Slashdot Mirror

JohnFred asks: "Recently I was in the North East of England for a quick visit. When the time came for me to depart Londonwards I needed to look up a train timetable so wandered in to my local library for a quick lookup on the net. The AUP document I was required to sign was so authoritarian as to be unbelievable. As well as the usual clauses about porn and virii it forbade the use of chatrooms and - get this: EMAIL. To add to this, they had set up the machines so that the only app that could be run was Internet Explorer. They also had blocking software that blocked evil, depraved sites like oh, Deja.Com. I think this is not acceptable in a service that is funded out of (partly) taxpayers pockets is so over-regulated as to be utterly useless. Are other libraries in the UK taking a similar line? Does anyone else know more about this, or is this just an individual council going overboard?" A few libraries in the US are moving to this kind of system as well. It's a tricky situation, and it was inevitable that we were going to have this kind of conflict when accessing the Internet through publicly funded outlets. Are there better ways to handle this situation?

BillGodfrey asks: "I'm a small director (okay, I'm not, this is just academic question) and I would like to produce DVDs for use on regular players. However, I don't want to buy into any cartels, and I'd like to avoid as many 'stupid moves' as possible (no region codes, allowing fast forward, etc). How would I go about producing a master and getting copies produced?" Would non-profits and small time organizations need to pay the same production fees for a small run of content as major motion picture firms pay? Or is there still a loophole which the general public can use? We're not necessarily talking free, here...a discount would suffice. Update: 09/15 03:49 PM by C :Ugh! The atrocious grammar in the title has been fixed.

morbid asks: "EIDE is generally considered to be inferior to SCSI because it requires more involvement from the processor slowing the system down, but would it not be possible to build an EIDE/ATA (?) controller with its own processor, freeing up the CPU and increasing system performamce while allowing the use of inexpensive drives?"

WhiteWash writes "AltaVista's UK branch is terminating its offer of unmetred access, and blaming BT for the trouble as the BBC says at their news page. This was a good deal that provided an alternative to BT's monopolistic unmetred access options. Where does Britain turn now for unmetred access?" We originally touched on this subject a while back, for more background info.

doctor_oktagon writes: "The BBC are reporting that 'Scientists at Europe's biggest high-energy physics laboratory have built an "antimatter factory" to study why the world is made of matter, not its mirror image.' This looks like pretty exciting stuff! They slow 'anti-proton' particles down to 1/10th light speed, mix them with protons, and then hope to study the result: antihydrogen. This will hopefully give them insight into why the universe is made of matter, and not antimatter, though I guess this is all relative to your persective! Go here to read the BBC News article in full"

Salsaman writes " 2600 has just posted this article about how one of their staff members (ShapeShifter) has been arrested in Philadelphia during the Republican convention. According to 2600 he was 'arrested while walking down a street talking on a phone.'" There's a ton of information there on the protests and folks being arrested and mistreated. Of course there were extremists who deserved it, but a lot of folks were protesting peacefully. (This has no relevance, but I'm abusing Slashdot to say that I think Bush is a rotten candidate, and while I don't like Gore, I would vote for a inanimate carbon rod for president before I would vote for GWB).

Addendum: I find it amusing that people are so pissed about me using Slashdot to editorialize my opinions. I've been doing this for 3 years, why would I stop now? If you want unbiased news, read the mainstream press... look how honest and unbiased their coverage is! We're humans here, with actual opinions and everything. Besides, if I don't get to soapbox once in awhile, wouldn't Slashdot be boring?

I find it amusing that I've recieved pretty much equal mail from democrats (Rah rah! Way to state the case!) and republicans (I will no longer read Slashdot because I don't think you should be allowed to have opinions and obviously your opinions are stupid. And you are stupid too. And I hate you). Both missed the point: I don't like either party (I don't even like parties). But I really detest Bush. And since this is America, I can say that! And you can disagree! Hooray!

A few weeks ago you asked the multi-talented Chris McKinstry questions, about the telescope projects he's involved with (ESO's Very Large Telescope -- VLT -- and the OverWhelmingly Large telescope -- OWL), about his project to synthesize AI by collecting a database of answers to questions common and obscure, and about the possibilities of discovering extraterrestrial life. Read what he has to say on everything from humans leaving the solar system to telescopes staying here on Earth. [Updated 5 Aug by t:] Chris notes for the record: "The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinions of the European Southern Observatory."

1) GAC
by Dungeon Dweller

I have an active interest in artificial intelligence. I study it as part of my major, and hope to do research in it in the future. As a young man coming up in the world, I am hoping to enter into research eventually, am entering into research at my university (WVU).

Your project reminds me of several projects/theories that have been discussed before. In the psychological debate, your system depends entirely upon nurture, it would seem. I like that kind of system and research. I do have a few questions.

1. What separates this from other projects in the field?
2. Where did you draw your inspiration for this project?
3. What kind of support staff do you recommend to an individual who has never led research before, but would like to? (I ask this of many of my professors who conduct research)
4. Where are you getting the bulk of your input for this project?
5. What do you hope to learn from this project?
6. At what time will you consider this project a success?

I know that I posed a lot of questions, but several could be answered in combination, I just didn't want to ask 2 questions at the same time.

Chris McKinstry:

Question 1-1:

There are three primary features of the MindPixel Digital Mind Modeling Project (also known by GAC -- for Generic Artificial Consciousness -- which is public interface to the project) that distinguish it from other large scale knowledge projects such as CYC.

1. The first phase is a completely public, internet based effort. All the data it will be collecting will come from average people, with no specific training in AI or psychology. It is like seti@home in many respects, except that we're not after your CPU's cycles, but rather your humanness. We're actually seeking to extract the entire content of an average person's mind bit by literal bit from millions of different internet users. We're not trying to write the algorithm for consciousness, but rather create the world's most rigorous fitness test (a Dawkinsian continuous variable) and get it into the hands of researchers who will attempt to make systems that will learn or evolve into consciousness by feeding back against this fitness test. Not only will we be collecting consensus fact, but also consensus emotion. (When the project is fully operational, in addition to collecting information about each MindPixel's truth or falsity, we will also collect emotional data based on Mehrabian's PAD model of emotion.)
2. The second phase of the project involves releasing the data collected to the scientific community and providing those researchers with some funds (generated by advertising to the people supplying the data) to conduct their research. As a side note, Jeff Elman's page contrains information about recurrent neural networks that are very good at processing just the kind of data that this project will collect and distribute. Specifically his 1990 article, Finding Structure in Time (PDF) is one of the most important neural network papers ever written; it strongly influenced me.
3. Finally, the project is a meritocracy. People will gain voting rights that will give them a say in every aspect of how the project is run, from data collection and use to the distribution of data and research funds, based entirely on the amount of data they have contributed to the project. The more work you do, the stronger your voice becomes.

Question 1-2:

My primary inspiration for the project comes from observation: I observed that computers are stupid and know nothing of human existence. I concluded a very long time ago that either we had to write a "magic" program that was able to go out in the world and learn like a human child, or we just had to sit down and type in ALL the data. When I was studying psychology in the late 80's I wanted to begin to gnaw the bullet and start getting people to type in ALL the data. It was my plan then to get people to enter data as part of an intro psych course, or get the university to allow me ask people for data when they logged on to the university's computer system. I was never able to get permission for either and the idea sat on the shelf until I downloaded my first copy of NCSA's Mosaic in 1994. I saw in following my first hyperlink, a different path.

I decided to collect my data via the internet. But, the problem was, that I needed to think of a standard format for the data; some way of representing human knowledge that an average person could learn quickly. That idea didn't come to me until I was preparing an entry for the 1995 Loebner Prize. Jackie, my program, was a stimulus response creature. You would ask her a full text question, and she scan her database for a canned full text response. My idea for the Loebner competition was to have her talk to a lot of people a get a lot of canned responses (at the time I was consulting for a large insurance company and brought Jackie to work everyday where she could talk to my colleagues) As well, I stored the responses in a number of different ways: phonetically using soundex, again with all the words in each stimulus sorted alphabetically, and also with a primitive concept token system. So, if there was no direct match, she would look for a phonetic match or sorted or conceptual match. Essentially I was breaking down each stimulus and standardizing it like a Fourier transform breaks down a waveform.

Then suddenly Hugh Loebner changed the rules. No longer was passing a text based Turing Test good enough for him. Now he would only award his prize if the system passed a full audio/video Inquisition. I hit the roof! Hell, there were tens of thousands of people on the planet that couldn't pass that kind of test! Anyone blind or deaf are just two obvious examples. I withdrew Jackie in a loud protest, stating that intelligence didn't depend on the bandwidth of the communication channel; intelligence could be communicated with one bit! If you locked a person in a box I could detect them with a series of yes/no questions and nothing more. And there all of a sudden, I had my answer (and a quick paper - The Minimum Intelligent Signal Test - An Objective Turing Test in Canadian Artificial Intelligence, issue 41.) There was a minimum intelligent signal, and it was just one bit. I would store my model of the human mind in binary propositions. I would make a digital model of the mind.

I realized within minutes that a giant database of these propositions could be used to train a neural net to mimic a conscious, thinking, feeling human being! I thought, maybe I'm missing something obvious. So, I emailed Marvin Minsky and asked him if he thought it would be possible to train a neural network into something resembling human using a database of binary propositions. He replied quickly saying "Yes, it is possible, but the training corpus would have to be enormous." The moment I finished reading that email, I knew I would spend the rest of my life building and validating the most enormous corpus I could.

Question 1-3:

Support staff! I recommend using the entire planet as support staff! Seriously, don't even dream about it. Almost every researcher I know works on their own or with a handful of collaborators. When you're a big cheese you might get a student or two, but other than that you'll get nothing more than shared use of a departmental secretary. You'll definitely be writing all your own code for a very long time.

Question 1-4:

I can't tell you that yet because at the time I wrote this, the project was not yet online (should be now though.) What I can tell you is that in 1995 I did try to collect this same data, using a web based form that sent an email back to me. I managed to collect some 450,000 items. This time, I expect to collect more and higher quality data and I expect it to come from a wide cross section of the internet public. I should also note MindPixels will be collected in multiple languages, which opens up the future prospect of mapping the sampled human languages to each other concept by concept. It will be very interesting to see exactly how an artificial consciousness trained in English differs at the conceptual level from one trained in say, Spanish.

Question 1-5:

I hope to learn what the human conceptual network looks like. I hope that in a few years I will be able to access a map of all the concepts in the head of an average person or to have learned why I can't.

Question 1-6:

I will consider the project a complete success when the cover of Science announces that for the first time in history there exists an artificial system that has passed a scientifically strong form of the Turing Test known as the Minimum Intelligent Signal Test.

2) How do you guys do it?
by pc486

With exptremely high magnification, how in heck do you keep the telescope still enough to take photos?

The slightest movement ought to mean millions of miles so thoes pesky little earthquakes should be a problem. Not to mention how you guys move the telescope accurately?

Chris: You're quite right about the system being very sensitive; if I walk on the azimuth platform of a VLT telescope while we're observing, I will destroy the observation. For normal tracking we use a software system called Tpoint written by a well known telescope genius named Pat Wallace (Pat has a wonderful and detailed article about telescope pointing that anyone seriously interested in telescope pointing should read); the same system is in use on telescopes all over the world. Basically what we do is build a pointing model for each of our telescopes. This involves pointing each telescope to a number of different points uniformly covering the sky. At each sample point, we observe a guide star and record how it moves from the center of the field over about one minute of tracking time. After we have collected enough data, we build a computer model of the telescope's tracking error. Then we basically run the model backwards into the telescope control system and thus apply corrections that try to cancel out the tracking errors of the telescope. This of course can't correct for any unusual vibrations, we rely on normal guide star tracking and hydraulic isolation of the telescope for that. And baring a large earthquake, Tpoint, automatic guide star corrections and the isolation work pretty well (In the event of a large earthquake, there are giant airbags that inflate to protect the mirror from damage.)

3) How can we help?
by Mignon

You probably know about SETI At Home, which lets people volunteer spare CPU time to processing radio-telescope data, in a (so far vain) attempt to find extra-terrestrial intelligence. Is there a similar way that we can help process some of the data that you gather?

As a simple example, one could compute the differences between a sequence of pictures of the same portion of the sky, looking for anomalies like giant asterioids on their way to wiping us all out.

Chris: seti@home is one of the most impressive demonstrations of how the world of science has changed. There are now over 2 million average people working together for a common scientific goal. I just wish they sold advertising to raise funds for other worthy (meritocratically determined) projects. It really bugs me that my Pentium III 450 which has done over 7000 hours of seti@home processing since last June, hasn't shown me a single science supporting ad. What a waste!

Now as for your idea of doing the same thing in optical wavelengths, I think in it there is a great deal of merit. There are a whole pile on new survey telescopes coming online soon that will be useful for just what you proposed. And if you read ahead to my answer to question 11, you'll see I do think it is a problem we have to pay attention to. (As well, I know of at least two virtual telescope projects; the NRC's National Virtual Telescope. See NVO White Paper (PDF) and ESO's ASTROVIRTEL which seek to allow data mining of previously collected telescope data.

In general, I think the future will see a lot more distributed processing projects doing useful science. The question remains whether or not it is more cost effective to build supercomputers for critical projects or harness the CPU's of private citizens, and I think the answer will need to be determined on a case by case basis. As well, there will be some projects (my own for example) where the CPU cycles are incidental; where what we want to harvest is not your electricity and capital equipment, but actually your humanity.

4) Division between Science and Spirituality
by ParticleGirl

I am continuously frustrated that people's general perception seems to be that science and art, spirituality, and so forth are divided by an uncrossable schism. People feel the need to pit science against spirituality; logic against intuition. It is a rare thing that people accept the idea that these are different ways of approaching the same reality. As a dreamer and artist as well as a respected scientist, what do you say to people who doubt that scientists can be spiritual and artistic people?

Chris: Science for me at least, is concerned with the external, the measurable; while art is concerned with the internal and immeasurable. Every scientist knows measurement can only go so far; that nature at its most fundamental is immeasurable. Unfortunately many scientists turn away from what they can't measure (and conversely, many artists turn from measurement) instead of finding some way, any way to express it. It is this turning away or fear of the immeasurable (or many artist's converse fear of reduction to measurement) that creates doubt; that separates science from art. The scientist can learn that one does not become any less of a scientist for attempting to express the inexpressible or attempting to measure the immeasurable, just as the artist can learn that because we are neurons and our neurons atoms, doesn't mean we are any less human.

5) CCD or what?
by paRcat

What kind of imaging does a telescope of this scale use? Is it an OWLCCD or something else? What kind of resolution? And how far away would an object need to be before the resolution becomes a shortcoming?

Chris: I actually can't answer this question. I am only aware of one discussion regarding instrumentation for the OWL and I haven't read it yet. See FROM ISAAC TO GOLIATH, OR BETTER NOT!? INFRARED INSTRUMENTATION CONCEPTS FOR 100M CLASS TELESCOPES (PDF) on the OWL project page.

6) Yeah, they're big ...
by viper21

But what do you do with them?

What kind of work do the telescopes at your facility generally do? Do local astronomers get to come in and do research or are the scopes reserved for some large project?

Chris: There is a very wide spectrum of observing programs for the VTL; from the study of comets in our solar system to the detection and measurement of objects on the edge of the observable universe. The VTL operates in two primary modes: visitor and service. In visitor mode, scientists actually travel to Chile and execute their observing program interactively with the support of operations personnel like myself who know the telescope and control system intimately and staff astronomers that know the instruments and science. Visitor mode is best utilized when the program contains interactive components, for example when what the observer does next depends on the results of what he has just completed. In service mode, observers don't travel to Chile but instead submit observing programs that don't have a large interactive component. Service programs are executed by staff astronomers and the data is automatically returned to the observer upon completion. Service mode is much like the old batch mode of mainframe computers. In both service and visitor modes, the programs that get time are determined by an observing program committee made up of scientists from all over the world based on scientific merit. And yes, a portion of the time (I believe it is 10%) automatically goes to Chilean astronomers in exchange for Chile's donation of the land for the project.

7) How parellelizable?
by Omnifarious

How parallelizable is the problem of micro-adjusting small portions of a large deformable mirror to correct for atmospheric distortion?

I remember a Scientific American article stating that you'd have to devote a top-of-the-line Cray to continuously recalculate the deformations needed given data from the guide star, or laser simulated guide star. If this problem is highly parallelizable, you may be able to get away with _much_ cheaper hardware.

I'm sure the idea has occured to you, but I want to know what your thoughts are on it.

Chris: My experience with deformable mirrors is entirely practical and I'm really not qualified to comment on the theory behind them. However, speaking from a practical standpoint, the VLT's 450 force actuators (150 per operating telescope) are each activated about 1000 times per night, night after night almost without error (7 non-critical electronic failures up to May of this year). I see no obvious reason why it shouldn't scale smoothly to 130 or 150 meters with current computer technology. And we certainly don't have any supercomputers doing the deformation calculations.

8) Why single-mirror?
by jd

I could have been mis-reading the article, but it seemed to me as though the idea was to build a single-mirror system. On the other hand, in radio astronomy, and in the insect world, arrays are considered the norm. Is there some advantage that a single mirror gives that cannot be duplicated using multiple smaller mirrors? (Simpler optics is an obvious one, paradoxically. :) Or is this (at least in part) NerdTrek III: The Search for Sponsors, where a record-setting single telescope is going to get more interest than a comparable array?

(A supplementary question, to go along with this. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that optical arrays are practical. Do you see any possibility of optical astronomers adopting the same line as radio astronomers, in trying to build an effective 1Km+ optical telescope, using an array?)

Chris: Actually, it isn't a single mirror. It is "filled aperture" telescope. The aperture is filled with many smaller mirrors, just like Keck. And as for optical arrays (interferometers), the VLT (called VLTI in this mode) will be the first real large scale test of such a system. But that stage of the project is still a few years away. In short, we'll have to wait and see how effective it is before we even consider giant optical interferometers.

9) funding
by jmayes

What's the biggest hurdle to hop over in getting funding for projects like OWL? And how did you pull it off?

Chris: The biggest hurdle for getting funding for projects like OWL, is getting funding for construction! Construction of OWL hasn't been funded, so nothing has really been pulled off, yet. But, if the public really wants projects like this to go ahead, then they need to be active about it. If you're in Europe, write your representatives and mention OWL by name and direct them to the OWL project page. If you're not in Europe, urge your representatives to find some way to participate in this project or projects like it.

10) Terrestrial Optical Telescopes
by pb

What are the benefits of having an Earth-bound, optical telescope? Or rather, what can a larger optical telescope find better from Earth that we can't already find on other wavelengths and from other venues (i.e. The Hubble)?

If there are no advantages here, is it more cost-effective, or what?

Chris: What you should actually ask is what advantage does a space based telescope have over a ground based telescope? The only thing you gain from being in space for an optical telescope is better image quality due to lack of atmospheric turbulence. By for every other measure (maintenance, support, materials, etc.) being in space is much, much more expensive and limited. Which is why the Hubble and it's 2.4 meter primary cost a number of times more than the projected cost of of the 100 meter OWL. Recent advances in computer technology (adaptive and active optics) have greatly reduced the advantage that being in space provides at optical wavelengths. For some non-optical telescopes (x-ray, IR, gamma ray) there will always be an advantage to being in orbit.

11) might as well ask it now..
by Blue Lang

I noticed in your 'fave books' section that you have the blind watchmaker, et al.

so, with an eye towards dawkins' views on evolution, what's your personal take on the probability (not the possibility) of humans locating extraterrestrial life without going outside the solar system?

Chris: Actually I'm quite pessimistic about the prospects of us locating ETL, AND independently about leaving the solar system. My main reason for this is that I doubt our civilization can last long enough. Not that I think we're going to self-destruct, but rather I think that nature is going to do it for us. It is my opinion that it is much more PROBABLE that we are driven into or close to extinction by an asteroid collision, than it is we will detect ETL or travel outside the solar system. This is one of the major reasons I strongly support construction of self-supporting Lunar and Martian colonies (and sky survey telescopes!) I just don't like us having all our eggs in the one basket called Earth. Having said all that, if we survive, I am confident we will eventually detect ETL, and that we will leave the solar system.

A few weeks ago you asked the multi-talented Chris McKinstry questions, about the telescope projects he's involved with (ESO's Very Large Telescope -- VLT -- and the OverWhelmingly Large telescope -- OWL), about his project to synthesize AI by collecting a database of answers to questions common and obscure, and about the possibilities of discovering extraterrestrial life. Read what he has to say on everything from humans leaving the solar system to telescopes staying here on Earth. [Updated 5 Aug by t:] Chris notes for the record: "The opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily the opinions of the European Southern Observatory."

1) GAC
by Dungeon Dweller

I have an active interest in artificial intelligence. I study it as part of my major, and hope to do research in it in the future. As a young man coming up in the world, I am hoping to enter into research eventually, am entering into research at my university (WVU).

Your project reminds me of several projects/theories that have been discussed before. In the psychological debate, your system depends entirely upon nurture, it would seem. I like that kind of system and research. I do have a few questions.

1. What separates this from other projects in the field?
2. Where did you draw your inspiration for this project?
3. What kind of support staff do you recommend to an individual who has never led research before, but would like to? (I ask this of many of my professors who conduct research)
4. Where are you getting the bulk of your input for this project?
5. What do you hope to learn from this project?
6. At what time will you consider this project a success?

I know that I posed a lot of questions, but several could be answered in combination, I just didn't want to ask 2 questions at the same time.

Chris McKinstry:

Question 1-1:

There are three primary features of the MindPixel Digital Mind Modeling Project (also known by GAC -- for Generic Artificial Consciousness -- which is public interface to the project) that distinguish it from other large scale knowledge projects such as CYC.

1. The first phase is a completely public, internet based effort. All the data it will be collecting will come from average people, with no specific training in AI or psychology. It is like seti@home in many respects, except that we're not after your CPU's cycles, but rather your humanness. We're actually seeking to extract the entire content of an average person's mind bit by literal bit from millions of different internet users. We're not trying to write the algorithm for consciousness, but rather create the world's most rigorous fitness test (a Dawkinsian continuous variable) and get it into the hands of researchers who will attempt to make systems that will learn or evolve into consciousness by feeding back against this fitness test. Not only will we be collecting consensus fact, but also consensus emotion. (When the project is fully operational, in addition to collecting information about each MindPixel's truth or falsity, we will also collect emotional data based on Mehrabian's PAD model of emotion.)
2. The second phase of the project involves releasing the data collected to the scientific community and providing those researchers with some funds (generated by advertising to the people supplying the data) to conduct their research. As a side note, Jeff Elman's page contrains information about recurrent neural networks that are very good at processing just the kind of data that this project will collect and distribute. Specifically his 1990 article, Finding Structure in Time (PDF) is one of the most important neural network papers ever written; it strongly influenced me.
3. Finally, the project is a meritocracy. People will gain voting rights that will give them a say in every aspect of how the project is run, from data collection and use to the distribution of data and research funds, based entirely on the amount of data they have contributed to the project. The more work you do, the stronger your voice becomes.

Question 1-2:

My primary inspiration for the project comes from observation: I observed that computers are stupid and know nothing of human existence. I concluded a very long time ago that either we had to write a "magic" program that was able to go out in the world and learn like a human child, or we just had to sit down and type in ALL the data. When I was studying psychology in the late 80's I wanted to begin to gnaw the bullet and start getting people to type in ALL the data. It was my plan then to get people to enter data as part of an intro psych course, or get the university to allow me ask people for data when they logged on to the university's computer system. I was never able to get permission for either and the idea sat on the shelf until I downloaded my first copy of NCSA's Mosaic in 1994. I saw in following my first hyperlink, a different path.

I decided to collect my data via the internet. But, the problem was, that I needed to think of a standard format for the data; some way of representing human knowledge that an average person could learn quickly. That idea didn't come to me until I was preparing an entry for the 1995 Loebner Prize. Jackie, my program, was a stimulus response creature. You would ask her a full text question, and she scan her database for a canned full text response. My idea for the Loebner competition was to have her talk to a lot of people a get a lot of canned responses (at the time I was consulting for a large insurance company and brought Jackie to work everyday where she could talk to my colleagues) As well, I stored the responses in a number of different ways: phonetically using soundex, again with all the words in each stimulus sorted alphabetically, and also with a primitive concept token system. So, if there was no direct match, she would look for a phonetic match or sorted or conceptual match. Essentially I was breaking down each stimulus and standardizing it like a Fourier transform breaks down a waveform.

Then suddenly Hugh Loebner changed the rules. No longer was passing a text based Turing Test good enough for him. Now he would only award his prize if the system passed a full audio/video Inquisition. I hit the roof! Hell, there were tens of thousands of people on the planet that couldn't pass that kind of test! Anyone blind or deaf are just two obvious examples. I withdrew Jackie in a loud protest, stating that intelligence didn't depend on the bandwidth of the communication channel; intelligence could be communicated with one bit! If you locked a person in a box I could detect them with a series of yes/no questions and nothing more. And there all of a sudden, I had my answer (and a quick paper - The Minimum Intelligent Signal Test - An Objective Turing Test in Canadian Artificial Intelligence, issue 41.) There was a minimum intelligent signal, and it was just one bit. I would store my model of the human mind in binary propositions. I would make a digital model of the mind.

I realized within minutes that a giant database of these propositions could be used to train a neural net to mimic a conscious, thinking, feeling human being! I thought, maybe I'm missing something obvious. So, I emailed Marvin Minsky and asked him if he thought it would be possible to train a neural network into something resembling human using a database of binary propositions. He replied quickly saying "Yes, it is possible, but the training corpus would have to be enormous." The moment I finished reading that email, I knew I would spend the rest of my life building and validating the most enormous corpus I could.

Question 1-3:

Support staff! I recommend using the entire planet as support staff! Seriously, don't even dream about it. Almost every researcher I know works on their own or with a handful of collaborators. When you're a big cheese you might get a student or two, but other than that you'll get nothing more than shared use of a departmental secretary. You'll definitely be writing all your own code for a very long time.

Question 1-4:

I can't tell you that yet because at the time I wrote this, the project was not yet online (should be now though.) What I can tell you is that in 1995 I did try to collect this same data, using a web based form that sent an email back to me. I managed to collect some 450,000 items. This time, I expect to collect more and higher quality data and I expect it to come from a wide cross section of the internet public. I should also note MindPixels will be collected in multiple languages, which opens up the future prospect of mapping the sampled human languages to each other concept by concept. It will be very interesting to see exactly how an artificial consciousness trained in English differs at the conceptual level from one trained in say, Spanish.

Question 1-5:

I hope to learn what the human conceptual network looks like. I hope that in a few years I will be able to access a map of all the concepts in the head of an average person or to have learned why I can't.

Question 1-6:

I will consider the project a complete success when the cover of Science announces that for the first time in history there exists an artificial system that has passed a scientifically strong form of the Turing Test known as the Minimum Intelligent Signal Test.

2) How do you guys do it?
by pc486

With exptremely high magnification, how in heck do you keep the telescope still enough to take photos?

The slightest movement ought to mean millions of miles so thoes pesky little earthquakes should be a problem. Not to mention how you guys move the telescope accurately?

Chris: You're quite right about the system being very sensitive; if I walk on the azimuth platform of a VLT telescope while we're observing, I will destroy the observation. For normal tracking we use a software system called Tpoint written by a well known telescope genius named Pat Wallace (Pat has a wonderful and detailed article about telescope pointing that anyone seriously interested in telescope pointing should read); the same system is in use on telescopes all over the world. Basically what we do is build a pointing model for each of our telescopes. This involves pointing each telescope to a number of different points uniformly covering the sky. At each sample point, we observe a guide star and record how it moves from the center of the field over about one minute of tracking time. After we have collected enough data, we build a computer model of the telescope's tracking error. Then we basically run the model backwards into the telescope control system and thus apply corrections that try to cancel out the tracking errors of the telescope. This of course can't correct for any unusual vibrations, we rely on normal guide star tracking and hydraulic isolation of the telescope for that. And baring a large earthquake, Tpoint, automatic guide star corrections and the isolation work pretty well (In the event of a large earthquake, there are giant airbags that inflate to protect the mirror from damage.)

3) How can we help?
by Mignon

You probably know about SETI At Home, which lets people volunteer spare CPU time to processing radio-telescope data, in a (so far vain) attempt to find extra-terrestrial intelligence. Is there a similar way that we can help process some of the data that you gather?

As a simple example, one could compute the differences between a sequence of pictures of the same portion of the sky, looking for anomalies like giant asterioids on their way to wiping us all out.

Chris: seti@home is one of the most impressive demonstrations of how the world of science has changed. There are now over 2 million average people working together for a common scientific goal. I just wish they sold advertising to raise funds for other worthy (meritocratically determined) projects. It really bugs me that my Pentium III 450 which has done over 7000 hours of seti@home processing since last June, hasn't shown me a single science supporting ad. What a waste!

Now as for your idea of doing the same thing in optical wavelengths, I think in it there is a great deal of merit. There are a whole pile on new survey telescopes coming online soon that will be useful for just what you proposed. And if you read ahead to my answer to question 11, you'll see I do think it is a problem we have to pay attention to. (As well, I know of at least two virtual telescope projects; the NRC's National Virtual Telescope. See NVO White Paper (PDF) and ESO's ASTROVIRTEL which seek to allow data mining of previously collected telescope data.

In general, I think the future will see a lot more distributed processing projects doing useful science. The question remains whether or not it is more cost effective to build supercomputers for critical projects or harness the CPU's of private citizens, and I think the answer will need to be determined on a case by case basis. As well, there will be some projects (my own for example) where the CPU cycles are incidental; where what we want to harvest is not your electricity and capital equipment, but actually your humanity.

4) Division between Science and Spirituality
by ParticleGirl

I am continuously frustrated that people's general perception seems to be that science and art, spirituality, and so forth are divided by an uncrossable schism. People feel the need to pit science against spirituality; logic against intuition. It is a rare thing that people accept the idea that these are different ways of approaching the same reality. As a dreamer and artist as well as a respected scientist, what do you say to people who doubt that scientists can be spiritual and artistic people?

Chris: Science for me at least, is concerned with the external, the measurable; while art is concerned with the internal and immeasurable. Every scientist knows measurement can only go so far; that nature at its most fundamental is immeasurable. Unfortunately many scientists turn away from what they can't measure (and conversely, many artists turn from measurement) instead of finding some way, any way to express it. It is this turning away or fear of the immeasurable (or many artist's converse fear of reduction to measurement) that creates doubt; that separates science from art. The scientist can learn that one does not become any less of a scientist for attempting to express the inexpressible or attempting to measure the immeasurable, just as the artist can learn that because we are neurons and our neurons atoms, doesn't mean we are any less human.

5) CCD or what?
by paRcat

What kind of imaging does a telescope of this scale use? Is it an OWLCCD or something else? What kind of resolution? And how far away would an object need to be before the resolution becomes a shortcoming?

Chris: I actually can't answer this question. I am only aware of one discussion regarding instrumentation for the OWL and I haven't read it yet. See FROM ISAAC TO GOLIATH, OR BETTER NOT!? INFRARED INSTRUMENTATION CONCEPTS FOR 100M CLASS TELESCOPES (PDF) on the OWL project page.

6) Yeah, they're big ...
by viper21

But what do you do with them?

What kind of work do the telescopes at your facility generally do? Do local astronomers get to come in and do research or are the scopes reserved for some large project?

Chris: There is a very wide spectrum of observing programs for the VTL; from the study of comets in our solar system to the detection and measurement of objects on the edge of the observable universe. The VTL operates in two primary modes: visitor and service. In visitor mode, scientists actually travel to Chile and execute their observing program interactively with the support of operations personnel like myself who know the telescope and control system intimately and staff astronomers that know the instruments and science. Visitor mode is best utilized when the program contains interactive components, for example when what the observer does next depends on the results of what he has just completed. In service mode, observers don't travel to Chile but instead submit observing programs that don't have a large interactive component. Service programs are executed by staff astronomers and the data is automatically returned to the observer upon completion. Service mode is much like the old batch mode of mainframe computers. In both service and visitor modes, the programs that get time are determined by an observing program committee made up of scientists from all over the world based on scientific merit. And yes, a portion of the time (I believe it is 10%) automatically goes to Chilean astronomers in exchange for Chile's donation of the land for the project.

7) How parellelizable?
by Omnifarious

How parallelizable is the problem of micro-adjusting small portions of a large deformable mirror to correct for atmospheric distortion?

I remember a Scientific American article stating that you'd have to devote a top-of-the-line Cray to continuously recalculate the deformations needed given data from the guide star, or laser simulated guide star. If this problem is highly parallelizable, you may be able to get away with _much_ cheaper hardware.

I'm sure the idea has occured to you, but I want to know what your thoughts are on it.

Chris: My experience with deformable mirrors is entirely practical and I'm really not qualified to comment on the theory behind them. However, speaking from a practical standpoint, the VLT's 450 force actuators (150 per operating telescope) are each activated about 1000 times per night, night after night almost without error (7 non-critical electronic failures up to May of this year). I see no obvious reason why it shouldn't scale smoothly to 130 or 150 meters with current computer technology. And we certainly don't have any supercomputers doing the deformation calculations.

8) Why single-mirror?
by jd

I could have been mis-reading the article, but it seemed to me as though the idea was to build a single-mirror system. On the other hand, in radio astronomy, and in the insect world, arrays are considered the norm. Is there some advantage that a single mirror gives that cannot be duplicated using multiple smaller mirrors? (Simpler optics is an obvious one, paradoxically. :) Or is this (at least in part) NerdTrek III: The Search for Sponsors, where a record-setting single telescope is going to get more interest than a comparable array?

(A supplementary question, to go along with this. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that optical arrays are practical. Do you see any possibility of optical astronomers adopting the same line as radio astronomers, in trying to build an effective 1Km+ optical telescope, using an array?)

Chris: Actually, it isn't a single mirror. It is "filled aperture" telescope. The aperture is filled with many smaller mirrors, just like Keck. And as for optical arrays (interferometers), the VLT (called VLTI in this mode) will be the first real large scale test of such a system. But that stage of the project is still a few years away. In short, we'll have to wait and see how effective it is before we even consider giant optical interferometers.

9) funding
by jmayes

What's the biggest hurdle to hop over in getting funding for projects like OWL? And how did you pull it off?

Chris: The biggest hurdle for getting funding for projects like OWL, is getting funding for construction! Construction of OWL hasn't been funded, so nothing has really been pulled off, yet. But, if the public really wants projects like this to go ahead, then they need to be active about it. If you're in Europe, write your representatives and mention OWL by name and direct them to the OWL project page. If you're not in Europe, urge your representatives to find some way to participate in this project or projects like it.

10) Terrestrial Optical Telescopes
by pb

What are the benefits of having an Earth-bound, optical telescope? Or rather, what can a larger optical telescope find better from Earth that we can't already find on other wavelengths and from other venues (i.e. The Hubble)?

If there are no advantages here, is it more cost-effective, or what?

Chris: What you should actually ask is what advantage does a space based telescope have over a ground based telescope? The only thing you gain from being in space for an optical telescope is better image quality due to lack of atmospheric turbulence. By for every other measure (maintenance, support, materials, etc.) being in space is much, much more expensive and limited. Which is why the Hubble and it's 2.4 meter primary cost a number of times more than the projected cost of of the 100 meter OWL. Recent advances in computer technology (adaptive and active optics) have greatly reduced the advantage that being in space provides at optical wavelengths. For some non-optical telescopes (x-ray, IR, gamma ray) there will always be an advantage to being in orbit.

11) might as well ask it now..
by Blue Lang

I noticed in your 'fave books' section that you have the blind watchmaker, et al.

so, with an eye towards dawkins' views on evolution, what's your personal take on the probability (not the possibility) of humans locating extraterrestrial life without going outside the solar system?

Chris: Actually I'm quite pessimistic about the prospects of us locating ETL, AND independently about leaving the solar system. My main reason for this is that I doubt our civilization can last long enough. Not that I think we're going to self-destruct, but rather I think that nature is going to do it for us. It is my opinion that it is much more PROBABLE that we are driven into or close to extinction by an asteroid collision, than it is we will detect ETL or travel outside the solar system. This is one of the major reasons I strongly support construction of self-supporting Lunar and Martian colonies (and sky survey telescopes!) I just don't like us having all our eggs in the one basket called Earth. Having said all that, if we survive, I am confident we will eventually detect ETL, and that we will leave the solar system.

vedge asks: "Is there any serious project for software that will let you mount a Linux ext2 partition from MS-Windows 95 or NT? I saw one here but it is now unmaintained and doesn't even work on my machine. "

Lee writes, "ATMEL launches single-chip Internet enabler fueling low-cost Internet phone (VoIP), e-mail and MP3 appliances. A complete single-chip solution IC, featuring Embedded Linux and application software delivering true telephone sound quality." We've been saying for some time that embedded boxes are one of the strongest futures for that whole Linux thing. I'm still waiting to see one of these little Linux boxes make it to the market ...

slim asks: "I'm planning a month-long road holiday in August, driving from Chicago to Los Angeles, where possible following old Route 66, rather than the Interstate. I'm not quite dependent on Net access, but it certainly would be nice to be able to use mail, check Slashdot, maintain an Everything daylog, upload pictures from a digital camera to my Web site, etc., along the way. I'm British, and I've already found out that my GSM phone won't work in most of the USA, so fancy-schmancy GSM modem access will do no good unless I buy a phone locally. So what's a Brit to do? What ISPs have a local number in every state? Will they accept a month-long subscription from someone with no U.S. address? Do most hotels have a standard phone socket I can use? Are cybercafes common enough to make do with?"

Sircus writes "The BBC is carrying this article regarding a robot 'monkey' that has been taught to swing from rung to rung of a ladder, using only the distance between the rungs and some basic equations about swinging. There's not much technical detail, but this is an interesting approach to the problem of dumb robots, and one which certainly gives the suits something pretty to look at."

Eric the Cat wrote to us with one of the most amusing articles for the day. A Russian Security Consultancy has claimed that a plague of virii for Linux will be coming, thanks to Chinese hackers. Wait - it gets better. According to the security expert, *because* Linux is open source, the viruses will be even worse than in other systems. Thankfully, Jason Clifford, a Linux person, is also quoted in the article setting the story a bit straighter.

evilandi writes "Cellnet, British Telecom's cellular division, has officially announced that GPRS will go live on 30th June 2000 with 99% UK population coverage (including most rural areas). GPRS, General Packet Radio Service, provides always-on packet-switched ISDN-like bandwidth over a mobile telephone. This will be a boon to mobile office workers and rednecks like me who live out in the sticks (as my wife points out), out of range of ISDN, DSL and cable. The price, has yet to be announced. " Wow. I want. And I was even thinking about moving to the UK for a while anyway.

Paul Johnson writes "In this news story Wired says that the Australian net censorship law is about to come into effect, and give some details of how it will work. In particular it seems that the Australian Broadcasting Authority is 'unlikely to release the specific names or Web addresses of sites in order to avoid granting them unnecessary publicity.' So it would seem that Australians are not even allowed to know what is being censored." That's the way it works: keeping us in the dark makes it harder to judge whether keeping us in the dark is fair. It doesn't make sense; even Sen.McCain urged full disclosure for censorware.

slim writes "This site has the first tools I've seen for homebrew development on the Sega Dreamcast VMU -- file specs, firmware specs, an assembler, a disassembler and an emulator, as well as source code for a Tetris clone. The VMU is the Dreamcast's memory-card-come-mini-gameboy gadget."

Wacko asks: "What would be the cheapest way to implement a fingerprint door entry system? I was looking at the Compaq Fingerprint Indentification Technology which I hear is about 60 quid (Uk money that :). If that was linked up to an electronic door lock (like door entry systems) it would make a cool entry system. However, is this feasible and is there any software that could perform this (especially software for Linux)." Sounds good, but how secure are these things?

cluke writes "The Amiga Dealer's Association are suing Gateway and Amiga Inc. over breach of promise. It seems they're not too happy about being strung along for so long by Gateway. " Suing to the tune of somewhere around three million dollars US, but the web page points out something - the ADA is suing Amiga, Inc. Amiga, Inc has no money, and GW2k ^[?] is protected from damages legally. The full text of the filing, with commentary is online for the reading.

Do you enjoy the notion of alternative history, and the question of "What if?" Pasquale's Angel is a deftly written book by Paul J. McAuley, with a setting of renaissance Italy. Character development is strong, and the story is well told - both the reviewer, D.C. Lawie and I agree on this. Click below to learn more about the book. Pasquale's Angel author Paul J. McAuley pages 374 publisher AvoNova rating 7.5/10 reviewer D.C. Lawie ISBN 0380778203 summary Pasquale's Angel could be slipped into the lists of "steam punk" butit easily surpasses many alternate histories with its free flowing plot andeasy humour. Paul J. McAuley apparently made his first short story sale in the mid seventies to a magazine which immediately folded. He has been writing published science fiction for the last fifteen years, including many short stories and eight novels alongside regular reviews for magazines such as Interzone and Foundation. His success, including awards for three of his novels, has allowed him to switch from an academic career to full time writing. The scope and strength of his writing has been displayed through variation in subject matter and tone across his work.

In Pasquale's Angel, his fifth novel, McAuley's ability is such that he can carry off an alternate history of renaissance Italy with a light, sure touch. Like most "counterfactuals" he makes use of historical figures - Machiavelli is an investigative journalist, Lisa Giocondo is the lover of the painter Raphael. These are fully realised characters rather than the cheap name checks too common in alternate history. In fact, closer study of the historical period shows how well the author used the characters available and how accurately they have been drawn. Another distinction from many attempts at alternate history is the strength of the plotting, which has no reliance on comparison with our own history. Descriptive passages make no assumptions of the reader's knowledge either. It is made clear Michelangelo and Raphael are great artists and great rivals. In the course of the story, the reader learns about the mechanisms of renaissance art as well as achronic newspaper production.

The catalyst which leads to a changed reality is Leonardo da Vinci's decision to dedicate himself to engineering rather than art. The result is industrial revolution being folded into the already rich mixture of politics and machinations in the city state of Florence. This produces an environment where tossing a spent match leads naturally to a discussion on the fall of Lucifer and the possibility of Man's redemption, an environment which has room enough for action and for moments of contemplation.

The great Raphael is of Venice and arrives in Florence shortly before the Pope is due to resolve Rome's differences with the city. Pasquale is a country boy and a painter's apprentice, desirous of getting close to the famous painter when he is caught up in murder and intrigue. It is almost impossible to avoid describing the plot as Machiavellian, involving magicians, priests, riots and philosophy but the story also includes gunfights, stakeouts and chases in steam powered vehicles. At times there is a danger of losing track of who is doing what to whom and why but the ride is always enjoyable and the tangles mostly untie themselves.

Pasquale's Angel avoids the usual traps in alternate histories - pointlessly mixing periods and easy moralising by implicit or explicit comparison with our world. The premise leads plausibly to the technology available within the story. The characters, historically, were born into the dawn of a new age, so it seems reasonable that they should cope with change even on the scale presented. They are, generally, more interested in money and politics, in turning the new technology to their own advantage, than in the technology for itself. There may be a moral in this, but it is applicable to all human nature.

The storyline developed may seem thoroughly over the top but it is a large part of what makes the book work. McAuley makes excellent use of historical sources (from the age when the modern biography was invented) and mercilessly plunders technology from every page of da Vinci. This is a novel where entertainment is built up in layers of provocative ideas.

e-mail me.

• An Interview with McAuley
• PJM's Homepage
• Interzone
• Foundation

Purchase this book at Amazon.

Asmodeus writes "Those boys at Cambridge have done it again. The Resurrecting Duckling (where do they get these names ?) is a description of the security problems in ad-hoc wireless networks with some nifty solutions to the problems." Its a really interesting techie bit actually. Talks about problems with low power, wireless boxes. Its strange to think that in wireless world, for example a denial of service attack could be anything designed to drain your battery.

Porag_Spliffing sent us a choice quote from this well researched Gartner group piece which says "The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user."

Thanks to Janice Wright for returning with a review of O'Reilly's PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide (2nd Edition). It's the 2nd edition, written by David Pogue and Jeff Hawkins - click below to learn how to make the most of your PalmPilot. PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide (2nd Edition) author David Pogue, Jeff Hawkins pages 597, publisher O'Reilly rating 9/10 reviewer Janice Wright ISBN 1565926005 summary An excellent book to teach you how to make the most of your Pilot Wow - I'm impressed. With my Pilot that is. I bought a Pilot 6 months ago so that I could carry my agenda (which I keep in MSOutlook on my desktop computer) to meetings with me. For six months I used it essentially as an electronic version of my filofax that I could also play backgammon or Sokoban on; and that was all. Then I read David Pogue's "well-written, nicely designed exploration of the Palm" (to quote Jeff Hawkins in the 'Forward').

Now I think of my pilot as a computer, one that will provide almost as much hackish enjoyment as my Linux box... as a matter of fact I'm now following the microLinux project with great interest and wondering how long it will be before I can upgrade to a Palm/Handspring device that will run Linux, a POP3 client and support a wireless modem. In the preface, Pogue says "Taking your Palm further: that's what this book is about." He delivers on that one-hundred percent.

David Pogue's "Palm Pilot - The Ultimate Guide" is absolutely excellent. It did take forever to read, though, because I kept stopping every few pages to optimize my Pilot with the tricks I had just learned, or to turn an easter egg on (yes, the book tells you where all(?) of the easter eggs are). The book has everything from office productivity tips for suits (when transferring lots of data from the expense program to Excel, you can end up with multiple spreadsheets which you have to total seperately, p. 228) to great hackish tidbits for hardcore geeks (like how to turn on verbose hot-sync logging, p.142).

Like many people I completely ignored the manual that came in the box with my Pilot, so some of the stuff Pogue covers, like ferinstance the Ronomatic stroke, is probably actually in the manual (l've only ever looked at it once - to try to solve an installation failure problem. The manual was unhelpful, and I found the information I needed to solve the problem in the FAQs at PalmCentral.com. The problem and solution are on page 181.

What's good and/or my favorite bits:

• the musical notation for the palm chimes on p.137
• the official solution vs. the better solution to upgrading
• the way it explained why a backgammon game I had installed and then deleted kept 'coming back' every time I HotSynched
• even though I will probably never surf the web on my pilot the explanation of how ProxiWeb works is mega cool.

What's bad:

• didn't really need four pages on the various classic games that you can download from 3Com
• doesn't mention quickwrite in the 'graffiti alternatives' section

Table of Contents
I. This Is Your PalmPilot Speaking

The 3x5 inch powerhouse

Setup and guided tour

Typing without a keypad

The four primary programs

Other built-in programs
II. Palm Meets PC

HotSync, step-by-step

Installing new palm programs

Palm desktop (win&mac)
III. The Undiscovered PalmPilot

The electronic book

The secret multimedia world

Database and number crunching
IV. The PalmPilot Online

Email anywhere

The web in your Palm

Paging, faxing, printing, and beaming

Palm VII: wireless email, wireless web
V. Troubleshooting and Upgrading

Troubleshooting

The Palm family, model by model
VI. Appendixes

CD-ROM
A few notes about the CD-ROM that comes with the book: Though it was obviously outdated by the time the book went to press, it will save you hours of hunting for the best software and, depending on the speed of your modem of course, a significant amount of download time (for those of us unfortunate enough to live in corners of the world with metered phone calls, you will probably save yourself the price of the book within weeks). I've been working my way through a variety of 'world' clocks (ones that show multiple timezones), trying to find one that I like; because there are half-a-dozen on the CD, this is pretty painless. The Catalog software resident on the CD makes it easy to find what you are looking for, and in many instances, shows you what the program is going to look like. I've 'trialed' a lot more software on my PalmPilot than I would have ever been bothered to download.

And yes - I did write this review on my Pilot, mostly on trains & on the London Underground. Speaking of which: as soon as I get the time, I'm gonna figure out how to make ImageViewer docs, so that I can update the London Underground map for the Pilot - the one that's currently available still has Mornington Crescent crossed out!

Purchase this book at Amazon.

Janet, please send your name, address, t-shirt size, and this article's URL to roblimo so we can send you your t-shirt. (Everyone who writes a Slashdot review or feature now gets a free t-shirt!)

Sanity writes "Oracle has an interesting policy statement in which they explain that while they think software patents are wrong, they are forced to apply for patents as a defensive measure. As the world's third largest independent software producer Oracle's position gives a significant boost to the anti-patent lobby. "

Moose2000 writes " The BBC reports that NASA has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. If it doesn't get back in touch, it's not just the immediate science stuff lost - it was supposed to stay in orbit as a communications relay for future missions too. " Communication has been lost for almost 3 hours now, it appears - so there's still hope. Update: 09/23 01:36 by H :It now appears that a steering problem may have caused it to crash into the planet.

Skogshuggarn writes "The initial public release of Linux - version 0.01 - occurred on the 17th September 1991. The world's best operating system is therefore 8 years old this Friday. Happy Birthday " Seems like only yesterday that our little kernel was in potty training, and now here it is all grown up and ready for world domination.

Wacko writes "The gd library, which allows on-the-fly creation of GIF files, has been withdrawn due to copyright problems. They say they may release another version in the future, but would either need to remove LZW compression algorithm or charge for the library. " Mmmm...patents & copyright laws, oh my!

James Green writes "CNN is reporting something will surely make everyone want to duck - the SkyCar, an invention by Moller International, of California. Quote, "The Batmobile-shaped vehicle will seat four people, do about 5 miles per liter of gas, have a top speed of over 600 mph and will take off and land vertically." It is due for a maiden journey in the next few weeks. "

AmirS writes "Microsoft are really pushing for the Mindcraft benchmark to be re-run, so much that they've put up a page about it. They say they've met all the requests of the community (seems like most have been met) and just require linux people to step forward for it. "

Mindphunk wrote to say " Just saw this request for prior art over at the W3C. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today announced that it is investigating the status of a patent claim which threatens open access to privacy protection technology known as the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). To aid in its investigative efforts, W3C is calling on the Web Community for help in locating "prior art," technology whose existence could be relevant to the validity of the patent. " There are growing incompatibilities between patents and open standards; the trend towards filing patents in areas where standards are already underway is cause for both concern and action," stated Daniel J. Weitzner, Technology and Society Domain Leader of W3C. "The Web and developer communities can be instrumental in providing the evidence required to render questionable patents invalid, thereby maintaining an open Web. "

Paul Johnson writes "I've written an essay on where I think the OSS movement should go. I think it needs to commercialise itself, but on its own terms not on the terms of the conventional closed-source software industry. This essay looks at the pros and cons of both the closed and open source worlds, and then outlines a synthesis of both which I hope will have the advantages of both. "

Paul Johnson writes "I've written an essay on where I think the OSS movement should go. I think it needs to commercialise itself, but on its own terms not on the terms of the conventional closed-source software industry. This essay looks at the pros and cons of both the closed and open source worlds, and then outlines a synthesis of both which I hope will have the advantages of both. "

bor xitwise writes "i dont know if anti-capitalist sentiment and the open source community necessarily go hand in hand (cough), but i thought you might want to mention "world phone in sick day", which is coming up on the 6th of april. hopefully we can get a larger participation in the u.s. this year!! " Thats strange. I wish I wasn't my own company- could use a sick day.

slim sent us linkage to a detailed guide to installing Linux on an iMac. " There are comments about LinuxPPC R4 and R5, but its come a long way. If those iMacs were a few hundred bucks cheaper I still think they'd be fun thinnish linux workstations. And the pretty colors.

James Green writes "Salon Magazine have published this article on the subject of patents. It discusses the legal issues fairly extensively, talking of what "obvious" can mean, and interviews the owner of the patent for pay-per-view over telecommunications lines. An interesting read, if not earth-shattering stuff. "

Sircus writes "The BBC have now joined USA Today in having a story on Winbloze refund day. Best quote - 'Linux users are mostly anti-Windows'. Mostly? Find more at this page "

Paul Crowley writes "The table of contents for "Open Sources" , O'Reilly's book for the lay reader from Slashdot's interesting-ideas department, is now available and the book itself should be coming out later this month; I've just now received mail warning me of a copy coming my way sometime this week. One chapter is already available online: Eric S Raymond's A brief history of Hackerdom . So you can all start flaming his attention-seeking ways again now, especially since on a related note he's also turned up on Slashdot's favourite news source, BBC News." I just got a copy of Open Sources as well- Chris DiBona mentioned both me & Slashdot in his intro. I've read the ESR and RMS sections already- both were great. A full fledged review of the book will be here whenever I have time to finish reading it.

EnglishTim writes "According to this BBC report, the Indonesian government orchestrated a massive 'virtual attack' on the East Timorese server, which is based in Ireland due to the Indonesian refusal to recognise East Timor's sovereignty. "

Zachary Kessin writes "There is a new Script-Fu Webpage , Covers details of programing The Gimp in Script-Fu. " Not really much there yet, but it hopefully will be cool.

James Green sent in the URL to a news.com story that talks about how NSI is Backlogged handling orders of domain names. Big shock. Someday this might be decentralized. Someday we might have new TLDs. Someday this whole DNS growing pain thing will stop. Really. Bah who am I kidding. This is the DMV of the 90s.

DrPsycho writes "Just a quick follow up to the previous article that appeared on slashdot about the development of aMozilla, the Mozilla port for the Amiga. The people behind the project have started posting screenshots of the Navigator layout under AmigaOS, and the look & feel of Messenger. News about the project is available here. They've also started an eZine about aMozilla. Looks like it might be more than vapour after all. "

DrPsycho writes "Just a quick follow up to the previous article that appeared on slashdot about the development of aMozilla, the Mozilla port for the Amiga. The people behind the project have started posting screenshots of the Navigator layout under AmigaOS, and the look & feel of Messenger. News about the project is available here. They've also started an eZine about aMozilla. Looks like it might be more than vapour after all. "

DrPsycho writes "Just a quick follow up to the previous article that appeared on slashdot about the development of aMozilla, the Mozilla port for the Amiga. The people behind the project have started posting screenshots of the Navigator layout under AmigaOS, and the look & feel of Messenger. News about the project is available here. They've also started an eZine about aMozilla. Looks like it might be more than vapour after all. "

DrPsycho writes "Just a quick follow up to the previous article that appeared on slashdot about the development of aMozilla, the Mozilla port for the Amiga. The people behind the project have started posting screenshots of the Navigator layout under AmigaOS, and the look & feel of Messenger. News about the project is available here. They've also started an eZine about aMozilla. Looks like it might be more than vapour after all. "

gman has started a new site, linuxhardware.net in an effort to create help newbies learn and share information about Linux and Hardware. nickm an insane link designed to bring arts and culture to the Unix community. Apparently Dogman has created a hilarious page entitled "Installing a network PostScript printer on a Sun workstation running SunOS As illustrated through interpretive dance. Whoever said learning can't be fun never saw this. Or maybe they did and just created a mental block so they didn't have to think about that guy dancing. Jerome ALET sent us a link to the Linux Slogans Database Matthew Astley wrote in to where you can buy 25x25mm self-adhesive domed plastic badges featuring Tux to attach to your computer case in that little logo spot. The Phly sent in links to a new Bible for Linux page is up. jgalun wrote in to send us a link to a Washington Post that comapres Sys Admin Salaries average system admin salaries, in which they note that Mac sys admins seem to make very little. Hmm, wonder why...Also noted is that Linux sys admins had the greatest pay raises last year. More to come, hopefully! darius sent us a link to the new apple ad campaign which features the one, the only, HAL 9000. BigZaphod wriote in to announce a new games site:Legions. And rounding in to the more tasteless part of the quickies, kweiheri sent us an great parody of realdoll.com- except this one is (ahem) realhamster.com. What is this world coming to? GraZZ wrote in to send us an amusing parody of Star Wars and the Starr Thing.

An Anonymous Coward writes "The aMozilla Project has been established with the sole aim of porting Netscape 5 Communicator to the Amiga Platform. Two versions will be made, a 68k port and a PowerPC port. You can find more information here. "

Sometimes as an ex-demo coder, one sees something these days that knocks one off one's feet. So 4-bit scrolling Overscan and 16Khz Soundtracker on the 8Mhz Atari ST was cool, but it's hard to be impressed in the same way these days, given the 300Mhz monsters that run C++ faster than hand-crafted 68000.... until... Who in their right mind would code a Spectrum Emulator in Java that actually runs old games??? Not only that, but source code is provided which compiles with jikes. Interestingly the resulting class files are slower than those on the website -- some optimization cases must be being missed (hint David ;-)). Apparently, this is the beginning of a trend with an ATARI ST emulator also being written. Anyone know how to get Kaffe to run an applet? (under Netscape it runs at 10% of a real Spectrum's speed)

Yes, it's a milestone many of you thought would never happen: a Slashdot book review on ActiveX. Jon Veal wrote this review up and sent it our way. For those of you who haven't seen this little treasure, think the words "comic novella". Click below for more. Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX author Carlton Egremont III pages publisher rating 10 reviewer Jon Veal ISBN summary A very short and funny book explaining the basics of ActiveX. The Scenario A book about Active X in less than 100 pages ? Well as you might guess from the title this is not an ordinary computing book. It is a humourous look at Active X. Starting with the concept of the pixel, Mr Bunny explains topics such as the Windows registry, Visual Basic 5 and the Internet to Farmer Jake. (Farmer Jake represents a Computer Professional.)

This is not a serious book. Very little useful technical information can be gained from it, however it is very funny. It could be considered to be anti-microsoft. There are lots of digs about the registry and the stability (or lack of) of Visual Basic.

What's Bad? The sense of humour of the writer might not be to everyones taste. It is certainly not a good guide to activeX for that you should look else where.

What's Good? It makes a refreshing change from other computing books. Useful tips include: 'Do not use matches near the windows registry'.

The technical content of the book is correct so it is possible that someone might actually learn something from the book.

So What's In It For Me? I wouldn't have believed that a book with 'Active X' in the title could make me laugh out loud. Check out the web-site for quotes from the book (http://www.mrbunny.com) Overall a very entertaining read but don't expect to gain anything useful from it.

Buy this book over here.

Table of Contents Chapter 0: The Adventure Begins

Chapter 1: The Case for Component Based Software

Chapter 2: The underpinnings of ActiveX

Chapter 3: Inside the Registry

Chapter 4: Visual Basics

Chapter 5: ActiveX Controls

Chapter 6: Delivering the Goods

Wheely writes "There is a vote for the best dressed and the most interesting guests at the Finnish President's Independence day ball. Linus and his tux can be viewed at here and by selecting "Kuvat vieraista". Linus is tag "9" number 46. Vote by selecting "Aanestys" and entering 46 in the two boxes and hitting the button. NOTE. Votes must be in by 2.00pm 8.12.1998 Finnish time (GMT +2) "

Paul Crowley writes "Back in April, I proposed to Slashdot that there should be a book that shows our "Road Ahead" to lay readers. I just saw that O'Reilly are listing the book that came out of that discussion, now called Open Sources , in their "upcoming books" list, to be out February! Too bad it's too late for Christmas. The star-studded list of contributors includes Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, and Richard Stallman. I can't wait to get a copy. " Its by Chris DiBona and Sam Ockman. Pretty sweet- I demand

RAChiller writes "Check out the new bend-me-shake-me OLED ("Organic" LED), screens... and next time your manager misbehaves, try rolling your screen up and thwapping him/her with it. " And then get fired!