Slashdot Mirror

A number of people wrote in with the CNN report about the film reel that had been stolen, is now returned. As well, you can take the Jedi Eliteness test, to see how elite you are-Elyjah also sent us the Star Wars Cantina. Copacabana has never been the same.

An anonymouse reader wrote in to say "This story reveals that the CIA will consider the use of computers to conduct a cyberwar against Yugoslovian President Slobodan Milsoevic, in addition to more traditional ways to destabilize the Yugoslov government. " Information is warfare these days. Its kinda scary.

John writes "CNN is reporting on study by a software trade group which seems to claim that schools aren't spending enough on software. This begs a few questions. One of them is, what sorts of software is useful for schools? (Other than Oregon Trail, of course!) " *sigh* How do you explain that money doesn't enumerate all value?

John writes "CNN is reporting on study by a software trade group which seems to claim that schools aren't spending enough on software. This begs a few questions. One of them is, what sorts of software is useful for schools? (Other than Oregon Trail, of course!) " *sigh* How do you explain that money doesn't enumerate all value?

Benjamin Scherrey wrote in to send us a CNN Tech story with a strange display device. It sorta looks like a handheld TV, but it looks like it can do 800x600. Looks like it would be awkward.

/ writes "A federal appeals court (DC) has dismissed charges that NSI and the NSF violated antitrust laws. This overturns last year's lower-court ruling that the NSI illegally collected $46 million in dns registration fees on behalf of the NSF. "

Everyone, their mother, Uncle Henry and Aunt Maude wrote in about Microsoft considering using Open Source. While they've talked about it before, Steve Balmer, MS President, said in remarks that Microsoft is thinking about - Note:thinking about the Open Source model. But, hey, lotsa people think about lotsa things. I'm not holding my breath

BillG writes "So people can do more that one job at the same time. And if this report is to be believed, we can do it much more efficiently. After all human brain is THE most powerful computer. " So that explains how I can do e-mail and post at the same time.

The hype machine keeps on rolling: jarv writes "CNN has an article where George Lucas talks about how the Star Wars hype has gotten out of hand. " and an anonymous reader sent us a link to an article over at DVD resource where Lucas talks about DVD Star Wars and how it looks like it'll be a loooong time before we see it. Lastly jkottke wrote in to tell us that the Fray is running a thing about Star Wars memories. There's some good stuff there... my first Star Wars memory is seeing Jedi with my Dad- its the first movie I remember seeing on the silver screen. Then there was watching SW blipped out on HBO, watching Empire and being scared so bad that I had to be reminded that I had already seen Jedi, so Darth couldn't kill Luke. And more recently, watching the trilogy almost every weekend for 2 straight years with Dave while doing homework in our dorm room.

The hype machine keeps on rolling: jarv writes "CNN has an article where George Lucas talks about how the Star Wars hype has gotten out of hand. " and an anonymous reader sent us a link to an article over at DVD resource where Lucas talks about DVD Star Wars and how it looks like it'll be a loooong time before we see it. Lastly jkottke wrote in to tell us that the Fray is running a thing about Star Wars memories. There's some good stuff there... my first Star Wars memory is seeing Jedi with my Dad- its the first movie I remember seeing on the silver screen. Then there was watching SW blipped out on HBO, watching Empire and being scared so bad that I had to be reminded that I had already seen Jedi, so Darth couldn't kill Luke. And more recently, watching the trilogy almost every weekend for 2 straight years with Dave while doing homework in our dorm room.

Toddius Maximus wrote in to send us a CNN story about the Departent of Defense Overhauling their network to prevent cracker attacks. How's that for a feeling of warm fuzzies?

Pugget writes "The UN announced a plan to stop the buying up of domain names buy people unrelated to the name. " Basically they say they're gonna create a list of trademarks that can't be registered. I'm more concerned about the 'misleadingly similiar' clause. That'll make parodies a lot trickier.

dbrown has sent us an interesting little ditty over at CNN about MS Withholding Patches to Win95 that resolve Y2k issues. The article is kinda sketchy- it looks like they weren't telling people about said patch, and it seems to imply that it was a lure to get people to spend the big bucks upgrading to Win98. Just read it and see what you think.

PowrSurge writes "CNN as a nice article on Linux's Desktop experience not being the Windows experience. It's worth reading. " It's Nick Petreley writing, which explains the fact that they actually have a clue as to what theya re talking about. But it's always a good thing to explain in a mainstream audience why networked computing is good, and why X is good.

PowrSurge writes "CNN as a nice article on Linux's Desktop experience not being the Windows experience. It's worth reading. " It's Nick Petreley writing, which explains the fact that they actually have a clue as to what theya re talking about. But it's always a good thing to explain in a mainstream audience why networked computing is good, and why X is good.

Toddius Maximus writes "A report, issued by the American Electronics Association, found that high-tech degrees -- including engineering, math, physics and computer science -- declined 5 percent between 1990 and 1996. Preliminary findings from 1997 and 1998 indicate the trend is continuing, the AEA said. Read more here "

Druppy writes "I just got an email about this article in our local paper here in Santa Cruz. It's basically about illegal copies of movies like The Matrix being moved over campus lines. Needless to say since my school was mentioned 4-5 times in the article the administration is starting to crack down. " So are people sneaking cam corders in to movie theaters now? I get nervous just trying to sneak in a candy bar.

zealot writes "This CNN story reports that International Data Corp. has done research on OS use in businesses and has determined that the amount of NT usage is mostly hype and marketing. It is typically only used for departmental infrastructure, and hardly ever for mission critical stuff. UNIX is still alive and kicking. "

cswiii writes "The Supreme Court has ruled that keeping obscene language out of email, in certain circumstances, does not violate freedom of speech. " Part of this law is a hold over from the CDA - in terms of what could and could not be sent. In this case, it's "obscence material". ApolloMedia, owners of annoy.com had originally the case against this. In this situation, the Court upheld the ruling of a CA District Court.

TreeRat writes "Here is a CNN article covering the possible career prospects for IT professionals knowing Unix vs. Linux. It concludes (surprise surprise) that most Linux professionsals are using other forms of Unix at work as their primary OS, but that demand for Linux people should be much higher in the future. "

Amigan sent us a "Story on the CNN website how that in a world wide survey of programmers, American programmers are half as productive - based on Lines of Code generated!" Allright, I'm lazy, but in Perl thats ok. I find LOC a shoddy indicator of programmer laziness, but those numbers seem low- I mean, I probably wrote 15,000 lines of code last year, ran Slashdot, and was a full time student. I gotta put up a poll.

peterjm sent us a link to a CNN article about the prequel trailer threatening networks as people keep emailing that 25 meg file around. I'm also hearing rumors that Menace tickets will be sold a week early, and not held off until the last minute as originally planned. Can anyone confirm this? This might help matters for those of us planning on being out of town that week.

Some of us might remember that wonderful battle fought before between Matsushita and Sony, over two formats called VHS and Beta. Well, the titans are at it again, this time over the new audio format for audio. Matsushita, along with people like Toshiba, BMG, Warner and Universal, are set to fight with Sony and Philips. Matsushita is a proponent of audio DVD, while Sony is pushing their own Super Audio Format.

Joy! Cleaning out the submissions box: Praxxus sent us a link to an article you'll swear is a joke... a new use for old computers: filling potholes. HerbieTMac wrote in to say that Ice-T has joined the fray by releasing a new MP3 single. sanpitch sent us an interesting article about facial expression recognition. polar_bear` wrote in to say that Linux Mall has an Associates Program just like CD-Now. Or Amazon, speaking of which Sevn gave me the heads up on their entry for Bill "Family Circus" Keane- check out the reader reviews of Daddy's Hat is on Backwards. Trust me. Read it. Someone had to much spare time, and I'm glad they did. [null] hooked us up with the definitive Mr. T vs. site and east sent us an offensive dilbert parody site. gseidman wrote in to tell us about an important translation project underway to decipher the alien language used on Futurama. Assorted Slashdot notes from the world: An anonymous reader linked us to a cute comment on Neal Stephenson's server about the Slashdot effect. suprax noted that Slashdot and Freshmeat have a cameo in the current dead tree edition of PC Computing. adamv sent us a link to an interview with the creator of IMDB where he says he wishes he designed Slashdot. Funny, I wish I had designed IMDB. And Lastly, Jesse Shrieve, my favorite BSD pusher and dedicated Slashdot Server whipping boy noticed that Slashdot is up to 28 on hot100.com. We're neat.

haaz writes "CNN.com has a heavily anti-MP3 editorial called MP3 Death Watch. Death watch, huh? What is it with the media? Do they need something to be on a death watch now that Apple's back on its feet? "

haaz writes "CNN.com has a heavily anti-MP3 editorial called MP3 Death Watch. Death watch, huh? What is it with the media? Do they need something to be on a death watch now that Apple's back on its feet? "

sallgeud sent us a CNN story that poses the age old question is commercialism good for Linux? Its a pretty good summary type article of the issues. Talks about the fears of a single distribution taking control, tag-along software, and has several Linus quotes.

Tim Trampedach writes "Sony has previewed what they think is the MP3 killer by storing audio on a "Memory Stick". Not too much technical detail, but interesting that Sony is joining the crowd. "

Well, I try to avoid posting MS stories unless they're kinda large, but about 50 people have submitted a CNet story that proclaims that MS might be charging as much as $89 for a Service Patch to Windows 98. I guess I'd try to come up with an appropriately witty comment, but I'm at a loss for words here. Update: 04/07 03:27 by CT : apparently Cnet is screwed up a bit here, and CNN has a more accurate story. Read it.

phil reed writes "CNN is running a special section on "hacking" called Insurgency on the Internet. I read part of it and winced, but other parts aren't bad. They have a dualing interview, featering Emmanuel Goldstein (Editor of 2600 Magazine) on the 'pro' side, and he gives a pretty good accounting of himself. On the other hand, there is some pretty lame stuff. "

webslacker writes " First they looked like Jello, now these kids compete to make the most realistic iMac out of Jello. The weirdest thing is, this contest was school sponsored. " my school never did anything nearly that cool.

warpeightbot writes "CNN.com is carrying an IDG article expressing concern that Red Hat may not support the Linux Standards Base for various reasons. Sounds like FUD to me, but if it's on CNN, it has to be dealt with one way or the other... " The article itself is like the 90th Red Hat conspiracy piece I've seen in the mainstream now. Its crossed the line into amusing now for me anyway.

noise writes "Article that details Microsoft's continuing anti-Linux campaign up through Ed Muth's comments last week. There are some nice OS and web server usage statistics, as well as some information on the difficulties that MS will likely have with the 64-bit version of NT. "

Ok, I don't own a printer, but some of you guys might still use that outdated paper thing. Here is an article about the Internet Printer Protocol (IPP) which is being touted now as the latest greatest in allowing people to print over the internet. Odd. I did it all the time when I was writing papers and stuff.

stick writes "Now you can get CD's with your own music from a vending machine. It's only in Korea so far and isn't widespread but it's a neat idea. " Interesting hoop to jump through. We ought to just be able to download them. Oh. Wait. *grin*. Nah, vending machines make a lot more sense.

Randy Scott sent us a link to an interview with Ransome Love of Caldera. Fairly standard fluff stuff. Talks about the grassroots hype about industry "Poisoning" Linux as well as small intelligent linux devices.

Red sent us a link to a Linux article on CNN. Take it with a grain of salt- the author makes some good points and tries to slice through the hype. Dwells on a trying to explain what source code is. He basically dismisses Linux as hype and buzzwords.

Manuka writes "A CNN Story about people venting their frustration on their machines. Those of you that work support jobs already know about this problem :)" I just swear a lot. It would be amusing to record me some afternoon when I have a crashing server. It certainly would deserve an R rating.

It's been surfacing throughout the news, but a current article confirms that the Department of Defense computer network has been under attack for the last few months. This came on the heels of another report which supposdly traced the attacks to coming from within Russia-this is an update from one of our prior stories. I can see Tom Clancy salivating now.

It's been surfacing throughout the news, but a current article confirms that the Department of Defense computer network has been under attack for the last few months. This came on the heels of another report which supposdly traced the attacks to coming from within Russia-this is an update from one of our prior stories. I can see Tom Clancy salivating now.

BOredAtWork writes "CNN.com is running a special on mp3 and digital music. A new article on Rio is here, and an interesting one about groups getting started with mp3 here, to point out two of the newest articles. "

BOredAtWork writes "CNN.com is running a special on mp3 and digital music. A new article on Rio is here, and an interesting one about groups getting started with mp3 here, to point out two of the newest articles. "

BOredAtWork writes "CNN.com is running a special on mp3 and digital music. A new article on Rio is here, and an interesting one about groups getting started with mp3 here, to point out two of the newest articles. "

Microsoft's Ed Muth (him again) is claiming that Linux offers little value since it has fewer off-the-shelf apps, and no long term development road map. Moreover it suffers from a lack of integration between the OS and the apps, which is needed so that users can drag barcharts between Excel and Word. (Heard of Corba? No I guess not). Indeed Ed claims Linux usage figures are inflated. Finally, it must be obvious that good programmers won't code for free so they can't be good -- just like Van Gogh could not have been a good artist. If nothing else, Ed's good at rhetoric -- "Let's say, for discussion, they are equally scalable" implies nicely that NT is obviously more scalable. But his outburst is somewhat odd given that Microsoft's trial is not over, and the SIIA is recomending it be broken up. Thanks Alex Prestin for this link.

Later today, Slashdot will be giving out its awards for the LinuxWorld Expo- brace yourself. To help tide you over, we have several stories about the show. The first is from FWMiller who sent us a Salon Article about the event. TheMystic sent us a yahoo headline page from the show. and Mtn_Dewd sent us a CNN Story and a wired story.

CNN has a story about a Senate study into Y2K. It also involves the Justice Department and restrictions on Y2K lawsuits. I never thought I'd see members of the government try to help out writers of buggy software, but it seems to be the case.

CNN has a story about a Senate study into Y2K. It also involves the Justice Department and restrictions on Y2K lawsuits. I never thought I'd see members of the government try to help out writers of buggy software, but it seems to be the case.

Sean kennedy sent us a link to an article over at CNN which is a brief Preview of LinuxWorld. Talks a bit about (and LinuxPPC porting) as well as Corel and Oracle.

Shikala of KoLari writes "Here's a link to a CNN story on the robotic fish that Japanese science has given us. Remind you of any 'You like our owl?' conversations in BladeRunner(TM) ? Now, all I want is a tank of these puppies in my cube at work. "

Dale Chesser writes "...or the PC is dying? This article is rather critical of the PC's survival, citing the evolution of the "internet appliance". " I'm not so sure. Cheap PCs are making billions, and despite years of hype, those Net Appliances still aren't catching on.