If only there was a way to encrypt the contents of a hard drive...If there was such a thing, I might go so far as to call it something like...."Full Disk Encryption".

There is actually a trial taking place in southern New South Wales for exactly that. The only thing that can be said for the idea is that its bound to be more effective than legislation for tougher rules.

There's a big difference between owning a computer and owning a laptop/notebook/portable computer. I've owned a computer for my entire time at uni, but it wasn't till halfway into my fourth year that I managed to buy myself a laptop. For thos first 3 years I was totally dependant on the computer labs for pretty much all my coursework that I did on campus, with my own computer being of service only while I was at home.

Once we have 90+% of students owning their own PORTABLE computers, then getting rid of provided computers on campus would be a much more realistic option, and much less of a blow to those that use the resources.

I'm tired and I'm low on coffee, so these thoughts aren't fully formed yet, but the GPL doesn't restrict the end-user.

If you want to use the linux kernel in a closed-source program, then go ahead! Just don't expect to be able to distribute your project.

A good example of this is the nvidia module, which is of course, closed-source, mostly. Theres the open source part (which might be GPL'd), and theres the binary blob, which you couldn't distribute as part of a precompiled kernel. Instead, you distribute it as a seperate module. The user is allowed to insert it into the kernel, despite the fact that it isn't GPL'd.

DRM is just a little different, and I can see where people might get a little confused as to weather its a good thing or not. Ultimately, I define a failed DRM scheme as one that stops me from doing anything legit. If implemented perfectly, then DRM on things like music would be acceptable to me. A big problem is how "legit" is defined.
However, just as 100% efficient transformer is impossible, i beleive that a perfect DRM scheme is also impossible, and thus unacceptable.

Copyright is not bad. Copyright enforcement is not necessarily bad. But DRM is a far cry from being good.

No, that doesn't sound right. A small variation on that statment does, though.
"I'm going collaborate with the trial that determines if [insert oppressive regime here] is viable or not, just to prove that the regime is not viable."
Any better?

At my uni, public terminals were orchestral instruments, and servers were composors. They were grouped into domains called "orchestra" and "staff" respectively.

Printers were a bit different, but I always did like the theme used for them the most. Since most of the computers used linux, most people used 'lpr -Pprinter ' to print. The printers were named such that when the letter 'p' was added to the front, it was still a dictionary word.
For instance 'light', 'ants', 'lump', 'raise', 'ear', etc.

Thus the final command would be 'lpr -Plight printme.ps'

I agree with you on most counts, however one thing I notice about traffic enforcement is that way too much emphasis is put on speeding. A speed camera is an advantage in many ways, yes. But it does nothing to stop drivers who, like you mentioned, cut in and out of traffic without any concern for the disturbances they leave in their wake.

Everyone needs to stop pretending that speed is the main contributing factor in traffic incidents in the cases where it isn't. The fact is that many speed limits are not set based on what the maximum safe speed is, but what raod policy says it should be.

That being said, I understand the need, from a legal perspective, to tell people what the limit is before they attract enforcement attention.

All things told, I don't like them, but I view the speed cameras as a necessary evil. As long as they're well advertised and placed in safety trouble-zones, I support their existence.

I've now just listened to it. It did provoke many a 'WTF'.
That speech is ridiculous on so many fronts.
At least it did give us that humorous quote, though.

I've never quite understood what is so bad about calling the internet "a series of tubes". Granted, its not the term I'd use. I'd probably say pipes.

Maybe its because I've never heard anything except that tiny little quote, but it seems to be a rather good analogy, easy for the layman to understand.

It annoys me that people view this sort of thing as 'beating the system'. The police know the score, at least. The more people know about where the speed traps are, the more likely they are to slow down for them.

Speed traps are there primarily as a safety thing (at least they are here). They're very annoying and I'd love to pretend that they're just revenue-raisers, but they're not.

In such a circumstance, the best thing to do is give as much exposure as possible to the locations of them. A better way than putting it on iPhones would of course be to have warning signs on the road. Give people enough warning and they'll slow down for the danger-area (if they weren't already observing the limit), and your goal is acheived.

Agreed. My favourites are "school zones", an area around a primary or secondary school with a speed limit of 40km/h between 0800-0930 and 1430-1600. That's 40 no matter what the usual limit is. I've seen open highways with a school zone on it, and the limit going from 110 to 40.

They've just started putting in speed cameras that can enforce these variable speed limits, and they're making a fortune.

All the while, the traffic keeps it eyes on their speedos, and off the roads with the unpredictable kidlets running around, the ones that you need to keep a close eye on.

It makes me sick to my stomach

Don't get carried away here. The filtering effort requires you to tell the ISP WHAT you want. Not why, not for what reason.

The filtering is based solely on content, not the reason for obtaining said content.

To fit the example, the shoe company would ask you what pair of shoes you wanted, and from that they could INFER why you want them and what you plan to do with them, and based on that inference, they would refuse/allow the sale.

All things told, its most rediculous.
But I'm not too worried that we'll get the wrong result.

I've always wanted to know how to sort them if you use the -h switch ("du -hs"). The -h appends 'K', 'M', or 'G' to the size, making it buttload easier to read. You get 80G instead of 82871652.

But it does break the ability to sort.