http://exit1.org/dvdrip/

Never had a problem with it.

Seems like there are plenty of ways to make money from last.fm users without charging them directly.

- a craigslist/ebay style setup to buy/sell/trade music/show tickets/whatever - take a cut from the ads/transaction fee - there are forums but these are token and there isn't a Buy/Sell section anywhere AFAIK.

- use music recommendations to sell people music directly rather than linking to amazon/itunes whatever. Particularly for smaller bands that can't get recording contracts - work to hook them up with gigs and sell merchandise through the site and take a cut - essentially cut out the record labels as middle men and still provide a service that makes it easy to find smaller bands.

- they have recommendations for events in the local area but I never see them handle ticket sales at all - well why the heck not - local shows are much smaller scale than giant stadium shows and they could get a larger turnout and

Of course setting up this kind of infrastructure costs money, particularly to do it globally, but use your user base to add events in the region and use them to review and categorize bands and just make it easy for bands to offer goods through the site. Charging users directly is a good way to lose them because there are plenty of free alternatives and we've all gotten used to not paying for radio. Music fans are among the most passionate - give them services they can actually use and take a reasonable cut and they'll probably embrace it in droves.

They just do not get social networking at all.

I dislike using god and a hokey religion as an explanation for anything. I couldn't stand the last few episodes with Baltar babbling on about his angels. The show has always had a religious theme but I held out for a reasonable rational explanation of the head characters (something to do with cylon projection) and Kara.

Instead pooft she magically disappears into thin air, after magically entering the coordinates of a single magic planet in all of space from a magic song that her magically disappearing dad taught her when she was young and that Hera magically happens to know as well. How? What? Why?

I disliked the get rid of all our technology and live like the natives bit. Both the god explanation and the luddite attitude seem to me to be a diservice to many science fiction fans who overwhelmingly like science and technology and reject hokey explanations for things like flying spaghetti monsters. Seriously, what happens the next time someone needs to get a tooth pulled now that all their technology is gone.

I disliked the Cavil suicide bit because it seemed out of character along with actually listening to Baltar's stupid little speech on coexistence and angels. I'd like Boomer's redemption to not have been followed with her getting shot in the gut again. I didn't need to see Adama puking.

And finally, Tyrol is an idiot for not realizing that killing Cally was the nicest thing Tory or anyone else in the entire fleet did for him.

Except a lot of manufacturers DO support Ogg/Vorbis (hereafter ogg because we are all sick of the container vs codec posts).
http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware

That list is in fact out of date already because the Archos 5 I have very definitely supports ogg.

The elephant in the corner that refuses to join the party is the ipod. It can already decode ogg with Rockbox and there isn't any terribly good reason they couldn't support ogg natively.

Right now I can rip music from CDs to ogg and not have any issues except if someone else wants that music (which is illegal anyway right...) and has an ipod. Then one of us has to transcode it to something they can use.

If Apple did add native ogg support I imagine the format's adoption would increase substantially. You'd just be able to find a lot more (illegal or otherwise) ogg files floating around that you could toss on your ipod and have it Just Work.

It's called fanaticism. If it wasn't countries or religions it'd just be something else.

The Cowons are excellent - I've had both the M3L and the X5L from petty much right after their release. Excellent sound, battery life, and support for just about every audio format I could throw at it and both took daily abuse for years (the X5s video support is a bit of a joke). The M3L was stolen in NYC (why I got the X5L) and the X5L now stays at work. Unfortunately, they haven't really come out with a successor with larger capacity, which is why I move to the Archos 5 but it annoys me with the number of codecs and extras one has to get to use features that ought to be standard (FM tuner, aac, m4a, hi def video, battery dock...) but it also plays Ogg and FLAC out the box with the current firmware. I imagine all of them are readily available in Italy.
 

I remember playing it when it first came out and the bloody three tentacles and having to crawl around and toss grenades to distract the thing. Still have my unreal (gorgeous levels and I think the first game with decent AI for the baddies but really rubbish story and the series went dead with II) and quake II (kill lots of things, get key, open door, shoot boss much like the first one except with an actual boss at the end) discs from that time too but the original HL was the game that stood out simply because of the tight scripted story that made the game interesting. Didn't hurt that they developed the multiple PoVs with the other games, something I really wish they'd do with HL2.

Except he was not really on the streets here exactly now was he. And if you'd actually RTFA you'd realize he still isn't. He didn't fall for it. He has been further indicted in another case for developing malware. Currently, he is on probation for the Valve network hack in Germany and it isn't clear if he will be extradited or not. Extraditing him is a good way of doing it. Enticing him here with a job interview with an intent to arrest him reeks of entrapment.

er ctrl-w-w
(forgot about tags)

:sp to split the screen
  to toggle between
made my life a lot easier

I'm not American and couldn't vote but I've spent all my adult life here and the last eight years have affected my life in much the same ways it affected yours. I'm very glad there were record turnouts, whoever you voted for.

I think its good to recognize this as a historic and important moment. I stayed up all night working and listening to the coverage. It is a night I'll remember and I'm admittedly quite happy. Certainly, there is hope, a word I haven't heard much off since 2001. I'm very glad that he acknowledged that the real work lies ahead and that it will take a spirit of service and sacrifice and both of them talked about coming together and bridging the gaps that have cut this nation.

Bridging gaps is a hugely critical message today. There is an interesting discordant note between all the commentators speaking about how this marks the end of slavery and the fruition of the civil rights movement and the change of a generation, and what looks like a yes vote on Proposition 8 in California. When the dust has settled, there is going to be much talk about the way different demographics voted and the gaps that represents. I hope it will not take 40 years for all of us to recognize that in the end, beyond nationality, skin colour, sexual orientation, religious beliefs or background, we are all just human beings.