Slashdot Mirror

tewl points to this Reuters article on Yahoo!, which explains briefly the capture of "a giant specimen of a strange, light-emitting, deep sea cephalopod" by Spanish fishermen. The article says "[t]he octopus-like creature, a taningia danae, weighs in at 275 pounds, measures seven feet and is easily the biggest of its type discovered." Not quite a coelacanth, maybe, but a 7-foot-long light-emitting sea-creature is something I'd like to see.

atallah writes: "It would appear that the long awaited Python 2.0 was finally released today. The front page of the Web site has the announcement." According to that announcement, Python 2.0 will receive minor-version updates around every 6 months, even as work begins on the shoot-for-the-moon Python 3000. For the curious, here's the list of what's new in 2.0; the list includes "full XML support and several forms of new syntax," as well as the BeOpen label.

tewl writes: "Saw this on CNN. For all of those interested in the space program: 'The space shuttle Discovery gently latched onto the docking port of the International Space Station Friday afternoon (1:45 p.m. EDT) as the two spacecraft hurtled at 250 miles above Kazakhstan at a rate of 50 miles a second. "Houston, Discovery, we have capture," radioed one crew member. It was the fourth shuttle docking at the fledgling station. NASA is planning another 35 shuttle visits over the next five years to build the station, estimated to cost between $60 billion-$100 billion. When complete, in 2006, the 16-nation project will have the interior volume of a 747 jumbo jet and stretch the length of a football field.'"

tewl writes "Saw this on http://cnn.org/2000/TECH/space/10/09/hubble.nursery/index.html The nebula N 81 earned its nickname of "The Blob" because few of its features can be discerned ground-based telescopes. But the space-based Hubble telescope has afforded a closer look, revealing a stellar nursery at work within its cloudy confines."

tewl writes: "Saw this [article on CNN] : Sony Corp. said on Thursday it will begin selling a new pet robot by the end of the year as a mechanical pal for its popular 'Aibo' robot dog. 'It will be a friend of Aibo's, but we can't say anything more about it,' a Sony spokeswoman said. Further details, including the robot's launch date, will be announced on October 12." Name the robot here! Sony won't care, but if you're right, you can tell all your friends months from now that you just knew it.

kirwin writes: "InfoWorld offers some insight to the possible rewards that the Open Source community could reap, thanks to the Sun's acquisition of Cobalt Networks." I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. I'm gonna adopt ye old wait-and-see before I let it bug me.

tewl writes "Saw this on http://cnn.org/2000/TECH/space/10/03/spaceshuttle.ap/index.html "NASA clocks began counting down early Tuesday for the 100th space shuttle flight, a space station construction mission." " They're finally getting serious about assembling the space station.

tewl writes: "Saw this [article] on [New Scientist] -- 'BT's hopes of enforcing its U.S. patent on Internet hyperlinking (New Scientist, 1 July, p 17) may be dashed by an old movie clip. The U.S.-based Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking prior demonstration of hyperlinking. BT is basing its claim on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until 2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse -- using it to click on hyperlinks.'" What's not open-and-shut here?

Reader tewl points to this Wired article about a collaboration between the OpenMind project headed by Push Singh of MIT's Media Lab and Chris McKinstry's Mindpixel project. Neat to see these complementary projects getting along despite criticism each might have for the other. From the article: "The OpenMind and the Mindpixel projects will tie their databases together 'at the back end.' This means that any user data entered into either of the projects will be accessible by the other."

tewl wrote to us with news that in-flight Internet and e-mail may soon be available on commercial airline flights, but that U.S. airlines are still wary of it. It sounds pretty interesting, but it also sounds like the earliest it's going to roll out is next year. Honestly, I'd like them to work on power adaptors first, but, hey.