Slashdot Mirror

secmartin writes "HavenCo, the self-proclaimed data haven located on the micronation Sealand, appears to be offline. Their website is down, and there have been no announcements from either HavenCo or Sealand. HavenCo has been covered here before; it was mostly known for offering hosting of content that might be illegal in other countries. Does anyone have news about what happened to them?"

$50 million in funding has been approved for the Army to establish a unit that will develop games. The purpose of the games will be to train soldiers for various tasks, and they say there is no intent to compete with commercial games. We've previously discussed other efforts by the Army to integrate games into their training programs. "Col. Mark McManigal, the capabilities manger for gaming under the Training and Doctrine Command, said the selected game must provide low-cost training and must not require large number of technicians to run. It must also have a play-back function for after-action reviews, he said. 'One of the major events for training is to be able to capture all these events, good or bad, throughout the entire scenario,' he said. Trainers must be able to edit the game during play to change the difficulty level or add complexity to an exercise. For example, they must also be able to edit terrain to replicate training areas or combat zones, he said."

$50 million in funding has been approved for the Army to establish a unit that will develop games. The purpose of the games will be to train soldiers for various tasks, and they say there is no intent to compete with commercial games. We've previously discussed other efforts by the Army to integrate games into their training programs. "Col. Mark McManigal, the capabilities manger for gaming under the Training and Doctrine Command, said the selected game must provide low-cost training and must not require large number of technicians to run. It must also have a play-back function for after-action reviews, he said. 'One of the major events for training is to be able to capture all these events, good or bad, throughout the entire scenario,' he said. Trainers must be able to edit the game during play to change the difficulty level or add complexity to an exercise. For example, they must also be able to edit terrain to replicate training areas or combat zones, he said."

Ian Lamont writes "Buried in the court filings of the recently concluded Psystar antitrust suit against Apple is a document that discussed Apple's corporate policy regarding employee email. Apparently, Apple has no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting email. This could potentially run afoul of e-discovery requirements, which have tripped up other companies that have been unable to produce emails and other electronic files in court. A lawyer quoted in the article (but not involved in the case) called Apple's retention policy 'negligent.' However, the issue did not help Psystar's lawsuit against Apple — a judge dismissed the case earlier this week."

cathector writes "An article at spaceweather.com reports that the toolbag dropped during Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's spacewalk has been recorded on film from earth: 'When Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped her toolbag during a spacewalk on Nov. 18th and it floated away, mission controllers probably figured they'd seen the last of it. Think again. Last night, Nov. 22nd, veteran satellite observer Kevin Fetter video-recorded the backpack-sized bag gliding over his backyard observatory in Brockville, Ontario. "It was easily 8th magnitude or brighter as it passed by the 4th magnitude star eta Pisces," he says. Spaceweather's satellite tracker is monitoring the toolbag.'" The actual loss of the bag was filmed, too; reader Kagura links in a comment on the original story to this YouTube clip of the bag's escape.

krewemaynard writes "Google has announced that they were able to sort one petabyte of data in 6 hours and 2 minutes across 4,000 computers. According to the Google Blog, '... to put this amount in perspective, it is 12 times the amount of archived web data in the US Library of Congress as of May 2008. In comparison, consider that the aggregate size of data processed by all instances of MapReduce at Google was on average 20PB per day in January 2008.' The technology making this possible is MapReduce 'a programming model and an associated implementation for processing and generating large data sets.' We discussed it a few months ago. Google has also posted a video from their Technology RoundTable discussing MapReduce."

Sam Odio, who runs the BluWiki mentioned the other day as host of the iPodHash project, has posted a followup on the legal tussle in which Apple has engaged the iPodHash project for attempting to reverse-engineer the hash used to encrypt the iTunesDB in recent iPods. He writes in that post: "I've received a flood of emails from interested individuals who want to help. Most importantly, I was contacted by Fred von Lohmann from the EFF. They're currently evaluating whether they will represent us against any potential Apple litigation. This would be great, because it will enable BluWiki to continue to host the project while working with EFF to address Apple's concerns. However, before the EFF commits to representing us against Apple, they want to speak to the author of the [iPodHash] project. I'm posting this public plea hoping that the author, or someone who knows the author, might read it." Update: 11/23 04:25 GMT by T : Due to a shortage of brain cells, I flipped the actors here as this post was originally rendered: To be clear, Sam Odio of BluWiki is seeking the person behind the iPodHash project, not the other way around. Mea culpa.

CyberKnet writes "Some enterprising folks over at Google have collaborated via Google Documents to create holiday art using cells in a spreadsheet as the pixels. A time delay video was taken and is available over at YouTube and the result is pretty spectacular. More info on how they did this is available behind the scenes. They're inviting people to share their own masterpieces or post a video response over on YouTube."

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Hartford Courant: "Almost 18 months after a pornography conviction that could have sent her to jail for 40 years was thrown out, former Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct Friday afternoon. The plea deal before Superior Court Judge Robert E. Young in Norwich ends a long-running drama that attracted attention from around the world. ... She had originally been charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor and later convicted on four of them. ... In June of 2007, Judge Hillary B. Strackbein tossed out Amero's conviction on charges that she intentionally caused a stream of 'pop-up' pornography on the computer in her classroom and allowed students to view it. Confronted with evidence compiled by forensic computer experts, Strackbein ordered a new trial, saying the conviction was based on 'erroneous' and 'false information.'"

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Hartford Courant: "Almost 18 months after a pornography conviction that could have sent her to jail for 40 years was thrown out, former Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero plead guilty to a single charge of disorderly conduct Friday afternoon. The plea deal before Superior Court Judge Robert E. Young in Norwich ends a long-running drama that attracted attention from around the world. ... She had originally been charged with 10 counts of risk of injury to a minor and later convicted on four of them. ... In June of 2007, Judge Hillary B. Strackbein tossed out Amero's conviction on charges that she intentionally caused a stream of 'pop-up' pornography on the computer in her classroom and allowed students to view it. Confronted with evidence compiled by forensic computer experts, Strackbein ordered a new trial, saying the conviction was based on 'erroneous' and 'false information.'"

Lucas123 writes "The Clinton administration generated 32 million e-mails. Bush's administration has generated 50 times as much data — 140TB, 20TB of which is email — which soon will have to be archived through a new government-built records management system. The new system may not be up to the task because the technology behind it may not be able to handle the sheer volume of data along with the fact that the Bush administration has been slow in providing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with needed information about the records, according to a Computerworld story. Questions have also been raised about millions of missing e-mails from between March 2003 and October 2006. 'It wasn't until this summer that an intensive effort began to share information,' said Ken Thibodeau, director of NARA's Electronic Records Archives."

Lucas123 writes "The Clinton administration generated 32 million e-mails. Bush's administration has generated 50 times as much data — 140TB, 20TB of which is email — which soon will have to be archived through a new government-built records management system. The new system may not be up to the task because the technology behind it may not be able to handle the sheer volume of data along with the fact that the Bush administration has been slow in providing the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) with needed information about the records, according to a Computerworld story. Questions have also been raised about millions of missing e-mails from between March 2003 and October 2006. 'It wasn't until this summer that an intensive effort began to share information,' said Ken Thibodeau, director of NARA's Electronic Records Archives."

Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"

circletimessquare brings us an update to the status of the million-dollar Netflix competition to develop a better algorithm for movie recommendations. We've discussed aspects of the competition since it started two years ago, but the New York Times has a lengthy overview of where it stands now. "The Netflix competition is still going strong, with a vibrant, competitive roster of some 30,000 programmers around the globe hard at work trying to win the prize. The Times provides a look at some of the more obsessive searchers, such as Len Bertoni, a semi-retired computer scientist near Pittsburgh who logs 20 hours a week on the problem, oftentimes with the help of his children. There's also Martin Chabbert in Montreal: 'After the kids are asleep and I've packed the lunches for school, I come down at 9 in the evening and work until 11 or 12.' The article gets into the history of the search algorithm Netflix currently uses, and explores the hot commodity called 'singular value decomposition' that serves as the basis for most of the algorithms in competition."

circletimessquare brings us an update to the status of the million-dollar Netflix competition to develop a better algorithm for movie recommendations. We've discussed aspects of the competition since it started two years ago, but the New York Times has a lengthy overview of where it stands now. "The Netflix competition is still going strong, with a vibrant, competitive roster of some 30,000 programmers around the globe hard at work trying to win the prize. The Times provides a look at some of the more obsessive searchers, such as Len Bertoni, a semi-retired computer scientist near Pittsburgh who logs 20 hours a week on the problem, oftentimes with the help of his children. There's also Martin Chabbert in Montreal: 'After the kids are asleep and I've packed the lunches for school, I come down at 9 in the evening and work until 11 or 12.' The article gets into the history of the search algorithm Netflix currently uses, and explores the hot commodity called 'singular value decomposition' that serves as the basis for most of the algorithms in competition."

circletimessquare brings us an update to the status of the million-dollar Netflix competition to develop a better algorithm for movie recommendations. We've discussed aspects of the competition since it started two years ago, but the New York Times has a lengthy overview of where it stands now. "The Netflix competition is still going strong, with a vibrant, competitive roster of some 30,000 programmers around the globe hard at work trying to win the prize. The Times provides a look at some of the more obsessive searchers, such as Len Bertoni, a semi-retired computer scientist near Pittsburgh who logs 20 hours a week on the problem, oftentimes with the help of his children. There's also Martin Chabbert in Montreal: 'After the kids are asleep and I've packed the lunches for school, I come down at 9 in the evening and work until 11 or 12.' The article gets into the history of the search algorithm Netflix currently uses, and explores the hot commodity called 'singular value decomposition' that serves as the basis for most of the algorithms in competition."

GameCyteSean writes "GameCyte is reporting that Harmonix, EA, MTV and Viacom have been targeted by a class action lawsuit. Customers allege that the companies knowingly shipped defective bass drum pedals for the music game Rock Band, then exploited customers' necessity for replacements by having the game's hardware warranty extension expire just as the sequel, Rock Band 2 — a game with improved pedals — was scheduled to release." I wonder if we'll see a similar suit against Neversoft and Activision over the equipment problems related to the Guitar Hero World Tour launch.

An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."

NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."

NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."

An anonymous reader writes "The cyber-bullying trial of Lori Drew opened yesterday. She was indicted for conspiring to access and accessing MySpace illegally in order to 'further a tortious act, namely, intentional infliction of emotional distress' (PDF of the indictment). The BBC has background on the case, the NYTimes covers the opening statements, and Wired has today's testimony."

chirishnique and other readers sent in a story in AFP about a heroic supercomputer computation that has verified Einstein's most famous equation at the level of subatomic particles for the first time. "A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms. ... [T]he mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five per cent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 per cent? The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons. ... [E]nergy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905." Update: 11/21 15:50 GMT by KD : New Scientist has a slightly more technical look at the accomplishment.

desmondhaynes sends along a posting from the TechWatch blog detailing the sale of Transmeta (most recently discussed here). Linus moved ten time-zones west, from Finland to Santa Clara, CA, to join Transmeta in March 1997, before this community existed. Here is our discussion of the announcement of the Crusoe processor from 2000. Our earliest discussion of Transmeta was the 13th Slashdot story. "Transmeta, once a sparkling startup that set out to beat Intel and AMD in mobile computing, announced that it will be acquired by Novafora. The company's most famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, kept the buzz and rumor mill about the company throughout its stealth phase alive and guaranteed a flashy technology announcement in early 2000. Almost nine years later Transmeta's journey is over." Update: 11/21 16:25 GMT by KD : It's not the 13th Slashdot story, only the 13th currently in the database. We lost the first 4 months at one point.

desmondhaynes sends along a posting from the TechWatch blog detailing the sale of Transmeta (most recently discussed here). Linus moved ten time-zones west, from Finland to Santa Clara, CA, to join Transmeta in March 1997, before this community existed. Here is our discussion of the announcement of the Crusoe processor from 2000. Our earliest discussion of Transmeta was the 13th Slashdot story. "Transmeta, once a sparkling startup that set out to beat Intel and AMD in mobile computing, announced that it will be acquired by Novafora. The company's most famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, kept the buzz and rumor mill about the company throughout its stealth phase alive and guaranteed a flashy technology announcement in early 2000. Almost nine years later Transmeta's journey is over." Update: 11/21 16:25 GMT by KD : It's not the 13th Slashdot story, only the 13th currently in the database. We lost the first 4 months at one point.

desmondhaynes sends along a posting from the TechWatch blog detailing the sale of Transmeta (most recently discussed here). Linus moved ten time-zones west, from Finland to Santa Clara, CA, to join Transmeta in March 1997, before this community existed. Here is our discussion of the announcement of the Crusoe processor from 2000. Our earliest discussion of Transmeta was the 13th Slashdot story. "Transmeta, once a sparkling startup that set out to beat Intel and AMD in mobile computing, announced that it will be acquired by Novafora. The company's most famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, kept the buzz and rumor mill about the company throughout its stealth phase alive and guaranteed a flashy technology announcement in early 2000. Almost nine years later Transmeta's journey is over." Update: 11/21 16:25 GMT by KD : It's not the 13th Slashdot story, only the 13th currently in the database. We lost the first 4 months at one point.

desmondhaynes sends along a posting from the TechWatch blog detailing the sale of Transmeta (most recently discussed here). Linus moved ten time-zones west, from Finland to Santa Clara, CA, to join Transmeta in March 1997, before this community existed. Here is our discussion of the announcement of the Crusoe processor from 2000. Our earliest discussion of Transmeta was the 13th Slashdot story. "Transmeta, once a sparkling startup that set out to beat Intel and AMD in mobile computing, announced that it will be acquired by Novafora. The company's most famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds, kept the buzz and rumor mill about the company throughout its stealth phase alive and guaranteed a flashy technology announcement in early 2000. Almost nine years later Transmeta's journey is over." Update: 11/21 16:25 GMT by KD : It's not the 13th Slashdot story, only the 13th currently in the database. We lost the first 4 months at one point.

somanyrobots writes with an interesting followup in the New York Times to the earlier-reported substantial reconstruction of the woolly mammoth genome: "Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million. The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA." (The Washington Post article linked from the earlier post was much more skeptical, calling such an attempt "still firmly the domain of science fiction." The New York Times article, while describing the process in similar terms, also calls attention to recent advances in sequencing DNA, as well as recoding DNA for cloning.)

TRS-80 writes "Apple has sent a DMCA takedown notice to the IpodHash project, claiming it circumvents their FairPlay DRM scheme. Some background: Apple first added a hash to the iTunesDB file in 6th-gen iPods, but it was quickly reverse-engineered. They changed it with the release of iPhone 2.0 and a project was started to reverse the new hash, but wasn't successful yet. My guess is Apple used the same algorithm as FairPlay for the new hash, so Apple could use the DMCA to prevent competing apps like Songbird and Banshee from talking to iPods/iPhones. BTW, don't tell Apple, but the project uses a wiki, so the old page versions from before the takedown are still there."

TRS-80 writes "Apple has sent a DMCA takedown notice to the IpodHash project, claiming it circumvents their FairPlay DRM scheme. Some background: Apple first added a hash to the iTunesDB file in 6th-gen iPods, but it was quickly reverse-engineered. They changed it with the release of iPhone 2.0 and a project was started to reverse the new hash, but wasn't successful yet. My guess is Apple used the same algorithm as FairPlay for the new hash, so Apple could use the DMCA to prevent competing apps like Songbird and Banshee from talking to iPods/iPhones. BTW, don't tell Apple, but the project uses a wiki, so the old page versions from before the takedown are still there."

TRS-80 writes "Apple has sent a DMCA takedown notice to the IpodHash project, claiming it circumvents their FairPlay DRM scheme. Some background: Apple first added a hash to the iTunesDB file in 6th-gen iPods, but it was quickly reverse-engineered. They changed it with the release of iPhone 2.0 and a project was started to reverse the new hash, but wasn't successful yet. My guess is Apple used the same algorithm as FairPlay for the new hash, so Apple could use the DMCA to prevent competing apps like Songbird and Banshee from talking to iPods/iPhones. BTW, don't tell Apple, but the project uses a wiki, so the old page versions from before the takedown are still there."

Stellian writes "The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Second Report and Order that establishes rules to allow new, sophisticated wireless devices to operate in broadcast television spectrum on a secondary basis at locations where that spectrum is open. It's the first time we have access to clear specifications for these devices, dubbed TVBDs — 'TV band devices' by the FCC. The published guidelines allow manufactures to create protocols and build compatible devices, which could be available in 18 Months, according to Larry Page. The full PDF text of this Second R&O is published on the FCC site."

Adam Jenkins writes "This book seemed to have potential, particularly since the image of nerds has changed in recent times. Once objects of derision and schoolyard bullying, nerds are now acknowledged as having a place in society. The Lord of the Rings became a multi-million dollar movie trilogy, the internet is now used by an incredible number of people, and computer games are no longer seen as being 'just for kids.' Around the years of the dot-com boom, successful nerds were driving Ferraris and going to cool parties. So it's not so surprising that the definition of a nerd has changed over time, nor that a society which has generally become better at accepting people who are different, has accepted nerds." Read below for the rest of Adam's review. American Nerd: The Story of My People author Benjamin Nugent pages 224 publisher Scribner rating 9/10 reviewer Adam Jenkins ISBN 978-0-743-28801-9 summary A history and entertaining discussion of the American Nerd. As is clear from the title, American Nerd sets out to concentrate on the American nerd, and to define what a nerd is. As with a lot of social labels, it's not so easily defined. Nugent defines two categories of nerd; those who are intellectual and socially awkward in a machine-like way, and also people who are simply socially excluded. We learn that the word 'nerd' first started being used in America around the 1960s, but as well as the more recent 'geek', there have also been words like 'boffin' and 'greasy grind' which are similar in meaning. The book is divided into three sections, with the history of the nerd, a more detailed section called "Among the Nerds", and a shorter section "My Credentials". The latter section expands on the glimpses into Nugent's life through the rest of the book, like the case study in the second part about Nugent's friend from the Ghetto of Amherst and includes another case study, about another of his childhood friends.

The author spent some his school years being picked on as a nerd and at the start he discloses that consequently his journalistic objectivity is compromised. Later in the book, he tells us that he stopped being a nerd in his teens. As part of this disclaimer, Nugent states that he empathizes with nerds and anti-nerds alike, and really, who better to do that than an ex-nerd? He seems to have done some good research for the book, including attending the Third Annual Anime Los Angeles Convention, SCA events like Estrella War in Arizona, and talking with Rosie Shuster and Anne Beatts, who wrote the first nerd sketch for Saturday Night Live.

The publishers claim this is the first comprehensive examination of nerds, and it's certainly a fine study of the history to date. No doubt there are good related academic papers in the fields of psychology and sociology, and the books of Professor Sherry Turkle (mentioned in this book) sound interesting, but American Nerd is not only more accessible, but it is specifically about nerds. I've read a couple of books which have touched upon nerd culture, but they have mostly concentrated on other topics; usually the stories of early Silicon Valley pioneers and their companies. Nugent's book covers not only the more usual topics like how nerds are treated at school and what a nerd is, but also science fiction fan clubs and conventions, computer gamers, "fake nerds", Japanese pop culture and parallels between race discrimination and nerds. I was a little surprised that some nerd subcultures weren't included, like those around computer bulletin board systems, or tabletop gaming and live action roleplaying. There were lots of analogies and examples from not only movies like Blade Runner, Rain Man and The Nutty Professor, but also classic literature, like Pride and Prejudice, and Frankenstein. Of more current works, there's mention of Beauty and the Geek and The Big Bang Theory, and some interesting information about the production of Freaks and Geeks.

I'm not sure whether the book would appeal only to nerds or ex-nerds. I think the subject material is probably broad enough that it would have a greater appeal. Parts of the book are quite funny like the story about a Super Smash Bros. Melee competition at a Major League Gaming tournament, and the examples of strange vocabulary adopted by gamers. There are also stories about Ben and his interactions with his friend's crazy Mormon Mum. Toward the end of the book, he described getting drunk with popular kids at age 13 in Petrozavodsk, Russia and deciding he didn't want to be a nerd anymore. There was a lot that I learned from this book, not just the history of nerds, but also something of modern subcultures like yaoi, otaku and SCA, as well as some American specific things like RPIs Bachelor journal and high school debating. Though there's some parallels drawn in this book between the UK and the US in the coverage of "muscular Christianity" around the late 19th century, I am sure that currently nerds in the UK are quite different to those in the US, and I did wonder generally just how nerds in other countries are similar and different to the American variety.

This is an intelligent and thought-provoking book, which also manages to be entertaining. Whether you're a nerd or not, you will find parts of the book that remind you of some of your own experiences and make you appreciate how much richer our society is for having nerds!

You can purchase American Nerd: The Story of My People from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Adam Jenkins writes "This book seemed to have potential, particularly since the image of nerds has changed in recent times. Once objects of derision and schoolyard bullying, nerds are now acknowledged as having a place in society. The Lord of the Rings became a multi-million dollar movie trilogy, the internet is now used by an incredible number of people, and computer games are no longer seen as being 'just for kids.' Around the years of the dot-com boom, successful nerds were driving Ferraris and going to cool parties. So it's not so surprising that the definition of a nerd has changed over time, nor that a society which has generally become better at accepting people who are different, has accepted nerds." Read below for the rest of Adam's review. American Nerd: The Story of My People author Benjamin Nugent pages 224 publisher Scribner rating 9/10 reviewer Adam Jenkins ISBN 978-0-743-28801-9 summary A history and entertaining discussion of the American Nerd. As is clear from the title, American Nerd sets out to concentrate on the American nerd, and to define what a nerd is. As with a lot of social labels, it's not so easily defined. Nugent defines two categories of nerd; those who are intellectual and socially awkward in a machine-like way, and also people who are simply socially excluded. We learn that the word 'nerd' first started being used in America around the 1960s, but as well as the more recent 'geek', there have also been words like 'boffin' and 'greasy grind' which are similar in meaning. The book is divided into three sections, with the history of the nerd, a more detailed section called "Among the Nerds", and a shorter section "My Credentials". The latter section expands on the glimpses into Nugent's life through the rest of the book, like the case study in the second part about Nugent's friend from the Ghetto of Amherst and includes another case study, about another of his childhood friends.

The author spent some his school years being picked on as a nerd and at the start he discloses that consequently his journalistic objectivity is compromised. Later in the book, he tells us that he stopped being a nerd in his teens. As part of this disclaimer, Nugent states that he empathizes with nerds and anti-nerds alike, and really, who better to do that than an ex-nerd? He seems to have done some good research for the book, including attending the Third Annual Anime Los Angeles Convention, SCA events like Estrella War in Arizona, and talking with Rosie Shuster and Anne Beatts, who wrote the first nerd sketch for Saturday Night Live.

The publishers claim this is the first comprehensive examination of nerds, and it's certainly a fine study of the history to date. No doubt there are good related academic papers in the fields of psychology and sociology, and the books of Professor Sherry Turkle (mentioned in this book) sound interesting, but American Nerd is not only more accessible, but it is specifically about nerds. I've read a couple of books which have touched upon nerd culture, but they have mostly concentrated on other topics; usually the stories of early Silicon Valley pioneers and their companies. Nugent's book covers not only the more usual topics like how nerds are treated at school and what a nerd is, but also science fiction fan clubs and conventions, computer gamers, "fake nerds", Japanese pop culture and parallels between race discrimination and nerds. I was a little surprised that some nerd subcultures weren't included, like those around computer bulletin board systems, or tabletop gaming and live action roleplaying. There were lots of analogies and examples from not only movies like Blade Runner, Rain Man and The Nutty Professor, but also classic literature, like Pride and Prejudice, and Frankenstein. Of more current works, there's mention of Beauty and the Geek and The Big Bang Theory, and some interesting information about the production of Freaks and Geeks.

I'm not sure whether the book would appeal only to nerds or ex-nerds. I think the subject material is probably broad enough that it would have a greater appeal. Parts of the book are quite funny like the story about a Super Smash Bros. Melee competition at a Major League Gaming tournament, and the examples of strange vocabulary adopted by gamers. There are also stories about Ben and his interactions with his friend's crazy Mormon Mum. Toward the end of the book, he described getting drunk with popular kids at age 13 in Petrozavodsk, Russia and deciding he didn't want to be a nerd anymore. There was a lot that I learned from this book, not just the history of nerds, but also something of modern subcultures like yaoi, otaku and SCA, as well as some American specific things like RPIs Bachelor journal and high school debating. Though there's some parallels drawn in this book between the UK and the US in the coverage of "muscular Christianity" around the late 19th century, I am sure that currently nerds in the UK are quite different to those in the US, and I did wonder generally just how nerds in other countries are similar and different to the American variety.

This is an intelligent and thought-provoking book, which also manages to be entertaining. Whether you're a nerd or not, you will find parts of the book that remind you of some of your own experiences and make you appreciate how much richer our society is for having nerds!

You can purchase American Nerd: The Story of My People from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

CNet has a report that a federal judge has dismissed Psystar's antitrust suit against Apple. Observers had said that the counter-suit embodied the Mac clone-maker's best chance of prevailing and staying in business. We've been following Psystar and the dueling lawsuits since the beginning.

CNet has a report that a federal judge has dismissed Psystar's antitrust suit against Apple. Observers had said that the counter-suit embodied the Mac clone-maker's best chance of prevailing and staying in business. We've been following Psystar and the dueling lawsuits since the beginning.

CNet has a report that a federal judge has dismissed Psystar's antitrust suit against Apple. Observers had said that the counter-suit embodied the Mac clone-maker's best chance of prevailing and staying in business. We've been following Psystar and the dueling lawsuits since the beginning.

hcg50a writes "NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth. The store-and-forward protocol was designed by NASA in consultation with Vint Cerf. Here's a discussion from last July before the test began."

A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world's spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. "The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to ... Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they'd report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo's demise isn't likely to last."

A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world's spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. "The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to ... Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they'd report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo's demise isn't likely to last."

ThanatosMinor writes "September's quench at the Large Hadron Collider is going to cost CERN at least $21 million and delay future collisions until June of 2009 at the earliest. Enjoy your last few months outside of an event horizon."

We've recently had a couple of discussions about the plans of various game developers to fight used game sales — in particular, the idea of a free, one-time download that may be bonus content or may be a vital part of the game. Now, Soren Johnson, a game designer who has worked on Civilization 3, Civilization 4 and Spore, has written an article defending certain aspects of the used game market. Quoting: "By opening up retail sales to a larger segment of the market, used game sales mean that more people are playing our games than would be in a world without them. Beyond the obvious advantages of bigger community sizes and word-of-mouth sales, a larger player base can benefit game developers who are ready to earn secondary income from their games. In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue, but the best scenario is downloadable content. A used copy of Rock Band may go through several owners, but each one of them may give Harmonix money for their own personal rights to 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law.'"

We've recently had a couple of discussions about the plans of various game developers to fight used game sales — in particular, the idea of a free, one-time download that may be bonus content or may be a vital part of the game. Now, Soren Johnson, a game designer who has worked on Civilization 3, Civilization 4 and Spore, has written an article defending certain aspects of the used game market. Quoting: "By opening up retail sales to a larger segment of the market, used game sales mean that more people are playing our games than would be in a world without them. Beyond the obvious advantages of bigger community sizes and word-of-mouth sales, a larger player base can benefit game developers who are ready to earn secondary income from their games. In-game ads are one source of this additional revenue, but the best scenario is downloadable content. A used copy of Rock Band may go through several owners, but each one of them may give Harmonix money for their own personal rights to 'Baba O'Riley' or 'I Fought the Law.'"

geaux and other readers let us know that the new Top 500 Supercomputer list is out. The top two both break the Petaflops barrier: LANL's IBM "RoadRunner" and ORNL's Cray XT5 "Jaguar." (Contrary to our discussion a few days back, IBM's last-minute upgrade of RoadRunner salvaged the top spot for Big Blue. Kind of like bidding on eBay.) The top six all run in excess of 400 Teraflops. HP has more systems in the top 500 than IBM, reversing the order of the previous list. Both Intel and AMD issued press releases crowing over their wins, and both are correct — AMD highlights its presence in 7 of the top 10, while Intel boasts that 379 of the top 500 use their chips.

CWmike writes "Few tears were shed when alleged spam and malware purveyor McColo was suddenly taken offline last Tuesday by its upstream service providers. But behind the scenes of the McColo case and another recent takedown of Intercage, a ferocious struggle is taking place between the purveyors of Web-based malware and loosely aligned but highly committed groups of security researchers who are out to neutralize them. Backers claim that the effort to shut down miscreant ISPs is needed because of the inability of law enforcement agencies to deal with a problem that is global in nature. But some question whether there is a hint of vigilantism behind the takedowns — even as they acknowledge that there may not be any other viable options for dealing with the problem at this point."

stoolpigeon writes "Orson Scott Card's work Ender's Game began as a novelette, which he says he wrote as a means of leading up to the full story he had developed, Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game was published as a full novel in 1985, and won the Hugo and Nebula awards (as did Speaker for the Dead in '86 and '87). I think it is safe to say that Ender's Game is ensconced in its position as a science fiction classic. Now, 23 years later, Card has finished the first direct sequel to Ender's Game in his new novel Ender in Exile." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review. Ender in Exile author Orson Scott Card pages 377 publisher Tor Books rating 7 reviewer JR Peck ISBN 978-0765304964 summary A good midquel in the Ender's series While Speaker for the Dead was published right after Ender's Game, there is a huge gap in time between the two stories. Due to the effects of traveling at close to light speed, thousands of years pass between the two novels. Chapter fifteen of Ender's Game does give an explanation of the events that fill that time. Card also went on to write other novels set in the Ender universe that do not involve Ender directly but rather other students from the battle school and family. This makes Ender in Exile more of a 'midquel', a term Card uses in the afterword, than a sequel. Because of this, from a high level view of the plot, readers who have stuck with the saga will not find much new here. This is a closer look at events already related in other books for the most part.

Card is an able author and this story is solid. Much of it reminded me of some of my favorite classic science fiction. There is colonization, extended periods of life aboard space ships, discovery of alien civilization and not much in the way of hard science. Card's primary purpose is to analyze and consider the human condition as opposed to exploring technological possibilities or theories. Almost everything that is highly advanced is the result of alien technology and is never explained or understood. Much of it functions on an almost mystical or magical level.

Ender is a young adolescent with an incredibly unique life and mind. In this novel we see him transitioning and growing from a youth into a man. I was often reminded of Herbert's Paul Atreides when he was first on the run in the desert with his mother in the book Dune. Ender is aware that he is different and has amazing capabilities but he is unsure just what the full ramifications of that difference are. He is trying to find his place in humanity and in the universe as a whole.

The story encompasses four basic plot lines that flow one to the next. I never felt any great sense of urgency or climax and resolution in the story. Really what it felt like was a thread weaving together pieces from the earlier stories. While the themes and issues were great, sometimes the characters were remote or the working of the issues very subtle. The most impacting and emotional moments relied upon knowledge of events from the other books in the series to carry their full force. In that light the novel is very effective. I think that fans of the Ender series, already biased towards this work, are going to be very pleased and enjoy Ender in Exile greatly. They are going to get to dig just a bit deeper into this world and it's primary character Andrew Wiggin. They will enjoy moments of discovery and the answer to questions that may have been in the back of their minds, possibly for the last twenty years or so.

On the other hand, someone new to the series may not be as enthralled and may find the story to be a bit flat. If I could I would rate this book in two ways. For those who have not read all the other Ender books, a 6 or 7. This is not bad since the book is designed to sit in the middle of an existing set of tales. It is possible that someone could pick this book up without having read a single Ender story or novel and track with it. I think they would even find it interesting if a little flat. But for a fan of the series with a high degree of familiarity with the characters and events of this world it is probably a solid 8 or 9. At the very least, Card has done nothing to tear down what he has built up but has completed a sturdy addition to the body of work.

In the afterword Card has some interesting comments to make about reader involvement in helping him to write this story. He also explains how he would like to approach some discrepancies between this story and what is related at the conclusion to Ender's Game. I thought it was a sign of the times that an author, facing a large and complex world he had created but could not track on his own, was able to use the internet to call upon readers assistance in achieving as much consistency as possible.

This is a thoughtful, well written book. It may even motivate some to dig up an old copy of Ender's Game so that they can relive the enjoyment of a classic and see what is new to find. I think that most will not be disappointed. Some may not be as thrilled as they would hope, but there is something here for any science fiction fan.

On a side note, in conjunction with the release of this new book, Marvel Comics is doing a limited series comic adaptation of the original Ender's Game novel.

You can purchase Ender in Exile from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

stoolpigeon writes "Orson Scott Card's work Ender's Game began as a novelette, which he says he wrote as a means of leading up to the full story he had developed, Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game was published as a full novel in 1985, and won the Hugo and Nebula awards (as did Speaker for the Dead in '86 and '87). I think it is safe to say that Ender's Game is ensconced in its position as a science fiction classic. Now, 23 years later, Card has finished the first direct sequel to Ender's Game in his new novel Ender in Exile." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review. Ender in Exile author Orson Scott Card pages 377 publisher Tor Books rating 7 reviewer JR Peck ISBN 978-0765304964 summary A good midquel in the Ender's series While Speaker for the Dead was published right after Ender's Game, there is a huge gap in time between the two stories. Due to the effects of traveling at close to light speed, thousands of years pass between the two novels. Chapter fifteen of Ender's Game does give an explanation of the events that fill that time. Card also went on to write other novels set in the Ender universe that do not involve Ender directly but rather other students from the battle school and family. This makes Ender in Exile more of a 'midquel', a term Card uses in the afterword, than a sequel. Because of this, from a high level view of the plot, readers who have stuck with the saga will not find much new here. This is a closer look at events already related in other books for the most part.

Card is an able author and this story is solid. Much of it reminded me of some of my favorite classic science fiction. There is colonization, extended periods of life aboard space ships, discovery of alien civilization and not much in the way of hard science. Card's primary purpose is to analyze and consider the human condition as opposed to exploring technological possibilities or theories. Almost everything that is highly advanced is the result of alien technology and is never explained or understood. Much of it functions on an almost mystical or magical level.

Ender is a young adolescent with an incredibly unique life and mind. In this novel we see him transitioning and growing from a youth into a man. I was often reminded of Herbert's Paul Atreides when he was first on the run in the desert with his mother in the book Dune. Ender is aware that he is different and has amazing capabilities but he is unsure just what the full ramifications of that difference are. He is trying to find his place in humanity and in the universe as a whole.

The story encompasses four basic plot lines that flow one to the next. I never felt any great sense of urgency or climax and resolution in the story. Really what it felt like was a thread weaving together pieces from the earlier stories. While the themes and issues were great, sometimes the characters were remote or the working of the issues very subtle. The most impacting and emotional moments relied upon knowledge of events from the other books in the series to carry their full force. In that light the novel is very effective. I think that fans of the Ender series, already biased towards this work, are going to be very pleased and enjoy Ender in Exile greatly. They are going to get to dig just a bit deeper into this world and it's primary character Andrew Wiggin. They will enjoy moments of discovery and the answer to questions that may have been in the back of their minds, possibly for the last twenty years or so.

On the other hand, someone new to the series may not be as enthralled and may find the story to be a bit flat. If I could I would rate this book in two ways. For those who have not read all the other Ender books, a 6 or 7. This is not bad since the book is designed to sit in the middle of an existing set of tales. It is possible that someone could pick this book up without having read a single Ender story or novel and track with it. I think they would even find it interesting if a little flat. But for a fan of the series with a high degree of familiarity with the characters and events of this world it is probably a solid 8 or 9. At the very least, Card has done nothing to tear down what he has built up but has completed a sturdy addition to the body of work.

In the afterword Card has some interesting comments to make about reader involvement in helping him to write this story. He also explains how he would like to approach some discrepancies between this story and what is related at the conclusion to Ender's Game. I thought it was a sign of the times that an author, facing a large and complex world he had created but could not track on his own, was able to use the internet to call upon readers assistance in achieving as much consistency as possible.

This is a thoughtful, well written book. It may even motivate some to dig up an old copy of Ender's Game so that they can relive the enjoyment of a classic and see what is new to find. I think that most will not be disappointed. Some may not be as thrilled as they would hope, but there is something here for any science fiction fan.

On a side note, in conjunction with the release of this new book, Marvel Comics is doing a limited series comic adaptation of the original Ender's Game novel.

You can purchase Ender in Exile from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Microsoft has confirmed that they've been wielding the banhammer lately over modifications to the Xbox 360 which allow players to run pirated games. Xbox Live's Major Nelson said the action would also void the warranty on the offending console, and that Microsoft will "continue to employ and bolster anti-piracy security measures to counter piracy in the gaming industry and improve security in the Xbox LIVE community." Meanwhile, Blizzard dealt with 350,000 of their own problem users on Battle.net, saying simply that they wouldn't tolerate cheating. This is likely one of many steps to clean up the system before it gets revamped for use with StarCraft II.

The Wall Street Journal has a look at global warming research using rubber duckies. The toys have been employed in tracking ocean currents since 1992; but recently NASA robotics expert Alberto Behar released 90 yellow rubber ducks into the melt water flowing down a chasm in a Greenland glacier. "Each duck was imprinted with an email address and, in three languages, the offer of a reward. If all goes well, Dr. Behar hopes that one day they will emerge 30 miles or so away at the glacier's edge in the open water of Disko Bay near Ilulissat, bobbing brightly amid the icebergs north of the Arctic Circle, each one a significant clue to just how warming temperatures may speed the glacier's slide to the sea."

theodp writes "Intellectual Ventures (IV) will be setting up shop at the top of a Four Seasons this week as Headline Sponsor of the Ready to Commercialize 2008 conference hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. It's the patent firm's 100th university deal, though some, such as Professor Michael Heller at Columbia University, warn against such deals. '... their individual profit comes at the cost of the public ability to innovate. The university's larger mission is to serve the public interest, and some of these deals work against that public interest.' It's a follow-up to the conference IV sponsored last summer for technology transfer professionals entrusted with commercializing their universities' intellectual property, and should help IV, a friend of Microsoft, snag even more exclusive deals (PDF)."

UltraAyla writes "With the announcement that President-Elect Obama will record his weekly address as a YouTube video to be posted at Change.gov, questions arise as to how an Internet-fueled candidacy based in part on a platform of government openness can begin to use technology to make government transparent. Aside from popular Slashdot policies, such as Net Neutrality, how do you think government (either in the United States or elsewhere) can best utilize technology to engage the public and make government more transparent and accessible?" Reader Rick Zeman points out a related New York Times story about how Obama will have to give up some of his communications gadgets because of the Presidential Records Act. Despite that, he apparently hopes to be the first US president to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office.