Slashdot Mirror

Manuka writes: "The Daily Telegraph has an article that tells us that scientists have discovered that purring in cats is actually a self-healing mechanism that strengthens their bones and lends weight to the extraordinary resilience of felines. Tigers lack this mechanism for some reason. They are also exploring the possibilities of replicating this mechanism in humans with 'sound treatment,' to help treat bone disorders." This article does not address how cats purr, though, and that seems like just as burning a question, nor does it explain how those low-freq sounds actually do achieve the benefits attributed to them.

Manuka writes "I have just returned from LISA 2000 in New Orleans (it was a blast), where Michael Gilfix of Tufts University presented a best-of-LISA paper on his creation, called Peep. This has got to be one of the coolest networking tools I've seen - it generates sound events based on network traffic. Really neat stuff like a bird chirping when mail comes in, or an owl hooting when your web server dishes up a page (you can actually use any sound for any event). Neat little way to generate background noise, and you can see (hear) what the network is up to and if it's doing anything weird - if the owl sounds like it's on speed, you're being slashdotted, or if the birds sound a little too hitchcockian, you're being spammed. " But what is the sound of one cracker scanning?

Frater 219 writes "The censorship-resistant systems Gnutella and Freenet got some reasonably positive editorial coverage in the Sacramento Bee and Nando Times today. Here's the article. It's rather good stuff: 'Echoes of the old hacker manifesto begin to ring loudly once again: Information wants to be free.'" Good piece, go read it.

GnutellaFanBoy writes "If you said Gnutella is dead gnutella.nerdherd.net would like to tell you otherwise. Currently a version .56 is available for download. If your wondering who is still developing gnutella, read this excerpt from their FAQ: In the interest of protecting those involved, it can only be said that these versions are being produced by someone with access to the source code. No, of course they're not official in the gnullsoft sense, but let's just say that they're legitimate. I would certainly expect more versions, since we've already seen several materialize. Also of intrest is the protocol specs are out, and people are working on *nix ports. "

GnutellaFanBoy writes "If you said Gnutella is dead gnutella.nerdherd.net would like to tell you otherwise. Currently a version .56 is available for download. If your wondering who is still developing gnutella, read this excerpt from their FAQ: In the interest of protecting those involved, it can only be said that these versions are being produced by someone with access to the source code. No, of course they're not official in the gnullsoft sense, but let's just say that they're legitimate. I would certainly expect more versions, since we've already seen several materialize. Also of intrest is the protocol specs are out, and people are working on *nix ports. "

GnutellaFanBoy writes "If you said Gnutella is dead gnutella.nerdherd.net would like to tell you otherwise. Currently a version .56 is available for download. If your wondering who is still developing gnutella, read this excerpt from their FAQ: In the interest of protecting those involved, it can only be said that these versions are being produced by someone with access to the source code. No, of course they're not official in the gnullsoft sense, but let's just say that they're legitimate. I would certainly expect more versions, since we've already seen several materialize. Also of intrest is the protocol specs are out, and people are working on *nix ports. "

GnutellaFanBoy writes "If you said Gnutella is dead gnutella.nerdherd.net would like to tell you otherwise. Currently a version .56 is available for download. If your wondering who is still developing gnutella, read this excerpt from their FAQ: In the interest of protecting those involved, it can only be said that these versions are being produced by someone with access to the source code. No, of course they're not official in the gnullsoft sense, but let's just say that they're legitimate. I would certainly expect more versions, since we've already seen several materialize. Also of intrest is the protocol specs are out, and people are working on *nix ports. "

Tridus writes, "While popping around fileforum looking for new software, I happened to notice a link to Gnutella. I guess Justin and the other guys at Nullsoft aren't quite licked yet. " Update: 03/21 01:40 by E : I've been told by the folks from Winamp that this is the same code as before - sorry all - the letters simply referred a testing legacy.

Manuka asks: "Does anyone know of a good system that is reasonably rugged, about the same size and dimesions as a notebook, only with a touchscreen panel facing outwards, rather than inwards (keyboard optional)? The ability to run Linux would be ideal! I've had a helluva time finding anything like this, the closest I've come is the NemaLITE system from Laversab, which is beefy, 10 lbs, and more than twice what I'm willing to pay for something like this. It does not need to be excessively powerful, as it will be running a basic database application. "

Manuka writes to us with "new information on the Caldera-Microsoft trial. U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ruled against Microsoft on four motions to narrow the scope of the Caldera suit. " This ruling ends motions vis a vis anti-trust, however, there are at least five other motions yet to be considered. This has been one of the first signs of activity since the six month reprieve on the trial.

Manuka was one of the first to send the news that DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) of Star Trek has died. He was my favorite, too (sigh).

Manuka writes "Salon has a neat article debating the issue of whether college is worth bothering with for geeks." The article references an old Slashdot thread and throws out some interesting comments and statistics on the subject.

Manuka sent us a pretty nifty little story from SF Gate that talks about those heroes of the wodern workpace: The Sys Admin. Talks about their charachteristics, their responsibilities and the lack of respect they get sometimes. Kinda cute. And you sysadmins out there should show this to your bosses and ask for raises *grin*.

Manuka writes "A CNN Story about people venting their frustration on their machines. Those of you that work support jobs already know about this problem :)" I just swear a lot. It would be amusing to record me some afternoon when I have a crashing server. It certainly would deserve an R rating.

Manuka writes "An Inforworld article tells us that Sun, in an effort to make Java more accessible, has made the Java 2 source available under a new license. " The new license makes it possible for "developers to use and modify the source code for commercial products free of charge; allows them to change the code without having to return their changes to Sun; and lets developers modify and share source code without involving Sun." A step in the right direction.

Manuka writes "I have discovered that our favourite mascot has a scary dark side... And he has friends. Come visit my observations of tux in action... Warning: disturbing imagery may follow ". I've attached my response below.

After seeing the horrors on the page above, I consulted my penguins. They were a bit busy reading the Bible (or was that my leatherbound copy of the Hitch Hikers Guide? Is there really any discernable difference between the 2 tomes? Not on jeff's crappy quickcam, thats for sure. I really need a good digital camera *grin*) but I tore them away from it.

Leroy (the big one in back that Kathy expects me to feed) wanted to represent his species by stating that "not all penguins are as naughty as Manuka's". The others were just pissed that they weren't invited to the party.

Manuka writes "I have discovered that our favourite mascot has a scary dark side... And he has friends. Come visit my observations of tux in action... Warning: disturbing imagery may follow ". I've attached my response below.

After seeing the horrors on the page above, I consulted my penguins. They were a bit busy reading the Bible (or was that my leatherbound copy of the Hitch Hikers Guide? Is there really any discernable difference between the 2 tomes? Not on jeff's crappy quickcam, thats for sure. I really need a good digital camera *grin*) but I tore them away from it.

Leroy (the big one in back that Kathy expects me to feed) wanted to represent his species by stating that "not all penguins are as naughty as Manuka's". The others were just pissed that they weren't invited to the party.

My eagerly awaited copy of C'T has arrived, and in it there is a short interview with Martin Sieler, multimedia software lead at the Fraunhofer Institute. The topic was Fraunhofer's demand for patent license fees on free MP3 encoders. In it Sieler disputes that the encoders were free because the internet sites distributing them made money on the banner advertisements. He also discusses the newest MPEG standard (MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding -- also to be in MPEG-4): a refinement of the MPEG-1 layer 3 technology (MP3), it will provide even higher compression rates for the same audio quality. As with MP3 unlicensed encoders will be illegal, but unlike MP3 no free decoders will be tolerated... S: I find the ISO's current trend of accepting standards which cannot be implemented without violating patents worrisome. While I agree with some readers that a lot of work goes into this type of research I disagree that the key elements are inventions: they are discoveries about how human perception works. As a result, an unrestricted alternative (like gzip was to pkzip) should not only be possible, but encouraged. What do you think? I've corrected MPEG-3 to MPEG-1 Layer 3. Thanks manuka for your correction. I've also corrected the "like gzip" statement to "like gzip was to pkzip" since it seems to be causing some confusion. Finally thanks to Christian who pointed out I forgot the u in Fraunhofer. Oops.

Manuka wrote us to tell us about his new web site for reporting the "the abuse and oppression of nerds and geeks everywhere." . She/He cautions: "Still going through some growing pains, so bear with us.". The first story denounces Linux oppression at UCLA. Could prove interesting...

Manuka wrote us to tell us about his new web site for reporting the "the abuse and oppression of nerds and geeks everywhere." . She/He cautions: "Still going through some growing pains, so bear with us.". The first story denounces Linux oppression at UCLA. Could prove interesting...

Manuka wrote us to tell us about his new web site for reporting the "the abuse and oppression of nerds and geeks everywhere." . She/He cautions: "Still going through some growing pains, so bear with us.". The first story denounces Linux oppression at UCLA. Could prove interesting...