So if "we" could wave a magic wand and change copyright law *everywhere* to something "we can all live with" what would you suggest?

Off the top of my head I can think of

1) Copyright begins with first publication/release/distribution. An upthread example shows a guy working on a trillogy where the first book was done in 2001 and that 20 years would be too short. Although I wonder why he hasn't published the first one or two to see if there is a market for more.... and to get income and a fan base going.

2) Copyright gives a fixed number of years of protection. Doesn't matter if it is by a corporation/other legal entitity or an individual (or small group of individuals), Doesn't matter how long the owner(s) live or don't live. Lets say it is 50 years - plenty long enough for most commercial use and exploitation, but it gets stuff into "free(er) to use" territory within living memory.

3) Instead of totally free use that public domain gives, perhaps something along the lines of one of the CC licenses. If Disney grabs $NEXT_BIG_HIT from the pd and creates a hot new princess tale/etc. then that same PD still needs to be available for others to use in the same manner - it can't be locked back up. For software, one of the Free software licenses should work or the FSF should be able to come up with a new one that is acceptable.

Or just figure out their mailing address and sign them up for some Harriet Carter catalogs

Wouldn't providers to home users (ie, not on an expensive business account) just love to be able to deny any connections initiating from outside their edge though? I bet that most non-slashdot types would never know if they suddenly no longer had a "real" ip at home but was instead behind a massive NAT network. They can initiate connections and consume content all they like, but nothing new from outside.

So it seems that simply fixing the output to indicate that the filename is in the signed manifest would solve this... when the sum in the signed manifest is checked against the actual file they can change the message back (I would assume that is the reason for such a reassuring message).

Dunno, but I managed to keep one on the line for almost an hour before I had to go get my kid from a football game. I even gave clues that I wasn't on windows - he wanted me to start task manager, I brought up top and read him the output. When I got to the Zombie Processes part, I freaked out.

Finally had to go, so I confessed that I had been screwing with him, and felt it was my duty to keep him on the phone as long as possible to keep him from harming someone clueless. He called me a "miserable son of a bitch" and slammed the phone down.

Wish I had some way of recording stuff like this...

Don't feel bad. One of my students has already taken an Objective C class here, but since he changed his degree track he is now being forced to take "intro to programming concepts".. because the Objective C class has been replaced with (back to) C++ and the degree track changed for new incoming students to required the concepts class before any other real programming class.

Fish eggs are sticky, and will stick to the legs of wading birds at one pond/stream/lake and wash off in another.

More likely they have the cheap labor and lack of environmental laws so the processing of the materials and disposal of the waste is much more economical.

The college I work for (not in IT but in academic technology) has a support contract with IBM for Linux on the p-series boxes that have replaced the mainframe and zVM. Needed too due to some network issues.... Of course, since there was a support contract for the mainframe, not much has changed as far as the bean counters are concerned.... Note that while they use RedHat on some x86/amd64 boxes, they don't have a special support contract for those - just for the "new mainframe replacement systems".

We had annual inspections here in Florida in the 70s and maybe even the early 80s. They checked function of all lights, turn signals, wipers, and braking system (ie, accelerate hard until this line then slam on brakes). Also did a visual on tires. Took about 10 minutes, and honestly anything that can't pass that kind of test really shouldn't be on the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Screw this pixel stuff... 80 colums and 25 rows. Anything more is a waste.

So you don't think that having a known character assist wtih something educational is good? If my kids can learn the 50 states and their capitals with the assitance of the Warner brothers (and their sister Dot), why should I complain that a cartoon franchise character is doing the teaching?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Granted, with the Frozen tie in it is much more appealing to my 4 year old than my 14 year old daughter, Now to get my 10 year old son involved, you'll need to fall back to Lego... or Star Wars. Or Lego Star Wars.

Why is a pay check important? Having a portfolio of work, be it class projects, contributions to an open source project, perhaps having a patent granted, etc. should count just as much as earning a pay check for a few years working as an assistant code monkey to the junior developer of some corporate sub-project.

There is also a guy in the Daytona area that was making adapters to let you put a Harley engine in any vehicle wiht teh 200mm Porsche/VW clutch (so 356B or C/SC, 912 - but not hte E from '76, 914, VW bug or bus made after '65). And there is an outfit in Tampa that has electric conversions for same that run about $9k.