Vanderhoth is dead on. Ripping a DVD is against the law in the US. The Digital Millenium Copyright act expressly forbids breaking encryption to access content. There are exceptions for security researchers. That said, DVD ripping by ordinary individuals for format shifting and back up is not prosecuted in and of itself. Share the stuff? You can get in all kinds of legal hot water. Lawsuits and prosecution.

Ripping a non-copy-protected Red Book cd that you own is perfectly legal -- provided you do not share the file. No encryption. No crime. First sale doctrine applies.

I travel to and from the US from overseas frequently. Only once in 20 years was I ever polled concerning the contents of my laptop. The US Customs agent asked me if there was any x-rated material on it. I answered truthfully that there was not. He was trolling for a demeanor hit and would have probably looked at my content for illegal porn had he not been satisfied by my confident negative answer. By the way, having even US-legal porn on the laptop can still get you in big trouble in the Middle East so be aware. Even silly rags like Maxim are trouble. Also mind what you eat, kids. Traveling to Dubai? Skip that poppy seed bagel in Sydney airport.. Really.

Bottom line, however? The posters are generally right. US Customs is not concerned about the technically illegal DVD rips on your hard drive. They probably would do nothing even if they found them. But, and here's the thing. If you are going to feel guilty and worried about that questionable content then leave it behind. You will ruin your flight. Your nerves might show as you cross the frontier and draw unwarranted attention. The fact that you even asked this question shows that this is a source of anxiety for you. You have your answer. Go in peace. Walk in beauty.

FTFA "Though a full-scale working prototype is yet to be built, Sagita claims to have proven the concept (albeit with an electric motor) with a one-fifth scale model. You can see the video of it in flight below.">

And it actually uses vapor. But not the good kind.

As for me? I am developing a teleportation device. I don't have a working prototype, but I have a proof of concept using my automobile. Any VCs out there can reach me on my FTL communicator. Also in development.

Every motel I ever checked into has had these walls installed.

But I shop around these days. Newegg is no longer the end all be all it was. Amazon is good like AC says. And Directron isn't bad for trailing edge stuff. And they have small parts, too. And cheap cables.

But... If you are lucky enough to have a MicroCenter near you then that is a fine option for same-day shopping. But you have to watch them, too. They make the same cheap-big-stuff-pricey-little-stuff play that Bust Buy does. Except they are a bit more cunning. And the little stuff is priced just low enough so you get it anyway. I got an awesome deal on an Ivy Bridge Mobo and proc when Ivy Bridge landed about a year ago. . The staff was more knowledgeable as well. And, no, I have nothing to do with them. But I saw a shout on /. a few years ago and I was pleased to have one near me in Rockville. But the stores are only in a few cities. Worth a drive, though. Geek Valhalla IMHO.

The little stuff is their profit center. Sometimes Best Buy has some attractive deals on consumer electronics. (Or at least they had in days gone by. Been a while.) So, say, you just got a great deal on the TV or the PC. The sales guy suggests you throw in a patch cable or two -- even generic ones. A power cord. A surge protector. All this crap is marked up to the stratosphere, but you don't think about it because you are so chuffed with the steal you just got on the big ticket item. But check. Two dollar power cables for $14.00 etc. It's horrible. Really. I once paid nearly twenty dollars for a Sansa data cable (Don't ask. My wife was involved.) The point is that by the time you are are done with the ancillary crap the store has made its true profit.

By the way, it's a time-honored play for a discount retailer. You get a good deal on a suit. Then the salesman walks over with a couple of shirts and maybe a good looking tie. Little stuff and you think "Why the hell not?" When you should think "Hell no."

If you need patch cables and power cords on a same-day basis try a little mom and pop computer store. Generally I have found much better deals on little stuff in these places. Not as cheap as a net retailer, but way down from a Big Box discounter. Counter intuitive to go small I know. But marking up small items is often how these big discounters make money. And, hey, the little guys can use the business.

PS I used to wear suits. But not any more... bitches. Not any more.

Meditate.

Learn how to be.

Once you know how to be.. you will know what to do.

Hint: Start with the breath.

I won't be hard for robots, either. At least not until they improve their looks.

It won't be hard for robots...

I could not easily find complete data for 2012, (odd in itself) but in 2011 just over 32,000 people died in car crashes. I think there will be an evolution towards driverless cars. The distracted generation will want their cars to drive for them. And I for one really want their cars to drive for them. Think of it. Each year ten times the number of people who died on 9/11 die in cars (or under them). Maybe we should declare war on Detroit. Oh, wait. It self destructed. Okay, Tokyo then. But you get my point. Higher levels of automated auto safety will save lives. Let's really put auto in the automobile. Of course you can have my Chevy pickup when you pry it from my cold dead hands. However that time may come sooner than later.

Many large corporations, including the entertainment industry, are using -- or are looking at using -- proactive strategies as part of their security playbook. There was an interesting report on NPR concerning this a few months back. Currently, deploying malware is, to all intents and purposes, simply illegal. As it should be. These guys want a self-defense avenue for deploying destructive or surveillance programs against their perceived enemies. IMHO our corrupt congress will -- sooner or later -- be bribed into letting them have their way.

YOYO. You're On Your Own.

Distros proliferate in order to broaden freedom of choice. This allows users to choose the OS that will optimize their hardware to their needs.

It is the difference between a tailored suit and an off-the-rack suit that comes in only three sizes. Here, the unique bundle of task-targeted, tested, compatible, packages on a given Linux distro might be constructed to make it appealing for a special purpose. The user can have a distro for audio production, video production. T.V watching, math, science education etc etc. ad infinitum.

But, if a user wants an all-around distro, he or she also has plenty to choose from, too. And the hardware they have might make all the difference in what they choose. Perhaps they want something lean and mean for an older piece of hardware (Damn Small). Or something handsome and easy to use for Aunt Matilda (Mint). Sometimes one distro just installs better "out of the box" on a particular piece of hardware than does another. This, for reasons known only to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and, maybe, Linus Torvolds. For example: Quirky old PCLinux OS installed sweetly and completely on an old box I was repurposing when little else in the Distro Watch top 20 would even complete an install. And nothing (except PC Linux OS) would see anything near all the hardware. (I did not feel like engaging in a Gentoo marathon. Okay?) So, I just jumped distros until I achieved the best result. I, personally, am glad that there are lots to choose from.

I am sure that Mr Shuttleworth would have loved the world to continue to coalesce around Ubuntu, but it didn't. I do not know from whence comes the idea that all the distros are in a competition to dominate. Or even that Linux is in a competition with the commercial software sector. But IMHO such an idea is antithetical to the underlying ethos of the FOSS movement. Only the corporate distros have any interest in dominating. And that is in the enterprise sphere. But, all in all they have behaved pretty well it seems to me -- at least for a pack of suits. (Not that they care what I think.) Paradoxically (or perhaps understandably) corporate support has been crucial to a lot of the activity in the FOSS movement, too. After all money talks. Has it always been positive activity? Uhhhh... Can we not go there? Please? It makes my head hurt. It is like the "One Country Two Systems" thing in China.

It's. Just. So. Complicated.

Now, from the general to the specific subject at hand. This Mageia distro seems interesting because the distro's reason to be appears to rest not so much in the product, but in the process. The developers are stressing transparent governance and development community cohesion. To my mind it is a cool and very promising approach. Having witnessed so many good projects disintegrate and then self destruct this seems to me like a great place to be coming from. And as many have pointed out Mandrake - Mandriva was a pretty good distro. I am planning to repurpose my old Pentium 4 box soon (RIP XP) and will look at Mangeia because, judging from the website and the ethical values it espouses, the distro will progress apace and probably be around for a good while.

Clearly.

am I not surprised? *Sigh*

My Norwegian bank issued me a chip and pin card. I like it. The waitress or the teller never touches my card. I put it in the terminal when I see the total I am being charged. I punch in the PIN and the card verifies with the bank and the term. prints a receipt. In a restaurant the server brings a wireless terminal to the table and I do the same thing. The protocol allows for a gratuity to be added. As long as no thug or dip looks over my shoulder and sees my PIN I fell pretty safe from fraud. I use this card all over the continent. My US cards work, but they are less secure and I get a nasty foreign transaction fee and a disadvantageous exchange rate. Chip and PIN rocks. Hard to believe consumers wearied of punching in a little PIN. Besides, for small purchases cash works. Near Field Communication payment is an idea whose time is yet to come. I do not want an experimental-stage NFC. It will be cool when all my products are fitted with rfid tags and my NFC payment fob is in my pocket. I walk out of the store with my basket, pause at a terminal to visually scan the inventory for which I am being charged (or not), confirm, then get the receipt beamed to my fob or smart phone. Until then the chip and pin is fine. I was wondering at the profusion of stainless steel wallets on Travel Smith. They were not all passport sized. Now I understand. It makes me wonder if my current chip and pin is NFC too. Feh! Makes me want to return to the good old days of cowrie shells.

"Well one good thing, anyway. At least the massive EMP from the penultimate nuclear holocaust didn't destroy the good Jazz because it was all on vinyl. We won't miss those smelly humans at all (And they tasted like dookey!) But, damn!, that Bill Evans cut was sublime. Slip out and spin it again, won't ya Babe? And then come back to the water and stroke my tentacle. Hmmmm?"