Slashdot Mirror

Da1ek writes "Bill Thompson has a article on BBCi, commenting on the flurry of picture messaging phones. 'With cameras everywhere, technology consultant Bill Thompson wonders if we should be worried about where the images of ourselves are ending up', check out the full article here."

CriX writes "There's been some work on creating a more intuitive airplane cockpit. The idea is to use graphics and symbols instead of gauges and numbers to enhance a pilot's awareness. The data shows that these are a lot easier to read under turbulence and the information easier to interpret for less experience pilots. Sweet, I love human factors engineering."

JakeBullet writes: "Project: Take a standard foosball table and make it a little bit smarter. 1. The table should be aware of who's playing, the score and the status of the game. 2. Take the data from the game and use it to create a stats engine and player ranking system. 3. Project all relevant information about gameplay onto a flat screen. 4. Spend under $50.

spydink writes "The Radio Netherlands website http://www.rnw.nl has a good hour-by-hour listing of potential local time live webcasts from around the world. May be helpful for those who want to raise a glass to the New Year every hour on the hour." (And there's some good news about that, too.) Read on for a few more end-of-year items, which you'll no doubt be seeing more of besides.

SkeeterMac writes "CNN ran an article today listing the top dubious achievements in personal computing for the year... raising again the point that PC speed can not be measured only in megahertz! Too bad the author doesn't think so, because they slam Apple for pricing the iMac around $1,500 for "chugging along at 700 Mhz"..."

cwill1004 writes "Mary Jo Foley has written up a set of predictions for Microsoft in 2003. She suggests that the tablet PC will be a bust, MSN gaining on AOL, and Microsoft getting more flak for its DRM (digital rights management) offerings, much like it did for the Windows Product Activation. It's on Microsoft Watch."

angkor links to Shift's "stupid web moments of 2002."

And the good news -- sulli writes "Just in time for New Year's, the New York Times (register now, use a workaround, or forever hold your peace) discusses at length the health benefits of alcohol. Prevent heart attacks, not with drugs or diet, but with a good California Zinfandel! Avoid strokes with a Perfect Gin Martini! Just don't overdo it, and you'll be fine - too much alcohol, like too much caffeine, has well-known effects. But in moderation, bottoms up!"

Update: 01/01 01:07 GMT by T : Here's another. An anonymous reader submits: "The BBC News has an amusing article titled the 'E-cyclopedia's glossary of 2002'. One wonders what future generations will make of our 'Bollotics' and 'Euronating'... Even Slashdotting gets a mention."

GoneGaryT writes "Say chaps, this might be old hat, but there's a fab site for conspiracy theory aficionados at portchicago.org ; it's a pdf book expounding the theory of Peter Vogel's that the Port Chicago magazine explosion (1944) was a nuclear weapons test. It's actually pretty thorough, like 20 years of research thorough. Would the US really blow up their own people for the sake of global military supremacy? Naaaah..." Chapter 9 of the book has a factual account of the disaster (which I'd never heard of before); if you're not interested in the rest of the theory, at least reading the historical account is informative and will give you an appreciation of the explosive power of several million pounds of military ordnance.

derubergeek writes "APS has a summary of a paper being published in the Dec. 30th Physics Review Letters on the possiblity of creating quantum entanglement of particles traveling at speeds less than the speed of light. They believe there may be practical applications in satellite synchronization, for example."

madsenj37 writes "From this article at PC World: 'Mitsubishi Electric has developed a more powerful semiconductor laser that should pave the way for 16X DVD writers to be commercially available by about 2004. The new laser is able to deliver pulses of light at a power of 200 milliwatts, which is double that of lasers used in today's 4X DVD writer drives, the Tokyo company said this week.' It goes on to say that a whole Digital Versatile Disc Could be written in about 3.5 minutes."

gingerTabs writes "BBC News is reporting that the 2002 Science Magazine highlight of 2002 is the discovery of the small RNA molecule. Whould've thunk it, eh?"

jrguthrie writes "There is a great site for helping two bills through the legislative process, protectfairuse.org. The site makes it simple to E-Mail and/or snail-mail your Representatives and Senators. The bills are designed to close the gaping holes in the DMCA that allow the RIAA and MPAA to use the DMCA as a government bail-out. Please check it out and post your thoughts."

OopChugALug writes "Troll Tech last night released a beta of QSA, which stands for QT Scripting Language for Applications. Download here. As a business apps developer for a major financial institution's trading floor, I know the traders will love this. Hopefully, with QSA, I can get rid of Excel, and give the traders Spreadsheet widgets, with the flexibility of a 'VBA-like' scriptability to boot!"

booboothefoo writes "A former Apple Computer contract worker in Sacramento has been slapped with both civil and criminal charges for allegedly leaking Apple's trade secrets on the Internet." I think the real message here is "don't trust contractors." Or maybe "rumor sites are evil." Or maybe "Setec Astronomy."

mypenwry writes "Foundstone, a Mission Viejo, CA security services company, is reporting several vulnerabilities that would allow malicious code embedded in MP3 and WMA files to be executed via WinXP and WinAmp. WinAmp versions 2.81 and 3.0 are vulnerable to buffer overflows via certain long ID3v2 tags when MP3 files are loaded. More troubling is the WinXP vulnerability: A buffer overflow exists in Explorer's automatic reading of MP3 or WMA (Windows Media Audio) file attributes in Windows XP. An attacker could create a malicious MP3 or WMA file, that if placed in an accessed folder on a Windows XP system, would compromise the system and allow for remote code execution. The MP3 does not need to be played, it simply needs to be stored in a folder that is browsed to, such as an MP3 download folder, the desktop, or a NetBIOS share. This vulnerability is also exploitable via Internet Explorer by loading a malicious web site. Explorer automatically reads file attributes regardless of whether or not the user actually highlights, clicks on, reads, or opens the file. Windows XP's Explorer will overflow if corrupted attributes exist within the MP3 or WMA file. Microsoft has issued a fix for this vulnerability. Nullsoft has posted fixed version of WinAmp 2.81 and 3.0 on their web site."

n1ywb asks: "I recently cajoled myself into buying a Dell Axim. Since the compact flash slot is obviously taken up by my 802.11b card, that leaves me with the OTHER slot for adding additional storage. This other slot is billed as a 'Secure Digital Card' slot, although I understand it is backwards compatable with the 'Multimedia Card' standard. The name 'Secure Digital' is somewhat misleading it seems. It has some kind of digital rights management technology onboard, which nobody seems to want to elaborate on. It has hardware encryption, which sandisk.com touts as 'Cryptographic security for copyrighted data based on proven security concepts from DVD audio.' Hah! DeCSS anyone? Magic markers? There isn't a lot of REAL information about SD cards out there. I like cheap and fast storage, but I'm paranoid of DRM. _I_ am god here; my hardware is slave to me. I don't want my PDA telling me I can't play my Grateful Dead bootlegs because they aren't digitally signed. Should I buy MMC or SD? Where can I find more info? Any real world experiences? What do you think is the bottom line?"

"Here are a couple of other choice quotes from the Sandisk page:

'...included are unique and proprietary security features implemented within the card's controller which facilitate the secure exchange of content between host devices and the card.'

'The SD Card is designed to comply with all three levels of SDMI security requirements. Both non-protected (category 1) and copy protected (categories 2 & 3) material can be stored on the card. The copy protected material can be secured either by a unique card bound identification (category 2) or by an active cryptography algorithm (category 3), that involves challenge/response protocols against a private key. The SD Card security features also have the capability to revoke non-compliant SDMI components using a Media Key Block if security is breached. Under this security scheme, a content provider's data (music, books, software applications, maps, schedules, etc.) can be Checked-In (moved to the card), Checked-Out (moved from the card) or copied to other SDMI compliant cards with necessary copy restriction. The Check-In/Check-Out feature gives the content owners the confidence that their content is protected.'

I read somewhere (trying to find the link) that the DRM technology in the card consists of a chip similar to what would be found in smart cards. It can limit, for example, the number of times a file can be copied off the card.

SD does have some real technical advantages over MMC. It is much faster, up to 10 megabytes per second. The cards have a physical write protect switch, and they have a very high ESD tolerance of +/- 10K volts for contact discharge and +/- 15K volts for air discharge. They also seem to be slightly cheaper now."

ttol writes "In the Star Tribune, they write that "PC games fell 6.2 percent through the first 10 months of this year, making the first such decline ever." They go on to say that consoles will break record sales this year, and that there is a shift towards console gaming from PC. Is this due to the fact that there are now three major contenders (XBox, Playstation 2, Game Cube) and all the advanced features they offer (DVD ability on the first two etc)? I, for one, will continue with my Battlefield 1942 on my PC."

Target Practice writes "Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet? Who cares? According to Sky and Telescope's website, 3200 Phaethon has been spewing chunks into our atmosphere for the past 150 years, and tonight, after the lan party, you can step outside at two or three A.M. and see the best light show yet - topping off at 75 meteors per hour! Be there..." Space.com has another story.

Craig A. Smith asks: "I've always been able to use simply 'http://www' to get to my company's web site, presumably because my default search domain was 'mycompany.com.' Suddenly my browser started taking me to 'www.www.com' instead. This happened simultaneously in all browsers (tested Mozilla, IE, NS4.7 and NS7.0) an two platforms (RedHat7.2 and Win2k). The odd thing is the command 'nslookup www' (or dig or host) behaves as desired and still resolves to www.mycompany.com so I don't think this is a DNS issue. I've tried various /etc/resolv.conf settings with no luck ('domain mycompany.com' and 'search mycompany.com'). How do I get my browser to apply the default domain before tacking on the www prefix and .com suffix?"

sbombay writes "I just came back from Broadband Plus (formerly the Western Cable Show) and was disappointed to find that cable companies despise PVRs. In his keynote speech, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said that the PVR amounts to 'the Napster of the future.' Cable World has a story about the speech and quotes from other cable execs bashing the PVR. The cable industry's opposition to the PVR boils down to two things -- PVRs help satellite companies (Dish and DirecTV) provide services like Video On Demand (VOD) and a PVR in a cable home cuts into VOD revenue. Any of the sessions at the show that touched the topic of PVRs were an opportunity for the cable industry to slam the PVR. The strongest attack came from Gary Lauder, a venture capitalist who has funded many cable related companies. During his 15-minute presentation, Lauder slammed his Replay box, 'it's too hot,' 'my wife doesn't know how to use it,' and he even tried to fry an egg on his PVR. He also openly called on the cable companies and Hollywood to sue the PVR companies for copyright infringement. If you love your PVR, the cable industry is not your friend." Update: 12/09 18:33 GMT by T : Gary Lauder wrote to say that this account misquotes and misinterprets his speech on certain points. Read below for his reaction. Gary Lauder writes: "I have 3 PVR's and love the functionality. My wife knows how to use it. The misquotation is that she did not know how to reboot it when it locked up. This was a piece of data in support of the following position:

My position that I expressed in my speech and that was inaccurately portrayed: PVR functionality should be provisioned from the headend for the following reasons (which ultimately will benefit consumers):

1. VOD servers cost much less
   • If video servers @ $350/stream (Soon Component cost declining 40%/year
   • @ 10% simultaneous use, costs $35/sub.
   • PVRs cost >10X more
   • When simultaneous use = 50%, server costs will have declined >5X
2. Disk noise wakes my wife
3. Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
4. Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
5. Available on every set-top in house Average of 1.7 PVRs/PVR household
6. No pro-activity/anticipation required
7. Records multiple concurrent shows
8. NW storage could always have max. res.
9. Uses existing deployed base
10. Moving parts break more often
11. Box complexity means more crashes & customer support costs

My basic thesis is that PVRs + Satellite will eat cable's lunch, and since it's unambiguous that cable needs to get the copyright clearances to offer programming from the head-end, they should start now. It is the case that I suggested that if a Supreme Court case was brought on the legality of each feature of PVRs were brought, some would lose. I also suggested an alternative business model to make everybody happy to avoid the all-or-nothing result that has been occurring in the RIAA vs. Napster wars.

I suggested that consumers pay 1 cent per commercial skipped (which is about the same as what advertisers pay). That would be equivalent to $10/thousand commercials skipped. I think that's reasonable. I also suggested that targeted advertising could be a win-win for all involved by delivering ads in areas that are of greater interest to the viewer so that there would be less incentive to skip and fewer ads would have to be delivered due to the higher prices paid for the targeted group. I also predicted that this dynamic combined with competition between satellite and cable would ultimately make both services free."

Migraine Man writes "Similar to the PPC-based Briq, the folks at Stealth Computer have introduced an Intel-based PC that's built into a 5.25" CD-ROM-sized enclosure. It's got a 1.0GHz P3, 256M RAM, 20G HD, 10/100 eth, CD-ROM, USB, FireWire, video, and sound. At USD 995, it's reasonably priced too. You could put three of 'em on a 1U rackmount shelf, or stuff several into a mid-tower and build your own desktop cluster. A summary datasheet is here. Very cool."

Cyno01 writes "I was just watching Firefly and switching to Taken during commercials (i'm a thief i know), and I caught a commercial for Sci-Fi 2003. It looks like there's going to be a few new actual sci-fi shows, and some not. Tremors: The Series, Children of Dune and another talkshow-esq looking thing called The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael. Also it looks like Stargate: SG1 and yes, Farscape, are still alive and kicking."

peter_gzowski writes "Anime News Network is reporting that, 'The Japanese consumers in the Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures of Japan have filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney Japan over the red tint on the Japanese DVD release of Spirited Away.' Japanese consumers who purchased the Spirited Away DVD were very disappointed when they discovered a red tint to the film. A hundred thousand consumers complained, but Buena Vista Home Entertainment Japan (a subsidiary of Walt Disney) pretended nothing was wrong with the disc. The original source of news of the suit can be found (in Japanese) at Mainichi. No response from Disney yet."

FosterSJC asks: "I go to St. John's College, Annapolis, home of the Great Books Program, for almost 70 years. This neoclassical method of education was developed and instituted in the late '30s by Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan. We have a set syllabus that every student reads in a set order of the course of his/her four years at the college - all primary sources and in all subjects, Lab, Math, Language, Music, and Seminar. Taking a hint, partially, from the OSS CD thread a few weeks back, and this thread, I would like any and all advice about compiling a CD to give to freshman, and anyone else for that matter, containing as many of the Great Books as possible. Since most all are in the public domain (very few 20th century authors), the trick would be finding them, sorting them, organizing them, and making sure you have the highest quality translations as well (the biggest problem with the Public Domain versions of these books). Please help."

Xochi77 asks: "As a Geek and a Backpacker, my laptop travels where ever I go, but now that I'm planning a trip through remote regions of South America and Africa, I'm starting to wonder where I'm going to get my power from. How has the Slashdot community dealt with powering high-tech gear in third world countries? I'm especially interested in alternative power sources, like solar cells and wind-up generators etc, but they will have to fit in my backpack!"

PDiddy asks: "Working for a corporation which uses Exchange 2000, I have run into countless traveling users with laptops that have complaints about how their mail is received from the outside vs. inside. Most of these users have a 56k or less dialup when on the road, so having them connect with an Exchange profile is incredibly slow, even with 'Offline Folders' enabled. The second option is to have two profiles. One for Exchange (Inside), and have it default to delivering to a PST. The second profile (Outside) be setup for POP and set it to the same PST. On the surface, this solution looks great to the user, but the ability to nightly backup the mail on the exchange server is removed. The third option would be to have a combination of the two approaches, the difference being the exchange profile (Inside), would leave the mail on the server, but then you have users complaining about having to sort through their new mail twice. What I need is a good, all around solution. Perhaps their are some third-party plugins for outlook I am unaware of to create a new solution? Also, are their any recommended methods for accessing an Exchange global address book over a very slow connection, or, perhaps syncing updates to laptop while connected so it can be used on the road? Currently, if you export that address book, it will set the email addresses to X.400, which will not work from a POP profile."

J. F. Miller writes "A recent Slashdot article reported how FatWallet had been the victim of a DMCA attack by several retail chains. After initially stating that they would not appeal, FatWallet was forced to take legal action when Wal-Mart further subpoenaed the name of a person who posted price information. They are accusing the stores frivolous copyright assertions and demanding payment under Section 512(f) of the DMCA"

Geekwannabe writes "The FCC is about to pass regulations requiring all television manufacturers to include copy-protection in any television receiver or recorder. The 'broadcast flag' regulation is intended to allow TV networks and broadcasters to determine which of their shows you can record (essentially giving control of your VCR, TV and Computer back to the broadcasters.) In order for the new, copy-restrictions to succeed the FCC will make it illegal to manufacture or sell non-copy-protected devices in the U.S."

Slashback with news on ATI drivers for non-ATI branded cards, the viewer-led movement to save Farscape, wearable computing from MIT, text-to-facial-expression software, and more. Read on for the details

Maybe customer service isn't dead. On November 28th, we posted a report that OEM cards using ATI chips had trouble with the official drivers from ATI. Terry Makedon (Senior Product Manager, Software for ATI Technologies) writes "Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on 'Built by ATI' cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of 'Powered by ATI' Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both 'Powered by' and 'Built by.' ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided. Please use http://apps.ati.com/linuxDfeedback/ for a direct feedback line to ATI.

Thanks again for the feedback."

But what if we put the show into this Interdimensional Fungubulon, and then jumped through this here "wormhole"? xagon7 writes "David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season. They have done just that. They have $200,000 worth of pledges and only need $800,000 total....I hope this gets Slashdotted. Read the story here and you can pledge here."

You're getting less happy to see me? man_of_mr_e writes "Check out MIThril, the next generation research platform for context aware wearable computing. It's been about 18 months since this was last talked about here on Slashdot, and it's kind of cool to see how far the technology has come since then. For those that aren't aware of what it is, it's essentially a project to prototype human wearable computers, complete with schematics, pictures, and a cvs repository for software. Now you too can be like that guy in the IBM commercials trading stock while feeding the pigeons."

Flattening the slope to entry. Catskul writes "You don't need the libwine hack, mentioned in the previous news entry. Just follow the New QT Howto, download the codecs and start MPlayer."

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! 1010011010 writes "On Nov. 26, you ran a story on SpeechView, 'software that translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer.' The North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science's 'Voice IO Group' is also working on that problem. Their software looks like it might be better. Read about it here. Includes quicktime movies of the results."

Victory, or a reprieve? A non moose cow writes "Just noticed that a couple of my favorite "Killed by the RIAA" webcast stations are back... like Soma-FM and Monkey Radio (get the streams at Shoutcast). The saving grace came via the recent passage of HR5469 [PDF] by the US Legislature. Thank you to all that sent letters and/or money to fix this problem. If you have been yearning for the resurrection of your favorite stream, go check, it might be back. If you would like to trace the chronology of this mess, check out the Soma-FM news page."

Gorgeous Si writes "Researchers in the University of Durham Nanoscale Magnetics Group are working on magnetic microchips. These new chips "could be 40,000x better than conventional chips while using 1,000,000 times less energy." I assume this actually means 40,000 times denser than conventional methods allow. Also worth lookig at for the pretty pictures. "

Mooseboy writes "I searched /. and was suprised to find that there were no articles that referenced legodeath.com. This site has several lego mini-dioramas depicting torture, execution, domestic accidents, and other scenes of questionable taste. I've had a chance to see it, so you may commence the slashdotting!"

theolein writes "The register has an article discussing the first major phone company's implementation -Orange SPV- of MS Smartphone as well as a common user's experiences with it. More or less confirms what quite a few expected."

rcr1001 writes "Turning Numbers into Knowledge (TNIK) is an entertaining and readable primer on practical problem solving. TNIK is about structured analytical thinking and Slashdot readers interested in improving the quality of their critical thinking skills should consider learning from this book." Read on for the complete review. Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving author Jonathan G. Koomey, PhD pages 221 publisher Analytics Press rating 9 reviewer rcr1001 ISBN 0970601905 summary A guide to mastering the art of problem solving

An overview: TNIK is one of those rare books that is simple in its presentation and quietly leaves a deep understanding of its topic. Chapters read like common-sense and jibe with everyday experience in a satisfying way. Koomey is a masterful analyst who has distilled his years of experience into a well-thought-out, well-written book on the "art of problem solving." Koomey's tone is conversational and succeeds in making a potentially dry topic interesting and relevant through genuine insight, clear prose, and real-world examples.

TNIK is divided into 5 sections containing a total of 38 chapters. The chapters are easily digested. The book can be read equally well straight-through or in bites here and there as interests warrant -- in fact, Koomey uses icons in page margins to cross-reference chapters encouraging the reader to jump around if a thread seems particularly interesting.

See table of contents at bottom for more information on content -- the chapters are small enough that the ToC provides an excellent summary of the territory covered in the book. Also, here are some sample chapters online.

Why Recommend a Book about Problem Solving on Slashdot:
While I consider myself more of an analyst than a programmer, I've written a fair amount of code in support of data analysis (mostly perl and sql). I've benefitted invaluably from books recommended on Slashdot that I wouldn't have known to pick up or notice otherwise. I thought this book might be similarly useful to others who were interested in improving their problem solving skills and/or analytical approach. This book is the The Practice of Programming of the practice of problem solving.

What I Enjoyed About the Book:

I have read TNIK twice and used it as a reference on many occasions. Reading it has helped me retool my approach to analysis in a broad way (getting more organized, becoming more cynical about "official" analysis, questioning my own analysis more deeply, and developing different analytical scenarios all come to mind), pointed me to other excellent references, and most importantly, always helped me with whatever problem I'm currently working on. I tend to pull it off the shelf when I'm starting a big project and it has been an easy way to gain inspiration.

Other Good Stuff:
There is an outstanding "Further Reading" section which is essentially an annotated bibliography of recommended books organized by topic. There are many, many excellent books in this section and each listing contains a short description by Koomey as to why he recommends them.

Each chapter begins and ends with a quote relevant to the chapter topic and lots of humorous comic strips (Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, New Yorker, etc.) relevant to the chapter throughout the text serve as comic relief.

A Note on the Publisher:
This book is published by Analytics Press in Oakland CA. Individual copies are available through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.com. Ordering options here.

Conclusion:
This book is on par with Edward Tufte's influential Graphical Explanations (which amazingly hasn't been reviewed on this site yet!) The beauty of the book is in its elegant coverage of so many topics in such a short space. This book is a road map to great analysis and it behooves anyone interesting in improving their skills to take advantage of it, and judging by the amount of bad analysis created on a daily basis, it deserves a spot on many bookshelves! Other reviews are here.

Table Of Contents:

1. Part I: Things to Know
2. Beginner's Mind
3. Don't be Intimidated
4. Information, Intention, and Action
5. Peer Review and Scientific Discovery

   Part II: Be Prepared

6. Explore Your Ideology
7. Get Organized
8. Establish a Filing System
9. Build a Toolbox
10. Put Facts at Your Fingertips
11. Value your Time

    Part III: Assess their Analysis

12. The Power of Critical Thinking
13. Numbers Aren't Everything
14. All Numbers Are Not Created Equal
15. Question Authority
16. How Guesses Become Facts
17. Don't Believe Everything You Read
18. Go Back to the Questions
19. Reading Tables and Graphs
20. Distinguish Facts from Values
21. The Uncertainty Principle and the Mass Media

    Part IV: Create Your Analysis

22. Reflect
23. Get Unstuck
24. Inquire
25. Be a Detective
26. Create Consistent Comparisons
27. Tell a Good Story
28. Dig into the Numbers
29. Make a Model
30. Reuse Old Envelopes
31. Use Forecasts with Care
32. Hear All Sides

    Part V: Show your Stuff

33. Know Your Audience
34. Document, Document, Document
35. Let the Tables and Graphs Do the Work
36. Create Compelling Graphs and Figures
37. Create Good Tables
38. Use Numbers Effectively in Oral Presentations
39. Use the Internet

    Conclusion: Creating the Future

    Further Reading
    Notes
    Index
    

You can purchase Turning Numbers into Knowledge from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

ZurichPrague writes "Amnesty International is claiming Microsoft, Sun, Nortel and Cisco, among others, have broken the law by selling filtering technology to China, helping that country implement its censorship. Is Amnesty right? Making the technology is fine, but if we know that it could be used for ill, aren't we bound to not sell to some countries and companies? C/Net has the story here."

EconolineCrush writes "NVIDIA may be struggling to bring the GeForce FX to market on a 0.13-micron manufacturing processes, but it looks like SiS has beat them to the punch. Tech Report has a review of the new Xaber600, which is the first mainstream GPU that I know of to be manufactured using 0.13-micron process technology. The Xabre600's performance isn't overly impressive, even when compared to a low-end Radeon 9000 Pro, but it's nice to see SiS one-upping the graphics giants when it comes to process technology."

Slashback tonight with more on efforts to stop the flow of AOL CDs from their house to yours, getting modded XBoxes on Microsoft's network, a less optimistic look at NVIDIA's latest chip, and more. Read on for more. Update: 11/22 00:13 GMT by T : Thanks to the AC who noticed the goofed headline ("this is only a test," remember), now amended.

Excuse me, is this the service entrance? We just posted about Microsoft blocking gamers with mod-chipped X-boxes from the Microsoft-run online gaming service; now NiteStar writes "Xbox-Scene.com just reported that a group of Xbox hackers named Team Assembly managed to change the serial number and MAC address of the xbox. After the change they managed to get onto Xbox Live (with mod-chip disabled) with a previously banned xbox ..."

Not so fast, mister. The Raindog writes "Since NVIDIA announced its GeForce FX graphics chip, the web has been flooded with a slew of previews and articles that do little more than regurgitate what must have been NVIDIA's official press kit. Slashdot had coverage a few days ago, but since then, a new take on NVIDIA's latest chip has surfaced without all the PR-inspired hype. As it turns out, the GeForce FX's features aren't all that remarkable next to ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro, which has been available for months now."

I liked the old .sig about a black hole that would blot out the sun. Matthew Davis writes "CNN.com ran a story about Jim McKenna and John Lieberman back in October requesting everyone to send the CD mailers they receive to them. When they reach 1 million CDs they'll hand deliver them to AOL. In a recent article by SiliconValley.com they quote Nicholas Graham, a spokesman for AOL stating, "If they reach their goal ... I'd be happy to give them directions and greet them at the door ... We would make a contribution ourselves to put them over the top" Does that mean they're putting Jim and John's address on the top of the CD mailing list?"

Now if only these were CD-RWs ... and they can keep sending me the nice, reusable cases, just no more paper sleeves, thanks.

Still teasing, Stephen. foolish_child writes "Not sure if you noticed, but in the newest paperback pressing of Cryptonomicon (1 November 2002, I think) there is a chapter from Quicksilver at the back. I spotted it in the railway station in Amsterdam, so maybe it's a European edition. I have been checking to see if it was also online but have seen no sign of it - hence the heads up. I'm sure someone will scan it in soon - it is SUPERB! (read it waiting for a train) - Enoch the Red, emissary of the Royal Society, landing in 1700's Boston looking for . . someone. Scary thing is how good his research is as usual - I've just been reading up on Leibnitz and Newton and Co. and . . . you've probably seen it already but I wanted to share :)"

This new edition of Cryptonomicon is probably in a bookstore near you already, and the book proper is (only) several months away.

One small step for BanKind. An anonymous reader writes "It seems CapitalOne's website works with Mozilla, as of this November, 2002. This is good news because many people have CapitalOne credit cards, and previously the site required Microsoft's Intarweb Explorer. This just shows how simply speaking up by e-mailing large companies can evoke change. For more info see here ." Update: 12/03 22:00 GMT by T : Note that this information renders moot the question posed here about Cap One.

WasteOfAmmo asks: "I help administer a small software library where users are allowed to borrow CD's for a few days to install various software packages (yes, it is all legal, futher explanation is not necessary). Obviously as the CD's are circulated more and more they become more and more scratched, 'dirty', and abused looking. Eventuallly (sometimes after 1 use) the CD's begin to have read errors. Currently once the CD's are confirmed as 'bad' they are destoryed and replaced (re-burned). This system is costly if not in material then in time. I have been searching with little or no success for a commercial or mid to high volume (5 - 20 disks per day) system for cleaning/polishing/repairing (ie: removal of small scratches) CD's. I have read all about various cleaners (including toothpaste) and kits that can be used but in all cases the procedure is time intensive, typically targeted at low volume end users, and with dubious claims of success at best. What I am looking for a system that would work similar to a video tape rewinder: you pop the CD into it, hit a button, walk away; Sometime later you come back and presto you have a freshly cleaned CD. With all the libraries, video rental, and software 'collections' out there must be a better system then 'hand washing' each CD."

derubergeek writes "The Washington Post is reporting on an apparently credible project to create a simple life form in a petri dish. The goal is two-fold: 1) to actually create a unique life form essentially from scratch and (more importantly) 2) to extensively analyze and model the entire biology of this critter. Exciting and scary at the same time. From the article, it sounds as if they are quite wary of their project and fascinated at the same time. I usually refer to that sensation as 'That little voice that I should have listened to...'" There's also a NY Times article.

ytzombe writes "Gamespot News is reporting that for about 5000 yen an attachment will be available to play GBA games on the Gamecube. The serial port underneath the system will be the gateway to the device and will include a port to enable multiplayer games. This will finally allow me to play the Castlevania games without fusing my naked retina to the screen."

Giggles of Doom asks: "I currently work for a technology contracting company (one of the ones that finds you a tech job and you work at some other company as a non-employee) and have been for the past couple years. Recently, however, I have begun to realize that for the past two years they haven't really done much for me, yet they still get a commission for every hour I work. The benefits I get from them aren't that great: non-matched 401K (that they are canceling), discounted prices on stock that has gone down for the past several years, and a few paid vacation days. I have begun looking into going independent. After all, that commission my contracting company is getting could be money I could be getting. And considering that they don't seem to be offering much in the way of benefits for that commission I don't feel obliged to have them keep on getting it. I am wondering if anyone else out there has gone through this kind of thing, leaving a contracting frim to work for themselves, and if they have any advice to give on how to get out of contracts, billing the company you're doing the work for, etc. And, biggest of all, was it worth it? Obviously it will be different with everyone and every company, but I would be interested in hearing of other peoples' experiences."

Cyno01 writes "Alienware recently introduced a new product that seems to fill the gap between PVRs and PCs. The Navigator Media Center. It runs a new version of XP (Media Center Edition) and displays pictures, movies and plays DVDs. If I had the cash for it i would definitly ditch my 160Gb HD and Radeon AIW card."

glamslam asks: "As the newly appointed technology director at a large restaurant chain, I've been given the task of evaluating and implementing a Point of Sale (POS) system. The main goal is to save costs on deployment across hundreds of restaurants. Another goal is to find a solution that is flexible enough to adapt to our unique operational model. Most of the vendors' products I have seen are based on Windows. I prefer the openness, flexibility, and cost-savings of Linux, yet I do not want to build the system from the ground up. Has anyone been involved in POS projects and managed to put Linux into the mix?" Are there any features that restaurants need that your traditional POS system may not include?

ksheka writes "Mozilla mail now has Spam Filters, using Bayesian filtering method, no less. This is a very good thing, because it learns from the spam you receive, and constantly modifies itself, based on new spammer techniques!"

Michael_Angel asks: "If your hard drive has started to show garbled characters in the BIOS at boot, or just does not pick up. You may be victim to what could be the biggest hard drive manufacturer failure rate yet! Our company is small OEM system builder and we have been hit by a failure rate of %90 of the hard drives we purchased a year ago. We might be lucky because we stopped buying after rumors of hard drive issues 3 months after Fujitsu Limited made some major changes. IBM had a pretty crazy rate of failure and was telling people to turn off smart mode. I've called Fujitsu and they said that there is no problem! However, a simple search for bad fujitsu hard drives on any search engine will point to some angry folks. One notable link is this Register story." Has this problem followed Fujitsu drives into other countries, or might they be limited to the UK markets? Have you noticed an unusual failure rate in Fujitsu drives compared to hard drives from other manufacturers?

EconolineCrush writes "Trying to convince your boss to let you run Stanford's Folding@Home client on the machines at work? Here's an article that measures the performance impact of running the Folding@Home client that might help. The article examines the client's impact on the performance of business applications, games, workstation applications, and more. When set up correctly, the Folding@Home client can be run transparently in the background with only a negligible impact on system performance, which means your boss has one less reason to turn you down."

KraZFoo writes "Apple has come up with an innovative idea: make a computer lab curriculum-specific, and mobile! Each lab comes with iBooks, a printer, and an AirPort base station. Depending on the curriculum, other components like digital cameras, video cameras, science equipment, specific software, etc. ..." There's nothing new about mobile labs, but I've not seen ones tailored to specific curriculums, and besides, this one is really cool.

fishdan asks: "I know there are a few tools for selectively disabling flash in IE, but there is currently nothing in Mozilla. I'm wondering how many people have just removed Flash (as I have) by deleting the appropriate files? I find it greatly enhances my web experience, and on the very few cases when i think there is something worth seeing in Flash, I'll check it out on someone else's computer. I know someone is working on a 'disable flash from this site' for Moz X.x.x, but I'm wondering what people are doing now? I'm also actively advising people I know to remove Flash because of the lack of control for it on the users end. Short of deleting Flash, there's nothing uses can do to to stop those irritating ads. I don't mind the moderate ones, but the excessive ads are enough for me to throw the baby out with the bath-water."

zotler writes "NewScientist.com has an article about how copy protection on audio CDs is worthless. I thought this was funny since I just read this earlier Slashdot article 'BMG copy protecting all CDs'." The article also neatly sums up the technology behind current fair-use-inhibition stratagems.

Alex_Ionescu writes "The Doom 3 E3 Demo Alpha has leaked to the public. It looks promising, altough I'm only getting 12FPS on a Radeon 7500. Did anyone else have the chance to play it and could post their FPS? Here are some sites with more information and screenshots: here , here, here, and finally here. "

teeheehee writes "According to this DigitalMass article, RealNetworks yesterday released source code for their audio and video players, with server-side and encoding software coming maybe in December. The code isn't complete, it's missing things like burning-to-cd routines; and they're getting flak from Microsoft calling it a ploy. Regardless, anytime a big company releases their source only good can come of it (for the public.)" Our story a few days ago had more information on the licensing, and gathered a couple of interesting posts from one user.

Savage-Rabbit writes "These guys have produced a working prototype of a thermoelectric generator. The thing uses extremely cold and hot liquids to achieve a heat transfer through a semiconducting material. This produces a voltage in the semiconductor who can produce up to 50-100 Watts which is actually enough for this thing to have practical uses. This generator could for example be useful in the chemical industry where many production processes generate a lot of excess heat that normally is simply lost. With a thermoelectric generator some of that lost energy could be recovered."

MotorMachineMercenar writes "Wired News is reporting that Saddam Hussein's email account (press@uruklink.net) has been hacked into. The account had a five-letter login with the same password. Messages in his inbox sent from all over the world included everything from death threats to business propositions to offers to sell him WMDs. A choice quote from the article: 'One AOL user sent Saddam a one-word message: 'Imminent.' Attached to the Aug. 6 e-mail was a photograph of an atomic mushroom cloud.' I wonder what the login was." You'd think it was "press," password "press," but if it were that obvious I think someone would have said so.

EnlightenmentFan writes "In When Things Start to Think, MIT Media Lab whiz Neil Gershenfeld predicts an appealing future of seamless, foolproof computers. User alert: Relentless optimism ahead. (I am ready to let MIT graft smart chips into my skin some day after my PC goes a week without crashing.) This is the book to buy for your folks to get them excited about nerds. It does also have some interesting stuff for nerds themselves." Read on for Enlightenment Fan's review. When Things Start to Think author Neil Gershenfeld pages 225 publisher Owl Books (paperback) rating For Slashdotters: 5 to read, 9 to give your folks reviewer EnlightenmentFan ISBN 080505880X summary Seamless, foolproof mini-computers coming up.

One underlying theme dear to Gershenfeld's heart is the death of traditional academic distinctions between physics and engineering, or between academia and commerce. Applied research is real research.

Another major theme is that older technologies should be treated with respect as we seek to supplement or replace them. For example, a laptop's display is much harder to read in most light than the paper in a book.

The book starts by drawing a contrast between Digital Revolution and Digital Evolution. Digital Revolution is the already-tired metaphor for universal connectivity to infinite information and memory via personal computers, the Internet, etc. Digital Evolution describes a more democratic future, from Gershenfeld's point of view, when computers are so smart, cheap, and ubiquitous that they do many ordinary chores to help ordinary people. When things talk to things, human beings are set free to do work they find more appealing.

"What are things that think?" asks the first section of the book.

Gershenfeld's whizbang examples won't be big news to Slashdot readers. My favorite, the Personal Fabricator, ("a printer that outputs working things instead of static objects")-- whose relationship to a full machine shop analog is like that of the Personal Computer to the old-fashioned mainframe. Gershenfeld actually has one of these in his lab (it outputs plastic doohickeys)--seeing it was one of the high points of my visit there.

"Why should things think?" asks the second section.

My favorite here is the Bill of Rights for machine users. (In true Baby-Boom style, it's of list of wants arbitrarily declared to be rights.) "You have the right to

• Have information available when you want it, where you want it, and in the form you want it

  Be protected from sending or receiving information that you don't want

  Use technology without attending to its needs"

Under the heading "Bad Words," Gershenfeld offers a snide but useful summary of many high-tech pop-sci buzzwords, showing how they get misused by people who don't understand their real content or context.

"How will things that think be developed?"

By making them small and cheap. By getting industry to pay the bills for targeted, practical research, using the Media Lab model TTT ("Things That Think.") By reorganizing education on the model of the Media Lab, where students learn things as they need them for practical projects, not all at once in a huge, abstract lump.

The book concludes with directions to various websites, including the Physics and Media Group (One of their projects these days is "Intrabody Signaling.") Slashdotters might also be interested in Gershenfeld's textbooks The Nature of Mathematical Modeling and The Physics of Information Technology.

You can purchase When Things Start To Think from bn.com, and Amazon has the book paperback discounted to $11.20. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.