Slashdot Mirror

Dspiral writes "At the Canadian publication, The Globe and Mail, they write about the scramjet. A jet engine, with theoretical speeds over 8000 Kph, and pollution free!" Zero pollution because its fuel is hydrogen (a scramjet takes its oxygen from the air). The HyShot homepage is amazing; the beast has been built on a shoestring, barely over a million dollars Australian, and my favorite part is their planned test: "...shooting an engine into the atmosphere on a rocket, and hoping it will ignite as it plunges back down to Earth. Mr. Paull's speed objective is Mach 7.6, and the engine should ignite 23-35 kilometres off the ground."

peterjm writes: "I work for a company that does a lot of business on the Internet. Like most companies in similar situations, the marketing department occasionally sends out 'informational' messages to a database of addresses (once bought, now garnered from trade shows and webinars in exchange for the customary t-shirt). We recently sent out one such note and recieved a very harsh (but very true) response from some one who stated in no uncertain words that he no longer wished to receive such messages. This sparked a bit of debate on a few of the company mailing lists. My contention is that such messages receive a terribly adverse response from the Internet community at large. Not only that, but were we to find ourselves on the RBL, our business would all but come to a screeching halt. On the other side of the coin is the fact that we -need- to market our product. We have something to sell, and we obviously want to tell as many people as possible. Someone who stradles both the IS and Marketing groups posed the question, 'How do you propose that we market our products?' Well? What's the best way? How does a company market with effectiveness without pissing off the Internet in general?"

PhilLong asks: "SGI has a limited time offer for the 1600x1024 flat panel for $1500 US. What options are available to support the 1600SW under Linux or BSD, especially at 1600x1024? What I know so far, from DejaNews and phone calls is the following: they will bundle it with either a multilink adapter or an Oxygen VX1 PCI card with DVI out, the multilink will take standard VESA resolutions @60Hz and drive the monitor, it will also accept 1600x1024@60Hz (there's a list of cards that will do the 1600x1024 under Windows on SGI's site). The SGI Linux (Red Hat 6.2) workstations with the nVidia chips (and more recent than 0.95) drivers work through multilink, and possibly DVI. I'm not clear on that. The matrox G400 is said to support the 1600x1024 under DVI/windows with the DVI daughtercard. Does this work under XFree4 @ 1600x1024@60Hz? Does anybody know if the daughtercard will fit on a card with the two head output built in? MetroX doesn't support the 1600SW, but Xi (Friday) posted a patch for the accelX 6 to support the Oxygen VX1 card." This offer is only good thru December, so you better act soon if you're interested.

musicmaster asks: "Do you know what happened to OpenCCVS (Open Credit Card Verification system). Originally it was built by Dave Cinege (original homepage). After he stopped working on it about mid-1999 it was taken over by BlackHoleSun, whose site now contains the message that work has ceased since 'many legal snags and licensing issues' didn't justify the effort. OpenCCVS is a clone of CCVS (originally located at www.hks.net, now taken over by Red Hat and placed here). Although Red Hat publishes some of the source to buyers it is not Open Source." Are there any other free software projects developing credit card verification systems?

kkelly writes: "This weeks New Scientist has an interesting article on 3-D Printers: 'THINK OF AN OBJECT and watch it appear before your eyes. All it takes is a click of a mouse, a flick of a switch and you can have almost anything, made to order. Researchers are on the point of creating a magic box that can bring the stuff of your imagination into the hard-edged material world.'"

chamont writes: "Even though Red Hat is still number 1, this article states that Caldera, SuSE, and Turbo are gaining ground fast. The article also mentions that Corel is pretty much history." Interesting to see -- what's cool is that the Linux market, at least what they measured, grew 89% overall. Turbolinux had monstrous growth overall -- you can see a lot more is happening on Pacific Rim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

dwlt writes "I'm sure lots of people have sent this already, but take a look at the story on videogames.com for the full scoop on Nintendo's Game Cube (gotta catch 'em all!), and Game Boy Advance. The controller is kind of crazy, though..." Let me tell ya about the countless hours spent in the geek houses drinking and playing Mario Kart 64: Kurt The Pope is a wildman under the influence of alcohol, and the new one looks cool.(thanks to those of you who wasted no time in submitting a new Slashdot icon too ;)

pug23 writes: "CNET has an article about the Samuel 2, [a 1 Ghz-plus] processor which Via plans to begin production on in the first half of next year. More competition in this area can only be a good thing. Apparently they introduced the Samuel 1 (at speeds between 500 and 600 MHz) in June, but have been marketing it primarily in Russia, India, China and Eastern Europe."

NoWhere Man writes: "Tom's Hardware has posted up their dealings with the new PIII 1.13GHz processor. Apparently without a special board with a new bios from Intel it will not even run correctly. Any motherboard that has not got the special micro code update for this very processor will ultimately fail. The review has some interesting facts about the processor as well."

AtariDatacenter asks: "Randomly surfing the Web, I stumbled across Intel's Open Arcade Architecture overview. It was billed as an open architecture PC reference platform for the arcades and the home. Was Microsoft's X-box a response to this, or was this a failed attempt by Intel to fight back?"

Element5 asks: "Recently I've noticed more and more Web pages are requiring plug-ins to be viewed at all. Most notable of these such pages are movie sites. Some sites are built entirely with Director or Flash (I only use Flash as an example as it is seemingly the most prevalent plug-in requirement out there). Am I the only one who finds this trend disturbing? It's almost as if Web site developers are skipping the whole process of learning HTML entirely and instead rely on an authoring tool based on a proprietary technology. Don't get me wrong, Macromedia's products are fantastic ones; but I'd much rather see them used in throw-away aspects of a Web site that can be dropped if a user doesn't have the plug-ins, or on a site which also hosts an HTML version with exactly the same features. At any rate, I'm just wondering what other people think about this trend." Read on...

I too understand the frustration behind encountering sites like this. I understand that it's hard work to create and maintain sites with multiple "versions" for browsers of varying capabilities, but I thought the primary purpose of a Web site was to make oneself seen, and wouldn't it make sense to make yourself seen by the lowest-common-denominator before adding all of the glitz and chrome? Would a static version of a site that makes extensive use of Flash be that hard to design, especially since most of the key artwork should have been done for the animation?

Nick writes: "Salon has an interesting interview with Napster CEO Eileen Richardson. She brings up some good analogies about Napster, mp3 and the music industry." And nevertheless points out that the 9th Circuit Northern District court has ruled that Napster is not protected as a service provider by the DMCA: "Judge Patel's opinion is available in PDF form." Napster hasn't lost the suit yet but they've lost what could have been a valuable legal defense.

charper writes: "News.com is reporting that a firm hired by Metallica has fingered more than 335,000 Napster users (who were allegedly) trading their music. They're seeking to have them banned from Napster. " Check out our original piece, and remember - you can always PayLars!

GrouchoMarx writes: "I was lucky enough to be at Comdex in Chicago the day Microsoft released the new PocketPC, aka WinCE 3.0. I spent about an hour playing with the new HP Jornada and Casio Cassiopeia. It's an improvement, but not a Palm killer by any means . " Good review if you're into small machines.

NoWhere Man asks: "For the longest time my friends and I have been arguing over which processor is better (Intel or AMD). I know this is an ongoing battle everywhere as well, but it took an interesting turn the other day. Which processor would be better for realtime, high end mathematical computations? AMD's Athlon? P3 Xeon? or Dual Processors? If anyone could recommend system specs, keeping it cost effective at the same time, it would help."

fremen was among the first to write with this news: "Yahoo is reporting the end of the mediation talks with Microsoft. Richard Posner has declared the discussions to be at an impasse, and the disagreements to be "too deep-seated to be bridged." The story can be found here." This is not an April Fools joke. Watch this space; we will update this story as more details become available. The outcome may be more dramatic than the strong hints of settlement had suggested. Updated 3:15GMT by timothy: Here's a more detailed article from The New York Times helpfully sent in by reader GenetixSW.

Uri writes "A BBC article has just reported that Laurence Godfrey, a physicist, has won around $400,000 from Demon Internet, a leading UK ISP, over defamatory posting about him which appeared on usenet. Note that under English Law, ISPs are held responsible for defamatory material if they do not take reasonable care to ensure such material is not published, and if they do not remove such material when alerted to it. It was the latter that Demon refused to do, and which prompted the legal action. The case now threatens to put an huge strain on all English ISPs as they could be forced to monitor all material trafficking through their systems. Go England! "

An interesting snippet from the article: "Although such discussion forums are often full of robust, forthright and even offensive opinions posted by individuals, the case hinged on whether Demon could be treated as publisher of the material." I wonder how well British universities would like to be treated as publishers, and therefore Net-content nannies ...

lvillalt writes: "Three Axis Interactive is porting Nanosaur (a 3D Mac game) to Linux, using the Quesa 3D graphics library." Nanosaur seems like one of the best reasons to buy a Macintosh -- smooth action, good controls, nice textures, and action suitable even for small kids. But if you can put Nanosaur and a close-enough-to-Aqua theme on a Linux box, the premium for The Real Thing suddenly looks a little steeper. However, no release date yet.

Jayakrishnan, who recently reviewed Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, has returned with a review of Li Gong's Inside Java 2 Platform Security, Architecture, API Design and Implementation. With the increasing use of Java in many different situations, books like this will only increase in importance - so learn more about now, versus later. Inside Java 2 Platform Security, Architecture, API Design and I author Li Gong pages 262 publisher Addison-Wesley, 06/1999 rating 9/10 reviewer Jayakrishnan ISBN 0201310007 summary A very useful book for anyone who wants to get an in-depth knowledge of Java 2 security architecture.

The book begins with an introduction to computer and network security fundamentals. The different types of attacks, available defense mechanisms, current security models, cryptography, authentication, etc., are introduced. Chapter 2 brings you up to date with what has been happening 'til JDK 1.1 The different components of the Java security architecture such as the byte code verifier, security manager, the restrictive sandbox, signed applets, and the strong typing, etc. are briefly described.

Chapter Three, 73 pages long, explains the inner details of JDK 1.2 security architecture that provides for flexible, extensible and fine-grained access control. The important classes and their relationships are explained. Of these classes the key methods are explored in detail.

Chapter 4 and 5 talk about deployment and customization of the security architecture. Deployment involves creating policy files and using tools like keytool, policytool, jarsigner and customization involves creating new permission types and configuring the security policy. Also here you learn about how to migrate from the JDK 1.1 based security managers to JDK 1.2 based. Certain good coding practices for writing secure Java objects form the topic of Chapter 6- --Object Security. JDK 1.2 also introduces some new classes for the same SignedObject, SealedObject and GuardedObject

The generic crypto APIs of JDK along with the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) form the Java Cryptographic Architecture which provides platform independent cryptography APIs. Chapter 7, Programming cryptography introduces the classes of the JCE. The final chapter looks into the future. Security features that are being investigated for the future releases are discussed and since the author is also the chief Java security architect, this section resembles a trailer of what is coming.

This book is for developers who are very much interested in the inner details of the JDK 1.2 architecture and system administrators who have to configure the system security policy.

Developers will in particular enjoy the discussions where the author explains the rationale behind the design of key classes and algorithms of significant methods. We get to know what were the alternatives present, from where the ideas came, and why this particular one was chosen. For example, you need only private keys to create signatures and public keys to verify them, but then why does CodeSource deal with only certificates and not public keys?

This book is not just theory; it is also rich with examples. You will learn how to create a new Permission type, use the classes of the cryptographic package or use the tools that comes with JDK, just to name a few.

Sys Admins will benefit a lot from Chapter 4, which teaches how to configure and deploy policy files. The technical depth is one of the strong points of this book but it can be overwhelming to people who would just like to get an update on what all is new. But then you can skip the sections that get into the details and benefit a lot from the breadth of knowledge that is covered. There is also an excellent bibliography.

JDK 1.2 is feature rich. The author has done a commendable job in making all of this easy to comprehend by giving a number of real-world code examples. This book is definitely not for the newbie, but for someone who knows the language and the environment, so the book could have done without the section on how to install JDK or it would have been more appropriate in the appendix. I would recommend reading the Java Security trail (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/security1.2/index.html) of the Java Tutorial before reading this book.

On the negative side, there are syntax errors in some of the Java code given. The keyword "class" is omitted in the definition of a class. Considering the fact that this book comes "from the source", this is a serious error.

The security model that came with the original version of Java was the very restrictive sandbox model. JDK 1.1 gave us the feature of signing applets. JDK 1.2 brings a whole lot of new features and tools which allows flexible and configurable security policies. One of the factors that hinder the adoption of new technology is complexity. Books like these, which clearly explain how to use it, will definitely make the process of using these security features a lot painless.

Finally, the author gives a tip to improve the security features on MS-Windows--- restrict all applications to be 100% Java code. Till we reach that golden era, I will stick with Robert T. Morris' three golden rules to ensure computer security: do not own a computer, do not power it on, and do not use it :)

Pick this book up at ThinkGeek.

Jayakrishnan, who recently reviewed Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, has returned with a review of Li Gong's Inside Java 2 Platform Security, Architecture, API Design and Implementation. With the increasing use of Java in many different situations, books like this will only increase in importance - so learn more about now, versus later. Inside Java 2 Platform Security, Architecture, API Design and I author Li Gong pages 262 publisher Addison-Wesley, 06/1999 rating 9/10 reviewer Jayakrishnan ISBN 0201310007 summary A very useful book for anyone who wants to get an in-depth knowledge of Java 2 security architecture.

The book begins with an introduction to computer and network security fundamentals. The different types of attacks, available defense mechanisms, current security models, cryptography, authentication, etc., are introduced. Chapter 2 brings you up to date with what has been happening 'til JDK 1.1 The different components of the Java security architecture such as the byte code verifier, security manager, the restrictive sandbox, signed applets, and the strong typing, etc. are briefly described.

Chapter Three, 73 pages long, explains the inner details of JDK 1.2 security architecture that provides for flexible, extensible and fine-grained access control. The important classes and their relationships are explained. Of these classes the key methods are explored in detail.

Chapter 4 and 5 talk about deployment and customization of the security architecture. Deployment involves creating policy files and using tools like keytool, policytool, jarsigner and customization involves creating new permission types and configuring the security policy. Also here you learn about how to migrate from the JDK 1.1 based security managers to JDK 1.2 based. Certain good coding practices for writing secure Java objects form the topic of Chapter 6- --Object Security. JDK 1.2 also introduces some new classes for the same SignedObject, SealedObject and GuardedObject

The generic crypto APIs of JDK along with the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) form the Java Cryptographic Architecture which provides platform independent cryptography APIs. Chapter 7, Programming cryptography introduces the classes of the JCE. The final chapter looks into the future. Security features that are being investigated for the future releases are discussed and since the author is also the chief Java security architect, this section resembles a trailer of what is coming.

This book is for developers who are very much interested in the inner details of the JDK 1.2 architecture and system administrators who have to configure the system security policy.

Developers will in particular enjoy the discussions where the author explains the rationale behind the design of key classes and algorithms of significant methods. We get to know what were the alternatives present, from where the ideas came, and why this particular one was chosen. For example, you need only private keys to create signatures and public keys to verify them, but then why does CodeSource deal with only certificates and not public keys?

This book is not just theory; it is also rich with examples. You will learn how to create a new Permission type, use the classes of the cryptographic package or use the tools that comes with JDK, just to name a few.

Sys Admins will benefit a lot from Chapter 4, which teaches how to configure and deploy policy files. The technical depth is one of the strong points of this book but it can be overwhelming to people who would just like to get an update on what all is new. But then you can skip the sections that get into the details and benefit a lot from the breadth of knowledge that is covered. There is also an excellent bibliography.

JDK 1.2 is feature rich. The author has done a commendable job in making all of this easy to comprehend by giving a number of real-world code examples. This book is definitely not for the newbie, but for someone who knows the language and the environment, so the book could have done without the section on how to install JDK or it would have been more appropriate in the appendix. I would recommend reading the Java Security trail (http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/security1.2/index.html) of the Java Tutorial before reading this book.

On the negative side, there are syntax errors in some of the Java code given. The keyword "class" is omitted in the definition of a class. Considering the fact that this book comes "from the source", this is a serious error.

The security model that came with the original version of Java was the very restrictive sandbox model. JDK 1.1 gave us the feature of signing applets. JDK 1.2 brings a whole lot of new features and tools which allows flexible and configurable security policies. One of the factors that hinder the adoption of new technology is complexity. Books like these, which clearly explain how to use it, will definitely make the process of using these security features a lot painless.

Finally, the author gives a tip to improve the security features on MS-Windows--- restrict all applications to be 100% Java code. Till we reach that golden era, I will stick with Robert T. Morris' three golden rules to ensure computer security: do not own a computer, do not power it on, and do not use it :)

Pick this book up at ThinkGeek.

sysadmn writes "From CMP Media's Winmag Win Letter, A company called Kerbango has built what it bills as the world's first standalone Internet radio, which can play any of the claimed 4,000 audio streams floating around the Net as well as more conventional AM or FM broadcasts. Tuning is accomplished through the Kerbango Tuning Service, which displays the user interface on a half-VGA grayscale LCD monitor. The radio has a built-in computer, with an 80MHz PowerPC chip running Linux with 8MB of DRAM, 8MB of flash memory, and a whole bunch of codecs. It'll be available in the Spring. They're not saying how much. "

New reviewer Jayakrishnan Nair has brought with him a review of Addison-Welsey/Sun's Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines. There's a lot of work being done in Java right now - make sure that it looks correct. The book covers everything from basic controls, keyboard navigation, tables, toolbars, treeviews to the JFC and effective ways to use the JFC components. Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines author Sun Microsystems, Inc. pages 230 publisher Addison Wesley, 06/1999 rating 9/10 reviewer Jayakrishnan Nair (jayakrishnan@netscape.net) ISBN 0201615851 summary This book is a must for people involved in creating userinterfaces for Java applications and applets using the Java Foundation Classes. The guidelines presented in this book will allow for the design of applications with consistent appearance and behavior. With a large number of non-technical users using computers regularly in their lives, ease of use and consistent look and feel have become very important in the design of an application. Products designed without concern for the overall experience of the user will become extinct. A badly designed application sticks out like a sore thumb, whereas an application that is pretty and powerful creates loyal users. Adhering to standards creates applications that look familiar to a new user.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines is a very practical book meant for the UI Designer as well as people involved in the design process. The large number of examples is supplemented with about 170 screen shots. Java Look and Feel guidelines for consistent appearance, cross-platform delivery guidelines, internationalization guidelines and implementation tips are mentioned in the appropriate sections and are marked by special icons. A list of books and Web sites on related topics like human interface design, accessibility, internationalization, etc., are given.

Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines is divided into three parts--Overview, Fundamental Java Application Design and The Components of the Java Foundation Classes. This book uses the word "application" to refer to both Java standalone applications and applets.

The Overview part gives a quick visual tour of the Java Look and Feel. The Java Foundation Classes are introduced and the major JFC User Interface Components are visually presented with cross-references to the pages where they are described in detail.

Internationalization allows for the development of applications that are independent of the countries or the language of the users. Such applications allow for the easy customization of the software for a particular region, thus creating a global market. The application may also have to interact with assistive technologies like screen readers, speech recognition systems and Braille terminals. The second part of the book Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines begins by giving guidelines on these two topics.

Given an empty panel, how do you start placing components on it? How much spacing do you need between a label and a textfield? The answers to these questions are given by guiding you through a step-by-step example where a simple dialog box is created using design grids. Colors, Fonts, text and layout of the elements are what create the mood of the applications. The chapter on Visual Design explains how to use these to increase the user confidence and comfort with your application.

The application that is designed for one platform may eventually run on other platforms and display systems with different capabilities. The chapter on Application Graphics gives guidelines in designing icons and buttons and using cross platform color so that the quality of graphics is not affected. Effective use of splash screens, login screens and about boxes to enhance the corporate identity is also discussed.

Part III: The Components of the Java Foundation Classes takes a look at each component of the JFC in detail. This will be the section that will be the most used in the book. Each component behavior is explained and tips regarding implementation and look and feel are given. The Appendix gives the keyboard operations available for JFC components for navigation.

An HTML version of the complete book is available at http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/dg/index.htm for those of you who like to browse the book before buying. The book does not provide code samples for any of the examples shown. Since the book is very specific one about JFC, such examples provided in the appendix or the Web site would have provided a starting point for programmers. Maybe this will come in the later editions.

Other platforms have their own books setting the guidelines. The timely publication of this well structured book has provided Java developers with an unparalleled resource for reference with its comprehensive set of guidelines. This book along with The JFC Swing Tutorial is a must on every developer's physical desktop.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

NoWhere Man writes "Over at RB Computing (an AMD-only shop in Ottawa, Canada), they are distributing the AfterBurner, an Athlon Overclocking card, developped by Golden Fingers. It offers on-the-fly frequency and core voltage modifications, that is a reasonable alternative to building your own, as shown at Tom's Hardware Guide. "

PhilLong asks: "I have a friend that is using an IBM keyboard from 5+ years back, the kind that didn't use rubber domes and had an emphatic "click" when used. I'd like to get him a new one so that he's not lost when the current one slips a key, and so he can use the ... ummm ... extra meta key. Where can I find such a keyboard, or more generally, where can I find keyboard reviews (subjective as I know they must be)?" Keyboard reviews? Now that's a neat idea...

Thaddeus was kind enough to send us a letter that Daniel S. Goldin sent out to all the workers at NASA. It's a wonderful letter and despite the problems they have had recently, they deserve congrats for accomplishing so much. Anyway, click below and read the letter. If you agree, let your governmental representative know that you support your Space Agency.

This is a letter from Dan Goldin to all NASA employees. Generally I consider submitting e-mails to be in poor taste, but this one is to several tens of thousands of people, so its rather public already. I found it to be thought-provoking and inspirational.

MESSAGE FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how proud I am of the NASA family. Thanks to all of you, we have had an incredible string of successes this year. Since last October, we've launched 13 missions, with 10 successes.

The list of accomplishments is impressive: Deep Space One, SWAS, Stardust, LandSat 7, Quikscat, FUSE, the first space station assembly mission, and Chandra, just to name a few.

Although I know I shouldn't single out specific groups because the success of any one mission depends on the entire NASA team, I do want to point out the extraordinary efforts of two groups.

First, I would like to commend the Shuttle team for its commitment to making safety our number one priority. The Shuttle team is absolutely right in its decision to examine, reexamine and reexamine again until we are confident that the Space Shuttle is as safe as possible. Our astronauts' lives depend on the diligence of the Shuttle workforce. We must be driven by safety, not schedule.

Second, the Mars teams have demonstrated the true meaning of character and the pioneering spirit of exploration. The Mars program had two spectacular successes under its belt with the Mars Global Surveyor and the Mars Pathfinder. But what makes this agency strong and vital is not how we react to success, but how we learn from failure. The Mars Polar Lander team was asked to perform the most difficult task in the history of Mars exploration - landing on the red planet's south pole. The odds are staggering: three different countries have tried to go to Mars 32 separate times, and only 11 missions have succeeded.

The American people are behind you. They know how difficult, and how important, it is to explore. They know that risk, failure and setbacks are part of that journey. A USA Today poll taken on Monday showed an overwhelming 72 percent of respondents want us to continue our Mars exploration program. President Bill Clinton and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Chairman of the House Science Committee, expressed support for the Mars program and the "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy during separate press conferences this past week. Rep. Sensenbrenner plans to visit the Jet Propulsion Lab next week to talk with employees.

What we cannot do is return to a time when it took 10 years and one billion dollars to build a spacecraft. We all remember when one such spacecraft blew up - the Mars Observer - and we had no other Mars missions on the books.

We also cannot ask our scientists and engineers to do what others only dream about doing -- take incredible risk, try new ideas and technologies, then point fingers and play the blame game when failures occur. As I said when we started "faster-better-cheaper" if we launched ten missions and lost two or three, we would still be wildly successful.

What we can do, however, is learn from our mistakes. We have to find out why two Mars missions under "faster, better, cheaper" were incredibly successful, and why two others failed.

I am in the process of appointing a blue ribbon commission to look into the failure, to make recommendations, and to help us build a better, stronger program. I know it is never easy to have others looking over your shoulder, second guessing, analyzing, and criticizing. But when you work for >>the Federal Government, you are held to a higher standard. We owe it to the American taxpayers to let them know what went wrong and how we intend to fix our problems. NASA is the boldest, most open agency in the Federal Government. The whole world watches what we do. We've wowed them before, and we will do it again.


Daniel S. Goldin
NASA Administrator

Juln and many others noted that EPIC filed suit against the NSA for failing to respond to their FOIA request. Both EPIC and the House Committee which supposedly oversees the NSA have asked for documents about the extent of their domestic spying and ECHELON activities, and the NSA has refused to provide information to either. Sounds like it's time to remind the spies who runs this outfit. The story is available at many major news sites.

Element5 writes "In an interesting story featured on Netscape's Netcenter Tech News, Microsoft is apparently trying to keep the WTO from imposing a duty fee for international online transactions."

Element5 writes "Netcenter's Tech News reports that Pioneer will be selling the first DVD players (not DVD-ROM drives) to be able to record up to six hours of programming to rewritable discs. Check out the story. Pricing is high, as expected: $2399 US for the unit, $28.79 per disc. " And watch closely, as the film industry gets a panicked look in their eyes. Update: 11/27 08:47 by H : Thanks to Jim Choate for the story that Panasonic has introduced DVD-RAM for only 700$US.

NoWhere Man submitted: "This was mainly generated because after speaking with a few friends it seems that submitting the article about Intel releasing 700+Mhz chips may have given people the wrong impression. The truth is that there is no real proof that these new processors are faster then the Athlon. In fact, based on past information, it would seem that Athlon would most likely come out the victor in a benchmark test." So which is really faster: Coppermine or Athlon? Hit the link for more details.

"True, the Wired article does claim that analysts said "it allows Intel to again say that it has the fastest PC chips." But there is no real proof behind this claim.

Below is a list of processor specs of the two chips (provided from UGeek).

Mhz Athlon=700Mhz Coppermine=733Mhz Bus Speed Athlon=200 Coppermine=133 L1 Cache Athlon=128 Coppermine=32 L2 Cache Athlon=512K(off chip) Coppermine=256K(on chip) Microns Athlon=.25 Coppermine=.18 Trans Athlon=22 mil Coppermine=28 mil

From these specs, the Athlon possesses the superior archecture. The only reason Coppermine is able to achieve 733Mhz is the 0.18 micron process (the chip simply runs at a cooler temperature). Athlon has an excellent CPU core, a fast FPU, and a superb overclocking ability. Only problem is with the chipsets and motherboards or lack there of. Intel chips are widely supported and have a good overclocking ability, but the archetecture is becoming saturated and out of date. Also, Intel had alot of trouble with the i820/Camino chipset which had delayed its release and all motherboards with the old design have to be destroyed. So the question is, how do you think Coppermine will do? "

Coventry asks: "I left college two years ago. At the time, I was actually on staff and going to class for free - working on the in-house network. I left for better money, but now I want to finish my degree. Now, I can`t go back to school full time, I need to work, so my questions is several fold: (more -->)

"What accredited colleges or universities offer a full Bachelors in Computer Science through Distance Learning? How much do they cost? What are the policies on transfered credits, and 'Challenge for Credit' (testing out of a course for full credit) ? Has anyone else looked into this? I know that I want to teach on the college level at some point, and I cant seem to get my foot in the door, reguardless of my other credentials, at certain big and blue company. Any ideas? I do NOT want a buy-a-degree type thing. I'm more then willing to put in the effort and go through the course load, but I need to do it remotely, and preferably at my pace (fairly fast!)"

NoWhere Man writes "PCWorld has a "here's how" article on how to get the most out of your Linux box. It's basically a very extensive and userfriendly step-by-step instruction on how to recompile your kernel to make it smaller and more compact." Kernel recompilation and optimization is old hat for experienced Linux people, but articles like this, especially in "non-Linux" publications, are necessary to help new Linux users become more adept. Kudos to PCWorld for running it!

Isaac-Lew noticed a bit from LinuxToday about a Fisher Price Childrens Game that actually has a Linux version. Then again it also has a DOS, a Windows 3.x version, an OS/2 version, and a PDA version, so they've either really go their bases covered, or there is a mistake. Regardless, its interesting to see such a name brand releasing a Linux port of childrens software: there sure isn't much of it right now, thats for sure. Unless you count Emacs (insert rimshot here).

Isaac-Lew wrote to us pointing out that Opendesk.com has gone into public beta. From the looks of it, they are trying to implement an Office-like suite of features on the Web. Word Processor and such are still forthcoming, but they have got calendering tools, web mail and other "applications" in place. One of the most interesting aspects is that they claim to be open sourcing the project. I can't quite tell if it's a Sun-style commuity source licensem, or a GPL ^[?] style license.

NoWhere Man writes "Intel plans to release Coppermine, its 700Mhz+ series of Pentium III chips, on Monday. The new chip will, not only be available for desktop machines, but notebooks aswell; thanks to a new design which makes them cooler. This release will allow Intel to say, once again, that it offers the fastest chip on the market. "

NoWhere Man writes "Just surfed into Wired and read an article about a theif using email to get AOL passwords. Using OperaMail and a program similar to those used to hack ICQ, the sender can get the password to anyone's account on AOL; all the user has to do is open the email. " You've Got A Password! (Done in sing-song voice).

We try to stick to online speech issues, but Banned Books Week is too important to skip. Libraries get as much flak from the internet as any book, so feel free to celebrate the week by visiting a banned website. And while CNN softballs the issue by sticking to Judy Blume and Anne Frank, the important question is who will stand up for the really controversial material. Thanks to Stradivarius for bringing this up.

SithLordBill writes "Looks like there will be another Quake3 test due in mid-September. This one will include single player bots as well as the Virtual Machine (written to interpret game mods). Anyway, Carmack will be releasing the VM and its modules (as well as the modified compiliers, LCC and q3asm) will be open-source as to give mod developers a head start. Check out his most recent .plan update -- there's a bunch of cool stuff there. "

sysadmn writes "This web server is the latest contender for "World's Smallest". Two chips and a diode - so they had to leave out Linux :-). It's based on the world's smallest implementation of a TCP/IP stack -- which is implmented on a small 8-pin low-power microcontroller using 512 words of program ROM. Where would you put a $1 web server? " If its real, its amazing.

Tsu writes "Well, our good friends over at the Win2K Test Site have, unsurprisingly, stolen an idea from the competition: they've released their Administrator password. Meanwhile, the linuxppc people now have a guestbook up. "

NoWhere Man noted a story on CNet that that talks about Red Hat and their plans to Create a full blown Linux Portal. They note the fact that RH has job openings in San Fran, as well as the trivia that they recently hired 20 (!) people from Atomic Vision. They note that RH will be competing more directly with VAs Linux.com, and of course, yours truly.

Bathmat wrote in to send us a story on new Linux Telephony. I'm sure most of you realize that this is an area where Linux still tends to lag behind certain other OSs. This one is about White Pine who is apparently hooking up with Red Hat to provide this stuff under Linux.

Paul Cunnell writes "FpML? (financial product markup language), jointly created and maintained by J.P. Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers, is a new protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in, financial derivatives over the Internet. It is expected to become the standard for the derivatives industry in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce. Of particular interest to Slashdot readers is the fact that they're using the Mozilla licence for it. " Somewhat analogous to the SABRE system for airlines - make an open system, so that everyone uses it, and you become the standard.

Slimbob wrote in with the word about UCITA, a wonderful little law that, if passed allows for remote shutdown of software if you violate the license, make shrink wrap license more enforceable, and outlaw reverse engineering, amongst other gems. Get more details here. Thanks to C.Scott Ananian for sending us a UCITA page, with the TeX version of the letter to be sent and more information.

Jburkholder writes "John Carmack ^[?] has some complimentary things to say about recent Linux developments, including the lastest Gnome and Matrox open-source drivers. Here's the best quote: -The cool part is that this driver is completely open source. I downloaded the project code, browsed through it a bit, and changed two lines of code to fix the bug. That RULES. -" Comments on the new GLX stuff, CodeWarrior for Linux, and other stuff. Worth a quick read.

PaulJS writes "The UKUUG are holding a Linux Conference on 25th - 26th June 1999. Topics include GNOME (design decisions) and the ext3 filesystem which is a contender for the replacement for ext2. "

Andrew Gardner has reviewed a book that I'm sure sits on many shelves: Perl in a Nutshell. Designed to be your desktop reference, Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan have produced a multi-use tool. Click below for the review. Perl in a Nutshell author Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, Nathan Patwardhan pages publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 10 reviewer Andrew Gardner ISBN summary ood reference for the Perl monger, a good way for the experienced programmer to start getting work done in Perl Here's The Scenario

It is every nerd's righteous duty to learn to hack in Perl. And not just hack, but obfuscate, and do it well. Its a prerequisite for database interfaces, CGI, and system administration, and engineers use Perl all the time. So, figuring it was time to establish my Official Nerd status and get some work done, I set out for the book store. After wading through the piles of books on prognostications about the future of the internet and the 17 volume How to Use AOL series, I found Perl in a Nutshell. I'd done a little Perl before (certainly nothing that would qualify me as a hacker), but I've spent enough time in front of a computer staring into an Emacs buffer full of Verilog to feel like an experienced geek. I didn't want my hand held, and I didn't want a book aimed at the "Netscape for Idiots" crowd. I just wanted to start doing stuff in Perl.

What you get Just as the subtitle states, this is A Desktop Quick Reference. Right from the start, the assumption is that you are going to do something of value very quicky with the knowledge that you are acquiring. Accompanying the exhaustive list of functions, the description of the goals and functionality of each module keeps the book narrowly focused on what Perl can do for you, and what you can be doing with Perl right now. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the most popular modules available on CPAN, which greatly expands the scope of things you can do with this book. The descriptions of the entire broad spectrum of Perl that the book covers are all written in the same style. A quick introduction develops the purpose of the module, and then its straight into the function reference. There is very little fooling around here, and that's the best reason to buy this book.

A brief list of the most useful topics:

• Basic language reference (reserved words and standard modules)
• CGI and mod_perl
• Database interfaces
• Sockets and network programming
• Perl/Tk

The introduction to Perl in the first four chapters is sufficient for the experienced coder, and the function reference makes it simple to jumpstart projects in Perl. Unlike some technical books whose indices and tables of contents are as nondescript as physically possible, Perl in a Nutshell actually has a useful index and table of contents that makes it rather simple to find what you're looking for. Should you buy this book?

Perl in a Nutshell is a perfect book for its market. If you're an inexperienced programmer, or you have no use for Perl, this book will do nothing for you. If you want to get started in Perl, the authors suggest Programming Perl, which is the definitive work on the subject. That really is the place to start. If, however, you have the Camel or the Llama or the Ram, then the Camel head, as the preface names it, might just be a welcome addition to your Perl library.

So What's In It For Me?

You don't get tons of code. And it's short on philosophy. You get a reference, and you get what you paid for. So, when you're desperate to get it to work, or you've got a couple of hours to pull something out of thin air, this is the book you want on your desk because it is truly a complete reference.

Purchase this book over at Amazon.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Perl
   
2. Installing Perl
   
3. The Perl Interpreter
   
4. The Perl Language
   
5. Function Reference
   
6. Debugging
   
7. Packages, Modules, and Objects
   
8. Standard Modules
   
9. CGI Overview
   
10. The CGI.pm Module
    
11. Web Server Programming with mod_perl
    
12. Databases and Perl
    
13. Sockets
    
14. Email Connectivity
    
15. Usenet News
    
16. FTP
    
17. The LWP Library
    
18. Perl/TK
    
19. Win32 Modules and Extensions
    
20. PerlScript
    

Two separate batches of Microsoft legal information have been released. The first, which was sent in by tbird, is about Caldera releasing a "statement of facts" relating to the MS/Caldera trial.
The second, from Thaddeus, is about ZDNet having information released about the "other" big MS trial (MS vs. DOJ) - you can read it here. I'll refrain from comment since IANAL :)

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.

peterjm sent us a link to a CNN article about the prequel trailer threatening networks as people keep emailing that 25 meg file around. I'm also hearing rumors that Menace tickets will be sold a week early, and not held off until the last minute as originally planned. Can anyone confirm this? This might help matters for those of us planning on being out of town that week.