Slashdot Mirror

divereigh writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that an Australian Federal court has decided this case in favour of the Australian Video Rental Association. The Association had taken Warner Home Video to court for trying to classify DVD's as software and thus double the price for those sold into the rental market."

steveroehrs writes: "'Your access to the Web is being censored by the Government -- but it refuses to reveal exactly what it is we are not allowed to see.' Despite the attempts of Electronic Frontiers Australia in obtaining a copy of the Australian Internet black-list, the Australian government is still refusing to release the list to the public. This is in stark contrast to the situation for film classification, where the list is freely available. Article here "

edo-01 writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting opinion column up that details some of the opposition to the federal government's net censorship laws, most notably from the government of Australia's most populous state, New South Wales. An interesting quote from the article: 'Essentially, [the federal government] does not see that the Internet in Australia has much of a future as a forum for adults.'"

zerogeewhiz writes "Found this article here at The Sydney Morning Herald . It seems that Bill and his mates need to move a bit quicker these days and for a cool US$80 million, you too can overtake the Concorde on a dash to Harrods for dinner. As described in the article, the main complaint about Concorde is that it can only fly supersonic over water and creates those nasty sonic booms that punch holes in buildings and shatter windows. They reckon they can get rid of these waves by making the plane longer. These are gonna be fast but hideous. 737-700s are suddenly passe as a corporate jet..."

Disco Stu writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has the following story: 'The reclusive programmer Mr Robert Elz has lost control of Australia's domain name system to a private-sector body after the Federal Government rejected his request for the Government to take over the custodianship instead.' I've had to wait months for this guy to get around to approving domains in the past ... but I still can't decide if this is good or not." Sounds bad to me -- or at least Elz sounds good, principled and unconventional.

nugget writes "An article in the Sydney Morning Herald announced that scientists led by a team of NSW University astrophysicists in Australia have found evidence that one of the fundamental forces of physics, electromagnetism, has changed since the universe's creation some 14 billion years ago. This may prove what many scientists have suspected for some time. Electromagnetism may be relatively new and might have evolved sometime after the laws of physics started with the big bang. If it's correct, this is big news."

stylewagon writes: "Some Japanese scientists have applied to bring some asteroid samples back to Earth, specifically to Woomera in South Australia, in order to study their geology."

We had thought we were done with Code Red last week, but CERT is sending out warnings that the entire internet will cease to exist if the Code Red MSTD ^[?] isn't stopped in its tracks. Even Scientific American has a story about it. Cringely tells us that the true threat is servers with mis-set clocks.

Nostrada writes: "Gone are the days of mobile phones ringing with the latest and greatest melodies? Following this article, "A new sound that could revolutionise mobile telephones and safety alarms because it is less intrusive yet easy to pinpoint is being ordered worldwide after being developed by a British scientist." Anyone got some URLs for samples?"

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running a story today about online gambling. Australians will be banned from gambling on online casinos -- domestic or offshore. The deal, made on the day before Federal Parliament goes into winter recess, means that in six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running a story today about online gambling. Australians will be banned from gambling on online casinos -- domestic or offshore. The deal, made on the day before Federal Parliament goes into winter recess, means that in six months' time interactive gambling operators will not be able to enforce debts owed by Australians gambling on their sites."

batty writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has this article about how Robert Elz, the bloke who connected Australia to the internet in 1984, is refusing to hand domain name authority over to auDomain Administration, the body set up by the politician who introduced Internet censorship to Australia. They're not complaining that Mr. Elz is refusing to hand over control, they just can't handle him refusing to even give them an answer. That's a pretty loud 'Bugger Off' in my book. It is largely due to Mr. Elz's work that Australia doesn't have a 'cybersquatting' problem. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this quote: 'There is almost no litigation in that area ... But we feel the time has come to move on .'"

batty writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has this article about how Robert Elz, the bloke who connected Australia to the internet in 1984, is refusing to hand domain name authority over to auDomain Administration, the body set up by the politician who introduced Internet censorship to Australia. They're not complaining that Mr. Elz is refusing to hand over control, they just can't handle him refusing to even give them an answer. That's a pretty loud 'Bugger Off' in my book. It is largely due to Mr. Elz's work that Australia doesn't have a 'cybersquatting' problem. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this quote: 'There is almost no litigation in that area ... But we feel the time has come to move on .'"

hammy writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running this story about the results of a survey demonstrating that users of music downloading programs (ala Napster etc) actually buy more music. I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to any of the Slashdot crowd but it's nice to see a formal survey that supports our intuition. Makes many of the RIAA arguments ring a little hollow." Meanwhile, Napster is being sued yet again. That's gratitude for you.

hammy writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald is running this story about the results of a survey demonstrating that users of music downloading programs (ala Napster etc) actually buy more music. I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to any of the Slashdot crowd but it's nice to see a formal survey that supports our intuition. Makes many of the RIAA arguments ring a little hollow." Meanwhile, Napster is being sued yet again. That's gratitude for you.

An Anonymous Coward sent in: "Does a device for audience measurement which "registers what its wearer hears every minute of the day" bother anybody else?" I hope they get paid well for wearing these.

The_Myth writes "The Sydney Morning Herald today published an article on China's regime to curtail the Internet. Basically they control the one gateway to the net from their country and screen anything they deem to be undesirable. Full Article is here. Are any other countries doing this?" Well, this is nothing new - China has been doing this for years, and periodically announces crackdowns, which is what I think this is.

The_Myth writes "The Sydney Morning Herald today published an article on China's regime to curtail the Internet. Basically they control the one gateway to the net from their country and screen anything they deem to be undesirable. Full Article is here. Are any other countries doing this?" Well, this is nothing new - China has been doing this for years, and periodically announces crackdowns, which is what I think this is.

riflemann writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article today about the world's oldest working computer finally having a permanent place in a Melbourne Museum. It's good to see such a historical computer, over 50 years old, being put on display permanently." Seeing this makes me remember reading Cryptonomicon - of course, the definition of what's the oldest and working is up for grabs, but as a BA in History, it's cool to see stuff like this put on display for all to see.

riflemann writes: "The Sydney Morning Herald has an article today about the world's oldest working computer finally having a permanent place in a Melbourne Museum. It's good to see such a historical computer, over 50 years old, being put on display permanently." Seeing this makes me remember reading Cryptonomicon - of course, the definition of what's the oldest and working is up for grabs, but as a BA in History, it's cool to see stuff like this put on display for all to see.

Felonyboy writes "A New Zealand scientist has grown asparagus and potatoes for the first time in soil taken from Martian meteors. Click here for the full story."

Lets start things off with a thing of beauty: ChazeFroy notes that Malin Space Science Systems has tons of really excellent images from the Mars Global Surveyor. Now something of evil: TsEA sends us HTML magic: a true guideline for HTML usage. 3 things that prove that The net Will destroy humanity: BlackNova sent us a Magic 8-ball powered by Lego Mindstorms, Cuban sent us the pantscam (which is exactly what it sounds like) and _martini_ noted an online thermostat where you can twiddle the temperature at some guys house. Its only a matter of time before technology fights back: NMerriam sent us the truth about what computers think of us in this weeks Onion. But let us not forget that science has given us many wonderful things, like for example, lunatik17 pointed us at a bit about shooting your lawn with lasers instead of mowing. However, science has also given us gmr2048's story about testicular implants for animals so I guess we're kinda even so far. I suspect the only way to defend ourselves from technology is to understand it, and who better to teach topics like ISDN then sent a great way to have celebreties like Alicia Silverstone. Or Mr. Rogers teaching the RS232 pinout, Tonya Harding explaining a Cisco 700, and best of all, Darva Conger on the configure register of Cisco routers (thanks Ex Machina who got it from Memepool) Ever want to be a female olympic marathon champ? Jaster this years winner believes hornet stomach juice is the secret, so get started! Of course, to much of that stuff could wind you up on sent us the the next Darwin Awards (from Gambit Thirty-Two) Ant sent us a pair of stories about poop! (what does this guy do with his time?) What happens when your space toilet doesn't flush? All I know is I hope that I have some custom printed toilet paper to keep things under control. Finally, many people noted that you should call 1-800-888-3999, and select option 7. No, really.

acehole writes: "Sony Corp and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) will join forces to provide movies, games and other products to households via a fiber-optic network and Sony's video game console PlayStation2. Sony hopes to use the service around the country (Japan) in full service by around 2001. A small story about it can be read here." From the article, it's unclear how deep in the network the fiber goes; anyone have more information on that? I'd like some fiber to my apartment, but it's rather far from Japan right now ...

pq writes: "The real world catches up with Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptonomicon' on Monday, June 5th, when a data haven opens on a WWII military fortress six miles off England's coast. Read the (nologin) NYT article here about the strange case of HavenCo and the independent principality of Sealand: yes, they'll host DeCSS, Metallica songs, even pictures of Natalie, all for a price." (More below.)

And reader JazFresh writes: " ... I went to Monkeybagel.com to find out what was new, and the site owner said he's stopped work on Monkeybagel to work on this new site instead. From the Web page:

'HavenCo will soon be offering the world's most secure managed colocation facility based in the world's smallest sovereign territory, the Principality of Sealand. As the security of sensitive data over public networks grows in importance, businesses, governments and organizations worldwide are realizing the need for a suitable facility from which to host their financial transaction, B2B and e-mail servers as well as sensitive data backups. A large part of a server's physical security is dependent upon the political system of the country in which the server is located. We will be providing the business structure in the world's first free-market location.'"

These were just some of the many submissions about this company. The story of Sealand is almost too bizarre for comprehension; read this April 3rd Sunday Telegraph piece for an eyebrow-wrinkling summary. All I know is, I'd like one of these passports, too, please.

Update: 06/05 13:53 by michael : Thought I'd update this with some pictures and diagrams. Nifty.

Beating plows into ploughshares, turning lead into gold, casting new light through windows opened only just last week, it's another spellbinding outbreak of Slashback. Stand back, breathe slowly as the scent of humble correction wafts over you, mingling with the essence of new and perhaps intriguing information. Bruce Perens, too.

"That's not censorship, mate. This is censorship!" Carnage4Life writes: "After causing a murder trial to be aborted last month CrimeNet has been ordered by the attorney general of the Australian state of Victoria to be shut down. If the site operators refuse to shut down they will face jail time. The story can be found here. In news which can only be considered related, an anonymous kangaroo wrote: "Found a reference to this article on LISNews. Seems the Aussie Parliament pitched a hissy fit when their internet access got filtered. Oh gee, how the fsck do you think the rest of the country feels?" How indeed. That's what happens when you start introducing clashing premises, I guess. Geese, ganders, sauce.

To the moon, Alice -- To the moon! We've frequently linked to NASA photos from Slashdot; what if they said "(registration required)" after them like links to the New York Times? MousePotato writes: "NASA announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Dreamtime Holdings to provide multimedia coverage of astronaut activities. The press release details "creating a state-of-the-art multimedia portal, www.Dreamtime.com, that will, with the click of a mouse, open the door to thousands of images, sounds, documents, blueprints and plans from NASA's currently underused archives. " Interesting to note about it is the fact that they will be using HDTV to give us as well as NASA engineers high quality video." Interesting, too, that billions of space research tax dollars are being used "to create new market opportunities in the multimedia arena."

Does this mean I can watch my -- errr ... "classics" again? The DVD-under-Linux story continues, specifically with an update on LinDVD; soon, the MPAA's claims that there are legal DVD players for Linux users may hold at least a sprinking of water; johnnick writes: "Another update in the DeCSS saga. One of the arguments for DeCSS was that there was no legal DVD decoder for Linux boxes. CNET reports that InterVideo, a licensee of the software that enables DVD information to be decoded, plans to release beta software called LinDVD this month that allows people to watch DVDs on Linux machines."

Microsoft not making a run for the border: Calz writes: "Both Microsoft and B.C.'s Investment Minister have denied that Microsoft is considering moving, as reported in this Yahoo article."

In other news from planet Microsoft, the indefatigable Bruce Perens has this to say about mixed-case licensing:

"Microsoft has been caught in a trivial, easily remedied, GPL violation, which is detailed here. They have been contacted, and their response was, well, dumb.

Why do companies get involved in trivial GPL violations? Because the company picks up Free Software as part of one of their products without making a commitment to do the simple, easy, inexpensive things that are required to comply with the Free Software license. Folks, if you can't comply with license requirements as easy as those in the GPL, find other software, please.

One of these examples comes up at least once a month, and I'm going to keep submitting these stories until the situation improves. Maybe that means forever. Today's wakeup call goes to Microsoft corporation, read the account from Tim Burlowski. "

As Bruce says, this looks like a relatively easy one to fix. It could be explained by the complexities of mergers and acquisitions, general confusion, alignment of planets etc, but eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, including as applied to software. Unless Microsoft would like to declare all EULAs null and void ...

This is too weird not to run: An AP story about a poet who's patenting her own genes. 'I wish to protect myself from unauthorised exploitation, genetic or otherwise,' said MacLean, 30, in her application. 'I am new. I have led a private existence and have not made the invention of myself public. I am not obvious.' Well, I can't argue with that.

RalfM writes "As far as people worth listening to go, Stephen Hawking is right up there. Some newspapers are currently presenting a rare interview with him about the future. Points mentioned include Marylin Monroe, off-planet migration, DNA reprogramming, limits to human brain processing ("We can be quick-witted or very intelligent, but not both.") and more. "

Lansdowne writes "Robert Elz, a 'mildly eccentric' programmer in the CS department of Melbourne University and the administrator of the .au domain, refused to take part in last week's A$93 million IPO of Melbourne IT, the university's commercial arm. He has been quoted as saying that administrators should not financially benefit from registering domain names. Melbourne IT registers .com.au names as the Australian equivalent of NSI. Read the Sydney Morning Herald's story for the scoop. "

Hamish writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the US military may have tried to crack the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Have a look at the article. No one is actually claiming that the attack was officially sanctioned but the attack did originate from a US military institution. "

Hamish writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the US military may have tried to crack the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Have a look at the article. No one is actually claiming that the attack was officially sanctioned but the attack did originate from a US military institution. "

Uncle Dazza writes "An Australian court has ruled cybersquatting illegal" But the scary part about the article is the comment about "Deceptively Similiar". I'm wondering what that would mean for a parody website with a deceptive URL. In the US, Parody has been held up in the courts, so this law may be interesting.

While the first release of Rhapsody should be in July, it appears that future versions of the MacOS will also be based on the Mach kernel, Rhapsody core OS and "Yellow Box".

By the end of this year, there will be 7 somewhat incompatible versions of Windows. In addition to the current four x86 vendors there will many more, among which Imes, CPU Tech, Metaflow, Rise, Transmeta ( ? ), and Exponential (??). While new hardware ages computers before they are sold, M$'s bloatware obsoletes them within a year. To compensate, consumers are turning to cheap "disposable" computers. But this trend driven by Microsoft's feature-adding strategy, risks back-firing. As component cost is driven down, and specialised vendors disappear, more application specific devices will emerge. Just like Cyrix's MediaGX, they will be geared towards providing the maximum bang for the buck in a specific environment. This will slowly push the single-OS-for-all paradigm to the side. Indeed, as hardware cost goes down, the direct and indirect price of using Microsoft increases: Windows/Office costs money, it also costs a very powerful environment: memory, harddrive, etc. And if computers are application specific, the choice of an OS becomes irrelevant, and each new feature is clearly costed.