an admin will ever actually reverse the action of another, meaning that abusive administrators can plop permanent blocks on people all day long and it'll be a cold day in hell before they get taken to task for it.

The history of Wikipedia's "administrators' noticeboard" is replete with people who have TRIED to report just this sort of behavior and were then further harassed and blocked and attacked for "personally attacking" the administrator by reporting their out-of-line actions. See also: Scarlet Letter Harassment.

Now a consensus of editors can decide that a source is not reliable and that's how it should work.

A "consensus" is a funny thing. You will get two different "Consensuses" if you start talking to people in a mortgage lender's office or a donut shop, in a political convention or an anime convention... further, "consensus" is defined by the people who are allowed into the discussion. The Wikipedians I've seen in action have been uniformly hostile and derogatory, reaching towards and often attaining the status of "abusive", towards any newcomers because once you get enough newcomers to a discussion you run the risk of "consensus" actually being changed.

"Consensus" (especially "consensus" defined by the Wikipedian model of organized edit-warring, abusive language, "I've got more admin friends than you do" fighting, and overlawyering of flawed and badly considered policy) is about the crappiest model for a repository of knowledge that I've ever seen.

If you're really finding so many situations where everyone else thinks your sources aren't reliable, then the problem becomes increasingly unlikely to be with everyone else.

Oh please. Plenty of noted academics find their works pooh-poohed by one side or the other of a debate because the "consensus" of a POV-filled group has decided the particular tilt of a page should go the other way.

The rest of your post is pretty amusing especially the claim of the user being an administrator. For one he wasn't, for another, what sudden authority would that give him that every other administrator you claim is destroying the shop isn't worthy of?

I don't know that the user was. I don't know that they weren't. I do know that everything I've read other than that claim is verifiable, that the sources match what is being said, that the situations and page histories match what is being said, and that you and your wikipedian buddies seem more interested in personally attacking anyone who would like to see wikipedia reformed and fixed than in actually reforming and fixing wikipedia's big problems.

I've read this blog. I know how wikipedia works.

Or rather... how it doesn't work at all.

The worst thing you could do is feed the Wikipedia brand of nonsense to kids as "educational" material. Might as well give them a set of unshielded wires and an electric socket and tell them to learn about electricity. And it's not just the situations this Parker Peters describes above: you people fuck up on a pretty regular basis.

Well? I'm not comfortable knowing an "encyclopedia" infested with this kind of behavior is being given to kids as "educational" and "correct" learning material. How do you justify it?

when many schools wont allow research to be done on wikipedia itself which has the authority of the sources itself to back it

Actually, Wikipedia has:
- Cherry-picked sources
- Quotations taken out of context
- Redundantly sourced crap (sources that turn out later to have themselves been sourced from... wikipedia).
- NO way to fix any of these if an administrator or "consensus" of kooks sets up shop on a particular page and decides to edit-war en masse and proclaim that real, authoritative sources counter to their POV are "not reliable."

I encourage you to see how wikipedia really works. Spend a few hours reading the blog of a former Wikipedia administrator who saw how it was from the inside out.

Here's a great start.

Go on. I dare you. Read about the REAL wikipedia. And then realize that this horribly written stuff is going to be fed to schoolkids as an example of "researched" material.

You scared yet? I certainly am.

when many schools wont allow research to be done on wikipedia itself which has the authority of the sources itself to back it

Actually, Wikipedia has:
- Cherry-picked sources
- Quotations taken out of context
- Redundantly sourced crap (sources that turn out later to have themselves been sourced from... wikipedia).
- NO way to fix any of these if an administrator or "consensus" of kooks sets up shop on a particular page and decides to edit-war en masse and proclaim that real, authoritative sources counter to their POV are "not reliable."

I encourage you to see how wikipedia really works. Spend a few hours reading the blog of a former Wikipedia administrator who saw how it was from the inside out.

Here's a great start.

Go on. I dare you. Read about the REAL wikipedia. And then realize that this horribly written stuff is going to be fed to schoolkids as an example of "researched" material.

You scared yet? I certainly am.

See more info on these scum & outcome of my suit against them @ my blog: http://saizai.livejournal.com/896354.html

(This includes full addresses, phone #s, a rundown of the relevant laws they're breaking [TCPA, TSR, CA CLRA], etc.)


Key info:
James C. "Jim" Sletner (info@safedatainc.com)
SafeData Management Services, Inc C2330112 (CA)
530 722 9099 (work)

Jim's lawyer: Jennifer Shaw
legalcompliance@cdwsnow.com / 800 209 3755 x197

They also have a Nevada front:
Consumer Direct Warranty Services aka AA Auto Warranty Services aka Manufacturer's Direct Warranty Services aka Warranty Administration Services, Inc. C306269
(702) 207-1001


In MY CASE (which may not be yours), the telemarketers were:
National Dealers Warranty Service
*** DIRECT LINE 949 309 3750 x0 ***

They also have 3751,3752, etc. I haven't mapped out the full set, but feel free to do so and email me if you do. I'll add the info to my post above.

If you call the direct line above, they will react EXACTLY as if their autodialer called you, because they can't tell the difference! Again, if you do this, email me your recordings. :-) (Hint: Skype + Audio Hijack Pro)


PLEASE NOTE: The caller ID that you are getting is FAKE. They spoof it. Whoever's it is in actuality, it's just some poor bastard who happened to have that number - don't bother the person. Go after the real ones.

What you can do:
1. Lie to them. Pretend like you're interested. Get three critical pieces of info: the COMPANY NAME, a DIRECT phone number (they first give you an 800 number, ask if you can have a direct line), and a MAILING ADDRESS where you can send a check. Remember, pretend you have an actual car that you want to warranty, and you're just really mistrustful of this whole newfangled interweb thing, so you'd rather send a check in by mail. (Worked for me!)

2. Call your phone service provider and demand the ANI and PBX records about the calls, saying that they spoofed Caller ID and violated the TCPA. (Look those all up on Wikipedia.) Your demand will probably have to come in the form of a subpoena, alas. (I'm sending one to AT&T as part of my suit.)

3. Using that info (most importantly, you need their actual business name and address), go sue them in your local small claims court for $2500-$7500.


If you really want, you can sue them in superior civil court for all that plus injunctions, damages, lawyer fees, etc etc etc - but it's more of a pain. Small claims court is pretty easy, at least in CA. Just look up your county court's website for info.

Have fun with them. :-)

TO EVERYONE WHO'S GOTTEN THESE CALLS:

The company behind it (i.e. actually selling the warranties - the telemarketers are all different!) is:
SafeData Management Services, Inc C2330112
James C. "Jim" Sletner (info@safedatainc.com)
530 722 9099 (work)
P.O. Box 992050 (WHOIS address)
Redding, CA 96099
2664 HARTNELL AVE (google)
REDDING, CA 96002
9434 DESCHUTES RD #204 (Secretary of State)
PALO CEDRO, CA 96073
530 243 4958 (home)
15676 OLD STAGE COACH RD
REDDING, CA 96001

Jim's lawyer: Jennifer Shaw, legal representative of Jim Sletner & his many front companies
legalcompliance@cdwsnow.com / 800 209 3755 x197

They also have a Nevada front:
Consumer Direct Warranty Services aka AA Auto Warranty Services
P.O. Box 60357 (http://www.aaautowarranty.com/contracts/DirectChoice.pdf)
Las Vegas, NV 89160-0357
4425 East Sahara Avenue (google)
Las Vegas, nv 89104-6356
(702) 207-1001
P.O. Box 993520 (http://www.aaautowarranty.com/DirectChoiceContract.asp)
Redding, CA 96099-3520
800 209 3755
aka Manufacturer's Direct Warranty Services C3060709
aka Warranty Administration Services, Inc. C306269
PO BOX 992050
REDDING, CA 96099-2050
TAMARA BERBENA
6973 YVONNE CT
REDDING, CA 9600

In MY CASE (which may not be yours), the telemarketers were:
National Dealers Warranty Service
BBB member, "D" rating (http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=100068709)
(888) 539-8555
(949) 533-9484 - voicemail: Charles Butler
(949) 309-3798 fax
Orange County fictious business name reg. # 20086155068
Jason Garcia, Owner
Charles Butler - MySpace Warranty2008
Kamisha Daniel - Global Service Partners, LLC 200818010160 / OCFBN 20086161409
Martinee aka Lashunn Jackson (same address as Kamisha Daniels: 117 Waverly Dr., Alhambra CA)
Mario Moreno
25910 Acero
Suite 200
Mission Viejo, CA 92691

PLEASE NOTE: The caller ID that you are getting is FAKE. They spoof it. Whoever's it is in actuality, it's just some poor bastard who happened to have that number - don't bother the person. Go after the real ones.

What you can do:
1. Lie to them. Pretend like you're interested. Get three critical pieces of info: the COMPANY NAME, a DIRECT phone number (they first give you an 800 number, ask if you can have a direct line), and a MAILING ADDRESS where you can send a check. Remember, pretend you have an actual car that you want to warranty, and you're just really mistrustful of this whole newfangled interweb thing, so you'd rather send a check in by mail.

2. Call your phone service provider and demand the ANI and PBX records about the calls, saying that they spoofed Caller ID and violated the TCPA. (Look those all up on Wikipedia.) You may need to make your demand in the form of a subpoena.

3. Using that info (most importantly, you need their actual business name and address), go sue them in your local small claims court for $2500-$7500.

If you really want, you can sue them in superior civil court for all that plus injunctions, damages, lawyer fees, etc etc etc - but it's more of a pain. Small claims court is pretty easy, at least in CA. Just look up your county court's website for info.

See more info on these scum, legal summary, & outcome of my suit against them @ my blog: http://saizai.livejournal.com/896354.html

"Truth, not verifiability."

How many times has something been "verified" on wikipedia... the "verification" coming from a "news story" somewhere... only to turn out that the news writer based his story (but didn't bother to list the source) on a preexisting wikipedia entry? I've lost count.

"Consensus" also runs into the same problems it always does when people with too much power try to control the "consensus".

I love this quote. It explains everything about what's wrong with Wikipedia:

"Why is this interesting? Because this is precisely the goal of the abusive administrators. They want, no, need, to drive away anyone new who disagrees with them, because if they did not, then ultimately they bear the risk of enough new users coming in to overturn their bogus "consensus" on the articles they control."

What's worse for Wikipedia is that even their best minds, the people who should have been welcomed and allowed to work and were essential to fixing the problems - in other words, those people who were NOT part of the "consensus" and were doing their best to work on fixing it - have constantly been abused and attacked and run off (or just banned) by people who have too much power, too many "ownership" issues over the encyclopedia, and too little sense to behave like human beings.

The blog I just linked to shows just a few of the people Wikipedia would have needed to NOT turn into a disaster, but it's too late now. They're all run off or permanently removed by stupid, insane policies that essentially amount to a carte-blanche for administrators and administrators' "friends" to be abusive.

"Truth, not verifiability."

How many times has something been "verified" on wikipedia... the "verification" coming from a "news story" somewhere... only to turn out that the news writer based his story (but didn't bother to list the source) on a preexisting wikipedia entry? I've lost count.

"Consensus" also runs into the same problems it always does when people with too much power try to control the "consensus".

I love this quote. It explains everything about what's wrong with Wikipedia:

"Why is this interesting? Because this is precisely the goal of the abusive administrators. They want, no, need, to drive away anyone new who disagrees with them, because if they did not, then ultimately they bear the risk of enough new users coming in to overturn their bogus "consensus" on the articles they control."

What's worse for Wikipedia is that even their best minds, the people who should have been welcomed and allowed to work and were essential to fixing the problems - in other words, those people who were NOT part of the "consensus" and were doing their best to work on fixing it - have constantly been abused and attacked and run off (or just banned) by people who have too much power, too many "ownership" issues over the encyclopedia, and too little sense to behave like human beings.

The blog I just linked to shows just a few of the people Wikipedia would have needed to NOT turn into a disaster, but it's too late now. They're all run off or permanently removed by stupid, insane policies that essentially amount to a carte-blanche for administrators and administrators' "friends" to be abusive.

I found out there were patches made to SDL that broke compatibility with many Linux games. It took weeks of "digging them out." to solve the problems.

For SDL: Did a packaging of the pristine upstream source have the same problems? Did you identify which specific patches which caused the problem?

Also, the sound stack for Linux seems overly complicated at the current time. There is some guidance here, but if you need to have a talk at the Linux Plumbers Conference that says, "Application developers, do not write directly to the hardware interface," you have already failed. Of course, there's some controversy about this guide because a bunch of OSS programmers can't accept any opinion of their API different from theirs.

Steve Milano is a tardbus.

Steve Milano is a tardbus!

Steve Milano is a tardbus

It's called LiveJournal - supports groups, semi-private (protected with group ACLs) entries, it's all good.

It gets zillions of rewrites if you don't use noatime. Hardware wear-leveling algorithms suck.

http://valhenson.livejournal.com/25228.html

Steve Milano.

Steve Milano.

steve milano

steve milano

It was just epic and funny to boot. Yes, it was for my kids game.

Read what Ulrich Drepper thinks of the LSB here: http://udrepper.livejournal.com/8511.html.

Dirac isn't the only royality-free, patent-unencumbered video codec there is - Xiph's OGG Theora has been around a while already, yet failed to impress quality-wise up until recently. There's some really cool development going on however, and you may see some of the results achieved over there: http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/35363.html

It's noteworthy that the changes made only affect the ENCODER, thus no changes to the DECODER (the part of a codec all applications used to play back files have included) are necessary. This bodes very well for HTML5, which will include some support for Theora on at least Mozilla (and iirc Opera) browsers.

Here's a Goatse Licence plate from Virginia (it's not a trap, this is not hello.jpg ;-)): http://kalephunk.livejournal.com/459479.html

Yes, the website does that. The book, not so much.

From a fandom perspective as well as for original creators. The clearest discussion of the ruling comes from a fellow fan.

Leap Seconds