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Toshito writes "Are we putting too much faith in the ubiquitous "recordable CD", or CD-R? A lot of manufacturer claims 100 years of shelf life for a CD-R. But in real life, it can be much less. Expect failure after only 5 years... Personnaly I just discovered 6 audio cassettes with the voice of my late grandfather, talking about old times. These tapes are copies of reel to reel recorded in 1971, and they are still in excellent shape. I was thinking about digitizing everything, do a little noise reduction, and burning this on CD's, for my childrens and great grand-childrens enjoyment, but it seems that old analog tech from the '70 is more reliable than digital. The full story at Rense. Other links about the subject: Practical PC, Mscience, and an excellent reasearch by the Library of Congress (warning! PDF): Study of CD longevity, html version (google):Study html."

Motor writes "Coalescent is the first book in a new trilogy (Destiny's Children) by Stephen Baxter, a hard SF author with an impressive bibliography; Raft, Ring, and the awesome Manifold trilogy (Time, Space, Origin), among others. Baxter is an engaging writer whose ideas are as numerous as they are interesting and original. Coalescent spans history from the Roman era to 20,000 years in the future, and examines the beginnings and evolution of a strange form of human society. It has three main narratives." Read on to find out what they are, and for the rest of Motor's review. Coalescent: Destiny's Children, Book One author Stephen Baxter pages 480 publisher Gollancz rating 9 reviewer Motor ISBN 0575074248 summary Sisters matter more than daughters. Ignorance is strength. Listen to your sisters.

One thread follows George Poole, an educated and intelligent man in modern day Britain. After his father's sudden death, George has to put his affairs in order, and in the process discovers a previously unknown twin sister sent away to join "The Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins", a secretive (but apparently respectable) sixteen-hundred-year old religious order in Rome. He decides to find out more, and begins to investigate with the help of an old school friend, a member of a "fringe group of outsiders united by new technology" who communicate via the Internet and moderate each other's contributions to keep things ordered -- what a bizarre idea.

At the same time in Rome, Lucia is a fourteen-year old member of the Order who finds herself, unlike her fellow sisters, undergoing some alarming physical changes... puberty.

The other narrative thread follows Regina, a girl born around 400 A.D in Roman Britain. She is spoiled and pampered until her world is shattered by the death of her father and the ending of Roman rule in Britain.

Of the three threads, Regina's story is by far the most vivid and compelling. It is easy to read the broad sweep of history books documenting the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but what did it mean for the people living through it? Currency, the rule of law, the specialised labour needed to provide metal, and the army to keep the peace... all gone. As one of the characters (Peter, in the "George" thread) says, "It must have been like a nuclear war." No longer enjoying the protection of the Emperor and his armies, the scattered and disorganised British have to fend for themselves against the invading Saxons intent on looting, pillaging and removing all traces of Roman civilisation. Regina must learn how to survive, and eventually her drive and ruthlessness leads her to Rome to confront her past and make a better future for her daughter. Driven by instinct and a desire to protect her family from the barbarian sackings of Rome, she establishes an unusual way of life which threatens to change the meaning of what it is to be human.

There is a great deal more, but it would be unfair to reveal too much and spoil things for others. The dangling threads (the mysterious Kuiper Belt anomaly) and hints (the war 20,000 years hence) leave plenty for future novels in the trilogy to push the story further into big science, big ideas and deep time that Baxter is well known for. Coalescent is scrupulously researched, intriguing, educational and has a genuine effect on the way you see social interactions and communities. Hard to beat, and highly recommended.

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

a reader writes:"Fed up of games reviewers giving in to advertiser pressure to go easy on high-budget turkeys? A group of distinguished British videogames journalists has set up an independent site called Digiworld. It's funded by an interesting micropayment system: you pay 50 pence (about 80 cents US) a week for full access, although new content is available for free on weekdays (details here). For extra geek appeal, the look of the site imitates the 8-bit Mode 7 graphics of Teletext, a British system that uses spare TV signal bandwidth to transmit pages of textual information (some of the staff previously worked on a Teletext gaming page called Digitiser). Even if you're not a gamer, the bizarre humor and characters make the site worth checking out."

An A.C. pointed out Keith Lockstone's website which contains a complete scan of the Second World War codebook "British Cypher No. 5." An interesting look into history. "...when on 10 June [1943] the Admiralty at last replaced Naval Cipher No. 3 with No. 5, which proved quite secure, it was plain that the U-boats could never regain their former authority."

hazeii writes "After some weeks hacking, we've managed to decode the protocol used to upload MP3 files to Saehan's MpMan, and created a Linux program to do this. The program is provided with full GPL'd source, and is available from here. This means you can now use Linux with the first truely portable MP3 player. "