Slashdot Mirror

gotscheme writes "When Stephen Wolfram of Mathematica fame self-published A New Kind of Science in 2002, he raised the suspicions of many in scientific communities that he was taking advantage of a lot of other people's work for his sole financial gain and that he was going against the open nature of academia by using restrictive copyright. Yesterday, Wolfram and company released the entire contents of NKS for free on the Web (short registration required). Perhaps Wolfram is giving back to the scientific community; perhaps it is simply clever marketing for a framework that is beginning to gain momentum. For any matter, the entire encyclopedic volume is online, and this appears to be a positive step for scientific writing."

bazonkers writes "Searchenginelowdown.com reports that it appears that the Google logo yesterday (honoring Gaston Julia) linked to the Google image search results for the words 'julia fractal'. The resulting traffic generated from clicking on that 'featured logo' incapacitated the servers of the top-listed images, hosted at an Australian university. This more than inconvenienced the owners of that site, who had to move pages and ended up displaying this page instead."

tanmay writes "As time moves on, the case for supersymmetry keeps getting stronger. Physicsweb is reporting about an experiment that measures the relation between the spin of the muon and its magnetic moment, called the g-factor. The latest experiment is described as the most significant deviation to date between experiment and theory in particle physics, thus offering the clearest hint so far of new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. We will know for sure if supersymmetry holds it's ground by 2007, when the Large Hadron Collider will commence operation."

CanadaDave writes "The Wikipedia.org project to create a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' has just surpassed 200,000 articles, an increase from 100,000 just 1 year ago. Join in on the celebrations. Some work has been done on predicting Wikipedia's growth and others are already planning for the 500,000 articles over all languages press release. In related news, the project has recently received $20,000 worth of Linux server equipment (9 machines) in hopes to improve performance of the site, which has been prone to downtime over the past year. The servers are being tested right now and will be up and running soon. The purchase was made possible by the many donations the Wikimedia project received in 2003."

CanadaDave writes "The Wikipedia.org project to create a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' has just surpassed 200,000 articles, an increase from 100,000 just 1 year ago. Join in on the celebrations. Some work has been done on predicting Wikipedia's growth and others are already planning for the 500,000 articles over all languages press release. In related news, the project has recently received $20,000 worth of Linux server equipment (9 machines) in hopes to improve performance of the site, which has been prone to downtime over the past year. The servers are being tested right now and will be up and running soon. The purchase was made possible by the many donations the Wikimedia project received in 2003."

CanadaDave writes "The Wikipedia.org project to create a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' has just surpassed 200,000 articles, an increase from 100,000 just 1 year ago. Join in on the celebrations. Some work has been done on predicting Wikipedia's growth and others are already planning for the 500,000 articles over all languages press release. In related news, the project has recently received $20,000 worth of Linux server equipment (9 machines) in hopes to improve performance of the site, which has been prone to downtime over the past year. The servers are being tested right now and will be up and running soon. The purchase was made possible by the many donations the Wikimedia project received in 2003."

CanadaDave writes "The Wikipedia.org project to create a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' has just surpassed 200,000 articles, an increase from 100,000 just 1 year ago. Join in on the celebrations. Some work has been done on predicting Wikipedia's growth and others are already planning for the 500,000 articles over all languages press release. In related news, the project has recently received $20,000 worth of Linux server equipment (9 machines) in hopes to improve performance of the site, which has been prone to downtime over the past year. The servers are being tested right now and will be up and running soon. The purchase was made possible by the many donations the Wikimedia project received in 2003."

CanadaDave writes "The Wikipedia.org project to create a 'complete and accurate free content encyclopedia' has just surpassed 200,000 articles, an increase from 100,000 just 1 year ago. Join in on the celebrations. Some work has been done on predicting Wikipedia's growth and others are already planning for the 500,000 articles over all languages press release. In related news, the project has recently received $20,000 worth of Linux server equipment (9 machines) in hopes to improve performance of the site, which has been prone to downtime over the past year. The servers are being tested right now and will be up and running soon. The purchase was made possible by the many donations the Wikimedia project received in 2003."

SureshD writes "The Hindu is reporting on a 40 minute long meeting between Richard Stallman and the Indian President - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. After the interview, RMS said that the President was 'receptive' to his views that development of software should be seen as a political and social issue and not just from the technological point of view. Interestingly, the article mentions that the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography (Free as in Freedom) from the Internet."

cabalamat2 writes "The European Commission's draft report on Microsoft says they are guilty of abusing their monopoly position. The ruling proposes that Microsoft be fined; the amount of the fine will be decided in March or April, and the maximum fine permitted is 10% of Microsoft's global turnover, about $3.2bn. Microsoft are allowed to appeal against any judgement that goes against them, to the Court of First Instance, and it's expected they will do so, to drag out the process as long as possible."

Aglassis writes "In an article at SpaceRef, the CTO of Orbital Recovery Corporation claims that his company will be able to develop a space tug that could save the Hubble Space Telescope (from becoming 'a ballisticly implanted reef in the Pacific') by either moving it into a much higher stable orbit, or by moving it to the ISS where it could be maintained and operated. Some of the reasons that he cites are that the Hubble's replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, could be delayed or suffer some sort of failure. Since the JWST will be at the L2 point, servicing will be impossible."

jabberjaw writes "Nature is reporting that Pennsylvania State University researchers Eun-Seong Kim and Moses Chan have created a 'supersolid' from helium-4. Although a crystalline solid, the supersolid can flow much like a liquid. This is due to the fact that the empty compartments in the crystal move coherently, thus waves can progress through the lattice. The supersolid state can be compared to the superfluid state. Perhaps a condensed matter physicist can dumb the article down for layfolk such as myself?"

Thanks to Firaxis for their press release revealing their founder Sid Meier has been inducted into the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame, after the museum "asked the public to choose their favorite innovators", joining gaming luminaries such as Nolan Bushnell and fellow inductees such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Jay Miner. Meier is best known for classic Microprose games such as Civilization, and GameSpot has an update on his latest title, a remake of Pirates!, noting it's "known to utilize the GameBryo 3D engine used by the Morrowind and Dark Age of Camelot series", and touting "multiple paths to a wealthy, happy [piratical] retirement."

Thanks to Firaxis for their press release revealing their founder Sid Meier has been inducted into the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame, after the museum "asked the public to choose their favorite innovators", joining gaming luminaries such as Nolan Bushnell and fellow inductees such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Jay Miner. Meier is best known for classic Microprose games such as Civilization, and GameSpot has an update on his latest title, a remake of Pirates!, noting it's "known to utilize the GameBryo 3D engine used by the Morrowind and Dark Age of Camelot series", and touting "multiple paths to a wealthy, happy [piratical] retirement."

Thanks to GameSpot for their interview with Maxis/EA's Will Wright regarding The Sims 2, the March 2004-due sequel to the multi-million selling people-prodding simulation. Wright talks about the difficulties in creating a follow-up ("Especially with a successful [game] like The Sims, you have to balance your fear of not dropping the ball with the danger of being overly conservative"), and discusses some of the evolutions due to debut in the sequel, primary among them "camera freedom... something that we've resisted for a long time and feels like probably the biggest stretch... but... some huge benefits", as well as "the idea that The Sims smoothly age and have different concerns and motivations and needs at different age ranges. It becomes more of an epic, almost Michener-like multigenerational thing...the story that you're playing through."

BhondaiPola writes "The Telegraph has an interesting article about the works of a Bengali Linux localization group. The article speaks of the potential areas in which localization can be implemented, especially, E-governance. Most of the stuff is known to us, but the article should serve as a nice introductory article for anyone new to the issue. And I liked the screenshots of the localized GNOME in the website of the group."

Thanks to Nintendojo for their editorial discussing why Nintendo may be heading for a fall by branding itself a 'video game company', as opposed to Sony and Microsoft's wider goals as part of the "entertainment or technology industries". The writer points out: "Theodore Levitt introduced an idea called Marketing Myopia. To summarize the basic idea of his concept: in an industry where future growth seems guaranteed, a leading company will mislabel itself and ultimately lead to its own downfall." Apparently, the best historical example of this is the railroad industry, who "...labeled themselves as being in the railroad business and not the transportation business, limiting themselves and causing their own downfall." The writer concludes: "The industry has changed. Nintendo is no longer the biggest player in a relatively large niche market. They are in last place in a huge segment of the home entertainment sector, and they need to remember this fact, because no one needs another Amtrak."

cybermint writes "Tux Racer, the well-known game starring Linux mascot Tux, has made its way into a redemption based arcade machine, which has recently been released by manufacturers ICE. The arcade version, co-developed by Roxor Games, is much more simple than the original PC version. It has two big buttons, one for left, and one for right. As far as I can tell, there is no longer a way to jump or do tricks. Tickets are earned by collecting fish. Looks like lots of fun for the kids - I'm glad to see the developers have finally found a good market for their game."

letxa2000 writes "CNN is reporting that Voyager 1, now some 8.4 billion miles (90 AUs) from the sun, has left the solar system and entered interstellar space by reaching the heliopause. However, whether the probe has reached the heliopause or is just coming close is the subject of two papers to be published in Thursday's Nature Magazine. The probe supposedly has enough nuclear fuel to last until 2020. Will it be able to find anything interesting outside the solar system in the next 17 years?"

Thanks to Canoe.ca for their article discussing the Canadian reaction to the in-game plot of Sony's forthcoming PS2 title Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, which has a level in which "...the [terrorist] Quebec Liberations Front has taken control of one of Toronto's underground subway tunnels." This is "an apparent reference to the Front de liberation du Quebec (FLQ), whose kidnapping and murder of Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte in 1970 led to the imposition of the War Measures Act." A spokesperson for the Toronto transit commission has suggested: "The fact is someone is putting the Toronto subway as a terrorist site, that is a very dangerous thing to do", while a group of Quebec sovereigntists have commented: "It's difficult not to be made to feel like a target when you have a game inviting players to shoot at separatists." Update: 10/23 23:25 GMT by S : According to CTV.ca, Sony have now agreed to change the game, "rather than face a real-life storm of angry Quebecers."

FFriedel writes "In a few weeks, the world's strongest player Garry Kasparov will take on X3D Fritz in a high-profile man-machine chess match. Who is the statistical favourite? Since computers have been steadily improving and are now holding their own against the very strongest human players, one would think it may be Fritz. Not necessarily, says statistician Jeff Sonas, who doesn't believe computers will inevitably surpass the top humans, and presents empirical evidence to support his claim as part of a series of articles for ChessBase."

Shipud writes "A group from the University of Oxford is proposing a scheme to achieve quantum superposition in a large object, according to Nature - not as large as Schrodinger's cat, but about ten-thousandth of a square millimiter, some 10^14 atoms. Quantum superposition is the phenomenon in which a photon passing through a beam splitter to takes two paths at once, inconceivable in the macroscopic world. William Marshall and co-workers suggest to mount a tiny mirror on a springy arm, so that the power of a single photon will be enough to oscillate it. When that photon is superposed, it transfers its superposition to the mirror, which will be quantum superposed: at two places at once. Wave particle duality has already been shown in Buckminster fullerenes, a 60 atom compound. Are we getting closer to quantum computers?"

David writes "As widely reported on OSNews.com, Forbes, IDG, CNet, AustralianIT, and Ashi Shimbun - Microsoft Corp. has entered into an alliance with the T-engine Forum, the consortium behind the free software TRON operating system. As TRON runs billions of devices worldwide, this will help Microsoft's goal of cementing WinCE / .NET in places as diverse as your toaster and cell phone, perhaps in a setup similar to how X-Windows is in relation to the Linux kernel." (Continued below.)

David continues: "This arrangement is ironic, as Microsoft is part of the reason why the U.S. in the 1980s prevented Japan from putting TRON into schools on the desktop by account of trade rules, which would've meant Linux may've never gone beyond being a footnote in the comp.os.minix archives. No doubt Microsoft is aiming to keep Linux out of the embedded space, and may in the long-term foster an environment where using anything other than industry-licenced OS software on the desktop becomes unviable for everyday tasks because all the infratructurial systems we take for granted today like radio, television, phones, IM, require Palladium-style walled gardens."

jea6 writes "As seen on Fark and sure to intrest non-crossover Slashdotters, Magnatune is a record company with a catchy slogan. They highlight: 1) We're a record label. But we're not evil. 2) We call it 'try before you buy.' It's the shareware model applied to music. 3) Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations. 4) If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use. 5) Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep their rights to their music. 6) Founded by musicians, for musicians. No major label connections. We are not evil. So if you are anti-RIAA (artist or consumer) and looking for an option (albeit a small option), this may be a start. The music is Creative Commons licensed, which is the brainchild of the eminent Lawrence Lessig."

Anthony Boyd writes "The Baldur's Gate series has seen a lot of official expansions and unofficial mods. The latest one is fairly impressive: in about 750k, the BG1tutu team has delivered a file that completely moves your Baldur's Gate 1 games over to the Baldur's Gate 2 engine. According to the readme, it means you can play BG1 with screen sizes of 1024x768 or larger, you get more auto-pause options, and all spells and creatures have been converted to the updated BG2 rules. Best mod ever!"

Christina Schulman writes " Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle, is the new doorstop from Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon . It's set in late-seventeenth-century Europe, and while it has a few links to Cryptonomicon, you don't need to read Cryptonomicon first. A bit of background reading about the English Civil War wouldn't hurt, though." Schulman's review (below) is enough to whet the appetite, without major spoilers -- perfect for those of us who've been waiting since the end of Cryptonomicon for another 900 pages. Quicksilver: Volume One of the Baroque Cycle author Neal Stephenson pages 944 publisher William Morrow rating 9 reviewer Christina Schulman ISBN 0380977427 summary More than you ever wanted to know about the English Restoration and the invention of calculus, with lots of explosions, syphilis, and piracy thrown in for good measure.

First, let's make it clear that Quicksilver is not science fiction. It's historical fiction, occasionally about science, for people who like science fiction, i.e. geeks. It has math, optics, and vivisection, but no computers, no code, and no high-speed pizza delivery.

This is also not a book that gets anywhere quickly. It's 900-plus pages, and it's not padded so much as it is fractal. Stephenson wanders down side tracks, stages elaborate adventures and morality plays, explores philosophical issues and geometric proofs, assembles obscure puns, and drags in all manner of famous people and events, purely for his own amusement. Either you sit back and enjoy the game, or you hurl the book (with effort) at the wall somewhere in the first few hundred pages.

Daniel Waterhouse is a seventeenth-century geek; his father's a prominent associate of Oliver Cromwell, but Daniel's more interested in Natural Philosophy than in decapitating kings and Catholics. At Cambridge, he befriends Isaac Newton; later he becomes sort of a grad student and chief bottle-washer to the Royal Society. He starts out as naive observer of London politics, but over a few decades, gravitates into the intrigues of both the Court and the European intelligentsia. Just as Lawrence Waterhouse befriended Turing in Cryptonomicon, Daniel Waterhouse orbits Newton and Leibniz. It seems to be the fate of Waterhouse men to be brilliant thinkers eclipsed by the geniuses of their age.

Jack Shaftoe is a legend in his own time, a thief and mercenary who propels himself around Europe on sheer balls and avarice. He bumbles into and out of ridiculous scrapes, including an ostrich-chase at the Siege of Vienna that results in his rescue of the slave-girl Eliza from a Turkish harem. Eliza's business savvy draws the pair back across Europe to Amsterdam, where Eliza becomes entwined in both the Dutch stock exchange and the court of Versailles.

Cryptonomicon readers will remember the improbably long-lived Enoch Root, who shows up occasionally to nudge the plot along. Most of the story takes place between 1655 and 1689, but it opens with Enoch in Massachusetts in 1713, interrupting Daniel's efforts to found MIT by presenting him with a summons from England. Daniel spends the next several weeks being chased around Plymouth Bay by the pirate Blackbeard, only to have his plot thread left dangling with no apologies. Either it will be picked up in the sequel, or Stephenson is attaining a new degree of sadism.

Where Cryptonomicon was about secrecy and deception, Quicksilver is about revealing the hidden and the unknown, and the free dispersal of ideas and money. Stephenson uses quicksilver as an unsubtle symbol of the scientific discovery that was beginning to percolate through the known world. He highlights the dichotomy between the religious viewpoint, of a world that began in perfect knowledge and order and has steadily decayed since the Fall, and the scientific viewpoint, of a chaotic world that is slowly being brought into order and the reach of understanding. Much of this understanding was accomplished through the efforts and correspondence of the Royal Society, which operated in a state of excitement, enthusiasm, and confidence that they would decipher the mechanisms of nature: an attitude not unlike that of the dot-com startup era, but fueled more by wonder and less by naked greed.

Lesser writers dump blocks of expository prose into the narrative; Stephenson shamelessly shovels it into his dialogue. As a result, much of the dialogue is stilted, and the banter is painfully odd. You get used to it. Some bits are more blatant than others, such as a dialogue between Waterhouse and Newton and a Jewish prism-merchant, in which Stephenson trots out a brief overview of European coinage of the time, while cycling through a catalogue of synonyms for "Jew."

So, is Quicksilver worth the effort? On the one hand, it's an insightful look at both the Scientific Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. On the other hand, it's got plague, pirates, astronomy, sex, explosions, daring rescues, religious strife, and the profound effect on European history of stockbrokers and syphilis. It's a terrific book, but don't expect it to resemble Stephenson's prior books in anything but ambition and length.

You can purchase Quicksilver from bn.com -- the official release date is September 23rd. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Thanks to Reason Online for their article discussing recurring anti-game violence lawyer Jack Thompson, whom they describe as "nothing if not relentless" for his repeated attempts to sue videogame companies on behalf of violence victims. They also shine a light on his pre-videogame concerns, which include acting as "a primary force behind 2 Live Crew's obscenity woes", and even "peddling some genuinely intriguing claims about Janet Reno's time in Miami." The piece concludes by referencing similar "brainwashing fears" common to Thompson and an earlier crusader, Fredric Wertham, who "was at the forefront of the campaign to stop comic books from rotting the minds of the young with fantastic, colorful tales of violence, horror, and unconventional living arrangements" in the '50s.

aheath writes "According to the US Naval Historical Center the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: "Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program". The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug. What is your favorite computer bug story?"

aheath writes "According to the US Naval Historical Center the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: "Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program". The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug. What is your favorite computer bug story?"

aheath writes "According to the US Naval Historical Center the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: "Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found". They put out the word that they had "debugged" the machine, thus introducing the term "debugging a computer program". The Wikipedia has a "computer bug" entry that lists some other "famous bugs" including the fictional HAL 9000 bug. What is your favorite computer bug story?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, PhysicsWeb reports that researchers in the U.S. "have taken another important step towards making a quantum computer. [They] have created a logic gate using two electron-hole pairs -- also known as "excitons" -- in a quantum dot." According to Wikipedia, "an exciton is a combination of an electron and a hole in a semiconductor or insulator in an excited state These physicists from the University of Michigan and other labs made a quantum dot by using a thin gallium arsenide layer stuck between two aluminium gallium arsenide barriers. And electrons trapped in the middle layer were excited by light to create a quantum logical gate with four states. The group says this could be useful "in other approaches to quantum computing based on the optical control of electron-spin qubits in quantum dots.." This summary contains more details."

Thanks to Newsweek for their extremely short, but somewhat illuminating mini-interview with Nolan Bushnell, timed to coincide with this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. The founder of Atari and creator of the RoboCat briefly summarizes Atari's glory days: "Since we were so limited with graphics then, we had to focus on gameplay", but is dismissive of today's violent titles, saying: "I don't like the ones that glorify antisocial behavior, like Grand Theft Auto and Vice City. We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human." There are more complete interviews with Bushnell archived at the San Jose Tech Museum site and at Joystick101.org.

slumos writes "BBC News Online is reporting on Sir Clive Sinclair's reaction to the Segway. The British inventor thinks it's fine for factories, but not for crowded streets, and he's even planning some competition in the form of a top-secret follow-up to the Sinclair C5."

An anonymous reader writes "NASA's long planning horizon today details a history of science facts and their sci-fi roots. The study is based on a collaborative European Space Agency project, 'Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications.' More than 200 technical dossiers are described--from holodecks to terraforming comets--but one of the fundamental questions posed is: what is the best communication device to scale-up expert opinion itself? Other than some future, expert version of the internet itself, is that a a collaborative Matrix? Other such interesting collections are from: MIT Media Lab's ThinkCycle, Da Vinci Institute, and the unpretentious HalfBakery of ideas."

An anonymous reader writes "Russian physicists Gorshenev and Pis'mak have posted a preprint claiming evidence that software projects naturally attain a state of self-organized criticality, in a process analogous to the contested theory of punctuated equilibrium in biological evolution (see also this paper by Bak and Boettcher). The software projects studied are FreeBSD, Mozilla, and GNU Emacs, by analyzing data from their CVS checkins."

cybergibbons asks: "We're students in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, and are carrying out some research for Altera into FPGAs, softcore processors, and hardware software co-design. Most embedded systems are a combination of hardware (for performance) and software (for versatility), and the design of these systems is getting more and more complex. Previously, the hardware and software was partitioned at the early stages of design, leading to sub-optimal solutions. New languages such as SystemC and Handel C aim to merge the hardware and software design with one common language combining the high level algorithm design and low level RTL design ? the ultimate goal being to allow conventional C++ programs to be synthesized directly into working systems, without any human intervention. However, what we seem to have found is a lot of marketing spiel and conceptual papers with no practical ideas. Is anyone using any of these new tools? Are any of the current co-design tools any good? Do you think a computer can partition designs effectively into hardware and software? What features would you like to see in future tools? Do you envision any amazing new applications for FPGAs using new co-design tools?"

Thanks to GamersHell for posting a new press release and screenshots revealing The Sims: Makin' Magic, the 'expansion pack finale' for The Sims. In this 7th and final add-on expansion to the all-time top selling game, "..your Sims can cast magic spells to improve their love life, wreak havoc on visiting neighbors, or put an end to their tedious chores." Oh, and in case you thought all this expansion-pack wizardry was side-effect free, "..every spell has a unique Backfire, including toad plagues, donkey heads, and lightning strikes."

Shadow Wrought writes "The Register is reporting on (alternate ZDNet article) the latest list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world. Top of the list is the Earth Simulator Center in Yokohama, Japan, with a benchmark performance of 35.86 Tflop/s. HP and IBM claim 159 and 158 of the systems respectively. I wonder how many teraflops Deep Thought could have done?"

mcrbids asks: "Recently, I submitted this bug report to Mozilla's bugzilla requesting the additional feature that Mozilla should support BitTorrent files natively, so that Moz could support inline image tags with BitTorrent, among other things, so that high-bandwidth sites can survive the dreaded 'Slashdot effect'. However, Torrents (and many other P2P suites) have been used largely for warez and porn. Do you think the potential politics behind this outweigh the benefits of BitTorrent, such as getting a full Linux distro with record download speeds?" Update: 04/29 16:16 GMT by C :One of the links in this article was removed at the request of a site administrator.

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

Slashback tonight brings a few followups to recent Slashdot postings on the fate of model rocketry in the new, hypercautious America; a few Python gatherings for those who prefer that language to Perl; and a response from Los Alamos to recent claims of lax security. Enjoy!

Besides which, it's the hidden cameras that matter. An anonymous reader adds this followup to the story posted last month about Wired reporter Noah Shachtman's account of sneaking into classified areas at Los Alamos national Laboratory.

"In an email message to all Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, Pete Nanos, the current Director of LANL, responded with information suggesting that the Wired reporter who thought he had broken in to a 'top secret area' had in fact just crossed a cattle fence:

'The Wired reporter clearly did not enter a Laboratory security area. The Laboratory encompasses more than 40 square miles. The security force protects important assets within those boundaries but cannot -- and does not -- protect every square foot of property. Based on the article, it appears the reporter crossed a barbed-wire cattle fence, not a fence that protects a Los Alamos security area.
There is a small security area with several buildings (roughly 400 feet by 400 feet) near the driveway entrance to TA-33. That area is surrounded by a seven-foot-high chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. A security guard is stationed inside that area seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Clearly, the reporter did not climb that fence.
There are several other buildings outside the security area that are locked for property protection interests. They have no security interests. There are several gates and fenced areas on the TA-33 site, which are there for safety access control, not security.
It's unlikely the reporter would be prosecuted for trespassing; the Laboratory does not have law enforcement authority to prosecute, and none of the proper authorities witnessed the trespass.'"

Perhaps we can have a celebrity deathmatch. hfastedge writes "Ok, now that 2 perl conferences have been mentioned, I've been brought over the edge. Python is a language that is just as old, and arguably better from: most importantly a uniform standard of readability (enforced by using whitespace to delimit blocks (instead of {}), by avoiding overuse of cryptic symbols, and by a culture that strives to keep innovations as "pythonic"), and a rich development community. Anyway, normally, there are Python events in Europe, and a trail at O'Reilly's OSCON. But now, there is a far cheaper event taking place on March 24-28 in Washington DC: http://python.org/pycon/.

Examples of Python in action: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7"

Fly up go phhhhhwwwtttpffffff .... MyNameIsFred writes "Slashdot recently discussed whether anti-terrorism laws would destroy model rocketry. The government has ruled, and the message is clear, "When it comes to the hobby of model rocketry, size does matter. And in this case, the magic number is 62.5 grams. That's the largest amount of propellant a single model rocket engine can have in it and still be exempt from a new set of federal rules that will go into effect May 24." What does this mean for the the big guys in model rocketry, who use engines larger than this?"

partridge writes "Carson Daly's simulacrum is the new Max Headroom. I guess this makes Clear Channel Communications the current embodiment of Network 23? Now we just have to wait for the blipverts to start making consumer's heads explode."

Bill Kendrick writes "Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and the "father of video games" will be turning 60 next week, on February 5th. Along with Atari, which Bushnell began in 1972 (and left before the end of the decade), he also founded over 20 other companies, including Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theater restaurants. He holds many patents relating to both video games and other industries. For more on The Bringer of Pong, check out some interviews from the San Jose Mercury, Metroactive and over at Good Deal Games, as well as his Wikipedia entry. Happy birthday, Nolan!"

An anonymous reader writes "'Wikipedia, a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development. In addition, the project itself has celebrated its two-year anniversary on January 15. But not just the English version has grown impressively: More than 37,000 articles are now being worked on in the non-English editions of Wikipedia.' Read the press release for more information or visit the website to enlighten yourself! It's great to see that this interactive project works; at least I don't have to boot into Windows to use Encarta anymore!"

An anonymous reader writes "'Wikipedia, a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development. In addition, the project itself has celebrated its two-year anniversary on January 15. But not just the English version has grown impressively: More than 37,000 articles are now being worked on in the non-English editions of Wikipedia.' Read the press release for more information or visit the website to enlighten yourself! It's great to see that this interactive project works; at least I don't have to boot into Windows to use Encarta anymore!"

decowski writes "Results from the first six months of experiments at KamLAND, an underground neutrino detector in central Japan, show that anti-neutrinos emanating from nearby nuclear reactors are "disappearing," which indicates they have mass and can oscillate or change from one type to another. As anti-neutrinos are the anti-matter counterpart to neutrinos, these results provide independent confirmation of earlier studies involving solar neutrinos and show that the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which has successfully explained fundamental physics since the 1970's, is in need of updating. The results also point the way to the first direct measurements of the total radioactivity of the earth."

ChunKing writes "I'm thinking of organising a geek documentary film festival and was wondering what Slashdotters would expect to see at such an event. I think we've probably all seen Revolution OS, Startup.com, and The Code a bazillion times and those films are getting a little long in the tooth now. Hackers Wanted would be great but I don't think it has been released yet. The Stephen Fry film out recently is ideal and will encourage discussion. Downloading content from YouTube for screening would be fine so what does the community recommend?"

ChunKing writes "I'm thinking of organising a geek documentary film festival and was wondering what Slashdotters would expect to see at such an event. I think we've probably all seen Revolution OS, Startup.com, and The Code a bazillion times and those films are getting a little long in the tooth now. Hackers Wanted would be great but I don't think it has been released yet. The Stephen Fry film out recently is ideal and will encourage discussion. Downloading content from YouTube for screening would be fine so what does the community recommend?"