I agree. I've been using Skype on Linux for about 5 years now and as the client features for Windows and Mac continue to get better and better, the client for Linux has been completely stagnant. Skype 5.3 for Windows and Linux is still stuck at 2.2 (Beta). Awesome guys, thanks for the support. I guess the Linux community has finally become tired of cripple-ware and have decided to take matters into their own hands. Good on them.

Yeah, I live in Oregon, too and I find the law very obnoxious. The gas stations (particularly in the Willamette Valley and along the Interstates) don't adequately staff their stations. So when you're in a hurry, rather than pulling up, pumping your gas, and leaving, you have to wait around for some 16 year-old to run around to the 10 other cars that he has to service before getting to you. It's a waste of time for customers, and a waste of money for the business.

I agree with you that it's entirely possible for some people to study some fields from textbooks and without much instruction. But the reason that those textbooks exist is because there is institutional backing for professors, giving them the time and resources to be able to pursue research and write the textbooks.

I don't know whether your numbers are correct. However, even assuming that they are, turns out that the "number of trees" is a terribly poor metric for describing the value of the ecosystem services provided by a forest or a landscape. Larges trees are more valuable than small trees. Dead trees, snags and fallen logs remaining in the forest (which rarely exist in post-logging landscapes) are often structurally more important to the forest than half of the living trees remaining there.

Just saying...

As a resident in DC and an employee of the federal government, the type of government corruption demonstrated by this incident is not surprising at all. DC has a higher mean per capital income than any of the fifty states, and yet the infrastructure of DC--public transportation, roads, _city_ facilities (not counting federal facilities), library system, bike trails, etc, etc.--are pathetically meager. Three years of living here and I'm wondering where the heck my tax dollars are going?

That's actually how my webserver is set up... serve the static content with nginx (fast and lightweight!) and serve the more complicated dynamic content with apache only when necessary. Silly me though, I left out the malware.

Wow, who uses their root password over unencrypted FTP?! Seriously, who does that?

Likewise, Joe/Jane user doesn't care if his/her car emits sulfur dioxide, whether the fish that s/he caught was from a sustainable population, or whether the loan that his bank awarded was properly secured. Fortunately, there are people with vision and understanding who take it upon themselves to address the larger issues and create a broader structure to support those issues (through either legislation, rigid social mores, public humiliation, whatever).

I respectfully feel that it is a red herring to speak about whether "Joe user" cares about something. Joe users adopts applications not technologies. While Joe users does't care about the codecs, Joe user also doesn't care about HTML, HTTP, or TCP, all of which he is still using to access his video entertainment on YouTube.

What the Theora folks seem to be doing is making sure that all of the technical problems are adequately solved first, and then they can really begin addressing openness at a higher level (i.e. making sure that it is supported by the major online video sites, major web browsers, etc.).

The technical problems are often far easier to solve than the the social ones. And if you try and do it in the wrong order, then you're not going to get very far. I wish them the best of as well!

Aw, cut me some slack. I'm on a shitty VSAT connection in the middle of the ocean that keeps dropping my connection whenever the ship turns to a certain azimuth. I didn't think that it posted the first time, and obviously one can't delete even one's own comments.

... exporting poisonous toys again.

Additionally, AT&T has (unsurprisingly) claimed that they had no role in the blocking. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqdGSASBXcgc

Additionally, AT&T claims that they played no role (big surprise). http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aqdGSASBXcgc

As a scientist currently working on a NOAA research ship, my first reaction to this article was essentially: wow that is neat, we find so much cool stuff when we actually look for it! Our ship uses high resolution bathymetric SONAR, and we make discoveries every day on the sea floor that no one ever knew existed. And we regularly find things that help to explain other phenomena of the oceans, bays, and estuaries. The sad part is that science (speaking from an American perspective here) is relatively poorly funded or even understood by the vast majority of American citizens. I hope that in the near future, institutes like Scripps and agencies like NOAA will received better funding so that we can continue making great discoveries like these worms and show people that science is cool! There is lots and lots of exploring to do in the ocean.

You're not the only one. I whole-heartedly agree with you (for that reason and all of the others mentioned above... quality, etc.).

This is funny timing... just yesterday I told a group of segway wielding people touring the US Capitol building that they looked like toolbags. And their only response was a set of very smug smiles.

Not only is Linux Skype buggy as hell, but they have not bothered to release the updated versions of the software since the 2.0.0.x release (Windows is on 4.1.x). There are still a wide range of features that which Skype claims, but are completely unavailable to Linux users.