"Kid". Thanks.

It's under the MIT license. It's available to anyone. Please go to github and read. I'm not going to touch your other tirade part of the comment.

@Shanghaibill, it's under the MIT license. Do whatever you want with it. We inlcuded the 'schools and churches' part to generate interest, for sure. But it _is_ open source.

Geni.com is an online service, not open source software per se, but it's free to use, useful, and there's a lot of data there already. I found my ancestors going back to the 17th century after matching up my own tree back to my grandparents. http://www.geni.com/

I commented on this earlier this week. The potential ramifications for losing privacy in your living room are pretty bad...

I commented on this earlier this week. The potential ramifications for losing privacy in your living room are pretty bad...

well-- the 10th amendment seems pretty clear: unless it's spelled out in the constitution, leave it to the states or the people. So, the real question is your own: Could you please explain to me where the feds get the right to do this? Which part of the constitution allows this?

I was trying to make a joke about the 'splitting hairs' concerning the word 'spelling', not the actual spelling-- but it doesn't seem to have worked. I know how romaji is used. As to your other question concerning "why" Japanease substitute the 'c' for 'k', I have no idea, except to perhaps invoke some sort of unique branding or maybe "frenchiness" as you postulate. As I said, I notice this with bars and clothing shops mostly-- not "all". yoroshiku.

Okay, you want to split hairs? Japanese words are not "spelled", they are written using a mix of Chinese and phonetic symbols. As noted above æ"å- is how one should write the Japanese word for "improvement". Unfortunately, many people outside East Asia has no idea how to read or pronounce that, so we "romanize" words based on a commonly accepted latin alphabet equivalent. The usual Latin alphabet equivalent is kaizen with a k. Lately, a lot of bars and brands in Japan are trying to use the 'c' instead of the 'k'-- the most common example is the NTT wireless provider Docomo (meaning "anywhere"). Here endeth the lesson.

They're just anticipating the coming legalization of pot. It will allow them to move into a generalized convenience store model, sort of a "smarter" quik-e-mart: soldering irons, robot toys, pot,and munchies.

I used to work at a company that used open source almost everywhere. We were pretty zealous about it, looking back now. At the core of the data structure, we were using Postgresql and had a scheme of mastermaster replication between two data centers. We developed a way to handle this. After some soul searching, and a realistic analysis, the owners came to the conclusion that the software didn't really help our direct competitors, and would be safer/better out in the open. So, we open sourced it: http://www.bucardo.org/ Here is the press release from the company: Backcountry finally gives something back

The opening weekend of any 'blockbuster' movie is really just a barometer for how good the hype was, how good the trailer is, and how much pent up demand there was for the adaptation. This is true for X-Men, X-Files, Watchmen, Batman, and our beloved crew of the Enterprise. That second week, and the subsequent weeks, is very dependent on the reviews. These are the people who waited for someone else to go see it opening weekend, and then wait to hear what they said about the movie. Star Trek is getting great reviews, and not just from the newspaper shills-- audiences generally like the film. This is different than the (lack of) buzz about Wolverine, and the outright confusion about the Watchmen. It's more along the lines of Batman Begins: your older sister asked you "Really? Another Batman movie?" to which you've replied "oh yeah-- it's that good." Expect a strong 4 week run on Star Trek.

Wait, I think I saw this movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com