Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous submitter writes: "According to this article on Salon, geeks involved with Indymedia are recycling 300 GNU/Linux boxes to send to independent media activists in Ecuador. The machines will be used to create free public computer labs across South America, networked with donated wireless 802.11b cards. Anyone wanna chip in to help cover the shipping costs?"

crazyhorse44 writes "The lesser of two evils? 'The Directors Guild of America is suing more than a dozen companies that delete scenes depicting violence, sex and profanity from Hollywood films, saying the process violates federal copyright law. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Denver, was a response to a suit filed last month by Clean Flicks of Colorado, which is part of the Utah-based rental chain Clean Flicks. The company had asked a judge to rule its practice legal, despite protests from several well-known directors, including Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg. Clean Flicks argues it doesn't violate copyright law because it purchases a new copy each time it edits a film and because customers are technically owners of the videos through a cooperative arrangement. The edited tapes also carry a disclaimer that the film was edited for content, the company says.' Whose side to take? The DGA is defending the desecration of many of our favorite films, while Clean Flicks is strongly advocating for the copyright rights of the consumer to edit and/or alter the media that they purchase. At the extreme you have folks who want to eliminate all traces of sex and violence from the popular media against the movie industry who wants to eliminate all property rights of the consumer. Whose side would you take? Links at Salon, USA Today and FindLAW." We've had previous stories here and here.

dpt writes "Science fiction author and scientist David Brin caused quite a stir at the time with his article on The Phantom Menace, and now here are his thoughts on Episode II. Not being as harsh, it hasn't received much attention, but it's an interesting read anyway."

klevin writes "Hey, scientists are human too, who woulda thunk it? Nice bedtime reading for anyone who thinks science is an impartial search for knowledge and understanding. `Six months ago, Jan Hendrik Schön seemed like a slam dunk nominee for a Nobel prize. Then some of his colleagues started to take a closer look at his research.'"

ceswiedler writes "Salon is running a story about Mozilla's potential dominance as a platform for application development. They discuss the community development centering around Mozilla, and point out that its cross-plaform GUI environment is 'exactly the kind of thing Microsoft was trying to prevent when it launched its war against Netscape. It didn't want Netscape around, because Netscape was becoming a platform.' In what might be a Salon first, they even include a reference to a Slashdot comment by SkyShadow."

Robotech_Master writes "Salon Magazine is running an interesting and thought-provoking short story/novella by Cory Doctorow, co-editor of the b0ing b0ing weblog. This story, 0wnz0red, features programmer/geek terms and references, Descartes, "trustworthy computing," and what happens when programmers gain the ability to hack their own autonomic functions. A really fun read...like Stephenson's works, it feels like it's aimed squarely at the geeks' demographic."

MrNovember writes "Salon is running a story on some guy named Daniel Brandt who they call "Mr. Anti-Google." Mr. Brandt runs a sort of anti-establishment database of citations called NameBase as well as Google Watch. He claims that Google's PageRank system is undemocratic primarily because it doesn't rank his NameBase information very highly. He also points out that Google maintains a log of all you've ever searched for associated with a long-term cookie. Google's system seems to work the best if you ask me but, on the other hand, link popularity may not provide the most intelligent top rankings."

MrNovember writes "Salon is running a story on some guy named Daniel Brandt who they call "Mr. Anti-Google." Mr. Brandt runs a sort of anti-establishment database of citations called NameBase as well as Google Watch. He claims that Google's PageRank system is undemocratic primarily because it doesn't rank his NameBase information very highly. He also points out that Google maintains a log of all you've ever searched for associated with a long-term cookie. Google's system seems to work the best if you ask me but, on the other hand, link popularity may not provide the most intelligent top rankings."

Scratch-O-Matic writes "This story at CNN explains how gecko feet are sticky due to an electro-mechanical phenomenon rather than a chemical glue, as had been previously assumed. The gecko is one of just a few animals capable of climbing vertical and beyond-vertical surfaces that are smooth and dry. Researchers have discovered that the secret to the adhesion lies in millions of tiny hairs called 'setae.' Each hair is the width of two human hairs, and contains about 1000 little pads at the end. The pads are so tiny that they actually cling to the surface at the molecular level, due to van der Waal forces. A gecko using all of its setae and pads at the same time could support 280 pounds. Seems to me that his should be easily replicated in the coming age of nanotechnology." Other readers point to the AP story, as carried by Yahoo! and also playing at Salon.

Andrew Leonard writes "Stan Liebowitz, an economist studying the effects of file-trading on the music industry, says in an article in Salon that new numbers have convinced him that the decline in CD sales may be partially attributable to MP3 downloading. But he also argues that the decline does not justify draconian new laws."

Andrew Leonard writes "Stan Liebowitz, an economist studying the effects of file-trading on the music industry, says in an article in Salon that new numbers have convinced him that the decline in CD sales may be partially attributable to MP3 downloading. But he also argues that the decline does not justify draconian new laws."

nsda's deviant writes: "Salon is running an article written by Henry Jenkins, the director of MIT's new comparative media studies program. His article on Salon details blow-by-blow the shrewd tactics of cable TV's nightly debate programs like O'Reilly, Connie Chung, Cross Fire and of course the return of Donnahue. It also sheds lights on mass media's promotion of violence as ratings excitment and actively publicizing violence (ala Grand Theft Auto 3) for more ratings / controversy. The debate over video game violence has been a frequent topic on /. but this gives it quite a different twist. My favorite quote is 'those GTA3 clips seemed a whole lot more bloody when he (Donahue) was watching them before the show.'"

Slashback tonight is loaded with updates and addenda to previous stories on Bayesian spam-prevention, pop-up ad blocking, and celebratory picnics as well as an inquiry into the other side of visionary literature. Read on below for the details.

What's your idea of feel-good literature? A few weeks ago, an Ask Slashdot question was posed about the greatest dystopic novels, and quite a few people weighed in with their choices for visions of the post-nuclear, post-germ-warfare, post-natural disaster or otherwise blighted future.

Now reader itwerx wants the other side: "That "Dystopic novels?" Ask Slashdot was so darn depressing we need a counter balance! Let's hear what novels of utopia may not be widely known."

It's certainly widely known, but I'll start the bidding with Atlas Shrugged.

The best revenge is living well, and gluing spammers end-to-end. RealDhar writes "Hey, just thought I'd let folks know that, inspired by the recent article about Paul Graham's Bayesian spam filter work, I went and wrote one for qmail. Please check it out!"

What took so long? Pop-up ads are no fun. iVillage cut them out, AOL swears they're cutting back, and even Netscape 7 can be wrangled to block them. An anonymous reader writes "From the Associated Press (via Salon): EarthLink Inc. said Monday it plans to offer its subscribers software to block Internet pop-up advertisements as part of a wider campaign to set itself apart from competitors. The full story is here.."

Penguins and picnics go well together. ArtEnvironment writes "Besides today's 2nd California Linux Anniversary Picnic previously mentioned, there will also be PLUS, the Philadelphia Linux/Unix Symposium which is the 2nd annual East-Coast Linux anniversary picnic and more, including a bar night kicking off Friday the 23rd, a free computer/electronics swap meet and giveaway on Saturday the 24th, and of course the picnic on Sunday the 25th. Also included is one of the well-known PLUG GPG Keysigning parties. PLUS will be an annual grass-roots event, but it 'won't be big and professional like' ALS or LWCE. ;)"

I look forward to the final, triumphant mention of this :) Qbertino writes "The Blender Fund, established a month ago in order to buy the IP of the 3D Pakage Blender and, at last, GPL it, has accumulated 90K Euro (90K$) of the required 100K in less than 4 weeks. As it indicates on the Website, Ton Roosendahl, father of Blender, is preparing to release the sources which should happen within the next week or so. Time for a Blender icon on /."

Valt writes "Over at Salon they have a interesting article on cow clones having human DNA. The cows are being genetically engineered to produce certain medicines in their blood and milk. Currently they produce 'immunoglobulins' ( disease-fighting human proteins), which are currently used to treat such maladies as tetanus and rabies. Nothing like a nice milk shake to cure a bad case of the rabies."

prostoalex writes: "Salon.com is running a story on Gnutella developers contemplating the creation of a closed or authorization-only system to prevent bandwidth hogging. Turns out, numerous applications, including Xolox and QTraxMax employ quering algorithms that are capable of bringing the network traffic to a halt. While it gets better download speeds for the users of the aforementioned applications, the damage to network traffic as a whole is substantial."

QGambit writes "Salon.com is running an AP story about EMI Music suing AOL Time Warner for using songs from its music catalog on TBS and the AOL service without paying for them."EMI's publishing unit contends that AOL Time Warner is illegally using songs for promotional purposes from "The Wizard of Oz," "Singin' in the Rain," and other classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies." Good. Now that they are turning on themselves, they will leave us alone for awhile."

QGambit writes "Salon.com is running an AP story about EMI Music suing AOL Time Warner for using songs from its music catalog on TBS and the AOL service without paying for them."EMI's publishing unit contends that AOL Time Warner is illegally using songs for promotional purposes from "The Wizard of Oz," "Singin' in the Rain," and other classic Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movies." Good. Now that they are turning on themselves, they will leave us alone for awhile."

An anonymous reader writes: "David Harris reports in his science news that the American Journal of Physiology today published a study dispelling the 8x8 myth. That is, the recommendation to drink 8 eight-ounce glasses of water per day has no scientific evidence behind it. The paper also mentions the risks of drinking too much water and explodes some other urban myths of water drinking such as the 'thirsty means dehydrated' and 'dark urine means dehydrated' myths."

ewhac writes "Salon is running an article about how that cryptic email saying someone has a crush on you may not be what it seems. Portrayed as services to foster romance, some voice concern that some such sites -- two with falsified WHOIS records -- are preying on people's insecurities to build spam lists and directed relationship graphs (who knows who). One site in particular, SomeoneLikesYou, has the temerity to demand you subscribe to an affiliate marketing program or cough up $14.90 before it will hand over the email address of your alleged crush.

A friend of mine and I were bit by SomeoneLikesYou in the last week. The scam is elegant in its simplicity. The site teases you with an email claiming to know someone who likes you, then makes you guess who it might be by submitting their email address(es). Each of those addresses receives a teaser email just like yours. Rinse, repeat. I ignored the message -- obviously a fake; I couldn't possibly be anyone's crush :-) -- but my friend took the bait and fed it some demographic data and email addresses. Once she realized what was going on, she wrote to everyone apologizing for any spam they may have received. She also sent a nastygram to the site's operators.

It should be pointed out that there is no proof that SomeoneLikesYou is doing anything nefarious with the data they're collecting. However, their credibility is not strengthened by their faked WHOIS records and their meaningless doubletalk on privacy issues (the declaration, "We send precisely zero e-mail advertisements," says nothing about the behavior of their partners/affiliates.)"

ewhac writes "Salon is running an article about how that cryptic email saying someone has a crush on you may not be what it seems. Portrayed as services to foster romance, some voice concern that some such sites -- two with falsified WHOIS records -- are preying on people's insecurities to build spam lists and directed relationship graphs (who knows who). One site in particular, SomeoneLikesYou, has the temerity to demand you subscribe to an affiliate marketing program or cough up $14.90 before it will hand over the email address of your alleged crush.

A friend of mine and I were bit by SomeoneLikesYou in the last week. The scam is elegant in its simplicity. The site teases you with an email claiming to know someone who likes you, then makes you guess who it might be by submitting their email address(es). Each of those addresses receives a teaser email just like yours. Rinse, repeat. I ignored the message -- obviously a fake; I couldn't possibly be anyone's crush :-) -- but my friend took the bait and fed it some demographic data and email addresses. Once she realized what was going on, she wrote to everyone apologizing for any spam they may have received. She also sent a nastygram to the site's operators.

It should be pointed out that there is no proof that SomeoneLikesYou is doing anything nefarious with the data they're collecting. However, their credibility is not strengthened by their faked WHOIS records and their meaningless doubletalk on privacy issues (the declaration, "We send precisely zero e-mail advertisements," says nothing about the behavior of their partners/affiliates.)"

kubla2000 writes "Salon has a fascinating article up examining the detritus of the dotcom craze of registering anything and everything as a domain name. This is, by turns, a tragic and hilarious piece... there's an irrisistable pathos to the fact that "FreeRoofTile.com" has expired as well as an urge to take a clue-bat to whoever "thought" to register it in the first place."

Diego writes "A few days ago I started Plan B -- a blognovel as a way of exploring the narrative constraints created by a weblog, and whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work. It also presents some interesting challenges on the UI side: what kind of navigation to use besides the basic calendar navigation of the blog? How could it be made obvious that it's not intended to replace print or even ebooks? I thought the slashdot community would have a lot useful things to say about all of these issues. I've also put together a short intro page and a FAQ that I think will be useful to start the conversation: What is Plan B? and the Plan B FAQ."

Diego writes "A few days ago I started Plan B -- a blognovel as a way of exploring the narrative constraints created by a weblog, and whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work. It also presents some interesting challenges on the UI side: what kind of navigation to use besides the basic calendar navigation of the blog? How could it be made obvious that it's not intended to replace print or even ebooks? I thought the slashdot community would have a lot useful things to say about all of these issues. I've also put together a short intro page and a FAQ that I think will be useful to start the conversation: What is Plan B? and the Plan B FAQ."

Diego writes "A few days ago I started Plan B -- a blognovel as a way of exploring the narrative constraints created by a weblog, and whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work. It also presents some interesting challenges on the UI side: what kind of navigation to use besides the basic calendar navigation of the blog? How could it be made obvious that it's not intended to replace print or even ebooks? I thought the slashdot community would have a lot useful things to say about all of these issues. I've also put together a short intro page and a FAQ that I think will be useful to start the conversation: What is Plan B? and the Plan B FAQ."

Diego writes "A few days ago I started Plan B -- a blognovel as a way of exploring the narrative constraints created by a weblog, and whether it is at all possible to use it as an artistic medium to produce interesting work. It also presents some interesting challenges on the UI side: what kind of navigation to use besides the basic calendar navigation of the blog? How could it be made obvious that it's not intended to replace print or even ebooks? I thought the slashdot community would have a lot useful things to say about all of these issues. I've also put together a short intro page and a FAQ that I think will be useful to start the conversation: What is Plan B? and the Plan B FAQ."

Siobhan Hansas writes: "Karl Auerbach was in court today fighting for the right to inspect and copy documents he first asked to see in 2000, shortly after he became a member of the Board of Directors. Salon have the AP story. Auerbach won the right to inspect documents, but not to copy them, and was required to give ICANN 10 days notice of release of any information marked "confidential" to give them the opportunity to seek a court order stopping him." M : A first-hand report from the hearing makes good reading.

Bonker writes: "This article at Salon indicates that Yahoo, as part of a larger pledge to 'purge the Web of content that China's communist government deems subversive', has agreed to censor 'pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability' from its Chinese portal. Yahoo is one of about 300 other ISPs and websites who have signed the 'Public Pledge on Self-discipline for China Internet Industry'."

phriedom writes "Salon has coverage of Palladium which gives first page coverage to the idea that Palladium is designed to kill open source software. My favorite part though is on page two, where the Microsoft apologist says that ones view of Palladium 'depends on what you believe Microsoft's long-term aims are. If you believe it's to stimulate commerce and stimulate security, it's a step in the right direction ...and if you're perhaps given to suspicions that Microsoft always makes decisions with the aim of frustrating competitors of the Windows empire rather than for the good of consumers, you might have a different view of the same architecture.'" Wired also has a story claiming under-the-hood exposure to Palladium, although it doesn't seem to have much information that hasn't come out already. Update by J : Steven Levy's Palladium story, which we linked to in an earlier article, has allegedly been pulled from MSNBC's website. Anyone know if there's a simple explanation of this?

phriedom writes "Salon has coverage of Palladium which gives first page coverage to the idea that Palladium is designed to kill open source software. My favorite part though is on page two, where the Microsoft apologist says that ones view of Palladium 'depends on what you believe Microsoft's long-term aims are. If you believe it's to stimulate commerce and stimulate security, it's a step in the right direction ...and if you're perhaps given to suspicions that Microsoft always makes decisions with the aim of frustrating competitors of the Windows empire rather than for the good of consumers, you might have a different view of the same architecture.'" Wired also has a story claiming under-the-hood exposure to Palladium, although it doesn't seem to have much information that hasn't come out already. Update by J : Steven Levy's Palladium story, which we linked to in an earlier article, has allegedly been pulled from MSNBC's website. Anyone know if there's a simple explanation of this?

Datasage writes "Janis Ian, famous songwriter and artist, writes about her views of free music downloads, the music industry and the evils of the RIAA in this article." Yet another artist with substantial first-person experience speaking out, reminiscent of Courtney Love's speech.

EyesWideOpen writes: "Salon has a lengthy interview with Cygnus Software co-founder John Gilmore about why he feels it's time for ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to go. Gilmore, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is currently helping to fund a lawsuit filed by ICANN director Karl Auerbach against ICANN. ICANN has denied Gilmore access to its financial information, providing the basis for the lawsuit. Gilmore states: 'I believe it's because there is information in there about how ICANN has misused its money, and/or has favored people who lent or gave it money.'"

Henry V .009 writes: "Salon is running a story on a dot.com called Website Results. Maybe you've heard of them. Viral Spyware makers. My God, these people are sick. Interview question: 'Imagine there's a peasant somewhere halfway across the world. If you could push a button and kill the person without getting caught, would you do it for a million dollars?' 'For them, it was yes, in a heartbeat.'"

An Anonymous reader writes "The comedy duo Ren and Stimpy will be returning to our TV screens on TNN. Seems John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren and Stimpy, has inked a deal with TNN to show old episodes, new episodes and at least one never release episode which Nickelodeon squashed because it was too violent." Here's hoping that its true- I wonder if John K will reclaim Ren's voice from Billy West.

Passacaglia writes "An article in the Washington Post reports that a coalition of companies, including Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and even the BSA, have filed a report with the FCC complaining about how cable providers are placing restrictions on how subscribers use broadband access. This is in the wake of the recent FCC ruling that cable providers need not open their networks to competition from outside ISPs. The restrictions include limits on VPNs, servers, and many things that would make broadband really worth having." Meanwhile, TWC sent nastygrams to people it suspects are using unsecured wireless networks, skimming the info from the public database of wireless access points.

An anonymous reader writes: "Salon is running a story on Microsoft's disclosure of a number of security flaws in WinXP and Windows Media Player, versions 6.4 and 7.1. The story also states that there are 2 critical vulnerabilities in Commerce Server 2000. Will I ever get the bang for my MS buck?"

An anonymous reader submits this well-linked blurb: "It appears the end may be near for Salon Media Group. Their auditors doubt the company can stay in business for very much longer. Despite recently reaching nearly 40,000 subscribers, they haven't been able to make up for lost ad revenue in a down market. As a result, they've accumulated a deficit of about $75 million. Their best known asset, besides Salon.com, may be The Well, one of the earliest and most influential online communities. I hope that it can survive if Salon does not."

"It costs a record company about $250,000 just to launch a single on rock radio today. That doesn't guarantee success; it just gives the single access to the airwaves. If the song catches on and eventually crosses over to the mainstream Top-40 format, indie costs balloon to more than $1 million per song." Salon.com has a pair of articles on payola today: one on the widening scandal and one specifically on a curious Clear Channel case. For context, here's our latest payola story, or if you want the background on why the labels hate the promoters but can't shake the habit, my writeup from a year ago. (If you want some beach reading on this topic, go check out "Hit Men.")

"It costs a record company about $250,000 just to launch a single on rock radio today. That doesn't guarantee success; it just gives the single access to the airwaves. If the song catches on and eventually crosses over to the mainstream Top-40 format, indie costs balloon to more than $1 million per song." Salon.com has a pair of articles on payola today: one on the widening scandal and one specifically on a curious Clear Channel case. For context, here's our latest payola story, or if you want the background on why the labels hate the promoters but can't shake the habit, my writeup from a year ago. (If you want some beach reading on this topic, go check out "Hit Men.")

ShaunC asks: "As the webmaster of numerous sites, I'm curious how others feel about the Wayback Machine. What particularly interests me is the fact that the Machine is a relatively new animal, yet it contains snapshots from my sites dating back to 1998. I can't help but wonder: where did they get such old copies of my websites, and who gave them permission to make those copies? I certainly didn't provide either. Perhaps I'm too much of a purist, but I've always seen the internet as an ever-changing medium, not a permanent one. Archives have bothered me ever since the fledgling days of DejaNews." This site last made an appearance on Slashdot, earlier this year. Internet archival sites are right smack in the crosshairs of copyright, but they are useful. Anyone who has ever used Google's cache (and there are plenty of those links on Slashdot) can attest to this. Of course, the issue that may bug many content providers is how to opt-out of such services, since some see it as a copyright violation. Is it possible to balance the issues of copyright and history, or will these two Internet resources find themselves in legal trouble in the future?

"The way I see it, archives are much like SPAM; I never opted in, why should it be my responsibility to opt out? I manage a number of domains and the process of refining robots.txt files and submitting myself to the Wayback Machine for removal seems to be intrusive. Worse, domains I've abandoned (which have lapsed or been re-registered by someone else) are forever archived in the Machine and I have no way to exclude them. Why should I have to deliberately remove my copyrighted material from an archive which was never granted permission to replicate that material in the first place?"

A Happy Plague writes "I work at a hedge fund and one of the nice ammenities are real time news tickers. At 11:34 EDT, a nice red line scrolled on my screen.."FTC Alleges Rambus Violates Antitrust Laws". The headlines followed..."...Anticompetitive Acts... Deceived standard setting organization...never acknowledged patents... deceptive conduct..." Too bad it takes a long time fo bureacracies to work, but they usually come around. Yahoo News has the story." Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this. In related news, Tricot writes "Over at Salon, there is a newswire article claiming that the justice department is investigating memory chip maker Micron for anti-competitive practices. Wow, if it's a monopoly, then it certainly hasn't hurt prices."

A Happy Plague writes "I work at a hedge fund and one of the nice ammenities are real time news tickers. At 11:34 EDT, a nice red line scrolled on my screen.."FTC Alleges Rambus Violates Antitrust Laws". The headlines followed..."...Anticompetitive Acts... Deceived standard setting organization...never acknowledged patents... deceptive conduct..." Too bad it takes a long time fo bureacracies to work, but they usually come around. Yahoo News has the story." Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this. In related news, Tricot writes "Over at Salon, there is a newswire article claiming that the justice department is investigating memory chip maker Micron for anti-competitive practices. Wow, if it's a monopoly, then it certainly hasn't hurt prices."

explosionhead writes "Salon has a nice article about the FBI's stretching their powers for phone taps under the 'Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act' and how this could apply to digital communication. The FCC tried to apply this 3 years ago, and it was fought off, but the article also comments that many of the Telcos were hesitant to argue this time around for fear of bad post Sept-11 publicity." We covered this when it happened, with a lot of good information if I do say so myself. Salon is now noting that no one is willing to challenge the revised FCC rules, running scared in the (dare I say it?) post-September 11 world.

Andrew writes "I'm a undergraduate at the University of Washington, and after seeing this article on Salon, I dusted off a paper I had written last year. I examined P2P networks under a model usually used in describing animal populations, and found that it may be possible to cause a collapse in the network based on the intrinsic nature of the technology. Just as in animal populations, P2P networks require a sizable "critical mass" of users, and overharvesting can cause a systemic collapse - what if this were done on purpose? Quite ominously, my second recommendation on disruption was carrying damaged or incorrectly named files. You can read theabstract and the actual paper"

Overcoat writes "Interesting review on Salon of the recently published book by Milton Mueller entitled Ruling The Root. The review claims that ICANN's dominance of the Domain Name System will lead to the end of free speech the the internet: 'But what is surprising, and disturbing, is the process by which control over the domain name system has been used to extend intellectual property rights to new heights. Ultimately, the free-speech utopia of cyberspace is evolving into a domain where corporate interests have more power to control speech than they have had in other arenas.' Not sure if trademarking "yahooo.com" constitutes a really big threat to free speech, but it's still a thought-provoking article."

Howzer writes "A great Salon article popped up today, and it appears Stan Liebowitz at the Cato Institute is having second thoughts about his paper that was published on May 15. It seems the facts simply don't support his earlier assertion (& the well-known position of all the major recording labels) that downloading hurts music sales. It's good to see this argued from another angle, especially by a guy like Liebowitz."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The location-tracking software, developed by a 15-year-old student at the university, draws upon triangulation technology. The PDAs figure out their locations by comparing the strength levels of signals traveling from the devices to various Wi-Fi antennas. No GPS Required. Article from Salon here..."

prostoalex writes "Salon's technology section talks about major music labels spoofing the peer-to-peer networks. The users of AudioGalaxy, Gnutella or KaZaa have probably seen a surge of fake MP3 files when conducting a search on a popular title. The MP3 looks legit, but contains a 20 second clip played over and over. Such promotional tracks were especially popular with newest releases, such as Eminem and No Doubt, as pointed out in the article. Who posted the fake tracks to the p2p networks? Could it be, as Salon suggests, a suburban mom, who does not agree with controversial lyrics, or would it be the label, trying to prevent piracy and promote the new album at the same time?"

Chad Coffman writes "Salon has quite the story up. It seems Russian astronauts are trolling for supermodels as passengers for their space program." I guess Tito nor Shuttleworth were cute enough for Valery Korzun. May I suggest Courreges or Gaultier for space-suit designer? I'll leave the weight allowance jokes as an exercise for the reader.

scrm writes "'The Federal Communications Commission is quietly handing over control of the broadband Internet to a handful of massive corporations according to this Salon article." Very important stuff; Slashdot has covered this before, but this is a great article which sums up everything that has gone on over the past few years.

Anonymous Coward writes "Nice reminiscence about BBS's, back in the day and all. Author describes them as "Where a teenage loser could lose himself", which for me would have been pretty accurate. I still miss being able to find cool ASCII graphics, text-based RPG's, and the Anarchist's Cookbook all in one place."