Yes, but eight minutes they spend with you are eight minutes they don't spend with half a dozen other people. Plus, I lower their call volume, making the company less profitable, and hopefully sending it into a decline. If enough people torment, these companies will have no choice but to disappear.

I forgot to put myself on the do not call list when I moved, and thus far, I have found it preferable to remain off the list. I can stay on the line for quite some time, refusing to give the TM any basic info.

One recent call ended after eight minutes of questioning whether she had dialed the right number, whether I was the person on the screen, whether I lived at the address suggested, and whether I had diabetes (I don't). I did find it mildly ironic that I can find out someone's name, address, phone number and health conditions from a telemarketer just by claiming that she called a wrong number.

My record was the half hour call from the satellite company that wanted to sign me up for the Indian service (presumably because Gill is an Indian name). I got transferred to a supervisor for that one. I just kept playing Beneath a Steel Sky while talking to them.

No, I don't value my time very highly.

I hear it works faster if you add --funroll-all-loops to CFLAGS in your make.conf.

But for most people, the slight difference in speed is probably unnoticeable, and worth the increase in privacy. If you really care about the slight difference in speed, there are probably better things to fix before you start working on your encryption settings.

``This Firefox extension was inspired by the launch of Google's encrypted search option.''

Unfortunately, Google still has a way to go before it can do that. Google still has not secured Google Products, Images, Maps, Finance, Translate (now, there's something that should be secure), Scholar, Custom Search, Earth, Directory, Patent Search, iGoogle, GOOG-411, Alerts, Knol, Sketchup, and I don't know about Talk.

Still, it's only been a few days. I'm sure they'll have those up in no time.

That renders the definition useless. By that logic, unpatched flaws that have existed for years could be called zero day.

I hope the term zero day does away, or at least that someone defines the word day in this context.

If you want to make it a little more accessible, why not something like ``Google-discovered HCP vulnerability exploited?'' Maybe ``Google-found flaw seen in the wild?''

What you have for the headline now sounds about as intelligible as the mock-Slashdot headline that Penny Arcade came up with, ``Linux crypto hackers open-sourced the BSD Microsoft monopoly''

I'm frankly horrified that this would seem to outlaw an artificial (non-living) uterus that could save the life of an embryo.

SCO is a very different case. IBM is not claiming laches in that case, as far as I know. Also, SCO will lose.

H.264 streaming is currently license free too

This is not correct. Whenever you use H.264 in an application, you are supposed to use a license. It's just that for internet streaming video, you don't have to pay any royalty fees for the license.

As MPEG-LA puts it, "AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users"

My point was twofold.

First, that they need to know what MPEG-LA claims is infringing and that MPEG-LA actually owns it, and this probably needs to be communicated to Google in some official manner.

Second, MPEG-LA cannot simply wait while YouTube implements WebM in beta, then makes it optional, and finally only sue when it becomes mandatory. That's acting in bad faith and the very definition of estoppel by laches, "knowing the correct property line, Oliver Owner fails to bring a lawsuit to establish title to a portion of real estate until Nat Neighbor has built a house which encroaches on the property in which Owner has title"

And here's a new third point. If MPEG-LA were to bring suit against Canonical now, it would not be estoppel by laches, since Canonical cannot claim MPEG-LA has been lax in enforcing their rights. Estoppel would most certainly not prevent from claiming damages, though other things might.

IANAL, but I think you have to do more than beat your chest and say, "I have here in my hand a list of fifty-seven card-carrying patents now in the WebM codec!" Otherwise, there's no way to tell the difference between an actual claim and some hobo with a spoon in his ear taking out a legal ad in a newspaper of record.

If you grew up watching the educational shows on PBS (especially the ones that they imported from TV-Ontario), you get the same things. I still remember "It Figures!" Now I don't feel so bad about watching Look Around You on YouTube. Which reminds me, I should go buy that from Amazon.

Though technically, about the only components left that are older than a year are my drives and my case (thanks to some blown capacitors).

For the record, the powerful have the least protection from libel laws. Powerful people are usually public figures (e.g. congresscritters, corporate executives), and they have no protection under libel laws.

PLATFORM=linux32

Seriously? It's 2010, and they're making it 32-bit? I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but 32-bit is rather limited these days.