Well one of them, I generally prefer the Shooting Star - about 200 yards further down the hill these days (as it has a better pool table). Over twenty years I have been drinking at the Hobbit. Last night a group of my friends all gathered there for a drink in the mistaken belief they could do something about this.

I don't think anybody is going to argue the film is not infringing copyright, even in the early 90s there were posters of illustrations from the book on the walls. They introduced a range of cocktails based on characters in the books (Gimli, Legolas and so on). When the films were introduced they brought in pictures from the films and hung them on the walls. They make "The Hobbit" T-Shirts. They have a life size statue of Aragorn from the movies in there. So discussions on the "hobbit" being an English word and prior art are irrelevent - they have posters and paintings from the film and book in there.

The point is that they have been called The Hobbit for a very long time and this lawsuit has popped up only because of the new film coming out. And SZC has probably been trawling the net looking for targets, I think that after the first trilogy films came and went and there was no mention of it there was an assumption things would remain the same for ever - I do remember a conversation at the time about copyright and the name of the pub. Among my friends there is a huge amount of anger about this because The Hobbit has been a bit of an institution in the alternative/student scene in Southampton as long as anybody can remember.

Having said that - nobody believes that anything they can do will change this and there are probably already re-branding plans on the horizon. The best possible outcome now is that they use the massive publicity to their advantage and choose a similar style of name - I have heard "The Camelot" mentioned as a possible option (and I don't think anybody can claim copyright over the Arthurian legends). Stella - the landlady - is not an idiot, I'm sure she's looking at all options. But from a legal case it's pretty clear where the law stands and there is no fighting that.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/new-kde-tablet-to-liberate-linux-enthusiasts-from-walled-garden.ars

Suddenly one of these is looking tempting for my tablet needs.

I did have an ASUS transformer for a few months but I sold it to a friend as I was unhappy with the way Android does things. I have an iPhone and whilst I think iOS is very clever I'm not convinced I would want it in a larger form factor. I want to be able to write code, play with software and be the master of my own system to a level that Android and iOS does not seem to happy with. I was wondering is an ARM Win8 tablet was the way forward - but this seems to rule of that option :(

I admit some Linux bias as I only use it at home and coding on it (armel linux) forms a large part of my job as well.

Well, I now have an invite.

And it's demanding a phone number for verification before I proceed.

Call me paranoid - but there is no way in hell Google will ever get any of my phone numbers. Also I'm not willing to give one of my work numbers.

So that appears to be an impasse.

Hmm, lets see what happens when they stop restricting the supply to stoke demand...

jlgoogleplus@btinternet.com

yes, I did just create that for the purpose and create a google account around it.

call me paranoid... but I'm wary of giving any social media too much of an idea who I am.

I assume Digia are after commercial licensing fees, service agreements and support contracts for Qt and will attempt to build up the user base.

Kinda sad to see Nokia vanish into a death spiral though. I really cannot see Windows based smart phones gaining traction against iPhone/Android unless they are really something special or are heavily discounted. I find the whole business tactic fairly incomprehensible to be honest, but I am assuming other people know more than me here.

Given Nokia's position what else could they have done to preserve the market share? Any Ideas?

http://totl.net/Spud/

reminds me of this satire that was created by some university friends of mine in the 90s, it was picked up by the main stream news and they were interviewed, linked constantly. It was, of course, a joke - and eventually bogged down the the constant phone calls and links they were freely saying so on their site and begging for it all to stop...

and of course, they were slashdotted: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/21/1947222&mode=thread

I'm guessing that one possible reason is whilst encryption is moderately rare - then they might assume that any encryption means a greater chance of something to hide and hence they can focus on it.

And of course that unencrypted stuff is easier to track though less immediately suspicious.

Anybody work in forensics and can give us an insider viewpoint?

The first thing that crossed my mind is that all these species are localized to one particular area and hence rather vulnerable if the environment changes in any way.

You only need to introduce 1 badly chosen predator and its the Stephens Island Wren all over again.

I hope this means I can soon buy my Zardoz projector ring.

I agree with the other posters, this should be preserved. Or at least the 1st one.

Anybody else remember "First Footprint City" from the BBC SciFi series Earth Search?

If there is a real compelling scientific justification to see how the materials have survived then designate one of the other landing sites that is deemed less important and send the robot there. After all several Apollo missions went to the moon.

Sending one for Apollo 11 sounds more like a badly thought out publicity exercise then anything else.

Give me a wall screen TV or a whole ceiling panal light and I'll be impressed.

It has no real purpose unless somebody sells something from it...

...."ALIENS!"

My favorite game of all time for gameplay?

Tie Fighter the original when you play as an Imperial pilot to take down the rebel scum.

Graphics? Terrible, but the Gameplay? second to none. That really got you involved.

I'm probably in a minority here though :)

I disagree.

I think that when any technology - be that DVD, FaceBook, Internet Explorer - reaches a mass audience and is perceived to be good enough to meet the users needs it is more or less impossible to dislodge even when there are technically superior products out there.

The only way a new product will ever dislodge a entrenched rival is when they offer something unique and compelling or are readily interchangeble with the old one.

I kind of get what they are saying, but I see more evidence of entrenched mass market products that are seen to have reached an acceptable level of functionality and ease of use.

more info

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429677896

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/court-your-myspace-page-isnt-private.ars

And the court summary..

http://fsnews.findlaw.com/cases/ca/caapp4th/slip/2009/f054138.html

Interesting, I did not know of this. In the UK I think she would of had more success with the courts.

In any case it is common sense to watch what you post online. Once you click that mouse its gone, and you can never be sure that you can retract or recover.