Even better, set both your system and sudo so that nothing ever goes root... Using system user accounts instead of root mean that even if someone goes berserk, he won't have full access on the system; and restrict sudo to only run some commands as other users, instead of using ALL everywhere...

Well, since we haven't been able to find all those underwater dolphin cities, they must have some nice occulting technology, which seems like a great achievement.

It's interesting, but you missed another point.
Way before the HADOPI mess, copying of CD/DVD/YouNameIt was already prohibited, because you'd have to circumvent some kind of protection (yes, breaking DVD CSS is illegal here, although totally stupid).
So, for a long time, it was illegal to made a private copy of almost any media, and yet we were paying for it. Now, they want to extend this tax without any reasoning behind it.
In short, the french government doesn't even try to hide anymore when raising a new tax/extending existing ones.
There's a bad history of the same thing, like french internet providers that had to pay another tax to "help" some industries (guess which...), and in exchange they had a reduction of their VAT. Recently, this reduction was lifted, but the tax remains...

No, not really. Some advanced stuff might still need Java, but I've installed LibreOffice recently on a system with no JRE at all, and aside from some complaint on the first launch, it's now working fine.

This is very true. I have a bluetooth mouse with the original battery that came with it inside, and it's still working after 2 years of use. Device with low bandwidth and little mobility requirements are very good with bluetooth right now.

Uh, it does; an update in webkit from some time ago allowed this in chrome too.

Even the windows firewall can get advanced rules, as in, more in-depth than "allow this application to do anything". It's just not the first dialog displayed when you open the settings in the control panel.

the engine could handle more funny stuff, like moving sectors, titled floor, and stuff I don't remember since it was so long ago.

Knowing that the french government use openoffice as their firewall, I don't think they are even connected to the real world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F011hLZHZrM (it's in french, sorry)

I wonder how this "sounds to me like..." stuff works when lawyers get in the way...

Since IANAL either, I'm not sure about anything about this, so for some time h264 will remain off limits, at least until it's really made clear.

This might be an explanation : http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2010/08/simply-explained-dead-code.html

Well, I'm not sure if I should respond to this post or the parent post, but modern graphic card doesn't have VGA port : like this (and it's already two generation behind what's current).

And yet my display is connected through a VGA adapter.

So, in order to get the shiny look of this new iphone, they introduced a serious flaw, that can be removed by putting the damn thing in protective case, that will totally mess the shiny part ? Somehow I think this can't be right, one way or the other.

Thank you, I'm now getting the "think different" part.

There is the possibility of having a smart router that allow WOL packets; some of them have a "act as a WOL proxy" option built-in, for examples.