Slashdot Mirror

AndersBrownworth writes "With a unique take on "Distributed Computing", the PhotonStar Project aims to search for laser transmissions from extra terrestrial life by harnessing amateur astronomers who have an optical telescope with a laser detector, a GPS and a computer with a net connection. I think it would be interesting to get a large number of computer controlled optical telescopes together that have GPS and CCD capabilities and build the world's largest optical telescope. The concept wouldn't be much different from New Mexico's VLA Radio Telescope. Given the falling prices of computer controlled optical telescopes, a project like this might not be far off."

malfunct writes "The traffic in the greater Seattle area is atrocious, and the State Government has been working hard to find a way to solve the issue. In the interim, they may use eBay as an innovative solution for estimating demand and raising funds. According to a MSNBC article, the plan is to use eBay to sell stickers that allow access for single driver vehicles to the car pool lane. The idea is to use eBay to find just how much a speedy commute is worth to drivers."

David Cantrell writes "The Radio Shack Corporation (formerly the Tandy Corporation) headquarters in Fort Worth, TX was one of the only companies in the world to have its own private subway system. Its main purpose in life was to move employees from their parked cars to the office building. About a year or so ago, Radio Shack decided the subway system was no longer needed and they shut it down permanently. Well, they are now selling the subway cars on eBay. For $5000US, you can get your very own Radio Shack Subway Car. Rails sold separately. Click for the eBay auction page."

David Cantrell writes "The Radio Shack Corporation (formerly the Tandy Corporation) headquarters in Fort Worth, TX was one of the only companies in the world to have its own private subway system. Its main purpose in life was to move employees from their parked cars to the office building. About a year or so ago, Radio Shack decided the subway system was no longer needed and they shut it down permanently. Well, they are now selling the subway cars on eBay. For $5000US, you can get your very own Radio Shack Subway Car. Rails sold separately. Click for the eBay auction page."

bcrowell asks: "Here's a moral conundrum for you. The much-hated DMCA can be a tool to enforce copyleft licenses, and in my case, it may be the only effective tool. I'm the author of some free physics textbooks (all free as in beer, some free as in speech) that are available under the GFDL and OPL copyleft licenses. I've learned that there's a guy on eBay who is selling my books on CD and violating the license. (Selling is allowed, since they're free-as-in-speech, but he's violating the license in various ways, such as not informing his buyers about the license, and selling them under a different title and using the tables of contents in his ads without showing the license or listing me as the author.) It's not just me. He's doing the same thing with other copylefted books, such as this one." The submitter is worried about the ethics behind using the recent misuses we've seen so far. Those interested in this question might also be interested in Prof. Felten's answers from his recent Slashdot interview.

"eBay has several different mechanisms for complaining about this, and I used one of them. Other people have complained too, but so far the result just seems to be that eBay deletes the listings of the items (which have already been sold). Meanwhile the guy is still violating copyleft licenses (as well as selling other copyright-violating stuff, such as screensavers containing commercial porn images).

Apparently the most effective way to deal with this on eBay is to participate in their vero program, which basically means sending the DMCA Police after the guy. For instance, if I wanted to sue the guy (which I don't), I'd need to know his name and address. The DMCA says that eBay has to provide that info to someone who complains about a copyright violation.

It seems like it would be a similar deal in the software world. The conventional wisdom about how to prevent infringement is to GPL your code, and transfer the copyright to the FSF, which will contact license violators and (theoretically) sue them if it comes to that. So how long will it be until the FSF is asked by an open-source developer to invoke the DMCA in order to deal with a license violation? In my own case, should I go ahead and join eBay's vero program? It would make me feel like I was in bed with the enemy, but it does seem like it would give me some very effective options for dealing with the situation. For instance, members of the program can have eBay run automated boolean searches for copyright-violating items, and get the results e-mailed to them periodically.

One possible reply to my question is 'Why do you care?" The problem here is that this guy is doing exactly what RMS originally designed copyleft to prevent: he's taking free information and making it not-free. His customers don't know that the books are copylefted, and have effectively had their own freedom taken away: they don't know they can modify the books, copy them, or sell them."

Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Institute for Business, writes "eBay has just announced it will change its privacy policy, and has posted a summary of its changes. Good discussion of how and why they provide information to internal service providers, a point missed by many privacy policies."

mopuxak writes "There's an article featured over at space.com about an ongoing EBay auction to spend a night in Hawaii's Keck Observatory with Astronomer Geoff Marcy. The money is set to go to the non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP). Looks like they're billing this as Astronomy's version of Lance Bass and the Space Station. How much would YOU pay?"

dks writes "Yahoo! News is running a story about a personal flying machine originally developed for the military that straps on an individual's back and allows her to fly around for over two hours at a time. The prototype is now up for auction on eBay. The only catch--you have to agree not to operate the vehicle if you purchase it. Uh...yeah...I'm just buying it for display. Yeah, that's it."

Craigtay writes "Some Apple fans are opening their wallets to buy an old magazine, but not just any old magazine. This first edition of Macworld, which was released in 1984 (and apparently contains an interview with Bill Gates), is signed by Steve Jobs. The bidding is currently above the $2,000 mark. News.com has done a news story here and click here for the eBay page." Thats ummm.... special? It amuses me that the reserve isn't met yet either. ;)

crumbz writes "It looks like the grand master of cyberpunk has a new novel coming out entitled Pattern Recognition. Apparently, reviewer copies have been making the rounds on ebay and the word on the street is that it is his best work in years."

oliphaunt asks: "I'm a victim of planned obsolescence! I'm in a customer service battle with Nokia right now, and I'm wondering if anyone out there has found a solution to a similar problem. I've tried eBay, I've tried Yahoo! auctions, I've tried Google Groups, and I've tried talking to Nokia directly- all to no avail. Now I'm faced with throwing away a phone that originally cost more than $600 USD, because I can't get a 35 cent part. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!"

"I bought a Nokia 8860 used from a friend about 2 years ago. It worked great until about 6 months ago, when the memory stopped recording new events between hard resets- so if I add your phone number to my address book, and then my main battery dies or I turn the phone off and remove the main battery, the phone erases your number. I've had the problem diagnosed by a couple of different Nokia approved service centers- there is an internal battery, the size of a watch battery, that somehow powers updates to the memory when the main battery disconnects. In this eBay auction, it's part number 16 in the exploded diagram. It's essentially a tiny watch battery, with a leaf spring welded on one edge to keep it in contact with the IC, and gold contacts to the (+) and (-) terminals on the other edge that actually make the contact.

The problem is, none of the service centers I've contacted stock the replacement battery, and they claim that Nokia won't ship them the part if they order it. The phone has been discontinued by Nokia USA, and Nokia tells me on the phone and in writing that they won't even acknowledge the existence of a replacement part market, much less actually sell me the thing I need to make the phone work.

Being a good geek, I tried cleaning the contacts with a pencil eraser, and confirmed that the original battery was dead with my trusty multi-meter. I've tried to find the OEM battery manufacturer that Nokia uses. No luck so far. And I took the old part out, and soldered the contacts and spring onto a random new hearing aid battery I bought from Walgreens- no dice. As a last ditch effort, I actually bought one of the kits from the guy with the eBay auction referenced above. The battery in that phone was dead too.

I'm running out of ideas! Nokia obviously wants me to buy a new phone- but mine is perfectly good, except for want of a 35-cent part with some additional metal bits attached. I've told them that their brand reputation is at stake with me. They don't seem overly concerned. What else can I try?"

hether writes "Customers of the auction site eBay have been targeted by a site called ebayupdates.com. The site attempts to steal credit card details from eBay's 55 million customers. The SANS Institute Internet Storm Center issued the warning on this one. Info about the scam can be found on the BBC site, CNN, CNet, vnunet, and more. Funny enough there's no mention of this on the eBay site..."

aibrahim asks: "I just saw a proton pack (alternate site) a friend has built. It made me wonder what other neat high tech things the Slashdot crowd might be brewing up for the coming holidays. What I am really after is stuff that one of you made, better yet would be diagrams or explanations of how you made it. Doesn't have to be a costume item, anything interesting that fits the season would do." This is a follow-up to the earlier article. So what are you dressing up as for Halloween, and how do you plan on making your costume interesting?

evenprime writes "Ebay's Verified Rights Owner Program was designed to make sure the auction site doesn't let people sell things that violate copyright laws. Unfortunately, over-zealous ebay employees have been causing problems for independent musicians. George Ziemann has a detailed account of the difficulties he's faced when trying to sell copies of his CD on the auction site. Apparently ebay kept pulling his ads simply because he was selling a product recorded to CD-R! Ebay employees assume that all audio recordings on CD-R are the result of piracy, despite the fact that many indie bands burn their own music to CD-R to sell it. Wired has a nice summary of this story."

Anonymous Coward writes "There is a beautiful translucent red iBook mod that has surfaced on eBay, and the creator's homepage More and more of these mods are around lately.. pretty incredible." Update: 10/15 23:34 GMT by T : Anonymous Coward writes "Just a little note about the iBook Red Mod. The Ebay link has changed. And the author has posted a tutorial on his site."

Anonymous Coward writes "There is a beautiful translucent red iBook mod that has surfaced on eBay, and the creator's homepage More and more of these mods are around lately.. pretty incredible." Update: 10/15 23:34 GMT by T : Anonymous Coward writes "Just a little note about the iBook Red Mod. The Ebay link has changed. And the author has posted a tutorial on his site."

Aidenn writes "As some may remember, eBay was in the process of merging with PayPal. It is finally finished. eBay has information here. news.com has a more complete story."

jbum asks: "One day I'm going to lose my trusty mid-80s calculator, so help me find a new one that doesn't suck! I've been using the same calculator since the mid 80s. It's a Casio CM-100 'Computer Math Calc,' and if you lookup the name on Usenet/Goggle News or even here on Slashdot, you'll find a small number of lucky (but older) programmers singing its praises. Sadly, it hasn't been manufactured in years. Here's a picture. Has anyone found a calculator that is currently being manufactured which is remotely appropriate for programmers rather than scientists/engineers?"

"The CM-100 was solar powered, it was cheap at the time - maybe 20 bucks, and most importantly, it's simple. It does what I want (mostly hex/bin/oct/dec conversions and the occasional shift or rotate) it doesn't do what I don't want (scientific calculations and trig). It makes good assumptions about operator precedence - it does the right thing if you type 1+2*3, but you can also use parens if you choose. It doesn't try to be clever with the display (such as displaying the input in a tiny font on a different line) or pack in a whole lot of extra functionality I don't need.

Every calculator I have bought since the early 90s has been much, much worse, primarily because they are trying to be too general purpose. They pack too much functionality in, they have sucky interfaces, they add the hex conversion as an afterthought and make me use a shift key to get to it. They don't put A,B,C,D,E,F on separate buttons as they should be and so on.

Last month on a business-trip I had my briefcase stolen. It contained my passport and some other important documents. But I went crazy thinking that I had lost my calculator. When I returned from the trip, I found I had absent-mindedly left it buried on my desk and was hugely relieved. The passport is replaceable, but the calculator may not be. If I had lost the calculator, I probably would have been prepared to pay $400 to replace it, but probably wouldn't have been able to find one. According to e-Bay, no one has ever sold one there.

Nonetheless, the time will come when I will lose my trusty little calculator for good. Then I'll have to replace it. Plus, I'd like another calculator to keep at home."

An anonymous reader writes "Be the first on your block to drive on of these! a StarWars Land Speeder. This used to be a 1988 Ford Escort and only has 880 miles since built." This is a surprisingly impressive conversion.

An anonymous reader writes: "Just to pass time before taking the real trip. shuttle flight deck simulator" Not a real nasa simulator, but a very impressive operating replica. The construction details are quite interesting too.

Slashback tonight brings you a response to Declan McCullagh's approach to political activism (and tangentially related, evidence of Bruce Perens' very different way of doing things), a link to a few more VOIP Blasters, tantalizing news from the Blender front, and more -- all below.

Until we know how to get to Stallman's Gulch ... sbrown writes: "Public Knowledge responds to Declan McCullagh's call for less activism, more code. Don't fool yourself geeks, political participation is absolutely necessary to maintain the freedom to write code. Public Knowledge has a plan to make geek political participation easy and effective."

Speaking of activism, Roblimo reported yesterday that Bruce Perens might be leaving HP. Today, IDG reporter Matt Berger confirms the break, writing that "Perens says he is leaving HP to pursue political activism. His protests against the DMCA and other legislation that Perens says threatens the open source community, apparently, were too much for HP to handle. So he is becoming an independent consultant and will work with HP as a consultant. He also plans to follow through with a presentation of a DVD player cracking software that he says is in violation of the DMCA. HP stopped him from doing the demonstration at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention last month."

Might these be the basis of a long-distance relationship? AndersBrownworth writes "After Creative nixed their VoIP Blaster, ($20 USB to "plain old telephone line" converter with free software available) ebay prices eclipsed the $200 mark. Now, it seems Creative has found some VoIP Blasters still hanging around and is selling them as refurbished units for $29.99. Ebay prices have reflected the move in Internet time."

Much more fun than a PBS pledge drive. Kodi writes "In case you haven't been watching, Blender's campaign to become open source by raising 100,000 is almost complete, with about 85,000 raised. If you were holding back, perhaps a little doubtful that they would make it, now's the time to chip in and push it over the top."

If your donation happens to be The Last Straw (and the Blender folks can verify it), I will provide you with your choice of ThinkGeek T-shirt ;)

And such pretty campuses, too. guttentag writes "Several weeks ago, Slashdot ran a story about the Princeton admissions dean who used applicant information to hack into a Yale Web site. Today Princeton announced it will remove the official from his position; however, it will offer him another, undisclosed job. It also revealed that Princeton and other Ivy League schools were aware of the break-ins as early as May 15.

MIT's The Tech adds Princeton officials previously said they were unaware of the incident prior to July 24 when Yale's president informed Princeton's, and that Yale notified the FBI the next day (President Bush's niece was among those students whose privacy was violated). It was not until that point that Princeton placed the official on administrative leave.

Apparently, misusing applicant information to commit identity fraud is not a serious offense at Princeton unless the public learns of it (or a member of the president's family is among the victims), and even then it's not serious enough to warrant dismissal. Princeton's president also said other school officials will be disciplined, but declined to provide details, presumably to protect the privacy of those officials or the university."

Jodrell writes "Hot on the heels of the Back Yard Millenium Falcon comes this: a BattleMech Tree House. Using a couple of packing crates and some angle iron, a very dedicated Dad built a tree house around a Madcat 'mech (or a Timberwolf to those in the know) that stands about 25 feet tall. I want one :-)" And in a related story, BoomZilla points out that you can pick up a Rebel Blockade Runner on Ebay. Of course.

bluethundr writes "Uhm... Is Star Trek just not considered geeky anymore? Must I turn in my Local Geek Union 508 membership Card? Holy freakin' crap! Did I miss a memo somewhere, or did I fail to notice a story on /. about the one and only CAPTAIN'S CHAIR from the freakin' ENTERPRISE (...no bloody A, B, C or D) being up for auction on eBay? To be had, no doubt for about the amount of a small-to-mid-sized suburban home in the NE USofA." bluethundr continues on his 12-step program below.

bluethundr continues: "And while we're at it. I admit it. I am an Okudagram collector. I go nuts and drain my bank account every time I see one of the control panels from the Enterprise (which I believe to be authentic and usually TNG's D, as that's all my bankroll will allow) on eBay and my home server room looks like a federation outpost. If you weren't aware, the Okudagrams from the show come in the form of black-tinted plexi that has a patterned film applied to it with photographic gels to add color and vellum affixed to said plexi with black masking tape. The idea is to backlight them for the effect they achieved on the sets of lighted control panels. Collecting these things, you get a feeling for what's authentic hollywood material and what's a cheap fanboy knockoff. I can't help but wonder if I am the only /.er to engage in this eccentric hobby... By the way, several control panels from the 1701 (including Spock's Science Station computer!) as well as an array of other authentic stuff from the 60s is also to be had for a (very) tidy sum on "the world's online marketplace"....By the way, I am trying to curb this habit of mine, hence this submission. :-|"

Peter Wayner passed us this review of Adam Cohen's The Perfect Store, a chronicle of the rise of Ebay. Read on to learn more about the people and ideas behind the dominant online auction site. The Perfect Store: Inside Ebay author Adam Cohen pages 336 publisher Little,Brown rating 8 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 0-316-15048-7 summary The story of the world's largest online swapmeet, and why it's really not a swapmeet.

According to the tale, an atheist traveled to Rome to check out the Catholic Church, and saw, through some odd gift of divine grace, that the Devil himself was sitting at on the throne of St. Peter and ruling the Church disguised as a Pope. The atheist reflected upon the paradox and then became a devout Roman Catholic. Why? He reasoned that only the one true faith could succeed with the Devil himself in charge.

Leaps of faith take many forms, and none were stranger to the world of the 1990's than the possibility that people might buy objects they've never touched from people they've never met and send money to addresses they've never seen on the basis of a bunch of colored stars summarizing a community's collective opinion. Yet that's eBay -- and now anyone curious about the communion of online buyers and sellers can turn to The Perfect Store by Adam Cohen. The new history chronicles the purity of the founder's vision, the tumultuousness of exponential growth, the tremors of bliss rippling down the spines of the auction winners, the purgatory of crashing servers, the saintly trust of the masses, and the deviltry of the few. Through all of these trials and tests, the company prospered with a steadfast devotion to a libertarian's dream of a frictionless marketplace where buyers and sellers could engage in a conversation to discover the one true price.

The book is sort of a hagiography, although focused more on the marketplace community than the corporate leadership. Almost every twist and turn of the company's history seems to depend upon how well the people adhere to the vision of a hierarchy-free community of buyers and sellers. The company thrives when they make it easy for goods to find the people who want them.

The book begins where eBay itself began: in the vision of the founder, Pierre Omidyar. The book follows him and then the people who join the company by laying out a largely chronological collection of important milestones, interrupted every now and then with a tale of some quirky eBay member. The author, Adam Cohen, may not speak with the earnest voice of a true believer, but he is largely happy to describe the decisions with devotion and reverence. This shouldn't be surprising because he worked closely with everyone at eBay and even had his own company ID badge and work space in the office building. He obviously spoke often to the core team and the history is filled with their words.

But the book isn't a dump truck filled with happy stories. The book manages to include almost all of the major controversies that I, a casual eBay user and fan, remember. There's a long discussion about the decision to ban guns and plenty of talk about the right way to handle pornography and used underwear. Cohen also interviewed a number of the disenchanted members who developed a love/hate relationship with the marketplace run by one corporation. They keep talking about quitting or protesting or going somewhere else when eBay keeps jacking up the rates, but every time the market dominance of the company keeps pulling them back in.

The later half of the book is largely filled with these controversies, in part because there are only so many ways you can keep repeating details about the company's phenomenal growth. The viral explosion of new listings was the story at the beginning, but after the IPO cemented the success, the management had to wrestle with the bits of evil that would drift into the network.

Most of the coverage of these battles is straight-forward and carried by a flat tone typical of journalistic distance. The analysis and criticism are largely left for the reader to assemble, although the parts aren't hard to find. For instance, we learn early that Omidyar's experience in the 1980's with the fat cat-friendly IPO market inspired him to create a neutral marketplace where all buyers and sellers were equals. He apparently tried to buy into an IPO only to discover that skinny cats didn't get to buy at the issuing price. Back then, Omidyar was a skinny cat.

But when it comes time for eBay's IPO, the people on the company's throne skipped the chance for an eBay-like OpenIPO. Goldman Sachs got the opportunity to pick an opening price for the stock, and the investment bankers managed to find a number that left a lion's share for the usual fat cats.

At the time, Omidyar, the other members of the management team (Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman) and Benchmark Capital controlled a stunning 98.1% of the stock. They quickly became billionaires. Many of the workers made a few million of that 1.9% divided among the rest, but everyone else was left out. The thousands of people who worked the bulletin boards, and help create a cohesive community ruled by colored stars got nothing. This continues to be a bitter point for many involved with eBay from the beginning. Money weaves a strange path in and out of the narrative. On one hand, marketplaces are all about price discovery. The only reason to list an item on eBay is to get money. On the other, the book gives the impression that it's kind of crass to be into eBay for the money. The eBay folks are supposed to be passionate believers in this community ruled by colored stars. It's all about community, we're told. But I guess if you can't get IPO shares, that's what you have to live with.

The book may be best as a sly bit of exploratory surgery aimed at the strange desires in our body that drive commerce and trade. Some of the vignettes of eBay members are priceless and the stories about the effect of eBay on the market for collectables are not to be missed. Before eBay, the members of the Midwest Sad Irons Collectors spent hours at garage sales and antique stores looking for what many of us might call a rusting hunk of metal. There were even conventions populated by dealers helping people find what they wanted. All of the socializing and chatting intertwined in the weekend swapmeets became history when eBay made it possible for anyone to get what they want by plopping down big bids. There's no need to go to wade through church yards filled with schlock to find the grail of sad iron collectors, the swan-on-swan. Someone else is doing it right now... and all you need to do is grep the database. If you're lucky, there's no reserve!

At moments like these, the essential paradox of eBay becomes clear. On one hand, we're really after the stuff. We want the Pez dispenser, the Hair Bear bunch poster or the Elvis jacket. Do you realize how hard it is to find one just like that?

On the other hand, anyone with a bank account can buy any collectable now. There are dozens of every collectable waiting for buyers on eBay. Purity of heart, steadfast devotion to the goal, or indefatigable energy won't help you find the Grail when it's just a matter of typing the right number into a web form. There's no real scarcity anymore if you've got the right credit card. Which brings the question: if the items aren't really scarce, why would we want them?

The real problem is that eBay strips away the narrative from the objects. Flea markets, classified ads, and garage sales toss in stories for free and this is what the dinner guests, the friends, and the collecting buddies really want. They want to hear about the clueless, the loopy, the obnoxious, the greedy, the windbags, the ditzes, and all of the other characters buying and selling sad irons.

Adam Cohen's history, The Perfect Store, is a crisp, clean, and thorough retelling of what made eBay what it is today. It's a good story and you can't just buy those. Wait, I guess you can -- and the publisher is willing to print as many as the market will bear. Well, there's another paradox: Maybe, if eBay can survive with this many strange, wonderful and bitter stories, it may be the one true thing after all.

Peter Wayner is the author of Translucent Databases , a book commodifying the protection paradox. It describes how to build databases that reveal nothing to the wrong people, but everything to the right people. You can purchase The Perfect Store from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then hit the submission page.

jonerik writes: "Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Air Force is less than pleased about the recent posting of a number of sensitive jet communications components on eBay, including parts for the SR-71 spy plane, the F-16 fighter, the KC-10 tanker, and the giant C-5 transport. According to the article, the parts had sat in a warehouse for 12 years after being lost in shipping when the dealer, Norb Novocin, bought the lot for $244 in an unclaimed property sale. Novocin ended up selling four of the items to bidders in a recent auction, including an X-Band Weather Radar Modulator for $500 and a high-frequency radio circuit card for $32. The Air Force is looking into the incident and Novocin is cooperating."

sysadmn writes "With the release of Solaris 9 , Sun has bundled many goodies, including an LDAP directory server and a J2EE application server. At the same time, while a single CPU license is still free, they've begun charging for multiprocessor systems. As a kicker, purchasers of used systems may find that they have to pay Sun an OS licensing fee. (Curiously, the 2 CPU server version seems to be $249, while the 4 CPU desktop is $199. In some cases it's the same motherboard, power supply and memory!). At the upper end, that million dollar machine from Ebay may require a $400,000 fee :-) I like Solaris for many reasons, but I have to wonder: will this pay off? " Solaris is certainly a capable os, but sheeze that seems like an awful lot of money.

An Anonymous Coward writes "Forget Tito. Forget Shuttleworth. Private space travel is now a reality, now that eBay is accepting bids for travel to the International Space Station. I consider this a milestone for space travel, now that the average citizen-next-door can bid for a ticket as easily as buying, er, crap on eBay." Actually it appears that this is just the pre-flight stuff required prior to a trip - Note: Soyuz tickets sold separately, may involve a small added expense, if you get my drift. The real milestone is when tickets are listed on Travelocity. JFK->ISS, non-stop, no smoking, snack only.

cybrpnk writes: "The QX3 Video Microscope may have been an obscure commercial failure as an educational toy, but it is widely available (for now, at least) as a fantastic tool/toy for any geek. The QX3 hooks up to a USB port and delivers live color 10X, 60X or 200X microphotos at 512x384 pixel resolution. Its kid-friendly software even makes time lapse videos a snap, like this one of TNT synthesis - a whole new way to blow up the lab, do not try this at home! Educators are doing amazing things with the QX3 in their classrooms. Sourceforge even has documentation on the software command structure used by the QX3, so it may be considered an open source microscope. Get yours today for under $50 at surplus closeout or EBay before they're all gone!" The Toys-R-Us nearest to me has one QX3+ left (now with my name on it) at $30, so I hope it really does work under Linux. And it's a lot less complicated than building a Scanning-Tunneling microscope.

Reader cpfeifer contributes the review below of O'Reilly's Programming Jabber: if your job (or hobby) includes instant messaging in all its glory, Jabber is a free-beer, free-speech framework for setting up instant messaging systems not bound to a single server in the middle. As cpfeifer points out, instant messaging can mean a lot more than popping an on-screen note to your friend in Des Moines -- machines and programs can use a general purpose communication system like this, with no human middleman required. Programming Jabber author D.J. Adams pages 4555 publisher O'Reilly rating 9 reviewer http://cpfeifer.blogspot.com ISBN 0596002025 summary A detailed guide for developers to understanding and extending the Jabber messaging framework. Examples in Perl, Python and Java. The Scenario

Jabber was first conceived by Jeremie Miller (pic) in early 1998 in an effort to unify the disparate instant messaging networks. Instant Messaging networks rely on the network effect to gain and retain marketshare. The concept is the same when applied to any sort of participatory network whether it's a junk exchange, or content exchange, the value of the network increases with the square of the number of participants.

If this is true, then doesn't it follow that it is in the best interests of the IM networks to establish peering agreements with each other so that their users can directly contact users on other networks without having to install each client?

Hello, Jabber.

When I first picked up this book, I expected to understand the Jabber protocol in sufficient depth to implement my own IM client. Instead, the approach this book takes is that Jabber isn't just an XML-based protocol strictly for IM, rather it is a general purpose event notification protocol that has some very nice message routing and user management features built into it. While i was reading about the messages that Jabber has defined as part of the protocol, I could easily see other applications/devices generating Jabber messages to notify subscribers (either other systems, or people) of events.

Part 1 of the book focuses on getting you up to speed on the basics of Jabber technology: motivation, major features, XML protocol sample and compiling/configuring your own Jabber server. Chapter 2 presents the "10,000 foot view" of Jabber technology. In here you will find a sample client-query request/response flow with full HTTP headers, discussed step by step. The next two chapters are a very in-depth discussion of installing and configuring your own Jabber server. When you dive into a custom configuration of a fleet of Jabber servers (a "constellation" in Jabber terminology), it really starts to hit home that the real problem Jabber solves is far deeper than just IM.

From there, part 2 kicks off with a detailed discussion of the most basic building blocks of Jabber technology: resource identifiers, XML handling mechanism and the set of XML elements/attributes that make up the vocabulary of the Jabber protocol. Each element/attribute is presented with an annotated example and sample client/server interactions where appropriate. Examples can make or break a technical book, and these examples do a good job of illustrating how the element/attribute is used.

The following chapters take you through using standard Jabber features, user registration/authorization, messages, presence, groupchat, components and the event model to enable new applications. One very interesting application presented is enabling developers to receive CVS commit notifications via Jabber.

What's Bad?

I know the /. community is suspicious of glowing book reviews where everything is wonderful and nothing could be done to improve the book, so I'll nitpick. My major problem with this book is that the overwhelming majority of the sample applications are written in PERL/TK. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but I'm not a PERL/TK developer. If I build a Jabber solution, it will be in java, so PERL/TK samples don't do me a lot of good. I think equal time should be given to implementing Jabber using the two most-used languages, as defined by the number and activity of open source projects using Jabber technology.

What's Good?

This book covers everything relevant to Jabber technology, from lowest level inner workings and extensibility examples for developers to configuration and deployment for admins. Most of the book is spent looking directly at the Jabber XML protocol, instead of a specific API implementation. This way, the book covers the technology and doesn't get lost in how one particular API models the protocol.

So What's In It For Me?

If you want to implement an inside-the-firewall IM solution for your company/group/tribe or investigate integrating event notification into an application, this is a great starting point. If you're just curious about Jabber and want to know how it works, then this will give you enough information to get you hooked.

Table of Contents

PART 1: Getting Started with Jabber

• Chapter 1. Introducing Jabber
• Chapter 2. Inside Jabber
• Chapter 3. Installing the Jabber Server
• Chapter 4. Server Architecture and Configuration

PART 2: Putting Jabber's Concepts to Work

• Chapter 5. Jabber Technology Basics
• Chapter 6. Jabber Namespaces
• Chapter 7. User Registration and Authorization
• Chapter 8. Using Messages and Presence
• Chapter 9. Groupchat, Components, and Event Models
• Chapter 10. Pointers for Further Development

Appendix A. The Jabber.xml Contents

Appendix B. The IQRPC Classes for JabberRPCResponder

Index

O'Reilly has posted other reviews of the book on their site. You can purchase Programming Jabber from bn.com. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.

Otto writes: "Those who don't regularly read the Tivo Community Forums may not know that a 802.11b wireless adapter for the Tivo, called AirNet, is in the works. It's being made by jafa, who also created the TurboNet card, a similar device to the TivoNet adapters available at 9thTee but faster. Long story short, he's auctioning off 4 beta boards of the AirNet adapter for the Tivo and giving the proceeds to the Elf Foundation, a group which brings Home Theater to ill children by setting up mini-theaters in children's hospitals nationwide. Good fun techie geek stuff, and for charity too! You can't beat that. The auction is here on ebay." Looks like the guy's home page is silicondust.com.

omarius writes: "Ebay is changing their privacy policy (the Ebay FAQ on the new policy is here). According to this article on CNET, this means they can share your auction history with anyone. I heard it this morning on NPR, and am considering cancelling my account."

omarius writes: "Ebay is changing their privacy policy (the Ebay FAQ on the new policy is here). According to this article on CNET, this means they can share your auction history with anyone. I heard it this morning on NPR, and am considering cancelling my account."

An anonymous submitter sent in: "This guy "Stewart Richardson" had over 6000 positive feedbacks on eBay, held a fake estate sale, and scammed around $250,000 out of people before disappearing. 'There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Stewart Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of eBay, and U.S. federal investigators agree.' Some other links: a messageboard and ebay itself. I was scammed on eBay for $3600 a while back. I was able to get my money back because I had a bank issued cashier's check. I had written "For Deposit Only" on the back, and that was crossed out by the recipient. The bank teller should have been suspicious, but was not, and cashed the check. The idiot who had it cashed wrote his bank account number on the back of the cashier's check, and also wrote his Dad's business bank account number on the back and stamped it with his Dad's signature. In the end, the bank reversed the payment, and took the money out of his Dad's account. When his Dad found out, the idiot was in some serious trouble, but I got my money back. There were a few other's scammed in the same transaction, and they recieved about half of the money back after the police started to put the pressure on these guys. The story is much more involved, so I won't go into the rest of it."

TheMightyZog writes: "John Romero is selling his Ferrari Testarossa: eBay and his own site. Is anyone else distrubed by the graphic on the top of his home page?" At last check, the reserve was not yet met.

Captain Chad writes: "LucasFilm has donated some items to eBay's "Auction for America". They include a lightsaber used by Ray Park (Darth Maul) and a stormtrooper helmet used in The Empire Strikes Back and in Return of the Jedi. Check out the list of auction items! I think some of the bids will get astronomical. Would anyone be willing to give me a few hundred thousand dollars so I can get the lightsaber?"

Captain Chad writes: "LucasFilm has donated some items to eBay's "Auction for America". They include a lightsaber used by Ray Park (Darth Maul) and a stormtrooper helmet used in The Empire Strikes Back and in Return of the Jedi. Check out the list of auction items! I think some of the bids will get astronomical. Would anyone be willing to give me a few hundred thousand dollars so I can get the lightsaber?"

Captain Chad writes: "LucasFilm has donated some items to eBay's "Auction for America". They include a lightsaber used by Ray Park (Darth Maul) and a stormtrooper helmet used in The Empire Strikes Back and in Return of the Jedi. Check out the list of auction items! I think some of the bids will get astronomical. Would anyone be willing to give me a few hundred thousand dollars so I can get the lightsaber?"

sprzepiora writes "An Atlas ICBM silo is for sale on E-Bay. Place your bids now, because it's only $1.5E6! Includes such amenities as: 1100 gallon hot tub, sauna,3 finished baths, 47 ton garage door, 66,000 lb. bank of batteries, chemical and bioligical air filtration, and more!" This is cool just to lust after. Of course its in Kansas (yeah I know, I'm in michigan, whats the difference, right?)

BarefootClown asks: "We've all seen the stories about Microsoft forcing eBay to remove auctions hawking their software. Microsoft is certainly the most visible target, but there are others. Most every EULA includes a clause forbidding the transfer of ownership of software (there are exceptions, of course, and kudos to them). My question is, have these clauses been upheld in court?" What is so special about software (and their licenses), that allows it to avoid the protections consumers enjoy from more tangible products?

"I seem to recall hearing stories of courts overturning these schemes; does anybody have any specifics? Cases/judicial opinions, perhaps? I've checked FindLaw, Google, and others, but haven't found anything (haven't found anything upholding them, either...). Have these clauses ever even been to court, or do the companies just depend on FUD to bludgeon the end user into compliance? Anybody with experience, I'd love to hear it. Lawyers, your opinions? (Lawyers, would you be willing to fight one out in court, if given the chance?)"

As many of you may know, the concept of "owning" software is fallacy. You own nothing. What you do posess when you purchase your new piece of commercial software, is a corporate-skewed set of limited-use rights, which are getting more and more limited each day. For those interested, the latest print issue of Wired (October, 2001) has a big "article" on this (see p.170). It attempts to illustrate thru humorous example, what software has been seriously doing for decades.

No one would own (or lease) a car if the contract said, "You must not sell this car, in the event this car is no longer used, send it to the nearest junkyard.", so why is this true for software?

Wow. That's about all I can say to the 50 pound PDA made out of butter currently on eBay. Obviously, the Dairy Council got to them.

MagicM writes "On e-bay, you can now bid on a Russian test shuttle: "This is a Bor-5 VKK (Spacecraft) and was used to test the aerodynamic characteristics of high altitude and extreme speed and heat on a space vehicle. It is an exact 1/8 scale model of the Russian "Buran" space shuttle." Bids starting at $550,000.00, no bids yet, closes at Aug-12-01 18:44:03 PDT. Better hurry!" I think the most humourous part of this is the seller added "I prefer PayPal!" Anyone out there with a 550,000 credit limit, buy away! *grin*

Noah Zoschke writes: "For the 'Buy it now' price of only $25,000, you can purchase the first Dragon's Lair arcade machine, serial #00001, ever made. The bidder states that the machine is in excellent condition considering it has resided in Don Bluth's office, and never been in an arcade. The bid at the time of posting is $4,150."

Wired reports that eBay is changing its privacy policy. Previously they had promised that, if the company gets sold, your personal data will not be sold. Well, now it will be. Don't like it? Don't use eBay. Or any other site which, as "part of an industry-wide shift in privacy policy," decides to do this too. The funny thing is, eBay has spammed me a couple of times in the last six months with useless notices, after I specifically asked them not to. One was even to say basically, "you said you didn't want to receive spam, but we've expired that preference, so you'll have to tell us again, and meanwhile, have some spam!" But a change in their privacy policy -- they must not think that's very important, because I haven't heard a word.

This is, I hope, the last Mir story we'll be doing for a long while. Mir's dead. Controllers gave the de-orbit command at 12:08 AM EST, and it apparently came down just before 1 AM EST. Lots of stories out there, here are just a few: Space.com | AP | BBC. Remarkably, pieces of Mir are already being auctioned on Ebay. More information below.

Space.com is giving the splashdown time at 12:58 AM EST, which seems to agree with what everyone else is saying. Unless I can find a more precise time, I'll go with that.

Mir stats: first piece launched Feb. 20, 1986. Returned to Earth Mar. 23, 2001. Total orbits: 86,331 (that's a Trivial Pursuit question in the next edition, guaranteed). Longest stay: 438 days, Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, currently the record-holder for longest stay in space. Debris footprint: 120 miles by 3,600 miles, centered around 44 S latitude and 150 W longitude.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01.

Good guesses:

• 2001-03-23 02:02:02 - looks like 'cowkiller' is our champion Mir-guesser
• 2001-03-23 04:07:33
• 2001-03-23 04:27:42
• 2001-03-23 04:37:28
• 2001-03-22 21:37:19
• 2001-03-22 21:21:21
• 2001-03-23 06:12:25

Well, everybody and his brother wants to let us know that Mir is coming down, really, they mean it this time. Pick your favorite site to track its descent: Yahoo | NY Times | United States Space Command | Heavens Above | BBC. But Frederic Freidel provides an oddly personal note: what goes up must come down.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01, so the collective wisdom of slashdot was off by a few days.

Nowhere in this slashdot story do we mention either the stupid Taco Hell advertising campaign or the space fungus or the Crashing Mir Space Station Detecto-Hat.

doogles writes "I ran across quite a blast from the past today on ebay. A complete Transformers: Generation One set is for sale on ebay starting at $10,000 although at this time there are no bids." I was never allowed to have transformers as a kid. I had go-bots (a cheap knockoff if I've ever seen one). My friends had Optimus Prime, Starscream, and the rest. God I loved all those things. The show was allright, but those toys are a huge part of my childhood. Course the other interesting thing is how over the years the sets grew, and got... well, silly. But that first year... wow.

bmongar writes: "It seems that eBay is going after sellers that make contact with people who bid on their items who were not the winners. They want those companies to sell only to those people through eBay. ZDNet is running the story It seems to me that is only likely to discourage their best customers their powersellers. I think they may lose more money from this than they loose from offline deals." Sites like eBay operate on a surprising amount of trust -- I've had happy deals there, and an unhappy scam experience, too. Raise one pinky if you think they can really do much about offline sales, though.

goaliemn writes: "In yet another stupid patent filed department, E-bay has filed to patent their thumbnail gallery section of e-bay. I know of afew sites that may have existing work well before ebay." Surely someone who works at Ebay can tell us this is a late (or early) April Fool's joke, right?

Fuzzy_Damnit! pointed us at a site where a guy has built authentic looking Anime Hardsuits that he's selling on eBay. Features a quite impressive Nene (from Bubblegum Crisis). No. It doesn't fly. Or have weapons. You might still be able to ride a motorcycle.

Dave Taylor and Jonathon Clark wrote in to tell us that they are selling the Crack.com domain name. If you haven't heard of these guys, then you live in a box. If you haven't played Abuse or tracked Golgatha, then you also live in a box. Check out the action on the eBay auction page. As of when I saved this story, the top bid is $15k, which is is still quite a bargain for all that crack. And good luck to you guys, and thanks for Abuse. (I'm not sure which is more fun to say: "Crack for Sale" or "Thanks for Abuse" ;)