http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html

The other problem is if you happen to find a farmer growing non-patented seed, if there is another farmer in the next field using patented seed there will be cross-pollination by the wind so the next season crop has the patent markings in it. Even grain falling off a truck on its way to the mill sprouts by the road and contaminates farmers fields. Monsanto has been suing farmers for using/selling patented seed that the farmers didn't even know their heirloom seed had been contaminated this way (how many farmers have the genetic equipment to look for what's in there?).

I have a bunch of Linux distros that I torrent continuously (debian, lubuntu, and ubuntu-studio at the moment). I don't code so I help out the Linux community as I can.

Will the ISP systems be smart enough to figure out what's being torrented or just dumb and track if your line shows any torrent participation at all 'you must be a pirate'?

I suspect they only look for the torrent header codes and cannot see inside so cue up all kinds of additional backlash for the ISPs/etc.

. What is in the torrent transfer codes to show reliably what's in the included file?

Openmediavault is a great choice. I ran with freenas (bsd) for several years but if you have a problem, there are not many ways to recover your data with a liveCD for *bsd. Drives might be fine but what happens when the cat knocks over your server and magic smoke comes out of it? For Debian-based Openmediavault I have all kinds of livecd's and workstations to access and recover from issues. OMV has been solid and plays nice on the LAN.

Yes. This. LTSP is great. However, you need ethernet (hard wire) for it to work. You won't be able to wifi it across. For a no brainer starter system, go to Edubuntu.org and download their DVD. Install that on the master node. And launch LTSP from it. Change the desktop background default if you've got some serious folks and not kids using it. It has the latest LibreOffice installed plus a lot of other good stuff.

The other option is to just load Ubuntu OS's on a fist full of USB drives (4GB are fine) and pull the HDDs from all the laptops (make sure you ID the HDDs as Windows has the annoying feature that it will not run if the HDD is put in a different computer chassis, it records things like mac address and mobo serial #). Put two partitions on the USB drives, first is normal FAT that windows can even load, the second (bootable) is where you use Ubuntu's System/Administration/StartupDiskCreator. That way there is some user storage space along with the full OS.

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Many of us are already running around Big Publishing, which like Hollywood, has seen disruptive technology twist the industry. Search for Konrath to learn more. Or look up my books (http://jgordonsmith.com: swords & sorcery published, urban thrillers and SF in the works).

It comes down to Story. Take a look at some of the blogs by the independent novel authors (konrath, wesleysmith, passive guy) to see how the writing and writers are getting closer to the consumers via Amazon's Kindle distribution system. The software to run servers and video host content is already out there, much of it is open source and free. There is a huge pile of very good script writers that are sitting in some studio's slush-pile being ignored. So figure out how to get them and you've got the stories. The rest is just having a production pipeline to make the rest of the magic happen.

take a look at Project London http://projectlondonmovie.com/

Billed as the No-Budget movie .. and a lot of amazing special effects. They have been getting help to fund late stage color correction and touch-ups. but I still think they will be close to a practical no budget.

Do you have a link to your content site to share? This looks really promising.

I've been following Project London (http://projectlondonmovie.com/) for a while as a fan. All their special effects have been done with Blender. There is also the fantastic Sintel project. Open Source tools and technology cost reductions along with the low cost of Internet distribution are keys to success. You are "write" about the stories and writing being important. But you can find reasonableness even in the US.
I write novels (http://jgordonsmith.com : swords&sorcery published, urban thrillers and SF in the works) and have been collecting a group of writers - including script writers. Everyone is independent of the old systems. We like it that way.

The Nobel Prize, like literary awards, usually avoid popular cultural products of 'the masses'. Like your tag line about hipsters, it's the same type of group, but on a more sophisticated level. As an author, I can appreciate the scale and scope of the Ring trilogy and there are some great scenes, but the Hobbit was the better story.

I was wondering if someone would get around to posting Project Gutenberg.

Also check out LibreVox http://librivox.org/. Free site of audio books.

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.... great signature line :D

He teamed up with a couple of other authors on some good books .. 'mote in gods eye' and 'footfall' were good.

Look up Frank Norris and his stories on grain. Written a hundred years ago and still interesting and relevant today. One on the Chicago grain traders. Farmers to Traders to Consumers of US grain.

Travel techniques .. as soon as takeoff, switch yourself to the time zone at your destination. Which might require sleeping first and _then_ reading. This way your vacation starts sooner when you get there. Drink water too or you'll feel dried out and hung over when you get there even if no 'drinks' were involved.