Slashdot Mirror

AntiNorm asks: "I recently installed Mandrake 8.0, and after taking much time to get it working, I found that the free version of WordPerfect 8 would not install. The same thing happened under Redhat 7.0, although it installed and worked fine under RH 6.2. It appears that the binaries (wpinstc and wpinstg) that are called by the installation scripts are unable to find a particular file or library that they need, but I haven't been able to figure out anything beyond that. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, is there a way to get around it?" Update: 05/10 04:27 PM by C : Another similar question hit the bin, today, except this one is about Wordperfect 2000. Are the same problems from WP8 inherited in the latest version? Read more, below.

eadint asks: "I've been using Linux since 1996 and about a year and a half ago when Corel Office 2000 for :inux was released I finally got rid of my Windows partition and started using Linux as my sole operating system. Recently I upgraded to Red Hat 7.1 and I haven't been able to install it on my computer. I'm hoping for some advice on this and also hoping that I don't have to downgrade my OS. I can definitely notice a difference in speed with 7.1"

Wa7ly writes: "An amateur rocket scientist in the US hopes to blast off into space this autumn in a $250,000 rocket he built in his back yard. This seems to be a really great idea if he can successfully pull it off and come back to earth safely!" *cough*Darwin Award*cough*

jhaberman writes: "MSNBC has an amusing article. It is a ride-along with a Silicon Valley repo man. You know, those guys who swipe cars from people who can't pay. He is taking cars right out of all the big players (Apple, Intel, Cisco, Sun) parking lots! Needless to say, he has quite a bit of work right now. Hilarious."

Big Brass Balls writes: "The NY Times has an article about how freebies are becoming harder to come by on the web." Registration free link, even -- "just doing my bit to promote freebies on the web." And I never got my free 50 photos developed by Shutterfly, either.

CTho9305 asks: "I know you can make bootable CD-R/RWs that work fine to get you running DOS (well, Microsoft will call it Windows without the GUI, but I'll call it DOS). And I know you can boot linux, and even run X. However, that only works because these things can run fine from read-only media. Since a CD-RW could theoretically be mounted read-write under linux, I bet its possible (if it hasn't alread been done) to write a kernel module to boot from a CD-RW with it mounted read/write. What I'm really interested in is booting Windows (9x), which requires read-write media. What would be required? Would a DOS driver suffice? Does such a piece of code exist somewhere?" Such an ability would make it easier for novice users to try other alternative operating systems. Is it likely that BIOS makers will support this ability in the future? What can we do to make this happen?

SanLouBlues writes: "This story has the scoop on Dennis Tito in space. He is up there now and will be for the next 6 days "with his video camera and CD player." whee." trolebus contributes links to coverage on CNN and on Reuters. It's been a long, strange story -- the optimisic Tito was originally planning on going to Mir, but looks like he got an upgrade. I hope he's savoring this trip for $20 million worth of memories. Don't forget, there is a cheaper version of space tourism on the horizon, too.

DeeezNutz writes "Here is the startings of a company that wants to see clear pc cases! They have pictures. " It's pretty impressive looking - the cases that is. The hot-rodding of computers continues, I guess.

UserID 3.14 writes "It looks like faster chip-building tehnology is coming, and it may usher in the next wave of MEMS and nanotechnology with it. This article from Science Daily talks about a new electron-beam photolithography machine at JPL that rasterizes 10 times faster than the previous standard with a beam imprint that's half the size. Chip prototyping will go faster and the researchers there will be able to deal with features that are molecule-sized. Best of all, if you want to use the machine, they give a contact for further info."

loraksus points out this article from last week with pro-privacy news for Canadians: "Employees in Canda have a "fundamental, inherent right" to privacy in the workplace, and this includes the right to private e-mail, says federal Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski." ----ndra---------------------7711151414664 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="query"

Slashing back tonight are bits and pieces on optical transistors; a genuine linux toaster; words from Nintendo's president on the real status of the Gamecube; and another potentially nice push in the world of digital archives. Please enjoy.

Larry Ellison, watch your back. meforpc writes: "More on LTSP (Linux terminal server project): Riverdale (www.riverdale.k12.or.us/linux) decided to make a 'poster child' to get the word out on their project; to do this Bryan Grimshaw made a Linux machine inside of a toaster oven. The idea behind the toaster is to show the ease of setting up a Linux terminal/server network. It's really cool and looks great. (I want one)."

"Oooh, that's one hot system! If you sell it, I hope the buyer doesn't get burned. Might this sort of thing have a Dark Side? Nice rack -- Smmmmmokin'!" Sigh. I've stopped now. The worst pun you can come up with will be rewarded with an official Slashdot groan of derision :)

Soon all will be optical. BdosError writes: "Scientists in Japan seem to have developed an optical transistor, as explained in this article, which I snipped from the Rapidly Changing Face of Computing newsletter. This could go nicely with the optical switching technology mentioned earlier, as it would eliminate the need to convert the electrical signals to/from optical. Plus, it would be a huge benefit for building fast systems which generate less heat in general.

Let's have no comments about the possibilities for a Beowulf cluster."

Well ... no more comments. But actually, why not? This sounds like a good thing for clustered research computers, no?

Of course, we'll see what hits shelves ... TheZalm writes: "The article about Gamecube being in danger is a misrepresentation of the facts. Hiroshi Yamauchi said only that he would reconsider his launch plan, and possibly place a small delay on the launch. See this article at IGN."

Of course, that's what Sega repeatedly said about the Dreamcast, too. The gamecube sounds cool, so I hope it arrives, but it's obviously coming into a hotly contested market.

Commemorating the banal and the momentous. fizban writes: "According to this AP news story, CNN plans to spend the next few years digitizing its entire video archive and making it available to the public over the internet. Excellent! Just think of the multimedia reports the kids of tomorrow will be able to make for their class projects..."

The article skirts the issue of licensing and payment; hopefully CNN will see fit to make at least some of its content free, but I'd be surprised it that's more than a sampling.

The progress may be mind-numbingly slow, but thanks to things like Project Gutenberg, ibiblio and the Internet Moving Image Archive, more and more free content is arriving for us to read, watch and use. ("And, he groused, "it would be nice if all images made with our tax dollars would be available online as well.")

agallagh42 writes "Check out this article at ComputerWorld Canada by Peter de Jager, about how the best IT workers are really just "kids with big toys". How many of you have come across IT workers that obviously have no real interest in technology, and how much does it affect the quality of their work?" (Read more for another article on the more serious side.)

Code_Poet writes: "For anyone that has tried explaining to management the importance of well structured IT in a corporation, here is an excellent article over at The Economist on-line edition that explains the need quite well. Many companies when in a crisis situation just want the problems fixed and want to move on. Few understand it's an integral function of a corporation these days..."

Upshot? Toys are fun, fun is important.

Matt Watson writes "Here is a link over to a story on wired that talks about the upcoming chess match in Spain between the world's top 4 computer chess programs. The winner will go on to play Vladimir Kramnik for the second round of human vs computer chess. I think that "deep fritz" sounds the coolest and my money is on that one. Read the article from Wired"

Rajeev Raghavan writes: "According to this article at the Denver Post. One of the families of the slain teachers at Columbine is suing 25 game companies for $5 billion in damages plus damages of $5000 to $10 million for individual parties in the class action law suit. Great, lets blame more people for our problems, shall we."

Baldrson writes: "The New York Times reports that architect Stephen Valentine has been commissioned to build a $180 million cryonics "Noah's Ark" theme park and hospice. The purpose will be the preservation, and amusement, of all manner of biological samples, including humans. Among the supporting groups is the nonprofit Stasis Foundation which has been involved in bail-outs of cryonics companies (euphemism for cryonics companies in necrosis). This announcement is particularly timely given this weekend's Foresight Institute Senior Associate Gathering. Biblical themes may evoke religious contributions from aging boomers to push the envelope, but never underestimate the passion of the dog breeders." The vision that comes to mind is Michael Jackson's head in a glass jar.

Greylark writes "The Solar System Simulator lets you see a number of different planets and moons from a number of different positions in the solar system, at any day and time in a 800 year period." This is very cool, and even though it's been around for a while, we don't seem to have run it before.

CMiYC writes: "The New Scientist has a short story on a new kind of paint. In the winter it'll make your house darker to heat it up and in the summer it'll might your house's color light to help cool it down. For the best effect your house would have to go from black to white, but I don't know many people that would like their house to be black... Kind of gloomy."

km790816 writes: "I was just reading an article in the EETimes about the possible war over the technology to replace the PCI bus. Intel has their 3GIO. (Can't find any info on Intel's site.) AMD has their HyperTransport. There has been some talk about HyperTransport going into the XBox. I hope they can agree on a bus. I don't want another bus standard war. So when can I get a fully optical bus on my PC?" Now that's what I'd like: cheap transceivers on every card and device, and short lengths of fiber connecting them up. Bye bye to SCSI, IDE, USB, Firewire ...

Last week Sean, a 16-year-old computer geek and gamer who has never been in serious trouble, was thrown out of a Texas school and ordered into "alternative education" for responding to a year's worth of bullying and harassment, some verbal, some physical. His crime was to fantasize out loud about revenge. He got as much due process as Chinese dissidents get. His father, a Slashdot reader and graphic designer, has pulled his son out of the system and into home schooling. He asks for help and advice. This is a story about life in America's schools these days for people who are "different," who live at the mercy of jerks and cover-your-butt administrators. (Read more.)

Last week, Sean Sheeley -- computer geek, gamer, and high-school junior in the McKinney Independent School District north of Dallas -- was confronted by a group of students in one of his classes. They'd been tormenting Sheeley for much of the school year, he says. He'd been jabbed, ridiculed, baited, had disks stoken from his computer.

Sheely's father Patrick, a graphic designer, says the incident unfolded this way: one of the kids in his class came up to Sean while others were taunting him and said aloud with others present, "One of these days, he's going to bring a gun to school and shoot us."

Patrick Sheeley, a Slashdot regular, says that "my son, being a little sarcastic, took out a small case that he carries his keys in and pretended to be loading a gun. The same student then said, 'Look, he's loading his gun.'

At some point, says Patrick, one of the other students joined in with some additional comments, further upsetting Sean, who then responded:

"If this had been a real gun,you'd be dead now." One of the kids turned him in.

Sean was called into the principal's office where he got suspended for three days and sent home. School officials then notified his parents that Sean was being removed from the high school and sent to an alternative school for kids with learning and other problems. He was no longer fit for mainstream education, the school had decided.

The decision was "unappealable" to school administrators, Patrick was told. He could appeal to the school district, but not until May, when the school year was virtually over. None of the other students involved have been disciplined, nor, to the Sheeleys' knowledge, even questioned. Patrick says officials told him that the school has a statement from a single student who overheard the remark and reported it.

Sean says that he'd like to forget the whole day, but here's what he remembers:

"There was much of the usual taunting, mocking my intelligence, mocking things I hold interest in, etc. Then one of them said, 'You know, one of these days he's going to bring a gun to school and kill us all.' And that is, so to speak, what knocked over the first domino. I also remember one of them trying to take the computer disks out of my backpack... the same person who went through my backpack accused me of being gay."

Sean said he'd prefer the high school to an alternative school. Othwerwise, he says, "why would I want to go back to a school that lies, breaks state laws, and gets rid of bright students who finally snap, merely to 'make the school feel safer?' All the school is doing is satisfying a few parents' false sense of insecurity, brought on by the intense media attention to the recent school shootings, by giving them a false sense of security, at the expense of students like myself. The ONLY reason I'd want to go back is to see my few friends again, and I can keep in contact with them without going to school."

Sean's comment was foolish, his father says, especially in the post-Columbine environment where candid speech about schools is dangerous. And he isn't averse to some milder form of punishment.

I wonder if Sean deserves anything more than a useful speech on sensible responses to morons. Perhaps he should be called into an office and told that one of an individual's noblest callings is to make fools reveal themselves. There appear to be mitigating circumstances, to say the least, and Sean was defending himself, reflexively and verbally, if not wisely. Patrick is surprised by the profoundly anti-democratic, Banana Republic policies that govern public schools in America, where there is no Constitution, protected speech, or due process for citizens under 18. Thousands of kids like Sean won't be the least bit surprised.

In fact, school officials across the country may be chasing the wrong kids out of school. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that more than 2,000 school age children 19 or younger take their lives each year in the United States, many citing depression, social cruelty and bullying and other forms of harassment. That means that many more kids harm themselves as the result of social cruelty than harm other kids.

"I just don't know what to do," says Patrick, who can't afford a lawyer, and who wants to protect his kid. Sheeley is aware that this kind of record could have implications for Sean down the line. "...I would appreciate any suggestions as to what recourse we may have, or where we might find some help."

In the meantime, he and his wife have pulled Sean out of the district rather than submit to his being shunted to an altenative school. The Sheeleys are home-schooling him, an increasingly popular alternative for individualistic kids facing creative suffociation or social isolation and persecution in larger schools. "What's the lesson for him?" his father asks. "This wasn't a fair process. The kids who provoked him were not disciplined equally, or at all. It could have been me," Patrick says, of the incident. "I felt the same way when I was in school. I probably even said the same thing." It could have been lot of people.

Even though administrators have deemed Sean too dangerous to stay in high school -- perhaps he triggered one of their dangerous-kid-profiles -- the junior has never been in trouble of any sort, his father says, inside or out of school: never been arrested, disciplined, suspended, or even involved in a fight.

I called the school district to ask if there was any comment. A secretary in the administrators' office asked me if I was kidding. "No," she said. We don't have any. And what is a Slashdot?"

Sean provides a nearly classic example of kids in the middle of an increasingly insane social situation. We know this story. Sean and his father are both self-professed computer geeks. Sean has a few friends who are into computers and gaming, and who generally feel isolated and excluded at school. Sean finds many of his classes boring, although he has met academic requirements, and spends most of his time in his creative other life, building computers, programming, networking, writing games, especially RPG's.

His experience shows that a culture of harassment remains tolerated in many educational institutions; where kids can be taunted and bullied at will, sometimes into retaliatory statements or actions.

Patrick Sheeley has some decisions to make and could use some help. Should he try to get Sean back into school or walk away? Should he take legal action to force due process? (Many Slashdot community members are familiar with home schooling, judging from my e-mail). He would appreciate hearing from lawyers with expertise in cases like this. He's contacted the ACLU, but isn't sure whether it can or will represent Sean. He knows that irrational policies and the post-Columbine hysteria are all closing in on his kid, and he wants to do something about it.

km790816 writes: "I was reading an article in US News about a novel way to end spam: Hash Cash. From US News: 'our E-mail systems could be configured to reject every message from a stranger until the sender's computer had performed a difficult math problem and sent back the correct result. For one-to-one correspondence, this preliminary step would be unnoticed. But bulk E-mailings to strangers would become too costly in terms of needed computational cycles to be feasible, even with a supercomputer.'" If you've heard of Hash Cash before, don't click through, there's nothing new here. But if you haven't, here's a good introduction to the concept.

Markgor writes: "There is an article at Technology Review about 'smart pills' that are based on micro and nano technology. It starts off by talking about how it could help in chemotherapy treatments for cancer patients by homing in only on the cancerous cells, thereby avoiding the usual ill side effects of chemo. The most interesting part is the 'pharmacy on a chip' concept which has silicon chips loaded with years worth of concentrated drugs in reservoirs that are implanted in the body. These chips then allow for a pre-programmed timed release. Read the article here."

Pedrito writes "CNN is running a story here about a new theory that competes with the Big Bang. I figured it would already be up here. The theory goes that the universe "existed" before as a vacuous space, devoid of matter or energy. Two universes collided and the collision brought matter and energy to the void. The theory explains some things that the Big Bang doesn't. It's also partially based in String theory, of which I'm a big believer."

Curious__George writes "Kurt Seifried on SecurityPortal (4-11-01) writes on a topic that deserves wider notice in the Linux world: The potential dangers of installing BINARY RPMs (as opposed to SOURCE RPMs). Here is the article in standard and printer-friendly versions." (Read more below.)

"He begins: 'I'm always amazed at the lack of articles on topics like RPM and PAM. These are basic systems components and tools that people use every day but which, generally speaking, are poorly understood (if at all). Prepare to be educated.. . . Generally speaking, RPM's must be installed as root, which means that RPMs can do anything on your system: install new files, overwrite files, reconfigure system settings, add new users, etc.

Why is this important? Because many people download RPMs from semi-trusted or untrusted sources and blindly install them.'

Curious George points out: "The potential for danger (with many newbies and not-so-newbies making use of binary RPMs from untrusted sources) is that Linux could develop an unwarranted reputation for problems by someone (or perhaps some Corporation?) purposely diseminating RPMs with built in vulnerablilities or exploits. We should do our part to educate and spread the word on this issue."

Sadam Andler asks: "I am looking to replace my home's multiple PC test network with a small rack. Separate cases are too bulky and will block access to each system. What I have in mind is a filing a cabininet-sized box with 5 to 15 sliding shelves, one for each motherboard. Quiet cooling and power supply would be handled in a centralized manner. Each computer and its cabling should be easily accessible for the swapping or testing components. Is there a cheap solution for me?"

Napoleon Solo asks: "Unfortunately, it seems like most web hosts still don't do a good job of monitoring whether a server is up or not, especially for dedicated servers. It seems like an off-network monitoring service is a good idea if you want to know when your site goes down. (After all, it's not like your host will tell you). What monitoring services (preferably free) do Slashdot readers like? I'm familiar with QWK.Mon, NetWhistle, and NetMechanic. (Although neither of the latter two offer free service any more) are there any others?"

Sunda writes: "An Norwegian ISP, Tele2, has been fined 350,000 Nkr (near 40,000 US $) after beeing held responsible by Norwegian Police for child porn beeing accesible through their News servers. In a statement Okokrim (the part of norwegian police dealing with computer crime) says that the case is made more serious by the fact that child porn has been accessible through the news servers for a longer period of time (they've been working on this for more than a year). Okokrim claims that "...this could have been prevented by internal control at Tele2". Tele2's lawyer Erling Lyngtveit argues that controlling all material running through their news servers would be an almost impossible task. He further says that Tele2 feel betrayed by the police since they for a long time have cooporated with both police authoritys and volunteer organisations to prevent the spreading of child porn through the internet. Okokrim, on the other hand, have not reported their findings of child pornography to Tele2. Lyngtveit says that if Okokrim had made Tele2 aware of their findings, the company would have been more than willing to remove the material and help tracking the users who's posted the material. Tele2 have refused to pay the fine, and the case will now be brought to court."

ag writes: "Paul Garrin is on a crusade to break the U.S. stranglehold on the Web. Access to the "root zone," the master file listing the so-called top-level domains--.com, .org, .net, .gov, .edu, .mil--and some 244 country-code domains, is currently in the hands of the privileged few. Through Name.Space, his own root server, Garrin is hoping to 'reterritorialize the Net, bringing it back to its original ideal of virtual space without borders or hierarchies.'" The article brings out the conflicts between Name.Space and the Open Root Server Confederation.

Caladan writes "I've been lurking on the NetBSD Port-Dreamcast list, and I took note that someone regularly uses their Dreamcast as a webserver. Let's see if someone can write a Dreamcast emulator for BSD!"

Apologies for the AYB title, but that's just what everyone is calling it. Passport is the central repository for your passwords and "personal information" I've looked over the Passport Terms of Use and tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I can't read it any other way than this. By "inputting data ... or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Passport Web Site" -- or any of its "associated services" -- you grant Microsoft the rights to "use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any such communication" and -- just when you were thinking it couldn't get any worse -- "exploit any proprietary rights in such communication, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws." Am I wrong? Is that not what it means? And, is Hotmail affected by this?

One of the key questions is what Microsoft means by "associated services." The terms of use agreement applies to "the Microsoft Passport Web Site" which they redefine in the first sentence to mean "a Web site and its associated services."

Later in the terms, they explicitly say:

"The Passport Web Site may contain bulletin board services, chat areas, news groups, forums, communities, personal web pages, group calendars, electronic mail postings and/or other message or communication facilities designed to enable you to communicate with the public at large or with a group (collectively, 'Communication Services')..."

That doesn't sound like a simple site for password- and personal-data-storage to me.

The really big thing that everyone seems to be worried about is, how is Hotmail email affected by this? Here's the Hotmail Terms of Use. So is Hotmail an "associated service"? How would we know? Passport is listed as one of Hotmail's "additional Microsoft web sites and/or services"; what does that mean? If Hotmail is associated with Passport, does that mean Passport is associated with Hotmail? (Is "association" associative?)

And the fact that any access of www.hotmail.com redirects me to a machine at hotmail.passport.com worries me a lot. How could these sites not be considered "associated"?

Some more tidbits...

Don't forget that Passport is a TRUSTe licensee. TRUSTe stands 100% behind their privacy statement, so you can really, really trust that All Your Bits Are Belong To Us. (The joke is that TRUSTe doesn't actually guarantee you any privacy. It supposedly guarantees that, if you can wade through the legal mumbo-jumbo, you'll find yourself being screwed in precisely the way that the lawyers tell you you're being screwed.)

Here's a directory of the sites that use Passport for single-sign-in or purchasing.

You read it here first. Slashdot predicted this eight months ago. "Microsoft Passport And Your Privacy," July 29, 2000: "...I'm sure Microsoft uses it as a user-tracking system more than anything else." Go read Joel's article, from eight months ago, in which he explains how Passport "eliminates the last line of defense protecting your privacy" and how Microsoft will "create a massive consumer information database."

An article in the Daily Aardvark points out that Netscape users have a hard time reading Passport Q&A.

Bryan Smith has a thoughtful rant about what this would mean for open-source software. Dual copyright? Hmmmm. Here's your link, Bryan: "Dual-copyright/licensing" of your IP withOUT your permission.

A RISKS submitter calls it "highway robbery."

Don't forget that Passport is the website for which Microsoft forgot to pay its $35 domain registration fee, back around Christmas '99. This is the company you want to entrust your passwords to?

And finally, All Your Bits may be hard to retrieve once they Belong To Us. jasonjwwilliams writes "After reading about the new Hailstorm.net initiative by Microsoft, and how once integrated with Passport.com, any communcations sent in conjuction with the service in any manner becomes the property of Microsoft, I asked Passport.com to remove me. The response: we don't do that, wait 12 months to be auto-removed. After three e-mails here's the bottom line I received:

"Due to security reasons we do not allow nor do we have a feature to delete Passport accounts. Rest assured that if you do not access your account within 12 months our system will automatically delete your account."

"I don't know about anyone else, but I think this is a completely lame response and as far as I understand against the law. Anyone know who to get a hold of? This is arrogance gone too far."

Dan Olson asks: "I recently became the owner of a RCA WO-91B Oscilloscope, and it did not come with a manual. Does anybody have any idea where I could come by one?" Oscilloscopes are one of those geeky things that usually pop up in auctions, old electronic shops and other random surplus outlets. Surely many of us have seen one, simply couldn't resist, and bought it, only to find that it was too difficult to operate without a manual? For those of you in this situation, what did you do? Throw it in the storage unit and forget it even existed, or were you able to at least find some information to make it usable? If you were able to do the latter, what sources did you use?

mduell writes: "Apple has been close to their golden master copy of OS X for a week or so, but they've still been making nightly builds to squash the rest of the bugs. These last minute copies have all sported a "Build 4K78" in their info window, and many of them have been leaked to outside sources. Reviewers who got their hands on the system wrote extensively about how 4K78 was horrible, yet today resellers across the world received boxed copies marked as 4K78. This article explains what happened, as well as explains how many bugs to expect, and why Apple dropped the ball on a few features (like DVD)."

Kyaphas writes "Looks like even if you don't sign a non-compete agreement, you might still be barred from working somewhere similar. " Yet another example of tech companies being jerks because things aren't as pretty as they were a year ago. Screwing over your customers is one thing, but it sucks that they would jerk around employees too.

Deglr6328 writes "The Galileo space probe, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995, has received it's third and final mission extension from NASA. Galileo will remain in the Jovian system for 2 more years and 5 orbits studying Callisto, Io and Amalthea, then the spacecraft will take an elongated loop away from Jupiter and head back for a direct impact and burn in Jupiter's atmosphere. The extension will cost $9 million and was approved by the National Academy of Sciences which originally had concerns about it potentially contaminating Europa."

Deglr6328 writes: "The U.S. Department of Energy's Fossil Energy site has a story about using lasers to drill through rock at 10 to 100 times as fast as conventional rock boring technologies. One of the lasers tested was the 2.2 megawatt M.I.R.A.C.L., which was originally designed in 1985 for the star wars program. A cool video clip of its test firing can be found at the GTI page here. It looks like we'll be stuck with fossil fuels like oil and natural gas for some time, so we might as well do it James Bond style!" Sounds more like Real Genius style to me. Who brought the popcorn?

jfmiller asks: "I'm an intern at an anonymous government agency (not the TLA kind). I have been tasked with simplifying and increasing password security. At present each of our users must log into Novell (and winnt) then Lotus Notes, telnet into a both a local and a statewide mainframe and then log into the individual subunits of each of those systems. In all they have to remember something like 7 passwords. What technology is available to simplify this situation? What experience have people had? I'm especially interested in Biometrics. Remember: the sky's the limit, after all, it's your tax dollars at work."

fyrebryan writes "I am fairly new to linux (approx 1 year), and while I have gotten fairly good at working with linux (and love it!!) there is something that i have not been able to find much info about on the web. it is how to run an X Windows session remotely. Security is something that does have me worried, but i am fairly sure that security has already been addressed. If anyone could please help me out and point me to some more info about running X remotely (and possibly on a Win9x machine) it would be greatly appreciated." Is there a good, comprehensive primer on remote X11 sessions that include things like setting up: encrypted X11 sessions, common xhost and MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE problems and so forth? Sometimes, pointing your DISPLAY environment variable to the right server just isn't sufficient, and combing thru man pages don't yield much in the search for workable information.

horza writes: "The conclusion of the UK government consultation on whether software and business methods should be patentable, as they are in the US, are that software and business methods are not patentable. Britain will be pushing for the EU directive to match UK law."

NiceGeek asks: "Is there any interest in a 'Geek' bar? After reading a comment in a recent story on Slashdot, I started thinking about a 'geek hangout' type bar. Basically, beer, music, classic arcade and console games and maybe classic network games like Doom and Quake. One advantage to the 'classic' theme would be reduced overhead. I already possess a lot of classic consoles/games and older stand-up systems are pretty cheap also. I would also consider adding a 'cyber-cafe' for broadband access. I have several other ideas but would like to see if there is any interest." It's an interesting idea, but are there any other things that you think such an endeavor would need? NTN Trivia consoles would be a nice addition (it would fit in well with the other things listed). I have fond memories of playing NTN with friends when it was available at a local hangout.

zarsky99 writes: "EETimes is reporting that Japanese researchers are close to creating the world's first single-atom transistor. This could be a boon to power problems and Moore's Law. The article is here, and please enjoy. Now if they could only get a single girl to date me." OK, you take the transistor, I'll take the girl ;) J adds: For those of you graphing Moore's Wacky Law: November1999, 50nm; November1999, 18nm; October2000, 1nm; December2000, 30nm; five days ago, 30nm. We don't make the semiconductors, we just report 'em.

Wanker writes "An Eastern European hacker group has spent the last year systematically exploiting known bugs in IIS to steal customer and credit card info. Read about it at the SANS security site." Says SANS, "The FBI and Secret Service are taking the unprecedented step of releasing detailed forensic information from ongoing investigations" of the IIS, MS SQL Server and Windows NT breakins. We don't normally post news about exploits, but the scale here is massive: more than a million credit cards have been taken in a blackmail-extortion operation that has been going on for a year. Speculation is welcome as to why NT sysadmins don't install service packs for known vulnerabilities... Update: 03/09 03:37 AM GMT by J : Microsoft says, Don't Be A Victim!.

If you are an NT admin or know someone who is, note especially:

"Within a day or two, the Center for Internet Security will release a small tool that you can use to check your systems for the vulnerabilities and also to look for files the FBI has found present on many compromised systems...

"The Center's tools are normally available only to members, but because of the importance of this problem, the Center agreed to make the new tool, built for the Center by Steve Gibson of Gibson Research) available to all who need it."

Pappy VanSlashdot asks: "Slashdot readers have had some great recommendations for durable mice, even industrial strenght mice. How about keyboards? I need to put about a dozen PCs on a factory floor where the main problem will be sand and other dust. I don't think run of the mill keyboards would last very long. I'm well within the budget for this project (thanks to using a lot of free software) so I can spend just about anything to get something that works."

Markgor writes "Just read an article on Wuzap.org about efforts to port classic Atari games on to wireless devices. Given that smart phones don't exactly have a lot of memory, it would seem like it's a no-brainer to slap a little game of Pong or Combat on. The article can be found on wuzap."

^Phantom asks: "I am a telecommunications major at college. Due to the lack of lab time at school I am always trying to practice as much at home as possible, the problem is I don't have the money for the latest/greatest things, usually I end up with scraps that 'helpful' friends and co-workers come up with. A common example is the Motorola Powerstacks I have on my floor now. I would like to put these to use, and I have heard linux can be made to run on them, but I have been unable to find info except message threads stating the problems that others have faced but with no solutions. I did find one HOWTO but when I followed the steps listed I ended up with a box that kernel panics on boot and no idea why. Is there any websites dedicated to putting old/odd hardware such as this to use?" You'd be amazed how many people out there are finding yesterday's powerful machines in a surplus sale and would love to figure out where to find hardware for it, or figuring out what OSes it will run. Are there any resources on the interenet that might help one with obtaining this information?

Tycoon Guy writes "TrekToday just posted a write-up about the next Star Trek series, containing info on all the characters. Here's a quote: 'Series V will indeed be set on a Starship Enterprise, under the command of human Captain Jackson Archer. The backdrop of the series will be the 22nd Century, at a time when starship travel was a relatively new endeavour, humans and Vulcans still had much to learn about each other, and the universe really was still filled with strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations.'" I guess I'd care more if the last 2 Trek series, and the last Trek Movie maybe, didn't suck monkey. The casting information reads just as bland as you would expect. I'm actually much more interested in tonight's premiere of The Lone Gunmen (X-Files spinoff). Please don't suck!

knewter asks: "I've recently come across an application in a machine that my company is building in which we need to be able to cut a piece of hardened plastic without jolting the item from which we're cutting it. We've researched (mildly) some alternatives, and right now we're looking at ultrasonic knives. Unfortunately, these tend to be rather expensive, and as we're a robotics engineering firm, we'd like to keep the cost of the extraneous pieces of machinery negligible (this is a convenience feature). We've also looked at cutting it with a hot wire, but I personally am worried that this would taint the test results (it's in a sort of a plastic vial that is drained for testing purposes). Does anyone here have any ideas on what would be proper for this, or even some ideas on cheap nano-machinery (not in the sense of manipulating small particles, but in the sense that the blade has been refined to an extremely small point and will not require repeated sharpening)?" Of course, the obvious answer is a laser of some sort, but lasers aren't necessarily cost effective. How about high pressure water cutters?

mduell writes: "Just saw this over on MSNBC. It looks like Apple rushed OS X to meet the deadline, and that many key features (like DVD playing and burning) won't be functional when it ships on the 24th of this month. Also, there won't be a big splashy introduction, perhaps one in the summer when Puma (OS X 1.1) comes out." Which is not to say that Mac owners can't watch DVDs -- if they are dual-booting, at least. The article gets into a few other gripes as well, but none sounds earthshaking to me.

whyDNA? sends us this news bit: "I found this on the PHP page: The first release of PHP-GTK is now available. PHP-GTK is a PHP extension that provides an object-oriented interface to GTK+ toolkit and enables you to write client-side cross-platform GUI applications. For more information, visit gtk.php.net."

agallagh42 writes: "Computer World Canada has a piece on increased levies for blank media. Basically, the levy was increased from 5.2 cents to 21 cents (canadian) on CD-R and CD-RW media. They seem to be using the "presumed guilty" idea, and punishing everyone who uses this technology for whatever purpose, legal or otherwise. Does this mean that, since I'm already paying the music industry for my potential pirating, that I can feel free to pirate all I want?"

We'll start this off with Ant's submission -- a hilarious story about The Endor Holocaust which no doubt follows the destruction of the 2nd Death Star. After reading something so clear, confuse your mind confuse your mind (thanks to The Musician). Now that you are adequately confused, cardoso sent us a ridiculous flash app where you can control dancers. This will put you in the mood to enjoy the most retro homepage ever, sent in by mvw Got some money to burn? Check out the Spinal Tap Guitar which features among other things, chrome exhaust pipes and a tachometer that (of course) goes to 11. If you're not a musician, maybe you'd be interested in Randy Rathbun's link to personalized action figures: I could send in my mugshot and be immortalized in plastic, standing forever atop my monitors with Darth, Goku, and Trinity! Or maybe you wanna buy a Dalek? If you're on more of a budget, Jay Novak sent us a great t-shirt from copyleft considering all the layoffs around the net companies. With all of these great things to waste cash on, you might need some cash: geekguy sent in a funny list of ways to cash in on Doom without wasting time making a game (like for example, Doom breakfast serial! Free BFG inside!) Just get id to license ya! For you do-it-yourselfers, mr100percent submitted what might be the most impressive automotive MP3 player ever. The Pathintosh is a beautifully integrated Mac complete w/ steering wheel controls, and a custom bezel. And finally, the eycandy. First up is davco9200's link to Daily Astronomy Astropix which is actually pretty sweet: today is Mars Dunes. Second and last of all, the pr0n: Jeff K sent in Unix-Sex which features sysadmins getting it on w/ Sun Hardware. Thats why we don't let them work 3rd shift.

Pru points to this CNET story, writing that "[Karl Beidler, a] teenager who was suspended from high school for building a Web page mocking his assistant principal has won $10,000 in damages." This was covered on politech last week as well, for the brave. Plus, the North Thurston School District (Washington state) has to pay up to the ACLU $52,000 in attorney fees, too. That's quite a disincentive for other schools to clamp down on parody sites.

Motor writes: "Microsoft is selling its shares in Corel." Interesting -- it was inevitable that this would happen, I suppose.