Slashdot Mirror

davemabe writes "Every programmer has a favorite scripting language. Here is a well written article by Jon Udell from byte.com detailing the differences between Perl and Python, their cultures, OOP, database access, philosophies, and which one will gain the most converts in the future. Very interesting reading on an almost religious debate. "

Masloki sent it: an article on prodigy-news that says "Facing a barrage of criticism, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman today withdrew a federal interpretation letter saying that companies' normal workplace safety obligations also apply to employees who do their work at home." That's one OSHA regulatory attempt that certainly didn't last very long; we only got the word about the proposed regulation yesterday.

Masloki sent it: an article on prodigy-news that says "Facing a barrage of criticism, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman today withdrew a federal interpretation letter saying that companies' normal workplace safety obligations also apply to employees who do their work at home." That's one OSHA regulatory attempt that certainly didn't last very long; we only got the word about the proposed regulation yesterday.

skankydog writes "A judge filed an injuction preventing Yahoo from publishing their privacy policy. It seems that a partner of broadcast.com is suing Yahoo for denying them access to user data. Heck, just read the story." The cute factors here are the huge amount of money sought and Yahoo's situation. They're being sued for having a half-decent privacy policy and refusing to release user information that a company they purchased had agreed, by contract, to release. Oh the irony: if you violate people's privacy, they get irritated, and if you don't, you get sued.

jenkin sear writes "Netscape Time capsule site- original splash screens, and much of the original netscape site, including the release notes for version 0.9. Definitely a trip down memory lane.... I saw this link on scripting news" Warm fuzzies. Sure was simpler then. An interesting similiar and unrelated article also popped out recently, a history of microsoft.com.

In another of many terribly funny quotes from Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he's stated that Russians don't drink anymore, and they are poaching money from the West. This is almost as funny as The Onion's parody of Patrick Buchanan, who's said some funny things himself. Perhaps we can get those two together somehow. *grin*

RareEYE writes "In this Excite article some cable execs try to explain why open access to their broadband networks would be bad for them." (Roblimo anti-cable access monopoly rant below.)

[RANT]I am a Comcast@home customer, and I think their service sucks. Their e-mail servers (running NT) are down at least once a week for periods ranging from minutes to hours.Their member page servers (also NT) are down so often that they are useless, but you are not allowed to run a server on their system yourself. They only support Mac and Windows even though any half-bright person can get Linux or Unix to work on their system. To get through to a human customer service rep takes three - five layers of stupid voice mail - and when you do, you will probably have to get transferred around several times before you get to someone who can actually help you.

Why do I deal with comcast@home? Because they offer the only consumer-priced broadband Internet access available in Howard County, Maryland, where I live. We're going to get DSL "in a few months," but I've been hearing this for over a year now. The Maryland Public Service Commission allows Bell Atlantic (our local "regulated" telco monopoly) to charge two - five times as much for ISDN in Maryland as it costs in some other East Coast states; it is simply not a cost-effective solution for home users or small 'net entrepreneurs, who are, unsurprisingly, more likely to set up shop in neighboring Virginia instead of in Maryland.

I would dearly love to have a broadband Internet access alternative. The idea of using the fiber in the cable TV system is good in a technical sense, but where I live there is but one cable TV supplier, and the County Council will not allow others to compete with it.

If cable Internet suppliers in other parts of the country give service similar to what I get, I can see why the industry is scared of competition. It is apparently cheaper to lobby for a continued monopoly than to do things like improve server reliability, extend support to operating systems other than Mac and Windows, and provide high-quality customer support and repair service.

As soon as I have a consumer-priced broadband alternative to comcast@home available to me, I will switch to it. And I bet I won't be the only one - unless there are sudden and major changes in the way this company treats its customers. [/RANT]

The opinions expressed above are mine alone. This is not an official corporate statement by either Slashdot or Andover.net.

- Robin "roblimo" Miller

MotaK writes "Ace's Hardware and ARS-Technica has reported on PC Worlds article on the Willamette Processor, dubbed the P4. This proc. will apparently be only a 200Mhz frontside bus, and launch sometime in 2000. "

Kevlar sent us an article running in the Boston Globe regarding RMS ^[?] 's position on ESR ^[?] 's new-found wealth. There's also a good interview with Linus about the various IPOs that have occured recently. Hint: He's happy, and he likes Larry Augustin.

Thabenksta writes "According to a Reuters News Article, over half of the United States' water treatment plants may not be y2k ready. This may result in backed up sewers, and undertreated water."

CloneRanger writes "SGI announced that it has released version 1.1 of SGI Linux (derived from RH6.0). Major new enhancements include: raw I/O to disk for SQL database systems, Parallel I/O to keep disks busy, POSIX-compliant Asynchronous I/O Interfaces, and development tools. Read more in the press release."

Juln and many others noted that EPIC filed suit against the NSA for failing to respond to their FOIA request. Both EPIC and the House Committee which supposedly oversees the NSA have asked for documents about the extent of their domestic spying and ECHELON activities, and the NSA has refused to provide information to either. Sounds like it's time to remind the spies who runs this outfit. The story is available at many major news sites.

Many submitted this brief Excite News item: two Chinese brothers pulled a $87,000 bank robbery by cracking the bank's computers. One brother talked and got off. The other got a death sentence. Slashdot reader malroth commented, "Now MAYBE theft of $87,000 constitutes a crime worth execution in China, but i find it hard to imagine. This is sheer speculation, but i presume that what ticked off the Chinese judiciary was the hacking part of the crime."

mircea writes "Apparently, a problem with the wafers resulted in a PIII bug that prevents some machines from booting. ZDNet has the story. Dell has stopped shipping Optiplex GX110. So, what happens when you combine a PIII and a i820 chipset? " Let's be honest, how often do you boot anyway? I mean, its only gotta work once, right? *grin*

mircea writes "Apparently, a problem with the wafers resulted in a PIII bug that prevents some machines from booting. ZDNet has the story. Dell has stopped shipping Optiplex GX110. So, what happens when you combine a PIII and a i820 chipset? " Let's be honest, how often do you boot anyway? I mean, its only gotta work once, right? *grin*

mircea writes "This ZDNet story talks about a new chip from Intel, dubbed Timna, targeted at ultra-low-cost PCs. It is supposed to be .18 micron technology, with integrated video. There's also mention of 'appliances based on this chip, possibly running Linux'" And the 2nd page of the article mentions AMD and Cyrix (now owned by VIA), both of whom are also preparing ultra low-cost microprocessors.

gregstoll writes "Hacker Eric Burns (alias Zyklon) faces prison, according to this New York Times article (free registration required, of course...)" Meanwhile, according to an Excite News story sent in by lots of people, the DoD is thinking about removing JavaScript and ActiveX from its sites to make them harder for crackers to penetrate.

December writes "Short article about Coca Cola testing vending machines that raise the price when temperatures rise. " I can see it now: at a hundred degrees it'll cost 2 bucks. And 105 it'll cost 20. At 110 it'll cost as much as a minivan and at 120 it'll cost ya your pension and 401k. It'll still be cheaper than the freakin' movie theater.

SaDan writes "I checked out a comparison of the new Intel Coppermine processors and AMD's Athlon chips at Tom's Hardware Guide last night. It's kind of interesting, and I thought others would be curious about how Athlon stacks up against Intel's latest offering. "

RareEYE was the first to point out the press release from ATI announcing their official support for Linux and endorsement of Open Source. As part of their support, they will be "...releasing 2D, 3D and multimedia programming specifications for its industry-leading RAGE graphics technology." ATI also mentions their current/past work with the XFree86 group, which they will be ramping up to an even higher level now.

Snord wrote in with a link to a news.excite.com article about how the government may consider relaxing export controls on open source crypto, not just on commercial closed-source stuff. And the judiciary may make the entire issue moot anyway. Quote from the story: "A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in May that the source code export limits were a violation of the First Amendment's free speech guarantee, but the decision is being reviewed by the full appeals court." (More Below)

Update: 10/20 08:04 by michael : Note that there's no real reason to believe the export of source code will be permitted under the new regulations - there's been no indication of that whatsoever, rather the "relaxations" have been only on compiled code, and only in very specific situations designed to appease certain specific industries. (Every time the press reports another "relaxation", you might think suddenly crypto is free. Au contraire.) The DOJ has already had an eight-month delay earlier in the Bernstein case when the rules were changed previously (which had no effect on the case); the plaintiffs are arguing that the DOJ shouldn't be allowed to stall any further. Essentially there's a shell game going on, with the government shuffling the crypto ball around under the cups and daring Bernstein and the other litigants to find it.

Snord wrote in with a link to a news.excite.com article about how the government may consider relaxing export controls on open source crypto, not just on commercial closed-source stuff. And the judiciary may make the entire issue moot anyway. Quote from the story: "A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in May that the source code export limits were a violation of the First Amendment's free speech guarantee, but the decision is being reviewed by the full appeals court." (More Below)

Update: 10/20 08:04 by michael : Note that there's no real reason to believe the export of source code will be permitted under the new regulations - there's been no indication of that whatsoever, rather the "relaxations" have been only on compiled code, and only in very specific situations designed to appease certain specific industries. (Every time the press reports another "relaxation", you might think suddenly crypto is free. Au contraire.) The DOJ has already had an eight-month delay earlier in the Bernstein case when the rules were changed previously (which had no effect on the case); the plaintiffs are arguing that the DOJ shouldn't be allowed to stall any further. Essentially there's a shell game going on, with the government shuffling the crypto ball around under the cups and daring Bernstein and the other litigants to find it.

iCEBaLM writes "According to this Excite article, attackers who stole sensitive defense and technical research documents from US Defence Department computers were traced back to the Russian Academy of Sciences, [which is] government funded and has ties to the Russian Millitary. It seems it doesn't stop there and that attacks from Russia are quite widespread against US government and corporate sites. From Russia with Love." No! No! It's state-sponsored Cyberterrorism! [ M.S. : I want to remind readers that there's some serious doubt that these attacks actually exist - see George Smith's Electronic Pearl Harbor for more information.]

Zulu_McDuffy wrote to us with an opinion piece by a Silicon Valley Congressman, Tom Campbell. He says that if "broad liability" was found in the anti-trust suit, the only logical thing to do would be breaking-up the corporation. What do you guys think? Is that the only solution? The alternative is regulation, which no one seems to be interested in doing.

Cy Guy writes "I'm sure there will be many more stories on this soon, for now, here is the wire story." An update sent in by cheetah: "It appears that someone mixed about 6 times too much uranium into a fuel processing tank. For the latest info click Here"

[Dilbert] was the first of many to send us over to the self-evident reality that Jesux was a hoax. Check out the story we did about it for more details. *sigh* I'm glad this whole thing is done with. Note from Roblimo: Thanks to Alert Slashdot Reader Suraj Peiris, we know the true identity of the Jesux perpetrator, but as a courtesy, we're not publishing it - or his real e-mail address or the password he uses on his anonymous e-mail accounts. (Pudge, if you're reading this, you'd better change that password RAW!)

runlevel6 sent us worthwhile article about eBay vs Search Engines. The gist is that a small time auction site was returning search results into eBay. eBay was less than fond of this claiming that people ought to use their search tools. Little company claims this is counterintuitive to the whole point of having a search engine. Check it out.

Errant Knyght writes "Not sure if it is true, but if it is...I want one." The Tom's Hardware writeup seems believable; lots of specs, pictures, even ordering info. KryoTech, the company that makes it, puts a refrigeration unit under the PC case and cools the uP to -36 degrees C before it fires up the rest of the unit. Looks like fun.

Hilton Hotels has stated that theya re not planning on a space hotel as had been initial reported. This rumour had been bouncing around for a while, apparently the child of a PR stunt gone amuck. Shoot - I had a lot of "experiments" that needed to be done in zero g.

The FTC today announced a crackdown on pornjacking, errr, pagejacking. Apparently these smooth operators have been copying other sites wholesale in order to get hits on certain keyword combinations - search engine fodder. And then of course when you click through from the search engine, you are whisked away with Javascript into porn land, never to return... It seems that the actual offenders were Australian so international cooperation was required. Hmmm, here's a couple of readers submitting a New York Times story too, it's a little more in-depth.

We can probably assume there were assorted copyright violations involved; but when does this rise to the level of consumer fraud? Using dictionaries to get search engine hits is a stupid practice, one that the search engines are right to minimize, but if it starts being regarded as some sort of legally-actionable fraud, a lot of people are going to be in trouble - and there's a lot of potential side-effects (see the various lawsuits that have been filed about people using certain keywords in their META tags, such as Playboy suing a former Playmate who used "Playmate" in her tags: Playboy lost). Where's the line? -- michael

Sand_Man wrote to us with the latest public relations stunt with crack-a-machine trials. This is a month long trial, pitting Linux vs. NT boxes against each other. Details are in the story, but does this whole thing strike everyone else as tired PR stunts now?

hussar noted that SuSE and Siemens have developed a memory extension that will allow Linux to use up to 4GB of memory. Linus has reportedly approved its inclusion in kernel 2.3.15. The strangest part is excite has taken to posting about Linux Kernel Patches. Pretty crazy stuff.

Bill Brooks writes "Sun and IBM announced that they are bailing out of working together on JavaOS for Business. If you've never heard of it, JavaOS for Business was a project that Sun and IBM agreed to work on together to produce a new version of an operating system that would run Java software on so-called 'thin clients.' The operating itself has only been around, in an embryonic form, since May of 1995, and the Sun/IBM joint venture started in 1997, shipping its first release in August of last year. A commercial operating system axed a year into its first release. Is M$ the only software company that can give a commercial OS time to find its market?"

Rustin writes "New Iron Ferrite battery may change batteries forever." I just pray that this doesn't mean a resurgence in energizer rabbit commercials.

MadShark writes "I found this article on Excite about Iridium LLC filing for bankruptcy after defaulting on 1.5 billion dollars in loans. But don't be too hasty about throwing out that handset. The article also says, "Motorola said it would continue full operational support for Iridium and all current and future subscribers during the company's reorganization. It said it would continue to invest in the technology and to develop the next generation of Iridium products."

MadShark writes "I found this article on Excite about Iridium LLC filing for bankruptcy after defaulting on 1.5 billion dollars in loans. But don't be too hasty about throwing out that handset. The article also says, "Motorola said it would continue full operational support for Iridium and all current and future subscribers during the company's reorganization. It said it would continue to invest in the technology and to develop the next generation of Iridium products."

DocBones sent a link to a provocative story in The Business Journal of San Jose about how foreign high-tech workers in the U.S. on H-1B visas often earn far less than they are worth, perhaps because the terms of their visas make switching jobs so hard that they can't bid out their services effectively. Industry spokespeople deny any wage differences. Trade groups keep on lobbying to raise the current 115,000/year cap on H-1B visas to 200,000/year. The whole issue is a mass of claims and counter-claims, each one "supported" by statistics and surveys. Is there a "right" side or a "wrong" side here? Does anyone with first-hand experience as an H-1B worker care to comment?

rhet writes "A South Carolina Senator has proposed a bill that would levy a 5% federal tax on all sales conducted over the web." I guess we kinda know its only a matter of time, but its still a bitch. But Uncle Sam wants his piece.

Sawmill writes "The US Commerce Department has ordered NSI to open the "whois" database to companies. This is either really good (free the information!) or really bad (SPAM hell). " Either way, it looks like NSI has been stepping on an awful lot of toes lately. Something's got to change over there.

rafa writes "Electronic paper is finally moving from concept to manufacturing. Xerox has made a deal with 3M to eventually manufacture it. " They're expecting about a year of figuring out the best process and such, but look for it in on the market early next year. Excellent.

ldspartan writes "A small company called TelePizza has created a Pizza Vending Machine. Now all we need is one on every street corner. " I believe anything that achieves "Vending Machine" status is essential. We've got candy, cigarettes, mountain dew, even fruit and sandwiches. Pizza rounds it out nicely, but how long before whiskey joins the pack? I'd settle for a beer in a movie theater. I gotta move to amsterdam.

betaray writes "Students at SMU in Houston fail class because they need to know more than point and click. Students then file lawsuit. Craziness ensues. " Getting certified to use MS applications is obviously very difficult. Can I sue over my Calc II class? Sure, it was like 3 years ago, but I still get the shakes. Maybe I can get cash for emotional stress?

SEWilco writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists described Tuesday producing fusion with a mere million-dollar machine. It was described at this APS Centennial session. Bursts of neutrons are detected, the hallmark of fusion that `cold fusion' was missing" Update: 03/27 02:27 by S : In somewhat related news, muggs wrote in about a new laser-based method for watching atoms bond. It relies on using X-ray diffraction patterns to locate the moving atoms.

jonathanclark writes "Lycos's mp3 search branch is being sued for what is being called "contributory infringement". I'll be watching this one closely. " Denial, Desperation, Litigation. My official 3 stages of an industry about to change. Stage 4 is anyone's guess.

Ellis-D writes "There's a product out called the 'Mighty Might'. It's a SBC (Single Board Computer) that is the size of a hard drive. It has IDE, FDE,IR, VGA, USB, Parallel, Serial, Keyboard, Mouse, Network and LCD controllers on board. The models range from a 486-16 to a 200 mhz Pentium. The 133 w/ 64 meg of ram costs about $850." Bit pricey, but super cute.. maybe if it had wireless ethernet.

joshmathis writes "ZDNET is reporting that a US federal judge has ruled that Network Solutions, Inc. has antitrust protection for their monopoly on domain name registration. It may be short-lived, though. "

Surplus Baggage writes "Caldera is planning to release the beta of OpenLinux 2.2 at Novell's BrainShare conference. It's the first distro to be based on a 2.2.x kernel. ZDNet has the story. " I've been reminded by people that Stampede has the first 2.2 out. As well, SuSE 6.1, out in a couple days will have a 2.2 based distrib. /me slaps own face.

Numeric writes " Motorola sues Intel. Apparently, Intel is attempting to herd former Motorola employees to work for them. Motorola is greatly concerned that those employees will be disclosing their knowledge of the PowerPC chip design. "

abcess writes "Here's a link to the story. link It seems to me like they're starting to try the same stuff they did when other OSes started challenging MS, saying good stuff about them, but then saying, 'but they really have no chance'. "

Maniacal wrote in to let us know about an article that talks about new "service" Yahoo! has implemented that would move e-commerce sites to the top of the line for placement, for 199$. As almost everyone knows, Yahoo! doesn't use spiders, but humans for placement. This means that the placement of a particular site can take a /long/ time. This service would move the sites using it to the front of the line-although Yahoo! still doesn't guarantee placement, nor will it necessarily guarantee priority placement. This service is part of new wave of services that Yahoo! will be aiming at small business. While part of me thinks this is the wrong way to do it, I know that a lot of places out there will use it-but for the true small scale start-ups, this still hurts.