Slashdot Mirror

m0smithslash writes "The blogging CEO asserts that that datacenters are doomed. Computers are showing up in everything from drill bits, to cargo ships to tracking devices in stuffed animals at Disneyland. With computers becoming so small and easy to distribute over a wireless network, do we really need data centers to house computers or are the computers going to be placed where they are really needed?"

Yesterday's story about a creative approach to dealing with uninvited (and unwanted) users on a private wireless network -- by intercepting and modifying the images received downstream -- provoked some thoughtful comments on open wireless networks, and a storm of analogies about networks and property generally. Read on for some of the most interesting comments in the Backslash summary of the conversation.

Several readers offered comments on the methods of network interference suggested in the examples linked from the story, or offered other creative ways to impede network freeloaders. First, reader blantonl offers some insight into implementing the same image-flipping technique:

For those that are struggling to understand how the author of this article is accomplishing his approach, here is some further information.

The author obviously has a Linux server in his house, that is running DHCPD

To selectively send some clients to some locations, and others to the normal internet, he assigns an IP address on a different network to clients that don't have MAC Addresses that he knows about.

Forwarding on to sites of his choice is done by using IPTables, which is a utility that allows you to configure the packet filtering components of the Linux TCP/IP Stack. In this instance, the Linux box is just functioning as a firewall, and he is selectively sending requests from certain IP addresses to different hosts of his choosing.

Finally, the Up-side-down and blurry-image conversions is accomplished by sending page requests from those before-mentioned IP addresses to a proxy server, which in this case is Squid — and then allowing the proxy server to run a script which calls an ImageMagick command called mogrify which allows you to resize an image, blur, crop, despeckle, dither, draw on, flip, join, re-sample, and much more.

(Writing "I'm paranoid - I work in information security," reader hab136 points out some potential vulnerabilities in the system as described.)

As to the actual methods of annoyance, jpellino writes

Upside down is cute, but blurry is just too fantastic. You know they were on the horn to the vendor after punching every monitor control and several loud screaming matches and an expensive service call for a monitor that then worked just fine on the bench... As a webmaster I can now say April 1 just got very far away...

Reader Sloppy also admires the "blurry-net" approach ("That's subtle and I love it"), but suggests that image manipulation is only for starters

The next step is to spy on them and see what websites they visit, and then insert some fake content one day. For example, if they use it to read CNN, insert a casual story about a nuclear weapon getting used in the Middle-East or South Asia, or a story about the president of USA selecting a new vice-president due to the assassination last week ("What?! I didn't hear about that!"), or the CDC in Atlanta is investigating the recent rash of improbable claims about the dead returning to life to feast on the flesh of the living, etc. If they visit Slashdot, then the jig is probably up, but maybe it would be great to have a story where a security study found Windows98 to kick OpenBSD's ass and then a bunch of comments where everyone agrees that the findings pretty much match their own experience, along with complains about "how is this news for nerds?!"

And perhaps the ultimate in annoyance-as-warning, reader Midnight Thunder writes

I suppose you could also add a frame to every page and then sell advertising space. Since you probably know a bit about your neighbour it is much easier make targeted advertising. Of course you could always make the top frame read:

"This is borrowed bandwidth. Have you thought about getting your own connection."

Oh and make sure it is flashing. Actually you could make it so that the whole content flash.

Not all uninvited users are actually unwanted users, though, at least for some readers. Reader Elektroschock writes

Sorry, I am a supporter of open networks. I think the freifunk olsr-protocol approach of open wireless networks is best. We don't need internet providers and we don't need internet providers which leak our communication data to the governments and endanger the freedom of the net. The net should be a net and wireless technology is great for the creation of a real P2P internet.

I cannot support any action against people who use your network. It is against my understanding of hacker ethics. When you don't like it then close your network. But no childish games please.

I may even say that I find it unethical to exclude your neighbours from using your network but I respect your opinions. When your network is open it means: Be free to use it. Not: You can use it but I will fuck up or intercept your communication.

Similarly, trewornan writes

I chose to leave my wireless network open so that if someone nearby needed a connection it would be available for them. If someone was to impose an unreasonable load on the network I might do something about it but so far (12 months) I've had about half a dozen people connect and download relatively small amounts of data - my guess is they were checking email. Why would I object to that? No . . . why would *you* object to that? The way I see it it's a chance to do something nice for other people, why not get yourself some good karma.

Even without that sort of altruism, many readers feel that, as geekoid puts it,

[By]leaving it open he is inviting other people to connect.

Some computer says to the router "Hey, can I come in?" and the router says "Sure." Now, the moment you put something up, like needing a password, then you are no longer inviting people in.

• Computer says "Hey, can I come in" router says "Sure, if you know the password."
• Or you can encrypt it; Computer says "Hey, can I come in?" the router says "KE*jd7638JDEJE*834899(&^&#nd&#&bd*e#"

Not so fast, goes an argument exemplified in another comment from R2.0:

Yes, the computer is "asking" the router "permission," and the router is "granting permission" — the only problem is, the words we use to describe these actions may appear to be descriptive of thinking and volition, but they really mean neither. Computers and routers simply CANNOT give "permission" in any legal or moral sense.

To use the yard analogy that seems to be popular for these threads, lets supposed your neighbor's massively retarded child asks your massively retarded child for permission for his Daddy to use your yard, and your child agrees. Neighbor then comes over and stages a cookout on your lawn, or for that matter just walks across it.

When you confront him, he says "But my kid asked your kid, and he said yes." This is binding? Common sense and the law would say no, yet you would allow devices with an order of magnitude less analytical power than a retarded child to give and receive similar permissions.

Repeat after me folks: devices cannot give and receive permission for human actions without those permissions expressly being granted via some other means.

A traffic light doesn't give you permission to cross the street; the government (that you studied to get your license) gives you permission to cross the intersection when a light is green, and denies it when red.

Your ID badge doesn't ask permission to enter your building, and the security system doesn't grant permission; YOU ask for permission by presenting the badge, and your employer grants it by programming said system to accept your request.

Closer to the typical small-time network admin, perhaps, bennomatic writes

If I leave my bike outside unlocked for 10 minutes, am I giving explicit permission to anyone who sees it that they can take it? No. Am I allowing it to happen through negligence? Sure, but call it what it is; it's still stealing, or at least trespassing.

Even something as amorphous as bandwidth is a limited resource. To paraphrase the head of the commerce committee, an open wireless connection is not a dump truck you can just load up with as much as you like; it's a tube!

Various forms of the same disagreement surfaced in various corners of the discussion: squiggleslash, for instance, writes

[I]t makes sense that no implied permission is given by simply having your router be unsecured, given "unsecured" is the default configuration of most off-the-shelf routers.)

It really isn't an issue in practice. If you want to use someone else's network, all you have to do is ask them. With 802.11, you're close enough to be able to do so. There's no reason not to ask, other than knowing that "No" is likely to be the answer. And I think that's why people tell themselves the myth that somehow they have implied permission simply because the "door" was left unlocked.

The figurative "visibility" of an open wireless network also isn't enough to convince reader R2.0 that it's fair game for passers by. He writes:

So the router is "visible," with an option to make it invisible. Big deal. My garden is visible from the street, but I can put a tarp around it to obscure its existence. What you are saying is that, unless I put a tarp up around my garden, everyone has a right to use it.

Wireless networks may make themselves conspicuous, but that does not confer an invitation to use them. The connection between "visible" and "inviting" is not legally or morally valid. (I am excepting the concept of "attractive nuisance," but I don't think open routers will come under that area of liability)

Reader 4e617474 fired the next volley in this battle of analogies:

No, actually we're saying that if your garden pelts us with carrots and peas as we walk past on the public street, we're at liberty to catch them and consume them. Only if you place anti-vegetable-flight netting around your garden (or stop planting vegetables that lend themselves to comparison to an unsecured WAP) does it become incumbent upon us to behave as good citizens.

Hey! Analogies are fun! Somebody compare Internet privacy law to hunting and fishing licenses!

Readers like ShawnDoc make a case persuasive for discouraging bandwidth borrowing on the basis of enlightened self-interest.

If someone uses your connection for illegal activity (downloading Meet the Fockers, kiddie porn) it will be your IP address that the RIAA/MPAA/FBI will trace. Good luck convincing them it wasn't you. You might be able to do it, but it will take up time and money (lawyers) to clear your name. And in the case of kiddie porn or other criminal act, expect every computer, PDA, and cell phone in your home to be confiscated to be analyzed for incriminating data. The second problem is you are allowing strangers access to not only your Internet connection, but also your LAN. I have multiple computers and put files in shared folders so I can access them from different machines. I don't want some strange to have access to those files, or worse, have their computer be infected with a worm/virus that propagates across the network.

Thanks to all the readers whose comments informed this conversation, and in particular to those whose comments are quoted above.

CmdrStone writes "Just thought I'd post to let people know that while at FOSE today in the Washington, D.C. Convention center I lingered at the Apple pavilion / booth. To my surprise every machine had 10.4 running. The build number matches the build number found on the rumor sites; 8A428. Does this presage Tiger hitting the shelves soon? Personally, my main interest was how much iSync was expanded to support more devices, phones, etc. The Apple rep confirmed that the number of devices has expanded. He lamented that his Symbian phone, the Nokia 9500 Communicator, still was not included in the supported phones. He did tell me that he was able to tether his Powerbook and get online via his 9500's T-Mobile connection."

gustgr writes "The American Go Association is reporting that Go for the 5x5 board has been solved by the computer program MIGOS, reports the program's creator, Erik Van Der Werk, a professor at the University of Maastricht in Holland. At about a quarter of the full-board version, 5x5 go is miniscule, similar in scale to "solving" 2X2 chess. The fact that a programmer would even consider this a noteworthy challenge is itself a remarkable testament to the game's complexity. Van Der Werk's approach is described in detail in an article at the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NOSR)."

charliedickinson writes "Web Design on a Shoestring offers the premise that modest budgets for Web development can pay off in focused, uncluttered, appealing Web sites. Author Carrie Bickner, who took on Web development with a professional background as a librarian (she is now Assistant Director for Digital Information and System Design at The New York Public Library), eschews the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of Web page crafting for a comprehensive overview of 'project management, usability, design, copywriting, hosting, and post-launch maintenance.'" Read on for the rest of Dickinson's review. Web Design on a Shoestring author Carrie Bickner pages 220 publisher New Riders Publishing rating 6 reviewer Charlie Dickinson ISBN 0735713286 summary A broad offering of tips on how to create and maintain a Website with limited resources.

Bickner defines the audience for this book with four brief portraits of hypothetical individuals, all of whom need Web sites in a fairly low-key, resource-poor way. That is, something from the Web equivalent of an entrepreneur's business card to a non-profit organization's Web site. Although Bickner is apt to invoke "we Web professionals," this book is not really appropriate to Web creatives-for-hire (who would be better advised to seek out clients with the wherewithal to ask for something original, cool, and spendy). This book's broad scope is better suited to those with a more casual interest in Web sites, or those who have added Webmastering to other job responsibilities.

But the more I read, the more I was convinced Bickner's shoestring design theory went beyond financially embarrassed budgets. In a spirit of inquiry, I looked at two Web sites where skimpy budgets should not apply. Namely, the world's two richest persons and their employers. Microsoft's Web page is a well-wrought, complex assemblage of linked pages (though the splash page's security download du jour fairly shouts subtext). In contrast, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's Web site is possibly more shoestring than even Bickner would advocate. The point being, even when the financial resources are bountiful, one can always, as Bickner says, "dare to do less."

One first impression of Web Design on a Shoestring is its excellent organization, an attribute librarians assume with famous pride (working in a library -- though not as a degreed librarian -- I've observed the species up close). Each chapter begins with a checklist preview. The text has ample sidebars covering budget gotchas ("Budget Threat"), saving opportunities ("Spinning Straw into Gold"), and special definitions. Plenty of screen shots (mostly from Mac OS X) and code listings visually support topics under discussion.

After the intro and first chapter set out the book's scope, Chapter Two, "The Pound Wise Project Plan," tackles how one might spec out a Web site project. This is the analytical, well-organized approach: a goal list, plus written documents for functional requirements and technical requirements. "Brainstorming," inspiration, playing with what a Web site might look like -- that's probably for another book, another author. In a book titled Web Design on a Shoestring, though, I did expect some definition, in real dollar ranges, of what constitutes a "shoestring budget."

Chapter Three, "Usability on the Cheap," is a once-over-lightly of several arguments made earlier in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think! One of the themes in this book, accessibility, comes naturally to librarians, who work in the public arena. Bickner offers brief, informed comments about how page navigation can work sans mouse and sans Java.

Chapters Four and Five are key to any Web site creation: copy and graphics, respectively. For the supposed target audience, I wanted to see a tutorial approach, but the book's ambitious scope appears to preclude anything other than summary discussion. "Why Good Copy Counts" covers writing style, appropriate voice, plus the need to chunk and headline text. Bickner correctly claims words are a powerful tool for elevating the status of a low-budget site. On words alone, the playing field among Web site creators is level. Moreover, words -- in digital format -- need minimal computing resources compared to other tasks like image processing.

The next chapter, "The Design: Looking Good With Less," continues with the basics of font selection and usage, the advisability of using Cascading Style Sheets for fonts and colors, and some tips on keeping graphics and artwork affordable. When it came to image editors, I thought Bickner's command to buy Adobe Photoshop (or the alternative Macromedia Fireworks) arguable: "... in the case of image editors, I am not going to suggest an inexpensive alternative; spend the money. If you skimp on image editors, your site will suffer."

Even a year before Web Design on a Shoestring's publication date, Adobe Photoshop Elements was available. I run Elements on a Windows partition--reputedly eighty-percent of the functionality of the professional version at a fraction of the price. Unfortunately, no mention is given to the open-source and cross-platform GIMP (which should not be ignored, given the shoestring premise). A major flaw of this book, for this reviewer, was the relative lack of dollar-based data to bring alive the shoestring strategy -- I need more than pictures of shoelaces to get in the spirit.

But Bickner warms up to open-source software in Chapter 7, the second longest chapter in the book. "Content Management on a Tight Budget," left me wondering, though, whether the book's audience had morphed. Yes, Content-Management Systems (CMS) have benefits, especially for concurrent authoring and version control, but I don't see individuals putting together Web sites on a shoestring budget worrying such issues. I'd speculate discussions of such CMS as Zope (Bickner uses Zope for one of her sites) had more to do with her work at keeping Web sites functional at NYPL than identifiable needs of the target audience proposed in the book's intro.

Chapter 8, the longest chapter, "Save Money and Time with Web Standards," is a fairly predictable plea for contemporary coding conventions to separate structure and presentation with XHTML and CSS. Evidently, Ms. Bickner has a personal interest in this advocacy. As she notes in the last paragraph of the chapter, "Jeffrey Zeldman is my personal favorite web standards evangelist ... his book Designing with Web Standards fills in where this chapter leaves off. I know that because as I write this book, he is sitting behind me writing his book. We don't get out much."

The last chapter, "Bang-for-Your-Buck Hosting and Domains," is a caveat emptor about finding a satisfactory host to serve up the newly created shoestring Web site. Predictably, low-ball rates do not guarantee long-term happiness.

At book's end, I concluded Web Design on a Shoestring's intriguing premise and ambitious scope made for good intentions. But the execution (spotty and thin discussions, with a paucity of dollar-based illustrative data) did not add up to a $24.99 recommended buy. (A library loan, maybe.)

If one really wants to design a Web site on a shoestring, go for the rifle, not the shotgun. Pick up Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think! for usability and any book, new or used, by Robin Williams for Web design. I vouch for Krug and Williams because any page of their books shows the understanding and passion of a person in their gift. Reading these books generates enthusiasm the DIYer on a shoestring must have.

In contrast, rewards of reading Bickner often turn out to be, I hope, unintentional. The "easter egg" of reading Ms. Bickner's home address and home phone number in a screenshot figure showing Zope metadata. A "Definition: UNIX and Linux" I'm tempted to e-mail Richard Stallman. But it was the final paragraph that gave Web Design on a Shoestring a sweet finish:

"Shoestring design is not for the rich and famous, although shoestring designers have occasionally spun straw into gold and low-budget sites into fame and fortune. It is also not for the unmotivated or the easily discouraged. But if you keep at it, you will grow creatively and professionally in ways you never imagined. And that is something no amount of money can buy. See you in the discount rack!"

I trust Warren Buffett will never read these words.

Before joining Multnomah County Library, reviewer Charlie Dickinson was a technical writer for a publications group at Intel and elsewhere. His Web sites are "stories & more", first hatched in 1998; and "An American in Yaris" , a fledgling work-in-progress. You can purchase Web Design on a Shoestring from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

charliedickinson writes "Some of the most computationally-intensive tasks around are real-time valuations of derivative securities. Wall Street traders need these for executing the trade whenever anyone wants to hedge stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, credit, mortgages, power ... the list goes on. Emanuel Derman's My Life as a Quant is the engaging odyssey of a theoretical physicist turned serious programmer (by way of Bell Labs), turned "rocket scientist" or "quant" (Wall Street slang for the folks who've taken computer-aided design and valuation of financial products to new levels these last two decades)." Read on for Dickinson's review of the book. My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance author Emanuel Derman pages 292 publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. rating 9 reviewer Charlie Dickinson ISBN 0471394203 summary Autobiography of a theoretical physicist turned serious programmer, turned Wall Street quantitative finance wizard

A complete understanding of Derman's work as physicist, or as finance theoretician, is of course beyond the scope of a memoir. This reviewer studied quantum mechanics in college and took an MBA at UCLA (more about this later) -- adding to my interest in the memoir's technical discussion -- but Derman reasonably pitches his discussion toward a lay audience with many helpful visuals to describe less obvious mathematical relationships. Do not let the perceived arcana of Derman's work keep you away from this memoir.

Emanuel Derman came to New York City in 1966 from Cape Town, South Africa. He started a Ph.D in theoretical physics at Columbia, somewhat in awe to be studying among a cluster of Nobel Laureates. As a teenager, Derman had hopes of being another Einstein if he stayed with physics. But as he notes, time decay happens to ambition. Seven years after earning his Ph.D, he was happy to be an employed postdoc, sharecropping his knowledge of particle physics to willing bidders.

The job market for theoretical physicists continued south. Family responsibilities, his wife's career as a biologist, and iffy prospects for a tenured teaching position --these all added up to Derman abandoning his love of physics, and going to work for money at Bell Labs.

There, Derman fell in love with programming (lex and yacc being two favorite tools). During five years, he built compilers and designed a nonprocedural language, HEQS (Hiearchical EQuation Solver), a precursor to Visicalc. But he never quite adjusted to the politics of Bell Labs, and by 1985, Wall Street was beckoning.

Executive recruiters sought out high-value programmers like Derman. He took a position with Goldman, Sachs in the Financial Strategies Group and began modeling options. It was a good fit. He found himself using sophisticated modeling techniques comparable to "doing physics." Moreover, he soon would collaborate with another Goldman, Sachs employee, one of the most influential theoreticians around: Fischer Black, whose Black-Scholes option pricing model (1973) is a benchmark in the field.

But My Life as a Quant is more than technical discussion; it's also a human interest narrative. The chapter "Easy Travel to Other Planets," about Fischer Black, is worth the price of this book. With compassion and honesty, Derman evocatively portrays his genius mentor. Derman shrewdly assesses what the arc of his life has meant. He shares vulnerabilities, decisions made from the weakness of loneliness, for example. Or, in a self-deprecatory vein, faux pas he committed. He's around Nobel Laureates in both physics and economics, and while noting such illustrious company can at times seem self-serving, the overall effect remains an engaging, complex self-portrait.

One idea about the world of quants Derman dispels is that derivative securities are wholly computer-driven. Despite more computing power on Wall Street, Derman asserts human imagination still leads the way. It takes a Fischer Black to intuit the qualitative to set up the quantitative model. Modern computational tools, however, aid the visualization such creative work thrives on.

As an example of the foregoing, and on a personal note, this reviewer remembers derivative security analysis circa 1969. While pursuing an MBA at UCLA, I did grunt work for a private hedge fund, run out of a Westwood apartment. Technology then was a time-sharing computer terminal and a telephone. The fund strategy was to short warrants and go long on the underlying common stock, where arbitraging opportunities were identified, a strategy borrowed from earlier work by Edward Thorp and Sheen Kassouf. My job was simple: I charted historical price data on clear acetate sheets in colored inks for all outstanding warrants against the underlying stock.

I drew hundreds of graphs, assisted in part by an Israeli graduate student (who had fought in the 1967 Six-Day War). I can't recall his name, but remember that when I'd drop by with more price data, ready to take away graphs, he invariably offered toast and coffee. One morning, I brought yet another roll of graphs to the Fund manager's apartment/office. Steve met me outside, saying he'd just got off the phone with Paul Samuelson at MIT, who wanted to know what our graphs looked like. Samuelson had written an article on warrant pricing, Steve added, which was why he was interested in what we turned up. I knew Samuelson as the author of an economics textbook I'd used a few years earlier.

Another morning, when I motorcycled over to drop off charts, Steve again was outside. He said, "Shelton and Markowitz are here." Professor John Shelton had hired me, of course, but I had no idea who Markowitz was -- he evidently did unspecified work with Shelton. Inside, I was quickly introduced to Harry Markowitz, who unrolled my graphs, becoming immediately absorbed. "Let me get a gestalt on this," was all he said. I didn't know then I was in the same room with the inventor of Modern Portfolio Theory. Now I can say he would see something that maybe a Fischer Black, or, these years later, an Emanuel Derman, might see. When he looked up, he said I did good graphs. I never saw him again.

Years later, I felt honored the low-tech grunt work my Israeli colleague and I labored over had interested those two men, Samuelson and Markowitz. They both received the Nobel Laureate in Economics (1970 and 1990, respectively). My point being -- and I'm sure Derman agrees -- it's not great computers that make breakthroughs in the financial theory. It's great imagination plus the tools at hand! (Obviously, though, computers have changed much of the grunt work.)

For me, My Life as a Quant summoned personal memories, but the odyssey of Emanuel Derman from South Africa to Wall Street is a rewarding memoir for anyone with even a casual interest about how the world of finance is being re-imagined. Emanuel Derman didn't really go to Wall Street to get rich. This memoir is a testament to his true passion in life, whether in theoretical physics, in software programming, or in the modeling of derivative securities. He always wanted interesting problems to work on.

You can purchase My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

abertoll writes "A federal judge decided that Google is able to sell ads under the GEICO trademark, claiming that this is fair use of the trademark. GEICO's contention was that competing insurance companies were using the name GEICO under which to buy Google Ads, so that when someone searches for GEICO, their ad would come up."

gustgr writes "There are times I got surprised after running ls in my $HOME directory. It is filled with trash, test files, directories that were supposed to be only temporary, ascii files with quick notes and all sort of stuff. In other words, it is a complete mess. Then I remove the trash, clean up the directories, run the mv command a few times and everything looks good and normal again. Two weeks later the disorder is back and I have to handle it again. How do you manage your home directory in order to keep it clean? Are your homes a mess too?" I usually keep folders labeled "audible," "visible," "legible," and "work," and subfolders within these that are at least mostly consistent between computers / drives; every day or so I sweep loose files into these, then open each folder, sort, repeat. How do you sort your data?

MJ writes "Evan Brown has finally lost his 7 year court battle over ownership of thoughts in his brain. Judge Henderson of the 219th District Court in Collin County, Texas granted DSC Communications Corporation, Inc (now Alcatel, USA) a Final Judgement granting DSC ownership of Mr. Brown's idea of a reverse compiler that Mr. Brown claims to have begun formulating twelve years before his employment at DSC and during his off-time while at DSC. Mr. Brown has received media coverage in print, televion and on the Internet: The John Marshall Journal of Computer & Information Law, Wired, Computerworld. This rings similar to previous Slashdot articles on employer/employee IP rights."

zhangyong writes "Microsoft has signed a strategic cooperation pact with China's top television maker Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances (which claims to be the world's number-two maker of colour TVs, OEM for APEX, etc.), the official Shanghai Securities News (in Chinese) (in English) said on Monday. 'Changhong would receive advanced IT technology and software from Microsoft to develop digital TV sets and other high-technology products.' What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"

Cypherus writes "I came across a link for a 3d desktop environment. "The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications. Check the videos and screenshots to get the idea.""

petard writes "In a very interesting interview published by the Register, Bill Gates made several interesting claims about Longhorn. Many of them have been extensively covered recently, including plans to force users to patch automatically. Surprisingly, everyone seems to have overlooked his statement that Microsoft fixes bugs faster than Linux developers do. 'We've gone from little over 40 hours on average to 24 hours. With Linux, that would be a couple of weeks on average.' Either he's lying or woefully misinformed; their recent performance seems to be more on the order of 3+ months, or over 2000 hours."

gstover writes "As a personal programming project recently, I used a genetic algorithm to find a better sequence of increments for Shellsort. It found at least one sequence that out-performs the best previously known by about 5 percent. Here is an article about it (also here). I believe this is the first time a genetic algorithm has actually improved Shellsort."

Ryfar asks: "I'm a programmer with 3 years of experience in C, C++, and Java. With the current low economic trends in the software sector, the small software company I've been working for since I graduated is going out of business. Since it's so hard to get a job at another software company with so little experience, I'm considering the option of striking out on my own with a friend with similar development experience and creating a small software consulting company. Naturally, until we were profitable to the point that we could hire other people to work with us we would be both the programmers and the marketers/salesmen. The question is, Where should we start looking for business? How do we capture the hearts and confidence of potential customers when we don't have PhD's from MIT? Could those here with applicable experience on this subject share with the rest of us?"

Voidhobo writes: "SOT, a Linux-distributor from the home-country of Linux, is offering SOT Office, a free productivity suite partly based on OpenOffice, for Linux and Windows. According to SOT, it is the only office application you will ever need, as it is fully compatible with MS Office and StarOffice." OpenOffice is great, so I hope their claims have merit.

tepes writes "From bottomquark, A new method of sub-pixel rendering could make monitors cheaper to produce. ClairVoyante Laboratories developed the PenTile Matrix, which uses five sub-pixels instead of the typical three, to take advantage of the fact that the human eye is more sensitive to blue colors."

vnsnes writes: "Mynix brands their e-Space computer as the world's smallest PC. It is, '...the only alternative to Desktops and Notebooks; for those who need computing in two places, typically the Home and the Office.' It looks really cool, but would it really be practical for anyone? For people chucking information between home and office it would seem much more economical to get broadband service at home and setup a VPN. Why would anyone use e-Space as a notebook when it comes without a screen, a keyboard, or a mouse? Yes, you can save space with this little guy, but you'll still need room for a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse on your desk. And they aren't exactly cheap: about $1,600. For about the same price you can get a laptop computer with the same specs but with all the necessary peripherals. PC Magazine review here." I guess this fills the same niche that the Saintsong Cappucino does, whatever niche that is.

nick++ writes "I was browsing iwin's site (iwin is a German company who is supposedly making some formerly-slashdot-mentioned Amiga-compatible machines), and found Xetos. According to iwin, 'Xetos is an operating system based on a Linux kernel which was extended by many components and features.' For example, '...there is a special Amiga mode included which allows you to use most of your older Amiga software.' I wonder if any of these "extensions" are GPLed?" Also, does "based on" mean we're looking at a kernel fork? Or is this just another new Linux distro? If anybody out there has tried Xetos, please let us know what it's like. Thanks.