Slashdot Mirror

mobiux wrote in about the resurrection of Packard Bell PC's. michael.creasy told us about Darth Vader's MBE. An anonymous coward wrote in to tell us about the GameSpy interview of Martin Feldhausen, inventor of the 'extra life.' Thanks for helping me get through all those games! mcryptic shared the link to an online gallery of mousepad art. payneinthe told us that Randal Schwartz uploaded pictures from the Perl Whirl. Another anonymous coward told us about someone's visual response to the loss of Paul Steed at id. HerrNewton noted the symphony written primarily for dot matrix printers, and rasterbator told us about a web site for the distribution of free GNU and Open Source related artwork. Ant sent in the link to Star Wars Origins, and illumina mentioned RSA en/decryption in JavaScript. Have a good weekend, everyone!

An oil slick in South Africa is threatening the third-largest colony of Jackass penguins, which are about to enter their breeding season. This is the second major oil pollution disaster to hit Cape Town's penguins. Sanccob is leading the rescue effort. Donations can be sent here.

mondrian writes: "Space.com is reporting that NASA will announce next week it has found evidence of water on the Red Planet." And an Anonymous Coward writes: "The BBC is reporting that NASA has found unconfirmed evidence of water springs in the Valles Marineris, the deepest feature of the Martian landscape. Apparently this is liquid water, not the frozen water that most were expecting to be found at the poles. If confirmed, the search for Martian life will take a big change in direction because of this."

michael.creasy writes "The BBC has a article about a new nanosatellite due to be launched later this year. The idea is that the satellite be used to latch on to and slow down junk in space so that they will fall out of orbit and burn up on re-entry. " The only problem, as the article points out, is that there's no one really interested in purchasing this right now. Still, it's a pretty cool, especially if the price points are correct.

General_Corto writes: "The BBC is currently running an article about the latest global allocations of EM spectrum for radio astronomy. The entire range from 75GHz to 275Ghz has been given to them alone, which should ensure that all their readings are free from earth-based interference. Apparently, "there is more energy at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths washing through the Universe than there is of light or any other kind of radiation." Hopefully all those little green men out there use cellphones in that frequency range." You may also be interested in the home pages of the International Telecommunications Union and the International Astronomical Union.

General_Corto writes: "The BBC is currently running an article about the latest global allocations of EM spectrum for radio astronomy. The entire range from 75GHz to 275Ghz has been given to them alone, which should ensure that all their readings are free from earth-based interference. Apparently, "there is more energy at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths washing through the Universe than there is of light or any other kind of radiation." Hopefully all those little green men out there use cellphones in that frequency range." You may also be interested in the home pages of the International Telecommunications Union and the International Astronomical Union.

sean dreilinger writes: "Here's a BBC writeup of the company Linkguard, which hopes to monitor hyperlink stability via their 40-terabyte database and notify web authors when links are broken." This is a different effort than this one. Still, 40 terabytes?

Mugwamp writes: "An American man will soon become the first "space tourist" by paying $20 million to get one week aboard Mir. This will most likely become part of a growing trend, at least in the Soviet Union as Mir is funded by a private company rather than the government and needs money desperately to keep the station running. Additionally, in the same story is an interesting bit about how Mir will start hosting an "Internet portal" that will allow people to access cameras mounted on the tin can...er, I mean space station. Story courtesy of BBC News." That is an expensive vacation, but no crowds.

More information below -- for your edification and amusement -- on black holes (if they exist), Napster (a happy outcome for once), comparitive computer languages (after Chris Rijk's Java / C comparison) and more. Even a (gasp) positive statement about Microsoft. Hope you enjoy it.

What goes up must go SPLOOSH. Detritus writes: "The BBC is reporting that GRO has reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific ocean, as predicted." So just what is the space equivalent of Davy Jones' Locker?

Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Esperanto. After many spirited comments regarding Chris Rijk's Java / C shootout, Nilsson writes: "John Pierce has done some interesting language performance tests. Instead of benchmarking how a problem can be solved in the fastest possible way he tries to benchmark how an average programmer would have solved the problem in various languages. C, Awk, Java, Perl, Pike and Tcl are tested. You can probably start religious wars with this document." Tools for the job, tools for the job ...

Just like an after-school special. Landaras writes "NYC pointed out in a thread that The Offspring and Napster have reached a very amicable settlement over the whole t-shirt issue link Since you clarified that Napster wasn't suing (it was a cease and decist) you might want to again clarify that the cease and decist has been dropped. In fact, Napster is now helping The Offspring create new products." Writing in with more detail, mishaco pointed out this link to an NME story noting that " Napster have now backed down, allowing the band to sell the material, but only if the proceeds are donated to charity."

If it exists, it blows. Which doesn't suck, necessarily. dthor writes: "The Hubble Space Telescope finds more freaks of space: a black hole that's been switched from suck to blow. Apparently, a black hole in the Virgo cluster has begun to emit largish bubbles of colourful nebula gas (or rather...began to emit hundreds of years ago, but CNN is just now catching up). Read the article, complete with an "interactive" Anatomy of a Black Hole (the regular sucking kind). Neato." [Updated 8 June 12:05GMT by timothy] Note that, as readers like daVinci1980 point out below, this is entirely consistent with current black hole theory and observations. There's not really a "suck / blow" switch on black holes' control panels. That we know of.

How the suits saw it. Duncan Lawie penned -- err, "tapped" -- his account of the UK Linux Expo 2000 in London, and it was at least partly about code, distributions and drinking beer. On the other side of the aisle, meanwhile ... Xolution writes "There's a small article on CNN.com about Linux starting to come into the mainstream."

Out of the goodness of their 8-chambered hearts? Kaufmann writes: "Bruce reports: they've received email from a MS product manager, promising to fix the Interix GPL violation (recently reported on Slashdot as well). That's a relief." Nice to hear; thanks for Bruce and company for the sharp eye and persistence.

Here's another quick round of Napster updates! First off, LinuxParanoid wrote in to tell us about Napster reinstating a portion of the accounts removed by the Metallica-inspired crackdown. Grexnix shared at article at the Beeb about Madonna's record company threatening legal action against Napster because a single from her not-yet-released album was leaked onto the net. DanCentury wrote in to tell us about The Offspring selling Napster hats, shirts and stickers on their website. gmr2048 writes "For anyone who may have owned an old HP4020 or 6020 or a Phillips CDD2000 or CDD2600 check out this lawsuit settlement HP/Phillips was sued because of the lack of quality in these units. They have settled and you may be entitled to a repair/replacement or $200 (if you've disposed of your original burner)." Cool! Also, check out the Brunching Shuttlecocks' 'Napster of Puppets,' and 'Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Pirated Mp3s' at Modern Humorist.

Here's another quick round of Napster updates! First off, LinuxParanoid wrote in to tell us about Napster reinstating a portion of the accounts removed by the Metallica-inspired crackdown. Grexnix shared at article at the Beeb about Madonna's record company threatening legal action against Napster because a single from her not-yet-released album was leaked onto the net. DanCentury wrote in to tell us about The Offspring selling Napster hats, shirts and stickers on their website. gmr2048 writes "For anyone who may have owned an old HP4020 or 6020 or a Phillips CDD2000 or CDD2600 check out this lawsuit settlement HP/Phillips was sued because of the lack of quality in these units. They have settled and you may be entitled to a repair/replacement or $200 (if you've disposed of your original burner)." Cool! Also, check out the Brunching Shuttlecocks' 'Napster of Puppets,' and 'Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Pirated Mp3s' at Modern Humorist.

molda writes: "The The BBC is reporting that the New MP4 format is now appearing on websites. The compression routine utilised by MP4 is cable of converting an hours worth of video to a 350mb file. " Until there are cross platform players and encoders I don't see it making each inroads, and there still are some compression issues (but then again, a 128kb/s MP3 wacks out music's treble and bass pretty badly too and that hasn't slowed down its acceptance).

molda writes: "The The BBC is reporting that the New MP4 format is now appearing on websites. The compression routine utilised by MP4 is cable of converting an hours worth of video to a 350mb file. " Until there are cross platform players and encoders I don't see it making each inroads, and there still are some compression issues (but then again, a 128kb/s MP3 wacks out music's treble and bass pretty badly too and that hasn't slowed down its acceptance).

MartinB writes "The BBC is reporting that British Columbia have offered MS a home 100 miles away in Canada. 100 miles of geography, a million miles of juristiction. If MS are in Canada, the US legal system can't touch 'em. Or can they? " Well, I suppose they could move - but that wouldn't totally forestall US Legal Moves, because they'd be forced to maintain a US subsidiary. In addition to not really escaping the DOJ, there's the tax and issues of getting 20,000 people to move.

MartinB writes "The BBC is reporting that British Columbia have offered MS a home 100 miles away in Canada. 100 miles of geography, a million miles of juristiction. If MS are in Canada, the US legal system can't touch 'em. Or can they? " Well, I suppose they could move - but that wouldn't totally forestall US Legal Moves, because they'd be forced to maintain a US subsidiary. In addition to not really escaping the DOJ, there's the tax and issues of getting 20,000 people to move.

Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC reported today on a pilot project underway in India that would bring the Internet to rural India in an affordable way. They are using the spare capacity of the communications and control cabling used for the electrified railway tracks. They also plan to set up cybercafe kiosks at the railway stations." And remember, there are more than 38,000 miles of railway in India.

morn writes: "Boo.com, European 'flagship' e-commerce sportswear store (maker of the distinctive 'geek in sportswear' TV and cinema ads) and largest Internet retail funding ever in Europe has financially collapsed, causing 300 job losses, according to this story by BBC News. The boo.com site is still up, and there are hopes that the firm will be taken over by a more established company. Nevertheless, it begs the asking of this year's favourite question - is this the beginning of the ecommerce bubble bursting?"

morn writes: "Boo.com, European 'flagship' e-commerce sportswear store (maker of the distinctive 'geek in sportswear' TV and cinema ads) and largest Internet retail funding ever in Europe has financially collapsed, causing 300 job losses, according to this story by BBC News. The boo.com site is still up, and there are hopes that the firm will be taken over by a more established company. Nevertheless, it begs the asking of this year's favourite question - is this the beginning of the ecommerce bubble bursting?"

jamesbently writes: "Scientists have discovered that our ecosystem isn't healing itself as fast as they originally thought: bans on consumption of certain plants and animals in areas affected by radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster have been revised upward."

Some useful stuff: An anonymous reader noted that AltaVista has opened Raging.Com which is a super fast minimal search engine without all that bloated portal crap. gi_wrighty noted that the winneers of the 5k HTML Contest have Been announced. Impressive minimalism. Soeren Staun-Pedersen noted that a new The Gimp User Group has come along. j1mmy pointed us to pictures of the new Lara Croft Model from E3. Yaruar sent us a story about Lego Filmsets that come with cameras for you do-it-yourselfers. If you don't want to make your own films, how about your own Mars Polar Lander Site? (Thanks Biff Studly). antiwesley sent us interesting insight into a typical geek cube. Speaking of things found in geek Cubes, BenTheDewpendent sent us a page that tracks tons of info on Mountain Dew and bob_jordan found pictures of upcoming Futurama Bender Action Figures (Not as cool as Nate's Picolo tho) Baloo Ursidae sent us a story about electricity generating shoes. Gorphrim sent us some Duron Parodies Finally some Slashdot references: DrFun (one of the original net comics) mentioned us in a recent strip, Someone noted that Geek Culture is selling First Post T-Shirts. QuasEye noted that someone registered hotgrits.org and ironically enough, is running Slashcode. And the WashPost ran an article on us which is mostly accurate. And to wrap things up, maxxon showed us the way to Crank Dot Net, which has stuff on all sorts of conspiracy theories and urban myths and other crazy stuffs on the net. Stuff like UFOs, the face on mars, Creationism, Scientology, antigravity, and perpetual motion and more.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "It's good to see long-established cultures are fighting back against the global monoculture. It seems that censorship of the Internet is a practical proposition for governments that care sufficiently about the 'moral welfare' of their citizens. It is possible that Slashdot is censored due to the high levels of profanity encountered. Interestingly enough, they have hired Europeans to do the censoring for them. The BBC has this report, Saudi Arabian authorities succeed in censoring the Internet." The official government censor says: "the conservative and religious culture of the Saudi people means they want to be sure that if they log onto the net they will not be offended." I'm sure that's true for many people; the rest have been buying satellite dishes by the truckload to watch authorized TV.

cybaea writes "The BBC reports that the human genome is now completely mapped. A largely unknown company beat all the others to it. " The company in question isn't Celera, or any of the other companies everyone's been talking about. It's a company called Doubletwist (Get it?) that claims to have a first "working draft" of the genes in question. Details are still sketchy - if you see more, please post links in the story below.

Sandeater writes: "BBC news is reporting that an new telescope has just been completed to search out black holes from the Australian outback. The astronomers using the telescope will be looking for huge black holes at the centres of galaxies, as well as seeing how they evolve. The Cangaroo II will be offically opened tomorrow. The BBC link can be found here."

Sandeater writes: "BBC news is reporting that an new telescope has just been completed to search out black holes from the Australian outback. The astronomers using the telescope will be looking for huge black holes at the centres of galaxies, as well as seeing how they evolve. The Cangaroo II will be offically opened tomorrow. The BBC link can be found here."

Percible writes: "BBC News is reporting that John Cleese, star of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is starring alongside Stephen Dorff in the first major film produced exclusively for downloading over the Internet. The film cost $3 million to make, and lasts 32 minutes. Cost to you: $3.95 to purchase the file for download from sightsound.com." There have been quite a few films produced for Internet distribution, but this looks like the first professional approach with known actors.

Percible writes: "BBC News is reporting that John Cleese, star of Monty Python's Flying Circus, is starring alongside Stephen Dorff in the first major film produced exclusively for downloading over the Internet. The film cost $3 million to make, and lasts 32 minutes. Cost to you: $3.95 to purchase the file for download from sightsound.com." There have been quite a few films produced for Internet distribution, but this looks like the first professional approach with known actors.

Loquis was the first of seven billion readers to submit this story about the I Love You Virus and the UK. Its not really a virus: its a trojan that proclaims its love for the recipient and requests that you open its attachment. On a first date even! It then loves you so much that it sends copies of itself to everyone in your addressbook (slut!) and starts destorying files on your drive. Course they estimate that it's infected 10% of the UK. Pine/Elm/Mutt users as always laugh maniacally as the trojan shuffles countless wasted packets over saturated backbones filling overworked SMTP servers everywhere. Sysadmins are seen weeping in the alleys. Update: 05/04 03:12 by CT : My Roommate Kurt "The Pope" DeMaagd has written a better summary of the trojan and more importantly a HOWTO fix it. Windows users only ;) Requires registry hacking, so its not for everyone.

tech_imp writes: "Yikes! Talk about swift justice. The BBC is reporting that Judges 'roaming' the streets in Brazil will be using laptops and an app written in VB to help dispense justice. I'm not sure that I would not want to trust my judgement to a VB app ... couldn't they have at least written it something more robust ... like Perl? I can see it now ... your sentence is GPF :')" Three words that spring to mind: "General Protection Fault."

tech_imp writes: "Yikes! Talk about swift justice. The BBC is reporting that Judges 'roaming' the streets in Brazil will be using laptops and an app written in VB to help dispense justice. I'm not sure that I would not want to trust my judgement to a VB app ... couldn't they have at least written it something more robust ... like Perl? I can see it now ... your sentence is GPF :')" Three words that spring to mind: "General Protection Fault."

jmobiusmaximus writes "Right next to the wormhole site on the BBC News page is an article about the results of the Boomerang project in Antarctica. This resulted in a new map of the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation, which is thought to be a remnant of the energy released in the Big Bang. The BBC News synopsis isn't bad, and has some links that will answer most "WTF?" questions. For those of you who have taken a little bit of physics, the original Nature article is better. This could have a large impact on our understanding of the universe's evolution and will probably be the source of much debate in the near future. "

jmobiusmaximus writes "Right next to the wormhole site on the BBC News page is an article about the results of the Boomerang project in Antarctica. This resulted in a new map of the 2.7K cosmic microwave background radiation, which is thought to be a remnant of the energy released in the Big Bang. The BBC News synopsis isn't bad, and has some links that will answer most "WTF?" questions. For those of you who have taken a little bit of physics, the original Nature article is better. This could have a large impact on our understanding of the universe's evolution and will probably be the source of much debate in the near future. "

ChrisUK writes "A new article posted on the BBC's Sci/Tech news site states that pollution in the form of PCB's is lowering intelligence. Interesting reading; a good background for which would be available from Neal Stephenson's book 'Zodiac'. "

Randall Burns writes: " Oxford Ancestors, founded by world-famous University of Oxford scientist Bryan Sykes has announced the public availability of an inexpensive($US 180) service that will trace matrilineal ancestry using DNA tests. Applications include forensics, genealogy and research of history. Coverage includes a recent BBC story. The currently available test can trace matrilineal ancestry back to one of seven women who lived 150,000 years ago to which 99% of all people of European descent can trace their ancestry."

JCallery writes: "CNN has a story about recent photographs of Area 51 that were shot by a satellite launched by a private company (Aerial Images Inc.) and the Russian Space Agency. They are of great quality, showing everything from buses and hangars to an aircraft covered with a tarp. See the images for yourself!" (UFO conspiracy buffs may also want to check this BBC story sent in by Rafael.)

"I got into the Internet because I believed in the promise of freedom for all; I never imagined it would be the most easily censored medium there is." These are the words of a director of the Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain - which has now been moved to the good old U.S.A. because its British ISP is too afraid of libel suits to continue hosting it. Why? Because Demon Internet settled the libel suit brought by Laurence Godfrey. British ISPs are now (rightly) terrified, and are (unfortunately) censoring Web sites like Outcast merely because of the possibility of future libels that might be published. (more)

The problem is with the British legal system, which makes defending against libel suits difficult. Essentially, the defendant has to prove his or her innocence, typically by proving the truth of every challenged statement (and there are other systemic flaws as well). In such a system, putting up a defense is such a hassle - and so expensive - that settling out of court is almost always easier.

The Laurence Godfrey case was settled out of court, setting not a precedent but a bad example. Most libel cases do settle. After Godfrey's victory, now even more will.

One of the better-known cases which went all the way to the verdict was the McLibel trial, in which everyone's favorite multinational food chain sued two unemployed activists for handing out a pamphlet. Attempting to prove the truth of every single statement in the brief factsheet took the vegetarians two years. They could not afford to pay legal counsel or even to buy the transcripts of their own trial's proceedings. They lost, but the negative publicity was a Pyrrhic victory for McDonald's.

And in very recent news, the big story has been one in which a Holocaust-denier brought suit for a book which (essentially) called him a Holocaust-denier. This time, the good guys won, but only because the author and publisher were willing to spend two million pounds to illustrate that the facts were on their side. The bookstores that were sued had settled quickly out of court and agreed to the plaintiff's terms. (If you follow this case, some excellent and very detailed legal analysis can be found at a site I happen to Webmaster, in the essays Irving'sWar.)

Even if a libel suit is only hinted-at, as in the Outcast and CACIB cases, pre-emptively removing the material is the publisher's safest move. Don't like what someone says? Afraid of what they might say? Gag'em!

The U.K. needs to wise up and bring its libel law into the 20th century, or its citizens will quickly find themselves inhabiting a Bland Speech Zone. An island on the Internet, if you will, where nobody dares say anything about anyone else - or if they do, they prudently take their speech (and their money) offshore.

As a Demon settlement news report predicted two weeks ago:

"If the ISPs become more cautious over what material they allow to be published - by screening submissions or suspending Web sites - they could inflame the debate over freedom of expression or damage internet-based businesses."

Neither of which, surely, will benefit the people of the U.K.

Update: 04/18 03:21 by J : Two good commentaries today from lawyers relating to the Holocaust-denier's lawsuit. The legal team defending against the Holocaust-denier's lawsuit has an interesting contrary view in today's Independent. They argue that British libel law works, and is getting better in response to criticism. But when they write:

"...libel actions and the associated costs are part of the process of publishing. They are to the publishing industry what construction disputes are to the building industry. If the litigation is expensive that is a criticism of the price of litigation - not of libel litigation specifically."

they obscure an important point. We are all publishers in the internet age. If publishing is to be restricted to those who can afford "industry" insurance policies against million-pound legal fees, put a fork in the U.K.'s internet - it's done.

And, see also a legal viewpoint from the defending publisher's lawyers.

Ponderu writes "BBC News is carrying a story about how easy it is to get a website pulled in the UK. They asked several ISPs how they would react to a sample site and the news is not encouraging. " Very frightening.

Ponderu writes "BBC News is carrying a story about how easy it is to get a website pulled in the UK. They asked several ISPs how they would react to a sample site and the news is not encouraging. " Very frightening.

A number of people have e-mailed with the BBC's coverage of the some "new theories" from a Russian scientist that have been unveiled in New Scientist magazine. The theories have been met with some skepticism by the scientific community, so don't go planning your vacation to Alpha Centauri quite yet.

MrCreosote writes: "This story from the BBC announces the availability of a printer for the Babbage Difference Engine. Originally designed to print the tables that were calculated by the difference engine, it includes advanced features such as user definable formatting and auto line wrap. It is widely believed that the lack of peripherals was a significant factor in the failure of the Difference Engine taking off and gaining a significant market share -- a situation that has led to the current Microsoft monopoly." Kudos to the folks at London's Science Museum who actually built this.

rm-r writes: "The BBC is running a story here about Microsoft hiring Ralph Reed, one of George W. Bush's senior consultants and a big figure in the Christian Coalition, to lobby against their anti-trust case." Think MS knows that many people consider them the Great Satan??

Thanks to VerucaDave (and goatbert) for passing on this NOAA advisory. Seems that the people of Earth are experiencing the effects of a little solar action. And kevlar wrote with the news "There are sightings, as we speak of the Aurora Borealis, as far south as Washington DC. ... This is a rare anomaly to be seen so far south. To see it, look north right now (best time is around/after midnight). See if you can spy some fast moving particles! If your latitude is anywhere north of DC, then you should see something with a little effort!" So if you are anywhere on Earth where it still matters, run -- do not walk -- to the nearest spot from which you can scan the sky. May you have clear skies and no light-polluting neighbors. [Updated 14:40GMT by timothy.]

On a related note, periscope sent in some information about some new satellites that are going up to study this summer's expected solar storms. They're also looking for names for the satellites: here's your chance to put your name in the sky, so to speak. I vote for Andre, Libe, Setsuko and Golfball.

Richey writes "The BBC has a story about a scientist who has discovered strong links between your genetic makeup and your surname. To quote from the site: 'This surprising discovery suggests that forensic evidence left at the scene of a crime could be read in a DNA laboratory and reveal the criminal's name.' That seems unlikely, but I'm still glad that my surname's Smith!" Doesn't work on women for some reason.

Richey writes "The BBC has a story about a scientist who has discovered strong links between your genetic makeup and your surname. To quote from the site: 'This surprising discovery suggests that forensic evidence left at the scene of a crime could be read in a DNA laboratory and reveal the criminal's name.' That seems unlikely, but I'm still glad that my surname's Smith!" Doesn't work on women for some reason.

bullgod writes "The BBC is reporting this story about the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. Bummer! Presumably stolen to order -- I doubt you could fence one of these. Lets hope it's found & returned soon." You might also want to check out the Enigma displayed at the National Cryptologic Museum, run by the same folks who deny bringing you Echelon.

bullgod writes "The BBC is reporting this story about the theft of one of the remaining three Enigma machines. Bummer! Presumably stolen to order -- I doubt you could fence one of these. Lets hope it's found & returned soon." You might also want to check out the Enigma displayed at the National Cryptologic Museum, run by the same folks who deny bringing you Echelon.

Let's start this off with bio2's link to "the tube": an unrollable laptop:super crazy hardware. seizer sent us the most amusing firewall circumventer: a TCP/IP Email Tunnel. While on the subject of bizarre technology, John Petz sent us a webserver running on an Atari 800. Still not in shock? hool sent us a hack over at x42.com which uses the hostname as input to a calculator. tdunn linked us to a place that lists odd things found inside PC cases. It includes a *shudder* severed finger tip. For more wierd tech support, yeahbensteres submitted iamanidiot.com which has some tales that you may or may not believe. Pike sent us 94 Uses for Old Altoids Tins: Who eats 94 tins of altoids? Oh... wait. OwenF sent us linkage to the latest robotic pet craze. Look out AIBO, here comes Robotic Fish! Slashdot's own jamiemccarthy points us to TimeCube.com for all your wierd-science needs. You econ majors might be interested in Yhetti's link to the fortune-cookie market index. Bradley noted a story about a man who changed his name to 'Oxford University' to avoid domain squatting charges from Oxford University. If you have a mission:impossible scheduled next week, Dr. Manhattan sent us a link to a Swiss company that is developing self-destructing CDs. The CIA has some on back order. An anonymous reader pointed us to EarthKam, which has several really beautiful pictures of earth from space. Check out their top 10 ... if only they were bigger they'd make great background art. And finally for those of you who are sick of all the naughty language on TV, deepak saxena sent us a machine that claims it will filter all the damn swearing from TV and video. I'm waiting for a version that filters out Regis.

Uri writes "A BBC article has just reported that Laurence Godfrey, a physicist, has won around $400,000 from Demon Internet, a leading UK ISP, over defamatory posting about him which appeared on usenet. Note that under English Law, ISPs are held responsible for defamatory material if they do not take reasonable care to ensure such material is not published, and if they do not remove such material when alerted to it. It was the latter that Demon refused to do, and which prompted the legal action. The case now threatens to put an huge strain on all English ISPs as they could be forced to monitor all material trafficking through their systems. Go England! "

An interesting snippet from the article: "Although such discussion forums are often full of robust, forthright and even offensive opinions posted by individuals, the case hinged on whether Demon could be treated as publisher of the material." I wonder how well British universities would like to be treated as publishers, and therefore Net-content nannies ...

Anotherone was among a large number of people over the last few days who've written in about research that BAe seems to be funding on Project Greenglow, an anti-gravity project.

Quite a number of people have written over the last few days regarding the BBC news report that the Department of Justice has apparently rejected Microsoft's proposed settlement. Unless something is reached today, this means it will be up to Judge Jackson to decide what to do on the 28th.

JoN writes "The BBC is running an article about why cold pizza tastes '... so good the morning after.'" Dr Maureen Cooper, a researcher from Stirling University, has found the answer. Apparently the '... traditional pizza base has fibres which trap water, preventing it from seeping through to the cooked dough and making it soggy. Given that fat and water do not mix, the melted cheese topping then sits nicely above the puree.'"