Slashdot Mirror

Ravn0s noted that CNN has reported that Florida has certified Bush as the winner, which of course means that he'll get the 25 electoral votes, and the presidency. We haven't had enough fun: Gore still has the popular vote nationally, and there are zillions of Florida ballots in question (felons who voted, multi-punched ballots, dangling chads and the list goes on). I wish I could say it's over ... closure with a President with the qualifications of a head of lettuce is still closure, but I suspect the mainstream media will continue to harp on this for awhile. But hopefully this is the end of the issue on Slashdot.

spam_it_to_me_baby writes: "An Australian listed company, Autogen, has acquired research rights to the Kingdom of Tonga's gene pool. The Pacific island's 108,000 residents will be used by the company to identify genes that cause common diseases. Autogen says serum or DNA samples collected in Tonga shall remain the property of Tonga, while Autogen will build the genetic database on which the research will be based. More here." Similar to research going to collect the genetic information of everyone in Iceland, another place with a winning combination of low population and historical isolation. A single company (Decode) also won the "rights" to that information, for a mere $200 million.

Over at CNN there is an AP report which might remind you alternately of stories by William Gibson and Mary Shelley: Doctors in Texas have just transplanted nerves from a living donor (in this case the mother of the recipient, an 8-month old baby) to replace ones damaged at birth. The operation itself was successful, but whether the nerve will successfully carry signals between the infant's arms and brain won't be known for a while. Seems like we can now transplant just about everything short of the brain in one form or other -- skin, bone marrow, major organs.

Skulker303 writes "'The United States may eventually become "deaf and blind" to terrorist threats unless it devotes more resources to developing new technologies for spying from space, says a congressionally chartered group.' Story on CNN."

MaggieL -- KB3DXS writes: "The amateur radio satellite Phase 3D (now officially AMSAT-Oscar 40 ) was launched [Wednesday] night on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is now safely in its intended original orbit. AO-40 is the culmination of a ten-year long project to orbit a sophisticated, highly programmable communications platform for amateur radio use. Over the next 270 days engines on board the satellite will gradually place it in its intended final orbit. I received some of the initial transmissions from the satellite this morning at my station ... this is *way* cool. Amateur radio is still thriving, despite fears among the old-school hams who think that the Internet has killed ham radio." Added to which, as btbuzzard advises, you can now get your very own personal communications satellite carried by a device which would have been a lot scarier launching 10 or so years ago.

Joshua Strzalko writes "I had originally thought that the MIR space station was going to be kept in orbit. Why with all that space fungus, it makes for a great science experiment. However it seems that in late February, the 14 year old space station will make a controlled decent into the Pacific Ocean."

Logic Bomb writes: "CNN is hosting an interesting article from the Associated Press about WHOIS records. Privacy advocates do not like that the owner of a domain name, along with personal contact information, must be made public. It's an interesting issue embodying some larger debates, like whether one truly "owns" a domain name. A justification for public databases of registrants, given by one person quoted in the article, is that the domain name system is a public resource, and therefore you only own the right to use a domain name, not the name itself. People have a right to know who is controlling elements of a public resource, so whois records should be open to all."

Uglor writes: "3dfx is getting out of the video card market. After two years of shrinking revenue, stock price and market share, they are going back to a chips-only company. Will this let them reclaim the top spot on the 3d market? Or could this just make nVidia work twice as hard to beat them?" So it doesn't mean that you won't be able to buy a card whose guts are made by the 3dfx folks, only that the box will probably have someone else's name a whole lot bigger. And ewhac points to an Adrenaline Vault story, which "suggests that 3Dfx is going to move away from the PC hardware arena and refocus toward licensing their technology for use in visual simulation and training systems. If true, this would basically leave NVidia and ATI as the remaining major 3D graphics players. (Now if NVidia would just crack open their docs so we can support their chips...)"

Uglor writes: "3dfx is getting out of the video card market. After two years of shrinking revenue, stock price and market share, they are going back to a chips-only company. Will this let them reclaim the top spot on the 3d market? Or could this just make nVidia work twice as hard to beat them?" So it doesn't mean that you won't be able to buy a card whose guts are made by the 3dfx folks, only that the box will probably have someone else's name a whole lot bigger. And ewhac points to an Adrenaline Vault story, which "suggests that 3Dfx is going to move away from the PC hardware arena and refocus toward licensing their technology for use in visual simulation and training systems. If true, this would basically leave NVidia and ATI as the remaining major 3D graphics players. (Now if NVidia would just crack open their docs so we can support their chips...)"

The country that helped invent the most technologically advanced information network in world history can't eliminate bureaucratic lines, create simple ballots, or tally up the votes that will determine the future of its own government. We need technological reforms, not merely political ones. Government has failed to use technology to deal with issues such as fund-raising and civic information in the Information Age, and citizens are paying the price.

Our system for electing presidents takes too long, has grown outrageously expensive, and remains technologically primitive. Most ironic of all, the country that helped give birth to the Net administers its political system in an inconvenient, mish-mashed network of ancient and inconvenient systems, confusing methodology and out-of-touch bureaucracies, all right out of the 18th century.

That means it's time to begin moving towards a digital voting system. New electoral technologies don't have to be -- shouldn't be -- rammed down anybody's throat. People who don't want to drive long distances, ponder complex ballots or wait in long lines shouldn't have to. Those who want to use the Net to register and vote ought to be able to do so; those who prefer the current system could keep on using it. Inevitably, the country and it's political processes will become fully wired, as they should be. Science and technology -- however far from infallible -- could also help address some of the other problems surfacing in last week's election fiasco.

Our political media has suddenly discovered voting procedures, and the challenges that have long faced the average voter. We are hearing about poorly-designed ballots, suspicious tabulation delays, endless lines, possible vote fraud. And that's just out of Palm Beach County in Florida, one of the richest communities in the nation. Imagine the potential scandals and sloppiness still lying uncovered in the rest of the country.

It's easy to be cyncical about votes from Chicago cemeteries, but the primary problem may not be political corruption, but technological incompetence. From local municipalities to state legistrators, government has lagged way behind the rest of the country and private industry when it comes to using digital technology to gather and tabulate information. All kinds of institutions, from retailers to universities, can gather certain kinds of information rapidly with at least passable accuracy. Networked digital systems are far from flawless, but they're far more highly evolved than our lumbering electoral process.

It's time -- past time -- to start considering national online registration, voting and tabulation. For safety and accuracy as well as cost, new technologies can be backed up by software, paper and human beings, in much the same way companies like Amazon, L.L. Bean, or for that matter, Microsoft, deal with consumers and online ordering, and double-check identities to confirm purchase and identity.

In an odd way, this election debacle is about voting theory and primitive balloting systems as well as politics. Even the sophisticated predictive polling operations hired by the networks broke down under the strain of a voting operation out of Jefferson's time, not ours.

As badly as we may need campaign finance reform to keep corporate money from polluting politics, we may need technological reform even more. Those punch-a-hole ballots in Florida are ludicrous (19,000 people were disqualified in Broward County alone because they filled out their ballots improperty), and anyone involved in politics knows hundreds of stories all over the country that are as or more horrifying. There are no uniform standards or procedures for collecting and tabulating votes. It's astounding to track reported voting precincts online on sites like Votes.com and Cnn.com, only to be reminded they are dependent on ancient and unreliable tabulation systems in many parts of the country, in this supposed Information Age. Where's that bridge to the 21st century when you need it? If he ends up winning, maybe the Net's Daddy will remember how he almost lost it.

Shouldn't Americans be able to register from their computers at home or work, as well as at government agencies, post offices and other public facilities? With ISPs and now as cheap as cable television service (which reaches the vast majority of Americans), there would be almost no reason not to vote, and tens of millions of citizens could begin participating in the political system. Polling places could be computerized, machines made available to those who can't afford or don't want home computers (much as voting booths are). The results could be tabulated, stored and archived instantly, replacing a patchwork system of paper, punch, machine, computer and mail balloting.

Registrars could e-mail or snail-mail confirmation of registration, and of voting, in the same way many online commercial sites confirm that orders have been placed. If Amazon can do it, can't the federal government?

There are serious about digital politics and online voting, and plenty of technical problems. One of the biggest would be political zealots, crackers and vandals, people breaking into a political system for fun or for uglier motives. It would definitely happen. But hacking a federal election is different from breaking into Microsoft or the New York Yankees' website. Tampering with elections is a felony with serious jail time. There are serious design issues relating to ballots, bond issues and referendums. Aside from that, only about half of the country is yet wired. Millions of people don't yet have computers or know how to use them.

Possibilities of fraud also exist in any system, including the present one. But perhaps voting records could be cross-checked by independent polling entities, or even by official spot-surveys. If irregularities surfaced, officials would investigate.

The system doesn't have to be completely digital, and can be backstopped in various ways . Voters could receive paper registration and voting receipts, either at the polls or by mail. Human beings could spot-check voting patterns, as software programs check for fraud. Teams of programmers and techs could be trained to monitor the system. Computers could randomly check for fraud a lot quicker than elderly volunteers screening neighborhood address lists.

Naturally, there are plenty of questions about e-voting reform. We might examine the experiences of other countries where digital voting technology works, as in some of the Scandanavian or South American countries, who have been experimenting with it for years.

There are also privacy and authentication issues. In many states, citizens simply affirm their identities in order to register. Digital registrants may need passwords, social security numbers, addresses or pseudonyms to protect their voting choices, techniques most Netizens use when they buy things online or access their local paper's Web version. We may need other means of assuring phobic voters that they aren't being monitored improperly. But the truth is, evil-doers could get their hands on paper or machine ballots now if they really wanted to. It's a serious felony, as would be the case with e-voting.

Most Americans have voluntarily agreed to give up some measure of privacy for retailing convenience. Will they be willing to take some risks to use technology to reform voting? Or should citizens be given a choice of digital and paper voting? As more and more functions, from filing for divorce to renewing licenses, become digitized, online voting and registration seem more feasible. Web-page design and architecture has evolved to the point where election choices might be clearer than on those Palm Beach or other confusing ballots. Write-in votes and absentee ballots can also be transmitted online or, when computers aren't available, by paper or e-mail. A new system doesn't have to be absolute. It can simply take advance of new technology to organize a process that seems tailor-made for the Net, which is all about moving point-to-point information quickly.

There's no question there's potential for mistakes and abuse, for manifold technical difficulties. But that possibility clearly exists now, as "Decision 2000" showed, or in any system devised by human beings. Certainly digital polling would work better than those Palm Beach ballot cards.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of counting votes, the larger question of what a vote should consiste of is also up for grabs. The Internet, mathemeticians Donald Saari and Steven Brams argue in a Discover magazine piece, is a natural laboratory for testing alternative voting methods. Six scientific societies in America use a method called "approval voting," they report, most notably the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Approval voting, which Brams favors, dates to the 13th Century, when Venetians used it to help elect leaders. In an approval vote, Saari explains, a person casts one vote for every candidate he or she considers qualified for the office, rather than just one. The voting is conducted much like a survey or an opinion poll, except the results are calculated to determine the winner. If this year's election had been decided by an approval vote in February, John McCain would be president, by a comfortable margin, since for much of the year more Americans approved of him than the two candidates who eventually led their tickets.

Saari advocates an election method called the Borda count election, in which each voter ranks all of the candidates from top to bottom. If there are five candidates, then a voter's leading candidate gets 5 points, his second-ranked candidate gets 4, etc. In the end, the points are added up to determine the winner. The Borda count, once used in the Roman Senate, was named after a French physicist and American Revolutionary War hero named Jean-Charles deBorda. This method is used to rank college football and basketball teams.

Neither one is likely to take root in the U.S. anytime soon, but in the wake of the current outcry about the role of the electoral college, perhaps systems like these deserve greater consideration.

It's increasingly likely that the uncertainty and confusion over this election will go on for weeks, even months. It's ironic and appalling that the country which has produced the most sophisticated information technology network in world history can't even count up the votes that will determine its most important asset, its own political system.

CEHT writes: "Recently, the Hubble discovered a fast moving neutron star which is 10 trillion times denser than steel, 100 times faster than a supersonic jet. Here is the article from CNN.com." If we had a General Products hull, we could send a probe to investigate.

CNN has an article originally from Macworld on the possibility that OS X will be ported to Intel-type hardware. There is much mention of Wilfredo Sanchez and his recent port of Darwin to Intel compatible hardware, and the economic state of Apple and how that may shape the decision to run with this idea. Most of it is speculation, but definitely interesting if it comes to pass, seeing as not much would be needed in the porting effort from where they are already.

CNN has an article originally from Macworld on the possibility that OS X will be ported to Intel-type hardware. There is much mention of Wilfredo Sanchez and his recent port of Darwin to Intel compatible hardware, and the economic state of Apple and how that may shape the decision to run with this idea. Most of it is speculation, but definitely interesting if it comes to pass, seeing as not much would be needed in the porting effort from where they are already.

A final pre-election assemblage of political news for voters, conscientious objectors, felons, minors, and non-U.S. citizens. Philom points to an interesting analysis of NaderTrading by UCB grad student Scott Aaronson. Cheshyre sent in an interesting tidbit that may affect the odds of George Bush sneaking north for some subsidized health care. Of course, if that's embarrassing, so is trading cigarettes for Gore Votes, as pointed out by photozz. flimpy points to another tech-centric voter's guide. Finally, Mike McCune allleges that "About 90% of the national elections use use a device called the 'Shouptronic' to count the votes. The Shouptronic is a closed system that isn't open for inspection. Several groups argue that it has been used to fix the vote in elections. This is a good argument to use an open system for election counting." He points to this wacky but intriguing book by the equally wacky but intriguing Collier family. I'm convinced.

ackthpt writes: "I used to enjoy simulating model galactic collisions on my desktop but, CNN is featuring a find for the Hubble Space Telescope -- a collision between two galaxies 206 million lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Lyra. The picture is spectacular." It's this sort of thing that makes the Hubble's continued success, in light of it's famous earlier misadventures.

ackthpt writes: "I used to enjoy simulating model galactic collisions on my desktop but, CNN is featuring a find for the Hubble Space Telescope -- a collision between two galaxies 206 million lightyears away in the direction of the constellation Lyra. The picture is spectacular." It's this sort of thing that makes the Hubble's continued success, in light of it's famous earlier misadventures.

Saint Aardvark writes: "CNN reports here that a new flying wing is being powered by a combination of solar panels and fuel cells that suck up 100kWh every *day*. They hope to keep these(unmanned) babies up for six months at a time -- essentially making them cheap satellites. The $12 million price tag puts it a little out of reach for me and thee right now, but just wait 'til they get open-sourced...:-)" The question is, will this help meet my unbound desire for cheap, ubiquitous, unmetered, wireless Internet access?

macnigel asks: "I'm an editor of my school's newspaper and plan to write a commentary on the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E program. I would like to hear what Slashdot's audience has to say about the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that's in place in most schools around the country. Comments and experiences are welcome. I raise this question in light of a fairly recent study by Harvard University. The study goes on to claim the sucess of a new approach to the problem of binge drinking. Should D.A.R.E try new approaches to the problem? Can D.A.R.E ever hope to impact drug abuse among youth?"

Lyserjic seems to have been first with the news. Some linkage: CNET. CNN. AP. MSNBC. BBC. MSNBC's story is a copy of the Wall Street Journal article which apparently broke the news - it's the most complete.What's known - the passwords were being sent to St. Petersburg, Russia. They probably had access for about three months.

-Nails- writes: "Apparently there is a Russian space capsule for sale. CNN reports that the capsule that was used to make repairs to Mir and that it's for sale at The Space Store. If I had a few million just lying around I'd buy it. It would be fun to stick it up in a tree in my front yard." Actually, this would make a great treehouse, wouldn't it?

More news from the protecting-the-children front in Indianapolis (and it's good news, even if fleeting); bits on emulation and long-ago video games from a British perspective (and another wacky British story that you can tell your kids as a cautionary tale); and educational news of Cosmic significance, all below. And I promise, apart from this paragraph, there will be no mention of Lieberman, Gore, Cheney or Bush.

Meanwhile, kids, make sure to join the Marines! An unnamed correspondent writes: "An update on a slashdot article from Oct 14: The video game industry has obtained a stay from the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. According to the article, "the city on Wednesday was ordered to hold off enforcement, temporarily at least, of its ordinance against children under 18 using violent or sexually explicit coin-operated video games." The CNN article can be found here."

Those whom the gods would destroy ... Sacrifice writes: "The Times tells the whimsical story of an inventor too overconfident in the difficulty of a puzzle he estimated would take a genius four years of work to complete; three possible solutions are being reviewed after only 16 months, and royalties aren't enough to cover the half million pounds he pledged, so has put his 67 room mansion up for sale to make good on his pledge (Lloyd's will pony up the other half)."

.. then only criminals will play emulated videogames. Ultra-protective reader FortKnox writes: "Although we've all heard about retro-gaming emulators and copyrights, this BBC article mentions a few of the copyright holder's that waived their copyrights to emulators. Its good to finally see some of these copyrights being waived to let us retro-gamers get our fix."

quintillions and jazillions (with inflation) general_re writes: "Carl Sagan's groundbreaking series "Cosmos" is finally available on VHS/DVD after many years. Although it isn't scheduled to ship until sometime next month, there's a reasonable discount for pre-orders. Many of you probably remember how awesome this series was (I first saw it when I was 9, and still remember it), and for those of you who haven't seen it, go see it. One caveat: after hunting around Project Voyager and carlsagan.com, nobody seems to be offering an official Carl Sagan commemorative bong. ;)"

Take that, evil wicked dirty spammer scumbags! And that! And that! rhea writes: "As an update to this article, Harris dropped the lawsuit they brought against MAPS for putting them on the RBL. Read the final word from MAPS. Paul Vixie: 1; Spammers: 0." The close of that "final word" is pretty biting:

In the final analysis, it would seem that the only thing which Harris has accomplished was getting one, possibly two ISPs (depending on AOL) out of more than a dozen ISP defendants to start accepting their email traffic, something which they could quite possibly have done without the expense and complication of filing a lawsuit.

And, oh yes, they helped to prove MAPS' position that it is up to each individual subscriber to the RBL to decide for themselves whose email they will accept, and whose they will reject.

Harris remains on the RBL.

Not that there's any truly good answer to spam, but MAPS represents about the sanest approach I've ever seen -- it's voluntary, it's factual, and it makes no bones about either one of those. Congratulations, Paul. Keep up the good work.

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "CNN is reporting on a federal plan that has been attached to an appropriations bill which would require that public schools and libraries institute censorware or lose government funding. It could be voted on as early as this week. Check out the article."

An anonymous reader wrote in to say that "CNN is reporting on a federal plan that has been attached to an appropriations bill which would require that public schools and libraries institute censorware or lose government funding. It could be voted on as early as this week. Check out the article."

This unnamed correspondent was one of the first to note this article: "Orginally posted here, scientists are looking at fragments of a meteorite that came to Earth in the Canadian Yukon. It's carbon-rich, and may contain clues about early life." The meteorite made a fiery appearance over the Yukon in January, and the fragments which are so interesting were recovered by a Canadian named Jim Brock, who gave them up for study by scientists from the University of Western Ontario. Why so exciting? As the article explains, "Preliminary tests of the pristine material find that it is loaded with organic molecules of the type that some experts have suggested could have been the original raw materials for the formation of life on Earth."

The word "Internet" was uttered precisely once in last night's presidential debate, and I don't have to tell you the context. You already know the topic was Columbine, and you already know the Net was being blamed for mass murder. What our Republican candidate failed to mention is that his party's bogeymen, the evil Internet and its evil twin violent entertainment, have brought about a new era of peace. If we really want less violence in our schools, we obviously need more violence on our Internet.

"Columbine spoke to a larger issue, and it's really a matter of culture. It's a culture that somewhere along the line we begun to disrespect life, where a child can walk in and have their heart turn dark as a result of being on the Internet, and walk in and decide to take somebody else's life."
- George W. Bush, presidential debate, October 11, 2000

The term we're looking for is "manufactured crisis." That's what we need to start calling it, this supposed violence in our schools.

I don't need to provide you with more quotes from Bush, Gore, Cheney and especially Lieberman about how disgustingly violent our culture has become. You can't pick up a paper without seeing at least three people moaning about violent movies, the violent internet, and worst of all violent video games. They're infecting the minds of our children, don't'cha know. It'd be the new national pastime if it weren't 200 years old: grumping about those damn kids.

Let's counter disinformation with some real numbers. Here's an annotated timeline showing the increase in violent imagery, and the corresponding decrease in actual violence.

1993
Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,438,200.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 49.1.

Let's consider 1993 our baseline year, the pre-Doom year. That blockbuster was not released until December 1993, so I think we are safe to assume that it did not begin darkening hearts until 1994 or later. By the end of 1993, the internet's two million host machines include 500 webservers.

Demolition Man, Kalifornia and Falling Down are in the theaters.

1994
Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,424,200: a 1% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 51.2: a 4% increase from the previous year.

In 1994, shareware Doom, downloadable from the evil internet, shatters existing gaming records. Its bloody graphics and Satanic imagery shock and offend many who are easily shocked and offended. In an era where 200,000 is a great-selling title, 1994 sees the first of fifteen million gamers who download and play Doom.

Meanwhile, the web grows at an annual rate of 341,000%, becoming the 2nd-most popular type of data; among the three million machines on the net, there are too many webservers to count.

The movies Pulp Fiction, Timecop, True Lies, Children of the CornIII, and the politicans' favorite Natural Born Killers are all released in 1994.

1995
Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,290,000: a 9% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers: 2,169.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 46.1: a 10% decrease from the previous year.

In 1995, the web becomes the most popular internet service among the net's four million machines. Shareware Doom continues to rack up downloads. Doom II: Hell On Earth, released last October, takes over as the violentest game ever, with an initial release of half a million units.

The Basketball Diaries, Braveheart, Se7en, and Die Hard3 are released.

1996
Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,134,400: a 12% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers: 1,683: a 22% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 41.6: a 10% decrease from the previous year.

1996 is a banner year for violent images. Doom II continues on its track to eventually sell two million copies. Duke Nukem 3D, aimed at the young teenage male market, gives our nation's young boys a healthy mix of strippers, jokes, and mass slaughter with machine guns. Soon after, the breakthrough title Quake offers unprecedented visual accuracy: blood, gore, and murder are now illustrated with detail that makes Doom and Duke Nukem look cartoony.

Scream is released in theaters to tremendous success, along with Broken Arrow, CrowII, Sling Blade, and the excellent Fargo. Meanwhile, there are now 9 million hosts on the net.

The effects of all that horrible media violence in 1996 appear in 1997's statistics...

1997
Students' nonfatal violent crimes: 1,055,200: a 7% decrease from the previous year.
Total under-18 murderers: 1,457: a 13% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 38.8: a 7% decrease from the previous year.

In 1997, there are 16 million hosts on the net. At year's end, QuakeII is released, and is quickly banned in Germany for its even-more-realistic violence. And Con Air, Face/Off, Starship Troopers, and Scream2 are released in theaters.

1998
Total under-18 murderers: 1,169: a 20% decrease from the previous year.
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 36.0: a 7% decrease from the previous year.

In 1998, Quake II hits its sales stride and begins corrupting young minds. Grand Theft Auto, one of the more vilified and censored video games, is released. The web crosses the 300-million-page mark.

Brace yourself for the movie list: Lethal Weapon4, Saving Private Ryan, American HistoryX, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Ronin, Urban Legend, Blade, and the crappy remake of Psycho hit the theaters.

The result?

1999
Victims of violent crime per 1,000 population, all ages: 32.1: an 11% decrease from the previous year.

There it is. In the four years between the release of Doom and Quake II, the number of killers under the age of 18 in this country plummeted. A drop of 46% in just four years is nothing short of astonishing.

Long-term graphs are even more valuable. Click through to these, they're small and quick:

• The homicide rate, 1900-1998. We are experiencing the longest and steepest sustained dropoff in violence since the Great Depression.
• Homicide offenders grouped by age, 1976-1998. The number of teenage killers is steadily falling.
• Average age of homicide offenders, 1976-1998. The average age of the American killer has been rising since 1993.

Last month, I watched CNN as my friend Bennett Haselton got grilled opposite Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). After CNN's introduction telling us what to think - cutting straight from footage of Doom to footage of crying Columbine students - the Senator explained how violent games cause children to commit violent actions. He wants to keep dangerous weapons like Quake away from our kids.

That's how the Senator - who voted against secure handgun storage, and twice against child safety locks - positioned himself as our noble defender of children.

How do the posturing panderers justify their crisis-du-jour? How'd we end up with the phantom of media-created child violence as a major election issue, while violence plummets?

The facts speak for themselves. If seeing violence has any effect on children's actions, it obviously makes them calm and peaceful.

So here's the slogan for my campaign: our kids deserve the best in first-person shooters. In my America, every family will have free movie tickets, 300 megatexels, and low-ping broadband. Let's put an end to frame rates under 30Hz. For our country - for our safety - we can leave no child behind.

(Sources: US DOJ 1, 2, 3; OJJDP 1, 2, 3; FBI UCR; Blues News; crime.org; poynter.org.)

cprael writes "AT&T has decided that anyone using their broadband network is their customer, and any online merchant that sells them something owes AT&T a cut of the pie. They are apparently planning to charge for both delivery of the customer, and for the value of any goods/services bought by those customers. Article on Yahoo News." See also a CNN story on the same subject. Hey, it's just like the phone company takes a cut every time you phone in an order from a catalog... oh wait, they don't.

Lets start this off with some eyecandy from Mdog. Hi res pics of coronal loops meet Rob's First Rule of Art. Wow. Not enough eye candy? tradica noted that Pixar's new movie 'Monsters Inc.' now has trailers available even the the movie won't be out for a year. Course since Jobs is @ pixar, no surprise that I can't watch the clip. Instead of food for your retinas, Nerf97A4 sent in recipes that will never be used on Iron Chef since they all involve cooking with twinkies in some form or another. Deep fried Twinkies? Makes me shudder... maybe instead you should look at jedigeek fouund an online store called CyberCandy which allows you to buy candy from around the world. funferal noticed that a OECD have publshed their Privacy Statement Generator. Ant noted one wizard that that probably doesn't exist in Word. alecto sent us a fun link where you can read 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall which has code snippets to generate the song in languages from APL to zsh. PhadeRunner sent us Mr. T vs. The Matrix. and FlameSnyper sent The Matrix and Ghost in The Shell. One is slightly more serious then the other. An anonymous reader documented filling a cubicle with packing peanuts in case your boss is out of time and you need some help. Speaking of bosses, Need a weapon? WD_40 aims you at a site where you can learn how to create your own spud gun. Course you could do it the old fashioned way: pimp showed us a site dedicated to electrocuting common household stuff. Like, for example, a furby. While on the subject of electricity, loose_change sent in several links about Power meters and how they aren't exactly the best in user interface. A competition followed to try to make a better on. The winner is definitely less hostile ;) CresentCityRon sent in something you don't want to electrocute: apparently MIT students are working on Geek Porn which is pretty much what is sounds like. School officials aren't so happy about it.

Oostendorpophile writes "Yikes: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/05/uk.snoop.v.eu.idg/index.html" The powers the UK government has awarded to itself with the new RIP bill appear to conflict with rights guaranteed under the Europe-wide Human Rights Act.

stomv writes: "A hacker found exploits in NASDAQ server, could have changed market info and admin passwds. Server: IIS. Hacker did ethical job of providing info to fix. Also, mentions BugTraq and how MS didn't fix the hole when it was posted July 17. "

xpird writes "CNN is reporting this. -- A new federal law taking effect Sunday gives e-signatures the same legal standing as their handwritten counterparts, a significant change that promises new opportunities and risks on the Internet." Considering the amount of forged e-mail I get, this is gonna get interesting.

xpird writes "CNN is reporting this. -- A new federal law taking effect Sunday gives e-signatures the same legal standing as their handwritten counterparts, a significant change that promises new opportunities and risks on the Internet." Considering the amount of forged e-mail I get, this is gonna get interesting.

zonker writes "CNN has an interesting perspective on hacking with two opposing yet, somewhat complementary views. They have an interview with 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein vs. IBM's Charles Palmer. Goldstein tries to explain the hacker ethic and big media's clueless portrayal of 'hackers' in general. Palmer draws hackers in a more corporate eye. Draw your own conclusions."

zonker writes "CNN has an interesting perspective on hacking with two opposing yet, somewhat complementary views. They have an interview with 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein vs. IBM's Charles Palmer. Goldstein tries to explain the hacker ethic and big media's clueless portrayal of 'hackers' in general. Palmer draws hackers in a more corporate eye. Draw your own conclusions."

zonker writes "CNN has an interesting perspective on hacking with two opposing yet, somewhat complementary views. They have an interview with 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein vs. IBM's Charles Palmer. Goldstein tries to explain the hacker ethic and big media's clueless portrayal of 'hackers' in general. Palmer draws hackers in a more corporate eye. Draw your own conclusions."

Vassily Overveight writes "CNN has an interesting article about a lightweight, malleable conductor named Peratech that can detect, measure and respond to a range of pressures "from the lightest touch to the heaviest hammer blow," and that can be incorporated into fabrics, plastics, and other solids. Listed potential applications include roll-up keyboards (hey, I have news for them: it's already been done) and clothing that monitors bodily functions." Hey its saturday, what do you want ;)

bmongar writes: " CNN is running a story on MP3.com planning a million e-mail march to back legislation to make it legal to keep digital copies of your music." Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but I can't imagine this actually working. How many legislators read their own mail? Lick a stamp and mail an actual letter. It's harder to ignore. All this will do is knock down mail servers (you just know some jerk is gonna write a script and spam the hell out of them).

bmongar writes: " CNN is running a story on MP3.com planning a million e-mail march to back legislation to make it legal to keep digital copies of your music." Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but I can't imagine this actually working. How many legislators read their own mail? Lick a stamp and mail an actual letter. It's harder to ignore. All this will do is knock down mail servers (you just know some jerk is gonna write a script and spam the hell out of them).

oMaT writes: "An article @ CNN states that Sony is having problems purchasing as many of some components as they need. They state that the projected 1m units to be shipped on Oct 26 will actually be more like 500,000. They also hope to have the demand met after the holiday season... Jan-Feb. Bummer." I've heard that if you want to pre-order one, you better pay in advance, as it isn't looking good. Personally, I'm just gonna play the new Zelda, and wait and see what happens with the PS2.

What will They think of next? Easier to start with what They've thought of previously. For instance: How is Steven King's online book experiment going? And speaking of Them, where lies the trend in The War Between The Pitiful RIAA and the Splendid Universities? And when will They realize that I don't want to talk into my address book, even if that's a PDA? Those people have a lot to answer for.

Allegedly U.S. $299, allegedly end-of-year, allege, allege. Good news for those of us equipped with the quaint alternative to Palm Computing's organizers, even if less than impressed by most combination PDA / phone attempts -- InaneBoy writes: "Handspring's got a bunch of pictures and details of their new 'Visor Phone' Check it out! Super-keen!"

Of course, hemos is right -- there's a reason that most phones aren't as wide as your average PDA. This one looks like a reasonable -- if expensive -- way to combine the two items, especially if it will work with the combination mic / speaker earbud things. (But shouldn't the people making Springboard modules be a little busier with my GPS reciever?)

Plus, many colleges have declined to ban copying machines, tape recorders and ethernet. carlocius writes: "It appears that my college, Michigan State University, just handed Metallica and Dr. Dre another loss in their attempt to get Napster blocked on large Universities. MSU's administators stated that the Acceptable Use Policy of the university already covers copyright issues and there is no reason for Napster to be banned before a trial. GO STATE!!!"

Likewise, jellings writes: "The University of Pennsylvania joined the ranks of leading universities who are refusing to shut down access to the Napster on their campus, according to an article from the university press. U Pres. Judith Rodin said that "banning the Internet service would go against the University's educational mission by denying students freedom of inquiry and expression" and pointed to the Digital Millenium Act for further justification, saying that limiting access is not her responsibility ("Internet service providers cannot be held accountable for illegal activity on their networks if they are unaware of the activity"). Although the awareness of the activity of the issue may be questionable, it is certainly good to see a big U not yielding to the demands of Dr. Dre & Metallica ..."

The list of schools refusing to buckle under keeps growing; campus admins and sysadmins seem justifiably adamant about letting their policies be dictated by corporate vulture groups. Bandwidth reasons may be another story entirely, though.

Of course, not everyone has the awesome power of ResNet behind them ... ca1v1n writes: "The awesome power of the record labels has come through again. The Offspring have cancelled their plans to distribute their next album for free, after legal action and the threat of a lawsuit from Sony music. Yahoo! news has the scoop. So much for protecting the artists' interests."

An enquiry into establishing a curve of electronic book sales ... Triumphant former astronomy student jamie points out this CNN story on the continuing book experiment by Stephen King, who is still selling his novel online. Here's a telling snippet:

...since the first installment's release July 24, the percentage of readers paying for their downloads has dropped from 76 percent to less than 70 percent for the second installment. Part three goes up on Monday.

jamie points out that 70 "but he's giving us part 3 anyway. The more telling figures: 172,004 people had paid for part one and 74,373 people had paid for part two."

maomoondog pipes in: "Apparently, King's company is upset that too few of the downloads are being paid for. Stephen King comments on the progress here. Personally, I'm impressed that 70% of the downloads are being paid for. With as low a per-item cost as a text download is, the author should really clean up in this sort of arrangement."

If you're one of the 172,004, liked the story, but are not part of the 74,373, please consider joining the second group on jamie's behalf, because as he says: "It's actually not a bad story and I want to see how it ends :)"

The submissions have begun to flood in with the news that the US Supreme Court has refused to listen to the DOJ-Microsoft case, saying that it should go to Appeals Court first. This, of course, means that the case will be dragged out for quite a while longer, something which Microsoft was hoping for, as Gates has stated that he hopes the upcoming Presidential elections will put someone in office more friendly to the company. As well, the Appeals court has ruled in MS's favor before. CNNfn has more coverage as well.

ljhiller writes: "As predicted last month, the planned probe mission to Pluto has officially been shelved, indefinitely. The mission is to be redesigned to be less expensive, with a target launch date of 2020. The Europa mission has survived the axe."

ChazeFroy writes: "A black hole with a mass of more than 2 million suns has been pinpointed at the center of the Milky Way. Scientists used triangulation based on the acceleration of infrared images of three stars and to find the center. CNN has the story here."

Joe Smith writes "NetworkICE released a new Carnivore-like tool that does *everything* FBI said Carnivore is supposed to do." Of course there's no way the FBI will accept this, and the conspiracy theorists will use this as proof that Carnivore is doing more then the FBI is 'fessing up to.

Yet Another Smith writes: "CNN is running a story about the Barenaked Ladies' attempt to flood Napster with trojan downloads with ads for their new album rather than the alleged songs. Say what you want about Napster being right or wrong, at least the band isn't just doing the kneejerk lawsuit, and it sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek." I don't listen to the radio, so I downloaded "Pinch Me" from Napster, and based on that (and the fact that I rank Stunt and Gordon among the best albums ever) I bought Maroon the day after it came out (making it the only CD I've bought since the lawsuit vs. Napster started: and for someone that used to buy 5 CDs a week, that's saying something). Personally I think this is a good way to fight (but unfortunately upcoming technology will make this technique less successful) so I've got no problem with BNL doing this.

Extra, extra -- Read more about it! Yes, that means another round of Slashback, bearing this time: The stillborn auction of [expletive deleted]company.com's domain name; why EPIC has decided to stop sailing with Amazon; and another tantalizing glimpse of a world so advanced we can watch instruction videos on personal computers. More, too.

Even Richard Feynman could have figured this out! Logos writes: "It seems that EPIC has decided to end their relationship with Amazon. Here is a link to the letter that I received on their mailing list. The final straw was Amazon's announcement that they are no longer able to ensure the privacy of their Customer Info."

How apropos! Servius writes: "Doublespeak is a wonderful thing. CNN has this story about EPIC dropping out of the Amazon affiliate program because of Amazon's recent relaxation of their rules for the use of personal data. Quote: 'The new policy is actually stricter than the previous one because it spells out the conditions under which personal information can be transferred.' I hope that makes you feel a lot safer."

Potty mouth, potty mouth, Milkman Dan! Domain shoppers everywhere, your time to mourn has come. After placing the domain f*ckedcompany.com for sale on everyone's favorite auction site site owner Philip Kaplan pulled the auction.

h0ngk0ngph00ey writes:

"After a quick check back at eBay today to see how high the bidding went for f*ckedcompany.com, I was somewhat surprised to see that the auction was ended. A look at the bid history seems to indicate that either eBay pulled it for being offensive, or the seller just got too many responses from people who weren't at all serious. /.'ed to death it seems."

lee@lvcm.com has a different perspective:

"Well without warning the owner pulled the auction from ebay. I was one of the serious high bidders and was never contacted by the owner. CNNfn contacted me and asked me questions (along with several other news organizations) and they were all under the assumption that he really wanted to sell the domain. I guess it was all a publicity stunt."

Will the Geeks in Space have to play Apollo 13? rak3 writes: "The Sync, home for the broadcasts of Geeks in Space and JenniShow (of JenniCam fame), seems to have run into some troubles. The company was going to be acquired, but this has fallen through and they might have to shut down the site. Read more about it here."

It's sad, since the folks behind The Sync have served to support everyone from local artists to aforementioned Geeks in Space. Hopefully, they can pull through this. If not, smart companies everywhere will start mailing them job offers right about now!

Soon I will watch Carlito Brigante kick ass with penguin supervision. cyber-vandal writes: "Two days after the Ask Slashdot on Intervideo's LinDVD, the announcement has been made here. No sign of the actual player being available, but this is a good sign that it wasn't merely MPAA-inspired vapourware. At last I can look forward to fragging my Win9x partition."

And here's another tibdit to add to the DeCSS gallery, for anyone else who admires the technical possibilities of the DVD format but not the politics attached thereto, GeekLife.com writes: "[H]ere's the DVD Logo rendered in beautiful shades of gray using the DECSS code as ink. "

bearclaw writes: "Apparently, AOL might have to open up their IM protocal, according to a CNN article. The FCC seems to be concerned about their 90% IM dominance. Imagine that." This has been rumored several times before, with no action from the government. Meanwhile, AIM continues to dominate the scene.

tewl noted a CNN story that says that Napster's usage has quadrupled... it stands among the fastest growing software apps ever. And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*.

kevlar writes: "Looks like Sony has decided on putting Crusoe chips in their new Vaio laptops. " I finally got mine back from American Airlines (along with my boxers, t-shirts, and other worldly possessions that they've had for like 2 weeks). Course considering the hard drive crashes, I was kinda hoping they'd lose it so I could just get a different one ;)

AbbyNormal writes: "Cnn.com is reporting that Kmart(R) is now going to start carding kiddies who buy violent games (based on the ESRB rating)." Reverend Raven adds a link which paints Walmart's name on the wall of shame as well. All the more reason to buy games from local stores or on the Web, at least from places which don't bend to pressure from overzealous state attorneys general. On the other hand, industry 'guidelines' which mainstream retailers follow as if they were law seem better than actual laws doing the same, sort of like 7-11 being free not to carry pornographic magazines.

Matt_Bennett writes "According to this report from CNN, it is possible to send a SMS (Short Message Service) message to certain Nokia GSM phones, in particular the Nokia 7110, which will cause it to lock up. At this point, they are unsure if it is possible from an email-to-SMS gateway. The phone has to have its battery removed and replaced to return to normal operation." "Sorry I couldn't call you back, my phone was haxx0r3d." We laugh, but as personal electronics get better, we rely on them more... and at the same time, they become more complex: the potential security holes grow. Its kinda creapy.