Slashdot Mirror

museumpeace writes "Over at Internet Storm Center Deb Hale's 'In search of the bot net' entry for September 25 recounts a grueling hunt for all the .exe's, reg entries and sources for a bot infection of a 60 server corporate network. What a nightmare! The story ends with an indictment of careless users and a suspicion that Ares, one of the sloppier Pirate2Pirate filesharing tools was the original souce of the extensive corruption that eventually even crippled the AV tools. How typical is this sort of grief? [More more frequent than reported, I would expect: the corporate victim demanded anonymity for the story to be told]."

wbren writes "PC Magazine has posted an interview on its website shedding some light on the two major candidates' policies regarding privacy, The Patriot Act, outsourcing, Internet sales taxes, broadband taxes and other important tech-related issues. PC Magazine calls it an interview, but John Kerry was the only candidate to actually respond directly to the questions asked. Bush's camp referred PC Magazine to George Bush's website to find the answers. The result: detailed and informative responses from Kerry, and many missing responses from the Bush campaign due to lack of information provided by Bush's website."

museumpeace writes "David Appell, one of Techonology Review's bloggers, has posted a quick review of Nature Publishing Group's comparison of candidate positions on Science faulting both for various lame answers. That might save you the trouble of reading all the other coverage at NPG, and the more informative articles published by Science. But if you want a heads-up about which kinds of research will thrive or get the ax in the next four years, you might want to slog through "Kerry and Bush offer their views" . Both publications require registration or payment to access most of their content but the science policy debate is being aired out for free."

Matt Rosenberger writes "Over a month ago, IBM donated the source code to Cloudscape (now dubbed Derby) to the Apache Software Foundation. Last week, the Apache Incubator Project released a snapshot of the source code to Derby. Derby is an open-source embedded database written in Java."

michaelzhao writes "The ALA (American Library Association) recently published the new 100 most frequently banned books list of 2003. Of the banned books, Harry Potter was in the number 7th place in the most frequently banned. Also included were 'Where's Waldo' and 'The Giver' along with 'Goosebumps' and 'How to Eat Fried Worms.' These books were banned from various public institutions. This means that they were banned from various public libraries and public schools around the nation. (private schools, libraries, and institutions of higher learning don't count) The ALA encourages the people of the United States to fight against the book bans and read a banned book today!"

Warlock7 followed up last week's bizarre story of eBay Fraud by noting "The news in Phlly ran with the story and put Sal's picture online with video. Now Sal has decided to direct all blame on his old business partner. He's put up his own site now trying to divert responsibilty away from himself and uses his kids pictures to try and garner support." It's hysterical to read the original log about how everything was his father's fault, but now get to learn about a more powerful evil named 'Vince'. It's like a soap opera that won't let me blink until the commercial.

Doc Squidly asks: "In the near future I will be spending a year in the Middle East and feel it would be in my best interest to learn Arabic. Unfortunately I do not have the time to enroll in a college class and have decided that a computer base earning method would suit my situation best. I've looked at products such as ArabicNow! V9 Deluxe and Rosetta Stone Arabic but have not been able to find reviews on these or any other products. English is my first language and was fluent in German and Latin but, haven't used them in many years. I believe that having the right tools can make a difference in learning Arabic. Any advise from multi-lingual Slashdot readers would be helpful. Has anyone ever used software to learn a foreign language?"

Rayonic writes "We all know the issue surrounding those who want to ban violent games, but a TechCentralStation editorial asks - can playing war games influence your political sensibilities? The media, for instance, are usually very ignorant of what goes on during military maneuvers. But a few days of playing Ghost Recon or America's Army might make you more knowledgeable than the average reporter (or even lawmaker), as the writer argues that 'the spread of military knowledge via wargaming might lead to political changes in the way war is perceived by Americans'."

olePigeon (Wik) writes "MacCentral has an interesting article on a new computer cluster. From the article: 'Apple Computer Inc. will announce on Monday the sale of 1566 dual processor 1U rack-mount 64-bit Xserve G5 servers to COLSA Corp., which will be used to build what is expected to be one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The US$5.8 million cluster will be used to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight for the U.S. Army.'" alset_tech was one of the many readers to point to CNET's version of the story.

Slashback brings you updates this evening on a handful of previous and ongoing Slashdot stories: read on below for more on how to manipulate Google rankings, what's wrong with Sun's Java Desktop, Claria's plucky response to L.L. Bean's suit, and a fly in the infinite-twin-primes theory.

How to not make friends and influence rankings. Ben Michel contributes an update to the search-engine optimization (SEO) contest mentioned last month, the object of which was for contestants to create a site ranked highest by google for a nonsense phrase, "nigritude ultramarine."

Michel writes "The first phase of the competition ended last Monday, and the winner was the owner of a forum called nigritude ultramarine--previously known as Merkey.net. According to Brandon Suit, the owner of this forum, the key to his winning strategy was "getting high PR backlinks"--having other websites with high Page Ranks link to him and vice versa.

What impact does this have on SEO, and indeed for the rapidly growing search industry in general? The viability of certain underhanded methods in the pursuit of SEO has been clearly reinforced by many of the results of the contest--both Suit and his closest competitor, Philipp Lenssen, posted links in Wiki Sandboxes in order to better their standing. According to Suit, "If you want to manipulate [Google], you can." While search engines certainly have come a long ways from relevance-based searching, it seems that they still have significant changes to make before they can more accurately order results for any given query. The search engines' creators themselves must make countless revisions in their own, perhaps quixotic, quests to create the perfect tools to retrieve relevant data in the vast, ever-expanding realm of the internet."

However, not everyone is as matter-of-fact about this method of increasing search-engine visibility; May Kasahara is one of the webmasters and wiki users who isn't.

Kasahara writes: "The Search Engine Optimization contest previously mentioned on Slashdot has had a detrimental effect on wiki users and admins (including myself) lately , as the words 'Nigritude Ultramarine' have been showing up in wiki sandboxes across the web. A search on UseModWiki's homepage brought me to this informative entry, which in turn led me to Nigritude Ultramarine and the Wiki Sandbox Effect [note -- mentioned last week on Slashdot] and to these accompanying comments, mostly from very annoyed wiki users."

OK, so maybe "infinite" was a strong word. Prof.Phreak writes "Quoting wikipedia: On May 26, 2004, Richard Arenstorf of Vanderbilt University submitted a 38-page proof that there are, in fact, infinitely many twin primes. On June 3, Michel Balazard of Bordeaux reported that Lemma 8 on page 35 is false.[1] As is typical in mathematical proofs, the defect may be correctable or a substitute method may repair or replace the defect. Arenstorf withdrew his proof on June 8, noting "A serious error has been found in the paper, specifically, Lemma 8 is incorrect"."

What are these dashed lines all over your sacred cow? reifman writes "Slashdot's link to my article in the Seattle Weekly helped generate 175,000 page views and numerous letters and comments. The article seemed to touch a nerve in the Mac and Linux communities. I've posted a follow up responding to people's letters."

Updates from the Academic Affairs Division. zenrandom writes "As Case Western has just recently been reported, we may as well mention the initiative that will be connecting many schools in Ohio. Oarnet, a part of the Ohio Supercomputer Center and The Ohio State University is building a statewide academic and research fiber optic network. Composed of multiple metro-rings and over 1600 miles of fiber."

In unrelated college news, Mirell writes "After the FBI previously investigated an open records request filed for the tunnel blueprints at UT, students decide instead to enter via brute force. Hooligans - 1, War Against Terror - 0."

The problem with opening Pandora's Box. WC writes "The previous review on JDS2 ended with no successful installation so it wasn't very helpful on what to expect from the Sun distro. This new review has got a working installation but with a slew of new problems: more installation woes, unusable networking, buggy Nautilus and Mozilla window resizing artifacts among others. The author concludes that JDS2 is --effectively-- nothing but JDS 1.1 with the added Sun server software on top, but the desktop part has the same (and more) issues like JDS1 had."

Looking innocent is not their strong suit. tbase writes "As reported on News.com.com, Claria, formerly known as Gator, has sued L.L. Bean, charging the retailer with filing a frivolous lawsuit against its advertisers. As covered in a previous Slashdot story, L.L. Bean has filed suit against current and former Claria advertisers for advertising via pop ups over L.L. Bean's site."

Thanks to EvilAvatar for pointing to a gallery of screenshots from the hidden 'Army Mode' of newly-released Xbox strategy game Full Spectrum Warrior. Originally discovered using a modified Xbox, GameFAQs lists a universally-usable code to "unlock the original [U.S. Army-funded] training version [of FSW], with more enemies, civilians, open areas, levels, and [greater] difficulty", as previously mentioned on Slashdot Games. However, critical response to the title, while generally good, has wavered a little, with the GameSpot review arguing that the game "boasts a great presentation and a unique design. However, the gameplay itself just doesn't stack up quite as well", but an alternate take at IGN suggesting that "there is room for improvement, but the game is still top-notch at every level of development and execution."

WebGangsta writes "Comcast announced a new gaming service available to anyone: for a monthly fee of $14.95, subscribers will have unlimited access to more than 60 PC-based games, from mainstream titles to educational software. New titles will be added each month. Games referenced in the press release included Atari's Dead Man's Hand [plus other largely Atari titles from the recently launched, similar Atari On Demand, including Neverwinter Nights and Civilization III: Conquests]. Is this one of the revenue streams Comcast was thinking about developing when they combined G4 with TechTV? Is there really a market for pay-service video games, and was there a lesson to be learned from Sega's attempt at this market (which was priced $2 less just nine years ago)?" Update: 06/02 17:06 GMT by S : Commenters point out Yahoo! is offering a similar service, currently with a greater variety of games.

Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the story. " U.S. music industry group says it has sued 493 more people for copyright infringement as part of its campaign to stop consumers from copying music over the Internet. The Recording Industry Association of America has now sued nearly 3,000 individuals since last September in an attempt to discourage people from copying songs through peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa and LimeWire." "

greywar asks: "Currently I deal with a OEM [name withheld since this is not a trashing, but rather a request for advice] that has literally wasted over $1000 of my company's time just to arrange a repair on a $5 fan on a computer in Malaysia. I mistakenly used this OEM based on a PAST history of good support. What OEM is providing the best international computer warranty repair service these days?" "The mistakes my current OEM have made include, but certainly are not limited to:

• Transferring a service tag incorrectly
• Refusing to repair the computer without the tag-even if we offered to simply pay for it.
• Long hold times.
• Saying they would repair it then losing the information.
• Claiming that when they said they would repair it they were mistaken.
• Telling us they could sell us the part.....if we waited 15 days.
• Blaming us for the tag transfer-where it appears we labeled it chemical use [I find this hard to believe], and the transfer team asked for clarification from the OEM's internal tag transfer team-who never replied and then were told the tag transfer was canceled, and then never telling us about either communication!
• Sending us the wrong computer systems....repeatedly."

Hangin10 writes "Simmunity Corporation and newAbilities Systems Inc. is going to introduce a specially modified tongue-controlled Gameboy Advance SP for young people with quadriplegia. They say 'We retrofit the Gameboy Advance SP with an internal PIC microcontroller to decode the wireless tongue transmitter signals and activate the GBA buttons. Games which do not require multiple simultaneous button presses can be played. We also offer custom games and special programs for augmented communication.'"

Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the story. 'A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.' This raises the question of whether or not companies that are already using such techniques are in violation of the new patent. Good news for subscription services?"

Hangin10 writes "According to Space.com, it's now the best time to see the space station orbit our globe. Wouldn't hurt to look! :)"

CuBeFReNZy writes "Game-Science has an article mentioning: 'Capcom held a meeting today to show off their newly formed development team, Clover Studio.' The team showcased their first titles: a Viewtiful Joe conversion ('will include Dante, from Capcom's Devil May Cry series, as a playable character') to the PS2, Viewtiful Joe 2 ('new co-op gameplay') for PS2 and Gamecube, and Ookami ('toon-shading engine... nature adventure') for the PS2."

Digitus1337 writes "Wired has the scoop on a new type of rice that was just approved for production by a narrow vote. 'Ventria believes growing drugs that produce proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme in rice could be a cheaper way to develop drugs than building and maintaining expensive manufacturing plants... Opponents say growing the crops in open fields endangers organic and conventional crops, as well as human health...'" Update: 03/30 23:15 GMT by T : That should probably read "growing rice that produces proteins like lactoferrin and lysozyme."

Digitus1337 writes "Wired has an article up about a new online service known as 'FunHi.' You sign up and join a community, and give your fellows gifts, but as Wired has reported, 'these are not ordinary gifts. They're purely digital: little flashing icons of cars, planes, diamond rings and other virtual representations of expensive items included in messages members send each other. And FunHi members don't seem to care that the real money they're spending on the gifts, at prices as high as $30 an item, is going straight into the company's coffers." This leaves just one question unanswered... why didn't I think of this?" It sounds like an April Fool's Joke, but then, so does online trading of Everquest loot.

falcon5768 writes "Apparently those 4-gig, $249 little buggers are selling faster than anyone expected.... So fast that the original April rollout worldwide has been delayed till July to keep up with the demand in the states and to get enough in production to meet worldwide sales. Given that there where 100,000 pre-orders alone, does this mean that yet again Apple hit on a niche that no one else (including me) thought would sell. I have been hearing a lot of rumors that the biggest buyer of the iPod mini has in fact been those female tech geeks out there. So much for the idea a $249 4-gig iPod was a mistake." Rob Glaser of RealNetworks, though, claims that not opening the iPod (big or small) to other formats is a real mistake; he wants to see iPod support other proprietary formats (like, say, Real's).

Patik writes "The RIAA today issued 532 new subpoenas for music file swapping, many of them college students using their campus networks. They will not say which ISPs or colleges were involved, but that the users were sharing "substantial amounts" of music files. This brings the total number of subpoenas to 1,977. The RIAA has been averaging $3,000 per settlement so far." Readers Digitus1337 and Warpedcow point to stories respectively at Wired and Reuters.

Spencer Wilson asks: "I'm constantly told that I have an extremely high intelligence. I always feel like I should know so much more, though. Do you, the Slashdot readers, know of any ways to improve ones brain power? Perhaps books, Web sites, etc., that provide questions that involve ways to increase memory, creativity, mental agility, logic reasoning, intelligence, etc. Are there any diets/exercises that really help?"

theunforgiv3n asks: "We have recently been doing some cool science experiments, in school. Being the geeky type, I am looking to recreate some of these at home. To do this, I am looking for a good place to order some surplus laboratory equipment like flasks, non-gas Bunsen burners, and tubing (glass and plastic). Price isn't a big issue but I don't really want to spend a lot of money on this. So tell me Slashdot, where do you order your science equipment?"

Bellhead ( Second-Tier Associate to the First-Tier Minion, BLU) writes "The Boston Linux & Unix User Group's 16th Linux Installfest is being held at MIT on Saturday, February 28. Linux users in and around Boston, Massachusetts will have access to expert help and tools in order to install Linux on their computers. The BLU's volunteers will help anyone who shows up and brings their computer, free of charge (they accept donations). See the BLU Website for details and directions. Information about the BLU is at http://www.blu.org."

aheath writes "IBM issued a press release today titled 'Businesses Embrace Linux and IBM POWER Technology', indicating that: 'IBM eServer pSeries and iSeries systems are available for SUSE and Red Hat Linux operating systems (OS) on IBM's POWER microprocessor-based architecture.' CNET News are running a story about this, too, explaining: 'IBM has put more weight behind its effort to attract customers to Linux that runs on its own Power processors, an initiative that distinguishes Big Blue from its competitors in the server market.' IBM has also signed up 300 vendors to provide software to run under Linux on Power processors."

Anonymous Coward writes "NY Times today has an essay about a map of the entire universe produced by two Princeton astronomers using a variety of data including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Its view begins with the Earth at the bottom and extends back almost to the Big Bang at the top, including such objects as the Sloan Great Wall, 1.37 billion light-years long. The map can be found here."

An anonymous reader submits "As of January 1, 2004 the State of California has banned the use of notebook computers used anywhere in the front seat (PDF) of a moving vehicle. Previously, the ban applied just to TV sets. Even if your car-pooling front seat passenger is just doing some programming, you can be charged with a crime (AB 301). Thanks go to CA Assemblymember Sarah Reyes for this well meaning but overly broad piece of legislation." The text is mercifully short, but still contains some tricky language; probably the meaning of "installed" at the very least needs to be clarified. Would a laptop affixed to a installed bracket count? Considering the complexity of modern automotive navigation/control systems (now sneaking into budget vehicles, too), it seems like a very fine distinction. The law would seem to ban handheld computers being used as navigation aids, too, or GPS devices with games, and very soon, nearly all cell phones.

deaddeng writes "Memory maker Micron Technology is allegedly seeking amnesty from a US Dept. of Justice grand jury investigation of price fixing, collusion, and antitrust by the memory industry, according to numerous news services, including the LA Times and Reuters. Last week, a Micron regional marketing employee pled guilty to charges brought under the same DoJ investigation for destruction of evidence and lying to the grand jury. The DoJ is investigating charges that major memory makers colluded to prevent the success of Rambus memory favored by Intel, and once that was achieved, colluded again to raise prices for DDR-SDRAM in 2001-02. If Micron is granted amnesty, it can keep its executives from facing criminal prosecution, but it may still face civil court challenges."

Dave writes "Well, since the Patriot Act II never got off the ground, looks like Congress has done the Justice Department a favor, according to Wired News, and added in some of the most controversial provisions into a non-descript intelligence spending bill. Now the FBI can subpoena information about you from practically any business or organization - without approval or permission from a judge, and with a gag order on the targeted organization. These spending bills are generally considered confidential and usually are not subject to public debate, so despite the far-reaching implications of these new powers, it's not being publicized like the Patriot Act was. Time to get out my patriotic hat and pin before it's too late."

Joe writes "I've put together some info and pictures of the aquarium I made out of a G4 cube case Here It's a lot cleaner looking than the old fashioned Macquariums, and is pretty easy to make ... as long as you're willing to sacrifice your Cube." Indeed, it's quite sharp-looking. Apparently, this Cube was already dead, so all you Cube enthusiasts can put down your meat cleavers and relax.

pclark999 writes "The New Scientist reports that radar probes of the lunar polar region has disproved earlier theories regarding large sheets of polar ice in craters permanently in the shade. "

UnixRevolution writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of Nvidia's new FX5950 and FX5700. According to Tom's Hardware, ATI's Radeon 9800XT is still at the top of the heap." They're still some pretty slick cards, if only for their heat sink designs.

aheath writes "Today's Boston Globe has an interesting article on the revived popularity of the Rubik's Cube. The article mentions that Winning Moves Games 'hopes to capitalize on the renaissance of the original Rubik's Cube in the next several months by rereleasing a version of the supersize 'Rubik's Revenge,' a 4-by-4 cube with 16 squares per side.' You can compare your best Rubik's Cube solution speed to the world champion's record. If the manual solution method doesn't appeal to you, you can always use the Lego Robotics automated method." I remember having a cube that had letters on each sticker instead of colors, so that the solved product spelled words across each face. That thing got me through a lot of childhood car rides.

tuba_dude writes "Attorney Dr. Martine Rothblatt filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent a corporation from disconnecting an intelligent computer in a mock trial at the International Bar Association conference in San Francisco. Assuming Moore's law holds, ethics might be in for some major revisions in a couple decades. High-end computer systems may surpass the computational ability of the standard human brain within 20 years. In this mock trial, an AI asks a lawyer for help after learning of plans to shut it down and replace its core hardware, essentially killing it. The transcript provides an in-depth look at what could become a real issue in the future."

curmudgeous writes "Japanese tech firms are making waves with robots trained to perform martial arts moves." On one hand, this is largely just a novelty, but on the other, robots capable of doing these moves are many steps closer to being able to move around in real world environments. But mostly, sumo stomping robots look cool.

superid writes "Several years ago while reading comp.dsp I found a link to The Weak Signal Challenge. On that page is a .wav file of a morse code signal bounced off the moon. The page author Mike Cook is offering $100 to the next person to successfully decode the morse code. Since I was the one who originally solved this, I promised Mike that I wouldn't divulge the answer or provide any clues. I can say thought that I didn't use anything special other than traditional signal processing techniques, octave, matlab, and patience. I think that overall I spent about 24 hours total sitting at my '486. I think it would be great to generate some interest in this. Maybe someone could come up with a novel solution and win $100!"

sg3000 asks: "My trusty old HP 48S graphing calculator, that served me since engineering school, seems to be giving up the ghost. I haven't used it in a few years, but recently I put new batteries in it. It works, but it makes a loud static/white noise sound when it's on. The noise is not as noticeable when I hold it, but when I set it down on a hard surface, it's really loud. Then it sucks the batteries down incredibly fast (I put new batteries in it, and two days later, they were drained). Any suggestions on what I should buy as a replacement?"

"I'm in graduate school now, and since I'm taking an accounting course, where they don't want us digging out our laptops during a test, I need to buy another calculator. I'm a big fan of reverse polish notation (RPN), so I'd prefer to get another HP calculator.

Do companies still make calculators? I'd love to get another HP 48, but I'm not even sure if HP even makes calculators like that any longer -- on their web site, they're all cheapo-looking single line deals. I've read about something called an HP 48g, but HP has nothing about it on their web site."

Richard asks: "I am interested in starting some home automation projects. The only requirement is that it needs to be controllable via my Linux based system. A Google search for ' "home automation" linux ' returns more than 35,000 hits, including some good ones like this one, which just show how MUCH is out there. Are there any recommendations for a good controller with a serial or USB connection to the computer? What about power switches and sensors? Do I want a system that sends control signals over my house's power lines or RF? Any good software recommendations? As a first project I thought a simple controllable power switch would be fun: Then I could ssh to my home system, use the power switch to turn on a computer controlled radio (Ten-Tec RX-320) and use Speak Freely to send back the audio to my remote location. (This works now except that I don't want to leave the radio on all the time)."

aheath writes "According to the US Naval Historical Center the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: "Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program". The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug. What is your favorite computer bug story?"

Unixrevolution writes "Dan's Data has an excellent article on how an enterprising user (or repair tech) can easily destroy their computer. Most of us don't destroy nearly enough hardware, so this should be helpful."

RobotWisdom (Jorn Barger) writes "Imagine if William Gibson wrote a James Bond adventure in which a sexual tigress seduces Bond into a Caribbean political crisis, requiring a nighttime scuba-dive into a sunken treasure-wreck, and then a voodoo ceremony that reads like a nightmare acid trip. Now replace James Bond with an "overeducated hick" atheist literature professor from Minnesota. And target the writing to intelligent adults, rather than adolescents. That should give you an idea of the latest novella from Robert Stone, Bay of Souls: A Novel." The book is compact, and so is the rest of Barger's review (below). Bay of Souls: A Novel author Robert Stone pages 256 publisher Houghton Mifflin Company rating 9 reviewer Jorn Barger ISBN 0395963494 summary Classy, intelligent adventure for William Gibson fans

The William Gibson comparison is only a little farfetched -- Gibson acknowledges Stone's "paranoid fiction" as the stylistic inspiration for Neuromancer, so if you liked that writing style, you owe it to yourself to try reading Stone. But his books aren't science fiction, and they aren't just adventure stories by any stretch of the imagination.

Stone's been living on the edge of the counterculture since before Ken Kesey's famous 1964 Magic Bus trip. (In fact, his next book will be a memoir of his adventures with Kesey & Co.) His 1974 tour-de-force Dog Soldiers was about southern California drug smugglers in the Vietnam era. His 1981 A Flag for Sunrise was a painfully realistic study of central American political corruption. And 1998's Damascus Gate explored dozens of flavors of religious fanaticism in present-day Israel. [more background]

But Stone's style is the bedrock these are all anchored by. On the one hand, he uses his style to give a gritty, macho, hardboiled detective-story authenticity, but at the same time he's aiming much higher, into the realm of the literary classics (two of his novels qualified for Harold Bloom's exclusive Western Canon of all-time greats). He likes to weave in lots of casual allusions to interesting-but-obscure historical tidbits (I've started compiling online annotations for Damascus Gate and now for Bay of Souls as well).

You can read a sample online [more] to get a sense of Stone's writing, although that first chapter just shows "the calm before the storm," as the hick professor goes on a short hunting trip, and encounters a tragicomic loser who becomes a recurring motif in the book:

...He was struggling with the odd wheelbarrow across which he had slung his prize deer. It was a thing full of seams and joins and springs. Though it appeared altogether large enough to contain the kill, it could not, and its inutility was the source of his sobs and curses and rage and despair. And as the unfortunate man shoved and hauled, pushed and pulled his burden, covering the ground by inches, the extent of his rage became apparent. To Michael, observing from the tree, it was terrifying ...

This short book (250 pages) isn't for everybody, but I strongly recommend it to Gibson fans who feel curious to explore beyond sci-fi.

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

blueser writes "I went today to TUTOS homepage to check for a newer version, and I was surprised to see that the author replaced the homepage by a 'Closed because of Software-Patents' page, with a brief explanation." Just one site? that's hardly a big deal, but there's more. maliabu writes "Knoppix is closed, apparently waiting for the European Parliament to decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called 'software patents' in Europe." And still more. SLbigE writes "The Wine HQ website has temporarily shut down its webpage in protest to a proposed law in Europe regarding Software Patents." There's many more sites as well, these were just the first I was alerted to, Feel free to note some more in comments. Looks like they're doing a good job of illustrating what could be lost soon.

LilJC asks: "I work at a company that does service work nationwide for a major chain. Our vendor requires a signature for every visit to every store. We have been running thus far from ICR on faxes and linking to the faxed signature image on our web site, but are having numerous problems trying to depend on a thousand+ faxes a month coming through perfectly. We are looking for an economical alternative that would allow a contractor in the field to get a signature and transmit it to us in an system I can idiot-proof. Something along the lines of the UPS guy's digital clipboard, but without the pricetag of a Telxon. Brainstorming myself, I wonder if there must be a cheap PDA/modem combo or the like that would allow a contractor to enter required visit information, get a store signature, go home, plug it into their phone line (without needing a computer), and hit send. I can code and am not afraid of doing some custom work for an app on a handheld. Does the Slashdot community know of any projects along these lines, or have ideas about a wise choice for hardware to homegrow the software on?"

CainX writes "A comparison of five power supply units was posted recently. Anandtech has done a more complete review and examined 18 of the newest models in the plus 300 watt range." Power supplies tend to be one of those forgotten, but ever so important parts of machine construction.

Alehound writes " Beer Is Food: The US Government labeled beer(alcohol) as a drug, BeerAdvocate.com begs to differ as they inform their reader that beer can be a part of your diet in a healthy way. Beer does a body good? So the "Beer Gut" is a myth? So why the hell do I have a gut? And yes these guys do drink beer for breakfast." It's only 10 in the morning, I'm dumping out the half pot of coffee left, and cracking open a Boddingtons! Do it!

Lonnold asks: "Every time the topic of Linux on the XBox and/or XBox modding comes up, some one always responds, 'I can build a better PC from scratch, why waste time modding a game console?' So that's my challenge, can anyone demonstrate that it is cheaper to build a PC comparable to the XBox specs?"

ppgreat sent in a wired story about the home of the future sort of story discussing A/V in a Microsoft Media Player 9 future. As seems to always be the case, there's a lot of cool stuff in there, but more than a few eyebrow raises.

underground alliance writes "According to BBC News, space shuttle flights could resume as early as this fall. The article says that 'Engineers have been put on standby to fix problems already raised by the investigating board, and devise a way of checking the exterior shuttle for defects while it is in orbit.' I think that this is a good move especially since ISS construction has been put on hold because without the space shuttle. The space shuttle is the only heavy freighter and the only means of putting a new ISS component in space."

elamdaly writes "Eric Bonabeau, Ph.D, a keynote speaker at the upcoming Emerging Technology conference, is a leader in the field of swarm intelligence and has focused on applying these concepts to real world problems such as factory scheduling and telecommunications routing. The concept itself is borrowed from nature; in this interview, that's where the conversation begins, with ants and other social insects. Dr. Bonabeau takes us from his childhood nightmares of carnivorous wasps to applying the theories of swarm intelligence to solving real problems in the business world."