Sleazy lawsuit of the week! – A Dutch woman has lost her compensation claim for mental distress she suffered from missing out when her neighbors won a lottery windfall. [Dvorak]
Spam: Keep your email address from spambots with Text to ASCII -
Webapp Text to ASCII converts plain text into its ASCII equivalent - meaning it can obscure your email address or other private data from automated spambots online. This isn't a foolproof method, as spambots can be programmed to decode ASCII, however, a good majority of them aren't. Go ahead and check out Text to ASCII's capabilities -- this entire post is written in ASCII. View the source code and verify! The next time you want to leave your email address in a web form, head over to Text to ASCII, convert your email address to ASCII and you'll be good to go.
[LifeHacker]
Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat & Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state. The first ever patent infringement litigation involving Linux. Here's the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don't. Here's the complaint [PDF].