And suppose you don't have a smartphone?

I'd file this under the "Gee, mom, look what I can do" school of programming. It makes the assumption that every Linux user in the known universe has a smartphone and enough data minutes left in the month to play around with a QR code and a web page. I'm a great believer in the "KISS" principle: Keep It Simple! Your powerful computer just fell down and can't get up, so now you want to make it create and display a fancy bit of graphics? This sort of error is too important to rely on playing "stupid computer tricks"! What if it's a text-only server installation and there *is* no GUI available to display the QR? What if displaying the QR code *itself* causes an error? I'd hate to be using version 1 of *this* change! Besides, this sort of fancy error display belongs in User space, not the Kernel (IMHO). Simplifying the error message with ordinary, everyday language the user can actually write down with (gasp) pencil and paper is a much better approach than trying to impress people with how 1337 you are. /rant

When I was a teenager, I made copies of streaming audio all the time ... using a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a pair of alligator clips attached to the speakers of a table radio -- all to capture the latest "top 40" pop tunes in glorious monophonic sound. That was back in the sixties, and the music world didn't come to an end because I didn't spend money I didn't have in the first place, nor did the huge multinational music companies crash and burn in bankruptcy. However, later on, when I *did* have money to spend I collected thousands of record albums and 45's. Even later, I re-purchased everything on CD's.

Tell me again why this sort of recording activity is *costing* companies money? Seems to me that it's more of an investment in the future.

(Obligatory reference to Carl Sagan)

Until the 1990's, the main route between Philadelphia and Atlantic City had at least two Roundabouts. The earliest time I remember seeing them was during the late 1950's as a passenger in my parent's car. So, this is not a new invention this side of the Pond, but an old one that has been tried and abandoned after decades of use. I had the opportunity to drive this route before they were both redesigned, and I can tell you that the design is only effective when traffic is very minimal. It's extremely hazardous with high traffic volume.

The State of New Jersey clearly knows this, as does any American driver who has experienced what I believe is a misguided attempt at a "Can't we all get along" society. If you've ever seen the original Death Race 2000 movie, or played the Carmageddon series of video games, then you know what the highways are like in the Philadelphia area.

Properly configured traffic lights are much preferred to the risk of physical harm the Roundabout represents.

IMHO, YMMV

If you have any cases where you think that Chrome is failing to comply with the terms of a free software license, then please file a bug at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/list - we take license compliance very seriously. (I'm a Google engineer, though not working Chrome).

No, it is not vulnerable to this attack. The Brumley/Tuveri paper describes a timing leak in a specific algorithm that is only used for elliptic curve crypto over binary/GF(2m) fields. OpenSSH uses ECC over prime fields that use different algorithms that have no known timing leaks. A result against ECC using prime fields would be more difficult because the curve point components are integers and so can use well-tested modular arithmetic code.

It's a good thing we did that before banning ozone-depleting freons.

OpenSSH isn't vulnerable to this attack: https://twitter.com/#!/damienmiller/status/72814031941017600

Everybody's supposed to be using a touch-screen tablet or smartphone these days. Didn't you get the tweet? Why else do you think Gnome 3 and Unity were invented? Next up, Windows 8 with an enlarged version of the Win Phone 7 tile interface to replace that old computer-desktop GUI.

Bandwagon, anyone?

Never mind the millions displaced by rising sea levels or changed rainfall patterns effecting their crops, we might lose a few bars of wifi reception!

Blu-Ray is pretty much useless for me, and not just because of the high disk cost or DRM-created issues.

First, all the televisions in my house are standard definition, the largest being 32 inches diagonal, the remainder 12 inches. Without large high-def screens, there's just no point as up-converted DVD's look fine. I suspect a lot of people are in the same boat.

Second, my son and I watch all our TV/movies on our computer screens, in a tiny window while we're doing something else. Now, what is the advantage of Blu-Ray once again?

Blu-Ray was invented by electronic companies to get us to re-purchase all of our movies, nothing more. If that works, they'll re-release them again in 3D. If it doesn't work, they'll blame piracy for the failure.

You have cause and effect swapped. MS announced Windows for ARM because of the huge number of ARM products coming to market.

Apology accepted Captain Ozzie.