Copying whole partitions preserving hidden files and attributes

How do you easily and coherently copy a whole large and complex directory, preserving attribution, hidden files etc? Good old cp -a could not be enough in this case (hidden files would be skipped), and maybe you don't want to use dd (e.g. you could like to move a ReiserFS partition to an ext3 partition). The trick is hidden in the Debian tips , but can be applied to any Linux (and probably Unix) distribution. Since I got crazy yesterday trying to find it again, after using it to move partitions from my old hard drive to a new one, I repost it here:

find . -depth -print0 | cpio --null --sparse -pvd /new/directory

That's it. A 1:1 copy of your filesystem hierarchy is deposited in the new directory. It saved my day.

Removal of Ogg Vorbis and Theora from HTML5

This blog post made some noise recently.

Let's see. HTML 5 is the next revision of the old and beloved HTML. Such a spec is still under development and, among other things, should specify (or at least suggest) what the standard media formats of the Web should be. HTML5 in fact specifies a