Slashdot Mirror

Chetna asks: "The Nokia 8260 has proved to be quite a nifty phone...aside from the ever-persistent operator logo that sits on my screen. I can't find anywhere a way to change the operator logo for an 8260 that runs off Rogers AT+T in Canada. The only MCC/MNC I can find is for Microcell Telecom Inc, which (I think) is the operator for the other Nokia models (61xx). Is there any way to get 'ROGERS AT&T' off my screen?"

HarrisonSilp writes "CNN.com has a story regarding the U.S. Military's recent foray into using Virtual Reality as a training method. Being developed by Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), they call it Mission Rehearsal Exercise or MRE for short, and it is a most impressive setup. 'The 5-minute scenario is projected onto a 150-degree movie screen, complete with 10.2-channel audio that creates floor-shaking sound effects. To enhance the sense of reality, smells including burned charcoal can be pumped into the room.' It almost makes me want to write off college and join the army..."

FlashBoltzmann asks: "I'm a physics student in the US working with a group of physicists, mostly from Africa, who are interested in helping their colleagues on the continent obtain free software for scientific and educational use. Often, many science departments in Africa have little or almost nonexistent funding to purchase new software packages, especially for scientific research or education. Some know of the free software available but say it takes up large amounts of time over often slow internet connections to find and obtain it. I am asking for any recommendations on freeware or open source software, for any operating system, that anyone knows about. We are looking at the Debian version of Linux for a lot of the great software that comes with it but resources for MS Windows would be helpful as well."

"Free educational software of any level is appreciated though we prefer college and graduate level software. Also, field specific software is great, e.g. software for condensed matter physics. Eventually we'll probably combine the software on CDs to be distributed to these scientists. Any help is appreciated especially with programs that perform simulations, mathematical and statistical analysis and plotting, compilers, lab software, etc. The users of the software will most likely be physicists or mathematicians."

yuggler asks: "Ever found yourself in a boring meeting, class or lecture? Sure! Does anyone know of something to do to make time fly? I feel that somekind of simple game, at the most requiring paper and pen would be the ultimate soultion. So, my question to you is: Does anoyone know of a game with childishly easy rules, yet with a depth that can keep the player(s) spellbound for a small eternity? An excellent example of what I'm trying to describe is the game Sprouts which only takes 30 seconds to learn, but will take a good portion of your meetings to fully understand. I am currently being tormented in a Swedish highschool, and feel in desperate need of something to get me through classes like Swedish, and Chemistry, while waiting for the programming and technology-classes."

xrjlx asks: "Does anyone know how to disable flash on just specific sites like cnet and yahoo so that those annoying ads don't come up on the screen. One way to do it is by setting "run active x controls" to "prompt." This gets annoying though because many sites legitimately use them. Are there any programs written that will allow me to just selectively block the use of flash on certain sites?" It makes sense to me that, like cookies and the use of Javascript, ALL browsers should have some kind of by-domain filter that selectively activates whatever set of plugins (including Flash) that provides the user with the kind of web experience that they want, of course, many might see this as too much micromanagement for their tastes. I say it all boils down to a well defined UI. What say you?

Archfeld sent a strange piece of technology called the Senseboard which is a portable keyboard, except that there's really not any keys. Or a board. And it can communicate via RF for all your strange wearable applications.

aozilla asks: "I was just at Pricewatch, and I noticed that 80 gig firewire drives are available for only $200. My good old IBM Deskstar just crashed, so I'm in the market for a new hard drive, and I'd love to go with Firewire. External, hot-swappable and the ability to have more than 2 devices without significant slowdown are the main features I'd like on top of what I get from my IDE drives. I'd like to hear from those who have experience running firewire on Linux. How good is the driver support? Is hot-swappability really supported (just umount and unplug, plug and mount)? Are there any recommendations for PCI Firewire cards for Linux? How many drives can reasonably fit before power becomes an issue (I assume the less expensive drives obtain power from the port)? My main goals are capacity, cost, and convenience. Speed is not too much of an issue, and I'm more a fan of automated and explicit backups rather than RAID."

Neumsy writes " IBM has offically announced that it is releasing Linux-Based Server, Software Packages. Yahoo! News has the story . According to IBM, this will expand the use of Linux. It's a good overview article. Not too much in depth, but still nice to see Linux getting out there more and more."

Steve MacLaughlin writes with this review. Any book that points out bluntly that most web sites suck already has me nodding, but I wish the authors would have included all the details, instead of protecting the guilty by anonymizing individual failure stories. Business @ the Speed of Stupid author Alan Morrison and Dan Burke pages 256 publisher Perseus Books rating 8.5 reviewer Steve MacLaughlin ISBN 0738205427 summary Things not to do, unless looking stupid really is your intent.

Alan Morrison and Dan Burke have written the first meaningful post-mortem on the New Economy in their new book Business @ the Speed of Stupid. At its core the book clearly explains how the disregard for strategy and sound management principles doomed many a company and Internet project. If this sounds like a lot of other books currently hitting the shelves, then I should point out that Business @ the Speed of Stupid is one of the only books not willing to pull punches.

As you can probably tell by the title, Business @ the Speed of Stupid is not one of those cutesy sugar-coated business books. Consider the opening of Chapter 1: "Most companies of any size have a Web site. Most suck! They suck because they simply fail to communicate with the intended audience." And there's a lot more where that came from! The book is divided into two sections: "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" and "Decelerating the Stupidity." This format proves to be a good way of presenting their observations and recommendations.

The "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section is filled with stories about companies that remain nameless to protect both the guilty and the innocent. Some readers may be disappointed that Morrison and Burke have chosen not to reveal the true identities of the companies and people they profile, but I think it actually strengthens the usefulness of the stories. You're not distracted by the sensationalism, and you're not fed the rose-colored version that things just didn't work out for these companies or their ventures. The stories are even more useful because they reveal the real situations, conversations, and decisions that led to failure.

Morrison and Burke are able get their ideas across without sounding like dusty old professors or techno-Latin writers trying to sound intelligent. They are quick to point out that there are no silver bullets and that cutting corners is a recipe for disaster. Consider their take on phantom sales predictions: "A common and widely held misconception is the idea of magic conversion ratios that convert the number of hits on a site to projected customer leads, e-commerce sales, or whatever. Let's be clear: This type of thinking is 100 percent crap."

A major theme in the first section of the book is how the apparent simplicity of the Web lulled business leaders into a trap. The brochureware sites that companies first launched appeared to be simple. But when it came to real e-commerce or real e-business companies quickly learned that these projects were much more complicated. The notion that you could throw together an Internet project without any planning, without any processes, and without experienced professionals was foolhardy. As the authors accurately point out, "the frequency of this type of foolishness is increasing dramatically as more and more projects are sponsored and managed by nontechnical professionals and staffed by zealously ignorant technologists."

This comment illustrates another main point of the "@ the Speed of Stupidity and Accelerating" section: "Get the right people in the right roles or you will find yourself facing insurmountable problems." The wrong people are those that consistently contradict their words through their actions. They say they want things done right, but they end up cutting corners to get the job done fast and cheap. They hire the best people or companies to do the work, but want to totally ignore the processes that create good work. The authors quip, "it is amazing how often executives hire experts and then completely ignore their advice" instead of remembering to "hire smart people and listen to them." Balancing people, processes, and systems is critical to being successful.

Business @ the Speed of Stupid also provides readers with a much needed smackdown about the importance of sticking to the "old rules" of business. Morrison and Burke contend that "technology must take a back seat to core business and customer needs, not the other way around" and that "the 'new rules' are simply a recipe for disaster, and those who continue to propagate them are completely irresponsible." The technology shakeout taught many business leaders just how important planning and communication were to developing successful initiatives. Of course Morrison and Burke get that point across in a less subtle way: "There is a generation of lemming managers who actually believe that telling people 'Just do it!' is the right way to manage because that's the way they've read it in a book or magazine."

The "Decelerating the Stupidity" section of the book tries to bring a lot of the key messages and concepts together, and offers a well-presented framework for putting the brakes on stupidity. I think the "Do's and Don'ts" at the end of each chapter of the first section will give readers more immediate solutions to their problems, but the second section takes a much more big picture approach. The framework the authors put forward is based on the concept that thinking strategically means always balancing the "Organizational Domain" and the "Competitive Domain."

The "Organizational Domain" is made up of the people, processes, and systems that allow your company to get the job done. The "Competitive Domain" is made up of your presence in the market, customers, and your competitor's presence in the market. The connection between these two domains is your strategy, and it acts as the ultimate fulcrum to keep things balanced. The authors note that "to emphasize one thing (e.g., technology) while you slight another (e.g., people) guarantees you will look stupid."

Business @ the Speed of Stupid is a well thought-out book by two people who actually know what they're talking about. The 230 pages of content move at a steady pace, and the accompanying charts and illustrations don't require a PhD in fluid mechanics to understand. Footnotes throughout point readers to other outside resources and a handy "Glossary of E-Terms and Phrases" are nice touches as well. I'm sure you could scan through a lot of the book over an over-priced cup of coffee at one of those bookstores, but I think you'll quickly find it's a book you'd be stupid not to buy.

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

Tetch asks: "I work for a multinational IT company which seems likely to transfer its "network services" team to (MCI-)Worldcom under the terms of a business arrangement (Worldcom's gonna run our company network for us). I'm contemplating transfering from my current position to that network services team but would quite like to know more about Worldcom's corporate culture before taking the plunge (since it seems I'd become a Worldcom employee in fairly short order). Does anyone have any experience of life at Worldcom they could share?" It's always smart to try get an idea of the climate in a company before you you try and sign up.

"Is it all white shirts, and singing the company song at 07:00, or is it T-shirts, jeans, company masseur and free donuts ? Do they work you into the ground till you burn out and then cast you aside with the trash, or do they look after you, nurture your career, notice your contribution without you having to sing your own praises the whole time. Are Worldcom folk *happy* and enthusiastic, content to be a valued part of a committed team effort, or are they cogs in a faceless machine, living in isolation and fear of visits from beancounters looking for yet more cost-savings to make for the stock-holders' benefit?"

A Semi-Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article a researcher at Harvard University has developed techniques for self assembly of nanoscale wires that operate without resistance due to a property called ballistic conductivity. He hopes the research will provide an 'end run' around convential top-down circuit designs, allowing much smaller, faster and more energy efficient computers."

Nintendork writes: "An article by the Associated Press, published on CNN tells of the latest network security report cards earned by Federal agencies. The Department of Defense along with several others failed. I hope terrorists that pose physical threats don't have any script kiddies in their arsenal."

cyberbrian asks: "At work, I administer Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 servers and I have been researching Win 2000's EFS (Encrypted File System) and I have detected some Very Odd Behavior. I am currently leaning towards using PGP Disk instead of EFS but I really want to know what is going on here. For instance, one of the tests I made is that I backed up an encrypted file and restored it to a FAT partition. The resulting file had zero bytes. For true encryption, shouldn't there be data in the file, but scrambled according to the encryption algorythem and key file? IMHO, Microsoft may not be using encryption at all, but instead perhaps the "encryption" is actually a hidden NTFS deny/allow permission that is tied to a certificate. Has anyone tested this by trying to decrypt a EFS file under Linux? Also, I would be very interested in any URLs people could point me to where this is explained in detail."

goatmon asks: "A few high school computer teachers across Tennessee have organized an annual "Geek Games" competition. We started last year with a great competition in PC repair, patterned after the VICA competition. This year we are trying to expand to add a competition in computer programming. The question is, how do you create a language-independent computer programming competition? Is it fair to have a timed test if one group of kids is hacking in Python and the other in C++? And who wins, the one with the shortest code, the fastest programmer, the one with code that works? Can anyone offer insight from experience or a pattern that we might be able to follow?"

malibu_mex writes: "LinuxToday, ZDNet Australia, and NewsForge are all reporting on a loadable kernel module + GUI combination that implements an auditing subsystem on Linux (Like the NT event logger, or solaris BSM). This could be yet another reason for big business and government to migrate away from the costly commercial alternatives to Linux. First it was SAMBA, now it's SNARE. What have these Aussies got with 5 letter 'S' names? This topic has been discussed on Slashdot previously here."

Yottabyte84 asks: "As a student, I often have the need to type up papers, however like most people I talk faster then I type. I've lately been looking to get a dictation program, but I don't wanna boot Windows every time I need to use it. IBM has a commercial version of ViaVoice for Linux and a free SDK. I'm unclear what the SDK can do, and would be willing to buy the commercial product if the SDK doesn't fit my needs. What I'd really like to be able to do is give spoken text input into the Linux apps I already use, but could live with being stuck with a simple included word processer. Have any of you tried ViaVoice or the SDK? How well did they work for you?"

milenko81 and several others submitted this CNET story about corporate spending on information technology. The reporter seems to interpret it negatively because Fortune 1000 companies aren't dumping Microsoft 100% and going for Linux. But interpret it as you will.

dc_cypher asks: "Soon after I read these two articles, I stumbled across a secure unified IM client powered by Bantu on a Sprint site. While many people are turning to electronic communications to enhance (and protect) their reachability in the midst of the recent terrorist activities, what can we do to keep these useful non-corporate alternatives from being legally and financially slaughtered, only to end up joining their file-sharing bretheren in the internet graveyard?"

pg writes "I found an interesting article on www.cgisecurity.com that explains common fingerprints in web server, and web application attacks. It goes to describe how to detect most known, and unknown attacks. This may come in handy when trying to detect another internet worm."

Cubase de Pilsen writes: "Massachusetts' attorney general said his state would not sign on to a proposed settlement in the antitrust case against Microsoft because it does not protect competing software makers." Several other state AGs as well are angling for more restrictions on Microsoft, but some are prepared to sign on to the current version of the settlement.

JT Martin writes with his review of Barrington Bayley's The Knights of the Limits. Fans of obscure science fiction should thank JT for the service thus rendered. Knights of the Limits author Barrington J. Bayley pages 218 publisher Cosmos Books rating 9 reviewer JT Martin ISBN 1587153831 summary Nine stories suffused with a sense of wonder

Obscure genius Little known even inside the genre of science fiction, Barrington Bayley has been composing tightly plotted work for almost 50 years in relative obscurity.

This astonishing selection of nine short stories has been loudly admired by almost all the stalwarts of the genre; Mike Moorcock recently named it one of his top ten sf books in an article for The Guardian. Bruce Sterling has praised it to high heavens in a piece he wrote for Cheap Truth, calling Bayley "the zen master of modern space opera." John Clute, Brian Stableford, Charles Platt and even the late, great William Burroughs have all spoken of Bayley in fervently admiring words.

Despite all the accolades, strangely and sadly nobody has even heard of the book. Originally published in 1978 it came and went in the blink of an eye, remained unavailable for the past few decades and commanded ridiculous prices in the used book market.

So why all the fuzz Bayley is one of the great ideas guys of the genre science fiction. When he actually gets mentioned, the response usually is a smile and a gasp; "Oh, he's that wild guy!" Exuberant, weird, metaphysical, astounding, thrilling are all words that apply. Trailing Borges with a serious nod to A. E. Van Vogt, his stuff perplexes and confounds you with the barrage of bizarre ideas he weaves into these stories. He belongs to the great freewheeling tradition of imaginative writers; forget Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, think Charles Harness, Olaf Stapledon and Rudy Rucker - he invents his science (that's why it's called fiction, eh?) and bounces off to the nomansland like some mutant kangaroo. This is stuff you can barely find on the shelves today as franchise poop is being pushed on all the fronts.

Bayley knows his science but isn't limited by it - his writing bellows straight from his subconscious pool of theoretical thought, winging it with gusto and joy. For an example, "Me and My Antronoscope," -- one of his signature stories -- describes a universe completely filled with rock. The existing life inhabits pockets of space within. With obvious delight Bayley pauses at the thought and starts imagining "what would it be like?" He finds the answer and runs off with the thought, goes off to describe their version of space travel and the obvious problems facing any such attempts. It is a brilliant vision, conceptualized with wonder, but as much of what is called science fiction today is really just extrapolations of current sciences many readers will simply not see the point of it.

The same is true of most of the rest of Bayley's fiction - it doesn't portray the future; it imagines, dreams and invents new cosmologies, universes, alien life and their respective philosophies. He writes existential pieces about robot consciousness, he tinkers in his workshop wondering about the nature of space, mixing and matching analytical philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology and anthropology in a melodramatic and exuberant manner.

One should be forewarned that his powers of characterization and dialogue are more restrained -- the function of people in his stories tends to simply be setting off the scenery. His love of old pulp science fiction is obvious, and the bizarre juxtaposing of robots and rayguns with rigorous metaphysical invention can be startling, but with a sly satirical touch he succeeds laudably.

It is distressing to see such a vividly entertaining thinker miss the boat -- if Bayley had been born in Poland or Argentina we'd all be reading him now alongside Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick, but as Kubrick never filmed THE SOUL OF THE ROBOT (instead using it as fodder to his conception of A.I.), he remains unread in the English language while the Japanese devour his translated works. So if you feel you're attuned to this brand of extravagnce, THE KNIGHTS OF THE LIMITS is the perfect intoruction, presenting 9 of his key stories. If you decide to give it a try, keep in mind that this most certainly is not extrapolative hard science fiction. It is wildly original speculative stuff that will literally boggle the mind and open new venues of thought and invention.

Related Links:

• Astounding Worlds of Barrington Bayley

• Annihilation Factotum

• Cheap Truth

• Jorge Luis Borges

• A. E. van Vogt

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

cluening writes: "A bridge designed about 500 years ago by Leonardo Da Vinci has finally been built. It's mighty cool that something envisioned so long ago has actually been created with relatively little trouble." See also the project's home page.

jonnystiles2 writes: "Duke University and the Center for the Public Domain are holding a conference from November 9 to 11 on intellectual property and the the public domain. The conference has a web-site with the papers to be delivered. There is also a discussion board about the conference. You will need to create an account to access the boards. Or, you can view them read-only. Of particular interest to readers of this site will be a paper by Yochai Benkler titled "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm." The people at the conference are some of the leading legal minds in the field of intellectual property. If you are interested in the different debates concerning the ecology of networks, meanings of the First Amendment as related to the Copyright Clause of the Constitution and more, definitely check this out. While this is an legal and academic conference, most of papers require only a rudimentary familiarity with the issues and arguments regarding intellectual property."

LupeROD writes "Here's a story that shoulders the responsibility of trying to convince us all that the spectrum wars between 802.11 and Bluetooth are bogus and the truth, be it obscured, is that 802.11 and Bluetooth are really compadres.""

winter@ES writes: "The U.S. Army is teaming up with Sony, Pandemic Studios, and Quicksilver software to develop a pair of squad-level combat games. Through the Institute for Creative Technologies (jointly operated by the U.S. Army and the University of SOCAL) the Army will be funding and developing "C-Force", targetted for next-gen consoles, and "CS-12" for PCs. The project is headed up by Mech Warrior veteran, Rob Sears."

k_hokanson writes: "I was just going to check out some tasty news articles, with my trusty Mozilla, at MSN. but what do I get when I go there? A nice little message telling me that 'in order to display this page properly', I have to get the latest version of IE! And no, there's no option to display it incorrectly. " Enough people have submitted this story that it can't be an isolated case;) Thanks, Microsoft. Here's the story on Yahoo!. CT: telling konqueror to lie about its User Agent causes the page to render correctly save the background which is the wrong color. Update: 10/25 23:19 GMT by T : kuwan writes "Looks like Microsoft was getting too much heat. CNet is reporting that Microsoft is backing off on their browser block. I'm only wondering how long it will be before they do it again with some other excuse as to why we all need IE."

maddmike writes "Nasa's Mars explorer Odyssey is scheduled to brake and orbit about Mars today at 7:30PDT. Among the mission's objectives are to understand Mars' climate and geological history and to search for signs of life sustaining environments including water. Main web site is at the JPL website." Update: 10/24 13:12 GMT by T : The BrownFury writes cites a Space.com summary which says "The Mars Odyssey spacecraft appears to have succeeded Tuesday night in one of the most tricky and critical parts of its missions by slipping into orbit around the Red Planet."

Atomic Snarl writes: "New Scientist.com has this story on how to encrypt a underwater sonar message using multiple sound path timing. By detecting and adapting for the current variations on underwater sound channels, the transmitted message can be received intelligibly only at a single point. This holographic approach suggests a method of web encryption using multiple hop paths and ping times to create a message which can only be decoded when received at a specific target node!"

The BrownFury writes "At an invitation only event Apple has released their new MP3 player called the iPod. iPod is the size of a deck of cards. 2.4" wide by 4" tall by .78" thick 6.5 ounces. 5 GB HDD, 10 hr battery life, charged via FireWire. Works as a firewire drive as well. Works in conjunctions with iTunes 2. Here are Live updates". No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

Sierpinski writes: "Wired.com has an article about a group of people who are trying to bring back some of the classic (older) games. I don't know what a lot of you gamers are into now... personally I'm into Max Payne and the like, but I still remember those old favorites. Thought some of you slashdotters would like to know." We've mentioned one of these games already, but I see The Bard's Tale is coming back from the dead too.

AxsDeny writes: "It looks like Macslash is also reporting this, but Trolltech is now offering Qt for OS X. Long live cross platform development." Doesn't look like there's a Free version, but there is a non-commerical license called the "Qt Academic License," which "Allows schools and universities to acquire and use Qt for free in relevant courses."

Captain_Frisk asks: "My buddy and I have recently received approval to teach a programming course at our Alma Mater. We have pretty much free reign over what we teach, so we've elected to teach 'An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming,' to fill a void at a school where the only programming languages taught are C and Matlab. Can anyone out there recommend some good books for the course, not just for the students, but for us to read as preparation material? We've never taught a class before, and as graduates of this school, we've never had any formal training in OOP. I read a few books at work a few years back, but I don't remember their names, nor did they strike me as particularly memorable. So far I've looked at An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming and Object-Oriented Software Construction, 2nd Edition (a book reviewed at Slashdot 3 years ago), but have not invested in either."

t-bob asks: "For those of you that remember the glory days of the BBS, ANSI and ASCII art probably bring back some nostalgic memories. It may surprise you, however, that low-resolution art of various kinds is still being drawn (although the low-res scenes are in their last dying convulsions). I have been contemplating, for a while, a means of introducing these art forms (ANSI and ASCII as well as XBIN, ADF, RIP, etc) to a wider audience, and have decided that a conventional art exhibition is, if not the best, the most interesting way to go about this. As some of you may have already guessed, this could prove quite problematic: all low-res art pieces must be viewed in their original font at the original resolution, which makes pieces more than, say, 25 lines long--when they were meant to be viewed at 80x25--impossible to display on a conventional monitor." Could a program be written so that it can take ANSI, XBIN, RIP and other formats, open an xterm window of the proper size, set the right font and then display them in the way they were intended to be seen?

"Converting them to an easier-handled image format (i.e. ansi2pcx.exe) will also not work because it throws the proportions of the characters off just enough to change the piece, and does not work with XBIN, ADF, RIP, ASCIIs that use the Amiga font (more common than you'd think), ANSIs that use iCE-Color (16 instead of 8 background colors), or ANSIs/ASCIIs more than 80 columns wide. The only solution I have thought of is a program made to display the entire piece on a long rectangular monitor of some kind, and that may prove completely impractical as the unorthodox dimensions of some pieces (1000+ lines long, 160-column wide BINs) would necessitate custom monitors in this case. Any suggestions?"

Unicode Art?
In a related question, Tim Ringenbach asks: "ASCII art has been popular for years now. I was wondering though, is anyone doing ASCII art in Unicode? Would the extra characters actually be helpful, or is 7-bit ASCII really all we need? A google of "unicode art" found only 7 pages. But I suppose since 7-bit ASCII is an UTF-8 file that just happens to not use any multibye characters, we could retroactively upgrade most ASCII art to Unicode art without even altering a timestamp."

km790816 writes: "In this post I joked about wanting an optical bus on my PC. In the last week I've seen two articles from The Register and EETimes discussing the real possibility. Both mention high bandwidth and lower heat and power usage. Sounds good to me."

Ssmoimo writes: "Omron's robot pet developing department chief Toshihiro Tashima introduces "NeCoRo" in Tokyo Tuesday. The robotic cat will go on sale in November for about $1,530." Chris DiBona said it was "freaky", and I think that's as good a description as any. You can see this thing sucking the breath out of a small child, can't you?

pvcpie writes: "The New York Times has a story today about Autonomic Computing, which is described as "a biological metaphor suggesting a systemic approach to attaining a higher level of automation in computing;" and they published a paper (pdf) on the topic. Apparently there are already some universities signed up on Autonomic Computing projects, more info was available on the website and in the nyt article. It also appeared in CNET."

Slashback brings you updates tonight on book reviews past, intentionally defective CDs, failing disk drives, and joining the HURD. Enjoy!

Spin control for some IBM drives? If you are one ofthe people who have the same results with IBM 75GXP hard drives that Sean Kelly did when he posed a recent Ask Slashdot, you may be interested in this report from legLess, who writes: "Pair Networks is swapping out every IBM 75GXP hard drive they have "[b]ased on an amazingly high failure rate." Pair is a big host: 114,000 sites all running on FreeBSD 4.1.1, including cdrom.com and Tom's Hardware. "We currently use and recommend Maxtor drives" they say. Big black eye for IBM."

GNU isn't Linux, either. Amid the stream of recent and upcoming software releases (Suse 7.3, Red Hat 7.2, Qt 3.0), it's sometimes easy for projects with smaller followings or more esoteric goals to get lost. BorrisYeltsin writes: "The Debian HURD iso images are now available from your local ftp.gnu.org mirror. There are 3 iso's available, so get downloading now!" (And read through the recent months' on the HURD Kernel Cousin too.)

Update: 10/16 14:20 GMT by T : Please note that the GNU Project maintains a list of ftp mirrors -- look for one local to you for best results all around :)

Placing warning signs along the road to consumerism brigc writes: "Good interview in the Chronicle of Higher Education with Jessica Litman about changes in the copyright arena since the publication of her book.

For those who were asleep, Litman's book 'Digital Copyright' does a good job of discussing why the copyright process got handed over to the industry and Congress has failed to protect the rights of the public."

Litman's book got a rave review from Michael a few months back; I suggest you check it out, and better yet ask you local library to put it up on display. Libraries have a strong vested interest in not ceding all control to copyright holders forever and ever amen.

It might pay to have a big fat mouth and ask for a refund on defective merchandise, too. anonicon writes: "Here's a heads up to the web site I'm running at http://www.fatchucks.com. I've started both a Corrupt CDs list for people who wish to report 'copy-protected' CDs or find out which ones they are, and an Indie Rec for people who want to recommend independent artists to the public. Thank you."

Tin asks: "I am a web developer and as a hobby, I sometimes find various security holes in application logic (the ones that provide a malicious user with a root access, are not fixed by SPs and hotfixes and can go unnoticed/exploited for years). I then contact the company and, for a symbolic compensation, offer them to demonstrate how a potential intruder could breake in and work with their developers to fix the problem. Some companies can only deal with this in a legal way with a contract, etc. Again, this is a hobby, not a business, and I have no legal expertise in this matter whatsoever. So I would like to ask people who do this for a living and all slashdotters in general: What is the right/professional/legal/safe way to do this? What kind of compensation do you usually go for? Maybe somebody can email me a sample contract?"

Medeii writes: "This article on CNET states that Apple and HP have both decided to withdraw their support for the recommendation. Both companies issued statements supporting the development of royalty-free web standards. Both were, interestingly, also authors of the current recommendation."

Reader Steve MacLaughlin (you can visit his blog here) contributed this review of Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices, which sounds like an interesting followup to The Cluetrain Manifesto. Whether micromarketing of this sort really takes off will depend chicken-and-egg-like on whether a few companies escape being annoying and actually get people interested in what they have to offer. Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices author Christopher Locke pages 256 publisher Perseus Publishing (2001) rating 8 reviewer Steve MacLaughlin ISBN 0738204080 summary Leaping through and thrashing about current conceptions of reaching people and making money in an inexorably more-connected world.

Christopher Locke, one of the co-conspirators of the best seller The Cluetrain Manifesto, has again set off to teach companies how to talk, not just offer lip-service, to their customers. In Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices, Locke takes on the myths and monuments of marketing armed new ideas and a razor sharp wit. Buckle up. Hold on. Mr. Locke is going to take you on a wild ride to the new world of marketing.

While the book's frenzied style will be compared to that of Hunter S. Thompson, I view the book instead as the first real book written in hyperlink-style. Jumping all over the map and all over the mind in search of gonzo marketing. Scrolling from idea to author to tactic and back again around the horn again.

Locke devotes a portion of the book to a refresher course in The Cluetrain Manifesto?s teachings: Markets are conversations. The Web is a micromarket made up of individuals. Your mass market mind tricks won't work on us. Gonzo Marketing picks up from there with a deeper examination of how companies must understand how micromarkets operate.

Locke accomplishes this by giving readers a detailed examination of the evolution of current marketing thought. The experts and evangelists range from Marshall McLuhan to Noam Chomsky to Sergio Zyman and Seth Godin. I stopped counting books and articles Locke mentions or dissects when it hit 32. Gonzo Marketing is quick to point out when grand ideas, like Godin's "Permission Marketing," were nothing more than underhanded tactics to send us spam.

What Locke pushes forward instead is this notion of gonzo marketing. Gonzo marketing "is marketing from the market's perspective. It is not a set of tricks to be used against us. Instead, it's a set of tools to achieve what we want for a change." No more tricks. No more schemes. No more mass market messages.

Gonzo Marketing also explains the evolution of the micromarket. Mass production created the need for mass markets. But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. The rapid proliferation of the Internet has only increased the growth of these micromarkets. While only global giants were once exposed to the power of micromarkets now companies of every shape and size must learn to deal with them.

The bad news for companies is that micromarkets are here to stay. As Locke puts it, "The web is a non-stop planet-spanning celebration. And we ain't goin' back in the box." The good news is that companies can be active participants in these micromarkets. But Locke isn't talking about "hashbrowned or refried databases" but instead "genuinely social social groupings." Micromarkets are "collections of people, communities joined by shared interests." And the big catch is that you need to belong to these groups to have a conversation with them.

This all sounds very 1960s commune-esk. And some readers may quickly label Locke's ideas as being as foolhardy as those he criticizes himself. But the evidence of micromarkets in action are all around. Internet chat rooms allow micromarkets to flourish and communicate like never before. Interested in rare coinage from the ancient world? There's a micromarket and somewhere people are talking about it, and telling people where to buy the best Tiberius Aureus Tribune penny. Online personal Web logs, also called blogs, allow micromarkets to share ideas, discuss new products, and to speak their mind in a way that traditional journalism never allowed for. Think, Oprah Winfrey's Book Club x 50 million and growing. Get the picture

Locke points to companies like Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines, Intel, and Bertelsmann who are already reaching out to micromarkets. In February 2000 Ford announced that it was giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer and Internet access, and it didn't take long for those other companies to follow suit. Sure, Ford wants to put technology in its people's hands, but "the real deal is that Ford has unleashed 350,000 independent and genuinely intelligent agents to fan out online and listen carefully." First people start listening, then they start talking.

Gonzo Marketing doesn't tell companies they can't market to customers -- but that they need to radically rethink how they communicate. Before the automobile, the transcontinental railroad was the only easy way to get to the west coast. Before the Internet, mass marketing was the only easy way you could communicate on a global scale. And the railroads of old were just as inefficient and costly as the bloated marketing budgets of today.

Where as Cluetrain described the disease in detail, Gonzo Marketing concludes with a cure for companies to begin using. While Locke often sounds anti-big business, he notes that it is these larger companies who have the best advantage in making the early "transition from traditional marketing to more intimate micromarket relationships." They can begin to experiment with gonzo marketing by skimming a little bit off the top of their massive advertising budgets. Companies need to value their employee?s individual interests, and to find ways to nurture those interests. Allow people to go out and be ambassadors for your company, even if their interests have nothing to do with what the company is selling. People are more likely to talk to people with whom they share common interests than to corporate talking heads that share no common ground. Think about it.

Gonzo Marketing makes for great reading because it gets the gears in your mind turning. Everyone says their employees are their best advertisers. What if you really put that kind of attitude into action? Taken individually, micromarkets may seem insignificant, but collectively they have the power to move mountains. Locke concludes Gonzo Marketing with instructions for those pioneers that want to make first contact with micromarkets: "Hook up, connect, co-create, procreate. Redeploy. Foment joy. Brothers in arms, sisters of Avalon, champions of the world get to work."

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.

Oliver Wendell Jones asks: "In the past few weeks, since the Sept. 11 incident, I have tried to become much more involved with what's going on politically. It started with my sending e-mails to the members of the senate committee discussing H.R. 2500 (secure encryption) and received very polite e-mails from almost eveyone stating one of two (or sometimes both) generic messages. Not one of their e-mail responses included anything stating their feelings for or against H.R. 2500, so I have no idea if my e-mails had any effect." While I'm all for automated responses to take off the pressure in terms of response time, I'd at least expect aides to take care of these things. Autoresponses aren't enough, and when someone takes the time to write a Representative, whether it be snail mail or email, someone should respond. Of course, if they don't respond to written messages, try calling them directly and make sure an aide knows why you are calling. How many of you have tried and failed when attempting to ping your Rep on government issues that were important to you?

"The two responses I was able to receive were:

• They agreed that terrorists are bad.
• If I was a constituent of their state (i.e., I could vote for them) to please respond with my mailing address in their state (I did include my snail-mail address and I do not live in their states) and they would get back to me.

Of course, the impression I got after all of this, was that if I couldn't vote against them in an upcoming election, they didn't care about my opinion.

I also sent e-mails (and one fax) to the Representatives and Senators of my state (Indiana) on this same topic and received responses similar to those I had received from the others (terrorists are bad, mmmkay?)

Last week, in response to another request from the EFF, I sent snail-mail letters to my Senators and Representative concerning the SSSCA. This time I received a two page, snail-mail form letter reiterating that terrorists are still bad, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the SSSCA.

Has anyone had any luck actually getting their point across to an elected official, and if so, what's the secret?" I think we can all agree that terrorists are bad, but so are bad laws that interfere with our rights. Several of these are trying to progress their way through the House and the Senate and it would be nice to know how the Representatives stand, one way or the other. How can one cut thru the rhetoric and get concrete information out of those who are supposed to be your duly elected representatives in government?

Cdgod asks: "I am working on a thesis regarding DRM (Digital Rights Management). I would like to get it published and instead of having the regular recycled net material, I would like to hear opinions and thoughts on how it should and could work. Think 20 years in the future, how can you see your world with DRM in place? Will it cost you a few pennies every time you look for the time on your watch? Are you limited to only coping that CD 3 times before it is locked forever? Can you think of uses where DRM will actually give the user more rights? Try to think outside the current models in place, such as video on demand, purchasing music online, and DRM e-books. And yes, I will be arguing that the current laws are not taking the user's point of view, but of the large media companies." My personal thoughts on Digital Rights Management (copy protection, for laymen) is that as long as it interferes with the user's use of the material, it's not worthwhile. Most of the current solutions which have been proposed seem more like draconian measures that will be forced down our throats...whether we like it or not.

bobm asks: "We've been asked to migrate our newer applications to Unicode. My biggest issue is that if we start storing user data in unicode we will no longer be able to provide complete updates the legacy (pure ASCII) systems. This is important in that we are currently updating > 25k customers a day and managment does not want that to be affected. I also haven't found a clean way to provide multilanguage data mining that can return a single language output. This doesn't even begin to address issues like data validation and display issues. (note: we currently handle the web pages in multiple language sets but require the data to be in ascii form.) I've spent some time on Unicode.Org but I really haven't found any real world discussions on people doing this on a large scale (>1Tbyte databases)."

Jeff writes: "Researchers discover that snapping shrimp also emit light. I think this is one of the coolest new words to come along in a while. Hope readers will enjoy slipping "shrimpoluminescence" into casual conversation."

I never quite thought I'd see this in my life time, but RAM is now cheaper when it comes to memory-per-unitofcurrency than hard drives. Of course, those of you who have noticed this have also wondered, quite reasonably, that it might be cheaper to start building Solid State Hard Drives entirely out of RAM, rather than using the standard ole platters. Is there anyone in the market who also has noticed this and is attempting to market a product that will fill this need? Remember this puppy from 2 years ago, and this story, mentioned a year ago? While the first one was a bit of a laugh, the second article does mention a limit to the lifetime of the current MO Hard Drives. Are we closing in on that limit, now? Update: 10/11 2a EDT by C :I apologize for not catching the erroneous statement above, earlier. What I had meant to say was that since RAM is at its cheapest point in price in recent years, not to say that it was cheaper per-unit-of-currency, which is absolutely false. Chalk this one up to too much creative writing in college, lack of sleep, and a long frustrating day. Thanks to brian@pongonova.net for pointing out that error.

waterlogged asks: "I was just wondering if anybody has heard of a cheap ram based network drive? Seems to me with the ram prices being at about US. $12.00 for 128 megs that someone hasn't developed a battery backup version of this to plug into a network or even a bus. A gig worth of 8ns seek time storage for $120 anyone? That would just about eliminate any wait in loading programs."

BigSlowTarget asks: "There are some previous articles on Slashdot about vendors selling solid state drives, but they all seem to be quite expensive - particularly given the slide in the cost of memory. Has anyone hacked together a solid state drive to take advantage of $60/GB memory prices? I'd really like to be able to boot and run at solid state speed without spending thousands."

Jah-Wren Ryel asks: "In case you haven't noticed, RAM is incredibly cheap, you can put a gigabyte of PC133 RAM into your machine for less than $60. A year ago, that would have cost more like $600. So now it is feasible for one to have a 10-15GB RAM disk, except for one thing - most motherboards won't support more than 2GB total (4 dimm slots x 512MB per dimm). It seems like it wouldn't be too hard to design a PCI card to hold 20-30 dimms and make that available through a hardware windowing scheme (like EMS/EMM back in the old 16-bit days). With the right drivers it could be used as a big RAM disk or for buffercache. Is there such a product out there? The closest I have seen are solid-state disks that sit on the other end of a scsi bus, are too expensive, and aren't anywhere near as fast as a PCI implementation could be."

So what technical details (and the issues of volatile data and price) may be preventing the construction of RAM based drives, and is there anything else that may be preventing some entrepreneurial soul from bringing such a thing to market?

lawndart asks: "A co-worker of mine recently had a stroke that removed his ability to read. More accurately he has no shape recognition abilities anymore. Before the accident he was a serious web addict, and is a little depressed that he can't surf anymore. He wants to use web reader software, but obviously needs someone else to find/install it, which is where I come in. I was hoping for some ideas on the best ones out there, with an emphasis on accuracy, and price. It needs to run on a Wintel type box and be relatively easy to use." I would suspect there are such programs already in the market for the blind, so if any of you have tried then and would be willing to pass on recommendations, please feel free.

Anonymous Coward writes: "Yup, much to my disbelief, it looks like Planetweb are still determined to try and profit off of the dc with their new DC browser version 3.0. According to the site, 'Users will now be able to access the multimedia features on Web sites using Java and play games written in that language..." I'v given up all hope on the DC, but maby a few of you out there...." Since these are officially EOL (even if not completely out of stores), you might be able to pick up your next web-browsing toy at a yard sale.

SeaBait writes: "This revealing article about the High-performance programming techniques on Linux and Windows shows that Linux rules. The performance testing was on Pipes(interprocess communication mechanism available on both Windows and Linux and UNIX). Although I new Linux would fare the best, the poor performance of Windows XP was a surprise. Windows 2000 actually did better than XP!"

Myrioandme writes "Since the inception of the Internet, cybergeographers have been trying to draw maps of cyberspace. The results have been mixed, but a new book brings together some of the most interesting -- and breathtaking -- maps of virtual worlds. Wired is carrying the full story."

11 platter hard driv writes: "CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association), the people who made the A+ and I-NET+ certifications, have made a Linux certification. I just received an e-mail a day or two ago that the test is out of beta. This seems pretty important seeing how CompTIA is non-vendor specific." Legions of PHBs and Kinko's nationwide look forward to the resulting resume changes.