Slashdot Mirror

jonwiley writes: "There is a reprint here of an article by Waldemar Kaempffert, published February, 1950 titled 'Miracles You'll See in the Next Fifty Years.' Taking an approach that examines the current scientific results and activities of his time, while ignoring political and economic factors, he paints a picture of the technology of 2000 A.D. His level of accuracy is surprising, and offers insight on how we may view our own future. What he gets wrong is equally intriguing." Sure, some details are rather off -- but Kaempffert's observation that the future arrives piecemeal is perhaps the most important part.

rm-r writes: "The BBC has a story here saying that two of the largest Martian volcanoes could still be active. The warmth provided by these could have produced conditions fit for life to develop." The article quotes Professor Tracy Gregg of the University of Buffalo, who says: "Of all the volcanoes on Mars, these volcanoes have the largest and greatest numbers of channels associated with them, indicating that there was a lot of water around when they were forming, though there doesn't appear to be any around now."

A computer that Madonna might approve of, ubiquitous boxes delivering Internet acccess all over paradise (and why not everywhere?), and some more insight about Moore's Law and Intel's tiny new transistors, from the horse's mouth. Read more below, in this edition of Slashback.

Insatiable demand and a limited supply mean ... slashdoter writes " Remember the Virgin webplayer? The co-op has got a deal to buy the unsold units at $100 each, add on $10 for shipping and some extra for the Beer fund for our fearless leader and you too can have a hackable webplayer (without a TOS). You only have 2 or 3 days to get in so come on over and read the small print."

It may be officially too late to join, but this still would be a smart site to inquire at if you're looking to find one of these cute little machines, and just like waiting outside a ("sold out") Elvis Costello show, you might find a reasonable re-seller.

"Oooh! It's so cute and little!" rm-r writes "The New Scientist has an interview here with Gerald Marcyk, the head scientist behind the world's smallest transistor announced by Intel last week. The article also has some interesting pieces about the problems chip makers have as they get smaller and smaller."

Now if these were everywhere, where would be put the AOL CDs? The mysterious unnamed correpsondent writes: "This article was published on Securityfocus.com today about Linux Kiosks. It seems that with the Costa Rican Government providing free internet access to all citizens, this is a timely followup about how a country could use a RedHat Linux system to offer Free Internet Access much like we see present day telephones...on every corner, in every restaurant, and at every gas station. It was written by Anton Chuvakin, a Ph.D student in Europe, and maintainer of the Pocket Linux Distribution HOWTO."

This certainly is an interesting vision, and not far-fetched. Can't we all pitch in and lay some fiber like Hands Across America?

[Update]-- until someone pokes an eye out. Here is part six of the continuing reprint of Jon Katz' Hellmouth Saga. Parts five, four, three, two and one are also available to digest if you've not before.

nici writes: "Borland and Troll Tech(Qt+KDE anyone?) have made some sort of licensing agreement to allow Borland's new brain child Kylix to be born. It's going to be a Delphi/C/C++ compiler for Linux... complete with a GUI interface. It's supposed to be completely compatible with windows. Here's a Press Release." Several other people noted that Dr. Bob (CT:Not Dr. Dobbs, my bad! Mustn'y post before coffee!) has some screenshots if you're interested in what the tool actually looks like (Hint: It looks pretty sweet).

Anonymous Coward writes: "There's a cool article over on O'Reilly network showing how to set up a network connection between a Linux box and Palm Pilot, and then run a Web server on the Palm to access the documents. There's also a VNC client which I'm downloading now. Wild!"

rm-r writes: "The BBC is running a story here about Microsoft hiring Ralph Reed, one of George W. Bush's senior consultants and a big figure in the Christian Coalition, to lobby against their anti-trust case." Think MS knows that many people consider them the Great Satan??

worth writes "Network Solutions, Inc. has launched a new site to help resolve domain disputes online. They call it the online center for Domain Name Dispute Assistance." sounds like a very good, much-needed service. If it works.

fire writes "I was listening to National Public Radio here in the US, and they've talked about a new beer called Windows 99. It is produced in St. Petersburg, Russia, and it seems there is nothing Microsoft can do. The producer exploited Russia's poor trademark law to trademark the name Windows 99 for all food, drink, and tobacco products. They also said that they will start producing cigarettes under the label Windows 99." See? I told you that Windows was bad for your health. Here's a link to an article about it taken from the St. Petersburg Times.

jonwiley writes "The Mars Society and thinkMARS have teamed up to create a web-based petition for those who support the human exploration of Mars. Their goal is 1,000,000 signatures by November 2000 and they plan to present the petition to Congress, the President, and to other world leaders. "

Emphyrio writes "Today, the first beta of Zend (php 4.0 scripting engine) was released. Php 4.0, in combination with the Zend scripting engine, is supposed to be a faster, more efficient, and enhanced version of php 3.0. Benchmarks between php 4.0/Zend and ASP have been made, giving _very_ good results, and showing php 4.0/Zend to outperform asp greatly. Php 4.0 is the first public php release using the Zend scripting engine, wich is relased under the QPL source license. More information about Zend and php 4.0 can be found on the Zend home page and the Php 4.0 homepage. . "

With only 8 days left until the One Point Oh release of the Gimp, we now have 0.99.20 to contend with. Don't forget to snag the new GTK 0.99.5 as well. Chris Black was the first of several to report this one.