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timbong writes "Have you ever wanted a small, cheap robot that you could build for about $20? (depending on whether you buy new/scrap parts and what motors you use) Then check out this tutorial it requires some soldering experience but it really isn't very hard. If you want a kit check out solarbotics, they have some interesting stuff like walking analog adaptive robots."

If you need to escape Hype Sunday, or even if you don't, go see Shadow Of The Vampire.The odd and the slightly twisted will go nuts over this film by E. Elias Merhige. William Dafoe is astounding as the vampire Count Orlock, and John Malkovich is his wonderful icky and obsessive self as the director whose only moral value is getting his film made at any cost. Spoilage warning: plot is discussed, no endings. A brief and useful Nosferatu primer is included, free of charge.

Shadow Of The Vampire is, along with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, one of the must-see movies of the current crop.

Although it purportedly depicts the filming of the masterpiece Nosferatu, Shadow's real target is filmmaking itself. The movie offers the creepy yet convincing argument that our popular culture is full of figurative blood-sucking, and that it excuses any means to reach an end, even if the process ultimately consumes the artist, pollutes the art, and exploits the viewer. There's a truth there that hits home, especially in the corporatized entertainment world. The real vampire here, almost from the opening shot, is Hollywood. Shadow Of the Vampire is thus simultenously frightening and relevant, as well as very funny.

It may increase your enjoyment of this movie to spend a few minutes reading up on the film that inspired it. A very brief history:

Nosferatu, made by F.W. Murnau in German in l922, is the grandaddy of Gothic horror films, having spawned at least 30 movies, along with countless books, TV shows and fables. The movie, like all great movies, has been shrouded in its own mythology, the most enduring piece of which is that the leading actor in the silent movie -- Max Schreck -- loved to partake in some occasional hemoglobin himself. Schreck was definitely odd. He was only seen on the movie set at night and slept in a coffin.

The conceit in Shadow (I'm not giving anything away, as this point is clear from the get-go) is that Shreck wasn't merely portraying a vampire but actually was one, and had made a Faustian bargain with his director. At first, the cast and crew buy the cover that Schreck is an unusually meticulous Method Actor (like Malkovich himself), who drinks blood for authenticity.

Gradually, however, other horrific possibilities present themselves. Unlike the horrified cast, the celluloid Murnau isn't upset by this turn; he's delighted. In fact, he's been counting on it; it's going to make his movie authentic and enduring.

Admist a few seedy scenes depicting the squalor of Berlin between the wars, and the general air of horror and foreboding, Murnau is fending off neurotic actors, clueless extras, dumb reporters, budget-crazed producers and anxious financiers back in Berlin. It's a brilliant stroke to shroud this old chestnut in the context of the American studio system and the insanity of contemporary showbiz. Murnau cranks happily away at his 35mm movie camera, never once even briefly deterred as casualties start to mount, necessary "sacrifices," as Murnau puts it, for getting a movie in on time and under bizarre circumstances - Murnau has a lot of crew members to replace.

Beyond its re-working of cinematic mythology, Shadow Of The Vampire somewhat poignantly foreshadows the fate of classical art and the revolution in popular culture that movies would help spark, not to mention the Net and Web. Murnau warns that that the screen and its descendants will chase literature, poetry and other cultural forms into the shadows, like vampires themselves, reality and culture getting all mixed up. His leading lady (Catherine McCormack playing Greta Schroeder) laments that while a live theater audience gives her life as an actress, the camera seems to take it away.

The original Nosferatu (for more info about it, see Cory Gross's excellent Web site on the film) Nosferatu was called Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, and made its debut over passionate objections from the estate of Bram Stoker, who wrote the novel Dracula which launched the contemporary version of the vampire myth. Stoker's family refused Murnau permission to make the movie. Murnau took much of Stoker's story anyway -- there's old, twitchy Jonathan Harker riding in his carriage towards the spooky, ruined castle -- but changed the Count's name and set the story not in Transylvania but in different parts of Europe.

Murnau, who left Europe for Hollywood and died in a car accident in California at age 43, is credited with three movies generally considered masterpieces, including The Last Laugh; and Sunrise.

But Nosferatu is his best known, most influential movie. It clearly shaped many of the horror movies that followed and helped make the vampire story one of the most enduring of the Gothic myths.

Aside from the changed name and locale, Nosferatu remains faithful to the story Stoker was trying to tell. Even more than the novel, Murnau's monster is the ultimate renegade and outsider, only nobody would dare to dismiss or taunt him.

Dracula lovers will feel somewhat at home, despite the striking differences in the way the vampire is presented. There's the Count traveling to Europe (in this case Germany) on a doomed ship, the belief that crosses and stakes might kill him off. Only this monister is also a canny negotiator, acting as his own ruthless agent to wheel and deal for favorable terms from the over-eager Murnau.

Murnau's vampire is nothing like the poised, elegant, sometimes erotic vampires in American films, from Bela Lugosi to Tom Cruise. Count Orlock is the pre-sanitized version, a bitter, loathesome plague, a repulsive creature who's not superhuman but a half-dead thing you couldn't stand to be anywhere near, let alone have feast on you in the dead of night. Once powerful and rich, he's reduced to the occasional rodent and vial of delivered blood. His hunting days are over. He has pallid skin, talon-like fingernails, and a dessicated face. There is nothing erotic or charismatic about him.

For all that, The Shadow Of The Vampire never stops laughing at itself, or at us. There's a great scene where the movie's producer is flattering the creepy Shreck for his rabid attention to detail, when the Count grabs a bat out of the air and scarfs it down like a Milky Way bar. As he lumbers off, wiping his bloody mouth on his sleeve, the producer turns to another member of the crew: "What an actor!"

As primitive as Nosferatu is by contemporary standards, it gets into your head (So does Shadow... ). It somehow seems to capture what makes the vampire story the world's most haunting yarn: roots in Christian European folklore and superstition, blood rituals, the evil-against-science theme, the ultimate geek-from-hell against the world; the fear engendered by conjuring up things that might slip into people's rooms at night. Strange that with their relatively primitive, pre -digital special effects, Murnau's staff was able to invoke this creepiness more effectively than anyone before or since.

Film scholars have long pointed out the sexual premonitions and suggestions in the vampire myth, the warnings about sex and sexual liberation. Vampires are mostly portrayed as powerful men who steal past locked doors and barred windows to ravish helpless and beautiful women asleep in nightgowns in their beds. The Victorians were terrified of venereal disease in much the same way we fear AIDS.

But all that may overintellectualize the story; the vampire may be hypnotic simply because he's King of the Night, a lasting symbol for all-purpose unspeakable evil.

Let's get back into the quickie portege00 sent in linkage to Robot Store where you can buy parts to build a Battlebot. Maybe after I finish my MAME cabinet ;) Speaking of MAME, Martin Hock claims that it makes in appearance in Godzilla 2000, check it out. Ever through of using a beverage as a weapon? Innominate sent in a weapon that uses pop cans as ammo. I'll just stick to coffee: Matador sent in the TCP/IP equipped Espresso Machine, but I'd tend to rather go the other way (thanks again Ant). matth sent in a cool page that has Dr Seuss Art for sale- the man did some really excellent work. If Seuss is to arty for ya, maybe SkippyVision can help; he sent us to the Etch-a-sketch art Gallery. If you need something to wear to the gallery, foondog sent us hats made of meat. If you think dandruff is an unhealthy food risk, Boolean sent us what might be the greatest meal ever. How can you resist a bowl of soup that morphs into a Ninja Asassin. While we're talking about Japanese stuff, Ant continues to submit quickies at a frenzied pace, like Mathematical Origami. webword sent in a site that explains how to make lightsaber effects with basic video editing tools. And it just wouldn't be quickies without rampant Microsoft Bashing: List knows what happens when you combine WinCE, WinME, and WinNT: Coming soon to a frys near you. Khan showed us where Microsoft got the inspiration for XBox's Controller, and Ron Harwood sent us linkage to the best MCSE Trainer around.

bedel231 sent us a fairly lengthy and detailed article discussing the hype surrounding Object Oriented Programming and tries to claim that a lot of things taken for granted are mythical. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of OOP, so I tend to agree on a lot of these points. Regardless of your stance on the issue, it's worth a read.

Krimsen sent in linkage to what has got to be the coolest hack I've seen in months. He built a portable atari 2600. Looks like a game boy, but it plays the old carts, and even features the old wood grain. Absolutely stunning. Someone's gotta sell these things.

RegardsSJ writes "I've documented my progress in hacking around with Larry E's $199 ThinkNIC box. It has great possibilities for use as various network appliances. My site describes what it is, what's inside, how to add a hard drive, and how to customize and burn a new system CD. "

RegardsSJ writes "I've documented my progress in hacking around with Larry E's $199 ThinkNIC box. It has great possibilities for use as various network appliances. My site describes what it is, what's inside, how to add a hard drive, and how to customize and burn a new system CD. "

Start this one off with a creative hack: tim.kerby sent in just that: using a tortilla as a bread board when your local radio shack is out. Future creative hacks may involve i4u's link to camborg which tracks wearable cameras. Ant found cats and robots. You can practice by playing Kitty Lick 3, an FPS you play as a feline (thanks bjorky) But If cats aren't your pet of choice, how about pigs? Rookie sent in linkage to a story about a one in first class that you'll swear is fiction (but it isn't). radiator sent in a hilarious parody: first aid for a dying dot com. Some auctions worth noting: drDugan sent a picture autographed by Linus being sold on eBay (and donated to charity). Dirty Yanni noted that Metallica/Napster parody t-shirts are for sale on eBay. And the last auction (but not on eBay) is Spock's original ears from the original trek. Oh, and how about t-shirts mocking the MS breakin & source code theft? CArnesen noted that Anime Expo 2001 has been scheduled for this summer. I'm seriously considering going. Mothy notes that famed Rubber Chicken vendor Archie McPhee is now selling the Linux Voodoo Penguin (however the ad features a "Sysadmin" wearing a tie! Have to much free time? Ant does! He sent us a reflex tester (I've managed a .24) but thats nothing compared to Am I Hot or Not which is fun for hours on end if you're the type that amuses easily. And finally, tshell noted that that now that there is a complete O'Reily ate my balls site, the Internet is now complete. You can all go home now.

Baldrson writes: "Wired reports that the only scheduled rocket launch for the CATS Prize has failed. Since the CATS Prize has a deadline of November 8, the enormous hard work and enthusiasm that has gone into this competition will meet with a lot of disappointment. This is unfortunate, because in my original prize announcement, I specifically requested that many individuals put up small amounts of money for their own awards so that there would be no single point of failure. The bright side of all this is that others are now taking that meta-challenge seriously. See, for example the Stark Draper Open Source Rocketry Award."

mrsam writes: "I was one of the many people who, about a year ago, was picked for Red Hat's directed share program in their IPO. Soon thereafter the underwriter, E*Trade, kicked me out of the program without giving a good reason. Believing my dismissal to be completely unjustified and without merit, I filed a claim against E*Trade pursuant to NASD arbitration rules. For all practical matters, I sued them. A NASD arbitration claim is basically an expedited lawsuit. I am pleased to report that I have won my claim. I won damages AND legal fees. I have put up the arbitration panel's decision, plus some juicy stuff that my legal eagles have obtained during the discovery process, at http://www.geocities.com/~mrsam/etrouble/hearing.html. The whole story, from start to finish, is at http://www.geocities.com/~mrsam/etrouble/."

mrsam writes: "I was one of the many people who, about a year ago, was picked for Red Hat's directed share program in their IPO. Soon thereafter the underwriter, E*Trade, kicked me out of the program without giving a good reason. Believing my dismissal to be completely unjustified and without merit, I filed a claim against E*Trade pursuant to NASD arbitration rules. For all practical matters, I sued them. A NASD arbitration claim is basically an expedited lawsuit. I am pleased to report that I have won my claim. I won damages AND legal fees. I have put up the arbitration panel's decision, plus some juicy stuff that my legal eagles have obtained during the discovery process, at http://www.geocities.com/~mrsam/etrouble/hearing.html. The whole story, from start to finish, is at http://www.geocities.com/~mrsam/etrouble/."

Lets start this off with some eyecandy from Mdog. Hi res pics of coronal loops meet Rob's First Rule of Art. Wow. Not enough eye candy? tradica noted that Pixar's new movie 'Monsters Inc.' now has trailers available even the the movie won't be out for a year. Course since Jobs is @ pixar, no surprise that I can't watch the clip. Instead of food for your retinas, Nerf97A4 sent in recipes that will never be used on Iron Chef since they all involve cooking with twinkies in some form or another. Deep fried Twinkies? Makes me shudder... maybe instead you should look at jedigeek fouund an online store called CyberCandy which allows you to buy candy from around the world. funferal noticed that a OECD have publshed their Privacy Statement Generator. Ant noted one wizard that that probably doesn't exist in Word. alecto sent us a fun link where you can read 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall which has code snippets to generate the song in languages from APL to zsh. PhadeRunner sent us Mr. T vs. The Matrix. and FlameSnyper sent The Matrix and Ghost in The Shell. One is slightly more serious then the other. An anonymous reader documented filling a cubicle with packing peanuts in case your boss is out of time and you need some help. Speaking of bosses, Need a weapon? WD_40 aims you at a site where you can learn how to create your own spud gun. Course you could do it the old fashioned way: pimp showed us a site dedicated to electrocuting common household stuff. Like, for example, a furby. While on the subject of electricity, loose_change sent in several links about Power meters and how they aren't exactly the best in user interface. A competition followed to try to make a better on. The winner is definitely less hostile ;) CresentCityRon sent in something you don't want to electrocute: apparently MIT students are working on Geek Porn which is pretty much what is sounds like. School officials aren't so happy about it.

Mzilikazi writes: "This enterprising chap, Benjamin J. Heckendorn, has taken the chips out of an Atari 2600 and hacked together his very own portable VCS! The site has a lot of detailed information and photographs detailing the construction of the unit. The screen came from an old Casio handheld television, and yes, it does feature an attractive woodgrain case. "

As the title says - Matrox has released a beta driver for their G200/G400/G450 which includes support for DualHead and QuadHead (up to 4 monitors), Flat Panel and TV out. This driver is a beta. You can get it here and I mirrored it here. You'll need XFree 4.0.1 in order to use this driver. Please follow the readme file carefully! (the readme file from Matrox's FTP needs to be converted dos2unix). Note: you cannot use the 3D hardware acceleration on the 2nd monitor (yet).Matrox & Precision insight - Keep up the good work!

Logik writes: "It appears a bunch of guys over at http://www.geocities.com/tivohack/ have hacked the tivo to add a second hard drive. It appears they run Linux on a 50mhz PowerPC chip. They've even open sourced the kernel." Tons of great ways to void your warranty, and information about the guts. Also talks about how to add disk space. (Huzzah!) I'm also hearing rumors of MP3 playing on the boxes as well.

Tero Kukola asks: "In a past 'Ask Slashdot' article the subject was GUI toolkits. In one comment there was a link to page The GUI Toolkit, Framework Page. I'm very impressed about that effort. It contains only relevant and comprehensive information about GUI toolkits. I consider this kind of information very valuable to developers. Unfortunately, GUI toolkits are only one single area in software development. I think there is also a need to make similar pages about other tookits, too. Such are, for example: general toolkits (string, file, data structures, networking...), math & physics toolkits, and sound toolkits."

"This kind of information needs to be put together and maintained, not scattered around the net. It would benefit all kinds of developers, especially newbies. Consider it an attempt to collect the community knowledge.

Now what I would like to ask Slashdot readers is:

• Are there pages about other toolkits?
• Is there already an effort to collect this kind of information to one place?
• If not, is there enough interest to start one? I think I would be ready to contribute.

"

For those of you who think Ask Slashdot is lacking in the technical questions department, I hope this query from (yet another) Anonymous Coward will spark your interest: "I have written a forking server in Perl that is exibiting a phase change in its response characteristics around 10 simultaneous connections. As the number of simultaneous connections passes through 10 connections the connection time increases by two orders of magnitude and becomes very random. At the same point the transmission times drop slightly and continue to have small standard deviations. Although I posted this question to a variety of Perl and Unix usenet usegroups over a week ago, I never received a response. Since the most important part of the post is the performance plot, I placed it and relevant code snipits at: http://www.geocities.com/nawkboy The memory, io, and cpu usage never exceeded more than 80% at any time during the tests and were seldom above 50%. The test results were very similar between remote and local clients. The server is running on a Sun Enterprise 420R running Solaris 2.6. I do not understand the behavior and would appreciate any guidance in understanding it."

An anonymous reader sent in some Leaked Quake IV Screenshots. It's odd how the Quake seems to be converging both topically and visually with Real Life.

rrwood asks: "The company at which I work is about to overhaul an existing application. Strangely enough, we're primarily Macintosh-based, but are casting an eye towards cross-platform development (i.e. Windows, though I'm hopeful that an X/Linux-based version is also a possibility). Given that the app is to be a fairly rich GUI front end that talks to a database backend, I'd be interested in hearing any recommendations or advice anyone out there has to offer." Read on for more information on the toolkits currently under consideration (feel free to offer more suggestions), but we are talking toolkits here. The topic of cross-platform languages got a rather thourough treatment in a previous article.

"It's pretty much a necessity for the solution technology to include a RAD tool.

With respect to using a portable C++ core and platform-specific GUI layer (or even portable GUI layer-- keep reading), there are a few toolkits around that seem promising:

• GLUI, an OpenGL-based GUI
• Whisper, a Mac/Windows application framework
• WxWindows, a framework which supports Windows 3.1/95/98/NT, and Unix with GTK/Motif/Lesstif, and MacOS
• YAAF, Yet Another Application Framework, offering suport for Macintosh OS, Windows 95 and Windows NT, and X Windows
• CPLAT, a framework for developing MacOS and Windows (Linux soon) applications
• Ardi's Carbonless Copies technology, which is a portable rewrite of much of the MacOS API

Additionally, these URLS have a lot of info on Platform Independent GUIs:

• GUI Toolkit/Framework Page
• PIGUI FAQ Page
• C++ User's Journal PIGUI Page"

Transition Cat asks: "Is there any demand for longer notebook computers? With laptops as light and thin as they are, it seems that a laptop with the screen stretched out to 16:9 would still be portable. The longer dimensions would also permit room for a numeric keypad. Good as a portable DVD player (with better stereo effect since the speakers could be farther apart), good for spreadsheets, good for displaying a second browser window, etc. Good idea? Nightmare for Windows drivers? Does anyone want anything like this?"

bitty writes: "This article over at CNET is yet more proof that filtering content to 'protect your children' just isn't the answer." This is interesting - it's talking about Cyber Patrol's "white list," which is a deliberately-selected set of appropriate sites. If there is this kind of bias in their white list, what's lurking in their black list? We may never know, because it's (apparently) illegal to look at it.

Andy Social writes, "Just saw a Wired article that tells more of the current administration's approach to online privacy. A DOJ commission that President Clinton requested a few months ago seems ready to publish their report and recommends that the U.S. find ways to trace all Internet access..." Another interesting article from Declan McCullagh. Personally, I became a believer in online anonymity while talking to a friend who used to maintain the alt.sexual.abuse.recovery FAQ. Some things are important. Update: 03/06 12:55 by J : Here's the report itself.

drydorn writes "Today, distributed.net will officially begin its next distributed computing project. Visit their Optimal Golomb Rulers project page for more details. Their first ruler length will be 24 marks, known in D.net lingo as OGR-24. " And, remember, your mantra: I must sign up for Slashdot Team. I must crack keys. You can grab your client here, which includes documentation on installation, what clients do, etc. etc.

Last month I shared with you some news about the pressure to install blocking software on the Holland library's Internet terminals. I promised to dive into the trenches of the struggle, and report occasionally to Slashdot on what was happening. There's been a lot to report, but more to do. Over the next two weeks I'll catch you up on what's been happening. Today, a peek into the heart of the matter: an open letter to the local Family Research Council, on the flaws of their favorite software. Click for more.

Last Wednesday, the library board opened up its auditorium for two and a half hours for three presentations on blocking software. The local branch of the FRC went first and put SurfWatch through its paces. They showed an unfiltered Internet on the left, SurfWatch on the right, and demonstrated how a search on "breast cancer" was successfully not blocked. Then they put child pornography on the wall of the library auditorium, demonstrating what SurfWatch would block.

For my presentation, I had brought a computer, but asked them if they would mind my demonstrating the software's flaws on their own laptop, to show I had not misconfigured anything. They agreed.

I spent much of my presentation talking about the size of the Internet and why most blocking was done by robots. Then I spent several minutes just listing some of the sites found blocked in some of our earlier studies at the Censorware Project.

Then I turned to the keyboard to illustrate some bad blocks. I ran out of time before getting to most of them. Some I did show but so quickly that many of those watching may not have realized what was going on.

Afterwards, Kimberley Fraser, who gave the Family Research Council presentation, asked me about some of what I'd said. I ended up asking her if I could respond to her in the form of an open letter. She agreed.

Below is that letter.

Dear Ms. Fraser,

As you know, at Herrick District Library last Wednesday night, your group gave a demonstration of SurfWatch's successes and then I showed some of its failures. I went through these failures rather quickly and didn't give the audience much of a chance to see the details of what I was doing.

You asked afterwards if I could provide verification of some of these points of failure, and I am delighted to do so.

First of all, regarding the colossal list of wrongly-blocked sites that I spent so much of my presentation reading, please consult our Web site. These wrong blocks were found in our reports on five other popular blocking packages: X-Stop, Cyber Patrol, WebSENSE, X-Stop again, SmartFilter, and Bess. You will find these reports at http://censorware.org/reports/.

There was some confusion in the question-and-answer period about whether these wrongly-blocked sites were also blocked by SurfWatch. Surely not all, and I have no reason to believe very many of them, are still blocked by SurfWatch or any other software. As I explained, when wrong blocks are publicized, they are usually unblocked quickly to minimize bad press.

Now, regarding the errors of SurfWatch itself. Note that some of its past errors are cataloged at http://peacefire.org/censorware/SurfWatch/. I am not sure whether I found time to describe those erroneous blocks or not.

In any case, here is information that hadn't been reported before. The following are all sites which I had prepared for Wednesday night, not all of which I was able to demonstrate. Please consult with your technical staff and confirm that each of these URLs and searches is wrongly blocked using the same category ("Sex") that you use in your tests and that you would recommend for public libraries.

http://www.gaydaze.com/sstory/curfantasy.html
"Daisies for my Wife," by Harold Roppers, a science fiction short story.

http://censorware.org/essays/sex_lies_jt.html
"Sex, Lies, and Censorware," an essay by my colleague Jim Tyre that is critical of SurfWatch.

http://intertain.com/store/browse.html
The bookstore at Intertain.com. Starting from that Web page, click "Browse," then "Love, Sex and Marriage." All categories of books on that page, 600 books total, are blocked, including books on domestic violence, natural childbirth, and African-American families.

http://www.wap.org/ifaq/sex/marriage.html
"Marriage." A humorous look at marriage through the eyes of children.

http://netdetours.com/archive/sex.html
"Sex and Politics: A historical look at affairs of state." A comparison of the Clinton sex scandal to scandals of other historical figures.

http://www.wwf.org/galapagos/booby.htm
The World Wildlife Foundation maintains information about the animals found on the Galapagos islands. SurfWatch refuses to let us read about the Blue-Footed Booby.

Searches on the following phrases are blocked, on (almost) any search engine:

safe oral sex
testicle cancer
sexually abstain
abstain from sex
sexual abstinence
no sex
Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (book title)
Smart Sex (book title, safe sex guide)
Voyeurism in the French Novel (book title)
Save Sex (title of both book and FRC poster campaign)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/013000tv-voyeurism.html
"Television's New Voyeurism Pictures Real-Life Intimacy." The New York Times looks at shows like "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire." (In the question-and-answer period, one gentleman suggested that this page was blocked for a suggestive photo that appeared in the print edition of the Times. Please confirm that the Web page has no photo.)

http://www.rainbow.ch/chribru/chris/odonnell.htm
A Chris O'Donnell fan page.

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Spa/6834/
"Alternative Healing Resources: A Reference Guide for Balancing Your Mind, Body, and Spirit."

http://www.lesbigay.com/equal_rights/equality.html
"The Equality Project: Dedicated to promoting education and acceptance of all genders, sexualities, races, and religions."

http://www.magiccarpet.com/%7ecgrafe/diamondgallery/
"Diamond Gallery Sports Cards." Baseball and football cards for sale or trade.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Crime/Crimes/Sex_Crimes/Child_Pornography/
Four of the thirteen anti-child pornography sites listed on Yahoo are blocked. "All Against Child Pornography," "Anti Pedophile Network", "Adult Sites Against Child Pornography," and "Defence for Children International."

http://cnn.com/starr.report/
The Starr Report, in every place it appears on the Internet (this URL is just one example).

http://afa.net/Pornography/pornography.html
And finally, the American Family Association, which launched the pro-blocking-software initiative in Holland, is blocked.

I believe your technical staff will confirm what I have found to be true: that all of these are blocked as pornography by your software. Please let me know what your team says. Thank you.

Jamie McCarthy
jamie@slashdot.org

Carnage4Life writes "ZDNet has an article on the viability of Linux as the future belle of embedded OSes. It quotes Linus as mentioning the fact that since license fees are free and developer support is relatively abundant, Linux is a prime candidate for startups creating Web appliances and the like. It lists Sony's, tiVo, Lineo, Transmeta, Intel and national Semiconductor as major industry players who are embracing embedded Linux. "

PsyMaster writes "I found this article over at PalmStation. There's a dude who made a Palm case out of rosewood. There are some great pics and the person even changed his stylus to be wood-covered. I wondered if it was a simulated wood initially, but you can definitely see the real wood scratches. Very cool."

Tirisfal writes "The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nanovation Technologies Inc. today announced plans to establish a world-class center dedicated to the research and prototyping of photonic technologies, a 21st-century field that will make communications hundreds of times faster. Check out the press release here."

Faré writes "It looks like a hole in the GNU GPL [may allow] people to practically turn GNU-free software into proprietary software, in as much as licenses are granted collectively rather than strictly individually. See the recent discussion thread on the cybernethics mailing-list. If collective licenses are enforceable, then there's nothing left to the GNU GPL (or any free software license); if so, I'll go to the bugroff license." Faré, who submitted this, is one of the main participants in the referenced discussion. Richard M. Stallman is another. They raise some interesting points. And the "bugroff license" is a hoot! An apology from Roblimo follows; click below to read it.

Public Apology

I posted this piece because I felt Faré raised some subtle but interesting ethical and legal points about the GPL that were worth discussion and clarification. I honestly did not expect to get flamed over my decision to post his submission.

I believe that software licenses and documentation, like software itself, should be discussed as openly and publicly as possible so that bugs can be exposed and repaired. However, words (especially legal words) are far more slippery than code. With words the question, "Is this a bug?" is often far harder to answer than it is in software.

But I was wrong to post this to Slashdot, which is obviously not an appropriate forum for discussion of subtle ethical matters, and it is apparent that any mention of even a hint of a possible tiny imperfection in the GPL does not belong here, and that anyone who dares to mention any such thing on this website must expect - and probably deserves - a series of harsh, even obscene, personal attacks instead of rational rebukes or comments.

Please accept my humble apology. I was wrong. I will try not to make the mistake of posting anything even remotely like this on Slashdot ever again.

- Robin

Update: 01/18 01:37 by CT :Another Public Apology I apologize for Robin's "Humble" apology. Robin posts many good stories on Slashdot, but sometimes when he gets flamed, he takes it very personally. The reality is that every author on Slashdot gets a big load of flame every day as part of their job. They get this for mistakes, misunderstandings, or just because someone had a crappy day. Those of us who have been at it for a long time just don't care any more.

I think Slashdot is a fine forum for arguing subtle points. I just think that when things like the GPL come into question, the hostile kneejerk reactions run rampant, and its a good idea to up your threshold a notch if you prefer a conversation to be a little more mature.

- CmdrTaco

Carnage4Life writes "The FCC is beginning to get impatient with the cable TV industry and television manufacturers for not getting digital TV out to consumers more quickly. In an interesting speech delivered at the CES on Friday the FCC chairman explains that the FCC is reluctant to dictate standards to the industry but will do so if no consensus on standards is reached by April."

rawlink writes "Corel has announced that they are working w/ GraphOn to support their Bridges client software on Corel Linux. This will allow the Linux client to access Windows apps over a network connection, much the same way that Citrix does." I hope this won't be too expensive; it could instantly enlighten the minds of a lot of people wondering what the next OS for their LAN should be...

The_Borg writes "Nice little piece in the OttawaCitizen about the pioneers of Amiga and what they are doing now, as well as a few details of how Microsoft tried to sink them. "

Quite a number of you out there are into Lego Mindstorms, as evidenced by the number of book reviews that have been sent my way. Below are a couple of reviews, one from Kurt DeMaagd and the other from Will Ware. Click below to get their take on the O'Reilly book The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots. The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots author Jonathan B. Knudsen pages 247 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 9/10 reviewer Will Ware & Kurt DeMaagd ISBN 1-56592-692-7 summary Get the most out of your Lego Mindstorms The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots Review by Will Ware

Last year, Lego released their Mindstorms Robotics Invention System. Using this, children and adults can build simple robots whose behavior can be programmed. The Mindstorms system is a major contender for Coolest Toy on the Planet.

The system contains a RCX programmable brick containing an H8/300 microcontroller, some pushbuttons, a little LCD display, and connectors for motors and sensors (light and physical contact). The user writes a program using a graphical programming language on his Windows box, and downloads it to the RCX via infrared.

Not surprisingly, substantial reverse engineering (1, 2) has been done by hobbyists, and it is possible to develop Mindstorms programs on a Linux box and to download the RCX brick from Linux.

Now O'Reilly has joined the Mindstorms fray, with a book full of fun and useful information about how to build and program Mindstorms robots. The book describes four different robots: Hank is a bumper car robot, Trusty uses light sensors to follow a line along the floor, Minerva has a movable arm, and two identical robots play a game called RoboTag. Along the way, the author discusses the physics and mechanics of robots, programming issues, and the available development environments for Mindstorms.

What's Good? There are detailed building instructions for each of the robots, showing photos at various stages of construction. The designs are simple and appear mechanically sound. There are discussion of the physics and mechanics of tank treads, steering, gears, and other things.

The book's chapters sequentially step through several different software development environments. The first chapter starts with the Windows-based RIS environment that comes on the Mindstorms CDROM. Later chapters give programming examples for NQC (Not Quite C), pbFORTH, Visual Basic, and the legOS operating system, which uses an EGCS cross-compiler to target the H8/300. There are more development platforms available, but these give a good sense of what's possible in Mindstorms programming.

The book has dozens of useful URLs, for both official Mindstorm sites and unofficial hobbyist sites. I particularly liked the fact that the author was aware of some of the recent research in robotics. For instance there is some discussion of Rodney Brooks' subsumption architecture, which is used for the RoboTag robots.

Later chapters of the book often expand on designs from earlier chapters, building more sophistocated robots in an accessible, incremental fashion. For the more adventurous hobbyist, the final chapter talks about building your own sensors and actuators, and how to connect them to the RCX.

What's Bad? Some of the photos are too dark and lack contrast. It would also have been nice if the photography had been in color, but black-and-white photos kept the book more affordable.

This book is for the casual weekend robot-building tinkerer, and it never promised to discuss real-time embedded issues in depth. Still, a few topics might have merited at least brief mention. Systems with real-time multitasking must frequently arrange for synchronization and communication between tasks, using mutexes and mailboxes and the like, which brings the possibility of deadlocked processes. Another danger is that an aggressively efficient compiler will sometimes optimize away reads and writes to hardware registers. The fix is to declare such registers with the volatile keyword.

Review by Kurt DeMaagd

While Lego Mindstorms were officially released for a teenage crowd, they have become popular with a wide variety of technically competent people in many age groups. This widespread fascination has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for using Mindstorms. At the same time, the documentation and tutorial included with the Lego kits provide very little information about how to get the most out of the sets. This book fills the void by providing several start-to-finish robot designs, software to run them, and a wealth of other tips and tricks.

After a brief introduction to robotics and how Legos fit in, the author discusses the basics of using Mindstorms to create them. Both chapters present a problem, provide step by step building instructions, provide the necessary information to program the solution, and finally go into greater detail about the Lego features used to solve the particular problem.

While the chapters did an excellent job of presenting this information in general, they fell victim to a problem that would plague the entire book: some of the building diagrams were nigh unto unreadable. Attempting to build a robot based on fuzzy black and white photographs can be quite a chore. Fortunately, none of the robots were so complex that they robots were completely unbuildable.

The first few chapters presented robots programmed with the default RIS programming environment. In chapter four and following, he shows how to program using languages such as Not Quite C, Forth, Sprit.ocx for Visual Basic--or optionally Visual C++ or another ActiveX-aware language--and legOS. Since much of these sections was documenting API's, it was certainly not the most exciting read, but it does provide concise, easily to reference documentation.

Not Quite C, as the name implies, is a C-like language that can be used to program Mindstorms robots. It overcomes many of the limitations of the default RIS programming environment, most notably the lack of variables. One of its biggest advantages is that it does not require the user to install a new version of the firmware on their RCX unit. In general, it provides an excellent balance between power and usability.

The remaining three means of programming presented in the book are fairly mediocre options. PbForth requires the user to download a new firmware version, and the language itself is very archaic in modern software development terms. Using Sprit.ocx is a viable option for people used to programming in Visual Basic or Visual C++, but the control structures are very clunky and non-intuitive. legOS, while it is probably the most powerful option, takes a significant amount of time to set up and develop applications with.

Two of the projects referenced while discussing the various programming languages were particularly interesting, both of which outlined infrared communication. The first program creates a simple remote control for controlling a robot via the IR port on the RCX. The other example, perhaps the most interesting in the book, was creating two robots who played tag with each other. These two robots also communicated with each other via their IR ports.

The last chapter, targetted toward the hard core Mindstorms users outlined how to create additional sensors for Mindstorms. It sketched out such possibilities as a passive light sensor, a Hall effect sensor (magnetic fields), and a touch multiplexor (allowing you to have more touch sensors than normally allowed on the RCS unit).

In general, the book provides a vast array building and programming tips, tricks, and methods. He gives basic information for the person who is just starting, and introduces the advanced user to the vast network of people and product that have made Mindstorms far more than a child's toy.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

Table of Contents

• Preface

• 1. Welcome to MINDSTORMS
• What is a Robot?
• Mobile Robots
• What is MINDSTORMS?
• What Now?
• Online Resources

• 2. Hank, the Bumper Tank
• About the Building Instructions
• Building Instructions
• A Simple Program
• Wheels
• Bumpers and Feelers
• Gears
• Multitasking
• Online Resources

• 3. Trusty, a Line Follower
• Building Instructions
• Some Tricky Programming
• The Light Sensor
• Idler Wheels
• Using Two Light Sensors
• Online Resources

• 4. Not Quite C
• A Quick Start
• RCX Software Architecture
• NQC Overview
• Trusty Revisited
• Online Resources

• 5. Minverva, a Robot with an Arms
• Building Instructions
• Programming
• Directional Transmission
• Pulleys
• Mechanical Design
• Two Sensors, One Input
• Where am I?
• Online Resources

• 6. PbFORTH
• Replacement Firmware
• pbForth Overview
• About Forth
• pbFORTH Words
• An Expensive Thermometer
• Minerva Revisited
• Debugging
• Online Resources

• 7. A Remote Control for Minerva
• Two Heads are Better Than One
• The Allure of Telerobotics
• Building Instructions
• Programming the Remote Control
• Programming Minerva
• Online Resources

• 8. Using Sprit.ocx with Visual Basic
• You May Already Have Visual Basic
• About Spirit.ocx
• Calling Spirit.ocx
• Immediate and Delayed Gratification
• Programs, Tasks, and Subroutines
• Tips
• Retrieveing the Datalog
• Online Resources

• 9. RoboTag, a Game for Two Robots
• Building Instructions
• Subsumption Architecture
• Online Resources

• 10. LegOS
• About legOS
• Development Tools
• Hello, legOS
• Function Reference
• New Brains for Hank
• Development Tips
• Online Resources

• 11. Make Your Own Sensors
• Mounting
• Passive Sensors
• Powered Sensors
• Touch Multiplexer
• Other Neat Ideas
• What About Actuators?
• Online Resources

• A. Finding Parts and Programming Environments

• B. A pbFORTH Downloader

• C. Future Directions

• Index

Being the history major that I was, I was happy when Joe Mahoney offered to review Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger's new book The Year 1000 - What life was like at the turn of the first millennium. Looks back at a year in the life of a common Englishman, circa 1000 AD, in a very entertaining and informative way. The Year 1000 - What life was like at the turn of the first mil author Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger pages 230 publisher Little Brown & Company, 02/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Joe Mahoney ISBN 0316558400 summary Fascinating glimpse at the world and life of an Englishman in the Year 1000. The Scenario I found The Year 1000 whilst browsing the shelves of the bookstore across the road from work. With all the hype and speculation about the new millennium and the infamous Y2K bug, the title grabbed my attention straight away. The subject matter also appealled to my inner-geek: what was life like in Y1K? What technology did they have? What didn't they have yet? How did the average Joe make a gold coin? What did the beer taste like back then? All important questions I'm sure you'll agree.

What's Good? The whole book is good. It answered all my questions, asked me a few more and answered those as well. Lacey and Danziger have based the book on a thousand year old document called the Julius Work Calendar. The first chapter of The Year 1000 describes the technology used to create such documents and how it has been preserved over the centuries.

With one chapter devoted to each month of the year, the narrative is based on illustrations gathered from the Julius Work Calendar. Where an picture shows men working in the fields, Lacey and Danziger discuss the importance of the harvest, and the general diet of an Anglo-Saxon family. A picture showing a man stealing planks introduces a chapter on crime and punishment in a time when technology hadn't advanced far enough to build reliable prisons.

There is also an interesting discussion about whether the common person was worried about their new millenium. The Venerable Bede had popularised the date system we use today in the 700s, so people actually knew about it. There was also a variation of the Y2K bug we have today: Arabic numerals and technology such as the Abacus were not popular yet, and those who could do arithmetic used Roman numberals. Try multiplying MCXIV by CXCIX in your head. According to The Year 1000:

The scholar Alucin said that 9,000 should be regarded as the upper limit beyound which figuring was not possible, and when that was written out as MMMMMMMMM one could understand what he means.
(Page 191)

The authors cover a wide range of topics from weapons technology to Anglo-Saxon medicine to religion to the discovery of the new world by Leif Eriksson. Whether you're a history buff or not, you won't get lost or confused reading this book. The style of writing is very accessible and you can easily read a couple of chapters in a luch break, which is how I did it.

What's Bad? These are not so much bad things as "I wish there were more things". The Year 1000 only covers Anglo-Saxon England. You will find a little information about the Vikings and the Normans, but that's all. The authors never set out to show their readers a picture of the whole world and the sub-sub title of the book is An Englisman's World.

Fortunately Lacey and Danziger provide a bibliography and source notes for those who want to find out more. I'm certainly going to finding out a bit more about Europe and Arabia.

So What's In It For Me? The Year 1000 will appeal to a wide audience. If you like reading about the past, or enjoy finding out the origins of technology, society or language, or if you just want to put the current millennium hype into perspective, this book is for you.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

Table of Contents

1. The Julius Work Calendar - The Wonder of Survival
2. January - For All the Saints
3. February - Welcome to Enga-lond
4. March - Heads for Food
5. April - Feasting
6. May - Wealth and Wool
7. June - Life in Town
8. July - The Hungry Gap
9. August - Remedies
10. September - Pagans and Pannage
11. October - War Games
12. November - Females and the Price of Fondling
13. December - The End of Things, or a New Beginning?
14. The English Spirit
15. Acknowledgements
16. Bibliography
17. Source Notes
18. Index

Being the history major that I was, I was happy when Joe Mahoney offered to review Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger's new book The Year 1000 - What life was like at the turn of the first millennium. Looks back at a year in the life of a common Englishman, circa 1000 AD, in a very entertaining and informative way. The Year 1000 - What life was like at the turn of the first mil author Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger pages 230 publisher Little Brown & Company, 02/1999 rating 8/10 reviewer Joe Mahoney ISBN 0316558400 summary Fascinating glimpse at the world and life of an Englishman in the Year 1000. The Scenario I found The Year 1000 whilst browsing the shelves of the bookstore across the road from work. With all the hype and speculation about the new millennium and the infamous Y2K bug, the title grabbed my attention straight away. The subject matter also appealled to my inner-geek: what was life like in Y1K? What technology did they have? What didn't they have yet? How did the average Joe make a gold coin? What did the beer taste like back then? All important questions I'm sure you'll agree.

What's Good? The whole book is good. It answered all my questions, asked me a few more and answered those as well. Lacey and Danziger have based the book on a thousand year old document called the Julius Work Calendar. The first chapter of The Year 1000 describes the technology used to create such documents and how it has been preserved over the centuries.

With one chapter devoted to each month of the year, the narrative is based on illustrations gathered from the Julius Work Calendar. Where an picture shows men working in the fields, Lacey and Danziger discuss the importance of the harvest, and the general diet of an Anglo-Saxon family. A picture showing a man stealing planks introduces a chapter on crime and punishment in a time when technology hadn't advanced far enough to build reliable prisons.

There is also an interesting discussion about whether the common person was worried about their new millenium. The Venerable Bede had popularised the date system we use today in the 700s, so people actually knew about it. There was also a variation of the Y2K bug we have today: Arabic numerals and technology such as the Abacus were not popular yet, and those who could do arithmetic used Roman numberals. Try multiplying MCXIV by CXCIX in your head. According to The Year 1000:

The scholar Alucin said that 9,000 should be regarded as the upper limit beyound which figuring was not possible, and when that was written out as MMMMMMMMM one could understand what he means.
(Page 191)

The authors cover a wide range of topics from weapons technology to Anglo-Saxon medicine to religion to the discovery of the new world by Leif Eriksson. Whether you're a history buff or not, you won't get lost or confused reading this book. The style of writing is very accessible and you can easily read a couple of chapters in a luch break, which is how I did it.

What's Bad? These are not so much bad things as "I wish there were more things". The Year 1000 only covers Anglo-Saxon England. You will find a little information about the Vikings and the Normans, but that's all. The authors never set out to show their readers a picture of the whole world and the sub-sub title of the book is An Englisman's World.

Fortunately Lacey and Danziger provide a bibliography and source notes for those who want to find out more. I'm certainly going to finding out a bit more about Europe and Arabia.

So What's In It For Me? The Year 1000 will appeal to a wide audience. If you like reading about the past, or enjoy finding out the origins of technology, society or language, or if you just want to put the current millennium hype into perspective, this book is for you.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

Table of Contents

1. The Julius Work Calendar - The Wonder of Survival
2. January - For All the Saints
3. February - Welcome to Enga-lond
4. March - Heads for Food
5. April - Feasting
6. May - Wealth and Wool
7. June - Life in Town
8. July - The Hungry Gap
9. August - Remedies
10. September - Pagans and Pannage
11. October - War Games
12. November - Females and the Price of Fondling
13. December - The End of Things, or a New Beginning?
14. The English Spirit
15. Acknowledgements
16. Bibliography
17. Source Notes
18. Index

Bargearse writes "There's been plenty of GL ports of Doom, Heretic, etc., but this is the first one of Wolfenstein 3D (one of the best games of all time, IMO). Good thing is that there's a Linux version as well as a Windows one." Wolfenstein was the first time I really thought 386s were cool 'cuz it ran so much better on them then my 286/12. What a classic game. Someone get it in non-free please? ;)

Let's get the serious stuff out of the way: chrisd put up a survey to track what trade shows Linux Coders think are a good idea to go to. With the proliferation of cons, its nice to know what ones matter. Oh, and if you're looking for beer, you should try Heineken's BarTrek. its a PDA proggie with maps to bars and reviews of beer. And if you have GPS, it'll even lead you to it. My guess is after a few beers, it better be a really user friendly app or you might wind up in a desert or something. k-rist sent us linkage to Pulp Simpsons! which I highly recommend. An anonymous reader pointed us to a 15 pound Millenium Falcon made of legos. CK-2 pointed us to what looks like the most impressive real life light saber money can buy. dave pointed us to the site worth it. notjenni, a parody of jennicam. An AC pointed us to a Swedish site has a photo of the Daytrading Yucca plant. This plant is wired up to a computer to trade on the Swedish stock market in response to its electrical activity. If it makes a profit it is rewarded with water and light, if it makes a loss it is unwatered and sits in the dark. The plant has made an 18 percent profit in the last three months! God I hope this is true ;) Effugas pointed us to a pretty good parody of the Matrix. regs pointed us to MonkeyBagel which outta win an award for something. I don't really know what tho. Random merchandising: at0m noted that Copyleft now has Slashdot polos in grey and green. Finally, what would quickies be without some porn? Tolath sent us something graphic... if you happen to be an electrical cord.

jyang writes " Performance Computing has this December article: 'The world might seem to run on UNIX, but it wasn't always so. Readers opine on the best moments of everyone's favorite OS.'" Well, among all those "end of the century" lists, we finally found a worthwhile one. ;-)

Foaf writes "According to his activity log, Miguel of Gnome and Gnumeric fame is quitting his university job and moving to the US to provide 'kick-ass applications for users all around the globe.' " And, yes, now I can rest easy knowing that Miguel will be unfettered in his attempts to consume all of the world's coffee *grin*. Seriously, this is the continuation of a wonderful trend - more time developing Linux applications is good for everyone.

Lots and lots of Slashdot readers have either sent in this ZDNet article or a direct link to the Jesux homepage." It's a hoax, folks. Think: if you were a Christian believer, would you name your Linux distribution something so close to "Jesus Sucks?" The concept isn't even original; variations on this theme have been floating around the Net for years because of Unix and its "kills" and "aborts" and "daemons."

PapaZit writes "Students in Ruston, Louisiana are being forced to wear ID badges that include their Social Security Numbers in barcode form. The encoding format is simple enough that students have been reading the SSNs of other students, teachers, and administrators, and they're threatening to publish this information if they're not granted a more private ID system. " Granted, students all across the US are being forced to wear ID tags - but this is one of the most egregious ones I've heard about yet.

I_redwolf writes "Recently I brought a TV card for Linux...specifically the Avermedia98 card which is supported by bttv. The thing is that bttv detects my card, which I am pleased with but I can't get any TV program to work with it. The screen just stays black: no sound, no video but my card is detected properly. So then I'm thinking "Oh yeah stupid you're using accelx". So I recompile bttv with -DNODGA; still nothing. Does anyone have any clue on how I can get the avermedia 98 card working? I went to Avermedia's Home Page and asked them for help but haven't gotten any response as of yet and its been (over) 4 days. I don't know. Any ideas, suggestions, or FAQs? "

biggaloot writes "This contraption for computing from your favorite recliner is pretty tempting. Spring for the plush his and hers loveseat with built-in cooler and you'll seldom have to stand up. " I'm exceptionally amused that the model in the picture is wearing sweatpants.

Occasionally someone submits a feature that really raises my eyebrow. Jack William Bell did just that by submitting 'Open Source as an Ant Farm'. Its a really interesting piece that talks about code as art, and much more. Its quite funny, and its got a lot to think about. Click now, you won't regret it. Open Source as an Ant Farm by Jack William Bell

Where Open Source is concerned, hyperbole from the digerteratti hype meisters proliferates nearly as quickly as the hyperlinks they hype. Let's face it -- Clapton has been deposed; Linus Torvalds is now God. And those pundits shouting his divinity the loudest can^Òt even tell a stack register from a walrus. I wonder if Jesus had the same problem?

This constant lionizing of Linus is getting on my nerves. I mean, he is probably a great guy and all (if you know what I mean), but a great man? Usually you wait until people are safely dead (and unable to further embarrass themselves) before heaping those kinds of laurels on their heads. If I was he I would start worrying about that strange human proclivity for taking our living idols down a notch once in a while. Or even nailing them to a tree. Not to mention burning at the stake, drawing and quartering and satirizin g on TV.

But I knew things were getting ridiculous this last week when I saw three different weblogs pointing to the same dumb article using variations on the same dumb caption: 'Open Source as an Art Form' . I mean come on, just because a bunch of nutzoid art types gives Torvalds an award for Linux doesn't mean that an operating system or a development model is art! Yeesh!

Not that I don't think of programming as art mind you. After all I am a programmer myself and I often like to compare what I do to the creation of art. A kind of raw industrial art perpetuated underneath the digital world by Morlo cks like myself while the Eloi cavort on the surface, unaware of the immense complexity (and fragility) of their world. In other words code is art, but it is exclusionist art. No more approachable to the everyday person than a Jackson Pollock work. And twice as incomprehensible!

After all if everyone could do it, it wouldn't be art, would it? It would be just another craft. And if everyone could appreciate good code the way I appreciate the Impressionists then it would be 'Classical' (read 'Dead') Art. Not something alive and thriving. Bubbling and fermenting and making funny smells the way the process of hacking out good code does.

But, you say, it is being appreciated just as you would like! After all, isn't that what the award was all about?

Well, no frankly. Not even close. In my opinion if you can't write good code you can't appreciate good code. At the most you can only appreciate the end result, the compiled program. And, while some programs are definitely 'art' in their own right, many others cannot be described as such based on their even visible-to-the-user external features. And Linux, while a work of art in my programmer eyes, is really just a kernel. A piece of code that, if everything is working right, the user will never see directly. Some of my peers would agree with this. Some will not. As always opinions are all over the map...

One poster on Slashdot tried to have it both ways when he opined "Which part of the programming is the art? Is it the code, neatly formatted, with creative comments and clever algorithms or is it the finished product? When you look at 'art' in a museum, all you see is the finished product . . . So which is the art? The code or the program? I personally think it's the program, and beautiful programs usually have very nice/efficient/clean code."

While another lamented "When the New Yorker compares Open Source to the Algonquin roundtable, the seventh seal will be complete and Microsoft will be free to release Windows 2000."

And another asks "So how is this art going to be displayed? Will art galleries have framed printouts of C code, or will they just give out Linux CDs?"

How indeed? Well, if you read the dumb article I mentioned above you will find the author's thesis is that neither the source code nor the compiled Linux kernel code is the issue, rather the art in question is the Open Source development model that built it! He bases this proposition the following facts:

• China Youth Daily used the Microsoft consternation over Open Source for propaganda purposes.
• The Open Source development model (as described by Eric Raymond) is about cooperation and participation.
• Indian Potlatches were about cooperation and participation.
• The Surrealists did some stuff that involved cooperation and participation.
• A lot of twentieth century art uses 'quotation' (like painting soup cans or sampling 1970's Rock and Roll for Rap music) and 'quotation' is kind of like Open Source, isn't it?
• John Myatt's art forgery scam was kind of like 'quotation' too! And it was kind of like art as well
• When some people share a pseudonym to do wacky performance art, and then someone else uses the same nom de plume to crack a web site or to write an on-line 'tag-team' novel you have cooperation and participation and quotation and propaganda all rolled into one, with an Internet connection as a sweetener!

My first thought on reading the article was "Huh?" Then I reread and listed the salient points above and reiterated "Huh?"

Clearly Harvey Blume isn't a programmer. If he was I wouldn't trust him to code a 'for' loop based on his demonstrated grasp of simple logic. Nonetheless if he had simply stated that Open Source programming with the Bazaar model is 'Art' because he says it was art I would have much less to quibble with. After all art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Only he didn't. Instead he chose to defend his allegation using arguments that indicate he doesn't understand anything about the subject. In other words, I cannot say Mr. Blume is wrong, but I can state with near certainty that he is the wrong person to make the claim. He might be right, but for the wrong reasons.

So, assuming you can call a development model an art form -- how do you hang it on the wall? I would argue that it is already there. The main point about Open Source is that it is (wait for it) . . . OPEN! Duh^Å Unlike 'Closed' development the source code is available for all to see. And often the discussions between developers are available as well, archived on one list server or another. In the Internet sense you can't get up against the wall any more that that!

But what does the average art lover see hanging there? Open Source as an Art Form? I think not. More like Open Source as an Ant Farm! At most they will get a glimpse of we scurrying workers as we toil underground. But they will never, ever understand. As I said before, I am OK with that.

Non programmer types can present art awards for Linux or even Sendmail if they like, but it doesn't signify to me. In my opinion these awards mean nothing until they are given by someone who understands why the jargon file definition of 'Recursion' is funny. Until then I would rather they just threw money. Wouldn't you?

akey writes "According to this CNN article, NASA engineers test fired a new hybrid rocket motor. It's not as combustible on its own as conventional solid-fuel motors, and much less expensive than liquid engines, and allegedly produces fewer noxious emissions than solid-fuel motors. An added bonus is that for the motor to burn, an oxidizing agent must be continuously injected -- unlike other solid-fuel motors, it can be turned off after ignition if necessary. It won't be ready for use on a scale for the Space Shuttle for a few years yet, but it's showing promise. "

Daveguy wrote to us with the news about Hummingbird has entered into a relationship with Caldera for both marketing and strategic development. Very cool-Hummingbird is going to be working with them on Exceed; HostExplorer; NFS Maestro Server, NFS Maestro Client, NFS Maestro Gateway and NFS Maestro Solo, all for more support Linux.

ulissesr asks: "Hi there! I just bought SuSE Linux v6.1 featuring linux 2.2.7 and had no problems installing it. My problem is my ISDN adapator, which is a pcbit-d by Octal! I just haven't found a way to get it to work with the new kernel or could it be the new ipppd verion? Can some good soul point me to a dial-up script for ipppd with PAP authentication?"

l'Abruti writes "Can't wait to get your hands on a Playstation 2? Well, take a look at a picture of the beast and the Emotion Engine processor specifications while you wait. "

Andrew Bednarz writes "How many people are aware of what The Tetris Company is doing? They're claiming they own copyright on "the look and feel and trade dress" of Tetris. They are attempting to remove all unauthorised tetris games!" Considering that there are dozens of tetris clones (many distributed under the GPL) I suspect their quest is futile. I'm not sure how I feal about this one. Their claim is probably legit, and the above story compares this to the industry allowing only one game in a genre, but tetris is tetris- its not a block game genre, its a specific game with rules we are all familiar with. Different side scrollers have different rules. Hmm. Wierd case. What do you think?

Crocodile wrote in to say that x11amp 0.9 alpha2 is out for those of you MP3 junkies out there. Remember that article awhile back about the pictures from Pi? JHoyt sent us a link to a script fu script that will do it. Neato. Infinite background possibilities. Jeff Davis sent us a link to Beowulf Underground, a new news site for those interested in news revolving around Beowulf Linux Clusters. From the random Slashdot Mainstream References box, we've got a bit Stephen Horne sent at ABC News article on the Windows Refunds. Yippee. Now that the boring old serious stuff is out of the way, let's take a break.

Ok, that's enough. Now some funny stuff to help end your day on a good note. The Cunctator sent us link that can only be described as the hamster dance. GloiDemon sent us a link to DrZaius.com, a new humor site. How can you resist Dr Zaius? Phil Gregory sent us a link to a Segfaultstory called the Gospel of Tux. Check it out. Rishi Hemrajani sent us a link to a book that everyone should own. I think we posted this a few months ago, but it warrants a rerun.

Hamlet Batista writes "Last time checked at 1:30 on 21 December 1998, the beta version of RedHat's Linux Intel distribution included KDE-1.1pre packages. This is very good news for Red Hat Linux users. Welcome, Red Hat. "