For the data format: stick to documented standards. ASCII or UTF-8 Unicode will do great for the text of a document; (X)HTML is likely to be available too; PDF maybe. For pictures I'ld bet on JPEG or an uncompressed RGB format, for moving images on MPEG2. There is nothing wrong with storing files in multiple formats for redundancy.
The medium is another issue. Would a CD-R be readable after 15 years? A CD-RW may be more reliable, but can you find a CD-ROM player at that time? A USB stick or SD card are "new" media where readers are likely to be available, but little is known about long-term data persistence. Having a backup of the data on an actively backed up computer does not sound like a bad idea at all.

Summary: with more baskets, the likelihood of remaining eggs increases.

Actually it is a report from the newspaper lobby and the responsible minister has already spoken out against the proposal.

Does anyone remember BeOS?

Microsoft Settles Anti-Trust Charges with Be, off course without admitting doing anything wrong. I wonder why MS paid Be that $23.3 million.

I am in an easily baited mood today so I bite...

NewYorkCountyLawyer is a well known lawyer and a respected expert in the area of RIAA legislation. When I read his summary, he tells, in neutral terms, about one of the obstacles the record companies have to overcome in this second trial. I can not say how the admissibility issue will pan out and I fully agree with Ray's "This should be interesting."

You are free to have your own opinions about the RIAA and file sharing, I have mine. I would certainly appreciate if you attacked the arguments instead of the writer, it makes for a more grown-up and polite discussion.

Now I'm off to wash my mouth.

First I wonder which Fortran you refer to; Fortran 66 is quite a different language from Fortran 95. I agree that all Fortran variants are pretty good languages for number crunching, but Fortran 77 and older lacked support for data structures, making it hard to teach students about them and advanced algorithms in general. (Yes, I've tried.) Fortran 90 and 95 are much better in those respects. On the other hand: C and C++ are not so far behind in speed to rule them out.

It is my opinion that learning two fundamentally different languages makes someone a better programmer. I see value in teaching both Fortran and (for example) Python, using Fortran for number crunching and Python for smarter algorithms.

From Wikipedia:

[China's] middle class population (defined as those with annual income of at least US$5,000) has now reached 80-150 million.

That is a market of considerable size for a $200 laptop. And many people that don't care about "using their old programs or data" because they never owned a computer before. For them Linux is perfect (they won't have to pirate MS Office.)

I would buy such a 9" smartbook and use it as ultraportable second laptop (as it can do OOo impress presentations it would be very useful too.) I can imagine other computer users in Europe and the US to buy such a machine as second (third) system. However, if the suppliers can keep prices under the $200, it will be an affordable system for "the masses" in China, India and South America that were unable to afford their own PC before. Somehow, prices for netbooks crept up with the addition of harddisks and Windows.

A judge can sanction a party or its lawyers for bringing frivolous arguments. The other party may start the procedure by filing a motion or the judge may start it. The lawyer usually gets the time to argue why the arguments are not frivolous; the judge will in the end decide what punishment is fit. In mild cases the lawyer or party will be forced to pay all costs induced by the frivolity, in serious cases a lawyer can be disbarred.

This request for censorship comes from the guys that sold malware infected CDs to unsuspecting customers. (And passed the blame to someone else.) I wonder how they avoided criminal prosecution...

That's bullshit. You may think this way, but as an attorney acting in your client's best interests, you will use all the legal means at your disposal to win the case. If this means 'inconveniencing' the defendant, so be it, specially when the defendant is happy to assist in hamstringing their own case.

You sound like a RIAA lawyer and don't seem to realise what agent of the court implies. Lawyers are expected to ensure that the trial is fair above presenting their client's case in the best light. This works both ways, a defendant has all right to defend itself against the plaintiff's allegations.

Going in a bit more detail, why did the RIAA lawyers push the jury instruction that caused the judge to declare a mistrial?

Professionals keep (at least) one off-site backup. You could rent a private locker in a bank or some other organization or make an online backup deal. I do use (two) USB disks for backups. They are pretty portable, fairly robust, plug in nearly every computer, have decent speed and good capacity.

You can license the developers, but when management pressures them to cut corners you still have shoddy software. It is a much better idea to make your suppliers responsible for delivering a quality product and put liability on them when they provide a shoddy one. The companies themselves will start thinking about testing, quality assurance and such; I am sure that looking at the education of the developers will be part of the list of measures considered.

Most EUropean countries have clauses in their laws that instruct the judge to take the price of the good into account when considering what would be a reasonable quality for a product. A corollary of that is when you give something away for free, the expected quality level is something like "not known harmful".
When you buy software, for example a Linux distribution, you may expect that the distributor has tested the packages and that the software mostly works. Because you pay more for MacOS, you may just expect MacOS to work better.

Off course there has to come jurisprudence on all this, but I don't think that finding just one bug will entitle you to your money back. However, when the software won't work at all for you, the supplier can not hide behind EULAs and could be forced to compensate your damages... It will be a case-by-case balancing of responsibilities.

A typical flash cell easily lasts 10.000 writes. Let's assume that every compile (or svn update) only touches 10% of your SSD space, that gives you 100.000 "cou" (compiles or updates). If you do 20 cou per day, the SDD will last 5000 working days, or 20 year.

Now find a hard disk that'll last that long.

You are right that they can start a new investigation, into the new servers (abroad) and they'll have to prove that these same guys are still involved... In that sense dropping the charges was a good strategic move as it prevents a negative judgement on the issues.

OTOH, prosecution will have to think about how to obtain evidence that the Pirate Bay tracker really is involved, in an environment where DHTs are used. It will take several man-years of investigation (again!) to make a new case.