Slashdot Mirror

fRy hooked us up with a cool story on MSNBC (originally on Feed) about what we can anticipate coming in the future. Covering everything from nanotechnology ^[?] to toys, genetics to espionage, it's a fun read with loads of interviews with smart people.

ViceClown writes "Microsoft is teaming up with RadioShack in a sweeping 5 year deal to set up Microsoft 'stores' inside RadioShack brick and morter shops. Customers will be able to view demonstrations and sign up for MSN internet access. "

HD 456 wrote to us with an MSNBC story about the new observatories that are starting to come online for the purpose of gravity wave research. One is located outside New Orleans, the other in Washington State, the facilities will shoot lasers down 2.5 mile tunnels in an attempt to detect changes in gravity caused by black holes. Redundancy in facilities is being used to avoid having false background noise skew results. In addition to garnering more information on black holes, the scientists also hope to collect data concering the origin of matter.

cmeans and lots and lots of others have pointed us to this MSNBC article article about yet another e-mail virus. Quote from the story: "The virus can only run if Internet Explorer 5.0 with Windows Scripting Host is installed (standard in Windows 98 and Windows 2000 installations). If security settings for Internet Zone in IE5 are set to High, the worm will not be executed. It does not run on Windows NT." ZDNet also has a story about this "Bubbleboy" virus. Update: McAfee weighs in too. (Thanks, Jade.) Consider yourself warned.

Its happened before, but with the recent MS happenings, MacWeek, MSNBC and to a certain extent Wired have written stories based largely on Slashdot comments: Specifically those that appeared on Microsoft Addresses World, Instant Legal Analysis and Microsoft==Monopoly. The mainstream media now thinks that picking a few comments from a thread on Slashdot is a story (of course they often don't properly credit or link them). More interesting is that by picking a few extreme comments, or poking fun of "Anonymous Coward" that they somehow have the pulse of Slashdot as a whole. Regardless, they are watching, its fascinating to see what they think we think.

jhughes was the first to note an article on Microsoft being cracked that (ironically enough) appears on msnbc. Not any of their "Main" sites, but it happens. Its an odd story about a lovesick cracker. Very strange.

Ydeologi writes "MSNBC is running this story on the FCC finally getting around to allocating a more significant chunk of the airwaves for "intelligent transportation" services. "

Ydeologi writes "MSNBC is running this story on the FCC finally getting around to allocating a more significant chunk of the airwaves for "intelligent transportation" services. "

Richard Bean wrote this piece about a chess match on MSN's Gaming Zone between ultragrandmaster Gary Kasparov and the entire rest of the world, with "the world's" moves being decided by online vote. But something went wrong after move #50, by move #58 MSN changed the rules so that only Windows users could vote on moves, and murmured complaints from disgruntled participants and observers about unfair move-selections and ballot-box stuffing (which MSN had originally claimed was impossible) rose to an online roar. Click below to read the full story.

The following is by Richard Bean, Queensland, Australia.

Starting June 19, 1999, an experiment in playing chess over the Internet was held at the Microsoft Network's Gaming Zone. The world's highest rated player, de jure world champion Gary Kasparov, was to play a game versus "The World" at a rate of one move every 24 hours. After Kasparov decided on his move, he would send it to four expert teenage analysts who would suggest moves for "The World" with analysis. Internet users were to vote for whichever move they preferred, with the move receiving the highest number of votes being played. Voting was by use of Microsoft Zone software or, later, simply authenticated by entering a valid email address.

In the course of the game, it became obvious that the effort being put in by one analyst, US Women's Champion Irina Krush, far exceeded that being put in by the other 3 analysts (French Grandmaster Etienne Bacrot, US International Master Florin Felecan, and the German Elisabeth Paehtz). The quality of her work and the number of lines analyzed by her dwarfed anything the other analysts provided. She was aided by several grandmasters, the St Petersburg Grandmaster Chess School, and most of all by the World Team Strategy Bulletin Board. She became the unofficial team leader, and of the first 57 moves, her recommendation was played 53 times by "The World" (the exceptions were moves 3, 6, 51 and 52).

At move 51, the play had been virtually forced since move 40, and the World Team Strategy BBS had determined that the best move was 51... Kb1-a1; this move was recommended by Irina and endorsed by the GM Chess School. However, 51... b7-b5, the recommendation of Elisabeth Paehtz, was played. A BBS member, Jose Unodos, claimed to have "stuffed the vote" simply by entering multiple different email addresses and voting repeatedly for the same move. To test whether this worked, another BBS member, Martin Sims, stuffed the vote about 250 times on move 53 for a move that no-one else would play - 53... Qd1-e2, giving the Black Queen away for nothing with check, which would never be played by a sane player. This move made it into the top five votes (search for d1-e2), proving that vote-stuffing was possible by another method - creating multiple Zone IDs while still using the same IP address. Previous Microsoft denials that vote-stuffing was possible became a change in policy - non-Windows users could not vote, as at the beginning of the game.

On move 58, due to a problem with delayed e-mail, Irina Krush did not receive Kasparov's move until after 1am EST, when she had gone to bed. Due to school tests the next day she could not post her analysis until later. Microsoft was warned that her move recommendation would be delayed. It had been determined beyond doubt on the Strategy BBS that 58...Qf3-e4 lost and 58...Qf3-f5 was forced to retain drawing chances. (The endgame was too complicated to say for certain what the correct result should be - 6-piece endgame tablebases would determine it for certain but would require vast amounts of computer time & memory to generate.) Paehtz & Bacrot, who did not follow the BBS, recommended Qf3-e4, Felecan recommended Qf3-f5, and Krush's move recommendation was never posted. (Krush's recommendations were almost unanimously followed up to this point, even in the case of the other 3 analysts recommending one move and Krush recommending another. Hence, had her analysis been posted, Qf3-f5 would have been played, as it would have been a 2-2 split with Irina explicitly stating that Qf3-e4 was a losing move.)

E-mail posted by Smartchess, Irina's corporate sponsor, demonstrated that her recommendation had been sent at 12:20pm PST. The submission was repeated at 5:10pm PST. The voting page at the Zone claimed throughout the voting period that "Irina's move recommendation will appear here shortly." Irina continued to post to the Microsoft BBS, demonstrating that any network problem was not at Smartchess's end. After voting began, Microsoft corrected a mis-spelling of Kasparov's name on the Zone webpage without updating Irina's analysis.

On previous moves, a similar message had appeared for other analysts' delayed recommendations, with the analysis being posted later. On move 58, with Irina's analysis not posted, the moderator, Grandmaster Daniel King, calling 58...Qf3-e4 a "sensible option", and the analysts 2-1 in favour of the losing move Qf3-e4, it won the vote and was played.

Outrage ensued on the BBS, and in the live chat with Danny King, Microsoft representatives attempted to smooth over the furore. Acknowledging that Krush's move recommendation was sent at 12:20pm PST, Microsoft spokesman Eddie Ranchigoda, Marketing Manager for the MSN Gaming Zone, stated that it was "not received by MS e-mail till after 4:00 PT [after which] we generally do not have resources to update the site unless an emergency occurs." (Apparently, even though voting was a 24-hour international affair, no-one at Microsoft realised the importance of Irina's contribution or worked after 4pm.) Another spokesman, "Ben", implicity acknowledged that vote-stuffing was possible, stating that Microsoft "generally [relied] on the honor of the World Team members to keep the game on track" (without explaining how Kasparov could have been prevented from stuffing the vote with a second-best move himself).

As a protest against what was seen as Microsoft incompetence and/or malevolence, and in an attempt to leave a lasting memorial of move 58 events, BBS members rallied together to vote for 59... Qe1, another move which gave the queen away for free with check. This won the vote with 66.27% of the votes. Despite this being a legal move with many members having voted for it exactly once, Microsoft "disqualified" the move by deleting all votes for it, due to alleged vote-stuffing, without explaining how it had been detected at that point and not before. The final tally of the modified vote-count added to 100.07%.

The event showed that World Team discussion on the BBS, led by Irina Krush, and assisted by computers could provide a series of moves equal in quality to Kasparov's. However, due to the fact that an e-mail was delayed on Microsoft servers, and despite an advance warning that an analyst's move recommendation would be delayed, a losing move was played at move 58 due to Microsoft's failure to post Krush's analysis. On the next move, BBS users were deprived of their opportunity to protest the handling of move 58 due to the disqualification of votes for a perfectly legal move. International Master Ken Regan, an associate professor of Computer Science at Buffalo, among others, called for a Microsoft explanation of this failure in electronic democracy, which had not been delivered as of this writing.

A newbot shows no major newspapers have yet covered the story; however, other accounts can be found at a Norwegian net newspaper and a German chess newsletter.

(Note: The MSNBC BBS articles have a 48-hour expiry time and hence copies have been provided rather than the original links. The expiry time, as well as the 55-character column width making URLs difficult to include in text, was introduced as the game dragged on longer than expected.)

Doug Muth writes "There is an article on MSNBC's website that talks about a recent bout of spam that seriously bogged down some of the mailservers delaying message delivery for some users by "several hours". Maybe now that they got hit in the face with a spamming incident Congress will finally try to write some decent anti-spam legislation. " Heh - an aide to Rep. Alcee hastings (D-FL) sent out an e-mail to hundreds, potentially thousands of people on an internal mailing list - no BCC or majordomo, so when people hit "Reply All"...well. You can imagine the fun that ensued. The great part is that the letter was apparently recommending a weight loss pill.

Faber@FICS writes "I just checked how the match Kasparov vs. The World has been covered here. Today, more than fifty moves into the game, it is interesting that nearly everything that was said about this has been shown to be wrong. (1) This was no easy win for GK at all -- quality chess at its best, with very good drawing chances for the world after fifty moves. (2) Computers, although heavily used all over the net, did not play a significant role in this game so far. (3) This is no longer Windows-only -- Microsoft removed that requirement rather early in the game without comment. Surprise, surprise... Read a very insightful interview with Irina Krush, one of the official expert analysts, and check out the World Team Strategy BBS, where the world is at work. "

bdavenport writes "Several sites have stories on the unification of cell and PDA technology. Check out MSNBC and Wired. " This whole handheld convergence thing is an area where the Europeans seem to be well ahead of the U.S. - and everyone else. I still like my big monitor and keyboard, though. The WWW on a palm-sized screen seems to lose some of its flavor.

InitZero writes "The journal Nature reports that the web is only 19 clicks wide. What it fails to mention is that a least one of those must be through Kevin Bacon. " The graphic at the beginning of the article is gorgeous in a Mandelbrot style-now if I could just have it in a 24 x 30 print.

Occasionally someone submits a feature that really raises my eyebrow. Jack William Bell did just that by submitting 'Open Source as an Ant Farm'. Its a really interesting piece that talks about code as art, and much more. Its quite funny, and its got a lot to think about. Click now, you won't regret it. Open Source as an Ant Farm by Jack William Bell

Where Open Source is concerned, hyperbole from the digerteratti hype meisters proliferates nearly as quickly as the hyperlinks they hype. Let's face it -- Clapton has been deposed; Linus Torvalds is now God. And those pundits shouting his divinity the loudest can^Òt even tell a stack register from a walrus. I wonder if Jesus had the same problem?

This constant lionizing of Linus is getting on my nerves. I mean, he is probably a great guy and all (if you know what I mean), but a great man? Usually you wait until people are safely dead (and unable to further embarrass themselves) before heaping those kinds of laurels on their heads. If I was he I would start worrying about that strange human proclivity for taking our living idols down a notch once in a while. Or even nailing them to a tree. Not to mention burning at the stake, drawing and quartering and satirizin g on TV.

But I knew things were getting ridiculous this last week when I saw three different weblogs pointing to the same dumb article using variations on the same dumb caption: 'Open Source as an Art Form' . I mean come on, just because a bunch of nutzoid art types gives Torvalds an award for Linux doesn't mean that an operating system or a development model is art! Yeesh!

Not that I don't think of programming as art mind you. After all I am a programmer myself and I often like to compare what I do to the creation of art. A kind of raw industrial art perpetuated underneath the digital world by Morlo cks like myself while the Eloi cavort on the surface, unaware of the immense complexity (and fragility) of their world. In other words code is art, but it is exclusionist art. No more approachable to the everyday person than a Jackson Pollock work. And twice as incomprehensible!

After all if everyone could do it, it wouldn't be art, would it? It would be just another craft. And if everyone could appreciate good code the way I appreciate the Impressionists then it would be 'Classical' (read 'Dead') Art. Not something alive and thriving. Bubbling and fermenting and making funny smells the way the process of hacking out good code does.

But, you say, it is being appreciated just as you would like! After all, isn't that what the award was all about?

Well, no frankly. Not even close. In my opinion if you can't write good code you can't appreciate good code. At the most you can only appreciate the end result, the compiled program. And, while some programs are definitely 'art' in their own right, many others cannot be described as such based on their even visible-to-the-user external features. And Linux, while a work of art in my programmer eyes, is really just a kernel. A piece of code that, if everything is working right, the user will never see directly. Some of my peers would agree with this. Some will not. As always opinions are all over the map...

One poster on Slashdot tried to have it both ways when he opined "Which part of the programming is the art? Is it the code, neatly formatted, with creative comments and clever algorithms or is it the finished product? When you look at 'art' in a museum, all you see is the finished product . . . So which is the art? The code or the program? I personally think it's the program, and beautiful programs usually have very nice/efficient/clean code."

While another lamented "When the New Yorker compares Open Source to the Algonquin roundtable, the seventh seal will be complete and Microsoft will be free to release Windows 2000."

And another asks "So how is this art going to be displayed? Will art galleries have framed printouts of C code, or will they just give out Linux CDs?"

How indeed? Well, if you read the dumb article I mentioned above you will find the author's thesis is that neither the source code nor the compiled Linux kernel code is the issue, rather the art in question is the Open Source development model that built it! He bases this proposition the following facts:

• China Youth Daily used the Microsoft consternation over Open Source for propaganda purposes.
• The Open Source development model (as described by Eric Raymond) is about cooperation and participation.
• Indian Potlatches were about cooperation and participation.
• The Surrealists did some stuff that involved cooperation and participation.
• A lot of twentieth century art uses 'quotation' (like painting soup cans or sampling 1970's Rock and Roll for Rap music) and 'quotation' is kind of like Open Source, isn't it?
• John Myatt's art forgery scam was kind of like 'quotation' too! And it was kind of like art as well
• When some people share a pseudonym to do wacky performance art, and then someone else uses the same nom de plume to crack a web site or to write an on-line 'tag-team' novel you have cooperation and participation and quotation and propaganda all rolled into one, with an Internet connection as a sweetener!

My first thought on reading the article was "Huh?" Then I reread and listed the salient points above and reiterated "Huh?"

Clearly Harvey Blume isn't a programmer. If he was I wouldn't trust him to code a 'for' loop based on his demonstrated grasp of simple logic. Nonetheless if he had simply stated that Open Source programming with the Bazaar model is 'Art' because he says it was art I would have much less to quibble with. After all art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Only he didn't. Instead he chose to defend his allegation using arguments that indicate he doesn't understand anything about the subject. In other words, I cannot say Mr. Blume is wrong, but I can state with near certainty that he is the wrong person to make the claim. He might be right, but for the wrong reasons.

So, assuming you can call a development model an art form -- how do you hang it on the wall? I would argue that it is already there. The main point about Open Source is that it is (wait for it) . . . OPEN! Duh^Å Unlike 'Closed' development the source code is available for all to see. And often the discussions between developers are available as well, archived on one list server or another. In the Internet sense you can't get up against the wall any more that that!

But what does the average art lover see hanging there? Open Source as an Art Form? I think not. More like Open Source as an Ant Farm! At most they will get a glimpse of we scurrying workers as we toil underground. But they will never, ever understand. As I said before, I am OK with that.

Non programmer types can present art awards for Linux or even Sendmail if they like, but it doesn't signify to me. In my opinion these awards mean nothing until they are given by someone who understands why the jargon file definition of 'Recursion' is funny. Until then I would rather they just threw money. Wouldn't you?

THEsitemaster writes "Here is a story about how y2k compatible the net is. Although a White House spokesman has said it is compatible, there always is a chance that it isn't.... " Thank god we've got white house spokespeople to reassure us.

Having finally flown back home, recovered from the gain/loss of sleep, time zones, and of course, the obligatory luggage being lost, we're trying to wrap-up the latest installment of LinuxWorld. If you are interested in some commentary and stories coming out of LWCE, click below. The big issue of LWCE was something that didn't occur even in the same state as the show. The Red Hat IPO, complete with lotsa confusion and news went up, and showed that, yes, Wall Street is interested in Linux.

One of the more interesting commentaries brought up the newest Linux Spokesperson-Casper Weinberger. Yes, the former Secretary of Defense is an Open Source guy. Strange. It also brings up the living penguins that were on the show floor. I dunno-it still seems to me that live animals on a show floor has to be tantamount of animal abuse, under some sort of law.

A number of good interviews came out of the show - one with RMS where he talks about the whole GNU/Linux thing, Communism. The interview is done in the inimitable Stallman style, so...be warned. *grin* In a parellel vein, ESR talked with ZD, foretelling amongst other things, the downfall of Microsoft and FUD issues. MSNBC did a nice story on Gnome, giving it some of the props needed. The KDE folks were also at the shows, with some nice displays at their screen in the booth.

We spent almost every waking moment in the .Org pavilion, a scary sort of place with furniture with no back support, and lots of people wandering through. Included amongst these people was no less then three documentary film crews. I think two+ is a sign that a movement has reached commericial mainstream. So, uh, congrats to....someone.

Some great picture shots came in - thanks, as always, to Marc Merlins' wrap-up complete with some good shots. Marc's, as always, is incredible comprehensive. Read it. If you want some shots of .Org pavilion, the Slashdot party (Woo-hoo! Good beer! *grin* ), check out Joey Hess' page. HUGE # of pictures, and still more going up.

The show was fun. Lotsa people who we don't get to see, except at the conventions. The commericial element was stronger then at the last show, but I think it was evident that the companies attending understood that they at least needed to give a nod to the feelings of the Community. This being the 2nd round of a show this size, I think the initial glamour of "Woo! Big Show!" is wearing off, and people are getting to work at these. It makes things a little less glamourous, but what the attendees/exhibitors of the show did see is that Linux is something to be taken seriously. Every major media outlet had people there, warndering the floor, and media like CNN ran pieces about it during the show. With the first IPO under its' belt, the establishment of several major shows, and major vendors established on the scene, I think Linux continued success looks good.

lionrampant writes "MSNBC has an article that discusses how Gateway is going to revive the Amiga computer, except it's not really an Amiga, it's more like an information appliance. I guess they're betting that the name will attract people. " Meanwhile rumors run rampant of a new Amiga with a Transmeta CPU and a Linux Kernel to be released in the next couple months.

Crafter wrote to us with the news that the Kansas State Board of Education is dropping evolution as a school mandated teaching. I'm speechless-I thought I was living in 1999, not 1799.

Keefesis (the first of many who wrote in with the news) writes "The L.A. District Attorney dropped the case against Mitnick according to this article by MSNBC. Nice birthday present I guess :) " I wonder what this will do the movie Takedown (based on the book) that is currently in post-production, and stars Tom Berenger as John Markoff, and Skeet Ulrich as Kevin Mitnick. No joke. Update: 08/07 01:43 by J : To clarify, he is not out of the woods yet. The federal charges against him have not been dropped.

Greyleaf writes " Check out this ZDNet story that sheds a bit more light on Microsoft's "security challenge" woes. It appears that Windows 2000 didn't even need any cracker help for its first crash and gives a brief mention is also given of the LinuxPPC challenge." MSNBC also picked up the story.

conio writes "MSNBC has an excellent article about BSD titled "The Net's stealth operating system." It gives a brief history of BSD and discusses why it's not as mainstream as Linux. It also delves into the BSDL vs. GPL holy war, and talks about how BSD will soon work its way into the workstation market. It's both accurate and well-written. "

conio writes "MSNBC has an excellent article about BSD titled "The Net's stealth operating system." It gives a brief history of BSD and discusses why it's not as mainstream as Linux. It also delves into the BSDL vs. GPL holy war, and talks about how BSD will soon work its way into the workstation market. It's both accurate and well-written. "

Allright so several people have noted that the iToaster from Microworkz runs a "BeOS/Linux Hybrid". Sounds kinda crazy, but it was confirmd by (quoted on MSNBC and CNNfn as well as confirmed in an email from their sales dept.) So the question is when can we download their changes to the Linux kernel? Hit the link below to read more explanation on why the answer is never.

I was given several different answers from different people. Here is a reply to an email asking about the code I sent to (sales@microworkz.com)

• Mr. Malda,

  Thank you for your interest in Microworkz.com. The iToaster operating system is a hybrid between BeOs and Linux and is licensed and patented by Microworkz.com, Inc. The source code is therefore proprietary and not available for download.

  The Linux pure source code is however at www.linux.com.

  If you have any other questions or if you would like to place an order, please give our Sales Team a call at (888) 306-2044 from 7am - 8pm Monday through Friday and 10am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday PST. Or simply check out our web sites at www.microworkz.com.

So I called them and asked more. I talked to a very nice gentleman who put me on hold for awhile while he found answers. According to him, the iToaster does not run Linux (although according to the email posted above from the sales department, it runs "A Hybrid between BeOS and Linux". This is sorta what the MSNBC article said ("The way it was explained to me, BeOS handles the file system, while Linux does just about everything else.")

So I guess there are 2 possibilities here:

1. Microworkz messed up by using the word "Linux" when dealing with CNNfn and MSNBC, as their machine does not run Linux at all. This seems to be what I was told on the phone.
2. Microworkz is violating the GPL by making modifications to the Linux kernel and not releasing them.

At this point there really isn't much we can do about it since the iToaster isn't really out so we can't do any pounding on it to determine if their is something questionable going on.

Thanks to the many of you who wrote in to give us the heads up on this. We'll keep you posted if we figure out more.

Allright so several people have noted that the iToaster from Microworkz runs a "BeOS/Linux Hybrid". Sounds kinda crazy, but it was confirmd by (quoted on MSNBC and CNNfn as well as confirmed in an email from their sales dept.) So the question is when can we download their changes to the Linux kernel? Hit the link below to read more explanation on why the answer is never.

I was given several different answers from different people. Here is a reply to an email asking about the code I sent to (sales@microworkz.com)

• Mr. Malda,

  Thank you for your interest in Microworkz.com. The iToaster operating system is a hybrid between BeOs and Linux and is licensed and patented by Microworkz.com, Inc. The source code is therefore proprietary and not available for download.

  The Linux pure source code is however at www.linux.com.

  If you have any other questions or if you would like to place an order, please give our Sales Team a call at (888) 306-2044 from 7am - 8pm Monday through Friday and 10am - 5pm Saturday and Sunday PST. Or simply check out our web sites at www.microworkz.com.

So I called them and asked more. I talked to a very nice gentleman who put me on hold for awhile while he found answers. According to him, the iToaster does not run Linux (although according to the email posted above from the sales department, it runs "A Hybrid between BeOS and Linux". This is sorta what the MSNBC article said ("The way it was explained to me, BeOS handles the file system, while Linux does just about everything else.")

So I guess there are 2 possibilities here:

1. Microworkz messed up by using the word "Linux" when dealing with CNNfn and MSNBC, as their machine does not run Linux at all. This seems to be what I was told on the phone.
2. Microworkz is violating the GPL by making modifications to the Linux kernel and not releasing them.

At this point there really isn't much we can do about it since the iToaster isn't really out so we can't do any pounding on it to determine if their is something questionable going on.

Thanks to the many of you who wrote in to give us the heads up on this. We'll keep you posted if we figure out more.

wanderingstar writes "The BBC has an article about a prototype of little Turing machines that live in your body and heal you. It's being presented at conference going on at MIT right now about "DNA Based Computers". There was also a presentation yesterday about embedding information into DNA. " Mmm...nano-bio-tech.. All of hemos' favorite things.

Iguana writes "A methane-making, oxygen-hating microbe is able to thrive in Mars-like laboratory conditions, according to a researcher who says the experiment raises fresh hope about the possibility of life on the Red Planet. Check the whole story on MSNBC " "And kids, that the story of how hemos grew cmdrtaco". Oh...er.

Wonko42 writes "There's an article somewhere over here that talks about the Spam Recycling Center, an effort to prosecute illegal and fraudulent spammers. If you send your spam to them, they'll give you $5 credit at CDNow.com. Couldn't be a better deal, if you ask me. The results of this will be sent to CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, which will study the emails and figure out what evil things spammers are doing most and then send all the data to the Federal Trade Commission. "

Rocket Boy writes "I was perusing the news and came across this sucker. The specs on the thing look outrageous. Heck, the whole thing looks outrageous. 2.5-5.6TB/S speed, Supports 2240 OC-48 or 560 OC-192 connections. " You can download a lot of po.. I mean play a lotta qua... I mean read a lot of slas... I mean.. work. You could do a lot of work with that.

i0n wrote in to send us a Chicago Tribune article about Linus and Bill at Comdex. Has anyone rummaged up transcripts of either speech? I've seen several articles on each, but no transcripts. Update: 04/20 02:07 by CT : Knish sent us a PC Week Story on the keynotes. Update: 04/20 03:17 by CT : Ign0rance sent us Bill's Speech. Update: 04/20 03:34 by CT : BitMan sent us an MSNBC article.

Shawn Pryde writes "MSNBC reports that Michael Dell told investors the Dell is going to start making PC's modeled after the iMac." I hafta say for all the criticisms, the super cheap, non-upgradable internet capable appliance PC is a wonderful holy grail. Someday it'll happen, but the question is will Dell be able to cover the cheap part of that grail?

D-Fly writes "MSNBC is running an article, quoting a lot of anonymous PC manufacturing executives, about how Intel uses its "Intel Inside" branding campaign to gouge PC manufacturers. Apparently everyone's favorite IC monopolist adds about 6 percent to the price it charges for chips, then gives the money back to companies for advertising purposes. If they screw up--ie the Intel logo is too small, they use a single non-Intel processor in the machine, Intel keeps the money Saw it on Ars "

TroyD sent us a link to a WSJ Article on Linux that Says Linux is Good, but that it lags behind its rivals. Troy also sent a choice quote from the article: "...Linux currently lacks some of the features demanded by corporations. [...] Among them are the ability to run simultaneously on many processors in a single computer and to keep a log of what the computer has done." Cool. I can save a lot of diskspace: rm -rf /var/log.

Stone Table writes "MSNBC reports that the FBI arrested a suspect believed to have authored the Melissa virus " This is definitely a tricky one: course, its a windows email virus, so it doesn't affect most of us, but he was tracked using the MS GUID. Justice? Big Brother? I'm not sure which.

Jim Hill wrote to us about the Puffin Group & Hewlett-Packard, a popular story today being on both MSNBC and in the public section of the Wall Street Journal. It's an interesting business case story for Linux and major corporations-send this out to your bosses to show them it can be done. And if anyone has a HP icon, send it my way. Update: 03/18 02:36 by J : For interested parties, the Puffin Group website.

dtor writes "P3 Id? Worry about the P2 Id. According to this MSNBC article, some P2s ship with a P3-like unique ID enabled. Apparently, this was an mistake at the factory." Intel apparently was testing the process, used in the PIIIs on some of their PII mobile lines, and someone forgot to turn that circuit off before they left the factory. Intel is saying that a BIOS update is out that will take care of the problem - anyone have a link to that?

Dima Barsky writes "There is a rumour that Hewlett-Packard is going to split into two companies " According to several stories, they may be planning a new division aimed at internet-related hardware.

Peter Neves writes " There is a Linux story on the very front page of the MSNBC Technology Section, "the front slide" as they call it, on why Linux should be the OS running your server. While the story gives a technical overview on the features and performance of several distributions in comparison to NT, the summary says that Linux is not capable of "Competing with the 800 pound Gorilla" of the MS Marketing and distribtution channels. "

There are lots of stories about Windows Refund Day. As I predicted, nobody got refunds, as referenced in this ZDNet Story. Chris is quoted near the end. Here's a Nando Times story, a wired story, an MSNBC Story, a San Jose Mercury Story, and a Washington Post story. (All sent in by anonymous readers). Macerick sent us A front Pager from the NY times. And finally, Marc Merlin sent us his own report which features the Story and Pictures.

Aaron Tunnell writes "Once again Microsoft has used Be and BeOS as a answer for the governments continued attack on the software giant, Be has had enough and in a public statement reaffirmed that it is not marketing nor does it strive to be a Microsoft replacement, but a niche market product for digital media creation. It also said that it would like Microsoft to stop its continued references to Be as a rival to the OS giant. Read more link "

Case Roole writes "Reading trial transcripts can be great fun. Here is Microsoft's senior vice-president of platforms and applications Paul Maritz on the kspread component of KOffice: "this is quite a sophisticated spreadsheet". Maritz also stated: "[AbiSource] started developing ... a very high-quality word processor for the Linux environment."" . Search on KOFFICE and ABI in the above transcript. In a related story, sh writes "Microsoft demonstrates why OpenLinux is "powerful and easy to use". Check out the article and video! (but you'll need MS Media Player - hmm...) Free advertising for a rival's product to prove competition - what will they resort to next? "

Robotech_Master writes "There's an article on MSNBC about Mindspring's acquisition." I find it interesting that Netcom will still hold on to some networks, and are basically only selling their customer base.

Wattsman writes "Here's an interesting little item. Mini fuel-cells that will run on alcohol, including the hard liquor variety. I can see where this can cause some problems, mainly in keeping certain people from drinking the fuel. :-)

Wattsman writes "There's an article on MSNBC about the NetWinder. The reviewer is pretty pleased with the machine and thinks it's a decent competitor to the iMac." Hmm. That gives me an idea for a poll question.

[null] writes "The mouse is now 30 years old. It's probably also the only hardware that hasn't changed much over such a span too. Anyways, story is here. "

Raz wrote in to say "Several days ago there was an article about cheap Dec alphas on Slashdot, here is an review by someone that bought one & tested both NT 4.0 and Red Hat Linux on it. " It might be of some interest to note that the machine being dealt with here is almost identical to the one that ran Slashdot for the first 6 months of its existance.

Minga wrote in to send us a link to a story about The Internet Worm that brought the net to its knees 10 years ago today. It's pretty cool that the 'net already has legendary history like this. The Worm definitely has earned its place in the canon.

First off, an article in news.com regarding the upcoming 2.2 release. Pretty positive, with the exception of some of Mr. Wilson's comments (though, admittedly, some are true..) Next, ZDNet UK (who seem to have more of a clue than their US counterparts) have opened their Linux Lounge. Next up is a Linux article at MSNBC. Finally, another article in news.com about the recent release of Informix on Linux.

Rogue_F writes "CERN scientists have set up an anti matter producing factory. Interesting bits of science stuff A few star trek references." I've posted over 1,800 articles and I just want to say that this is my favorite dept name so far. I think I should go outside more.

Patrick Aland sent this story from MSNBC about Linux. The story itself is a well-written one, talking about some of things we already know: about how wonderful Linux is and how all it needs is one great application and nothing will stop it. I dunno, I think that the Gimp does a good job, but what do I know?

Patrick Aland sent this story from MSNBC about Linux. The story itself is a well-written one, talking about some of things we already know: about how wonderful Linux is and how all it needs is one great application and nothing will stop it. I dunno, I think that the Gimp does a good job, but what do I know?