i think the volt is a serial hybrid. the via motors vtrux as well.

some anon yesterday(i think) suggested that all the info info we're getting about the drm sheme is just ms doing clandestine market research.

they leak news that makes it sound bearable - people respond positively.
then they leak news that gives them more control - people respond negatively.
through enough iterations they may find out the approach that will be most accepted.

who knows if that's what's really going on; but it sounds plausible.

that has gotta be the first ever idea i've heard on "how". interesting idea, but you could still print the barrel with a smaller hole then over-bore it manually with a drill.

I don't think that is even remotely technically feasible. The govs of the world avoid currency duping by making their paper currency designs very specific and difficult to replicate. cotton paper, the internalized vertical stripe, under a magnifing glass there is no dot pattern visible.

it is even less technically feasible to do with 3d printers for a few reasons
a) a rediculously large library of illegal shapes would need to be made. sold with every printer, this also won't work because slight deviations would make the shape not match a fingerprint and it would be just as functional.
b) the kind of people who are interested in 3d printing and home cnc typically reject the idea of unnecesary technical limitations in their tools. they would rip out all the controller circuitry and install their own. or strip the machine for its linear actuator armature and make their own box.

so basicaly, outside of orwellian home searches...any laws will have no efficacy.

an advertisment for cosmetics? just kidding, i'm sure we all know what you mean.

the game argument is still valid, it's certainly the only reason i keep a windows system around. hopefully with more kickstarter games coming out for linux (and drm-free too) i'll be able to ditch windows entirely in the future.

there are some after market huds available: just go to amazon and search "car hud".

one kind uses the obd2 port, the other just plugs into a cigarette lighter or usb and uses a gps for speed calculation.
i haven't tried them yet, but i've been interested for a while.

i think they all run into some ghosting problems (the front and back of the windshield both reflecting the image), but i'm not really sure how bad those are. an '02 vette i checked out had a hud that was pretty nice with no ghosting, but i read somewhere (a long time ago) that the plastic safety film in the vette's windshield was wedge shape to prevent hud ghosting.

there's also something reallt cheap to turn a cigarette lighter into some usb ports: the "griffin usb car charger" sits almost flush and gives you two ports.

i think you're probably correct in assuming corporations don't care about your rights. i don't know exactly how one would go about becoming un-sueable, though. in any case, criminal charges are a different animal.

not sure what corporations liking money, or caring about protecting your righs has to do with this. one doesn't have to ask a private company for permission before filing a civil suit against them or informing the local government authorities about their criminal activity.

iirc he made a call to abolish the tsa and privatize airport security...like how it was before the tsa.

consider this though: if it were privatized, and their employees did something that violated your rights, you would have some realistic hope of legal recourse.

wow, what a subject line. for the oss community to be able to get hw acceleration through reverse engineering is impressive!

this isn't network/disk i/o hardware. opengl is a very complex api. it took nvidia years to get their ogl drivers into stable working order (without reverse engineering).

Can't be worse that what the american b(r)and turned into.

You might be missing point. The reason we don't switch our semi-automatics over to select-fire is because doing so would be illegal, and the penalties are very very harsh. It has nothing to do with how difficult it is technically. Though I guess modding this kind of trigger could be easily blamed on defective electronics.

Don't forget to give a 30 year prison sentence to anyone who does the (trivial) amount of modding to circumvent the device and lock it into "always fire".

Man! I didn't even want an e-trigger for my paintball marker, wouldn't even consider putting one on a real gun.

Copying and repurposing. My point was trademark/dress is about PACKAGING. While I know companies try to assert as much control as possible over whatever they feel is their IP, and in the (potential) absence of copyright they will try to use trademark legislation. I'm just not sure the courts will be as flexible in steamrolling free speech over trademarks as they are with copyright.

I'm not entirely sure mickey mouse's character design can be trademarked. I'm sure disney would try to push that he is, but i just don't know how well they could apply his (potentially) public domain use as trademark infringement.

putting certain, specific images of him, on clothing or other products might be out, if those specific glyphs are trademarked; but releasing an animated version of the godfather with public domain disney characters should be ok (notwithstanding the mario puzo ip).

Good post! But I'd like to add that another thing they (and certain linux distros I'm currently typing on) could do without is the "Gotta change around the UI" mindset.

I'm all for UI improvements, and even redesigns; I'd even say the last redesign MS & Ubuntu did was not horrible. But "not horrible" isn't what you should ship with. To get something into a release it should at least be as good as the last one.