Slashdot Mirror

Heartless Gamer writes "New Guitar Hero 2 info revealed. The game will feature in-game endorsements and real-world venues. There will be at least two new characters: Dax DeVille, the Rockabilly formerly known as King Kendall after Harmonix' Jason Kendall, and a still unnamed Norwegian death rocker."

flergum writes "While dolphins may have big brains, laboratory rats and goldfish can outwit them. It appears that the large brains are a function of their environment rather than intelligence. From the article: 'Dolphins have a superabundance of glia and very few neurons... The dolphin's brain is not made for information processing it is designed to counter the thermal challenges of being a mammal in water.' I guess this means that the Navy will start recruiting and training goldfish for those mine search and destroy missions."

nanotrends writes "Gordie Rose, the CTO of Dwave Systems, the venture funded company that plans to offer paid use of a superconducting quantum computer starting in 2007, reveals secrets of his quantum computer construction. It is based on nobium superconducting 'circuits of atoms' and is not RSFQ. (Rapid Single Flux quantum)."

IZ Reloaded writes "Sources tell SPACE.com that the International Astronomical Union is preparing to include three new entries to the current list of planets in our solar system. From the article: The asteroid Ceres, which is round, would be recast as a dwarf planet in the new scheme. Pluto would remain a planet and its moon Charon would be reclassified as a planet. Both would be called "plutons," however, to distinguish them from the eight "classical" planets. A far-out Pluto-sized object known as 2003 UB313 would also be called a pluton."

thetan writes "Google has announced the first major upgrade to Blogger since taking over the creaking old platform. Still in beta, the new service offers a tie-in to your Google Account, dynamic pages, separate comment feeds, new layouts, an apparent merger with Google's Page Creator for WYSIWYG editing, integration of feeds, public/private access control and — of interest to bloghackers — tag-based labels for categories. Take the tour."

thetan writes "Google has announced the first major upgrade to Blogger since taking over the creaking old platform. Still in beta, the new service offers a tie-in to your Google Account, dynamic pages, separate comment feeds, new layouts, an apparent merger with Google's Page Creator for WYSIWYG editing, integration of feeds, public/private access control and — of interest to bloghackers — tag-based labels for categories. Take the tour."

Heartless Gamer writes "According to bit-tech.com, we'll soon be releasing the first in a series of updates to Counter-Strike: Source which will be focused on moving the core Counter-Strike gameplay forward. The first update will include an updated version of the map Train, which will feature an HDR lighting pass, some minor layout changes, and a number of small bugfixes. The second facet of this release will be a completely reworked radar system. There will be a significant change to the aesthetics of the radar, but there are also some fairly significant gameplay ramifications to the new system."

Exchange writes "In Michigan, in Warner Bros. v. Scantlebury, after learning that the defendant had passed away, the RIAA made a motion to stay the case for 60 days in order to allow the family time to "grieve", after which time they want to start taking depositions of the late Mr. Scantlebury's children. Recording Industry vs The People have more details"

alewar writes "This nice gallery shows the evolution in the appearance of Mac OS, Microsoft Windows and KDE through the years, from the first version to the last available. Not technical, but still interesting to recall some memories from the good old days."

Heartless Gamer writes "There is quite a few surprises waiting in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The raiding scene in World of Warcraft is going to dramatically change once Burning Crusade is released. Here's the long and short of it: all of the new high-end raid content will be capped at 25 heads. Indeed, all the raid content that was mentioned in today's demo, with the exception of Kharazan (which is designed for 10 players) is being designed around a force of 25. Blizzard has completely done away with 40-man raiding; Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, and Naxxrammas will still exist, of course. There just isn't going to be any new 40-man content. How's that for earth-shattering?"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark legal document, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and the American Association of Law Libraries have submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the motion for attorneys fees that has been made by Deborah Foster in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma. This brief is mandatory reading for every person who is interested in the RIAA litigation campaign against consumers."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a landmark legal document, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and the American Association of Law Libraries have submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the motion for attorneys fees that has been made by Deborah Foster in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma. This brief is mandatory reading for every person who is interested in the RIAA litigation campaign against consumers."

biglig2 asks: "You may have seen on todays news that, after a foiled attempt to smuggle explosives on a plane here in the UK, UK airlines are now banning all cabin baggage on outgoing flights. Great timing, since I'm probably flying to the States next week, and this means putting my laptop, iPod and cellphone into the cargo hold. Since I have to assume that anything I put in the hold is going to be frozen, depressurized, and repeatedly jumped on by the baggage handlers, what hard laptop cases have Slashdot users found to be indestructible?"

j823777 was one of several readers to point out a BBC report that "A terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the U.S. has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate up to three explosive devices smuggled on aircraft in hand luggage. Police have arrested 21 people in the London area after an anti-terrorist operation lasting several months. Security at all airports in the UK has been tightened and delays are reported. MI5 has raised the UK threat level to critical — the highest possible." spo0nman adds a link to the Associated Press's coverage. Update: 08/10 12:57 GMT by T : Several readers have pointed out new restrictions imposed as a result of this plot on passengers' carry-on luggage. In the UK, nearly all possession (including laptop computers) must be carried in the cargo hold; while their rules don't yet go quite as far, U.S. airlines are stepping up their enforcement of carry-on-restrictions, including banning substances like toothpaste.

Heartless Gamer writes "MMORPGs and game addiction. If you're suffering from dry eyes, headaches, back aches, erratic sleep patterns, it may be more than just your average hangover: according to Dr. Maressa Orzack, you could be suffering from video and computer game addiction. A clinical psychologist, Orzack is founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Newton, Mass., and is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Computer Addiction Services is one of the few outpatient clinics in the U.S. that provides specific treatment for game addiction." but I'm feelings much better now.

fragmentate writes "This morning Google released information about their analysis of the exaggerated click-fraud numbers. Without pointing fingers, they mention that click-fraud analysis companies need to clean up their methods. From the post, 'A rigorous technical analysis by Google engineers has found fundamental flaws in the work of several click fraud consultants - flaws that help explain why widely quoted estimates of the size of the click fraud problem are exaggerated.' They even point out some obvious shortcomings of the methods used. The entire report [PDF] is available with their complete analysis."

Heartless Gamer writes to mention a feature on Grimwell online looking at the great board game of Carcassonne. Yet another terrific title from Rio Grande, the article takes a look at a possible introductory title for someone who might not have played a more serious board game. From the article: "Once you place a farmer, you can't get that follower back. The question thus becomes, do you play it now while the field is empty or do you wait, hoping your opponent won't claim the field the following turn? Farms can mean big points at the end of the game but could also mean missed points during the game if you run out of followers to play. The game plays smoothly once the players are briefed on the rules. Turns fly by and games complete relatively quickly. The only trick area of gameplay is ensuring players placing farmers are not overlapping other farmers. There can be a lot of land tiles between farmers, so a keen eye is required to ensure the rules are followed. Fortunately, the rule book has plenty of examples to help the players out."

William Henderson writes "That's right, if you haven't read it for yourself yet, Objective-C '2.0' now supports garbage collection. I foresee a great, huge, gigantic debate about to ensue, and a lot of java-heads sparking 'I told you so'. Why not start it here on slashdot?"

Ravi writes "When somebody talks about the Qt Framework, the first thing that comes to mind is KDE one of the most popular Desktops which is built using the Qt library. Qt is a C++ GUI framework created by the Norwegian firm Trolltech which can be used to build applications for a variety of OSes and platforms. The latest version of Qt (Ver 4.0) contains huge improvements over its earlier versions such as advanced modal/view functionality, easy to use template containers and better Unicode support just to name a few. I have been excited about the ease with which one can build GUI applications using Qt. Trolltech provides the library in two licences - the free licence which mandates that the applications developed be released under GPL and a commercial non-free licence which allows one to develop closed source applications using Qt." Read the rest of Ravi's review. C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 author Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield pages 540 publisher Prentice Hall rating 9 reviewer Ravi ISBN 0-13-187249-4 summary A great book to learn the latest version of Qt (Ver 4.0) to create applications that run natively in Linux/Unix, Windows and Mac OS X

I found the latest book on Qt titled "C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4" authored by Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield and brought out by Prentice Hall to be a remarkable book in that it takes the readers through the basics of creating applications using the latest version of Qt and gradually shifts to explain the more advanced concepts of GUI programming using this C++ framework.

The book, all of 540 pages is divided into three parts - the first part containing 5 chapters dealing with Basic Qt, the second part titled Intermediate Qt which contains 11 chapters and the final part titled Advanced Qt containing an additional 5 chapters.

The major work in picking up skills in a new GUI framework revolves around getting to know all the classes and their member functions. And learning Qt is no different. In the first five chapters (Part I of the book), one gets to know the rudimentary concepts behind creating GUI applications using the Qt toolkit. And remarkably, instead of boring the readers with the different Qt classes, the authors take a hands on approach and introduce the concepts via examples.

In chapters 1 through 5, the readers are introduced to rapid dialog design using the Qt Designer, introduction to the main Qt classes such as QApplication, QObject, QWidget and its child classes as well as a good understanding of the concept of Signals and Slots which form the meat behind communication between different objects in Qt. Apart from that the 5th chapter also introduces to the reader the concept of Double buffering - one which is used popularly by the programmers in eliminating flicker in the GUI interface.

The sixth chapter titled "Layout Management" falls in the second part namely "Intermediate Qt". Here one gets to know and tryout the different layout classes that are available in Qt using which one can easily design sophisticated GUI applications. This chapter also gives the reader an introduction to Multiple Document Interface by way of an example.

Event Processing forms the basis of the seventh chapter where the authors explain how to catch events such as key presses and timers. Apart from that the authors also explain the five levels at which events can be processed and filtered in Qt.

Qt has an excellent collection of classes for creating 2D and 3D graphics. And from version 4, the classes are grouped into modules which need only be plugged in on a need to use basis. The primary class which deals with the 2D graphics engine in Qt is the QPainter class. The use of this class has been explained in detail in the eighth chapter titled "2D and 3D Graphics". Other than that, one also gets to know about the OpenGL module in Qt which makes it very easy to integrate OpenGL code into Qt applications as well as the classes which implement printing.

It is really interesting to see that the entire subject of Qt is apportioned into separate chapters with each chapter dealing with a particular topic. For example, if in the 9th chapter, the authors dwell on explaining the classes which implement drag and drop support, the succeeding chapter elaborates on the Model view controller architecture which forms the basis for most item view classes which implement tables, tree views and lists.

Another thing worth noting is that each chapter is explained with a complete stand alone example which makes it easy to try out what one has learned and also get a better idea of the concepts behind the classes that are explained. So while learning say about the container classes in Qt, the reader can actually try out an example and the code is accompanied by step-by-step explanations which makes it much more simpler to grasp the concepts.

All object oriented languages contain what are known as container classes - those which are responsible for creating sorted and unsorted data arrays, vectors and lists. And C++ has a couple of them in the Standard Template Library (STL). Qt has its own wide array of container classes which sport a number of improvements over STL in that they support implicit sharing (Copy on Write) which gives the applications a significant performance boost. In the 11th chapter titled Container Classes, the authors explain the concept of containers and the Qt classes that can be used for the same.

The next two chapters deal with writing and reading data from files as well as databases. And in each case, the concepts are explained with the aid of examples which makes the narration much more interesting to follow.

Qt has good support for Networking as well as XML which is evident from the 14th and 15th chapters which elaborate on the classes responsible for these. Even though these two short chapters do not cover all the networking or XMl concepts, I found them to impart a good idea of the use of a couple of important Qt classes related to networking and XML.

The 17th chapter titled "Internationalization" falls in the Advanced section of the book. I found this chapter to be an eye opener in that, with Qt's robust use of Unicode, it is possible to create applications which support a wide variety of non-english languages.

But one of the very important concept of multi-threading is explained in the next chapter titled what else "Multithreading" where the authors teach how to create threads easily in Qt.

If one looks at any KDE application, it will be evident how the parent application can be extended by use of plugins. A plugin is a dynamic library which implements a particular interface to provide extra functionality to the user. In the 19th chapter, one gets to know how to create dynamic libraries using Qt which can then be plugged into the parent application.

In the penultimate chapter, the authors explain all the platform specific features and tweaks such as using ActiveX in Windows and handling session management in X11. There are also four pages - which I believe to contain the shortest chapter I have ever come across and where a couple of classes which can be used in programming for embedded devices such as mobile phones are listed. By including this tiny chapter, perhaps, the authors were sending a signal to the developer community that Qt is fully ready for use in embedded development.

From start to finish, I found the book immensely enjoyable. The style of narration of the authors which interleaves the example code with the explanation is ideally suited to pick up skills in using any toolkit without getting bored, especially since the bulk of the learning involves acquiring a fine understanding of the classes the toolkit provides. As a bonus the book also provides an appendix which gives an introduction to C++ for programmers who use Java or C#.

The single CD accompanying the book contains Qt library in the source form for the Linux platform as well as for Windows and Mac platforms. I did not have any problems in compiling the source and installing the library in Linux using the instructions provided in the book. And within a little more than an hour (the time taken to compile the source code), I was able to start coding and compiling the examples given in the book. All in all, I find this book to be an invaluable guide in picking up skills in programming in the latest version of Qt (4.0).

Ravi Kumar likes to share his experiences in programming and in using Linux through his blog on Linux."

You can purchase C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Ravi writes "When somebody talks about the Qt Framework, the first thing that comes to mind is KDE one of the most popular Desktops which is built using the Qt library. Qt is a C++ GUI framework created by the Norwegian firm Trolltech which can be used to build applications for a variety of OSes and platforms. The latest version of Qt (Ver 4.0) contains huge improvements over its earlier versions such as advanced modal/view functionality, easy to use template containers and better Unicode support just to name a few. I have been excited about the ease with which one can build GUI applications using Qt. Trolltech provides the library in two licences - the free licence which mandates that the applications developed be released under GPL and a commercial non-free licence which allows one to develop closed source applications using Qt." Read the rest of Ravi's review. C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 author Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield pages 540 publisher Prentice Hall rating 9 reviewer Ravi ISBN 0-13-187249-4 summary A great book to learn the latest version of Qt (Ver 4.0) to create applications that run natively in Linux/Unix, Windows and Mac OS X

I found the latest book on Qt titled "C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4" authored by Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield and brought out by Prentice Hall to be a remarkable book in that it takes the readers through the basics of creating applications using the latest version of Qt and gradually shifts to explain the more advanced concepts of GUI programming using this C++ framework.

The book, all of 540 pages is divided into three parts - the first part containing 5 chapters dealing with Basic Qt, the second part titled Intermediate Qt which contains 11 chapters and the final part titled Advanced Qt containing an additional 5 chapters.

The major work in picking up skills in a new GUI framework revolves around getting to know all the classes and their member functions. And learning Qt is no different. In the first five chapters (Part I of the book), one gets to know the rudimentary concepts behind creating GUI applications using the Qt toolkit. And remarkably, instead of boring the readers with the different Qt classes, the authors take a hands on approach and introduce the concepts via examples.

In chapters 1 through 5, the readers are introduced to rapid dialog design using the Qt Designer, introduction to the main Qt classes such as QApplication, QObject, QWidget and its child classes as well as a good understanding of the concept of Signals and Slots which form the meat behind communication between different objects in Qt. Apart from that the 5th chapter also introduces to the reader the concept of Double buffering - one which is used popularly by the programmers in eliminating flicker in the GUI interface.

The sixth chapter titled "Layout Management" falls in the second part namely "Intermediate Qt". Here one gets to know and tryout the different layout classes that are available in Qt using which one can easily design sophisticated GUI applications. This chapter also gives the reader an introduction to Multiple Document Interface by way of an example.

Event Processing forms the basis of the seventh chapter where the authors explain how to catch events such as key presses and timers. Apart from that the authors also explain the five levels at which events can be processed and filtered in Qt.

Qt has an excellent collection of classes for creating 2D and 3D graphics. And from version 4, the classes are grouped into modules which need only be plugged in on a need to use basis. The primary class which deals with the 2D graphics engine in Qt is the QPainter class. The use of this class has been explained in detail in the eighth chapter titled "2D and 3D Graphics". Other than that, one also gets to know about the OpenGL module in Qt which makes it very easy to integrate OpenGL code into Qt applications as well as the classes which implement printing.

It is really interesting to see that the entire subject of Qt is apportioned into separate chapters with each chapter dealing with a particular topic. For example, if in the 9th chapter, the authors dwell on explaining the classes which implement drag and drop support, the succeeding chapter elaborates on the Model view controller architecture which forms the basis for most item view classes which implement tables, tree views and lists.

Another thing worth noting is that each chapter is explained with a complete stand alone example which makes it easy to try out what one has learned and also get a better idea of the concepts behind the classes that are explained. So while learning say about the container classes in Qt, the reader can actually try out an example and the code is accompanied by step-by-step explanations which makes it much more simpler to grasp the concepts.

All object oriented languages contain what are known as container classes - those which are responsible for creating sorted and unsorted data arrays, vectors and lists. And C++ has a couple of them in the Standard Template Library (STL). Qt has its own wide array of container classes which sport a number of improvements over STL in that they support implicit sharing (Copy on Write) which gives the applications a significant performance boost. In the 11th chapter titled Container Classes, the authors explain the concept of containers and the Qt classes that can be used for the same.

The next two chapters deal with writing and reading data from files as well as databases. And in each case, the concepts are explained with the aid of examples which makes the narration much more interesting to follow.

Qt has good support for Networking as well as XML which is evident from the 14th and 15th chapters which elaborate on the classes responsible for these. Even though these two short chapters do not cover all the networking or XMl concepts, I found them to impart a good idea of the use of a couple of important Qt classes related to networking and XML.

The 17th chapter titled "Internationalization" falls in the Advanced section of the book. I found this chapter to be an eye opener in that, with Qt's robust use of Unicode, it is possible to create applications which support a wide variety of non-english languages.

But one of the very important concept of multi-threading is explained in the next chapter titled what else "Multithreading" where the authors teach how to create threads easily in Qt.

If one looks at any KDE application, it will be evident how the parent application can be extended by use of plugins. A plugin is a dynamic library which implements a particular interface to provide extra functionality to the user. In the 19th chapter, one gets to know how to create dynamic libraries using Qt which can then be plugged into the parent application.

In the penultimate chapter, the authors explain all the platform specific features and tweaks such as using ActiveX in Windows and handling session management in X11. There are also four pages - which I believe to contain the shortest chapter I have ever come across and where a couple of classes which can be used in programming for embedded devices such as mobile phones are listed. By including this tiny chapter, perhaps, the authors were sending a signal to the developer community that Qt is fully ready for use in embedded development.

From start to finish, I found the book immensely enjoyable. The style of narration of the authors which interleaves the example code with the explanation is ideally suited to pick up skills in using any toolkit without getting bored, especially since the bulk of the learning involves acquiring a fine understanding of the classes the toolkit provides. As a bonus the book also provides an appendix which gives an introduction to C++ for programmers who use Java or C#.

The single CD accompanying the book contains Qt library in the source form for the Linux platform as well as for Windows and Mac platforms. I did not have any problems in compiling the source and installing the library in Linux using the instructions provided in the book. And within a little more than an hour (the time taken to compile the source code), I was able to start coding and compiling the examples given in the book. All in all, I find this book to be an invaluable guide in picking up skills in programming in the latest version of Qt (4.0).

Ravi Kumar likes to share his experiences in programming and in using Linux through his blog on Linux."

You can purchase C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Heartless Gamer writes "Ziff Davis Shuts Down CGW, Opens Games For Windows. The Ziff Davis Game Group, which produces consumer game site 1UP and Electronic Gaming Monthly and Official PlayStation Magazine in North America, has announced that it is shutting down its US print magazine Computer Gaming World and replacing it with an officially Microsoft-branded 'Games For Windows' magazine and website."

Jason Booth takes a look at the recently released Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, on Xbox Live. A highly anticipated title, Mr. Booth lays out why Capcom has fallen short of the high expectations gamers had for the title. From the article: "Now, where the game really falls down is online. It's bad enough playing SF2 on the 360 controller, but with lag it's nearly impossible. The funny thing is, the lag really isn't that bad from a technical standpoint. Most matches feel as if I'm getting a reasonable ping time and response. But SF2 turbo is a fast game, and at that speed, you just can't play, and can't compensate enough for the lag. If you press an attack button while leaving the ground on a jump, it'll probably go off as its landing."

nuyorker and hdm wrote to mention the new releases for Thunderbird and Firefox. hdm writes "This release of Firefox fixes 12 security holes, many of which can be used to execute malicious code. The Browser Fun project has provided an online demonstration of one of these flaws. This demonstration is capable of executing code on Windows, Linux, and both architectures of the Mac OS X platform; you're going to want to upgrade today!"

tabdelgawad writes "The Washington Post has a story detailing how Amazon has purchased the rights to turn a recently published book into a feature-length movie. The article also outlines other 'strange directions' Amazon has taken in response to declining profits and a plummeting stock price, including moving into the grocery business and producing original live webcasts and streaming shows."

Unsurprisingly, the story that Digital Point Solutions CEO Shawn Hogan has "found himself on the receiving end of an MPAA lawsuit" (for allegedly downloading a copy of Meet the Fockers via BitTorrent) and has vowed to fight it drew hundreds of comments, many of them expressing hope that Hogan both stays in court and prevails against the MPAA. Read on for the Backslash summary of the discussion. Reader Poromenos1 had a snarky reaction to Hogan's claim that he already owned a copy of the movie on DVD:

No wonder he doesn't want to admit to downloading it, that movie sucked! I bet he doesn't even have the DVD.

Other comments took that defense a bit more seriously, pointing out that "I own the DVD already!" is no ironclad defense against claims of copyright infringement. Junior J. Junior III, for instance, wrote

I don't see how ownership of the original media serves as "proof" that he didn't download it.

Besides, with BitTorrent, you upload chunks of the torrent even as you download the file. What if he didn't download the .torrent of MtF, but rather seeded a .torrent of the ISO of the DVD he ripped?

What if he purchased the DVD after viewing the downloaded torrent? It's still an unauthorized distribution of a copyrighted work, even if it did end up resulting in a sale that benefits the Plaintiff... if they want to sue because to them the principle of control is more important than the short-term profit of a unit sale, who are we to question such prioritization?

In response to the desire evident in some comments to see a trial take place and (perhaps) cast doubt on the MPAA's aggressive tactics, reader BigNumber predicts that this is "not gonna happen," writing:

He won't get a chance to 'defend himself' unless he decides to counter-sue. The MPAA will simply drop the case and move on to a less aggressive victim.

Reader Elsimer points out that the odds that Hogan will get a day in court against the MPAA are better than for most people; he has money and determination, as demonstrated in the Zeropaid interview with Hogan from which Elsimer quotes, in which Hogan says

Yep. At this point they have pushed me enough to where I'm going to do whatever I can to keep them from dropping the case. I can't prevent them from dropping it, but I am going to try and force them to go to a full trial. Basically, my lawyers aren't even going to file a motion to dismiss. ... At this point, I don't care what it costs. If they drop it, I will find something to counter with to keep it in court.

Despite Hogan's personal resources, eldavojohn was one of several who said they'd like to contribute to his cause, writing

I personally would like to extend a helping hand to Shawn. If he wants to take this to court, I would like to pay him a simple $10 through Paypal for fighting the good fight. I've given the same donations to Slashdot and many many open source projects (especially those on SourceForge) that have made my life easier.

I would like to live in a world where I'm not worried about some organization of rich bastards strong arming citizens out of hard earned cash. There have been several cases so far where people have been charged with little or no evidence. The methods by which they obtain their evidence is even shadier.

If you're reading this, Shawn Hogan, please leave some contact info so we can donate small sums of money to aid in your defense.

Reader toad3k points out that Hogan is "not exactly hiding," and points out the location of Hogan's blog. eldavojohn responded in the same thread to the idea that such support might be "a little misplaced," writing

I'm not going to support the person who just pays the obscene fine because they want to avoid the trial and lawyers. I want to support this guy if he's willing to bring the lawyers and cast doubt on the MPAA.

Several readers predicted that the MPAA would hastily drop legal action against such a determined opponent (TheSpoom's was typical: "My guess: They'll drop the suit against this guy, but continue to threaten those that don't have the means to fight back. ), but as milamber3 points out, according to the article

The head of their anti-piracy division is openly saying they're looking forward to a trial and verdict next summer.

Reader Danse is skeptical:

That's what they're saying now. Give it a couple months. They'll probably drop it quietly after everyone has forgotten about it.

To this, reader TechForensics says

They can't drop the case if the defendant files a counterclaim. Or if they do, they're still in court on the counterclaim. If Hogan wants to teach them a lesson, he'll make sure his counterclaim litigates all of the issues they don't want litigated, including some they'd be forced to litigate if they actually took someone all the way to court.

Several readers' comments focused on the question of how those who aren't ready to pay the cost of a lawsuit but who would like to contest the MPAA's legal case against them, and many of these comments speculate on the viability of a pre se (self-representation) defense; as embodied in voice_of_all_reason's comment that "[w]ith a reasonable amount of study on basic law, it shouldn't be that hard at all." Reader schnell disagrees, and offers a few pointed analogies:

Describing an intellectual property civil lawsuit against people with law degrees and years of experience like this may just be a little cavalier. Let's try a little substitution here and see how it sounds:

• No, I meant fix your transmission yourself. With a reasonable amount of study on basic automotive engineering, it shouldn't be that hard at all.
• No, I meant perform a root canal on yourself. With a reasonable amount of study ovn basic orthodontics, some local anesthesia and a mirror, it shouldn't be that hard at all.

Also on the legal front, Squalish makes an important distinction:

They're filing civil lawsuits, which are a different legal category than crimes here in the U.S. One key: Civil law goes on preponderance (51% convinced = hold the defendant liable), so a mere 'reasonable doubt' that you were using your computer is not a defense. They just have to convince a judge that you probably were, rather than proving it.

Finally and usefully, reader shotfeel offers an informative link for those interested in this as well as other MPAA-related cases:

For anyone interested, Recording Industry vs The People keeps an eye on many of the RIAA cases in progress.

Thanks to everyone whose comments informed this discussion, especially the readers whose comments are quoted above.

Finin writes "In February 2005, Google was sued by Lane's Gifts & Collectibles in a class-action lawsuit over click fraud. The company alleged that Google had been improperly billing for pay-per-click ads that were not viewed by legitimate potential customers. As part of a settlement earlier this year, Google agreed to have an independent expert examine their click fraud detection methods, policies, and procedures and make a determination of whether or not they were reasonable measures to protect advertisers. The report of the expert, NYU Information Systems Professor Alexander Tuzhilin (a Professor of Information Systems at NYU), is now available." Update 07/26/2006 at 12:52 GMT by SM: Fixed the link to Tuzhilin's report.

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

osxpetition writes "As noted in a News.com article, Symantec researchers have been testing the latest Microsoft Windows Vista build (Beta 2), and have found that the code is 'complete with new corner cases and defects' in the networking component. Symantec describes how Microsoft scrapped the old networking stack code from Windows XP in favour of newer, rewritten code. 'Microsoft has removed a large body of tried and tested code and replaced it with freshly written code.' Since January 2002, Microsoft has put a stronger emphasis on protecting PCs by attempting to implement stable, secure code into Windows XP and their new operating system. This latest report from Symantec brings attention to Microsoft's trustworthy computing campaign, and shows how it will be a long way before it is ready for the mainstream."

Ravi writes "Any one who has had the opportunity to manipulate images would be aware of Adobe's Photoshop - considered to be the market leader in image manipulation software. But with its high price tag, buying Photoshop is akin to putting strain on your bank balance. What is interesting is that there is a very popular free alternative to Photoshop in GIMP. For those in the dark, GIMP is a state of the art image manipulation software which runs on multiple architectures and OSes and which is released under the GNU free License (GPL). I have been using GIMP exclusively for touching up images for many years now and it has met all my graphics manipulation needs." Read the rest of Ravi's review Beginning GIMP - From Novice to Professional author Akkana Peck pages 550 publisher APress rating 9 reviewer Ravi ISBN 1-59059-587-4 summary A great book to learn Gimp

Unfortunately, for a beginner who is taking his first baby steps in GIMP, the interface might feel a bit kludgy and he/she might need some hand holding. This is where a book related to Gimp gains prominence. I recently came across this book called "Beginning GIMP - From Novice to Professional" authored by Akkana Peck. Divided into 12 chapters and 6 appendices, this book aims to cover the whole gamut of features found in Gimp.

In the first chapter, the author takes the reader through an in-depth tour of Gimp interface. This chapter introduces various dialogs,windows and configuration options that play an important part while working on ones images in Gimp. Even though I was conversant with most of the features of Gimp, I found this chapter impart a very good understanding of Gimp interface which is imperative for putting this software to productive use.

But it is not enough if one jumps right into editing images. It is important to have a good understanding of the various image formats used, their pros and cons as well as situations where different formats are ideal to use. The second chapter of this book titled "Improving Digital Photos" explains just that. The author further shows the image settings in Gimp which helps one to optimize the image while saving to disk as well as tips which could be very useful for photography buffs such as color correction, viewing the histogram to aid in bringing clarity to an image, rotating the image, fixing red eye and so on.

One of the most useful features of any graphics suite worth its name is its support for Layers. In Gimp, it is possible to save different images in layers. The third chapter of this book deals exclusively in giving an introduction to the concept of Layers and how it can be put to use in Gimp. At the end of the chapter, the author also explains how to create simple Gif animations.

Gimp has a great collection of tools at par with any other graphics suite in the market. These tools form the life line of any graphics artist in aiding his creations. In the subsequent three chapters , the author provides a detailed explanation of all these tools and how they could be put to use. Almost all the tools are covered in these three chapters and the author even provides the steps in creating images using these tools which gives it a practical touch to the whole narration.

In the seventh chapter titled Filters and Effects, one gets to know about the rich set of filters and scripts which are bundled with Gimp. There are hundreds of filters and effects categorized into three sections of Filters, Python-Fu and Script-Fu and most of them are described in this chapter with the aid of relevant examples.

From the 8th chapter onwards, the author turns to explain the more advanced concepts which pertain to graphics editing, knowing which, differentiates an expert from a beginner. Concepts such as color manipulation, compositing, masking and the different layer modes are described in detail with the aid of examples.

One of the biggest advantages a Gimp user has is the capability to create his own scripts in Gimp which allow him to accomplish complex tasks with the click of a button. Gimp scripts and plug-ins can be created using various languages like python, perl or C. But it also has its own scripting language called Script-Fu which also simplifies the process of creating scripts. And not surprisingly, there are hundreds of scripts bundled with the default installation of Gimp which makes it a viable option for creating complex graphical effects with ease. The 11th chapter of this book titled "Plug-ins and Scripting" gives an introduction to creating ones own scripts using different languages including script-fu. But I found this chapter to be more useful for a person who is interested in creating plug-ins than the normal users.

The final chapter of this well illustrated book deals with topics which couldn't fit in any other chapters such as tips on configuring Gimp to use the scanner and printer. There is a section which gives details of various resources found on the web which could be used to further enrich ones knowledge on using Gimp.

All along, the author gives interesting tit-bits on various aspects of image creation and modification which would be eye openers for most people who are getting introduced to the art of graphics manipulation. Reading the book, I was able to get valuable insights into different aspects of image editing such as antialiazing, hinting text and such, which plays an important part in creating good graphics.

In relevant sections, the author has provided important details which are highlighted in a bright vibrant color which makes reading this book a pleasant experience.

Many might wonder why some one would take time and efforts to write a book on Gimp when Adobe's Photoshop is considered the dominant leader in the graphics market. But the truth is Gimp enjoys a wider user base than all the other non-free graphics manipulation products combined as it is bundled by default on all Linux/Unix distributions worth their name. Considering that Gimp has also been ported to Windows and Mac OSX coupled with its hard to beat price (it is a free software released under GPL) and excellent features at par with any other professional graphics suite, this software has become a viable option for any one interested in developing graphics for the Web. And I found this book to contain relevant information which could be invaluable in ones journey into the fascinating world of image manipulation using GIMP.

You can purchase Beginning GIMP - From Novice to Professional from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

gihan_ripper writes "Recently released open movie Elephants Dream found itself in hot water with Catalonians after accidentally using an offensive word instead of 'Català' in the subtitle menu. The cause? Designer Matt Ebb had used Wikipedia to look up the Catalan word for Catalan on a day when the entry had been vandalized. He writes about this experience on the Elephant Dream blog. We may have scoffed at John Seigenthaler over his criticisms of Wikipedia, but it gives us pause for thought when we to heavily on Wikipedia."

IZ Reloaded writes "Space Shuttle Discovery has a problem with the pipeline for an auxiliary power unit that controls the shuttle's hydraulic steering and braking maneuvers. CNN reports that the pipleline is leaking 'fuel' at about six drops per hour." From the article: "The leak is more likely nitrogen, but there is no way of knowing that, so NASA is treating the problem as if the leak were fuel ... If it is fuel, the current rate is still 100,000 times slower than what would cause a fire ... Just in case, NASA will turn on the power unit with the leak early Sunday as part of its normal testing and then see if the leak rate changes. If it does, NASA may burn off the hydrazine and shut down the power unit before the shuttle returns to Earth to eliminate any fire hazard.'"

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol Records v. Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma, a case against a mother -- whose only connection to the alleged filesharing was that she was the person who paid for the internet access -- has been dismissed with prejudice. Faced with the mother's motion for leave to file a summary judgment motion dismissing the case against her, and awarding her attorneys fees, the RIAA made its own motion for permission to withdraw its case. The Court granted the motion and let the RIAA drop its case. The Court went on to hold that the defendant, Ms. Foster, is the 'prevailing party' under the Copyright Act and is therefore eligible for an award of attorneys fees. The Court then indicated that it would decide the attorneys fees award question upon receipt of a motion for attorneys fees."

kbox writes "According to the Amsterdam analytics firm onestat The Firefox browser has jumped from a global market share of 8.7% to a whopping 13% since April 2005. The national usage of Firefox make some interesting reading, too, with Firefox making up 16% in the USA, 24% in Australia and a huge 39% in Germany." Unsurprisingly, on Slashdot we skew the averages somewhat, with Firefox weighing in at 65% of our traffic... but sadly 18% of our Firefox users need to upgrade to the latest version ;) Go do that now.

kbox writes "According to the Amsterdam analytics firm onestat The Firefox browser has jumped from a global market share of 8.7% to a whopping 13% since April 2005. The national usage of Firefox make some interesting reading, too, with Firefox making up 16% in the USA, 24% in Australia and a huge 39% in Germany." Unsurprisingly, on Slashdot we skew the averages somewhat, with Firefox weighing in at 65% of our traffic... but sadly 18% of our Firefox users need to upgrade to the latest version ;) Go do that now.

CAMags writes to tell us that a Harvard Professor is claiming to have developed a new variant of a protein called bacteriorhodopsin (bR) that, when layered on a DVD, can store up to 50TB of data. From the article: "The light-activated protein is found in the membrane of a salt marsh microbe Halobacterium salinarum and is also known as bacteriorhodopsin (bR). It captures and stores sunlight to convert it to chemical energy. When light shines on bR, it is converted to a series of intermediate molecules each with a unique shape and color before returning to its 'ground state.'"

Kannappan writes "The complete results of the 2006 Google U.S Puzzle Championship have been announced. The online competition which featured more than 850 participants from all over the world had 23 interesting logical puzzles that were to be solved within the stipulated timeframe of 150 minutes. Usual suspects Zack Butler, Wei Hwa Huang, and Ulrich Voigt emerged in the top bracket but it was Thomas Snyder, a chemistry graduate student at Harvard, who finished with the topmost score of 370 points. Thomas, Wei Hwa, Zack and Roger Barkan will represent United States in the World Puzzle Championship which will be held in October at Borovets, Bulgaria. Interestingly the current world chess champion Veselin Topalov hails from Bulgaria."

Raindeer writes "Lawrence Krauss (well-known physicist and author of The Science of Star Trek) invited a group of 21 cosmologists, experimentalists, theorists, and particle physicists and cosmologists. Stephen Hawking came; three Nobel laureates, Gerard 'tHooft, David Gross, Frank Wilczek etc. He wrote about the conclusions of this session in Edge; in short: 'there appears to be energy of empty space that isn't zero! This flies in the face of all conventional wisdom in theoretical particle physics. It is the most profound shift in thinking, perhaps the most profound puzzle, in the latter half of the 20th century. And it may be the first half of the 21st century, or maybe go all the way to the 22nd century. Because, unfortunately, I happen to think we won't be able to rely on experiment to resolve this problem.'"

Justen writes "It's been nearly a year and a half since Carly Fiorina was fired as CEO and chairman at HP. Now, Forbes is saying Mark Hurd and HP today are reaping the success of the strategies she developed and decisions Carly made. 'Fiorina's demise was chalked up to bad execution of bad strategic moves, most notably the 2002 Compaq acquisition. But Hurd has always said there was nothing wrong with Fiorina's strategy. He seems to be hewing close to it. He rejiggered the org chart but said he'll keep the company together instead of breaking it up along premerger lines, as Fiorina's loudest critics suggested doing.' Forbes adds that HP's revenues, profit, and market share have held steady or improved since Hurd came aboard, but asks: 'Whose results are these? You could make a case that they are as much Fiorina's as Hurd's. The effects of strategic moves like buying Compaq stretch out over years.' So, which is it? Did Carly kill the HP way? Or did she save what was left of it?"

Tim_F writes to mention the news that Kyle MacDonald (the guy trying to trade a red paperclip for a house) has succeeded in his quest. His recently traded a KISS Snowglobe in exchange for one afternoon with Alice Cooper. He in turn traded the snowglobe to an enthusiastic snowglobe collector, for a role in a movie. From the article: "Now, the town of Kipling, Sask., located about two hours east of Regina with a population of 1,100, has offered MacDonald a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie. MacDonald and his girlfriend will fly to the town next Wednesday. 'We are going to show them the house, give them the keys to the house and give them the key to the town and just have some fun,' said Pat Jackson, mayor of Kipling."

munchola writes "CBR has created a map of current open source software providers that contradicts the recent assertion of Alfresco's Matt Asay that "open source is not a Silicon Valley phenomenon". That statement has prompted a debate about the importance of location, involving Asay, Robert Scoble, and Dana Blankenhorn. A closer look shows that open source is very much a Silicon Valley phenomenon."

Hou writes "mr brown — aka Lee Kin Mun, Singapore's most famous blogger, has been writing a weekly column for a local Singaporean newspaper called 'Today.' Recently, one of his columns was more critical than the powers-that-rule liked, which was a satire on the increasing costs of living in Singapore. They issued a statement through the press secretary for the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, and sternly chastised Mr. Brown for having expressed anti-government views. Not surprisingly, a few days later, Mr. Brown posted a notice saying that his column had been suspended by Today. " (More below.) "Here's a snip from the government representative's statement:

It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues, or campaign for or against the Government. (...) If a columnist presents himself as a non-political observer, while exploiting his access to the mass media to undermine the government's standing with the electorate, then he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics.

Link to post on mr brown's blog, and the report from Reporters Without Borders. More blog entries can be found from fellow outraged bloggers here."

An anonymous reader asks: "Across the web, stories abound regarding censorship and persecution of those who publish content online that may be offensive or conflicting toward certain governments or ideals. It almost seems that you can't attach your name to anything without being heavily scrutinized for the opinions you express. Lately though, I've begun to see several communities that promote an atmosphere of anonymity to protect their users and facilitate open communication on tough subjects. PostSecret is one of the most popular of these sites, allowing a one-way publication medium for visitors to vent their frustrations, similar to Group Hug. However, both of these sites are one-way mediums, and do not provide for anonymous interaction of users. Is anonymous blogging and publication a brief fad, or a serious, growing trend?" "One rare example I've found that allows a truly open anonymous mode of communication (dissimilar to Slashdot's own automatic demotion of 'Anonymous Cowards'), is the Teen Angst Central, or Tangst. Operated by a group of high schoolers and hosted by Google's Blogger service, its editors publish posts made anonymously by visitors, with comments and discussion made to the site sprouting from a community bonded by anonymity. I think this concept can easily be applied to other aspects of online society, though I have yet to see many examples beyond the simple angst-driven outpouring of feelings."

lancejjj writes "Remember how the VA was pinning the theft of 26.5 million veterans' personal records on a hard working-but-renegade employee whose laptop was stolen? Surprise! It turns out that the employee had written permission to bring the sensitive data home. Fortunately, the laptop has been recovered. It is still unclear how the laptop was recovered, or if any of the veterans' personal data was leaked."

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: Egyptian blogger Alaa freed from jail, Executive order repeals Kelo decision, Disney's trouble with Pooh bear, NASA engineer fired for opposing shuttle launch, Swedish pirates provide RIAA insurance, open source Java months away, and the net neutrality amendment defeated in committee -- Read on for details.

Egyptian blogger Alaa freed from jail. FleaPlus writes "Egyptian blogger, open source advocate, and Slashdot interviewee Alaa Abd El-Fatah has been released from jail. He had been imprisoned for 45 days after being arrested (along with several others) for taking part in a pro-democracy election reform rally, on charges which included "insulting the Egyptian president." In a blog post Alaa describes the conditions he was subjected to in the jail, as well as his worry about the hundreds of other activists who are still in prison."

Executive order defuses Kelo decision. physicsphairy writes "President Bush has issued an executive order whose effect is to undo the previous Kelo decision of the Supreme Court. From the article: 'It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.' The downside is that what was once affirmed consitutionally is now affirmed only in federal law."

Disney's trouble with Pooh bear. bbernard writes "It seems that the same laws that allow the Mouse to continue generating money for Disney have prevented Disney from taking control of Winny the Pooh. The Supreme Court has denied Clare Milne's bid to get the rights back for Pooh and his buddies. Clare is A.A. Milne's granddaughter, and her court battle was funded by Disney, as she was going to reassign the rights to them. Interesting to see a company foiled by the laws they insisted on in the first place, isn't it?"

NASA engineer fired for opposing shuttle launch. quad4b writes to tell us The New York Daily News reports that Charlie Camarda was has been removed from his post at NASA for questioning the safety of this Saturday's launch. From the article: "Camarda's removal heightened the turmoil over NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's decision to take the 'acceptable risk' of launching the Discovery orbiter despite warnings of potentially fatal blastoff debris. Camarda, who flew aboard the troubled flight of Discovery last July, told colleagues in an e-mail that he was fired from his post as chief engineer at Houston's Johnson Space Center and given another NASA engineering job."

Swedish pirates provide RIAA insurance. An anonymous reader writes "A new insurance company in Sweden is offering a new policy to protect you from the RIAA [Swedish]. For a mere 140 SEK ($19 USD) per year, they will pay all your fines and give you a t-shirt if you get convicted for file sharing. Interesting development in Sweden indeed."

Open source Java months away? bl8n8r writes "A Sun Microsystems Inc. executive said Tuesday said the company is "months" away from releasing its trademark Java programming language under an open-source license. Simon Phipps, chief open-source officer for Sun, said the company is ruminating over two major issues: how to keep Java compatible and ensure no particular company uses market forces as muscle for its own implementation, a move that would threaten Java's "write once, run anywhere" mantra."

Net neutrality amendment defeated in committee. DeathPooky writes "While not the end of the road for net neutrality, the latest vote isn't a good sign. From the article: 'The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday rejected a network neutrality amendment, handing cable and phone broadband access providers yet another victory over a coalition that has demanded the application of strict nondiscrimination standards against entities that control access to millions of Internet users. The panel voted 11 to 11 to defeat an amendment sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who had backing from Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft and other firms that deliver voice, video, and information services and applications.' All 10 Democrats on the committee, as well as Republican co-sponsor Sen. Snowe, voted for the amendment. The other 11 Republicans voted against."

gihan_ripper writes "Researchers from San Diego are using supercomputers to accurately predict the shape of the Sun's corona, based on magnetic field data from the photosphere. It is hoped that this model will enable us to predict Coronal Mass Ejections. When CMEs reach the Earth, they produce geomagnetic storms and can wreak havoc with communcations, GPS, and power networks. In the decade or so, the researchers hope to be able to predict CME collisions with the Earth and determine their impact."

grammar fascist writes "A study by South Korean physicists confirms what some of us have taken for granted for a long time: a single bid at end of auction nets the most wins. From the article: 'Plugging all those data into the model and testing the outcome in terms of how the auctions turned out, the team found that the probability of submitting a winning bid on an item indeed drops with each bid. "Our analysis explicitly shows that the winning strategy is to bid at the last moment as the first attempt rather than incremental bidding from the start." The study appears in the current Physical Review E journal.'"

pkrumins writes "Over the past few years, some of the world's top universities have started offering free video recordings of their lectures. Being a student, I have enjoyed them and collected them in my bookmarks — until recently I talked to few people, and they did not know about it! So I decided to create a blog about free video education online. I am mostly focusing on physics, mathematics and computer science video lectures."

tmandry writes "The world's largest FOSS IRC network, FreeNode, was hijacked (for lack of a better term) by someone who somehow got a hold of the privileges of Robert Levin, AKA lilo, the head honcho of FreeNode and its parent organization, PDPC. To make matters worse, the passwords of many users may have been compromised by someone posing as NickServ, the service that most clients are configured to send a password to upon connecting, while they reconnected to the servers that hadn't been killed. Of course, if someone was able to nab lilo's password, every user password may have been ripe for the taking. The details are still unknown, but these events raise scary questions about the actual security of FreeNode and other organizations like it."

grammar fascist writes "Sci-Tech Today reports that Google is paying a 'significant amount' to bundle Google Toolbar with certain Adobe downloads. From the article: 'The initial venue for the Google mini-app will be downloads of the popular and free Shockwave multimedia player. The move is seen by some observers as an effort to outflank Microsoft, especially as Internet Explorer 7 nears its formal launch this summer [...] Interestingly, Google's search toolbar will be available only when Shockwave is downloaded for use with Internet Explorer on Windows.'"

grammar fascist writes "CNN reports that Northrop Grumman is under contract to build a new supersonic, shape-shifting bomber by 2020. The main innovation is in its single, rotating wing. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at Mach speeds and cause drag. When the Switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.'"