Slashdot Mirror

bcrowell writes "The LA Times has a front-page article about how open-source college textbooks are starting to gain traction. One author says, 'I couldn't continue assigning idiotic books that are starting to break $200,' and describes attempts by commercial publishers to bribe faculty to use their books. The Cal State system has started a Digital Marketplace to help faculty find out about their options for free and non-free digital textbooks, and the student group PIRG has collected 1200 faculty signatures on a statement of support for open textbooks."

bcrowell writes "The NYTimes has an editorial plugging Flat World Knowledge, a startup that will offer college textbooks inexpensively (~$30) in print, and free as PDFs. They plan to make their profits from add-ons like podcast study guides and mobile phone flashcards. Books will be licensed under CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike. Mashups and customizations are encouraged, but the NC license is incompatible with strong copyleft licenses such as the GFDL used by Wikipedia. Other companies trying to find a workable business model for free textbooks include Ink Textbooks (revenue from online homework) and Freeload Press (revenue from ads inside the books). So far, none of these companies seems to have succeeded in building up much of a catalog of books; it seems more common for authors of free textbooks to take a DIY approach, putting PDFs on their own web pages, and sometimes arranging on-demand printing with vanity-press publishers like lulu.com. Lots and lots of web sites exist to help people find free textbooks, and CalPIRG has an active campaign pushing for affordable textbooks."

bcrowell writes "Wal-Mart's new $200 Linux PC has generated a lot of buzz in geek circles. Although they're sold out of stores, I bought one for my daughter via mail order, and have written up a review of the system. The hardware seems fine for anyone but a hardcore gamer, but the pre-installed gOS flavor of Ubuntu has a lot of rough edges."

bcrowell writes "Wal-Mart's new $200 Linux PC has generated a lot of buzz in geek circles. Although they're sold out of stores, I bought one for my daughter via mail order, and have written up a review of the system. The hardware seems fine for anyone but a hardcore gamer, but the pre-installed gOS flavor of Ubuntu has a lot of rough edges."

bcrowell writes "Remember e-books, anti-books, and print-on-demand books? They didn't pan out. The surprise success story is free books." Of course, this defines "success" as number of readers, not in terms of monetary profits. E-books and their ilk were concentrating on the latter definition, rather than the former. Still, it's good to see free books preferred in some circles based on their merit, and not just the cost.

bcrowell asks: "As a geek, I always assumed my interest in math and science would just naturally rub off on my kids, and sure enough, my older daughter kept insisting that she wanted to be a physics teacher like me when she grew up. Now, starting first grade, she volunteers that math is 'ok,' but not as much fun as reading, and she no longer wants to be a physics teacher. Her math work at school apparently consists of 'addition packets.' What good stuff can I do to help her perceive math as fun and creative? Generations past had puzzles by Sam Lloyd. I learned a lot of science from science fiction books, but my old favorites are getting dated, and my daughter also rejects them because they have male protagonists -- she prefers Nancy Drew, although she'll read my Fantastic Four comics if Sue has a big enough part. What other things have Slashdotters found to do with their kids? Growing crystals? Baking together as a way to sneak in fractions?"

bcrowell writes "The latest CryptoGram reports that AES (Rijndael) and Serpent may have been broken. The good news is that when cryptographers say 'broken' they don't necessarily mean broken in a way that is practical to exploit right now. Still, maybe we need to assume that any given type of crypto is only temporary. All of cryptography depends on a small number of problems that are believed to be hard. And all bets are definitely off when quantum computers arrive on the scene. Maybe someday we'll look back fondly on the golden age of privacy."

bcrowell asks: "I teach Physics at a community college, and a lot of the faculty are trying their hands at teaching internet courses. I'm going through the process of getting approval to offer some of our physics courses with online instruction plus lab, as an alternative to lecture plus lab. (My main motivation is to boost enrollment in some of our higher-level courses, which tend to get canceled if not enough people enroll.) The standard software for this kind of thing seems to be WebCT, but I get the impression that it's proprietary straightjacket-ware. I'd rather go with something open-source, especially since proprietary software seems to come and go, but the best open-source code is forever -- who wants to waste their time building a whole course around the flavor-of-the-month software? I'm particularly curious whether something like Slashcode might work. Most online courses include a requirement that people post a certain number of 'substantial' comments, where 'substantial' is a subjective term to be determined by the instructor. I know some teachers who say when they teach a large online course, they just don't have time to read all the posts, so they end up going by length a lot of the time. Wouldn't moderation by one's peers work better?"

An update on the health of troubled HAM satellite Oscar 40; a bit more on free online books -- but this time all good news; a nice in-depth report on the state of Mandrake's latest offering; and an earth-shattering change to the previously reported report from the Real-Time Linux Workshop. That (and absolutely no expression -- none whatsoever -- of wishes for you to experience a pleasant millenium turn) is what you'll find below in tonight's Slashback.

Reversing the dilithium crystals is not an option in this case. $FFh writes: "AMSAT-DL President (and P3D Project leader) Dr. Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, provided ANS with additional information regarding AO-40's recent S-band transmissions on 2401.305 MHz:

Ian, ZL1AOX, has succeeded in loading IPS software and a minimal operational package into AO-40. As a consequence, AO-40 is now sending telemetry (A blocks) that will enable an analysis of the status of the spacecraft.

A first (quick) look has revealed that some temperature sensors and possibly some current sensors have been lost by whatever incident caused the telemetry transmissions to stop. However, the power situation, in particular the battery voltages, look nominal.

We will now start a detailed analysis of the situation; the command stations will continue to follow a conservative philosophy with the primary target of not causing any additional damage along with retaining as much evidence as possible for the analysis of the incident.

Furthermore, command stations will now try to uplink the entire operational software package, which in particular should establish positive control over the power generation system. From there on, the communications capabilities of the spacecraft will be explored. The 2-meter transmitter is considered off limits for the time being (in case that it may have been damaged and thus might have the potential to cause the IHU to crash). The risk is too large before the Warte-Orbits and Command-Assist programs have been updated to reflect the actual capabilities of the satellite available after the incident.

In summary, we can state that the command stations have now regained control over AO-40. During the next few days we hope to learn to what extent the satellite was damaged and to what extent this will impact mission targets."

Read up -- then spread some praise or some griping! bcrowell writes: "The Assayer is a web site for user-contributed book reviews, with a focus on free books. All reviews are free information. We now have 35 free books on computer science in our database, almost all without reviews. A common argument against free books is that without a publisher, there's no way to filter out the junk -- if you'd like to prove otherwise, it's time to do some reading!"

Dissecting Mandrake 7.2: Beyond Eye Candy Linux Tests writes: "Linux Tests published their first review of a distribution. Linux-Mandrake 7.2 was chosen as the first victim -- umm -- first distribution. Linux Tests did the installation several different ways over several weeks timeframe in order to answer the age old question, "Is this right for someone new to Linux?" Find out if this distribution answers the question well."

Their review reflects my experience with Mandrake 7.2, as well -- some glitches, a lot of slickness, and some problems with the manual vs. reality. (On the other hand, Mandrake remains one of only two distributions I would recommend to parents and siblings at present.)

The Linux Tests' site looks like a great resource, too -- three guys grousing is a cool basis for a web site! It will be nice when hardware manufacturers realize that a perhaps small but significant fraction of their buying audience is paying a lot more attention to their products then they may be used to. Publishing specs is always nice, eh?

Now kiss, make up, and have fun, ok? DaGoodBoy writes: "John Roderick, the Director of Rosen Interactive, contacted us with a rebuttal to some of the statements our member Kenneth J. Hendrickson in his recent "Report on the 2nd Real-Time Linux Workshop" which ran here on Slashdot. Details are available here"

An update on the health of troubled HAM satellite Oscar 40; a bit more on free online books -- but this time all good news; a nice in-depth report on the state of Mandrake's latest offering; and an earth-shattering change to the previously reported report from the Real-Time Linux Workshop. That (and absolutely no expression -- none whatsoever -- of wishes for you to experience a pleasant millenium turn) is what you'll find below in tonight's Slashback.

Reversing the dilithium crystals is not an option in this case. $FFh writes: "AMSAT-DL President (and P3D Project leader) Dr. Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, provided ANS with additional information regarding AO-40's recent S-band transmissions on 2401.305 MHz:

Ian, ZL1AOX, has succeeded in loading IPS software and a minimal operational package into AO-40. As a consequence, AO-40 is now sending telemetry (A blocks) that will enable an analysis of the status of the spacecraft.

A first (quick) look has revealed that some temperature sensors and possibly some current sensors have been lost by whatever incident caused the telemetry transmissions to stop. However, the power situation, in particular the battery voltages, look nominal.

We will now start a detailed analysis of the situation; the command stations will continue to follow a conservative philosophy with the primary target of not causing any additional damage along with retaining as much evidence as possible for the analysis of the incident.

Furthermore, command stations will now try to uplink the entire operational software package, which in particular should establish positive control over the power generation system. From there on, the communications capabilities of the spacecraft will be explored. The 2-meter transmitter is considered off limits for the time being (in case that it may have been damaged and thus might have the potential to cause the IHU to crash). The risk is too large before the Warte-Orbits and Command-Assist programs have been updated to reflect the actual capabilities of the satellite available after the incident.

In summary, we can state that the command stations have now regained control over AO-40. During the next few days we hope to learn to what extent the satellite was damaged and to what extent this will impact mission targets."

Read up -- then spread some praise or some griping! bcrowell writes: "The Assayer is a web site for user-contributed book reviews, with a focus on free books. All reviews are free information. We now have 35 free books on computer science in our database, almost all without reviews. A common argument against free books is that without a publisher, there's no way to filter out the junk -- if you'd like to prove otherwise, it's time to do some reading!"

Dissecting Mandrake 7.2: Beyond Eye Candy Linux Tests writes: "Linux Tests published their first review of a distribution. Linux-Mandrake 7.2 was chosen as the first victim -- umm -- first distribution. Linux Tests did the installation several different ways over several weeks timeframe in order to answer the age old question, "Is this right for someone new to Linux?" Find out if this distribution answers the question well."

Their review reflects my experience with Mandrake 7.2, as well -- some glitches, a lot of slickness, and some problems with the manual vs. reality. (On the other hand, Mandrake remains one of only two distributions I would recommend to parents and siblings at present.)

The Linux Tests' site looks like a great resource, too -- three guys grousing is a cool basis for a web site! It will be nice when hardware manufacturers realize that a perhaps small but significant fraction of their buying audience is paying a lot more attention to their products then they may be used to. Publishing specs is always nice, eh?

Now kiss, make up, and have fun, ok? DaGoodBoy writes: "John Roderick, the Director of Rosen Interactive, contacted us with a rebuttal to some of the statements our member Kenneth J. Hendrickson in his recent "Report on the 2nd Real-Time Linux Workshop" which ran here on Slashdot. Details are available here"

bcrowell writes: "Whose version of the digital book is destined for world conquest? Pure and virtuous open-source books don't seem to have spread beyond the computer-science ghetto, while the dark side of the force is represented by the advent of mandatory antibooks in dental school. This article aims to move beyond the moralizing and tackle the real issues that are playing out in the free-book arena." Interesting to see this article come from someone who has himself written such a book.

bcrowell writes: "Whose version of the digital book is destined for world conquest? Pure and virtuous open-source books don't seem to have spread beyond the computer-science ghetto, while the dark side of the force is represented by the advent of mandatory antibooks in dental school. This article aims to move beyond the moralizing and tackle the real issues that are playing out in the free-book arena." Interesting to see this article come from someone who has himself written such a book.