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rueger writes "I can remember trading up from a daisy-wheel printer to dot matrix, and can remember when Jerry Pournelle used to say 'Buy the most expensive HP printer you can afford.' Mine was a 4P. Times have changed, though, and I'm looking for trustworthy advice before buying a couple of new printers. Specifically, a B&W Laser with sheet feed scanner, and a color inkjet with a solid flatbed scanner for copying music. We want solid, reliable machines that will give a few years of small office service, that have reasonably cheap consumables, and that will "just work" with Windows and Linux. Network ready of course. Let me expand. These days there seems to be no market leader in printers — they tend to be cheap disposable items. Part of the reason is that it is hard to find any real user reviews of these machines — most of the comments on Best Buy or other sites are full of fanboy enthusiasm, or extreme negativity — nothing that can be relied on. Between those, and the sock puppets, and the astroturfing, there's nothing I'd trust. I do trust Slashdot, though, for things like this. People here are able to offer realistic advice and experience that can usually tell the story. So, I ask: who's making good printers these days?"

Hugh Pickens writes "With the advent of long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles in the 1950s, it was inevitable that military attention would be drawn to remote but strategic arctic regions. Now Defense Tech reports on Project Iceworm — America's secret cold war plan to build a network of underground missile bases under the Greenland ice cap capable of launching 'Iceman' ICBM missiles at Russia. The first base, 'Camp Century,' built 800 miles from the North Pole, contained 21 steel-arch covered trenches; the longest of which was 1,100-feet long, 26-feet wide and 26-feet high. The massive base, constructed to house 200 troops, was officially built to conduct scientific research. But the real reason was apparently to test out the feasibility of burying nuclear missiles below the ice, since Greenland is so much closer to Russia than the ICBM fields located in the continental U.S. If fully implemented, the project would cover an area of 52,000 square miles with clusters of missile launch centers spaced four miles apart. New tunnels were to be dug every year, so that after 5 years there would be thousands of firing positions, among which the several hundred missiles could be rotated. Camp Century was powered by a portable nuclear power plant designated PM-2A, the first of the U.S. Army's portable reactors to actually produce power, and was rated at two megawatts of electrical power, also supplying steam to operate the well that provided water for the troops. The Army team assembled the prefabricated reactor in 77 days, and just nine hours after fuel elements containing forty-three pounds of enriched Uranium-235 were inserted into the reactor, electricity was produced. Maintaining the tunnels at Camp Century required time-consuming and laborious trimming and removal of more than 120 tons of snow and ice each month. The camp, begun in 1959, was abandoned for good in 1966 and it is anticipated that the Greenland icecap, in constant motion, will completely destroy all the tunnels over the course of the coming years."

goombah99 writes "The "creator" of the Dance move known as the electric slide has filed a DMCA based takedown notice for videos he deems to infringe and because they show "bad dancing". He is also seeking compensation from the use of the dance move at a wedding celebration shown on the Ellen Degeneres Show. Next up, the Funky Chicken, the moonwalk, and the Hustle? More seriously, does the DMCA have any limit on its scope?"

Yesterday Nintendo released the official name for their next console. Formerly the Revolution, and now simply called Wii, reaction has been strong among gaming fans. A Brian Crecente article in the Rocky Mountain News looks at why Wii is bad, from a marketing perspective. Chris Kohler, over at Game|Life, looks at why Wii is good because of its iconoclastic nature. And, always happy to help with the irreverent, Games.net examines why Wii is weird. From that article: "We don't think Nintendo Wii is a truly terrible console name, but it's an uncharacteristically risky choice, even for Nintendo. We admire its simplicity and its playfulness (the two i's represent multiplayer action, you see). But on the flip side, parents will have a hard time pronouncing it ("Nintendo...why?") and hardcore gamers will slam it ..."

The year is finally picking up some steam, with new game announcements, ship dates confirmed, and delays expected. Besides the already announced Zelda delay, Nintendo actually has good news to offer. New Super Mario Bros. is slated for a May 7th release here in the states. Fallout 3 will not be at E3 this year, despite the highly anticipated nature of the game. Oblivion, Bethesda's upcoming RPG, doesn't quite have a release date yet. It should be coming out 'soon', though. NCSoft is apparently working on a dungeon crawler themselves, with the City of Heroes publisher announcing Dungeon Runners at the Taipei game show. For those of you who (like me) loved the title, there are sequels to F.E.A.R. on the way. They won't be carrying the stupid name, thankfully. There will also be a sequel to God of War, slated for release next February. Finally, for classic gaming fans, the GameTap service will be offering the Ultima series of games for play in the near future, probably around the same time that Street Fighter 2 will be on the Xbox 360 Arcade. Looks like we've got a 2006 worth looking forward to. Update: 02/22 20:18 GMT by Z : Changed the God of War information link to Gamasutra; Eurogamer pulled the info after legal threats from Sony.

An anonymous reader writes "According to Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, Metroid Prime will include the ability to voice chat with other players before and after games (not during). Granted, the PSP's version of SOCOM allows for in-game chat, but this certainly is the first step." They're also going to be setting up demo download stations in retail stores, as reported in a DS Fanboy post. More details also available at the Game|Life Blog.

Just when things seemed to be looking up, we have two prime examples of poor reporting on the gaming hobby. Chris Kohler, via a Game|Life blog post, points out an ABC report entitled Health Alert: Pulling the plug on Videogames. They list the dangers to your health that gaming can cause (excessive blinking, of course) and include a handly list of things to do besides game. Like 'Learn to change the oil or a tire on a car'. Meanwhile, the Jacksonville Daily News reports on those massively multiplayer thingies. From that article: "Anderson is one of an unknown number of individuals who split their time between the reality most inhabit and the virtual realities conjured by Internet role-playing game designers whose dreamscapes have become increasingly engrossing and even addictive."

Sony Online Entertainment has patched in a mouse-only control scheme for Star Wars Galaxies, reports Chris Kohler's Game|Life Blog. We reported this weekend on the complaints of Nick Dupree, a disabled player who was unable to play after the NGE changes. From Chris' post: "Our new fast-action combat control scheme inadvertently presented a hardship for some without the use of both hands; for this reason we are introducing mouse-only play which allows all movements and abilities to be controlled through the mouse exclusively. This is live in the game right now and can be accessed through the options menu. "

Ant writes "Wired News' Game|Life reports on Nick Dupree, a disability rights activist and writer who is confined to a wheelchair with severely limited mobility. He used to use one thumb and an index finger to play MMORPG Star Wars: Galaxies. This limited mobility was more than adequate to play the game when it was a sandbox-style adventure, and he was a devotee of the game. With the New Game Enhancements, he is no longer able to play because of the reliance on keyboard/mouse combinations and the action-style combat." There really is nothing good to report on this game update.

IZ Reloaded writes "MIT has picked Taiwanese firm Quanta to manufacture its $100 laptop. From PCWorld: 'Under terms of an agreement with One Laptop Per Child, Quanta will devote engineering resources to develop the $100 notebook design during the first half of the year, according to a statement issued by the group. At the same time, Quanta and the non-profit organization will explore the production of a commercial version of the laptop.'" Apparently they don't think it's ineffectual either.

Chris Kohler's Game|Life column wonders aloud Where is the 360? Despite assurances from Microsoft that more units are making their way to retail channels, it is still effectively impossible to get ahold of one from a store. From the article: "So, uh... where's the press release for Xbox 360? The congratulatory hype over how much cash they pulled in during the first 24 hours? Xbox dot com has nothing. Were it not for that Halo 2 press release, I wouldn't be asking, but... For that matter, where's the 360 itself? It's now been over two weeks since the launch of the 360, and that nebulous ether affectionately referred to as 'the retail channel' has not seen a single additional Xbox 360 unit. How do I know? As has been well-documented here, I had a preorder reservation placed at the downtown EB Games that was originally supposed to be a launch-day unit but got bumped back to 'second shipment.'" Kotaku has commentary on this as well. I'm in a similar situation as Mr. Kohler, since Slashdot is not cool enough to receive a review console.

IZ Reloaded writes "A geologist thinks that the increase in the number of earthquakes in Taiwan is due to Taipei 101, the world's tallest building. CNN reports: 'Lin said Taipei 101 weighed 700,000 tons and estimated stress from vertical loading on its foundation at 4.7 bars, of which some would be transferred to the earth's upper crust due to extremely soft sedimentary rocks beneath the Taipei basin. If a fault is about to crack, then a little pressure can trigger an earthquake. It's like the last straw that breaks the camel's back.'" More from The Guardian.

Chris Kohler's Game|Life blog has a post discussing what a real games industry crash looks like. From the article: "But I hate the ridiculous amount of misinformation that gets spread around about what happened to the game industry in 1984. And the fact that the awful years of 1994 and 1995 get totally whitewashed in history articles like the above, as if the games industry has been just peachy ever since Nintendo got here. Well, it hasn't been. And what happened in 1984 isn't what people think." His post is a reaction to previously mentioned Inquirer story.

Slashback tonight brings some correction, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including more news from the BlackBerry case, a follow up on the South Korean Cloning pioneer, China promising a strong continuation in space exploration, a behined the scenes look at Smart Hotel technology, a change in direction for the Massachusetts OpenDocument war, and a slightly different approach to the intelligent design in schools question. Read on for the details.

BlackBerry closer to a shutdown. WebHostingGuy writes to tell us MSNBC is reporting that Research in Motion Ltd, the company who makes the BlackBerry is nearer now to a shutdown of their US mobile email service than ever due to the recent ruling handed down. From the article: "U.S. District Judge James Spencer Wednesday ruled invalid a $450 million settlement between RIM and NTP Inc., a small patent holding firm of McLean, Va., that maintains the technology behind the popular BlackBerry infringes on its patents."

Cloning pioneer admits to wrongdoing and resigns. moraes writes "The first research group to clone human embryos ran into some ethical difficulties concerning the source of the eggs - allegations were made indicating that the eggs were taken from junior research assistants. The South Korean pioneer, Hwang Woo Suk, has since resigned his official posts and apologized for lying about the sources of eggs used.."

China on the moon by 2020. IZ Reloaded writes "China will send its astronauts to the moon by 2020 according to the Deputy Commander in Chief of China's manned space flight program. Hu Shixiang said that the goal is subject to the government's funding and their ability to build a rocket with 25 tons capacity."

Behined the scenes with Cisco. molotov writes "Cisco installed the system described in the recent Slashdot article about Smart Hotel Rooms in New York City and has a great video about the technology used in a similar project for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel."

Massachusetts gives Microsoft a second chance. An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that Massachusetts is considering adopting the MS Office XML format as a standard to be used to store the state's documents now that it is under review as an ECMA standard. From the article: 'The commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft's progress in creating an open document format. If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats.' Microsoft still does not intend to support the OpenOffice standard." IBM also took the time to weigh in on the issue with a recent letter to Thomas Trimarco.

University sued for supporting evolution. Hikaru79 writes to tell us that two parents are suing the University of California-Berkeley based on the contents of a website aimed at educating teachers. From the article: "Jeanne and Larry Caldwell, the couple bringing the suit against the site, claim that the site delves improperly into religion. While most debates center around whether or not Intelligent Design is "religion in the classroom," the Caldwells are looking to spin it the other way."

IZ Reloaded writes "A 25 yr old British man could be the first person in the world to have cured himself of the deadly HIV virus. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 2002. After another test done the following year, he stunned doctors when his test results turned negative. He is now a wanted man after researchers and doctors want him to come back for further testing but he has so far refused. Experts think he could have something in his immune system that may help in producing vaccines against HIV."

It doesn't come easy writes "For those of you keeping score, Pluto now officially has three moons, with more possibly to follow. The newfound moons orbit about 27,000 miles (44,000 kilometers) from Pluto, more than twice as far as Charon, Pluto's other satellite. They are 5,000 times dimmer than Charon. The moons were found using the Hubble Space Telescope. For now, Pluto is the only Kuiper Belt object known to have satellites. Some nice images of Pluto and its moons are included in links. Enjoy!" Relatedly IZ Reloaded writes "NASA says the Atlas 5 rocket that will carry the New Horizons Pluto probe has suffered slight damage thanks to Hurricane Wilma. New Scientist reports: "The Atlas 5 rocket stands within a construction hangar at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's east coast. As Wilma rolled though the region on 24 October, fierce 122-kilometer-per-hour winds tore holes in the hangar's 83-meter-tall door and caused minor damage to the rocket inside.""

IZ Reloaded writes "The Mars Global Surveyor during one of its latest scans of the area where the Mars Polar Lander was originally spotted, discovers that the spacecraft is no longer there! Space.com reports, "We conclude that our interpretation of these features was in error. This is not the location of the Mars Polar Lander. Because the landing uncertainty ellipse is so much larger than our images, and we do not have another candidate to which to target...we cannot continue to hunt for the lander," the MSSS site explains."

IZ Reloaded writes "The Firemonger Project is an attempt to create a multilingual easy-to-use compilation CD with Firefox, Thunderbird and an excellent selection of plugins (Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Shockwave and Sun Java), extensions (Adblock, Googlebar, Hotmail tabs, SessionSaver, ScrapBook and more), Firefox and Thunderbird themes, related programs (Firetune and Backupfox) and a comprehensive beginner's guide. Everything you need to start up with and get the most out of Firefox and Thunderbird. There's also a lite version for download."

IZ Reloaded writes "The British Library has made available 14 great books on its website. One of them is a 1508 notebook by Leonardo Da Vinci containing short treatises, notes and drawings of a wide range of subjects from mechanics to the moon. The site allows you to view the original manuscript written in Leonardo's own handwriting."

IZ Reloaded writes "A new species of rodent has been discovered by World Conservation Society researcher Dr. Robert Timmins. He found this creature in a hunter's market in Central Laos. The creature known as Kha-Nyou to the locals is so unique it represents an entire new family of wildlife. Kha-Nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago."

IZ Reloaded writes "Draft guidelines for space tourists have already been written in the United States." From the article: "A paying customer will now be able to fly into space once he has been informed and accepts the risks of space travel. There are several factors to take into account, depending on whether a passenger is taking a speedy "pop top," up-and-down, suborbital voyage, versus climbing onboard space machinery to roar off into orbit for an extended stay."

IZ Reloaded writes "Do you hate needles? In the near future, the fear of needles would be a thing of a past. Bioengineering students at the University of California, Berkeley have developed the MicroJet. It uses an electronic actuator that could one day propel vaccinations, insulin or other drugs through the skin of the patient - without the device even touching the skin - with far less pain than a hypodermic needle."

IZ Reloaded writes "Do you hate needles? In the near future, the fear of needles would be a thing of a past. Bioengineering students at the University of California, Berkeley have developed the MicroJet. It uses an electronic actuator that could one day propel vaccinations, insulin or other drugs through the skin of the patient - without the device even touching the skin - with far less pain than a hypodermic needle."

another similar writes "IBM's World Community Grid is off to a roaring start. Since kicking off six weeks ago (original Slashdot story), the grid has grown to almost 36,000 users with almost 50,000 machines. Growth continues as more media coverage hits. There is a team of Slashdot users - currently ranked 13th in points with only 79 members. If you have spare cycles, download the software, join us and crank for medicine. For those of you with dual processor systems, you'll have to use a homebrewed tool - beyond two is not supported yet. Alas, you also have to be running Redmond's finest. According to their FAQ, a Linux client is slated for development in 2005."

An anonymous reader writes "F-Secure's Virus Blog posted links to a 48-page technical study on who wrote the infamous Sobig worm which went around the world last year. The study is done by anonymous authors. The study concludes that author of this worm is a Russian programmer and goes out all the way to name him. This file has now been posted publicly but on Geocities and and Tripod. So you can have a look by yourself and make your own conclusions."

Following a previous story about a Dremel pumpkin carving kit, we've got a number of pumpkins to share with everyone. Leading off is Kathleen's Strong Bad. Next up is our first Cacodemon, followed by another Cacodemon and a Spider Mastermind. quan74 pointed us to The Pumkin Lady who has carved up heads of state and has a pattern for creating your own Tux. Kirk put together a tutorial for a 1upkin. And finally, droops sent us in the classic Jack-O-Linux which never gets old.

salimfadhley writes "Symantec's 'Norton Antivirus' now attempts to remove Freegate, a program designed to help Chinese internet users view websites blocked by the government firewalls. Symantec offered no reason why the program (which is not spyware) was marked as a 'trojan' in Chinese versions of the software, however even an unattuned conspiracy theorist will guess that this was done at the request of the Chinese government. "

An anonymous reader with a lot of time on his hands writes "As seen on Slashdot b e f o r e, the Newton refuses to die. Since Apple discontinued it, it got ATA, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zeroconf and even a NES emulator. Now, several Mac news sites r e p o r t, Newton users founded an association with John Sculley, who pushed the Newton at Apple, as its honorary president. They're organizing a conference in Paris in September. How long until all these users switch to new hardware?"

Mirkon writes "Back in mid-February, the news was broken that Webmonkey, one of the web's most prominent web development tutorial and reference resources, was "shut down," in that no new content would be delivered. A little over four months later - though Wired News (another child of Webmonkey's parent company, Terra Lycos) says nothing, and the Webmonkey Blog (hosted on Tripod, another Terra Lycos subsidiary) hasn't seen an update since January - the Webmonkey home page boldly declares: "We're totally back! Webmonkey is alive and kicking, serving up new articles all hot-n-fresh like a stack of banana pancakes. With syrup." Is this the end of the end for Webmonkey?"

jg21 writes "Paul Panks already has 30 text adventure games to his credit, and he's just written a report at LinuxWorld explaining how, when he came across Randall Hyde's website, he realized that Hyde's High Level Assembly language warranted a new departure - writing an open-source textadventure game. The result is "HLA Adventure" which he released into the public domain so anyone may contribute to the expansion of the game world, creatures within the world, and additional quests. HLA Adventure has its own Yahoo group." We recently covered HLA in our Developers section.

mammothboy writes "News.com.com has a story about the new so-called Pirate Act, which seeks to allow federal prosecuters to file civil suits against file swappers. These lawsuits can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if you guessed that the RIAA is lobbying for it, you're right. What's scary is how fast and how quiet its march through the legislative process has been. In '97, the No Electronic Theft Act allowed for criminal lawsuits, but none have been filed, so isn't it clear that the Justice Department has better stuff to deal with?" There actually have been some prosecutions filed under the NET Act, but not many. Update: 05/26 18:51 GMT by T : Declan McCullagh (author of the linked News.com story) writes to clarify: "FYI there have been prosecutions under the NET Act, as you say. But there have not been any of P2P users. That's why the Senate is doing this."

Argyle writes "I recently finished reading The Golden Transcendence by John C. Wright. A great novel that serious science fiction readers should pick up. The Golden Transcendence is the third book in The Golden Age trilogy. The first two books were The Golden Age and The Phoenix Exultant." Read on to see if this series might be for you; if so, you're just in time, because author John C. Wright (a retired attorney) is working on the next book, Orphans of Chaos. The Golden Transcendence : Or, The Last of the Masquerade author John C. Wright pages 350 publisher Tor Books rating Excellent reviewer Michael Pusateri ISBN 0765307561 summary Can the determination of an individual change the entire society?

The books are firmly in the space opera genre with a dash of Heinlein libertarianism tossed in for good measure. The story takes place in the far future when artificial intelligences (known as sophotechs) and humans live immortal lives in a libertarian society of near unlimited technology. The experience of real physical interaction is replaced in many cases by remote bodies, recorded experiences of others, and complete control of what a person perceives. Humanity has moved beyond the one body - one brain system and has adopted many different systems of thought and even physical form

Mr. Wright puts forth a brilliant vision of technology and society in the far future where wealth is measured in seconds of computer time and physical labor is non-existent. In this future, there is are still wealthy and poor people but in a different way. In a good interview, Mr. Wright explains:

There would still be rich and poor, even if the poorest of the poor were absurdly well off by our standards. No advancements can eliminate differences in the abilities of men, or the differences in how men value the abilities of their fellow man (which is what causes inequality of prices and hence of incomes). If only by comparison, there will be poverty, even in Arcadia. My characters Ironjoy, Oshenkyo, and the Afloats [...] are meant to represent this idea of future poverty; the Seven Peers represent wealth.

As an example as just one of the concepts presented, we can look at the idea of 'sensefilters.' Perception is no longer what organic senses directly tell the mind. The signals received by the body or remote bodies are processed to be acceptable to the person's particular preferences. If a person doesn't like to see advertising, their mind eliminates the advertising from their vision and fills in the scene with what would be there if the advertisement wasn't there. Consciously, the person isn't aware of this, only that they have requested not to see advertisements. Sensefiltering can be used to remove (or add) objects, people, and even ideas from an individual's perception. The plot devices are interesting stuff that Mr. Wright explores in just enough detail to keep you wanting more throughout the trilogy.

The protagonist, Phaethon, is the son of one of the most important people in the society (known as the Golden Oecumene). In the first two books, Phaethon struggles against first the realization that he is missing parts of his memory, his struggle against society, his fall into exile, and his return to strength.

The third book finds Phaethon poised to fight against the true enemy that has been revealed to him. Without spoiling too much, Phaethon is forced to fight for the very survival of his society (which tossed him out) or allow it to be destroyed.

The author, John C. Wright, obviously has a libertarian heart and embodies the attributes of individuality, resourcefulness, ingenuity and desire for progress in Phaethon, the hero. In the opening novel, we find a society content with things how they are, willing to simply stop progress to prevent anything from changing their utopia in any meaningful way. Phaethon is a man of action in opposition to the statist Golden Oecumene. The underlying theme is that without mankind's strive for exploration and new goals, it is doomed.

Overall, an excellent book and series for the science fiction reader looking for something more than blasters and evil six-legged aliens. Getting used to the terminology and concepts is slow at first but well worth the effort.

Final note: If you enjoy Iain Banks's Culture series, Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn, or John Varley's Eight Worlds, you will enjoy the The Golden Transcendence and the entire Golden Age Trilogy.

You can purchase The Golden Transcendence from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

An anonymous reader writes "NASA Watch is reporting that NASA has cancelled Servicing Mission 4 for the Hubble Space Telescope. The reason given is not for budgets, but for safety." ender81b writes "With all the excitement generated by the Mars Exploration Rovers now is a good time to look at future space exploration missions. One of the most exciting is the Kepler spacecraft which will search for terrestrial planets around nearby stars. Other interesting upcoming missions include the New Horizons mission to explore Pluto and the Kuiper belt, Deep Impact which will fire a small impactor into a comet to study the insides, Messenger which will fully photograph Mercury for the first time, and the ESA's Herschel infrared space telescope and Rosetta spacecraft which will land on a comet for the first time. Whew, good time to be invovled in space exploration!" StarWreck writes "Cnet.com is reporting that the Mars Rover uses Java. The same piece of software that lets people around the world play video games on their cell phones is now letting scientists drive the ultimate remote-controlled car across the surface of Mars."

sennomo asks: "Years ago, I was told that I needed a degree to get a programming job anymore. So, I went to college. A couple of years and thousands of dollars later, there was still no job for me, in spite of my all-powerful B.A. in C.S. The most common explanation I get is that jobs are being exported out of the country. So, I've decided to export myself. Moving to higher ground, so to speak. I have heard a few others discuss this, but how many are actually trying it? And how is it going for them? Are there any hotspots for American expatriate programmers?"

CylonSlave writes "It seems the recent rumors about China's first manned flight occuring in the next couple of weeks may be for real. Spacedaily.com reports (courtesy of AFP) 14 Chinese trained taikonauts have arrived at the launch facility in Gansu province in Northwest China. Earlier space.com and one of the Chinese state's news organs, the People's Daily, reported on the possibility of a manned flight next month. Note that this Wednesday, October 1, is China's National Day. This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule. Personally, I hope the competition will jolt the US space program back into more visionary ideas such as the manned Mars mission. Two sites about China's space program can be seen here & here."

Peter Wayner writes: "When I mentioned the Mad Scientist Club short stories to a co-worker, he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the burn scars on his arm. The books, he said, did this to him. Not literally, but by misguided inspiration. In one of the tales, the boys in the Club launch a fleet of fake flying saucers to frighten their hometown of Mamouth Falls. The scars came when the colleague tried to imitate the book, but used real gasoline to add a bit of zip to plastic cleaner bags turned UFOs. Now, that the rediscovered full-length novel about the Club, The Big Kerplop is being republished with a bit of a splash, some adults may look at stories like this and decided that there's a danger that kids might start imitating the novels. The bigger danger, though, may come if they don't." Read on for the rest of Peter's review. The Big Kerplop author Bertrand R. Brinley pages 217 publisher Purple House Press rating 9 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 1930900228 summary The Mad Scientists rediscovered, in greater depth -- fun reading for kids and adults.

This novel isn't really new, although it is for all practical purposes. The author, Bertrand Brinley, had much success with the collections of short stories about the seven boys who dreamed of being scientists one day. The short stories continued to stay in print and even seemed to inspire a hack Disney adaptation, but only rumors about The Big Kerplop circulated on the Internet. When the copies of The Big Kerplop would trade on Ebay, they often closed at prices in the hundreds of dollars. Free markets can't ignore messages like that and the Purple House Press purchased the rights and relaunched the books.

It's easy for a Slashdot reader to understand how the stories could command such affection. The boys in the stories live in the netherworld between capability and responsibility. (Enjoy it if you're still there.) They have ham radio sets, fishing boats, weather balloons, and plenty of other gadgets to put to use in tweaking the noses of their buffoonish elders and only a few chores to get in the way.

The books are set in the early 60's before Bhopal, Three Mile Island, and Agent Orange rained on the big Science parade. Brinley worked for Lockheed and Martin during one of the the most romantic periods in aviation history, save perhaps the early days of the Wright Brothers. The books are infused with a certainty that rational thought guided by the scientific method and salted with a bit of pluck and wit could solve any problem. I think everyone here can agree that the entire club would be open source coders today, although it's not clear if they would embrace the BSD or GPL license. It may not even be stretching things to say that groups who wrote and distributed DeCSS are working through the same themes as the Mad Scientist Club, albeit on a global scale.

The novel is prequel to the collection of short stories that tells the backstory of how the boys found each other and discovered how a firm devotion to scientific principles could be put to work showing up the grownups. As they say on Fark, hilarity ensued many times.

The earlier short stories took up only 20-30 pages apiece, but this novel stretches to more than 200 pages, making it an entirely different animal. The characters are better drawn, the scenes are set with more than a sentence or two, and the plot twists back upon itself a few times. It's a leisurely read that makes the earlier stories seem a bit cartoonish or slapstick. This sophistication is a pleasure for me to read at my technically grownup age, but it may be why the novel didn't gain the same traction as the short stories. The laughs are driven more by character and dialog than by the setting and action. The short stories are basically set pieces, but the novel is more of a study in character. That's good for anyone who grew up loving the books, but it may mean that the current crop of 8-12 year old boys should wait a year or two before diving in.

The length of the novel also gives Brinley more room to flesh out the adults and let them play more than rubes to the Mad Scientists' schemes. The town's politicians are still a bit overstuffed, but Colonel March, the commander of the local Air Force base, is hardly a foil or a nemisis. Constable Billy Dahr, though, is still around to be the goat.

I suppose I should say something about the story. The Club, or at least the early core of what would become the Club, is out fishing on Strawberry Lake when a fleet of B52s flies over. Something makes a big kerplop in the lake and the Club spends the rest of the book saving the day, defying their elders and deploying some cool gadgets and the scientific method. This is a deeper, richer and very satisfying return for the characters.

Some of these tricks could get you some scars I guess but that's not the worst future awaiting a young reader. First, chicks dig scars -- although that theorem lies well outside of the scope of this book. Second, this may be the adult in me, but kids today seem fatter, lazier, and more hogtied than ever before. Yes, these words will haunt me when my children get bigger, but I think that Brinley hits the sweet spot between obedience and irreverence. Forethought and care save the day in these books, not caprice and whim. The characters are neither insolent nor cowed by authority. The important thing to remember is that the scientific method celebrated by the books does not suggest replacing a few candles with a burning pie plate filled with gasoline. At least not without first doing a bit of research on the safest way to ensure all of the energy turns into hot air.

You can purchase The Big Kerplop from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. Peter Wayner is the author of several dangerous and incendiary books like Disappearing Cryptography and Translucent Databases . Don't burn them without standing at a safe distance.

Dormous asks: "My wife and I are both night owls and avid readers, and usually one of us goes to bed before the other, hence the need for a small portable light source. We recently had a booklight, and somehow, my wife managed to shatter the light bulb all over the bed. Therefore, I want to find a booklight that uses an LED as the Light Source. Anybody got any ideas where I can find such a thing. I've already tried ThinkGeek."

James Yonan writes "For years, the space elevator concept has been a staple of science fiction fare, popularized by Arthur C. Clark in The Fountains of Paradise, a convenient and plausibly feasible technology for building a vertical railroad of sorts, tens of thousands of kilometers tall, linking earth with geosynchronous orbit. Unsatisfied with the unquestioning consignment of the space elevator concept to science fiction status, authors Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling set out to understand why it could or couldn't be done. The result is a compelling new book, backed up by voluminous research, which concludes that space elevators are near-term-feasible. Edwards and Westling have not only convinced roomfuls of skeptics of the basic concept, but have also won serious funding from NASA for continuing their work. This book, The Space Elevator, is one of the fruits of their ongoing research." This is a long review (continued below), but the subject demands it. The Space Elevator -- A revolutionary Earth-to-space transportation system. author Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling pages 280 publisher Spageo Inc. rating 9 out of 10 reviewer James Yonan ISBN 0972604502 summary A compelling argument, backed up with a great deal of quantitative analysis on both scientific and economic grounds, that a space elevator is near-term-feasible.

As a child in the late 60s and early 70s, some of my earliest memories are TV images of the moon shots, the sense of excitement and adventure, and confident assertions by adults that this was only the beginning, that progress was indeed unstoppable, and that it was a near certainty that by the time I was old enough to ask a girl out on a date, the question "would you like a ride in my spaceship" would be greeted not with derision, but with awe. Of course the sad reality is that none of this has come to pass. Space has remained dangerous, expensive, and inaccessible to all except the rare test pilot, scientist, or those for whom capitalism has been unusually kind. Luckily, there are some promising new ideas in space transportation that could represent the breakthrough we have been waiting for in the years since walking on the moon became passé.

In their new book The Space Elevator, Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling present a compelling argument, backed up with a great deal of quantitative analysis on both scientific and economic grounds, that a space elevator is near-term-feasible. The authors argue that carbon nanotube fibers are both strong and light enough that a 100,000 km elevator, constructed of a 2m wide carbon nanotube "ribbon," could be constructed in 10 years for a cost of US $6 billion, and be capable of lifting a 13-ton payload to geosynchronous orbit once every few days. If feasible, it would present a stunning breakthrough in space accessibility, and likely usher in a new age of space development and exploration.

Edwards writes in the forward:

One day, a few years ago, I read a statement that the space elevator couldn't be done, and I set out to find out why. From there, things got very interesting and resulted in a research proposal being submitted to NASA. The proposal was funded and resulted in, first a six-month study and then a two year study. The core of this manuscript started out as the technical report from the six month investigation I conducted for NASA under the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.

Edwards and Westling begin the book with some history. Until recently, it was thought that alternatives to chemical rockets as a means to reaching LEO (low Earth orbit) were, at least for the foreseeable future, the stuff of science fiction. The idea of a space elevator, foreseen as early as 1903 by the brilliant Russian science speculator Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, foresaw a tower to geosynchronous orbit and beyond.

He was the first to identify the concept that the part of the tower beyond geosynchronous orbit would have an outward "force" due to Earth's rotation that would support the portion of the tower below geosynchronous altitude.

Essentially a space elevator is a geosynchronous satellite with an unusually high aspect ratio. So high, in fact, that even though the satellite is in orbit over a fixed point on the Earth's surface, the lower portion of the satellite actually touches the surface of the Earth. The key, of course, to making this concept workable is to find a material that has the tensile strength to withstand the extreme forces that such a tower or cable would be subjected to. Though a space elevator would need to reach 35,785 km to geosynchronous orbit, since gravity drops off as the square of our distance from Earth, we can collapse the 35,785 km down to its equivalent height as if it were all in 1g, giving 4940 km. This magic number represents the self-support height that a space elevator cable would need to exceed. The self-support height is the maximum length of material, formed into a cable, that can support its own weight in a 1g gravity field before breaking, and can be calculated by dividing tensile strength by density.

It turns out that a steel cable has a self-support length of 54 km, graphite whiskers (fibers) 1050 km, and carbon nanotubes 10,204 km. This last figure is an important result that shows that carbon nanotubes are significantly stronger than would be needed to build a space elevator. The difference between the 4940 km minimum self-support length and the carbon nanotube self-support length of 10,204 km all translates into significant payloads that could be lifted into space using this technology.

So if the space elevator is feasible right now for only US$6 billion (less than half of NASA's annual budget), why aren't we building one ASAP and preparing to retire the shuttles? The answer is that carbon nanotube technology is so new (invented in 1991) that we haven't yet created the infrastructure for mass production. In fact, the authors admit that we haven't even created a nanotube in the lab that demonstrates the requisite strength. While carbon nanotubes have a theoretical tensile strength of 300 GPa (billion newtons per square meter), strengths of only 11.2 to 64.3 GPa have been experimentally measured thus far. Edwards and Westling have heavily based their thesis on nanotubes reaching a tensile strength of 130 GPa in mass-produced volume, so they are to some extent reaching for the future here. Clearly they are counting on a kind of Moore's law to kick in, where the efficiency to cost curve of nanotube production improves exponentially as breakthroughs are made, then asymptotically slows as the theoretical upper bound is approached.

Now assuming that we can economically mass produce carbon nanotube ribbon at a strength of 130 GPa, what's next? Here Edwards and Westling present a well-researched plan for turning the raw material of the carbon nanotube into a functioning space elevator within 10 years. An initial kind of bootstrap cable would be lifted into LEO on board several trips of the space shuttle. This cable would be constructed of carbon nanotubes arranged in parallel with a reinforcing cross-connect adhesive, so that if a nanotube was severed, the remaining tubes would take up the load. The cross sectional dimensions of the cable would be highly asymmetrical, 1 micron in thickness, 13.5 to 35.5 centimeters in width, hence the cable is referred to as a "ribbon". After some assembly in LEO, the initial ribbon and deployment mechanism would be integrated into a spacecraft and sent to geosynchronous orbit, where it would deploy by basically unwinding the spool of ribbon towards Earth, while the spacecraft-spool assembly itself is boosted higher to maintain the total system in geosynchronous orbit. Once a few km of ribbon is unspooled, gravity gradient forces will kick in, ensuring a stable vertical orientation as deployment proceeds. Eventually the end of the ribbon would reach Earth where it would be anchored to a mobile sea-platform, located near the equator, which would have the capability to move the lower end of the cable to dodge known space-junk and electrical storms.

This prototype space elevator will be relatively weak and vulnerable to damage from meteoroids and uncharted space junk, so it will be essential to quickly strengthen the ribbon by widening it. Edwards and Westling's plan calls for "climbers" (electric-powered vehicles that climb the ribbon using a mechanical traction drive) to immediately ascend the ribbon, splicing additional carbon nanotube material onto the existing ribbon, then permanently parking at the far end of the ribbon to add to the elevator's counterweight mass. After 230 iterations of this process, the ribbon will be complete, 2m wide and capable of lifting 20 tons of climber + payload.

Getting a 100,000 km space elevator into position and insuring its survival is a daunting engineering challenge, and much of the book is dedicated to answering what-if scenarios and attempting to prove to the skeptical mind that such an ambitious undertaking is feasible. To this end, each space elevator subsystem is analyzed at length and competing solutions are evaluated for cost and efficiency.

For example three different methods for supplying electrical power to the climbers are evaluated:

• run power up the cable,
• beam power via microwave, and
• beam power via laser.

Answer: use a laser.

An optimal shape (i.e. taper profile) for the ribbon is proposed, so that the part of the ribbon in the atmosphere is narrow to minimize wind-loading forces and the section between 500km and 1700km is widened and slightly curved to maximize survivability from meteoroid or space junk impacts. The destructive effects of wind, lightning, atomic oxygen, debris impacts, radiation damage, and ribbon oscillations are considered and solutions are presented. The conclusion: none of these adverse effects are show-stoppers.

Some basic FAQs are presented and answered, such as where does the energy come from to accelerate a climbing payload on the ribbon to orbital velocity. Answer: from the rotational inertia of the planet. If we shipped a whole continent into space, our days would get a bit longer.

After a comprehensive technical and engineering analysis of the space elevator concept, the authors move on to the economics of the concept and present a sort of skeletal business plan for "Space Elevator, Inc." They present many interesting uses for the space elevator including energy applications that could significantly improve the environment and reduce the combustion of fossil fuels. If the space elevator succeeded in reducing launch costs below $100/kg, large orbiting photovoltaic arrays might be built in space that would collect power and beam it to Earth via microwaves. These ideas are far from new (such an apparatus was patented in the early 1970s), but the reduced launch costs of the space elevator make them far more feasible.

The authors take a detour in explaining some promising results on the nuclear fusion front. Progress on the reduced-radiation IEF concept (Inertial Electrostatic Fusion) for fusion reactors would be accelerated by ³HE mining on the moon, which the space elevator would make feasible.

The rationale for building the ribbon up to 100,000 km is examined. The major advantage of such a tall ribbon is that the centripetal acceleration of the ribbon tip is substantial enough that payloads could be flung to Venus, Mars, or the asteroid belt with little additional energy expenditure. This, the authors argue, would bring down the cost of robotic planetary probes to the point where individual universities could afford their own space programs.

And finally, a working space elevator can be used to manufacture new space elevators at a much lower cost than the initial implementation. The authors suggest that the first significant commercial application of the space elevator might simply be in making additional space elevators and selling them to commercial clients. In this manner, elevators with payload capacities up to 200 tons could be deployed using wider ribbons, making possible a large-scale human presence at geosynchronous orbit and bringing the kind of commercial activities that would go along with that, such as tourism.

The book ends with a flight of fancy of sorts into a future where space elevators have become commonplace. Space elevators around Mars create an efficient Earth-Mars transportation network. Elevators on the moons of Jupiter throw spacecraft down into Jupiter's turbulent upper atmosphere to scoop up ³HE and ship it back to Earth in decade-long space convoys where it will power the latest and greatest IEF fusion power-plants.

While The Space Elevator goes a long way towards convincing skeptics of the feasibility of the general idea, the big question marks that remain in my mind are:

• Will carbon nanotubes really reach the 130 GPa level in cost-effective mass production that will be required for elevator construction?
• Much of the elevator deployment plans depend on the flawless execution of robotic mechanisms controlled remotely from Earth, including the trip from LEO to geostationary orbit, the deployment down to Earth, and the subsequent strengthening of the ribbon by robotic climbers that splice additional nanotube material onto the existing ribbon. As we learned with the Hubble Space Telescope, it is essential to have astronaut access for unexpected but critical repair missions. But much of the space elevator deployment will take place above LEO, out of access of human shuttle missions. What do we do if there is a glitch during deployment that requires an astronaut repair? We will need to seriously address such contingencies, lest we get saddled with a stuck elevator that could become the mother of all space junk.
• Have there been any successful tether missions to date in space? While the answer appears to be yes, I would have liked to learn more about them.

Doubts aside, this is a compelling work that will likely become both a manifesto and bible for the space elevator movement, presenting a convincing argument that the space elevator is our best chance yet to bring Moore's law economies to space. It is an engaging read and I highly recommend it.

Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

ksyrium writes "A TV station in Boston has been kind enough to provide a list of what you need to build your own snow gun, as well as plenty of video, pictures and links to other sites devoted to at-home snowmaking!"

KiranWolf writes "I ran across this page doing some research on a local historical landmark. It has detailed histories and photos of more than 500 abandoned and little used airfields throughout the U.S., many of them dating back to the heyday of aviation. It's rather amazing how many small unknown airfields dot the landscape."

E-Rock-23 writes "Our registration-hungry friends at the New York Times are running this article with a few more details on the AOL Subscriber Decline, covered in a recent /. post. And it looks like they aren't alone, as Earthlink and MSN are experiencing similar troubles. The article cites a major reason being that users "are buying broadband services offered by cable and telephone companies." Looks like broadband is finally gaining some significant ground with home users..."

Alien54 writes "Here's a guy who has done well taking digital photographs of the planets using not only a regular digital camera, but also using an old greyscale Quickcam. Lots of pics, of course, and some very nice shots of Mars and all the rest. He also has some higher end gear. See also these other related pages (link 1, link 2, link 3) Also worth looking at is the website of the QuickCam and Unconventional Imaging Astronomy Group"

Greg Searle asks: "I'm going to be in the market for another PC soon, and have been watching the prices drop and the power go up over the years. There are a lot of 'bargains' out there, but then I heard that the best and least expensive PC's are 'white box' systems that are custom build by small, local companies. This got me thinking, I know how to put together a PC from scratch, why don't I just do it? This should save me quite a few bucks, and I get the exact system I want. My question to you: Where is the best place to order the parts (case, MB, drives, etc.) over the web? I am familiar with sites that sell typical consumer products, but have no idea where to start to get raw parts. I'd prefer one site that sells everything, but wouldn't be surprised if there are some specialty sites that provide the most bang for the buck for a particular piece. What do you think?"

paradesign writes "Apple now has WebMail Beta 2 up with new improvements! Get to your software update pane... oh wait, go here."

paradesign writes "O'Reilly is running a nice article on AltiVec in the G4 chip. The article includes examples, with code, showing its effectiveness. For everyone who is uneducated as to exactly what Altivec is, this is a must read."

SirTimbly writes: "CNET is reporting that there is a buffer overflow problem with zlib in linux, which is used for network compression. Supposedly, someone could remotely cause a buffer overflow through mozilla, X11 and many other programs." The advisory from Red Hat is available.

TucsonTed asks: "I am a student teacher, preapring for life as a middle or high school teacher. I'd like to build a working model of Young's Double-Slit experiment to show light's wave behavior. Anyone have info on where I can find some blueprints (size of slits, spacing, etc.?) I don't yet have access to a real lab, so I need the DIY approach. I can use monochromatic light or a laser. If you haven't come across this experiment, and its freakish implications at the quantum level, take a look. You may not sleep tonight." For those interested in the math behind this experiment, you might want to check this site.

sohp writes "Back in mid-September Slashdot ran the story "Lutris Closes Enhydra Source" regarding that company's decision to retract its open source licensing terms. Now George C. Hawkins has reconstructed the pre-closed source reality and discusses it at How Lutris betrayed the Open Source Community . Short summary: blaming Sun was a smokescreen. Interesting use of web archive sites, too." There's definitely a lot of strong feelings against Lutris in the linked piece, but there's also a lot of validity as well.

Further news of the events going on around the world following the attacks earlier today on New York and Washington. To follow things even more closely, you are encouraged to join realtime CNN coverage in channel #cnn_newsfeed on irc.idlenet.org. (Doubtless there are other similar IRC and IM feeds going on -- please post them in comments.) In addition to the news below, note that CNN has reported that multiple suspects were arrested with a van loaded with explosives in the vicinity of New York's George Washington Bridge. Update: 09/12 04:29 AM GMT by T : Many readers have reported that the van in question was found not to contain explosives, though its occupants were held for questioning. And Giacomo DiGrigoli, international product manager at PayPal.com, wrote with word of a donation fund on the PayPal website where folks can make donations to the American Red Cross.

Contradicting earlier reports, reader Adam Brookman writes: "I can guarantee that no car bomb went off in front of the State Dept. in DC. My father is part of the critical personel at State dept. When I read that I called him. He said he heard the same thing and he also heard that the building was hit by a plane, but neither were true."

Worth reading is this analysis of the motives and some possible suspects in today's violence, at Jane's International Security News. They've picked three plausible attackers. Motive aside, Jack Bryar has a convincing take on who is really most hurt by the attacks today.

babyruth writes: "amazon.com has a Red Cross Relief fund set up on their homepage, where you can contribute online. Only several hundred have contributed so far, let the power of /. help!" Iridium provides a link straight to the donations page, noting that "All standard fees are waived -- all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross." Of course, the Red Cross is -still- in desperate need of blood. If you can donate, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find the donation center nearest to you.

iggyflashbulb writes: "CNN reports some oddball group not associated with bin Laden is attacking Kabul at night. Are they taking advantage of the NY situation or did they create it?"

An anonymous reader writes: "Following the sad (and outrageous) mess of these terrorist attacks, results are already starting to impact the country. When a RSM failed on one of our 5500 Ciscos, we recieved the following notice

'Due to a national emergency completion of your case, delivery of your parts or engineer will be delayed until further notice. Several areas of the country have restricted transportation and currently no air traffic is available. Cisco will notify you as soon a we are able to dispatch your order.'

There doesn't seem to any information on Cisco's site."

CERT is in action as well: SilentTone writes: "Ween Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University was evacuated today so the the Computer Emergency Response Team could go into action."

Many readers have been assembling mirrors for the overloaded news sites of the world. Jon Anhold writes: "I've compiled more photos and what not, mirrored many of the sites around to help the load. They're available here: http://ziggy.dreamland.net/wtc/"

Owen Bossola writes: "This is a simple webpage I put up with shots I took all day of the World Trade Center. I go to school across the river at Stevens Institute of Technology and I watched the whole thing from campus. It is absolutely nuts, I'm looking out my window and for the first time, downtown NYC is dark, and there aren't two large buildings gleaming back at me."

rhyder writes: "I was last in the World Trade Center and the attached World Financial Center on Saturday evening. Many people I know work in those buildings, even more live and work in the shadow of those 2 towers.

From the Port Authority of NY and NJ:

1. The Port Authority
   
2. Trade Center Concourse Level Map
   
3. Trade Center Plaza Level Map
   
4. Trade Center Complex Overview
   
5. Area Map showing southern tip of Manhattan and the Trade Center location."

An Anonymous Coward seeks more information about an interview that Washington area readers may be able to provide: He writes: "Fox News channel 5 (local around 6:30ish E.S.T) this evening had an interview with a witness about what he saw at the Pentagon the moment of impact. His interview was the basic 'I was in my car looked to my side..blah blah' but then he said something totally unexpected. He observed a second airplane immediately swing behind the first in a follow like manner and swoop down on the Pentagon only to pull up at the last second, out of the smoke cloud, and fly away. His description of the plane was pretty detailed, saying it was propeller-driven ... He stated everyone around him who were also outside their cars saw the SECOND Airplane following the first and it was also going in."

Anyone else able to confirm this rumor?

Jon Bishop asks: "Why Today? Why did this attack happen on September 11, 2001. Here is a guess. I played with the date commonly used for programming. YYYYMMDD returns 20010911. 911...in 2001. Is this play on numbers intentional or coincidence?" It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.

Carl Merritt writes: "Since many sites seem to be creaking under the load today I've dumped every relevant picture and video I can find onto my server, please feel free to suck up some of my unused bandwidth with downloads or links: http://www.binaryvista.com/WTC/ I'll probably leave it up for a couple weeks, or until CNN asks me to remove their pictures ;-)."

An Anonymous Coward writes "I just want to remind everyone that there is still active air cover over at least Chicago. A tanker is orbiting O'Hare and at least what appear to be two F-15s are making the rounds. If you would like more information including frequencies I suggest subscribing to the CARMA mailing list at QTH.net for up to date monitoring information."

Disheartening news from Egypt: soulflakes points to this story of some Egyptians celebrating the attacks today. Here's a BBC piece which indicates the feeling is shared in some other African countries. This doesn't mean that all or most people in any country feel the same way.

yoda389 writes: "I'm getting reports from friends that gas prices are jumping to as much as $5.00 a gallon. There are huge lines at all gas stations here in my hometown someplace in Wisconsin." And ikohl1 writes: "A friend just informed me of how gas prices were raised to $3.50 in a town near where i live. I didn't believe him at first but I found this article on Yahoo."

Gas prices may fluctuate in the short term, but in the long haul, effects on exports of goods physical and abstract may be affected just as drastically: elliotj writes: "MSNBC has a Steven Levy opinion piece on the possible implications of today's attack on America and governmental policy on encryption export restrictions. Personally, I think we need to determine exactly what happened before blaming physical or electronic security measures for a role in the tragedy. I heard the planes were hi-jacked with knives ... that doesn't sound very high-tech or a sign of significant security failings to me. It is the act itself that is so shocking and sickening."

green pizza writes "In prepairing for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (the FF movie), I found the following articles on the technology behind the picture. Very impressive stuff, I like how they developed their own modeler plugins and render shaders to get even closer to photorealistic humans. What did amaze me, though, was their heavy use of Silicon Graphics systems, as I was under the impression that the movie was developed on Sony GSCube machines. Turns out the movie was modeled and composited on SGI systems and rendered on a huge Linux cluster. SGI's press room has information, as well as fan movie sites, aplenty."