Slashdot Mirror

MemeRot writes: "ICANN has a list here of the new TLDs that have been proposed, along with the companies that have proposed them. The applications haven't been checked to be complete, and ICANN still has to decide whether they're going to allow multiple proposals by a single applicant. Still, this is the list of all possible new TLDs and you will be happy to notice that many people are proposing common sense ideas whose time seems to have come - .sex, .xxx, .kids, and .wap. The current target date for completing any negotiations with registry sponsors and registrars is 31 December 2000." I don't see ".dot"! C'mon!

Smitty825 writes: "Barnes & Noble is challenging the Amazon 1-click patent. Hopefully this will invalidate that lame patent, and hopefully this will clarify what is a valid patent. Full story here." There may be certain business methods worth patenting (or at least keeping secret, if you're so inclined), but "one-click" anything seems too silly for consideration, doesn't it? Update: 10/03 4:26 PM by michael : See also this easy one-click exploit of Amazon's one-click system.

The European Union appears ready to shrug and say "OK" to the AOL / Time-Warner merger, while a reader brings us sad and totally unrelated news for game fans. A (plausible, but complete?) explanation of the upcoming PS/2 Crisis, if you view it as such. Also, didja ever wonder how big a trophy it takes to fit 15 syllables? Read on, read on -- it's Slashback.

"Heck, gentleman, what right have we got to approve anyhow?" WPL510 writes: "Just saw this article on Yahoo! about the AOL-TW merger. Apparently all the begging and pleading did something because the EU is about to approve their mega-merger. One concession they didn't mention was opening up AIM, of course. Great -- all we need is a bigger monopoly."

This too shall pass. Lord_Macblaster writes "The GameFan Network is no longer hosting sites. Many sites, including VoodooExtreme and my own site, Monolithic Illusions are nothing but dead links now. It's a real shame. Plenty of top notch sites were shut down. Not major news yet, but info is available here on PlanetCrap, and here on Lum The Mad."

This is the kind of thing that could get me into gaming. nomadic writes: " Electronic News reports that the PS2 shortage (mentioned before on Slashdot) may actually be DVD-related. Some analysts point to a shortage in DVD drive parts that has been affecting the notebook industry as well, but others suggest that it might be their lax CSS security.

Guess the MPAA leaning on them wouldn't be too implausible, but it's interesting if you consider that Sony's a member of that august body. Wonder how much flak they got from their brethren over the DVD copy protection workaround that Japanese gamers found earlier this year."

Another thing that could get me into gaming -- TheMyth writes: "It appears the Vivid Entertainment Group, is trying to release interactive adult movies for the Playstation 2. Read the article here that tells it all. -- I can't wait to see the field day that our government reps are gonna have with this one. Is this another "targeting adult content to kids case" or is it "targeting adult content to adults that play video games"? Censorship here we come ..."

Giving competition a good name again. An unnamed correspondent points to the results of the century's last ICFP programming contest. ICFP stands for a real mouthful: "International Conference on Functional Programming." "This year, functional languages take all the prizes; OCAML gets 1st and 2nd place, Haskell 3rd, Mercury 4th, and the judges' prize (for best image) goes to a SML/NJ team."

Battling giants has its rewards. GoldSkin writes: "The Digital Divas have reached an out-of-court settlement against Microsoft and their Digital Diva site. You may recall this article from way back in May." From their site: "In the simplest terms, Microsoft's Stacy Elliot will no longer be known as the 'Digital Diva' and Microsoft will no longer use digitaldiva.com in connection with content like that formerly available at that site. Also, in accordance with our settlement agreement, Microsoft has posted a notice at digitaldiva.com. Please visit and see for yourself."

zoltanse asks: "As I am changing jobs, I have to return my company notebook, so it is time again to think about new hardware. Given the recent hype around OS X I am considering buying an iBook to give it a try. More important of course is my day-to-day productivity, so being able to run Linux is important, too. Does anyone have experience with this kind of setup? What are the pitfalls of running MacOS 9, OS X and Linux side by side on well equipped hardware? Is it possible at all, practical, or painful? What about the supported add-on hardware, like wireless LAN?"

Agent Z5q writes "According to this article at Wired News, the names of the Carnivore review team have leaked. (Cryptome.org on the ball as always.) The team consists of members who have all either worked on large-scale government projects or currently hold active security clearances, including a top secret rating from the National Security Agency, a top secret rating from the Department of Defense and other ratings from the Treasury Department. Looks like the deck is just a bit stacked."

What will They think of next? Easier to start with what They've thought of previously. For instance: How is Steven King's online book experiment going? And speaking of Them, where lies the trend in The War Between The Pitiful RIAA and the Splendid Universities? And when will They realize that I don't want to talk into my address book, even if that's a PDA? Those people have a lot to answer for.

Allegedly U.S. $299, allegedly end-of-year, allege, allege. Good news for those of us equipped with the quaint alternative to Palm Computing's organizers, even if less than impressed by most combination PDA / phone attempts -- InaneBoy writes: "Handspring's got a bunch of pictures and details of their new 'Visor Phone' Check it out! Super-keen!"

Of course, hemos is right -- there's a reason that most phones aren't as wide as your average PDA. This one looks like a reasonable -- if expensive -- way to combine the two items, especially if it will work with the combination mic / speaker earbud things. (But shouldn't the people making Springboard modules be a little busier with my GPS reciever?)

Plus, many colleges have declined to ban copying machines, tape recorders and ethernet. carlocius writes: "It appears that my college, Michigan State University, just handed Metallica and Dr. Dre another loss in their attempt to get Napster blocked on large Universities. MSU's administators stated that the Acceptable Use Policy of the university already covers copyright issues and there is no reason for Napster to be banned before a trial. GO STATE!!!"

Likewise, jellings writes: "The University of Pennsylvania joined the ranks of leading universities who are refusing to shut down access to the Napster on their campus, according to an article from the university press. U Pres. Judith Rodin said that "banning the Internet service would go against the University's educational mission by denying students freedom of inquiry and expression" and pointed to the Digital Millenium Act for further justification, saying that limiting access is not her responsibility ("Internet service providers cannot be held accountable for illegal activity on their networks if they are unaware of the activity"). Although the awareness of the activity of the issue may be questionable, it is certainly good to see a big U not yielding to the demands of Dr. Dre & Metallica ..."

The list of schools refusing to buckle under keeps growing; campus admins and sysadmins seem justifiably adamant about letting their policies be dictated by corporate vulture groups. Bandwidth reasons may be another story entirely, though.

Of course, not everyone has the awesome power of ResNet behind them ... ca1v1n writes: "The awesome power of the record labels has come through again. The Offspring have cancelled their plans to distribute their next album for free, after legal action and the threat of a lawsuit from Sony music. Yahoo! news has the scoop. So much for protecting the artists' interests."

An enquiry into establishing a curve of electronic book sales ... Triumphant former astronomy student jamie points out this CNN story on the continuing book experiment by Stephen King, who is still selling his novel online. Here's a telling snippet:

...since the first installment's release July 24, the percentage of readers paying for their downloads has dropped from 76 percent to less than 70 percent for the second installment. Part three goes up on Monday.

jamie points out that 70 "but he's giving us part 3 anyway. The more telling figures: 172,004 people had paid for part one and 74,373 people had paid for part two."

maomoondog pipes in: "Apparently, King's company is upset that too few of the downloads are being paid for. Stephen King comments on the progress here. Personally, I'm impressed that 70% of the downloads are being paid for. With as low a per-item cost as a text download is, the author should really clean up in this sort of arrangement."

If you're one of the 172,004, liked the story, but are not part of the 74,373, please consider joining the second group on jamie's behalf, because as he says: "It's actually not a bad story and I want to see how it ends :)"

Motor writes: "Things have been a bit quiet on the XFS front over the last few months, but a beta is finally here." They've got a document to to read before installing, as well as some installation notes on the site. It looks like it's a patch for 2.4.0-test5 kernel, and you can also get it as RPMs, or ProPack.

You thought the ban on violent video games from public display was a little off-putting? Well, try it on for size in Lotusland, USA. If that's not taxing enough, consider working some more on an allegedly cracked Poe cipher (but which you can't see yet). And then, it's primary source time on the MP3 brouhaha with Esther Dyson, Hilary Rosen, Orrin Hatch, Kevin Smith and Some Guy. All in this episode of Slashback.

A 17-year-old can join the real army, remember ... If you thought that the Indianapolis ordinance restricting video games with violent content from storefront display was either an anomaly or a strictly Middle-American move, read on. An unnamed correspondent writes: "GameFan reports in an article that yet another city is creating an ordinance that '...would restrict minors from playing arcade games with graphic violence or sexually explicit content.' The ordinance also covers the positioning and clear marking of the 'bad' machines. 'Currently, the bill states that such violent arcade machines must be marked and situated more than 10 feet from non-violent video titles.'"

Yes, at this point, it's just the proposal of a city council member, not a done deal. The city is (gulp!) sunny San Diego. Bother anyone? Perhaps they'll move all the games with punching into buildings like NYC has for Off Track Betting?

A long long time ago, I can still remember ... And for those into games that with a bit less gore ("We didn't have gore when I was small -- we were too poor!"), Kevin writes " Futurelooks has started a new feature called Retrolooks, which looks back at technology of the past and puts it up against the technology of today." Go read 'Atari 2600 VCS VS. Sega Dreamcast: FIGHT!' and try not to weep with nostalgia, at least if you are -- errrrr -- mature enough to have developed nostalgia. Here's a sample:

"Ah Atari, the granddaddy of all gaming platforms, the editio princep, the grail upon which all future gaming developed. In 1976 the Saturday Night Fever crowd was tired of just Staying Alive and craved something new. One Nolan Bushnell gave them that new fix with the invention of the first Atari console. Bushnell created the first unit with $250 and a desire for something new. Within four years the company of one had grown considerably and was worth over $28 million."

Plus, the grail is in the Castle ... [Aaaaggghhhh ....] AssFace writes: "As previously covered there is/was a contest of which the main goal was to break a cipher that had stood 154 years. At least two people have now solved it (separately) and we are now waiting on word (from the Bokler site) as to what will come next - apparently once one part is broken there is more? - I had created a list a while back on which a group has been discussing the cipher and at least one of the members is one of the people that came up with a solution of sorts and he posted a note regarding it here.
Frustrating for me personally because the code I was writing was just starting to evolve pretty nicely - but it will be fun to see what is next."

Proof positive, though? No word yet on the contest Web site; I think Edgar is cackling merrily in his grave.

If I share some love with you, do I have less left afterward? StoryMan writes "There's an interesting (and long) article at the NYTimes about file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, and the future of digital music.

It merits a read, if only because its participants are both important and interestingly diverse. Participating the round-table were: Hilary "I Speak for Artists, Hear me Roar" Rosen (complete with a very scary picture), Kevin "Chasing Amy" Smith, Esther Dyson, David Boies, a software developer, and your average 17-year old dude."

So long as you label it accurately, OK, fellas? For all their possible nefarious uses, cookies on your hard drive simply don't track you as well as certain companies would prefer. That's why devices like the Cue Cat, which exchange some convenience for information on your buying habits, will only get more common.

For instance, jgilm writes: "A 'new' product/company called Qode (marketese for "code") (www.qode.com) has a device reminicent of the Cue:Cat. Informationweek had a brief on it with items like '... a small wireless device called a Qoder ... scan UPC bar codes ... to search for better deals online.' and 'The scanned data is then downloaded to a personalized Web site.... Companies will then offer special deals on the personalized sites.'

The Qode site, which has a penchant for Flash movies, has info for businesses like '...a new and far more efficient way to deliver promotions. Plus you get a real-time heads up on consumer product interests.'

They claim that they are a 'wall' and 'walls are strong. And silent.' No joke. This is in relation to their privacy policy. Their idea of privacy is that they don't give out personal information to their business partners.

One aspect they don't address is the fact the the company still keeps track of your buying habits. Another is the probable lack of Linux software for the device (though no mention is made anywhere of system requirements)."

OK, so the world will soon be (or is already?) awash in free barcode readers. However, that's not all -- japhar81 writes: "Saw this over at GeekNews: netcity is offering a free smart-card reader. I'm personally planning to use it for an unintended purpose, like a certain other freebie. Off the top of my head, perhaps using my creditcard as the key to my pc ... Hardware hackers go wild:)"

You thought the ban on violent video games from public display was a little off-putting? Well, try it on for size in Lotusland, USA. If that's not taxing enough, consider working some more on an allegedly cracked Poe cipher (but which you can't see yet). And then, it's primary source time on the MP3 brouhaha with Esther Dyson, Hilary Rosen, Orrin Hatch, Kevin Smith and Some Guy. All in this episode of Slashback.

A 17-year-old can join the real army, remember ... If you thought that the Indianapolis ordinance restricting video games with violent content from storefront display was either an anomaly or a strictly Middle-American move, read on. An unnamed correspondent writes: "GameFan reports in an article that yet another city is creating an ordinance that '...would restrict minors from playing arcade games with graphic violence or sexually explicit content.' The ordinance also covers the positioning and clear marking of the 'bad' machines. 'Currently, the bill states that such violent arcade machines must be marked and situated more than 10 feet from non-violent video titles.'"

Yes, at this point, it's just the proposal of a city council member, not a done deal. The city is (gulp!) sunny San Diego. Bother anyone? Perhaps they'll move all the games with punching into buildings like NYC has for Off Track Betting?

A long long time ago, I can still remember ... And for those into games that with a bit less gore ("We didn't have gore when I was small -- we were too poor!"), Kevin writes " Futurelooks has started a new feature called Retrolooks, which looks back at technology of the past and puts it up against the technology of today." Go read 'Atari 2600 VCS VS. Sega Dreamcast: FIGHT!' and try not to weep with nostalgia, at least if you are -- errrrr -- mature enough to have developed nostalgia. Here's a sample:

"Ah Atari, the granddaddy of all gaming platforms, the editio princep, the grail upon which all future gaming developed. In 1976 the Saturday Night Fever crowd was tired of just Staying Alive and craved something new. One Nolan Bushnell gave them that new fix with the invention of the first Atari console. Bushnell created the first unit with $250 and a desire for something new. Within four years the company of one had grown considerably and was worth over $28 million."

Plus, the grail is in the Castle ... [Aaaaggghhhh ....] AssFace writes: "As previously covered there is/was a contest of which the main goal was to break a cipher that had stood 154 years. At least two people have now solved it (separately) and we are now waiting on word (from the Bokler site) as to what will come next - apparently once one part is broken there is more? - I had created a list a while back on which a group has been discussing the cipher and at least one of the members is one of the people that came up with a solution of sorts and he posted a note regarding it here.
Frustrating for me personally because the code I was writing was just starting to evolve pretty nicely - but it will be fun to see what is next."

Proof positive, though? No word yet on the contest Web site; I think Edgar is cackling merrily in his grave.

If I share some love with you, do I have less left afterward? StoryMan writes "There's an interesting (and long) article at the NYTimes about file sharing, peer-to-peer networks, and the future of digital music.

It merits a read, if only because its participants are both important and interestingly diverse. Participating the round-table were: Hilary "I Speak for Artists, Hear me Roar" Rosen (complete with a very scary picture), Kevin "Chasing Amy" Smith, Esther Dyson, David Boies, a software developer, and your average 17-year old dude."

So long as you label it accurately, OK, fellas? For all their possible nefarious uses, cookies on your hard drive simply don't track you as well as certain companies would prefer. That's why devices like the Cue Cat, which exchange some convenience for information on your buying habits, will only get more common.

For instance, jgilm writes: "A 'new' product/company called Qode (marketese for "code") (www.qode.com) has a device reminicent of the Cue:Cat. Informationweek had a brief on it with items like '... a small wireless device called a Qoder ... scan UPC bar codes ... to search for better deals online.' and 'The scanned data is then downloaded to a personalized Web site.... Companies will then offer special deals on the personalized sites.'

The Qode site, which has a penchant for Flash movies, has info for businesses like '...a new and far more efficient way to deliver promotions. Plus you get a real-time heads up on consumer product interests.'

They claim that they are a 'wall' and 'walls are strong. And silent.' No joke. This is in relation to their privacy policy. Their idea of privacy is that they don't give out personal information to their business partners.

One aspect they don't address is the fact the the company still keeps track of your buying habits. Another is the probable lack of Linux software for the device (though no mention is made anywhere of system requirements)."

OK, so the world will soon be (or is already?) awash in free barcode readers. However, that's not all -- japhar81 writes: "Saw this over at GeekNews: netcity is offering a free smart-card reader. I'm personally planning to use it for an unintended purpose, like a certain other freebie. Off the top of my head, perhaps using my creditcard as the key to my pc ... Hardware hackers go wild:)"

braind writes: "The Stanford group has developed a new way to simulate protein folding ("distributed dynamics") which should remove the previous barriers to simulating protein folding. However, this method is extremely computationally demanding and we need your help. You can read more on the site." It's interesting seeing all these projects coming out - just a reminder that distributed is still around and we can always use more on our team. *grin* [addendum from timothy:] Note that the SDK used for this project was discussed here a few days ago, so you can even roll -- err, fold -- your own.

sachsmachine writes: "The Harvard Crimson is reporting that MIT, Stanford, Duke, and UNC are refusing a Metallica request to block Napster, and that Harvard will likely do the same. Nice to see our institutions of higher learning sticking up for online freedom ..."

[Updated 14:07 GMT by timothy:] fredder adds another small evidence of persistent sanity: "I received this email from the powers that be at Duke University this morning:

'Duke has declined a request from the attorney representing several music performers to ban access to napster.

I do wish to remind all students that your license to use Duke's computing networks is predicated on legal use only, and that copyright infringement is not a permitted use.

Tallman Trask III'"

malahoo asks: "I've recently registered my own domain name for personal fun and education, and am trying to find interesting things to do with it and my Linux box. High on this list is setting up a Web-based e-mail site, like YahooMail or Hotmail, for my family and friends to use. What open source projects out there would be suitable for this? On freshmeat, I've found such projects as WebMail, PHPWebMail, acmemail, etc. But I haven't found a way to evaluate these programs based on features, stability, security, and other factors. Have any of my fellow members of the Slashdot community set up a Web mail site? What tools did you use, how did you decide on these tools, and what is your experience & reccomendations for someone following the same path?"

Mn3m0nic writes "Maxtor today announced a 320 gig rack mounted network storage server that fits in 1U (1.75") of rack space or 1 terrabyte in 5.25"." 14 bucks a gig. Can you stream video over a 100Mbs ether comfortably? Perhaps this is the backend for your DeCSS based DVD Jukebox? Or the mega Tivo extra hard drive (I s'pose that'd take some work tho). But you could fit a hundred or so movies on there... we're just inching towards it now.

kryptt writes "An Article in The Santa Fe Institute's web page (http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/ research/activityUpdate.html) had this on it: "Cognitive Science The Neural Theory of Language Project run by Jerome Feldman and Board member George Lakoff at University California Berkeley aims answering question: How can physical brain give rise to concepts language? In a recent breakthrough collaborators have now isolated, via computational modeling techniques, kinds structures that carry out dynamic mental models separated their structure from parameterized provide input take output models. allows them create formal representations for which they describe linguistic constructions. other work, Lakoff, Rafael Núñez new book forthcomingWhere Mathematics Comes From: Embodied Mind Brings into Being Basic Books, York. is Projects web page: http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/NTL very interesting reading.."

einstein writes "Old Man Murray has this commentary on why the adventure game genre lost out to titles like Doom, Quake, and why players would "rather run around in short shorts raiding tombs than experience real stories..." also provides an interesting look into the eyes of an adventure game writer." Ah, Old Man Murray - some of the funniest reading out there, in my book.

MarkB asks "I have an autistic five year old boy who is mad keen on maths, music and drawing. His school want him to have his own computer. I would like to start him on UNIX (rather than MS which the school offers) but need to find educational software suitable for young children. What software is available or being developed for the six to twelve age group? I am happy to join a project and get my hands dirty (java)."

numlumps asks: "Recently, my batteries for my TI-82 ran out of juice. Since there is no environmentally friendly way to dispose of batteries in my area, I figured, why not do away with the things altogether? I figured if it were possible to power my calculator with solar power, I'd never have to buy batteries again, nor would I have to worry about toxic chemicals from old batteries leaking into groundwater and so on. Has anyone built a solar power kit for TI-82 and similar calculators? If so, how do I do it without ruining my calculator?"

Lenbok writes: "The guys at Dallas Semiconductors have been busy. They've wired a bicycle (pix here) with a local microLAN of web-addressable sensors including temperature sensors, addressable switches, A/D converters, iButtons, and chips to manage battery functions. Quiet electric power, exercised on demand, a full instrument panel (via palmpilot), data login, a Web page for your eBike, and even e-mail while traveling. What more could you ask for? GPS integration? That's on its way." [timothy butts in ...] And don't forget that this is only if you want a semi-normal lookin' electric bike. Don't forget that Steve Roberts has been crankin' the pedals of a series of very wired bikes (and now boats) for a long time. Check out his Nomadic Research Labs for some of the coolest because-we-can technology (home-brewed, and re-purposed COTS stuff) you're likely to find on this planet.

Erik Poupaert writes "I've been following VMWare and plex86 (used to be freemware) for a while now, because I think that virtualization may be a solution to quite a number of problems. It basically allows you to run several operating systems concurrently. IBM uses this approach too, to run a large number of Linux instances on their mainframes. While you can leave the task of managing devices and device drivers to the host operating system, guest operating systems can supply you with the ideosyncracies of their particular versions to run the applications that expect them. Since VMWare is not free, as in free speech, I thought that plex86 would become the lead open-source project in the field. Now there seems to be a new player, that I never heard of before, called VOS, who claims the whole field to themselves, and have filed patents to obtain a monopoly on the entire discpline. Have they got any chance in succeeding? Or do you think that the patent office would not grant such patent?"

Fiwer wrote in with some interesting news with the only game I'll run windows for (god I wish they'd release a Linux port). They've announced an expansion pack that will probably be out next summer. Will feature Act V, as well as 2 new classes: Asassin and Druid. You can read the story on DiabloII.net or the Game Center Version (which has more screenshots, but requires you to click through one page-at-a-time. I hate that. I'm still wandering around as a sorceress named CmdrTaco (currently in Hell Act 3) and running into quite a few Slashdot folks out there. Not that its got me a stone of jordan *grin*

beekman1 writes: "Stanford has up their first edition of Making the Macintosh. Where many articles deal with the political aspects of this period (Steve Jobs taking over, etc.) this one has the technical details like the evolution of the mouse from lab testing to production device. Link aquired from ArsTechnica"

K2 noted the Vintage Computer Festival taking place in California ... apparently MIT does this too (not that this matters to us midwesterners). At least there's a lot of interesting looking reading material on the site that those of us who aren't there can read (the true Apple story, archives on vintage computers, petitions to sign wrt releasing specs of vintage hardware into the public domain etc).

StoryMan writes: "Amazon.com decides to revise its privacy policy and states that it considers consumer data a saleable asset. Story here at CNN." Michael notes that this only happens if Amazon.com is sold: essentially covering their butts in case they go bankrupt. Of course considering their burn rate, this doesn't make me feel better. I haven't shopped at Amazon since their one-click-shopping patent, but I'm sure they have plenty of stuff listed about me from an era when I happily shopped with them (mind you this is before Amazon diluted itself by selling so much crap, that buying books became a pain).

Jamie adds:

Note the language of the new privacy policy: "of course" your private information will be "one of the transferred assets."

Did you think your information would still be private five years from now, when the dozens of companies you've shopped at have all gone bankrupt one by one? Ha ha! Foolish consumer!

The first test case in bankrupt-privacy seems to be Toysmart, and the latest word on that is that a judge refuses to forbid such "asset transfers." We'll keep you posted on the Toysmart case, but for now, it doesn't look good.

daveb writes "According to newswire the Robo World Cup discussed last month is now underway. There's fuller details and streaming quicktime video at the robocup2000 home page"

kuni ito writes: "'According to the astronomers who detected the object with Japan's Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA), the black hole seems to be acting like a supermassive black hole, despite its size. It's sucking up matter at roughly the same rate as its much larger (and seemingly less hungry) relatives, they said.'" This black hole (assuming that black holes exist) seems to be eating a lot more than would otherwise be predicted.

More below on what is surely one of the slowest patents ever granted (to our inquisitive friends with the radar domes, no less), and smidgeons of news on such various and sundry as Napster (perhaps you've heard of it?) and Iridium (perhaps you wish you'd never heard of it?), not to mention more on the destruction of the submarine Kursk.

The (cryptographic) wheels of government grind slowly. JOEL-V writes: "In August 2000, the United States Patent Office issued patent #6097812 to the National Security Agency, for 'Cryptographic System.' The patent application was filed in the year 1933, and this invention and patent are actually one version of the famous Enigma machine."

On a similar note, Paul Maud'Dib writes: "The Slashdot crew might be interested in checking out Enigmatic. They have java emulators for the Purple, Sigaba, Enigma, Russian Espionage Cipher and a public domain Bombe. They also have rather lucid descriptions of the various systems used. Interesting reads all."

That which does not kill him makes him stronger. You may recall that some maladjusted script kiddies threw a spanner in the works of the excellent kuro5hin a little while ago. Emmett told you more about the attack and its aftermath shortly thereafter. Looks like it's time for the (all volunteer, cool-content, graphically appealing) kuro5hin to emerge from a quick breather.

pope nihil writes: "kuro5hin.org has an update on their page. things should be back up (according to the update) by Sept 15 or so. check it out." Yes, Go there! Congratulations, guys.

88 bottles of bits on the wall, 88 bottles of bits ... NoWhere Man writes "The bankrupt Iridium venture has received another bid to save the wireless phone company's $5 billion satellite system from being pulled from space and destroyed. A California-based organization named CMC International is offering to pay $30 million to acquire Iridium's 88 satellites and other assets, according to a court filing submitted Friday."

It certainly would be nice if someone could eke out (even a meager) connection from Iridium rather than incinerating the satellites in the atmosphere, but honestly, the Will Burn / Will Fly status of these birds flip-flops enough to put a politician to shame. I'd like them to stay up, if only not to spook other folks from putting data-bouncing satellites up for our browsing pleasure.

In a nutshell, this is the problem with carrying around cavitation weapons. aleclee writes "It now appears that the Kursk was indeed carrying cavitation weapons and that she was sunk by a misfiring rocket. Supposedly, the rocket/torpedo can travel at 200 knots! Details can be found here."

Update: any port in a storm, and this one sounds nice. Patrick Ryan wrote: " Hello, I wanted you to know that CDSA [as mentioned in this slashdot story] has been updated at Intel and now includes a Linux port." Visit http://developer.intel.com/ial/security/ for more information about CDSA, and then the download site for your free-downloading pleasure.

Maktoo writes: "Just checked out the latest Netcraft survey and it has a very interesting new feature breaking out the differences between "Total Web sites hosted" and total *active* Web sites. The pie charts are about 3/4 the way down the page. They show that in total sites, Linux and MS have 35% and 21% marketshare respectively... but when it comes to actual active sites, that gap shrinks to 29.9% and 28.3% respectively. Netcraft have figured out a way to try to eliminate the millions of place holder pages out there that aren't actually serving content, thus not really Web sites. Apache's marketshare also shrinks a little, but it's still an impressive 59%. It's an interesting read."

BeaverWise writes "Looks like puss and boots is coming back. The last known Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, died in captivity in 1936, but a team of Australian biologists believes the animal's extinction may simply be a 70-year hiccup. DNA from a Tasmanian tiger has been found, and cloning is under way."

mduell writes "Intel showed off their newest, fastest chip ever. The Pentium 4, running at 2 Ghz uses 400MHz Rambus Direct RAM(ugh). They also demo'd an Itanium server cluster running Linux with failover protection (what does this have to do with the chip?). Additionally, a 1Ghz P3-Xeon and a new 500Mhz mobile P3 that uses just 850 milliwatts when running most applications (5.5W max) were shown."

Ah, there you are! You must have come to hear the details about selling your vote online? No, perhaps then you'd like to know what LinuxWorld thought was coolest at LWCE, or what words ESR has added to the infamous Jargon File. All below, folks, all below.

Good thing politicians are in such strong ethical trim. In case you were thinking of selling your vote (early and often) in the next national election, it seems that there are legal barriers. Sort of like at least certain other activities which are legal if you do them for fun, but illegal if you take cash, the lawmakers seem to like the prostitution on their side of the castle wall. Or do they always vote their consciences?

GMontag writes: "This Wired story tells how Voteauction.com has shut itself down after public pressure and threats from various bureaucrats.

A telling quote by Doug Kellner, a Manhattan representative on the New York City Board of Elections: 'The message to get out to the public is that posting (intent to sell votes) to a website even in jest is a serious matter. It could subject you to prosecution, or in New York you could forfeit your vote,' Kellner said, referring to a New York state law that imposes a one-year forfeiture on vote buyers and sellers.

So, this is more political speech that is 'illegal'? So far, it has been nothing but a discussion of vote auctioning and a college paper. Amazing that the bureaucrats what to 'do something' about this, but rounding up car thieves keeps 'slipping through the cracks.'"

Note to non-U.S. citizens: since this law probably doesn't apply to you, feel free to sell your votes online.

Radio Radio it's a sad salvation. wodelltech writes "With regard to the recent VMSK article/comments, readers might find the announcement at http://ibiquitydigital.com interesting."

Basically, this is an announcement of the merger of Lucent Digital Radio (which, little did I know, is just a few miles from my present dwelling) and USA Digital Radio, which sounds like an interesting step toward better choices in local radio. (Can't someone please give me good talk, all day?) Here's a snippet:

Today, radio in the United States is broadcast using analog signals. iBiquity Digital will enable broadcasters to send a digital signal, capable of containing CD-quality audio with crystal clear reception and additional wireless data for a variety of consumer applications such as station and program content, stock and news information, local traffic and weather, and much more, over existing radio frequencies, without denigrating transmission of current analog programming.

But is there a downloadable palm module? A Klingon translation? Anomie-ous Cow-ard writes "The ever-popular Jargon File has been updated to version 4.2.2."

So if you want to correctly use terms like "smoot," "ANSI standard pizza," and "dirty genitals," make sure to arm yourself with ESR's help. And you can look at the file's change log here.

Buzzword compliance is certainly a mission-critical optimization *ahem, mumble* ... Captain_Carnage writes "The LinuxWorld website has an article about itstop five productstoday. Featured are a rollable rubber keyboard from Broumand (only an e-mail address given), a user resource allocation/accounting tool from Aurema, an IDE-based RAID card from 3ware, a Linux-based router/VPN box from Linux Wizardry, and a High-Availability clustering product from Mission Critical Linux."

These all seem like cool products, but slashdot readers have known about the rubber keyboard for months. As for the others, any other nominations for the coolest products recently released? If the field is open, I have to say the pneumatic chair at the Loki booth, even if it isn't yet available and will cost 5 or 10 grand, and Slackware folding frisbees.

ksan writes "Acording to this article in EDN Magazine; VMSK/2, a new modulation technique may improve modem, FM, AM and other types of transmission. They say that its possible to transmit 100 channels of 128kbps MP3 over an FM channel. Anyone can say more about this?"Read below to find out the *major* problems with this article.

Chasuk writes "Slashdot users who are also Windows users might be interested in visiting this site, where they can download Kmeleon, which is described on that site thusly: "K-Meleon is the Windows answer to Galeon. Thus, K-Meleon is a lite Web browser based on gecko (the mozilla rendering engine). It's fast, it has a light interface, and it is fully standards-compliant. To make it simple, K-Meleon could be considered as the unbloated Mozilla version for Windows.""

skubalon writes "Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux. The story was first reported in Paul Thurrott's WinInfo yesterday. Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported." On the other hand we have this submission:rendell writes "According to this story on Beta News, Microsoft is denying the rumors that they were in the process of porting some of their software to the Linux platform. Especially focusing on the rumor that the main project was Office." So - who knows? My analysis: Microsoft is correct - /they/ are not doing the porting. Mainsoft however, appears to have the powers to execute the porting.

skubalon writes "Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux. The story was first reported in Paul Thurrott's WinInfo yesterday. Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported." On the other hand we have this submission:rendell writes "According to this story on Beta News, Microsoft is denying the rumors that they were in the process of porting some of their software to the Linux platform. Especially focusing on the rumor that the main project was Office." So - who knows? My analysis: Microsoft is correct - /they/ are not doing the porting. Mainsoft however, appears to have the powers to execute the porting.

mduell writes: "Saw these three on the Technology front page at MSNBC.com. First off, This story on how GNOME Foundation takes aim at Microsoft. Secondly, this story about what Michael Dell thinks of Linux. Lastly, this story about Linux on mobile devices." Some other links that have been submitted: a reader submits pictures from the Expo, a Linux PDA is announced, and Michael Dell tries to figure out why he's selling overpriced Linux systems.

shermNOTsherm writes "Here's a story on UniSci about research at the University of Rochester on reconfigurable computers. The idea is to dynamically adjust cache sizes on the fly to more efficiently operate. Supposedly halves power consumption, and is based on current commercial chips, not customized, so it's just a little closer to real world."

umjaja96 writes: "Reuters is reporting that IBM is rumored to be looking to buy Novell. Perhaps Big Blue is looking to strengthen its mid-range and lower end servers with something not from Redmond?"

kkkalen writes "Have you completed a Masters or PhD thesis in the last eight or so years? If so, it is probably for sale at http://www.contentville.com, a for-profit company which I understand I partially owned by NBC and Time. Mine is there and I never gave them permission to sell it. As far as I know, I am the sole owner of the copyright on my thesis. Even my ex-supervisor had to ask permission (he did) before he could make it available on a web site (for free, by the way)."

"I am shocked that that this company is engaging in what amount to piracy of my work. Actually, it's worse than that since they are offering it for sale. Imagine the lawsuits and jailtime I would get (a la FBI Warning) if I burned a few hundred CDs of the latest movie release and sold them on the Internet.

"I imagine a great deal of Slashdot readers have completed graduate work. I just wonder what they make of this?"

Well, we'll see. Contentville is funded by CBS, NBC, a huge book distributor and a database aggregator - it launched last month. These companies are in Congress right now lobbying for a law to protect databases - that is, to make re-using information from places such as Contentville illegal. Not just copying the information, but even using any of the data or facts from databases would be illegal. A number of database-protection bills are in Congress right now, and if one of them passes (very likely), the poster above won't be able to make use of his own thesis without paying Contentville - since Contentville went to the effort of compiling their database, and the law would protect that effort.

Steven Brill, so-called "media watchdog", is just in the process of settling with thousands of freelance writers whose work he also, uh, appropriated.

It looks to me like a crystal-clear violation of the No Electronic Theft Act, passed a few years ago. Will Steven Brill go to jail for not more than three years? No. He's a "media watchdog", and only "pirates" go to jail. (Aside to Steve: if the NYT or Washington Post start referring to you as a pirate, best flee the country - the FBI will take an interest in the case then.)

Contentville. We get our Content the old-fashioned way - by stealing it.

It's another election year and it's bound to be one that we will remember, if only due to the changing face of the Internet that has already started with laws like the DMCA and the WIPO. Many of you are rightly worried about which candidate will be the best to vote for in terms of the jobs, the technology, and the freedom we all value so much. So here are a couple of questions from readers who are curious about the arrival of politics on the net, and the political tools both currently available and in development to help online voters make informed choices.

molo asks: "This is the year I will be entering the work force, and I've realized that I need to vote to protect my rights as an American, an individual and a programmer. For that reason, I ponder this question:

Which candidate is better for geeks (and the associated geek jobs and issues)?

There is plenty of political FUD being spread from all sides, and to help you weed through it, here are some links for each of the candidates: Bush on Technology and the New Economy, Gore's High-Tech Economic Agenda, Gore on Technology & Science, Nader on Corporatism, Buchanan's Issues and Browne's Issues (anything relevant on these last two?). While I realize that there are a lot of differences between the candidates, can we try to limit this discussion to geek issues? Its hard to make heads or tails of these guys, and I'm curious what the rest of the community thinks."

RomulusNR asks: "The other day I visited Vote Smart, mainly to do a comparison of Nader vs. Gore (sorry libertarians, I'm a lib'ral) on their opinions on major issues. To my discouragement, I discovered two things while visiting the site. One, is that no major presidential candidate has filled out Vote-Smart's presidential issues test, even after repeated urgings from Vote Smart, high-profile political colleagues, and major SIGs. No, not even Mr. Internet Inventor himself. The other thing I noticed made me think Vote Smart had become thoroughly useless... in that practically every schmo with designs on political attention and the bother to get their names on their state's presidential ballots, is listed on Vote Smart. If VS's list is to be believed, there are about 60 candidates for the presidency as we speak -- about 55 more than I could think of."

I don't agree with the two-party system, but not even the most politically divergent democracies in the world have that many independent parties (at least not with their own candidates). It would be impossible to carry out an election with 60 competing candidates.

Which makes me wonder two things. One, if the Internet allows every schmoe to declare themselves a presidential candidate, will it help the political process? Will it even have an effect, with all those also-rans diluting the third-party pool? Two, if all major (or even remotely viable, like Nader) political candidates are going to simply ignore grassroots Internet 'informed politics' attempts like Vote Smart, what good will they be able to do?"

This is Slashback. Read it before it's wrong again. Find out more about Mandrake's new honcho, the neurons firing in the American legal system's brains on Napster, Yet Another Cool GPLization, and Larry's new toy.

View the meal from which the soundbite was extracted! Jim Tyre writes: "When Slashdot reported on the preliminary injunction against Napster, and then on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' stay of that injunction, a missing piece was the actual ruling by the lower court, since it was an oral ruling from the bench, and a transcript had not yet been made available. C|Net now has the transcript here, and it makes for good reading for those interested in what the court's thinking was, not just the result."

On second thought, I'd rather not dance. Andreas writes: "As reported by the Heise Newsticker The German company CMG, which threatened to sue over the use of their registered name SAMBA, has stepped down from their plans. Nice to see at least some kind of clueness."

The article is in German, but the fish renders it quite intelligible.

If you want a kiss from CmdrTaco, you must be this big ... ClubNation writes: "Empeg have released their MP3 car player download software under the GPL. Before now you could only get an i386 binary for Linux, but now the source should build on pretty much anything with GCC or another good Posix C++ compiler with STL. I've heard on the empeg BBS that it builds out of the box on PPC and someone's working on a native Mac version.

You can get the code from their Web site or from their Geek Site which is also pretty cool and has a photo of CmdrTaco and Hemos in the photo album!"

And even though companies like Aiwa and Kenwood are selling MP3 head-units, the Empeg has one of the coolest industrial designs I've seen in anything for a long time. When I am a bazillionaire, I will put the Mark XXII in my Escort;)

So, in layman's terms, what might these projects be? Robert McMillan writes: "Linux Magazine has an interview with the brand new CEO of MandrakeSoft, Henri Poole. In it, he says that Tucows has apologized to his company about the Penguin Payola controversy. Poole also hints at some new open source projects that MandrakeSoft will be sponsoring in the next year and talks about what former CEO Jacques Le Marois will be doing now."

And now it's time for a mini, mini, mini review: invisik writes: "I got my NIC (New Internet Computer) yesterday. It's definitely a Linux box, running Netscape Navigator (browser only) 4.73, in 800x600 (can't change it). Connects easily to their ISP, your ISP, or your ethernet connection (DHCP or static IP). Has some utilities to make life easier, telnet, ssh, citrix, vnc, IRC clients. Also some games, solitaire, etc, etc. Speed is good, it doesn't really have much running on it to bog it down, though. And there's a little red light that flashed when it seen network activity--pretty cool. Not too bad for $199 if you really need some decent connectivity to your office (ssh/citrix/telnet) which I'd guess most other Internet terminal-type devices lack ..."

MrProgrammer asks: "With hybrid languages like C# coming down the pike, what do you see as the next advances to be made in programming? We have languages from Assembly to Visual Basic, covering what would appear to be the entire spectrum. Is there anything else to be added? Is there anything beyond OOP?"

s|eeper writes: "C|Net just posted an article about Tivo publicly stating that at this time, they have no problem with people hacking their Tivos to add more disk space."

toodrunk2f_ck writes: "News has been slow to trickle out about the new "Colorado Junk Email Law" (HB00-1309). Signed by Gov. Owen on June 6, the law is about to become active. CNET has this article on it and the legislative synopsis is here. Basically, the law allows receivers of unmarked "junk email" to sue senders for a $10 civil penalty per piece plus court costs. It seems unclear, though, how enforcement will work and what effects it may have. Imagine the workload on the courts if every person receiving spam were to sue over it. It will be interesting to see whether Colorado sets a precedent for other states to follow with this law." Hemos posted an article about the law before it was signed; that article is unfortunately no longer available, but the comments are.

Jake Pinsky writes: "3DGN posted a large emulation feature discussing arcade emulation, Super Nintendo emulation, and even Sega Genesis emulation. It's a nice look back on the games we used to play, and it even has places where you can get the ROMs. In the section on MAME (a popular arcade emulator), the writer even discusses building your own arcade machine, and there are some photographs of the one he hollowed out and put a computer in. There's nothing like having an arcade machine in your home that can play over 400 games..."

rcmpcbf asks: "HELP A TEACHER OUT! My Computer Science students often get bored doing stuff that the AP Curriculum or School Board asks us to teach. I would really appreciate the input of Slashdot members on interesting Computer Science projects for high school students. You would be helping other students, just like yourselves, not me." What kinds of computer projects do you feel would be stimulating for the high school age group?

An AC submitted this interesting tidbit from those folks over at NetCraft. To quote from the page: "HotMail has commenced its much awaited migration to a Microsoft operating system. Some Windows 2000 machines have recently been moved into the load balancing pool, with currently between 90-95% of requests being served by the established FreeBSD/Apache platform, and 5-10% from Windows 2000." This is not the first time MS are believed to have attempted this (but I'd appreciate hard evidence confirming that, instead of the more normal rumours and whispers).

DickBreath writes: "It looks like SuSE 7.0 is released. See http://linuxpr.com/releases/2272.html. Now I wonder how soon it will be on my local bookstore's shelf." cloudmaster points to this description -- in German, there for the babelfishing adventurer -- of the new release. In addition to the ever-evolving SuSE logo, you'll find there that SuSE is branching ala Red Hat and others into Personal and Professional versions; the Personal comes with "three easy to understand handbooks" intended to guide new users, one of which is all about system configuration.

snowphoton told us to check out http://www.geekflavor.com. "It seems to be an 'open source' Web site, in that people are allowed to ftp anything they want to the site, or use ssh to modify the contents." I took a quick look at this, and it looks like a really cool net experiment. The word 'geek' is getting kind of over-used (CT:KIND of overused! Sheesh), but this seems like a lot of fun, and a nifty way to waste time when you should really be working.

Manb writes: "As of a few minutes after 9pm EST the long awaited mod was released for download from a slew of mirrors. Rocket Arena has been hyped to be the premiere addon for the final Quake edition from Id Software. With the releasers saying that it will redefine gameplay by changing the core of the Quake 3 engine it is a very promising release. There even seems to be a integrated mp3 player to listen to your own music while fragging your opponent. Even with a soundtrack to this release it is a must download for any Quake fanatic. It's a little hefty weighing in at 56 megs for the client, a meg for the server, and ~70 megs for the soundtrack it's not for the faint of bandwidth. Check out the homepage here."

jellisky writes: "In a recent climate modeling experiment, researchers have attempted to calculate the effect humanity has had on our climate. The results and article suggest that humanity is mainly to blame for a few recent warming periods, but also suggests that there are many other effects that might be just as important at times, including an oceanic oscillation and a mysterious "residual effect". Anyone else curious about this "residual effect"? How much trust should we put into these models when people cannot classify what's happening in them? Most importantly, though, what have we learned?"