Bad analogy. The real life equivalent of what you're saying is getting convicted for shooting at a paper target. These laws are about harassing human beings over the medium of video games.

That's not to say the laws aren't ridiculous, just that your example isn't an argument against it.

I like the GSoC shirts. I've gotten complimented on the 2008 shirt by non-geeks who have no idea what GSoC is.

On the topic at hand, from my current employer, I have an XL tshirt they handed me on my starting day that I will never be large enough to wear, and a decent hoodie that I wear occasionally.

I agreed with you until I saw what the PC actually was. That is, built entirely from off the shelf components. You can buy the Mini-ITX motherboard they use that with comes with a 1.6Ghz Atom for £64.60 on Amazon.co.uk. The case, power supply, and RAM are all quite ordinary. You can in fact build this exact computer for at least £100 less on your own.

I would have been more impressed if they pulled an OLPC and used a FOSS BIOS and designed a motherboard.

Indeed. Apparently they are releasing Rev C4 of it soon with a 720Mhz processor though.

No, that would be the same if Asimov rose from the dead and decided to write three more books.

Sure he is. He's even got a paper published on bounds on the Pancake sorting problem.

Google bought ReCAPTCHA recently. I hope its only a matter of time before they integrate it.

Sun has nothing to do with this. SPARC International owns the trademark, not Sun.

I was confused too. The summary is missing this key piece of information:

It was an analogy to checking something out and returning it.

What I mean is a subscription plan where you can read the e-books as long as you are a subscriber to the service. When you stop paying, you can no longer read the e-books. Something exactly like Rhapsody or Zune Pass, except that people consume books differently than music.

I suppose it would also be possible to emulate the scarcity of physical books at a library by having a limit to the number of "checked out" e-books at a time and/or having due dates for returning them. Both would be annoying though, and an example of DRM implemented poorly.

On the other hand, a well stocked digital library that functions like Netflix or like a physical library with a reasonable monthly fee could nip mainstream e-book piracy in the bud.

This isn't quite like Rhapsody or Zune Pass or similar music subscription schemes where you would end up with an annoying pile of encrypted data when your subscription runs out or the company folds. Well, it is, but most people are content with checking out a book once, reading it, and checking it back in.

Of course, something like this could only be possible with DRM and e-book reader support for that DRM, which despite what you hear on Slashdot, can be useful when implemented properly.

You're posting to slashdot while driving? I think you may want to watch the video in the linked article...

I wouldn't be so sure about that. There are significantly more ARM devices out there than x86, Sparc, and Power combined.

Phone like devices are getting larger and more powerful, and laptops/tablets are getting smaller and lower power. It is converging on a market space where ARM has no competition, and is exactly where the A9 would thrive. Microsoft is even entering the game with the Zune HD packing an Nvidia Tegra. This is not a low volume niche either. Think of the iPhone, Android devices, PSP, DS/DSi, Windows Mobile phones, etc.

That is just on the mobile end too. It makes no sense to stick Windows Embedded and a Celeron in a router, network storage, or a printer when Linux/A9 is cheaper and as powerful.

Indeed. For example, the CHDK way of doing HDR photography is a script that shoots a sequence of images at different exposure levels so you can post process them into a single image later on your PC.

Per TFA, the Frankencamera plans to take the pictures and then do the stitching and blending on the camera itself.

None of the cameras you suggested would fit in a sane person's pocket. Pocket sized implies something more along the lines of a Canon Powershot, complete with a tiny sensor and mediocre optics.

Though, with CHDK, you can do some nifty things with them.