Slashdot Mirror

Astin writes: "According to this article, Chinese authorities have shut down more than 17,000 Internet bars for failing to block Web sites considered subversive or pornographic. Out of the 94,000 Internet bars in China, 17,488 have been shut down and another 28,000 were ordered to install monitoring software soon. Of the 27 million Internet users in China, about 4.5 million rely on these bars. Foreign news organizations fall under the category of 'subversive'."

Timothy has compiled a good list of links related to this morning's terrorist attacks around America. Many photos and video clips. There's a lot of good links there and I highly recommend that you read them. And thanks to the Slashteam for keeping the servers up through this. Its not easy dealing with 3x the traffic. I apologize to readers that have been inconvenienced.

Two major news updates: the plane downed near Pittsburgh is reported not to have been shot down. A fifth plane which had been feared hijacked, this one a Korean Air jetliner, was forced down by Canadian Air Force planes over the Yukon. However, this plane is reported not to have been hijacked -- instead, its emergency beacon was triggered by a low-fuel indicator.

Importantly -- remember, blood is in demand. The Red Cross' site is mobbed, but here's the blood donation information on a the cached page at google.

More details of the attack and its aftermath: a report at at gnome.org, and a photo at indymedia.org. pajama links to NYC Police scanner traffic (winamp) streamed online, and an anonymous reader also points to another scanner feed.

Shadowwalker Delaforge writes "Hey guys: I'm submitting my web site to yours to get the word out. I've been compiling web sites, and info on the U.S. Attack. These sites are ones that work, and arent' swamped out of existence. I'm also adding new data about where people can donate money, blood, and other things dealing with this.

soccerdad writes "Due to the activities of today, the internet/networking experts at my firm have been asked by some of our clients to be on standby in case anything untoward occurs. They've been monitoring backbone activity, etc., in a "just in case" mode. They've described the activity they're seeing as somewhat strange. The backbone is, according to them, at about 80% utilization -- they've never seen it above 40% before. However, the main portal sites such as Yahoo aren't having substantively higher than normal traffic. They're working on doing some traffic analysis but haven't completed that effort yet."

A small piece of that bandwidth may be saved if you go to the link Kalak suggests: "William Shunn is collecting short notes from people in the terrorist affected areas so you can see who is OK." Look here (or post your name here if you're in an affected city) before tying up a phone connection. Alex Fabrikant submitted another personal information site at Berkeley

Thapthim writes "http://cbc.ca/ has all sorts of information, even in our own city buildings are being shutdown, all air traffic has been suspended. However Canadian Airports are taking in international flights heading into US so the air ports there are free for emergencies."

sn0wcrsh wrote to say that a "short blurb on Channel 7 Boston that the CTO of Akamai was on the fateful plane that hit the trade center" confirms the earlier reports that he was on board.

And ectrix writes: "The CFO of my company, Netegrity was on United Airlines Flight 175, which has been confirmed to us by United Airlines to have hit tower two of the WTC.

WAVY NBC - Norfolk, VA (among other local TV stations I'm sure) is reporting on the air the Threatcon levels at the area Naval, Air Force, and Army bases. They are all at Threatcon Delta. Their website currently only lists their status as of the beginning of the attacks, which was Threatcon Charlie. Norfolk, VA is the home port for the US Atlantic Fleet. Local TV stations also are showing armed (M16s, shotguns) guards patrolling the base grounds and perimeters."

There are updated photos and videos here, and CarbonFusion wrote with another good link to photos and videos.. eddiem writes: "http://www.flightexplorer.com/ will soon let you view the flight path of the planes." Explanations of airport security at How Stuff Works and Cryptome are an interesting read under the circumstances as well.

Bard, Andrew wrote with some updates as well:

"Just to let you know:

1. I heard a woman who was on the 92nd floor of the first WTC building when the plane hit it. She was able to escape and so was everyone "in her company" so it is assumed that virtually everyone from the 92nd floor down was evacuated successfully - an estimated 20,000 people of the 25,000 in the building.
2. the plane that went down in PA had a woman onboard who locked herself in the bathroom with her cellular phone - she was telling authorities about the hijacking when the plane crashed and killed her - that is the only way the authorities knew for sure what plane went down in PA so quickly, she gave her flight number
3. the Mexican border is completely closed and the Canadian border is still open - all International flights have been redirected to Northern Canada
4. the planes from Boston were presumably chosen because they were going on long flights (to LA) which would make them larger than average airliners with full tanks of gas
5. when the first WTC building crashed (which was the 2nd one to be hit), 125 firemen were down below fighting the fire on the first building to be hit... none of them have been heard from yet - 10,000 emergency personnel in NYC responded to the first WTC getting hit... it is unknown how many of those were crushed in the two collapsed buildings."

Timothy has compiled a good list of links related to this morning's terrorist attacks around America. Many photos and video clips. There's a lot of good links there and I highly recommend that you read them. And thanks to the Slashteam for keeping the servers up through this. Its not easy dealing with 3x the traffic. I apologize to readers that have been inconvenienced.

Two major news updates: the plane downed near Pittsburgh is reported not to have been shot down. A fifth plane which had been feared hijacked, this one a Korean Air jetliner, was forced down by Canadian Air Force planes over the Yukon. However, this plane is reported not to have been hijacked -- instead, its emergency beacon was triggered by a low-fuel indicator.

Importantly -- remember, blood is in demand. The Red Cross' site is mobbed, but here's the blood donation information on a the cached page at google.

More details of the attack and its aftermath: a report at at gnome.org, and a photo at indymedia.org. pajama links to NYC Police scanner traffic (winamp) streamed online, and an anonymous reader also points to another scanner feed.

Shadowwalker Delaforge writes "Hey guys: I'm submitting my web site to yours to get the word out. I've been compiling web sites, and info on the U.S. Attack. These sites are ones that work, and arent' swamped out of existence. I'm also adding new data about where people can donate money, blood, and other things dealing with this.

soccerdad writes "Due to the activities of today, the internet/networking experts at my firm have been asked by some of our clients to be on standby in case anything untoward occurs. They've been monitoring backbone activity, etc., in a "just in case" mode. They've described the activity they're seeing as somewhat strange. The backbone is, according to them, at about 80% utilization -- they've never seen it above 40% before. However, the main portal sites such as Yahoo aren't having substantively higher than normal traffic. They're working on doing some traffic analysis but haven't completed that effort yet."

A small piece of that bandwidth may be saved if you go to the link Kalak suggests: "William Shunn is collecting short notes from people in the terrorist affected areas so you can see who is OK." Look here (or post your name here if you're in an affected city) before tying up a phone connection. Alex Fabrikant submitted another personal information site at Berkeley

Thapthim writes "http://cbc.ca/ has all sorts of information, even in our own city buildings are being shutdown, all air traffic has been suspended. However Canadian Airports are taking in international flights heading into US so the air ports there are free for emergencies."

sn0wcrsh wrote to say that a "short blurb on Channel 7 Boston that the CTO of Akamai was on the fateful plane that hit the trade center" confirms the earlier reports that he was on board.

And ectrix writes: "The CFO of my company, Netegrity was on United Airlines Flight 175, which has been confirmed to us by United Airlines to have hit tower two of the WTC.

WAVY NBC - Norfolk, VA (among other local TV stations I'm sure) is reporting on the air the Threatcon levels at the area Naval, Air Force, and Army bases. They are all at Threatcon Delta. Their website currently only lists their status as of the beginning of the attacks, which was Threatcon Charlie. Norfolk, VA is the home port for the US Atlantic Fleet. Local TV stations also are showing armed (M16s, shotguns) guards patrolling the base grounds and perimeters."

There are updated photos and videos here, and CarbonFusion wrote with another good link to photos and videos.. eddiem writes: "http://www.flightexplorer.com/ will soon let you view the flight path of the planes." Explanations of airport security at How Stuff Works and Cryptome are an interesting read under the circumstances as well.

Bard, Andrew wrote with some updates as well:

"Just to let you know:

1. I heard a woman who was on the 92nd floor of the first WTC building when the plane hit it. She was able to escape and so was everyone "in her company" so it is assumed that virtually everyone from the 92nd floor down was evacuated successfully - an estimated 20,000 people of the 25,000 in the building.
2. the plane that went down in PA had a woman onboard who locked herself in the bathroom with her cellular phone - she was telling authorities about the hijacking when the plane crashed and killed her - that is the only way the authorities knew for sure what plane went down in PA so quickly, she gave her flight number
3. the Mexican border is completely closed and the Canadian border is still open - all International flights have been redirected to Northern Canada
4. the planes from Boston were presumably chosen because they were going on long flights (to LA) which would make them larger than average airliners with full tanks of gas
5. when the first WTC building crashed (which was the 2nd one to be hit), 125 firemen were down below fighting the fire on the first building to be hit... none of them have been heard from yet - 10,000 emergency personnel in NYC responded to the first WTC getting hit... it is unknown how many of those were crushed in the two collapsed buildings."

Markgor writes "Found an interesting article on the recovery of treasures from the sunken Egyptian city of Herakleion. The city, along with the cities of Canopus and Menouthis, sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea after a massive earthquake. The cities were only known through Greek tragedies, travel logs, and legends until last year when they were rediscovered." As a kid, I always wanted to be in archeology - things are different obviously. This city is interesting - I've seen shots of it found by using satellite photos of the seabed.

blown.penguin writes: "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft and RealNetworks plan to "wean customers way from MP3 files" and "limit the quality" of MP3 files that can be recorded on a computer running Windows XP. You can read all about it here." The entire Wall Street Journal story is here. Read it and weep. Dave Farber (who, incidentally, does understand the issues and isn't making this comment in a "get used to it" sense) has a great quote: "The consumer is going to eat what he's given."

Johnathon Walls writes "Speaking of totally arbitrary decisions by WIPO, they recently refused to award Bruce Springsteen the URL brucespringsteen.com. It is currently run by a fan site. According to the tribunal "Jeff Burgar (the current owner) had demonstrated he had some rights or legitimate interest in the Web address name" and that Springsteen "failed to show the name was registered and used in bad faith, noting Springsteen had no evidence that Burgar ever tried to sell the name"."

If you seek updates this evening, you're in luck. Below, we have some additional information for you on: the state of the dot-com-economy; more information (and a link to a very neat site) about your private bar-coding adventures; more about the bad things that can result from farming out your spam prevention; and the threads being plucked ungently from the fabric of the Matrix sequels. Enjoy.

Wait -- I thought we were already on the new, new, old, new, old new economy. davecb writes: "To compliment Jon's essay on the Myth of the Tech Slump, have a look at last month's cover article in The Atlantic, where computer technology is quietly changing the old-economy companies of the rust belt into something rather different: the new old economy.

The author asks (and answers) 'The great question about the surge in American productivity since 1996 is, Will it last, or is it simply a brief, blessed pop that will disappear forever when the next recession comes? That is essentially another way of asking whether the New Economy and the New Old Economy are real, or are just the Old Economy on adrenaline.'

He and I suspect it's the very opposite of a slump."

Mommy, where is my new baby brother's barcode? raincrow writes: "One of the only good things that came out of the CueCat fiasco (for me, anyway, besides the free barcode scanner and accompanying shiny coaster), was the discover of ReaderWare, which has made the management of my personal library so much better. The ReaderWare newsletter, in turn, has a lot of good tips on bar code scanners, and turned me on to Qode (http://www.qode.com/), which is a shopping system that uses a personal barcode scanner to let you set up your own shopping lists and other goodies (ReaderWare folks just like it because it can store barcodes untethered from the PC and therefore keeps you from having to lug all your books to the computer). What's interesting is that Qode.com makes a really big deal about being *anonymous*. Quoting from the site 'Note that we said anonymity, not privacy. Qode has been working to solve the problems of consumer privacy by designing a system that does not require any personal or identifying information. Qode matches promotions specifically to the products entered into the system by its anonymous users. It is impossible to connect this information to any individual. We then deliver the promotion to your private, custom web site ? not your e-mail.' Any experiences out there? I'm still looking for the holes, but that's a niftly little gadget for $50.00."

Lose mail free with Not-so-Hotmail! Just when you thought the confluence of spam (note to Hormel -- the bad kind, not your tasty meat product, which is uppercased) and email had exerted all the evil it could, the opposite proves true. Read this account on ZDnet about what happens when your mail doesn't get sent on hotmail due to hyperactive, automatic spam-prevention bots. (The "your" of course referring to people with Hotmail accounts.)

Don't they make video cards or something? Johnathon Walls writes "It seems that the sequels to The Matrix are in even more trouble as Carrie Moss ends up on crutches for six weeks due to a knee injury. This is added trouble to the previous holdups reported by Slashdot. Jet Li has also pulled out (though I'm uncertain how new this bit is)."

Dr Caleb writes: "We all know that no copyright has expired since the beginning of the 1900's, but what about 3000 B.C. ? 'It's like copyrighting scientific truth, like Einstein copyrighting 'e equals mc2,' Hausner said. 'These ancient texts are part of the scientific knowledge.' Apparently Elisha Qimron from Ben Gurion University puzzled together the bits and pieces of the scrolls, and has won copyright because he managed to infer the 40% that was missing."

Flarenet writes: "Canoe.ca is reporting about a story where: 'A computer programmed to follow the rules of evolution has for the first time designed and manufactured simple robots with minimal help from people.'" This is a nicely satisfying result of the research (mentioned in an earlier Slashdot story) by Jordan Pollack and Hod Lipson of Brandeis University.

Flarenet writes: "Canoe.ca is reporting about a story where: 'A computer programmed to follow the rules of evolution has for the first time designed and manufactured simple robots with minimal help from people.'" This is a nicely satisfying result of the research (mentioned in an earlier Slashdot story) by Jordan Pollack and Hod Lipson of Brandeis University.

N8Magic writes "Seems that the title for the new Star Wars flick has been leaked according to a newspaper in Australia. "Episode 2: The Rise of the Empire" is supposedly the working title for the film. " LucasFilm has denied the title as well.

Scowling writes "It's been confirmed now that Cowpland has resigned from Corel in order to pursue opportunities supporting Linux start-ups." What sort of support he can provide for them remains to be seen considering Corel's history of with Linux (Releasing Word Perfect:Good, Screwing Debian: Bad)

back@slash writes: "According to this Canoe article, Soldier of Fortune has come under the same restrictions as adult movies in British Columbia because of the realistic violence. This means you have to be 18 or over to rent the game. This is done of course in the 'best interests of the public' because if big brother isn't looking after us, civilization will cease to exist. Or something." RollingThunder points out the Vancouver Sun story which has more detail. My own analysis follows.

Here's the line that grabbed my attention:

Soldier of Fortune allows users to assume the identity of John Mullins, an anti-terrorist mercenary, who kills and maims animals and humans during a series of armed missions.

"Depending on which weapon is used, the participant can enact gory violence that results in the horror of evisceration, decapitation, dismemberment and victims burning to death," said a report from Mary-Louise McCausland, B.C.'s director of film classification.

Here's how I feel about people who complain that animals get killed and maimed in video games.

For relaxation and burning off some stress, I enjoy fighting some bots in QuakeIII or some human beings in MythII. I've never played "Soldier of Fortune," but the screenshots are roughly as bloody as Q3A's giblets of flesh when a rocket hits a dead body. Or Myth's (smaller, but painfully realistic) arcs of bleeding limbs that bounce around after an explosion, leaking red into the ground.

Myth's "WW2" plugin is quite good. It's fun to throw a grenade into a knot of unsuspecting enemy soldiers. That pretty much covers "evisceration," "decapitation," and "dismemberment" (distinctions without a difference, since the bloody body parts all start to look the same after a while). As far as "victims burning to death," the new plugin allows four or more flamethrower units on some maps.

I also work with a local animal rescue organization. Every week at shelters across the country, dogs, cats, rabbits, and other nonhuman animals are being put to death because nobody will take them. We try to take in a few animals, those we can find room for, to give them a chance at life that lasts longer than seven days. And we help educate adopters, to give the animals their best chance in their new home.

Also, I'm a vegetarian (vegan, actually). Why? Because in comparison to the quick, clean death of the shelter, most animals' encounter with humans is bloody and violent.

Every day, we slaughter and eat tens of thousands of cows, gentle animals. Every day, a million pounds of veal - or, let's call it what it is, baby cow. Sixteen billion pounds of pig every year (divide, please, by the edible meat per pig).

I'm sure I don't need to describe the conditions under which these animals live and die. Everyone knows about factory farms already. Most of us simply try not to think about it. When I hear about someone abusing a dog, or a horse, or some other "popular" animal, I can't help but think about the pig, or the cow, that at that exact second has finally given up its life, and whose muscles will be on a plate later this week.

And when I hear about lawmakers wanting to stop digital violence, I think about the one in my area who called about an accidental litter of babies from their unspayed and unneutered pets. In poor health, they didn't live long; but even if they had, unwanted animals rarely get much of a life. Every new litter either ends up in the shelter, or crowds some other animals in to be killed.

Is violence against animals more acceptable because it's done at arm's length, in gas chambers - or perhaps because they starve to death before their eyes open? Is that same legislator going to vote, in his career, to stamp out cartoon violence, or computer violence, or some other kind of unreal images?

The "animals" that you can "kill and maim" in Soldier of Fortune are dogs and cows. One area that the player fights in is a meat-packing plant, and there are a few cows in a pasture nearby that can be shot (or not).

How horrible that 17-year-olds might be able to pretend to kill cows in a virtual slaughterhouse. Of course, the real slaughterhouses in British Columbia pump well over $100 million annually into the economy, 15% of which comes from resources owned by the government.

Want to kill real cows? The government will be glad to subsidize your job. Want to kill virtual cows? Sorry, son, you're too young; we can't have you exposed to such violence.

So to the Attorney General and to the so-called "film classification" office of British Columbia, who are so concerned about violence, take a look in the mirror. What have you done for animals lately, besides double the rate at which you slaughter them?

Groups like this always claim that they are concerned about children being desensitized to violence. I only wish they had a chance to get sensitized in the first place. As if it isn't enough of a mixed message - the stuff that we force kids to eat while telling them that hurting animals is wrong. Now 17-year-olds can't play a video game because it's called violent - and real violence is still called dinner.

barjam wrote to us with the news from the MP3 front. Apparently the RIAA has filed to have Napster pull all major-label songs from Napster. There's another take from Canoe on the story. The Canoe article states that the RIAA has gone a step further and wants to have Napster shut down on a preliminary injunction.

Byron Sonne wrote with word that Canada's Privacy Commissioner Bruce Phillips, in his annual report to Parliament, today criticized a national database kept by the Human Resources Department, calling it "tantamount to a citizen profile."

From the article: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history."

Fear not -- Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart says that "[a]ll the information is secure, it's encrypted." Interesting, given that apparently blase attitude toward the propriety of keeping such a database in the first place, that Canada has a privacy commissioner at all -- but from the sound of this a fortunate thing it does.

Sjsop writes, "CANOE reports that a German state court has ruled that America Online (AOL Germany, at any rate) is liable for the content of its servers, even where it has no control over that content. (The story is here.) Hit Box Software sued because AOL-G users were trading some of its copyrighted music files and won the case, even though AOL shut down the forums where the trading occurred as soon as they found out about it. This sounds like Bad News to me, especially if (as is likely to happen) it's applied to smaller ISP as well as AOL." I read a great comment the other day: What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Professor Plumb?

Sjsop writes, "CANOE reports that a German state court has ruled that America Online (AOL Germany, at any rate) is liable for the content of its servers, even where it has no control over that content. (The story is here.) Hit Box Software sued because AOL-G users were trading some of its copyrighted music files and won the case, even though AOL shut down the forums where the trading occurred as soon as they found out about it. This sounds like Bad News to me, especially if (as is likely to happen) it's applied to smaller ISP as well as AOL." I read a great comment the other day: What next, suing Home Depot for selling the lead pipe that killed Professor Plumb?

ecampbel writes "FTC officials in Japan have raided an Apple office seeking evidence that Apple's insistence that dealers not price its products below the Apple set Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) has violated some of Japan's antimonopoly laws.MacAddict has an old story about Apple's MAP policy. It points out that retailers are encouraged to follow MAP guidelines but not forced to."

reformhead writes "Just found this article over at Canoe about how The Who's Pete Townshend is planning on releasing 3 box sets of his rock opera "Lifehouse". The third box set will be a limited edition that will include a software key you can use to import personal data about yourself that will in turn be used to generate an individual piece of music for you. " 1. Pete Townshend==God. 2. Generative Music==Cool. 3. The original Lifehouse was based on this same idea, but its pretty cool that its finally gonna happen. And if any of Townshend's PR people stumble on this, I wanna interview Pete for Slashdot.

reformhead writes "Just found this article over at Canoe about how The Who's Pete Townshend is planning on releasing 3 box sets of his rock opera "Lifehouse". The third box set will be a limited edition that will include a software key you can use to import personal data about yourself that will in turn be used to generate an individual piece of music for you. " 1. Pete Townshend==God. 2. Generative Music==Cool. 3. The original Lifehouse was based on this same idea, but its pretty cool that its finally gonna happen. And if any of Townshend's PR people stumble on this, I wanna interview Pete for Slashdot.

Marillion writes "In this op-ed piece, Edmonton Sun columnist Greg Michetti speculates what life without Corel CEO Michael Cowpland might be like, due to the alleged securities violations filed against him by the OSC. " Michetti raises a curious point about the cult of personality of computer company CEOs, and how they influence their company. What does everyone else think will happen with Corel, regardless of the outcome of the Cowpland charges?

Buggernut writes "A startup high-tech firm called Disappearing Inc. has created a system that does just that. It encrypts each e-mail message, lets the sender set the key's life span at anywhere from a few seconds to years, then turns the message back to gibberish once the key self-destructs. "

Marillion writes "Dolly, the first animal cloned from an adult mammal has variances in her DNA from her "Mother." " The variances in the DNA are actually in the mtDNA, or mitochondrial DNA. It's an interesting read if you are interested in cell biology/embryology.

!Xabbu writes "Canoe reports that "David Duchovny says corporate nepotism at Fox cost him millions and this is undoubtedly his final year on The X-Files"... Woe-is-me... for what shall we do if the X-Files goes off the air? "

!Xabbu writes "Canoe reports that "David Duchovny says corporate nepotism at Fox cost him millions and this is undoubtedly his final year on The X-Files"... Woe-is-me... for what shall we do if the X-Files goes off the air? "