Slashdot Mirror

entrox writes: "Paul Graham made his infamous book On Lisp available as PostScript on the web. The book is out of print and the queues for used copies on Amazon are pretty big, so this comes as a godsent for every Lisp programmer and people who would like to take a look at some neat features of Lisp. What sets this book apart is that it doesn't focus on things you could do in other languages, but rather on more extravagant techniques like making the language suit your application and not the other way around."

slander writes "I have in my shelves a secondhand, bent-folded-stapled-and-mutilated copy of "Numerical Recipies". Thinking I could do better, I googled a little to find Numerical Recipies in the Universal Library. A very neat nerdy resource indeed. Slashdot's attention was drawn by a re-release of MathWorld in Nov 2001. What other dead-tree classics are hiding out there?"

ofels writes: "In the discussion of replacing the outdated Windows NT machines in the german Bundestag with open source based software, the german social democratic party (SPD), currently in charge of government, has opened up an online discussion channel for opinions on working with open source and Linux. Make sure you walk by and make your voice heard."

Rabenwolf writes: "In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the first ISP (ISIS Multimedia) has given in to pressure from the state government and has started to block foreign websites with supposedly "illegal content" by changing the corresponding DNS entries. ISIS customers trying to access these sites are redirected to the website of the local government. ISPs in North Rhine-Westphalia will have to pay a fine if they continue to provide access to sites with "illegal content" through their DNS servers. It's not as bad as China or Saudi-Arabia, but it makes you think... An article from the heise newsticker is here, and if you don't sprechen Deutsch, Google might help." Update: 11/22 15:23 GMT by T : As sqrt points out, this report is misleading: "A single technican altered the DNS Entries to demonstrate it is possible. His changes were already reversed. Heise already posted a new story about this today."

Michiel writes: "This site, dedicated to the salvage of the Kursk by Mammoet Smit, announced today that the Kursk has been lifted from the seabed and is currently on it's way towards surface. The Giant 4 (which is lifting the Kursk) is at the same time already heading to Murmansk. Mamoet Smit expects to reach Murmansk Monday morning. More information about the Kursk (and its salvage) can be found at Strana" You might to revisit this post about just how the lifting is done as well.

Moritz Moeller - Her writes: "Evidently Adobe -- yes the Adobe that has not ported a single application apart from its PDF Reader to Linux -- sees a threat in KDE. They claim that the Koffice vector based drawing program Killustrator violates their trademark for Adobe Illustrator. Here is the mail on koffice-devel. The company demands 2500 EUR from the developer, maybe someone can help with the legal expenses here? The web site for Killuistrator has been put down for the moment. Shouldn't generic descriptive terms like 'explorer,' 'illustrator' 'word' and 'paint' be free for all to use? Nobody called the program Kadobe! I think it is time for some pressure on Adobe ... "

MrWeird writes: "I just found this and this over on Yahoo News. Apparently, Microsoft has been threatening a startup called Crossgain to sue them about noncompete agreements of former MS employees they had hired. The company had to let go 25% of their staff including CEO and two founders, all former MS employees. The second Yahoo article has a good point about how to MS, "the competition" is almost every software company out there." I don't think Microsoft's actions make much difference in the larger scheme of things, but I found this interesting because so many people sign non-compete agreements without really thinking about the consequences. Have you signed one? What do you expect to do when you leave your current job?

a2800276 writes: "The NSA has released some documents about Tempest in response to a FOIA request. They can be found over at Cryptome. Some are really old (dating between '75 and '95) and heavily redacted but interesting nontheless."

drkhong writes: "...at least if you've got a good cooling system. IEEE Spectrum has an article about the next generation ICs. Using superconducting materials cooled down to 5K a peak of 750GHz has already been reached. Just think about how far light goes within one clock cycle, and then tell me you aren't impressed." These low-temperature devices are made of niobium (a superconducting metal), and use something called Josephson junction devices, resulting in chips for which the article states "there are no known physical barriers to decreasing size by a factor of 10 and thus increasing speed by a factor of 10, using lithography to move from today's 3-m linewidth to 0.3 m."

siggifiggi writes "Heise has a news-item about a list of trivial and stupid patents already granted in Europe. The list was created by the Association for the Promotion of a Free Informational Infrastructure." The best one is the patent on controlling one computer from another (which would technically include controlling your computer with a keyboard that had a microchip in it, to say nothing of telnet!

^ZuLu^ writes "The inventor of MP3 Karlheinz Brandenburg just received the German Futurereward and 500k DM (approx. $250000). He received that price at the Expo in Hannover by the German President Johannes Rau. Isn't that just the statement we we're all waiting for? A state which completely honours the invention of MP3 regardless of what the music industry is trying to make us believe? The story's available in german at Yahoo here." And the fish can aid in translation.

Today's Slashback calls out to you with puppy-dog eyes, pleading with you to read on for addenda, errata, et cetera regarding previous Slashdot stories and other updates from the world. Read below for ... the all-singing, all-dancing, topless, hatless and reckless Cue Cat review (one night only) ... one reaction to Stephen Hawking's idea of the world's (human) life expectancy ... some Official Words from the Quakemakers ... and as usual, a few bits and pieces.

Just stick around and collect on this bet. mindriot writes "The German climatic researcher Manfred Stock has rejected Stephen Hawking's theory which states that man would not exist on earth for another 1,000 years. To him this seems rather unlikely. Stock expects that, in 50 years, mankind will have switched to alternative power resources. Read the german article here." Oder, wenn Sie nicht Deutsch kann, bitte Babelfish benutzen. It's a much more optimistic view of things, but hardly the words of a Pollyanna.

CD-Rs are cheap, cheap, cheap. David Hume writes: "Fox News is reporting that '[a] three-judge panel decided to allow the popular service to continue allowing users to share music files over the Internet, pending further deliberations.' ... "The judges seemed to need more information from the recording industry and were more antagonistic to the RIAA," said copyright expert Leonard Rubin, who observed the proceedings."'

Overall, it sounds like Napster is taking neither the "shoo-in" or "dropped anchor" tacks that many people predicted. The article points out (and presumably the judge knows) that peer-to-peer file transfers have long since left the gate.

Well, they are the guys who make it, after all! You might remember the stink raised by the release of the Q3 1.25 patch. Now Bob Mintern writes: "iD Software, in hue of their current Point Release for Quake 3 1.25, has released a FAQ highlighting sevral issues of the 1.25 patch and what it breaks. The FAQ can be located here. I wonder when the "offical" patch will work and everything will be normal again..."

After this I'll try to shut up for a while about it, OK? There's been so much about the CueCat that perhaps you (and / or digital convergence) are sick of hearing about it. I pledge not to mention it for at least a week, on penalty of an early bedtime or perhaps more vacation days. But today, you must deal a few I thought were neat ;) First, bk1e asks the musical question: "Why :de:claw your :Cue:Cat when you can get it :spayed in about two minutes with a soldering iron? Simply solder on one jumper and it acts like any other barcode scanner." Heh.

Or, even without doing that, hangel points to this "A CueCat decoder for Zope by stevea," which includes source. Specifically, this one will let you scan in a book's bar code and look it up on Amazon.

Finally, photon317 writes: "There's a make-fun-of-DC site at www.digitaldivergence.org." This I leave to your own judgement, but as R. Crumb might say, not everything is for everybody. Think iBrator.

a2800276 asks: "The story that XFS has gone beta raised some questions in my mind. There are now four journaling filesystems available under various OSS licenses and being actively developed for Linux, there being (in estimated order of maturity): SuSE/Namesys's reiserfs, SGI's XFS, IBM's JFS and Tweedie/Redhat's ext3fs. Avoiding the obvious question of why can't the effort going into four different projects be channeled into one, I think a discussion of the particular merits of the different fs's would be interesting."

tik asks: "I'd be really thankful if anyone could tell me what OS's are used in Space (i.e. ISS, MIR, Space Shuttle, Satellites). I have tried finding out myself, but alas have not been able to locate anything worthwhile. Since I am realy curious on the subject I'd appreciate any comment or help." Which operating systems have braved the final frontier and how well did they fare?

MicAttAck writes: "This Heise-Article (in German: use your Fish in the ear) reports: Scientists of the University of Essen have developed a method to arrange gold-55-nano-clusters. These gold-clusters (so called quantum-points) are the building blocks for nano-transistors. Because of the special properties of these clusters, they can actually hold an electron (normally gold leads electric current very well). They release the electron when they are "sucked out" by electric voltage. The gold-clusters are coated with a special plastic to insulate them and to achieve a structured arrangement. The two chemists Monika Baeumle and Norbert Beyer who developed this got an award yesterday (2000-05-18) for their achievement. "

joerg writes, "The Heise-Newsticker says that Japan had several intercalary day-related computer problems like weather stations delivering wrong data. " Finally! A Y2K bug! The hype was justified! (cough, cough) Anyone have a birthday today?

st.n. writes "According to this statement, distributed.net is suspending its new OGR-24 project, which was started just a week ago, because of a missing ntohl() call in the buffering code. They were 24% done already and have to start over again now. "

Joerg gave us the link-up to the latest NASA success. The Hubble Space Telescope has begun peering into the formation of a galaxy, with spectecular results. One of the questions they are currently trying to answer is whether the central bulge or stellar disk came first.

jools asks: "I have to work with lots of documents in German. I can speak it mostly, but an online dictionary would be invaluable. When I'm on the Internet I can use Babelfish, but during the day Internet is expensive in the UK. So the question is are there open source foreign language dictionaries around, or even commercial packages for Linux. "

Ignatius writes "The jury of the Prix Ars Electronica - one of Europe's most influential computer art festivals - awarded the 1999 Golden Nica in the category .net to Linus Torvalds. One of the most important arguments for the jury was the fact that Linux is the first product to come out of the cyberspace of the Internet, which has had an enormous impact on the "real" world. "

uno asks: "Hi, I'm wondering if there is an X-Server I can use for my pivoting monitor. I have had WinPortrait on my old Windows but now I would like to work on linux pivoting the monitor too. The platform is SuSe5.3 with KDE, ADI Microscan 17x monitor and an ATI Mach64. Any Hints?" Pivoting monitors! Man, I remember using these. They were neat!

belbo writes "According to a notice on KDE's news page Redhat is now funding two KDE developers in their efforts to port KDE to the upcoming open-sourced QT 2.0." Indeed KDE 1.1 is apparently in Red Hat 5.9. Furthermore, Moritz Moeller - Herrmann tells us that our ubiquitous friend Kalle Dalheimer announced to the KDE-dev list that " KDE was awarded "Innovation of the Year 1998/99" in the category software at a Ziff-Davis event in relation to the CeBIT fair. The other finalists were Lotus eSuite and Microtest Visual CD. This award is a great achievement of the whole KDE team! Congratulations to all of you! We will provide scanned pictures of the award and other items we got (like posters and stickers) as soon as possible on the KDE web site." Finally, Linux Today has a brand new look and is sporting interviews with people of the Linux community. In one of them, Corel CEO Micheal Cowpland reveals that Corel's open-source GUI will be based on KDE. Please folks, don't let this good news bring on a flame-war. Many people want to choose which desktop suits them best: GNOME, GNUStep, KDE are all worthy contenders.

When I put out my call for Geek Christmas Gift ideas, I had no idea what I was in for. But after the storm of email that followed was washed away, I was left with a list of toys that any geek would be excited to give or get this year for whatever holiday it is you celebrate this time of year. Hit the link below and read the list if you're curious. Random Stuff There were a few things that were suggested, that, well, I bet Santa won't come through for them. Hemos asks for Nanites. Thats all he wants. Nanites. Somebody smack him. Nima Negahban says "I would like the beowolf cluster avalon for christmas, dont worry about it fitting it under the tree. " david yates wrote in and simply said "Half naked Princess Leia ,as Jabba's prisoner, action figure." I'm sure his mother is proud. He can have the Action Figure, I want 1976 Carrie Fisher. Games Everyone and their brother wrote in to say that Nintendo 64's and Playstations are great. And the game of choice is definitely Zelda 64. I second that motion. I suggested it to my dad as a Christmas Present. Terrible idea- now I gotta wait until xmas to find out if he got it, and if he *didn't* I gotta buy in on Dec 26. Hard as hell to find. Folks suggested other things like the original Kings Quest or Leisure Suit Larry. Prince of Persia. Commander Keen. Ultima. All those games that aren't around any more, but with their original packaging. Finding a 5.25" drive to play them with might be a tad tricky tho. Clothing It's a well known fact that its better to be clothed at least part of the time. And no self respecting geek should be without a vast array of appropriately political t-shirts to pad out your closet full of suits, jackets, and ties (cough). Daniel suggested checking out the Free BSD Mall for BSD clothing. Jonathan Moore suggested the ever popular KMFMS t-shirts for your local microsoft hater. If thats a bit to exotic for you, how about the classic that Doug Boettcher sent us: the Hack Naked shirt. Since we're mentioning all these t-shirts, we ought to mention that CopyLeft has several shirts including my Don't Fear the Penguins ones, and Slashdot ones too. Software Several folks wrote in to say that they were buying Linux CDs from any of the various places that sell them, and giving them away to the needy. I tend towards Linux Central, and in addition to them Cheap Bytes OpenBsd.org and The Linux Mall were all suggested as places where you can buy the stuff we like. Hardware By far the largest catagory for gift ideas was of course Hardware:The Gift that Costs to much. Of course, anyone would want a a Palm III- it's hard to think of a better stocking stuffer. And besides, they're practically money in the bank now that you can use them to collect automobiles of the rich and famous. But if you've already got a Pilot, James A. Hillyerd suggests a GoType keyboard as the perfect accessory. If the pilot isn't your bag, but you want to read on the road, Mahlen Morris suggested A Rocket E-Book which is basically a tablet computer that is designed to replace books You can get them here. And apparently they have some sort of deal with Barnes & Nobles so you can get content to read on it. They're pretty sweet looking- someday we'll have a wireless version with net access, then we can forget paper. But for now, this'll do.

Have trouble remembering passwords? Digital Persona sells sweet hardware that that you can use to do finger print identification. Suggested by Andrew Lepisto. The pdQ was suggested by Adam D. McKenna. Its a cel phone with an integrated Pilot. Another fairly common suggestion for geek gifts was cel service from your local provider, and a cel modem for the laptop equipped gift getter. Sean McPherson suggested a Kodak DC210+ digital camera. Saves big bucks on film, and is supposed to be supported by SANE. I'm actually planning on getting a Digital Camera before the upcoming string of conferences, and I'll probably look at this one (unless Santa already has one in his bag for me, although at $400 a pop, I highly doubt it) Steven McDonald suggests that we look at DVD RAM Drives as a new huge backup device for storing your MP3s and Porn. Oh, and legit data too.

Mike Miller sent us several suggestions including the Happy Hacking Keyboard. I played with one at ALS- they're not bad. Just as cool are the new Color Gamesboys. I suppose tetris wouldn't be vastly improved by color, but its still pretty sweet. For those with a hugeass budget, How about your very own Alpha Cluster? Obviously Jakob is a lot more hopeful for Saint Nick than I am this year *grin*. How about a vt320 Terminal? Daniel Morrison suggested it, and I think it sounds pretty cool. I had a terminal attached to one of my Linux boxes for awhile. I Let it tail log files and stuff. Kinda fun for reading documentation and stuff too. Can't afford a Multi-Head X-Server, video card, and spare monitor anyway. Plus you can run them into another room and check your email from your kitchen/dining room/bathroom.

Matthew J. Allen sent us a pricey one, but its oh so sweet: Remember those Huge Flat LCD Screens from SGI? I sure do. I wake up after erotic dreams about them. (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE:Hey SGI: Give Rob one of those things for banner ads. You've got a spare one just sitting around, right?). Matthew also suggested an Iomega Clik Drive if you're on a more reasonable budget. Those things do look pretty sweet. Do cables piss you off? How about the gift of a tangle free workspace? Scott Donovan sent us a link to Cordless Mice and Keyboards from Logitech that will free you up for spinning on your swivel chair really fast until you fall over from getting dizzy instead of getting tangled up in your keyboard cable.

Toys By far the single most suggested toy of all was the Lego Mindstorms. The robotic legos are quite possibly the coolest toy in the history of toys. They aren't cheap, but they are oh so sweet. Else you could consider X-Files Action Figures suggested by E. Waugh. Home Entertainment and Audio Gear The Panasonic Portable DVD Theater was sent in by Joel Telling. Its a tiny portable DVD player obviously designed to make me froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. Several folks wrote in to suggest something I would like, but I wouldn't want to froth on. The Empeg Car CD Player. We've mentioned this before, and although they won't be ready for christmas, they are pretty amazing. 2.1 gigs of MP3s in a car stereo. They need a 9 gig version mounted in a home stereo component too.

Jon Jones (is that a real name? *grin*) wrote in to send a link to ADB I/O which you can use to automate your home for the ultimate in comfort and/or laziness. For the true audio junkie, how about the THX Speakers sent in by Chad R. Henry. Sure, they cost more than my car, but I bet they sound amazing. If you're on a more modest budget Cambridge SoundWorks has some slightly more reasonably priced speakers that I'm told sound awesome. Andrew Hobgood suggests checking out Panasonic SJ-MJ70 MiniDisc Player (portable). Pretty sweet if you aren't willing to chance it on the Diamond Rio (which was also one of the most common suggestions). Frankly any geek should be excited to get either. Rob Sheehy pointed out that Philips has 42 inch widescreen flat TVs that you could hang on your wall if you happen to be rich and wanna watch letterbox movies. This one has a VGA input too.

Random Terry A. Braun suggests that geeks need to get into making our own beer. Sounds like a great idea to me, although I tend to screw up toast. But if you're man enough to try it, you can get Your Own Grain Mill. Alan Mathews wrote in to suggest a A dilbert M&M dispensor McPhee's has some strange stuff, including a Punching Nun suggested by Glen Lipka Tom Berger suggested A VI Command Set Mug STriker RedWolf sent us a link to a chocolate bar shaped like a Pentuim II Chip.

Jason Grundy suggests the $6 card game Kill Dr. Lucky and a Card both from the aptly titled Cheapass.com. Rob Pelkey sent in a pair of gift ideas that are a world apart. The first is An Authentic Moon Rock and the second is a Jesse Ventura T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker. One is probably worth a little more than the other. The concept kitchen has this wierd Finger Stylus Thingee that you can use instead of a pen for some pen machines. Kinda wacky. Sent to us by Wyatt Earp.

Justin Higgins suggests that geeks should all own a copy of the Star Wars Radio Drama. Sure, it costs almost a hundred bucks, but at 15 CDs, it balances out to almost be a bargain. They ought to package it on 1 CD full of MP3s, throw a copy of the script on the disc and sell it for $20. I'd never heard of the Leatherman Wave before, but several folks emailed me to say they are cool. And then I noticed that they were actually advertising here. Shows how much attention I pay to who advertises on my own site I guess. But still several people raved about them, claiming that they're ideal for mucking around inside computer cases with. And Traci Earl sent a link to a site that makes nice Leather Cases for them.

Do you think stuffed animals are stupid? Well how about a Stuffed Plush Space Shuttle? Dave Brunberg sent us that gem. Stirling Westrup sent in a link to something called the Hoberman Sphere which basically is a crazily designed sphere thingee that expands from 9.5" to 30". Crazy looking. If you're looking for something caffienated that you can put in your mouth, several folks reminded us about caffienated penguin mints.

Wrap Up Well this was fun guys. Spending hours looking at crazy things that I can't afford has convinced me to take up cracking banks as an evening hobby. But what is quite obvious is that 1998 is a good year to be a geek. And maybe in 1999 Hemos can have his nanites. Nah.

And lastly, with all the commercial hub bub that tends to go on during this season, don't forget the true meaning of Christmas: Ham.

Florian Cramer writes "Pacific HiTech yesterday announced a PowerPC release of its TurboLinux Distribution. The highlight: It comes with both the Mach-based MkLinux kernel and the monolithic (faster) LinuxPPC kernel. PowerMac owners will be happy to hear that, finally, there's a Linux distribution for their machines which is neither outdated (such as the current official MkLinux CD), nor hard to obtain (such as the LinuxPPC CD). Also, the choice between both Kernels IMHO is an idea that should be adopted by such forthcoming Linux/PPC distributions as Debian. "