xz in multithreaded mode supports random access too, at least theoretically. But there's no reasonable way with xz to actually find the file in a tarball you want to access, it's that bit that pixz provides.
Another nice thing about pixz is it does parallel decompression, as well as compression.
I like almost everything about LXD, except the attitude towards networking. The project has rejected simple solutions such as port forwarding, saying that managing the network shouldn't be LXD's job. Instead, they'd like the user to manually configure their own bridges or routes or iptables chains.
I can kinda understand their point of view, there's no simple solution that will please everyone. But most developers or IT folks aren't networking experts, and LXD won't be an intuitive tool for them without a simpler mode of operation.
Unfortunately it took quite a long time, the Mozilla process is quite confusing to a newcomer, even one with a lot of open source project experience. I definitely second the recommendation of finding a mentor.
lzma parallelizes very well! My implementation of parallel xz ( https://github.com/vasi/pixz ) works quite well. There are others as well, including pxz and the alpha version of the standard xz. All these tools produce compressed files that conform to the xz format and can be decompressed by any xz utility.
Your first point is interesting, but I'm no so sure about the second one:
Given certain search strings it should be possible for amazon to detect that this [person] engages in piracy.
Amazon does not see the search as coming from an individual. Rather, the Ubuntu servers act as an intermediary. All Amazon can see is "some unidentifiable Ubuntu user is searching for this". That's hardly something they could report to any authorities.
I also realize it might not make sense to use Maildir as the native DB for Gmvault, since you don't want to store multiple copies of each email like OfflineIMAP does. A 'gmvault export' option would be sufficient for my purposes.
Yeah, I'm currently using OfflineIMAP until I find something better. But it's really not a perfect solution: it downloads emails multiple times (once per label), it doesn't restore to Gmail terribly well, it's pretty slow, and it crashes sometimes. If Gmvault adds some sort of export facility, I'd switch.
The #1 reason I want Gmail backup is to be able to migrate in case something goes wrong with Gmail. Does Gmvault make this possible? I don't see any documentation about exporting from Gmvault to another IMAP server, or to a common format like Maildir or mbox so that I could run my own server.
There's a rough open source clone of Filelight for Macs[1]. Disclaimer: I'm the original author, but no longer involved.
A commercial app in the same genre, DaisyDisk[2], is much more flashy and polished. You can also get the KDE/Mac version filelight from MacPorts, as part of package 'kdeutils4'.
Remember that compressors, including xz, support multiple compression levels. The default level for xz is 6, which is perhaps too far on the small-but-slow side. Levels 2 and lower tend to give similar compression levels to bzip2, and are considerably faster.
Also, note that decompressing bzip2 is very slow, xz usually beats it by a factor of two or more.
This is great, but it's just a first-order strategy! Once your opponent knows you're following these (quite rational) rules, she could pick words where the rules fail particularly badly.
I look forward to seeing your analysis of how to deal with that :)
Some of his list of rules sound useful, some less so. I'd like to hear more analysis of each rule, though, rather than simply assuming it must be a good idea.
For example, decentralization can be useful in some cases. But differing laws in different can be a trade barrier, as companies have to lawyer up for each and every jurisdiction. There can also be arbitrage problems, eg: getting your free education in a generous-public-welfare state, then going to work afterwards in a low-tax state.
Another example is term limits. It has been suggested that in the presence of term limits, lobbyists end up with more political experience than elected representatives, which allows them to capture the political process. There's also the issue that without concern for re-election, an incumbent might feel no restraint in dishing out favors.
So my addition to the list of rules would be: "For each rule, consider how it could go wrong." It might make it harder to rile up the base even when that's appropriate, and it might make discussion take longer than it should, but I think it's worth it.
I definitely see a difference with santorum, at least. Initially it was just a googlebomb, but now it's actually in common use as the term for the er, "frothy mix". I would not be at all surprised if some folks have only heard of that definition, and never of the man behind it.
Not sure what that means Google should do with the romney definition.
Another nice thing about pixz is it does parallel decompression, as well as compression.
(Disclaimer: I'm the original author of pixz.)