Slashdot Mirror

SilenceKit writes "The New York Times has a cool story today on a sequel to Flatland, the classic geometry/social satire which "it may be no exaggeration to say has been read by every self-respecting physicist, mathematician and science fiction writer." The new one, by Ian Stewart, is called "Flatterland" and is a tour of a century of strange geometry -- from fractals to "Minkowski space," whatever that is. The story (free registration required) is at the Times" I was loaned Flatland: A Romance Of Many Dimensions by one of my college profs - it's a great book, and this come from someone who really hated geometry (What bad high school teachers can do). It's still available on fatbrain - pretty good for a 19th century text about geometry, to still be in print.

Yahoo! says No! to Porn!; the iSmell fades away after lingering long; two books you might want to read (or think again about reading); and What Not To Do Should You Become A Corporate PR Flunky. All below, all in tonight's Slashback.

But quality movies like "Ishtar" are still available. After last week's (somewhat) surprising public announcement that Yahoo! would straightforwardly feature a section of pornographic movies in its online store, it seems that quite a few readers were disappointed enough to send in news that it was not to be.

phunk, for instance, writes: "Swamped with thousands of complaints from users, Yahoo! Inc. said Friday it will stop selling X-rated videos and other pornographic material on its Web pages. The flap comes at a difficult time for Yahoo, which had been one of the biggest Internet success stories but is now struggling to make money and just announced layoffs."

I'm surprised they didn't simply rebrand that part of their site and quietly subsidize the rest of the company with it.

When you practice to deceive, plain text is a good format. Spatula writes "Hidden in the bowels of their media update on the security vulnerability in their DSL modems, Alcatel makes some very revealing statements.

Alcatel recently came under fire over a security vulnerability in one of their DSL modem products that could potentially allow a hacker to gain full control over a user's Internet experience. Many were shocked by Alcatel's subsequent remarks, especially that the company had no plan to release a patch for the flaw, suggesting only that users run firewall software.

In a "media update" MS Word document, one can view the changes that were made before the document was released to the public, which includes some interesting remarks, such as "What are you doing to provide a legitimate fix?" and "Why don't we provide this level of security for all our customers?" morons.org has all the details."

Printed because printed matter matters. Mark Harrison writes: "The Central Europe Review has an interesting review of Stanislaw Lem's newest book, Okamgnienie (A Blink of an Eye). Lem has been writing interesting and provocative works for the past 50 years. Many slashdotters should be familiar with his works such as the Cyberiad, which narrates the adventures of constructor robots Trurl and Klapaucius, and which inspired Sim City. According to the back cover of this newest book, it addresses questions such as "Is final knowledge of the processes which led to the genesis of life on earth possible? Will science bring us immortality? Are we alone in the Cosmos? What are the odds of meeting an extraterrestrial civilization? Is Nature an evolutionary monopolist? What do cloning and genetic engineering portend? Will humans produce artificial intelligence? What will be the consequences of the lightning-fast unfolding of communication technologies?""

And fishbonez points out this NY Times " book review of "Republic.com" by Cass R. Sunstein. In his book, the Sunstein argues that the Internet makes it possible to customize media experiences, which has the effect of limiting knowledge and narrowing readers' minds. Does this customized news effect apply to /.? Or does the ability to read numerous viewpoints overcome it? As a side bar, it would be interesting to know which filters are the most popular."

That stinks. An Anonymous Coward writes: "Remember when it was the iSmell that /. was asking for one-liners for?

Well it looks like they are going to have to go back to using good old-fashioned soap and water.

No more money and they where oh so close to shipping."

Yahoo! says No! to Porn!; the iSmell fades away after lingering long; two books you might want to read (or think again about reading); and What Not To Do Should You Become A Corporate PR Flunky. All below, all in tonight's Slashback.

But quality movies like "Ishtar" are still available. After last week's (somewhat) surprising public announcement that Yahoo! would straightforwardly feature a section of pornographic movies in its online store, it seems that quite a few readers were disappointed enough to send in news that it was not to be.

phunk, for instance, writes: "Swamped with thousands of complaints from users, Yahoo! Inc. said Friday it will stop selling X-rated videos and other pornographic material on its Web pages. The flap comes at a difficult time for Yahoo, which had been one of the biggest Internet success stories but is now struggling to make money and just announced layoffs."

I'm surprised they didn't simply rebrand that part of their site and quietly subsidize the rest of the company with it.

When you practice to deceive, plain text is a good format. Spatula writes "Hidden in the bowels of their media update on the security vulnerability in their DSL modems, Alcatel makes some very revealing statements.

Alcatel recently came under fire over a security vulnerability in one of their DSL modem products that could potentially allow a hacker to gain full control over a user's Internet experience. Many were shocked by Alcatel's subsequent remarks, especially that the company had no plan to release a patch for the flaw, suggesting only that users run firewall software.

In a "media update" MS Word document, one can view the changes that were made before the document was released to the public, which includes some interesting remarks, such as "What are you doing to provide a legitimate fix?" and "Why don't we provide this level of security for all our customers?" morons.org has all the details."

Printed because printed matter matters. Mark Harrison writes: "The Central Europe Review has an interesting review of Stanislaw Lem's newest book, Okamgnienie (A Blink of an Eye). Lem has been writing interesting and provocative works for the past 50 years. Many slashdotters should be familiar with his works such as the Cyberiad, which narrates the adventures of constructor robots Trurl and Klapaucius, and which inspired Sim City. According to the back cover of this newest book, it addresses questions such as "Is final knowledge of the processes which led to the genesis of life on earth possible? Will science bring us immortality? Are we alone in the Cosmos? What are the odds of meeting an extraterrestrial civilization? Is Nature an evolutionary monopolist? What do cloning and genetic engineering portend? Will humans produce artificial intelligence? What will be the consequences of the lightning-fast unfolding of communication technologies?""

And fishbonez points out this NY Times " book review of "Republic.com" by Cass R. Sunstein. In his book, the Sunstein argues that the Internet makes it possible to customize media experiences, which has the effect of limiting knowledge and narrowing readers' minds. Does this customized news effect apply to /.? Or does the ability to read numerous viewpoints overcome it? As a side bar, it would be interesting to know which filters are the most popular."

That stinks. An Anonymous Coward writes: "Remember when it was the iSmell that /. was asking for one-liners for?

Well it looks like they are going to have to go back to using good old-fashioned soap and water.

No more money and they where oh so close to shipping."

guanxi writes: "The NY Times tells us that Amtrak gives the DEA a 'computer link,' which they use to investigate passengers, leading to arrests. In return, the DEA gives Amtrak a cut of seized assets. I wonder if they have a deal with AOL, MS Hotmail or my ISP? Still considering storing sensitive corporate info at an ASP? An Amtrak spokeswoman tells us, 'We don't believe there is a privacy issue here.' Even if Amtrak is actually that ignorant, can the DEA pretend to be?" Wait 'til you have to provide photo ID to board an Amtrak train, too. (What about Greyhound? Are they in on a similar deal?)

Logic Bomb writes: "The New York Times has a really interesting article about PBS and its struggle to convert to digital. On one hand, PBS stations need to start broadcasting their low-definition signals using digital transmission just like everyone else, and some stations are struggling with finances. On the other, better-funded big-city stations are already concerned with money for providing interactive content. Even worse, rules for determining what digital broadcast programming cable providers must carry threaten PBS with being essentially forced out of some markets. I don't watch TV much, but PBS falls into a class of things that I consider vital to our nation's citizenry. I hope things work out ok."

lucyfersam writes: "A recent study has shown that fat, the body's energy storage device, also stores a resovoir of ever useful stem cells. Check out the article in the New York Times (free reg)"

lucyfersam writes: "A recent study has shown that fat, the body's energy storage device, also stores a resovoir of ever useful stem cells. Check out the article in the New York Times (free reg)"

jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes has a nice article on the three hat problem, which has recently become quite popular among mathematicians. Three people are given either a red or a blue hat to wear. The goal is to have someone guess the correct color of his/her own hat with no person guessing incorrectly." Read the article for the rules of the puzzle. This problem is quite comparable to the Monty Hall problem, where people initially think that they can't do better than chance, but then realize that there is an extra source of information which can be tapped - either the host's knowledge of which door has the prize, or in this case, the fact that which player makes a guess can be determined after the game has started, that is, based on information available about the hats. Think about it - it's an interesting puzzle.

daveuserland writes: "Lots of activity in XML-over-HTTP. An article in today's NY Times about Microsoft, SOAP, UserLand and me. My comments. In the meantime XML-RPC keeps growing with solid interop. 29 implementations in the new XML-RPC directory. The politics are intense but everything's going well." It sounds like Dave understands this .Net thing; even after hearing about it for a few years, I've yet to hear a really lucid explanation of why I should want my apps and personal data floating in an amorphous cloud, but maybe that's just me.

Alan Stovall writes: "The New York Times has a story on broadcasting television (radio etc) signals over the same frequency as satellite services hence doubling the available spectrum. This could have an incredible impact on the broadcast medium." It could, but as the article details, the incumbents are busy quashing it.

An Anonymous Coward sent in: "While not the only problem facing the ill-fated V-22 Osprey, a bug in the software controlling the pitch of the Osprey's rotors was listed as a contributing factor to the crash of a Marine Opsrey last December. It appears that a hydraulic leak initiated a sequence of events that included the pilot pressing a computer reset button. Rather than resetting the computer, the software changed the pitch of the rotors. Not so good... One more reason to fear too much technology. Has anybody ever seen a bug-free piece of software of any complexity greater than "Hello World"?"

Diplomat73 writes: "That's right! The NY Times reports that Scientists have traced gold to Neutron Stars. A team of scientists said Thursday that the origins of most of the gold, platinum and other heavy elements on Earth can be traced to the massive explosions of colliding neutron stars, hundreds of millions of years before the birth of the Solar System.

Diplomat73 writes: "That's right! The NY Times reports that Scientists have traced gold to Neutron Stars. A team of scientists said Thursday that the origins of most of the gold, platinum and other heavy elements on Earth can be traced to the massive explosions of colliding neutron stars, hundreds of millions of years before the birth of the Solar System.

Observations made by the Hubble telescope have produced evidence that the universe is full of "dark energy", stuff that has mass but does not emit nor block light, and that a disregarded theory first postulated by Einstein about "negative gravity" is actually valid. If true, this would provide firm evidence that the universe will not collapse in a "big crunch" but will expand indefinitely. See the SF Chronicle, New York Times, MSNBC, or CNN for stories (the Chronicle story is the best, IMHO). For background information, you may want to check out the cosmology FAQ or more information about negative gravity. (Update: 04/04 11:03 AM by michael : A couple of people have pointed out that this write-up is inaccurate; I'm not going to try to correct it, but read the comments for more information.)

An anonymous submitter was the first to point out this New York Times article - MIT is planning a major project to put most of its coursework up on the Web over the next ten years. The article is a little short on details - probably because there aren't many yet - but there's an MIT factsheet that has some more information.

obobo writes "The New York Times (free reg yadda yadda) has a story about new flaws in the 802.11 standard, based on this paper. The upshot is that even with 128 bit encryption and MAC address control lists, it's still easy to hack."

geekotourist writes: " The NYTimes reports that the Tech Law Journal's emailed newsletter started misspelling words to get around filters at "law firms, universities or government agencies." Good to know that this well-informed audience (given the newsletter's content) knows the best reaction to mindless censorship: "...accepted the misspellings as a necessary evil." In future news on how to live with badly designed filters, identity theft victims will be asked to adopt new names ('cause it's a little too hard for credit card reporting agencies to provide authentication and privacy. Just ask Oprah.) And people who can't handle being pulled over for looking different will now be given blond wigs and white makeup to prevent it." (And censorware.net scooped The Times, too.)

Ragetech writes: "According to this NY Times article Dr. Jack Ng, a physicist at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, has theorized that LIGO, the "Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, may be capable of detecting quantum foam. (free registration needed, yada yada)"

tuiterwyk writes "According to this article on CNN.com, the US Supreme court is considering whether print publishers who have paid a free-lance writer for an article or story are able to include that work in their on-line or CD versions without the permission of the original author or without being required to pay additional compensation. The impact on on-line searches and newspaper sites could be dramatic." See the New York Times story as well. Publishers such as AOL/Time Warner have no problem pirating the work of freelance writers to sell for a profit - when it's their profit. Note: I have not been able to find any article by any major publisher that describes what the publishers are doing (distributing copyrighted works without permission, for money) as "piracy", please post a comment with a link if you know of one.

blair1q writes: "The AP is reporting that MLB and RealNetworks have formed a cartel to embargo broadcasts of baseball games, charging listeners $9.99 for the season. No word on whether they will continue to broadcast the commercials along with the games. No word on whether you will be forced to pay $29.95 for a registered copy of RealNetworks' software. No word on whether RealNetworks will improve the quality and reliability, or MLB will guarantee availability of the feeds, or you can move from machine to machine with your access intact. The words 'suck' and 'criminal' want to appear here in the worst way." Especially after team owners extort taxpayers to help build their stadiums. Of course, pay-per-view events aren't new, but pay-per-listen sports broadcasting? Webcams, laptops and Ricochet (in participating cities) seem appropriate.

RetroGeek points to this "New York Times article about a computer using atoms as switches. Give me twenty atoms and I'll break the RC5 contest." Going from 7 atoms to 10 is the order of the year, and if this keeps up maybe soon we'll need some slightly longer encryption keys, thanks.

selectspec writes: "According to this article in the nytimes, scientists are reporting unexpected levels of defects in sheep and other animals cloned in recent years. Apparently, the cloned DNA is more susceptible to damage during the procedure. This pretty much rules out cloning humans for now." The pivotal battle of bioengineering gets a rain delay.

parvati writes: "The weekly "cyber law journal" column in the NYTimes examines a case in which the Better Business Bureau requested that a for-profit site not associated with the BBB remove links to it (the BBB). Although the BBB did not threaten a lawsuit, a spokesperson did mention that they were developing software to prevent unwanted hyperlinking (in the name of 'consumer confusion')." We resisted running this story when it first hit, because it seemed like just another case of lack-of-clue-itis at the BBB. But at least they're getting a clue about how to stop people from linking with technology rather than threats.

angainor sent in this interesting piece: "There is an article in NY Times which claims that in fact all science is computer science. He does some small talk about the fields of modern science where computers have been successfully used. But that's it. Does he really know what he is talking about? Read this piece, but don't be proud just because you are too a computer "scientist"." The writer has a good point about new advances in many fields being due to large amounts of computing power being applied.

Slooze writes "Dennis Overbye's essay in today's New York Times, 'No Man, Quark or Electron Is an Island', discusses the possible societal and even metaphysical effects of quantum physics' poetic metaphors. Are notions about mass without mass, it from bit, entangled particles, and supersymmetry, for example, exerting subtle influences on the way we perceive ourselves and our socio-political relationships?" An odd little piece.

Well, everybody and his brother wants to let us know that Mir is coming down, really, they mean it this time. Pick your favorite site to track its descent: Yahoo | NY Times | United States Space Command | Heavens Above | BBC. But Frederic Freidel provides an oddly personal note: what goes up must come down.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01, so the collective wisdom of slashdot was off by a few days.

Nowhere in this slashdot story do we mention either the stupid Taco Hell advertising campaign or the space fungus or the Crashing Mir Space Station Detecto-Hat.

jw writes: "The NY Times has a story about Angel Technologies, a St. Louis company that plans to provide high- speed Internet access in an unusual way: using solar-powered, high-altitude manned aircraft built to cruise at 51,000 feet... In addition to the expense of building or acquiring three planes for each metropolitan area, Angel's complicated plan involves using huge quantities of jet fuel, hiring two pilots for each plane and making three takeoffs and landings every day for each city where its service is available..." Piloting one of these sounds like a pretty high-stress job; if this should come to pass I hope they get every other week off like Houston channel pilots do. Zeppelins, satellites, solar-powered planes ... what about kites?

Boise3981 writes "An article for the New York Times is talking about geolocation software, originally meant to deliver localized ads to web surfers, being used by some countries (and possibly even states or cities) to enforce local decency laws on the internet. In one instance a judge in France decided to fine Yahoo! $13,000 a day for displaying nazi memorabilia on its auction website. The article talks about web sites dumbing down their content to the lowest common denominator, lest they break some obscure decency law in some tiny village somewhere. fun."

Boise3981 writes "An article for the New York Times is talking about geolocation software, originally meant to deliver localized ads to web surfers, being used by some countries (and possibly even states or cities) to enforce local decency laws on the internet. In one instance a judge in France decided to fine Yahoo! $13,000 a day for displaying nazi memorabilia on its auction website. The article talks about web sites dumbing down their content to the lowest common denominator, lest they break some obscure decency law in some tiny village somewhere. fun."

nate1138 writes "According to this story at the New York Times(Free reg. required), the courts may still have a little respect for our privacy. They struck down a company's request to have an anonymous, allegedly defamatory, poster unmasked. It's a small win, but a win." The intersting thing about this case is that the company was trying to stay anonymous while they attacked the poster's anonymity! That's a different wrinkle than we have seen before, and the courts seem to have made the right decision.

nate1138 writes "According to this story at the New York Times(Free reg. required), the courts may still have a little respect for our privacy. They struck down a company's request to have an anonymous, allegedly defamatory, poster unmasked. It's a small win, but a win." The intersting thing about this case is that the company was trying to stay anonymous while they attacked the poster's anonymity! That's a different wrinkle than we have seen before, and the courts seem to have made the right decision.

nickfarr writes: "This article about Yahoo from Sunday's NYT gives some pretty good arguments against the profitability of portals; or the idea that massive visibility translates into massive profit. It definitely presents a broad middle perspective between the .com naysayers and the irrational optimists." The financial news is full of such things, and this is better than most -- all that infrastucture is looking for some money to swallow before it starves.

hoffmanm8 writes "Extending AT&T's grasp on every convieable non-software tech thing, scientists @ Bell Labs have found a way to make a plastic superconductor. (NYTimes, requires free registration). This could be pretty cool/scary unless, of course, the plastic superconductor is to the early 2000's as 'cold fusion' was to the late 20th Century."

aihacker writes "This New York Times article talks about a robot that lays fiber-optic lines in city sewers. What a brilliant way to bridge that "last mile"!" We've run a few stories about wiring (is that the right term for running fiber-optic cable?) cities for broadband, but the actual procedure is pretty interesting.

ContinuousPark writes: "Ivan Sutherland, father of computing graphics, has been for the last ten years designing chips that don't use a clock. He's been proposing a method called asyncronous logic where there's no clock signal being distributed and regulating every part of the chip. The article doesn't give many technical details (greatly needed) but Sutherland, now doing research for Sun, is telling that significant breakthroughs have been made recently to make this technology viable for mass production. It is estimated that 15% of a chip's circuitry is dedicated to distributing the clock signal and as much as 20% percent of the power is consumed by the clock. This is indeed intriguing; what unit will replace the familiar megahertz?"

Dasheiff writes: "A federal appeals court [NYTimes, free reg. req. ^[?] ] struck down a set of regulations today that had prevented the nation's largest cable companies from growing beyond serving more than 30 percent of the cable and satellite market's subscribers and providing more than 40 percent of its channels with programming from its affiliated companies. In other words AT&T and AOL Time Warner can now continue to expand their monopoly. However it's not clear if this is a bad thing, if shows continue to be poor people will not watch them. Companies need to compete with the viewer more than the other companies." So, were those limits actually doing customers good or not? And will this make high-speed access (even if AOL-TW dominated) available in many places it's not right now?

On this website, Microsoft-bashing almost approaches a religion. And why not? It's hard to think of a more arrogant, greedy or deserving target. But after a careful reading through the transcripts of the Microsoft anti-trust appeal now underway, I'm having some second thoughts about the break-up order, about Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling and the way it was decided and delivered. Please join in. (Read more)

Microsoft's gargantuan and controversial presence triggered a techno-social revolution over the last decade. Microsoft's dominance -- and as some describe it, predation -- helped shape the computer revolution and the new economy. It was also instrumental in spawning Open Source, Free Software and the related individualistic, decentralized media that may well have saved the Net from the corporatized fate of much of the rest of the non-virtual information culture.

One of the problems is that our media has become a mob, lurching one way, then the other.

Perspective and clarity is hard to come by.

For more than a decade, the popular press uncritically accepted just about every single thing Bill Gates and his company said or did. Big media were instrumental in uncritically promoting products like Windows 98 and in establishing the notion of Microsoftian omnipotence. Gates couldn't have done it without them. They slobbered over his bland pronouncements, his shamelessly excessive mansion, his inane books, and his company's workable but decidedly uninspired and proprietary software.

Now, by and large, they've turned, and just as uncritically accepted the notion that Microsoft is an illegal and predatory monopoly and that the company needs to be broken up. Gates' astonishing arrogance -- lying to a federal judge comes to mind -- is much to blame for this change. But monomania isn't a crime.

Some articulate federal appeals court judges -- the case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia -- appear to be challenging the finding in the Microsoft trial, although they've yet to make their ultimate findings. And they and others are raising some troubling questions about the conduct of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who has himself told interviewers he knows little about the issues involved and believes there are good grounds to appeal his ruling. (The transcripts are available from the Federal Document Clearing House, a private subscription service that is not online, and from various online news sites. They make compelling reading).

I was always uneasy about Jackson's ruling and posture. To me, Microsoft's crimes were arrogance, mediocrity and greed, the hallmarks of our corporatized culture -- none of them, alas, illegal in our business world. Much as people fault the quality of Microsoft's software and decry its practices, the truth is that tens of millions of people have used their products successfully to access the Net and the Web and run their PCs. And the idea that a Microsoft break-up would enhance competitiveness and creativity have always seemed dubious, even menacing. The Net has been so creative and explosive in part because the government didn't know enough about it to mess it up. That's a dangerous precedent to change.

I'd rather see MS challenged creatively in the marketplace, or by the generous spirit of movements like Open Source, than by a bunch of admittedly clueless federal bureaucrats, or an erratic judge. It seems clear that no one in the federal government from Congress to the regulatory agencies to the White House -- is in a strong position to oversee or regulate the Net or the increasingly disparate tech nation.

The appeal raises a host of complex issues, many of which fly well over my head. But the heart of the government action against Microsoft is clear enough: the U.S. accused the company of paying ISP's and OEM's (original equipment manufacturers) hundreds of millions of dollars to shut down Netscape's distribution channels. It also accused Microsoft of illegally tying its browser to Windows; of predatory pricing, and of exclusive dealing. But several questions about the government's case seem legitimate, even troubling, and it seems both fair and appropriate to launch an open discussion about them, to see whether they have any merit -- or not.

First:

Antitrust law says that for a company to behave illegally, it must establish a monopoly (not in itself illegal), engage in anti-competitive practices, and perhaps most importantly, harm consumers. Were consumers demonstrably harmed by Microsoft? If so, how?

Did government antitrust prosecutors actually prove that Microsoft prevented Netscape, or any other rival, from bringing new products to the marketplace?

According to unchallenged testimony in federal court this week, Netscape distributed 160 million copies of Navigator in l998 alone. At the time, according to the appeals court testimony, there were approximately 100 million Net users, which means every one could have acquired Netscape's product if they wanted to. Is it true that these users were not free to choose Netscape?

In ruling against Microsoft, Judge Jackson defined the "relevant market" that Microsoft controlled as operating systems and replacements to operating systems. He then found that Microsoft's admittedly aggressive tactics harmed Navigator. But Microsoft's lawyers have repeatedly argued -- correctly -- that Navigator isn't an operating system, and that Netscape had neither interest in nor means to supplant Windows. Was Judge Jackson wrong when he concluded that there was a direct link between Microsoft's bullying tactics and direct harm to consumers in the "relevant market?"

Judge Jackson also found that Microsoft had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by tying IE to Windows. Appeals Court Justice Stephen Williams sharply challenged that view in court this week. Whatever Microsoft's conduct was, he argued, "it's not tying." Several other justices said they were sympathetic to Microsoft's argument that it integrated IE with Windows because there was little or no real market for computers without browsers. Isn't that so? In this time period, as the Web was exploding, why wasn't Microsoft justified in integrating Windows with its much-hyped OS? Wouldn't doing otherwise prove corporate suicide? Was Microsoft really supposed to sit back and allow competitors to dominate this critical market, surely threatening Windows in the process?

The Justice Department has been struggling in the appeals testimony to respond to arguments that computer operating systems by their very nature might have to be standardized, and that as a result a monopoly was inevitable. If Microsoft didn't create one, its lawyers claimed, somebody else would have and at least some of those potential "other" monopolies had a vested interested in seeing a divided and weakened Microsoft.

Plenty of questions remain about Microsoft and its practices. Did the company ruthlessly, or illegally, discourage competition? Did Microsoft make it too difficult or in some cases, impossible, for consumers to remove IE from their desktops? Did Microsoft unfairly -- or, more to the point, illegally --wipe out or damage potential competitors? But there are civil, criminal and other remedies for this behavior, if it occurred, short of chopping up the company.

The truth is, there is a fine but important legal line between ruthlessness, avarice and illegality. There are also profound implications for the tech world if Microsoft does, in fact, break apart, especially if it happens for the wrong reasons.

Now there is also the question of judicial bias. Some legal ethicists -- including nearly all of the appeals judges -- have sharply criticized Judge Jackson, whose dislike for Gates sometimes appeared personal -- in one interview, Jackson linked Microsoft to drug gangs -- and who made critical comments about Microsoft and its founder to reporters while the appeal process is still underway. The appeals judges are so upset with Jackson that they are reported to be considering sending the case back to a different judge. Jackson's behavior is considered grossly unprofessional, especially in the federal judiciary. Something seems off about this judge. The final decision in the Microsoft case will shape software and new economy laws for decades -- the ruling ought to be credible and beyond doubt.

Another problem is the selective nature of the Justice Department's prosecution of Microsoft, which suggests the government is regulating predatory corporations when it certainly is not. In the Corporate Republic, the land of AOL/Time-Warner and the Disney Corp., is Microsoft really that unusual, or even particularly predatory?

Are other giant theme park operators really free to create new versions of Disney World, whose synergistic marketing "tie-ins" would seem to a non-tech layperson to dwarf the alleged linkage between IE and Windows? Can new information content and delivery providers possibly compete with the monster that is AOL/Time-Warner, a truly awful merger with dreadful implications for privacy, free speech and competitiveness; a link-up that the very same Justice Department only recently approved with hardly a blink? This is a company crying out for a break-up from the day it merged.

Microsoft appeals trial transcripts are available on almost all major news sites -- USA Today, CNN.com, the Washington Post and the New York Times. People can reach their own conclusions about the testimony, and the appeal court's questioning of lawyers for both sides. It's implicit that your comments are always welcome on this site, but your thoughts about these questions would be particularly welcome.

An Anonymous Coward writes "As early as Wednesday, the RIAA has sent letters to the ISPs and operators of OpenNap servers in the U.S. which were listed on Napigator. Here's the story from ZDNET. The RIAA's letter refers to the U.S. Supreme Court decision against Napster. Given that nearly all the OpenNap servers are run by individuals who are never intending to charge for the service, this is an interesting assertion." And HyperbolicParabaloid points out this NYT story (free reg. req.) in which a lawyer says the decision "validates Gnutella" (ok, whatever, but there's also some interesting discussion about how the Sony VCR time- and space-shifting precedent fails to apply to Napster).

justin sane writes: "The NY Times has an article about the one of the tiniest functioning robots to date.[Note: free reg. req. ^[?] -- t.] They faced numerous problems and build the robots layer by layer with photolithography on expoxy compounds. The microprocessor is raw (i.e. without a package to save on size). The batteries are the biggest part by far (not surprisingly). There is an MPEG of one in action as it's speed 20 in/min velocity but alas it just looked like a photo album on my M$ player--still the photos are cool. No word if they are working on a port of Embedded Linux that can run the 8k memory space though. That would be my next step, then ... Python ;-)"

Mr. Obvious writes "Funky article over at the NY Times about using Finite Element Analysis to do Dinosaur Dentistry. My favorite quote: "'I found out by reconstructing the muscles at the back of the skull and calculating the bite force that Allosaurus has a relatively weak bite force,' palaeontologist Emily Rayfield said in a telephone interview. 'It is about four times weaker than Tyrannosaurus rex or an alligator.'" Emphasis added. A fourth of an alligator! Who would have thought?"

Mr. Obvious writes "Funky article over at the NY Times about using Finite Element Analysis to do Dinosaur Dentistry. My favorite quote: "'I found out by reconstructing the muscles at the back of the skull and calculating the bite force that Allosaurus has a relatively weak bite force,' palaeontologist Emily Rayfield said in a telephone interview. 'It is about four times weaker than Tyrannosaurus rex or an alligator.'" Emphasis added. A fourth of an alligator! Who would have thought?"

Mr. Obvious writes: "Probably a lot of people are sending in this link, but there's an interesting article over at the NY Times (free registration still required, I believe) about how the Gov. of Mich. wants to set-up a "cybercourt" real soon, in the hope of attracting business to the wet-and-soggy-state where I once lived, long, long ago. So, my question is: Does anyone else really think that the existence of a cyber-court would attract start-ups to Detroit, Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo? Somehow, I just can't see it, but I haven't chosen a location for a start-up lately, so maybe I'm just out of touch?"

Mr. Obvious writes: "Probably a lot of people are sending in this link, but there's an interesting article over at the NY Times (free registration still required, I believe) about how the Gov. of Mich. wants to set-up a "cybercourt" real soon, in the hope of attracting business to the wet-and-soggy-state where I once lived, long, long ago. So, my question is: Does anyone else really think that the existence of a cyber-court would attract start-ups to Detroit, Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo? Somehow, I just can't see it, but I haven't chosen a location for a start-up lately, so maybe I'm just out of touch?"

split horizon writes: "The New York Times is reporting that Professor Michael Rabin of Harvard University claims to have developed a cryptosystem that is both practical and provably unbreakable. It sounds to me like it basically uses a one-time pad that's generated on the fly very quickly." Good stuff, but don't expect to see this in the next version of gnupg - the logistical difficulties are high and the system you'll end up with won't be any more secure in practice than public-key encryption techniques already widely available.

A reader writes "The New York Times has an op-ed piece in Monday's paper about the smaller-than-expected number of genes in the human genome (around 30,000 genes, versus 19,000 for a simple roundworm and the 100,000+ that were expected). With so few genes, it may be the case that the emergent properties of the combinations of genes, as much as the genes themselves, are contributing to our complexity. I suppose the honchos at Santa Fe Institute are rewriting their grant proposals already."

A reader writes "The New York Times has an op-ed piece in Monday's paper about the smaller-than-expected number of genes in the human genome (around 30,000 genes, versus 19,000 for a simple roundworm and the 100,000+ that were expected). With so few genes, it may be the case that the emergent properties of the combinations of genes, as much as the genes themselves, are contributing to our complexity. I suppose the honchos at Santa Fe Institute are rewriting their grant proposals already."

yfarren sent us this: "According to this(free reg required, or try here)new york times article European copyright holders are trying to force consumers to pay them whenever they buy any equipment that might be used to copy music. What I want to know is, if I do pay somone when I buy equipment that enables me to copy copyrighted Items, do I gain rights to do so? If not, what am I paying for?" That's a good question - wish there was an answer. CNN has a very bland article about changes in European copyright law which seem to parallel the DMCA, but I haven't been able to find a good write-up in English - please post below if you have one.

yfarren sent us this: "According to this(free reg required, or try here)new york times article European copyright holders are trying to force consumers to pay them whenever they buy any equipment that might be used to copy music. What I want to know is, if I do pay somone when I buy equipment that enables me to copy copyrighted Items, do I gain rights to do so? If not, what am I paying for?" That's a good question - wish there was an answer. CNN has a very bland article about changes in European copyright law which seem to parallel the DMCA, but I haven't been able to find a good write-up in English - please post below if you have one.

yfarren sent us this: "According to this(free reg required, or try here)new york times article European copyright holders are trying to force consumers to pay them whenever they buy any equipment that might be used to copy music. What I want to know is, if I do pay somone when I buy equipment that enables me to copy copyrighted Items, do I gain rights to do so? If not, what am I paying for?" That's a good question - wish there was an answer. CNN has a very bland article about changes in European copyright law which seem to parallel the DMCA, but I haven't been able to find a good write-up in English - please post below if you have one.

It's the scientific achievment of our generation; what can you say about the mapping of the human genome? But here's a story behind the story. parvati turned us on to this NYT article about James Kent, who wrote the gene assembly program GigAssembler last June. It turns out that, thanks to his code, the public Human Genome Project had actually finished its work three days before the private effort by Celera Genomics -- a feather in their cap and a boon to public science. The head of Celera was "astonished" to learn of this grad student's genius -- ten thousand lines of C in a month, and why? -- "because of his concern that the genome would be locked up by commercial patents if an assembled sequence was not made publicly available for all scientists to work on." (The debate over public vs. private science continues to rage; see this Seattle P-I article, which discusses among other things the ethics of NDA'ing scientific data produced for profit.)

Update: 02/13 02:26 PM by J : Thanks to tlunde for finding the link to GigAssembler and thus clarifying which language it was written in.