First this is coming from the Washington Times. Its the newspaper equivalent of Fox News.

Second this was reported back in January 2009.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=NSF+porn+surfing&scoring=a&hl=en&ned=us&um=1&sa=N&sugg=d&as_ldate=2000&as_hdate=2009&lnav=hist9

Ford doesn't have a patent or a trade mark on the steering wheel. That fact allowed the automobile to have somewhat of a standard interface. Sure there will be differences with the location of the shifter, but if you cant figure that out maybe you shouldn't be driving.

When software companies try to patent things like a hyperlink or the concept of a window things can get hard for OSS. Especially since they usually don't have lawyer armies to point out how lame the patent.

It takes the focus off the product. I know that the Tivo is running Linux, but you wont find a mention of Linux on the Tivo website.

http://search.tivo.com/search?q=Linux

They do have this site

http://www.tivo.com/linux/

But the first words on the page are, "In compliance with the GPL version 2."

Imagine a radio interview on a top 40 station during a morning show that's sole purpose is to plug this little device.

The non-Linux version

Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing.
Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page
Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that
Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added
Joe: That sounds complicated.
Bob: Actually its really simple. All you do is plug it in and push the connect button.
Joe: That does sound simple. Can it make coffee too?
Bob: ha ha ha.. Not yet, but we're working on it
Joe: That's all the time we have right now. Thanks for bringing us this really cool thing today Bob. I can't wait to buy one.
Bob: Not a problem, and thanks for having me on
Joe: Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day

The Linux version

Joe: Welcome to the show Bob tell me about this new thing.
Bob:Thanks Joe its great to be on. This little box does some really cool stuff. It will play radio stations from around the world and connect to your Facebook page
Joe: Wow that's really neat. How does it do all that
Bob:Well it connects to the Internet over your wireless connection. This also allows it to get updates automatically and allows new features to be added
Joe: That sounds complicated.
Bob: Actually its really simple. We use a customized version of the Linux Kernel. Version 2.6.30 to be exact. All the software on our device is open source and is available for download from our website. We encourage our users to make modifications to this device.
Joe: But don't hackers use Linux to steal identities of people using the Internet?
Bob: ha ha ha.. No, don't be silly Joe. Hackers are the good guys. I think you mean crackers
Joe: Um.... Thanks for coming on Show. Up next Lady Gaga Poker Face and the fart joke of the day

One of my development servers is in our data center a mile down the road from our office. There is nothing like having to call the data center to get someone to go out on the floor to reboot when it stops responding. Granted this doesn't happen all the time, but its still a pain in the ass.

Then there is the issue of getting the machine re-imaged.

They left the Asian guy, but you do have a point. When Clinton addressed the Serbian people back in the 90's they made him a little extra pasty for the audience.

Airlines are required to capture your birth date and other personal information. I believe this is all part of Real ID. They do this to prove that you are really you and not some kind of terrorist.

Also, you need to take your shoes off.

Believe it or not I still buy CDs. It's nice to "import them into Windows Media Player using the protected WMA file format" and still have a CD on my shelf that give me that old school music library look.

I recently came across InfraRecorder and was impressed.

http://infrarecorder.org/

Word along with its other MS Office friends is installed on every desktop at work. Everyone knows how to use it, and because of this its the standard. People use it to write documents. The most important thing is that Word is used to write official looking documents. These documents are emailed around, posted on various sharepoints, copy-pasted into something else, and revised.

Just think of this part in the Hudsucker Proxy except in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QlitH4nYY

Sugar is a great interface for new users, but it is way too different from what is out there already. M$ has established what a computer interface should look like. Even GNOME and KDE have elements that are similar to Windows. The decisions to buy into these laptops are being made by people that use a windows interface. When they see an XO, they see a toy not a computer. To them a computer has to have some kind of menu and windows.

It depends on the state, but one reason to track mileage is to detect odometer fraud.

The Bill Gates Borg icon should be used with this story.

But seriously this is cool, but is an AI running on a nero-optic processor alive?

It's always nice to see new tools in the toolbox. I just wonder what kind of edit wars we can look forward to seeing. Could they be like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Human_anus