Slashdot Mirror

TheTomcat asks: "I'm planning on writing some software for Handspring Visor (or any palmOS device) in PocketC (because I can develop in pocketC directly on the Palm, and I don't have time to learn the SDK), but I would like to encrypt the data that is stored in case the handheld gets lost, stolen, or somehow gets into the wrong hands. Setting the Private Bit is not good enough. Simply, I want simple encryption that is very secure, fast, and can be unlocked by a passphrase (thanks to graffiti). I'm looking at an algorithm called Tiny Encryption Algorithm (TEA), but the spec is dated November 1994, so I'm not sure if it would still be considered secure. Any help would be much appreciated, especially if you can point me at some C source. Thanks!"

Submissions about the P4 flow in like the tides, so here's a batch of them. Rooster sent us the Hot Hardware take. TBM sent us Ace's extensive comparison of the P4 and K7. Piete submitted a fairly negative review of the chip (between the RDRAM thing, the motherboard thing, and the fact that the chip just isn't much faster for normal use, that's not surprising). Slashdot Minion sent in Hard OCP and Sharky Extreme's respective reviews (including 200fps Quake).

Porfiry says: "Astronomers behind the Massive Cluster Survey (MACS) have uncovered 101 giant galaxy clusters, many of them so distant and thus forming so early in the history of time that they challenge our current understanding of how quickly the Universe evolved into its current hierarchical structure of stars, galaxies and clusters. Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe, typically containing a few hundred to thousands of galaxies, each of which in turn contains many billions of stars."

Piete writes "The BBC's Tomorrow's World has just shown an item on MotionWare. It looked very impressive. By stimulating the inner ear, the user feels that they are moving. Some very impressive shots of children swaying and falling over! "

Jakdaw was one of the countless hordes who wrote with the news that the XMMS plugin competition is now closed to new enteries. You can grab the new plug-ins, tinker around with them, and than vote for your favourite.

If you use Apache, chances are that you use Analog as your web log file analyser . Well, Analog 4.0 was just released yesterday (11/16). Better performance and more options make this a worthwhile upgrade.

Asmodeus writes "Those boys at Cambridge have done it again. The Resurrecting Duckling (where do they get these names ?) is a description of the security problems in ad-hoc wireless networks with some nifty solutions to the problems." Its a really interesting techie bit actually. Talks about problems with low power, wireless boxes. Its strange to think that in wireless world, for example a denial of service attack could be anything designed to drain your battery.

Kodi wrote in to tell us that MozillaZine is holding a vote for the new Mozilla throbber (free membership required). Also the LinuxWorld Expo call for papers deadline is July 6. They're also doing a $25k award for a community program at the show. hzo wrote in to note that you can now hack furby with your Palm V. cpfeifer has noted a Yoda Got Milk parody. rhet sent us a web based jar-jar-gonizer if you aren't overloaded with the wretched beast. Kurt Weinschenker wrote in to tell us that the 99 Darwin Awards nominees are online. S|ack noted that you can now get adminspotting t-shirts. Scorpeye sent us an article about Bachelors in the Silicon Valley and comments about eligible bachelorettes in NY and LA... hmmm... Finally, some articles about the Andover.Net acquisition of Slashdot: Here's Upside, wired (thanks Evro) Salon (thanks Super_Oogie). There were a few more too, but after I've read two I realize I say pretty much the same stuff each time anyway, so its hardly interesting ;)

Dan Hon asks: "A friend of mine is in the middle of writing a Java1.1 based MOO provisionally titled "m++". We're on the look out for new features that we could incorporate - really groundbreaking stuff that has been on peoples' wishlists, but hasn't been implemented yet. We've come up with a few cool ideas ourselves like transmitting sounds between rooms to a certain distance radius so you can hear "muffled" conversations, implementation of path objects between rooms so that locations can be "flooded" along the same lines of the sound transmission, and others. Does anyone have any other ideas? You can access the current status of the project at this location."

Dan Hon asks: "A friend of mine is in the middle of writing a Java1.1 based MOO provisionally titled "m++". We're on the look out for new features that we could incorporate - really groundbreaking stuff that has been on peoples' wishlists, but hasn't been implemented yet. We've come up with a few cool ideas ourselves like transmitting sounds between rooms to a certain distance radius so you can hear "muffled" conversations, implementation of path objects between rooms so that locations can be "flooded" along the same lines of the sound transmission, and others. Does anyone have any other ideas? You can access the current status of the project at this location."

Evil Greeb writes "The BBC have written a fairly pro-Linux article, citing Gnome as "the operating system which could loosen Microsoft's stranglehold on the market". I thought it was a desktop environment myself, but that's not the issue: Linux promotion is! The page includes an audio snippet of Miguel de Icaza on Gnome. " Excellent-now if my Gnome-session would just run properly.

Stern has gifted us with a review of Dave Barry's In Cyberspace. The book itself is 1996, but I can attest to the sheer humour of it, simply by it's long half-life in washroom. Click below to read more. In Cyberspace author Dave Barry pages publisher Fawcett Columbine rating 7 reviewer Stern ISBN summary stselling humor book about computers and computer people, cyberporn and the net. It is funny to anybody who works with these machines, but is aimed at a slightly older and less sophisticated audience than the Slashdot crowd. The Scenario

Dave Barry is a comedy writer who makes more money than I care to think about by writing about boogers and broken appliances. If you have used the Internet longer than six months, you've probably been e-mailed his essay about the exploding whale in Oregon. Barry's humor often relies on mocking uncomfortable truths, and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political commentary several years ago. In this book (which contains mostly new material), Barry writes about Microsoft Word, tech support hotlines, hardware upgrades, selecting fonts, and other topics close to the heart of any computer user.

What's Bad?

Barry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sophisticated computer user. Though amusing to just about anybody, his jokes are intended for readers with an understanding of computers similar to his own. Intepreting various comments he makes about the first computer he ever owned, he's probably been using PCs since the early 1980s (the book was published in 1996).

This computer had virtually no practical use other than to consume electricity. You know how modern personal computers contain a microchip "brain" that, despite being no larger than a Chiclet, can perform millions of mathematical calculations per second? Well, I don't think my Radio Shack computer had one of those. I think there might have been an actual Chiclet in there, calling the shots...

Most of the humor, therefore, is about the goofy error messages in Windows 95. You can generalize his jokes to apply to the goofy error messages from other operating systems, but don't expect him to talk about the particular difficulties that a typical Slashdot reader confronts. The book is also somewhat repetitive.

What's Good?

Many of Barry's jokes fall into two categories: the difficulty of getting a new computer (or new software) to work, and the sad fact that they're not very useful even once you have them working. This second point is even more true than Barry may realize. Every study I have read on the effect on introducing computers into a workplace shows a drop in productivity as a result. While computers may speed routine tasks, the time that is freed is then spent fussing with the computer, playing with fonts, chaging desktop pictures, and so forth.

Computer spending has increased essentially every year for decades. In 1996, companies in the United States spent 43% of their capital budgets on computer hardware. That is more than they invested in factories, vehicles or any other type of durable equipment. Meanwhile, productivity growth in the seven richest nations of the world has fallen precipitously in the past 30 years, from an average of 4.5% a year during the 1960s to a rate of 1.5% recently. The slowdown has hit the biggest IT spenders -- service-sector industries, especially in the U.S. -- hardest.

Barry's brilliance comes from his ability to reflect troubling truths like this in memorable quips.

You know how annoying it can be to keep a schedule on old-fashioned paper: Every time you want to record an appointment, you have to get out your schedule book and write your appointment down. Wouldn't it be easier if you simply had to go to your computer, turn it on, wait for it to "boot up," use the mouse to locate and click on the scheduling program icon, wait for the program to load, then use the mouse to get to the right day, then type in the appointment information in the proper space, and the time in the proper space, making sure to use the format allowed by the program, then close the scheduling program without being 100 percent certain that you would ever see this information again?

If you answered "Yes!" then you're ready to join the millions of cyberhumans like me who have dumped clumsy schedule-and-address books weighing as much as three ounces and are now carrying around laptop computers that can incorporate the same information in a package that -- including power cables, spare batteries, etc. -- weighs easily 25 times as much!...

While this passage may be somewhat dated by the introduction of the Palm Pilot, his larger point remains true, that many of us compulsively use computers even where they make our lives less pleasant. His descriptions of the web are funny, though dated. One chapter, widely circulated via e-mail, lists some of Barry's favorite websites and makes fun of them. Of course, he warns us that "By the time you read this, you may not be able to visit all of these pages. I visited most of them in mid-1996; some of them may have since gone out of existence for various reasons, such as that their creators were recalled to their home planets." The list includes "Mr. T Ate My Balls," the "Trojan Room Coffee Machine," the famous Oregon "Exploding Whale", and other sites you've probably visited at one point or another. Given what I have already said, it should come as no surprise that Barry describes one of the chief benefits of the net that, if it's 8pm and your 12 year old kid suddenly remembers that he has a report on the Spanish-American War due the next morning,

No problem! Your cyber-savvy youngster simple turns on your computer, activates your modem, logs on to the Internet -- the revolutionary "Information Superhighway" -- and, in a matter of minutes, is exchanging pictures of naked women with other youngsters all over North America.

The MsPtato and RayAdverb chapters represent a sharp change in style, telling in straightforward narrative the story of two adult strangers who meet in Internet chatrooms and find themselves to be soulmates. For readers who are new to the net, I think these chapters would illustrate how the net breaks down social barriers and changes peoples lives.

So What's In It For Me?

It's funny. You can read the chapters in any order. I suggest borrowing it from a library or a friend, because you'll finish it in less than an hour.

Pick this book up at Amazon.

Table of Contents

1. A Brief History of Computing from Cave Walls to Windows 95
   Not That This is Necessarily Progress
2. How Computers Work
3. How touy and Set Up a Computer
   Step One: Get Valium
4. Becoming Computer Literate
   Or: Words for Nerds
5. Comdex
   Nerdstock in the Desert
   Or; Bill Gates Is Elvis
6. Software
   Making Your Computer Come Alive So It Can Attack You
7. How to Install Software
   A 12-Step Program
8. Word Processing
   How to Press an Enormous Number of Keys Without Ever Actually Writing Anything
   Or: If God Had Wanted Us to Be Concise, He Wouldn't Have Given Us So Many Fonts
9. The Internet
   Transforming Society and Shaping the Future, Through Chat
   Or: Watch What You Write, Mr. Chuckletrousers
   Or: Why Suck is OK, Blow is Not
   Plus: Danger! Sushi Tapeworms!
10. Using Internet "Shorthand"
    How You Can Be Just as Original as Everybody Else
11. Selected Web Sites
    At Last: Proof that Civilization is Doomed
12. MsPtato and RayAdverb
    A Story of Love Online
13. Conclusion
    The Future of the Computer Revolution
    Or: Fun with Mister Johnson
14. Reprise
    MsPtato and RayAdverb

anonymous porcupine writes "From the XFree86-3D I just got word of an updated version of the FAQ which details the current state of hardware accelerated 3D rendering in Linux. Gives a bit of history, an update regarding the state of affairs, and information on where to find out more about the current projects. "

Crazyscot writes "The UK Department of Trade and Industry have released a consultation paper suggesting they are willing to drop their proposals for key escrow. However, the BBC coverage of the story warns that if no alternative is found within three weeks, the escrow proposals may be revived. " I think a great alternative would be giving it to Rob and I. Yeah.

An anonymous reader writes "Thomas Fink and Yong Mao of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have discovered six new "aesthetically pleasing" tie knots. Now that the perfect tie knot has been mathematically proven, will geeks everywhere flock to ties?" No.

So I'm here at the Babylon Cafe, and all these people are chatting and drinking and having fun, and I'm in the corner posting morph- is asking for someone with a lick of design sense to design a Logo for SlashNET- email him if you come up with one. 600x150 pixels on black. mschmitt linked us to the UNIX pronunciation HOWTO. Carlie Fairchild wrote in to plug The Linux Journals online Store. An anonymous reader sent us a link to an InfoWorld article that talks about the recent warring in the free software movement. President John F. Kennedy wrote in to tell us that Propoganda 4 is out if you're looking for sweet background images. cpfeifer sent us a link to a site that is selling aluminum light sabers. I bet they don't work, but I still want one. Brian Craft sent us a link to the most Unusual Ergonomic Keyboard that I've seen in awhile. Lord Hiades sent us a link to a t-shirt based on Adminspotting. cpfeifer sent us a link to The Jesus Dance. An anonymous reader sent us a link to a freaky site where you can get funky contacts to scare your friends with. An anonymous reader sent us a link to the truth about Steve Balmer

Ed Boraas writes "There has been considerable interest lately in the Hurd, a kernel being developed by the FSF. While the hurd itself is still at 0.2 (debian is helping the FSF get 0.3 ready, which will be a much friendlier install), which has a reputation for tricky installs (it's alphaware, after all), a lot of people have questions on how to get started. Matt Vernon has now posted his "Idiot's Guide to Installing Hurd", which aims to give a more step-by-step guide to installing Hurd. Of course, the FSF Hurd pages are an excellent companion resource. "

Espen Koht writes "Its been reported several other places, but I thought it might still have some general interest. "The Parallel Macintosh Cluster for Numerically Intensive Computing" detailed on link becomes even more interesting when you add the other news of the day: the iMac. It has the processor and the networking is built-in, cutting the cost by a fair amount. Then ask yourself: what if these things were running Linux instead? The mind boggles. " Plug and play parallel processing. Must wipe drool off of me.

Josh Baugher wrote in to tell us to read about a "Really cool project where scientists have been running a computer simulation where they have pretty much recreated the universe. They let the simulation evolve, and have discovered results similar to what our universe is like. "