Slashdot Mirror

Welcome to another episode of Slashback, since stories keep popping up in parts rather than in neat, hermetic, well-encapsulated little packages. So read this -- it's like going to the demolition derby. You want to see the slip-ups, the revisions, the torture of correction, but without having beer poured on you by strangers. Read on if you'd like (at the very least) to know more about the the British Columbia law which relegated naughty (violent) video games to the back of the arcade.

And no, he didn't just slip through the bars. Grexnix writes "ShapeShifter, the 2600 staffer arrested during the Republican convention protests, has finally been released, after a series of events that clearly illustrate the sort of things to expect when the wheels of judicial bureaucracy start grinding. Read the article here."

Sticking up for common sense in the Great White North. Ant writes "http://www.globeandma il.com/gam/National/20000812/USOLDN.html Victoria -- The U.S. manufacturers of Soldier of Fortune are launching a legal battle over an unprecedented British Columbia ruling classifying the graphic computer game as an adult motion picture. Activision Inc. announced yesterday it will appeal the decision by B.C.'s provincial director of film classification that restricts minors under 18 from renting and selling the CD-ROM game. The Canadian distributor of the game, Beamscope Canada, has also filed an appeal with B.C.'s Motion Picture Appeal Board."

Well, it's not a law of nature, fellas. Ian01 writes "Here is an article from MIT's Tech Review magazine about how Moore's Law is false." Well, "false" is a little strong a word for as loose an idea as Mr. Moore's -- errr, "conjecture" -- but isn't it nice to see things keep getting smaller faster and cheaper?

Lars Lars Lars Lars Lars Lars Lars Obiwan Kenobi writes: "As quoted from the Q Online article: 'Napster's number one critic Lars Ulrich - who can barely contain his pleasure at seeing the file sharing company in strife - has done a U-turn. The Metallica drummer's business, the no-brainer monikered The Music Company, will promote work from its artists online at www.theMusicCom.com. And users will be able to sample one of the artists, Goudie through MP3 downloads on the band's official site, which it linked through The Music Company site.'

Dudn't it just seem...you know...ironic?"

While Lars hawking online music may seem ironic at first blush, reading the words he spoke to slashdot a few moons ago, it's not that surprizing at all. Metallica, after all, has long allowed fans to bootleg their concerts, and as Lars said, "So of course there will be at some point -- we are not stupid, of course we realize the future of getting music from Metlalica to the people who are interested in Metallica's music is through the Internet. But the question is, on whose conditions, and obviously we want it to be on our conditions." Now at some level, doesn't that strike a chord?

Obiwan Kenobi (you're our only hope!) writes: "This article located at Business Wire tells about how the second generation Panasonic DVD-RW's are going to be supported in Unix and Linux by Tracer Technologies software." 9.4 gigs baby, yeah!

John Martellaro wrote in to plug a double-feature collaboraton collaberation between himself and Del Miller discussing "OS Responsibility". Here is Part I and Part II. Neither say anything earth shattering to your average Slashdotter, but they each say important things very well, and because of that, they are worth reading, and perhaps showing them to the PHBs ^[?] out there who just might not get it.

Finally a chance to break in my cheesy little "Quickies" icon *grin*. First up is Miguel "Mr GNOME" de Icaza who wrote in to point us at Open Resources which looks like a pretty nice site. NiceGuy wrote in to say that Propaganda 6 is out if you happen to be sick of your desktop- some of the finest textures I've seen yet. Rob Biggs wrote in to say that Transmetta has opened up their website. *cough*. Aurik sent us linkage to some geek toys like a plasma fire saber and mass drivers and rail guns Jowey wrote in to say that ReBoot has been bought by the cartoon network and will be re-aired. Now I gotta get a dish. broken sent us a link to the Pig Dance. Is anyone else really sick of these? Brian Fair sent us linkage to a sticker that I guess you could put on your big truck if you have one. Those things amuse me. I've seen them with Ford Logos and stuff, I guess it was only a matter of time. Ah well, thats it for me. I'm gonna wail on some badly tuned power chords, watch Futurama and just take it easy for a bit.