Slashdot Mirror

mask.of.sanity writes "Users can be identified with a half percent margin of error based on the way they type. The research work has been spun into an application that could continuously authenticate users (PDF), rather than just relying on passwords, and could lock accounts if another person jumped on the computer. Researchers are now integrating mouse movements and clicks, and mobile touch patterns into the work."

Killer Orca is one of many to tell us about a new study on the effects of violent video games on kids. The latest meta-study that analyzed research from 130 different reports claims to have "conclusively proven" that violent video games make more aggressive, less caring kids. "The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. [...] Anderson says the new study may be his last meta-analysis on violent video games because of its definitive findings."

theodp writes "Many US colleges and universities have notices posted on their websites informing US companies that they're tax chumps if they hire students who are US citizens. 'In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements,' advises the taxpayer-supported University of Pittsburgh (pdf) as it makes the case against hiring its own US students. You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same message is also echoed by private schools, such as John Hopkins University, Brown University, Rollins College and Loyola University Chicago."

Gamepolitics and the site Physorg have an in-depth look at a study (pdf) done on the educational nature of violent games. While the implications of the study reinforce the old 'games lead to violent kids' saw, the authors of the research stress that they're more interested in talking up the benefits of games in education. "When considered in the light of what is known to be the "best practices" of education, violent video games appear to be exemplary teachers of aggression ... It should therefore be no surprise that video games are excellent teachers, both of educational content and of violent content... The fact that learning occurs regardless of whether the effects are intentional or unintentional is irrelevant, and should make us more thoughtful about designing games and choosing games for children and adolescents to play."

Roland Piquepaille writes "With financial support from NASA, Iowa State University (ISU) engineers have developed a sensor to quickly find leaks in a spacecraft. This sensor locates an air leak by listening to the noise generated by the air rushing out of the leak and includes an array of 64 elements that detects vibrations as they radiate along the spacecraft. Because astronauts cannot hear the noise caused by escaping air, NASA needed to design a system to help them. As one ISU researcher said, 'NASA wants to be able to find these leaks. Fixing them is easy. But the question is, "Where is the leak?"' Now that this sensor has successfully been tested on the ground, NASA is evaluating a proposal to build a prototype of the leak detection system for future missions.

Coryoth writes "Design by Contract, writing pre- and post-conditions on functions, seemed like straightforward common sense to me. Such conditions, in the form of executable code, not only provide more exacting API documentation, but also provide a test harness. Having easy to write unit tests, that are automatically integrated into the inheritance hierarchy in OO languages, 'just made sense'. However, despite being available (to varying degrees of completeness) for many languages other than Eiffel, including Java, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby, Ada, and even Haskell and Ocaml, the concept has never gained significant traction, particularly in comparison to unit testing frameworks (which DbC complements nicely), and hype like 'Extreme Programming'. So why did Design by Contract fail to take off?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "It's ironic that Iowa State University (ISU) announced a big upgrade of its C6 virtual reality (VR) room the same day as SGI filed for bankruptcy. Back in 2000, this 10x10x10 foot room was powered by SGI Onyx2 computers. The new version of this six-sided VR room will use 96 graphics processing units from Hewlett-Packard. And with its 24 Sony digital projectors, the researchers at ISU will immerse themselves into images of about 100 million pixels in the most realistic VR room in the world. Of course, this upgrade is not cheap. But with this $4 million addition, this new C6 should lead to new advances in urban planning, genetics, engineering or unmanned aerial vehicles."

jshaw001 asks: "My mother recently suffered a stroke. She is not that old, only 55, and she is out of the hospital now but still has a long road to recovery. The doctors said she should be able to recover, but it's up to how hard she works at it. She is an accountant, so numbers and being able to memorize lots of stuff is very important. In short, her memory is very important. I'm in college right now, and my father has to work all day so we can't be there to help her out with her memory exercises all the time. I was wondering if anyone knows of good software I can get for her to help her with her memory, reasoning, and typing. Free software, shareware, commercial code -- cost is not a factor. Games are also a plus. Please note that we are limited to Windows software. Any other advice on things I can use to help her, or your experiences, are welcomed. Thank you."

gManZboy writes "Everyone knows that some software development projects succeed and other fail -- the question has always been 'why'? I'm sure we all have our favorite (likely anecdotal) explanations. Well, these guys decided to actually go out there and do a formal survey, and they've got some real data on why projects actually fail (as reported by development project managers -- care to guess where 'changing requirements' ranks?). They've developed a diagnostic formula people can use to gauge the likeliness that the project they're working on right now is (or isn't) going to fail."

mwilli writes "Ain't It Cool has an early review of the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. Along with the review is a short video showing Arthur, Ford, Zaphod, and Trillian and some pictures. Also, 'I understand that in the movie, Zaphod's second head is inside his nostril. And this all ties in with the increased prominence of the Church Of Arkleseizure in the movie (a race with fifty noses, and the first to develop the aerosol deodorant before the wheel) and their leader John Malkovich, who also has a second head, and Zaphod's unwillingness to sneeze.'"

jg21 writes "Although this reader-compiled list of software development's giants omits pioneers like George Boole, John Louis von Neumann, and the 'Forgotten Father of the Computer' John Vincent Atanasoff - among others - it does a pretty good job of mapping the Code Masters, from Alan Turing who gave us the algorithm, to Klaus Knopper the one-man band behind Knoppix. They're mostly here - the inventors of C, C++, C#, Java, and Python; example. There are a couple of programmers who have snuck in more for their business acumen than their programming talent, like the former Powersoft/Sybase CEO Mitchell Kertzman but otherwise the 40 nominees seem pretty 'pure' and the overall idea is to narrow the list down to the Top Twenty Software People in the World - a phrase invented by Tim Bray, who blogged that Adam Bosworth would be among them. Be careful what you wish for when blogging - looks like Bray's about to find out who the community thinks the the 19 others are."

Loconut1389 writes "The Mars rovers' missions have been extended from 90 days to about 250 and have been upgraded with some new software to give them extended single run distances as well as other features. Yahoo has a similar article, also at Reuters. I think it's great that these initially plagued robots are doing more than expected and are still going strong, mostly thanks to engineers figuring out how to make the most of the software and hardware onboard and figuring out how to diagnose an unfunctioning, unresponding machine millions of miles away. The whole project amazes me and I'm happy for NASA to be getting some good news for a change."

A reader writes: "Central Europe Review is running an article on a gulag-condemned Soviet scientist whose contribution to the first computer is virtually unknown because of the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The story tells of how in 1937, American digital computer pioneer John Atanasoff came across a Myhailo Krawtchouk paper on a new method for finding approximate solutions to differential equations. Atanasoff tried sending a letter to him, but received no response. Krawtchouk had been attainted for giving a favorable review of the work of "enemies of the people" and shipped to Siberia for 20 years of gold mining, where he died four years later. Krawtchouk's biography gives a more detailed account of how Krawtchouk was labeled a "Polish spy" and "Ukrainian nationalist," stripped of his Academy of Sciences membership, and forced to sign a confession -- that he later retracted -- under torture and threats upon his family. "

Lish writes "Everyone's favorite tech prognosticator, Robert X Cringely, is going to do a TV show called 'NerdsTV.' It will be available on the web and playable on pretty much any system. The cool part is, they will provide three video versions: one geared at techies, one for suits, and one with all the raw footage so you can edit your own version to your heart's content. There will also be audio-only versions in Ogg and Mp3. All of this is freely redistributable."

tdfunk writes "Space.com reports that life in the universe may be more rare than previously thought. In an article published today, Space.com quotes Guillermo Gonzalez, an Iowa State University researcher, who has studied the structure of our galaxy and has concluded that life may not be as common as we may have believed. Apparently, conditions around the Milky Way Galaxy are generally less hospitable than once thought.

tdfunk writes "Space.com reports that life in the universe may be more rare than previously thought. In an article published today, Space.com quotes Guillermo Gonzalez, an Iowa State University researcher, who has studied the structure of our galaxy and has concluded that life may not be as common as we may have believed. Apparently, conditions around the Milky Way Galaxy are generally less hospitable than once thought.

Todd Heidesch writes: "'IBM announced it has created the world's fastest semiconductor circuit, operating at speeds of over 110 GigaHertz (GHz) and processing an electrical signal in 4.3 trillionths of a second.' IBM expects the new technology to be pumping out 100 gigabit/sec network switching chips by the end of the year (on an optimistic schedule, I presume)." dr_zeus contributes a link to this Reuters article running on Wired (also fairly thin) on the release, writing: "Granted, this isn't a PC chip, but one wonders how long it will be before we hear 'dude, you've got a 110GHz Dell!'"

Effugas writes: "Fark pointed me at this brilliantly elegant new invention, the Sonic Flashlight. From the curious workshop of George Stetten, an ultrasonic scan of the inside of a patient's body is visually overlaid perceptually within the body being scanned, with no requirement for special glasses, viewing angles, or even particularly exotic hardware. How? Form a triangle with an ultrasound platform and its output display--then bisect the triangle with a half transparent(see the body below), half reflective(see the display above) pane of glass. Since the angles match, the two images merge to provide a perfectly placed synthesis of reality and its augmentation, irrespective of viewer position. Watch the video here for a demonstration; note the hand held variant at the bottom of the page as well. Slick!"

Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below.

"Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.

"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.

"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.

"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."

Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below.

"Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.

"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.

"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.

"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."

Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below.

"Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.

"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.

"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.

"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Saw this over at vrsource.org. Paul Rajlich has released CAVE Quake III Arena (cq3a). cq3a is a Quake3 engine that runs in VR environments from desktop HMDs to high-end multi-wall projection systems like the CAVEs and fully-enclosed C6. The original announcement is here. There is also an article describing what he had to do. The main cq3a page is here at visbox where you can download the code for multiple environment types (VR Juggler, CAVElibs, FreeVR, SDL, GLUT, and GLX). It currently runs on Linux, Irix, Win32, MacOS, and FreeBSD. You also have to check out the cool pictures on the site."

This is Slashback. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. But if you want to, read below some interesting bits on: the first digital computers (who sez?!); neural nets with the ability to whip your behind; your chance to bring your ideal OS to life, under adult supervision; and Yes, a note on Mir, which has so far failed to hit my new loft.

(This item ceremonially closer to orbit) pcidevel writes: "According to this page at Mirstation.com there is no plans to down Mir and in fact a launch has been approved to make sure Mir has a long stay in orbit." I'm sure everyone with plans to visit (James Cameron on down / up) will be cheered to the cockles. I think I'll wait till the .1 release;)

To hell with anyone who won't help out ;) jonathan_atkinson writes: "The V2_OS (www.v2os.cx) that you featured twice a while back is currently undergoing a kernel rewrite. Having taken on some of the criticisms that Slashdot readers threw at us at the time (it hurt back then... but this is our baby :P), the kernel is being rewritten from scratch, using a fully modular architecture. An interesting project to be involved with ... So, any Slashdot readers who have wanted to get involved with a cool project like this, contact one of the project leaders in #v2os on EFnet or visit the website. Plenty of you had criticisms and ideas the last time this story was posted, lets see if anyone wants to put them into practise!"

"I was here first! No I was here first! Mom!" afrop writes: "Like Tesla vs Marconi in the field of radio, history seems to have already sealed the fate of ENIAC vs ABC. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is almost always overlooked when people say 'first digital computer', despite the 1973 court decision invalidating the ENIAC patents, and declaring Atanasoff the inventor of the first digital computer. History may have forgotten the ABC, but we shouldn't."

Similarly, An unnamed correspondent writes: "You've posted several things recently about the computing history, and you always claim the ENIAC or whatever was first. You really should post this link to the first electronic digital computer, from which the creators of ENIAC got some of their ideas. http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml"

Interesting links, both. Of course, there are a lot of interesting devices which predate both of these, including the mysterious bronze computing device found aboard an Agean wreck.

And if you feel like turning over the rocks of history to find those little bugs that curl into balls, and wondering what the ancients would have called them, wonder, if not no more, at least a bit less -- GE Bickford writes: "While there is certainly a distinction between various individuals who hack, I have found a very early usage of "hacker" that demonstrates that the artificial semantic distinction between "cracker" and "hacker" is a vain conceit. This citation proves that the term "hacker" from the very beginning involved an implicit violation of 'territory' (trespassing) and threat to system integrity (vandalism). It also shows that hackers were considered at least a potential threat from the earliest days of the internet (then ARPANET). I note that the term 'cracker' didn't come into use until at least the late 1980s if not 1990s:
"We feel that this change will be sufficient to discourage "hackers", although it is obviously insufficient to protect a node against a determined and malicious attack." - RCF521."

Bring me the head of Michelle Pong! You may have thought it was cool that a neural net could be taught to recognize the spoken word "one," but how about one that does useful work instead? Specifically, LinuxBand writes: "http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~watta/MM/pong/pong5.html this thing is pretty cool, teach it by hitting the ball for awhile and then try playing against it and watch it kick yer arse."

This is Slashback. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. But if you want to, read below some interesting bits on: the first digital computers (who sez?!); neural nets with the ability to whip your behind; your chance to bring your ideal OS to life, under adult supervision; and Yes, a note on Mir, which has so far failed to hit my new loft.

(This item ceremonially closer to orbit) pcidevel writes: "According to this page at Mirstation.com there is no plans to down Mir and in fact a launch has been approved to make sure Mir has a long stay in orbit." I'm sure everyone with plans to visit (James Cameron on down / up) will be cheered to the cockles. I think I'll wait till the .1 release;)

To hell with anyone who won't help out ;) jonathan_atkinson writes: "The V2_OS (www.v2os.cx) that you featured twice a while back is currently undergoing a kernel rewrite. Having taken on some of the criticisms that Slashdot readers threw at us at the time (it hurt back then... but this is our baby :P), the kernel is being rewritten from scratch, using a fully modular architecture. An interesting project to be involved with ... So, any Slashdot readers who have wanted to get involved with a cool project like this, contact one of the project leaders in #v2os on EFnet or visit the website. Plenty of you had criticisms and ideas the last time this story was posted, lets see if anyone wants to put them into practise!"

"I was here first! No I was here first! Mom!" afrop writes: "Like Tesla vs Marconi in the field of radio, history seems to have already sealed the fate of ENIAC vs ABC. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is almost always overlooked when people say 'first digital computer', despite the 1973 court decision invalidating the ENIAC patents, and declaring Atanasoff the inventor of the first digital computer. History may have forgotten the ABC, but we shouldn't."

Similarly, An unnamed correspondent writes: "You've posted several things recently about the computing history, and you always claim the ENIAC or whatever was first. You really should post this link to the first electronic digital computer, from which the creators of ENIAC got some of their ideas. http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml"

Interesting links, both. Of course, there are a lot of interesting devices which predate both of these, including the mysterious bronze computing device found aboard an Agean wreck.

And if you feel like turning over the rocks of history to find those little bugs that curl into balls, and wondering what the ancients would have called them, wonder, if not no more, at least a bit less -- GE Bickford writes: "While there is certainly a distinction between various individuals who hack, I have found a very early usage of "hacker" that demonstrates that the artificial semantic distinction between "cracker" and "hacker" is a vain conceit. This citation proves that the term "hacker" from the very beginning involved an implicit violation of 'territory' (trespassing) and threat to system integrity (vandalism). It also shows that hackers were considered at least a potential threat from the earliest days of the internet (then ARPANET). I note that the term 'cracker' didn't come into use until at least the late 1980s if not 1990s:
"We feel that this change will be sufficient to discourage "hackers", although it is obviously insufficient to protect a node against a determined and malicious attack." - RCF521."

Bring me the head of Michelle Pong! You may have thought it was cool that a neural net could be taught to recognize the spoken word "one," but how about one that does useful work instead? Specifically, LinuxBand writes: "http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~watta/MM/pong/pong5.html this thing is pretty cool, teach it by hitting the ball for awhile and then try playing against it and watch it kick yer arse."

This is Slashback. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. But if you want to, read below some interesting bits on: the first digital computers (who sez?!); neural nets with the ability to whip your behind; your chance to bring your ideal OS to life, under adult supervision; and Yes, a note on Mir, which has so far failed to hit my new loft.

(This item ceremonially closer to orbit) pcidevel writes: "According to this page at Mirstation.com there is no plans to down Mir and in fact a launch has been approved to make sure Mir has a long stay in orbit." I'm sure everyone with plans to visit (James Cameron on down / up) will be cheered to the cockles. I think I'll wait till the .1 release;)

To hell with anyone who won't help out ;) jonathan_atkinson writes: "The V2_OS (www.v2os.cx) that you featured twice a while back is currently undergoing a kernel rewrite. Having taken on some of the criticisms that Slashdot readers threw at us at the time (it hurt back then... but this is our baby :P), the kernel is being rewritten from scratch, using a fully modular architecture. An interesting project to be involved with ... So, any Slashdot readers who have wanted to get involved with a cool project like this, contact one of the project leaders in #v2os on EFnet or visit the website. Plenty of you had criticisms and ideas the last time this story was posted, lets see if anyone wants to put them into practise!"

"I was here first! No I was here first! Mom!" afrop writes: "Like Tesla vs Marconi in the field of radio, history seems to have already sealed the fate of ENIAC vs ABC. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is almost always overlooked when people say 'first digital computer', despite the 1973 court decision invalidating the ENIAC patents, and declaring Atanasoff the inventor of the first digital computer. History may have forgotten the ABC, but we shouldn't."

Similarly, An unnamed correspondent writes: "You've posted several things recently about the computing history, and you always claim the ENIAC or whatever was first. You really should post this link to the first electronic digital computer, from which the creators of ENIAC got some of their ideas. http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml"

Interesting links, both. Of course, there are a lot of interesting devices which predate both of these, including the mysterious bronze computing device found aboard an Agean wreck.

And if you feel like turning over the rocks of history to find those little bugs that curl into balls, and wondering what the ancients would have called them, wonder, if not no more, at least a bit less -- GE Bickford writes: "While there is certainly a distinction between various individuals who hack, I have found a very early usage of "hacker" that demonstrates that the artificial semantic distinction between "cracker" and "hacker" is a vain conceit. This citation proves that the term "hacker" from the very beginning involved an implicit violation of 'territory' (trespassing) and threat to system integrity (vandalism). It also shows that hackers were considered at least a potential threat from the earliest days of the internet (then ARPANET). I note that the term 'cracker' didn't come into use until at least the late 1980s if not 1990s:
"We feel that this change will be sufficient to discourage "hackers", although it is obviously insufficient to protect a node against a determined and malicious attack." - RCF521."

Bring me the head of Michelle Pong! You may have thought it was cool that a neural net could be taught to recognize the spoken word "one," but how about one that does useful work instead? Specifically, LinuxBand writes: "http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~watta/MM/pong/pong5.html this thing is pretty cool, teach it by hitting the ball for awhile and then try playing against it and watch it kick yer arse."

Durinia writes "Here is the official press release from SGI about their new Linux server. It also looks like they've struck a deal with Red Hat. " SGI continues its support (and perhaps its last hope) with Linux-do you folks think this will be enough to restore them?

davidu writes "MP3.com has a really cool interview with Joseph Mesterhazy, the creator of the LCDAT Linux-based MP3 player. If you haven't seen it, it is extremely cool. The interview also talks about how open standards make projects like this easier. This is is one of the first, not vapor, stereo quality, MP3 players out there, and it runs Linux! " I wonder how many of us have duct taped perl scripts together for our MP3 playing.

jdesbonnet writes "Java 2 SDK preview is available". There is a bzipped file on his site, but I did not download it. edgy writes "According to LinuxHQ, Toshiba has relented and has released specifications for IrDA so that Toshiba laptops can use their built-in infrared ports." 3fer writes " The site interactive.linuxjournal.com is now open. Anybody who subscribes to LJ can now search all previous issues via the site. " It's really worth a visit. Tramm Hudson writes "After quite a long time, Digital (now Compaq) has released fast math libraries for Linux. Many people have been using DU's (now Tru-64) compilers to take advantage of the faster routines, but this runs afoul of the rather restrictive licensing on the output of the compiler. The hope is that this signals a possible first step towards releasing the DU compilers for Linux. Possibly one of the most discussed topics on comp.os.linux.alpha is the lack of high performance compilers for Alpha Linux. There is so much computational horsepower in these chips, but egcs just isn't harnessing it... " Finally ASUGeek writes "Reuters has retracted the satellite crack story." Update: 03/05 05:55 by S : Now AntiOnline says Reuters did not retract the story, and NASA's records indicate the satellite drifted by an abnormally high amount. Thanks to Kythe.

D.Schmidt writes "The movie "Pi" came out on DVD and VHS several days ago. Its web site is pithemovie.com. Good luck finding it- my friends and I have not been able to find a video store that has it yet. " Normally I wouldn't mention something like this, but Pi is just a bizarre movie, definitely something any self respecting Geek should go see. Keep an eye out for it.

Kythe writes "This article in ZDnet reports that a "key" Linux kernel, number 2.2 to be exact, will be delayed. Several erroneous suggestions are carried in the piece, but the one I like best is the implication that current versions don't include SCSI and multiprocessing support. I don't suppose they've printed a correction for their "Linux worm" story yet, either. Oh well. " How can something that never had a release date be delayed? Just your usual FUD. I'm pretty pissed that SMP & SCSI aren't working in previous versions of the Kernel too- I'm kinda wondering how Slashdot (which is Linux, SMP and SCSI) was working without it.

John Hartnup sent us a Perl Script for tracking stuff that happens at Distributed.net. Speaking of Which, Slashdot has broken into the top 10 overall! Keep it going folks! Next, Matthew Kirkwood sent us a link to link to another linux support site. Third, Jesse Off sent us a link to another one of those silly You know you're a nerd when. Mostly Unix jokes. Pretty good. Next, Jason Poll sent us a link to a collection of online books, the site includes programming and Linux books apparently. Continuing along, David Sinck sent us a link to one of those James Bond super cars with fancy video doo dads. This one has instructions to build your own if you have tons of cash to drop on all sorts of strange hardware. It's really pretty cool. Lastly, Harry McKee sent us a link to an article about a Telepathic Clapper. Hopefully they can come up with an ad campaign less obnoxious than 'Clap On/Clap Off'