Flash drives are a big no-no in the federal government and military. If something is so sensitive that it needs this kind of encryption wrapped in dynamite, then it should not be walking around on a USB drive. Dumb dumb dumb.

True... but not everyone who requires security is a government spook. For most of us non-spooks, this thing has merit.

I've used Subversion for years to sync my various systems. I have four different machines (2 Vista, 2 Linux) and 20GB of data that must be kept in sync.

Of course, there could be somethign much better out there. I'm just very comfortable with Subversion, and it works.

All knowledge is "in the air", whether printed on paper or stored magnetically or transmitted across the universe. Knowledge exists whther or not it has physical form; if all the math books in the universe disappeared tomorrow, 2 + 2 would *still* equal 4 and force would still equal mass times exceleration.

My daughters have educated themselves though physical and digital media; they are home-schooled, something that seemes near and dear to Bradbury's heart. The Internet gives them access to knowledge, ideas, and people they would *never* have encountered in a real library. The Internet EXPANDS our knowledge; it does not replace books, it COMPLEMENTS THEM.

Android uses Linux, but isn't Linux (no standard libraries, for example).

Android uses Java, but it isn't standard Java nor is it compatible with most Java apps.

Android is open source, except for certain fiddly-bits they keep private.

This is not the competition for Windows we've been looking for.

Star Trek (2009 edition) had a high-handed concept. It wasn't an officious legal drama, or a long-winded debate over morals, or the search for humanity.

The concept was "Destiny can trump fate."

Fate is what happens, outside our control -- the circumstances we must deal with.

Destiny is how we react to fate... we carve our own destinies, in spite of (or because of) fate.

In the case of Star Trek, the traditional crew of the USS Enterprise was destined for great things, time and space and crazed Romulans be damned. Kirk chose his destiny, even if fate had changed his circumstances.

Fun movie, great characters, and a new perspective on Trek. As someone who watched the original series in the 1960s, and whose career is inspired by Trek, I'm very happy with the movie.

Of course not. Song of the South is not being printed because Disney is afraid of old stereotypes, and not for any profit motive. That is entirely different than a national columnist downloaded an unreleased popular movie, and then bragging about it in his column for his own profit (i.e., page hits).

Motive matters. No one is making a profit from pirated copies of Song of the South. No one is is making a (significant) profit for themselves off publishing information to Wikileaks. In both cases, no one is losing any money via pirated copies, and therefore, it doesn't matter.

Long ago, in another life, I wrote programming books for a living. When a company in China put those books on a CD and tried selling it online with paying royalties, we pursued them (and got no money, but stopped the CD sales). On the other hand, I know of three colleges in third-world countries who use my books as classroom texts; they could not afford to buy copies, so after my publisher reverted rights to me, I GAVE AWAY my books in PDF form for people who needed them. The difference was in the motivation and intent of the "pirate."

Again: Motive matters.

Friedman did not get fired for talking about the existence of the pirated movies; he has talked about such things in the past without repercussion.

IN THIS CASE, he admited to downloading the video, and wrote a REVIEW of the movie. That is not reporting, that is stealing and then bragging about it.

As a workign journalist, I have strong support for freedom of the press.

A vast chasm divides Wikileaks (which publishes hidden information to expose issues and problems in society) and movie piracy (which exists for the selfish purposes of greedy and impatient children). They are not the same thing, even remotely.

Two problems arise when criticizing Linux:

1. Linux is a religion. Many people use it not because they have a good technical reason, but because Linux isn't Windows (or even OS X). Criticizing Linux is like pointing out logical flaws in traditional religion -- the response is often anger, and therefore counter-productive. Zealotry leads to tunnel vision.
2. "Linux" is a false concept. Linux is an operating system kernel, and largely invisible when using one of the distributions built upon it. Ubuntu, Gentoo, Red Hat, SuSE, Debian, what-have-you -- difference is good for evolution, but lousy for stability and engineering. Who keeps track of the "Linux" bug and suggestion database? Somehow, we need to foster enlightened self-interest among thousands of contributors, hundreds of projects, and dozens of distributions, all of whom have their own itches to scratch.

Thus, I doubt sincerely that constructive criticism will ever be useful or welcome in the religion of herding cats.

Seems to me that these folks are just creating a profitable product from free-as-in-beer components. No religion, no Linux evangelism, just capitalism at work.

The vast, vast majority of people don't give a frak about "intellectual freedom" and "revolution" -- what they want is an inexpensive tool that works.

Well played. Keep up the good work. :)