Slashdot Mirror

Vamphyri writes "An ABC News correspondent says the ``Linux market will, as promised, now be dominated by RedHat's commercial success.'' which he goes on to say is a good thing. The full story is here but way down at bottom of page. " It actually offers one quite interesting comment: Red Hat netted 10 million last year, and devoted 20% of that to R&D. The IPO will raise almost $100M. If they continue that trend, they will put $20M into Linux, GNOME, and more. Interesting.

jwhyche writes "Just what the heck is Eta Carinae doing? Well astronomers are not quite sure. After being one of the brightest stars in the Southern sky it dimmed for a few decades. Now it's back, emiting five time the energy of the sun, and is right next door. So, how big is a hypernova explosion anyways? Big boom anyone? "

pluteus_larva writes "Speaking of the media and government's war on hackers, CNN is reporting that "hackers" (why can't *anyone* get this right?) are attacking Federal Web sites. " The press is covering this in a variety of areas. In related news, CobaltQ sent us the story about how "non-sanctioned" Chinese crackers have taken aim at NATO sites since the Chinese embassy bombing.

A whole slew of people pointed out the news that an entire reel of The Phantom Menace was stolen off of the projector over the weekend. Hmm...I wonder how long before it shows up on eBay?

ZDNet is reporting that IBM is forming a "$29M research institute". The assigned scientists will focus on using supercomputers to model real-life scenarios. Apparently, they plan to release some software for visual data representation in the near future under an open source license. Update: 05/25 09:40 by J : IBM is forming an alliance with Pacific HiTech where PHT will support IBM's DB2 under Linux. It also seems DB2 will ship with a special version of PHT in the future.

PeaceKeeper writes "ABC News is a carrying an article on several attacks against U.S. government websites. The attacks were to protest the bombing of the Chinese Embassy by NATO. The alleged hackers have a site complete with a message board (which is mostly in Chinese, but there are some english posts.)"

dumptruck was the first of many to send us this ABC News article on The GNOME Project. Features a picture of Miguel, and a lot of people have noted that there are an abnormal number of mistakes in it.

yuri-g sent us a link to the transcripts of last nights ABCNews Chat with Linus. While he doesn't say what Transmeta does, he talks about the Cult of Linus, Linux on Consumer Electronics, Distributions, and the ever popular LiGnuX debate. Somewhat lengthy, but a good summary, with some new info too.

weezer writes "Interesting article about 'emergent behavior' of complex robots/devices. This was all over the news tonight too: theories about machines being able to "Think" on their own. Read more about it. " What do you folks think (no pun intended) - how much differently will machines/devices think? Or do they?

Scott Johnson writes "This Wednesday at 2pm, EDT, ABC News will be having an online chat with Linus Torvalds. This should be very interesting compared to some of their previous guests... :-) "

Rolan writes "An article I found today on ABC News Online actually defends hackers and puts into the media the difference. Take a look, it's short, but better than nothing! " It's a good thing to see that the media can actually get things right sometimes. Although I'm sure katz would disagree.

ABCNews is featuring some interesting coverage about the different fusion research going on around the country. The article itself talks about the shutdown of the Tokamak, and the differences between it and some of the new developments. One of the best points is talking about the pittance of money that is being put into the research, versus the known benefits of making advances in this.

Single GNU Theory writes "Scientists at Cornell have developed magnets so tiny they could be used to create standard form-factor hard drives with terabyte capacities. All they need is a way to read and write them fast. Check it out here. Hmmm... That'd require 250 Amiga Fast File System partitions! "

Dyslexic writes "ABCNews is reporting that strands of DNA can act like semiconductors. After seeing "The Matrix" this makes me only fear the future." The research is coming from two researchers in Basel, Switzerland. Essentially, this research is saying that while DNA makes a good semiconductor, it does not conduct as well as, say, copper. It's real usefulness comes from the fact that "...he knows of no metallic wires that can be made as small or as regular as DNA strands. A strand is 2 billionths of a meter thick, or one-forty-four-thousandths of the diameter of a medium-size human hair ". Uber-thin. I like it.

irix sent us a link to an ABCNews Article on Linux's Growth. and says "I thought the predictions and overall analysis were pretty good coming from CNET. I was really amused to see a Microsoft banner ad on the top of the page :)"

Nachtjäger writes "They've got a DVD player that will display on lightweight glasses. It's 2 little screens, so 3D would be simple, and the expensive part is the DVD player. Oh, and the battery will go for 3.5 hours." Still a tad on the clunky side, but getting there.

phred writes "In yet another sign of advanced corporate megalomania, Chris Clough, a spokesman for Network Solutions, Inc., is quoted in an ABC News online story as claiming that the whois database is a proprietary product of NSI and is being provided to the net as a "community service." (This item first noted Tomalak's Realm)." And I for one am oh-so-pleased that NSI is using their property to Spam us with commercials about NSI so that they can protect their butts when they lose their monopoly.

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

Tide writes "Mr. Showbiz has a scoop on rumors of the Episode 2 plot. While Mr. Lucas hasn't written a single word yet, he has the plotline already brewing. Check the link out here. " Some interesting rumblings, but nothing majorly spoiler. More reaffirmations that the new trailer will be attached to Wing Commander later this month for those of us that are truly obsessive and willing to shell out cash just to see it.

Doctor Arcane sent us a link to an ABC Article on Cyber Warfare. Talks about crack attempts on the pentagon and the likes. Cyberwarfare may be the stupidest name I've ever heard of, but it probably does represent the first steps in how war will work in the future. Does it creep you out as much as it does me? [ Speaking of creeping out: I'm flying home today. I'm absolutely exhausted:physically, mentally, and emotionally. but I do have an official IBM-Blue Part-of-the-Hive t-shirt hand delivered by an elite cadre from the collective to show for my week. Next year I want that thinkpad *grin*. But I'm airborne today, so hold off ont he mail please pretty please until tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to a normal schedule after all the craziness ] wait until tomorrow ]

Several folks sent this in, but an AC got it first: Intel is throwing more of its substantial bulk behind Linux. They will be assisting Cygnus in creating compilers optimized for the P2 and P3 processors for Linux. With all the recent intel blunders (cpu id's, the p3's pathetic performance etc) its cool to see something getting done right.

brennanw writes "ABCNews COM has a transcript from a new story about Russian and US research into high-frequency energy weapons. Not really Star Wars or Star Trek stuff, closer to directed Electromagnetic pulses that can fry computers, automobiles... Interesting stuff, esp. if you're paranoid (like me). " It seems like that guy really likes his job. Kind of a freaky read.

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.

zootsuite writes "Here is an Interesting Article on how the incredible growth of the hacker community has created a rift between young and old-school. References to l0pht and cDc. Quite a few of the old-school folks are going commercial now. "

Michael sent in the big news that Yahoo is Buying GeoCities. The deal was for 4.52 Billion Bucks- with that kind of cash maybe they can make the server not lagged to last thursday and figure out a less intrusive advertising system? Maybe not, but we can wish.

Danse writes "Steven Kilston, a staff consultant at Ball Aerospace & Technologies, has drawn up a design for an interstellar spaceship. Interesting read, even if it will never happen in our lifetime, or our kids.. or their kids.. or.. etc. Here's the article. " This amuses me. And at only $20 Trillion, it seems like a bargain. Kinda odd that someone has thought this through this far. I thought I needed a life.

Bruce Hollebone writes "Last week, chemists at the University of Rochester reported they had figured out how to get optical plastics to self-assemble (Abstract from Science ,requires login. non-technical summary from ABC News). This material could be an important step towards better photonics, including an optical computer. This is real nano-tech, with precise molecular control. The molecular structure of the plastic was engineered to be a precise shape from the human scale right down to the atomic level. The point here is that this was done with boring old chemicals in test tubes rather than the exotic "nano-machines", proposed by the Drexlerites, shrouded in their mists of vapour. "