Slashdot Mirror

HughPickens.com writes: Roberto Ferdman writes in the Washington Post that researchers at Texas A&M University, looking for patterns in food consumption among elementary school children, found an interesting quirk about when and why kids choose to eat their vegetables. After analyzing plate waste data from nearly 8,500 students, it seems there's at least one variable that tends to affect whether kids eat their broccoli, spinach or green beans more than anything: what else is on the plate. Kids are much more likely to eat their vegetable portion when it's paired with a food that isn't so delicious that it gets all the attention. For example, when chicken nuggets and burgers, the most popular items among schoolchildren, are on the menu, vegetable waste tends to rise significantly. When other less-beloved foods, like deli sliders or baked potatoes, are served, the opposite seems to happen."Our research team looked at whether there is a relationship between consumption of certain entrees and vegetables that would lead to plate waste," says Dr. Oral Capps Jr. "We found that popular entrees such as burgers and chicken nuggets, contributed to greater waste of less popular vegetables."

Traci Man, who has been studying eating habits, self-control and dieting for more than 20 years, believes that food pairings are crucial in getting kids to eat vegetables. "Normally, vegetables will lose the competition that they're in — the competition with all the other delicious food on your plate. Vegetables might not lose that battle for everyone, but they do for most of us. This strategy puts vegetables in a competition they can win, by pitting vegetables against no food at all. To do that, you just eat your vegetable first, before any of the other food is there," says Mann. "We tested it with kids in school cafeterias, where it more than quadrupled the amount of vegetables eaten. It's just about making it a little harder to make the wrong choices, and a little easier to make the right ones."

Meshach writes "A recent study (PDF) detailed in the Washington Post verifies that using hands-free or voice-activated texting is no safer than texting with your hands while you are driving a car. Using a handheld device to tap out a text message while driving has been banned in many states and provinces. From the article: '"One of the common comments was that they felt an inclination to look down at the screen to see if it heard them correctly, so that could be one possible explanation of why they were not looking at the roadway more frequently," Yager said. She said drivers said they felt safer when using voice-activated texting than when entering messages on a keyboard. "Perhaps it is because they view it as safer and therefore it must be, but still they have this inclination to look down at the screen," she said. "We found that their driving performance suffered equally with both methods." As has been proven in studies of cellphone conversations, Yager said drivers engaged in any form of texting were distracted by the communication effort.'"

bickerd--- writes with news of research out of Texas A&M which found that roughly 70% of middle grades students in the US don't fully understand what the 'equal' sign means. Quoting: "'The equal sign is pervasive and fundamentally linked to mathematics from kindergarten through upper-level calculus,' Robert M. Capraro says. 'The idea of symbols that convey relative meaning, such as the equal sign and "less than" and "greater than" signs, is complex and they serve as a precursor to ideas of variables, which also require the same level of abstract thinking.' The problem is students memorize procedures without fully understanding the mathematics, he notes. 'Students who have learned to memorize symbols and who have a limited understanding of the equal sign will tend to solve problems such as 4+3+2=( )+2 by adding the numbers on the left, and placing it in the parentheses, then add those terms and create another equal sign with the new answer,' he explains. 'So the work would look like 4+3+2=(9)+2=11.'"

dostert writes "With all of the recent hype of multitouch notebooks, the Apple Tablet, the Microsoft Courier, and the CrunchPad, I've been a bit curious about what happened to the good old pen and slate tablet PCs. I'm a mathematics professor at a small college and have been searching for a good cheap tablet (under $1000) which I can use to lecture, record the lecture notes along with my voice, and post up video lectures for the class. I have seen some suggestions, but many are large scale implementations at state universities, something my small private college clearly cannot afford. All I have been able to find is either tiny netbooks (like the new Asus T91), expensive full featured tablets (like the Dell XT), or multitouch tablets, that really wouldn't allow for the type of precision mathematics needs. I know a Sympodium device would work great, but we really can't afford to put one of those in each room, so something portable would be ideal. All I've been left with is considering an HP tx series. It seems nobody has created a new tablet like this in quite sometime, and HP, Fujitsu, and Dell are just doing incremental updates to their old designs. Does anyone have experience with this?"

An anonymous reader writes "TEES is reporting that Dr Laszlo Kish, an associate professor at Texas A&M, has proposed a 'classical, not quantum, encryption scheme that relies on classical physical properties -- current and voltage. He said his scheme is absolutely secure, fast, robust, inexpensive and maintenance-free and relies on simultaneous encrypting of information by both the sender and the receiver.' The scheme uses properties similar to Johnson noise along with Kirchoff's Law to provide what he hopes to be an easier method of secure communications. Arxiv also has the full text [PDF Warning] of the paper."

JohnnyNapalm writes "The Aggie Daily News is reporting today that the first mirrors have been cast for the world's largest telescope. The result of cooperation from some of the foremost institutions in education and science in the nation, the Giant Magellan Telescope stands to operate at a resolution 10 times larger than the Hubble. The project, set to be constructed in Chile, is slated for completion in 2016."

agent dero writes "With NetBSD 2.0, the NetBSD Foundation also released support for a new port, NetBSD/xen. A version of NetBSD meant to run on top of the Xen virtual machine monitor. In this press release the foundation has announced that it is using the port and Xen for much of its internal development, citing security, and ease of use as main reasons for its adoption."

TheMatt writes "Thomas Young's double-slit experiment is a classic experiment that helped establish the wave-like nature of light. Since then, it has been done with atoms, buckyballs, and biomolecules. It has even been seen in a single molecule, and the single electron version was voted the most beautiful experiment by Physics World readers (covered previously on Slashdot). Now, PhysicsWeb is reporting that Gerhard Paulus and coworkers have conducted the double-slit experiment using a double-slit in time, not space. The "slit" was a crafted femtosecond pulse consisting of one-and-a-half cycles--say, two maxima and one minima--passed through an argon gas. Each maxima has a probability of ionizing an argon atom and producing an electron. The electrons were accelerated to a detector which observed an interference pattern since the detector had no idea which maximum produced the electron."

prof_peabody writes "The IODP (Intergrated Ocean Drilling Program) is about to get rolling in a couple of days. If you live in one of these countries then your tax dollars have contributed to the construction of the giant drillship Chikyu, which was launched a little while back (project timeline). The American contigent website is loaded with info and obligatory acronyms. The first leg of the IODP will investigate how water flows through rock formations beneath the seafloor during an eight-week expedition this summer to the eastern flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of British Columbia. Some of you geeks with beards may remember the DSDP (Deep Sea Drilling Project) or the recently completed ODP (Ocean Drilling Program). The real advance in the new program that will cost well over a billion dollars is the IODP riser drill ship that 'will provide a way to drill into continental margins where oil and gas deposits can cause drilling safety concerns and into regions with thick sediment sections, fault zones, and unstable formations.' A good overview of the IODP can be found here, and the necessary references to Megalodon and none other than The Core."

Orne writes "Texas A&M University has announced it has successfully cloned its 5th species, the North American White-Tailed deer (see press release). Though the white-tailed deer is a common species, they hope they can use the knowledge to help repopulate endangered species of deer, like the Key West deer of Florida."

Ridgelift writes "Eric S. Raymond is proposing a new logo for Hackerdom. 'The Linux folks have their penguin and the BSDers their demon. Perl's got a camel, FSF fans have their gnu and OSI's got an open-source logo. What we haven't had, historically, is an emblem that represents the entire hacker community of which all these groups are parts. This is a proposal that we adopt one - the glider pattern from the Game of Life.'"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have built the worldâ(TM)s first x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner able to look at core samples directly from remote drilling sites, thus eliminating the previous needs to send the samples to laboratories. Barry Freifeld, a mechanical engineer in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division, and his team, built a refrigerator-sized, 300-kilogram scanner and they installed it on the JOIDES Resolution Drill Ship operated by the Ocean Drilling Program. The scanner has so far traveled to the Oregon coasts and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, analyzing more than 2,000 feet of core samples. Now, it's scheduled for another trip from Bermuda to Newfoundland. You'll find more details in this summary."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have built the worldâ(TM)s first x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner able to look at core samples directly from remote drilling sites, thus eliminating the previous needs to send the samples to laboratories. Barry Freifeld, a mechanical engineer in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division, and his team, built a refrigerator-sized, 300-kilogram scanner and they installed it on the JOIDES Resolution Drill Ship operated by the Ocean Drilling Program. The scanner has so far traveled to the Oregon coasts and Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, analyzing more than 2,000 feet of core samples. Now, it's scheduled for another trip from Bermuda to Newfoundland. You'll find more details in this summary."

Anonymous Coward writes "Since last year Acadia Research has sent hundreds of letters to various porn web sites to arrange royalty deals, picking on the small fry before trying to take on well-heeled companies such as Disney. However, many small fries refused, and now 40 firms have joined forces and are embroiled in a suit with Acadia. Fish & Richardson (a prominent intellectual property law firm) have taken their case. The best part? CEO Paul Ryan's obvious sour-grapes-syndrome, he goes from describing the web porn industry as a "billion-dollar industry" where the money is to a "sideshow" that's "maybe 1% of our potential revenues". Check it out here"

Igor Carron writes "When the next Shuttle mission goes up next January (STS-107), it will lift off with a star tracker camera built at Texas A&M University in its payload bay. "Because we can", we decided to hold a contest with the pictures taken from this camera real time during the mission. The star pictures will be uploaded from Mission Control onto a web site where everybody will be able to participate. Note that the first two contests are reserved for high school students in the U.S. The third contest is open to anybody but will be much more difficult. More information can be found here. Good luck..."

Igor Carron writes "When the next Shuttle mission goes up next January (STS-107), it will lift off with a star tracker camera built at Texas A&M University in its payload bay. "Because we can", we decided to hold a contest with the pictures taken from this camera real time during the mission. The star pictures will be uploaded from Mission Control onto a web site where everybody will be able to participate. Note that the first two contests are reserved for high school students in the U.S. The third contest is open to anybody but will be much more difficult. More information can be found here. Good luck..."

Igor Carron writes "When the next Shuttle mission goes up next January (STS-107), it will lift off with a star tracker camera built at Texas A&M University in its payload bay. "Because we can", we decided to hold a contest with the pictures taken from this camera real time during the mission. The star pictures will be uploaded from Mission Control onto a web site where everybody will be able to participate. Note that the first two contests are reserved for high school students in the U.S. The third contest is open to anybody but will be much more difficult. More information can be found here. Good luck..."

JewFish writes "Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup, designer and implementer of the C++ programming language is switching jobs. He has accepted the COE Endowed Chair in Computer Science at Texas A&M University. The fulfillment of this fulltime position was announced today by the head of the computer science department. Now that Dr. Stroustrup will be on faculty I sure hope they start offering a C++ course or two."

JewFish writes "Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup, designer and implementer of the C++ programming language is switching jobs. He has accepted the COE Endowed Chair in Computer Science at Texas A&M University. The fulfillment of this fulltime position was announced today by the head of the computer science department. Now that Dr. Stroustrup will be on faculty I sure hope they start offering a C++ course or two."

Spirit of Ishmael writes "The May 22 Washington Post is running a story under the headline Microsoft Fights Free Software at Pentagon. According to the story: 'Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant, according to officials familiar with the campaign.'"

Steve Baum asks: "I'm thinking of replacing a current tangle of NFS cross-mounted disks with the am-utils system, which maintains a cache of mounted filesystems that are demand-mounted when first referenced and unmounted after a period of inactivity. I was wondering if anyone had used this system in a moderately large (40-50 disks on 10-15 machines) environment and, if so, how efficient and stable they'd found it to be."

texchanchan writes: "Yahoo reports on a newly discovered species of deep-sea squid, quoting scientists as saying the creatures are very different from normal giant squids. 'New species are a dime a dozen. This is fundamentally different' in behavior and appearance -- with 10 identical long skinny arms and a jellyfish-like hunting strategy. 'We don't know of any cephalopod that has arms like that.' --Michael Vecchione of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. 'I had never seen anything like this creature,' oceanographer William Sager of Texas A&M says."

Effugas writes: "Fark pointed me at this brilliantly elegant new invention, the Sonic Flashlight. From the curious workshop of George Stetten, an ultrasonic scan of the inside of a patient's body is visually overlaid perceptually within the body being scanned, with no requirement for special glasses, viewing angles, or even particularly exotic hardware. How? Form a triangle with an ultrasound platform and its output display--then bisect the triangle with a half transparent(see the body below), half reflective(see the display above) pane of glass. Since the angles match, the two images merge to provide a perfectly placed synthesis of reality and its augmentation, irrespective of viewer position. Watch the video here for a demonstration; note the hand held variant at the bottom of the page as well. Slick!"

The attacks last Tuesday on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have brought a flood of submissions about the continuing news and events, including ways you can help the continuing rescue efforts. Below are some of the ones we've received lately.

psytek writes: "We have been collecting names of people that would like to volunteer and help set up computer systems and networks for the WTC companies. Go to www.webiest.com and sign up to help."

And rp44 writes: "There is a site collating offers of geek help in NYC and DC at srcdst.org. It's mainly focused on network infrastructure (came from seeing all the posts of assistance on the nanog list getting lost in the noise), but areas covered include telco circuits, space, geek help, and hardware. Last time I looked there were 50+ assistance offers there, if you can offer facilities, services or hardware, just register and enter them into the database. It's pretty functional in that you can maintain your own help offers in real time, come back later and modify/delete them etc."

caledon, volunteering in New York for the Red Cross, writes with word that "it looks from here as if the two items most desired here right now are: 1) Cash 2) Socks.

They have been swamped, but the Red Cross seems to want money more than the in-kind help. That way they can buy EXACTLY what they might need at the site or for other purposes. A lot of bandages might not help if what they need are asbestos masks. That's probably true of the tech stuff too here in the city.

About the socks, apparently these guys downtown like to change their socks as often as possible. It is wet, always wet, and they need their feet dry. Some of my socks (and, oh no, Linux T-shirts) were disposed of last night by my loving family while I was wiring together our little effort."

Drake42 writes: "This is an excellent analysis of why the terrrorists attacked the WTC." An anonymous reader pointed out this thought-provoking commentary on War and the Internet, which points out how certain hopes for the role of the Internet in promoting peace seem to have failed, at least for now.

Along with other moves to restrict freedom and privacy that many believe will follow last weeks events, darrellsilver writes: "The New York Times is running an article about the proposed, and probably little-opposed, security changes to the Manhattan area, Times Square and SoHo specifically. As the article quotes, 'A week ago, certain things would have been unheard of as safety options. But now you reassess, you reconsider.' What once stirred controversy now seems to be discussed as inevitable and welcome, such as face recognition software."

guygee also writes "Andrew Cohen , CBS legal analyst who correctly predicted key aspects of the recent ruling of the U.S. Appellate Court in the Microsoft case, has issued a warning of the coming government crackdown on civil liberties."

Rescue and recovery teams in New York are using some interesting technology: GPSguy writes: "This is still embryonic, but a friend in the broadcast RF business just had his stock of spares cleaned out. Seems that the latest approach to sub-rubble searching is to look for the security access cards all WTC employees had been issued. Excited by a low-power VLF source, they emit a response. Apparently, not the idea is to hit the pile with a much higher signal level and try to get a number of the responses and try to triangulate onto some of them. No URLs available, yet, and scant real information."

And DeathBunny writes: "According to a pair of articles at robots.net, a group of researchers from the University of South Florida are using six "shape shifting" robots to help locate survivors of the World Trade Center tragedy in NY. " They're running Linux, too.

MrDelSarto writes: "From this zdnet article and this updated article author Steve Kirsch suggests a number of techniques for putting a plane in "safe mode" that auto-lands it's self in case of emergency ... hijacking or even the Payne Stuart situation. I'm sure /. readers will have a myriad of other ideas." As rackrent explains, "The article basically discusses locking out manual control of aircraft and forcing the autopilot to land them without any human control. Interesting idea, but certainly could have its problems, I say."

Liberal writes: "This article by a leading Iranian filmmaker is absolutely the deepest, most insightful thing I've ever read about that country. It was written before recent events; now that everyone is thinking about bombing Afghanistan, I think this should be required reading, to understand what the problems there really are, and to try and figure out what sort of long term solution may be possible (why it won't do just to massacre the Taliban)."

Finally, many readers submitted word of this photo album at Ars showing reactions around the world to the attacks. Sad though these pictures are, it may be one of the most encouraging things I've seen since Tuesday.

wildag writes "I've recently come into a battle with a guy who owns this site. You might notice the 'similarities' between his web site and Linux.com. I'm going to doubt that Linux.com bought the interface from him. The acutal battle comes from a statment that is on his message board (posted by the admin - Leo). He says 'The layout of any website is "public domain" which is freely available to the public' (that is avaliable here: http://hobbes.resne t.tamu.edu/forums/showthread.php?threadid=25). What do you guys think? (BTW, Linux.com has been notified and he didn't ask permission)." There are countless websites that are direct ripoffs of others, but few as blatant as this one. My policy with Slashdot has always pretty much been take what you want, but give us credit for what ya lift. I've seen this done many times to many sites and it always bums me out: making a well designed website is hard work, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... but isn't saying thanks and crediting your source part of it too? (For those who don't know, Slashdot is owned by VA Linux now, which also owns Linux.com. This doesn't really have anything to do with this story, but I figured I'd mention it). I post this not to point fingers or cause a fight, but to open a discussion about this. Just because you can take something, should you? When are you stealing? Is is hypocritical to demand open source, but not be willing to share your design? And should "Sharing" mean "You can take it, and claim it as your own, and not give the original creator any credit?" Its an issue that spans genres: Web Pages? Source Code? Samples in Music? Fair Use?

wildag writes "I've recently come into a battle with a guy who owns this site. You might notice the 'similarities' between his web site and Linux.com. I'm going to doubt that Linux.com bought the interface from him. The acutal battle comes from a statment that is on his message board (posted by the admin - Leo). He says 'The layout of any website is "public domain" which is freely available to the public' (that is avaliable here: http://hobbes.resne t.tamu.edu/forums/showthread.php?threadid=25). What do you guys think? (BTW, Linux.com has been notified and he didn't ask permission)." There are countless websites that are direct ripoffs of others, but few as blatant as this one. My policy with Slashdot has always pretty much been take what you want, but give us credit for what ya lift. I've seen this done many times to many sites and it always bums me out: making a well designed website is hard work, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... but isn't saying thanks and crediting your source part of it too? (For those who don't know, Slashdot is owned by VA Linux now, which also owns Linux.com. This doesn't really have anything to do with this story, but I figured I'd mention it). I post this not to point fingers or cause a fight, but to open a discussion about this. Just because you can take something, should you? When are you stealing? Is is hypocritical to demand open source, but not be willing to share your design? And should "Sharing" mean "You can take it, and claim it as your own, and not give the original creator any credit?" Its an issue that spans genres: Web Pages? Source Code? Samples in Music? Fair Use?

wildag writes "I've recently come into a battle with a guy who owns this site. You might notice the 'similarities' between his web site and Linux.com. I'm going to doubt that Linux.com bought the interface from him. The acutal battle comes from a statment that is on his message board (posted by the admin - Leo). He says 'The layout of any website is "public domain" which is freely available to the public' (that is avaliable here: http://hobbes.resne t.tamu.edu/forums/showthread.php?threadid=25). What do you guys think? (BTW, Linux.com has been notified and he didn't ask permission)." There are countless websites that are direct ripoffs of others, but few as blatant as this one. My policy with Slashdot has always pretty much been take what you want, but give us credit for what ya lift. I've seen this done many times to many sites and it always bums me out: making a well designed website is hard work, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... but isn't saying thanks and crediting your source part of it too? (For those who don't know, Slashdot is owned by VA Linux now, which also owns Linux.com. This doesn't really have anything to do with this story, but I figured I'd mention it). I post this not to point fingers or cause a fight, but to open a discussion about this. Just because you can take something, should you? When are you stealing? Is is hypocritical to demand open source, but not be willing to share your design? And should "Sharing" mean "You can take it, and claim it as your own, and not give the original creator any credit?" Its an issue that spans genres: Web Pages? Source Code? Samples in Music? Fair Use?

dakfu writes: "NSI is suggesting two new TLDs, .banc and .shop." I want .rob and .dot please. Is that too much to ask for? I think .god would be fun too, but I think there really ought to be a .sex just to help me (ummm) avoid it. Yeah. Avoid it.

epoh writes "AMD has finally released their new (fast, affordable, slick) line of notebook processors. They are supposed to blow the Pentiums out of the water. Check out the full story. Yum. I want one. " It's a shame the K7 runs so hot. I'm sure it's just a matter of time, though.

Since the NDA was lifted early this morning, several sites have released reviews of AMD's new Athlon chip (coming in 500, 550, 600, and 650MHz versions). The first was Bill Henning's CPUReview site. He reviewed the Athlon 600 and has several nice things to say about it. Next up is The Upgrade Center's review, and two more submitted by kimmo, the first at Ace's Hardware, and the second at AGN Hardware. Next, Magnetism submitted a link to Tom's review. Finally, as submitted by pmmay, the ZDNet review. To finish, an article at the SJ Mercury that discusses AMD's strategy for the chip market (thanks to Greg Miller for that one). Update: 08/09 12:31 by J : Thanks to The Evil Dwarf from Hell for links to the AMD Benchmark Page, which even has SPECint and SPECfp scores, and to an anonymous reader for the Ars Technica review.

The Evil Dwarf from Hell writes "New Scientist has a very interesting article on Nano-trains. The researcher built the tracks out of microtubles in cow neurons with the motors of kinesin running on fuel of ATP. " OK, next I need a nano-train that speeds up the flow of my neuropeptides across the synaptic cleft. Then I'm set-or starting on a whole new set of things.

Rocket Boy writes "I was perusing the news and came across this sucker. The specs on the thing look outrageous. Heck, the whole thing looks outrageous. 2.5-5.6TB/S speed, Supports 2240 OC-48 or 560 OC-192 connections. " You can download a lot of po.. I mean play a lotta qua... I mean read a lot of slas... I mean.. work. You could do a lot of work with that.

Thomas Muldowney writes "The KDE folks have released static KOffice binaries for download. They are unsupported but worth a look. Details on how to obtain and install KOffice binaries are available here "

Jeffrey Baker writes "HR 3888 has passed out of subcommittee and will be taken up by the full House Commerce Committee. This is the bill that includes the horrible "opt-out" legislation which would require the citizen to notify spammers that they don't want mail from them. Slashdot readers who don't like spam should write a letter to their representative on the House Commerce Committee "

Jon A. Christopher (Lesstif Releasemeister) writes "The LessTif Core Team would like to thank all those Slashdot readers who responded to our recent editorial. Thanks to one such reader, Marcus Butler, the web site has received a much-needed face lift. Marcus has joined the Core Team as webmaster, so more improvements are on the way. The LessTif project is also initiating a comprehensive testing project, and needs your help. Check out the new design and read all about the testing project at www.lesstif.org. "

Jon A Christopher has risen through the ranks to become the new release coordinator for the LessTif project (for those unaware, LessTif is a free version of Motif, the defacto standard widget set from days of old, and days not so far off). He has written an editorial on LessTif, speaking of why it is still important today for this project to be finished, and why folks should be interested, and even join in. Read on to see what he has to say. The following is an Editorial by Slashdot Reader Jon A Christopher Introduction The LessTif project aims to provide a LGPL'd implementation of the Motif widget set for X11. This editorial/review will discuss the current state of affairs with the LessTif project, explain why it's important for linux users and developers, and call for assistance from both programmers and non-programmers on completing the project.

Motif is a GUI toolkit based on Xt and Xlib. It provides a full set of widgets for application development, including menus, text entry areas, scrolled windows etc. Every major commercial version of unix ships with or has an available implementation of Motif. Motif(tm), a product of the Open Group, is a unix/X11 standard and plays heavily in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). The LessTif project was started in 1994 by Chris Toshok and The Hungry Programmers to provide the free software community with a free (think beer and speech) implementation of this important standard library. LessTif aims to achieve source compatibility with commercial versions of Motif so that it can serve as a plug-in replacement for Motif. Binary compatibility may be an unachievable goal in all cases, but it may be possible in some cases.

Current status/Review LessTif is now at version 0.85, and is currently quite usable. Many applications will compile out-of-the-box against LessTif, and run with few if any problems. Examples of working applications are Mozilla (Netscape), DDD (a gdb front end), Open Inventor (SGI's model building software), xmcd (a cd player), xmgr (a graphing tool), nedit (a text editor), and many others. Some of these applications still have a few behavioral problems, but for the most part a patch is available within hours of the problem being identified.

Many people are perhaps familiar with LessTif, but haven't tried it in a while because of previous versions not working well. From personal experience I can state that LessTif is vastly improved over 6 months ago. At that time, a molecular graphics application I wrote wouldn't even compile under LessTif without extensive modification, and core dumps due to LessTif were common. With the current version of the LessTif library it works just as it does under Motif.

However, there is still Motif 1.2 functionality not implemented in the LessTif 1.2 library, Drag-n-Drop is only partially implemented, keyboard traversal of menus is not quite right (but mouse navigation is flawless), and there are other obscure minor problems relating to Motif features that are rarely used by applications. Some widgets do not have all the behavior of their Motif counterparts as of yet. There is partial support for Motif 2.0, MWM, and UIL, but development of those libraries/utilities rightly lags behind the main goal of Motif 1.2 compatibility. In the words of Rick Scott, core team member, "Functionality gets implemented as it is needed. Most of the framework is in place and the details are worked out in the places that applications commonly use. If no applications use a particular feature then chances are not much time has been spent on it. Drag and Drop comes to mind here, but I cannot think of any applications that use it, so it lingers in the background."

Why LessTif is important to the linux community Many readers of slashdot are partisans of either KDE or GNOME, and some are likely to think that the presence of either of these toolkits renders LessTif unnecessary. This is simply not true. First KDE and GNOME are both desktop environments, whereas LessTif is a programmers toolkit, having more in common with GTK+ and Qt than KDE or GNOME. True, there is the MWM (Motif Window Manager) which is supplied as part of LessTif, but that is not necessary for use of the LessTif/Motif widgets. Finally, and most importantly, even users who have installed either KDE or GNOME will probably want to run some applications which are based on Motif, which is another argument for LessTif on linux.

As many people agree, applications are currently the major missing element for linux world domination. Many, many existing unix applications use Motif. A free implementation of Motif makes it easier to port such applications to linux. It's highly unlikely that a major vendor is going to invest the time needed to port a Motif application to GTK+ or Qt. The existence of a good, free implementation of Motif would only encourage both commercial and open source development for linux. Further, until development of KDE and GNOME stabilizes, many corporate types would view it as a risk to write applications based on those toolkits, because they are moving targets --- not to mention the fact that some corporate types believe that "if it's free it can't be good". Even though LessTif is not yet complete, it's based on a well-established, well-known standard.

There are commercial versions of Motif available for linux. Commercial application vendors usually supply their product statically linked against one of these versions of Motif. This is the case with Netscape Navigator, and several other commercial packages for linux. A free implementation of Motif would allow dynamically-linked versions of these programs which would be preferable in terms of both aesthetics and disk space. And to many people, the fact that a complete LessTif would enable a completely free Mozilla makes the project worthwhile.

The large population of legacy Motif applications, the development of new applications based on Motif, and the fact that Motif is a well-established unix standard all argue the importance of LessTif for linux, and for its inclusion in some level of the Linux System Base which is currently being developed.

Call for assistance

As this editorial has hopefully showed, LessTif could be (and is) an important asset to the linux community. Unfortunately, LessTif development has slowed somewhat in recent months as some of the key players have changed situations and now have other heavy commitments on their time. The LessTif project is looking for volunteers, including non-programmers. Those who have been held back from contributing to linux because of lack of programming experience, here's your chance.

Specifically, the project could benefit from a web site designer to give the web pages a much-needed face lift. This would be an ideal project for someone looking to give back to linux while building up a portfolio of web pages they've designed. Other non-programmers could help by serving as dedicated testers (there's a large body of test programs that accompany LessTif). Someone (hopefully several someones!) with access to a commercial Motif implementation could help greatly by documenting the behavioral differences of these test programs under LessTif and Motif.

There are also several projects that Xt/Xlib hackers could assist with. The development model of LessTif is a bazaar with the core team members serving as coordinators when they're not implementing code themselves. Interested developers can use anonymous CVS to access the current sources.

Finally, everyone can help by compiling their favorite Motif(tm) applications under LessTif, and reporting and/or fixing any problems they find. If you can't fix the problem, the next best thing is to write the smallest possible test program which demonstrates the problem and send it to the list. Of course a written description of the problem sent to the list will not be ignored either.

Interested parties can contact the LessTif core team at lesstif@hungry.com. More information on LessTif, including source and binaries, is available at LessTif.org.

Jon A Christopher has risen through the ranks to become the new release coordinator for the LessTif project (for those unaware, LessTif is a free version of Motif, the defacto standard widget set from days of old, and days not so far off). He has written an editorial on LessTif, speaking of why it is still important today for this project to be finished, and why folks should be interested, and even join in. Read on to see what he has to say. The following is an Editorial by Slashdot Reader Jon A Christopher Introduction The LessTif project aims to provide a LGPL'd implementation of the Motif widget set for X11. This editorial/review will discuss the current state of affairs with the LessTif project, explain why it's important for linux users and developers, and call for assistance from both programmers and non-programmers on completing the project.

Motif is a GUI toolkit based on Xt and Xlib. It provides a full set of widgets for application development, including menus, text entry areas, scrolled windows etc. Every major commercial version of unix ships with or has an available implementation of Motif. Motif(tm), a product of the Open Group, is a unix/X11 standard and plays heavily in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE). The LessTif project was started in 1994 by Chris Toshok and The Hungry Programmers to provide the free software community with a free (think beer and speech) implementation of this important standard library. LessTif aims to achieve source compatibility with commercial versions of Motif so that it can serve as a plug-in replacement for Motif. Binary compatibility may be an unachievable goal in all cases, but it may be possible in some cases.

Current status/Review LessTif is now at version 0.85, and is currently quite usable. Many applications will compile out-of-the-box against LessTif, and run with few if any problems. Examples of working applications are Mozilla (Netscape), DDD (a gdb front end), Open Inventor (SGI's model building software), xmcd (a cd player), xmgr (a graphing tool), nedit (a text editor), and many others. Some of these applications still have a few behavioral problems, but for the most part a patch is available within hours of the problem being identified.

Many people are perhaps familiar with LessTif, but haven't tried it in a while because of previous versions not working well. From personal experience I can state that LessTif is vastly improved over 6 months ago. At that time, a molecular graphics application I wrote wouldn't even compile under LessTif without extensive modification, and core dumps due to LessTif were common. With the current version of the LessTif library it works just as it does under Motif.

However, there is still Motif 1.2 functionality not implemented in the LessTif 1.2 library, Drag-n-Drop is only partially implemented, keyboard traversal of menus is not quite right (but mouse navigation is flawless), and there are other obscure minor problems relating to Motif features that are rarely used by applications. Some widgets do not have all the behavior of their Motif counterparts as of yet. There is partial support for Motif 2.0, MWM, and UIL, but development of those libraries/utilities rightly lags behind the main goal of Motif 1.2 compatibility. In the words of Rick Scott, core team member, "Functionality gets implemented as it is needed. Most of the framework is in place and the details are worked out in the places that applications commonly use. If no applications use a particular feature then chances are not much time has been spent on it. Drag and Drop comes to mind here, but I cannot think of any applications that use it, so it lingers in the background."

Why LessTif is important to the linux community Many readers of slashdot are partisans of either KDE or GNOME, and some are likely to think that the presence of either of these toolkits renders LessTif unnecessary. This is simply not true. First KDE and GNOME are both desktop environments, whereas LessTif is a programmers toolkit, having more in common with GTK+ and Qt than KDE or GNOME. True, there is the MWM (Motif Window Manager) which is supplied as part of LessTif, but that is not necessary for use of the LessTif/Motif widgets. Finally, and most importantly, even users who have installed either KDE or GNOME will probably want to run some applications which are based on Motif, which is another argument for LessTif on linux.

As many people agree, applications are currently the major missing element for linux world domination. Many, many existing unix applications use Motif. A free implementation of Motif makes it easier to port such applications to linux. It's highly unlikely that a major vendor is going to invest the time needed to port a Motif application to GTK+ or Qt. The existence of a good, free implementation of Motif would only encourage both commercial and open source development for linux. Further, until development of KDE and GNOME stabilizes, many corporate types would view it as a risk to write applications based on those toolkits, because they are moving targets --- not to mention the fact that some corporate types believe that "if it's free it can't be good". Even though LessTif is not yet complete, it's based on a well-established, well-known standard.

There are commercial versions of Motif available for linux. Commercial application vendors usually supply their product statically linked against one of these versions of Motif. This is the case with Netscape Navigator, and several other commercial packages for linux. A free implementation of Motif would allow dynamically-linked versions of these programs which would be preferable in terms of both aesthetics and disk space. And to many people, the fact that a complete LessTif would enable a completely free Mozilla makes the project worthwhile.

The large population of legacy Motif applications, the development of new applications based on Motif, and the fact that Motif is a well-established unix standard all argue the importance of LessTif for linux, and for its inclusion in some level of the Linux System Base which is currently being developed.

Call for assistance

As this editorial has hopefully showed, LessTif could be (and is) an important asset to the linux community. Unfortunately, LessTif development has slowed somewhat in recent months as some of the key players have changed situations and now have other heavy commitments on their time. The LessTif project is looking for volunteers, including non-programmers. Those who have been held back from contributing to linux because of lack of programming experience, here's your chance.

Specifically, the project could benefit from a web site designer to give the web pages a much-needed face lift. This would be an ideal project for someone looking to give back to linux while building up a portfolio of web pages they've designed. Other non-programmers could help by serving as dedicated testers (there's a large body of test programs that accompany LessTif). Someone (hopefully several someones!) with access to a commercial Motif implementation could help greatly by documenting the behavioral differences of these test programs under LessTif and Motif.

There are also several projects that Xt/Xlib hackers could assist with. The development model of LessTif is a bazaar with the core team members serving as coordinators when they're not implementing code themselves. Interested developers can use anonymous CVS to access the current sources.

Finally, everyone can help by compiling their favorite Motif(tm) applications under LessTif, and reporting and/or fixing any problems they find. If you can't fix the problem, the next best thing is to write the smallest possible test program which demonstrates the problem and send it to the list. Of course a written description of the problem sent to the list will not be ignored either.

Interested parties can contact the LessTif core team at lesstif@hungry.com. More information on LessTif, including source and binaries, is available at LessTif.org.

Ron Lal writes "Wired news is reporting ("Too Experienced to Get a Job?" Link) that the software industry is "not friendly to older" programmers. UC Davis professor interviewed in 'There is No Desperate Labor Shortage' (link). He claims ("Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage" link) that programmers not fluent in the latest programming flavor of the month are having trouble finding jobs. I would like to know how slashdor.org readers feel about this issues and if any readers had an recent experience looking for jobs."

James S. Blachly wrote in to talk about something that has been brought to my attention before, but you all should read this. He writes "The latest buzz on the linux-kernel mailing list is the copying of the Linux Logo, the Penguin. Apple is using the penguin as the new logo for Quicktime. An image can be seen either when installing the new quicktime 3.0 drivers or at www.apple.com/quicktime/. Apple is shamefully capitalizing on other peoples creativity. The linux penguin logo is originally by Larry Ewing. His terms of usage may be found here."

The similarities are extremely strong, but let's be honest, most cartoon stylized penguins look the same. "The Wrong Trousers" features a Tux-Like Penguin, and I seem to remember some old Warner Bros cartoons with somewhat similar birds as well. And it wouldn't surprise me if whoever created the Quicktime logo just didnt know. Only in the last 6 mos has Linux really become enough of a mainstream fixture that we would expect major companies to worry about conflicting mascots.

James S. Blachly wrote in to talk about something that has been brought to my attention before, but you all should read this. He writes "The latest buzz on the linux-kernel mailing list is the copying of the Linux Logo, the Penguin. Apple is using the penguin as the new logo for Quicktime. An image can be seen either when installing the new quicktime 3.0 drivers or at www.apple.com/quicktime/. Apple is shamefully capitalizing on other peoples creativity. The linux penguin logo is originally by Larry Ewing. His terms of usage may be found here."

The similarities are extremely strong, but let's be honest, most cartoon stylized penguins look the same. "The Wrong Trousers" features a Tux-Like Penguin, and I seem to remember some old Warner Bros cartoons with somewhat similar birds as well. And it wouldn't surprise me if whoever created the Quicktime logo just didnt know. Only in the last 6 mos has Linux really become enough of a mainstream fixture that we would expect major companies to worry about conflicting mascots.